"disks" poems
Squeeze your feet into synthetic fins.
See the world in big rubbery lenses.
Don’t forget the snorkel, of course! Bite tight.
Hobble to the shore,
Where the two worlds meet.
The sea splashes gently on the sand.
It hurls itself forward
And then recedes back.
Its motions are like gestures,
Telling you to draw close
And closer.
Its peaceful surface is an invitation itself,
Painted blue and glittered with sunshine.
Accept the invitation with gladness.
Don't be afraid!
Let the briny waters embrace you.
Let the cold tickle your skin.
Let the waves rock you back and forth.
You have entered a grand ballroom
Illuminated with a majestic chandelier of refracting sunlight.
The colorful corals with shapes of mounds, disks, and crowns,
Sway with the rhythm of the current.
The fishes dance around and about,
Each beaded with scales of various vibrant colors.
And then the reef ends.
The colors abruptly plunge into a black abyss.
Look down and allow yourself to be
Filled with fear, terror,
Or maybe
Insatiable curiosity.
Now let that curiosity stir discontentment in you:
Discontentment with snorkeling.
Let it ignite a craving for
More thrill, more wonder.
It's time to go deep sea diving.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:28 AM UTC
I’m a Polyglot Polymath, Microphone’s a Polygraph,
Manners of a Sociopath-Rhymin’ keeps me on the path,
Else I’d be hackin you up like a cannibal,
Pullin the Chianti out-serve you up like Hannibal,
Words heavier than Elephants invading cross the alps,
Under Armour over Body Armour-waistline fulla scalps,
From the Belt o’ the Celt o’ the Schizophrenic Sandman,
You’re triple teamed by -EC- Raps new Xmen.
I broke me chains,some say I went insane,
But it’s simple,all I went and did was grow a brain.
be the Bane of your life,while Mal plays Dark Knight,
A rhyme Super Villain with a verse of Dark Light,
The searchlights on-watch the cockroach scatter,
We speak Dark Matter while your brain gets battered,
batten down the screws-worldviews get skewed,
Mal and Sandman's Positively Mental Attitude.
It’s the original Irish OG rough rugged and ready,
Battling me is futile keep your hands steady,
I’m no pacifist,and if you take the ****
I’ll clap you with a fist like an obelisk,
That’s a grave warning,-global warming,
The Dragon of Eire ,skies look stormy…
Since cassettes and disks I’ve been spittin ****
That makes wannabee’s wanna slit their wrists,
The Sandman’s calling,come in and take a mauling,
Rappin since clappin one two and yes y’allin,
from New Aulins to saint Pauls my kin,
Are gathering for the quickenin,pulse races,air thickenin'
Highlander in a land cruiser,take your teeth out like a dentist
E.C’s BRUISER.
batten down the screws-worldviews get skewed,
by Mal and Sandmans Positively Mental Attitude.
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 1:36 PM UTC
you play
finger puppets
in the black sky
warm
unperturbed
little worms
eating
hot soil
and foot
“I’m going to
eat this star.
Actually, I’m going
to eat them all.
I’m awfully
hungry.”
you find the
nutella I hid
under the rock
and dip the
puppets in
“Did you know
I sew?
I sewed these
puppets.
Even
the little black
eyes and the
teensy red
buttons. All in
the patience
this sky taught
me.”
your mouth
is dry and
you search
for lake water
“I swear, it’s
so hard being
a fish in
Arizona.”
the desert
agrees
once
we prayed for
rain and danced
naked in
the sand
now it’s
night and
the sand went
to sleep
now it’s night
and the stars
are disks
“Lord, take
me now. I’m a
painter, a
painter without
color.”
the act is
over
the shield
put down
and the night
swallows
disks
as you lick
chocolate paint
from your
fingers
“Goodnight, friend.
Sleep well, fish.
Until tomorrow, moon.”
your body
fresh
black
the emerald
of color
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 11:08 AM UTC
i could leave. i could go squat at my lakehouse in wisconsin. i could cut all ties and never speak to anyone ever again. i could live alone as a ghost or as close to it as possible. i could eat easy mac every night for the rest of my life. i could watch seinfeld reruns every day until i passed out and then repeat until the disks get scratched beyond repair.
