"fistfights" poems
People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 10:12 PM UTC
F for the fistfights I was asked to sit out of, because I was born with a different set of genitals
E for the equal rights I've been begging for, only to be let down time and over again
M for all the military applications that weren't even reviewed, because I seemed unfit for not having a pair of nuts
I for the inferno that you made me feel, fighting so hard to be a pilot that was obviously only ' a man's job '
N for the number of convictions the guy who ***** his girlfriend didn't have to face, because the way she dressed up showed that she "wanted"it
I for all the immoral stares that I couldn't counter back for the fear of your lawyers defending you saying it was a friendly one, for the fear of you blaming the shorts and crop top that I picked out for that lovely Sunday
S for all the standards that women themselves set for themselves, ***** standards; I'll do what I want and say what I want, I'll eat what and I want and dress the way that I feel like I need to, I'll wear bikinis that probably doesn't flatter my body and height but you know what? I don't give two flying f**ks
M for the mortals that made it necessary for feminism to even exist
Apr 18, 2015
Apr 18, 2015 at 11:07 AM UTC
Silver-sided rattle,
a humble streak climbing
the hill in small doses.
Blue teardrop seats,
steel and yellow poles,
broad-eyed windows that offer
the view of things that the subway
will never give.
I've seen fistfights,
a baby born, overdoses,
old women falling asleep,
old men screaming wordlessly,
junkies scrambling for pills
dropped underfoot,
tourists grappling with the geometry
of this unknown language,
all of it.
Vibrating with a menacing stumble,
it attracts everyone. It promises
a view and a destination.
It's better to go through the world
than to sink below it.
Nov 2, 2017
Nov 2, 2017 at 7:07 PM UTC
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.
fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.
the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.
judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.
wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.
homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
This shady-bar
gave you more ***** than mixer,
cheap spirits & rot gut elixirs flowed,
some did lines of flake on the teak.
By eight, most dates were sloppy drunk,
buzzed, frazzled to the gills,
schmoozing the feline-walk,
talking **** listening to
Floyd or Skynyrd.
It was a circus of sorts.
Back in those days
we called the cops 'fuzz',
they'd make their rounds
every couple of hours,
it made it look like they were
using tax-dollars wisely,
but we students knew better,
******* establishment.
The parking lot was a mix
of racetrack & boxing ring.
Cars jammed, roared,
cruised, honked
their way
through the fistfights.
Once, I saw two sweet-babes,
real rough-cats scratch and claw
themselves to near death.
The flowered-blouse
on one was ripped clean off,
one of her ***** hung out,
it looked bruised.
Blood streamed down
both of their faces,
ruining their mascara.
When I look back,
it's quite amazing
any of us survived
that freaking place.
Now come to think of it,
the last time
I saw my buddy Marcus
was outside that
nasty-drinking-establishment.
He was ******* amongst
the drunks & excrement.
I really wonder how he survived,
if he made it out of that city
in one piece,
alive.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 5:20 PM UTC
I scratched lyrics into the walls of this dump they call joint
finally became a tree with branches, wrote new raps every night
working out like crazy, punched my hands into walls
just like oldboy, then i became steel, endlessly tough
as my lucky number, this eight
tizzops became more popular, but never an other
sticking out my chest, ******* away all stress
albanians against serbs, greeks against turks
everything broken, everything in shards
but then comes Marissa, and she's calming me
i'm getting calm, getting calm, become
the old tizzop again, a ******* and thief
but everybody likes me, I remain --
tizzops, spreading fistfights like the Klitschko's
and I'm the most faithful, when I really feel love
not just talking about females, all my brothers
get nuttin but respect, their souls are wit me
most peeps live rushing lives, in our rushing times
they talk briefly, cause they don't know their inner
i'm not ridiculing them, cause they simply lack the words
they are lost and questions are flowing out of their ears
since they have no brothers or sisters to lean on
lifestyle like a frantic slalom, but I'm not wit 'em
putting stickers on the franchise, just to get by
I dominate every day; like the magic of the night
my raps are mania for me, me, and for me
cause I love and I have *** with my lyrics
forever being a chaser: where is Jason, baby?
