"cued" poems
I once slept
with a few sophisticated rats,
5 to be exact,
on a pull-out couch
from a garage sale
in corona, queens
they had ivy league IQs;
double majors in
evasion and skullduggery,
and a crush on my left thumb....
*the one you ****** on as a kid...,*
posited dr diaz,
my shrink with an md
from the lesser antilles
like freaks,
they came out at night,
in indian file...
as the raging moon dipped
below my cracked glass window,
and a cimmerian shroud
swallowed its receding light,
and I snored...
on the couch,
left thumb hanging loose
near the floor
where a heavily highlighted
textbook lay wide open...
cued by the dipping moon
or the rhythmic rasp
ripping through the room
like a stihl chain saw,
the curious 5 whisked
over the persian rug,
or was it soiled chinese?
like I said
they had ivy league IQs....
thus my heavily cheesed
wire traps
remained engaged
but cheese-less...
as the curious 5 converged
around the couch
for dessert...
~
I skipped mgmt 301 at 10
and dr diaz gave me
a rabies shot:
4 doses ig,
a sterile bandage
for my shredded left thumb,
and a referral
to his realtor...
~ P (Pablo)
(8/8/2013)
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 4:05 PM UTC
While the sun is sleeping and the morning dj's too,
The radio news anchor is in to work by three
It's not because we're busy, or we're special..no, no , no
It's because the station trusts us, and besides...we have the key!!
We're on the road, at Dunkin' Donuts,
while the day olds are still fresh
We're in before the DJ's
Because we don't live like Phil Lesh
By the time the DJ's wander in
We've read more, than they will say
We've even cued up the morning intro
We know the songs they all will play
We have our room for research
Actually, two newspapers and a phone
We're not quite Walter Cronkite
But, hey...throw us a bone
The life of a radio anchor
Is not one that's all rosy
We do it 'cause we love it
It's not just because we're nosy
We get the freshest donuts, hottest coffee and the key
And did I neglect to mention, first one in gets donuts free?
The DJ's do their concerts, party hard, are full of soul
And twice a week you'll find them, down at Skippy's Pool and Bowl
We're not all like Les Nessman
Although, there is a part of me
That would love to have a station
Like old W K R P
The life of the news anchor
Starts out daily in the dark
We dig around for stories
And make up others for a lark
We are in line for more promotions
We're the one that the boss sees
Did I mention, we get donuts
And that the boss gives us the key?
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 7:43 PM UTC
Behind all his smiles and silly gestures
He longs to walk a thousand miles away
He desires to escape from everyday
No more small talk
Or large gatherings
The curtain has CLOSED
A contemporary task.
**In the eyes of the crowd
All they see is the proud facade
Entertainment is important
And all they care about
Forgetting the person
behind the PERSONA
a temporary mask.**
As his mask fades
Rabbits shift
into sparrows
No light at the end
Only cued applauds
Some flowers
And skewed imagery
An exemplary stage.
**Disappearing into the night
Unmasking the illusions he conjured.
The sinking reality comes back
As
Lingering
Silence echoes his longing…
A price to pay of the famed gift
Hoping this will be his last...**
~FINALE~
Justin G / Pax
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 7:11 AM UTC
photogenic smiles and true to the few
we take the flashing light and run with it.
pinned up in time and backed up hard drives
remember us when were gone.
repressed and tied too this one life
always reaching for visibility
to give a life worth feeling
in a single frame.
what every second means to the hand
holding moments temporal.
hold, laugh, smile.
camera cued and magic fuse
superstitious and wild,
hung with glowing eyes.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
They flutter about in the deep dark night
sputtering on, with a bright firelight might
Butterfly sized, with wreathed shining crescents
The only word breathed is, "effervescence”
Their flowing glowing streaks against the dark stark black
While the old stale pale moon beams strong against my back
These little white spheres, of magical energy
lapse my mind of momentary memory
I cannot move, for my movements are crude
and the fear that they'll disappear, is suddenly cued
They are kind and wise, I find I have been mystified
sitting crystallized and innocently petrified
Fickle, free floating dancers, in my quaint little kitchen
Reveals peaceful little answers poured from false fiction
"Playful" I whisper from afar, that's what they are
The purest, clearest energy that's escaped the stars
They brazenly bounce and bob about
reflecting off of my glazen glass jars
Can I love them, without knowing, what or how?
