"conveyer" poems
Glistening crowds shuffle in detached cadence
Sweating long necks on a production conveyer
The boardwalk
Pungent saltwater and fried dough coalesce
Ocean meets carnival
Teen screams and seagull shrieks
A multitude of color variation
Red to black
A scent of Coppertone and Noxzema
To ease the pain of the vain and pale
Summer at Happy Hampton Beach
Arcade upon arcade
Clinking bells and whirly sounds
“You're a Winner!”, the mechanical voice screams
Summer fades as do the summer flings, until next year
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC
Sitting at a café
Marking math papers away
While waiting for you
With a red pen in my hand
You'll find me
I'm the one – the only one
In this café
With a red pen
In my hand
You greeted me a soft hello
Hands in your pockets
Then looking at the time
Not too late for dinner
To the sushi restaurant we went
Dining in
You sat next to me
So comfortably
As I watched the plates
Swoop pass – by our table
On the conveyer belt
Letting my mind wander
What could be on my plate next?
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
One day I'll catch you
front and center
on the outskirts
of your city
riding along
a conveyer belt
you'll be dressed
quite insensibly
idling back and forth
along the past
happy in your
pathway hang-ups
and far too distracted
to notice we've become
skull and crossbones
Sep 19, 2021
Sep 19, 2021 at 2:14 PM UTC
Give me your mind and talk to me
let us talk my talk
let us walk my walk
Beware because I am
not a gold miner or even a coal miner
but a mind miner, extracting your self-product
lying deep within your deep and dark hidden caverns
I will dig out your most hidden psyche
I will dig out your most deep inner world by my grinding words
Your inner product will be on a talking conveyer belt,
washed polished and dried to perfection
I will then reinvent your freshly dug up social product
and inspect for flaws
If all passes my inspection, that reflects myself,
the stamp will declare, approved by the Good Mind Keepers of "Herd Mentality".
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 4:47 AM UTC
light magenta vertical;
gaurdian of the margin.
light blue horizontal;
conveyer of the ledger.
the space
between -
white teeth gleam,
refracting
lunarlit scribbles
across one loose leaf,
fell by some god
awful idiot,
all for
you
to space
out
on.
i will be
written
down
yesteday
in elegant
recursive
flicks
of the
wrist -
a has-been
fate.
so, i am not supposed to be here.
not anymore, anyway.
i know that.
i am three-hole
punch drunker.
awkwarder.
but those potential
whatif's glyph bright
behind closed eyelids,
and
it
makes
me wonder
just a little longer.
indigo
cursor
blink.
blink. blink.
blink.
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 12:35 AM UTC
Go now!
Spiteful conveyer
For your close counsel is false and needless
Don't call to discuss your woes and infidelity
Or use others to shield your sworded encounters
No affirmation of friendship is ever trustworthy
As swathed thy black soul is with treachery
Chased away, no drove away happiness between others With bitter contempt and yet brazen still thy protest, yet they called you friend.
Friend! How that was mocked
For they had nothing, save one thing you could not buy,
only love
Yet you clouded a heart that needed help
Drove it to darkness and despair
Was it a fantasy of what was never yours that procured a lie
Or was it simply jealousy?
The man who did not desire you?
Why not he simply must!
The man who asked nothing only friendship
Desired nothing of you nor wanted of you.
Yet you destroyed what warmth he found with another
Thou shalt not covet!
Yet you did.
Oh but he kissed her so tenderly
He kissed her !
Not you
He spoke of her
Held her
Loved her
Not you
It was all about you
But
Was never you
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 9:39 PM UTC
The metal cart intertwined,
forcefully ****** it free.
I wipe off the microscopic organisms,
that manifest in the plastic fibers.
Push the cart across the cracking linoleum tiles.
Hearing the rusted wheels squeak,
as I veer through the narrow aisles.
Collecting an assortment of desired items,
that seem appealing despite the harsh florescent lights.
The radio ads try to entice me to purchase new things.
I grudgingly ignore them.
Crossing the goods off my list,
with a swift black x’s
the same black that is seen on the signs for sales.
2 for 3 dollars?
Is hard to resist.
Blackberries, Greek yogurt, a head of broccoli,
soon I have a heaping cart.
To my dismay the lines are long,
they slowly begin to dwindle down.
Cashiers frantically punching codes,
scanning coupons, counting change.
