Fragmented Voices

I can’t begin the narrative

or finish the story

            The color of the sky

the wind blowing

            The angry greying towers

in dusk and winter

            The streets full of potholes

or the potholes full of lamented lines

of yellow and white

            that fill this page as I type:

                                                            Fragmented voices

                                                            singing their songs

                                                            in unison

            We r like

kids like babies like

            beings in another time,

another place;

            dystopian or u-T-o-p- ian

etched against bodies plastered against bodies

framed as polaroids
                                                                               

it is futile of me

to resist the urge

of diaspora.

Vogue

from wall street banks 

            2 big 2 collapse

 2 

an empire of 

            “status quo” 

clinging 2 life on the backs

            of dead blacks 

and

                       2

clut - tered 

            defacto x -tian morals

and 

                                                small town white amerikkka 

            risen like a crimson tide wave

crashing 

            and ripping

and stamping 

   the blue and white vase 

            that once held daff O dils;

Come on,

vogue 

                                   let your body 

move

 to

 the 

music.

from fat stacks 

            and fast cars

 2

buildings    towers    tv shows

2

“let’s build a fence” 

            2

                 it was better when Reagan 

was      pres

         i

dent

            2

we’ll build “wealth” thru interest rates

on education

 loans

and homes

            and everything will be great 

as long as “wealth”

 is created

            for executives

making more in 1hr 

            than a laborer in 1yr

Come on,

vogue 

                                   let your body 

move

 to

 the 

music 

from where we stood 

            2 

here we are

            2

this is the way it is 

            has been 

always will be

and

            from 

once upon a time,

            back when i your age…

            2

we’re at war 

            and they’re crossing here! 

Come on,

vogue 

                                    let your body 

move

 to

 the 

music 

donald trump

            michael pence,

sitting behind wooden desks

            commanding departments

full of dicks;

            that are just as ig 

                                    nor

rant

            they’ll cut back

all the net’s 

            demolish the EPA

take away our right to 

            choose 

insist 

            that it

was never a right

to lose

Come on,

vogue 

                                    let your body 

move

 to

 the 

music

                                                and all I can see

                                                is the wasted earth,

                                                her soil turned from rust

                                                to ash;

            and when I think

            about the song

            that once was sung

                                                                                    tears fall from my eyes.

                        we’re departing for our journey

                        and there is water;

                        the river is vast 

                        and the air is cold.

                                                the boat rocks

                        and we’re packed together so tight 

                        that even if we tried to step forward, 

                        we’d fall backwards into mist that 

                        now is all that can be seen.

Molli's Poem

Molli says: 

            "This is a metaphor / this is not

             a metaphor

I am stuck in an elevator" 

            For Christ sake, Molli! 

Say what you mean! 

            Are you or are you not

stuck in an elevator? 

            Do we need to get a jackhammer?

Will a SAK suffice? 

            Or is this just a language 

game?

            If it's not, 

it could be worse:

                        Steve Tyler could be trapped

alongside you. 

            I wish I was trapped in an elevator

with you rather than at home with nothing to do

but read posts on fb. 

            My life sucks.

Cool (from a writing prompt asking to mimic a great poet. I selected Gwendolyn Brooks.)

I want to be - cool

cool as in like Cool Hand Luke cool

cool as in Steve McQueen cool

Ya know, like so cool you don’t even know

What cool is ---                    

                                        cool

I wanna go fast down Woodward

And Jefferson and race with all the cars

And pass by all the cops that can’t catch me because I’m

cool cool cool like so fucking cool.

It’s cool to be cool

We do things because we’re cool

cool is what cool does

We fly cus we’re cool

We drive cus we’re cool

We stay out late and party cus we’re cool

cool I wanna be cool

I wanna be Luke Wilson

In a Trans Am cool

I wanna be like Burt Reynolds cool ---

That’s called white person cool ---

I wanna be white person cool

Because in real life I’m just plain boring

And stereotypically uncool & white.