Can I exist forever in this glowing, here and now?
What could they want? Where do they go?
Tantalizing taunts, I grow old in their glow.
Aug 13, 2023
Aug 13, 2023 at 6:57 PM UTC
6 sides
Latent enabler
Counterpoint to truth, amorphic
Dada to life
Callous Birth
Islands dripped in collagen
Mystic, effortless life
Tempests laden iota in tune
Riven
Licked flat, obtuse
Crescent stench
Pagan cells
Hazard the thought
Pick the Atlantic cherry
Reach further than comfort
Pushed & consumed
Spirited paste
Jesuit told in spheres
Lament interest, matted quill
Totem, Saxon tribe
Inflections of hearsay
And Swastikas on parade
Guilt of the blacksmith, undecided
The arms of tablets
Ashtrays & tropospheric light
Another page turned
Capsules filled with perfume
Loose skin lost in relics
Temporal lobe
Cautioned indignant
Pardon the prose
Sonnets dissolved in ethanol
Caricatures of the fleeting
Of our cities last broadcast
Absorbed by times gone
Glittered pestilence
Canceling subordinates, powdered Semtex
Soup of the sewer
Lift the butcher above your head
Nazca lines
Suborbital
Silk screen with *****
Horizontal qualm toward revulsion
Incursion
Calm, cued and cubed
Lab coats coated in pharmaceuticals
Base compound, ionic bond
Covalent CNS
Sympathetic vibration
Default to nature
To theorise movement
Agitate intolerance, turbulence
Beautiful thought
Calculate causality
Passenger of licked lips
Token to latex
Croft in ear, to taste
Unlaced tips, rings of halothane
Bliss
Intrigued with obscurity
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
say cowboy.
say hot dog.
say ice cream.
say baseball.
see, the step into the sound booth is an awkward height,
about 6 inches off the ground,
and i find myself raised on a pedestal,
sealed in for you to inspect,
watching you and an audiologist
through a glass window,
watching you decide my future
as you face away from me
so i cannot read your lips
and you cannot see me shouting stop.
say airplane,
say sidewalk,
say you might hear static in your right ear
but i know i will only hear a tone,
an electronic beep going on and on and on
say conducive hearing loss say sensoneurial damage say surgery say it might be permanent this time,
like it hasn't been permanent for the last ten years,
say there's a new technique say we can fix this,
say negative impact on social life, say poor classroom performance,
say we just want what's best for you,
say try hearing aids try CIs try cued speech,
say you need to be fixed.
it's been a decade since i first entered that sound booth,
noises not echoing off these walls that take a little more from me with every test.
it's been a decade since my hearing slipped away and
i am done mourning it but i don't think you are.
persistence is a valuable trait but stop trying,
stop putting me under with an x on my right cheek so the surgeons know how to lay me out on the operating table,
stop refusing to turn on the captions because i need the practice,
stop talking to me without tapping me first,
stop screaming at me when i mishear.
i am done mourning my hearing and i don't know if i ever grieved in the first place but you are still stuck in the stage of denial,
hoping against hope for some ******* miracle.
i don't want a miracle, i don't want anything god can give me because i am not lacking, i am whole, i already am the miracle you were looking for and i don't need to be fixed.
but you don’t believe that, do you?
so the audiologist can open the heavy soundproof door but i am still trapped inside this box,
the walls swallowing my words as you decide my future for me because
no one wants to listen to those who cannot hear.
say stop sign,
say hairbrush,
say push the button when you hear the beep
and i hold it down with my thumb,
gripping the clicker like the handle of a gun
until you tell me to let go.
but i hear deserts stretching away from me,
flat sci-fi dreamscapes where there is only one sound and i can hear it too.
say tinnitus,
say psychosomatic because you don't believe that i might hear infinity where you tell me i shouldn't.
say hole in the eardrum say the surgery might have accelerated the deterioration,
say we can try again but
i gave up ten years ago and i think you should too,
and i'm here in this sound booth screaming for you to stop
but you will not look at me,
will not even attempt communication.
no one wants to listen
to those who cannot hear.