What is this? Okra?
The black conveyer belt constant hum,
as it carries my purchases down.
Until they are all awaiting for me,
in paper bags.
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 2:47 AM UTC
Indigo is the gaunt damp face of the still-born messiah.
With crude-oil cappillary flush like mottled blush
On Treblinka cheek bones.
On cold steel autopsy table, It's topsy turvy shrine,
A halogen lamp halo hums and sways
Over It's holy rolling head.
Unsavory savior, the pundit spared It's pageant.
With blackhole pupils pierced and seeping
Vitreol fluid like the weeping Virgin's tears,
Carving termite trails in their wake.
It trembles, gasps, and quakes
With the knowledge of futility.
All that was and all that will
Successively unsuccessfully.
A parade of steel tables on blood spattered conveyer belt,
Pulled to the symphony of six billion bellowed pleas for salvation,
Through tattered curtains to uncertainty.
Mar 16, 2010
Mar 16, 2010 at 4:09 PM UTC
Awoken from a dream that never ends, aware of the lies that disguise the worth of mortal lives. Taught to mimic what's seen without ever knowing what it means, I watch the masses shift between souls with free will, and machines with a set of programmed commands.
Robots on a conveyer belt, the world is spinning we are all trying to hold on to our sanity. Humanity individuality, what makes us different is slipping this constant need to be different. Is what makes us the same.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 6:18 PM UTC
is like an airport terminal;
where everyone is waiting and no one is going anywhere.
Where the only thing people can tell you is
that your problems will be solved in
ten minutes.
(The amount of time that is short enough to
keep you waiting
and long enough to
make you insane)
The number that actually means: I have no ******* clue.
Airports are made to be passed through
while the people are still bubbling with anticipation.
But if you stay long enough
you beginning seeing through your peripheral vision.
And we all end up being
the last bag on the baggage claim
going
round
and
round
on the conveyer belt.
Searching for our owners.
At some point we are each
the pushy New Yorker
the silent blue-eyed six year old, wandering alone.
the child singing a song without caring who is listening.
We are all trapped in the unaccompanied minors waiting room
without a guide
in the trust of people, before today we had never laid eyes on
and to them we are simply bodies
needing to be moved, shipped, transported
on some conveyor belt to our next destination
we might as well be the luggage we pack our lives into.
Jun 26, 2011
Jun 26, 2011 at 6:05 PM UTC
I am your shining windows
I am your tall, brick walls
I am your rail-ways and
train engines
I am your conveyer belts
I am your stock parts
I am your young line boys
I am your cigar-smoking,
fat-cat bosses
I am your Ford automobiles
and Technicolor TV’s
I am your idea of
perfection
I am your broken windows
I am your toppling, mortar walls
I am your rusted rail-ways and
broken-down locomotives
I am your robotic arms
I am your lead paint
I am your Chinese labor
I am your cocaine-sniffing,
thrid-world-oppressing bossess,
I am your Toyota cars
and LG televisions,
I am your idea of
perfection
I am the old and the new
I am the sights that roll past
my rolled-up windows
I am the city and the suburbs
I am the quietly dying
I am the voiceless mind and
its cries for help
I am the future and
the past
I am the dream
I am the death of
the dream
I am your idea of perfection
and also,
your nightmare
of an
idea
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 4:33 PM UTC
This ceremonial façade is likened to an ancient folklore which has been dipped in forbidden secretions, even though my arts are sincerely darkened to unfathomable depths of surprised and ambidextrous naiveté.
I have constructed the choreography of this metaphysical dance, which lingers on the brink of sociological pronunciations, and where the liberty of gargoyles spew their fluid projections from lofty heights across the four directions of our moralistic city walls, where magnetised needles ***** my soul with the earth-shattering clarification of true north.
I love to sit in the dark and to be enlightened, as the eerie silence bellows her validity across trans-national sanctions, where the fallacy of liberation is juxtaposed with a socio-political and fetishistic confinement.
I believe that classical infidelity is like a beautiful Gothic cathedral where silent rage has an ebb and flow which is not easily ascertained amongst our sub-cultural and contemporary cohorts, where dynamic equilibrium truly encapsulates the co-existence of opposites, which are said to attract.
So, as we gather in the menacing serenity of the dark forests, where geography marks her ancient alignments from sunrise to sunset; can we now pray and give homage to the spirits of history, in this underground finesse of paradoxical equilibrium?
