"watchtower" poems
They have an app for everything
Apply this apple application vigorously
I need an app for this confusion
Where’re all the apps for my delusions
Hallucinations seem pretty nice
But I rather control them with an app
Delirium is no friend of mine
They control it with an app
All of these buttons produce bad business
You’re the ones who push them, I’m the witness
They take their pictures with an app
Photoshop the eye of the beholder
It’s the witching hour
They shout it from the watchtower
They climb up and down the ladder
They train the cruelest adders
With or without an app
Jul 18, 2012
Jul 18, 2012 at 10:09 AM UTC
Purple Cow
I've never seen a purple cow
though I have been inside a purple haze
things are different between then and now
when I stumbled around for many dayz
standing in corners watching the crowd
yellow barrels of sunshine enlightened view
Mr Hendrix's Watchtower 90 decibels loud
smiling faces thinking that we really knew
it seemed so simple peace and love
not very real but I so miss those times
burn the bra olive branch and dove
now I just sit and think up rhymes
Dylan's monotone with catchy words
Gracie had her rabbit of white
he was a friend of mine sang out the Byrds
another hit of fresh air tonite
Vietnam changed things so much
yet still again the money rules
you would have thought we had the touch
but once again we are the fools
so maybe it is time once again
to raise up our voices and show them how
we will not just stand around and grin
maybe it's time to see that purple cow
Gomer LePoet ....
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 11:48 AM UTC
Screaming
What's the use----??
Flower of the Graces
"The Tenth Muse"
"Everyday Use It"
The earth revolves
Around the sun
Minerals Love it
Drink it vitamin C
Mass of energy A-B-C
The gravity every day
We cannot use it_
Became the play money
Copied tainted not the
Bee's honey here's
The everyday economy
One lick of hope the
envelope not much
company
Everyday- Einsteins
Big profit scope
The brainstorm Reign
All signs detour cabin
Choo Choo train caboose
You nailed it the moose
One footloose
The one-man show
Two women know
The odds to their
advantage
Someone is the traitor
Mom is the Tailor
The zigzag lines
Crazy cat felines
"That's It" punctuality,
Use your capability
"Technet Technology"
take a walk favorite park
Shiba Inu rollover
The bad ones the
Millionaires homes
flip over the do
or dare
We cannot pay
NYC token fare
Words are our power
For Sale quick sales
Being sold
Too hot whats cold
Those emails trying
to delete
(More casualties
Tombstone mummies
Democracy leading us like
dummies chewing Bear
Valentine gummies)
Like the "Elephant Stampede"
New Orleans parade
Every day please donate
We never know about
our fate too early or late
Every day new Providence
Demon computer virus
Love comes with confidence
Love yourself and Venus
Apples and oranges minus
Use it You have a voice!!!
City clean up cockroaches
Swap your fake Rolex
Watchtower index
Trump tower complex
"Eiffel Tower Use It" to be kissed
Every day we need to cleanse
The "Godly Shower" be blessed
Practical Everday Use It
Magical write poetically
Precisely the right piece puzzle
You are the one
World it's you to dazzle*
Feb 2, 2019
Feb 2, 2019 at 9:54 AM UTC
'do you hear me?' 'this is the voice of an imperial past' 'the sound of horses, and the strong walk of men' 'do you feel me?' 'this is your cultural thrill, the smell of a powerful land' 'can you see me?'
...I want to protect the beauty in this world. The ones I've seen and the ones I have not. I want to stand a wall between the pure hearted and the hate. To preserve the magic that happens when, without labels being used, there's a silence when all is not lost and so much is to be looked forward to. To experience and know that I shall not be had. When looked at me, I will reflect all this world has offered me.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 4:43 AM UTC
Purple Cow
I've never seen a purple cow
though I have been inside a purple haze
things are different between then and now
when I stumbled around for many dayz
standing in corners watching the crowd
yellow barrels of sunshine enlightened view
Mr Hendrix's Watchtower 90 decibels loud
smiling faces thinking that we really knew
it seemed so simple peace and love
not very real but I so miss those times
burn the bra olive branch and dove
now I just sit and think up rhymes
Dylan's monotone with catchy words
Gracie had her rabbit of white
he was a friend of mine sang out the Byrds
another hit of fresh air tonite
Vietnam changed things so much
yet still again the money rules
you would have thought we had the touch
but once again we are the fools
so maybe it is time once again
to raise up our voices and show them how
we will not just stand around and grin
maybe it's time to see that purple cow
Gomer LePoet ....
