"venues" poems
What if your soulmate was living on the other side of the world?
Singing songs in little venues
About girls nobody else knows.
What if your soulmate was sitting in a coffee shop 30,000 miles away?
Writing words into that old journal
About guys she's too shy to talk to.
What if your soulmate walked right by you, in a sea of people on a busy street?
Running for a bus to take to his mothers
Eyes never meeting.
But what if your soulmate met you.
And talked with you.
For seemingly endless hours.
But only for two days.
What if your soulmate had to stay in her boring town life.
What if your soulmate had yet another flight to catch.
What then?
What if soulmates exist?
I don't want us to have any what if's?
So stand a little closer to me.
And kiss me how you would if you knew this was the beginning of forever.
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 6:09 AM UTC
I'm slow to the boil and takes a lot to **** me off.
WARNING: Stop reading if you dislike vents.
A truth we all know but WONT discuss IS race relations in America *****
How did it come to all this open bigotry and so many stupid racist comments?
****** shame that my race still don't get that ALL people are created equal.
Maybe other regions get it but not my area with it's tons of racists.
In my area people believe all blacks lie, steal, cheat, live in ghettos,
black is the wrong race and white is always right and superior. BULL!!!
I will never be ignorant and speak ignorance like I hear in my area
"Ship them back to Africa their homeland!"
Wake up! Africa is everybody's motherland!!!
My dander is up because stupid racist bogus flagged a video of a friend.
Not bad enough they call venues so the lady can't get a local gig or they
posted bogus mugshots of convicts on Craigslist faking it was her.....
ATTENTION people from Northern Michigan: YOU PEOPLE NEED TO
RETHINK WHAT YOU THINK AND SAY ABOUT MINORITIES!!!
****** she's proving she doesn't need Northern Michigan to get her music heard?
Calling venue to get her fired and lose jobs didn't stop her from singing.
You can't flag this and to remove like you did on Craigslist.
I stopped posting on Craigslist after all the **** talk about my friend.
She got targeted by ignorant racist assuming ALL black women are like the
Kerry Washington's character on Scandal. Betty's not a bed hopper and
she doesn't ***** around with married men. I can't speak for Kerry Washington.
Betty doesn't speak ghetto talk as my area calls it and she's not like the stereotypes
racist paint all blacks to be. Blew their minds that Betty's a hell of a lot smarter than
them and she's not lazy, ignorant or the N word they love calling blacks.
Fed up with the racism in my area, Northern Michigan and the nation.
****** because anonymous ignorant went to Youtube and flagged my friend
Betty Ponder's new G-rated video for inappropriate content and got it removed.
Inappropriate content my ***
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 2:37 PM UTC
No one is here and I feel at ease;
I feel the recesses of my imagination
spring forward as ideas are at the
forefront of my mind,
yet I cannot put them down on paper.
I feel the neon pinks and blues and greens
that I know strongly resonate with me,
but to my dismay,
nothing ever comes to fruition
as much as I hope.
That cliché phrase of, “The sky is the limit,”
drowns me as I realize
parameters and prompts are what guide me
to what I truly want;
the idea of freedom gives me anxiety,
as I am a clueless ant on this plane.
As I look at a solitary trashcan
of impossible black,
this idea of suffocation
truly
encompasses
my mind, inescapable, unreachable, and unattainable.
Yet at the same time,
limits **** darlings.
With this seeming paradox
of open-endedness and limitation,
I set forth on my prompt,
however mundane it may seem now.
This task seemed at first simple,
but it proved difficult at times,
like most mundane looking venues.
My mind is not unlike
a checkerboard stone table:
cold and calculating;
I feel my imagination dies
when my fingers touch keys,
when pen hits paper.
“The sky is the limit,”
drowns me over
and over
and over again.
I look out of my peripherals
and glance at the red building signs,
wishing there was something
as obvious as that for a sense
of direction in my life.
My imagination truly hates me,
my imagination truly loves me;
it is an indecisive companion.
I wish I was alone, but my mind
wishes otherwise.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
I'm looking for a Neurotic Girl
someone who will break down before I do
someone who's not afraid to cry,as the tea kettle boils,
after telling me about her problems.
Someone I can worry about,and do unselfish things for, and offer some comfort to,
someone who depends on me for a change.
I'm looking for a girl
who isn't too confident in herself,even though she's wonderful,
at least in my eyes.
