"cutout" poems
The comic convention
has cardboard cutouts of
all of the main characters of
Harry Potter.
Harry,
Ron,
Hermione,
etc.
All motionless in a river of people,
glossy but worn down,
bathed in cold white halogen.
And one by one,
the cosplayers—
the Harrys
Rons
Hermiones,
etc.
Have their pictures taken
with the cutouts,
one cardboard cutout cut out
and replaced with a real human being.
Being human, we
crave companionship,
fear solitude,
crave solitude,
fear companionship.
We try to avoid becoming cardboard
cutouts of ourselves, but sometimes
a retreat into inanimacy
is what the animus needs.
The cosplayers continue to shuffle forward in line
each waiting to pose for a selfie. Each
politely smiling at the living Harry Potter characters around them,
but not striking up a conversation.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 8:35 PM UTC
between the concrete river
& the park where the bums share a bottle
wrapped in a brown paper sack,
there is a cul-de-sac of plastic houses
holding hands & sharing manicured lawns
wooden cars that don't even make any smoke
drive down gray asphalt streets.
fathers that tell mothers they have jobs
wear down street corners sharing beers with the bums,
like they already are one.
all these paper families rubbing shoulders
until everyone has paper cuts.
going home to dinner around a table full of paper love.
suburbia is flimsy
paper towns shining white
smiling neighbors & shared lawns
paper people slowly falling apart.
couples with their tongues down each other's throats,
midnight in supermarket parking lots
dribbling beer in the backseat
they bought off the bums.
they say,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
until she leaves for a paper husband
& he leaves for a paper wife.
now they live on two separate cul-de-sacs
with the same cutout love,
as the parents they despised.
& when they have kids one day
they will tell them
*never kiss before driving,
never befriend bums,
or guzzle cheap beer in backseats,
or on park swings.
& never settle for a paper husband
or a paper wife.*
remembering the love
that was flimsy,
but never paper.
100,000 miles away from where they grew up
& 3,000 miles away from each other
3 kids each & plastic houses
rubbing shoulders & sharing lawns
living in a paper thin suberbia
chafing under their paper love.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:09 AM UTC
I’m rocking back and forth against the hull of my loneliness,
Stuck in knowing it’s goodbye
But not being able to say I love you
or I’m sorry.
I’m crying with joy and longing as I lie in the love and conversation around me,
Wishing it were mine.
I’ve been high so long my heart rate stopped going down with the sun.
Going over it all all over again all the time.
I feel like a child again, terrified by the the dark, the wind, the eyes of men.
I’m breaking down in the line at the gas station.
Looking out the glass wall at a Lovecraftian highway,
Flickering florescent lights like the ones from The Exorcist.
On my way to a cavernous husk of a family dinner,
Most of them gone now.
Just me, my mother, and my widowed, bereaved, great aunt.
There’s a stupid old cardboard cutout of a mascot next to me grinning too widely, holding up its product.
I scream and tear it’s head off it’s body
In my mind.
I have work on Monday.
This is life.
Sep 19, 2023
Sep 19, 2023 at 12:14 PM UTC
Going left a smile
green* bluesy* drift___
Getting out of debt
The heartedly so flowery
rosy ring around
Gifted box
Valentine Rosy
I box heads over
puppy tails
cozy firey
Love diary doing the
Cutesy
Bow Wow parade
Those red hot lips
cascades
she's... the... lie...
The hue (Anchor- Blue)
Gotcha "Eyes Baby blue
Clue"
To cross my red heart
And hope not to die
The Lady's
finger (Godiva)
I-spy finger*
Heartless Diva
The fork of the road
Lies of the
dead ringer
He points his finger
Face to two face
facelift?
Boom-Boom___
a car crash just a dash
Her beats and hearts
What a crush to her
___left
Tell me sweet lies
I box gift
Oh! Yes you're___ right
Like the scoundrel
The damsel in distress
sweet morsel
I sir box like spots spread
Like the (Chickenpox)
Hearing lies tons of
squirrels
Like Botox Plastic
Rascals
I-box ties
Hallmark, I love you lies
Superman Clark
Outfoxed the ballpark
Little lies blue
big shark
Smartphone I Sir bark
Red Valentine love walk
People are the luckiest
I- wish
Close your eyes sweet lies
Sweet I-Box in Trio
CEO Watching "TV FIO"
Podcast little lies turn
into big lies
Ballot Political list
Romantic cutout card lies
Tell me, Little Lies he trips
Electric lips music chair
Open eyes full shut lips
Feb 12, 2019
Feb 12, 2019 at 8:35 AM UTC
Half my head is shaved
The other half is bruised
You're a 2D
Paper cutout
Not yet origami
Looking for folding schemes
You don't know you're lost, it seems.
