National Poetry Month Day 15 - Dancing

For my head returned on a silver platter
I'll do the Dance of the Seven Veils with Post-It notes
In the alley of shadow of the castaway moongazing drunks
You can write whatever you want
You might have sung my life while the angels were asleep
But what they were guarding was my laundry
From my Candy Mountain tour guide phase
And you can't wash that away
And they still want me to pay
And they still want me to pay

National Poetry Month Day 14 - Desiccated Summer

What was vision like

Before guesses desiccated summer

Stolen from the rain

Sky waves of dust for our eyes

And damp prayers became stain

Stains became art

So we breathe and breathe and breathe until

We speak in squeaks, all else sounds shrill

Outgrowing what we lived in

The stains became our new skin

With the only teeth we had and a plastic bag

Crunched the moon for forgiveness later

Like a dry mouth holding a communion wafer

NPM Day 13 - Harder

Hips crushed hard candy

Harder Judy

Gout slinger of faults

Full-body slap against a wall

O' white bumpy plastic 

'tis of thee

Sweet cream and entropy

Strike your neighbor thine tambourine

Splatter so much you drown yourself

So hard you become a stranger

If life is a conveyor belt

Who knows which side we're on

Except the ketchup and oral sex

It's the sugary button walking pace

Of the pavement age timing rise

That slips

Like sins through years

Into cracks around my eyes

And candy in my ears

NPM Day 12 - Loose Time

I just picked a speck
Of dried quinoa
From a rare unrounded cave
Of my Macbook
At a coffee shop
That strains the block
For a single sepia drop
Of the familiar drink
Of history
If me at twenty-two
Spotted me at thirty-three
Well, he wouldn't be up before noon
But he'd be all sly grins
Sweating cigarettes & gin
Thinking "I'll never be him"
In his notebook ruffled with crust
Like a dead pigeon's ass
With poems of death and lust
And his notes from class
Devoid of context or use
And like his meter, loose
But not necessarily free
Too drunk to know what to be
Too unfocused to know what to do
"Fuck me at thirty three"
Fuck you, twenty-two

NPM Day 11 - Patio Waitresses

Faces unsure of their sternness

Tattoos dragging breasts

Breasts dragging eyes

Everything pouring, leaving lines

Of caged firecracker lust

Shellshocked clippings in a vase,

Of collars and caps
Their gripping waves

Against whimpering thunder

Of distant caves
Form canyons of digital wonder

In a sky mirror maze
Fruit served with a knife

Coats the tongue, but not the strife,

In sugar bumps, inducing haze

NPM Day 10 - Bougainvillea

A bougainvillea with means
Vine, bush, tree, awareness
Worships the same gods in reverse
Secret subterranean palate parties
High on rare earth metals
Group sex
Bees
Microchips with memories
A mushroom cloud of fuchsia
Protects a vibrating trellis of thought

NPM Day 9 - Office Pizza Fly

Mrt mrnt
Mrrrrrnt
It's not enough
Mrrrrnnt
Just admit it
MRRRRrrrrrr
Mrrnnnn n nn nn n
Distracted and divided
Distracted and divided
Distracted and divided by hunger
Mrnt

Simple algebra
Mrrrrrrr
Gourmet pizza
Mr
More demand
Mr
Same money
Bad sex bad pizza
Lots of it
Good pizza couch sex
None for your roommates
Let them get their own
Let me touch your eye
MRRRRrrrrrr

rrrrrrRRRRNT
Look around the room
Alertness and spite
Greed
Hunger most of all
Mrrrrrnt
Like a funeral

Just leave the box
With the cold half slice
Open when you leave
I got your back
MRRRrrrrrr

NPM Day 8 - 90 Scent Speakers

Here are the translated lyrics from a popular hip hop club anthem in a culture similar to ours, but where everybody communicates by scent instead of words. Words have been replaced entirely (or never existed), so this song would be a series of scents with a backing track played at night clubs where people smell one another discreetly (or not) and dance. Among many other things, we have drastically different courtship procedures (but with some familiar themes, esp. along gender lines), and we have sexualized long-term memory. We'll call the act 90 Scent Speakers, the song is "Powder Set".


Crowded hot and close
Shy girl on her own
Brave enough to let loose
But I guess I stepped up too soon
Her sensation directed
To me and I tried to collect it
A got a glimpse of heaven
So did she but she won't accept it

Look away and sniff
Look away and reminisce
Savor
Look away and sniff
Look away and reminisce

Girl, I know your powder set
Reach into your purse to get
Cardamom to fragment
While you're here where the air is stagnant
So why you try n hide
When your body speaks, abide
Set your powder set aside
Take this flavor for a ride
Just inhale

Just let the buds make a shape
And your inhibitions escape
In time our memories will make
Us a private spice blend sex tape

I'm the ambiance you seek
When I sniff you whiff we peak
You can't send your friend to sneak
By and try to describe unique

Look away and sniff
Look away and reminisce
Savor
Look away and sniff
Look away and reminisce

Girl, I see your powder set
When you know I smell your sweat
(Look away and sniff)
I could be your powder set
(Look away and sniff)
Let me be your powder set
(Look away and sniff)
I will be your powder set
(Look away and reminisce)