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 5:43 AM UTC
Peel back wax paper
Wedge my nail between two disks
separate; they stick
You see, for me to keep myself afloat in this raging ocean
this roiling, writhing mind of mine
I need something--
A Human Life Safety Floatation Device
why not use a Lifesaver?
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 11:58 PM UTC
See you our server farm that hums
And serves HTTP?
It's spun its disks and done its sums
Ever since Berners-Lee.
See you our mainframe spewing out
The Towers of Hanoi?
It's moved recursive discs about
Since Babbage was a boy.
See you our ZX81
That prints the ABCs?
That very program used to run
With Lovelace at the keys.
Magnetic floppy disks and hard,
And tape with patience torn,
And eighty columns on a card,
And so was England born!
She is not any common thing,
Water or Wood or Air,
But Turing's Isle of Programming,
Where you and I will fare.
Dec 16, 2010
Dec 16, 2010 at 7:23 AM UTC
Now,
there is the contour of her upturned forehead
nosetip kissed by the moonlight
and shadows frame the shape of her eyes
soft wrinkles at their tapered corners
And my god, the color of them
I stare, squint
A misty night, but they are distinct even in the dark:
bronze beads nestled into slight furrows
gossamer, reflecting starlight.
The sweep across the peppered sky that we stand beneath
Chestnut disks floating in milky spheres
unmistakably hers
full and round, soaking in curiosity
handsome mahogany irises bound by the gold tracing their edges.
The way the light makes those disks look glassy
Semitransparent in the moon’s glow
How they shed their boundaries
shifting, swimming
layers on the eyelid horizon
They shimmer, and stir.
And now,
they rest their gaze on me.
I inhale
dare to step closer
The bustle in the back of my brain—
A hum, and the purr of pleasure at her beatitude.
Mar 7, 2023
Mar 7, 2023 at 10:16 AM UTC
Five days a week
for six months now
I have crossed the street
from work
to the little shop
that sells sticky buns
pork nuzzled by pastry
and perused the food
something for lunch
and almost always pick
a baguette brimming with chicken
chilled cucumber disks
a sprinkling of lettuce
plus a muddy-coloured latte
for that extra afternoon kick
though today is different
I’m feeling ruthless
a shimmery packet of salt and vinegar
waits for me to pluck it
from the shelf
squeak it open
the lady says hi and I reply
with a we’ve spoken
five days a week for six months now
and it’s about time I told you
these small encounters
brighten my day
a rotten cliché I know
so I leave quick with my grub
but a tiny grin on my face
unwrap the baguette
take a satisfying bite
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
Becky turns on her radio
It’s 4’oclock you see
Says she’s got a date with just me
Her Keds dazzled in red
With thoughts of Psychedelic Furs in her head
Thomas headin home
On the floor of ole truck lies his 80s comb
Hasn’t seen old school in years
The thought brings him to tears
Michael’s on a break
Wants to take time by the lake
Thinkin about Sarah
And that iconic leg warmer era
When she hadn’t worn waterproof mascara
Sarah walkin thru the old store
Hears em say, vintage is a good score
Records musty smell
Makes her feel swell
Polaroid on a shelf
Drifts back to a time of her younger self
Instant prints
Memory hints
Friends together
In spring weather
High school dance
Parachute pants
Puffy sleeve print
Tubular and mint
Neon color
Teenage pustalar
This much is true
With a Converse shoe
Glares, stares and dares
Waves in their hair
Synth-pop
They bop
First crush
They blush
Friendship pins
Shy grins
Floppy disks
The unsaved risks
Laughs enter
In present time
Fallen purse
Fate or curse
Hand holds out a dime
Blank look
Like a old good book
Mumble jumble
Who do you see
lookin back at me
In a flash
It all goes past
Familiar face
Of time & place
If you leave
No one would believe
Together again
It was then
When they remembered when
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 10:20 PM UTC
I've decided that should anyone
years from now
discover my body
I want them to find me blind-
not from grief and sadness that I saw
but from the beauty my eyes beheld.
I want them to find
the disks in my neck worn-
not from lifting my nose at the inferiority of this place
but rather due to the fact that I was constantly gazing up
simply to remind myself that I get to be a piece in it all.
