With a heart made of paper mache,
A mask I had made the same way,
One to fill a vacant place inside,
The other tries to portray a lie.
But they still see my eyes behind,
That smiling face, they all see my eyes.
My heart made of paper mache,
And a mask I made to face my friends,
Because they don’t understand the way,
The hurting they say will fade away,
Never did; Stays the same.
So I pretend; I wear that face.
Smiling like they think I should,
A paper smile protects my pride,
A paper heart remains to this day.
Heart made of paper mache fills an empty place.
A mask I use to face each day,
Smiling for me to make them believe I am okay.
Made me a heart today.
Made from paper mache.
Made to take the real ones place.
Made to replace.
Made a new face today.
Made from paper mache.
Made it a smiling face.
Made just to face each day.
Made to hide the pain.

Paper mache hearts
Origami bodies
Folded in cranes
Molded into what ought to be

Fear in flight
Wings beating endlessly
Trying to fly
To places we will never reach

Our hopes torn
Turning into scraps of vellum
Drifting down lightly
On to brittle phellem

Thoughts become calligraphy
Ever so beautiful
But antique
To remind us we are frail
     In this paper mache world

I've used them on my windows
To see the clear outside,
If I read the Op-eds,
I shudder, shuttered and hide.

I've spread them 'neath my plates and cups,
My shelves all neat and tidy;
But the headlines made it clear to me
My glass is more half empty.

They had a place in the litter box
For **** to scratch and squat;
I laid them round my garden plants,
They made fine insect traps.
Rolled and twirled they'd start a fire,
I could fold them into hats.
They cleaned the grease from BBQs,
And they're safe to pick up glass.
Crumple them for packaging,
They work as school book covers;
Add water and some flour,
To shape papier mache lovers.
Fold seeds in them to germinate,
Then use them for compost;
There's many ways to employ
Your Times and local Post.

But I won't subscribe to Dailies
For the felling of our trees;
And yet I miss my papers,
And the ways they worked for me.
But when enthroned,
You'll hear me grouse,
There's no **** paper in this ****-house.

My cell works well to scroll and swipe,
But it's only good for a virtual wipe.

Paper mache hearts
Stepped on
Broken-
As people walk on.
Not enough glue
Not enough paper
To repair them all.
Not enough-
To place the shards of our hearts
Back together.

Is a pack, is a clique,
Is a group of tightly-knit friends
People who can rely on me
The way I'd rely on them.

                                                        Bu­t people these days are plastic dolls
                                                        Car­bon copies, cardboard homes

And paper mache walls.
Disappointing, fake, humanoid clones.

There are times in life
when a man needs change,
And I don't mean,
dimes and quarters.

Remember when you
were just sixteen,
Driving all alone, solo,
in your old man's Buick?
All the windows down,
radio music blaring,
Your bare arm draped
out over the side of the door.
to better exhibit your bicep.

Hell mister, no doubt,
you were ten feet tall,
the king of the road.
Ever wish you had,
that feeling back again?

Cars were always my thing.
I owned some Detroit
Muscle, Full blown Chevy,
Firebird 400, Chrysler Hemi.
Smoked some tires and
went to Court a time or two.
Of course all that was long
ago in my fitter youth.

When I became a Yuppie
I acquired a Poodle Puppy,
a Porsche and a MGB.

But the ***** does turn.
and so then, did I,
And my road got,
a little bumpy.

Along came marriage,
then a baby carriage.
And a big house
In the Burbs.

Then came a progression
Of Volvo Station Wagons,
to Soccer Dad Mini Vans,
to large SUV's.
All for hauling,
any number of things.
Kids and dogs, strollers,
bikes, kites and scooters,
Fellow car poolers,

And less we forget,
"Pulling" things too.
Boats, RV's, Utility trailers,
and all nature of landscape,
gardening, and general
shopping paraphernalia.
Little League Teams,
Drooling big dogs,
Papier Mache Volcanos.
Home Coming Floats,
Once even a Goat
You name it, I hauled it,
Or pulled it!