Jun 8, 2013
Jun 8, 2013 at 6:02 PM UTC
All Again For You- We The Kings
You were everything that's bad for me
Pheromone Cvlt - Letlive.
All the boys will grow up to be those broken men
Follow You- Bring Me the Horizon
So you can drag me through Hell if it meant I could hold your hand
Boston- Moose Blood
Bored with nothing to do, but lay around listening to Deja Entendu thinking about you..
Come Home - Tonight Alive
Laying under the light of the full moon and I would give anything to be there with you.
Drown - Bring Me the Horizon
What doesn't destroy you, leaves you broken instead
All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
But you and I we've been through that and this is not our fate
Dreamers Disease- Letlive.
While I’m out here making history, you’re making love
True Friends - Bring Me the Horizon
Karma has no deadline
Better Off This Way - A Day to Remember
When will you act your age
The Divine Zero - Pierce The Veil
Maybe I can swim into your thoughts like your drugs do
The Other Side - Tonight Alive
I meant it every time I said I love you; And there are so many things I wanted to say, but I was a mess.
Lane Boy - TwentyOnePilots
I know a thing or two about pain and darkness; Who would you live and die for on that list
The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot-Brand New
You say you wanted a solution; you just wanted to be missed
Your Guardian Angel- Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
How this world turns cold and breaks through my soul
Cardiology- Good Charlotte
No book that I can find has the answer, a medicine can't cure the fact that I'm still yours
All My Heart- Sleeping With Sirens
I could have been better and stronger for you and me
Vanilla Twilight - Owl City
Cause cold nostalgia chills me to the bone; Oh if my voice could reach back through the past
Sep 20, 2015
Sep 20, 2015 at 2:05 AM UTC
The wave that crashed
my soul
The seashells bedecked in gold
The mess I couldn't erase
with every trace of constellations
pulsated a face
And the day gone black
under a bedsheet
Wine spilled on a cuffling
The longing for drizzle
and rain
The levitation from the
Earth like tripping windowpane
A watchtower showing you home
You are the well I'm crawling
down
( To float in the clearlight )
The alchemy and sigils in stone
A voice that mumbles
in my sound ears when I'm alone.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 2:12 PM UTC
Clockwork heart
It beats hands free
Pumping steel
Though the assembly line
That’s me
Watchtower body
Skeletally strong
Calcium foundation
That carries on
Life’s long
Air’s free
Gridiron lungs
Empower me
Breathe in
I live
Breathe out
I’m dying
Machine-like body
Keeps me surviving
Microchip mind
Making choices
Basic instinct
Reprogrammed
By voices
Crash course
In life
Without airbags
Wheels and gears
Slow and cease
Assembly line halts
Rest in peace
Mar 18, 2012
Mar 18, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
Love, should I fear death most for you or me?
Yet if you die, can I not follow you,
Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who
Shall wrest a bond from night’s inveteracy,
Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be
Her warrant against all her haste might rue?—
Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?
And if I die the first, shall death be then
A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?—
Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleep
Ne’er notes (as death s dear cup at last you drain),
The hour when you too learn that all is vain
And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?
1.6k
The joker
who has seen the sun at midnight?
shining darkly,, shadow rays,
playing hooky with the pixies
as the rest just stand n gaze,
the thief he stole our conscience our ego
and our self, left us singin Dylan songs
whose lyrics were his wealth,,,,,
the joker saw the sun go down,
a shimmering silhouette, whilst
the thief atop his watchtower
lit a final cigarette,
he has seen the sun at midnight
shining darkly,, shadow rays,
dancing through the dark delights
of a ruptured world sun set.
May 14, 2010
May 14, 2010 at 11:22 PM UTC
Yellow beam of light circles
My face
Momentarily blinding me again
And again and again
One night like an eon
As the tiny celestial bodies
Above the clouds revolve around
The black night sky
My shadow scaled the spire
To the crown of the beaming
Watchtower gazing over a
Restless sea
To find me floating away
With the tenacious waves.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 3:46 PM UTC
The daydream-y miss gazes out the
watchtower of enchantment,
heart atrophied,
neck bound in a Gordian Knot,
riding nautical swells of
fear and love that
ebb and flow in
cursed duality
Calling to the cavalry trouper in
subdued hysterics
who, in an oceanic barrel surge,
will sever her lasso collar and
rebind their anchor hearts in
blood knots,
ascending the ranks, he will earn the
highest standing stripes of
Strength, Honour, and Equanimity
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 2:23 PM UTC
It is with great sadness that I must announce that wit has withered and died. Actually, it probably died years back, but, like a character on a soap opera, it returns in flashbacks on occasion.