without him, I won't make it through the night
life is infinity like eight, I feed you a knuckle sandwich
can you hear my c**k whistling? dem are hardcore-songz
straight out of my ***** suddenly millions of fanz
Aug 30, 2020
Aug 30, 2020 at 4:03 PM UTC
My heart was pieced together like a patchwork
Just like the rest of me
Made from parts of ticking time-bombs
Stitched and stapled together in a mass of voracious viscosity
Violently vilifying the way
The thread streams me seamlessly
from one person to the next
Each feeling they will be the center-ring circus master
Until they realize
The sewing needle is simply passing through their square
The seamstress ran out of string with me
Resulting in relapse burlap fistfights along the edges
Left me searching for salvation each time
The bells chimed to open the day
Left me in the company of
Misshapen shadows hidden along broken back hallways
Back-and-forth handshakes to make sure
The other was still there
Night after night, staring at your creation in the window
But not during the day because monsters like the dark
It’s not that it’s easier to sneak and scare
I just know the faces of disgust and terror
And I don’t need that right now
When that’s the same face I want to rip from the mirror
That night should have been stormy
For all the things that I did
To your masterpiece
Pulling at strands like they were nooses around my neck
Each time like removing an iron bar from my cage
Until the burlap sack flew apart flapping like vultures
Leaving nothing but the sheep in scarecrow’s clothing
Unraveling my sense of time until the clock struck
3 times an echo
Once for the creation of your abhorrent abomination
Twice for your meticulous sense of the grotesque
And three times for putting a soul you saw unhappy
Into a prison so much worse
When I was on your bench
My words came choppily and broken
Because I couldn't finish a sentence
Without second guessing everything
Waiting for a punishment after every word
So I wouldn't interrupt
The beginning of your sentence
With the middle of mine
You put my heart together piece by piece
Cross-stitching over the years of my childhood
Connecting a pair of glasses with a two-tone sense of humor
Building a bridge between arms wide open and a shotgun blast
But now the words flow fluidly
Because now my thoughts are seamless
Put together skillfully like a seamstress’s caress
No more anticipating the end before the beginning
Now that I've come full circle
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 2:51 PM UTC
*we are covered
in scars
from internal
fistfights
that bled through
to the outside*
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
I used to climb Trees
Out in broad daylight,
where we used to ride bikes,
My home time was defined by streetlights,
fistfights and first times.
I used to play kick stone.
outside on the roads of my home.
Scared of the dark when I was home alone.
A sombre tone in those days.
My cul-de-sac was a continent,
you couldn’t count the times
we jumped hedges and jumped the brooks,
wider berths as we grew and beamed with confidence.
He grew up on the other side of the brook to me!
Exploration into dilapidated buildings,
to seek out lost felines for the £10 reward.
One guy got stung by a bee nine times,
he lived to tell the tale of course.
Thinking back sometimes,
It was us who had nine lives,
playing on the tramlines and and swimming in high tides.
colliding with live wires and life lessons,
We built sandcastles and burnt them down,
in spaces of seconds.
Lost in imagination.
I stayed in the sea until my fingers wrinkled,
but this happened more often in the bath if i’m honest.
It seemed so simple,
within the borders of our town, in those days.
The good old days,
or so they say -
but i don’t disagree with the sentiment of it all, if i’m honest.
It’s a ghost town now,
Treehouse's and broken fences,
Sweet shops and trips to the dentist.
A playground apprentice,
like Dennis the menace,
Ernie and Bertie,
maybe.
The bell rang more times than I care to remember.
It symbolised the beginning of the next class rather than the end.
To some at least, i’m not quite sure precisely who.
But it always started in September.
Those were the days,
Kiss chase and roller skates
missed chances and romances.
First dances and your first falls.
The sycamore tree got smaller,
but remains the exact same size.
The boys got a little bit taller,
some of us guys even became wise.
Life is full of surprises.
We flew apart.
The sun went down and we grew up.
And now I don't climb Trees anymore.
