"earplugs" poems
The baby goat's mother was shot.
And I was forced to listen to it cry.
Forever forlorn and distraught
And i stood there- hands covering ears
Traveling back in time
----------------------------------------------------
Your mothers heart stopped
And I was forced to listen to you cry.
Lost in a huge world, more alone
And i stood there- hands covering ears
I heard you through the vents
"My mom is dead! My mom is dead"
Falling to the floor I wished I still dreamt
But she had called me before her bed
I heard her voice message months later
You still cried yourself to sleep at night
Sleeping with earplugs....I wish I didn't bake
Because I thought I killed her that night
Peanut butter cookies:
She taught me the recipe.
And two days before she vanished,
I brought her a dozen.
Autopsy reports showed an hour before death;
She took two bites of my cookies-
Went upstairs and her heart stopped.
Coincidentally exactly four years later,
I finally made peanut butter cookies again
And the smell of sweet peanut butter roasting
Stopped my heart
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:19 AM UTC
Telephones.
Earphones.
Earplugs.
To drown out
Baby cries.
Engines exhaling.
Anxiety.
"Don't be afraid"
"You've done this before"
"He knows what he's doing"
The tired.
The disagreeable.
The impossibly experienced.
Tickets.
Bags.
Smile-free faces.
I'm ready.
You're ready.
Let's go already.
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 5:36 PM UTC
*walk the walk
my earplugs in
waiting
in my nowhere land
like a bullet
shocked by the sound
i hear something
then turn myself around
green eyes
the two stare at me
open and wide
glittering in the sun
dark hair
one for one
the wind blows, wild
to me complete slow motion
waiting
for my mind to come
i see the open and close
what did he ask again?
i can't think
i don't know what to say
where am I when needed?
i just walked away..*
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 5:59 PM UTC
Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball--
Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...
persons of tender years...immature
judgement...pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam
Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years' negotiations--
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe--
having a baby, a man--
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon's sidewalks--
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served--Eyes up to the Image--
What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
June 19, 1968
4.5k
Museums as art
Art as museums
Sail the trail to my mausoleum
Psychopaths and physicists
Psychiatrists and philosophers
Philanthropists and pilots and painters
Declare now, that these are our days –
Our hours, and our days
These are our city, our hours
Our time, our days.
This is our world –
At 14:92 I landed here and claimed it
And searched it and found it wanting
Of civilization that I could so easily supply
By means of wounds and iron
And brawn and truth
(and just a tiny touch of influenza darling)
By means of our Lord,
Who grants us all that we desire
If only we **** enough of those he did not choose.
This is our world –
And we shall make it what we will
Make it in our own image
Teach it that innocence is not knowing the difference between right and wrong
Raise it to hate no one
But to love itself so deeply
That all other love seems hateful in comparison.
This is our child, love
Yours and mine.
Here the first shall be last
And the last shall be first
But once the first are last they shall be
Last
Last
Last
And once the last are first
They shall make it so they can never be last again
This is our primitive accumulation
Of necessary materialism
Let’s cultivate matter
To make objects that we can place on shelves
And in cases –
These are our cases
And we love them as we love ourselves
Museums as mass graves
Mass graves as museums
Kiss me in my mausoleum
Priests and prisoners
Prostitutes and prophets
Pioneers and pilgrims and pagans
This is our time –
And we are dispensing it in spendthrift increments
Buying threadbare bandages for our cavernous canyons
Buying ample earplugs
To seal in the silence
So we can somewhat say
“look there is peace –
Look we have done it
In our time it is accomplished” –
This is our peace –
And we know it by the signs
The lions and lambs lay quietly together
In our brass-barred zoos
For as long as shelves and cases
Are intact and the first are first
And the last are last
And the civilized are organized and holy
There is peace –
Oh, look
We made peace!
And as for Solomon and Socrates –
We take their words to weave through our new wisdom
And when we re-chart the constellations
We shall give them each a star
And salute them once a year
When they come around the universe
Oh, look
How wise we are!
