p to the a to the p to the e.
r,c, to the l,i,p.
paperclips, lets do the nasty. just kidding.
oh, staples you gave me a container of colorful paperclips.
1,000 and 100% guaranteed.
grassy green, ocean blue, pretty in pink, **** yellow, white noise, period red.
you hold my papers together through any bad weather.
you bend in shapes and ways that no other kind of clip can.
hair clips, banana clips, hair flips, cool whip can't do what you do.
you were born in china before you ended up in staples and eloped with that plastic bag to my room.
oh how you stay connected to my papers like elmer's glue.
oh how you always stay true.
you're not as big as mr.giant clip in norway but you still do to trick.
together forever, you make my papers stay stacked thick.
your loopy body, your metal composition, i can make you twist in any position.
sometimes you're as fake as plastic but that's why i always got metal by my side.
you're thin and can be unfolded with little- little force.
paperclips, you'll always be in my heart and in my room, of course.

Skyscrapers and mango trees wearing boxer briefs.

The tantalizing wind blows caressing paperclips and mortuary signs—
turning them indigo red for we all know that dead bodies are nothing but dead.

Hymns of love and soliloquies of the unconscious ego—
Id of our time but men of the past be our hero.
Leaving to wonder, if king Nebuchadnezzar was a crack-feign
would Coca Cola still educate penguins on the importance of Lesbian Existence?

For in this war of life, cockroaches are the real winners,
and the taste of excellence is only reserved for fire extinguishers —

so if nuclear clouds persist,
let the fire burn with love and you lay on the bed of oblivion
cuddling the moral that capitalism leads to schizophrenia.

So insure your sanity for free 99, this, with warm regards from yours truly,

                                                               ­              Rhizome of Golgotha.

1
He'd love her
and then the coldness
of marriage took love
away from him
and the coldness turned into suspicion
and then into an obsession:
and she was an inconvenience

he murdered her a Friday
night
suffocated her with her pillows
it was easy;
like Othello did
but she was no Desdemona;
and he heard her whisper with her last breath:
"I'll have your eyes"
he cut her up in manageable parts,
and buried her below the floorboards
in the study

2
It is a year later
and he is at the computer
and far below lies parts of his wife
but now his wife is smiling
she's on screen
smiling like a Greek Goddess
and he sits transfixed
and she says:
"You are Oedipus, darling -
I will have your eyes"
She is smiling
He is willing
Beside the printer are paperclips
He undoes two
She beckons; she smiles
and she whispers
that same deathbed whisper:
"I'll have your eyes"
And he is Oedipus
Just paperclips will do
He gouges one eye out
And he gouges the other too
It is easy


She lies deep below
below the floorboards;
She need whisper no longer
And he is become Oedipus,
eyes gouged,
blind like the Greek Homer

this room looks familiar to my untrained eyes but it's just its facade. it's really just some random room that was specifically designed to torment me into insanity. guess what? it didn't work

as i watch the television i realize that i'm seeing us in the fictional characters of greys anatomy and i'm yelling "*****" at mcdreamy while you go and spend the night with addison and alex realizes that his baby is a fictional person in the fictional world that is his own and i suppose i'm the meredith. isn't it twisted?

i wrote a monologue that held words of beauty (beauty) but burnt it and wrote a new one. beauty never really described you well. things like *** and alcohol and stale bread always come to mind when i think of you. (the only reason you're still alive in my head is because you won't let go)

it's not me anymore. it's paperclips and blue buttons and borrowed things that are never returned. it's a telephone that doesn't call out and it's lonely with someone else and it's you

do you get it now? *no

Her laughter pumps the gas, dumps the clutch shakes and rattles from each intersection
Her wet feet leave monster tracks long damp claws arching across the cement
Her hair grows brambles collecting thorns and twigs with the best of bushes
Her senses, corvid, snatching up dropped coins, pencils, paperclips
Her tongue unfettered, butterfly breath reels with snips of story and songs
Her eyes hold drops of honey, sticky sweet lashes follow the sun
sunflower cheeks blush cardamom on yellow velvet
glow butterfaced with dandelion kisses

