"infomercials" poems
Happens every other day
Feelings of guilt as a wasteful being
Rearrange brain function
Monopolizing firing synapses
Recycle, reuse
Regurgitating, dull whitted infomercials
All wanting you to buy, buy, buy
Sure you could use another sharp knife
Maybe even a blender
On special now buy one get one free
A kitchen already full of utensils that you don't use
Caught up in McMonsantoland's corporate sponsorship
Frankenburgers all around
Cancer is the cure
Picking you off one by one
Genocide
Intelligence retardant children growing up in front of CIA bugged televisions
They know your patterns, habits, what makes you tick
Big Brother is watching all of you be enslaved
In the end your box will be numbered
Eight humans deep
Stacked high along the streets of America
Guiding the way to the ****** sunset of our existence
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 8:02 PM UTC
Handicap suburban hippies
Cruising like hyenas
Trampoline ******
****** tissues in ashtrays
Natural born riders
Liquid courage makes little peanuts
Alien Nation
Infomercials on mute
Strange thugs and dark markets
Needles and pixie sticks
Under the manmade weather
New types of bullet holes
Slaying the jabberwocky in
The new Transylvania
The Yes monster
Cranium stadium
Swords and roses
Barren space
Insolent minx
Holidays gone bad
Continental drift
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 1:15 PM UTC
sara left me on the 14th of may,
while my mentor laid dying,
while my debt went unpaid.
over routine coffee and cigarette,
she watched the flimsy fabric
of my flesh
catch flame.
she floated away
to ricochet off summer lions,
whose pride lies between their
worn thighs.
i planted heavy.
aged a century in a week of
wine, infomercials, and hospital
calls.
every mutual friend i asked
about sara's condition,
told me to leave her be,
cast me in creep status.
my beard grows gnarly.
my smoldered remnants
held together by cobwebs.
and everything i ever loved
is on its deathbed.
Jul 7, 2010
Jul 7, 2010 at 11:33 PM UTC
I've never felt more than half an hour:
Insomnia trickles down until the black-tar-ridden-sap oozes onto
My partially open eyes.
And, to say I've never been in love.
Emotions rise up and retreat-
A constant heaving of the battered
Chest- saving us from finding out
How frightening life is.
Murmuring our sordid laments to Lady Death,
Beneath the murky glow of hotel room bed sheets
And fluorescent dollar store night lights,
Too vacant to summon anything more than a whimper
From our submissive minds.
Nothing ends, here.
One upon another, words flow effortlessly
Out of our cavernous mouths,
Clogging our chests with empty syllables until
We forget why we ever tried to do something more
Than care.
Depression can be felt anywhere-
The air slowly seeps from the hissing
Caracas of a worn out tire,
Or the lungs of anyone
Still enough to remember.
Mindlessly chanting Hail Mary's,
We taunt time with our penchant for immortality
And hospital lobby greeting cards,
Until Aphrodite descends to sell her soul
To the highest bidder.
Mother, I have killed the world
With a time bomb that will never detonate:
Ceaselessly ticking on and on-
A reliant backdrop for something
Too harsh to exist in silence.
Our hearts have fallen from our sleeves
And into films, romance novels,
And 3am cooking infomercials.
Land of the living:
The walking dead,
The too-afraid-to-tell-you-how-I-really-feel,
The product of a broken people
Who traded silence
For a language full of mixed intention.
Children of the night,
Blindly parade around before noon,
Trying to buy redemption
At a corner store market
For half the price
Of the pulpit.
Afraid of hearing the latent echo of
Our own pulsing hearts,
We fill our lives with white noise
And intimacy, too stagnant
To exist without our 3am spirituals.
Anxiously arranging our feeble lives
Around minutes and hours-
Slaves to false agendas,
We battle the dark, secretly,
until soon
We lose sight of the purpose
And get caught up in the motion
Of a world too drugged out on
Redemption
That we forget our own names.
