"lugging" poems
the peonies in the front yard are just starting to bloom.
the only thing i lust for anymore is sleep.
my fingers are aching to touch another human being,
and when a woman lugging around her child
in a stroller asked me the time,
i dropped the package i'd been collecting
from the post office
while fumbling for my phone.
i cried on the way home,
and applied a thick coat
of red lipstick.
thinking perhaps the camouflage of confidence
would hide the fact that i am merely
wilting husk of vapidity.
the peonies in my yard will die
in six weeks.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
it was the second time
this month
catching the last metro
from Charlevoix
lugging my bike
and a poor night's misfortune
with sore feet
and thinking
about the lack of history
that lay beneath Montréal
how I longed for Sofia:
an underground museum
at every metro station,
the time there waiting
amidst the relics
like a tree growing
into its roots
but here on the platform
of Lionel-Groulx
with its gaudy orange
60s bathroom tiles
I must occupy myself,
and so I reminisce about
how some numbers
make me feel
how 6875 reminds me
of what I’ve been putting off
and 5359 used to be my go-to
and 777 brings me cheer
and 888 was supposed to be
somehow luckier
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 11:09 PM UTC
Passover Moon's
****** hue
eclipses
the ordinary
in veils of
miraculousness
obscure
rouge
halos
illume
elliptical arcs
guiding
footsteps in
a righteous
exodus
across
troubling
waters
forsaking
hovels
with
painted
doorjambs
dripping
lambs blood
Mezuzahs
bleat
memories
holy
murmurs
bespeaking
lamentations
of ancient
hosannas
our
desperate
supplications
flesh out a
distressed
humanity
seeking
deliverance
from the
vengeance
is mine
Elohim
may it
be nigh
we wait
watching for
an always faithful
Good Deliverer
to honor the
covenant
to lift
despair
with a
liberating
yoke
lugging
leaden
burdens
Oh Holy
of
Holies
banished
in the wisp
of a bitter herb
our
distended
bellies
fill with
unleavened
grace
sweet
droplets
of manna
consumed
with extreme
gratitude
arriving
at journeys
end to
promised
lands
fully
satiated
and free
to rest in
sanctuaries
of radical
hospitality
luxuriating
in an infinite
abundance
for all
sojourners
Selah
Music Selection:
Big Mama Thornton
Go Down Moses
Oakland
4/15/14
jbm
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
Sometimes I wonder
What my life would be like
If I had never met you.
Not in a spiteful way,
Just out of curiosity.
Would a new name replace
The space
You've reserved between my lips? Or would I still be out there,
Counting time
Between the ticks of my metal detector?
Do you remember the metal detector?
You know,
I always was a treasure hunter.
I don't think I ever told you this but,
Before we met,
I modified it a bit.
I was tired of lugging it around,
So I put it in my heart.
This way,
I had nothing weighing me down.
I used that ****** thing for years.
After a while, though,
I got tired of metal.
I only ever found scraps, anyway.
So I modified it a bit more.
Honestly,
I barely made it out of that one intact,
But it was worth it.
This time, I was looking for love.
I don't want to run this tangent
Into the ground,
But I guess what I really want to know is
Would my heart ever beat that fast again?
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 9:18 AM UTC
i struggle with the tomb.
i come from the moon to alight upon an earthen vase
to pause upon the lip and swoon.
i am no ghost. but through walls, i come.
lugging a throne of tears and thimbles
of blood... my fire, more dark than the hunter's motive.
my life more spark than the sun's design.
complete me, and i will endure the wane hours
and shun all harm... like the one stroke of lightning
in a cup, swollen with angry bees
affixed to a white sheet of ice... I'll descend into You,
like a lodestone on a chain,
to be hoisted up from the fathoms of Loss
to drown in our madness, just because -
like a noise
in a sound.
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 4:17 AM UTC
waiting in a white room with no furniture
the humming air conditioner
can’t even drown out my thoughts
waiting to go back to maryland
for a hyperbolic death sentence—
to meet with the wonderful hypocrites
who shaped my cynicism
and anxiety
to feast on the last meal
of failure.
waiting to hear back from potential employers
who hold my future in their hands
but prefer to let me stew
waiting for the tears to start falling
I can feel my eyes welling
my lungs lugging every last bit of air
to my heart as it pounds
like an urgent knock at the door
waiting alone
with just my thoughts.
waiting to see the friends
who never got out to see the world
to look at me with delight, hoping
soon I will re-join their ranks
as a mindless tractor mechanic or slurpee filler
waiting for the cheap bottle whisky
in my stomach to regurgitate
waiting for numbing conversations
about menial tasks and news
like the weather, or something else I can see in front of me.
waiting to be coma.
waiting to see my reflection—
or shadow.
waiting for paper and pen,
waiting for suicide by rhyme at the end.
