"suburbia" poems
It is worse for a tulip to live again and be renewed
than for the tulip to die and be dead.
“What happens when you die?”
I asked several romantic partners over the course of my adolescence.
“You’re dead,” they answered.
It is worse for the tulip to be born again,
dust to dust, dirt to dirt, true god from true god,
in a process that spiritual peers define as, reincarnation.
No tulip is an individual (that is clear), but a process.
A perfecting oneness.
I can’t admit or bend to any resounding belief that every tulip is the same.
That FernGully was a farce and Pocahontas, a phony.
That is just not going to fly.
Maybe it is the environmentalist inside me speaking,
or maybe it is God.
I refuse to believe the prodigies and professors of renewal and rejuvenation.
I can not discount individuation, even in tulips!
Tulips are victims of suburbia, they have been relegated to the lawn, to the mulch bed,
but inside of them there are remnants of humanity.
I couldn’t believe it, ever.
Not ever, even if you convinced me or bribed me or seduced me.
No chance.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
between the concrete river
& the park where the bums share a bottle
wrapped in a brown paper sack,
there is a cul-de-sac of plastic houses
holding hands & sharing manicured lawns
wooden cars that don't even make any smoke
drive down gray asphalt streets.
fathers that tell mothers they have jobs
wear down street corners sharing beers with the bums,
like they already are one.
all these paper families rubbing shoulders
until everyone has paper cuts.
going home to dinner around a table full of paper love.
suburbia is flimsy
paper towns shining white
smiling neighbors & shared lawns
paper people slowly falling apart.
couples with their tongues down each other's throats,
midnight in supermarket parking lots
dribbling beer in the backseat
they bought off the bums.
they say,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
until she leaves for a paper husband
& he leaves for a paper wife.
now they live on two separate cul-de-sacs
with the same cutout love,
as the parents they despised.
& when they have kids one day
they will tell them
*never kiss before driving,
never befriend bums,
or guzzle cheap beer in backseats,
or on park swings.
& never settle for a paper husband
or a paper wife.*
remembering the love
that was flimsy,
but never paper.
100,000 miles away from where they grew up
& 3,000 miles away from each other
3 kids each & plastic houses
rubbing shoulders & sharing lawns
living in a paper thin suberbia
chafing under their paper love.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:09 AM UTC
Leaving the seduction, comfort and sins of suburbia is no easy task
For those spoiled to the point of sickness.
Privilege and entitlement.
Sadly, unable to survive...
Where are we?
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 5:48 PM UTC
the bane of my existence
here
now
is
all of the incessant
noise.
the city encroaches
ever outward,
gobbling up
the suburbs
like the great big
Blob
contributing
layer
after
layer
of noise.
a new metro line
opened last year
disheartened
the morning
realized
it was the trains
i heard
as my puppy
and i
walked so early.
trash trucks,
back up beeping noises,
leaf blowers,
mowers
and trimmers ...
all
conspiring
to drive me
mad.
the birds and owls,
snakes and deer,
hawks and rabbits
toads
and trees
and flowers,
puppies
all other creatures
divine,
tempering
this man-made chaos
this man-made
hell
keeping me hopeful
that
i
will
have some
respite
some respite
from this
hideous cacophony,
this man-made hell,
in the future,
not
too distant.
of course
there are
some benefits
from all
the city life
but i prefer
the silence
the solitude
of nature.
the Taoist recluses
who speak to me,
whose poems
paintings
writings
and silence
are balm
to my soul.
some day soon,
i too
shall join
the recluses
far away
far far away
in the mountains.
but for now,
i am
only a modern day
taoist
recluse
stuck in suburbia,
doing my best,
living in this
noisy hell.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 2:37 AM UTC
Blasting out of the fog and mud
Past the forests in the sunrise
Farms and high ways
Trotting through suburbia
Through the tunnel
Defacing and refusing to allow themselves to be part of an unjust ******
Believe in the intermingling of colors
Waiting for the planets to fall into place
To stop for a moment and inhale the abundant harmony that surrounds them and emote and create a inspiring response in the form of self expressive freedom that matches the beauty that had compelled them
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
It was in a small town where I first felt love.