Jan 29, 2014
Jan 29, 2014 at 9:07 AM UTC
Infomercials drowned out by sirens serve to remind me of how low my income really is
I'm here to remind you that
Your life's a disaster
I'm here to remind you that
you can scrub and scrub,
but the mess you've made
will always remain
I'm here to remind you how
far back you've truly fallen
But I won't tell you
That you're dragging me back, too
Ash trays overflowing
Anger and sadness
Seeping through rotten teeth
Nonexistent work ethic,
But your eyes are still
So tired
And I can't understand
I hate that I find myself thinking,
"Maybe life just isn't meant for everyone"
But some people are just so bad at living
I want to say
"The system failed you"
But I am the system
And I am here to fail you too
They told me this work is ice cold
And I thought my warmth could melt it
Now my teeth always sting
And my hands are always shaking
From the bitterness
Watching failure build up
And pour out all around me,
Hands too weak to stop it
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM UTC
The sloppy rain slips and slides down the fogged-up windows,
and this lets me know that I am not as small as I think I am.
In a city of three million plus, I feel like the soul of a nation,
even though I'm just a twenty-one year-old piece of plastic, drinking a hipster beer.
The waitress has frizzy hair and oily skin.
She's holding in late-night infomercials and missed ballet recitals, behind her words.
She looks at my luggage and asks where I came from or where I'm going,
and I tell her that the fun thing is that I have no idea where I'm going --
and that I still haven't decided where I've came from.
This city allows new-found anonymity, and I want that to be my cause.
With each passing glance, I know they don't see me, and, to me, that's the slumber-kissed throat-slit I've always dreamt of...
...the streets play music that I only hear -- and I know that's not fair, but I don't care.
And the homeless represent the bowels of the city.
And the businessmen are the ghost-filled engine.
And the middle class is the defense-mechanism I always wanted for Christmas.
And I am the empty delusion, desperately seeking a new pollution.
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
Let me go in the Dark
I want to be in there
In the space of corpulent, infectious glands
Swallowing innocence with labyrinthine hands
Let me be one with the Night
My home is over there
In a place of ubiquitous fears
And a plethora of basking tears
Let me soak in the abyss
The void is so near
A comely figure,
an evocative sadist and protégé
Dripping candle wax on me
in San Lorenzo, Paraguay
Let me walk among ghosts
In the Portal Del So hotel
Tossing back Xanax;
Vicodin with a liquor chaser
Gin and vermouth, *****
anything to forget her.
Let me wait in living purgatory
With other pods of skin
When the wind shakes the barley,
back home
Where a wife and son
never left me alone.
Let me go in the dark
Past the tortured guilt and sorrow
Where a family is made of flesh
and not ash
Where a house remains
and the fires don’t last
Let me cry and weep in silence
In a room with rotting drapes
A static-channel TV,
a two blade ceiling fan
People engulfed in one another,
A demon for a man
Let me shower in cold, thickening blood
Standing atop broken medicine cabinet glass
So many packs a day of cheap cigarettes
and loose women
None ease the pain
like the morphine in the kitchen.
Let me go into the chasm
The vein snake is thirsty.
I take a little more each time it feeds
But maybe not waking up
is what the snake needs
Let me sleep in the dark
While infomercials for prayer play
Juxtaposed to a zealous vagabond
and father
The last serpentine dosage
for a broken martyr
Let me go in the dark
Let me see them again
I’ll wait and watch the room shrink
And hope my eyes
never dilatorily blink.
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 4:29 PM UTC
*Cossack Cowboys
Riding Llamas
That they dress
In pink pajamas
Teeny boppers
Blowing bubbles
Biker chicks
Causing trouble
Nuns in Habits
Punks in chains
One or two
Of the deranged
Rubbing Buddha belly
Cravers
And the band
Harvey Danger
David Bowie
Elton John
Both of them
With Spacesuits on
Vegetarians
Eating chicken
Love it fried
Finger licking
In a line to
Meet and greet Obama
Now I wish
I'd brought my Mama
On the T.V.
