Memory Box

I pulled the box
The past on paper.
A stack of books
Reports and coloured
Pictures in crayon.

Smiles behind
vacant eyes

He never imagined this

He had no conception

Naive words from a naive boy

Like any boy
Any girl

The past embarasses
Because the present confused us
And now we don’t know why.

Little Lady

Easy she’s so genuine
And grins ear to ear.
I lose myself in that smile.

Bon Voyage!

She was there
Saying all the things I
Loved to hear but dropping
Him
And him
and him
And those that
Scamper underfoot

She was there
Her skin
Eyes
All of the things I
Wanted

Right there

Right

There

I told her
Reach for the happy
Hammered it because
Fuck
I want her to have it
Because
Fuck
She doesn’t have it now.

I said I thought she was
Kind of fantastic
Looked at her with my blues

She said she loved me

I said I loved her too

Every muscled screamed
Right from the soul of me.
A great goddamn mouth opened up
At the core of me
And howled for
Her

But I couldn’t do it
Couldn’t lean over and
Steal a kiss

She isn’t his
She isn’t fucking
Property
But she isn’t worth
Ruining the person I am
In the arms of betrayal.

So now I’m alone
She’s gone and I’m
Left scribbled a fucking poem
Instead of maybe fucking a woman
That I love.

What's Up Chuck?

Bukowski I read your words
And they echo through me,
Vibrate my bones and chatter in my teeth.
I have to fight channeling
Your voice in my own
But sometimes I really don't
Want to at all.

You were a magnificent
Scumbag.
For all your drinking
Fucking fighting
And staring at the ceiling
During hung mornings,
You echoed the emptiness
In all of us
That most of us
Just won't admit.

I wonder what it'd sound like...

I think of you when
everything else is still and silent
and I've nothing else left to
Distract me.

I wonder if you know.
Of couse you do. I am a boar, I
feel with my sleeves and scream from
mountain tops.

Just the same I imagine
The words, the speech- finally saying
something, anything at all to you that
actually matters.

I can't actually remember
what your perfume smells like or if
you actually wear any but like your reaction I
Imagine it.

You in my arms, the words
Whispered under breathe, my lips
matched to your thin lips, my arms around your
thin waist.

What an image.

But I am silent, the lessons taught
By her spinning and becoming nothing
More than ash have not been learned and I am
A coward.

Type type type and
Tell me more.
Tell me more.

I

I am
I simply am, as I float here wherein,
The hours have once again ran away from me and
the only proof of me for my eyes,
Is the illuminated movements of pale stubby fingers across
Keys as these words appear before me to answer
That calling I had and the word prompt that never
Fucks off in my head.

I am
I simply am as wind runs
Through my nostrils and tickles me.
The hair that is much too long
In there is rustled and dances.
I reach in, yank and check for length. (Charmed yet?)
The wind outside my window rocks
A dying tree and the lightning crashes-
Flash flash and darkness greater after.

I am
I simply am as I see my mother cry and
She curses and weeps and yearns to
Pass all that has been heckling her.
The needs she feels and the hugs
and the hugs and I realize that
I can do nothing to help how she feels that
She isn't the woman she used to be.

She still is, and I hope to hell she realizes it.

I am
I simply am naked desire.
There is no thought in it and
I am lacking for direction.
I merely want. I want you I want her and
I still want her and all the other things that cannot
ever be. Sighed apologies and excuses and excuses
The screeching of tires and time ticking
Through my teeth,
I need and I crave and wish to
Tear life apart and shove it and every other
burnt and bloody bit down my throat.

I am
I simply am when we fuck and I am
inches from your face and I can
taste your sweat on the air
but you are a hundred miles away from me
even as I am inside of you.
I want to push in further than paltry inches
and collapse into your body or push you into mine
But there is nothing to be done for it
and even as we are so close and as
intimate as can be
We are still alone
We are always alone
and there is nothing to be done for it.

I am
I simply am.

She's Across the Table

He's a force of nature
Barely contained by black leather and
Dripping in just enough detached
Apathy for everything she's saying.
He speaks calmly,
Flatly,
With the slightest curl of a
Sideways smirk.
On measured beats he barks
Some joke or sass and they always
Laugh
And laugh and he
Takes another ever so slight sip.

