"turntable" poems
Tomato:
Big, juicy, red
INSANE!
Sneaks up upon unsuspecting
Unreliable
MATH TUTORS!
A terrible fight ensues!
Tomato or tutor?
Tutor or tomato?
Tomato knows no math.
Tutor has no seeds.
A standoff.
Tutor and tomato growl menacingly,
Circling one another
Like two pieces of meat
On a microwave turntable.
Suddenly, their rhythmic dance of Hate
Is broken
By the rhythmic sound of incoming
Imminent
Inescapable
Doom.
Tutor and tomato are trampled
Like a TV dinner
On the freeway.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 7:29 PM UTC
Did you lay me down on a bed of nails and expect me to surrender my all ?
I felt the waves wash over and they engulfed all that was good
Dragging me down lower than I have ever fallen freely
I wanted a lover
But you entwined your darkness into my light
No one heard the screams
The midnight hour so haunting
A chill lay in place of your heart
You looked straight through me just before you leapt
Head first into oblivion
I just stood motionless for what seemed like a million years
Then I turntable and left
The memory is hollow
But it is memory all the same
I beckon you here
But not so that I can surrender to your will
But so that I can show you the truth in all things good
You may shy away
Hide in those self created shadows of misery
But I will lay waiting
Just past midnight
The chill and silence deafen my soul
My love I beg
I beg
I'm falling
I'm sitting within your oblivion
Surrounded by creatures not of this world
Demons reign and I fear the fall
I turn
I always turn
You may leap into the hollowness of oblivion
But I fear it's clutches
I fear the hand of love
So turn tail and return
To the moment before midnight
The moment just before
The memory lingers
And the strike of twelve is never heard
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 5:19 PM UTC
Jealous Again
I put Black Flag, Jealous Again on the turntable
It spins and I spin
I hold my hands to my face like I have a mic
I feel like spitting as I pump my fist
MAYBE I AM JEALOUS
Jealous of the guy who has two kids
Jealous of the guy with a job
Jealous of the guy with a car
I put Black Flag, Jealous Again on the turntable
It spins and I spin
I make faces and show my teeth
My grill needs work
MAYBE I AM JEALOUS
Jealous of the guy who has nice teeth
Jealous of the guy with six pack abs
Jealous of the guy with a full head of hair
I shouldn't be jealous
I have me
My values
My family
My friends
I even have Black Flag, Jealous Again on vinyl
I have everything I need
I shouldn't be jealous
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 10:29 PM UTC
The Sansui turntable still works well.
Like memories, round and round,
Needling me. And the more I play them,
The more they itch.
I know the dark side of the moon,
And the way the sun shines.
The dances, whirlwind moves,
That have settled now.
Inside the sleeve are notes and our words.
I will not let the dust jackets do their job.
I set Abbey Road gently on the pad,
Place the needle softly, and hear the familiar scratch.
Standing back, like watching a parade,
I listen.
Here comes the sun on a cloudy day.
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 9:22 AM UTC
There is a vicar from Chelsea
Who alas is not very wealthy
Often he dines on communion wine
And curried bat from the belfry
He lights a lot of incense
To hide his flatulence
He gets a bit high
Perhaps that is why
His sermons never make sense
--The vicar gets his knickers in a twist--
The old church roof had seen better days
The pressing need was a serious fund-raise
So the vicar abseiled down the tower
As the village watched by the graves and flowers
With a flurry his cassock flew up in the air
Shocking pink he wore under there
Flapping around it covered his face
As he dangled there in embarrassed disgrace
Someone called the fire brigade
A turntable ladder came to his aid
When at last they got him down
Humbled and grateful he kissed the ground
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 3:18 AM UTC
Magdalene watched Mary
bend down to put on the LP.
The Beatles. They’d saved
up and bought it together.
She took in Mary’s stockinged
thigh showing through the slit
in the side of the school skirt.
Mary placed the LP carefully
onto the turntable, with her finger
put the needle arm down onto
the vinyl. The music started up,
Mary stood up and sat next to
Magdalene on the single bed.
Magdalene sensed her there,
her thigh next to hers, her
warmth, their knees almost
touching. What did your Ma
say when you said you bought
the Beatles? Magdalene asked.
She said nowt, Mary replied,
but Da said it was a load of
***** and where did I get
the money from to buy it?
John Lennon's voice sang
over the twanging guitars.
Magdalene said, did you
tell him we bought it together?
Mary nodded. Her hands
pushed between her thighs,
her young face lit up by
the room's light. Don't you
think Paul's a dish? Mary asked.
