so many big
things to capture
with the clumsy
butterfly net
of my poetry.
0
I lay claim to
this piece of earth.
something to
lay my picnic blanket on
when I’m dead.
sometime when
I don’t feel so lonely
and afraid;
somewhere to
rest my head.
I was captured in the mirror
of a pool of clear water.
I watched myself climb a big rock
behind me without falling.
I
I beat a trash can like a drum
in the alley behind your house
at night when the stray cats gather
on the fence around my feet.
we are all going
to fly to the dark side of the moon.
II
I see the big sack of your skin,
hung up as if in a slaughterhouse
and God stuffs in your muscles,
your organs, your soul;
sews you up and throws you to earth
to land like a leaping antelope.
III
I curse the dawn licking the city skyline
clean of the octopus darkness.
I hold my rings up to the last star
and plunge back into the timelessness
of the dirty brick alleyways.
Thor swung his
hammer aimlessly,
for there was nothing
left to fight.
I see the rain
breathe her mist
over the mountains,
marching relentlessly.
a fog’s curiosity.
smell the earth,
touch the wet drops
on a delicately outstretched ivy leaf.
where am I going tonight?
crowded subway train
full of sleepy dreamers;
it never stops, but they get off.
somehow I don’t notice,
surrounded by nightclothes
that are empty.
I fly away
to a mountain top
and let my breath fall
to the valley,
happy in sleep.
beautiful bat wings,
and strength,
watching plants grow,
my mountain eroding,
everything melting.
I plunge to tear out the heart
of an evil man,
crashing against his hairy breast
and falling
to the pavement,
staring at his shoes
as he, not noticing, watered his lawn
into my eyes.
I lurk.
a leviathan under the surface,
battling with dreams
and limitations,
darkly, silently.
I lurk,
therefore, I am
Kraken.
massive,
fear-inspiring.
awesome,
horrifying.
I lay at the bottom
watching my bubbles
swim towards the grey surface
around the unfortunate.
Untitled Poem #-6
Posted: November 10, 1991 in PoetryTags: Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, Red, Spider, Yellow
I gave my green to an apple.
I gave my yellow to a spider.
I gave my blue to a firework.
I gave my red to a blanket.
I gave my purple to a crayon.
I gave my orange to a streetlight.
Then I gave them all to you.
seven large pillars stood alone
surrounded by heaps of moldy bone.
your skulls are marked with waterstains
but flesh in your poetry remains.
climbing slowly around the piles
holding, examining your whitened smiles,
wondering what of my poetry
when I have become as thee.
Hoka Hey
Posted: November 5, 1991 in PoetryTags: Beast, Candle, Damn, Dance, Demon, Fire, King, Saint, Shadow, Sleep, Tears
A candle
Burns
With a certain virtue:
Demon, saint
Hesitate;
Damnation speaks
I am
Revealed in
Flickering shadow
Heaven
Slender shining
Tear streaked
Patience beast
Dancing
To the sense
Of smell
Sing praise
To the arch
To the pedestal
Nod the fire
Dream the sleep
Of kings.
poetry comes as the shadow of a cloud
across my paper, staining the white,
and I only remember how much I was
in love with you for that moment.
Imitation of The Hand
holding endless golden grains of sand
at arm’s length – my hand
sifts thoughtful each piece’s worth
feeling the elemental drums of the earth.
Imitation of The Island
alone on an island,
I build my own church
to God
and it was nothing
because I’d rather have died.
The lazy brown dog
stayed home and
watched the Chargers
lose 17-14.
the crows have
come to peck out
our eyes, peck
out our eyes,
peck out our eyes.
the crows
have come to
peck out our eyes
so that we may be enlightened.
decomposing, I lay in sleep,
wrapt in the silk of a thousand worms,
mixing with the rain
and the earth and the air,
melting like ice cream
on the sunny sidewalk.
frogs at the pond
make finger-shadows
and see them dance
on the surface of the water
during lightning.
what am I?
snail tracked and painted myrmidon,
striped with the best of the barber poles,
suckled as a final Lemonhead.
death comes as a white hat.
I am Amoebaman,
extending, distending
the mighty pseudopod.
phagocytosis: I eat,
scavenging across the floor
for succulent young
women’s legs,
dragging them under
my big checkered
protoplasm
and giving them cooties.
stuck in the eye
with Tanizaki’s
stolen needle.
blind, I admired
the mirror
from memory.
a Buddha
held his halo
over his belly,
pressed it in,
and smiled.
I was struck
in the eye
by the sound
of a violin,
drawn sinew,
smoking resin,
sliding down,
arpeggiated
from my CD.
we know this much:
you are ugly;
we have the gods’
word for it; they too
would be ugly if ugly
was a good thing.
I untie my belt
hoping to see you ream a sheep,
but still you don’t come
and I go on longing.
you are invincible!
Midion
Posted: August 26, 1991 in PoetryTags: Boy, Cry, Dreams, Echo, Eye, Hope, Mirror, Monster, Moon, Nothing, Salt, Shadow, Sleep, Trees
mud from the river-bottom
sieves through my heart
and dries brown tile
upon the sunny corridors
of hope.
shaken by the fist
of my own excitement
I feel my lungs
fill with salt
left by the cataracts
of beautiful plants
breathing.
to hold all of you
for one moment
would be to watch it crumble
and cry like
a waning moon
doused in the ink of the ocean.
little boy,
tiptoe carefully
through the echoes
of the fallen mirror;
the leaves
will put it back together.
the stitch of a sewing machine
manufactures my poetry,
sleep baptizes
my worried face into peace.
the dances of dreams
drum my skin into rest,
slipping me between the teeth
of monsters who plague my visions,
færies who cover my ears with storms
to mask the whispering
of nothing.
I fall without recollection
through cell walls,
shrieking with my senses,
soundlessly touching stars
with the shadows
of my fingertips;
hurtling at frightful speeds,
awed by the size of it all.
broken,
reflecting the trees
at fractured angles
agonizingly compounded,
the spilled eyes of an insect
encrusted with river mud
cracked and dry with age.
Come, friend that crawls,
Thing that scuttles from faintest light,
Horrid apparition that hides its face;
Stand with the blackest night,
My skull revealed in awful majesty
Atop my cape of dark childhood fears,
Flowing in a wind of charnel fog.
I summon thee from the torment of years…
Froggacuda's Weblog 