Girl, I know your powder set
And I know I made you wet
Don't know why you stand,
Dropping curry by the fan
This ain't your first time
Lift my arm and you will find
With our memories entwined
Is the way to touch the divine
Just inhale

National Poetry Month Day 7 - One Ticket

A man approaches the ticket counter
At the Phoenix Art Museum
He believes to be screening
A popular Maya Deren film
The marquis behind the counter
Over the cashier's shoulder
Does not advertise this
The cashier looks amused
The man peers around them,
As though they were an obstacle
As though they are not a source
Of nearly boundless knowledge

Less than a minute ago
The man double-checked the event
On the museum's event calendar
In the shadow of a dyed glass phallus
Which shielded his device
From the sunlight

With all available certainty
He asked of the "Film screening"
Having forgotten
All identifying words
"There typically are not film screenings
At art museums
Try the AMC
On 3rd Ave and Taylor"
Meekly, he explained he saw
Online that they were screening
Experimental films on Sundays
Then he apologized
For not remembering
The name
Of today's feature
"Seems a bit odd, walking all this way
To watch a film you don't know the title of."
How did they know he walked?
"You're banded with sweat."
So he was
The denial persisted
He finally took out his phone
Showed the cashier the event
"I can't imagine why
Anyone
Would put themselves through this film"
They printed a ticket.
A friend of his said he should watch it
It seemed like the sort of thing
He'd be into
They withheld the ticket,
Severed from the roll,
And sang

"And if the difference between life and death
Is having feelings you can't express
That secrets are power
Is the only power you have

He seemed like the sort of thing I'd be into
And if I have those feelings enough
Will he happen again?

Meaning runs from your arms
like children
After dogs
Like dogs after moving cars

Meaning seemed like the sort of thing I'd be into
The draft from the shaft
Between knowing and meaning
Gives us the flu
Who dies
And who mourns?"

The man accepted the ticket
Followed a velvet rope
The ticket taker asked of his sticker
The sticker is also required, see
Denied
The man returns to the cashier
"I demand sticker"
A shortage of stickers is declared
"You must earn one to proceed
Through dissonance of deed
So wisely or not, choose your attack
For everything destroyed
Someday comes back"

And so he understood
Interviewing the bourgeoning line
Biting off the noses
Of anyone not waiting
For the screening of a popular Maya Deren film

Having passed with his sticker
The man settled in his seat
The film sputtered into vision
But the cashier's song
All the man can hear
The bloody pile of noses
All the man can see
He felt like propaganda
To tolerate himself
Left salty mouthed in secret
Halfway through the film

Eight months later
The man received a check
For $31
He wondered what he was into
What was on the marquis
At the Phoenix Art Museum

National Poetry Month Day 6 - Birds

No longer me to speak of
Now a cloud of swallows
None of them one of them
All of them me
Endless random calls
Feathers tickling breeze
Infinite bugs,
Berries and beaks
Unable to search
Unable to speak
Unlikely to perch
A mile a week
Perhaps less
I'm made of numbers
But can only guess

No longer me to speak of
This million birds in flight
Are the figures of my genes
Somehow more so than my life
Gathered thought falls
Too limited a means
Opinions offer no respite
And when time crawls
The grip of preference is tight
Choked into a lottery
Of birds that shriek and veer
Life scrawls and sprawls
But somehow I'm still here
Part of the formula is the bird that calls
"Somehow, I'll always be here"

National Poetry Month Day 5: Survey - Are You a Narcissist (In the Style of Charles Bukowski)?

You're sweating on highway 10
Someone honks their horn,
do you think they are honking at you?
A bold assumption, there are many people on the road
They like to imagine they're being honked at
You think you should be so special?

You're sweating on highway 10
Someone honks their horn,
Do you assume it is not you?
Like you're the chosen only one incapable of error?
Who would dare honk their horn at perfection?

Strung out in a motel near Sunset Blvd
A car alarm is going off
Are you immediately worried that it is your car?
Really?
Of all the cars on the street?

Poking your wrist in Echo Park
Even the sun dreams of being a star
When a car alarm starts going off,
do you automatically assume it is not yours?
Of course, because stars don't park their own cars
And you're such a fucking star

How many times per day do you look in the mirror?
How long did it take you to answer that?

Do you enjoy giving someone a good orgasm?
It's a good orgasm until someone needs to take credit for it
Then it becomes the chalky fuckpaste of a sweaty narcissistic hog
Such as you might be

When you read books, and you see parts of yourself in the protagonist
When you read books, and you see parts of yourself in any of the characters
You do realize the author wasn't writing the book about you, right?

Do you bore your friends with your problems?
Do you hide your problems from your friends,
Because you don't want to seem imperfect?

