Bad Poetry For Your Sake

Who to fall in love with.
How to die.
Where to do it.
What to where.
Who to tell and when.
I’ve started all over again.

Liddler Thoughts

Most frustrating of all is the desire to finally stay in love that takes place outside of love. "This time," I imagine, "I will not fall out." But things change. People. The Weather. It all changes. And why feel like this? Shouldn't this feeling be enough to change things? I can't tell.

Why can't I convince you to come upstairs, and why is it so important? Clearly, you are quite evil because you will not sleep with me today. "I hate you," I think. Then, that empty feeling does not go away. Eight in the evening and midnight and I am and four in the morning and I am. 

Life.

Life is.

Life is a series.

Life is a series of lies.

Life is a series of increasingly-believable lies.

Life is a series of increasingly-less-believable lies.

Liddle Thoughts

If I'm going to die I'd like to die watching The Royal Tenenbaums.


Do you still love us?
She thinks about it.

No, thank you.

Well, I just don’t use that word

lightly.

What are you doing?  You’re on my team!

It didn’t seem believable to me.

Four minutes and forty-eight seconds.

We’re all dead.  Burned to a crisp.

You think you could start forgiving me?

Another dent here and another dent there.

My Friend in Death

I'm sick and tired I feel death
sending me flowers and giving me
certificates good for one massage
and getting high in the
living room and skating
back to school on time.

Death, I need your advice.
Father Death,
Let's talk it over over mai-tais.

And then we haven't made love in a long time
and Death has been trying to bed me and
everyone thinks Death is a man or neuter
but Death is a woman in a silk negligee.

quatrain

To count all my deformities
I need to use my toes:
Hammer digit, stammer heart,
Legs that never grow. 

Can't I be like Gatsby?
Seventeen little black books,
Two thousand friends on Facebook,
Four folks at the funeral
who came to take a look,
Asking:
Did they really shoot him in the face?
The mortician removed every trace!
Will there be a new place? 

Honey baby, please
crawl back into time with me.
Deep down between the sheets
we’ll find two years ago
High school bus rides and
placental school lunches that
I miss so much; Mathematics
and Biology and Physics.
I’d give up Diogenes the Cynic,
Focault, Deleuze and Flaubert,
I’d give them up for school bus air.
Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche,
I miss my history teacher.
Gerault, Benavidez, even Pierce,
All music to my ears.
Come back to me.

Poem for men

Here's a poem to all the men
who never took the time to ask "what then
will I do when I'm all alone?"
(I'll call her 30 times on the phone!) 


And all the boy who keyed the cars
of all the girls they met in bars
who left them and then we all said
"I'd never do this, I never would"
and you said "that's exactly why I am"
and we understood.






I like this poem more now

lessay (little essay)

I know that I am not a Roman because my catharsis comes from wobbling rolly-coastys instead of swordplay to the death and lions that go 17 and 0, but then again, they can only lose once, anyway. And the seats up close are the better and reserved you have to wait a second time if you want to ride in the front of this mirror's death, closer to death, I am pretty sure. I got some blood on me and do not get me started on acrophobia! The higher up I live the better, further from earth the closer to death, nevermind my day to day and hour to hour, when it comes to minute to minute I jump out the penthouse plate glass portal, glory hallelujahahaha a new life awaits me, this body won't weigh me! May my barbies and dolls and custom-tailored suits serve me well in the next world, I will dance in the light of Ra's everlasting day and fear Osiris' night, I will ask what it was that killed Tutankhamun (curiosity).

I don't believe in any of that, I never did. 

Here's another

Here's one two poems:

Life on Mars/Don't take any of this seriously but I am very upset and sad 

Standing on Mars honey
the red planet is pretty cold
cold indeed.
We could have two of them
if I was a brave coward cat
red on the earth SPLAT

and then I remember, sigh,
my family
my mother and my father
saying
"how could you do this to me?"
and my sister, she'd blame it all on you
(I can only imagine what my brother would do)



In progress peony poem 

Hello little lab cat in the lab coat,
Dearest little fat cat who cannot float,
Who wrote the word 'no' on a cute note,
Who learned to catch fat rats (by skill, not rote)

I'm sorry honey, I wrote a poem for you and another poem too

Spending a lot too much time honey
smoking my mind in and all of that
shame but instead I will
stop the moving and let it
slow down like
ship on my maiden voyage only to
abruptly break the pattern
and say "I'M HIGH HONEY
AND I AM SORRY".

