ahem.
I write poems to think things through;
I write poems to communicate to you.
why do you write poems?
I am as simple as this.
there isn’t anything that you’d really miss
unless you didn’t read them.
0
What Happens Now?
Posted: September 27, 1993 in PoetryTags: Car, Echo, Flowers, Heart, Love, Night, Orange, Time
when the nighttime
slips across the sky
like a teenage lover
out his window to put flowers
on his first girlfriend’s car,
I’m usually surprised,
even though it was I
who used to climb cautiously
out of my house
and bicycle through quiet orange-lit streets,
picking homeowner’s flowers along the way
to makeshift a heartfelt and beautiful bouquet –
an echo like a car going by
three streets over
in the middle of the night.
I Can’t Breathe
Posted: September 15, 1993 in PoetryTags: Candles, Circle, Crickets, Dog, Dream, Echo, Fire, Fireworks, Honesty, Human, Joy, Lightning, Moth, Ocean, Rhyme, Sea, Sky, Smoke, Snake, Stone, White, Woods, World
why can’t I
just be another guy?
but I’m a person
with a snake-sharp tongue
and I’m a ripped flannel…
I shoot my mouth like a shotgun.
riddles and rhyming and rhythm,
not taken seriously enough to stay honest
just another number in the GTE phone list.
I lie and I lie and I lie
to convince you all
that the poet is just another human being;
that I am just another guy.
I thresh through these lines
like a dog wrapped in seaweed,
thrown with stones in the ocean:
I can’t breathe –
there’s all the smoke from the fires I’m lightning,
I’m telling the sheriff that I’m struck by lightning.
when does it all stop echoing ‘round in circles?
I think it’s just another dream.
I’m on a porch with a candle and a carpet;
there’s crickets all around
and I feel wonderful without the world dragging me down.
look, I see you don’t understand with a frown.
I can’t even repeat what I’ve said.
I can’t think of a poem I’ve written,
then read,
and thought that this is it, this is perfect!
I’ve even given up trying to rework it.
I don’t want to write for a living anymore
I feel like the homework that’s always lost to the dog
and I don’t remember whatever
I expected from myself anymore.
these fireworks of joy that I wished to paint the skies with
are nothing more than explosions
of white-winged moths from a log
that I’ve kicked walking alone in the woods.
I
I kick the lyrics straight from my heart to my mouth
to the mike to your ears to your drums and I’m out,
out fast like a villiain that just stole your TV.
after the show, if it’s gone, don’t blame me,
because when I rap, people don’t know waht hit ‘em.
there’s scientists wondering why I got rhythm.
I get in the scraps that you wouldn’t believe
with the belligerent dicks who’re proud of their weave.
they’re bigger and better than the guy with the eye-wear.
you’re girl’s loving me, you know why? I got real hair.
you’ll try to act tough and make your hands into fists
but she wants to get busy and she’s blowing a kiss.
by that time I know you’ve had it…
but I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I don’t start static.
I’m a gentleman, I’ll come and apologize
and I’ll try to keep my eyes off those out-of-line thighs.
she’s pulling up her skirt just to try and impress me.
she looks me up and down like she’s trying to undress me.
you’re gonna be mad when you know that you’ve lost it,
so play Michael Jackson – keep that shit in the closet.
the freaks in the streets want to go and get loaded;
I’m so fat with good time rhymes that I’m bloated.
I don’t have the patience to deal with a chump
because I got to get busy to the Kmart funk.
chorus
it’s the Kmart funk I said the Kmart funk
chech it the Kmart funk yes the Kmart funk
well its the Kmart funk yeah the Kmart funk –
catch a likkle riddim in your cranium, punk!
yes the Kmart funk to the Kmart funk
check it the Kmart funk it’s the Kmart funk
the Kmart funk into the Kmart funk
it’s soundin’ even better when I smoke a da skunk, BO !!!!
II
TheKmart funk was this jam that I grooved
in my band Monster Zero way back in high school.