Oct 30, 2011
Oct 30, 2011 at 8:10 AM UTC
Like a patterned rug
Beaten to be rid of dust and
Flopped over a balcony railing, a leopard
Hangs her hefty hands beneath a bough.
Head lolling lazily, she awakens.
Fingers like silent meteorites dig
Craters in the loose, dry earth.
From the grasses emerge many warm black eyes, unseen
And vicious: floral pockmarks on
Her carpeted exterior: cruel camouflage.
Deftly lugging her **** back
Into the branches to feed on its flesh:
Patterned rug stained.
Ears ***** and whiskers twitch
As boughs creak and twigtips reach
For the ground: the impala’s weight
Has weakened her arboreal home.
She panics not.
She slinks softly back into
The grasses: better to sidle away unscathed
From immediate danger.
Pride and body intact, she will **** again
Elsewhere.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
Dear…. ***** face.
Oh, man, I hope you didn't get offended by that I am so sorry… Well, I mean you shouldn't because you’re like the spawn of Satan, right? So… No. you know what? I’m not sorry. You have made me say sorry to such a large amount of people in a short amount of time to things that don’t even matter.
Things I shouldn't be sorry for.
No, I am not sorry for my social anxiety.
No, I am not sorry that I said the wrong thing
And no, most definitely not am I sorry for having a good time for once.
You are not only stomping on my mind but my heart. Why the HELL are you making me panic in the middle of a convenient store with only two other people in it when
I just want my chocolate bar.
I don’t want my cheeks turning red, my heart racing, and my voice shaking like I've been crying for 45 minutes.
And then I will go cry for 45 minutes, while not enjoying my chocolate bar because you’re the one who pushed me out of those doors empty handed and back up into my bedroom where I will spend the next 3 days feeling sorry for myself, but also hating myself. For lugging you around all my life instead of letting go when I should have a long time ago. But no. It’s hurts to let go. Because every time i try to, the rope burns that have scarred my hands never heal. They’re always crying out to me whenever I eat in public, use a public restroom, make eye contact with strangers, and… just simply exist.
I am tired of you twisting and churning my stomach every morning before I go to school, every time I want to go somewhere alone, every time I see someone who’s better than me.
I am tired of you always having that crooked smile on your face every time there are tears running down mine.
I am tired of you.
Sincerely,
the girl who you’re possessing.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 9:38 PM UTC
When we had left the Seamans mission
lugging our suitcases,
Beeston seemed the best place to go
4.6 A.B.V felt like pushing the boat,
but the fillies were feisty enough
to flog off our descendants
into the zeitgeist.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 2:11 PM UTC
Why must I feel the way I feel?
Want to wake up but this nightmare is real
Too many mazes clouding my brain
Swirling in circles driving insane
Poor judgement leading emotions down hazardous roads
Lugging regrets like oversized loads
I worry
Stress over nothing at all
Convince feet I'm destined to fall
Tripping over thoughts I create
Actual obstacles don't get in the way
Self-sabotaging before having a chance to fail
Sink the boat BEFORE setting sail
It is better to know you're a loser than be unaware
Best get used to being alone because others won't be there
May 3, 2020
May 3, 2020 at 4:40 AM UTC
The sun was still cold in your breath,
half-awake still dreaming and we are way past that hour,
just waiting for the first light to break in and steal the dark away like a stereo.
The air was fetid,
reeking of sad news,
swirling about,
but we moseyed along carrying dustpans and brooms,
lugging garbage bags
like we were sanitation Santa, sweeping cigarette butts,
and in them I saw burnt time,
and in them I see mounting bills.
The cold air was doing a number
on us, dumping its oblique
sorrow on our then ragged frame
as we emptied waste baskets.
At times when I utter the word doctor,
your eyes go creamy,
your ears wag,
perhaps I was doing an impression—
an echo
of a forgotten life.
People were still groggy on their cardboard beds, their lips wearing soot as they drooped down on the side of their faces, the night weighed heavy on them.
Unlike most sight that slide through and veer away from despair in the flesh, yours fell on them with flecks of your heart knowing that from them we are dimes apart.
