"gasoline" poems
Ang pag-ibig
Hindi parang load
Hindi yan nauubos
Wala sa tindahan
Hindi inuutang.
Ang pag-ibig
Hindi parang gasoline station
Na daraanan mo lang
Na paparkingan mo
Pero iiwan mo
Pag nakuha na ang gusto.
Ang pag-ibig
Hindi parang kalsada
Na malawak pero tatapak-tapakan
Na aayusin at mas mapapansin lang
Pagka may lubak na.
Ang pag-ibig
Hindi parang payong
Na gagamitin mo lang
Para sa pansariling proteksyon
At itatago pag hindi mo na kailangan.
Ang pag-ibig hindi yan sasakyan
Na daraan sayo at hindi mo mapapansin
Na bubusinaan ka
At wala kang tamang pandinig.
Ang pag-ibig
Minsan makukumpara mo
Sa kung anu-anong pumupukaw ng atensyon mo
Minsan kasalungat
Ng kung anong nakikita mo.
Hindi mo na lang mapapansin
Nandyan na pala,
Eh kaso lang, ang layo ng tingin mo
Naghahanap ka pa,
Eh nasa harap mo na pala.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 4:17 AM UTC
For Al, who left us
With each passing poem,
The degree of difficulty of diving ever higher,
Bar incrementally niched, inched, raised,
Domain, the association of words, ever lesser,
Repetition verboten, crime against pride.
Al,
You ask me when the words come:
With each passing year,
In the wee hours of
Ever diminishing time snatches,
The hours between midnight and rising,
Shrinkage, once six, now four hours,
Meant for body restoration,
Transpositional for poetic creation,
Only one body notes the new mark,
The digital, numerical clock of
Trillion hour sleep deficit, most taxing.
Al, you ask me from where do the words come:
Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,
The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your babies to sleep.
The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.
The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
finally declaring, without stuttering,
Peace on Earth.
The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, very old bartender's recipe,
Salt, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order, onion rings.
These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,
poem aborning!
Contract with this moment,
now satisfied!
Al, what you did not ask was this:
With each passing poem,
I am lessened within, expurgated,
In a sense part of me, expunged,
Part of me, passing too,
Every poems birth diminishes me.
_________________________________
(this poem more than most,
for its birth celebrates
my loss, your loss,
which cannot be exonerated 8/7/18)
_________________________________
written at 4:38 AM
September 8th, 2012
Greenport Harbor, Long Island
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 7:07 AM UTC
A poet in love
Is a match soaked
In gasoline.
-r0
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 7:29 AM UTC
I.
I’ve swallowed too many I love you’s
to be afraid of coughing up blood.
They cut you on secret.
Who knew it was drinking gasoline
and sawdust and every little inflammable thing
and then sitting down cross-legged
in the heart of a howitzer; soft.
II.
You are a soft explosion.
You are streaks of a rebel orange
in a sky that is supposed to be blue.
You are steel rods in the curve of my spine,
holding me straight.
III.
I love you’s are like death notes written in ash:
you’ll have to smoke your way to it.
Smoke cigarettes, journals, curtains,
and yourself to get that much ash in your lungs;
trying to blow smoke rings into your finger;
my ceiling knows more about my sadness than you do.
IV.
Saying an I love you once will have you
chanting “don’t leave me” on a rosary;
love will take your bones and leave you
lusting for somebody whose back
is the last thing you’ll see, and whose
skin you’ll think you left your keys in:
and now you’ve locked yourself out
of your own house, in a storm
whose sirens wail in your ears and remind
you, you’re hopeless and homeless.
V.
I love you’s leave no exit wounds,
no shell casings, and when the time comes
you’ll be telling them all how his bullet
ricochets in your ribs,
but emotion never made up for evidence
in the court of settlements for a broken heart.
VI.
Telling someone you love them is like cutting your jugular
and not expecting to bleed out.
VII.
I love you like the pages of a mad girl’s journal.
VIII.
The moon turns from an ally
to the haunting image of science and realisation:
you share the same sky, but no longer the same bed.
And astronomy keeps ******** you over
when you look up at the sky
and no longer understand constellations.
IX.
Love makes it more getting-back-at-you
than getting-back-together-with-you.