Years rolled by,
eventually the Kids
flew the nest, got married.
And low and behold,
The wife and I split,
Each going our separate way.
No one's fault, just grew apart.
The thinly veiled allegorical
Previous Patriarchal
arrangement became,
A whole new start,
A workable self allegiance
to just one.

Soon once more, I was the MAN.
I ran out, bought a **** boat
But not having the kids around,
Soon sold it, having found out,
that alone, I was not a water sport.

I caroused around, dated women,
got my pockets picked,
learned a few lessons.
Fell in love, fell out again,
Took a few pretty good blows,
Right on the chin,
Even some down lower.

Round about then,
An Epiphany kicked in.
Remembered my most,
ennobling, happy events,
behind the wheel,
driving Dad's Buick.

As I stepped on the lot.
There was never doubt,
There was only one choice,
I just had to have that,
Little VW Bug Red Racer.

Nothing like your Mother's
Beetle, the engine's up front,
Not stuck in the trunk,
And man it produces over,
200 Big Time Horsepower
Not to mention,
Lays rubber in three,
Of six gears.
Getting all the while,
33 miles per gallon.

Receiving additional help,
from a sweet Turbo Booster,
Just like a big, Indy Track Bruiser.

There's 19 inch racing
tires and alloy wheels,
They look so cool,
Spinning in motion.

Dual stainless steel exhausts,
And best of all,
a cool collapsible,
Convertible top.

Rack and Pinion steering,
Handles like a sports car,
Yet still offers a backseat
To take my Grandkids,
out for a spin.

Dude, it's got,
All the bows
and whistles!

Top Down Driving is such a thrill,
Makes me feel sixteen again.
The open road, the sky above,
The wind blowing thru my hair,
what there is left of it.

Perhaps the only thing that
Could possibly make this
Driving experience greater,
Would be to speed down,
The road, going eighty,
Behind the wheel of my
Little Red Racer,
Completely **** naked,
And of course all the while,
Feel the wind in my hair.

I don't know, I'm too old,
To call this a mid life crisis.
But on the other hand,
Maybe the acquiring of
This little red sporty car,
Has something to do with,
Those Testosterone shots I'm taking.
I'm even thinking, of dying my hair,
naw, lets not get crazy!

We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.

You wrap your word so delicately
They almost feel sincere
But i can see the cracks that tear
The O's perfect sphere


Flour made of crushed fake smiles
And water from eye dew
Newspaper strips torn carelessly
And drowned in smooth white glue


Your hands are sticky from the words
You tried so hard to mould
Happiness not gifted to me
But rather your to uphold


You act as though you've done no wrong,
No fault from the start
Perhaps now you should paper mache
My bruised and bleeding heart.

The leaves fall in September, during the festivals. They dissipate, reintegrate into vivid little vespers that bob and levitate on gusts of wind that leave one bristling. The ferris wheel looks like an electric celestial ferry, set ablaze and bound for distant dimensions, man with mutated mohawk green, eyes wretched, livid and obscene, was the maniacal who manned it. Glow stick ghouls, with faces smeared americana snow cone red and blue haunt the parking lot, purple precipitate that hisses as it hits the pavement the product of their incessant chanting, pulling fuzz-lined warmth from my marrow. Under the stadium lights, women tighten their scarves as tiny, cerulean seahorses shimmer and dance with the ebb and flow of their jewel studded breath, retreating, giggling like immortal birds fallen from the nest.
Love is paper mache; a pop culture artifact. Like a stuffed hare that seems to have lost its ability to come to life after one loses their virginity. It has long legs and keen ears. It's very fast and would be quite handsome as well if it wasn't so **** helpless. It has been bred into the fibers of contact, the filter we set on lust, the way recycled cans make castles on lily pads and dead skin makes dust. We are swirling around in its whirlpool, if it wasn't drowning us we would be dead by now, same goes for the mad, mangy men who will count their teeth with their dimes and pick at their scabs, finger their sores, the retired professor who was too clever to have ever been faithful, the mockingbird that sings on my windowsill every morning in French, the mailmen and the dogs who bark at them in Quebec. An obsessive complex affords one the privilege of straightening the line, counting in time and putting the rabbit en route.
If it is the case that detachment follows from distance then I am one cactus length away (average, or medium sized cactus of course) from destroying the moon's mezzanine, housing all of the dreams behind ethereal, Egyptian, colored crystal that a pagan god stole from a black hole, never intended for you or me.

