"reproductions" poems
Sandwiched in layers of liquid crystal display,
Encased in vats of plastic,
we
Voyaging in data-spheres, plumes of digital play.
Mindless,
In the soup of silicone,
all
Myth-makers,
Pouring over electro-spawned
networks,
fall
Workers,
In the buzz of bits and bytes, of
megabytes and terabytes,
down
Everyone
Far from the wood, the brine, the
mud that caked us,
In tighter and tighter
digitised projections,
click!
‘Like me’,
‘Share me’,
‘Leave your comments.’
Messages smoothed out in polymers,
Beyond reproductions of ourselves,
enter:
Deeper, delving in the mire of dream-conscious,
Now a waking voice,
Hardened, digitised, recorded in
bubbles, in drives, in clouds:
Numb numbers of numbers numb,
mirror.
A platform slotted home:
The motherboard!
To record the echo in the hollow
of our Being.
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 10:44 AM UTC
In a loud corridor
Full of young people
I move slowly, reconciled.
I have lived a little longer than they have.
And yet I do not know how
They recognize my face,
They smile at me so calmly.
On the walls
Reproductions of masters.
One calls me,
Face distorted,
Naked in his suffering.
I stop my thoughts.
I look.
I see his bitten soul.
Too many sunsets
in blood-red color.
He and she,
They lost everything
And yet they still see
so much love.
I am already with them,
on their portrait.
I am part of these colors.
I search in a corridor of eclipses,
Flashing hopes.
To soothe their dignity,
To save the bond between them.
I take this story in my hands, so gently.
Together, we look into earthly wounds.
We allow them to scar over,
Day after day,
Year after year.
Until they grow over with life.
Until they grow over with green grass.
I will be happy.
Observing how they grow in true strength
Of human fragile beings,
Of impatient humanity, longing to be reborn.
Sep 17, 2025
Sep 17, 2025 at 9:46 PM UTC
Are acceptance and approval synonymous terms? It is important that we give adequate definition to that which blocks our winding garden path, where foxgloves, lupins and a multitude of botanical dreams can blossom into a gorgeous array of ****** captivation.
If we embrace that which is repugnant, then possibility may not be confined to the cradling arms of the mistress of death.
So, my judgmental and moralistic companion from the sands of Jupiter – if your daughter is a raunchy stripper, then keep your expectations on the leash and preserve your anthropological connectedness, otherwise you may veer into prickly thorns of certain detriment and thereby lose her attachments.
It is incumbent upon us to nourish those fragrant plantations with a careful approach, so that beautiful reproductions will abound in a bouquet of resolution.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
Ode to snow,
There is nowhere to go.
A white blanket on the ground,
Falling softly, without a sound.
The unique pristine flakes,
No reproductions or fakes.
It’s a great day to curl up.
And hold a nice warm cup.
Its great to just sit and watch movies,
I enjoy this, very much, very truly.
There is nothing to do,
Yes I know, it’s quite true.
For a day everything stops,
Because of these delicate frozen drops.
I lover this fantastic, frozen weather.
Stuck in one spot, by a chilly tether.
May 24, 2010
May 24, 2010 at 5:33 PM UTC
Behind the sweetie shop,
under the reproductions,
Leonardo, Botticelli -
Dark haired girl in shorts
hides the softness of a rabbit in her heart.
And across the stone wall,
love is riding a
borrowed bike.
- From the grey as sky jackets,
From the strange eyes...
I'll remember you
Cinnamon, dandelions and rain.
Sundays silently glittering walls.
Dark haired girl in shorts
drinks coffee and herds dusty tones.
And across the stone wall -
summer street
and souls bound.
- From the trembling fingers,
From the hats -
I'll remember you
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 5:25 PM UTC
you flutter, but you're still in every aspect
of this creviced existence. it may be best
to act as decoration in a decorative world,
the prettiest are always happiest, the ones
who feel exalt or cry in creation will even-
tually turn numb, or ice-cubes for pink
margaritas, or reproductions on cascade
walls of white-picket dwellings in a trajectory
of white and beige houses like a ***** line
of ******* pain is temporary. numbness
is forever when it shoots for the brain
and not the stars, when overcast skies
become the reason for inner-living and
streets are scary and trees are mere
necessity for your breaths to filter, for
your chest to flutter as it does, as it so
surely and unabashedly does. you
flutter, but you're as still as decoration.
Aug 23, 2012
Aug 23, 2012 at 3:21 PM UTC
I could never count stars
as they were always shooting
point-blank at my forehead...
Hollow point dream killers,
my eyes open pools of despair..
The night shone,
within the white pools,
non-reflective reproductions of
desperation..
Every sheep that jumped over
that
hedge...
Face hugging the granite of my
dried up lake of sweet dreams..
