Poetry is my voicebox
Instead of translating
Sounds into wavelengths
It transalates my
Thoughts into strings
Of fragile and delicate letters
Held together only by the weak thoughts of my mind
Barely heard through the clutter
And chaos
The jumbled fragments of dreams
All cracked from the emotions
That I've held in too long

there was a short sweet wait before the worry.
why do i miss you when youre next to me?

i try to fight
you take me back:
warm plaster walls and obtrusive matter. a mirror made from bolts and metal sheets, the taste of ensure. bathroom wall etchings, comfortable silence and silence that isn't so safe. hiding your hurt in the hallway and bleeding it out after bedtime.

i deflate-
i combust.
why do you make me feel like this?
i try speaking to you, but im just pulling the string
on your back
that connects
to the voicebox,
you say sorry in the way you always do.
i memorized your automated response.
i'm thinking i can't do this anymore.

It feels like tar on my tongue,
My mouth is dry and my throat burns-
Horrifying twists as my stomach churns.
Those words still come easy,
But my voicebox is chained and has to force them out.
Why do I let them out?
Those simple words will stay with me,
Floating about and polluting all I see
The memory of them rest easy,
Reminding me how bad I am.
I used to enjoy it,
Felt them to be necessary,
Natural,
Powerful,
And expressive.
But now their taste is bitter,
They are sickening and distasteful.
They offend me.
They whip at my ears and stab at my heart.
They are degrading.
I’ll sound like a hypocrite
I’ll sound entirely fake.
They are only words
But oh how they are foul.
I enjoy the taste of tar,
As it makes me unhappy to speak them.
I enjoy how it peels my skin,
As I do not want to be near them.
I adore how it destroys me,
Because it is that
Which builds me up.

The following is based on a true story. This dude came into my work 3 years ago and literally did not possess the vocabulary to order his food. I don't know what his story is, but he inspired this piece.

"ill literacy"

He spoke in code
like birds perched
on branches
singing
unintelligible tunes
only they understand

I watched him
in silence
my voice boxed in
my voicebox in
shock
at the witnessing
of a mis-education

illiteracy
personified

another
foster child
of the SUSD system
just another
“unreachable” student
deemed
“just another”

<17%
of stocktonians
have college degrees
17%
such
a juvenile #
18%
leastwise
is more
adult-sounding

in front
of every high school
is a flag

red
white
blue

ring
----------
middle
----------
index

only
the “just anothers”
can read
between the lines

I want to scream at the top of my lungs
But sadness is a quiet song
And my lungs are weak from shallow breaths
And my racing heart gets no rest

Silence can be just as profound
But not when your veins course with sound
And voices whisper in your ear
Sometimes you need to hear more than an echo

The world needs to hear what I feel
So I can be sure that's it's real
Because even the words I put down in ink
Don't hold the power of what I speak

Over the course of my tenure
I've noticed something about
These concrete walls and me.
Something's changed i n m e.

Over the course of these days
It has completely eaten away
My tongue . Cutting a w a y
Neatly and p a i n l e s s l y  .

It even has a personality, I've
Nicknamed him C l e e t i s P.
However, instead of parasiti-
-zing my life. It u p - graded

Me. Replaced that uncouth T
Somewhat enlightened m e  .
Above the soloists -no longer
"I" or "me"; but "us" and "we"

you see self-communality i n
"we". It's slimy-self now fun-
-ctions as o u r newest *****;
A mouthpiece & a voicebox

It lives off of small drops o f
Blood from my tongue-stub
That won't ever, ever c l o t!
My business has a s e c r e t

I t s a y s t o m e                     :
Regardless of  Earthly losses
Give y o u r everything to us
W e are your dearest bosses .

When swirls of heavy air begin to
Curl up in the
Core of your
Throat and
To speak is a
Feat you
Don’t wish to
Endure
Because you
Fear a
Frog will
Leap out in place of
Thought-out
Words and you
Can’t risk that;
Can’t process the
Unspeakable,
No pun intended

So assume your worst about my
Desert-dry lips and my
Purple-bagged eyes and my
Shuffling trot.
But truth be told,
You know the feeling of
Tadpoles growing into
Bullfrogs
In the pit of your
Voicebox
And you avoid those people
At all costs
So the frog won’t leap
From my throat to yours,
Good luck.

this is americana.

this is the sound of family get-togethers,
or the lack thereof.
the sound of awkward pleasantries
because we see each other
twice a year on the major
holidays. there are birthday cards
sent back and forth, necessary
games of monotonous tag and we
bleed our thoughts in between the
general conversations, we look
into each other's eyes and share thoughts
telepathically. we are not close,
but we are joined.