Magdalene shrugged her
shoulders, studied Mary’s
knee where a spot of flesh
showed through a hole in
the black school stockings.
She wanted to move closer,
kiss the cheek, place her
lips on the skin. She breathed
in the borrowed scent that
Mary wore. Said she'd liberated
it from her Ma's room. Mary
talked of the boy they'd met
in the woods above the school.
Tried it on so he did, she said,
over the guitars and Lennon's
loud voice. Magdalene wished
she could put her hands where
the boy had tried. I put him
straight, Mary said, kneed him
where his fatherhood might flow.
Mary moved up and down on
the bed in response to the music.
The bedsprings complained.
Magdalene sensed the movement,
took in Mary’s behind going up
and down on the bed cover.
Glory be. She wanted to kiss.
Needed the hand to touch Mary’s,
the skin to join up with hers.
Downstairs a voice bellowed
to keep the ****** noise down.
Mary sighed and bent down
to turn the **** the thigh
revealed in the skirt's slit,
the spot of flesh through
the hole in the bended knee.
Magdalene captured the image.
Hid it in her memory bank for
later, for bedtime, for the cosy
pretend hold, maybe more if in
her dream she was lucky and bold.
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 4:31 AM UTC
I want to go to a record store with you
we can spend the little money we have left
on The Smiths, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd
for an hour or two we can be angsty teens in the 80s
who drink cheap beer and steal our parents cars
lets pretend were running away
from home, from school, from everything we know
I wanna lay on the floor of your apartment
put a record on the turntable and hear that sweet crackle
we'll listen to what we've bought
and pretend we're watching the stars through the ceiling
they'll dance to the beat like a laser show in our eyes
while mind blowing guitar riffs and drum beats fill our spirits
-kk
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 2:40 AM UTC
Welcome to Misadventure, you're drawn to it in some berserk way, maybe due to it's atomic habits or technological urges,
sometimes there are cool, but irrational gun-totting robots who speak in foam, their presence detected by iron filings or teeth fillings or both or neither,
I just know there are tire tracks on your wife's new dress, the smell of gasoline coming from the guest bedroom, and a half-eaten Stouffers lasagna rotating on the record turntable,
and here a replicated version of your wife dances to the Italian Song, her ******* like lodestones, upturned and pressed together,
drawing you to them in some berserk way,
and they give such life and merriment to your brain's parcel of needles, that they prance and sway as if the devil were in them.
Apr 23, 2021
Apr 23, 2021 at 10:33 AM UTC
You are not your Body,
but your Body is your Temple;
and your Temple is the only Altar
at which I'm compelled to worship.
The Goddess I know is present
The Goddess I know and love
The Goddess known to you as "I"
dwells within that earthly Temple
thus is thy Temple my Altar
I want to darken the room;
to turn off the lights
draw the curtains
and then to light candles
and disrobe our Temples
and lay upon a bed of satin
and to begin to carefully trace
the subtle curves, circles, arcs and lines of your Temple
with the lips, tongue, teeth and fingertips of mine
and to forget the sense of Time
we both know so well by now;
I want the Music of the harmonies of our Temples
to drown out the music of the turntable
I want the rhythm of our Love
to pulse so deep into the Night
that it comes back out the other side
I want the melodies we accidentally sing
to make the Moon and Stars blush with envy
I want to worship your Temple
in all the ways that we'd see fit;
I want us to moan in blissful, belligerent unison,
our eyes meeting with such electricity
that the spark creates ephemeral dim light
just before the magnetism pulls us together
and we kiss a kiss to end all kisses
just before we kiss a kiss to begin it all again.
I want this holy communion
under naked moonlight of Love
and I want to hold your Temple
until all Temples cease to be.
Time has no meaning
when we're apart.
Time has yet less meaning
when we're together.
I love you and your magnificent Temple,
my one and only Earthly Goddess,
and I can wish for nothing more
than to be able
to make you unable
to doubt it,
once more.