The ability to use wit to insult, as Will Rogers, Dorothy Parker, and the great writers of the past is no more. The use of wit to make someone leave feeling good about themselves, while having just been put in their place verbally, is an art.
I told someone the other day that he was a veldt of intellect, he didn’t know what veldt meant, I could see from the complete look of “duh” on his face. He told me **** off….and then after I laughed, he said it again.
This is the replacement comeback now….fuck off. Witty…at the least. Groucho Marx, was great with the witty comeback, Noel Coward was a genius with his ability to use wit to disarm a situation. Now, **** off. yep….that’s it.
If, wit has a resurgence and there is a verbal afterlife, let’s hope **** off is left at the door, holding a copy of watchtower.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 12:02 PM UTC
Strumming like a metronome
the feeling sinks like yesterday -
or Tuesday
maybe even Sunday.
It's all the same.
The days end in Y
and God still sits on the *******
reading Newsweek.
If he runs out of paper,
I pity the Watchtower.
It might come out with
post traumatic stress disorder.
Self awareness is the currency here
but all the mirrors are smashed,
or covered in grime.
The question remains;
When you're not sophisticated enough for here
and too sophisticated for there,
Where do you go?
I love the security
of the way we drink tonight.
I love the ambiguity
of the way we say hello
and the manner in which your taste
like the first drop of wine
sets my standard on broken edge
and my teeth are praying.
The roses in your eyes
the truth in your lies
come from the same place.
Lets just hope you know this
the way I do.
I wonder where the local rock stars
get their rhythm,
if they didnt pay for it
they surely stole it
from Bob, Simon and the rest.
Never trust a man who doesnt drink,
when he ***** a guitar into song.
You can hear it moan and crackle
as its heart seems to crumble
there in his sober hands.
If only I knew what he meant
by this adultery
he might make a dollar out of me.
But since he coats himself in mystery
a poor man pays not a cent
for a taste of his $2 life.
The Big Bopper got *****
by the ghost of Heath Ledger.
Somehow I think it made him smile.
I'm Not surprised;
all shock has worn off in subtlety.
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 9:22 PM UTC
Gypsy Eyes
such a rainy day dream away
will this be a stone free day
or will the rolling purple haze
enter up a whole new phaze
just like a vodoo child
running around in the wild
circling around the watchtower
seeking out the majic power
this foxy lady is such a classic
caught in the crosstown traffic
the sky is turning hell fire red
trying so hard to free my head
while someone's house is slowly burning
everyones head is slowly turning
I only have this one desire
let me stand next to your fire
the wind crying out for Mary
how long can this weight I carry
sitting beneath blossoms so shady
soaring on a little wing you foxy lady
so high in the sky above
where all the gods make maddening love
it is still raining, I am still dreaming
the wild thing below is hot and steaming
the Phoenix again will gently rise
when I look again into those gypsy eyes
Gomer Lepoet...
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 2:37 PM UTC
it's hot in a restaurant with the strangers you've since been stranded with
(look! You Finally Did It!)
and everybody knows your name but the symbolism of individualized letters with glottal stops and teeth-sucking pauses and dyslexic lingering lisps is lost on them, they have their own letters to think about, don't you know?
(hundreds of pillows fly out my ears in increasing sizes, so i must be dreaming - Right?)
Yahtzee! Soccer! Give it the old college try!
(abstract oils crash and burn in a watchtower atop of your New Life)
It's Something to do with your Mouth, It's Something to do with your Hands, but we couldn't tell you why $2.50 wasted matters more than four months and the casual flinging of my (god forbid)
i n n o c e n c e
(you're happy and i'm unconscious, so in theory we're on the same wavelength - Right?)
can you assure me that everyone has two decades of nauseating mediocrity
or no - is it just me?
we Need coffee! we Need love! dread has to be evenly distributed - don't leave your years of it at my door!