this is americana,
small town edition.
they call you family as
they look through your cupboards
for ***** dishes. they smile
and laugh with you as they dish
out gossip and revenge. they
stab a knife into your butcher-block
counter top. they sever your spinal
cord and make you a puppet, a
voicebox spitting out the message. they
make you their ***** and they call it
friendship.

this is americana.
grilling burgers and hot dogs
on the fourth of july, fireworks
across the town, city, nation.
you drive on interstates for miles
and miles and miles and every tree looks
the same even with mountains behind it,
until there's nothing but a great red
stretch of desert and you wonder if
the cactus really holds water, but the
honda civic or the minivan or the f-150
is going too fast to stop and find out.
you end up in a thousand starbucks,
a million mcdonalds, a billion little places
filled with a trillion little life forms
and you think about the way home smells,
how your mom made the home baked goods
when you were little but stopped as you
grew because not everything stays
golden.

this is americana.
united we stand, divided we
fall. we repeat a pledge from birth,
more often than we call for our parents
and before you learn what you're
promising. they say our nation is a
melting ***, free of religion, discrimination
and hate. we see a different truth;
we still say "god" as we pledge to a bleeding
country; races of every color suffer, every
gender is beaten down by society, and
we are not allowed to define, to own
ourselves unless we're white, rich, "powerful".
americana is a genre, a taste, a sugar-coated
glimpse into promise and unbeatable dreams.
the truth is we're all in debt, we're being
drowned out by the wealthy, we're all falling
prey to the powers that be.

we are americana, and we are broken.
whatever you believe, let us pray
that there is a chance left to
heal.

When I write down your “nanananas” and “lalalas”
I cannot make it sound like a melody:
you have a voice
and I only have fingers that cannot play the harpsichord
feet that stumble over themselves, while yours
stumble over strings and vowels and pretty breaths.

I prayed to God just so he would tell me
how to explain the way you lace symphonies together
white drugs laced with a more dangerous one
you exhale vanilla and formaldehyde
and your hiccups win first prize.

You remind me that we are all healing but we cannot all
throw our bodies in Lynches River
or Lake Pontchartrain
because there are not enough black garbage bags.

You remind me
not to swallow cement
so I get filled up with ***** instead.

I hope that you do not drink too much water
to make room for pink milkshakes and doughnut holes
so honored to be inside you they
reach up and hold your voicebox like a shooting star,
I hope that you are selfish sometimes
like when I read my words just as you would sing them.

Down
His
Throat
Her arm careered

Around
His
Larynx
Her fingers twirled

And
Ripped
Snatched
Yanked, pulled, vellicated

Down
the
Esophagus
went the voicebox
And into his gut, boiling over, bubbling with acid

Sarah
told
Bobby
That he overtalked

And she forced him to eat his words.

I write an evening by the
waterfront with candlelight
Freemasons paving the
boardwalk. In the
morning the newspaper
prints my biography and
I laugh cacophonously.
I stand in my treehouse
and scream a note of
finality. I learn how to
synchronize and mispronounce
waning and soon I
realize.
I have left my voicebox
in my other pants.
Ulysses sang the blues today
but the sirens had more soul.
"So wrap your head in a scarf,"
I say! "Paint your house grey
and your churches red."
Jesus sang the blues today
but the sinners had more heart.
Dare ye burn a cross or
run afoul or sob for the mountain?
Then name yourself an apostle
and head for the hills of your
heaven above.
I sang the blues today
but the liars-
The plane lands with a thunk.
I roll my window shade up.
Sand turns to grain and
rainbows to tornadoes.
I have arrived.
I go to the gun shop and empty
the cash register before it is
too late. My uncle calls from
prison to wish me a happy
Boxing Day. I rent an apartment,
a car, a television, a diploma.
My thoughts are scattered and
my words ring through my head,
but these blues shan't get to
me any longer.
The truth, I decide, is overrated.
I study metaphysics, pataphysics,
and I am going to be sick. Our
hero reads Hopkins and takes
another shot.
Today I stay in bed
and count the cracks
in the ceiling.

Things That Don't Typically Evoke Poetry #3 Poem
4/28/2014

Oh mailbox.
If only you had a voicebox.
You could bark like a dog.
Scare off that suspicious mailman named Bob.
Or yell at the kids playing in my yard.
You wouldn't have to try very hard.
To be good at your job.
Because I'd stop by to say hello everyday.
Just to know that I could receive my new news.
In a more interesting kind of way.
Oh mailbox, the things you would say.

