"previews" poems
“…the grandfather’s camera with the last pictures of the youngest Colorado theatre shooting victim was stolen and the family’s sorrow has compounded…”
Veronica, why did you love Anne Hathaway
And why did you not go refill the popcorn,
Veronica? You ate it all during the previews
Though I warned your stomach would hurt.
Sweet Veronica, how did you know to hate Bane
And why did you not go to the bathroom,
My dear. The hand-dryer’s scream is loud
But it dries, unlike your wetting, red screech.
Veronica, why did you insist that you were old enough
For this fate? And how could I have agreed,
Cold Veronica. Pigtails were meant to be springy,
Not limp with blood, Pepsi, and regret.
The Bullets.
The Cape.
The damning shot
Would have slapped
Even Batman
Dead.
Young Veronica, why is the memory of you
And your innocent flesh fading fast,
To red Veronica? Wet too young and too alive
For the four-foot long coffin we buried.
Yesterday.
Cop lights.
My camera with
The last shots of you
“Stolen, sir.”
Wail, Veronica from the camera screen
In the hands of this thief, oh, convince him,
Stab, Veronica, with your pixilated smile
Until the guilt brings your smile home, to my eyes.
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 6:22 PM UTC
Many people I know find it funny that I know so much about music. They call me a musical savant at times; it doesn’t bother me at all. It is actually kind of true. The only reason I know so much is because when I was going through one of the darkest times in my life music is the only thing that brought me back. Music was my therapy and there was one band in particular that I credit to saving me.
That band is… The Wanted.
Yes I know they are not a band right now. This dark period was from 2010 through 2012. At the time The Wanted were still together making music.
One day I was watching random music videos on Youtube and I came across the song I’ll Be Your Strength by The Wanted. When I heard that song I started crying because it was exactly what I needed to hear at that time. I felt like for the first time in a long time that I wasn’t alone and I finally had someone tell it was going to be okay.
Yes I realize that they have no clue who I am and that it is just a song.
But no matter how old I get I will always credit that song and that band with bringing me out of the dark.
That song made me realize that I needed help, BAD! There was so much going on that I had become depressed. I also felt like I was all alone and had no one who I could count on as my rock.
My friends did try and help me as best as they could but it wasn’t enough.
I started listening to music a lot more. I would spend hours just surfing ITunes listening to 30 second previews of songs.
Slowly I started to feel better emotionally and that made me feel better physically as well.
Music has a hidden power and if you really listen to the lyrics it can be everything that you need to hear. Before that time I never really paid too much attention to what songs were saying. I would just put it on for background noise.
It has been two years since the darkness disappeared and music is still my therapy on a daily basis. I don’t go anywhere without my IPod. If I can’t figure something out I just put on one of my favorite musicians and I will always get the answer I need.
Now a days when I talk about The Wanted everyone around me just thinks I’m a severe fan girl. I just go with it because I don’t want to go into the real reason why I’m so devoted to them.
So I leave you with this quote that sums up exactly how I feel:
“He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that's what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.”
― Hannah Harrington
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 11:01 PM UTC
Hurricane:
Right, keep testing my waters.
I'm badder than Katrina,
my storm will sink your ******* "battle" ship in one hit.
The sea is cold and heartless and I'm just water.
Grab your umbrella it's gunna rain for days.
3 minutes:
Times slipping through my fingers. Life is just the previews, death is just the featured film. Circuit boards, my moods are electric. Flip the switch and complete the circuit. Like a newly changed light bulb, I am absorbing some of the darkness, that you failed to hide. Guess I'm just a bit manic and you're a bit sad.
Mar 10, 2012
Mar 10, 2012 at 4:11 AM UTC
Oh, Progress! We found you at the back of
The movie theater, spidered around a boy
And we watched. Progress, couldn’t you
Wait til the previews were over?
At least we could tell he was gentle.
Which reminds me of the story of the father
Who beat his son until the son
Could beat back, and after the son
Killed his father he went cross country
Beating everyone on the way
Beating the mailman, the bar back, the students
He kept on traveling until he knew he was
Unbeatable
And he traveled more and went on beating
When he met his dad in down in Santa Fe
They sat down to drinks and talked
About beatings and beatings
Then they kept traveling West.
Yes, Progress you were a ***** girl
Ignoring whatever went up on the screen.
18 seconds of mutilated armies and a Noble Charmer’s
Ascent to the throne.
17 seconds of painstaking laughter and a fat man.
19 seconds of a young man’s rise to success
His defeats, resilience, his ceaseless winking
And his moral fiscal triumph in the end.