I'm still awake....
Apr 2, 2021
Apr 2, 2021 at 5:22 PM UTC
Maybe, we’re all wayward souls looking for a
way out.
Spent so long squeezing into factory shoes,
small enough to contain us
that we’ve become numb to these
hand-me-downs.
This society that holds our hands down.
Only raising them when it’s time to change shoes.
Feet out.
Toe’s pointed.
Watch your heels.
Years of this and we’re still wearing what they want us to.
Walking around like counterfeits,
reproductions, imitations, replicas,
when we’re only us.
Only ever been us no matter what they say.
It might be cliche, but it’s an obvious truth.
Feet out.
Toe’s pointed.
Watch your heels.
Us has never left us.
Pressing against the soles of our factory shoes as each toe
bends, folds, distorts, depreciates with every step.
But it’s finding appreciation in every step that,
loosens the laces.
It’s discovering no step is the same step that,
lifts the tightened lip a bit.
It’s learning how to walk while others run,
running while others walk,
that leaves you bare foot in a world of broken glass.
Feet out.
Toe’s pointed.
Watch your heels.
It’s taking leaps while others surrender
their ability to negotiate with
themselves.
It’s conquering the ability to dress yourself that wears out
the factory shoes on your feet.
Feet out.
Toe’s pointed.
Watch your step.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 10:54 PM UTC
As light envelopes the eastern sky
And scatters in all directions
Darkness is born within the light
In the form of soulless reflections
The light commands the darkness
To hide upon the ground
And to move among the living
Where ever the light is found
The darkness is taught to follow
Whatever the light decrees
And in soulless reproductions
To mimic what it sees
But the darkness has an enemy
That causes it to wane
The light is always washed away
Each time it starts to rain
But when the light regains its place
And shines across the earth
The darkness once again is born
As shadows are given birth
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 6:55 PM UTC
I can't sleep
when the stars aren't out
so instead
of lying awake
300 nights of the year I
put glow-stars on my ceiling
thinking it would help
But these are
poor replicas of real stars,
dishonest reproductions
of the wild and infinite
cosmos.
I sleep better now but it
is the sleep of a liar:
I awake often and know
that above me
is spread a false sky.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 2:42 AM UTC
Paper scenery's hang
in the background,
reproductions brought to life.
The sun casting shadows,
before bulbs expire.
But when the wind falls,
plugs pulled, the set vacant.
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 9:32 AM UTC
20% off all print books on Lulu through the 18th with coupon code of LULU20
also, I have three remaining signed copies of my chapbook [infant*cinema], published by **** Press- will send for free to anyone interested in writing a review- make request to [email protected]
~
some poems, recent and from available collections:
[asker]
I’d put something
in my mouth
and my nose
would bleed
and mom
would press
my ribs
and know
like that
the name
of the boy
buried
a horseshoe
-
return is a drug
hunger
a choice
-
and the lord said one of these animals is a writing machine
and the lord
he turned
the woman’s
shadow
into a garbage
bag
and the man’s
into water
-
sister dragged onto some dance floor
a scarecrow
-
pregnant / is what you get
if memory
remembers
to eat
~
[plain sight]
a hearse emerging from the shadow of a school bus
/ a mother
trying
to return
a baptized
mannequin
/ that poorly
lit
bait shop
star
~
[example]
after leaving its memory to the hibernating bear, the insect died. I don’t know what story you’re trying to tell. the angel has three fathers. the angel was born to blackmail a ghost. this bald ************ thinks I need shown how to chew my fingernails. the mask is my elevator and the pig my coffin. I have a sister was made to make an egg disappear. a father who’d shave to give the thing in the stomach time to plan its escape. the angel vomits into a pink wheelbarrow. shows affection.
~
[residua]
the hymn
in all its
cephalic
worry
has me thinking
bathrobe
while saying
statue / why
always
this dream
I join
others
to find
a small
body / death
had a spoiled
child
~
[distant]
the child you won’t have because the child hates surprises. the story, your mother’s, of the pillow that struggled like an owl. the werewolf, humble, and afraid of clowns. the ramblings of a newborn. the twin boys of Cain.
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 11:25 AM UTC
replicas oft go on display
reproductions of the real thing
recast in an aping array
ripping off the principle's ring
every now and then they'll be seen
espousing that they're genuine
e'en taking credit for the breen
ergo this be not of true line
verily stealing other's word art
very little conscience do they show
villains are those of thieving cart
vilification we pour on their glow
eyes on the look out always glean
embezzling plagiarist's grotty hands
ever looting original bean
endlessly making phoney grands
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 8:49 AM UTC
Did you have a good life when you died?
One worthy of countless reproductions?
Did they make a film dedicated to your memory?