And I am no dotted-line-edition
It's all just simple addition:
Platitudes only get you thumbnail deep
Half my head is shaved
The other half, you can keep.
Aug 21, 2013
Aug 21, 2013 at 3:15 AM UTC
What do you do
when you realize
your life as you know it
is a cardboard cutout,
a dollhouse scene,
Of what your life should be.
Of what it once was.
The people in my life are characters
A backdrop in the place of reality.
Scenery behind my doorstep.
Photographic fire in the fireplace.
Tiny kitchen cutlery that isn’t sharp.
Staged people in my living room
at literally, a lifeless party.
A fantastic picturesque magazine spread in Southern Living.
And I am a part of this falseness.
I am a creator of this un-reality.
I am a willing participant in this stagnant stage of my life.
This life, this love, this truth
Is a figment
Is a dream
Is a scene of a scene.
I remember when green was green
And blue was blue
And I breathed in newness in every breathe.
Reality bowed down in servitude
And I took every step into a setting sun
The world around me, my partner in crime
As I took it by storm.
The tragedy here
Is knowing that life and love and truth barren
Is knowing it naked
As it really is.
As it really was.
And knowing that you’ve settled for the cardboard cutout
is recognizing you’ve given up.
You’ve settled for second best.
You’re taking the doll house route to life.
You’d rather watch the movie than live it out.
It’s cowardice at its best.
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 12:34 AM UTC
Crew cut kiss curl stood
above the goose steeping generals
with empty heads and olive green
jackets
dangling aluminium war medals
for shooting ducks across the border
flying over Seoul
“Nfeuirok2fmdfiwe384194u3ujriwejm"
crew-cut kiss curl yelled.
“I told you 091874874814729”
( his swedish education was now showing!)
The train pulled out of pyongyang
with two thousand dead
that fed the famine. Only the driver
was alive clutching a loaf of bread.
stacked with cardboard cutout missiles
atop 1920s tanks and
painted with bloodred honesty
the entire nation goose stepped
to crew cuts orders.
He was as nutty as a fruitcake
but nobody laughed when he loaded
his only nuclear missile to bring down
the last remaining duck heading to Siberia.
Ha ha!
Author Notes
This is not a joke. Or is it?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
The broken mold lies screaming with hopelessness,
its purpose lost-
the clay has discarded the form the artist wanted to emulate.
The mistake,
the fault,
the glitch,
warped from the copy to become an original-
not as desired or required,
but having a will of its own.
To realise the dream,
is to satisfy the itch.
To wake from the dredge
is the Life on the edge.
The fault of finding freedom from frigidity.
Spectacular views are seen when you wake from the dream
and the colours scream like coffee and cream
Laugh at the imagery,
the cardboard cutout words strung together like sweet christmas decorations.
Fall in the pool
like a funny bunny cartoon.
Be the sad clown for one more noisy day-
and while you're at it:
brush a giraffes teeth.
Smile at the dreary monotony
and greet the ever grey sky
like a buzzy nook not.
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM UTC
heartbeat creaks in, out, ladder creaking too--
can you feel it, can you hear the petty voices screaming at you,
can you. can you, can you.
crying out, this is what the water gave back to you:
you never liked her anyway, not the way she got into trouble,
regret doesn’t make someone more dead, anyway,
what’s the rush?
riverbed running dry, what’s the rush?
says, you have nothing to worry about
says, god told me about the paintings, god told me,
says, this is your fault
untucked button-up shirts falling from a fifth floor balcony,
this is what love is supposed to feel like
promising bitten pieces of paper to strangers and other misdemeanors
eating at the cardboard cutout suicide dream
some kind of oasis, or
at least a buried treasure, right?
that’s what we came here for, right?
says, don’t make assumptions,
says, don’t make this harder than it has to be,
says, don’t--
corpse in the river, blonde hair
blue eyes get seven sentences and a memorial
speaking in sentences only churches get to hear
lighting a cigarette and talking about the end of the world
isn’t this what we came here for?