Someone who hasn't got her entire life sorted out, just yet.
Someone who'll realise that I can be a nice person, behind the facade.
Because these days I'm wandering
from party to party
from pointless
city centre venues
and all-too-familiar and contemptible
small town social haunts
and all I see and hear
are the attention-seeking, the unreachably friendly, the distant
and the involved
All swimming in mediocrity
If you'll pardon the fake sophistication of that last metaphor
And all I'm left to do
is wonder what it would be like
to find someone
who I could be Introspective,
Debauched and Nihilistic with
A nice Neurotic Girl.
But I suppose that would invariably lead
to some sort of responsibility
in my otherwise self-absorbed existence
I would have to pretend that I am a proper kind of person
for the sake of my fragile lover's much needed feeling of security
I would take it upon myself
to go out into the world
to keep a sort of balance for the both of us
spending headache-inducing hours
with people whom I cant stand
while she sits at home
and smokes
in bed.
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 7:10 PM UTC
Save My Soul, (But First), Rub My Feet
thus a poem auditorialy conceived,
but!
the sexuality of the deceiving dualities,
irritates erogenous, exogenous perceptiveties,
plethora of intensifying variables, a not-serious,
harmless remark yet bring us to myriad of
marauding reversals, add-venturing into harm’s way…
much to discuss, but this
topic bettered by much
trading of traditional bantering
brevity bettering our wordless battering
insinuating, sensational signals bring
us backwards & forwards
to an exploratorium of wide boulevards
back to new unfamiliar venues,
narrowing alleyways & places we were before,
places before we were before where,
no unnecessary commas to separate,
distingué, distinct
tween the instinct of old and new,
an uncommon commonality experiential revisionism
now I understand what you said to me,
a tenderizing of
the sole synapses directing
the brain, the old ooh ‘s, aah’s
reigniting what what lay dormant,
at long last,
by opening doors to alternations,
ven diagram of digressing yet intersecting
old & new pathways,
from the souls of her feet,
to, too, two,
we become diamond
on souls of our heat
May 30, 2023
May 30, 2023 at 4:50 PM UTC
For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?
Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?
And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. Keywords/Tags: butterfly, children, storm, lightning, thunder, hailstones, snow, frost, night, shelter, comfort, safety, rose, fire, warmth, Holocaust, Nakba, Gaza, Trail of Tears, slavery, injustice, abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 4:39 AM UTC
The little girl stood, with cone in hand. The ice cream on the ground.
The tears welled up in her eyes, as people stood around.
Tears fell like rain, her heart was breaking, she didn’t know what to do.
Then through the tears, saw grandpa kneeling… Saying, “Grandpa’s here for you.”
Grandpa said to the ice cream man “Another ice cream please.”
“Stack it high and pack it tight.” “We’ve got things to do and see.”
The little girl melted into his arms The sorrow turned to joy.
When grandpa’s near, all is better For grandpa’s little girl.
Oh, grandpa loves you Lucy Girl Forever and always.
When things get tough, call on Him He will lead you through the maze.
When you get to Heaven, many years from now. You will find me waiting there.
I’ll be by the ice cream stand a waiting Just for you to get there .
The little girl grew to a fine young woman. The time went by so fast.
She learned of things not of this world. The things that will always last.
You could see grandpa and the young girl, Walking side by side through life.
When things got tough they called on Him, To help them through the strife.
Oh, grandpa loves you Lucy Girl Forever and always.
When things get tough, call on Him He will lead you through the maze.
When you get to Heaven, many years from now. You will find me waiting there.
I’ll be by the ice cream stand a waiting Just for you to get there .
The young woman cried when grandpa died. As they lowered him in the ground.
Tears welled up, in her eyes As people stood around.
Tears fell like rain, her heart was breaking. She knew just what to do.
So she looked up high to see the Father And heard “Grandpa’s here for you.”
Your, grandpa loves you Lucy Girl Forever and always.
When things get tough, call on Me I will lead you through the maze.
When you get to Heaven, many years from now. You will find him waiting here.
He’ll be by the ice cream stand a waiting Just for you to get here
Oh, grandpa loves you Lucy Girl Forever and always.
When things get tough, call on Him He will lead you through the maze.
When you get to Heaven, many years from now. Your will find me waiting here.