They leave together and he
Leads her around in the cool
Evening air as he bellows enough
Steamed words about something that
Burns in him as
He decides
When and where the encounter
Will end.

He doesn't,
Sit in the corner
Slouched and staring anxiously
Into the amber of his single malt.
There is no squeaking
Uneven and awkward interuption.
No injection of deadening awkward
Jokes that are far
Far too obscure for any sort of
Good taste.

But he does laugh,
He always laughs,
Even when he's the only one
Who does.

Then inevitably he,
Takes another sip,
Sniffs,
Shoots and
Sighs.
So subltly looks up to see
If anyone noticed.
Waves down the waitress and
Orders another because
When the world spins,
And the words slur
He is finally excused from speaking.

Carpe Diem

I take another step as my ankle
Deformed, screams up my leg and
Into my back.
The world is comfortable with itself
But I am antagonistic.
Caustic
And crawling in my own skin.
There is a fat woman
Seventy five pounds to jiggle
Jogging
As I see her she is wearing a too tight t-shirt
Black and with white writing that
Stripes "CARPE DIEM" across her tits,
Both of which are quite a bit larger than my head.

What an upbeat sentiment
To go up and down
Up and down
Down and up
And up and down
I've walked past her now
Trying my best not to stare.

Oh and now a couple cross country skiing
On the side walk.
And they have all the poles, finery and layers but
Without any snow at all.

Why
Why
Why.

WHY.

Wellwishing

The wolves howl outside
And I, in here.

Its the dead of morning.
The red eye stutter brained moments
Wherein I would sleep,
But for the thoughts of you.

You are,
Or I hope you are
Lounging magnificently
Drool or no,

Or no-
You are beautiful and
At peace,
Without the demons and
Blistery things prodding.

I hope you are.

I think the only thing,
More important to me
Than for me to make you
Happy and at peace,
Is that,

Regardless of it all,
You are happy,
And at peace.

I think I want just
One of us,
To be so.

Cheers girly and,
Your,
Slow smile.

Oh Benighted Imbecile

What else remains when
In awe of it all
On the streets of a golden city,
All you find you can do
Is sputter inanities?

The egg keeps dripping.
Will the last drops ever leave
Your face,
After you smashed it
In so cavalier a manner?

The city falls to ruins
As its structure becomes awkward,
Leaving you to wander the wastes.
Will you be surprised the next time
You shatter paradise?

The Forest Through the Trees

Okay so I couldn't see
The ground through the clouds
And I can't
Read tomorrow like a book,

But,

A beautiful girl with
Olive skin and
Black satin eyes
Served me sweet drinks with a
Slight and sexy smile,
As I sat in a chair
Hundreds of feet above the ground,
Going hundreds of
Kilometers per hour.

Your vision of god
In the text,
Has nothing on me
In the text.

This gestalt juggernaught,
There is wonder in the winged giant
Of steel knowledge piled upon by
The work of our sleeping sisters,
Brothers, mothers and fathers.
But we are far too used to
Living and dying,
All on their shoulders.


And you just don't know
How far down the ground is,
Through the clouds.

Wobble Wobble

My life's a spinning top
Pretty in the
Blended colours and
Kind of neat to hear
Me whirl on the table.

But I need to move faster,
Every second passing I
Need to become more impossible
Or else I'll fall
And you'll move

To play with something else.

Storm Clouds

There's a storm brewing
Somewhere between the pavement
And my feet as I drag them.
The friction burns
Wears down and
Strips away everything
To the bones
Marrow and through.

There's nothing left
In this sea of inadequacy
And I am but a pale
Lie of a man
A form without function
Collared refuse to be
Shovelled over shoulder
With all the white trash.

I am the empty bottle
That houses lightning.
I am nothing of substance
But violence
That disperses only
Through the simplest of routes
To rest in the ground.

Let the thunder come after
Echo through the skies
Knocking the birds from their heaven
Let it flatten every forest
Knock you from your feet,
Shatter every window
Deafen every ear.

Leaving only silence in its wake
And a ringing that cuts
Like razors caught deep
In your meat.