I love democracy, as she gyrates her sensual community wantonness on this conveyer belt, where the vital functions of our organism slink into sleepy cessations of universal structures where causality releases her excitatory expressions of organic physiology.
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 3:05 AM UTC
after enough charred inhaling and stuttered swallowing
and after the invincibility of the act evaporates
your biceps begins to sag and your mind stops moving
it’s you suddenly find yourself hovering through the days
and time is subjective and all things are subjective
and so what if you don’t do that because everything’s just particles in your brain
slapping against one another to make the flickering pictures of this world
and then once every few days you shake your head and stand up
and say I’m gonna do something! but keep the same diet
and revert to the same state of synthetic zen-like denial.
you sit on a silent conveyer belt as hours pass
and things happen around you but you see them through a lens
a film onscreen, pleasurably cathartic, but your soul’s still in the theater
watching from a stained, sticky seat some dimensions away
and the heckler’s behind you won’t shut up
and they keep you from focusing on the movie itself
and your peripheral vision becomes distinct
and you find yourself aware of the speakers and exit signs
and the slight dust and film grains splashing in front of your view
and you think of this as an ephiphany
instead of Brechtian distanciation at its most curdling.
then your brain starts feeling like a frisbee
and your body is the monkey in the middle
trying to grab at it but it tires out
and the bullies run away with it
and your left with a black hole in the head
laying in complacency in front of a shimmering cube
sounds and images with no correlation or relevance
pondering your higher knowledge of all things around it, around you
and giggling to the echoing cobwebbed corners of the room
about the ignorance of those not privileged to the same diet.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 11:23 PM UTC
are some dreams real?
dogs in the alleyways
stopped at the robot by a slavic cop lady
but she lets others pass
dragged to a restaurant
interrogated by a mafia owner demanding money I don't owe
they say I've eaten there with a pregnant lady last week
dunno what they mean
Alan smiles but conspiratorially with them
how can he be a friend?
I sob that I don't get their drift
too late..
I need to a safe room to tell a story
whisper your name in the night
dream you lodge nearby
I jump up to do midnight chores
i pack out glassware from closets and you're there
ostensibly to help
the helpful lodger gesticulated that he's leaving
while I make the right noises of working
so, after upturning the table to work on its insides
you leave it on the floor
upside down
it will stand that way till you return
you get so irked at my queries
I'm half afraid to talk
I get a quick kiss pressed onto me face
I didn't brush my teeth
my tongue feels thick and gritty
you rush off into the night
I'm in an alley with a tape-recorder
hearing a deal go down
I call to the fat son of the owner
they're all slobs
with underwear down their knees
and *** on their shoes
I drive down the highway with half attention
and think how we could have met
yet that thought drifts far away now
as my story waits in line
on a conveyer belt the public never sees
stepping out this time line
to lance ahead single entity
for when the other catches up
there just ain't enough temporal cloth
to be clad in unity cloaks
some dreams are maybe then just dreams
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
you kissed me and all i could think was i can’t believe the universe finally brought me back into your arms, your face shifted into a phrase and your eyes morphed into LED lights displaying the words “i’m in love with you” over and over like a conveyer belt of my introspection
you asked “why do you keep looking at me like that?” and i replied with an enigmatic giggle,
i remember thinking to myself “how could i not?”
lying next to you the only thoughts transmitted through the waves in my brain were lines of poems written with words i didn’t even know i knew, words that fully illustrated the beautiful way your head caressed the pillow and your eyelashes tickled my cheeks, the way the moment felt like an everlasting, indestructible photograph
i couldn’t believe it, i still can’t fathom i was lucky enough to float down from the clouds i laid on, hoping for a second chance, an escape from the perpetual wishing and wanting to stand on the ground next to you
i’m looking at you, and although i could never gather these thoughts with enough durability to communicate them to you whole-heartedly, and without them shattering from my lips, fracturing each letter, and smashing the essence
these pages will remember how i felt about you forever
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 12:27 AM UTC
Serve lush lies
on a delicate breath
wrapped in a station
holding flowers
and condoms in a blue case
two things essential,
one to say thank you
the other to spare the
piteous smiles of pristine nurses,
gum clinics, abortionists tables,
what would it matter?
Most of this would still be removed.
