Nat'l Poetry Month Day 30: self-swimming

Blurring genres of here-now
What plays in my car?
In my head?
In my head in my car?
Drunk drove through my own windshield
Oh to quench the tap
Speaking of which,
The sky emptied itself
into my self-swimming pool
I am the bugs
Bloated, swirling in the filter
under the weight of their empty sky
Dreaming of what could be there

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 29: ReCurrent

Screen light heat fades in
2 phases
Moon, please
Grant me the ease
Of dry-erase clarity
Blue beyond my outline
Find the parity
gently Once captured freely
in a kiss
We thenwalked
thenstopped
Back and forth
And Back again
A Grasshopper,
You jumped forward
Then as ants,
crawled an hour back
We scratch and pretend
not to notice

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 27: Two Dead Bags in a Park

Is that a dead bird
Still in the grass?
I don't know, let's go find out
I think I'll pass,
At least 'til tonight
When the air is still
This side of the hill
Please consider my appetite
Perhaps the breeze will warn us
Crinkling bag or heaping decay
Let's just enjoy the weather
Surely the pleasant breeze
Will set our minds at ease

But why stall and stay instead
of seeking resolution, planning ahead?

Why must you on misfortune dwell?
Drop the subject, we'll be all the merrier!

You'll have us sit and suffer the smell
And blame that poor hobo's terrier

How does the same wind carry us away
Each in different directions?

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 25: As the Mirror Grows

As the mirror grows
You stay the same size

Perhaps it frightens you
I see you
Clutching a bucket of rocks
But you have to
Catch me first

The more you run
The more of you
Vanishes
When looking back
Nourishes the mirror

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 18: Like taking candy from a blender

Decontained
Possession unbound
Not touching, but
Coalescing around

This
Point

Days were abstract figures
Now their angles all add up
That number is still in a decanter
And our glasses are
Shaded

When the sound keys click
Or hum,
Sliding in from the doldrums
When my paws return one photon
Of borrowed light unscratched
And you finally read the note attached
Leave it open
Without asknowing
Without wheregoing

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 17: Fat n Smart & The Stickerman

Poetry inspired at a trade show.

Fat n' Smart

Oh we're fat n smart!
Noblest martyrs
At Noblemart!
Unfooled by your form fit faces,
I'm legitimate
You can't read me,
You're me illiterate!
My face never drew you
In or to conclusion
My constant feast
Is on your delusions
On them I daily grow
Smarter n fatter
I dip them in
The ego sauce splatter
Of the platter that we share
It doesn't matter what we wear
Come mealtime you're not there

You'll never fit in
With the smart n fat ones,
Your're too busy making fat puns


The Stickerman

The Stickerman
Stopped to consider me
Once.
Mired, flat tired
In the neighborhood of
Fronts
Awaiting repairs
Giving flat tire airs
Showing gaps where a sticker must fit,
He evaluated me on the dichotomous pit
Of "have you or have not?"

Showing gaps of my own
And gaps even of gaps
I pulled out an old stare
That asked "Join me perhaps?"
Staid, sober
And laid over
Sympathetic as a prawn
With exquisite taste
The Stickerman checked his phone
And moved on

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 10: Other Side of Mirror

I work the parking garage booth
A one-way pane of glass
Seperating me from
Heat and people.
Sidewalk passers
Stare in somehow
Right into my eyes
Beaming deep accusations,
Unfavorable assessments
They burn
Like the heat
Concentrated
The darkened glass
Deflects

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 9: Somewhere Being Shaped

Somewhere being shaped
In the smear I see through windows

Can your blue light be collected
For the nights when I'm rejected
(From your mother of pearl party)
Or possibly be reflected
And your image be projected-
And escape my personal gravity?
Doubtful.

I've been gathering ideas like
Cranberries
Floating in the tear bogs
They sink,
Crashing not a moment too soon
Chipping away all scabs which
Resemble not the moon
The speed of this madness
Can chip at nothing more
The speed of this madness
No clouds can obscure

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 8: Ode to Emperor James Wargwal

Every line of this is taken from a web of 4 unrelated simultaneous conversations that never intersected, blended to create as linear a perspective as possible.