My man Chris McGee goes to UC Berkeley
he had lyrics so funky that they’d hurt me…
something real weird ‘bout some shoes and a sock
I don’t know what he would say but the house would cold rock
and the crowd would shout, they’d be happy to be there
singing [ho!] – Terminator X
but back to the definition of the Kmart funk
as I driveby dropkick with the bass in my trunk.
this is a track that’s down to earth, see,
not a highbrow store like Nordstrom’s or Macy’s.
the Kmart funk’s back to the basics style
that keeps me worthwhile, out of the crazy dogpile
of pop-rap fusion that entices the kids
to think rap is cheesy like a jar of Cheese Whiz™.
I try to stay clear of that hellhole…
you can tell I gots the Motts™ not a blue light special
ideas are rocking right out of my ears:
get on the floor and have no fear.
Tempest’s like a fortune on the wheels of steel
he drops the Gap band in to give the flavor-full feel,
a little Roger, Peter Piper, and some underground bump
mixes up in your ears for the Kmart funk.
(chorus)
III
some people get surprised when I turn on the faucet
I pour out a jam that’s a slam not a soft hit
and I’m never quite finished, always more to come
because the people in the place always step up and get dumb.
I gotta stay back, I’m like Felix the Cat:
I got a bag full of tricks and a four-track…
to kick something fresh you gotta feel the jam
like the words flowing out from the mike in my hand
I’m not starting some shit, but don’t step to me,
‘cause I can play you like a game of Monopoly™.
you say that you’re the best and you can do much better
but explain why your mom’s writing me love letters.
I didn’t mean to be rude and dis your face out loud,
but there she is doing the wop in the hole in the crowd.
just stand back and swim through the funk, G.
[feel the bass come down on me, yeah] – Jungle Brothers
IV
you’re probably gonna chuckle, ‘cause I’m talking ‘bout Kmart
but personal style can’t be bought, it’s an art form.
I think that the K is a great place to be;
there’s one on the corner in every great city.
that’s where I go to buy cheap underwear,
but don’t get me wrong – I don’t fucking work there.
Kmart is sort of like a circus tent…
you see I walk out with everything and I ain’t spent a cent.
I’m a low-grade gangster so I gotta give thanks
that I haven’t been caught or shot – there’s no banks
in the future of my criminal career…
maybe a ticket or two for playing this so you can hear it
whilyou’re partying on DP, cruising on the freeway,
staggering on State Street, ditching school on Friday,
hanging out drinking with your friends in the place.
now where you gonna get that eight dollar case?
Blatz is on sale, Milwaukee’s best, too;
all the best brands, get your hands on that quality brew.
they’ve got everything else in that goddamn store –
I wouldn’t be surprised if the manager’s drinking.
you gotta be tanked to be 25 and working
at the Kmart – it’s not a job, it’s lurking.
I bought a Venus flytrap in the Garden Department,
the biggest excitement was a kid trying to start shit.
he ripped off a pack of Bubble Yum™…
caught by security, they pulled out their guns.
nobody in the store seemed to pay much attention,
they were picking up the specials that I’ve already mentioned.
you still think that Kmart’s a waste of good room?
where else do you get your water balloons.
throw ‘em at a neighbor, throw ‘em at a cop.
(be caution on that last one, it’s no fun if you’re shot)
and if you live like me, by the university,
it’s always lots of fun to water bomb a sorority.
and wait ‘till the freshmen come to college…
then it’s time to kick them their knowledge…
water bomb launcher so the suckers’ll soar,
there’s a whole group of targets for your water balloon war.
now Wednesday night’ll never ever be a bore,
but you’ve got to give thanks to the neighborhood store.
(chorus)
V
I write rhymes…that’s what I do…and
[you don’t like how I’m living, well fuck you] – Ice Cube
I write stories ‘bout my life so you can get a taste
and like a spoonful of sugar, I frost it with bass.
it’s all in good fun to make you sing and dance,
this groove so soothes it makes you move your pants.
light a spliff take a whiff and pass that green;
get friendly with your neighbor ‘cause they got a lot of flavor don’t worry be happy like it’s IV Halloween.
I get busy getting dizzy…
I chill out at the Chart House™, yo fellows, Cheeze Whiz™ me.
hey ladies in the place, Cory White – he’s gonna kiss them,
checkered ska punks with the junk in our system.
