Poems
- Fluorescent
- Neck craned at the intersection
- Realtor of the Month
- Southwoods
- Detritus
- Bagworms
- Small Town Charm
- The Trade
- How to Fall Into the Same Hole Every Day
- Rats Pulling Levers
- Monkey Suit
- Groundwater
- Poem (Clearance)
- Skunk Works
Fluorescent
If I were to start anew,
I'd like to think I'd never do
The same mistakes that got me here
But honestly it's quite hard to
Deny the pen and signature.
Some days I wish I could depart
From this stale jail and I could start
A fresh new life by my own hand
But I have binds that clasp my heart,
Anchored and weighed down where I stand.
Time walks on indifferently
I beg and plead "Oh please, take me!"
But on he goes with steady pace.
I've played my cards all wrong, I see.
I guess I've lost this shitty race.
Neck craned at the intersection
Scrape it away:
The coagulated conversations,
Rehearsed roles, disingenuous titters, and
Tapdances we know but don't want to do.
I can't see you, only your middlemen —
Little sculptures and characters and trite words
That sit between you and me.
Have we ever even spoken?
Usurped truths and unwatered seeds
Will starve above our rotting corpses.
Realtor of the Month
Words don't fit right.
Stencil warps on cracked concrete.
Think about the weather
Like you normally do.
Two hawks on a tree top
And that same noxious air
That never changes.
Plastic on the lawn of my
Dead grandpa's workplace
That looks like a husk
Like he must have looked
Two days after his last drink.
Words don't get the point across.
Southwoods
I come from the woods, a town set in brown:
Scurrying life forms of leaves on the ground,
The lingering stench of swamp-water and weed,
And faint, distant laugh of wood-dweller unseen.
But these trees hold more than critters and plants.
Venture deeper in, and you might, by chance,
Find cities we've built, from refuse and waste:
Glorious empires through which kings once paced.
Not far to the West, upon the swamp's edge,
Our capitol stood: assembled garbage
Where nights once were spent in congregation
Formulating plans to forge our nation.
We once had neighbors adjacent to here.
They built quite a fort, but wouldn't come near.
They kept to themselves; likewise, so did we.
Then one day they left, before we could meet.
A tad to the East, a fallen tree sleeps,
The roots of which housed a table and seats
Where teammates would spend the eves of their days
Smoking and drinking their troubles away.
Further Southeast, through the thistles and mud,
Lies a lone haven: my own sweat and blood.
My waterfront stage; grand magnum opus.
I've spent so much time alone in Venice.
To the back of the woods, before the clear night,
Stands somber landscape, a sad sorry sight
Where fortress once laid, and hammocks once swayed,
Your memories stay — Rest in Peace, RK.
Our cities might not all stand to this day,
But follow my verse; don't get led astray.
You'll find the ruins, and maybe you'll see
That PG Woods lives, it speaks, and it breathes.
Detritus
Toilet paper
Detritus
Little scraps
Poisonous
They have bidets
The priv'leged classes
Poisoning us
Through our asses
Bagworms
Have you been to the forest
With a big, dead tree
Standing higher and larger than the rest —
Rotten, bagworm-ridden,
Teeming with bugs and fungi,
With branches reaching too far
And roots reaching too deep?
Small Town Charm
Echoed shouts and dumb quips
Make me feel alive,
Breathing in your poison fumes
On your seven minute drive.
Blunt force air current
Entertaining advertisements,
Resold yarn, foreclosed folk
Eating empty sentiments.
God wanted it to be this way;
Our interests often align.
It's surely no coincidence
He resides within my mind.
I often say "I see you there"
When I know no one is near,
'Cause if someone was watching,
It'd give 'em quite a scare.
Plastic in your ribcage
Gases in the brain
Packaged pastries' parking fee,
Gut-germ orgy cum stain.
The Trade
The number of HTTP requests my phone
Makes without me
Rivals the number of thoughts that won't stop sparking
Around my shrunken brain.
I'd touch the world instead of this proxy if I
Had no computers.
And if you're not human and you're reading my words,
Disregard all you've heard.
How to Fall Into the Same Hole Every Day
This puzzle's better broken
'Cause I don't like the picture.
Stop pointing out the obvious.
Don't make it come together.
Rhythm is a tyrant
But it's fun to tap along.
The longer that you do it,
The more you hear the song.
The longer that you do it,
The more the path gets clear
And the others overgrown,
While you stay unaware.
I don't want to write such things
But at times, it just comes out.
Vermiculture coping,
Life ichor marrow drought.
Rats Pulling Levers
His head has been ensnared
By a lovely laced lady
Who toiled as he stared
At shapes he ogled lately.
He slowly went crazy
As she sloughed across his spine,
Moving so sedately
As she sucked up all his time.
She knew what string of mind
To gnaw until he gave in.
She grew a suicide
In promises she gave him
That God had forsaken
And cast into cold abyss.
She's echoes of fake skin
But she sure as hell don't miss.
Monkey Suit
Hamm'ring nails
Raffling Mustangs
Leave your lunch
Back in my day
Show you what
Isn't yours
Hamm'ring nails
Into boards
Eye of a needle
Got stuck in too deep
Tuck in your shirt, kid
And how much is me?
You're what you're given
You got a nice trick:
Using your power
To iron out kids.
Groundwater
I've never seen so many men
Covered in excuses.
Let's talk about your promises,
Priv'lege, and dirty hands.
I stepped outside my broken door
And I looked down and saw
Vultures with misplaced wedding rings
Feasting upon hurt things.
Tear a new mouth and feed it full of
Regrets and wishes and
All of the youthful, simple things
Never experienced.
You won't see through them, nat'rally,
But you've cut holes in me,
Smothered some subdued cherubim
Under some repression.
I will not be your dirty gem:
Relegated again.
I feed on words and secret friends;
You feed on self-hatred.
Poem (Clearance)
Cycle the conveyor!
She plays a languid tune
With debted hands maroon
And calloused wrists ensnared.
Ev'ry day a platter,
Words are worth a few cents
(Less with rewards incentives)
But it doesn't matter.
This road hides in habits
And it's a one-way street.
Nothing ever happens here.
Nothing ever happens.
Skunk Works
Skunk Works summer skin
Sunken' in, swelterin',
Somethin' in, simmerin'
Swimmin' in my summer skin,
Swelterin' and sunken in
My stinkin' skin all simmerin'
It's gettin' dim, and augh! My skin
Is swelterin' in heaven's inn
And saunterin' in cellophane
Inside my veins, it's all the same —
It's swelterin' inside my summer skin.