It was in our small town from nowhere where I first saw that smile;
that smile that could light up a room, or the whole world, even.
It was in that small town where we made a promise,
a promise that we'll both come back,
a promise we both failed to keep.
You see, darling, it was in that town where I had my very first heartbreak.
It was that town which saw my worst fears realized become a reality.
I was in that town when I received the news:
that you're never coming back.
In this town, I knew love but lost it too soon.
Yet this town will soon welcome a hero of the war, in a coffin enveloped by the country's emblem.
This town will welcome a son and shall soon engrave his legacy on a stone.
But I know I can't stay in this town for long, not when the signs speak of your name, not when the streets sing of your footsteps.
Darling, this town is not ours no more.
This old town speaks too much of our tragedy, of a love forever lost.
It is this town that symbolizes what we both had and what we'll never have.
And now I'm leaving this town to forget, to keep my sanity.
But as I leave this town, please know that I'm never leaving your memory.
For it is one thing to forget this town, but quite another to forget my world: you.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 8:48 PM UTC
TRUMP
i never said a word about you because
would it be rude to call you an embarrassment?
you're everything i'm not and you're
everything i fear in a person but
tonight i thought about you and for the first time
since i blocked your number that night i was
supposed to come over i kind of maybe sort of
missed your touch but i didn't miss you
i loved you when you were inside of me but
could barely stand to be in the same room with you otherwise
you made my heart pound like a bad anxiety attack after
seeing your 47 in math and thinking woah i might not graduate
and realizing even worse: with a grade that low i'll never make it
to outer space (which means we'll be stuck on the same planet
forever no matter how hard i try to rid myself of you you will
always linger between the cracks in the sidewalks and broken
picket fences you are suburbia's biggest fear)
POOH
you taught me that lust never leads to love
and you stole my favourite book. i wonder
if you ever read it but you stopped talking to me
out of the blue, apparently i had done something wrong?
i mean,
that's a first
i dream about you more often than i'd like to admit
sometimes you drop in just to say hi but most of the time
you call me a ***** and tell me you wish i were dead but
no matter what you heard about me i swear to God i'm pure
or maybe God was right when he burned my skin alive and
watched me become ashes in the middle of nowhere with no one
around to hear me scream for help, have i sinned too much to be
let in to Heaven?
******
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful
SIRIUS
history repeats and i've been stuck in this loop
since i can remember i fall in love with the same
person over and over again i fall in love with you
and you fall in love with him and i stop believing
in love all together but i fall in love with someone
else because they remind me of you and i hope you
think of me from time to time and miss me as much
as i miss you as i try to fall out of love but it never
works the way it worked so easily for you, first love
doesn't mean forever love because the first is never
the last and everyone said so but i was hoping that
maybe one day we'd get married in the garden down
the hill by your house that overlooked Lake Ontario
or the ocean as you liked to call it because you could
never distinguish the difference between blues
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 2:05 AM UTC
Our paths are paved here
with smooth black asphalt
lined with s-cut stones
so we won't have to touch
ground
between our semi-detached
houses
and our small fenced gardens.
Our paths lead to nurseries
and to school
and a medium sized supermarket
and they are all flanked with well kept
bushes and lawns
This is Suburbia Danica
Our paths are made like circles
so we stay
Our children don't get lost
and our happiness doesn't
escape.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.
With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.
To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.
And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him 'Spic', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.
Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.
The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.
Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.
Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.
I'll keep pushing.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
Pine tree horizon,
stretched to the point of rupture
over the divine cardinal points around
A round world
which's center is me.
Roads I'll maybe walk,
most of which I won't
but the voyage goes on anyway
as long as I have feet.
Nothing this generation gets:
I chased this out of a bad bet,
and found heaven in a net.
We ate the scenery that day
let it drip onto our ***** sleeves
drying in the cold night
the stars,
God they were bright.