16 seconds of naughty men in suits drinking highballs.
For a movie theater, the chandelier was immense.
Dangling, finely cut glass
Suspended over the audience, crystals tapering
Down to rows of translucent points.
Apr 26, 2011
Apr 26, 2011 at 1:54 AM UTC
The Batman Movie (a review). The clues part was cool, but the end of it got boring. I liked that Batman kept a journal - I like the idea of men keeping journals, because, do men have many thoughts they share? Men’s thinking seems so ephemeral.
In this Batman resurrection, Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne & Batman are Kurt-Cobain-like emo and that seemed to work. Didn’t you just want to take your hand and get his hair out of his eyes? I think guys should have hair - I like hair on guys, not buzz cuts. I liked the muscle-car Batmobile.
I liked Zoey Kravitz, she was girl power, but not in a hot girl way, she had her own motivations, she wasn’t just in danger and served up to fuel Batman.
The movie is too long though. They need to bring back movie intermissions - I’d vote for that. As usual, I drank my giant slurpee and ate ½ my popcorn before the twenty minutes of previews were finished.
It’s a three hour movie. I had to *** so bad by the time the movie was ¾ over that I was grinding on my popcorn bucket to keep it in. I finally had to make a dash for the bathroom - I was afraid I’d miss the KISS scene. Argh!
Let’s talk about Robert Pattinson, the actor, and his arch from Twilight to Batman. Of course, doesn’t every vampire turn into a bat? (joke) but it’s always Pattinson being moody, being hot, figuring himself out and the introspective man - the broody man.
Are broody men **** I don’t like broody men in real life - I feel that only one of us gets to be moody in a relationship - and it’s going to be me. Pattinson seems almost zany and cheeky in RL so the brood is his method act. I Like that Pattinson didn’t buff-up for the role - I think the buffed-up muscle-man as superhero perfection somehow relates to capitalism. Pattinson’s American accent was good.
What was missing from the movie was horniness. Batman didn’t seem HOT for Cat-girl - he just stood there for her to kiss. What’s boy-girl attraction if it’s not horniness? Where has the horniness gone in movies? Sexiness is missing from ALL the superhero movies - I guess the age demo is too young.
I give it three out of five stars
Apr 28, 2022
Apr 28, 2022 at 7:02 AM UTC
Your eyes are the ocean
Your lashes are the waves
It’s a privilege to drown in them
And even live just for a day
Your collarbones are the trails
My lips want to wander forever
Your jaw line is the road
I would walk forever
Your lithe being
Is enough to take my breath away
Your pure heart
Is enough to let me stay
You are ethereal
You are otherworldly
Your beauty is abyssopelagic
You are perfect
My heart flutters when I see your previews
(I became an agastopian because of you)
And every after sunset and sunrise
I still fall in love with you
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 2:05 AM UTC
I can't be your first love
The one who's name waits on your tongue
To lash out and remind me
I am small within her shadow
I can't be your first love
With mocha skin
Red wine dripped lips
And the touch that may still creep into your dreams
I can't be the first love
You waited months to kiss
In a firework glow
(I wanted you more, God only knows)
I can't be the first love
Who captured you
With artemis' grace
And her goddess confidence
(Rather, I'm the stumbling deer in your headlights)
I can't be the one
Who coiled around you
Demanded princess treatments
No, I never fit right on a pedestal
I can't be her
Though I've wished I could
When the way you say her name
Holds more than just nostalgia
Now I know she's got the front row seats
Serial effect on her side
But don't put me in the nosebleeds
Cause the previews always come
Before the main event
Yes, I can't be your first love
But I'd love to be second
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 1:05 AM UTC
I'm too old for fairy tales
Don't entertain me
With myths and tall tales
Of a fair maiden that
Awaits a top a castle
In a land far far away
Chivalry is dead
And you killed it
With this catch and release,
Find a mate, toy with them,
And when bored cast them away,
cleanse your hands with bleach
And forget they exist
I should count my blessings
But this obsession with all
This shame and rejection
Got me playing memories
Like this on a loop
Previews of purgatory
Apr 7, 2018
Apr 7, 2018 at 12:07 PM UTC
It is Thursday
when you go to the store
declaring your identity in the world again
You have always been hungry
now your stomach is too
The store is flooded
with white light, except the produce section
which has dim yellow lights
wood floors and black tables
where you squeeze each pear
*Remember that Sunday
your bed was an island
you thought about
calling out from work,
thought about the boy
next to you, still holding
your hand while he was sleeping*
The green pears
only come in organic
cost a little more and
probably taste the same as
*Two weeks later he picks you up
to wander around that big apple like worms
drinking coffee and talking about
how useless is the penny
how you both never need change*
The brown pears
that are much cheaper
because they aren’t as bright
but they must be just as juicy as
*Drinking ***** infused with mint and cherry
in the theatre parking lot – you
complain about missing the previews
laugh about how you would have
kissed through them anyway*
Canned pears
that never rot
floating in their tin coffin
with their skin already peeled
*You take down every photo
t-shirt, sticker, love-letter
but not the driftwood
he found and gave to you
during that first walk together*
You don’t pick the green, brown, or
canned – deciding you want
any other fruit
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
I will never forget the time I laid my head on your chest.