I’ll be kneeling right next to Jesus While I’m waiting for you to get here.
Good night sweet Princess. See you in the morning.
©9-15-06 John Stevens
11-08-2013
Written originally for my grandson Tony (8). People say we are joined at the hip. He is a 24/7 little guy and this is how I "wish"/"hope" life will be lived. I realized I needed to make a copy for Lucy Girl (4) so she will be included.
Ice Cream was written for my grandson Tony (Anthony Stevens) as a reminder how I want to be as an influence in his life. There is also an underlying deeper meaning as to our relationship to God. Our Ice Cream (blessings) hits the ground from time to time because of our neglect or possibly no fault of our own, but God is there if we just look up and see Him kneeling to take us in His arms.
It all started on a Sunday morning when my Pastor said, “imagine a little boy standing there with an empty cone in his hand…. and the ice cream is on the ground. The images came flooding in and by the time first service was over, most of it was written. Since I run the sound system I listen to both Sunday morning services. Much of what I have written about has come from a trigger on Sunday morning or something similar. What do you do when YOUR Ice Cream hits the ground?
It has been sung to a couple of venues.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 10:12 AM UTC
I never thought that I would have my heart broken by a city.
It wasn't just the men and the music;
It was the eternal hope and subsequent disappointment.
I didn't go there with dreams in a guitar case.
My hands have always been too small to wrap around the neck anyway.
I went for the experience, with a notebook to my name.
The most incredible voices echo through the streets
Like wind through bare New England oaks;
It's haunting, comforting, met with silence.
I leaned over the edge of a balcony and thought,
How many people have jumped?
Because the thing is: you don't make it in Music City.
You try and try and try and try and then you go home.
I met a man on a street corner, a shy, sweet little thing.
Two months later he was back in Dublin, playing in pubs.
A raspy, long-haired rock-and-roll singer howled into the night,
And he didn't sing again for months.
Not until his vocal cords recovered.
Five Scotsmen took the breath away from a hundred people;
They went on "hiatus" a few weeks ago.
But there was such hope in their voices, in their smiles.
And it broke my heart.
I long for Nashvillian streets beneath my feet once more.
I want to feel the desire and passion in the air,
Circulating like cigarette smoke outside the smallest venues.
I risk my sanity by inviting the hopeful and the hopeless into my heart.
At least I'll get a poem or two out of it,
And maybe they'll get a song.
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 12:01 PM UTC
There is a beetle on the high street,
pushing the sun along at a fraction-
0f-a-mile-per-hour. He is pondering
his plans for the summer.
Perhaps different venues?
Perhaps different dung?
But he knows it's all foolishness.
He never goes anywhere.
Then a god falls out of the sky.
Not a particularly large one,
a medium-sized god as far as
they go. Roughly human-
shaped. Not counting those
streaming banners of fire
that pour from his eyes.
Few humans have burning eyes.
A dagger drips from an open
wound and he clenches his
blood (it is his own blood) in his hand.
More are coming he realizes.
All of them. And he's quite
correct. Without trumpets or
lights or choruses or bowls or
scrolls, it starts to rain.
The beetle pauses in his
pilgrimage to survey the
man underneath the god's feet.
A hand in a crater of asphalt
with a keen, nigh-inaudible
wheeze of breath. A cough
and a choke.
And the beetle scuttles on.
They fall from clouds that aren't,
I mean, actually in the sky. They crush
buildings and businessmen, They
eat fountains. They descend into an
unthinkable and unthinking
age like a dizzied chorus that cannot
pick up on the beat. Purple sash
and green helm, They build mountains.
Teeth chip around the clay- the men
and women- like fireworks.
The gods' great works resolve
like a finished slider puzzle, like the
back of the sun. Mannequins watch
the moving marble for a moment.
But the Mutes eventually find a voice,
they shout, they run into the fray.
Tantalus' mouth fills with
wine. The beetle walks around his
head. Sisyphus' back was broken
by a boulder. The poor little fellow
descends into an inferno and
climbs the devil's back like a
Purgative mountaineer. Such struggle,
thinks he, to have to take a detour.
Sky sets fire to the shell pink
sun at night.
The liquid spheres engulf ideas
on a dry stretch of ocean.