Cigar Ash

My eyes are bloodshot
As morning peaks through
The blinds again.
I sit listening to the music
Of dead men and pretentious women
And I realize that
The only death that excites me
Is the one you offer
As you step backwards
And beckon.

So beckon
Draw me in past the old tastes of
Liquour and plaque caked to yellow.
Past five days of stubble
And bruisy bags under the eyes.
Past the rotten mundanities
Of only living.

My Heavy Eyes Weighted Back

I'm a loser held hostage to
Yet another damn morning,
And I breathe bitterly.

You know I lounge awake
As morning hours melt
Away from me.
I think of you
I imagine her
And I wonder what I could accomplish
If this bloody metronome
Would stop pounding in my ears.

These sleepless weeks
Make me wish every thrumming
Longing and
Hopeless dreaming
Would just
Stop.

Give me silence.

Truth

Sometimes I think
That if truth is just
Happiness,
And truth is only
Euphoric feeling,

That truth,
Might as well be
A beautiful woman
With strong neck muscles
Nice Lips,
And a hell of a lot of
Experience

That's fun and all,
Really.
But I think that
Shaw was right
When he spoke
Of drunk and sober men.

Ribs

There’s something in my breast
Building, pounding and it
Wants to escape
To ghost over
And run its fingers
Down a strand of your hair.

But it won’t.
I keep it tightly
Held back in an inscrutable
Mask of a poker face,
Betrayed in its existence,
Only by the occasional
Trembles in my voice.

So I beg you,
Grab me by the chest and
Crack the cage.
Tear me open and root through
All of the bloody
Nonsense
To find something that
Actually matters for once.

The Ants Behind My Eyes

There were ants behind his eyes and a jackhammer slamming around inside his skull. He winced before consciousness and drooled upon himself. Moaning loudly, he woke. His tongue shot out to lick his morning lips, and was greeted by a coarse day-old stubble. Everything was ringing, and the noise inside his head seemed to echo back and forth between his ears, aggravating his headache.

The world was grey.

His eyesight blurred. His vision continued to haze, even after a ceremonial scrunching of the face and rubbing of the eyes. However, after letting his sight settle, he began to realize that it was not his eyes that were betraying him, but rather the terrain in which he was surrounded.

The world was grey.

He began to try to sit up and his pounding skull answered with a knife point through his forehead and pushing out the back. It punished him for every degree he inclined. It reached an almost unbearable climax right before he was fully up, but settled to a dull annoyance once he was. Being vertical now, and with eyes open he began to survey his surroundings.

The man wondered what he had taken last night, and when it was going to wear off.

Everything around him was grey. Grey walls, grey floor and grey ceiling. As he looked down, (and tried not to grimace the headache too much) he found the bed he was on was grey. It occurred to him then, that the bed he was on did not feel like it was covered in sheets or linens. Neither did it feel as though he was held upon a mattress or box spring.

The bed he was on, so too the floor under his feet and the ceiling above his head all appeared to be made of the same material, that felt almost gelatinous to the touch. As he sat upwards he had felt it give slightly and then respond a moment later with firmness. He found this also when he pressed the bed- it would depress and then repel. Then when he’d remove his hand, the surface would go soft once again.

He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and was punished once again by the hangover. The pain shot violently through from his head, down into his stomach as a sharp spark of nausea and then back out through his mouth. Yesterday’s meals splayed out all over the soft floor before him. For a moment he considered himself skilled that he’d managed to avoid getting any on himself, though in truth this was from years of practice.

The vomit was not on the ground for more than a half minute before the floor, oddly enough, seemed to drink it. Seconds later, there was no sign he’d ever puked at all, ignoring of course the small smatters on his socks that he was just beginning to notice.

The man wondered for the first time where his shoes were and was immediately embarrassed. Among his friends there were often jokes about women being unable to keep their shoes on when they drank, and when he found his friends and assumedly, shoes, the man would no doubt want to downplay this un-soled development.

It was the third time since he’d awoken now that he was wondering just how much he’d drank the night before. In truth he couldn’t remember much of anything. The night began with his friends deciding that they’d wanted to go looking for some tail at a series of local clubs they’d scoped out. After a beer he recalled the three of them had met up with some girls from the local university. They’d ordered a round or three of some sugary shot concoction, and then there was dancing… Or did he dance? Was it karaoke?

