"splints" poems
The Buddha slept under the night sky on His back
eyes open; fearless love looked up. humbling the majesty
of the Void's gift.
eyes fixed... both peerless.
first among equals.
but transcendent.
The Buddha,
wearing grass-stained robes
chose a blank spot
for a blank stare
" Nowhere Girls are EveryWHERE "
He thought, astonished.
a moment after
where once He stood
there Was No
spoon.
[ PART ii ] NOT THE KOAN BUT THE KOAN THAT YOU GOT
on the X-ray zen splints were clearly spidered webs in ghost bone... how should I feel that my sensei saw the X-ray first?
life is where the answer to this question is a real thing draped in ominous clarity like a town fool, the beggar foreclosing
on your house of cards, the winged swine and some guy named Patrick having a smoke in your face; the mailman, who
always looks so serious about your trivia in a blue hat... who always trips over your precious dying very potted plants!
yes, all that, or maybe not. saute some fresh green kale in olive oil with fresh garlic
[ give it to me ] and i'll tell you that was very thoughtful, and right then;
it would also be
true.
for a minute there... you and i were typing you reading this part.
these are the diamonds.
my exposure to the radiation is everlasting in the middle of it's brief long duration
my ghost bones wear new flesh like iPod headphones, don't hate the player
[ better yet ]
make a macaroni necklace. go wild. be reckless.
it'll cost you an ounce of real kimchi
from the motherland
with the ugly
sister.
i wouldn't put it pass you. cause that would be clairvoyance, and you already know!
a loose tooth entrenched in candy apple can't taste your stupidity but has bad dreams!
some people will always look at you the wrong way and appreciate
how you sat perfectly still for hours; you only took a break to suggest
a better room with southern exposure to eastern thought.
when you threw in a Tripod, they knew you were somekinda somethin'.
and they knew it all along
but juuust wasn't
sure.
and kumquats are quantumly eaten.
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 2:22 PM UTC
don't understand me. this is not for you. It's for you.
my Gemini shin splints are pirates. hopeless Romans, romantically dismantling
the things you Undo. the things you You.
I Doctor in your Seuss canal.
with a frontal lobe, more Job
than a postage stamp -
in this Day and Age.
It's grey and rage -
with the tooth torn
out !
Out
through the probable snout
of the next mummified god-king
of our interlocking rot...
our chamber pots
spotting the oft begot good
of our evil
Mummenschanz
we are crepes' rue; yet we roulette best
in Typhoons
from murk
placid.
with 2.8 kids
and damp
matches.
we are
struck in a gale
of flaccid
dumb as a Belle of the Ball
that Squares
a Rube
with an Ism.... from Ix.
sometimes.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 8:38 PM UTC
complexity
is your beauty
simplicity
your mystery
interdependence
sustains you
once upon a time
we dipped bowls
into your waters
and brought up
draughts of life
now
Skipjacks go
fathoms deep
into endless
depletion
charting
entangled
dead zones
broadening
into a sea of
inertness
your delicate
eco-essence tips
toward oblivion
effluvia farmers
layer mechanized
blankets of
nitrates on your
sunset shores
weaving
green tendrils
of algae blooms
strangling the
entanglements
of all links in
your miraculous
food chain
the EPA
proscribes
a Jenny Craig
pollution diet
to halt the
slaughter in
oxygen
challenged
dead zones
where rockfish
are garroted,
oysters get drilled
by screwworms
and azure tinted
soft shell *****
dance soft
shoe taps
lifting a tinny
chorus of sad
Piedmont Blues
the flat-lining
watersheds
voiceless
warnings
tremble
rocking the
purged nests of
screaming ospreys
in vocal protest
of a sinking
Tangier Isle
anointing it’s
tombstones
of unvisited
cemeteries with
multicolored
guano
fitting
alkaline
tributes
to the lost
inhabitants
and forgotten
languages
sinking into the
brine of gray
brackish tides
Delmarva’s fine
intra-continental
balance skewed
by the oozing
industrial swill
of Frank Perdue
chicken farms
ruling the roost of
sanctioned sustainability
tinging clear watersheds
of finger lakes
set in splints to
repair dislocations
and complex
compound fractures
that may never heal
again
Music Selection:
Taj Mahal: Fishin Blues
jbm
Oakland
6/7/12
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
I have a fear,
it's not that I'm afraid of the future,
I'm afraid of a realization,
one I had last week.