(i don't want anybody's advice unless it's on how to fashion a fully-functioning noose)
tiny lips and long socks - i can't stop being in love with the whole two-eye/two-ear/nose/mouth ordeal but i'm utterly left-handed in my lust and i swear to god both hands are empty - but that's something else entirely
(back to where we started from, in bleeding headlights swimming on deserted streets)
'just wanted to throw an XO your way' say the eyes of every crossword connection i bend over backwards to trying to cater it to my thoughts of you
(For Sale: a storage unit of journals filled with sketches of you - it's pink and mushy and curled inside my head, if you're into that)
and it's only when we're in a bed together at 3:26 AM that belongs to neither you or me that i can consciously eliminate emptied emotions and neatly file them onto typeface notes hidden in bouquets decorating the dismal-ities of my freshly-planted tombstone
(fuse our bodies together and let's make this sarcophagus a necrophilia-polis)
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 2:24 AM UTC
Is was a long ride home.
We were sober.
Legal, maybe the best way to describe it.
But a 185 kilometer drive,
The morning after,
On snowy roads
Will test you at the core.
It wasn't the *** with other people.
She'd given a hand job to an eighteen year old,
I'd ended up drunk and flaccid,
With my head between the legs of a lady from New York City,
And *******
Jesus christ, *******
Were never a point of contention between us.
God has one gift and we'd never been stingy, jealous,
Small minded control freaks or emotional kamikaze suiciders,
Dive bombing the happiness out of each other,
No way.
Nor were we myopic work slaves jacking off to the next tech treat,
Nor were we stingy uptight ***** faces,
Trading in the allusion of human perfection.
No way.
We knew love and we knew life and we knew the power of new.
But to say Jimi Hendrix wasn't the greatest axe player to ever trip.
**** man, that just couldn't stand.
So we listened, the windows shaking,
The seething poison of artistic disagreement,
Like nerve gas, art is serious **** you feel me?
All Along the Watchtower, Hey Joe, Crosstown, Voodoo Child, Angel...
Some **** just won't stand
You dig?
Jan 1, 2018
Jan 1, 2018 at 5:36 PM UTC
I saw you gasping
Again and again
Between nothing and nothingness
Where nothing was there but a stone
Be it in the sun, the ice cold frozen tundra
What is air to this stone, the stone of persecution
Stones of death, sorrows, judgments, pity by self or
By others who have taught us by now oh all too well...
We have mastered our own death walking, talking, gasping
between nothing and nothingness as if upon a cross or the last
time we shall have our mouth above water ever again...feigning
what would be life, but we have bound one another whereby to save
oneself every move we make just tightness the noose, or drives in the barbs
of poisonous fangs that not only numb but at once intensify ones pains and of
desperations...
you've been here all much long before
a watchtower whereby you look for the door
the door out, the door unguarded you might slip past
one slick night and too you guard that door with all you've got left
you can still call life,
get out and or don't even dare
enter my shattered temple holy still
like two paths daily moment by moment
there are two gasps you can dare
one as if your first
the other just
might be
your
l
a
s
t
.
.
.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember you were born happy
Belly full of joyful loving exuberance
I watched you gasp today
as all that so desperately
just wanted back in
Your beautiful temple
Body soul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I watched LOVE today
Trying so desperately
With some fervent gasping's
To Simply Be LOVE to YOU!!!!
Fulling out a belly full
of wondrous loving joy
blissful rambunctiousness
To match so graciously
Your Magnanimous Heart!!!!!!!!!!
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
The experiment is maliciously cold, dangerously cunning-
A wrong sort of rapture
An invitation made in amusement
People surround you like the frigid flames in a hyena’s eyes just before it pounces
The experiment is brutality, a completely psychological Auschwitz-
A nightmare down memory lane-
But whose memories are they?
The experiment (seems) to work by gas lighting and technology-
That’s all it needs- cigarettes and soup
But who’s at the watchtower?
I have no delusions of reprieve- despite what people tell me
They- the illusions, delusions, holograms of people reaching out in “love”
Your love is a weight, just like mine is to you
Yes, I bring sorrow to you, but out of this sorrow something was created
Something you can never know because it can’t be possessed-
Too many ideas and too much time…
Still searching for one thing- not love, but truth
Have a roast, lay it on me
Don’t hold back because you don’t want my blood on your hands
It’s already been spilled
You live with my faults and my dilemmas and my neurosis,
But I must live everyday in the body that houses these faults, dilemmas, neurosis.