I want my lips to have trembled, smiled, spoken, gaped
my ears to have listened, to have listened, to have heard
my wrinkles to be evidence of laughter, evidence of worrying
my hands to have been held,
to have fought, grasped
and most importantly to have let go.
When they find me
I want my piercings to be evidence of my interest in pain
and the calm that follows.
I want my body to be riddled in love
agape, philias, eros, storge
I want my scars to be testaments to
my fearlessness, my carelessness,
my courageousness, and my curiosity.
Should they find my spirit gone
should they find my body dead
I want them to know
I want them to know I lived.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 8:24 PM UTC
mmm
you dredge up the memories of lost secrets
gathered up
in made up words and our twisted limbs and now
packed with yellowing newspapers in the cardboard boxes
lining the attic
ancient jokes are unpeeled too, dry and cracking
they emerge to see the sunlight
but are quickly blinded, ouch!
those pictures of our shared smiles and oh so tender embraces have faded
to sepia tone in their brittle wooden frames,
be careful as you grab them down from the shelf,
they might break.
Mmm it all comes back to me now
-our treasure trove of antique memories-
as you oh so slyly mention them in passing,
slip in those references that you
know
I’ll remember,
Aren’t you cool as a cucumber now?
but they crumble quickly in your hand
and I only hear wisps of our whispers
as the record player leaves scratches on the disks
ah darling be careful you’re about to drop it all down the 3 flights of stairs and it might all smash into microscopic pieces so very
very
soon
Jan 4, 2011
Jan 4, 2011 at 1:12 PM UTC
Drips and drops of lab-tested fluids
pouring lipids in curves all over the place
while pops and pangs of tiny cells
bubble and fizzle in petri disks and flasks
regurgitating out strands of fine DNA
mix and synthesis of unusual entities
bubbling cauldrons of chemical ritual
give rise to spells of mystic creation
boldly configuring new organic oddities
from lab nonsense to ancient theory
mitochondrial splits and caverns
entries into the unknown of man's babble
for the fine and final production of science's silk
that which is life
and undeniable to our being
so creation can forever stand tall and strong
in the triumphant art of recreation
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 7:17 PM UTC
You’ve got your disks ready, your tracks loaded
Your club full, your drugs in
Laptop in front of your fingers
Fiddle with the house rig, call the sound guy back
One more time
Check the setup, recheck the setup,
Check your charge
Battle record on deck, you’re set
How’s your cues?
Run through the tracks and the channels
You’re sprinting
It’s all set, all set, all set, all set, all set
Drink your water, throw it back
Thumbs up the light guy
Toss the bottle under
Your gear under your fingers, worn
And won
Breathe. For a second.
Perfect.
Feel the crowd quiver, feel the house shiver
There’s magic in the air.
black.
(beat.)
(beat.)
(beat.)
LET THE BASS DROP
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 2:59 AM UTC
Sorrows of the past,
litte scatters think out fast.
I really am a rapper,
my lips blow out what matter,
happy make you sadder,
feal you up to climb this latter,
as a quick word just wanna be heard
know whats left so we take you down the right turn,
if you wanna talk **** I feal ya on a real burn,
If you gonna be true,
you sure gonna be seen through.
don't believe free?
what ever go deceive me,.
young at heart with that tid of stupity,
bein flung takin risks, Makin tunes tradin disks.
hear my bass nd my boom melted face is in the room,
Mmmm...!! Shiiiit ;)
Jesse Mckush
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 7:21 PM UTC
When I was a teen
Vinyl was the scene
Forget
The tangled up cassette
Then came, scratch free CD
Now the one you cannot see...... MP3
Pulled apart
LP's wonderful art
Dusting down my old turntable
Spin some disks
Hope it's able
Making a warm crackle
The needle clicked into the groove
My ears did approve
So it's final
I'm going back to
Vinyl.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 5:24 AM UTC
All Apps Un-installed
Hard disks wiped out
Operating System lost
System Shutdown
RAM cleared
BIOS destroyed
Object Id Retained
ROM info Retained
Hardware burnt to Ashes
Or left for Micro-organisms
Scriptures say, Sages re-iterate
Believers believe, others disagree
Object ID may be Reborn
With new OS and Apps
Or there is another possibility
Object ID gets destroyed
And witness Moksha
Free from further rebirth and deaths
Sorry this poem is not on Computers
But I am sure, it's about Humans
Smart Humans, Mortal Humans
Bound to follow the System of
LIFE, DEATH, RE-BIRTH
Until Moksha comes for Rescue
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 2:25 AM UTC
Sorrows of the past,
litte scatters think out fast.