Mass graves as art
Art as mass graves
There have been no better days
There has been no greater time
Politicians and pornographers
Professors and pirates
Psychologists and pastors and pianists
This is our time –
And we are doing with it the very best we know how
The last are toiling and trying
And the first are trying to think to try –
But there is a shortness in our hours
And a violence in our peace
There is inherent foolishness in our wisdom
And disease in our cities
And there is death upon our shelves and in our cases.
This is our world –
We crafted it and declared our truth to be true
We sculpted this, our colosseum
Please inscribe my mausoleum
With “we know not what we do”
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 5:43 PM UTC
My darling, I have begun to dream
Of tractors, crossing
The river Jordan
From my mind spun a chronicle of death, foretold
I began to think that in 100 years, solitude
Will be afforded, there will be
No more tractors, Or
Lawnmowers, Or
V8 engines, Just
Silence, Love, So
I shall not wake you in choleric times, I shall return
To the memories of another; of melancholic insomnia
That ***** that unwritten
Love letter to the colonel,
and think, You know,
Earplugs may not be so bad.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 9:01 PM UTC
this is the sound of the trees.
Its the same sound smoke makes, and the moon, and birds eggs and old clocks.
It is violins and percussion and arpeggios and singing like crying
it sounds like the Lion King, likes it the circle of Life.
But there are no baby cubs held up into the sunlight in this song.
There are no baboons who will tell you the secrets of life.
in this song, the zebras and the giraffes do not parade for the baby lion, they do not live peacefully with their killers.
in this song, all of them are dead, or have been trampled into the dust.
In this song, when your father dies, you are not allowed to run away from it with some happy strangers.
no, you have to bury him, and speak at his funeral, and plant flowers on top of his new home.
you do not get to become king over all the things he showed you as a child.
A cousin, in Scotland, gets that crown, because your father always hated you.
You get an old watch, and all the books on his bookshelf.
38 books on old comedians, and 1 on carpentry.
You read them at 2 in the morning, on the days you don't have to go to school because you punched the french exchange student, and you have been suspended.
None of them make you laugh, not even when you know it should be funny.
The next night, you build a bird house, with ripped up biology notes as the floor.
your mother complains about the noise, but when she looks at your eyes, she gives you back the hammer, and goes to bed with earplugs in.
birds really enjoy ******** on quizzes about recessive and dominant genes in farm animals
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 2:00 AM UTC
Now I lay me down to sleep. It is near 2:00 P.M,Pacific time.
I pray the Lord my sleep to keep. Been tossing and turning a lot lately.
If I should Dream before I wake. No March Hares if you please.
I pray the lord my twitch to take. Restless leg syndrome.
Goodnight Insomniacs.
Late night surfers.
Medicated Jitterbugs.
Jet-lagged Travelers.
Partners of snoring bed mates. With or without earplugs.
Late night ruminators.
Wanna be fornicators.
See ya later Nocturnal alligators.
Inspiration is but a breath away.
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 4:52 AM UTC
So many things going on in one house.
On one side,
here I am crying over
an invisible broken heart.
On the other side,
there is my sister happily in love,
facetiming with her soon to be fiance.
Then on different floors,
there is my parents.
Once madly in love,
now they don't even sleep in the same bed.
My dad is downstairs because he snores.
My mom is upstairs with earplugs in.
Its crazy how many stories are under one roof.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 5:56 AM UTC
so noisily these nights
I cannot sleep
But when I put in earplugs
My heart beats just as loudly
shouldn't I be comforted
the presence of my friend's breathing
shouldn't I be glad
I'm alive, my heart's beating
but all I can think right now
is I wish we could sleep like the dead
and get some peace and quiet
in my weary leaded head
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 5:05 AM UTC
Stricken from crown to chin.
Make the gag cover my vocal spin.
Let the earplugs cut my hearing thin.
A blindfold ******* to my temples let no sight in.
The archangel whispers through the din.
" Is it better to die than to sin ? "
Waging a feud on GREED is high.