Rough, regular under hand, stubbornly slate, unchanged unmoved.
if her soul is a garden there is a cinderblock there
holding down the sunflowers,
along with the grass at her core, it grows roots,
     but no moss.

we start out in the middle of a spider's web, where doors surround us that lead
to grassy roads and rocky roads, difficult to maneuver through, but i've walked
on burning coals and left my fingers bleeding from scratching at your door like
a dog abandoned in the winter frost, because i felt more secure with the honors
of you destroying my house built out of marshmellows and toothpicks, and i
don't want you half empty or half full, i want you coloring inside and outside
the lines overflowing the spaces of my heart you occupied and called home,
but i'm responsible for raining on your parade and shattering your soul, but
even i know all these ways of binding you to myself with glue, duct tape, stitches,
gum, staples, paperclips, knots, can't keep under wraps for long, so i will let my
clouds swell with compassion you couldn't understand because you're the flashlight
in my haunted forest, shining a light on any ghosts that seem damaging to myself
because you've always been there to guide me back home and keep me from falling
from grace headfirst, but mother nature decides what sickening plot twist will destroy
us, and you know i can't control the disgusting weather but i wish i could.

- kra

Time will tell
Time will tell.
Time will tell..
Time will tell…
TIME WILL TELL!

Like someone who suffers from OCD
I have to remind myself everytime that …
Time will tell!…*

Whenever you show up in my dreams you kiss me…
And in reality I try not to fantasize about it when you are near me

Your smell, Your hair, Your smile, Your skin..
Your eyes, they make my temptation rise

In my dreams I can hear the clock ticking.
.Tik tik tik tik…
I wonder, how long are you willing to wait..

In the morning you make me smile
At night I miss you by my side

All I want is a kiss from your lips,
hold them like paperclips

Grab you by your waist and send you to space

I have all these imaginations in my head and they
haunt me every night when I go to bed

-Mofastafari-

I cleaned out an old drawer
of odds and ends.
    paperclips and the door to a battery case on some remote
    an orange candle stub, from Halloween I think
    batteries and four flashlights, though only one worked
    and parts of things I'm sure made sense to keep at the time
          I have no idea what they are now

I cleaned out an old drawer
  of things forgotten
      my daughter's picture in a setting unknown
      a letter of gratitude from a friend, for what?
      a postcard from Barcelona
      graduation announcements for a friend's child
           I don't think I sent a gift

I cleaned out an old drawer
  of memories and my past
     a ticket stub from an evening with Isabel
     a newspaper clipping of my son in scouts
     old mother's day cards from the kids
     New York City subway map from October 2001
         Memories of adventure and affection

I cleaned out an old drawer
  and sorted, discarded and remembered
     batteries went together in a small box
     old fortune cookie notes in the trash
    memories dusted off and replaced
        out of the drawer and back into my heart

My life has cabinet drawers
   stuffed with junk and trash mixed with treasures and tools
I think I'll clean my cabinet more often
     To organize things that I've needed
         like my mom and dads enduring affection
         kind and playful  friends'
     Throw away useless things
          like anger, resentment, and regret
          to make room for treasures
    And to be reminded of what has been
         a real childhood of play and discovery
         magical children  and the wonder of them
         my beloved's steadfast love and respect
I cleaned out an old drawer
        and found some peace.