says, what a way to die
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 9:45 PM UTC
I know I am not really lying on the beach
Eyes facing up towards the sky
Where I really am is in Vienna
In a small classroom filled with fourth graders
Sitting in a circle in a room
That was decorated in glow in the dark stars
And a fake camp fire next to a cardboard cutout of a wolf
I remember learning about the Oregon Trail
And how cowboys would campout underneath stars
Guns close by so other dangerous creators wouldn’t be
And looking at the fake stars in that room
I was in another world, a realer world
Where the cosmos didn’t make stars
Bullets did
Silver bullets meant to hit werewolves
Who were so compelled to howl at the moon
They forwent the odds of being gunned down
And so easily they could be when the moon
Lit perfectly their silhouette
Naked in plain view
All the stars were silver bullets
One that never met their target and flew
Past the wolfs and up into the black sky
Where they pierced the world’s barrio
The bullet holes became not stars
But un-mendable scars
From men who wanting to mutilate
The sky’s beauty with weapons
There to remind me
When the lights turned on in that classroom
The glowing little stars melted into the white popcorn ceiling
And as we, the fourth graders, disconnected our circle on the floor
The reality of the origin of stars I had just come to know
Never left me and the stars I see at night now
Are not as real as the ones I saw that day.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
Her name is Katie.
But you'd never be able to tell by looking at her.
Her hair has the electricity of lightning,
and power gushes from her eyes.
She is wild, untamed.
But you'd never know that from her name.
The name Katie suggests that she does as she is told.
Suggests that she is a cookie cutter cutout,
sugar snap princess.
But Katie is a rebel.
She will take your heart and she will rip it out.
No shame, no mercy.
You'd never find out until it's too late.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 9:48 AM UTC
Gray fluorescent sky
Sharp, crisp, cutout horizon
Autumn colours pop
I stop, savoring the view
People hurry past, unmoved
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
There isn't a He.
But if there was a He then
He made Everything perfect,
Which is to say
You, (if the world is You
And it is)
Then "just so and no better"
If there was a He to tell
I'd tell.
(You are so much blooming out of ***** streets
And camellia blossoms,
Everywhere I, there
The blinding You bursting out of
And flooding my blood with
And I am somehow Perfection's possession
Like a cutout pasted onto white
There are We and the faded world behind)
And if
He was then I'd tell him
He'd better give up now because nothing ever -
But You know I don't think
Any He could've thought up
(And the way Your cheeks fold when
Your teeth show and Your lips are
Just so and no better could ever)
Unthinkable thoughts
I've thought and never alone even alone
You were always somewhere thinking -
(Gods are not so clever
Or so kind)
Impossible for Him.
(But Beauty, You press
Words into me and I seize
Oh! fingers never gripped so
But clutching and You press and hold and
You are!
The birds in my chest are singing
The lightning in my muscles screaming
Love wears a face and it looks on me
And You are!
For all my pitching and whining
And still I open my eyes
And there is no Nothing there,
But You are, oh Love
You are.)
He never could,
But if He did I'd thank Him.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 8:17 PM UTC
There are so many of these girls
bright, lovely pretty young things who’ve suddenly—
(like it was a choice)
taken to all this madness of reading books,
drinking fancy tea and pretending that
they didn’t care about boys or clothes.
well i’m your messenger from the future
your ghost of Christmas past
Let me tell you now that i’ve always been the girl who
Was lonely in high school
Who preferred her books to nights out spent partying
and drank hot cocoa by the liter
and never once considered herself lovely or pretty
that was until i traded in my precious uniqueness
for the generic, unoriginal cutout that i superficially am now
i skipped meals for weighed almonds
put on heels pretending to be tall and cool
but i still stumbled and hoped no one saw me
boys came and talked to me but all i could manage was
awkward sputter that was a sad excuse for words
or else talk to them about books,
politics, social issues and science
until they walked away afraid their eyes telling me
She’s crazy.
let me tell you now, honey
being a geek isn’t cool
whatever trend or substance you’re on forget it
geeks are awkward
****** weirdos with their own language
who blurt out random fandom quotes and references
they’ve known by heart since they were ten.
If you think it’s fun to be the only one laughing
at a joke you were sure everyone knew
of to get stared at like a madman
for speaking klingon, elvish, harry potter, star wars, Dr. Who.
it’s not silly child, my lovely
for in all their uncoolness
geeks actually think they’re cool
well i’m your messenger from the future
your ghost of Christmas past
Let me tell you now that no amount of make-up
can hide the fact that you still preferred Kafka and Bukowski
over cigarettes and alcohol and clublights and you
(not really sure about this one, i like alcohol and cigarettes too)
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 9:20 AM UTC
the tranquility of ghosting.
how i crave the slick white sheet hovering inches above the ground, barely swirling as the limbo atmosphere stands lentic, no corporeal body underneath.
how i desire the limited peripheral, two cutout eyes that only let me stare towards the floorboards and kitchen and cutlery i cannot pick up.
how i yearn for the final destination within my house, the ectoplasm that follows me around as a new family crams their stuff into the cabinets, desperate to make my grave smell like home.
how i wish i could float beside them, staring quietly at the little tikes frolicking around the living room couch, eons away from my own state, unaware of my inevitability.
how i long to be unable to pick up the knife, or cup, or shaving razor, or blanket, unable to smother, or stab, or slice, or bash.
from the tranquility of ghosting, the inability to harm is what i want most.