Flick eyes up
over fizzing cans
two straws roll on lips
and train track rhythm
as teeth bite down
(could his need for fellation be more obvious).
Arrive at the destination
and fidget under clothes
for keys and *******
against the wall
******* taut
and dampness under bra
as the door swings open,
"the bed has fresh sheets
just for you"
You're supposed to be happy.
Time to smile.
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 12:36 PM UTC
Crawling upon the ground,
Black specks like train cars
Fall in line
One by one
Carrying their loads
Of prisoners,
Supplies,
And food.
To feed a thousand mouths,
To support the machine.
Carrying gifts,
And wonders from far lands
To bring before the queen.
The train moves on,
Stretching over vast
Miniscule plains.
Like a conveyer belt,
The black lines
Run their circuits,
Picking up pieces,
And carrying them back .
Day in,
And Day out
Until,
One of them says
“Enough!
I won’t be worm meat
Any more.
I won’t go out in the open
To meet my doom,
To work for the good of others.
I will go out and make my life
Elsewhere.”
A thousand eyes,
Each with a thousand pupils
All turn to look at the
Ignorant
Idealist
From a million perspectives.
Nothing is said,
Just a multitude of blank stares
Until the loner
Mutters a quick
“sorry”,
And joins back in line,
Just as things have always been.
Sep 20, 2010
Sep 20, 2010 at 12:12 PM UTC
I always wanted a
woman who challenged
me intellectually
sure I loved
the other challenges
physical
emotional
those games I played
and won
but there was no
purpose there
no passion
it was the act
and not the art
so these women
grew stale and unchanging
he faces were different
the names varied slightly
but the game was the same
--as they say in the marine town
near where I grew up,
you catch a shark
the same way
you catch a carp--
so I grew tired of fishing
and soon stopped altogether
my friends thought I was mad
they thought anyone would starve
with such a blow to their diet
but I decided to fast
at least for a short while
before I could make
the perfect catch
one that would
be more than simply
hook line and sinker
I hated that there was
no art anymore
courtship and chivalry
gave way to
a mechanized equation
of cheap *** and conversation
it was the industrial revolution
of the romantic world
put your heart on
the conveyer belt
let your body
take the bruises
all you had to do
was push a button
pull a lever
all these girls were the same
all these fish were the same
whether they were carp or shark
I had to get away
from the factory
from all the convenient ***
and convenient company
acts that were merely
shadows of
that almighty art
I needed a release
something to
break the pattern
I needed a way to get
back to the art
something that would
end the game for good
I needed a way out
I needed you
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
Wordless? Could I write a poem with silence?
the skid-slide of the road
the burden of a sudden night on me
Sometimes, I fall asleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand
little book open... it may seem so lovely
*look at her!
huddled up with her little thoughts
a true writer, that child!*
but- but I preferred sleep!
sleep was pleasurable and it did not run
I preferred pleasure to poetry, madam!
please take the label back
But...
sometimes the pen runs out of ink
and the ballpen stutters
and I get teary-eyed in the dark night
I engrave the paper with the ballpen nib
trace the words out in the morning
sometimes I tear the paper with the ballpen nib
and then weep
Sometimes, like this time, the lamp dies
I press the buttons of the AC remote
every four seconds (I counted)
write in the light of its lit-up screen
Sometimes I write on my hand
and when the hand runs out, I go to the arm
I write on pants, on tissue-paper pieces
Sometimes, there is light and pen and ink and...
and you know exactly what.
I could never call myself a poet
the word stuck, a jumble-mess
of all my literary inadequacies
rolled up to hardness, taped to throat
I... I roll up like a cat or a rug
words come by on a conveyer belt
and I stamp each with 'unoriginal'
unoriginal, unoriginal
a moving queue of unoriginal
so many words! the page is empty
I become unoriginal
other times...
so little words (like this time)! the page is full
I become unoriginal
Then I get so upset, I toss poetry away
like crumpled paper, roll over on the bed
an upset lover; I keep an arm back though
for some little touch
Oh my
I think I'm going to sleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand
Or maybe...
No, put it away
we are done for the night
Jan 21, 2023
Jan 21, 2023 at 1:38 PM UTC
Dr Dr help me help!
Thou who art so skilled
Slice me
Air out my insides
There place the health
Stuff it in
As much as you can find
Or at least a scrap
Please, a scrap
Sewn up I'll bulge
Sparkles lacing taut skin
But they hold it up
Towering above grabbing hands
I slump on the conveyer belt
Through box after box
As DING!