Slicing, Dicing
Infomercials
Are enlightening
Lindsey Lohan
There's more trouble
Send the Police
On the double
Michael Jackson
With his monkey
Chandelier
Swinging junkies
Bottle Rocket
Ridding crickets
Dolly Parton
Doing dishes
Tubs of Crisco
Set for wrestling
Bee Gees do be
Disco dancing
With Bruce Jenner
Wearing makeup
Dolly's kitchen
Filled with soap suds
Rubber band
Bumper babies
Call me odd
Don't call me crazy
Shooting stars
Carry Uzis
Washed up stars
Drink beer in Koozies
Donnie Osmond
Singing show tunes
As Marie blows
Animal balloons
Circus Barkers
And their Minions
Waylon left us
Shooter Jennings
Heidi Klum
Without makeup
To say the least
She looks a bit rough
American flags
As rainbow banners
Peal, scratch, and sniff
Talking bananas
Hookha smoking
Manatees
Oh yea...
and then there's me
These are just a few of the things that lean
On the lamp post of my dreams*
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 1:50 PM UTC
You said you wanted me to come over, and even though it was nearly midnight, I agreed.
I hit every red light between here and your house: start stop wait and wait and wait and start just to stop and wait again, stuck listening to weight-loss infomercials,right-wing talk radio,that god-awful jingle for the lawyer that tries to sound like a wild-west cowboy.
Idling under these red cyclops eyes, I wanted
to tell you that this had to stop, that I was going home, that I’d see you tomorrow, maybe,but I finished the drive and remembered why:
the red scent of your hair;your lips against my neck, saying,“I’m glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 11:10 AM UTC
I know how you feel
At 4am when everything should be
Quiet; eyes closed,
Breath steady at an even pace,
Keeping pace with the subtle rhythm
Of your pulsing heart.
Nothing stirs, here,
Besides your afflicted mind,
A testament to all the
Late night infomercials
And dimly lit gas station windows:
Dutifully droning on
Amidst the sleepy silhouette
Of normalcy and a good eight hour rest.
There's no use fooling yourself,
Closing your eyes and heavily counting off
Sheep, in a vain attempt to assimilate
Something like sleep-
There's no point trying, here,
When a sliver of sky outside your window
Starts to turn a subtle shade lighter
Than 2am darkness.
Being alone is never as poignant
As when you're woken up in the middle
Of the night,
Surrounded by dark space
And stagnant memories, impartial
To the emptiness of a moment.
I know how you feel,
Restlessly turning your body
To face the wall,
Adjusting your lumpy feather pillow,
Peeling off your socks:
Routine can cure the coldest hearts,
But sleep will always elude it.
Stuck within your impetuous rituals,
Solitude seeps in
Through your open eyelids;
4am drips into 5am,
And before you know it,
Everything is gone.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:45 AM UTC
Life is the flat side of a butter knife-
Relentlessly turned upwards, upon a
Battered cedar coffee table. His muffled
Silver skin glistens amidst the two week
Old newspaper and hardened crumbs of
Sourdough toast, catching the reflection
Of his weary hosts, as loud voices and silence
Rapidly bounce off the walls and onto his
Credit card-thin body:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Purposeless, he waits for someone to rescue him-
Pick him up from his five foot grave
Covered in peeling wood and sentimental scratches,
And slowly slide his cold, frame across the counter-
Anything to remind him of his relevance.
As the rusty butter knife lays, abandoned,
So life carries on- oblivious to his melancholy
Wails that fall dormant to the loud, blaring stereo,
And shifting feet that tread so softly
As to keep the monster from waking from her slumber.
Thus, the routine drones on and on,
To the soundtrack of 2am infomercials
Claiming indestructible silverware sets:
Oh, but they have yet to enter the finite world of Father Time.