Painted enemies, " ENVY !!! " they cry.
With a lance ****** for LUST, its point never dry.
To lean on SLOTH for a maidens sigh.
She served soldiers GLUTTONY pie.
Wine flowed freely and WRATH comes nigh.
PRIDE laughs with dagger at your backside.
The archangel growls, " To sin is to die."
Behold my confessional appointed slot.
Forgive me Father, for I knew not.
Be merciful to me, O God, for I cannot.
Why am I forsaken, to such common lot ?
Peace be still... delivered in a resounding shot.
Death is better than sin, my last thought.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 2:51 PM UTC
the roof leaks
so we catch the rain
with buckets
the neighbors are loud
so we sleep with earplugs
sometimes
there's construction on the street below
so we learn to ignore the sound
of hammers and saws
the money has vanished
so we make due
with what we have
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
my head hurts
constantly
my eyelids are pulled back—
let me be awake.
stop the tug-of-war,
the short sentences
the silence.
the woman next door told me all I had to do was keep breathing
(I wonder what she’s on).
sometimes The Girls talk about it
in a coffee shop,
or under the pretense of a book club.
they tell lots of other stories,
but I always seem to forget them.
the pounding in the night is just the ghosts in your head;
you see, I’ve tricked myself into believing that I’m not the only one who can’t sleep.
it’s a nice lie to live by,
so it’s okay, you can let me have my blind spot—
everyone needs a little character.
even though the machine is falling from the sky,
all the parts are still working.
I saw it on TV, so it must be true (and let me tell you,
the weather we’ve been having here makes me want to curl into a ball
and sleep in my mother’s driveway)
“she’s back!”
I want to hear them scream,
“she’s back!”
but it’s a little late to remove the earplugs.
maybe I just haven’t been listening
at least everything makes more sense that way.
look, I’m tired, I’m hell-bent on distraction, and I keep losing my train of thought.
I don’t know; just tell me what it means.
Just tell me that it means something
because I’m out of options.
the toaster won’t turn on, the kettle stopped boiling water, when I try to sing I simply croak
like I’m full of slowly hardening cement,
and the kids who opened their windows
to feel the night on their skin are leaving hand prints and initials.
what is wrong with the picture?
(it’s not candid. it’s not candid, so take it again)
why do people have to be so picky?
Sep 24, 2011
Sep 24, 2011 at 4:16 AM UTC
*There will always be a storm to reckon with
Beware of things marked new and improved
Wear earplugs at work and work like a mule , friends are like buying a bag of potato chips , they're normally only half full
Sometimes being alone is perfectly right
Stars change their positions during the night so
pray for the path by the light , defend your house with
all your might , remember love is a lone star shining bright
Avoid cliques , their like swimming with a bag of bricks
Leave church at church and work at work
Build a fence and build it right , keeps men honest in the dead
of night* ...
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 6:07 PM UTC
So....you hate me and think I'm a fool,
A lost, simpleminded forgettable tool,
Someone who knows not what life is about,
You stand right in front of me beginning to shout.
The first, few words, I heard so closely I say,
But after those words all your others went away,
I looked and looked in your eyes full of hate,
I'll take in a movie, is it still too late?
You stamp your feet like a locomotive in motion,
I'm not listening now with your horrible notions,
I feel a laugh swelling deep inside of my mind,
Your nasty and pushy and mostly not kind.
I glad for the earplugs pushed deep in my ears,
Hoping you won't notice them, this is my fear,
And as you get redder and your blood now is hot,
I'm glad that your leaving, your company not.
So....as the door slams and silence fills the air,
I wonder why you really thought I would care,
But how it now shows you that love sometimes sours,
No movie tonight with the now late, late hours.
Apr 24, 2012
Apr 24, 2012 at 9:07 PM UTC
Ya Allah.
Ya Allah.
May you grant all the oppressed triumph.
May you bestow upon them the strength to change the world
Palestinian children are the bravest children the world has ever seen.
Palestinian mothers are the strongest women to ever walk this earth.