Still they turn on their Piscean baths, expecting a scorpion not to drown-
A crematorium with no weapons-
Inanimate objects speak, but humans gurgle out white noise,
A poison formed first in the brain then saturated by the tongue
And all the demonic children….
I am that demonic child. I am that vat of toxic waste.
I am a liar, a sinner, a drunk, a madman, a beggar, a freak, a thief
My pain fascinates others as they tap on the fishbowl glass,
Making me shudder
Are these the people of God?
Am I a person of God?
Most likely neither
But how did it come to this?
And really, what would Jesus do?
Jesus probably wouldn’t live in America
And love isn’t enough
They crave conformity, obedience-
What a sick, twisted practice
The sacrifice of one for all
Don’t make any waves, but here’s an ocean
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 1:50 PM UTC
(the poem, the story intends to reveal,
or vice versa, the story I'm told is very old)
Seven silent days of shiva, sort of premature,
sitting with one called their friend,
our friend, as we watch, from now
from here
we know the daysman,
we observers in mind,
flies on sores, flies on walls, we can use their eyes
we can pity the comforters and the comfortless moan,
Come into my comfort zone, cries Job. What comfort?
Why me?
was answered,
Job looks our way and winks, an a side,
I invited the daysman, he says,
but only ere knowing God almighty
knows,
and the accuser of man,
whom mine symbolizes,
knows not,
how it is to be a mortal man,
wombed or un.
Would God there were a daysman betwixt us.
I said, unaware,
completely of any good news on its way my way
I coulda said nothing, had I known
Would God there were a daysman betwixt us.
I said, I thought,
So I can
wonder whys and hows, ask where truth abides in what men have
imagined, what drew the sweetness, what drew pain,
is luck a factor? Sacred making, did we get that wrong?
Seems is as it seems to be, here.
This is not afterlife, this is life, today.
This day's daysman twixt truth and lie,
in the meta game, he is neither
archaic warden of loafing warrior's watchtower,
or miller minding the grinding, seeing
all who labor,
they shall eat.
Who legislates tradition? Meek or mighty?
******* speaks: ax Moses.
Fair, that's fair. Meekest man God knew,
some of his works
could be cut and paste, that's fine,
he wrote the rules in his day.
He can be the referee, the daysman in this game.
A mediator for fools who only ever knew lies.
A man who once was a speechless babe.
A referee who makes the rules? Jesus, can we cheat?
This is leaven? We loosed leaven? Jo-bob, we didit!
Jesus H. Christ! The bomb.
Once enacted the package never stops,
as long as there is that which can be leavened,
it shall be leavened.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like that.
===
No, life isn't fair. The good guys won the metagame,
quite a while ago.
But, if you ain't in the game, you wouldn't agree.
Time will tell. What the hell, wait and see.
Merry Christmas.
Oct 16, 2018
Oct 16, 2018 at 9:12 PM UTC
With our heads over the starboard of the boat trip we took taunting tropical storm Fay on the port and our dresses in the wind.
He watched from the captain's chair, pistol in his hand. Salty seas hinder our vision of the man in the watchtower turning him into a blur on the vast expanse of grey skies and rotting wet wood.
Angry crew-children with their bodies touched, banging on the stained glass door to his room where the little girl looks through the marbled blue with tears on her cheeks. Laughing at the confrontation, sent back to work.
Gathering lobster and lost time, both of them scream in the boiling *** Escaped breath from incestuious embraces return to lungs and we find out that we can scream too, the boiling *** is overturned dripping off the starboard where we stand.
Lightning bolt touches the flag above his head causing chemical reactions to develop into a spark. Flames at the back engulf the wheel the children blister their hands grasping onto the lines as Fay rolls through, lightning after thunder rain never ending. Chaos perspiring on the ship he calls the battalion to secuestrar the children.
The battalion is overturned at the punch, bruise left on grey skin. Captain blubbering with lies the fire heat on his back. Rotting wood is burning, we cover our noses with bandanas and letters marked for Groton. The tide rises waves overtake the port, splashing onto the starboard where the victims jump into the black water uncertainty chilling them.
Swimming to Key West with the dolphins on our back the fiery ship burns in the distance the captain tied to a chair of ********** and lines untouched, denying allegations until his heart is charcoal and all that's left is a charred body smelling of ****** and aftershave. The starboard side is empty causing imbalance to the ship.
