Smudges and Smears
The newspaper is illegible:
serif crop circle smudges from heaven;
'Good Morning:
Nothing Has Changed'
A reassurance hangover sprawled at every threshold,
- from stoop to stoop to stoop -
loosely clutching an ink well
addiction leaking out a brown sleeve
that guards the contents like a whistle-blower
from the eyes of the guilty,
and of the innocent.
I trace my days away,
fault lines in broken mirrors
and fingerprint moths,
a desperate attempt to discover
the future...
...or maybe be present.
where do my faults begin
and my lifeline end?
Here, I know,
is the musing of a fool;
this, too, is meaningless.
Eyes Ouroborus
Once, I was whole:
an entity distinct amongst fleeting faces,
degenerating, but contently so;
a serpent biting his own tail,
so blissfully unaware
that he is eating himself.
I would stare into the eye of
the machine
- a vertical line separating left from right -
on a knotted wood tabletop,
a screensaver picture of my last duchess
dressed in the seductive red longing
she used to wear all the time,
and my thoughts strayed to:
"this is my life."
And this was my life:
I designed a carbon fiber poly-alloy
that could withstand the fires of Hell
and, most importantly,
the permafrost of the firmament:
the vast and empty abyss, devoid.
This metal could withstand being dropped
by hands you were still reaching for,
both lighter than an Icarian feather and
than having no heart at all.
We would send ourselves hurtling
towards the sphere first moved
before climbing the mountains
towering over the lakes of ice.
Without question of consequences,
we stir ourselves to passion and action.
Without question of consequences,
we accept nothing,
not even the company of another
whose shoulder would rest beneath
our sorrows.
The Language of Numbers
Recently, I sit around musing:
while clothed in a shirt old and wrinkled with
yellow smoke stained cuffs and dark liver spots,
- Self Rolled Marlboro Red -
wondering what would happen if I put my fist
through the screen of the computer on my desk,
realizing that nine out of ten doctors agree:
there are too many people in the world;
ten in ten agree the only universal language
is colored green and that you now owe them
a monetary favor for "changing their opinion."
I sat around clutching at my pants pocket
as it 'hummed' against the bottom of my mind
hoping it would be God calling on the other line,
if only to inform me that he is still there,
is still listening, that my signal hasn't been lost
in the noise of seven billion other messages;
that everything is going to be ok
and that my credit card rating has qualified me
for a special one-time only investment
I could start putting down-payments on today.
And this was my life:
I grasped at my pocket with three fingernails
left longer than they should have been,
with a mind momentarily surprised that fabric
was still separating a message from my hands:
forgotten.
When I finally brought them to my face, I noticed that
my hands were bright red and tectonically textured
from being sat on for too long.
Marathons and Aftermaths
Fridays are supposed to be finish lines
so, naturally, I leapt, stretched out my hands -
I was fixated, determined to reach the end first -
but I was running a marathon,
spiked shoes on packed pavement,
no water and no direction
no pack, no legs and no mind for it;
I came up with a mouthful of asphalt,
eyes overflowing with tears,
with a race unfinished,
and a handful of divorce papers.
I was left alone on a Friday.
Outcast of Malpais
Recently, I slouch around musing:
posing Socratic brilliance to the heavens,
clothed in a royal purple bathrobe with pasta sauce
clinging to the bottom of the hems of the sleeves, golden
- three types of cheeses -
a shadow beard masking my true identity;
A dead phone of the future is in my pocket forgetting time,
an app for forgetting.
I don't own a watch anymore, so I'm
grasped at by my wrist line, by my mind hallucinating vibrations
in loving memory of
neglected muscles and neglected love that
I'd then claw at my mind to be rid of;
that I'd then claw at my wallet to be rid of;
that I'd then stare at the ashes of long overdue
bills and job release forms to be rid of.
The television tells me about news:
about how we the people
don't get news from televisions anymore;
about how politicians can't talk to their bipartisan counterparts
because 'they don't understand what's important';
about how government is all a party and they're partying
with their money - with my money - while I'm in debt,
but also they're in debt, so count my debt tenfold,
even though I met all my payments for last week, this week;
I'm fooling no one, I am American;
I am debt.
About how China owns me; owns the world, maybe?
but that's just one big misunderstanding because, actually,
the U.S. still owns everything - except maybe the park
outside of Wall Street, which recently seceded.