Sonnet II

not the second hand of yeats,
nor the forgotten drafts of any masters:
my poetry is different from
that which has come before.

i'm not as crafty as others;
my images do not inspire
great, lengthy discussions from
intellectuals sitting in well-lit lecture halls.

nor should they;
the academy is a privilege for only the best.

my work is best consumed
alongside biscuits and tea,
where the ritual of self caffeination
is as vital as verse.

The Bukowski Variation, or that night i spent dreaming of better dreams

starving in detroit

i had a small room

it was evening going into night

and i stood at my window

in the dark and looked down into 

the bedroom across the street 

and saw a beautiful arab girl 

take off her hijab and 

embrace a young jewish girl 

and kiss her with what seemed hunger

and i stood and watched until 

they broke away 

then i turned and switched on the light

i saw my dresser and my dresser drawers 

and my alarm clock on the dresser

i took my alarm clock 

and set it until the hands 

were set to wake me

then i fell asleep and dreamed

that i was on a beach walking

and my feet blistered in the

hot white sand.

Tough Day

Lacking confidence,
              void of faith
what the hell am I doing here?

For My Little Seiko That Tells Me I Ought To Be Asleep

Bring forth

    ‘he

Bespoke Sun;

    I lay awake

       n

‘he

    D

a   

        R

k

            It keeps ticking

            And ticking

            And ticking

Ticking like breathing;

    Breathing like living

BREATH.

    L   

    I

    G

    H

    T

    or

   

    L

    I   

    T

or 

possibly just GLOW

    The convergence

Of seconds sweeping away

Like my eyelids should be drifting away

Like sleep seems far away. 

                                      Fades away,

              

  What little light.

No matter.

            Let it be.

    Let it tick.

Let the moon phase drift until

                  The bespoke sun rises again

At dawn.

Howl: The original Draft (see finished copy in earlier post)

I

Yeah I saw the best minds of my generation strung out ---

                caught naked in moonlight, dividing soul from material want

    rebelling against consumerism, while becoming mad men in sales.

Yeah we sat on rooftops,

    drinking beer - never satisfied with simplicity; over zellous of complexity - and smoking joints, headed for fixes that open up the sky in distant color patterns, shades of missing blue, recognizing, and commencing discussions of hip hop, wearing beats, and falling with gravity into dimlit streets.

We wore plaid. It was our uniform of battle. Beatnik wannabe, Nirvanian plagued dreams.

    Forward into war we strove into cafes, fighting  with caffeine induced rage --

        political outcasts, demanding a fair wage,

            students in debt, burdened bubble gonna collapse,

service jobs - technologically displaced,                            

        trying to live on minimum wage,

carelessly taking loans

    forcefully taking loans

being told that interest rates will spike.

        Not having homes, whispered in ear by gilded aged profits of markets recovering,

    following needlessly back to the heavens with another smoke,

                lifting spirits with another beer,

                        another toke,

                another broke kid fixin’ with an empty bowl,

arrested, thrown away, and penetrated day to day,

    cast back to die in seas of non conformity becoming conformed. 

II

    In the beginning we had the word,

            and the word was with song;

We fought back from decade of insufferable stereo tunes,

        capturing for ourselves a sound lost with time.      (Cliche...do something better)

We came from the middle, catapulted ourselves from the middle, down into the out and outs.

    We flowed with the song into neighborhoods our parents abandoned,

        and we discovered our souls with rakes and dirt.

We didn’t shave, nor had we the desire to do so. and we felt at once belonging to arts and science, eccentricity, and violence.  

        The World was around us and hated us,

but we didn’t care. We’d taken to hate all our lives.

So we strove to be ourselves. We strove to be unique.

We rediscovered hip hop, Elliot, and the simple pleasures of latte art.

We enclosed ourselves in a bubble that we always expected to burst,

as if by some small chance of fate, a simple pin would rise up to the sky and

like a blister meeting the edge of a pin, pop and fall into nothingness.