X.
Every time you taste blood,
you’ll know you kissed somebody
with teeth like needles
and they cut you everywhere; they
bit you, they bit you, they bit you
and you kept letting them.
Dec 21, 2015
Dec 21, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC
Never thought I'd listen to Kodaline,
as I walk down the Memory Lane
Oh, Clementine
For when I was with you I've always been sane
You said you'd be at nine
But since you were no longer mine,
I spent all night with you in my mind
And glasses of champagne on my hand
Oh, Clementine
It's hard for me even to draw a line
Letting you go costs insanity I can't define
With countless loss of dopamine
But I guess if you're fine
I'd do my best not to intervene
Oh, Clementine
February 14th you're no longer my Valentine
Driving through the sreets I ran out of gasoline
But the time is due and I've come to the deadline
While sighing 'I'm done'
I know it's time for me to be gone
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
Don't discriminate
Just don't do it
All it is, is hate
Hate is made out of other hate
and hate only fuels more hatred
You pour gasoline on a blaze of loathing
with every discriminatory comment you make
It doesn't matter
if they have done something you believe is wrong
because you have done many things that are wrong too
it is not for you to judge
so black white brown both or polka dotted for all I care
gay les straight bi or into adhesive sloths (we adhesified furry little sloths need a little love too)
man or woman or sloth
punk emo crazy nerdy weird loser REALLY weird bookworm or literal worm sloth or adhesive sloths (like me)
nature freak or homebody
axe murderer or a cereal killer or a cheerio killer
it does not matter who or what they are
they are all human too. or all sloths. that too.
Just don't discriminate
and share the slothified love of adhesiveness
accept everyone as they are
even if they hang from trees and move in slow motion all day like me
even if they are rocks
because rocks are great
in fact this one time, I found this rock and man, it was absolutely hilarious it should have been a stand up comedian
okay well not a STAND UP comedian, because I mean... rocks can't actually stand up... but like a really hard and Sedimentary roundish stone shaped sit down (well more like lay around like a rock all day) comedian
Wait, what was I talking about?
oh right, don't discriminate!! :)
against other humans or other sloths.
or adhesive sloths.
...I'm not crazy! my mother sloth had me tested!
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:23 PM UTC
Endless stains of blood
On white t-shirts
On nights that scatter blue trees over black earth
Alight by shooting stars
The mother tells her child
Unwilling to unlock the truth
The truth those stars
Don't grant your wishes
They grab them
With scarred scratching hands.
Alight,
The damp stitches in the soil
Cemetery symmetrical to hospital
Those shooting stars circling
Like a vulture
Speeds towards dead carcasses
Still, the murdering star will not cease
To break bones
That have already broken
To take lives
That have already been taken
To burn
What is already charred
Today
smells like burnt muddied skin
feels like gnawing on your own fingers for feast
sounds like tired, howling machines
spurring and sputtering, never-ending their onwards trek
Swallowing distances and with it, nameless faces
countless places
Today the earthquakes of death
Don't make the land shake anymore
For it has learned to cope
With the desolate cemeteries filled with mute bones
Today burns like gasoline
Looks like intestines decorating destroyed doorways
Today it rains curdled crimson
Tell me shooting star
If the child liked jam on his toast
Did he snore?
Did he like math? Or english?
Shooting star doesn't know and neither the bombs.
As bodies fall from trees
like rotten plums.
The world was born in blood
And has not ceased to suckle its wounds
Endless blood thirst, Endless war
But not endless skin to bleed.
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:41 AM UTC
Breathe in some gasoline
As I fly down to greet
Trade my butterfly wings
For a touch of machine
Take my evergreen
Get some new gleam
Your noxious fume spoil
Find some Asfalt sheen
My freedom I trade
For rusted shackles you see
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
comfrock, you **********
get up off your crazy knees
and I'll belt you down
again --
what's that?
you say I eat stem pipes?