You like to pretend there's no poetry in you
while you are
...drifting, drifting, drifting...
as it were.
Creative forces weave their way through your soft hair,
out through your voicebox,
down through your hands.
Doubt swims about
in your freshly trodden mind,
however.
But a voice I do hear
in soothing baritone swells.
Strong hands that do heal
straight from a good heart alone.
Your courage speaks louder than both, I feel,
and the poetry exists-
in the fern colored Seven Seas that are your eyes.
Glistens like a sharp needle
which pierces sharply through my own delicate skin.

i do not trust my mind anymore
the sockets of my eyes
contain a thousand burning suns
and the voicebox in my throat
traps white noise
but the cranium i possess
is merely a container
of pandora's worst nightmare

she's been different since the flame in her eyes got snuffed out;
they say it's heartbreak but i think a better word is hibernation.

she lights up and ***** smoke into her deepest, darkest corners
but it's not quite the same as a fire in her own hearth.
and maybe the whiskey burns her throat the same way
the words she spit to defend her ideas did
but sparks haven't flown from her voicebox in a long time.

*******, she gave a whole new meaning to carrying a torch for that boy
but now her life is going up in flames.

and wouldn't you think, after that, those substance burns
would be a hell of a lot less dangerous than going supernova.

eventually, every wildfire burns itself out.

Today, tiredness
has strapped itself
to my ankle bones.
I'm walking upstairs
with adult weight,
dragging eyelids open,
nudging consciousness
still lying in the road -
desperate to drive along
that towering bridge
and back into

last nite, the strokes
of three, four and five
passed me knowingly
like a former lover.
Grudges were embedded
long before the peak.
There were teeth marks
left in breeze blocks,
street signs stolen
as the town went under.
Down a park slide,
we deep-dived life.
Climbed theatre roofs
to discuss our plays.
Threw our shoes,
plus socks, in frost,
before settling on home.
American video calls.
Empty cereal bowls.
Maybe six or seven
goodnight smokes
with a slumped hug,
voicebox croaked
during the final tokes

and I'm under covers -
today, tomorrow.
There are crumbs
on a camera lens
and fingerprints
smudged on mirrors
hidden behind a face.
I'm not coherent,
feeling anything
but God, this Sunday.

too many nights i spend out here
to gaze at the stars & navy blue sky
the darkness calls but i do not hear
the moon's brightness sights me & summons me to fly
and i give in

she grabs my neck with great care
my voicebox is grounded as if i spoke into a tin
canned she 's very quick with the hands her fingers swerve delicately as i stare
pay attention as she measures the contours of my body with her palms
with each glide & slide each line parallels
then with the tip of her finger she flawlessly navigates my thoughts
down came the sweat of bliss pleasure
our bodies connected like electrical currents
my blood circulation active like radioactive shockwaves (its_lukay)

too many nights i spend out here
to gaze at the stars & navy blue sky
the darkness calls but i do not hear
the moon's brightness sights me & summons me to fly
and i give in

she grabs my neck with great care
my voicebox is grounded as if i spoke into a tin
canned she 's very quick with the hands her fingers swerve delicately as i stare
pay attention as she measures the contours of my body with her palms
with each glide & slide each line parallels
then with the tip of her finger she flawlessly navigates my thoughts
down came the sweat of bliss pleasure
our bodies connected like electrical currents
my blood circulation active like radioactive shockwaves

(xx_raphael)

I envy some birds, only the ones that can soar.

They have time.
To see, to be. They are the wind.

I envy the wind, silent, overwhelming, in control with no words.
Everyone goes with the wind, they have no choice. No voice no box, no voicebox, no locks.

the boy keeps quiet about his room.  his toys gather for bully scenes.  his toys even have a graveyard.  when one goes missing, he believes in an angel.  his mother hides her applause from his father like a tracking device.  the three live together at different times in a pre-existing broken home with two chimneys.  forest the boy thinks is the forgotten back of a forest creature.  when in the room he is quiet about, the boy grooms each wall to be a window for one day and for when that one day comes.  my girlfriend grieves in public to tell me how his mother and father were not long ago so lovely and so accused.  he was the only boy who couldn’t see a crow without seeing through it.  could be he’s the blood in her voicebox.

There isn't a word for this slimy cold;
Weighted and dense.
******* heat.
Like smoking a menthol,
Chilling lungs as they're caked in black soot.
Heavy.

He asked me why I kept *******
(the soot).
He asked me why I kept working myself to death.
He asked me why I wouldn't use my words,
Only my body to shut his mouth.

And how could I tell him,
There isn't anything to say.
My words have been replaced with soot.
My voicebox is just an ashtray.

It's killed everything.
It's eaten everything.
The monster is back.
And more insidious than ever.

A chill goes down my spine as wind dances
Into the space between my ears and into my hollow chest,
Filling in the clean spaces between the ashen viscera.

I'm afraid I'm dead.
I'm so cold and hollow.
My eyes scream 'vacancy'
Because I can't contort my mouth
Into anything intelligible
Nor force audible syllables through my throat.