I was a mosaic collected
in scratched nails
                  imbedded, bleeding
like I was meant to be touched
but can you really grasp a reflection..

How could you identify what
          I see, within the fallen feathers
of a crows smiles.
                               I'm hidden within,
a pile of dead bones wishing to fly again.

I could walk within the footsteps of those
in front of me on calm sands.
                               But I choose to run on
a beach of shattered shells, this is life!
broken dreams never really washing away.

I see smiles kept aloft by matchsticks,
                                       ready to ignite.
Within there embers embracing the true
               reflection of how I see others.
Parched realties of never really loving you
or another for the failures of there integrity.

I could love,
             in blindness.
But what is seen is nothingness..
I could love,
             in thought.
But memories will always lie to oneself.
I could have love,
             in myself.
But nothing ever comes from that..

Until I realize that I'm not in control
of this collage of moments.
                    I'm a Paper-Mache,
randomly collecting on a frame work
           of contemplation, that I will only
see on the completion of my life.

I'm but a part that I thought was
                                 irrelevant, immaterial.
But I'm just a piece of life collecting on
the shattered shells slowly reforming to
realize there is more to life than sandy shores.

The Pendulum swings above my head ,
with every swing once ,
twice ,
it falls ,
the jailers keys are turned ,
my histerical wife weeps for my death for ....,
the paper mache man is here .
his pendulum swings once ,
twice .......


..
The old clock chimes once ,
twice ,
It’s pendulum swings once ,
twice ...
It’s two in the morning,
from these dreams did I awake ?
There are dreams within dreams i. can hardly partake .
Yet here am I frozen in terror in my bed ,
from dreams I have awoken to find you staring at me from the rafters , from my four poster bed .
As in fear I lie awake to you’re silence ,
for in nothing did you say ,
a mask of paper mache you wear to hide you’re face away ,
of behind lies a darkness of sadomasconistic  misery and space .
Am I dreaming or could I be dead ?  
Is reality. drowning in my head ?

A cold wind sweeps across my room ,
You are still there but now you are staring at the moon .

How bright it’s glow so high in the night ,
and when sunlight comes you will be gone in the light .

It worries you ,
This sunlight ,
when dawn appears for you’re darkness will be exposed by the passing of the years .

The birds are in song their melodies sweet ,
and you have vanished in some daylight retreat .
For the sun now demands its time to shine ,
for all darkness disappears in the light of time ..

Lordy it's a pretty day though
humidity may ruin the glue
must use less water or else
the whole contraption will fall apart-
balloons pop wire melts
oh no Machu Picchu is ruined
just a globby mess of beer bottles and pizza boxes
how can I describe
how you look like a less attractive Jason Segel
and not even nearly as cool
still pretty smart though
but something tells my brain
there are plenty more even better
maybe a male model with a heart of platinum-
or chocolate!
what a perfect man
eat your heart out.

