Poems
Untitled #1
What is hidden beneath comfort
so close to home,
wondering in ways only comfort
can facilitate.
When I am laying stretched thin
and porcelain
there is another's curvature and warmth
unraveling me
to the depths of some untouched place,
and I wonder if, here, it is safe to
hit a bottom I am unfamiliar with,
to forget the old places of a once comfortable life
and all the ways
those comfortable faces disappoint,
anxious to feel something new
pound and shatter
into a tangled form of happiness,
maybe even progress,
touch after touch,
having to learn over again
what makes someone else
feel glad to see my face.
Untitled #2
Somewhere hovering
the clouds are gathering
the trees outside my windows
are beginning to glow
and I am
sick of staring out
of this skin
wanting to jump in
but at a loss for words
having stopped
this confusing chemistry
for one second
to split free.
A fork in the road means
far enough
when lost
but
I have been crouched here for
forty-five minutes
drivers seat fetal position
blowing smoke rings
salvaging passing grief.
Untitled #3
"A deal is a deal, right?"
Too ashamed to ask out loud and exclaim there
was some kind of promise involved,
a stranger sweats in between breaths to make
sure this was the actual place and time.
He was right, but now you don't feel much
like singing, and how fucking foolish
to depend on promises made in bars,
every scathing character there banished from
some other place, including yourself,
unwilling to commit to anything other than
staying alive the next morning, and perhaps
not even that.
I imagine Charles Bukowski sitting at decrepit
wooden counters in some no-name cities
with old whores, chugging straight alcohol
and choking on those few swigs that would
happen to diverge into pipes not meant for
anything stronger than pure oxygen.
"When it gets down to the nitty gritty, fuck 'em,"
some middle-aged man would slur,
pounding out life lessons like he's lived 80 years in 39,
crying five minutes later on whores shoulders
and getting written about by the richest
barfly in town.
Even Bukowski had to go home and
detox in reality,
next time bringing the bar with him alone on stage,
puking into the metal trash can propped up against his empty desk
and continuing his conceptualized hatred of humanity,
he, himself living a long life only to lay there dying
of something other than the ravage of whiskey
or too many cigarettes.
The man next to me spits when he talks,
and when he says he doesn't give a shit about anybody
he wails about his girlfriend in the same breath,
"She knows I love her to death," I overhear him say,
"but that's all she's got."
That's all she's got.
That's all that woman has got,
him loving her to death,
nothing else?
I felt afraid for everything I loved and wondered
how much of it is enough
in these late nights that grow even later,
as though last call never comes, but
instead becomes a dusty, restless film.
I stared at that massive movie
screen and said,
"I was living that fucking life"
and that is when it all finally felt real.
Untitled #4
There are no apologies when the matters of the mind start unfolding,
the infestation of loss when the things of this world do not survive what is observed.
Change remains so constant that it is difficult to sift through the chaos,
when the limitations of art transcends into an inability to divide what is personal and impersonal,
forgetting that when silence prevails it belongs to every warm body
collectively wishing to be understood,
but never wakes from the impact felt in the first electrifying twinge of someone else's truth.
Why must the freedom beyond selfishness maintain such intangibility?
Must frustration halt the aggressive journey amidst beginning and end?
What good are we if we only feel for ourselves?
The age of introspection reserves itself in sinew long after it is useful.
Suddenly, existence slows down and the heart feels for others that
have long outlived the tired nights of individual nostalgia,
and are no longer around for shimmering epiphanies that defined youth
in the confusing hours of martyrdom and defiance.
To think now of intimacy beyond the friction of fleshy parts
chosen from lines of close to perfect admirers,
learning that true closeness is never preferred likeness to which we continuously kept likened to ourselves,
but an acceptance of our own differences in order to truly understand basic human reaction
to all the barbarically flung contents over the foldings of our atlas',
the compass belonging to my small hands gone missing since I was a child,
along with the familiar faces I dream about from a far away time that is not yet forgotten,
as I am still young and have not grown out of my own impulses,
still lost in cause by the lack of certainty I associate with a
train of thought only willing to tackle one emotion at a time.
If I admit to thriving off of instinct alone it would not be known
that my nerves and my aspirations encounter spectrums of insatiable light seen for miles,
but if I only allow a limited glimpse into the never ceasing adventure found in the persistent devotion to observation,
it is as though I am incapable of any emotion at all.
The cycle of selfishness.
How we never stick around for good, unless tethered by what elements in life
cannot be broken down into phrases,
how instinct can be deceived by the thoughts we think we are having,
acting fearlessly out of fear and crawling on the floors of forced apathy,
always outdoing ourselves for the sake of an amazing tale we can never fully take credit for.
The mind is aware it has seen something, yet bottles up those images
in order to taste more appealing with age,
and still we remain lost in the translation of foreign matter morse code tapping its intonations
on our bedposts when we've had too much to drink or realize we are cradling dead notions,
all along knowing what must be done, the innate vibrations stinging our ears,
reminding us as it throbs our own denial in passing movement,
the accessibility of picking through what our minds can handle,
and what the sensitivity of our hearts cannot.