We swept, but your broom was nimble, springing into life in those days. Out of nowhere your hope swung a fist. I always remembered those words like a promise and held on to them like a limb.
“Though the world may forget, don’t dare forget who you are.”
Oct 8, 2024
Oct 8, 2024 at 12:58 AM UTC
I counted the ambulances as they glided swiftly by
screeching painful pitches at the cars who were now anxiously parting the pavement sea for the savior's convience or just because they have people that they love & the possibility of a home hitting tragedy shocks their entire bodies.
I sat all pensive and overwhelmed once I got to number ten, recalling all of the times the bad news was delivered nervously to me by a man in a truck lugging red sirens just like the ones flashing before me. That desperate ring, too identifiable to us all creates an eerie silence like a funeral song. Not because of the way it cuts the airwaves but because of the memories it instantly plays back to us.
We all know why an ambulance comes & none of us want to be the one curled up in bed a week from today, crying at the light as it pours through the shutters, sick from a void that aches with every move.
Everyone is reaching for their cellphone.
"Please I need to hear your voice. Tell me
you're okay" & then you see the panicked
lady in the lane beside you who
was directed to voicemail.
I'm so sorry
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
my head is a skin tied
water-shit.
wobble minded and
stench ridden.
it bleeds diarrhea.
an ache not of throbbing
but like, pressurized
wet tissue membraned
balloon stuff.
could pop
any time.
will pop.
just a matter of
time.
seven thousand days now
I've been lugging this
bubbling froth-tank.
this neck ornament.
this ***** machine CPU.
and all it does is
complain about
itself.
Jun 24, 2013
Jun 24, 2013 at 7:40 AM UTC
Emptied out the suitcase of my thoughts
I'm kinda tired of lugging them around
Searching for a place to just feel sore
Without some ******* telling me
To flip my smile around
If I could? Don't you think I would?
If I could just blank out the bullcrap of today
If I could? You bet I would.
Funnily ******* enough, things don't quite work that way.
Wiping away the scratchmarks of the day
With the antiseptic wipe of yet another pill
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 11:54 AM UTC
In Tibiao,
My childhood’s home
I remember riding on a karosa, a cart
Being pulled by my grandfather’s carabao
While watching the setting sun
As we go home
After his day’s work,
I, accompanying him.
Tonight,
Seeing vehicles
Plying EDSA, lugging tons of passengers,
With their back lights, neon red, glaring
I think of hundreds and hundreds of bull frogs
Being pulled on their hind legs
With their smoldering eyes
Looking at me.
The night
Is my grandfather
Walking me home.
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 2:30 AM UTC
all this time
my back was turned to your face.
I walked only on the paths that ran
anti-parallel to yours.
my hands grazed before me on the stone,
naked knees were scuffed and skin ragged
lugging myself along the grounds
as I crawled forlorningly away from you.
when honestly, the only destination
that I ever intended to arrive to,
was your arms.
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 9:59 AM UTC
The girl you see on the train
With a piercing to commemorate each heartbreak
Has a few in places you can't see
— Because you can't know her relationships;
You don't know her heartbreak, or pain.
Instead, you count the suitcases and handbags she is lugging.
The girl who got a new piercing each time her heart broke
Has more smile lines on her face than studs,
So you can see she has had a fair measure
Of good moments:
She is not all rough edges and elbows.
But what you don't know,
And can't tell
From looking at her alone,
Is that she got a tattoo
Each time that she moved on.
The girl with as many piercings as heartbreaks
-And as many tattoos as movings on-
Has eight pieces of jewellery
Strung through her skin,
But only seven markings
Inked into it,
Because she knows she'll never quite get over
The one she can't quite forget.
You'll have to speak to her to know her—
A stranger on the train—
And let her tell you about her life;
And one day you'll hold her hand
As she gets her eighth tattoo done.
Break out of your bubble, if only because
One day, eight heartbreaks in, you'll help her break even.
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 7:41 AM UTC
Primative man, pre written word had it easy,
When it came to wooing a woman,
It was as easy as
Lugging a 150 lb log
A few miles,
Fending off a pack of wolves with a stick and a torch,
All so your Cro-Magnon flower could have something to sit on,
To keep off the cold cave floor,
While she weaves baskets, and cures skins.
The simple song,
Or the rabbit pelt and the shiny stone
Have devalued, since the arrival of currency.
But a poem,
Masterfully crafted,
Is a currency all its own.
The value of which is determined,
Not by the poet...