I'm the paper man
I witnessed you drop your papers
And refused to help
Because I'm a rolling paper
I'm never stationary
When I float in paper planes
My life starts tearing
When your presence equals pain
For I only saw you
With my paper view
We couldn't be two
When you're pay-per-view
I live a paper life
When the date never leaves the calendar
And people enjoy the satisfaction of cutting me
Like I'm construction paper
So I build to block them away
My face becomes paper mache
Searching for another way
I found relief in a bottle in a paper bag
It wasn't long until I saw the red flags
In the government serving me my papers
Even though I denounced them as takers
They kept pushing paper
My life regimented by municipalities
Burying me in paperwork
Like the employment I attained
To make my life spill off the page
And bleed into your's
Otherwise
Life's a paper chore
And the pirates keep stealing papyrus
That's alright
I've become the paper King Midas

“i’m done with furries”


i.
i can’t dream your dreams,
but you’ve told me about them.

you wear an owl mask
shaped by fists and transgression;
a laceration splits your side
from a skin split
to your rib splits.

your love,
Bill Clinton or Donkey Kong
(whoever populates your thoughts),
crack your bare skin
until makeup
leaks out of your pores.

you dream of emulating art;
O hanging from a ceiling claw,
clicking heels against drywall
until leg muscles give up
and her diaphragm accordions close.

but who is your sculptor?
who is your artist?

ii.
alas, i am only
a paper mache bird.

i flinch when it rains,
i flinch when i move;
my paper skin
could cave in
from lip crack to *** crack.

(i hate
Inside Out.
but, i’ve only watched it once,
and i’ve been told
my eyes would adjust
on the second viewing.)

i dream of emulating art;
Marat in an ice bath,
tragedy and love and death
captured
without conflict.

but who is my muse?
who won’t break my bones?


iii.
you don’t know my dreams either,
but we could dream together.

two reveries in polyphony
of an owl and bird *******,
making love
before they
make art.

our love
is ******* weird;
a childhood seesaw
we’re trying to
find the perfect balance
to with our weight.

we dream different things;
**** fantasies and intimate kissing,
but that doesn’t matter.
at this point in two years,
we can see through each other.

i can’t make art without you.

you aren’t done with furries.

December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?
I am an addict, not a poet.

Nick was a lost boy
With a whispering heart
He held proper Victorian sadness
Until his public strength bowed
As it does with the artistic type
His soul beating modal
And his mask of gilded paper mache
With glue dripping and drying to fragile dreams
He needed to get back to the pastures of Tanworth
Yet London had other ideas
And his stiff upper lip cracked
He was a poet, you see
Who danced with trees...
And everyone knows
Butterflies don't ride bikes
Though that would be beautiful
To see one on a banana seat
Sailing down a country lane...
Alas, butterflies can simply fly away if a bike objects
And feel no pain
But Nick was hurt as he fell to the ground
His sickly hunched posture told of a great weight
Shoulders struggled to shepherd the world
With only Flower his power
And Pen his staff
Sadness met the River Man
And the River Man broke down
Poor, the fame of falling poets
Rich, the earth’s garden of toiled words
Caked under soiled writers nails
A headstone,
"Now we rise
And we are everywhere"
His tailwind to us
Go and look at what our fellow poets eyes do see
And bid hello to another artist’s soul on parade
For, as with you, they too are simply lost
And desperate for a garden to share and grow


© 2019 MJL

You call this art,
My constant need to write things out
For better understanding, to map them
Out on pages covered in watercolor
Paintings, my use of anything I can get
My hands on to create something
And you look at me in amazement
When I show you what I have done,
When I show you how I took all of my
Emotions and turned them into
Projects that some may find beautiful
But you don’t see the pain behind
Every word I type and each stroke
Of my paint brush or each eraser mark
Littered on illustrations I try to complete
And you don’t see that I try to mend
My broken heart with artwork so it no
Longer bleeds, this papier-mâché
Creation is all that I have that keeps me
Pieced together and
Sound of mind
And you look at me in amazement
And call it art
When really it’s just my attempt
At surviving.