I'll **** you!
stop crying. god ****
all right, we dumped your car into the sea
and ***** your daughter
but we are only extending the possibilities of a working
realism, shut up!, I said
any man must be ready for anything and
if he isn't then he isn't a
man a goat a note or a plantleaf,
you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, *******
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there's no way
out . . . you see, you
understand?
hey, Mickey, hold his head up
want to break his nose with this pipe . . .
god **** I almost forgot the
nose!
death is every second, punk.
the calendar is death. the sheets are death. you put on your
stockings: death. buttons on your shirt are death.
lace sportshirts are death. don't you smell it? temperature is
death. little girls are death. free coupons are death. carrots are
death. didn't you
know?
o.k., Mack, we got the nose.
no, not the ***** too much bleeding.
what was he when? oh, yeah, he used to be a cabby
we snatched him from his cab
right off Madison, destroyed his home, his car, ***** his
12 year old daughter, it was beautiful, burned his wife with
gasoline.
look at his eyes
begging mercy . . .
9.8k
I can imagine
myself as a midwife or a medicine woman—
waking early
wandering
the wooddesertmountain
with bad-ass boots & a patchy coat, pockets filled with rosemary and crystals
driving an old truck that smells of rolled cigarettes and gasoline
drinking hot tea out of a mason jar.
i see all of this & I wonder where this image will land me.
Portland in the fall?
Nevada in the Winter?
Colorado? Montana?
But I need the trees.
My power is in the mountains.
Or maybe it is in the moon—and her face isn’t bound to the side of the mountain
i need the howl of coyotes, the smell of pine, the sound of running water over rocks, cold air, wind.
i crave this to the center of my
bones.
i want to dance with fire women, sing air songs, pray to the earth, bathe in the water, and
speak with the
spirit mother & the red father that binds all of these together in a chaotic harmony i will never understand.
i need to paint my body with the stain of poke berry and
run, foot against stone, against decaying leaves.
there is a savage within me
that needs to run free
that needs to bark at the moon and breathe clean air.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
while I may do you perfectly. the snow angels on gasoline st., did you
see them? All of the houses were dripping wet too, one girl with gold laces on her leopard shoes wore red plastic pants; totally soaked to the bone.
to train ourselves to brave the heat of each others' bodies as we awaken in one small bed, one small blanket. the both of us yawn. it's so fun to make waffles but neither of us like to eat preference. I love you to death but prefer to brush my teeth alone- one tooth at a time.
embrace your new t-shirt, even though not everyone enjoys a good show of a flock of crows. hand drawn indie wicker-hipster prints. coffee by the pint. you crack me up like vitrifying glass sheens of the individual bubbles in a bubble bath or the ****** glazed eyes of the monsters' eye while a shark attacks.
creaky sounds of bodies mapped by fingers, tickled tummies rippled by listening to witch house singers. you crack me up, count chocula. It's Saturday, I love to laugh while laying down. everybody's funnier when they're laying on the ground. we toast to ghosts.
luminous lengths of birthday candles
lickediddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd d 0 y0urself as best you can
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
******* sawdust
Whiskey and rust
This is the life
This is cloud nine
This used to be a simple alibi
But now it's just a damaged lullaby
It's hard to kiss
Skin that crawls
But in the dark
The weakness falls
Unasked questions
They do rebound
Silent screaming
Rings all around
This used to be a simple alibi
But now it's just a damaged lullaby
Tattoos, perfume
Gasoline fumes
Nursing this poison
cringing, no end
Dysfunctional love
is what we make
just one more hit
It'll be the last I take
This is the life
This is cloud nine
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 11:54 PM UTC
He pushes me away
But pulls me right back in when he wants something
He wants to see a little skin
I gave him what he wanted foolishly thinking the boy who wanted to see me naked also wanted me as a person
I play the game waiting for someone to win
We're just going in circles
He wants my body and I want to be loved
He wants to mess around and I want someone to stay in my life
We're like fire and gasoline
I let him go trying to end this silly game once and for all
But he slithers his way back in my life
And I let him stay
I know he will never love me
I can't make him love me
He only loves my body
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
He was my backbone
I was his rock
We needed each other
Like the sun needs the moon
We were Apollo and Artemis
Absolute opposites but that's what made us so great
He was tall
Blonde haired
Blue eyed
And fair skinned
I was short
Brown haired
Brown eyed
And tan
He was happy and open
While I kept to myself
He was strong and bold
While I was shy and conservative
He saw that I was fragile
And I saw that he needed tenderness
He taught me to be strong
And I taught him to be kind
I tamed him
While he made me wild
I managed to cage the beast
As he opened the door to a world I didn't know about
The longer we were together the crazier things got
Soon there was no holding us back
We fed off each other
We were fire and gasoline
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 2:06 AM UTC
So I'm just sitting down
Beside a stranger
Playing his guitar beautifully,
Meditating on the idea of how we
As human beings can only go so far.