It makes me feel alone here in suburbia,
where the buffalo don't roam,
it's impossible to feel so small and so free,
so careless, in this city,
For there is more to Electricity
there's more to useless junk,
there's boy Scouts going
on a real adventure,
their adventure out of their hell
tha smelly parisian cage of pipes,
tubes, teachers and tests.
They get to breave here in Eden,
they see they're missing out,
they cheer the sun all morning,
till the nightime dries him out.
They get to hug the moon,
to face the secret truths under a piece of cloth,
a brown sky tent from which they
feel like they get it:
Men were apes and
they still are
they cannot live inside a jar
and when we breave that honeyed
air, when the smelly brezze rushes through
our clotted hair
we finally get to peek over the mountain,
and love it with
all we got.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 5:52 PM UTC
Live through me vicariously...
My rich neighbors got upset
Sycophantic ******** pretentious jet-set
I am the pariah the iconoclast blasted by rumors, iron-curtain of suburbia hurtin' tuff darts pointed at me
Think young it's only the vicissitudes
That control your mood and attitude
Am I gay? Your wife doesn't think so!
Go ahead live through me vicariously...
D. Clare
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 6:20 AM UTC
you are right to not believe
for you
the silent cries
that carry into the night
do not existence the volume
of your tv is adjusted
& everything becomes
a mute apparition
illuminated
but not heard.
you are right not to believe
for you
the sounds of gunshots
are the popping of fire crackers
after holiday barbecues
& the screams
come from parades of people
cajoling down side streets.
you are right not to believe
for you
the only hanging you know
exists in laundry whites
bleached towels are a must
for wiping hands
clean
& unstained
from the bloodied bodies
of loved ones.
you are right not to believe
for you
the world doesn't exist
beyond these bordered white picket fences
& bakes sales
until your mexican comes
to clean
suburbia
when will you realize
the war to be fought
runs beyond 5’o clock rush hour
& taking away your son’s ps4?
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
Read the palm of my hand,
Analyse the lines and see that it maps a highway with no destination
You became a long highway with high speeds and good music but as the driver, I knew it were to go nowhere
But as the passenger, you anticipated us to go everywhere
And for that I’m sorry
You became a best friend that I resented
And I became the best friend that you had to learn to resent
Long car talks became our lingo and daily messages was our travel snack that we would crunch like a pass time
But as you found another, our cars collided
Inertia was met by fastening seatbelts and an accident we both denied had occurred
And it's not that I’m jealous or realised I love you
But I am now met with suburbia,
With corners and cafe small talk,
Stop signs and round a bouts,
And I am to know that I can no longer rely on you like a country road but instead give way to another
I wish all the best for you
I know you once looked at my hands as a destination for yours
And honestly, sometimes I wish it were
But instead, they are creased maps leading to the nowhere for you
And everywhere for someone else
Although, I really hope you enjoyed the trip home
Jul 9, 2021
Jul 9, 2021 at 7:53 AM UTC
I've begun to spot patterns
more clearly,
the brick homes that
set around this suburbia
have begun to resemble
the lovely spots of a
giraffe perhaps
because I have
become so used to ogling
their grace, I couldn't be sure,
but I've begun to spot patterns on me,
bold, odd, rectangular blocks
honey-ed to my thin skin:
People. They are all around me.
Yet all I see are those blocks
thatching to me,
I think they're in search of a
shorter neck.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 10:58 PM UTC
having decided that your duty is to bring music
and a little bit of danger to the lifeless streets
of suburbia, you draw yourself up as a rebel with a cause,
hold your arms out like the spirals of the milky way,
sending the glowing children congregating around you
into a feverish whirl, because space is curved
and so are the suburbs you traversed across to bring them here,
winding through hills and streets to conduct
this sermon on a mount, so even the things that
appear to move straight are really spinning around.
you have stolen your father’s turntable,
and his old records, and his oversized coat,
and while the sunset begins to stain things
in a golden light, you put the needle
on the vinyl and open old wounds
while the only voice you have ever loved
claws its way out of the box and into
the grooves of the sky, making the stars
scratch and whir, and time instead
settles into the beats, breaks its lineage,
and begins to, like everything, spin.
