"lakeview" poems
Justin I forgive you, won’t you call me, your birthday must be coming soon we haven’t spoken since we moved our family into the desert. I just pray you’re not seeking cotton fever yet again, chasing the dragon, or at the very least eating school buses while falling into ‘H’ before you find yourself in bed drunk again, and on Ambien too. Dead too soon. You’ve always wondered why I didn’t introduce you to Ryan, my other incredibly dear and brotherly friend. Well wonder none more, he’s in a padded room at Mt. Sinai in Lakeview or perhaps Northwestern’s adult care unit, there was talk or at least I imagined he could make it to Lakeside Manor right there East of Foster. So it’s clemency, peace of mind, and something to loosen the edge off your back, something to let you fall, something to set your pain at weightless your mind at I-Don’t-Have-To-Give-A-Fuck-Anymore, my friend where have you been? Where have you taken yourself? Please drag yourself back at least a half-step, reverse your position and engineer an out please. I can’t begin to accept losing both of my brothers to two versions of the same disease.
Oct 20, 2019
Oct 20, 2019 at 1:10 AM UTC
i wanna stand on the pier with her
staring out at the lake
and i wanna push her in
and then jump in behind her
she’s short
and she’s barely tall enough
for her mouth
to be above the water
i wanna hold her
her legs around my waist
and kiss her
while counting her freckles
i want to look out at the lake
look out at this town
with all the people who would stone us
and let them see us
i just wanna kiss her
Apr 20, 2021
Apr 20, 2021 at 10:40 PM UTC
She is the prettiest girl
Nothing would ever change that
It was a new place
And the sun rose above the mountains.
Locals covered the eyes of children
And Christian women cursed;
Something about this girl
Cast a shadow over the world.
Down at the Lakeview Cafe
Where the tips were generous
People caressed their cups
And spoke of that girl.
The clouds hinted snowfall.
"Dead," they say.
"Probably not an accident."
A single snowflake landed.
If it could, her blood would tingle.
She was the prettiest girl.
Nothing could ever change that.
#4
Jul 21, 2011
Jul 21, 2011 at 12:12 AM UTC
We need more Martians , they nattered at me all the time,
More monsters—people like to be scared,
As if those callow youngsters,
Growing up with two cars in the garage
And three sets at the country club,
Their fraternity mixers at Whittier or Occidental,
Knew the first **** thing about terror.
Still, they wanted me to grind out the harum-scarum hokum
They enjoyed watching two-reelers on Saturday afternoons
While men were doing hard work in Leyte and Manila,
As if the transitory fear of some ghoulish bogeyman
Would last through the thirty-second epics
Featuring some cartoon bear shilling for beer
Or bunnies extolling the virtues of toilet paper.
Let me tell you what fear is, I would say time and again,
*It’s a padlocked fence and a smokestack
Which isn’t churning out a **** thing.
It’s the jobs you can’t get because you said something
(And more likely, you didn’t) twenty years ago.
It’s one more envelope from the bank or the phone company
With bold red lettering on the front
That you don’t open because you know what it says
And how it doesn’t matter one bit,
Because you can’t do a ******* thing about it*,
And these promising young men would just look at me
Like I was some poorly made-up extraterrestrial
From one of their Buck ******* Rogers potboilers.
Several of my neighbors here were among the men,
Mostly boys in truth, who marched with the 126th New York,
Taking fire at Petersburg and The Wilderness,
At Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
We have spoken about the horrors of war,
The kaleidoscope of confusion and dread,
No direction leading to shelter, no road guiding the way to home.
They have said that, as frightening as the sound of the minie *****
Zipping overhead like malevolent flies,
And the cannon were, what they found truly awful
Was the manner in which those fields,
So like the ones where they had flushed out quail as children,
Became foreboding nightmare landscapes,
Containing a dark madness
That they never dreamed could have existed.
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 10:28 AM UTC
I lay alone in a hotel room, 7:14
I sung no forgotten sonnet. Honestly
Picked up the phone and screamed
Threw a bundle of papers against the wall
Killed my sleep and murdered my intuition
Pushed my bed into the ocean. Just listened
Young. 21. Hands on heart. Outspoken truth
+ 2, 23. That's me. No use scratching an itch
I wander 4 corners. Sunken refuse extends
Curtain covered window life from the outside in
Kept it clotted. Your advances were knotted in rope
But I slowed down. Peeled back and removed the wound
Took a tumble inside. Let the dream die
Wilted in agony. Placed my feet onto the cold stone floor
I'm not me anymore. I payed for this, yes?
It was then I took a life, an idea. Just like I haven't said...
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
It would be no surprise
If I committed suicide,
Forget the overdue goodbyes
Wishing momma wouldnt cry.
Soon on desperate wings I'll fly
Looking down sky high,
Passing other weary people die.
Till then I'm watching the rolling tide
On my Lakeview drive
Chained to this life
Dead inside.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 9:52 PM UTC
I
Vast hollow scraped
from land by the
slow cadence of some
retreating glacier.
Melt from high flows
larvic to fill the void.
Quiet invasion of
waters forming
stone quarrying
rivers until,
overfilled the
crystal clears
Overspills and
streams to ocean
lapping at milk-
white cliffs,
hungry as cats.
II
Quiet invasion
walking on
continental drift
Wattle and daub
blue-dyed men
lakeside.
III
Hush now the
quiet priest
hands out leaf
to cover the fig
fruit of fecundity
IV
Without sound
quiet bands move
always move and
increase until
Around the fire in
moonlit waters shown
the tom toms open
relentless beat
V
Too late
too late the quiet
invaders imitate
and mock
Then ****
Nations at war
within
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 5:06 AM UTC