We had talked most of the night and my eyelids were getting heavy but I didn't want this to end.
If I fell asleep, it would be like none of this had happened.
We were talking and you kept running your hands through my hair looking at me like I was some sort of safe place and I've never felt my stomach flip so much.
And I looked at you, my ear against your heart feeling this steady beat, and I said
"It's like your heart is trying to burst out of your chest and into my head, which is so weird since it's all I think about".
It was the cheesiest thing that's ever slipped out from behind my teeth and rolled off my tongue and my face was on fire.
You just looked at me smiling, beaming at me, and you placed your hand on my heart and I could swear that it was going to grow wings and fly away and you said.
"You heart feels like it's trying to jump out of you and make place where my heart just left".
And if that wasn't the sweetest thing I've heard, I will fall over when I hear it.
You kissed my head and your eyes slipped closed and I knew this was coming to an end.
So I snuggled in closer, breathed you in one last time and devastation has never felt so heavy in my chest.
As my eyes shut, the sun rose and my alarm went off and you were gone. It's hard to feel your heart break first thing in the morning.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 1:57 PM UTC
WAKING UP, OPENING AND RUBBING THE SLEEP FROM MY EYES,
AND LOOK OVER TO MAKE SURE SHE’S STILL THERE AND YES YOU ARE TO MY SURPRISE.
THE MEMORIES START TO COME UP LIKE PREVIEWS OF A MOVIE,
YOU MOVE A LIL AND I COULD TELL THAT, MY LOVE IS STILL SLEEPY.
I REMEMBER THE FIRST DAY WE MET, SHE LOOK AT ME AND SMILED;
NOT KNOWING IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF MY DEMISE.
I TRIED TO PLAY IT COOL AND NOT LET HER KNOW THERE WAS SINGING IN MY HEART,
I GOT TO TALK TO HER, I GOT TO HEAR HER VOICE, I CAN’T LET THIS FEELING GO, I GOT DO THIS SMART.
SO I WALKED UP TO HER TRYING NOT TO MAKE MYSELF LOOK A FOOL.
PLAYED IT MY MIND, BUT I JUST ASK AND PLAYED IT COOL.
AND EVER SINCE, A SMILE HAS BEEN IMPLANTED,
MY WORLD HAS SLOWED DOWN, NOT SO FRANTIC.
THAT’S RIGHT, LOL, WE’RE CRUISING AT THE RIGHT PACE,
AND THE BETTER WE HAVE GOT TO KNOW EACH OTHER, IT FELT YOU WERE IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
I CAN’T BELIEVE GOD LET AN ANGEL DOWN FROM HEAVEN TO BE BY MY SIDE,
AND BECAUSE OF YOU I HAVE BECOME EVEN MORE HUMBLED AND FULL OF PRIDE.
NO EYELINER, LIPSTICK, OR BLUSH.
I KNOW I LOVE HER; THIS IS MORE THN SOME JR. HIGH CRUSH.
SO, TO COMPLETE THEMY FAMILY PUZZLE,
I STOP BY JEWELER AND A FLORIST FOR WHITE ROSES; “TWO DOZEN!”
SO I CALL YOU AND SAY, “HEY LOVE, HOW WAS YOUR DAY? I MUST SEE YOU.”
SHE SAYS, “HEY BABE, HEARING YOUR VOICE JUST MADE IT GREAT. SURE!” SHE HAS NO CLUE.
I APPROACH HER WITH CONFIDENCE IN MY HEART AND MY STOMACH HAD BUTTERFLIES,
BUT I KNEW THIS IS THE MOMENT, SO I CROSS ALL THE T’S AND DOT ALL THE I’S
SO I KISSED HER AND GAVE HER THE ROSES;
SHE STILL DON’T KNOW I’M ABOUT TO PROPOSE.