I really am a rapper,
my lips blow out what matter,
happy make you sadder,
feal you up to climb this latter,
as a quick word just wanna be heard
know whats left so we take you down the right turn,
if you wanna talk **** I feal ya on a real burn,
If you gonna be true,
you sure gonna be seen through.
don't believe free?
what ever go deceive me,.
young at heart with that tid of stupity,
bein flung takin risks, Makin tunes tradin disks.
hear my bass nd my boom melted face is in the room,
Mmmm...!! Shiiiit ;)
Jesse Mckush
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 9:53 PM UTC
we could have the summers in italy
the peaches in paradise
the dawns and the dusks and our toes in the sand
but we're doing the vtc and ecstasy
listening to scratched disks and taking shots of drain water
dreamers only think in French you tell me
so i chant the words
je veux tout in my head
i want the nutmeg stuck on the walls in my nose
and your moans in my ear till 4 after midnight
i want the silk sheets wrapped around my neck
the tongues in my mouth
i want to get familiarized with the richness
when a balenciaga shoe hits me and the euros are in my bloodstream
i want to be used to it
the velvet carpets and red lingerie
the colosseum and vatican city
busboys with scruffy berets
expensive wine in busted hotels
chocolate fondue and burnt pasta at the cartels
michelangelo's david and authentic fur coats
tramps and 2 dollar bills down your throat
throwing ash trays at the sistine chapel
gifts of china tea cups and diamond rings to forget the scandals
fat cigars and the bonnie and clyde lifestyle
i want it all in italy baby
je veux tout
je veux tout
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC
I found the wood knife today
it was shoved in the box
squeezed between the wall and a stack of half-used notebooks.
I grabbed it by its rope-
still strung through the hole in the center of the blade -
played with the wood disks and tiny beads that dangle from both sides.
I held it up by the hilt,
the metal ring clinked against the wood disks - imprisoned.
Grandma made these puzzles out of found objects all the time -
Contrpations that were usually a clever a mess of metal and wood.
All based on designs created before electricity was a thing.
The knife was the sole survivor from a box of flood damaged puzzles
Smiling to myself, I held the knife behind my back, in my right hand.
"Sometimes, I wish you never even had kids"
I still recall her words to my mother
as I tip the knife and slip the ring down to the base of the blade
"Write?! Josh that's a hobby! You're twenty, what are you going to do for a living?"
I push one disk through the hole with my thumb
"What if you get this girl your with pregnant? Then what?"
I bring the metal ring up and over the tip of the blade by tilting it downwards.
"If your father had done a better job raising you, we wouldn't be having this talk"
with a flick of my wrist, I fling the metal ring
though the hole and off of the knife.
It's been four years.
I still remember how it goes.
Muscle memory, I guess.
Engrained in my mind from years of practice.
Sometimes I think of her,
and I wonder if I miss her
or if that's just muscle memory too.
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
St. Eulalia's gushed cinnamon disks
engulfed in licorice. The smoke stacks
were now purely cosmetic. The M & M roofs melted, heaped thick,
and dripped charred caramel turtles
to the Easter grass below. Maybe the
chocolate cross on the steeple
is filled with fudge, maybe it's not.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
Stew
Full of many things,
Carrots,
Orange,
Crunchy but still soft
Round,
Cut into little orange disks
Potatoes,
Crisp,
White,
Cut into angular halfs
Bison,
Fed rotten fruit in a pasture
Pears,
Oranges,
Apples,
And many other things.
Making the meat sweet.
Now shredded into bits in my bowl.
