Thursday, March 31, 2005

the value of a life


you've got a choice to make, young boy
now is your time to decide
your only chance of salvation, boy
it's your choice to live or die

what will you do with your life?

they'll tell you that a careless man
has every care in the world
he'll toil and struggle just to get by
he'll never attract any girl
they'll tell you hard work is not honorable
unless you can reap the rewards
they'll be right, of course, but in letter
wasted plowshares turned to swords

how, how, how will you live?
what will you do with your life?
do you know how to follow the one true path
through turmoil and strife?
can you plow a field, cut down a tree,
write a Shakespearean sonnet?
don't follow that path, or you shall find
you've wasted your life on it.
my progress as an individual is measured by
my ability to sleep
my ability to wake, as tested
your great hatred for intimacy
our mutual attachment
one presumably dead ferret
two incurable diseases of the mind
five sleepless nights
seven wakeless days
eight individuals you have never met
fifteen necessary pills in three days, lacking
thirty days without productivity
one hundred eighty days of hope-filled waiting
and ten of them warding off hope-loss.

the mind burrows

coffee and disruption define my existence,
and I sit back and watch them take control.
fascinating! the hypnotic spiral effect
has colors in my mind and a flavour all
its own. do you sleep to dream?
every minute of life has a porpoise
(orange you glad I didn't say banana?)
coffee and disruption define my existence,
fascinating! and I sit back and watch
the hypnotic spiral effect every minute of life.
a porpoise all its own
(the great endless sea swallows it whole)
and I sit back and watch the
porpoise, a flavour in my mind.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005


I scared myself with that last poem
as I'm bound to do sometimes
in the crossroads where conscious meets
metaconscious and pleasure is pain.
There I stare into the blackness with
the luxury of dead time, which is
nothing like waking time in every way
that's important.
I only feel fear when I can see someone
staring back, and I'm forced to
realize that I'm on both sides, and
the choices I thought I made aren't
One must have this experience to
claim to know oneself. It is then one
can recognize this claim to be irrefutably
false, in your terms, not debatable.

Friday, March 25, 2005

the dachau kid

they call him the dachau kid
for no reason at all, and he
complies

carrying his stick-frame as though
he walks nowhere, to his end,
constantly

not a word to his oppressors,
his compatriots, his friends, his
betrayers

he hides his disappointment with
their lack of historical perspective
brilliantly

one day it is too much, just a
little more than last time, and it
overwhelms

he comes to school no longer, his
compatriots, his friends wonder where he
hides

but he hides not, having nothing to
shadow any more, and they find his
body

in a bathtub with the water
let out, blood dripping down the
drain

the human survived

the cities sink, the people sink
his eyes sink in, retreating
back inside his head, escaping
the plethora of reality

bullet holes in walls can't show
the horrors inside city dwellers'
walls of skin and bone and
flesh left unscathed, some kind
of sick humane miracle

the most humane of all is
the result of such war, the
human left, the human escaped,
the human exposed, the
human survived

Monday, March 21, 2005


describing yourself as a used machine
is a great way to get on with the
authorities, Ethyl
she sighs and sips
he doesn't want to know your life's history,
you know, just because he followed you
a whole block
she pounds a fist on hard wood
"umm... eight-five... ish?" she recalls
that's not a slight infraction, Ethyl.
did you let him see your Wilde eyes?
did you tell him where you'd been?
did he test you Ethyl? did he test you?
my court date is next Thursday.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

sleeping tendency to go downhill
wakes up every 4 to 8 months
mothballs
keep things straight, look ahead,
don't look down, anticipate
its next move before it comes
wellbutrin
have mercy on your sense
of self-preservation and let
it be just once, but after
cure
that it's not worthy
take one good look around
you and do you want this
anymore?
actually, I was going to eat that
but you're welcome to
split
it with me.
black is my favorite color,
and I wear it well, a ghost
traveling through the night
journeying from 2 am to anywhere

I stop to look at no-one
sounds disturb my peace, like
the screech of an owl dump-truck

dump-fuck, the best kind,
the best you've ever had
until next time comes along for
betrayal causing endless misery

misery leaves temporarily to
skulk somewhere else, hating
the sight of the moon like
a memory one hopes to lose
eventually.

brought to you by Twisp (part 4)


how are the steak & eggs, catsby?
just fine, thank you.
and the company? lackluster.
my share should be more, after
all the years I put in
this is the payoff?
hardly seems worth it.

yes, but think of the benefits.
and don't forget I'm buying drinks.

no, this time the round's on me.
it'll be my last.

why thank you catsby!

brought to you by Twisp (part 3)


bringers of hate and fear
shiny boxes, always well-wrapped
for delivery down seedy avenues
only a short walk between here
and a pint of flavour
"I'm going from here to drunk in twenty dollars"
spoken like a true leader
eaten by gluttons and sluts
for deceit and secrecy
hidden away from the working man

brought to you by Twisp (part 2)


don't you know who he is?
sluggo, of cola fame
a wet cigarette, a day off
two days taken
save our souls!
two eggs, a bottle of toast
and a cup of stale coffee
sits down, one bite, frozen
and it ends

brought to you by Twisp (part 1)


so much I thought,
exquisite!
the orgasm of God himself
ticketmaster for masses of
believers gobs
of it all over
and how is the steak & eggs?
mr. catsby, I beg of you
don't go,
and so he came.
(brought to you by Twisp)