The wingless angels of demonic races
Are watching from the wings
With blood-stained faces
Like a wide open road spread out
Between a million trees
I see them kissing with their masks on
A glass of scotch in hand
And I can't trust anything so far
From this century
So far from light in these
Disassociated states
Thought goodness was a solid
But their halos fade by day
And your scales have turned into paper mache
As we fight for the reins on this
Sleigh ride into obscurity
Poor by way of three

I'll be on the front lines
Fighting fireflies on a Golf Course
With a butterfly net

Collecting ghosts in mason jar
to plant back on the cemetery
The crows are making nests
in the skull of your family

They accidentally put
the wrong name on yours
And in Latin!
It's ok though, because you're
(were) Are?  a nihilist

The river Nile is the
best stream of consciousness
Known to man and of
Course that's where you drowned
your metaphorical thoughts
While you hung yourself above
a treadmill trying to pretend
you wanted to be a better
man

But you only ran away

The Stonehenge is the front gate
to your home
          It's made from
      billboards and
Pictures of static
When you're dead you
                        Live in White Noise

You're turning my lights
on and off
               as I'm trying to sleep
haunting me in
my over easy eggs
making the yolk run
in words "Miss me?"

And of course I do
But you are as good a my imaginary friend

When I'm walking in the
park with all the scarecrows
you make the dandelions
float, no amount of
wishes is bringing you back

I know boards of wood are
easier to you than the termites
eating the tumor in my brain
          from the insanity you're causing me

So instead I paper mache my
room with love letters from you
that got lost in the mail
because you stole them for me
A banksy bankrupt in original thought

I'm building a tiny forest
             of matches
If I can't sleep I'm joining you

So you pack your bags, hobo
style but with
Picnic baskets and dead leaves
Seancing yourself
With the crystal ***** of my eyes

I lost you in some newspaper ad
about a Home for sale
Does it come with a family?
How is that legal?
But I lost you because I bought the wrong copy and couldn't find that one blurry word that was you saying
Good morning

I lost you at sea
  And in my dreams
      And to your own hands
   And to my own memory

I'm dancing with wolves
Called Alzheimer's
because I'll die
with a disease of age
Instead of house burning, building leaping
Front Page

Then we'll go live in abandoned
amusement parks with creaky
Ferris wheels turning
Like you in your grave
And me with the Cycle of Life

And shes decided her heart is broken,
Have you decided what the token is
Put the golden medal of sorrow around your neck
As she wanders around town looking for stories to tell about backstabbing and the man is elusive, who accepts her self centeredness
She was never my friend
Has she decided her heart is broken
Has she decided which token to carry

my head is a thin glass vase
filled with remnants of dried flowers
and new buds and vibrant leaves
my heart is a paper lantern
vibrant, glowing
my body is a chandelier
made of sweet roses
icicles and papier-mache

do not touch me
for i will break

I was in the backseat of a 1988 Prelude
listening to Conor's sonnets and etudes,
moving my tongue in uncomfortable loneliness
because your passenger seat was occupied and
I couldn't decide if you were quiet or shy.
I hadn't met you yet.

Hennepin was good to us at 2AM and
gave us space to sip uncommon grounds
in the typically uncommon Uptown.
I saw bright eyes in your words
and unrecognized yellow birds.

I remember things and I don't know why.
I remember the paper mache lady on Nicollet and
I remember that you sang about how it's neat that we all own guns and
I remember wishing that I was born on Independence Day and
I remember walking past empty bookshelves at the end of the day and
I remember remembering when they were stocked and
I remember loving the way we talked
about Huxley.

and it's a year or so later and I'm your passenger
and the streets are still full of images and hidden messages
and faces with whiskers.
"I saved a cat from a tree once,"
and my cackle secured the shackles on my ankles that
I picked out myself off the mannequin.

and it's always just us because Vic is always
with Lucy, Molly, and Mary Jane and
they're having dreams and hearing secret frequencies
(like the ones you pointed out to me)
and doing drugs and discovering Christianity
and decorating themselves with ashes and ashes with Ashley.