Clouds splinter in a victor's hands,
are frozen shut.
and everything sinks back home
in the middle of a wor
Mar 8, 2010
Mar 8, 2010 at 2:32 PM UTC
Sa pamamagitan ng kabutihan ng Kanyang Kabutihan
~~~
*the message arrive by private telegraph line,
"write,"
she behests,
more than a mortal's requests,
an authoritative pleading,
an urgent prompting
with an element of divinity attached,
almost a command
by virtue of
her virtue,
who am I to refuse,
though the writing gene/genie,
somnolent, suppressed, quiescent,
melatonined by the pills the
life force feeds us
from a bottle lonely labeled,
"whether you like it or not"
reckless explore the venues
you would prefer to never venture,
so,
this poem becomes her,
this poem be comes her,
this poem be comely
for and because of her
unbare chambers that have rusted shut,
be unafraid,
she seances me telepathically,
in the poet's way,
a crying smile accentuated with
"write of the titles you have confessed
to the body's mind inquisitor
that be stored
in the warehouses
of thy heart"
this irrecusable, willing bidding,
sneaks in the back door,
so easy oiled opened
by virtue
of her virtue
seven years of grain Pharaoh stored
in preparatory for the lean ones that
inevitable
come
yes, have so many would be's
gestated, but not fully formed,
none adequate to honor sufficient
her comely
behest
thus commissioned,
my purposeful mission,
to honor her once more,
with a simple honorific,
her wish, no matter how couched,
t'is my duty to fulfill
so here, full and filled
I grant her wishes,
with impoverished verses inadequate,
for you know her too,
as she full and fills us all*
***by virtue
of her
virtue***
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
i used to sleep on my stomach when it was upset,
now i smoke these cigarettes to fill the void of a little boy destroyed,
you say we are friends though no response to text messages,
statuses of shut up, your words are all hogwash its true,
i don't love any woman by you,
though the search continues and i've tried other venues,
the only place i should be is your room.
i put my heart in an ice box because of you,
our love was once fresh as morning dew
and my heart has always been gold,
though it may seem freeze dried and stone,
i'm used to this feeling of alone,
your arms should've always been my home,
your words are all hogwash, and all of my heart left is blue.
i remember the day that i knew,
hey you began exercise, ***** you can't run from the truth.
Alabama slammers need slow vermouth,
through all of the drugs we've consumed,
and all of the stunts with your crew,
i can't feel for another there's no other woman but you.
Josh and i go hunting for cheek,
see a foxy lady and yell, 'juice'
can't help but think of brownies and knowing Kristen Stewart was doomed,
my heart it only beats for you, i know it sounds sad but its true.
to all of the hearts that i've harmed,
i never lied and said i was in love,
though thats what i wanted and i'm so, so sorry,
i can not forget her, brown eyes are all similar,
i should hide my poetry, words sometimes come to me,
without any sympathy yours cut right into me,
like that of a guillotine, intent for a head off of me,
i never thought harm to you, might of lost my temper for that i am sorry,
dried all of my tears on tees from salvation army,
hey you seem to blame just me, but did you watch the tapes on the TV screen?
im not sure but maybe that might be why i still love her,
no you're not ready to be a mother, we could have been family,
just leaning, waiting for you to come back to me,
god ****** lower cased, your crooked lower teeth,
i want my tongue inside of your cheeks,
but you'll never know until you read, all these things i've wrote since you left me,
this all sounds so self-centered, that was never me,
anything i did wrong was not make you happy
cause that's always what i want to see, maybe when i'm the man i am supposed to be,
cooking, tennis, teaching anarchy, your words are all hogwash,
my eyes are all that you need.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 1:01 PM UTC
Cloaked by the veil of night I ready myself for what is to come. Fear is not recognized on this side
of the shroud, for it is this fear that is my most useful and treasured tool.
Footsteps approach the alleyway, I see my target pace forward towards his end, illuminated most
benevolently by the blush of his own burning cigarette end.
In his own world he lays claim to control and intimidation, a brave and dangerous man by his own
words. Words I shall later configure to be truth or allegory.
It is a simple matter to terrify someone prone to be terrified, is a different course to set the same
action upon he who does usually initiate the afor-mentioned phrase.
As the victim looks up into the eyes of this purveyor of violence I suspect it true that fear is well
presented to his visual inspection and it goes without saying it adds to his delight.