I’m powered by the light that shines from my soul.
I got more freshness than your kitchen’s got mold.
straight from the bottle and I don’t give a damn
if it comes in a cup, 40 ounce or can.
I play this like an anthem from the back of my truck,
I play my rhymes loud and I don’t give a (bo!)
you think that I’m bluffing? you think that I’m bluffing?
you’re a day-old in the dumpster ‘cause I’m the stud-muffin.
any bitches talking shit about me and my crew?
pah! you gotta pay your man to stay with you.
I’ve covered all the bases and you know I got spunk;
you know you can’t touch it – it’s the Kmart funk.
(chorus)
I Want So Much to Believe
Posted: September 9, 1993 in PoetryTags: Believe, Child, Fail, Happy, Heart, Love
I want so much to believe
in love that can be touched
and felt: something I need
to glue together all my heart.
each time I fall into that trap,
the sweetened chute of love,
some part of me can hear the snap
of metal jaws that slowly close and lock.
each time I fail another relationship,
a chisel chips another piece of meat,
a child steals another boardgame piece,
another chance for happiness thrown out
my throne of belief is whittled away,
the arms and legs are all but kindling now
and who would want such damaged merchandise
but in a lonely corner of an attic in your house.
I wait with the irrational fears.
I’m packed in the same elevator as them,
standing shoulder to shoulder;
they’re all in business suits and
they look almost friendly.
but it is just because they recognize me
from my frequency in riding the lift.
my relationship to them is this:
we see each other on the elevator,
which can take a long time
to decide which floor it is going to
let me out on.
you almost caught your room on fire
with an ill-made candle;
but forever with me is
the image I have when you explained
that you rushed it outside
burning your hands
naked and dripping from the bath
and dashed it to the ground.
all I came by to see
was a broken ceramic plate
and an enormous water stain
on the walkway,
and you, with a burnt thumb.
A VOLCANO EJACULATING BLACK-HOT SULFURIC INK-JISM INTO SQUIGGLY PATTERNS TO FREEZE INTO SINGULAR HIEROGLYPHICS MY PEN LOADED WITH THICK CLEAR CRANIAL FLUID BARELY FILTERED THROUGH THE NASCENT HAIRS ON THE BACK OF MY HAND DERIVING WORDS THOUGHTS IDEAS FROM THE DINOSAUR TEETH-CLICKING OF NEURONS AND RECEPTOR CELLS IN A SQUATTING TOADLIKE SOGGY WAD OF SCHOOL BATHROOM PAPER TOWELS CROUCHING IN THE THRONE AT THE TOP OF MY CROOKED SPINAL COLUMN GOUTING INANITIES INTO THE SPEAKER HORN OF THE 101 FREEWAY RUNNING FROM FOREHEAD TO FINGERS DANCING THE END OF SOME STOLEN WRITING UTENSIL LIKE A SKATE OVER A CLEAN SHEET OF HOCKEY RINK ICE STILL STEAMING FROM THE INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH ZAMBONE MACHINE ROLLING FORESTS FLAT INTO PRODUCTS THAT I CAN WIPE MY NEURAL ASS WITH.
and when
I fall in love
with you
again,
it is all over,
pain and
frustration
again,
like a promise
for changing
the same
again,
if I can beg
for the sun
and the rain
again.
I can feel the sum sadness
of everything, in each object,
filled tablespoons with a hose of sadness,
the impermanence of happiness
when good is how they are now;
in moments it is gone,
I’m watching the cherished abandoned,
and the whirl of the clock is
the blur of this sadness, this change.
Pennywise as a Lover
Posted: August 30, 1993 in PoetryTags: Beach, Blue, Eye, Love, Ocean, Pennywise, Salt, Sand, Sea, Tide
when I am away
I know that I am in love
with you,
with salts and breezes
from the ocean
that would go well
with your blonde hair,
helium balloons
for your big blue eyes,
dripping sandcastles
in the reflection of the sun
on the sealskin sand
of the tide on the beaches.
and I am the mist
that crawls in off the old pieces
of the sea that were caught
in tidepool fishing nets last night;
I come wrapping, a stole
around the necks of the cliffs,
rising up from the beach,
heads sheared off like
so many broken Michaelangelos.