I'm sorry.

from self-published collection Abandonesque (December 2013)

available on Lulu.

abstract qualities

above me many characters frequent my father. they shake him firmly and I pretend their hands are crumbling into my mouth. I don’t know where I’ve lived but know I’ve been moved numerous times. in the movies that have been on seemingly since my birth there is one I miss. in it, a room service cart is toppled by two men going for a gun. moments later a shirtless woman rights the cart and the righting wakes me to how prone I am to having a body. when we are alone, father reads by flashlight underneath the somewhere of me. I wonder with my feet if his feet are cold. I tried early on to go to heaven but couldn’t convince a single language that I wasn’t already there. when a woman looks like my mother, I spy on hell.

dear infant

imagine
your decoy’s
memory

trades

a baby appears onstage in a kick drum. the more I think of time travel the more it can do. when I ask about the fresh blood you say I should see the ear muffs. you say they are behind the snowy tv screen we made into a blanket for a dying robot and stared at to avoid the sight of your father the walking anthill. my privates move in my sleep. my privates are outside the governance of worship. you can have me from the waist up. my ******* are alone. the devil shares a history with god. in Ohio I am not a girl chewing the corner of a baseball card.

expertise

doom is the second half of a week long hotel stay. I **** on a pile of white t-shirts, one of which is liberated by delirium’s child. eat snow, understanding.

eat it in your hermit’s realm.

forte

addiction did not transform into prose.
familiarity did not breed.

it was not cold, it was heartbreaking.
it was hearing

my blanket needs a blanket.

it was billed as frostbite
with a beautiful write-up
in the archive

of I cannot
move my eyes.

it was not my imagination.

the baby was a city.
it lost us.

talisman

I think it’s a tuning fork. I convince myself and speak to it. the boy with me says it looks like a ******-up cross. says imagine jesus got to heaven and was still part human just imagine. the boy would be ****** if he were him. next his mother is off her rocker and so on and soon the boy is muffled by where he’s hiding. I’m okay with it. I need some peace and scratching. that’s my father’s, peace and scratching. he’d set a shoebox with a live rat in it next to him whether he had one or not. gotta corner that thought. I look about, the boy has either shut up or died or is living quietly afar. I sit on three stacked tires and fear a moment for my ***. I brave what might still be a tuning fork. I poke with it the place I was male then caress. rain on the roof of my home makes the roof look like a lake. one magic possum after another gives me depth. I snap out. the boy is circling me, he’s been struck by lightning, is in fact still being struck. his hard-on looks to last.

forms

in the end, she was a pair of beautiful hands and he was mostly a heavy head. in the beginning, she fed him too eagerly and wore a short dress of one color. his own hands were hearing things and she’d put them on his ears. he was either an unknown writer or a bill collector. he scripted for her the last lovely times of the empress of bullish desperation. as a young fathoming she knew him constantly. I’ve ghosted for them since I can remember but am open to the possibility I haven’t. touch is not touch but is where it’s hidden.

the inspection

my son helps me open my fist.
he rolls up my sleeves.

Christ is still dead.
my mom doesn’t smoke.

abandonesque

what can god read to make him feel more human? then there’s this about how the nose and ears never stop growing. I can believe it because at desks even so calm some seem to be cowering. then you have an accepting friend and I have mine and they kiss in pockets of sadness sidestepped by tomboys who have their own issues like frogs. point wildly. it’s not a shame beauty ******-up. I look sometimes like a different baby.

always crow

the boy keeps quiet about his room. his toys gather for bully scenes. his toys even have a graveyard. when one goes missing, he believes in an angel. his mother hides her applause from his father like a tracking device. the three live together at different times in a pre-existing broken home with two chimneys. forest the boy thinks is the forgotten back of a forest creature. when in the room he is quiet about, the boy grooms each wall to be a window for one day and for when that one day comes. my girlfriend grieves in public to tell me how his mother and father were not long ago so lovely and so accused. he was the only boy who couldn’t see a crow without seeing through it. could be he’s the blood in her voicebox.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

Where do I meet you my dear friend?
If you are both the past and the end
Then will you come with me to the middle?
We could be together like children
We aren't truly who we want to be
Until we find out that we haven't got enough money
We aren't who we truly want to see
Until we find out that we are worth more than money
Wherever you think you should be
It's not the elsewhere that you should be in
Take the inside of your life
And unfold it so you can see
It's much bigger than what you thought
Please don't claim littler things for yourself
Claim the bigger bigs that your remote control heart asks for
Volume up until you realize you're not speaking loudly enough
You raise your glass like you raise your voicebox
To toast all the minor scenes you've been an extra in
Prove to yourself, you're made for the silver screen
If a sliver of gold could fill a Klimt
Then the canvas you have ready would be worth a golden bar
Listen up my dear friend
You're not in a box, you're in an inbetween pause in the composition of this song
We can meet sometime in the middle
Where you're 29 years old and I'm 30