The six books I’ll never read don’t count.
The planner I’ll never use does.
A paperweight is a waste of space
and pencils are too long for their erasers,
which turn into shavings from something I didn’t mean to write and
pepper my desk like the paperclips
sold in quantities no one can be expected to use.

lots of bits and pieces here, bits of strings, pieces of cloth, laundry pegs, handles to god knows what, scattered coins from scattered lands, paperclips, brokendreams, rubberbands, scraps of life
on paper doodled, rolls of film, batteries alive and dead, scary thoughts from one's head, lego blocks, bits of wood, seashells from the seashore, keys from a life before, unknown things, important somehow, jigsaw pieces of a china dove, thumbtacks, nuts, screws and bolts, lists to do, that just did not, lids from old jamjars, spent pepperpots, bright neon plastic straws, words left unsaid, that may have started wars, little stone pebbles collected,
because, packets of seeds, vegatable and flower, the combo to the lock, of all the lost hours,  bits of the times, i often regret,  pieces of my heart, awaiting repair.....
but amongst all this
stuff i cannot find,
any leftover, clarity of mind.
rooting around in the junk drawer of life, always an adventure, not always kind.

Your childhood dream
Your teenage dream
Your 20s dream
Your 30s dream
Your 40s dream
Your 50s dream

Measure them in decades
Transfixed before a distorted hall of mirrors

A cycling fun-house

While presidents come and go
Parachute pants, bomber jackets, bangs

When you’re drifting off to sleep
What feeling awakens in your heart?

What small feet run across your translucent landscapes
Cubists blocks of what might have been

Twisting , reforming…, parallax

Like Etcher in motion, Inception

Dark cities floating overhead while eclipses burn red

Do your hands tremble with rage or with despair?

Or do you lie perfectly still, resigned

Practicing for your casket

Selfies of your head sinking into starched pillows

You’re responsible now

Clerks and coroners pat you on the back

The least you can be is responsible

Hunting down dreams in dreary forests
With bow knives and bandanas

Is foolish

Better to fill out your W2s

Calculate your interest and help with homework

Don’t be selfish


Let others burning with madness, desire and discontent

Dream for you

Shape the future for you

Preferable to be content

An anti-pioneer   To Nest in paperclips and razors

Satisfied with consolation prizes, Ms. Congeniality

To sink silently down the toilet of trivialities
Floating listlessly like a ****
Flushed out into the polluted ocean of time

But let us not dwell on dreams

Let us drill, let us dance, let us down

Korean BBQ and snap-shot sunsets

Never mind the shadows swirling

Through you, deepening with every tock

Civilization calls  - You must be integrated.

Not like days of yore

On the hunt

But wrenched into a mechanical maelstrom

Input into a coded vision

An alien incubator zooming through metallic tubes


You are an app

Of Aborted dreams

Of pragmatic passiveness
  

Fingered by millions of strangers

To **** time and hope

Fingers fumble at buttons
liquorice in our breath
misty fug of your name
still lingers on the window
it watches
toes like bent paperclips
fidget impatiently
glass half-full of lemon and lime
little bubbles little fizzes
mute television
goldfish mouths with no sound
this evening
'vamp' your chosen shade
exposed navel heartbeats
blood thump in ear
a sock falls off
the other overboard already
twenty fingers
it's alright
I say it's fine it's alright

Naw motha fkka I
Ain't hot ****
Ain't pompous
Knock nitty gritty
With ****** up kids
I got uh
E mergency
Kit put together
With pipe and tape
From the basement
You need gum
Paperclips
Got a leak
Motha fkkn leaking
Unstable, collect
N assemble new
You wit half ya
Bodyweight in staples
BMI justified
With baggage n
Fix its
It's only a problem
When ya round
Motha fkka I
Ain't hot ****
But I'm one
Of the most torn
Up turned up
******* in the pound
Bombastic sensations
Comin from all sides
A ******
No hater
Trouble you
Trouble me
What's it gonna be?
Depends on your visage
****, I could turn it off
N I do do on occasion
If ya kickin without
The free body vibes
I visit, permission
Can't be a thing
I do wut I want when
I do cause I trust me
You r basic n
Chastened n rope
N chains to the brain
Stuck on level
Seth ***** said
In time you lay stone
Work hurt sometimes
You must crumble
Breakin down
The mortar with
Nightshade in
Spray as pesticide
For the vines tangling
Strangling your
Home, it's unknown
If I gonna grow in
The right way but
I trust me so if
I'm so grown I outgrow
Then I gotta go
No hate