Sep 4, 2012
Sep 4, 2012 at 1:47 AM UTC
Barnacles crunch like fast food under your sneakers,
my gnawed-on boots.
We pass over cat-eyed shards of glass
still spicy with beer bubbles
and still fizzy with teen rebellion;
It molds like an infection here.
In a town nicknamed "Little Norway." ~
This place hoards candy-colored suburbia in its pockets.
Houses like skittles weigh down its pants
and it belches out tourist traps weaker than expired pepsi,
yet it still manages these moments
where I can trot by your gazelle legs
and blast Julie Andrew's confidence.
And I want to heap myself on the oyster shells, say
STOP
Put this moment in a snowglobe,
sigh into it before we move on,
do anything before the wind whips it away.
Etch it into your hand if you have to.
But breeze dimples the water like a golf ball
and rips at the seams of the shore.
Please don't forget me when you leave.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 1:20 AM UTC
The glaring orange and red vermillion rays stretched over the mountain top and city skyline in the humbling spectacle of nature’s dawn...
Lifting away the frightful, cold and deathly nuances of the city by night...
The dull glaze of the concrete motorways,
Spun and circled around the growing organism of steel suburbia...
Filled with a meandering stream of colourful cars
Feats of engineering beauty
The blaring noise of traffic drowned out the natural stillness of nature’s beauty...
In the peak rush hour of a Cape Town mourning....
To the left of me...
Stood the deathly profile of a street urchin...
The little lady...
Body thin and frail, hands out-stretched in a sinewy leather grasp...
Warn and tattered rags for clothes...
Burnt and ***** face....
Yet still able to muster a look of hope....
I lifted my fingers to my mouth
And let out a shrill and deafening whistle
Drowned away by hooting and the hum of the engines, spurting noxious fumes,
Defiling the air....
She turned with a vigorous jolt
Raised eyebrows and a head turning smile...
I ushered her towards me with my outstretched hand, well manicured nails
Not a wrinkle of hardship characterising the clean skin
In the burning rays of yet another hopeful morning...
At least for me.
As her body was moving, all I could see were her eyes...
They pierced me, danced for and contorted the world around me....
A hazelnut brown painting, embedded in a small circular hole in the skull...
A gateway to the emotions
Connecting everyone, regardless of age, race or even stature...
As I gazed, captivated.
I saw compassion, longing, loss, warmth and passion in her eyes – the whole spectrum of humanity
In two small but infinitely deep pools
Cascading into a never ending abyss of emotions
Of pain, suffering, a little joy and infinite hurt....
Then I blinked...
And all those emotions, those connections and our future...
Were gone in the simple gesture of a fluttering eyelash
As she looked the other way...
The car lurched forward yet again...
With the flash of a green light and safety of movement
To the other side of the intersection
My hand still outstretched holding the crumpled buffalo note
My contribution to a severely needing hand
Lost with the bustle of life continuing, and leaving behind all too weak to keep up....
She began to scurry away, back to her pavement
I looked back...
The little lady gone.
Lost forever
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 6:15 PM UTC
Suffocation is the lamest form of death
Weakness of the heart and body
I am sick and tired of you suppressing me
Wake up and smell the ashes
All these problems
Run deep within my bones
A crooked skeleton
Can never be mended
You are no surgeon
Just an arrogant fool
Who thinks they are superman
Or king of the world
I am breaking down your mind
Tearing it to pieces
And re-arranging it to fit my individuality
Stop suppressing me
I may be weak but I am growing
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 12:16 AM UTC
Like stray dogs in suburbia we wander.
We once knew a path in our distant dog-year past
one our owners walked us down,
dragging us nowhere fast.
It was catholic school teachers,
conformist preachers
and all the other tame creatures who took us on our way.
We walked on their time,
to the beat of a drum our paws weren't made to pound.