Jul 9, 2017
Jul 9, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
It’s been a week - things have been happening - I’m going through it. I’ve become nostalgic for two weeks ago. I got screamed at, I lost my AirPods case and I cracked my iPhone screen, so I’m several levels worse - I’m a sad human. I’m writing this at the Apple Store while a friendly Apple person renders me whole.
The Ukraine situation has everyone unnerved. Draw a card - Pandemic or WWIII? Please, protect my peace. So there’s a level of “screw-it” now.
Friday night, I’m in a bad mood and when someone says “Come-on let's go clubbing!”
I’m - “Let’s GET THIS.” Later, we’re at a club, and it’s INSANELY crowded, like a moshpit. It was ABBA night. It did not escape me that this is exactly the type of milieu I’ve been avoiding for years. Did I mention the WWIII level of “screw-it”?
Ok, moshpit, you could hardly move, you definitely couldn’t hear, and Anna dropped her phone - we were sure that it was gone forever but 30 minutes later a hole opens up and there it is - like it’s just been sitting there waiting - so, there ARE miracles.
The list of life’s demands grow by the moment - reading, homework, laundry, dinner, upcoming midterms. I had a rock solid plan for a Saturday night of fun but assignments and necessities destroyed its integrity.
After a heroic effort and completing everything, I felt a fast-metastasizing boredom, so I wandered outside my room, hoping for company and distraction - it was 00:30 AM - and for for once - no one else was there! Where was everyone? Hello zombie apocalypse.
So I did what anyone would do in that beat - I cued-up ”Miraculous,” because Ladybug’s always there for me.
Mar 6, 2022
Mar 6, 2022 at 6:53 AM UTC
they cower in motels
behind brave windows and balconies,
hurling mortal nouns
into private spaces
avatar faces
painted dirt brown
spew hurt and shame
like acid rain
with decadent refrain
and broken blades
seek veins hidden
in sheer fright
from eyes cued to gore,
grime and more
criminal cocktails
circumvent cogency
by a moonshiner's mile
improvised neckwear
leave a mark
as the world goes dark
like forensic files
or the hunt
and another soul
checks out early,
bypassing the lobby
and the regally blind
eyes cued to gore,
grime and more....
~ P
#bedroombullies
(8/3/2015)
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 10:04 PM UTC
I want to feel your skin graze mine
hot and lazy
in the summer afternoon
light and delicate
as if almost on accident
as if almost on purpose
as if almost in love
I want wet kisses that stain the curve
of my neck from the lingering presence of your lips
The breeze caressing and cooling the marks you've left behind
Trailing goosebumps up my spine
I want to feel your warm tacky fingers sticking to my thighs like you've just messily eaten something sweet
Moving like slow molasses
Melting me in the humid heat
I want to stay right there
with the summer sunlight trickling through the window blinds
With a dull sitcom on TV
The cued audience laughter
muted in my mind
Playing my faux innocence
in that dreadfully pleasurable
moment of yearning for you
forever
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 3:37 AM UTC
Muse a fuse fuss over clued less
Issues rused to rescue cued few trues viewed suit mews meow moves reuse romance reseduce
hues unused yet waaaay due new-new iknew this is not aknew but how poet groupies doit smues huh?
Smoooooth ie
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 4:44 AM UTC
I turn the shower water on to a piping hot.
Hestitant but without backing out I enter.
I cringe a little as the droplets ambush me.
I allow the hot to hurt me.
I deserve the pain.
I sit in the middle of the tub and close my eyes.
The pit and patters of the water sooth my soul.
