I got two wrenches in a shoebox Come tighten muscles with me Under my bed Hidden from those white suits With whips and frowns weighed down with wedding gowns. Come take your skirt Over my head like a harvest moon Hold my throat with your breath, Soft warmth of virgin knuckles Come massage the words out of me, Make your face into a mirror a thousand rivers run down An ocean in dark circles.
Outside, let the birds scream for us, Make me cry bloody beauty all down your legs, Sweet kisses, come take my strings and pull Come take your shirt off for me under my bed And flex. Drive me crazy, make me love Skin and teeth and lungs and everything else That drives mortality to loneliness.
Come set my alarm clock with me, Move the dial, I have two wrenches, Come tighten muscles under your skirt Kissing. Dear life. Kissing. Flowing out of everything into pools, Great warm baths of my eyes. Kissing your thighs until it’s over.
on the Indian subcontinent bathing the dirty infant, whose dirt encrusted cheeks and soft soft lips will one day become the world. as the Japanese lover collecting lotus flowers in the folds of a stiff dress to one day give the instument that will make her rise early just to pull apart his mouth with hers. in the Bible, aged prophetess touching, infant Jesus upon the Jerusalem steps making him drink the water from an unwashed porcelain cup.
under a tall oak tree the descendent, the cross, word vomit and apoligies and sprinkles of water a worn shirt embroidered with roses. in between lips, all prayer is born there, all love is born there “anna. Anna anna anna.”
I whisper “I know who you are.” she stares up at the rain as it pours and pours. “you got water on your cheek.” she reaches. aged prophetess touching, infant Jesus upon the Jerusalem steps.
You won’t like me when I’m drunk Because when I’m drunk I get mad And I’ll scare the hell out of you in so many ways All revolving around Me loving you as much as I do.
A broken back staring At the dustbowl of his yard. A lawn under cover of the sun. Beads off a porch swing Staring holes into soil wisps Jumping through the air Together in a waltz He danced too long ago to realize. Fur at his heels “Mangy mutt” he whispers and goes inside to pour another bowl of water for the parched and starving hound. ----------------- In the bathroom Voices feedback Not the mirrors Or shined porcelain Nothing too scientific Just the respiration of the sound Solidified and breathing. A goddamn pieta. ------------------ A funnel Plastic cone to a point Stream through the mouth To swirl, form together, Through the throat And out as a rive ------------------- Took a river of Jordan down to a cabin On the middle of Mt. Hood Kissing someone rather passionately. Took it down to the phrase whisper Down to the naked, broken Under a train. Lived inside a journal Six years of something Born in a young thing Who shook too hard, now single Shoe strings, I’ll cut ‘em Cupboards, I’ll cut ‘em Naked on some tracks running Down to a suicide barn with giant black horses So cute, was a kid, took down a summer, Playing voice chords in the shadows, In any mirror I could get in front of. Followed the side trails, darker better. Drove my feet far after they fainted, Dark soles down under my legs. Drove my throat to some screaming And birds flew away. To a juniper, told my life away to a tree, It wasn’t cold enough to be numbing Took my hand and nailed it to a tree Then took it out and walked back to the cabin.
1. “it was not supposed to be this way and I am truly sorry” I wrote to everyone who has ever doubted. For, I most graciously think, I have become who I am to a greater extent than any other singular person in the world, and I do truly hope that anyone else, when asking themselves the same question, all claim the same. It’s a selfish world And I love it.
2. It was cold out of the womb, my mother even said I shivered as if I was born on the top of a cliff. But no, nothing that exciting, New Hampshire hospital room Icy curtains, dew dropped windows, mid may morning, Temperature a warm seventy five.
3. At noon on the twenty-ninth of July I unscrewed every mirror in my apartment And piled them up in my bedroom’s dustiest corner And covered them with a white sheet, a cup of red wine, And a prayer.
4. Will spend my life worrying That I will die tomorrow. Or will die during every next second I breathe. Until that moment when I’m forty In my study, reading Mein Kompf just for fun, And I throw the manuscript down And I laugh, and watch the mirrored face Look wildly around To realize that I no longer have half of my life left. Then what? Every idea or poem. Gone the second a library burns, Will be my biggest fear, all that knowledge, all those lives, whisked away. Jesus Christ. If there were words to describe the destruction of poetry, well, Aristotle would have found them long ago and wrote them in The Republic. I have talent, I have pain, I have friends, and I am living, I have talent, no results, never been published, will never be published; In a cafe six years from now serving drinks to those who write third person complex metaphors in iambs those who win contests and build books around some combination of what I have and what I want. serving drinks whispering under my breath: "The poem is something. The words mean something. But no number of words is poetry. I shake at night thinking to myself and I have no way to end this. I will keep typing until I die. I promise."
5. I’ve been coming up with some words For a month or two
A moon over a drawbridge Driving with your mother Ten at night and crying Hand over your eyes Because you’re too old for that.
