"synthetically" poems
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
through graceless steps and cleavaged twirls,
girls shared repost with other girls,
and the upper lips of the ladies curled,
as the married men all swooned.
they got bored all too readily,
so drunk their liquid steadily,
synthetically coloured blue and green,
she'd seen the latest advert.
and the boys in their polo shirts,
drunk and high on testosterone,
they took pictures on their camera phones,
and called each other gay.
the male claws began to itch,
for the feeling of **** and the feeling of ****
and the dancefloor was badly lit,
so they knew they had a chance.
sweaty hands and fluorescent teeth,
moved through crowds to find their niche,
and the necessity for niceties,
was shortly overruled.
uninvited gropes from behind,
on bellies of those who looked like they might,
be easily persuaded to bed that night,
without heavy rhetoric.
then came the bartering stage,
those awkward five minutes in which to arrange,
the consummating details, the exchanging of names,
the reality of night.
there were many things to factor in,
tales of lost friends still waiting,
I said we'd share a taxi home,
and she can't walk alone.
and after the barter is all complete,
the scorned pick fights in the street,
the end draws near finally,
so the masses all go home.
some walked home solemnly,
whilst others share the company,
of people they'd knew they'd never see,
after the night is through.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 10:34 AM UTC
Corroding off in wreckless control
Repeated lines stretching infinitely in ambiguity
Sharp muscle relaxant mistakes
As we career off the road
Into a ravenous singularity
We are unforgiving, cynical yet synthetically joyous
Quick to pardon
Whipped with a gold leash
Delicate, leaves, Celtic music
Rubik's cubes in our throats
We're ready to let love in, willing
Nova tech, drunk masks and indication
Indignation, we clutch, we fail
Partial to conditions
Stones out of focus
Accelerate
Engines bleed borders
You are the free way
Impotent with quartz remnants
Ruins to our fantasy
You hide history
Covered in my burrow
Braking until necks break & bags burst
Powdered hair, liquid lips
Let's drive home
Go beyond the limit
Break each others bones
And crush our entities
Suffocate on suffixes
Her explanation acquits the doubt
As we appear closer than we may actually be
Industrial stacks stretch towards invisibility
Letting go of their concentrate
Gelatin mind
levitate into connection
Cups turned upside down
Entrapping ego in near vacuum
Aqua ducts bouncing off feline eyes
2 & a 4
Perfect air in a foreign atmosphere
Spinned on axis, ways to conduct
Your supply
Secede madness
Eternal order
Lungs sharply inhale with uncertainty
Hydroplaning your attempts at adultery
Decision was never your thing
Unmoving at every turn
Passion with objects
Reactions flicker between humility
It gives gifts
Your skin melts to the touch
Chocolate in magma
Molten sound deafens drench
Jealous mess, dividend
Hugging and dripping black with stability
Back, holy scripture written with integration
Sealed with treachery, acetate photography
Capturing clear innocence
Boredom and sinfulness
Spiked militant
Pencil drawn neuroses, veil
Bow down to schematics, we're radar
Sonar structure solar
It's all part of the process
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 12:59 PM UTC
The immobile carcasses of plastic babies
litter my child's floor, never seeking there
birth mother as she was a statue of recycled
imagery. Of illegitimate children holding this
abortion of weaved construction that sings hollow
words of "mommy, mommy,
But they look within me, in cold eyes they stare in
to nothingness heeding the words of wanting
but their cries diminish to a silent lingering buzz.
Barely heard but I white noise succumbs to dreams
of a lonely child in stress, but recycled voice spoke.
I kicked the abortion of sickening similarity and
wonder back as the form of a child, baby, I have just
kicked. But still it weeps for a mother that is as
fake as the calls its synthetically calls upon a child.
Inanimate objects that stir in repetition, I will be long
gone when you will still whimper in a landfill,
calling in static, batteries last moments and you
still call out "mommy, mommy, no one answers your call.
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC
*Bring in the Stash
'No-cache'
Spin Them
In The Bin
Oh Yes,
The Recycle Bin
Centrifuge The Thoughts
Accelerate The Spin
Let it Cool
Skim
The Supernatant Thoughts
A~Blend Synthetically Homogenous Words
A Quick Stir
Win Win
Stash
The Residue
Bottle it Well
For a Later Spin
Amalgamate
A~Miscible Thoughts
Repeat The
Centrifuge
Oh Yes
In
The Recycle Bin
Anew Spin
Treasure The Bin
Win Win*
Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 8:33 AM UTC
I search the shambles
of my brain
For a memory of
how it used to be.
Before neurons
and synapses were
synthetically
altered. Before
emotions knew such
peaks and valleys
only depicted in
the finest of art.
Some days my
small, open palms
come up empty...
gripping and grasping
at straws feebly
******* at long since
evaporated air.
But then there are those days,
the ones that begin
with a shine and
end with a glow,
On those days
I recall the
blissfully innocent
images of a girl
untainted, untouched.
Of a stone
unturned. Those days,
if you see my
eyes in passing
connection,
make note of the
lingering glitter
of a girl
who gave her all
To get her all
in return.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC
The sparks in the iron sky
cannot hope to twinkle
like the embers in her eyes
the rain has no veil for her radiance
it pierces the swirling skys in me
the walls bare no meaning now
in this heart of mine
and I've unhung the paintings here
my wounds close in the wake of
her every motion
and I am free
All that there was crumbles
Synthetically
In the magic of of her autumn smile
Oct 3, 2018
Oct 3, 2018 at 12:32 AM UTC
Nature sees what nature sees,
And nature does what nature does.
Minds believe in memories
And sometimes hearts believe in love.
When hearts and minds do both agree,
Conceived are dreams converged as one,
But love of life and logic leaves
Our livelihoods left out of luck.
Deceived are these who dream of things
Composed of money, grease, and blood:
Mechanical beings, with cogs and springs,
Like clockwork do this planet run.
In tightened shifts, devices click,
And slowly start to smog the sun,
But smoke and fog made synthetically,
How many does this bother? None.
Machines, you see, they do not breathe
The air they leave beneath for us.
They call this craft their politics,
And leave us here to pay in blood.
One by one, by one, we wonder,
Where the humans lost their love.
When will men begin to see
What nature sees how nature does?
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 11:31 PM UTC
I've been down for so long being up feels foreign. I've been down so long I made my way to my ancestors and acquainted with them. I've been down so long I think I need a decompression chamber because my lungs are not used to breathing freely, so used to breathing synthetically. breathe the breathes permitted at the permitted times, but now breathe freely. breathe like my ancestors wanted me too. breathe because i want to. i want to breathe. and now i can.
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 4:47 PM UTC
People ask me what's wrong
And when I respond
With, "I won't say
because I want you to be okay,"
I'm given this sad, synthetically sympathetic smile.
I don't want you to try to understand what it's like for me.
I don't need your synthetic sympathy.
People say, "It's okay to be not okay,"
And its just more of your synthetic sympathy for me.
How long will it take for you to know
I will do whatever it takes to go back.
Back to being me without any synthetic sympathy.
Feb 15, 2018
Feb 15, 2018 at 5:24 PM UTC
You feed me lies like cake. They are synthetically sweet but I still can't get enough. Vanilla dreams, laced with black licorice demons. You tell me that you love me, but I can see the chocolate frosting at the corners of your mouth. This is it. I'm too full. This will be my last bite.
My last bite -
until I ask for another piece of cake.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 5:26 PM UTC