Do you love me now?
Am I the cat's meow to you?
And I want to get up to turn
off the light in the other room
though I'm living on a fixed income
and learning to doze off like
Salvador Dali and I'll be renowned
in my lifetime kiss in the rain
kiss me, baby, how do you feel like I'm
dying honey oh
the pain is getting to me ow ow ow.
Did you hear the cat meow meow maow
when she smoked too much and
saw you with a morning and
called you on the phone he
wasn't even an addict 

I cut my hair today, it was mainly an impulse. I don't know why, but this text has comic sans as its font, by default? Confused? Confused?

The heart wants what the heart can't have
and doesn't care to understand.
The heart tries its best,
I guess.

more five minute poems,

You must've studied at Bob Dylan's school of
not lookin' back while I was stuck at Kerouac's
school of disembodied poetics
so I could describe how sad and empty and anything
I felt when I saw you doing just that
(not looking back).

Here's a phone that I like to call 'poemcall'

Beep, beep, beep,
but longer than those beeps that seem so short,
the beep when you call someone and something is weird
with the telemaphone and the mathemagics don't work
and you are on the line with no one, or maybe
it's like that all the time, if you know what I mean,
and then you go home and you write a mean poem
and they see it and you say "I was just pretending".

(Paging Mr. Sputnik, your wife is on the line.) 

Will be posting another thing quite soon, soon as I get home

Why am I so stupid?


I don't know why I am so stupid (if I did, I would have titled this "Why I am so stupid").

Here are some stupid things I have done. I don't know why I do or did any of them:

I check books out from my university's library and then wait until they are late to renew them. Even though I can renew them online, or by phone. I don't know why I do this. I also have at least 25 books on my bookshelf right now that I need to read. So dumb. So dumb. So dumb.

I ride my bike as fast as I can and then become upset when I feel tired later. I stay up until four in the morning and then get pissed off when I sleep in late.

I submit my poems to journals knowing they will not be published. Fuuuuuuuck

 

This is a series of four line poems, some of which are maybe even connected! Haha, no, I am incapable of narrative in poetry. I wrote these in the span of fifteen minutes. [And then I edited them for about a week, they're better now.] I am not proud of that, writing quickly is almost always a sign of dementia or extreme emotial duress/stress. As you will see, this is the subject of my poem. Enjoy.

(Something is wrong) is something wrong?
Honey, I live alone now, come live well enough alone with me.
What’s wrong with planning our life out?
(This ended all so suddenly.)

Please please, please
Don’t shut that door.
Oh you asked me,
“What’s poetry for?”

It keeps you here, I hope,
Writing quatrains in quatro
minutos, hoping they’ll tie you down
like so many chains and ropes.

They come when you're leaving
and deciding that that writhing
creature on the floor is no longer
worthy of your attention anymore.

Oh desirous but not desired,
The smoke in my eyes came from your fire.
(That burns on what? Unrequited love?)
You're not Jewish yet you look it and it wasn't your heart but you took
it!

But how, I wanted you close (in that closet).
At that pretend bat mitzvah
they lifted me on the chair,
And took my heart as a deposit.

But it was worth it,
I’ll tell you that much.
If anything, they didn’t take enough.
(Love is the spiritual crutch).

See, it’s nice to feel things,
Hear things and
Nice to do things, mean things
and see things through to the end

but it hurts to pretend things,
Dream things, sleep away things,
But I’ve always loved to pretend.
(Some said it’d be my end.)

But why not pretend?
When you’re across the country, a-leaving me,
You’re really sitting a-nexting to me,
(Oh, how lucky can one guy be?)

(I kissed you and you kissed back.
Who cares about those things called "facts"?)

Again

Betting on reincarnation,
coming back again.
Promise next time I
won't talk like that again.
Easier than it sounds
but I forget
our bodies stick around.
(you might find me living underground!)


It won't be me, you see,
talking to you again.
Probably better this
way, no not again.
And you'll be someone else, too,
but just how
will I find you?
(I'll forget this old life and make it new!)

(Dubious at Best) Italian Sonnet

My girl is a better poet than me,
If you saw her naked you might not agree.
I have much more to be worried about,
All the more reason to whimper and shout:
The curve of my spine and a bended ring
finger (of my despair it signs and brings
imagined stares now that I have told you,
I call attention to myself, it's true.)

But I have the soul of a salad bowl.
Of a decade's toil, she took the toll,
I'm sorry honey, you grew up so hard
but look now look we have made it this far.
Come back with me it will be so easy
please and please and please and and please please me.

This is what all my poetry is for,
Oh honey, I live waiting at your door.

sigh-fucking-sigh

This was written a few weeks ago: 

So I've been awake for 37 hours. This is all because my Internet, which is usually as slow and excruciating as constipation*, has been running unusually fast. Last night, I didn't really do anything at all, anything that I remember anyway, but I did submit poems to two different "magazines". One of them is a normal, non-institutional journal. The other is my (admittedly-inherenetly-sucky) university's gallery magazine.