And we were dragged by a noose (otherwise known as a leash)
but their language is not our language
so while I called it what it is
they called it keeping me safe.
What the masters don't know
is that sometimes they leave the wrong door open
and a fence in the yard or a parental guilt trip
feels about as big as a crack in the sidewalk to jump over
when the street looks like a filthy paradise
where things like loud are louder,
fast is faster,
scary, scarier,
and reality, realer.
Now we're never in any rush
because anywhere and everywhere is home
so simply staying in doesn't feel so bad.
Routine is no longer in our vocabulary.
Vocabulary is no longer in our collection of words
and our collection of words is no longer so clean.
We wander because ideas described to us as garbage
taste better than the textbook kibbles-n-bits
and even though it's not served hot
or in a bowl with our names on it
the fact that we found it ourselves
feels better than having our tummies rubbed
or making the grade.
None of this is to say that the old house
will never be home again.
Doggy doors are always open
and winters are always cold.
So once I've had enough of life's streets
teaching me more important things
than rolling over or playing dead,
things like knowing tricks don't always come with treats,
we might just go back inside.
And returning won't be our loss
because we'll be walking back in with unclipped claws for the first time
and with all our baby teeth and naive fears gone,
we just might bite.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 9:16 PM UTC
So tired
Back to work and then there's this social event and that social event
and the last one is the best one and I'm still trying to get over not having
last years job that was taken from me and given to you and still
trying not to even think about this because this is a whole new year and
Driving past Napa Valley's Wineries
Hotels, Buses, wine
Everything wine and I don't know where I'm going
My GPS broke, and the directions are drive straight and you'll see it
Suburbia has turned into true wealth
I've gone back in time, wine Haciendas on hill tops
like feudal mansions, waiting for the peasants to do the actual
work of wine, the dirt and the sweat of wine as the owners
twiddle their thumbs and worry about the stock market and their wine
I arrive at my Castle. For a few moments I will be allowed to taste
the lifestyle of the wine and pretend that I too belong in this castle
watching grapes ripen and waiting for the teaming hordes to do my work
and the mechanical wine processors sit idly waiting for the grapes and I feel a tinge of
sadness and fear for the grapes to be processed like in a slaughter house
until I realize they are only fruit, and not mammals
And on the hot deck overlooking the beautiful, silent valley with grapes ripening before
our eyes the only chair left is next to you
I sit down and look to my right and I see the woman who I feared would take my job and now did
and I wonder how it is that this has happened that I've driven for miles in the hot sun
through miles of grapevines only to be made to sit next to you who jealously drooled over
my job and could never say anything good about my work and then you won.
And we talk and I'm very clever and you don't like that because I'm supposed to be stupid
and it's supposed to be obvious why you got the job not me and not some seniority thing
and you say nothing nice, and it's only me keeping up a charade of conversation that
could turn ugly at the drop of a pin but doesn't due to my skill
and you then leave made uncomfortable by the evidence of my continued existence
and lack of dumbness
And it's only later that I realize in my imagination I wanted to hurl you from the deck
and into the wine press
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 12:25 AM UTC
A Moth rests on your nose for your solace,
Disoriented by anxious breaths instead.
Still your lungs.
Postpone your life for another’s,
an insect that lives for an average of three days is worth
more than you of eighty years.
It has less time to live and
So is forced to live each nanosecond as its minute.
Hold your breath for a second and give it thousands of moments
To study the purpose of your pores, the nature of your nostrils, the message of your mouth.
It is a blessing that one who has such a blink of a life should choose you.
Its tentative, exploring antennae acknowledge your existence
For that moment
You are its universe.
You
Are the mountains, and underwater caves, the forests, the savannah, the tundra, the planets.
You
Are the suffocating suburbia, the twitchy towns, the neglected neighborhoods, the seductive cities.
You
Are sighing waterfalls, lighthearted hills, free-spirited skies, heartwarming dreams.
If god was the universe,
Then you’re set for heaven.
Except
The Moth flies away
Leaving you to take its place.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 8:59 PM UTC