I imagine in other venues the same is said of myself but I would very much disagree with this
evaluation. Fear, Intimidation is not what I represent, they are just tools in an arsenal, I am just
simply here to reek good old honest revenge..
You do the deed, you pay the price, Simple as that. No forgiveness passes through this alley-way
this night, just utter, complete and total retribution. A gift from me to all those whom have been
bitten.
As you walk through the valley of the shadow of death you will indeed fear evil, for I art with thee
and this rod of correction is indeed not one of comfort
The scatter of burnt ash bouncing off the alley wall signifies the conclusion of any remaining
illumination as he throws the **** of his cigarette away, darkness prevails once again.
As I strike, screams of pain shatter the silence and echo through the narrow passageway. The
****** body of this victim slumps unceremoniously alongside garbage bags, a fitting end for such
*******
True and honest folk can breathe a sigh of relief, to them I am vigilant. If you swing the other way
however, BEWARE.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
She is my second favorite poet on this list
But she doesn't need to be reminded of this
She doesn't give a ****
Cause she is here for her
Not for my approval
As she hits the high note
Of the last bars that she wrote
With a little sneer she disappears
Holding that disdain in her veins
From years of abuse
I compliment her but
My blandishments fall on angry ears
She fakes gratitude
Not understanding the sincerity
Of my compliments
Assuming I am sexualizing her
That I am just another perv
I understand
I thank her and walk away
Never letting even an inkling show
Through my face
But I am disappointed
She could have been my ally
Not my lover or fling but friend
Dismisses me so offhandedly and angrily
But I let it slide
There is always other nights
There are always other venues
Under softer lights
Where writers delight
In what others write
And they are not so angry
But she is still my second favorite
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
The sadness continues and hilarity ensues:
With a close eye on the test tube, I burn down my venues.
Foxes and diamonds from the cancer within you
Grace my ****** health with phrases that spin you and
Body-parts scattered beside collapsed ladders with
Hair torn and tattered and dog jawbones shattered,
Deceived by a tarot-card-reading man with a hook hand
Who said the scam was a means to increase public demand
Before walking through sewers to see old friends skewered
On trees made of wire with leaves like computers
From Silicon valley rejects who were top of their classes,
Oblivious to the fact that they're dead to the masses,
Who only want cellphones that tell them their names,
So they can remember who they are and from whence they came
And how old they will be on their final birthdays,
When sunlight and skies will be fluorescence and X-rays
And children will tell all their mothers to die slow,
Because they're looking for something more loving than "I know
How much you hate yourself and the world surrounding
Because the applause at your funeral won't be resounding,
Plus your father loves alcohol more than your sister,
Who you may not have known, had your father not missed her,
Which is why all the walls are covered in blisters
And there are cat's eyes and hands peering out of the ******
To which there is no reply, save for incredulity,
For as we collectively die, you all put on all your jewelry,
Which was made by a child with no concept of labor,
Who gets less respect than sweater-vest wearing men in the paper
Who get there by switching the flow and catching the vapors,
Like sentient parasites or intelligent tapeworms
Who tell me it's unhealthy to meet someone and hate her
Simply because when I look at her all I see is the savior.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:57 PM UTC
There won't be many holidays to Europe for sometime.
Calais the gateway is the folly of despair
it's effectively the death knell for a Europe good feel factor
thats why United Kingdom holidays are adequate,
there's enough time to start as soon as possible,
sans health insurance,
We've got our National Health service at the ready,
good hygiene for restaurants and hotels
with enough burgeoning coffee venues
to blow a trumpet.
Love the clouds and the greenery,
longing to return to Ludlow
their restaurants are renowned.
Otherwise, Hampshire, Derbyshire you name it
history, tradition, local accents
Who needs Europe ?
We're free in our own paradise.
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 3:42 PM UTC
Thai By
This place gets under your skin. Slowly creeping in like black Texas gold. I said I'd never partake in the cat house girls. Seeing them each day for eighteen months was routine. Walking past the 'venues' to my shop. Usual hi's and hello's.
Then one fine humid day, bang! I happened. I changed. Cabin fever? I walked into Suzi's Place. I put my cash on the counter and grinded the mamasan first. Then her two daughters followed by every other girl in there. It took thirteen hours.
I totalled twenty eight girls. Most were nice. I can't tell my wife. My mate could, his wife's cool. Mine isn't. I'll say I was busy inking from dawn to dusk. I'm not sure what came over me. The Thai air got under my skin. That day tattooing could wait.