As he sets his place at the table, wearily awaiting what's to come,
The butter knife exhales hope, and suffocates in an air of subtle indifference,
Claiming his stake as a hollow prop, within an afflicted stage.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 6:45 PM UTC
Treasury Casino - 2:30 am
From my seat in the smokers section
I can see the Brisbane eye,
the river,
and the performing arts center.
Streetlights are mans answer to the cosmos
"Everything you can do,
I can make better."
Once it was said that we were made in God's image.
Now we can safely say that God was made in our image.
I am in a quiet place of the universe, the night stretches on
visible through the stately
wonderous
walls
carved of old wood and sandstone.
I am in a suede armchair, winged for pleasure.
The ceiling in this room is twice as high as an ordinary room.
Circular steel ***** hang down like a path of bubbles
left by a leviathan.
My water was poured with panache.
Let me set the scene for you:
I'm in the Treasury Casino, this building was once the QLD state treasury, it never changed really.
Sitting next to window that overlooks the river, a glass of water sits to my left. The room is the size of a double garage, maybe bigger. The floor and ceilings are made of old wood, the walls are decorated with a transparent gray fabric that remindsme of smoke. An old marble fireplace sits in a wall studded with tiny lights that resemble stars or candles. Above me is a series of hanging circular light fixtures that resemble a trail of bubbles left by a leviathan.
This room was designed for, and houses opulence.
The TV plays Eminem.
Peter Garrett dances like a Parkinson's sufferer.
And looks like Disco-Nosferatu.
We have killed the night
and neon power
and infomercials
**** the romance
once held
by late night solitude.
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 12:54 AM UTC
Last night
I picked up a self help book
I drank some "meditation tea" whatever the hell that is
I listened to an awful song
that wouldn't remind me of you
I tried yoga
I even prayed to God
God knows it's been awhile
since I felt existential
I went to my favorite grocer
and talked to the most inviting cashier
I thought it might help
I "channeled" my energy
I lifted weights
I flirted with my trainer
I put on red lipstick
I weeped.
I blogged
I analyzed myself
and my family
and mostly my dad
I "ate my feelings"
I googled "how to get over someone"
I ripped your love letter
in a million pieces
I reminded myself of all my "blessings"
I drove an extra time around my block
I stayed up way too late
watching infomercials about beauty
and vapid mind numbing consumerism
I tried to learn the guitar
I called my brother
just to hear his voice
before the beep
and just to hear mine
after it
I smiled and stared out the window
and pretended I was in a Hitchcock film
I went outside to smoke a cigarette
and I don't even smoke
I just wanted to feel the biting cold
against my hidden skin
I went shopping and bought an overly
expensive sweater
that won't fit me
unless I grew about ten inches
I read the Catcher in the Rye eight times
And I made this ******* list
that makes me feel so utterly hopeless
and chaotic catharticism
what a messy heart
staining my perfectly
neat life.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
I like my poems medium rare
I like my clothes to look like couches
I like my thoughts to be deep, even though they make me scream.
I like my music meaningful
I like my dancing naked
I like my people whether they hate me or love me.
I like my romance movies
I like my speeches to move me
I like my infomercials even though I don't buy anything.
I like my flowers petted
I like my animals kissed
I like my coffee strong even though my thoughts make me crazy.
I like my boys sappy
I like my girls happy
I like myself, because I am the things I like.
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 10:39 PM UTC
Now, we find needs just so we can fill them. We go insane so we can buy the meds. Soccer moms popping children’s pills. Everyone dreaming suicide and depression. No how. No why. No reason.
We want inventions so we can make infomercials. Who cares about shipping and handling? **** the national debt. I’ll give you my credit card number, and you’ll send me a pet nail trimmer, even though Max (the dog) died four years ago, you never know what you’ll need right?
We find government just to have politicians. Everyone promises a solution to the problem. No one ever expects it to pan out. Instead, we vote on name recognition, parties, and skin color. Who cares about platforms or empty promises?