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 5:43 AM UTC
lust is pink
dark and cloudy
casual in its appearance
beautiful in its persistence
as those reddish waves crash upon my shore
lust is soft
clear and winding
round the bark-less trunk of my torso
rustling the leaves of my hair
as my roots begin to stir
lust is loud
quiet but growing
symphonic in its metaphoric
crescendo to the top of the page
lick my thumb, flick back to previous sheets
and try to figure out where the music started
lust is music
slow reggae from a stereo in the morning
heavy metal blaring from a passing car in the afternoon
turntable cranking out Sinatra in the evening
tape deck cracking and splitting the indie rock
that curls around us at night
lust is strange
wistful and insistent
tugging at the corners of my jacket
as i remove the layers that protect my jawline
so you can taste the soft skin there
scarf unwinding, falling to the grass
and the cold flees from our shoulders
frightened by our moving hands
exploring the obstacles across our bodies
lust is here
obvious, apparent
even to me
in my awkward awareness of the raindrops
blistering my warm skin
and lust becomes silent
as we swallow the sound of the tension between us
put the words to our lips and bite
in your mouth i find four letters
l u s t
and i take them from you
m i n e
give them back
lust is generous
and so am i
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 3:00 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
one glance
and a story starts
spinning
on the turntable
your heart -
the needle dropped
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 6:41 AM UTC
There might have been a time
When I wasn’t full of fear so topped off
Like a gassy sombrero
like a burrito left in the
Sun to bake and there might have
Been a
Time
When I hadn’t yet eaten a burrito
landlocked
In New England, locked in a small state of
Fear and knowing that knowing
just isn’t
Enough.
There might have
Been
A time when luxury was a nickel
apiece paperback
Book at the Unitarian Church fall sale
to raise funds for
Their roof.
To raise their
Roof.
And there
Might
Have been a joy in my spark
Plugs,
A joy
In my canter
A Joy in
My legs that preceded my
Fears.
There might
Have
Been a time:
When I would pick one of the seven records we owned
And delicately put it on the turntable, thinking I will
Have my own money and
buy my own music.
When I idly lift the leaded paint
from the 200 year old wood
And scratch it to smell its sweet aroma.
And put my hand on the glass pane
Think hard enough and open your eyes and it will be
1838 again.
Oh where are the people?
Oh where
when there might have been a time
Did I not see who they are?
Or they did not register.
I must have watched them everyday
Observant
so keen to be seen
Is it possible to feel so much
for feeling so little?
Or did I feel gulfs of embrace
that were not there?
I wanted and I desired and I dug.
I craved and thought and speculated
and clung.
And there might have
Been
A time when I roared on my Schwinn down the long empty
Roads of my town.
Invoking our gods.
Invoking my claims.
There was a time when I stuttered with
Compassion and could
feel a touch observed
There was a time:
Across the street in a
lit house at dusk.
Their curtains are open, their lights are on.
Oh, the sun has settled down
There is that time, golden, when I
Look into your kitchen, and the wallpaper is
Blue and harvest gold with small pictures of oil lamps on
Them and your walls are mustard gold.
Your plates are unbreakable
I see them lustre in the
Overhead light, fashioned like a wagon wheel.
Guns ablazin’.
Trails awash.
There might be a time when I can slip back
Into your kitchen
lick the plates and then
Run my fingers over
the wall paper.
Tracing the outline of the oil
lamps imprinted.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 7:19 AM UTC
When I was younger
I slept in the top bunk
over my older brother
- Pretty soon we’re all going to die -
he was fond of saying
while we listened to Credence
Clearwater Revival on an old turntable
with a penny he taped to the arm
to make it sound like a $100
Pretty soon he got me saying the same
words, like moon, mosquitos and darkness
were in his ear, he’d have dreams of
naked women washing his feet
and sparrows looking out of his eyes
He hollered at old man death
when he was wanting some shuteye
- Nobody on earth is like me -
he’d wake up shouting not meaning
to disturb my sleep
He said - I am the white piano
they threw off the bridge -
- the snake bed and the shade tree -
- I am something, yes-sir-eee -
- I’m something not everybody wants
to believe - he’d say sipping on whiskey
bought from a woman up the holler
He told death to - kiss his white *** -
then holler at me to get out of bed
and go trim the grass around the stone
angels planted up in the high pasture.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 10:21 PM UTC
*****************
It is not only on her birthday, and the day she left
i remember her everyday...without fail
her thoughts visit me when i rise in the morning
she hints to me what she'd do if she were in my shoes
at night, i whisper, "talk to me...in my sleep..."
in my dreams, our eyes seldom meet...she's younger now, lovelier
always busy pruning her bougainvillas and dama de noche,
the usual scene....maybe, she's telling me this is how it's going to be
that everything would be okay, even when i, too, am gone.
it's like, she's just outside, tending her garden
it's like she's absent, just traveling, for a while.
in the minds of my children and grandchildren
my siblings and their families
her memories play on and on, like a record spinning on a turntable
she's a serenade...a classical piano piece that won't fade
my late mother...she's a song that will not die.