Why do you let things bother you, anyway
There are bigger problems in the world
People are dying hungry and riddled with bullets
While world leaders shit cum out their mouths
And we live in a pile of their personal debris

Do you talk about problems in the world?
Why?
Nobody wants you to bring them down with your vain attempt to feel connected to the human condition

Here's what you do:
Find the least attractive person in the room.
Try harder, use that American imagination
Now think about why they're not attractive to you
Probably because of all the shallow magazines you read
They feed your narcissistic sense of superiority
Now, back to this ugly person: Would you have sex with them?
Why not?
Do you think you're better than they are?
We are all equal, after all.
Sex is the only joy in this world
It should be shared with everyone.
Why are you withholding joy from the world?
Why are you withholding joy from this person?
Go have sex with them!
Right now!
Hurry!
If you don't have sex with them, then you are a narcissist.
If they are not interested, show them this quiz.

National Poetry Month Day 4: Necrotic Icon

Who is he?

Mustachioed

Broad faced and fond of baseball

Asks every question

Big smoke, front teeth

Your car upon carved blocks and memory loss

Ropey pantsuits on the shaved chocolate floor boss

I see you're concerned now:

If there aren't vicars

There can be vicar's daughters how?

But he's not me

I am the cinnamon cartoon wolf of nasal cave fame

Razor claws raised, always just out of frame

My nose fights for roses who fight for the sun

My face fights to feel like it's the only one

My nose bulbous and guido, red frying fat

A lower case r as a bridge between that

Which is possible and Xanax and animals

Islands, channels, crackling insides

What did I do?

I stayed home and thought of tides

National Poetry Month Day 3 - If Emily Dickinson Was in the Beach Boys

So I was going to do "Emily Dickinson's Twitter", but it failed the google test spectacularly (there are probably over a dozen active Emily Dickinson twitter accounts).  Instead, let's ponder what it might have been like if Emily Dickinson was a contributing songwriter* for the Beach Boys:

*Lyrics only. If she wrote the music, every song would sound like the Gilligan's Island theme**.

**Yes, you can read every Emily Dickinson poem like the theme to Gilligan's Island. I give you permission. Sometimes, that's all you need.

"Surfin' Safari"

Let's go surfin' now
Everybody's learning how
Death doesn't stop for me
(Death doesn't stop)

Early in the morning we'll be startin' out

Some honeys will be comin' along
Success is counted sweetest

By those who don't succeed

So if you're coming get ready to go

Come on baby wait and see

(Surfin', surfin' safari)
Dare you see a soul at the white heat
(Surfin', surfin' safari)
Come along girl wait and see
(Surfin', surfin' safari)
We're gonna die before our virginity

You can go surfin' now
Think I'll just sit this one out
Gonna hang out in my room
(Gonna hang out in my)

Huntington and Malibu

Our death is near
On our headstones the moss will grow
We're goin' on safari to the islands this year
We'll safari 'till we cease to know

"Fun Fun Fun"

Well she got her daddy's car
She passed a docile row of birds on a stand now
Seems she forgot all about mortality
Like she told her old man now
Full of a liquor never brewed
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now

And she'll have fun, fun, fun
When her soul leaves like a bird from a cage
(Fun, fun, fun when her soul leaves like a bird from a cage)



"Little Deuce Coupe"

Little deuce Coupe
Will there be a morning?
Little deuce Coupe
Will there be a morning?

Well I'm not bragging babe, but the sun touched the day
My quiv'ring flames conditions, a hot ore did sate
So lest your village boast a blacksmith, don't even try
Cause between the two of you, I'd rather listen to the fly
She's my little deuce Coupe
Is there such a thing as day?
(My little deuce Coupe)
(Is there such a thing as day?)

"California Girls"

Well the east coast girls are hip
Like pigmy seraphs gone astray
And the southern girls, with the way they talk
Reminds me that we all decay
The mid-west farmer's daughters tell the truth, but on a slant
And the northern girls, with the way they kiss
The night is wide, and furnished scant

I wish they all could be made of plants and birds

I wish they all could be made of plants and birds

I wish they all could be made of plants and birds

I wish they all could be made of plants and birds

Alright, that's enough.

National Poetry Month, Day 2 - The Audience Plant

Walking the shoe-lace pattern of social evolution
Step on another tongue on the ground
Is it still mine?
Close my eyes
Plug my ears
Globe of hair
Living the ciliated social life
A panopticon of greedy, snarling faces
Like small minds contemplating wealth
The self-sorting parochial
Social justice karaoke hall
Clasping factory-made photo opportunities
Driving a fact that still drills your nose
With stinging chalky revelation
Take self-righteousness to go
The hottest club drug going
Is to never be caught not knowing
What I myself learned five minutes ago

National Poetry Month Day 1 - Morning Dew, Morning Dew

We woke up racist in a room of naked Shawns
Declaring Chaucer on a thousand vacant lawns
We make our fortune on the porch where madness dawns
Bite bite each other contrite
God scattered fossils from a box of unknown height
Breakfast of Champions for the vigilant uptight
We figure out their useful life by sight
Starlight is new blue light vibrations tender
Desire, crouching, makes the moon a public defender
We grew agnostic when succumbing to the flirts
Jesus is overweight and out of medium shirts
We hurt inside, we have a mind of severed squirts
Puddles forming bubbles
Bubbles racing language
Certain our meaning will leave us dead or stranded
We pump our own clouds, then all emerge empty handed