Onions,
Clear,
Soft,
Sweet,
Cut into little strippes in my bowl.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 7:48 PM UTC
time moves forward
winding through galaxies
coursing through milkyways
pulsing through universes
hanging on heartbeats
yesterday, today and tomorrow
happening concurrently
burned onto disks stacked on top of each other
lifetimes skipping tier to tier
peeking through veils of reality
scoping inward to Brownian motion
zooming outward to life’s whole
energy flowing freely through meridians
navigating congestion and voids
finding balance in life’s peaks and valleys
like electrocardiograms
my lifereadings on paper
lately I’ve been flatlining
routines can be boring
drudgery stagnates
maybe I’m just physically tired
maybe I’m tired of life
caught behind a rock in a river
awaiting a cataract to break me free
and restore the song of life’s flow
maybe I’m an insignificant speck of dust
a blip off life’s radar
or maybe the smallest piece of jigsaw
is an equal part of the whole
Sep 13, 2010
Sep 13, 2010 at 10:41 AM UTC
The sky is a giant gramophone of the valley flowers.
from a brooding repertoire of pin-disks
singing to me in the hymns rumbling out song
This late dusk, I am the last sheep that
got lost from the herd, now heading across the pass
in the hope of finding my home.
All my life is on trial now. You are all the people
here and I am in the dock. All that I have been
brings me here. I see amused eyes, and eyes
of suspicion. I know them eyes, these are your eyes
these are your people, and I know you.
To learn our language? I see dispersal, dismissal.
trying, to learn your language. twirling in the men.
I see disinterest. Girl from the high country
I see your moustache don't learn languages no more.
I see laughter, Yes that is what I have been
Oh my holy heavens, that I see home in those eyes.
And I said, hallelujah. at the edges painted red.
have come misty-eyed And they said, come with us.
There is a hope for home. A hearth here, not on flat.
On a slope, I have to found what I could a fire there.
Now I be over and laughter, all my hopes Moist corners
ancient tongues speaking to my soul. from this far land
come alive in tending to the home, embers break
a Cossack girl where you and the children live.
The rainbow carries, moments of reflections unlocking
to those distant shores and tears like mist and rain.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 4:17 PM UTC
Such is the sound–
These hearts are a'breakin'.
Snap.
Only I know that crink in my neck–
that sprainin' a'joints grinding 'gainst disks.
I know how the cold creeks do get in October,
sheets and slabs, it's wet in October.
Listen to those frost-ridden reams underfoot!
Snap.
Cold conversing, I said, "A'hush off. . . Now, now. . . smirk'd, yea-sayin' open an ear–"
Listen to that shard, to them shimmerin' sheets of ice underfoot: Snap.
You'd think them finger-snappin's was some jazz! Jam! Jubilate! Just do it again.
I want an iced, ambient encore; chilled to the bone-core, I grab that glarin' a'glistenin' glass.
The median is near the middle, give that shard a shove, I want to hear it again–
Snap.
That's my kick, my wake-me-not whistle borne of creekwater:
That single soundin' o'shatterin' of sharded sheets,
two halves of a once-whole gripped,
glistenin' a glass singin' as it snaps:
*I, ice, do hiss!
Listen: it's in the hiss, man!
And my snaps sound ballistic
when I break, balletic, in two!*
'Twas a hiss indeed.
that ice does as electricity:
O' it does cry when it cracks,
it does fizzle as it fragments,
it does spark as it splits,
it does bend light between bubbles,
it does melt in my midst,
things do get wet in October.
O' it was by the creek that I told her:
"Such is the sound of two hearts a'breakin'–
'Tis only ice underfoot."
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 2:13 PM UTC
we all have our stories.
stored in cafes, empty beer bottles,
soaked clothes, tattered floppy disks.
old film cameras, b/w reels.
we keep these memories with us,
and displace them as well.
their cytotoxicity travels
throught terminals of life's airport.
eventually new souls come and go.
terminals change, destinations flicker
on digital screens.
we delay our feelings, fall in love
with the impossibility of circumstance.
we all have our stories,
maybe in poems like these, or
photographs like the screenshot i would take to share this poem.
we all have our stories,
and not all stories are as happy
as the plants kept beside me while
i sit and write this poem down.
Aug 26, 2023
Aug 26, 2023 at 7:57 AM UTC