Told you I was Eighteen and taken by the night Taken by the water The kid in the pool moving his hands and sighing for hours At how amazing the waves are
Under the Rockport boardwalk Touching the posts at low tide Searching for that one rare creature That would make the night all worth it
Staked out with his shadow On the rocks and waves Staring out into the night coming on fast.
Told you I was always a terrible person, that I didn’t deserve to live, or be here, or be with you, or ever know your company, or ever know your voice, or ever know how you feel.
father’s necklace, ocean blue ripples of stone. down mother’s cheeks for years, me hiding outside her door, waiting for You
an old black janitor said he knew exactly what God will see when he turns his final key. father’s necklace, ocean blue
preached and kissed, dark eyes glued shut with ghosts no one but him will ever see. hiding outside her door, waiting for You
one good eye, no living man to go to, crying under the limbs of the downtown Christmas tree: father’s necklace, ocean blue.
i hope he’s dead and true about his role in the final prophecy; hiding outside a door, waiting for You
i hope we’re all dead and in transition, moving to the place where parents live forever. father’s necklace, ocean blue hiding outside her door, waiting for You.
wrote quick for another forum. not good. treading water/words. had to be less than 200 words.
Tom "Ghost" Vek (199 word badstori)
Each night I pray on my knees to my father. I touch my hands softly and tilt my eyes. And I sometimes see him up there in the shapes of plaster of my ceiling, but only if I’m not looking.
Tonight I watched the sunset wearing just his boots and locket on and solely his butterfly-knife in my finger. They’re heavy. I pretend they are his hands weighing down on my soul, keeping it deep in my skin. I turned his last words around in my mouth. The sky was blood red and cloudy. I shivered.
Under my bed there are Towers of Babel that have colors all their own, remnants of candles I’ve melted to remember. And together they form a city, a shrine to Papa that overshadows the dust that surrounds it. In the midst of them lays an empty locket.
I’ll have a bag tomorrow, packed with cans and clothes. My neck will be tight and strong. For you I’ll leave this house, your house, and build one way up north. And I will find you, as the brightest star in my newborn sky, and I will seal that memory forever away in your locket.
Here. I hate. sucks. hate hate hate. falling faster than normal.
strip tease
hands smell like stripper musty candy scent fills lungs fills the air wind blowing her dark mouth and dark hands into the world onto the corners every corner on every map smoke, mist, smiles all around not drunk far from it stumbling over black rooms i’ve lived in for years and years and years and years tripping over stairs rocking light naked except for dirt deepest soil
legs perched miles above my head told me “touch” and i did face in her chest i sucked in held my breath held hers too drunk on touch fingers dug in two bodies of trenches two baby blue rivers misunderstood and drowing in skin in silt not drunk closed shut, leaking told me “kiss” and i tried pulled her stomach in slapped my hand away, then my face asked for a twenty, said she was kidding "the slaps turn most guys on" the bill cut my mouth as her lips tore it from me giggled we both did and the drops of blood tasted warm my eyes turned gray and wild
all over me four washcloths soap, sanitizer, laughter bottom of my chest to an uproar i slammed my body to the sink then to the kitchen floor hands moving up from my feet from my legs from my middle, stomach, and neck not hers those were softer not my own those were touching someone new was everywhere that i was
i fell asleep to the smell of candy and mold working their ways out of my hands through the open window into the world
sometimes I sit next to my notepad and wonder if maybe sometimes the people whose names I scribe down in fictional love notes die seconds after I write them, like some sort of power that only I would have to control all mortality.
Mr. Kitty Kitty And Me
like a conductor eyes closed dark hands pinned black head shrinking chest pushed to the floor by the lamp light behind my body standing naked on a carpet arms struggling the air from open windows with no screens dim, dim lamp light “this is here, this is home” no mirrors fighting lips repeat beat beat beat heart soft, silent, outside night dark, silent except for the crying of a cat at his door his movement stirs the porch light his four paws become eight black heads shrinking suddenly still and truly silent as he prays it is his movement that conducts the shadows and not the other way around
Ghost Poetry 11 + 12 (Autumn! Autumn! Autumn! no n
Worst night I've had in a while. Here.
autumn
leaf, split into veins drifting oceans of air down to where dead things go to die, past forest floor past mats of roots past underwater pools of sterling silver, leaf, split into veins, millions, seconds, minutes, drifting oceans, oceans, down showering gold and green ribbons stuck in between hairs, they tickle my hand and you giggle as i wrestle your head into the autumn mouths split held together.
a day a day two candles on a plate burning. had a date kissed her cheek next to the fountain. shoulder press fifteen pounds the man next to me pushed more. sheet like sheet bed like bed eyes like eyes waking, thinking of the candles that they’ll watch be candles when the dusk settles in around the world and a boy does what boys do and feels slightly more stable staring into pieces flicker: a day two candles on a plate burning.
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#1 synth's blogs, last updated : September 16, 2008
