"all the pretty ones will leave you low and blow your mind"/"hope that we die holding hands"

"between the rhymes"

i showed up to your house, and i was drunk, and sorry
i was hiding between the rhymes, and i wanted to be a line in your face
some lasting impression that would never change as long as you fade
a lost alibi tracing your wisdom
from the day you were born through your descent into destruction

i am a decaying thing, sticky with shit
pouring words onto paper as if they could save a soul
my ransom has been paid but i don't feel well
i'm only a thing resonating into the fears of strangers
i'm a rest stop, a respite from poison, something you can carry, and then discard

encoded in your open wounds are the answers to life's riddles
pick at your scabs and report back to me
tell me how they bleed, tell me how they scream
every inch of life we fight to lie but our bodies fill with cancer and horror
we lisp, and accelerate, forced free, and we're in the open

you can find me hiding between the rhymes
in words that dance dangerously but don't sound like others
you'll find me anywhere, in my headphones with a pen, and a cigarette
i'm going blank, and ambulatory for the sake of someone else
anyone really, who'll sit and stare as i throw, and watch what adheres

Really? How much stuff am I going to wring from the memory of that girl? I had an idea for a "last poem to julia" a couple months ago but for whatever reason couldn't get it down. Now I wish I had. More stuff about dying and decay and writing. This is a fun one. Nothing interesting to talk about with life. Maybe I'll write a non-poetry blog post in a couple days just because.

Ten days since my last post, whoops. I haven't had anything new and haven't felt like rambling into space. So.

"thinking of a woman i met on a train"

you said: "maybe i'll try new mexico"
i said: " baby, i think you're wrong
you should be somwhere safe
rasing children, your life
should be contaminated by small things
not always on the run

or maybe i'm giving the advice i should give myself
when i'm out walking and chaining and obsessing
over sad folk songs that never do any good
my life feels like it's shriveling
i have no duties to fulfill
i'm sad and absent and full of unattainable desires

i'll watch your face as you fluster and ponder and decide
i'll give you poems and c.d.s that will only gather dust
knowing my only entry into your room will be through them
and i'll wait for the bad news because there's always bad news
my eyes will remain forever swollen from the sight of you
you're too beautiful to be beside me, but that's alrite, that's the story of my life


Some notes: Looking at this now, this poem seems fucked. There is some good stuff here but the third stanza seems violently diffrent from the first two. Plus, there is too much real shit here. The title is bullshit, I was thinking of a woman I met somewhere other than a train, and only during the third stanza. I scrawled the linew "you said maybe you'd try new mexico" on a poster on my wall many months ago and only here found a place for it.

Life is life, ya know? School is about over until 9/27 and I haven't murdered my roomate yet so I must be receiving the patience I've been praying for.

mundane

I was maybe too successful with "no art poem". The lack of art is way too evident to me.
Anyhow,  here are the two I mentioned last time. I'm intrigued by the fact that even with a piece this wordy, I still chose to work with four line stanzas. Comfort?

"dream song"

the blood that is your body gets colder as i struggle into sleep
i forget about the slowing of your breathing as i search for a place that you can't follow
a cough, a last wink, and the shadows fade from my eyes
your black hair is the last thing i remember, but i don't feel safe

i've withstood everything to get to the place where i'm standing
it's the world but it's not the world
in this phantom place, my fears lapse into reason
i lean against a wall, things are building inside my head

is there anything worth watching here?
this is why i don't like wandering away from my stories
my fingers suffer from a lack of upheaval
feral religions can get at my meat if i'm not careful

it's always the night that drags me out of hiding
whether it's in dreaming, or the wider world, where i kick stones at captured vehicles
i ingest the residue of the seasons
beautiful is a thing easily discovered, triumphing in it's success at not being undone

my artistic muscles stretch as the wind saunters in through my window
it's obvious where i'll return to upon awakening
away from obscure punches by foreign law
free again in domestic oblivion, and it's attendant horrors



"mundane poem"

when you find someone who amuses you
for longer than it takes to fuck them
or for the chemicals to wear off
you might want to keep them around

it's inevitable that things will get less entertaining
this is why i like to light things on fire
and why i spend my time with violent or insane women
i like people whose actions i can never predict

i conduct my life like a therapy session
looking for reason and answers in the most mundane
even when i ignore the obvious and dip into tragic
there is something worth digging out in every spirit

don't let me discover what makes you tick
i might discard you like so much used tissue
i catch a glint of sunlight off your yawn
i'm there, recording and deliberating, but for how long?

Don't ask questions. You won't like the answers.

It took a fuck of a lot of work for me to make this poem work

"no art poem"

i think i've taken the tortured artist thing to it's outer limits
by the time i had to start hiding my arms from strangers
my fingers were the only things still working
pushing the ink as fast as blood
an eternal struggle, an arguement with life
this is not me giving up, this only me trying to, and not being able

i could be in a parking lot with a can of coffee
sitting on a curb with the rain dripping on my notebook
not angry with anything, but only internal
wherever i go the heat is stifling
with each day that passes
thirty seems both closer and further away

excavate my collected works
throw them like stones but they fall like soft
with a low thud, and only curious glances
i'm not going mad yet, not even to amuse the masses
if i can only out a few more years
it will be a much more popular ticket

i stare off into space and search for the words to staunch the bloodflow
the tortured poet is a false idol, but an eternal identity
i violently suggest myself, constantly, and without a map
i have my humanity, but how often am i happy with it?
if only i could keep the fevers away
there would be no art but the pain would diminish


"decadence"

shelves full of decayed things
relics of fire and extinction
button pusher's bones
don't ask why i killed my lover
only know that she got in the way, and don't do the same

i'm exercising my options
i have more than you realize
until the cancer gets me or my addictions catch up
i reserve the right to complain
to bleed the world, and to make it my own

golden soldiers marching oblivious
i flick my cigarette in their direction and light another
i'm a laboring, breathing thing, that is all
but i want your bones on the outside
i want the windshield of the world to crack and shatter and for everything to change.

I feel no need to add any comments to these. Let them speak for themselves or yammer at me in the comments.
I've been writing a decent amount lately. Public transit is good for that. I wrote two things I like (I think) today and they'll probably appear here in the next few days.