Maybe I'll do it again. Invite my wife and her toy boy. Did I say that people are strange here? I fit in well...
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 5:48 PM UTC
The people in the venues,
Having meetings and conferences.
they mix like a dry salad
drenched in vagueness and normality
it is
okay
to not be there
and feel not happy
but not sad
just not there
it is alright
in the sense that you do not hide
pains or fears
But when business is about,
You can't run.
so go ahead and stop
let these conflicts settle
and fall into dreams
escape momentarily
For now.
Apr 9, 2022
Apr 9, 2022 at 4:41 AM UTC
the winter is the prettiest
in the dead of summer,
and your bedroom smells like cherry blossom,
but only when it's 43 miles west of my flesh...
the present moment always tastes the same,
hot blood like rusted metal
collecting in the deep ditch of my gums,
i am biting the barrel of my very own gun,
wondering what i will grieve for tomorrow,
this fear hangs quiet in the still air i inhale,
if it is not growing in my chest,
well then i mustn't be breathing...
shaking to sleep,
i haven't lost a thing
but then why is there this hole
in the pit of my stomach,
so raw that the air penetrating it
feels like a scolding blade?
i have stuffed it full of cigarette buds,
birthday cards,
paint brushes,
glass bottles,
and sterile needles,
but the wind still whips through it somehow
early in the morning
and late at night
when my bedroom is silent
and my eye lids are heavy
and i am starving
but i have filled myself
with so much
that there are
starving artists,
journal entries,
tv shows,
concert venues,
outdoor tents,
decorated novels,
inside jokes,
and beer pong tables
pouring out over my edges
so what do i use
as gauze for these opened wounds
when there is no fabric left
anywhere in the entire universe
of my head
and not a single clue
of how i collected
such romanticized injuries
in the first place,
other than this
constant & sharp
general yearning for
*anything but this,
anywhere but here,
anyone but me*
?
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 11:58 PM UTC
Roll up,
Roll up,
Come and get your good news here.
My words are what you yearn.
They will say what you want to hear.
I will gain your trust,
with tales of old,
some that you can't remember.
But don't dispair.
If I don't hit a nerve,
there are plenty more to nurture.
I will summon you a line,
of generic circumstance.
Sibling rivalry,
never fails.
Empowerment to enhance.
Was big bro the favourate?
Were you always in his shadow?
Didn't daddy love you?
Do you need me to save you?
Wait...
I hear a voice.
He tells you not to fret.
He always loved you really,
even though it was never said.
And should you change,
your job?
your wife?
your life of discontent?
You will know,
just what to do,
when the time is meant.
Now off home you must wander,
With the gems you have collected,
and I too must depart,
to new venues heaven selected.
The same sermon I will preach,
to more gullible lost souls,
who fill my cash box even higher,
and underwrite my art of control.
May 24, 2010
May 24, 2010 at 9:06 AM UTC
Why don't I meet those students?
I can be a teacher
I am a teacher
not teaching English in a community college
or NYC for that matter
yet a teacher
and I have Freudian asymmetries
I mean I am hung up on women
on old world literature
on promiscuity , racial mixing
tense ****** moments.
I am also quite frank
to myself, to my sensibilities
my self centered world.
I do have students
who seem to be interested in
chitchats outside class
those evening walks grabbing coffee somewhere
learning a thing or two
about life, men.
I mean, their chief complain
they have dated boys
missing pseudo-intellectuals
& everyday enactment of 'Oedipus Complex' in reverse.
I see compelling eyes,
provocative bodies,
keen to learn, waste and start from scratch
yet I don't meet those girls
who would rip apart my three year old marriage
keep me pseudo-happy for the time
have *** in claustrophobic venues in unknown hours of the day
make me quit jobs, sanity and pragmatism
marginalize me to despair and defacement
to
inevitably break up with me
so that I can write a book or two about it
Random House may be interested
and I would have to turn forty,
without a single care in this whole, wide world
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 6:05 PM UTC
I've never been an exhibitionist. Fame and money have never been my goals. If I played music it was for myself, softly so no one could hear. If I made art, it was unassuming doodles on scraps of paper that didn't matter. If I wrote, the final pieces were buried away, whether in journal pages or word documents in neatly organized file folders.