But by the reader.
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 2:05 PM UTC
Clarity
In unity
Your scrutiny
Can never pay you well
Arrogance
Upon your stance
This final dance
From death
Twirling and whirling
And feeling so free
Hopeless and thoughtless
And caught in between
As the world keeps turning
And churning
With every lunar pull
Above
And beyond
In space that's so cool
Screaming
And careening
Off course
Of course
You know that to each single life form
Caught in this storm
Is caught in the throws of terror
Fairness in vitality
Death in severity
Life in virility
Pulling and tugging
Lifting and lugging
Laughing and crying
Living and dying
In the eyes I see the knowledge
I see the intelligence
The ability
The stability
Unable to attain
To ascertain
And regain
Life
Such is the struggle...
...
Of gods and men
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 1:37 AM UTC
Memorial day
playing "hide and seek"
among the graves
Geraniums
--lugging water to them
My mother forced--
our childish "signs of the cross"
By her parents' rest
we prayed
She-- still 13 there
rubs her tears away
Stealing flags
off other's memories
to keep them as my own
Once while hiding
a discovery
of rain-worn lamb
on mossy stone
I read--
"...Our darling girl,
1923-1925"
Never any flowers
May 27, 2019
May 27, 2019 at 12:26 PM UTC
I lie awake in the wooden room
I have constructed in the woods
dreaming of pretty things.
Knots like ochre eyes stare down from the oak wood panelling.
Outside, the wind brushes up against the fogged glass
laid into the side of my house,
a feeble proxy to the coyotes song
rippling through the ballooning darkness.
I built this home, all 275 square feet,
lugging tools and supplies through the barren acres.
I laid each brick into the fat black earth
preparing the foundation,
laying my life into it
nailing each board around me.
When spring rolled in the trilliums poked
through the earth to admire the commotion.
Later came their friends: the mountain-pride,
buttercups and harlequin lupine.
In my dreams, the lupine could become a cloak of royal silk
wrapped around me,
the King.
Golden ore and stalks of silver
poking through the earth
where trilliums once grew.
That night I dreamt of pretty things
Shiny things still blotched my vision in those days.
I didn’t yet have a roof to stare at
late into the night, and the stars
burned through the treetops and into my
dreams.
Daylight was for building.
Laying the hatchet into wood
driving wood into frames,
with little metal nails from the hardware store
many acres away
Where men bought sidings and rope
for homes with Ikea furniture,
their wives wearing sapphire rings
and golden hoops
and all the pretty little things
I dreamt about out here,
in the forest.
Here, where sun cascades
through my windows in the early dawn.
So I close my eyes, and
decorate the silence with dreams
of pretty, pretty things.
Jun 20, 2017
Jun 20, 2017 at 11:55 AM UTC
It feels like I keep
my feelings in a bucket
And each day
it gets heavier
and heavier
Until I empty it.
But until Then
I carry this bucket around
It drags in the dirt behind me
and weighs me down.
And at the end of each day
I feel so heavy myself.
Every night I sort
through the bucket,
All the anger is crusted
to the bottom
and It's impossible to scrub away
Happiness is always falling out.
It takes a lot more happiness to fill that bucket
and even then it weights
less that even a speck of anger.
It takes a drop of sadness, a smidge
of pain, or even a dash of
frustration to overpower the happiness and
shove it from the bucket.
Finally one day I look
down at this bucket of mine and
I realize, I'm tired
of lugging it around
and carrying
the wounds
and anger of my past self.
Tonight I empty my bucket
I'll let the pain and sadness
go
and set the anger free
After all I can't hold on to it
forever
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 6:28 PM UTC
In my veiny skeletal hands, is a war
One which I did not start
Just a innocent bystander
Watching my solid foundation turn into powder
Reeled in involuntarily
Siding with one party
Making an enemy of myself to the other party
A war which wasn't mine
A war I was not shielded from
A war that ended long ago
In my mind the war is still alive
I know not why I carry it with me
Like the scars on the flesh that covers my carpus
The scars in my mind run deep
They will never fade
In my frail heart therein lies memories
Of a past ought to be forgotten
The memories I cling to
To fuel my hatred
Like pouring diesel into a burning fire
Sustaining this fury that burns inside of me
Lugging resentment like that massive suitcase too big for you to carry
Forever the oversensitive one
These overwhelming emotions are taking over
From here on now rationality has been lost
This war will be my demise
Bitterness in an incurable sickness
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 9:48 AM UTC