This list (which may repeat some poems I posted on here) is a compilation of 10 semi-edited poems I submitted during my winter term intro to poetry course. I hope you enjoy some of them.
Shade Is His Enemy:
I watched a lizard for about an hour;
He didn’t move.
I watched the same lizard for another hour;
He didn’t move
I looked at the weeds next to him growing;
Casting shad to the side of him.
Soon he’d have to move.
The shad is his enemy.
Move damn you.
Move!
He didn’t move.
The sun set.
He didn’t move.
We’ll Make Sure of That:
A couple lovable leeches
Jealous of Jeff because he reaches the best leaves–
And it’s only after adulthood that we stop believing violets are blue
And start saying like, “fuck,”
And “I’m the one that’s blue.”
What a waste of talent;
Like Planet of The Apes,
But with no apes.
Poison Abalone:
That’s how this radiation story begins
With the Illuminati and a tiger religion.
All handing out lion infusions
Like nobody would notice the minerals of emotion in North Korea’s water.
It’s a devil evaluation by unknown politicians.
Where Hollywood dragons travel block to block, shielding prostitutes.
And God cursed these devils with evil rickets and lonely hearts.
Daisy and I danced to the shitty music,
At the moment it was rather magnetic, I agreed.
And my poor, fragile, deltoid felt like jigsaw fangs under my dress coat.
The tip of fragile slug looked like panties slopped with placenta.
We ignored the prayers emanating from paper cars
And shoveled Haas avocados down the throats of sharks.
That was the year the sun shut off its glow.
Crabs:
The figure rose from somewhere unseen
Dimming moonlight from on the precipice
Climbed and clawed its way to me
Eating,
Stuffing its mouth with dead fish
I knew it wasn’t,
But it had to be.
And the gangrenous tendrils wrapped
Its shredded loose-leaf material around
The grasped claws with dead fish trapped
Buried it within the confines
Deeper and deeper into the ground.
The garbage, by such a creep, given grief
On which the same has grown
And the melted wall’s dissolved mush
Flooded the lung, as the creep crawled on.
13 Ways of Looking at Life:
- A rooster illusion
On the horned back thorns of a dinosaur - That boys got the devil in him
Lobotomy - Commercialism at its finest
Socio-economic trends - Coordinated furs make for perfect animal pairs
- Go ahead and substitute me
With your newfound abundance of grief - Steered ships with arthritic hands!
Powered a lighthouse for the blind - Gentlemen dressed in rags
Spent all our free time at the wishing wells
Muttered well wishes to wish everybody well - She smiled at me, but her teeth were black
I gritted mine and managed a smile back - Laid in the dirt with the bodies and the worms
- Placed my hands on the hide
Felt the trembling in my chest - The fighting pit was no longer fun
- Continue burning the candles
At both ends - Keep cutting your teeth
C’est La Vie
A Bond as Strong as Steal:
A gathering of pork skins
and a murder of crows,
where heroes go to die young.
Sheep wool strangling a child,
a bond as strong as steel
the likes of which might steal your heart.
Or steal a steely look at your bride,
yours, the one you love,
the one you’d die for.
The one you got high and left
because she slept with your best friend
your most well-dressed friend.
The friend you protected
in the car crash that took you,
the car crash that separated you and your wife.
A Hero’s Welcome:
a dog destined for destruction
well-equipped and armed
dressed to the nines with nails and narcotics
ready to riddle the enemy
tagged to the wall and medicated
strong enough to be forgotten
but weak enough to never forget.
River of Life:
River of life, run through me
Unhindered, teach me to breathe
Dear river, I feel it.
Finally free
To find a field to fester in
Forgiven, never forgotten
For, given the freedom, families fall apart
And friendships ferment,
In foil frozen.
Forest of fire, give life freely
Because it is I that stands at the end
I alone and soon I’ll find it.
A place to hand my hat and my skin
For I saved my money, but it won’t save
Me
Sleeping with serpents,
Sacrificing suffrage for sustenance,
Suffering in similar pitches but softer sounds
Suffering sweetly to save face.
Hear Me Out:
Lend me your ear!
Or at least give me a hand.
I don’t have a leg of my own to stand on.
I’m more willing to speak about things in public
Than I am to partake in public speaking.
You’d think as my metaphorical ship sinks,
That I’d try to find land. Nope.
Here I go, down with it.
I am the captain now.
And you haven’t lived until you’ve sat through class
Or work still stoned from the edible you had the
Night before AND on a microdose that you thought
Would ease you out of the marijuana high but just
Intensified the lingering effects and drew it out
Over about nine hours or so.
A banana hammock is just a relaxed monkey.
Whiter Shade of Pale:
Stare at the corner table.
Notice all the books on its surface.
Did you really notice ALL the books?
Look at the vibrancy of the ones on the top of the stacks,
The ones that, by deduction, you know get picked up
More often than the others.
The ones that are drab and white and grey.
They like attention, too.
Go over, grab one of those drab looking fellas.
Like that book, I imagine, you often feel drab and white and grey.
You wait for that one brief fleeting moment to feel vibrant like
All the other books on the stacks on that table in the corner.
You feel as important.
At some point, you lost your color, though.
Somebody got ahold of you and showed you things.
Like where to cut and edit and develop.
Handed you a brush, sent you to the printer,
And glossed over the vibrancy.
And now here you are.
Half-finished.
Drab and white and grey.
your work. Trying new techniques to get people to focus on the subject matter, to make them think and feel and understand what the artist feels, it is all so heavy. He talks about facing his loneliness and using his art as an outlet but that even bright vibrant colors become dull to his eyes. Just as in my work, if I use a word I like too often it becomes mundane. Played out.
mine described it as a modernist’s view on religion. He speaks much about allowing people to peer into the eyes of Jesus through his paintings and recognize they aren’t alone but even he never claims a religion, just that he feels very passionately about the idea of Jesus.