We wage wars just to make video games. I’ll shoot you now, your brother will shoot me later, but don’t worry, when we’re all in the ground. Someone, somewhere, will design a kickass, strategic, lifelike game, where dying only means regenerating and less ammo.
We all want something, or nothing. We all work to live, live to die.
Try just to fail, fail to try.
We want anonymity, just to forget the tragedy of our minds.
Aug 2, 2010
Aug 2, 2010 at 12:18 PM UTC
Isn't it funny how things trend
Fashion,
The latest, men's jeans is on a comeback
I didn't know they left
Indiana Jones,
what's up with that,
is it a name for people to do crazy ****
Amazing birds,
I have been amazed with birds all my life,
I wish I could fly and **** on people.
Carne De MiCarne,
A fancy word for Barbecue
I like the back yard barbecue,
I can pronounce that.
Women tax,
is that like black tax,
they should be charged
with all the money I spent on females
the famous controversy
the blue and white dress
or is it black and gold
what the **** do I care
i don't wear dresses
Recipies/Food
why do when I follow the directions
it never comes out the same as the picture
I eat enough as it is already
TV Shows
The food network, just make me hungry
How it 's made, why do I care
CNN news, they can beat a dead horse to death
The UFO channel, haven't seen a flying object yet,
except when a girl may through something at me
Gadget's & TV infomercials
They drive me up the wall and they never work
that's why they give you a bonus
5 for 1 price
Don't want to drag this out so here is the last one
What's up with black girl names
shaqunda, liqunta, shaletta, and so on
Just last week I found out that a young black poet
named Sha'Condria "iCon" Sibley had wrote a poem about this.
It went viral, the Dailey show talked about it,
The Washington Post wrote about it
between twitter, youtube and instagram
she got over a million hits
Check it out on youtube it's called
Little black girls with long names
My hat is off to her and I respect her
for taking Poetry to the next level for us
Thanks for all the chatting and writings,
you guys and gals are great here on HP
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 10:09 AM UTC
Stay up late with me
and we can watch infomercials
about vacuum cleaners and miracle cures
and holy water.
And maybe if we are lucky we can
catch reruns of I Love Lucy and Happy Days
because those seem like better times.
Or just talk to me.
even if it is just nonesense.
I want to hear you talk
until I fall asleep.
Tomorrow we can go to the park and sit on a bench
in front of the lake and feed the ducks with
stale bread.
I like the picturesque and the late day sun
and the small things
because they aren't so small after all.
Not when you are with me.
How about we take a ride my old rusty car and
tune into the AM channels about politics
and ancient jazz and opera.
Let's brush off the cobwebs
and find what we are looking for.
It's the small things that are the biggest things.
Those moments in time that seem
like nothing.
They mean everything.
We gotta make it last because
forever isn't a thing.
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 7:24 PM UTC
You wake up early already feeling an itch behind your eyes and at the base of your spine.
behind your throat. Sweating but **** - it's November and you had the window open. Four cups of coffee and seven cigarettes to start the day. A tip: if you put your hands in your pockets then nobody can see them shaking.
"You look hungry. Eat something."
force down a McMuffin or two at noon and a ham sandwich before work. Drive the car.
that night work is noise. The shift ends with a paycheck.
Go withdraw thirty bucks. Find some *****
"A guy's gotta cut loose."
a guy's gotta be cut off.
***** this ***** that
twisted up so tight. wound around the bend. coffee and the dashboard lights. Radiation.
three AM fumbling with the keys - alone under a street light at the bus stop
wake up to the tv playing infomercials. Shower. Now repeat.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 10:51 AM UTC
Cutting, like rings in a fist-fight.
Jumping, flying, drowning, floating
She said trying to fall asleep was like jumping.