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 1:51 PM UTC
I never meant to look like a ***** floor
I bend the laws of physics when I ask mirrors to change my own reflection
Have this ugly soul
pushin’ all my ugly buttons
Doubled back on my last straw so many times
I’m pullin’ splintered strands of yellow
From my backstab wounds
Got prickly bits of blonde
Sticking out from the places I missed
They healed there
Got shards of my own teeth in my tongue
Puncture holes in my lungs
Makes it hard to breathe sometimes
‘cause I am still healing
Don’t call me good
Or handsome
Or patient
I do everything I can to sabotage the love you give
Not that I don’t want it
I am just not ready
One time you told me I should love as often as I breathe
So I starting breathing as often as I love
And I almost die in the intervals between our phone calls
Grace is you lightening the pressure on my drowning head
Patience is me staying under when you do
God is a child with a finger pointed at my heart and laughing
And you are an angel when you turn out the bathroom light
So that I stop hating my own reflection
Remind me that we are defined by more than the choices we make
That I might still have all the scars from the cancer
And the fistfights
And that one time I tried to end it all too early
But this heart beats more than just a war drum
It beats a ********* army
Can hear it like giant rumble footsteps
Can hear it finally change directions
Away from all the chaos
Shattering mirrors below my heart feet
So much glass glittering
Looks like a river
Too many pieces to reflect anything but the sky
Reminds me
I am not done healing
Apr 30, 2011
Apr 30, 2011 at 12:18 PM UTC
these same negative thoughts are on an endless loop in my head,
not constant, but nearly,
any hint of sarcasm or negative comments about me begin the whole process of self-destruction and hatred in my head.
when i get out of the loop, i just feel tired and numb,
like i just got done with a fist fight and came away with a few bruises and cuts on my face and fists.
i believe in a God who heals, but its hard to hold on to hope and to see the good in myself when I feel like a constant burden due to these fistfights in my mind.
any positive affirmation feels like a bandaid put on my deep cuts and bruises, somewhat helpful but they can't fix the damage already done.
Dec 25, 2021
Dec 25, 2021 at 6:37 PM UTC
If I was a drinker, I’d be dry on the rocks;
if I was an addict, I’d be dead.
I’m not proud enough to call myself a writer
and I barely scrape by with the title “poet”.
It’s not all the same, except it kind of is,
and if it’s all the same to you,
I’d rather be a maniac, or pure **** with good definitions,
than another ignorant sack of **** with lazy reasoning
and a demeanor leaning towards believing
"I’m above it" really means you are truly above it.
If I was a gambler I’d go all in on my debt,
and wind up missing fingers and half my life
to say you truly believe in the things you say.
If I was a violent man, I’d start more fistfights,
and if I was more of an ******* I’d call you stupid.
However, I’m not the boxer taking the dive,
or the druggie nodding off on the transit,
or the gambler with his mortgage on a pair of jacks,
or the ******* that oppresses someone and plays the victim.
I’m not the writer that made it somewhere big enough
to ever be a has been, or a wash up. I’m a never-was.
To say this is a sad song implies it’s not comfortable.
I’m the *** of my own visions and dreams,
and all my streets and alleys are only seedy
because I wrote them that way.
At least I’m not pretending I’m above it,
while actively participating. Although, **** it,
I guess nobody can tell from a distance.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 6:30 PM UTC
I've felt the cold,
Of winter midnights.
The things you see,
Upon the streets.
I've lived through guns,
So many fistfights,
And all the things
They did to me...
It ain't the same,
Every morning...
Somebody new
Wakes up as me...
And I don't know,
Just where I'm going...
All I know,
Is that I'm free!
There are no chains!
Upon me!
There are no chains!
Upon me!
Well, I can see,
The stars now,
And I know what lies
Beyond...
Cause only glory
Waits for me there,
And all the things,
Of which I'm fond...
Another glass you
Raise to me!
For when I'm dead,
And when I'm gone...
But you remember
What I say, now!
Cause we'll be friends
Long when we're gone...
And I can see it...
That gray day.
And I can smell it!
That horrible rain!
But I don't feel it...
There's no more pain.
And nothing,
Will ever be the same...