This lapse in his memory after only four drinks was disturbing to a man such as he was. For now however, he resolved to work on his endurance once he managed to find a way out of this bizarre place he’d found to pass out in. He pushed himself off of the bed awkwardly. It was a rocky dismount as it responded with force to the pressure he was exerting on it.

He stood wearily on a floor made of the same material, and worked out a reasonably reliable way of walking on it. Utilizing a wide stance, he’d almost bounce off of the reverse pressure the floor would exert upon him. He lumbered about the room, doing his best to ignore the punishment his head was doling out from this jilted movement.

He stopped after four paces however and looked around in a panic. There was no door.

There was no door.

As he turned around, around and yet another time again, there was no door.
He had no way out. His heart began to beat violently in his chest as in the back of his mind half remembered images and sounds began to play. The sound of the closet door slamming, and that heavy lock his dad bought being latched into place. He remembered darkness and the heavy pungent sweat of old world clothes hung up for a second or third wear before wash.

Whatever was left in his stomach evacuated and was consumed by the floor in a moment.

The man began thrashing about at nothing in particular and screaming. This only lasted a couple seconds however, as he quickly threw himself off balance and fell onto the floor, which bumped him back, bruising his tail bone.

The sharp pain cut through to him and he calmed down. Rational parts of his brain took over and he began to consciously slow his heartbeat with reassuring thoughts. Obviously there had to be some way out- he got in here some way, right? Of course inkling in the back of his mind was something answering that he had been sealed in after being put here.

He did his best regardless and found some semblance of calm, enough to pull himself cautiously to his feet and begin tracing the outline of the room. He looked for a seam, something to indicate a door or portal- anything. Though after three or four circuits of the rather small room he began to realize that if the wall really were semi-liquid in nature, any external door could open into the room, and then close and leave no obvious seal.

He made an aggravated sigh and rubbed his head, the migraine was still there and strong. Pulsing steadily with his heartbeat and stabbing with any sharp movement of his head. He looked upwards and the ceiling and began to squint. Something else wasn’t right here. He looked to the walls, at the gradual, almost wave like tonal differences in the grey surface.

He realized he couldn’t see any sort of light source. There were no candles or light bulbs to be found, nor obviously was there any sort of skylight. The entire room seemed to be illuminated, no matter the crook or cranny. Nor on either side of the bed or in the slight recess behind it, where it jutted from the floor, but didn’t meet the wall was there any hint of a shadow. Everything was light and darkness didn’t seem to exist.

Everything was grey. Everything was even.

He sat forward intending to stand up. In an instant later he found himself lying down on the bed.

The man blinked in shock and shot up to a standing position so quickly he forgot to steady himself on the floor and stumbled for balance. Finding it, he stood as straight as he could and looked around the room suspiciously; nothing really seemed different save that he felt taller somehow and the mygraine was gone.

Oddly, he began to realize that his face felt incredibly itchy and his hand shot up. It was greeted by a full beard, one that must have been weeks in the growing. He worked his fingers through it in disbelief, having no recollection of the time it would have taken to grow it.

His heart began to race again and he was beginning to start lashing out again when he was suddenly stopped by a piercing pain from his stomach. It felt as though something were biting his stomach, from the other side. Taking smallish nibbles and then ripping bits off of his insides. He screamed till his throat bled. His wails turned to terror when his hands instinctively went to his stomach and he felt something hard and moving there.

Whatever it was inside of him began to vibrate and grow. He felt it pressing and pulsing against his organs, brushing up against his bones. Still it tore at him and still it grew. It pushed out, bulged his stomach and he looked down with horror as his skin began to tear like rubber and something black as hate emerged.

He opened his eyes and found himself curled up in the fetal position in the far right corner of the room from the bed he originally awoke in. His hands moved down to his stomach instinctively, and he was relieved to find nothing amiss. He looked around the room and again noticed nothing different save it seemed smaller again. Not too noticeable a difference, perhaps even just a shift in the wave texture of the walls.

He stood again and moved his hands to his face. He blinked several times as his mind tried to understand what its hands felt, another inch of beard on top of what he’d felt before in that dream. It was a dream.