Social media changes everything.
Suddenly, everyone has a voice. Suddenly I'm thinking, why not my voice, what's wrong with my writing? Sure, I didn't get an English degree, I hold no MFA, but plenty of people write online, after all, it's just the Internet.
"It's just the Internet." What a catch 22 - in my head, it's either "Don't air your ***** laundry, no one wants to know," or, "Go ahead, air your ***** laundry, you're a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things, who's going to care?"
I've never been an exhibitionist, but social media changes everything. You have a thought? Tweet it. You like a photo? Pin it. You have an opinion? Post it. Facebook, tumblr, ello, Hello Poetry, wordpress, blogspot - there are so many venues, take your pick. The world is your oyster. Express yourself.
Fame and money have never been my goals. And I don't say this in an attempt to be original. I don't say this with the idea that I'm above anyone who'd want either. Because let's be real, would I say no to being paid to write? Of course not.
No, what I'm really after is something else. Connections. If I unleash my thoughts into that strange universe that is the Internet, maybe, just maybe, I'll get something back, a spark, a "message received." Not a "Hi, how are you," but a "Yes, I understand. Let's share stories."
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 7:11 PM UTC
Now that we are lungs of our own,
no longer governed by each other
or good-humored light,
angled to make us beautiful;
I leave, tightly grappled within,
as if still in genuflect
still spinning
inside our billowing confessions,
two bodies conquered by cool
curious, cunning damnation...
A friend,
in her venues of Valentines,
a countess of stones thrown
proffers me the hangman's colloquial
"You still feel him...?"
nodding, I recall
the contours & colors of love's collision
*"You just keep feeling it,
however much you wish it stop.
Feel it--feel it all,
there's no prompt drug
to make it go away..."*
She coddles my sloth of shoulders
with ginger wisdom of grandmothers.
Nodding, I give in
to the germinating futility...
I still remember him
blowing out the candles
at our small table
with our unfinished meal;
how we thatched anger-strangled hearts
with saffron sauces of exasperation...
each etching kiss
close to a divine cure,
each curve of our crude pose
close-captioned
for the appetite-impaired...
Each saline scurrying tear,
each lonely-wilderness of day,
I force a sort of Nut-cracker's strength
not to feel
that barrel-hollow loss
that gallery of Use-To-Be's
and my friend,
in her Carmen wisdom,
is surgeon savant
stitches me up,
I am less in swarms of his tangibility;
I breathe less of his fetch
flooding
I am slowly becoming
just a single prefix,
my own word and crutch
no matter how often I recall
the music of his touch
or all the colors
we felt so much...
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 8:51 PM UTC
Her heart sunk into a half moon
before fully disappearing from view.
Her head hung the way clothes do
from coat hangers
and no words could be said
to raise these organized thoughts
into some holy clarity.
She wept now
not for the lack of love,
but an abundance of it
and it ate at her illusionary ego
the way venues of vultures do cadavers.
Warm blood glazed on their beaks
in exhausting Saharan heat.
Hardly a reason to ruffle feathers
for the scavengers who have come to eat.
His words gushed in devious waves
like raging oceans unsure
of the storm still far from landfall
but she saw through the salty cover
of his convoluted spoken screeds
to see the tsunami approaching
with such ferocity.
"Are you breaking up with me?"
her voice trembled
like the echoing hiss of a violin
as it struck its final cord
in an auditorium of empty seats.
His lecture ceased,
he had yet to reach the conclusion
she had foreseen for several weeks.
The silence grew between them
calming both wind and sea.
The tidal wave would have demanded
rebuilding and temporary peace
but the nothingness arrives
on the hushed breath of the heavens,
bringing with it both
the ship from Delos
and the poison hemlock ****
He drank of it,
thus his love of her succumb
to everlasting sleep.
It becomes but a past life,
only to visit him in haunting dreams.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
For I am a fool
Blemished
By comparing distinctive venues
My judgment
As exquisite and so untrue
To whom I once trust
The people
Of unworthiness
Imprison thee
From a wedding between
A suitor and a darling cousin
But blindness cajole me
With a different appeal
Tantalizing every move
Caught in a snare of entrapment
The family, I once honored
But shamed
Beneath me
As the stones began crumbling
Sounding
To a level of crush bones
Dec 11, 2009
Dec 11, 2009 at 6:29 AM UTC