Dec 7, 2019
Dec 7, 2019 at 9:48 AM UTC
A badge without condition bought cheap, from a thrift store
Lies with brass medals and plastic ribbon, from uncaring hands.
A paid add on the paper floor, claps on the back from glad-hands,
Claps for marrying poor, she’s worth it, all her rotten core.
You walk with conceit, when the army stamped it’s boot,
A doctor’s note, before the sarge could break your seat.
Readies from your parent’s purse, a hand-out on the brew.
You queue for ****** on the roads in a pimped-out hearse.
Slurred words drawl from the dark, blood spit on the street,
Fistfights punctuate grammar like an exclamation mark.
You clone another you, spat from the womb cold;
A mother’s love wrapped in smoke of cozened blue.
There is no end to your ambition.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 7:10 PM UTC
Moldy coffee and ***** socks
fight for space among graying memories of memories as the dirge
in my head plays on.
It's like a hearing test that lasts every waking moment, this ******* ringing in my ears.
It's 3am again and death is in the air,
so close to home I feel the ancient heat
of leathery wings on my tired shoulders.
So tired
This tired body of mine,
I've really put it
through the ringer.
I've gotten some good miles
out of it.
The *******
The car wrecks,
The *******
The fistfights,
The beatings,
The *******
The drugs
and the *****
and all that *****
The mosh pits
and the miles walked
and all of those crazy
dangerous risks
all in the name of fun.
I should have died so many times
I didn't though.
I'm here.
I'm alive.
I'm still giving it
right back
to the *******
and getting all
the *** I can,
while I can.
Your God wants me to be happy
So I took the drugs
and the punches.
I walked for miles
and sat on the beaches
and woke up in holding cells
and found out what it
means to truly love
and felt what it's
like to die from
the inside out.
I've been at one with every
molecule in the universe
that ever has been
and will be.
I've seen the spirits lights
while the first ones
sang and drummed as I
wept in the dark.
I've felt shame
and fear
and loss of hope;
hunger pangs
mingled with glorious
hallucinations.
Life is but a dream
Really though,
dearest,
none of that matters
when I'm alone
at 3 am.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 9:00 AM UTC
Do you recall?
The last drop of alcohol
Was it satisfying at all?
A brawl descends from the fistfights in the bar
It will never last, cause in the end
One brawl replaces, copies and pretends
Show it all again
The fruit of desire
The wine of fire
With a drop of blood
Sacrifice enough
And see the green pale mist
Under the moonlight
Ceremonial twist from the ignorantly blessed
Close your legs they all want your ***
First place in a shallow contest
Drink the water of purity
As clear as it has ever been
Watch the ****** up world we’re livin’ in
Earth is the dominion of man
Man is a prison of satan
Soldiers walk from land to land
Death takes soldiers - walk hand in hand
No light till you get through the gate
Earth will never confine your soul
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 11:05 AM UTC
Backyard brawls
and sunflower gardens.
Bezzled nights,
twinkling jeweled fireflies,
musky, humid air,
the tickle of rain on your cheeks.
Washed away,
down
the
drain,
youth,
gone and can't be recaptured.
Fistfights
in high school hallways,
tumbling in stairwells
with the beasts of our fear,
and the rolling thunder
of adulthood smashing
against our minds
like tropical waves against
arctic icebergs.
Youth, again;
mother's warm body
cuddling together
in the morning replenishment
on a spring mattress
that is continually sinking down abyssally
where boy and mother
cope with the aftermath
of the brokenness
shrouding their home.
**** drifting up to the ceiling
as we drank our full
of Everclear,
bought by fathers
who's lives had been beaten
down to a depressed mattress
in the corner
of
a garage
speckled by oil slicks
and draped by fiberglass
falling in curtains from the ceiling.
The absent smell of crack in the air.
Sunday breakfasts,
grandma in the kitchen,
mom in the basement,
kids farting around in their rooms.
Mom's curdling yells ripping the house to shreds,
as she sought peace,
in a quiet, and moldy sarcogophous.