In doing this, I realized that I have a slight problem: I don't understand any modern poetry. Not any of it, not a single word. Off the top of my head, Gregory Corso's "Marriage" is the most recently-published poem that I understand, and I understand it completely. 

It was published sometime in the late fifties/early sixties and is really a great poem. I like it more than most anything I've ever read. In fact, I could have written it. This is not to say that I'm an excellent poem-writer**, though. It means that I (feel that I) understand the poem so deeply that it could have been my own personal experience that went into the poem. My "girlfriend" is also a phenomenal, better-than-me poet.

And it is my personal experience, almost. "Marriage" is (almost) the way I feel about marriage. I feel like this is all very obvious. Anyway:

Now, I can read poems in a journal and understand them, but my understanding is almost exactly the same: Okay, postmodernism, okay, okay, okay. Because, what the fuck, poems don't look like poems anymore! 

Yes, it's kind of dumb to argue that poems have to look like poems, but none of the poems I'm seeing in journals rhyme. 

* This is the shittiest simile I've ever written.

**This does say, though, that I am reluctant to call myself a "poet". Add that to my list of theoretically-correct self-descriptive adjectives that I shy away from.

So I see that Blogger has a new interface. I am impressed.

Enjoy your spring break,
Miscellaneous drinkers.
Don't run me over.

Don't forget sunblock,
I don't like melanoma,
it doesn't suit you.

Let's go to the beach,
follow the naked people,
this was your idea.

Are we running out
of time money gasoline?
Lottery ticket. 

Cosmic Injustice

Cosmic Injustice.

My sister is going to the Black Keys/Artic Monkeys concert. And I am not.

Comsic In-fucking-justice. 

Privacy

It's nice to write thoughts down somewhere (other than facebook). Sigh.

Incidentally, the above sentence doesn't make logical sense. The first sentence, barring the parenthetical statement, is largely neutral and relatively positive. The following "Sigh" makes no sense in context. Grammar is weird. Call me Grammar.

I like this place, because I know that there's less of a chance that they will not be wasted. For every ten person that views this thing, maybe two will take something from it. Of course, this might not work out if only two people see this (I'm thinking of you, DMC, FD).

Just to clarify to myself: In the previous sentence, "you" is referring to both DMC and FD (but primarily DMC), it is not referring to a third (or, technically, first) party. Not "a, b, c", but "letters, a, b".

I wish to wed Best Coast. Not Bethany Cosentino, the frontwoman, but the actual music of Best Coast. So far, I haven't found a way to do this. I'll keep you posted. 

For reference, here's a Best Coast video's link because I don't know how to embed things. Nearly all of their songs are great, but "Make You Mine", "Bratty B", "In My Room", "Sun Was High", "Our Deal", and "Feeling of Love" are my personal favorites. Also, one of them is a Beach Boys cover. Now it's time to listen to the Beach Boys, thank you for reminding me.

Sadness: None of my BB music is on this computer. Incidentally, Best Coast follows Beach Boys alphabetically (BB, BC). Now I'm kind of glad that I don't have any BB on here.

I want to buy you more flowers. Bring on the symbolic, belated gifts. 

I can reroute the Colorado River, Grand Canyons, gulfs, rifts.

Accidental Irony: What good does rerouting a river do? Rivers make rifts. Congratulations on making yourself a new rift. The best symbolism is accidental. But then, symbolism is (probably) never accidental, at least when it comes to poems, or deliberate writing in general. 

(Note to self: Transform the above paragraph into a long, meaningful blog post)

I'd like to write something more like  this, but not exactly like this. The trouble is, you have to know something if you want to write something.

Aside from all the other things that I want, those are all the things that I want. I'm not sure if the items above are the things that I can have, or can't, or both. Definitely can't or both, because I'm hungry right now and am about to eat.

A few hours later:

Best Coast covered and made a cover of a Beach Boys song (In My Room).


Best Coast has two members, Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno. 


What the f---?

What I Need is a Biographer

My poems are all out of context, meaningless!

(April 9, 2012)
Alternatively, no one cares. 

Make Lists!

First I'd like to say that I’m glad to be ahead of innovation, memory, free speech. These are all good things.