"Healthy"
Each proclaims
And shoves me to the next
I'm clutching at my sides
To hold me together
Sickness seeping through
To reach them
I sway in doorways
*Please, who will help me?
Please, someone listen
I'm losing hope,*
please
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 7:34 PM UTC
Too Late
I was always late
For you
And I never rushed, never thinking I had to
Time stalked me like a wasp
I floated through life as if on a cloud
Thin air masking my mistakes
I was as elusive as life gets
Time meant nothing
And I'm sorry for this
I'm so sorry for this
I met you on a corner
Bitter weather battering your cheeks
Blue eyes sparkling under a mass of dark hair
You had waited an eternity there
We drank coffee on a bench
Mapping out the stars until dawn seeped in
As all thoughts provoked a certain clarity
You decided it would only ever be me
Always me
And I'm not sorry
I was late to the airport
Flying to Naples, no more planes for days
It had been years since you'd seen your family
So I watched as frost lay like icing over your dream
We played with silence like a toy for two weeks
And I'm sorry for this
The day of your parting
An hour of snow lay around your feet
A car skidded, you landed on the bonnet
I should of been there
I was at home reading an article
As your heart beat for the last time at the hospital
I should of been holding your hand, telling you I loved you
So I missed your departure too
And I am sorry
So sorry
Time is muffled
Churches like conveyer belts for the living and dead
As babies join this world, people leave it
The hurse shot to the church like a police car
I imagined it having flashing blue lights
Saying he's dead, he's dead
And I am too
I was late for your funeral
I'm not sorry for this
It was something I couldn't bare to do
But, we're you aware
The later I was
The longer I had you
You always calling
Where are you
Where are you
The longer you were in this world
Even if I wasn't next to you
The longer I loved you
The longer I knew you
The later I was
The longer you were in this life
Not rushing out of it
The longer I had you
And I'm not sorry for this
I'll never be sorry for this
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 9:37 AM UTC
I guess you're right
And there's, nothing anyone can do about it
I can no longer doubt it
I'm a poet.
A conveyer of feelings through the written word.
Who helps others heal their pain by revisiting old hurts
It's a strange occupation
And interesting conversation to have
So when people ask me, Nero, what are you?
I can say that I'm many things.
Insecure, unsafe, lost, fearful of my own future
Disabled, confused, alone, and wounded beyond suture.
But above all else, I AM A POET
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 10:59 PM UTC
Are you blind?
You're back on the conveyer belt, again.
You're fooled by that you see, again.
You seem to be getting closer but you're drifting further away.
You see hope on the horizon which turns to agony as soon as you get close enough to reach it.
You're heart is breaking at the thought of struggle
You're depending on the bottle, again.
The guzzle is burning your throat as you swallow any chance at revival.
Fingers turn to black, lips turn to black, mind turns to black.
You're crumbling with the ashes of cigarettes
There's no rebuilding broken debris anymore.
Hope is sunken beaneath you as you lay drunk on the floor.
Miles away from the conveyer belt, again.
No going back to where you're headed.
No heads or tails to change the situation.
No more gods willing to listen.
Its over.
Don't inhale.
Life wasted at the thought of making it
but giving up when you get a chance to escape your mind.
No press play, fast forward, rewind.
No more hands helping you out the gutter
You're already buried six feet too deep.
Your hands are on your mouth, again
Trying to quiet your screams.
No ones listening
No ones wondering
No ones there.
You've created this hell for yourself;
just lock the door as you leave.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 9:31 PM UTC
So, sure.
I am slid along the conveyer
(shimmeringpinkpurpleshine)
to years ago, sitting on top of a
neat pile of shingles behind our trailer
and a neighbor smiles at me over the
other side of the fence. I think
about watching the land before time.
Just now,
If he saw my collarbone we'd fall in love,
and I don't want that
any more than I want a sunburn.
And later, we know how sunsets crumble. Like, I have my days, and oops, ****** everything up. Sunset crumbles burnt toast, crumbles old plaster. Look, the sky is falling, look, I'm such-and-such, a slur on a crumbling wall - well, hula hoop. Swell, train robber. Set it all on a mountain somewhere and we can go to bed.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 7:36 PM UTC