"fairmount" poems
Imagine a castle in the middle of a city
It sticks out to say the least
A sentinel of the city
The Kingdom of Fairmount
Steve Buscemi says it is
a prison of:
Silence
Cats
Ghosts
Tourists
Filmmakers
Gangsters
I crane my neck and take one last look
before heading to the Trestle Inn
for a drink and dancers.
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 10:02 PM UTC
yeah, read an old poem again and remember sitting across a dark sticky table, pitcher of beer to wash down the fear of losing control. the guys told jokes - called them "brain droppings", like intellectual pigeon **** puked on the window - but i was fighting not to get lost in the patterns of condensed water pooling from sides of the pitcher, laughing on cue because it seemed the right thing to do. i counted bright flashes, blue, a neon sign - froggy's bar open - for clarity, my fingers still melting into pencils at fine edges of the discussion. i carried a notebook to write in but nobody noticed. i thought i was a poet.
green sat there, slack jaw acid jockey, dead eyed silent fish out of water. educated somewhere. not here. it was hot. i think he'd had too much magic mushroom or that black sticky stuff we smoked in the bathroom that made me choke like a dying newborn, or maybe the pale colored microdot collage on paper rolls we all shared at a concert hall earlier. the humidity.
cool, man - i quietly pined for some brown-skinned chick away at college, home again but still not calling, so i wanted to forget my own name and split in some dime bag fog when the sugar slipped out over my lips; i spit, he didn't, i drank. green was hungry, brain-fucked, out of time, dreaming about some key lime trees in florida, ogres in fairmount's forests, the dealers from new york who wanted to **** us, then gut laughed at something funny he saw in his sneakers. we hefted him by armpits to the stairs and left him there; it was too hot to walk all the way up to the flat's front door. green **** himself; we left. green, by any other name, got lost like smooth longhairs on motorbikes, that girl, the pretend hit men from uptown, none of whom ever cared who i was, because i wasn't really anywhere. but i didn't realize green could fly. it was a secret he'd left on the pavement outside. i'd wished i could fly like green. but he died. i'm still here, bluffing i'm living.
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 1:03 AM UTC
olney transportation center.
i put my bag down in the plastic seat next to me and allow the cool musty subway air envelope my senses. the lights are too fluorescent, **** they’re bright. my chest fills with pressure, the cap at my throat holding on desperately to stay put, stay tight. don’t scream. my breath is getting harder now. why do they even hang out with that person? it doesn’t make sense to me. my music gets louder in my ears, smooth bossa nova pounding brain waves. focus on the lyrics. they make me too angry. my lungs are struggling to hang onto the air, it’s coming in and out of my nostrils too fast. my throat is getting too dry, but my water bottle is too heavy. i don’t want to pick it up, i want to keep thinking. why won’t they just listen to me? why won’t they see things my way? how long is this song? it seems like it’s been forever. i’ve passed galaxies and worlds in this subway tunnel, the stars too fast for my eyes to grasp. i can’t think my way out of this one. no amount of thoughts flying around my head can fix the necessity of simply doing nothing. my hand is forced to be empty. i need to bluff. it’s way too bright in here.
logan.
thank god this song is over. i’m going to do homework instead. i don’t like this song very much, but i’m not going to change it. maybe i should turn off the music so i can read better.
wyoming.
hunting park.
erie.
allegheny.
i think i’ll be home soon. i don’t like what they did today, i should listen to my mom more. my eyes are really heavy, i wish i went to bed earlier today. maybe i’ll take a nap when i get home.
susquehanna dauphin.
cecil b. moore.
i don’t like this stop today.
girard.
time is back up to speed. maybe i’ll go to chinatown, buy some moon cakes. the mid autumn festival passed already, i wish i could’ve gone. i don’t really care for half of the things i say i like. maybe it’s a labor of love, to lie about liking something. or maybe i just don’t have the ability to say i don’t like something. but i know i dislike things. i dislike how bright these lights are, **** my migraine is getting stronger. i want to go home. i am going home.
fairmount.
my throat feels like a desert. time to put my phone down. my head hurts too much.
Sep 20, 2022
Sep 20, 2022 at 2:52 PM UTC
Let's escape
urban scorching days;
hot cement,
sirens,
and flashings from red to blue
then blue again
Let's excape
where a cool, cushioned green hill
in quiet and stillness awaits
across a narrow steel blue-green bridge
A bridge crossing,weeded, rusty,
broken railroad tracks
that beckons the call
to the other side,
from warlike city
summer shouts and cries
Let's flee abandoned pill-box look-alikes
these homeless homes
Let's flee boundaries of barbed fences and stone,
these monuments of a choking society
Just the same
paradise one block away
denied by our madness
vacantly awaits,
like a non-seduced wooded hill
what impotent partners
we are
And almost never remembered,
those whispering
leafy archways,
where those bending canopy
branches spread
to protect from the sun
the absent human head
A head filled with rememberances
yet forgotten
childhood days of tranquil green,
the smell of grass,
And birds that sing and fly
Forgotten way-up-puffs
of white against blue,
a musical buzzing bumblebe
And a little dancing ladybug
on a mushroom table top
Forgotten parachute seeds,
that fly
and a branch upon the ground,
your swatting stick,
your staff,
your royal rod
All forgotten
KINGS and QUEENS
we are in paradise
just one block away...
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 4:48 AM UTC
it's four in the mornin' and the city's sleepin 'cept for me and my kind,
... and them.
i turn the corner and i can see him at the curb in the middle of the block, hiding among the cigarette butts and beers cans, the broken glass and used condoms, the ubiquitous philadelphia detritus.
he thinks I don't see him as he lays in wait, but i got this sixth sense.
i don my swagger, leading each step with my alternate shoulder, arms swingin' behind my back as i strut towards the patrol car from the thirty ninth police precinct.
unseen, the carefully packaged spoonful drops to the sidewalk behind me and instantly pretends to be street rubble,
and i'm dutifully surprised when 'the man' exits his vehicle, shoves me against a wall and begins to ***** me like he knows me.
after awhile he gets bored and tells me to go home. I turn the corner at the end of the block.
"hello, po lease? **** gettin' real, y'know what I mean? Maurice be wasted and he not too happy wid his ol lady. and he be packin'! better hurry! yeh, 4228 fairmount."
heard sirens, peeped around the corner and the trash had a new demeanor.
I happily retrieved my spoonful.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
The Muse continues to punish me
whenever I write prose
Her slaps severe with pain heartfelt
no fury 'hell hath known'
She sentences me to endless nights
and days when words won't come
Until I succumb to writing verse
and she — my breath becomes
(Fairmount Park: October, 2016)
May 17, 2024
May 17, 2024 at 2:18 AM UTC