As far as you can go
Exceeds as far as you can see.
I'm physically near-sighted.
I'm not sure if it's because of that long ago accident
When a tsunami of gasoline soaked my eyes,
But everything far is a water color blur to me,
Is it in fact the same for you?
There are addicts on the curb,
Abandoned dogs without a home.
How did they get there?
I can guess and assume,
Without the slightest clue.
I'm as anxious as an alcoholic
In a state of withdrawal.
Did I fall from Heaven like Lucifer?
Slightly overweight
Then slightly anorexic.
I've thought of less lately,
Less of fate.
Struggled with labels,
"That kid is anti-social."
As soon as
Words *** like fertile *****
You regret the consequence's backlash.
Why am I even bringing up **** from the past?
Don't get me wrong,
My story is not a complete sob story.
Anything I hold back,
I will admit and confess and address,
Always.
Originally written 2/4/11
Revised 10/15/14
(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
That tree said
I don't like that white car under me,
it smells gasoline
That other tree next to it said
O you're always complaining
you're a neurotic
you can see by the way you're bent over.
July 6, 1981, 8 p.m.
6.3k
I want to get hit by a BMW.
I want to get hit by a Mercedes.
I want to get run over by a Porsche.
Something big.
I want to get smeared against the pavement
by a Cadillac Escalade.
I want to get hit by one of those big ********
who drag gasoline across the continent,
but I want the driver to be a manic psychopath.
I want him to stalk me on the sidewalk
and then run me over slowly.
He's not any coward, not like those bald patriarchal
Corvette drivers in polo shirts tucked into khakis.
No, he's a great fat man, a hairy beast with
a crooked stare that slows the pulse on impact.
I want the police to cringe or get scared interrogating him,
and haul his truck somewhere to be inspected.
I want the price of gas in nearby areas to go up
by at least fifteen cents for two weeks.
I want to get hit by a BMW.
I want to roll over the windshield,
and drag under the bottom for about ten yards.
I want to separate at the middle and leave organs on his
left side view mirror and hanging on his hood ornament.
I want to seep blood deep into his car,
and when he turns on his heat,
he'll smell my blood full blast in his face
burning.
I want to wreck the car inside and out.
I want to get hit by a car with a McCain sticker on the bumper.
I don't want to get hit by some middle class Ford or Honda,
or someone's shit-level Chevy or beat up jalopy.
I want to get hit by a BMW.
I want the driver to make his tires scream like banshees,
and leave four long streaks of rotten burned rubber on the asphalt.
I want him to step out in business attire, and gasp, inwardly.
I want to flip off the sky, because my aim is bad,
and call him a coward for hitting the brakes.
I want him to think,
"What did I do?
Is he Okay?
What am I going to do?
What if I lose my license?
How will I get to work?
How will I pay for this.
Does my insurance cover
vehicular manslaughter?
I'm not alone right?
I'll get through this.
I'll survive.
I'll just be another statistic.
That's all."
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 12:46 PM UTC
god meets
mystic: the
swing of winter
and lakes frozen
over.
god meets
Judeo-Christian sinner
whose eyes sought
lead along the lake’s
shore.
heavy.
heavy.
god meets sin:
a welding of
metallic vines and
out of tune music.
god meets underwater
Vulcan as he swallows
a laugh. gasoline
tops the lid
of the lake.
god meets the
fire that wicks the surface
until the body bubbles.
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 1:08 PM UTC
Everybody’s going nowhere and I am far gone
I can’t even see the ocean the motion was all wrong
Just a sea of broken bottles and cigarette models
On the floor, so high I had to clean the sky
Never been an existentialist, cynic, or a pessimist
Just another body on the edge of metamorphosis
Clinging to a rope I hope will not snap
Like my neck if I hit the ground, oh crap!
I’m apocalyptic fresh and I can’t say why
If I do it’s a lie, see the needle in my eye?