About how the world's going crazy and knows nothing but also
about how we have everything - more or less - figured out.
About how
people live longer, love longer, starve longer,
hurt longer, die longer, and be dead longer.
But that's not important because we can see space,
and there is something else out there.
Can't you see God's eye in the nebula of star dust;
can't you see that God has dust in his eye?
We built a rocket – I built a rocket – that would allow
us to go to heaven and remove that speck from
God's eye, but the rocket exploded and killed
everyone onboard except for a monkey
who survived through a miracle
or evolution.
Words of Judgement
It was standing before a woman clothed in black
- in mourning -
with a gavel in hand and a set of scales in mind -
my picture sketched to permanence
black with white for an illegible newspaper,
with a sharp serifed smudge of grey
for type casting: 'villian';
it was standing before a woman clothed in black,
that I saw him for the first and last time:
He wore a charcoal pinstriped suit with spit-polished shoes
that some spit-polish kid had shined for a dollar during the man's
airport bar hop.
His hair was slicked back with black gold like the fur
of every animal from the Gulf coast,
and he held their attention by the throat.
And, throat in hand, we were captives -
even I, an audience onlooker envying the fly
nestled on the wall, rubbing his legs
together, laughing.
We were captives, entertained,
premise promised, but the ending
- they all agreed -
needed work.
"We are a hive mind,"
I always said, "our best work comes
when we share our stories."
and so it was:
there is no understanding here, but
every person wanted - no, needed -
to hear the ending, needed to know
the conclusion to every single
fucking beginning
because we find the end to be so beautiful,
so completely fascinating and
utterly captivating
just so long as we are spectators
watching others stumble to the finish.
So they left the room and spoke in hushed whispers
about nothing, until they realized that they all had
high school friends who had attended each other's
colleges, respectively; so they talked about wasted
days and decision made to further a career in
bouncing coins into cups and forgetting.
So it was a natural jump then
when they decided to flip a coin for fate.
or luck.
We don't like to finish things ourselves anymore:
whether sentences, thoughts, or relationships.
because the end is always inconceivable,
or incoherent,
or not exactly what we wanted it to be.
Control
Recently, I laid in a bed
as far away from 'home' as I could find,
the basement of some long abandoned
coal heated hell hole,
with a belt around my neck
and a gag in my mouth;
the television is still on as a
candlestick woman – warped from
use, with wax runnels down her
cheeks – whispers into my ear
words I don't care to understand,
that is,
until she asks if I understand.
The scattered embers bleed crimson,
leave bright visions of the fantastic fires
they could have been
stained across the dark expanse of the room,
tucked into
the insides of my eyelids:
a curse given for wanting to stare;
for wishing more from a fading glow.
And, though I never listen anymore,
I answer her with a nod of my head;
I open my mouth to speak around this
suffocation.
I said:
you can depend on me
until the bitter, bitter end of the world
when god sleeps in bliss.
I hope you inspire yourself everyday because
you are true, refined inspiration;
one day you will recognize it.
or you won't.
Written for free-verse poetry maven @d-pend's revolutionary poetry initiative The 100 Day Poetry Challenge [Advanced Group] undertaken for Steemit School where @d-pend will be hosting a daily poetry show at 6 PM GMT.
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Your work is in a league of its own... Truly. I don't even know where to begin with these. I have favorite line after favorite line... "You can only have one favorite, Bennett." "I know, but it's impossible to choose..."
Ok. The stanza I found perhaps the most devastating was this:
Without question of consequences,
we accept nothing,
not even the company of another
whose shoulder would rest beneath
our sorrows.
I wish I had a book of your poems on my nightstand.
What an epic and challenging poetic masterpiece. And I mean that with utmost reverence. I will need time to full digest this one and contemplate its deeper significance. Perhaps then I can comment with something deeper of my own.
I trace my days away,
fault lines in broken mirrors
and fingerprint moths,
a desperate attempt to discover
the future...
Wow ... your Day 21 was prolific. Three great writes, Carmalain. Effective and very interesting word choice. Poignant and powerful.
You are always excellent on your poems! :)
This alone was worth the read
I sat around clutching at my pants pocket
as it 'hummed' against the bottom of my mind
hoping it would be God calling on the other line,
if only to inform me that he is still there,
is still listening, that my signal hasn't been lost
in the noise of seven billion other messages;