Untitled #1
What is hidden beneath comfort
so close to home,
wondering in ways only comfort
can facilitate.
When I am laying stretched thin
and porcelain
there is another's curvature and warmth
unraveling me
to the depths of some untouched place,
and I wonder if, here, it is safe to
hit a bottom I am unfamiliar with,
to forget the old places of a once comfortable life
and all the ways
those comfortable faces disappoint,
anxious to feel something new
pound and shatter
into a tangled form of happiness,
maybe even progress,
touch after touch,
having to learn over again
what makes someone else
feel glad to see my face.
Untitled #2
Somewhere hovering
the clouds are gathering
the trees outside my windows
are beginning to glow
and I am
sick of staring out
of this skin
wanting to jump in
but at a loss for words
having stopped
this confusing chemistry
for one second
to split free.
A fork in the road means
far enough
when lost
but
I have been crouched here for
forty-five minutes
drivers seat fetal position
blowing smoke rings
salvaging passing grief.
Untitled #3
"A deal is a deal, right?"
Too ashamed to ask out loud and exclaim there
was some kind of promise involved,
a stranger sweats in between breaths to make
sure this was the actual place and time.
He was right, but now you don't feel much
like singing, and how fucking foolish
to depend on promises made in bars,
every scathing character there banished from
some other place, including yourself,
unwilling to commit to anything other than
staying alive the next morning, and perhaps
not even that.
I imagine Charles Bukowski sitting at decrepit
wooden counters in some no-name cities
with old whores, chugging straight alcohol
and choking on those few swigs that would
happen to diverge into pipes not meant for
anything stronger than pure oxygen.
"When it gets down to the nitty gritty, fuck 'em,"
some middle-aged man would slur,
pounding out life lessons like he's lived 80 years in 39,
crying five minutes later on whores shoulders
and getting written about by the richest
barfly in town.
Even Bukowski had to go home and
detox in reality,
next time bringing the bar with him alone on stage,
puking into the metal trash can propped up against his empty desk
and continuing his conceptualized hatred of humanity,
he, himself living a long life only to lay there dying
of something other than the ravage of whiskey
or too many cigarettes.
The man next to me spits when he talks,
and when he says he doesn't give a shit about anybody
he wails about his girlfriend in the same breath,
"She knows I love her to death," I overhear him say,
"but that's all she's got."
That's all she's got.
That's all that woman has got,
him loving her to death,
nothing else?
I felt afraid for everything I loved and wondered
how much of it is enough
in these late nights that grow even later,
as though last call never comes, but
instead becomes a dusty, restless film.
I stared at that massive movie
screen and said,
"I was living that fucking life"
and that is when it all finally felt real.
Untitled #4
There are no apologies when the matters of the mind start unfolding,
the infestation of loss when the things of this world do not survive what is observed.
Change remains so constant that it is difficult to sift through the chaos,
when the limitations of art transcends into an inability to divide what is personal and impersonal,
forgetting that when silence prevails it belongs to every warm body
collectively wishing to be understood,
but never wakes from the impact felt in the first electrifying twinge of someone else's truth.
Why must the freedom beyond selfishness maintain such intangibility?
Must frustration halt the aggressive journey amidst beginning and end?
What good are we if we only feel for ourselves?
The age of introspection reserves itself in sinew long after it is useful.
Suddenly, existence slows down and the heart feels for others that
have long outlived the tired nights of individual nostalgia,
and are no longer around for shimmering epiphanies that defined youth
in the confusing hours of martyrdom and defiance.
To think now of intimacy beyond the friction of fleshy parts
chosen from lines of close to perfect admirers,
learning that true closeness is never preferred likeness to which we continuously kept likened to ourselves,
but an acceptance of our own differences in order to truly understand basic human reaction
to all the barbarically flung contents over the foldings of our atlas',
the compass belonging to my small hands gone missing since I was a child,
along with the familiar faces I dream about from a far away time that is not yet forgotten,
as I am still young and have not grown out of my own impulses,
still lost in cause by the lack of certainty I associate with a
train of thought only willing to tackle one emotion at a time.
If I admit to thriving off of instinct alone it would not be known
that my nerves and my aspirations encounter spectrums of insatiable light seen for miles,
but if I only allow a limited glimpse into the never ceasing adventure found in the persistent devotion to observation,
it is as though I am incapable of any emotion at all.
The cycle of selfishness.
How we never stick around for good, unless tethered by what elements in life
cannot be broken down into phrases,
how instinct can be deceived by the thoughts we think we are having,
acting fearlessly out of fear and crawling on the floors of forced apathy,
always outdoing ourselves for the sake of an amazing tale we can never fully take credit for.
The mind is aware it has seen something, yet bottles up those images
in order to taste more appealing with age,
and still we remain lost in the translation of foreign matter morse code tapping its intonations
on our bedposts when we've had too much to drink or realize we are cradling dead notions,
all along knowing what must be done, the innate vibrations stinging our ears,
reminding us as it throbs our own denial in passing movement,
the accessibility of picking through what our minds can handle,
and what the sensitivity of our hearts cannot.