What if...
What if it's downhill from here?
My childhood was amazing,
my parents were excellent,
but the real issue was my friends.
The fun we had was real,
it's just not the same,
academic discussion,
scientific deduction,
dissection of stories and ideals,
what's it all mean?
My favorite memories are not of discussion,
but action,
actions I keep written on a piece of paper,
strapped tightly to my chest,
a eulogy of youth,
time spent as kids.
Through the haze of years I see,
low rate movies,
bonfires burning just a little too bright,
Wendy's runs in the dead of night,
skinny dipping out on the lake,
firecrackers bursting over head,
roman candles,
no small talk,
real talk,
girls,
near death experience,
you were there right?!
Mario Kart,
video games,
disgusting food combination,
skating behind the moped,
sledding behind the SUV,
basketball on black tar,
mustard spilled all over the car,
splints and broken wrists,
word games,
collective humor,
stupid and indecipherable,
socks with sandals,
up all night talking in the basement,
not a care in the world,
no ambition,
dumb little kids,
messing around doing dumb things,
throwing common convention in the fire-pit,
flickering flames,
nostalgia on release,
gone our separate ways.
I had realization last week,
those guys weren't my friends,
they were my brothers.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 2:53 AM UTC
The Record Store died and the windows, some broken; held the light of day in transparent
tangles, sharp cracks in spiky slabs of glass. Red splints... fissures of bluish tint, silver yellows
glint in shifts, misfit prisms.
An old poster roasting an English Invasion,
facing the setting sun's horizontal furnace. Here and there,
the odd box, coats of dust, strips of beige tape; these
huddle in long shadows of analog. Looking in -
hands on either side
of your father's face,
you can almost see hipsters thumbing empty bins, like
bowling pins in an empty lane.
Bowling pins wearing scarves.
I shuffle my pod and rock on.
Mar 22, 2012
Mar 22, 2012 at 5:35 PM UTC
Shin splints are painful
And they also feel heavy
Don't ask how I know.
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 10:15 PM UTC
‘Are you all cured now?’
Oh, darling, if only you knew.
(But I’m a monument of
Self-restraint, whittled from
Rotting wood. Ragged shards
Chip off, jagged splints.
The eyes deep wells - an imperfect
Effigy, of sorts. Even now
I’m burning up, and awfully so.
Thick and stifling, the air bates
And provokes me. As the season turns,
I’m patched with canvas sacks -
For a time my steely gaze
Kept the birds away, but now
I’ve gone to seed, flaking
Dry brushwood and sown with doubt.
I grow strangely bulbous
At the centre, starlings nesting
And feeding near my abdomen).
I have questions of my own,
You know, and they all beg answers.
But yours, well, it came to me
Innocently, cut clean and smooth
Like a butter knife. A token
Offering, an afterthought.
I’ve preserved one half our
Peace of mind. My satisfaction,
You see, is a solitary one:
It tastes pungent, sweet, and
Maddeningly powerful.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 9:55 PM UTC
Up and down strange alleyways,
We ride our bike into fences,
knocking over garbage bins,
spilling out all pretences.
Look at the side of my face as I speak,
my mouthed syllables’ suit.
Recognize the shapes I am known to make,
hear my clubs on mute.
Short runways are carpeted tarmacs,
take offs for toy planes.
Neon flags guiding us to square landing strips,
ignoring shin splints and ankle strains.
It's much too late again,
I'm in the bathroom practicing ****** expressions,
locking them into muscle memory
for my future confessions.
Let’s repeat the same mistakes,
until we have them perfected.
We’ll loop our lives,
what's not a refrain will be rejected.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 4:41 PM UTC
"Run down the list, if you please."
"OK. Doc, let's start with these:
An earwig with shin splints,
a worm with heartburn,
A cockroach with a cold-"
"He should have wrapped up like he was told!"
"-A bee with hay-fever."
"She never listens either..."
"A centipede with a migraine,
A fly with wing sprain
And a woodlouse with suspected vertigo."
"Is that them all?"
"Well, no. There's an elderly spider with a blister on his *** He can't spin a web to build a trap or home.
There is a grub with possible depression,
A slug with a stomach bug
And a ladybird with gout."
"Too many greenflies, no doubt."