I mean, we still talk
I can't say anything because
- ugh -
but we still talk.
He talks about it,
he's a lot like James
I thought it was his sister
This is my limit
If you found the right person,
and it's on a school night
he's gonna go back
Maybe he did,
you didn't catch it
If you found the right person

It's beginning to freak me out,
Every 4-6 months we have the same conversation
St. Elmo's Fire was not romantic
They were both cheating on each other
They never got back together at the end.

I was thinking about-
reverberate-
four-inch utopia.
His entire leg is a scythe
I've seen a lot of pictures on his forearm
It looks like it went through his neck
He was like the emperor Wargwal

I know I have a Lord
of the Rings tattoo
I don't live by it
Gandalf writes a letter
I don't live by it
I'm not gonna cast it and block it
That new one-drop devil
Gimmicks of ISI
In the first book
They do sacrifice
If you found the right person

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 7: Outerthoughts

The outerthoughts
food for the bees that drone
Capturing velocity-
like whipping cream-
They want to crack the bone.
The shielded shieldproof-
insulated from echoes-
The echoes are their own
Carrying stowaway vacancy-
hungry bees untethered-
They eat through the foam

Insects inter-tied,
Staid and stale
Buzzing somehow on days that'll pass
for days.

Insects inter-tied
Form dream catchers
Rotted, brittle
Makes for easy sleep
Should one of them fly away

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 6: It Happens Every Day

Certain words, phrases, expressions, etc have been rendered meaningless to me, whether by overuse or too frequent improper/loose use. These are words and phrases I have to spend an extra immeasurable fraction of a second to think hard about to consciously acknowledge them as meaning anything at all. I came up with a list of them off the top of my head (and with a little help from the blogs on the Phoenix New Times) and arranged them into a poem. These are by no means universal, so if you're looking at this as a fun list of overused words and phrases that we can all agree upon, you may be disappointed.

It Happens Every Day

Only the young
live every day to the
bank
You've just gotta feel it

Just the facts
made for tv

Live life
Live your life
Wasting time
Killing me

Whole life
90% perspiration
Killing me

Buy one get one
bella undocumented

Blast books
Dysfunctional
Rock opera

Darkly comedic vultures
transformation
Proactive urban street culture
Department of Transportation
I'll handle it
Leave me alone

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 5: Balance Sheet

Mining the past for inspiration a bit. This is about my earliest memory of exhibiting OCD behavior. Not surprisingly, it was right after I discovered Tetris for Gameboy in 4th grade.

Jostled between comforts by adult choices
My consequence-free mind swings
Chaos
out the window,
Harassment
within,
To escape rippling pavement and frantic voices
Not to repose, but reverie with wings
Jagged infinity
out the window,
Dissection
within,
I close my eyes and look down.

Toes are reverse-center, fanned
Assigned each a piano key
Keys begin to glide into entropy
I sit, standing guard at the helm
Baton glued to my hands
Fingers figure eight into oblivious

Now

The keys are assigned the wrong letter
I type in my diary anyway
And read it the next day

This was my first breeze felt between joints
My closest hunt for the weather-vane that points
From the gaping mouth whose pleasures
Demand Right and Left in equal measures

Nat'l Poetry Month Day 4: Wormlegs.

right here
quietly made for
were once marinated, flavored, accompanied.
All previous steps unseen
supposed to follow
But alone now.
could have experienced unknown shades of
hue makes independent and
Makes for re-full
replete with
On the menu.

Nat'l Poetry Month Days 1-3: Drifty Drift

II

When I can't hear your you
And your "you're you" sentences,
You
make sensen't
And I
make sensen'tces.
If only
The Innocence of Paper could exist
A farm of options optional boundaries,
And survivor of these alternatives foundries
Wearing those letters
Wouldn't be
Being those letters
Paper couldn't rob someone of their sincerity
And someone else of their meaning

I

Paper paid for paper's porous chorus.
Selfless absorbed, scorned
Printed
Branded
Blameless
Action-heavy, meaning thrift
Words are sudden drift

III

"Is this a record or
A toilet?"
Meaning approaches center
Why didn't I start listening
Before flipping side 2?