Sally
Copyright May 7, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 9:23 AM UTC
You can have it all, if you don't need nothing
Keep the good vibes rolling, if it helps with one's loving
It's like a whole EDM festival, coming from your mouth
Not like those turntable dudes, down in the deep south
I thought DJs had had their freestyle spinning last days
Like Catholic church priests and their unholy ******* ways
Licking soda-pops over a long hot summer holiday
Kissing a girl named, Katy Perry, the very next day
Licking it all up, before she shows her b-SiDE
Then screams to three, to come on back inside
Like snatching the America's Cup, with Ben Lexcen’s winning keel
While somewhere amongst the hills of Hollywood’s La La Land
Whole plates of food, just going to waste, inside, never never, friggin Disneyland
While a starving homie, maybe, just ate his very last meal
They say, ‘I'm the new messiah’.Thanks, but, I don't even try
Thanks to so few, excluding the ones, who waved me on by
I'm sort of creating, a brand new hype and buzz
Full of pure clarity, with a dash of man-made fuzz
When the beat stops, from its fast-talking pace
We all like to flop and drop that ******* bass
Licking soda-pops over a long hot summer holiday
Kissing a girl named, Katy Perry, the very next day
Licking it all up, before she shows her b-SiDE
Then screams to three, to come on back inside
Like snatching the America's Cup, with Ben Lexcen’s winning keel
While somewhere amongst the hills of Hollywood’s La La Land
Whole plates of food, just going to waste, inside never never, friggin Disneyland
While a starving homie, maybe, just ate his very last meal
A shout out, to all my southern conquistadors and homeward bound homie’s
Ignore all the Los Angeles doomsayers and Hollywood snapchat phoney's
Elevator doors always be jammin' and then coming to a closure
We all like a moment, of shy mouth miming, with very little exposure
From a worldwide hit or an Aussie Whispering Jack golden classic
From the sound of a crackling frisbee, made from nothing,
but pure black plastic
Licking soda-pops over a long hot summer holiday
Kissing a girl named, Katy Perry, the very next day
Licking it all up, before she shows her b-SiDE
Then screams to three, to come on back inside
Like snatching the America's Cup, with Ben Lexcen’s winning keel
While somewhere amongst the hills of Hollywood’s La La Land
Whole plates of food, just going to waste, inside, never never, friggin Disneyland
While a starving homie, maybe, just ate his very last meal.
Oct 5, 2019
Oct 5, 2019 at 8:36 PM UTC
When I was a teen
Vinyl was the scene
Forget
The tangled up cassette
Then came, scratch free CD
Now the one you cannot see...... MP3
Pulled apart
LP's wonderful art
Dusting down my old turntable
Spin some disks
Hope it's able
Making a warm crackle
The needle clicked into the groove
My ears did approve
So it's final
I'm going back to
Vinyl.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 5:24 AM UTC
CASHEW NUTS EATEN, BY AN OPEN FIRE
It's air in motion, the sound too soft to the ears and appealing to the senses.
The air so crisp, dust-filled and ice cold
The moon-lit skies, looking like the red night goblin was about to shower bars of chocolate and descend with his wrapped toys.
Some sweet jazz christmas music was playing in the background, Nat King Cole for sure.
From the old turntable came the music. Well mixed with the breeze thus presenting a never-before heard rendition of the song playing.
Once again the breeze blew heavily.
Trying to have its way with the open fire, burning some metres away from the large hut.
Earlier in the week, the cold North East wind had brought along some wild fire.
One happy family was sitting around the fire.
A man in turban and his wife with their handsome boy and cute little girl.
All dressed in warm woolly glittering sweaters and thick trousers.
They were all engrossed in what the father of the house was saying. And almost forgetting the wild fire had made them homeless. They had to settle for the large abandoned hut.
In between, they seemed to be chewing something.
Of course roasted nuts from cashew in a flat plate. All they had left to eat.
Father downing some fairly warm wine as he spoke.
He was telling them tales/legends of christmas and santa from all over the world.
Even the chewing horse relaxing next to the family, was enjoying the story-telling session.
Father closed his story book.
Together the whole family made and sang a remix of 'the christmas song' replacing the first line with 'Cashew nuts, eaten by an open fire'
Half way through the song.
They heard a loud bang close to their hut, something had landed in front of their hut.
It was a large box filled with swiss chocolate, other yummies, gifts for the whole family and most of all, a map telling them about a place of hope along the West.