Palestinian fathers are the most hard working men to start on their hands and knees.
3 Israeli teens were murdered and it suddenly makes headline news.
16 Palestinians, ages 8-21 were murdered within 2 weeks and their names were never eulogized.
When will Palestine be recognized as a ongoing genocide?
And if a tree falls in the forest and no ones around to hear it does it make a sound?
Yes.
and a blind eye is turned.
and earplugs are handed out on street corners.
#LongLivePalestine
-Z.H.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
I don't keep doing this in hopes i die,
I'm just trying to find a way to survive,
I like the partying and the drugs,
But with you around i might just wear earplugs.
I'm killing my body is what you keep saying,
You say that like i'm just playing,
Everyone knows i'm not living long,
We’ve known i'm not that strong.
So let me do my thing,
Its not like i' m looking for a ring,
I don't need you,
So throw away your tissue.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 5:33 PM UTC
A few paces away,
Through the pasty blue door,
I can hear it,
The tune,
A beat,
The music.
Funny how something I admire most
Is precisely what brought the downfall.
And as I listen, the suppression subsides,
The memories rise,
Your breath on my cheek.
Quell it.
Content when I lock and bury
The precious box of treasure.
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 11:27 PM UTC
Fly high!
That's what they'll say,
after you wreck your car
and spill your brains.
They won't know--
or maybe they will.
****** tomb,
disguised as "wonderful daughter,
great friend."
Everyone has earplugs,
blindfolds too.
The epidemic is supplying
some for you.
Russian roulette
has some competition.
This ain't some new
invention...
Nobody cares--
it's not them.
Nobody cares--
unless it's them.
But it's too late by then.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 5:46 PM UTC
i positioned my hair so that it wouldn't part in the wind or when I kissed you.
it made sense at the time to be enamored of something imaginary, i caught fish between my teeth and used toothpaste to get it out, used your fingernail to spread the minty flavor.
I told you lies so that you wouldn't touch me, but it was sad and unnecessary in the end
cold, without skin, i am only something you remember
and I parted my hair so that you could touch it.
the feeling of having you back in my arms,
the feeling of having you back inside of me,
I touched your scent with kisses until you fell numb,
having a seizure of joy in your mind.
i couldn't taste any remorse, but you were always good at hiding those sorts of things, and socks.
you can't hide feelings between the sheets
so we slept in separate beds and had separate dreams.
I wasn't sure why you cried at night,
and you weren't sure why I slept with earplugs
touching, but never feeling
used books on repair
second-hand gifts
back up plans
love
May 2, 2011
May 2, 2011 at 9:37 PM UTC
Dark clouds on the horizon,
wind razors through my hair
The darkness flying tackles me
And I have no air.
You are my lighthouse,
The smile for my storms
With you I am protected
Beneath arms so warm.
So much have you done for me,
With just one smile,
You erased all my monsters
With there cunning and wiles
You dance with me,
even when theirs no beat
And through the woods you run with me
So fast, so fleet.
Your laughter is contagious
its so quirky and weird
Your hands are so tender
When they brush away tears
you went and bought earplugs
so I could sing.
You encourage my dancing
and that acting thing
I want to sing out your praises
For the rest of time
but I know you would hit me
so I guess I won't try
You're the everything, to my nothing
My water and my air
Gosh this sounds corny
But you are everywhere!
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 3:42 PM UTC
Full Moon
What do I do with all this energy?
I watch you sleep and think about
-smashing your face in,
or kissing you,
or maybe just putting my yellow earplugs
up your nose
-for laughs-
You are so crazy! (What about me???)
I just woke you up to remind you
about the water in the humidifier-
and you actually filled it up!
You asked me not to write on you any more
and I giggled in reply
I wish that I were ******* or fighting!
Everything else seems so ridiculous!!!
So meaningless
There is a slight buzzing in my ears,
The tension of this night is deafening
Even the baby, still unborn, feels it
He is as restless as I
While his father snores and I draw
Small lines on his neck with my pen…
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 12:06 AM UTC