Like the Phuncky Feel One
Posted: August 29, 1993 in PoetryTags: Cypress Hill, Dr. Seuss, MC Honky, Mike, Pus, Rhyme, Zero Boy
I’m just plain loco, down on a funky track
slam the sick vocal, here comes the wick-wack
get back on the ska train handing you the new hype
come around to my block and learn why my name is Mike
juggling the fresh rhymes, not with the attitude
that I gotta shoot my gun just to prove I’m real rude
boy you got to get off thinking in the tunnel side
scramble you some truths now, better open real wide
put it in your pocket, hang it on a shingle
keep it like a gift you got from Kris Kringle
take it to your head now, kick it to your friends now
tell it over red wine, caviar or puppy chow
‘cause I got the new style, pushing trippy lyrics
if you go and blink, son, you’re never gonna hear it
then you get frustrated, maybe wanna throw down
I’m the big bad wolf and you’regonna blow down
like a straw building, a hut made of matches
punch your eyes with toothpicks, know you gotta catch this
thoughts coming too fast, gotta read the insert
then you try to lip sync at my fucking concert
like Milli and Vanilli, some guys are all the same
first it’s girl you know it’s true then they blame it on the rain
never mind now, my tricks will never get dull
I got a Dr. Seuss circus matineeing in my skull
a lion whip, a bong hit, my words are spouting clout
I’m the prize in Cracker Jack and once again I’m out.
Opossum
Posted: August 29, 1993 in PoetryTags: Beauty, Bird, Bones, Cigarette, Godzilla, Human, Leaf, Light, Opossum, Point Loma, Silence, Waterfall, Window
on my driveway in Point Loma,
smoking 3 cigarettes,
I thought it was my cat Ferguson
cracking bird-bones at four in the morning,
but the white and grey patchy creature
was a shiny eyed opossum,
who moved off as fast as it could
back down the sidewalk
after discovering its way back to its lair
in the college leaf-lined drainpipes
was guarded by a flannel-skinned human.
insomnia can be a great thing
when the TV isn’t running any Godzilla movies
or Kung-Fu Theater;
then the silence outside, the cool air
can be heard straining to beckon
with no mouth, no gestures,
just an often overlooked phenomenon.
some will travel huge distances
to find beauty in waterfalls and vistas
that are easy to pretend that no one else has seen,
yet the early morning hours of solitude
and a token nightlighting of vapor lamps on telephone poles
is the hush of the spectacular
that not many appreciate,
right outside their heavy-lidded windows.
a cat calls beneath my window
and my stomach hurts
from constipated poetry;
I’m turning into mush
from trying to lift these
literary weights and be like them,
dreaming of storefront windows
and cardboard displays…
here
comes
another
shoddy
birthday
to
remind
me
of
one
woman
who,
weeping
on
the
24th
of
September,
will
never
know
the
son
she
gave
away.
Hush
Posted: August 22, 1993 in PoetryTags: Beach, Cat, Cry, Drum, Flesh, Moon, Ocean, Rock, Sea, Time, Water
you asked me once upon a time
if I could hear the speech of the sea.
I said yes and that
was where are agreement ended;
you heard eulogies, laments,
cries of change and supportive flesh,
the echoes of watery hands
drumming on cliffsides,
rolling rocks into its stomach,
a maelstrom of creative fury
controlled and unleashed
by the whim of the innocent moon.
But when I hear the ocean,
it is a purring cat, content
on lapping milky foam
on the sands of this one beach
and saying to me over and over
as it launders the shores
“hush . . . it’s alright”.
perhaps I fall closer to perfection
because I confront the big change directly;
I think that into it’s audience eyes
and court it with depression and teasing razorblades.
you who cover it with sheets and sweaters
to make it not what it is but more
comfortable do it a disservice
and it will remember;
it will use your own linen as camoflage
to catch you unaware and unprepared.
how do you
express the depths
of your heart?
as a black hidden lake
far underground
that I paddle around on
catching blind white fish
in the luminosity of my eyes
and croaking to my precious self.
why do I have to walk around
with the anvil of potential suicide
balanced on my head?
some people ask themselves
why aren’t I normal? or
why aren’t I like the rest of them?
well, this is not normal.
the human being would not have evolved
as far as it has if it had a normal drive to suicide.