Meditation, preparation, or a conscious legislation
Couldn't help the fact my words are often littered with abrasions
As if shock rock poetry could save me from my death
It could possibly enlighten but I wouldn't hold my breath
Now I’m frightened by the notion of a new world order
But anarchy is hip if you’re on this side of the border
I digress, what a mess if you know what I mean
But I've burned out quicker than gasoline…
Dec 14, 2012
Dec 14, 2012 at 10:11 PM UTC
You were my favourite hello
You are my most painful goodbye
You were the cool breeze
You are the rain in the sky
You were cool summer days
You are dark stormy nights
You were laughs in the park
You are late night fights
You were a comfy worn in sweater
You are an itch I can't scratch
You were the music to my ears
You are the gasoline to my match
You were cute spontaneous kisses
You are the stream of tears at midnight
You were said to be my fairy tale
You are not my shining knight
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 10:07 PM UTC
"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall." --Che Guevara
Shake the tree as hard as need be,
To make the apple fall,
Be it green, or red or yellow,
Be it ripe or still too green,
Succulent or rotten to the core,
Shake the tree and make it fall.
If shaking the tree does not suffice,
Plant a worm most carefully,
Let it eat the apple's heart,
Break its spirit as it feeds,
Sap its strength most thoroughly,
then just wait until it falls.
But if that tactic also fails, don't lose heart,
Rip out the tree's protective bark,
Salt its roots,
Strike it with chains,
Until no beauty remains,
And await the apple's fall.
And should the ****** tree still stand,
And the apple cling to life,
Take an axe,
Sharpen it well,
Chop at the tree, bring it down,
Force the apple to the ground.
And should the apple still cling,
To a branch devoid of life,
Douse the shattered, useless tree
With gasoline, light a match,
And burn apple, branch and tree,
All to gloriously fine ash.
Do this always in my name,
For "If you tremble with indignation at every injustice,
Then you are a comrade of mine."
Wear my face with pride over your heart,
Shake raised fists in indignation, scatter the ashes to the wind,
What does it matter that ashes can't be eaten, so long as we win!
If interested, you can hear my reading of this poem at https://open.spotify.com/episode/6MlOmVvH3n8QehG1dzH4Za?si=MWl_rE0YQLy3bQvS8dbtOA
Author's Note: No political philosophy has wreaked as much misery as Marxism in every country it has touched in the 20th and 21st centuries. Fascism and Marxism are two sides of the same totalitarian coin, and while we rightfully condemn fascists, somehow too many folks in the media, academia, and entertainment worlds continue to have a soft spot for Marxism and Marxists/Communists old and new. Here, I've taken two quotes attributed to Che Guevara whose life has been romanticized in books and movies, including the popular Motorcycle Diaries, that focus on the young revolutionary in a positive light as a freedom fighter. The real revolutionary was quite different--a hardened, cold-blooded murderer who executed countless people without mercy, due process, or regret, including fellow Marxist revolutionaries who disagreed with him. The end justified the means for him and for all Marxists--and their equally deranged polar opposites, fascists.
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 6:02 PM UTC
We are watching the clouds
bandage an incarnadine sky,
we are practicing our best knots,
weaving an army of tourniquets,
we are slow-dancing
barefoot on the edge
of a razor.
We are watching
a demolition derby
in the driving rain,
the smell of motor oil
mixing with gasoline,
the hard melancholy
of dying machines.
We are waltzing from room to room,
smearing our names on the floor,
we are keeping time to slow music,
bleeding out behind closed doors.
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 8:15 AM UTC
I'm somebody's daughter
Made of sugar and gasoline
I wash away the filth until I bleed
Desperate to be clean
I'm somebody's daughter
A small and hungry crime scene
Made of guilt and strawberry cream
But I never cry in my dreams
I'm somebody's daughter
Trying to become untaught
They love the sound of sorry
Even when they know I'm not
Sincerely, someone's daughter
Jul 20, 2023
Jul 20, 2023 at 3:48 AM UTC
"I'm just not into you"
Pour water on their hearts
Stamp the embers with my shoe
I don't carry matches, a flint, or gasoline
But the sparks fly, anyway
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 11:43 AM UTC