On the right-hand side of the box was a large label with the words 'From Santa with love'.
The family, now relieved from the sudden heart-pounding sound and excited by the arrival of the gifts, cheerfully and gratefully started their song all over. This time it sounded like a 'reprise/outro' to an epic album.
This was the night before christmas and Harmattan just got serious.
Happy Christmas!
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 2:23 AM UTC
Some years ago there was a different Zenia. There was a house where she more or less lived, and a man who lived there too. And all the things that went with it. And the good and bad and mediocre times flowed through her fingers. Nothing was especially good or bad, and she didn't think about whether it should be different because before this house and this man there had been war in many nations, and like many people all over the planet that they lived on during this time, Zenia and the man in the nice enough house felt grateful to be alive.
When she stopped to wonder if she was meant to stay where she was, in the nice enough house, with the loving man and the kind people who lived near them, Zenia only knew that she was 1. grateful to be alive 2. happy that the bombs had stopped falling after many years of many bombs falling 3. hopeful at last for a future that might include both number 1 and number 2 for quite some time into the future. The moment that she caught herself thinking the above thoughts, she would curl up, in a corner or in a bed, or in the bathtub, and sob. Because the hubris of daring to think such thoughts was frightening, and yet she wanted to have hubris. She was a daring person by nature, and she wanted to be herself again.
~^~
After some years in the nice enough world, crouched down, trying not to invoke the wrath of the Gods in whom she absolutely believed, Zenia snapped.
~V~
Thus begins the tale in which we now find ourselves.
~V~
This World is not the one in which we live now, but a reverse circular inside out imploded mistake. It doesn't matter right now how it came about, you wouldn't understand it, and probably don't care. What matters is how it started. If you can see that part clearly, it might make everything else fit together. It's a vast puzzle. A vast puzzle of misintent spinning backwards on a lunatic's turntable at what could be called, perhaps, as a sick joke, warp speed, like a flip book, that is a kind of cartoon. So bear with me as I try to explain what I don't understand to you, so long after the ultimate destruction and rebirth that it is probably not possible for mere mortal minds to comprehend.
All we can do is try.
~V~
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 8:38 PM UTC
Come here.
Let’s.
Let’s?
Let’s…
Let’s.
Come here.
Listen to Edith Piaf
(So hipster, n'est-ce pas?)
and the scratch of her
voice on the turntable,
will be ours
to keep in Moleskine
notebooks of memory.
So that we’ll try to believe,
love is actually a thing.
Let’s.
Come here.
This quaint room will be
ours,
our guest, as we breathe life
into the coffee cups, wooden chairs.
We’ll give it a nose, yes.
Lightbulbs will smell red
wine in fingerprinted glasses.
Windows will drink
us,
to us.
And we’ll laugh, our faces
hot and sad, mouths
crammed with French
fries.
A scene blurred with happiness.
Let’s.
Come here.
Trash the hands of every
boy, who’s spread himself
out on marginalia of our days.
Slathered himself on pieces
of time we wish we had hugged to ourselves.
Hate, hate, hate
him, we’ll say.
And his **** hands.
Let’s.
Come here.
Our eyes will be fireflies
behind our glasses,
in this cinema’s night, as we ‘swoon’
at rom-coms as buttery
as the popcorn we bought in the interval.
Life’s too short, we say.
Eat about it, drink about it,
maybe even talk about it.
Forget about it.
Let’s.
Come here.
Talk, about nothing.
We’ll all be dead one day.
Let’s.
Come here.
We can be friends.
Let’s.
Let’s.
Let’s.
Let’s?
(And your giggle will end
all and every verse written.
I’m **** sure of it.)
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
the black and white photographs you took
five years past still hang framed in my room,
just above my turntable. Deja Entendu
spills from the stereo as the needle finds its groove.
a shelf filled with all the records
we used to listen to for hours
lines the wall and succulents
adorn the windowsill, waiting patiently
for the rare rays of sun, golden
and flossy as your hair,
which somehow manage
to peek between the tenement rooftops
every now and then.
we still live in the same town. sometimes,
people bring you up. they ask me how you are,
how long it's been since i've heard from you.
i neglect to tell them that, aside from absentee
notifications popping up on my phone
at intermittent variations, we've only spoken once,
in a crowded, little coffee shop
in the city we both love to hate.
you pretended you didn't see me, but i felt your eyes
notice me at the bar as i sat typing another story,
bobbing my head, listening to Daughter.
if i hadn't approached you, i imagine
you would've acted like i was invisible.
the conversation was terse, abbreviated.
i find it strange how once
we were the best of friends
and now we can sit twenty feet apart
and act like we never knew each other at all.
i can't really recall why
our friendship collapsed in the first place.
have i suppressed it? or was it just the casual
slip, like Pangea, elapsed time
fracturing our continent.