I honestly think about it most all of the time
and once in a while
it is more than a shadow;
isometimes the whole damn monster
comes out of the closet
and crouches, towering over me, whispering
about the unseen benefits of suicide.
how many years will I stick around,
waiting for things to get “better”,
always listening with half an ear
to the crack of the closet door?
As you go
I don’t know
where we stand
or how close you feel
to what I feel for you.
Sometimes this stands me still
wherever I am,
especially playing the piano.
I will suddenly think of you
and your mind,
then I wonder if I’m ever going to see you again.
If I’ll be able to touch your face,
hold your hand,
and be able to tell you I love you with my eyes.
I wonder how cold time can be
to the single struggles of a sometimes hardship friendship…
Twisted is thee way to what you seek.
Labyrinthine; swathed in thee shrouds of the Dead.
Thee sparks and shrapnel ov conflicting Faiths
Burns holes in thee very fabrick ov thee World.
What was undone has done again.
Thee Trees have spoken ov their Fear.
Shackles lay empty but intact
On a cold Stone floor, in thee Darkness.
Thee depths ov Silence murmur:
Thee sound heard in dry riverbeds
When it is raining in the nearby hills.
Take heed ov thee Guidance of the Divine;
Take steel to clothe and to cleanse;
Take care that your deeds suit your words.
Yea, even as your thoughts are actions.
Thee olde First-Born comes as Fire,
With tentacled flames ov despair.
Leopold sat on the steps of the 3 story apartment building with a paper bag between his knees. He was wearing a torn red flannel shirt that draped over it, so it was a little bit hidden. It looked like there was a sandwich in it. I sat across the street on my fire escape in the hot shade with a sketchbook and drew him.
“Leopold!” yelled a woman from inside the apartment building. He didn’t answer. She screamed again and he didn’t even react. I squinted through the shimmers of the sunlight cracking the pavement and decided that Leopold was drunk. I drew some lines around his eyes and turned his mouth down at one corner. That made the drawing look more like Leopold. Maybe I could sell it for a few bucks to his old lady to get a bottle of 7-Up.
Two other tenants walked up to Leopold. They had come back from the corner store. One of them, a fat Mexican man everyone called Tio Ramon shoved a bottle of wine in Leopold’s hand and told him to drink up.
“You’ll get better!” he guffawed, then tore the wine out of Leopold’s hand and drank some, red liquid spilling down his chin and making dark spots on the cement. Leopold didn’t move much; once he looked up at the other man whom I didn’t recognize for a moment, then went back to staring at some point on my apartment building.
The man I didn’t know leaned on his cane. It was a black lacquered cane with about the last six inches of it painted white and it looked like his prize possession – he leaned down with his other hand and patted Leopold gently on the head, then turned and started walking into the courtyard. Tio Ramon shouted some filthy Spanish into Leopold’s ear and walked after him.
Leopold sat there, quite nicely for another fifteen minutes, then, as I was drawing the trash cans to the right of the steps, he got up very slowly. I glanced over the top of my sketchbook and watched him pick up his paper bag carefully by the bottom and walk around the corner down the alley towards Giuseppi’s, which started serving cheap keg beer about this time.
I finished the trash cans and thought about putting a cat in by Leopold’s feet to make him look a little less sad when I heard a single gunshot tear around the corner and sing Hallelujah to the rest of San Diego.
we write poems when our tongues tie
together in my mouth, behind your lips;
unspoken words like unnoticed snow
in the shade of a tree in the high mountains.
Voy a mi casa a solas
porque necesito escribir poesia de tu
y pensar que si mi amor esta quebrada.
No es posible a pensar sin pensando de sus ojos
y que los miran en miyos.
No se que todavia estamos luchando.
Qure dire a ayudarte?
Tengo un gran pasion
a ver sus ojos lleno de amor por mi.
Ne se como vuelva al tiempo
cuando seramos alegres.
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