There is a place where bombs
and mortars fly,
where a smile is as hard to find
as a mosquito in a desert,
and self-hatred is easy to come by
when regret blankets your mind
with every sand-choked breath.
And in this place, time crawls
by only springing to life when happiness
blooms, and idling when emotions
are sautered, and the search for feeling
is like waiting to get bitten.
But in this place,
there is a garden,
where youth and adulthood
collide, where the sunflowers bloom
once more, and the blood spilt
before the war began, gives life
to the seedlings,
and the soil is not so rotten
as it has grown older and tired.
The mind, finally centered
among the chaos, finding
its concrete horizon in the oasis
of a centered self,
centered finally,
in the midst of this brutal
and beautiful disaster.
Feb 5, 2016
Feb 5, 2016 at 12:35 PM UTC
Poetry is a healthier alternative
To picking fistfights with strangers
(*OI. THE **** YOU STARIN' AT?*)
Or stalking your gigs
While groping the knife
Tucked into my waistband
Because convalescing in silence
Is still better
Than having quack doctors and faith healers
Crowd over your body
Touch, rub, probe, poke
With their grubby fingers
Write you illegible prescriptions
Charging you a king's ransom
For 'professional advice'.
*You just need to get out more.
Fresh ***** is the answer!
Pray. Have faith.
Geez, you're not over it yet?*
It would've been better
If I just kept my **** mouth shut
And kept up the facade
A walking picture of health.
I don't need your ******* platitudes
Your uncomprehending stares
The drivel you proudly spew
Like how you so lovingly ladle out swill to the homeless
Assured of another mansion in heaven.
**** you.
This is not a soup kitchen
And I don't need your pity.
(And condescension does not save you.)
Convalescing in silence
Is still more logical
Than rallying people
To eradicate sickness from earth
By arresting viruses
Putting them on trial.
A virus does what it does.
It is in its nature,
Like how stray dogs bite
And how ****** ****
Poetry is the best choice.
It's active non-action.
Reflecting
While the seasons change,
The fullness of time comes,
And news of your impending demise arrives
Of when your moral destitution
Finally catches up to you.
And by the time it comes around,
My youthful ignorance will have bled out a bit,
And I will receive the news
With a smile, a cigarette, and a new poem.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 12:07 PM UTC
where did it go?
left in some boxed toys in a garage sale?
nah, it was left on school buses and playgrounds
trampled in the grime and dirt of too many fistfights.
tossed aside for the brave face that kept me alive for
another surgery…and recovery.
I tried to find it a few times
but too much time had passed
and little else had gotten better
I had moved on…unwittingly…unwillingly
moved into the territory of the adult
able to hold my own in a conversation
that should have been over my head
but was not.
I had discovered a different kind of toy
one that smelled like wild cherry bubble gum when first opened
one that was magnetic as it’s sounds unwound across my tape machine.
I tried to talk to people my age about my discoveries
They were too busy discovering their own wonders
like a pretty solid fastball...or even second base.
Years and youth gone
I lived alone
with notebooks, headphones, and cassette decks
content to leave their world for my own
a combination of riffs and words
that inspired me to use my own voice
to produce as good or better than the gods that lived
in my backpack.
I make my way…
and the old gods still ride along.
***
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
I woke up before dawn with my eye whites ****** red.
The fierce pounding in my skull made me wish that I were dead.
My lips are cracked, my throat is parched, my mouth is desert dry.
I can't remember much about last night, no matter how I try.
I had misplaced my childhood faith that I had gained through my baptism.
As a teen I seized on alcohol as my replacement ism.
There the spirit was available to all who had the price
With services held daily as habit turned to vice.
I have slept at times in gutters when the weather wasn’t cold.
I have ****** on strangers lawns near taverns where my drug is sold.
I have gotten into fistfights, the kind that no one wins.
My family doesn’t want a son who drinks and reeks of gin.
Tonight I took a seat in a church basement for a change.
I’ll spill out all my secrets. A sponsorship will be arranged.
I know I’ve hit rock bottom and that will be my foundation
I hope my new friend Bill W. will lead me to salvation.
Nov 3, 2017
Nov 3, 2017 at 8:39 PM UTC