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 4:25 PM UTC
The colors, they won't stop.
Bright, beautiful colors
Flashing, expanding, piercing
Red, green, blue
An endless
cacophony
Of meaningless
noise
The noise, it won't stop.
Violent, grating waveforms
Squeaking, screeching, piercing
Sine, cosine, tangent
Like playing a chalkboard on a turntable
Like playing a vinyl on a pizza crust
An endless
poem
Of meaningless
Load Me
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 4:19 PM UTC
my eyelids feel heavy
it's been too many hours
since i recall what sleep felt like
my hair and beard are a disheveled wreck
working on my sixteenth whiskey sour
On the rocks, hold the fruit
and smoking another cigarette
countless crumbled packs sit empty
on my hardwood desk and the surrounding floor
it's a mess in this darkened writing room
lit only by the computer screen
and one dying lantern soon to extinguish its flame
outside the snow continues to fall
piling high and deep
pulling the frigid chill of white
into my writing room
my fingers caress the keys
of this battered keyboard
stained with ashes, alcohol,
and things i couldn't even guess upon
nothing of any good quality being written
words i've used before
words i've used incorrectly
words i am past the stages of being tired of using
words i've given up on
i listen to listener, orchid, saetia, envy
and more bands that no one has ever heard of
screaming poetry thru the worn out turntable
aggravated by the fact that i have to keep changing sides
but appreciative of each records quirks and pops
i continue listening to the echo of their verses
i should just give up, give into failure, i'm good at it
but i can't, even in this disheartened state
somewhere between the flipping of records and the
bombardment of keys being slammed
my lantern finally dies
leaving me in the glow of my computer
and the warmth of another whiskey sour
in my writing room i am left lingering
haunted with the words that i am choked upon
haunted with the last page of my story
haunted with these final words:
The End.
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 1:07 PM UTC
'What shall we talk about today?'
Spin, spin, spin the conversation
into loops and recapitulations.
Cassettes were my sustenance but
a vinyl record spins on the turntable.
Won't you tell me what song is playing right now?
Rests, then
block chords, then
swing-swung rhythm.
Then,
unexpected concords.
Where did those blue notes come from?
And colour our red, some supposed red, into
purple?
But jazz has always been unpredictable.
I grew up on the clarity and
gravity
of soft pink time;
pearl-notes to the steady, steady,
steady
beat of a metronome.
But now,
now?
Syncopation.
My
beat
against your
beat
and we make a violently violet
bossa nova.
Suddenly the classically trained flautist
has time-travelled to her very first lesson.
Because no sound flutters out of the mouthpiece
and her fingers can't keep up.
Swing-swung
syncopation
and she doesn't know to breathe anymore.
Where did those blue notes come from?
Silence.
Have we reached the final double bar?
The cadence is imperfect,
unresolved.
Listen, a cold snap of instant jazz
knocked us over.
Arms clasped, teeth chat-chat-
chattering.
1,
2,
3 -
A not-quite waltz.
But jazz has always been unpredictable.
Won't you tell me what song is playing right now?
I think we know what it is but can't figure it out.
And so Cole Porter and Billie Holiday save us
from
fading out.
'Let's do it, let's fall in-"
I don't want this song to be over.
I don't even know what it's called
but
don't let it end, don't let it,
don't
don't
don't.
I can't cook but I think
I can make
instant jazz.
And you,
and you...
You'll write dizzy like
a Coltrane solo.
As you do.
And I'll lay down my flute,
struggle out of my red minuet and
wonder:
Where did those blue notes come from?
But jazz has always been unpredictable.
'What shall we talk about now?'
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 2:27 PM UTC
Pardon me while I remember.
when sight scathes, used upon,
this glass shatters I love the sight of you.
in days the Sun trembles
through a fist of streaming light.
I can only think of objects the size
of my clenched hand
a pear, an empty basin, a flower deep crimson
between fingers wanting to break
stem twice-told pains the sound of it,
a flat black disk on the turntable bellowing
sounds of the bones we made in love.
we are mirror
facing mirror -- our distinct quiet held us
shattered,
standing apart, I running towards, and you, from,
feeling the wind glaze the wounds retold.
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 8:33 PM UTC