And it was a dream.

His hands again traced down his chest to his stomach. Tears began to well up in his eyes as his fingers ran over the texture of his shirt, as they scrunched it, cracked it. His lips quivered as he looked down and saw that the entire front of his shirt was caked with dried blood. He lifted his shirt in a rush, which moved like a solid object to inspect his stomach. No wound, not even a scar or scab. No stitches, nothing.

He sat down slowly, brought his knees to his chest and began to weep.


What next he remembered was odd bouts of singing. He’d catch glimpses of himself pounding against walls and speaking out to whoever might listen in words he didn’t understand. At other times he’d find himself sprawled out in various places around the room again with no recollection of having laid there.

He remembered once trying to record hours on the floor and walls with his fingernails that were now impressively long. Every attempt he made to etch marks however, was always rebuffed as the wall or floor would resurface itself moments later. Time seemed to lose all meaning except when measured in the length of his facial hair or finger and toe nails.

It was a terrifying memory recalling the moment he realized the room really had been shrinking almost imperceptivity slowly and he feared the moment when the closet door would open up and he’d hear the sound of his father’s belt being swung.
But this was no closet, and there was no beating to end his time here.

Consciousness became a stream that flowed with no discernable direction and time became ever more liquid. His crying, screaming and singing all held in one moment. His desperate laughter at his vague attempts to fashion his bush of hair into various styles and shapes fell into another moment. It all flowed together. It all flowed at once. His life and his perception of time was only punctuated by the shrinking of the world.

He woke up one day. The world was maybe a foot over his head and a foot in front of him when he sat with his arms holding his legs to his chest. He’d been this way for a long time he felt, though he couldn’t be sure precisely how long that was. Things seemed different today. He vaguely recalled crying recently for quite awhile, but today was different. Today was a day for smiles.

For the first time in a long while, he remembered his time before the grey walls. He remembered the women he’d spent the evening with before waking up here. Something called a body shot, and he remembered the sight of her naval filled with sweet liquor. The man remembered the soft feeling of her skin on his lips and the sweet smell of her. He smiled slowly, for the first time he could remember.

He smiled slowly, as he began to feel himself slowly sinking into the floor.

It was like quicksand, but he didn’t fight it. He just remembered her; a woman who he’d never learned the name of. He just smiled. Today was for smiles. He grinned even as his head began to slip underneath the floor and darkness greeted him.

His smile ended though when the inky darkness began to move and swim around him. It felt as though it was made up of thousands of little black creatures, and he knew little black creatures. His stomach turned a final time when he felt the first bite.

Out past the swimming darkness, past the moving shapes and teeth. Past the moment where his existance seemed to erupt into a quick but sharp moment of pain, the man was almost positive he could hear a crowd applauding and begging for an encore.

That Fucking Platitude Again

Oh and you know,
I really wish those
Folks would just stop
Bleeting the same
Banal bullshit,
Again with such
Damn precision
That I can set
My fucking watch
To another
Of them saying
"Oh God is love!"

When you cry out
And you should know,

We all cry out.

There's no magic
In that voice that
Sometimes answers.

That voice in the darkness is you,
And that voice in the darkness is me.

I cling to you,
And you cling to me.
We all grip tightly together,
As we're hurdling through space
On a little blue bullet
Covered in seran wrap.

All we have to listen to,
Is the whispers of our neighbours
Lightly in our ears.
But I wish for other words
Just once, something fresh.
I yearn for it deeply.

Just once I beg,
A day without,
That fucking platitude again.

Bathing

Sometimes I force it
You know,
When I don't feel it.

I had this idea tonight
Of writing about being
Submerged
About uniformity
Of sense, experience.
About vibrations
On my skin, in my lungs.

But it wasn't coming,
I went through
Four drafts?
Five if you count a
Single stanza
It was
Shit,
Trust me.

The issue I think
Laid in that I
Didn't feel it.
Couldn't jive with saying,
That I felt everything
All over my body
Suffused inside myself
No,
I didn't feel it

I don't feel
Much of anything right now.

But I guess I feel that
I could go for a hot bath now
Hah. Hah.

Hah.

Hah.

Hah.