"There's a butterfly with signs of hypochondria due to a swollen antennae,
no matter what I say he's certain he is going to die.
Now, the last is a delicate imposition: the Queen ant wants birth control,
Because she is sick of her pregnant condition."
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 7:39 PM UTC
This is the fourth time it's happened this winter
The fire is sparking
("Put on another log to dull the flames")
The wind, whipping up chaos outside, conspires with the moon
to plaster open our eyes, and
tangoes with the red of the streetlight to foreground the terror, the dramatic pull to this scene like the beginning of a barfight.
But all you notice is the snow.
Captivating Slush, like the wondrous stupid glow of children's television
("Close the door quickly, it's below zero outside!")
My chest wakes up to the sleeky bitterness of it, gentle but rousing,
like the critique of a crush taunting the back of your neck, but in reverse.
You've said that last line, and it's the response of everyone who can't savor what they most anticipate, the arrival of the thing itself cast aside for something mundane like safety.
The thing itself for you is watching snow,
and now you gladly push it away.
Life is so unpredictable, yet so callously routine.
To live in seasons is to be constantly surprised at things exactly how you've seen them before.
It's not emotions that frighten us, emotions are hand-me downs, the old favourite band t-shirts of experience, often ones we've worn before.
It's the feelings that surround emotion that we shunt out, that we tipex over in our journals of memory, our synaptic splints.
The tears of children who never turn back
to confront their tormentor with their tears.
And so now I'm walking upstairs as a means of brushing off these notions
("For the love of ... make sure the bathroom window is closed")
And I check my phone while debating how to spend the rest of my evening engaging with my phone while you rewarch American sitcoms, so cosy, your contentment as reliable as Irish wind
Then I sigh and look out the Bauhaus insulting bedroom window
Again I see the circus coloured tarpit the weather has made of our street
And wait a minute, trying not to feel anything
Because this is the fourth time this has happened
This year.
Jan 17, 2018
Jan 17, 2018 at 6:52 AM UTC
Beyond the seas, on a faraway isle,
A maid is waiting, true without guile,
Her faith, stands of stones and trees,
A winsome heart as lone capercaillie,
With a look she prays into the wind,
Longing where true love only begins,
Butterflies flutter with a heart racing,
A diary is kept under ravens tracing,
The elm and oaks are alms she stirs,
Splints and potions are makes of her,
How much time is passing of redress,
To maid of the glens, all forgetfulness,
She breaks and cries, pleads to a sun,
Calling like an angel, into the heavens,
New days come with a cold shudder,
Lost days run in trains, out to another,
She braces in corners for O solidarity,
Wee birds singing with hopes in fealty.
An wonders awake, dreams each morn,
When will love ringing come into dawn?
Feb 28, 2016
Feb 28, 2016 at 1:53 AM UTC
you will think too much when you are kissing the girl down the hall.
you will dance with her, half-drunk and half-joking, and something foreign in you will ignite. you will blatantly ask her to be your girlfriend just to gauge her reaction. you will curiously perch yourself on her lap and beam when she praises your vocabulary. you are more drunk but you are still half-joking.
you will think of the way she runs her hands through your hair and over your shoulders. you will remember how she feels about touching things, how she only touches what is important to her, what she doesn't want to forget. you will think about this when she asks if she can kiss you. you will think about this when her dry, drunken lips find yours and you will think about it when the pad of her thumb grazes the waistband of your jeans. you will think about how your jeans look, pooled on her carpet.
you will think about the time she told you how fluently she reads body language, how people's feet point to what they want. you will step on your own toes in protest every time you see her in the cafeteria. you will think about the time she laughs and says, "god, you're so submissive, it's adorable" and you will think about how naked she makes your clumsy body feel, no matter what you're wearing, like each flippant comment peels back another layer of skin and muscle and tendon and bone until there is nothing left of you but her whispers, evaporating into the november air.
you will think about how she makes you feel like a bad metaphor. like the fluffy rhyme schemes that she bemoans.
you will worry about her panic attacks. you will want to remind her to breathe. you want to make her chase you but you worry about her shin splints.
you will think about the song you'd told her you wanted to lose your virginity to. you will think of how she scrolls through her music library methodically until she finds it and kisses your neck for four minutes and fifty seconds so you can sing along.