Did it begin with your first hallowed breath?
And end with your satisfied huff?
Did they cast a guy one hundred times better looking than you?
To play the character... Of you?
If not, then what were you doing?
Your whole life, gone, and they didn't even consider a film version of your first birthday?
Did anyone even know your name?
Did anyone even give a **** you were in the same room?
Did they know your middle name?
Why wouldn't they?
It's too bad because it could've been great
It really could have been a good one
A good life
But no
I don't know what you did with it
But now it's gone
****
Zap
Done
You're dead
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 8:38 AM UTC
They sit in the humblest of frames,
Faux wood-grained plastic grotesqueries
Purchased long ago from some doomed Grants or Bradlees,
Though one or two enjoy something nicer,
Left behind by some long-timer taking a buyout
Or a sympathetic youngster denied tenure
(She has, for the better part of three decades,
Cleaned up the detritus of middle-school children,
A bit stooped from the work,
Not to mention the burden
Of any number of she’s just or she’s only
Tossed like so much bric-a-brac in her direction.)
The approximations of old masters equally eclectic in origin:
One or two gallery-quality reproductions
Blithely abandoned by some haughty faculty matron
Mentoring children through noblesse oblige,
The odd promotional piece from a scholastic publisher,
Mostly things she has cut from magazines or discarded texts.
She studiously avoids pieces tending to the dark or muted,
No Stuart portraiture or pensive Vermeers;
She has a strong predilection for bold, boisterous Gaugins,
Mad cubist Picassos, lush Cezanne still-lifes,
Even the odd blocky *******
If you pressed her to explain her fetish
For the brightest of the great masters,
She would likely be at a loss to explain,
Having no academic bent for such things
(Though she has been known to curse the shortcomings
Of lithographers and pressmen under her breath)
And, as she freely admits, I’m not much good with words.
There would be the uncharitable suggestion
That their purpose is to mask cracks and pockmarks in her walls
(She has, to be sure, lived in a long series of such places)
But she has never, consciously or otherwise,
Used them for such pedestrian and utilitarian purposes;
They are, to her anyway, beautiful, and that is all they need be.
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 11:17 AM UTC
i'm sorry to the people i cut out of my life recently.
it's not your fault you thought i would stick around.
you witnessed me accepting mistreatment left and right.
so of course, you thought i would allow you to treat
me the same way with no reproductions.
but what those of you failed to realize is that i didn't care how everyone else treated me because in my eyes, those closest to me put the sun and stars in the sky.
so forgive me for letting you go when you so carelessly allowed the sun to turn dark and let the stars come crashing into my life like meteors.
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC
There is, or so I am told, a debate raging
In fashionable rooms and the halls of government
Which concerns snowflakes: specifically, whether each one
Is of a unique and heretofore unknown shape and formation,
Or whether God sees fit to send down identical reproductions,
Like so many Wilton Diptychs being flogged at market.
I have, on the odd occasion, have seen the snow
As it piles up in billowing waves or lumpy bluffs
In the Alps and the Pyrenees,
And, although I lack such learning
Sufficient to dispute the notion of their individuality,
I can say that, in collections of the thousands or millions,
They are indistinguishable from one another,
And, I suspect, all of their like that has come before.
Like so many of her age, barely beyond the blush of childhood,
My poor sister saw her world in stark colorations;
Thunderclouds of black, endless sunbeams of white,
With no room in her orbit’s spectrum for anything in between
(Sadly, she left this life before she could learn to embrace
The beauty to be found in fine raiments of beige, gray, and taupe).
I have buried siblings, buried husbands and lovers,
Buried memories and mistakes,
And in the endless cycle of embrace and bereavement
I have learned of life
That it is the process of accommodation and compromise,
And that it is only dark, austere death
That refuses to give itself unto the joys of negotiation.
It has lately come to pass that the wretched and lovelorn have,
Seeing no way out of their particular predicament,
Began writing my long-dead sister letters
Asking for her advice, indeed her blessing.
Can you imagine such a thing?
The postmaster of Thurn and Taxis (a very old and dear friend)
Has taken to bringing me some of these abjectly weepy epistles.
I’ve long since stopped reading them, of course;
They sing no new song, tread no new ground.
I simply feed them to a good strong fire,
As anyone seeking the aid of a dead young girl
Has already passed beyond the refuge of last resort.
