Fake Orange Feathers

Fake orange feathers
stick glued to
brown paper and
flutter at the
unglued tips by
the breeze of
my breath,

smelling to see if
the glue had dried
and able to tell
because it smells
dangerous when it
is wet.

The brown
construction
paper was dry
but still the dark,
once wet, spots
under where the fake
orange feathers stick
and stay because
the glue is dry.

It smells safe and
will stick now so
I can glue
down the fake
yellow feathers
to my brown
construction
paper turkey
too.

My Photos

I’d love to
Snap a photo,
But my camera
Is a pen.

In stead of
Using film, I
Use words to
See things, and
To capture them.

My memories
Are paper and
Will burn like
Cheap film, but

I quite prefer
The way that
I remember

A Problem

If it wasn’t a problem,
Then why would they call it
Wasted. Stoned. Bombed?

I Would

I would
Dance
For you
But
It is
No longer
Worth
My time.
Your smile
Does nothing
For me.

Blender

I made a promise
That I knew,
Honestly,
I’d never keep.
And it doesn’t matter
Because little girls
Will still ruin things
And pretend that their
Stereotypes of emotions
Are the first to ever
Have been felt.

Everyone is a person you sanctimonious sons of bitches. Everyone has a past, you are not so damn special to feel vulnerable or closed; that’s human life. Stop thinking you’re an artist because you can write words down, you asshole, you vis of talent, you damn hack.

But I will still try
Because I have nothing
But a hope to hang
Myself with. Oh, noose!
Hang softer, or just let me die.
The little girls are
Ruining it for everyone:
These pretend princesses
Who love nothing more
Than to snicker and connive
And roll in the mud
Of everything they ‘hate’
But ‘loving’ everything,
Not knowing what words
Actually mean, God damn it.
All in the veil of the arts, too!

Die and burn in Hell. When I am finally done wandering, I’ll meet you there. Pricks.

Toni Morrison, Fact, and Truth

Toni Morrison—who consistently proves with every new piece of her writing that I read why she is one of my favorite writers—talks of fact and truth in The Site of Memory. One complex sentence forms a stunning philosophy about the difference between fact and truth that I find particularly interesting. She writes: "Because facts can exist without intelligence, but truth cannot."

What I take this to demonstrate is the value that human consciousness gives to truth. Truth becomes more than just the factual accounts of what happens and moves into something more. The facts of any situation are merely bits of information lingering in the memory of time. But truth is an organizing of the facts with a value judgment attached. It is an appraisal of the information and a presentation of the lines with a stamp of approval; truth carries with it a specific human certificate of authenticity in regard to the fact that it has been processed and accepted by the human mind as actual. Many things that are not facts we take to be true: that love is good, justice is attainable, and that man is basically good. These are not pieces of information but are decisions. Facts are inherent, truth is decided and it is the human intelligence that Morrison mentions that makes this decision.

Roy the Bear

Once there was a bear
in a wood I found
That would have ate me
If I didn't shoot him
Square in the muzzle
with my rainbow buckshot:
Red, brown, black and
That bear died there
So I named him,
Not the hues I made;
Earthly, deathly, hollow,
but I called his cooling corpse
Roy G. Biv the bear.

American Male

I defined myself
In conflict.
I,
The American Male,
Being modern,
Have absolute
Nothing to conquer.
Yippee
Ki
Yay!
And I'll cry
In the dusty streets
After I run the
Grotesque dog away.

The Fountain

when i
walked by
the
fountain
it
turned off
and
i felt
like God.

Pretty Blue

Pretty Blue:
On the sky's back
The clouds ride
To the night's rack
Where the horizon
Orange torture ensues.
Hello lovely purples
Goodbye Pretty Blues.

Swamp

My nerves are all
mud bubbles, swamp
and gators. I'm in
the cattail long grass,
looking toward you,
and longing for the
predictable barrenness of
that stoic desert
where snakes have
no real place to hide.

I should be away
From your mysteries.

I should be in the desert.

Love Your Lace

Stop taking back your lace
Your sunshine faded lie,
Why did you leave me
Sulking in the whens in
My car in the cold?
I used to be hot
But your then and there
Ruined that, Like mine
Did to yours and
Icicles and antifreeze.
I have no reason to
Complain, move on, and
You bleed again to
Love me. Love me. Love me;
When you should close
Your eyes and forget?
Please, no.
I need your lace
Like girls and ponytails
In my hair,
Pathetic and apathetic
In this void without you.
Sweat and sleep while
I count sweet sheep
In this cold, laceless void
Without you.

Color Has Come

Prisms have risen
From all of the
Window glass

And all of the
Light pouring in
Becomes rainbows

And I miss
The purity of the
Clean, hot light.

Color has come
To devour the
Simplicity.

Still Ocean Smiles

Plastered porcelain smiles,
Broken and smashed against the floor,
Could never hold the ocean
Or hope to sway the shore.

Still, the salt water smiles
Against the grit of piling sand,
And all the porcelain pieces
Still fit in your hand

The Cold

The cold cauterizes
The dainty cigarette drags
dropped upon the disaster
Of a wasted evening:

To work, to read,
To speak, to know,
To dine in peace,
Alas! I smoke.

My whimsy withers
Back into bleeding scabs
As I gather my coal black coat
And meander back inside

To think, to sleep,
To nod, to blink,
To drift aloft,
Alas! I pause.

Because Men Die

Because man is not constructed of stone
He bleeds and cries, sorry and shamed.
The myths of strength, stoic power, and pride
Are all obliterated in soft defeat
By the crushing hand of unforgiving
Death; who brings his mortal perdition swift.
Living, as mortal as old Socrates,
I am prone to finite crumble and rot,
Though I may wish my organs platinum,
I am but a mailable piece of
God's gold, set to perish, disease, and die.
(My light dims so that Your Glory may shine.
I gladly give my forever away,
So that in Your good favor I may stay!)

The Blue Rocks

The blue rocks
at the bottom of
the bubbling tap water
of the fish tank

Are the same color
as the liquid pool
for the grass-green goo
in the silver lava lamp
and the top of the Sony
recordable compact disk,
outlined in silver,
in front of the keyboard.

But the silver on the CD
and the silver on the lava lamp
are not the same.

And there is no green on the CD.

Unsure Little Girls

Unsure little girls paint
Their sniveling faces,
Hoping to snag a
Few more of
Those little
Boys who
Will use
Them,
Spit them
Out, wasted
And broken;
Lost. Then on
To the next unsure
Little girl, already soft.

Because God is in My Sonnets

It
Is not
So much
That I
Believe,

But more
That I
Un-
-derstand

And love
To learn
Despite
Myself,

So please
Do not
Be so
Confused

As
To think
I think
Like you.

Lost

Having lost Paradise, I do lament
Letting the flow cast from these mournful eyes
Then. And wishing these dark burning lakes dry,
I curse these flaming embers suff'ring me.
But my sad liquefactions ash low heat
On my smoldering face, off'ring not ease
But rather build more massive that great heat,
Riding my memories away from Life.
The only cooling, dainty as it is:
The thought of God Almighty and His pow'r
To hold me in His Grace once more; perfect,
And away from this fallen char of sin.
I wait, and so I burn, for Him to see
That there is something worth saving in me.