you will think of her words. you will wonder if she writes about you. you will wonder how she would feel if she knew you write about her. you will grieve how miserably your feeble musings stack up to her well-timed, self-aware prose and you will draw parallels between this and the rest of her and how everything she says is profound and every gesture is intentional and how small and stupid she makes you feel, and you are gasping into the darkness beyond her ears, whimpering under her mouth, shivering under her quilt.
you will think about the hand she stretches precariously over her shoulder to you just before she is sleeping beside you. you will think about her fingertips. you will think about her hair.
your thoughts will be clouds of her cigarette smoke.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 11:14 PM UTC
Clutching the very thing that destroys you
Pouring your soul down the gutter
Illusions fester upon your heart
As alcohol speaks its own language
Bottles upon bottles shattering our smiles
As glassy splints muffle our beckoning cries
If only your flesh were more of a necessity
Not the fading tales of branded cider.
I could not tell your heart in a crowd of yesterdays
For maybe it’s you I have never known.
February 2011.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 4:09 PM UTC
*
*Flame tongues ravages wood,
licking till its black splints
A mug of cocoa caresses my palms
and my lap became a coaster
Every sip leaves me feeling toasty
My forehead rests upon the glass
console by Frost's lips
Jack's designs were of floral mandalas
Soft as clouds, gentle flakes
Each made with love for no design ever the same
I admire as they rain,
I imagine that they whisper secrets as they fall
Giggling so softly yet as pure as a baby's laugh
Coating all that is viridian in a shawl of white
Untouched
Unmarred
Cool yet so crisp
Beckoning for all to come out in a rush
For snowmen to be built, for snowballs to take flight
We would never feel your cold touch because
the warmth you give keeps us as one
Seeping down to our laughs,
You keep us close to our inner child
Nostalgia rests upon my lips
And greater still
Are these tender moments of unity
Upon my window sill*
*
Dec 24, 2020
Dec 24, 2020 at 4:16 PM UTC
you won't bleed because you're not about to burn. you saw my lips curl straight talk
and mock the glockenspiel of my garrulous tongue. you stun my assets. my accent falters. but yes... you hear me yearn. you gnaw at my shin splints. we resist what ain't lost.
we grog the real liqueur of our tepid angst. get ****** up.
i'll craft a promise when i'm tongue-tied...
i'll say anything with my tongue; yup.
i love you.
but our disasters are so beautiful, i could love that...
i just might hurt you with my mouth full...
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 8:27 PM UTC
Mugging
Heart thumping at a rapid beat,
***** running down to my feet.
Getting mugged, gun in face,
the one **** day, I left home my mace.
He wants my money or my life,
wishing I had some kind of knife.
Slowly going for my wallet,
tears dripping like a leaky faucet.
Getting anxious, he ***** his gun,
should I submit or should I run.
Then I kicked him in the *****
watching him as he slowly falls.
Grabbed the gun from his hand,
asked for his money, as he started to stand.
He said please mister, I'm out of work,
I said who cares you stupid ****
He showed me his wallet, which was bare,
I could smell his **** in his underwear.
I told him to turn around and walk away,
he said till I get your money, I must stay.
Had no choice but to shoot him dead,
two bullets in his brainless head.
From the gun, wiped off my prints,
limped home like I had shin splints.
Went home and took a shower,
felt kinda bad as my soul became sour.
Closed my eyes and only saw red,
maybe I should have forced him to run instead.
I hate living in a state of misery,
from that day on, I felt kinda jittery.
Both of us at one point begged for mercy,
just a typical day in north New Jersey.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC
Splints are beginning to break,
wounds are seeping through the bandage,
sores have become infected,
scabs picked and pulsating--
Aspirin won't take away the throbbing pain,
nor will morphine numb the brain--
the leg below the ****** turniquet
grows gangrenous.
Maggots inching closer,
flies eagerly buzzing overhead,
divebombing into ruptured flesh
oozing blood and pus--
the body bag lingers menacingly
sporting its gaping maw,
hungry for mangled flesh
and broken bones.
Bloodshot eyes pleading,
crooked mouth on a broken jaw begging,
a sick contortion of a once beautiful body
****** forlornly on busy streets--
writhing in the weak mortal vessel that damns them.
---
How long?
How long has it been lying there?
Trying hopelessly to stand stumbling like an old dog
in its final moments of consciousness
before the impending ejection--
how many have passed it by
with a blind salute
and a knowing fake smile?
