"porticoes" poems
in grievous deity my cat
walks around
he walks around and around
with
electric tail and
push-button
eyes
he is
alive and
plush and
final as a plum tree
neither of us understands
cathedrals or
the man outside
watering his
lawn
if I were all the man
that he is
cat--
if there were men
like this
the world could
begin
he leaps up on the couch
and walks through
porticoes of my
admiration.
21.4k
a prelude to insanity;
it slowly eats away at you
from the inside, tearing
down walls and wreaking havoc
on your psyche-
it is all of those daffodils
glaring yellow
unreachable,
and it is the sound of
an empty orchestra
in the middle of June
it is the worms beneath
your stocking feet
and the sad birds
who haven't suffocated yet,
it is the wind chime
that sings for someone else
or the frequency
that carries the tune.
it is the sun, burning holes
in your clever retinas,
and all of those gracious porticoes
that you will never walk through.
it is the cats retching
in alleyways, and the ******
smiling across poorly lit
rooms, as they forget
to grow old.
it is all of the discarded books
with their broken spines,
it is smudged windows
and Neanderthal kisses.
it is the end of
something that was never
really yours to keep.
it is everything that you
wanted to love,
but couldn't
find the
time.
Jun 7, 2012
Jun 7, 2012 at 11:31 PM UTC
I ripped out of the old tavern
Into the torn indigo overcoat
And traveled under the porticoes of a billion fantastic stars
To celebrate this marvelous November night.
In the labyrinth of bricks and stones
I hum and whistle the Irish song
Like a singer before the orchestra, my multitudes.
How exquisite—Avec un plaisir de génie—is my peripatetic existence!
Lungs full of air, and I see the Muse in me.
My treasured newsboy cap from a thrift shop spins on my hand,
And my feet bubbles off the floor like soda pops.
I pray my gratitude to the one above the altar
For my indomitable freedom. Amen.
A pocket change rolling, bikes uninhabited, and lampposts perpetual.
A rolled cigarette wantonly leaned between my sticky lips.
Autumnal dews wetted my forehead like spiriting wine.
And while, scarf blowing, boots tattered,
I raised my odalisque eyes heavenward
The world pixelated above my moist eyes
Like a seabed of jewelry stars
Apr 30, 2021
Apr 30, 2021 at 1:03 PM UTC
I long for destruction
For Erosion
For the winds to tear down the mountains
For the eyes to pierce my soul
For the words to stab at my heart
Is that not my art?
The painful prose of winters strife?
It calms the masses into the night
The earths porticoes rising through,
Towering sadness that comes back anew
My words are recycled
Reminiscent of Christ's disciples
Who shackled their sins to a cross
Only I'm the one who lost.
The devil, the jailer, the judge, and the muse
I embellish their words and stand abused
The sailor who lost his one guiding star
I'll be alone in the end
Sir Nicholas the Tsar
Jun 25, 2016
Jun 25, 2016 at 2:49 AM UTC
The bronze-scorched mud knobbed unhinged sculpture grows
Cinderella down to root knots, ground is grubbed
chapped hats of acorns hit porticoes before snows
honeybees cake their hives closed and wax hubbed
humiliation hardens as color dapples
swelling seed-commas split beneath the frost
piety’s ignored until next year’s apples
night sky is grape-leafed, blackberry sauced
ineffable brutes grow cold to the pinnacle
rhetorical dross groundswells legislations
the long-legged wind tramples our spectacle
rains mock each leaf into pickled munitions
rocks are nothing but hermitages sent by the moon
prescient hardness sets its chin to the ground
hankering for battle, totalitarianism thrives by noon
each soldered twig unloomed, unraveled, uncrowned
we have severed ties to reason’s substantial contents
in the muddle it’s not the empowerment you had
democracy dies bewildered blind with miscontents
unhinged, unconcerned to find the hanging chad
we’re scissored down to our primary chaos all
paralogisms who dwell in a dream that justifies our fall.
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 12:15 PM UTC