Aug 7, 2017
Aug 7, 2017 at 1:25 PM UTC
It was there
though I don't know how it got
there
I can tell you with a considerably high degree of confidence
of it's presence and location within
space
and
time
for I see myself practicing an alchemy
with thoughts deranged making their way
into the stew
the broth in the brew
into not one, but two magnum opusi
tweedle deedle dee and tweedly umbi
get 'em by
I see myself succeeding in this alchemical work
playing itself outside of me
and pretending it's a poem
This alchemical voice all too often silenced
before the pivotal motive of the book has been read
burning bushes it returns
and it is to this location I direct you
when I say I know where it is
and though I do not inform you
of the items in the magical box
when I pulled them from my hat
they were all there
they were all alone, crying, some with real tears
others substituting with expensive reproductions
I couldn't tell you what's in my heart right now
if you'd let me
I stand condemned, alone, leaving this
life atoned
I don't even know
It's full of ghosts and dead bones
filled with history and broken dreams
to the brim with emotion
to the extent
that a heart can be broken
I claim mind has been broken a few times
and it never crossed mind
how the last time was worse than the last time
and every time was just like that
So look out, I'm courtin' the jester
I'm on the hunt for a crime
I'm telling lies just for lying
and I am not distracted by the dramatic strains
of Franz Schubert's 8th symphony, ushering in
the dramatic while I sit and try to think
of something to say
and a way I can say it
with meaningless syntax
and dreamless taxed sin
that's the stuff I'm wallowing in
it's like gooey taffy, the color of Granny Smith
apples
even smells like green apple, the kind God doesn't grow
in Indianapolis in the summertime
I'm assuming that's to imply
that apples can be found on each and every tree
when the magical season of summer is in session
and that there has never been a summer that has not
brought us much and more ever needed
never in need of anything more
I was that poet voice
took a liking to your mind
together we rollicked in forests
and made shepherd's pie on St. Patty's Day
and what a day, that day, Patty O'the Day
I gave you the words on this page
Though their eventual response be rage
Try to find meaning in them
I dare you
It cannot be done
Aug 8, 2019
Aug 8, 2019 at 2:08 PM UTC
from Webster's: Totem(n) - among some peoples, an animal or natural object taken as the symbol of a family or clan.
Totem scenes: My real home
written November 5th, 1997
I wonder
what is a real home?
It's a question I used to think
I knew the answer to.
My real home growing up
was of course the one I lived in
where bits of pottery and votive candles
formed totem scenes on end tables.
There was a mystery to these totem scenes:
candle stick, corn husk doll, pottery bowl;
all arranged according to some greater pattern
that I didn't understand, but knew was pivotal.
Each day, I came home from school
putting all the things in their places
clearing away anything that didn't belong
in the totem scenes.
Then I would dust,
moving each item from its place:
ornament, woven bowl, carved animal;
and polish with lemon scented Pledge.
I'd then return, each totem item
carefully back to its appointed place
trying to place each in the same place and order
as it had been in before.
But inside I always worried,
No . . . I knew that
because I didn't understand the greater pattern
of where each item belonged,
somehow my false reproductions
of the totem scenes
cracked the very foundation
of my real home.
Jul 4, 2021
Jul 4, 2021 at 11:15 AM UTC
My father died when I was seven.
Like a girl in a museum
I'm drawn to his pictures.
Those inadequate reproductions,
hypnotize me.
Pictures, what do they have to give?
Coal-blue eyes, a knowing look.
They exist, for me, like Cassandra of troy,
full of endless secrets that can never be told.
A snowy, ice slickened, twilight-blue
rush hour parade - hundreds of grimy cars
rushing, rushing... somewhere.
Why do the details I can't remember haunt me so?
A flash of light, the tearing of metal
like the screaming of dogs in a devouring
dance of energy.
The nuclear family detonating
with death inches away.
Everyone was asking, "What do you remember?"
"I don't know." 7 year old me said.
The family man leaving a gravestone like a calling card.
Sometimes, just before I fall asleep,
memories of him - which I hold dear -
come to me like the ghosts of departed friends.
Image after image in the embracing dark.
Why is it the further away you get, the more I need you?
Those images and that voice are strangely silent
in the morning as I'm, once again, awakened
to a world I'd rather reassemble.
Sep 17, 2020
Sep 17, 2020 at 6:55 AM UTC
I'm depleted on the effect of excursions
that free me from the bondages of what
clings to my thoughts. Like fly paper full
of efforts, to escape the scent that I linger
on, never to escape that awaking frailty.
Concussed on the fusion of time lingering
on my efforts to be woeful of what I must
function on. I stagger on the motions of
my birth, into reproductions of what I was
motioned into, an echo of repetitive actions.
I'm losing my reality to a ceaseless apparitions
that follow the conceding days. Hanging up
my reflection, I don't conceive that moments
have past. A paradox of eulogies. Every 120
versions I linger on freedoms charade.
Hostages in a room of freedom, ill-conceived
that we earned this occasion. When we were
always free, but kept in maze of needing.
We are the donkey, and life is a carrot that is
diluted on our conciseness, the carrot is rotten.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 4:55 PM UTC