"totemic" poems
chin resting on two palms,
sprouting totemic archetypes
of good-evil.
watching this passing away...
this double take on: creation/
preservation/destruction.
how moved, how unmoved--
can one become?
one becomes.
scratch to scar the surface, and
existence won't wear signs of
struggle.
though wisdom kills indiscriminately.
your thunk betrayed you with a
breeze.
the latest, of a series of offensive odors.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
I'll trawl the squalor, if you like,
stick blinkers on to hide the fact
that my life has so far been a charmed one.
I can conjure a face,
small, forgotten
black against a duststorm sky -
There's your poverty for you,
And yes, I was there
And sure, I smelt the days old sweat
and can remember hunger as a curiosity
The boy's name is known to me
but I won't share it
Because he was real
but I missed his reality
and I have no right to it.
***** hands notwithstanding
I was just a tourist,
a passing mote of dust
in his drought-stricken life.
I was there for me
collecting picturesque snapshots
which would inform my return
to an undeserved comfort
(but only slightly).
To say he was important,
totemic, symbolic,
is false.
I remember him, that's all -
My boys,
my clean, happy,
here-now boys
eclipse that shadow in every respect.
An honourable assertion
only in that it is true;
and a brief regret that I made no contact
flickers out before
a blaze of contentment,
a bedrock of good fortune
with little to offer
the vicarious seeker
of hard-won wisdom.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 4:31 PM UTC
When you walked out the pub doors
On a sea of tears and last embraces,
The town stood still.
You broke my heart,
Set it back into place
So that I could feel again.
I was amongst the grown men
Turning backs on each other,
Wrangling our hair,
Pacing the floor,
Until we could not hold back
The occasion any longer.
I know when my plane comes
There will be brief handshakes,
Warm, worn smiles
Fastened from the heat
You gave so generously
To a town that grew cold
In your departure.
You taught us that kindness is enough.
Now rejoicing in private sobs,
Return of feeling for someone else.
This town we complained about,
Until you moved each man to song.
French lessons over the ashtray,
Anecdotes and private jokes
As far as the ear could hear.
I remember when the chemicals took over
And you danced in the sunglass shade
Of a darkened room.
Your energy bounced off the walls,
A pink-noise that echoed as I came down,
Nestled on my shoulder, totemic,
As I fought the speed, tried to sleep.
Beer bottles remained, the splintered ends
That serve as proof for last night’s fireworks.
You always made sure we were safe.
Our chance encounter,
Brief moments which collide,
Leaving marks,
Etching names
Onto stone that cannot wear away.
You taught me that sea of strangers
Is not a place to drown,
Just an avenue towards new land.
You could drink all the time
And it would not consume you.
Get stuck on a blue mood
And still leave your slumber,
Wide-eyed and hopeful for balance.
You left us standing in the rain
Our minds a roulette wheel,
Scattering between goodbye and farewell.
I guess I did not understand the stakes
Until you walked out of those pub doors.
I guess I had forgotten what loss meant,
Those years running from the blade of love
That cuts so finely the line
Of grief and glory.
I am bleeding here.
I am not sure when it will stop.
I am feeling again.
Thank you, friend.
Thank you.
Jun 19, 2016
Jun 19, 2016 at 4:37 PM UTC
systematized philistinism
aesthetic appeal to reason; ingenuity
iniquity within crusadery, crusadery within violence
right versus wrong versus up versus down versus christ versus jam versus peanut butter-
ceaseless competition of egoism within protectorate instincts
totemic defense of ideals
burn the effigy of the opposing party via verbose roastery
point at fingers
pointed at moon
hapless the artist,
and hapless the pragmatist
and hapless the sodden fool ye who wish to knows better
haplessly holier than thou
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 1:28 AM UTC
I could not see the next summit,
the gashed gnarl of its face.
I guessed only that its steepening
inclines had been set against me.
I could hear all the echoings
of the dead in their ice-tombs
where their aims had led them
and buried them, then, deeper,
the incredible footfall
of sherpas, spirited, light
and deft, unbetraying. A silence
stretched on toward a night
long with unhuman testimony.
Then it came: the world-clearing
hammer-blows of distant avalanches,
the palpitations of chaos,
one whiteout of potentiality.
My tent fluttered and gripped
at the snow that stored for spring
all paths to the peak, leading
through veils of embraces,
inconsolable losses, charms,
fantastic indictments. Swelling
its stormfront, then collapsing
into a voice like winter, the wind
took up a human song and broke
across the horizons. It sang,
'You are an unborn fjord,
a chasm yet to be. Only water
sculpts its beauty: let it pass.
Throw no harness over the clouds,
they hold no secrets, but are.
Here, while you plan your ascent
each night, exalting the fey,
the indolent, the totemic, you are
like a thief on a watchtower.
Until every such night has passed
you will light, tend, and watch die
a small, tense fire, but awake
surrounded by footprints.'
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 2:15 AM UTC
Forbidden to speak out their minds,
people walk around with muzzles.
They don't want to get no fines.
so they got solved like puzzles.
The government doesn't care for their children.
They only wish to make money from the pandemic.
at the cost of ruining the life of their grandchildren.
Apocalypse is honored like a something totemic.
When will this madness end and we begin to live normal lives?
Calm lives where all of us get the truth without lies.
Mar 29, 2021
Mar 29, 2021 at 4:11 PM UTC
Totemic— the drowned **** rises from the blasted shore, linking the severed heads, the spinal cord and collections of scorn.
May 16, 2025
May 16, 2025 at 6:48 PM UTC