I close my eyes before the boiling water burns them, I can still feel it against my eyelids.
My makeup runs down and as if cued..
So do my tears.
I try to remember what it was like to feel love from another and I can't recall it.
Every time you made me smile was replaced with every time you made me angry.
Every time you called me beautiful was replaced with every time you made me feel hideous.
I silently cry to avoid anyone from listening.
Each water drop a memory of ours.
Good and bad.
All ending the same however;
down the drain.
The steam became too much to handle and I am suffocating. Unable to breathe anymore.
But the feeling is similar to how I felt with you.
The piping hot water may sting and burn and leave me sore, but it's the only thing I can feel anymore.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
America, is that you?
Your stars are looking dim.
Stripes look nice on prison clothes,
but yours are wearing thin.
America, is that you
there behind the mask?
Of course, I too, am wearing mine.
You don't need to ask.
America, is that you
angry in the street,
smashing windows, spreading fire?
And is your dream complete?
America, was it you
I saw on evening news
dancing like a circus monkey,
speaking as you're cued?
America, is that you
propped up by the wall
with little men surrounding you,
waiting for your fall?
America, use your voice
and let me know it's you.
I can't hear much over the noise
that's coming from the zoo.
America, it must be you,
though I can hardly see.
I'm feeling for you in the dark.
America, it's me.
Dec 23, 2020
Dec 23, 2020 at 1:42 PM UTC
When you feel like I am drifting away-
Like a sailboat idle on the sea,
Just know that you are the wind pushing me.
When you think I am not the same as I was before-
As if I changed in the blackness overnight,
Just know that you are the one who acted as the sunlight.
When you say that all I am doing is shutting you out-
Like I somehow built a door and closed it tight,
Just know that your accusations are not always right.
When you start to believe that I am gone for good-
As if I were a flighty songbird singing to you in the sky,
Just know that you are the lighting in the rain clouds that cued my goodbye.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 8:49 PM UTC
When the seventh salvo of silver flashes
cued the blue floaters for the seventh time,
blotting the smaller letters from their sashes,
I mispronounced “Miss Reading”—made it rhyme
with “misleading.” ****** off her press agent,
Miss Information, who steamed out to smoke.
But the style writers covering the pageant
called it an unconscious masterstroke.
So I became the Master of Near Misses.
The work kept coming. “You must be Miss Taken,”
I transproposed to the Pork Products Princess
panel, and you should have seen Miss Bacon.
They at it up, though. It was liberating.
Within a month I didn’t even need
my malaprompter. Cheating was creating.
Believing anything I couldn’t read
I crushed my quadrifocals. People shed
their crosshairs and acquired a layer of fuzz.
Consequence came uncoupled. What I said
I saw, and what I saw was what I was.
just a cute, funny little poem
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 7:19 PM UTC
In the darkest watch, in the deepest of night.
When all is quiet, and there’s no longer light.
When shadows occur on other shadows of blacksmith
When light becomes a mere reflection of thought.
My thoughts had drifted to the sea of words
Where quiet echos in my mind occur.
The creaks and clicks of the house were gone.
No longer the echo of air I heard
I stood up high on a ship’s tall bow
Floating over the ocean I don’t know how.
It was the sea of the Bible presented differently
This nocturnal journey was something new.
The head of each word was a buoy hanging down.
The rest of the word was under the water
I wondered if fish lived down there
I mulled what meanings I’d find floating here
All the nouns were cued each with a breath
Verbs interspersed between them on the surface of the sea
As the breath of the nouns spread across the water
I saw it move and it began to show me it’s meanings.
Suddenly came a gurgling wave
And moved the ocean up and down
I saw words bobbing and jumping
The words were shown in a new light to me.
I was now supported by this sea of words
In a ship that God had made for me
It was organized from the deepest void
That I first did see.
In the beginning was the word in this deep sea
And the word of God had formed in me.
I look over its vastness deep as the wind did blow
I wander in the night watch around the ship’s bow.