and the people I used to know from St. Paul
are working and growing small and
trippin' and slippin' and sippin' gravy,
but we're still sippin' uncommon grounds
and we're all still living in these twin towns.
But none of them are wearing the matching heavy crowns
that you and I picked out ourselves off the mannequins.
They're the same shade of gold as the birds in your words and
they're the same shade of gold as the shackles on our shins
that mold our golden grins
that we had our faces when you said,
"This is the world where dreams come true, right?"

and we're confirmed by a blinding white light that shows through
the windows of the theater in Bryant-Lake Bowl that compliments us
like you compliment me, like I compliment your skinny tie
(the one that makes me want to die.)
But we can't die because this city doesn't have any double-decker buses
or any other us-es.

and I watch you program lazers into my heart
and I think;
What a beautiful old man
What a beautiful growing boy
What a beautiful perfect cylops
with an eye of my color green to shower me in scenic joy.

and as we dance to the records we bought from Minneapolis antique shops,
I look into the eye of my cyclops from a centimeter above the ground
and realize that this is the dream where the world comes true.

I have always been the umbrella type:
Cloudy, with a chance of dying.
Water is petrifying—
When it rains, I listen to sad music and enjoy the view
Hoping I never have to venture out to you
Because I have no idea where you’ll flood into
And then I’ll have to peel away my dress you seeped right through
And nakedness is frightening and sitting in the shower
--shivering--
is not very inviting.
In fact, it’s very unpleasant when you’re by nature private
And have a hundred empty places to keep quiet
Covered and compliant.
Getting wet is terrible when you’ve spent forever piecing together
A paper-mache umbrella to cover
Your cracks.
Storms are not my style, I’m still trying to dry
From the tears I was born crying.
I was born cloudy with a chance of dying
Cloudy with a chance of never even trying
And when you’re born with a heavy heart
the last thing you need is to get
drenched.
Wringing yourself out is just a defense
It’s common sense--
--to never lose sight of the shore
SO, this is why I hide from the downpour
Under dusty cotton covers
And don’t ever even wonder
What it would be like
To be dragged in your wake
It’s not like I’m safe from you anyway.
I wasn’t built on stilts
I’m not a flood-proof gate,
I’m a rusty fire-escape that only reaches halfway
down
And I don’t want you waiting at the bottom and begging me to jump but of course you are,
You always are
But even though I know you’d catch me
You are scary and I’d rather jump to concrete because at least it looks like solid ground
And when I go down, I comfort myself with the 100 percent chance that at least
I won’t drown.

When my guilt paralyzes me,
when my shame makes me cower
under the piercing lights of discovery,
my shoulders melt.
Bone becomes fluid, leaks into cavities,
pools around my organs in puddles:
puddles that fill crevices, then freeze.
Molecules grow closer, fit to form,
cementing my fears together
like negative space on a statue.
My guilt and shame were read to me
like bedtime stories every night at nine.
My quilt was littered with secret hurts
to cover with shrugs and a stoic face.
I wasn't just taught to take the blame
and accept responsibility for that which I can't control:
I was taught how to bury it in the backyard,
how to papier-mache a mask
over my reddening cheeks,
to soak up my salty woes
and further solidify the facade.
As the years passed and practice made perfect,
my entire body became encapsulated in fear and pride.
Independence burned bright in my self-descriptions,
but all I truly had to offer was an island,
desolation built upon an inevitability.
I was taught to hold secrets like water,
a never-ending flood of pieces of myself.
My reflection once told me to stop:
there was so much debris, I was manic static
over a vital broadcast.
That hunger took hold,
ripped the pain right out of my lungs
like warm breath on a chilly morning.
But self-awareness dissipated just as quickly.
Acclimation; Stockholm syndrome.
I came to covet the shell,
unbreakable like the vice over your heart.
I was taught not to burden;
I was taught not to trust.

drinking alone, smoking,
playing dead, overthinking,
a psyche made of bad habits
and a stomach that's always sinking.
this is the summer of silhouette,
laying in the shade, apathetic slumber,
the figure of a man in the background,
counting my ribs and fearing the number.
i go transparent in the sunset -
the sickness is tangible, apparent,
just as i knew, feared -
it's buried in my chest, inherent.
i can't get better when
it's just paper mache and cigarettes;
i pray and pray and pray
but no one's heard me yet.