The skeletons of clocks will always haunt these hallways
And I can never remember anything you said to me
I suppose the problem is the rope around my neck
Never mind the fact that you’re the floor under my feet
Maybe I just hate the idea that everything I touch here could become a memorial
All for a lost soul who never learned how to properly read a map
But I think I’m just scared of my candle burning out before its lit
I’m tired of the silverware tied to my wrist and the paperclips under my fingernails
We walk on eggshells and all we ever do is **** our own young
You hurt me more than anyone and my lungs still bleed everyday
This is not on me I blame you both for it but not for the tremors in my hands
I still remember that hospital room
And the twenty seven hooks that held up the curtain
Those condescending looks stick with you
After all I’m just another stupid kid spilling his guts all over your floor
I still remember that the part that hurt the most
Was when they took all the pain away
And I think about that a lot more than I should
Maybe that says things about me that I could never tell you
There are a lot of things that I have trouble saying
And I’ve never been fond of needles
Or the bed they told me I was meant to sleep in
This is not my own creation I know I didn’t work for this
I was aiming for the church bells and all I hit was the flagpole
Can you still fall asleep without my skin these days
Do you find yourself lying in bed reaching towards the ceiling
Almost as if you could cradle the stars in your hands
Because I do and I like to think you’re doing the same
*~W.C.

I don't use a bookmark
Or fold the precious page
I remember where I stopped





Even after days

Books
are
stacked
as
tall
as
me
In piles                                       'round my room
Some nights I lie awake in fear
"This book
(Gulp)
is over due"

A S.W.A.T. team breaks down my door
And cuffs me on the floor
They'll find the evidence on my shelves and stacked around my door
And drag me to the the little room to make me sweat a few

The moustached cop with coffee stains yells:
THESE BOOKS ARE YEARS PAST DUE!"

But I don't fear the ******' cheese
So when moustache left the room
I used my skill with paperclips, and left the handcuffs strewn
I grabbed myself a hostage
To hightail it outta here
I made it to the front door
Smiling ear to ear

To the Mexican stand off

The bang bang bang


I whispered in her ear
To stop all the crying and whimpering
Her eyes do full of fear
"I promise that you'll see your kids;

I will not hurt you dear

The Pigs creep close
My voice it croaks:
"ALL I WANT'S MY ****** BOOKS
AND WE'LL ALL WALK OUTTA HERE


I'm an outlaw now
A vagabond
Walking through the Wastes
I will not see my home again
Or any friendly place
Nothing now but the open road
And a bag of way-past-dates

Your ways
( tes façons )


“Shadows grow so long before my eyes”

In silhouettes of dreams past and present
Deep within my desperate heart,
as I yearn for your love, reaching for my pen,
digging through postage stamps and paperclips

“And they’re moving, across the page”

Producing odd shapes on striped paper,
outlines of shaded emotions and verses
Calling out your name in bold ink
and rhyming stanzas of affection

“Suddenly the day turns into night”

Twilight steps over the horizon
as tree top edges touch newly glowing stars
Peering through curtains of cosmic lace
and flickering candlelight with soft breezes

“Far away, from the city”

Miles counted by minutes can be
a daunting task if I hesitate, yet footsteps in the dark
follow paths illumined by your eyes,
as my need grows for your love…I just can’t wait

*“Mon bébé, J'aime tes façons”

Today, i found myself outside of the
Drugstore.
Even the name has a dark connotation,
Like most things,
If you really think about it.
A store for drugs.
Now yet another thing that is made
For serious purposes
Is romanticized
By todays society.

I wasnt there to buy
Candy
Or makeup
Or toiletries
Like i probably shouldve been.
I was there for one thing,
And one thing only.

I headed into the stationary and
Household tools section,
Hoping to find the tiny bit of relief
Hanging off a shelf,
With my name carved into
The glinting metal,
Not unlike what i would be using it for.

But instead,
All i found were
Paperclips
And thumbtacks
And safety pins.
But i had hoped to escalade from that,
These innocent desk drawer tools.  

I didnt pick them up.
Did i want to?
Yes.
Do i have to?
Im not sure.
But i didnt.
And thats good enough for me.

you just left
and for a while
i curled up on the couch
onto the exact cushion
where we had just left our mark
and i cried
quiet hiccupy sobs
and then  
after a bit
i sat right up
and wiped my eyes
and glazed over for a bit
staring at the putty blue adhesive stains
from the posters we hung up
that fell
hung up
and fell
and then i started cleaning
stacked the wine bottles back on the shelf
put the guitar back in its case and the ashes in the can
picked up the ******* and socks and sweaters
that were thrown away carelessly onto the floor
when passion took hold
before we crawled naked under the sheets
under the little white lights
under the hanging paperclips and old ballet shoes
and twisted our limbs round one another
which shook with every second longer our eyes looked into the other
and you said
You are an angel.
You probably won't tell me though, because you're not allowed.
But that's okay, I know.
and i,
slightly above you
with your head in my hands
looked at the four freckles sprinkled upon your arm
and watched the veins in your wrist pulse each time you squeezed my thigh
and brushed through your wild hair with my fingers
that went down to the scar near your right eye
-the bluest of eyes-
and i,
i knew i would be holding you in my arms like this forever
and it made my nose tingle and breath grow deep
so i knew tears were next
but i let them come
and we sat there
together
for a long while
you and i on the couch
but you just left
and i am still
curled up on the couch.

Your ways
( tes façons )


“Shadows grow so long before my eyes”

In silhouettes of dreams past and present
Deep within my desperate heart,
as I yearn for your love, reaching for my pen,
digging through postage stamps and paperclips

“And they’re moving, across the page”

Producing odd shapes on striped paper,
outlines of shaded emotions and verses
Calling out your name in bold ink
and rhyming stanzas of affection

“Suddenly the day turns into night”

Twilight steps over the horizon
as tree top edges touch newly glowing stars
Peering through curtains of cosmic lace
and flickering candlelight with soft breezes

“Far away, from the city”

Miles counted by minutes can be
a daunting task if I hesitate, yet footsteps in the dark
follow paths illumined by your eyes,
as my need grows for your love…I just can’t wait

*“Mon bébé, J'aime tes façons”

It’s the thought of your cigarette smoke.
Which cracks through the gaps in your teeth,
and into the hollows of your lips -
becoming so coarse because they are soft.

Clouds of your grey
pollute my eyes.
And you hide behind it until
it has threaded through my every pore
and into my tongue as I swallow into my gut.
I savour as if it was you that I inhaled.

I drown in that somber ocean
of your lighter in the side pocket of your trench,
and the packet which you dig from out your jeans.

As you breath
smoke flows into my ear - pollutes them
With late nights you spend alone.
A half dry pen on tea stained paperd notebooks
that are buried under paperclips and mangled headphones.
The sound as you force, pelting creased paper into the fire.
and tears which drip out onto your sweater.
and echoes of dying guitar strings
that can no longer bare the abuse you show them these nights
when the words and notes won’t kiss.like you want them to.

As it drips down through my gut
I taste the rasp smell of your cologne in the morning
after the rain wastes it off in the morning.
Along with the taste of salt that you drench every word in.

The smoke evaporates from my view.
I stare at your bones glowing under an orange street light..
Your eyes hollow,
eaten up by the shadows and I wonder
if you are in front of me.

Or if I only recognised the familiar grey clouds
- that once hid my blue sky.

still the wind whispers outside the window
but the words it culls there are far
different than once spoken to me
far from the promise of sun
entwined in our lovers embrace
of hope enduring in our lovers cage

given to wing
take flight with the first rays of day
celebrate on the turning winds far above the worlds strife
dance on the notion that freedom gives grace
and beauty is the passport to
such places adorned with love
and forevermore joys
but such is the folly
and it cannot live long in the light of day

so it has come to pass
the shell of our home
picked clean of all we called ours
all packed neatly and away it has all gone
down the road we will follow
a rusty old truck held to the road
by sheer luck and paperclips
we watch it proceed us like a harbinger
of joyless mirth

we three gather in the empty stained room
and watch the motel flicker with life
that it never really contains
only mimics like a parody meant to smile with
but can no longer achieve such

man woman and child
we sit silent and watch the hours slip by
waiting for our time to depart
waiting for our release from this
rancid and slow decay home

I'm a resonant body,
made love to the man I hope
comes around in my dreams
and his torso distended and separated
kissed his stomach before his legs became
driftwood and slabs of black marble--
his house was carpeted in grass with
rivers running through them
and I stood half-naked at the
stream with a makeshift fishing
rod, folding spotted paperclips
into hooks, there were no doors
but you came around the sunlight
as if there was, stepped through the
air and stood beside me--and the fish
came to you one after the other
until I accidentally dropped the wire
and it floated downstream to the front
entrance,
where is my heart?
in the misty moors
burnt off by noonday
convalescing in mossy burrows
trying so hard to make sense of
the people that become bales of hay
matchsticks and empty cotton shirts.

Blow backs left right,
flowing from the up-side
sphere of my down-facing
brain.

Cluttered pages of a book-mind,
the junk of thought-pages,
with doodles on the lined edges.
and the corners dog-eared.

Peering through the eyeglass
of the head, one finds a circus
of impulses, a parade of thought-beams
bouncing and pinging off the skull-wall.

Mindless and formless shapes,
of squares and circles, and
more strange formations begin
to come to a discombobulated life.

Shaped by stray desires,
and flaming envy-fires,
and raging dream-embers,
the circus is coming to town.

The clowns paint their faces,
the elephants don their dresses,
the trapezists prepare their rope,
the ringmasters ring their voice
the typewriters begin their dance.

The Parade of Impulses has commenced,
the ringing-pinging-tinging of the bells,
the clanging-banging-jangling of the drums,
the crashing-bashing-thrashing of the cymbals.

The Kingdom of Noise, of discordant sound,
and disjointed spasms proceeds, the
cats and rats and bats stepping out of tune,
the chairs, stairs, and the mares march
to the beat of a spastic, spastic thought-drum.

Gingerbread snaps skip the sweet fandango,
while tangerines and woodwinds play
their **** tunes and the dinosaurs of dixie
tap and sway from side to side.

Paperclips and staples sing Blue Velvet,
while the idol warbles with a Golden Flute,
and the bulldog grins widely and wildly,
playing his 8-bit accordion-tambourine.

Behold the procession of business-men
and cat-women as they are swept into
the noise-sounds, and the thought-images.
What draws them in? the feeling or the fire,
the lust or the raging desire?

The beat goes on, as does the noise,
the pitch rises on, as does the fervor,
soon the soundless static stacks,
buzzing-fuzzing-wuzzing slowly louder.

The marchers march, and the players play,
the steppers step, and the band bandies,
the parade parades, and the mind
snaps.

I’m the cling-clang of coins in my pocket,
and loose paperclips in a desk drawer.
Like lipstick and gum in a lady’s purse,
I’m a kid’s toys strewn about on the floor.

When I walk my insides rattle about,
like a  janitor’s keys without his ring,
like groceries bagged by junior baggers,
I’m jumbled as a cat’s unraveled string.

I’m less ordered than a box of Legos,
or debris remaining after a storm.
Nuts and bolts in an amateur toolbox
click-clack and click-clack with even more form.

I’m just a package of random loose parts,
though the world sees me as perfectly fine.
Life is making order of that chaos,
but it’s my life and that chaos is mine.