How long must this poor soul drudge through time
slowly draining its insides
and flesh feasted by the flies,
dragged along by marionette strings--
when will we see this creature,
in need of its good samaritan--
when will we stop the transient fix,
peel off the blood-soaked bandages,
and ultimately stare into the fissures
for a final, effective prognosis?
Look this ******* in the eye,
peruse its peeling sallow skin
hanging loose off cadaverous limbs--
lying,
gasping cries rendered soft moans,
lying in a cesspool of ****** fluids--
**** and **** and blood and pus
drowning within itself--
trace your fingers along the scars and wounds,
inhale the stink of death,
accept your incapacity to understand the weight of its history--
a great anguish heralded by generations afore.
Do not, then,
think it wise to abandon the poor wretch,
as your forefathers had done--
The Poison lies within you.
To heal, then--
is not a matter of medicine,
is not a matter of science,
is not a matter of faith--
it is a matter of action.
It is sick.
It is dying.
And it will take us all with it.
Would you die for its sins?
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 1:53 PM UTC
Shin splints, hit on vintage nightstands,
Already sore from the night before.
Lingerie spilled on the floor, lingering from one of your boy toys. It's okay expensive lip stick & high heels fix everything.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
Since I saw you,
I've had this hope live in me.
That everything that isn't needed be gone.
The details of sales papers, shopping carts.
The ease of temptation.
Standing still.
To fill my cart full of things I don't need.
Coffee rings, free samples.
The debris of reality.
Strings and paper slings around baked goods.
Shopping around facedown.
Pushing the cart row after row.
The things on sale.
The pings of the register.
Splints that aren't necessarily the object we've come face to face with.
Jamaican ***
Our fingerprints used in vain
The residue from coffee pots and things we've touched.
Bottled, sealed tight.
Fresh water springs.
Still we pursue.
I pursue.
Your carefree sensibility.
I've walked every row in search.
Where have you gone,
Withdrawn
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
I will look back the on past,
reminiscence for awhile,
on things that cannot exist,
feeling the splints and casts I had as a child.
I'll prepare for the future,
for a loving wife and a child,
to which I am lovingly indentured,
for all of my life,
doing so with a smile.
I'll clear my mind,
and think of the present,
I'll dream good dreams,
and care not of my sutures,
this is all I can do,
moving forward to the future.
Life is no destination,
life is line,
stretching back and forth,
spun together with time.
Eternal is our pathway,
this trial only a point,
our own little struggle,
the pain in our joints.
This path is ours alone to walk,
each step getting lighter,
towards whatever end,
to which we might meet,
for humans are frail creatures,
and our spirits are meek.
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
you ask as if I truly see
what comes from pure emotion
what depths of unencumbered breathe
the movements of the ocean.
not often captured on our screens
it's cast into the air
not often seen because we're scared
but don't deny its there.
it burrows deep inside your mind
and captures every thought
spinning swift into its web
then out comes bitters rot.
so cleanse thee tongue in silver splints
removing wood from thee
so each word, each phrase have linings true
to hearts among the sea.
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
We are acting as juvenile
as two middle school kids
convinced their in love
when all they do is hold hands
and maybe sit together at lunch.
If they are feeling brave.
This is as pointless
as straightening my hair
when the rain dribbles down
begging to invade my smoothness
and turn it into a waste of time.
This is as painful
as running with shin splints
and pushing on anyways.
Except it hurts on the inside.
This is as over
as it is.
and i would like to say
i am sorry for not being more okay
with juvenile pointless pain.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 6:28 PM UTC
some times the pain is exquisite -
beautiful and blinding ;
the kind of soreness that comes from hard work
and rough love
and aches good the next day.
some times the pain is harsh -
temperamental and overwhelming ;
the heat of bruised and broken skin
the kind that comes from a body trying too hard to heal.
some times the pain is indescribable -
everything and everywhere ;
numbing with seemingly no reason for appearance.
some times
the pain is just pain.
Sep 24, 2017
Sep 24, 2017 at 5:12 AM UTC
Dear Body,
Why do you torture me so?
Muscles, bones, tendons
All perfectly assembled
So why do you say no to me?
Running, Running, Running
Pain, Pain, Pain
Shin splints, they said
Hip flexor, they said
Once better, the rest
said 'me too!'
Dear Body,
We're in this together
For the long haul
Together we rise
Together we fall
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC