"coaldust" poems
there is black at the end of every miracle
and the base of every rainbow where the colors drip
and mix in the sickest sort of chorus.
color and rain and atmospheric moisture,
you kneeled under a rainbow and prayed;
water in your alveoli paint in your bronchi,
you inhaled all your art
to make yourself prettier on the inside -
{but that doesn't work when everything you paint
is uglier than anything else:
broken ***** girls
and rusted knives and rotten fruit -
how can you expect to be beautiful with a rotting apple
for a heart?
you're an abandoned orchard,
falling to seed when you once fed a nation,
dry earth dead trees rotten rotten fruit
remember your glory days and cry}
you were a blackbird but time plucked all your feathers
you were a blackbird but now, oh,
with all your yellow blood,
canary in a coal mine you knew it was too late.
you were the first to be tragic.
the first to choke on coaldust -
the road to el dorado is paved in coal
and all the gold is smudged in black from the men who sought riches
but brought with them misery.
canary in a coal mine you died in el dorado,
canary in a coal mine you died in a city
of your blood.
there is black at the end of every miracle and the beginning of every tragedy
but if all goes well it'll be all
blues and reds
by the end of the story.
drowned and bled,
primary colors for your finale.
you knew these colors would be your end, blue and red blue and red
and you sought out yellow,
canary in a coal mine, ***** el dorado,
yellow hope yellow fear
primary colors like building blocks,
carbon the base of the universe
blueredyellow the base of the paintings you inhaled,
blueredyellow and carbon coal.
you were a blackbird and blueredyellow in the reflections of your wings,
oily rainbows on your back
primary colors in your lungs,
and all your gaunt thoughts envelop you you never should have tried
to be beautiful -
a tragic hero can only do so much before falling apart
a tragedy can only go so far before it becomes comedy.
you inhaled all your paintings and they live in your lungs
live and rot and cry because you never painted happiness
{it's hard to paint something that doesn't exist,
it's hard to paint something you've never known -
abandoned orchard you rot beside the highway and cry.
tell yourself happiness doesn't exist,
cause that's better than knowing
it's there
but you're just
not
worthy}
blackbird canary-blood apple-heart
do you even know who you are anymore?
all the broken ***** girls in your lungs
and the crying boys in your mind -
you never knew who you were,
fragmented as you are -
all your masks are just
sick echoes of the parts of you that wouldn't burn,
all your paintings are just sick echoes of the parts of you
scattered over el dorado.
gather yourself up,
knit yourself back together -
make your nest in a flak suit and sleep dreaming of you.
the coal burns around you and you don't stop singing
you will not be the only tragedy in this mine.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 3:20 PM UTC
I don't care who
hears me anymore.
I long to taste the sweet psychobabble,
so I lick my lips
and it drips out,
splattering on
the psychovirgin shoulders
of innocent bystanders.
I shrug. collateraldamage.
The loonybin flies
mumble around my face-
growling with disgust
at injustice and the
moldy, grimy consciences
laughing as they peer out
dusty boxcar windows
as the coaldust and asbestos
poison the vessels to match
the sour wine within.
I stand, marble, cold, alone,
except for sticky padding fly feet
across my lips.
The chill breeze of whispers
and the snowflakes of their
beady possum eyes
fall dead as they hit
my lifeless immortal marble.
The deadgrey stone
awaits with dread and ecstasy
the day of apocalyptic fire
when the Great marble pillars
fall victim to the gravity of all sin,
crushing the grimy greedy Watchers into pulp,
quarry-blasted Michelangelo perfection.
Sacrifice! the end of static immortality.
the flies feast on the charred and vacant carnage
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:49 PM UTC
Traitorous wings droop and wilt from my body,
Layers of cerulean dust shedding onto the forest floor.
Oh, what a chore -
And I’m so lazy and so hazy, so hazy and maybe I
Am falling back down with a slowness like slow-mo.
Drowning out background noise like shrieks and my energy peaked
Too long ago and I
Can’t hear it at all anymore.
I wish I could fly, even if the air is toxic and obnoxious,
If the oxygen fills my lungs with carbon and smoke,
I’ll **** it all in and,
Boy, let me fly, let me try,
But I just can’t feel the pressure of the heavy air
Against the backdrop of my melting chitin
And I can’t bother to flap or to snap out of it
This is all drowsy thoughts now but it seems
They’re all drowsy thoughts now.
Like, trusting in the world is a tiring thing,
Letting yourself go to the pressure of the Earth.
And the gas filling my throat was sending me into throes
Now I’m crumbling into the ground and sinking into the asphalt like
The breath gets ****** from between my lips and I learn to breath coal dust
And I learn that let go of my trust and my must and the way I want to just fall.
It’s hard to give it my all when my all is all I’ve got,
When...
I know I’m the one searing off my own wings,
And it burns, and it hurts,
Just let me fly, just let me soar,
Into the sun and furthermore,
Just let me burn to a crisp.
I was too close to the sun and it took
Embers to save me.
It took the flames reaching the tips of my
Wings to send me back down to the surface of
Where I needed to be and:
Now my wings are ooze but
I can’t burn anymore and
I don’t know what’s worse.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 8:13 PM UTC
coming home is the town in smoke
dismal fog and coaldust
coming home is a never-ending winter
maddening circled night
coming home is empty streets
you don’t see faces
coming home is always being a guest
they’ve been waited for the past
coming home is lazy embraces
you don’t wanna touch him, you sleep alone
coming home is a vine for dinner
that you drink it in the morning
coming home is the town in smoke
the ghost of the town
has swallowed you
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 4:44 AM UTC