One!
How cute those parent-hesis and quotations (mind the pun) are!
Of course this doesn’t mean I am loved less just grate-fuled less
even if I can't conjugate this.
And It's most upsetting
this poem doesn't mean/won't change a thing!
Accomplish nothing, why don't I.
Two!
Who knew?
I did, the whole damn time,
so here's to not saying anything, anything at all
and lacking in gall,
being useless and small,
Bob Dylan is the original thrall!
Three!
I understand this and I have to agree!
They seem downright okay
if I don't say
so myself
well no we're not there yet!
Four!
Sibling sister made a list of blisters, stickers,
remember how they stick to, with, in, you!
Five!
Is pretty damn high
for what I've done!
Remind me again,
what was it again?

I'm truly very sorry really that I wrote this. The real problem is that its very existence proves that it is useless. There is clearly a problem if this is the way that we communicate.

        "I'm A Horrible Girlfriend"

I mean, I must be. Most days, I'm not contacted at all until the day is almost over. Days when I've done absolutely nothing crucial or urgent or important. Days when I am free. Nothing. Then I am called ...

Again, another problem, I can only read the first few words, and shouldn't read any of it at all. Blogger has some serious problems. I really am a terrible person, but at least I got 28 poems out of it, right?

Life in Review

So it turns out I've posted about 40 poems, 30 of which I have liked. I am determined to post more poetry. I hope you, the empty void, will enjoy them.

I feel really accomplished now. 30 poems, and I like mostly all of them.

CNF

I'm taking my first creative writing course this semester. I wrote a 500 word piece of creative non-fiction. All of this actually happened. Enjoy. Also, I was not supposed to write in "the passive voice". Lameee.

A Non-Adventurer’s Adventure

“School is for chumps,” said the tall, African-American adolescent standing next to me. “Tuesday is your birthday and there is no way we are going to show up. As your best friend, I cannot you to sit through three hours of tech courses,” he concluded. I considered the situation: Ditching and going to the skate park would mean certain death if the rent-a-cops saw us, or possibly only partial dismemberment, public shaming, and waterboarding if the administrators decided to go easy on us. Maybe I am exaggerating, but the mind of a high school senior is a place of great exaggeration.

 But would those low men catch us? I am nothing if not an optimist, or at least I was, before my high school principal’s conservative and liberal[1] use of waterboarding drained me (just as that very water that my high school principal waterboarded me with drained into the drain of the boys’ locker room) me of my will to live. Again, high school students exaggerate sometimes, occasionally, rarely. High school students also understate things sometimes, but almost never.

                  Eventually, in the spirit of Tom and Huck (and Jim), I said yes. What could possibly go wrong? Would the police fish my dilapidated cadaver out of the Rio Grande? And, if so, would I float face down like a real man? Would the police use the steamship’s cannons to surface my body? Would my oversized noggin grace milk cartons around the nation for months until my parents gave up hope? Probably, but I would have my day in the sun at the skate park—or die trying.

 My mother dropped me off at school at the usual time the next morning, but the day progressed rather unusually. As soon as the car turned around the corner, I set my right foot on the grip tape and my left foot on the pavement and pushed off and was off; adrenaline lit up my bones like an x-ray. Out of sight of the rent-a-cops and with all of my worries and textbooks and those disgusting school restrooms behind me, I headed straight for the skate park.

                  But upon arriving at the skate park, I could not find Keovar[2]. Could it be that all my efforts were all for naught? The journey down the perilous side-walk road, a road in plain view of cars that look just like my parents’ cars or my teachers’ cars or that evil car in that Stephen King book, in vain? No! Just as I began my long “ubi sunt Keovar” speech, I saw him, that nappy-headed bastard, skating, rolling toward me, carrying a blueberry slushie from Sonic.  The day turned out to be one of the best that I’ve had, and easily the most memorable. The weeks of torture and humiliation (however imaginary), struck me as less enjoyable.

                 

---

[1] ‘Conservative’ refers to political conservatives who, allegedly, condone waterboarding. ‘Liberal’ refers to the adjective (e.g. “he applied salt liberally to the steak”). Not sure if this makes sense but I wanted to include/explain it. It’s supposed to be a paradox.

[2] I wanted to write “but Keovar was nowhere to be found”, but that would be passive. But it would be better than what I replaced it with. This is upsetting.

Poem

I wrote this poem last night/this morning in my head using a funny technique that I found funny. Bear with me.

Faulkner feuding Hemingway reading Michael loving Diana

I didn't have time to finish writing it. Had to go to class.

That sentence doesn't make sense. 

Happy New Year.

Nausea

When did all of this nausea begin?
I remember, conversing, with my friends:
Good old cabbage head, our own king.
And the double-eyed one and silly trick-knee
with long puffed bones
and sweet skull's earphones
stringing him along saying,
"Who sings that song?"
and "keep it that way".

I would have laughed louder, longer,
Had I know then:
The best things...
How they live to end!