Feb 5, 2022
Feb 5, 2022 at 6:55 PM UTC
Proclaimed the paper-cutout placard on the table:
Clothless gray plastic-surfaced round.
In this immense faux-stone (concrete?)
Faux-English country house
We escape to the top of the stairs:
The no admittance sign is no deterrent.
The iridescence of your skirt is captivating
But all I can remember is living in a castle like this one
When I was a little blonde nothing
And feeling the way I do now,
As if there's been no transformation, no progress.
Maybe there has,
And this band must be pretty great
To keep this many old white people dancing so enthusiastically
For such a long time:
An ancient one with a Christmas-themed vest
Foxtrots with a once-lady in a polyester pants suit
Thin hair dyed roofing-tar black, suede kitten heels clacking.
The world's a **** strange place.
Even if we feel like we aren't quite awake,
We'll adjust our stockings and fill our plates
With that mystery-shrouded gelatinous citrus dessert
And our plastic cups with apple cider, light beer, 7-Up.
Endure a few more minutes on this rented dancefloor with me
Because they're playing love shack
And who doesn't smile at the mere notion of the B-52s?
Dec 5, 2010
Dec 5, 2010 at 3:10 PM UTC
Miscarriage
If I hadn’t stepped outside, I would not
have seen the cloud buried deep in the approaching
storm I vaguely remembering hearing about. I would
not have seen the hole in the mist, the darkest
blue splot of our baby, blasted against the
lightning heavens. I would not have heard
the coyote howl or the neighborhood dogs
bark back, bark bark barking, as if you
would eventually return their perilous cries.
I would not have had to bite my tongue
from interrupting their noises with my own one—
a single scream—all out-stretched to you as
the windy sea blew a blue cloud into
you, crushing you into the embryo, the egg,
the moment before you did not exist. I
would not have stood there on the grass,
head tipped up to where you once bud – a
cutout memory in already drifting fog – and I
would not have let the rain fall into my
open mouth as I thought about how easy
it would be, how easy it could be to finally drown.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 2:49 AM UTC
I made myself a promise but it didn’t last the morning
Submit to my illusions yet again forming patterns
Journey down the rabbit hole with safe return uncertain
Constantly I push the boundaries of introspection
I demand more from seen scenery, seek to enhance
For years my body went about and I its faithful shadow
Kept silent and obedient, thinking I was clever yet
Just a jester, a sleeping shackled servant, serf or slave
Life as a dreamwalker consumes imagination
Hollow and endless, a cardboard cutout with a background
Made of muddied shades of grey, filling up physical space
While behind my eyes I could be anywhere
In pursuing solitary silence, problematic fissure to foundation
Radically alters self perception creating warped identity
I linger as a ghost, heart beating cold venom
As I haunt the places where I could have made something of myself
A lifetime spent exploring the deepest psychological caverns
Has left me accustomed to dim lighting, shy and wary of the day
Evolution passing me by; I was hiding in my cave
Inventing fire and the wheel as the universe went digital
To emerge and join the societal stream, be swept up in the current
Would almost surely overwhelm me, leave me submerged and suffocating
I must swim to the surface, escape my dependence
Before the water freezes over, holding me tightly through the seasons
Dec 7, 2010
Dec 7, 2010 at 2:20 PM UTC
The moon hangs above me
beclouded
A pupil behind a milky cataract
He knows night's words
When he tells me them my
eyes roll to whites
My succubus drapes herself
over me
Her snakehair is such a mess
They tell me love's words while
biting at her *******
That woman is there in the
window again
black backlit cutout
by yellow light so nicely framed
She dances without moving
I throw a rock at her window,
and she stays motionless
I flee terrified
The winter forest draws snug
its blanket
snow unspoiled by track or trail
My breath is smoke on the air
The wastelands burn about me
bergs of ***** bone
They tell me of secret grottos
in cool underground
wherein water
drip
drip
drips
onto tombstones forever muted
My longing lips crack and bleed
My sunblind eyes drift skyward
I scream for the vulture
my friend
to fly me down there
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
scene: Fast-food outlet half plastic paper cup rolling aberrant twixt the fingers of a mild breeze, leaving traces of hollow sounds against the leg of a bus shelter.