By: Sverre G. Holter & Digital Asylum*

I|

I am a man. I was put on
Earth to bleed from my hands.
Work is my virtue. I only sleep well
If I'm exhausted.
Your food and shelter is my gain.
My sweat is the salt on our table.

II|

I *am a man, but also child
with a paper-mache heart and
sandcastle dreams, a child wishing
for later tides while we play
splashing in and out of the waves
but the tide always comes,
and castles crumble, and we
we tell ourselves that there's no need for fear
because we will build stronger walls
tomorrow

III|

Today is our day though
Let us work at love.
Let us play with love.
Let us dance until our feet
Blister and we collapse
Laughing into each other's arms in equal fatigue.
All I want is you.
All I have is you.
All I've never lost is love.
It is our costliest toy;
Unbroken

IV|

Unbroken it may be for now
yet the time will come, as with all good things
where life and love will come to its bitter end
our lives will have ran their course
and in that moment, we will know and be known
we will laugh our last laugh
we will drink and be merry
knowing we loved and were loved
and as the water comes washing in
we still stand behind walls of sand
and we will face the tide together

*unafraid

Are you wounded?
There are endless ways that life can mar your heart
I need not read off the written list
For it would wind around the world
Again and again and again
Resembling a paper mache ball

Are you wounded?
Feeling beyond repair?
Oh, I hear you
And I don't know
Your persistent, internal struggles
Nor you truly mine
But I'm writing to testify now
That I'm still here

Though words can often seem empty
I'm proclaiming today: Never give up
When you think you've felt too much
Know that the sun rises every day without fail
And like its beacon of light
A glorious, universal flame
Take heed of its returning presence
And do likewise

For there is always someone else
Who is just as hurting as you
Or even worse
Who needs your light
To shine his or her way  
And banish the suffocating darkness
So share your torch
It just might initiate a spreading trend  

Don't let your pain be in vain

Mein Leben ohne dich ist so viel besser

Aber mein Lieber, ich habe deine
Liebesbriefe noch einmal gelesen

We made hearts of paper mache and gave them to each other.

I saved yours in the bottom drawer of my desk
carefully kept, away from the dust and decay
of my adolescent bedroom.
It was safe, clean and pristine,
and I had no intention of hurting it.

I think you shoved mine between the spines of notebooks,
littered with skateboard stickers.
Over time it splintered and withered and
while you were digging for your printer
You found it.

When you gave it back, it had turned black
and blue with ink and paint residue.
I held it broken, battered, and used,
I felt the fragment pain ensue
I guess the best things you give end up coming back to you.

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry&mdasp;It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Let me paint you in watercolors,
I want your hues of blues and reds to drip into clear ocean waves.
Let me spatter your soul on the walls of buildings
As abandoned as that hole in your chest.
You were always psychedelic.

I want to rebuild you from paper mache
Placing all your pieces around the frame
Of what I wanted to build you into.
So I can resuscitate the times when you loved me back.

I’ll sculpt a smile into the stone
I am using to reconstruct you,
So never again can you cast an ugly word at me
And all my poetry
Will be etched in your eyes.

But I can’t get your eyebrows just right,
My paint brush hurts my wrist.
My chisel and mallet cause me carpal tunnel
And I break off your lip in pieces.
The paper mache slides in wet globs to the floor.

Part of me is glad I can’t recreate your impeccability.
Now I may be able to see beauty in something,
Or someone,
Else.

sandpiper birds
swirl and swarm
but
still
we
fill
the
loving arms of
the
paper mache
blue sky