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 11:03 PM UTC
Think about the way music makes you feel
When music goes in one ear and stays there
It makes you wonder what is even real
When it stays there it makes you think and care
Each note like a symphony of its own
It’s like Spotify knows my every mood
When you listen to music all alone
Each song in my playlist is always cued
I press play and it just goes on and on
By myself I sit in this coffee shop
My life can be described in just one song
A large iced chai tea latte coming up
Silently sitting sipping my coffee
All while listening to Rex Orange County
May 15, 2019
May 15, 2019 at 8:16 AM UTC
I'm sorry for confusing you so,
Trying to restate what we both already know,
I did hesitate,
Now I must contemplate,
In an inwards form that I can't show.
I'm sorry for muddling your mind,
Overstepping the role I'm assigned,
But you know you're my friend,
A bond that can't end,
Because I can't ever leave you behind.
I'm sorry for jumping the start,
For causing a reason to part,
I'm sorry for jumping the gun,
Leaving you to run,
And being an ephemeral part of your heart.
I'm sorry for acting so rude,
For not stopping even when I was cued,
And even though this list,
Is not full of my mistakes that exist,
Here is where my apology must conclude.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 2:00 AM UTC
My brain splatters as I try to make sense of this. It doesnt last long and shuts down. The dwindling thumb
A snoring girl
One annunciating talk show host
Advertisments for genuine authentic Italian cuisine
News stories that have no endings
Perpetual cycles of hell
She is snoring after a long day of being sick
The pain stretches to my wrist
"You feed your mind
You feed your body
You feed your soul
The balance beings peace
The balance brings joy
The balance brings growth."
My imaginary Grandmother whispers to me.
Cued laughter from the audience
These shows are like used car sales
There's a poet I know who has to piddle that **** to the public.
I don't think she minds too much but I hope it doesn't **** her writing.
The dead speak to us louder when the order of our day is in disarray.
People at work are depressed, the moral of the story lost and we're drifting.
Then the shock and the horror
This time of the year is already hard on everyone trying to fulfill imaginary expectations of what other people want. This is modern expressions of love.
The wish to provide a material manifestation of warmth, desire, and embrace.
Maybe a hug will do.
And the actions of consistency and peace.
An old friend
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 1:13 AM UTC
"I am still listening" (not really, I only cued in on that phrase,
"Are you listening?")
Mama wants me to lodge something in my brain,
that much is clear. But for the life of me, where would I put it?
If she only knew the vast Smithsonian within my head!
I always was a precocious child.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:38 PM UTC
At night, I tried to tell you how I feel
But now I know it’s all so real.
You know, it’s different,
How my love is never absent,
But you never see.
How much you mean to me.
It’s like the curtains finally cued, when
Woke up to see the news,
That no matter what
My door always shuts.
7:30 in the morning,
and now--- I’m really mourning.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 6:09 PM UTC
your silence is deafening, darling.
pour me another cup of misunderstanding
and i'll chug it down to ease
the choking passage of razors through my throat,
the singe of blood soaked vocal chords.
the emptiness of your bones
has propelled me to project ancient tomes
to consume hollowness, to color in absence.
i have cued all the thunderstorm songs
and i'm humming along in watery refrain
sluggishly off beat and out of key
to keep the fog from suffocating me.
there was a roaring fire
that's been smothered
by the vacuuming of oxygen.
void swallows void,
fantasy births ghoulish reality.
the moon stands half mast tonight,
stars falling as tears into the sea,
flooding tidal waves rolling over, over
churning lost hands up to hold a choppy surface.
forsake all promises
but cherish me, still.
love takes her last steps off a jagged cliff
and into an etherial hell.
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
Sunlight's abrasive presence
provokes a heated isolation
stewed together in a
cauldron of perishables,
stoney partitions
metal dividers
bind, slay
serene slumbers
cued by the waning sol,
an aubade crooned
by Mr. Bluebird
shifts crystal puffs
harnessing Skinfaxi
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 10:01 AM UTC