EVERYTHING BECAME TOTALLY STILL AND STARS WERE SO BRIGHT,
IT WAS THE PERFECT SUMMER NIGHT.
AS I GET DOWN ON MY KNEE WITH TEARS FORMING IN MY EYES, “AS I LOOK UP TO YOU AND GOD, PLEASE SHARE MY LIFE?”
“PLEASE BE MY BETTER HALF, MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER………………………………………….MY WIFE.”
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 14, 2011 at 6:48 AM UTC
**Stuck in the catacombs
of surreality
dragons breathing fire
in my brain stem
scripted as previews'
diabolical graffiti
of cancerous breath's
gray radioactivation
written on the walls of
mindless chatter's rancor**
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 12:14 PM UTC
You and I are the movie’s trailer,
the first lick of a dripping ice cream cone,
the first snow in winter.
We’re a beginning,
a preview of what could happen,
what would happen if our lives ever align.
But for now, I’m satisfied with
serendipitous blurs of visits,
occasional tastes of our favorite tea,
and the hope that I’ll enjoy
a fresh *** of Earl Grey
with you down this winding road.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 8:53 PM UTC
I prefer to drive home after drinking too much at 2 AM.
It's safer.
I'm convinced that all the cops are out after bars' happy hours.
I only know about that from my favorite bar, which is 9 to 11.
After 11, I think they prowl until one.
Come two, they are exhausted and bored.
But not like us.
The streets are like a blank canvas and we have all the paint,
And we are eager to make a mess of its purity.
I steer the wheel with my knee as I stretch my arms wide,
While one ends up hugging the headrest of your seat,
You look at me and say, "Pay attention to the road."
You mustn't know.
You mustn't know what it feels like to look at you
When you look at me
The way you do.
You mustn't.
You can't even begin to imagine all the things I see,
But I direct my gaze through my drunken haze to the expressway,
With the lights passing by us like previews before a movie,
And we try to comment on all of them,
Which ones we choose to see and not see,
But we're too excited about the feature presentation,
Because it's the first night that it feels like summer,
And I remember why I can't keep my mind off of you through all the seasons;
You have always been my summer scent,
The carefree afternoon, the elongated dusk, the crickets before bed,
The one that could keep me from feeling the cold that runs through my bones
And somehow make me whole and warm.
And I stop the car
And take you all in
And wait
For your eyes
To meet mine
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 2:37 PM UTC
Hardened to experience
Like gum beneath a chair,
I cannot explain
This lasting hunger for simple fictions.
Yet prompt me as you tried so long ago
To imitate the joker in the balcony
Who shouts “I’m gonna be sick!”
And launches a bucketful of mushroom soup
Over the railing,
To this day I forget my only line.
The gestures, too.
And the sound effects?
The mind’s ear can’t hear them anymore,
Let alone vibrate to them in Sensurround.
But I’m still slouching down in familiar dark,
Feet stuck to the floor, waiting for the previews to end,
Hoping that a moving picture conjures
Something whose absence has become
So powerful that I begin to think
It’s really the presence of something else.
The aroma of our time together
So many years ago lingers
Like the faint odor of mushroom soup.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
There once was a time when I loved to be in the sight of a lens.
Singing, sharing my humor, or sharing moments of my life through the recorded glances..
That are but windows into my less intimate picture and the role that I play in this movie called "Life."
The lessons I had learned, as I watched other's visions that they had created of the previews of the movies that is their "Life's Movie Masterpiece"
I experience a loss of interest due to the over-acting and overly complex and expensive sets in which they tried way too hard to earn another soul to climb with them
up to the top of their journey's ladder.
Almost the most beautiful views, of movies I have stayed and enjoyed different life views, were the children.
They laughed, they were free, and it was a simple set.
Them, me, an enjoyable moment, and no worries or cares about costumes or items.
The imagination to create "something out of what appears to be another or nothing, " inspired me
It taught me to "act within my true inner, younger, imaginative, and loving nature"
as imagination is the "secret flavor" and the "simple actor's Prop"
Just one hand grabbing mine just to share "who they are and wish to be"
"Learning who I am as a role in their show and future contract to innocence and bright life's creativity.."
Children worry not about fame, money, war, lust, and or power.
They just are actors like comedians or drama players playing in a full length improve comedy. Even drama.
Such theatres, I then could view "filled to the brim.."