Promises like traps:
with bills
and utilities
and watering bans
and road construction
and mixed district schools
and mall-fires
and field trips
and infomercials
and unaffordable abortions
and MTV
and Show and Tell
and homeless people
and freemason bolo ties.
You’re sick
You’re sick
She said she just wanted to know what it felt like.
Oct 31, 2011
Oct 31, 2011 at 4:33 AM UTC
Paint left, humidity purgatory,
Sticky but practically peeled off, while
Water and lime, the kind you hear about
On infomercials promising to rid
You of Built Up **** is trapped between the
Panes they said they replaced but I don’t know.
Clothes piled with invisible coatings of
Dust from the floor last swept ten years ago,
And sweat from leaving the AC off
(Because saving a few bucks is worth it),
And sweat in stained dresses when you touched me,
And sweat in damp briefs when I touched myself.
Paper stacks, three years, busy work
And scholastic articles I should
Have read, say I will, but won’t pick up,
And verses I wrote that go nowhere but
Here and to a real poet, happily
Trapped at an average liberal arts college.
So instead of dressing or cleaning I
Call you, naked, a fattened odalisque,
Silent for hours, my thin mouth, a suture.
A fit black girl cut across the dog park,
She saw my bare shoulders, sloped pudgy pale,
We gazed in the other’s faces, but now
I can’t think what she wore, and she knows
I’m just sad, still: a ghost in the windows.
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
The edge is what the words meant to our juvenile minds
You came like a milkman of crazy like I paid you a subscription
Because the married voice of our desperation may be rocka fella
Don't mean we are gucci chanel postes of imatation handbags
But I sit at the end of a dinner plate admiring your constant behavior
And wondering how a high school misfit still views a. Past excuse as a comment for hate
Might be strong and smile but worried actions equal a cold shiver
A snuggie is the present warmth left by infomercials
I won't say ur the crest of a ohs blue...
But I still appreciate a *********** like you....
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 6:51 AM UTC
no one wants to be
the seats at the
front of the movie theater
where you only sit
if all the other seats are taken
no one wants to be
late night television
which you only flip to
cause it's better than
infomercials on QVC
no one wants to be
that t-shirt at the bottom
of the drawer, that you
only wear because all
your other clothes are *****
no one wants to be
wanted at three AM
when you're bored
and lonely cause everyone
else is asleep
no one wants to be
used.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 4:09 PM UTC
i look for you
in the faces of strangers
they have your eyes,
eager and sad,
the eyes of instability,
the same brown as an old bruise.
i often wonder why i didn't
inherit your eyes.
perhaps it's a metaphor for all the differences between us?
there must be a reason
more significant than the obvious.
it's easier in the daytime,
when i don't have to think of you.
when there is enough light to keep me concentrated
on the endless distractions
that keep me smiling,
for there is always something to
smile about.
but nighttime is a different universe,
the moon, a lonely thumbnail.
it reminds me of how you used to chew your cuticles
and place them neatly in a little white pile
while we would watch an endless stream
of ****** infomercials.
sometimes you don't realize how much you were in love
with someone's naked habits
until they're gone.
when i was sick,
you would always make sure the washcloth on my forehead
stayed warm.
i miss that.
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 2:51 AM UTC
i.
fascination
sings "tainted love"
in a los angeles bar.
tests lips
on picnic tables.
feel the bark in my
back against the tree
and the backseat
of my car.
ii.
infatuation
takes shots of tequila
in mission cantina.
eager, greedy
sliding up my skirt
in the bathroom.
follows the path
to sneak glances
in my bed.
iii.
satisfaction
sits on your couch
drinking wine coolers
in the dark.
silent infomercials
and jungle beats
your hips and mine.
rough hands fading
down my leg.
iv.
desperation
whispers by a pool
hushing crushed hearts.
not the time
not the place
a forced reality to face.
avoids complication
holding my tongue
inside my chest.
Dec 25, 2011
Dec 25, 2011 at 10:33 PM UTC