Dripping tears and sea water, walking through the streets, we lower our bandanas and hold the letters close to our hearts. Searching for the sun that will lead us home.
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 10:40 AM UTC
I'm beginning to sit back now, listening to my sorrow felt lit cigarette solace falling through my damp heart where only creaky doorways with blown out windows play natural rhythms that echo in this caged bone graveyard,
and i look up at the plain white ceiling, seeing only transparent stars falling from there colossal watchtower onto my pale face and through my wet hair like salt in a great ocean.
I'm beginning to drink my water now, as i lift the glass from its polished wooden home, a warm sensation flows down the right side of my arm, remembering, pitying, thinking,
and like Beethoven i can think only about the comedy of this great play, able only to softly laugh while tremors shoot through my body like ****** fly's through the veins of the addict.
Ill be lying down now, my gentle carpet covered floor will give birth to an angel forever dormant, trapped, a remnant of my hearts ballad, with its modest melody made of shallow dreams and the confinement of its cruel orchestra.
Jun 29, 2012
Jun 29, 2012 at 6:38 PM UTC
For Tyson, My Love
Never will I meet another like you
Your light shone brighter than the Sun.
Your coo was as beautiful as a robin's song
carried on the wind.
Your smile was unfathomably contagious.
The way you would cut your eyes
and smile so knowingly...
As if you held a secret
Just between you and me...
and when you smiled,
I felt I knew it too.
There will never be an answer.
No reason could ever be sufficient.
You came here as an Angel,
and as an Angel you did leave us.
I am honored to have known you
For even a short while.
You may have only been a baby
But your spirit felt 100 years old...
And although your time here seemed limited,
the imprint you left is infinite.
You are ageless.
You are the embodiment of love.
You are my Guardian.
My Angel Elite.
My watchtower.
My lighthouse.
My baby. Forever.
Mine Grumble Grumble
Mine Squishee Man.
Mine Love.
Until my last breathe.
And even after...
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 11:52 PM UTC
I've got a Bobble Head Buddha
That nods on the dash
Some guy named Gideon
Whose Bible rides in the back
Rainbow covered Rosary beads
Hang from my mirror with ease
I've got all the bases covered
As pretty as you please
Have my cassette of Hindu chants
Where I hum along
Shaved my head for Hare Krishna
In case I get it wrong
Holy water in my reservoir
So when my windshield wipers wipe
I have that added protection
Never knowing what might
A Yarmulke from a Bar Mitzvah
In the seat next to me
With a case of Watchtower in the floorboard
I pass out for free
No cigarettes or coffee
Like a good Latter Day Saint
In case Jesus comes back a third time
Who's to say that he ain't
With all my bases covered
I feel pretty safe
Guess I can now crank the engine
And start out my day
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
While I'm reading a poem about it on the previous page
the girls come over to visit their boyfriends and dance
in high shoes and perfume. Their legs are strong and their voices
high.
And the guys get high and hard thinking about what the girls are
like behind their eyes.
That says more about me than reality. And it's exactly four lines.
Ken Patchen would say his angel smells sweet and sassy.
I feel the bony fingers of mine who has been working to stay
alive.
Enough small poetry. One must conceive of a project -
say a poem about a bridgeor stop writing
and instead walk over the bridge at sunset and see the city in a
nuclear war
the clocks, the Watchtower and the docks gone and no smoke.
I still exist but I'm late for my job. I'm dressed well
in honor of true love and Spring which both outlast the
holocaust.
The manager cans me with the cold hard eyes of one who
accepts the rules entirely.
Goodbye to the rows of dead metal desks and goodbye
to those who can take it longer than I.
The guys downstairs do not read poetry and very little prose.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money does
not occupy their minds.
The *** pistils of the mountain daisy is no concern of theirs
and the man upstairs who plays the horn is less than a curiosity
but makes more noise.
When I feel like this nothing matters and this is good -
get warm with wine, turn out the lights and turn up the radio -
if only there were a woman who liked the down and out life too.
In the end someone sticks a gun in my face in the South Bronx.
How I got among the fire escapes in the sooty alley I cannot say
but it is one of my earliest memories. Perhaps it is my
grandmother holding my hand
or one of the clowns. I say Drop that ******* gun and he blows me
away.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 3:53 PM UTC