As patrons respected the whimsical and sweet times of youth rather than the other movies of heartbreak, loss, or Growing Pains and Their Traumas.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
I, buy the tickets
We, enter together
You, find the seats
Us, alone together
The previews start
I hold your hand
The hero finds his girl.
You hold me closer
The hero falls
My lips to yours
He, the hero, rises
She, the girl, squeezes my hand
I, smile
Happy in the dark
If only till the lights come on
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 2:19 PM UTC
The film rolls
Dim light
Flooding empty seats
Casting long shadows
Revealing one lost soul
The previews flicker by
Flashes of the future
Memories of the past
Merged together
Life
Family trips
First times
Graduation
Starting a new life
Taking knowledge learned
Time passes by
The movie rolls on
Never to end
The reel growing
With every second
Until the day
Our hearts stop
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 10:58 PM UTC
sitting before the curtain of my heart,
i feel the ripples of what some might call fear
for what is about to unveil.
behind me sits an audience that can only be described
as a sea of songs long since embedded in my brain,
waves of past lovers and lies and the
silhouette of a solitary sickness.
then suddenly, the lights go dim
and i am overcome by the previews
of the present moment.
caught between the sea behind me
and the curtain in front of me,
is all that i am
all that i love
and all that i have yet
to be.
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
Walking through the door at night
Awaits a quiet that I've grown tired of
Some days I hope for it to move out
Yet it sits in darkness awaiting my arrival
As I settle in from a long day at work
Candles are lit to keep me company
Pull up a chair to my window
Watch scenarios play out before my eyes
These are the sneak previews of what is to come
Life becoming lonelier as I approach golden years
A painful silence will become my roommate
Such a cruelty sentenced to us with lonely hearts
Nov 8, 2018
Nov 8, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
It all started, ever since the ending of my seventeenth years.
Before I always wanted to end my life.
Until that night, when my brain FULL ON woke up and gave me previews.
Previews of DEATH.
**Scariest **** ever!**
It gave me different feelings and ways off dying.
It was terrible.
(Imagine this)
**Your memories starts to fade,
as your heart slowly stops beating,
air running out slowly,
just simply the whole systems is shutting down....
then STOPS!**
As I'm lying there covered in sweat I realized, that life is precious.
Like OUR TIME IS TICKING FAST!
We better make something of ourselves to at least be remembered by a good amount of people.
Because in the end, we're just really a tiny portion, compared to the **whole ******* universe**.
So to all whose reading this.....
STOP COMPLAINING OF HOW 'SHITTY' YOUR LIFE IS!!! MAKE YOURSELF THE BEST YOU CAN BE IN THIS WORLD! SO THAT THE LIVING CAN CARRY ON THE MEMORIES OF YOU!!!
If you don't, then when you're at your dying point of you life,
you don't want to go out like a **weeping little ***** do you now?**
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
They are one in the same
One is blind
One is rushed.
Which one is which
Isnt to be discussed.
Youll never understand
But thats okay
Because even you did..
You wouldnt know what to say.
Knowing what isnt known
Can turn soft to the bone.
Did that make sense?
Or should i raise my tone?
Trust and faith.
A philosophical roller coaster.
Like an ambiguous movie trailer
after your viewing of the new premier poster.
Will you watch?
Will you care?
Does the sight of it make you stare?
You already seen the scenes through the previews.
But does your perspective correlate with The heartless critic reviews?
Rubrics of the mind
Lay studied in time.
What was now and then
May forever be in its prime.
Trust and faith
One word held stout.
Combine the two..
Relinquish your doubt.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 12:05 AM UTC
Thick fog dissipates, mimicking my clouded mind
Each crowded thought melts away as I walk amongst the sun,
the sky clearing, mono-tone,
but then previews the painted sunset to come when the day ends.
Swirls of rouge and warm orange tinges,
lines of lavender & yellow shades that hint at flowers below me.
I’m running through meadows,
up and down vast valleys farther than I can see,
but I imagine right in front of me.
My thoughts active as the birds that sing in octaves undiscovered,
and insects that shutter & *** in sounds a child would describe in simple mimics, rhymes, stutters.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 11:49 PM UTC
Whatya looking at me for?
that just makes me
wanna drink more...
..and his day begins with two full tins,
one for breakfast and one that'll last until it's done
then it's off to the shop for a bottle of ***
discounts in the spirits aisle
he'll be awhile as he ghosts
his way through
and at the checkout
queue
he cannot resist so he takes the risk of one quick snifter.
Shift a year back when the man was on track and no sign yet of what was to be,
one more can and
another for tea
what will be will be
will he?
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 2:38 AM UTC