~
Feeling diseased, predominantly symptomatic of the hard shutdown and cardboard cutout nervous impulses of this nigh-fluttering arrhythmia, the haunting thought of how I really just can't do this anymore, permanently leaving dwellings of what could've been in sheltered murk; remembering the sound of exhaling as I had fallen to delicately brush your cheek, the little things you never noticed... you never did notice, did you?
[not that I gave you any reason to.]
And, now, it's all loss and letting go or giving up: so, nothing has changed, save for long-deliberated decisions finally made, regarding quitting and cutting down on thinking about such matters and moral dilemmas whilst time dries out; I have more lives to lead, do I not? Even if, once, the belief was that you were all the life I needed, in whatever meanwhile we tangled up in our collective noose-knots. Even if I thought I'd loved you.
Left with the curtain pulled, grey rolling hilltops, all I have to admit is that there's no reason, any more, to get messed up over these bits like gravel and tar into tender soles; it all drops out with disaffected expressions, a little pain [much, much less than would eventuate, if circumstances were left the way they are], and those lingering half-degree burns your lips left around my breath.
It's not your fault.
I never meant to fall for you in the first place, anyway.
I'm trying to make things right.
So, don't worry any more, for to neglect the corridors of my heart set aside for you is all I can do, now.
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 11:41 PM UTC
A body lies broken
On the freeway ramp curb.
A man once stood there
Asking for help
With his cardboard cutout
Plea for societal mercy.
Then a car sped too fast,
Swerving to make the green light
It was never going to catch
In this dimension or any other.
Just a moment was all it took.
Did you know he was a soldier
Who was haunted at night
By the enclosed confines of his house
Because it too closely resembled
The urban landscape he fought in,
Faced death in, lost friends in,
Got caught in until the web of his mind
Couldn't ever forget it
Especially when he tried to sleep at night?
Did you know he came back
And tried to fit in to the community
He had been born and raised in
But found that the stares and glances
Of wonder and horror laced
With misunderstanding and pity
He didn't need but couldn't escape
Were too much for him to bear
Because though he could
Look the enemy in the eye
It hurt too much to see
His own father couldn't meet his,
And a community takes its cues
On how to treat its people
From those closest to them,
So, soon no one would look him in the eye?
Did you know all that when you passed
Where he stood every day on the curb
Asking for your pity and spare change,
Having become the uttermost disgrace
In his own eyes,
Because don't you know
He used to be somebody?
Did you know that today,
When you made a split second
Choice to speed up the turn,
He'll be buried in the National Cemetery
With an honor guard
And a three rifle volley salute,
But the chairs will be empty
And no one will speak kind words for him,
Because he's already been forgotten?
How else could you run over him,
And drive off with not a glance back??
My conclusion: you're a ******
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 1:21 AM UTC
Running.
An activity that you hate,
But love at the same time.
It hurts.
But it's the good kind of hurt.
The kind of pain that is only accompanied
With hard work and determination.
You push yourself.
More than you thought possible.
You can't make it.
You won't make it.
And somehow,
You always do.
But then there it is.
The fall.
The hard ground does not forgive.
Thud
And suddenly,
You are stuck.
And those shoes.
Those neon Nike track spikes,
That you'd waited all year-365 days- to wear.
Sold.
So maybe you're not cutout for this.
Maybe there's a higher plan.
I'll wait.
Yesterday, you walked
Today, you ran.
Tomorrow you'll fly.
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 6:15 PM UTC
I'm not a fan of spatulas, not when the pancakes burn and their gilt edges look pretentious. Perhaps ostentatious is a better word when mahogany is used in the kitchen. I feel a lot of guilt, mostly over silly things I can't change, so sew me a quilt of pockets in which to store my regrets.
I won't say I got especially drunk, but a few nights later there was a skunk, and I'm thinking that if you had stopped to ask his name, he would have introduced himself as Alfred. However, all this talk of individuality has got me thinking of the polyester comforter in beige she sewed and how there was once that mix-up with my former Sunday school teacher and a national holiday that didn't exist. Does a bigger beard make a man a better prophet?
When a person stops to contemplate a grass blade, the whole world opens up in wonder. What good does greenery do? I'm telling you, it's not so much the greenery and more the change of scenery that's what makes a person whole. Thankfulness won't come in pieces, and God's grace is one of those intricate jigsaw puzzles spread out on a table in your heart as it gets glued with love and matted and framed with goodness.
It's not that I'm in love with my billing office, it's just that I'm thinking of someone else when I put the stamp on. And I've tried to keep my thoughts quiet, but forget wearing my heart on my sleeve, I'm a bank window with paper cutout promises. But if you ever think of me, I'm thinking you might have a deficit on your account.
Just because there's no way I left the oven on when I left the house doesn't mean I don't have the right to check.
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 10:12 PM UTC