uplifting! for new year's eve

crap on me
don't know how to proceed:
2008
three month's timeline,
just the most immediate one.

feet tingling, outward reminder
of tick tock winding down inside,
lowering of the Times Square crystal ball.
doctor, look, try to find
the date of my demise. why?
i'm not good at preparation,
so fine with a surprise.

if i knew i'd die may 2008
would i go to work, or lie abed?
or throw everything over
for some final experiences?
(i fear i'm a crab, cave entrenched)

everything out there is about making money
but i don't want to do anything:

buy gifts
take advantage of after-Christmas sales
go out today
see a movie
party at a club for New Year's Eve
fetch groceries
and now, i barely desire to come for this coffee

(a woman next to me here in caffe ladro emits the aroma of soap,
but i've no interest in ablutions--bathing, maintaining, soak).

society. dec 31st start my slide into
accelerated, premature elderly life
of non-participation.

He fell from my neck

(Janice, I think you can pick out the allusions and tie them back to the title ;) )

Words,
I'm turning the faucet on.
Go out and make me someone.
I'm exhausted on alone,
police-dipped and
caramel-frisked,
crossbow in hand.

My lungs burn of Coleridge,
(Did you know,
if you burn "Kubla Kahn,"
the fire is
golden?)
and spark like a lit arrow.

I'm not allowed to stand,
based on my own decree.
When my legs give way,
I'll be free of complacency,
full of suffering,
and be worthy of writing.

Creativity,
my arms are in yours,
throw me in the air and
fly past.
Watch me plummet,
chuckling.

I can't wait to shoot you down,
you goddamn, sky-bound gem.

help with meter please

"EEEEEK!" shrieks e.e.

Bradmackenzie pleads we poets here,
never employing the single E,
pen exquisite verse, even be there fear
these poems guarantee misery

over hapless readers' heads,
piercing their ears, etching their eyes,
requiring they escalate their meds,
even adversely affecting their lives!

Furthermore, the mackenzie challenge
tests mental fibers we writers expose
creating poesy: stretches the fringe.
hell, he desires we demi-pointe tiptoe.

Beware: meek people speed these E-less lines
lest they freak, even tweak the psyche.
Reckless readers relish these cheeky designs
evoking bradmackenzie's sweet free-wheeling e.e.

you have to shift rhythm to make the feet work on in the middle two stanzas. do you think that's okay? i don't want sing-song absolutely regular beat, but this makes you stumble, doesn't it? suggestions? (such as, ditch rhyme--it sucks)

dirty fingernails

Dirty Fingernails

my dirty fingernails are:

purply-black ash
on Holocaust beaches;

fossil beds for
a rashing Thought;

bad french
tips from Nostradamus;

a fanned gamut of
flat-Earth ends;

and all of this matters
only to a mother.




---------------------




p.s. my fingernails aren't really dirty :)

Please, Muse

Hey everyone... sorry for the absence... I'm back.
I've been busy as shit, but I have some free time.
I'll have a whole lot here pretty soon, can't wait...

anyways, new poem.
It's dedicated to anyone who wondered if I could rhyme :)

Please, Muse

Young man,
with eyes jutting like spires,
webbing like spiders,
your heart's two beats from alive.

Proud jungle,
kill in the name of your lost,
cut like you're not longer soft,
and send the hunters from the hive.

Yellow sky,
pour fire over your followers,
twisting the swords of the swallowers,
and giving the wheat the scythe.

My thoughts,
send fury through the crashes,
heave mountains through their passes.
May my tongue survive.

Dear kingly muse,
disregard this internal wretchedness,
and pour your milk of Paradise,
once again, over my dull,
weak,
uninspired,
writhing,
body.

Poppie Seeds and Reminders

"Poppie Seeds and Reminders"

Fingernails ingrained,
in white (baking) sheets,
stained black,
(like those tiny poppie seeds you like)
^
Look dear,
I remembered.
That matters right?
...
...
...
Our love is an ocean?
How quaint.

But oceans--
they rush,
in and out,
in and out,
in and out.
Oceans red,
like red red kroovy
and broken eyes shattering
into 1,000,000 little sprinklings
(like those tiny poppie seeds you like).
^
Look dear I remembered again.
Dont you like it-
when I remember?
Oh
...
...
...
Are you looking at me?
Are you thinking about something?
Are you frowning?
Are you there?







Are you distant?

Apatetic glances,
sweeping up the bits of glass,
just place them in the trash recepticle,
as you watch our insides touch,
for the
1,
0
0
0,
0
0
0
th
time.

Sleepy,
tired,
exhausted,
lethargic.

Ping
(Jesus Christ)
Grunt

Go get the muffins dear,
lest we might forget that
we love eachother.

Autonal II

(i salvaged some images from a poem i posted under "experiment of sound" on TPS--i liked them and i didnt want them wasted on that poem)

Autonal II

I crush
elder bones
like decayed

leaves
to an iron
heel--

the day's
tread halts
beneath it.

The swift
of my hand
is Inertia--

look,
look here
upon it:

watch
the Rose
implode;

watch
the Scythe
drip death

into
the cracks
of my palm.

Wake me
or
not:

My snore
crumbles
towers--

And my morning
breath
is Chernobyl sour.

work not in progress, in egress, or rogaine

if i go out and observe a fern,
helpless meal for a snail,
holding out a frond rolled like a fist--
impotent protestation

maybe i will become a poet
like mary oliver, and people
will implore me to read in public forums
and local bookstores
and publishers will plead.

then how would i write on this machine?

(after listening to oliver reading oliver in my car all week. hmm)

Shoes, a Fight, a Rake, and Some Kid With Blocks

Today, New York was fire-bombed
by the flames of ten thousand Nike's.

A policeman beat down a king
because a queen wanted to remarry.

Love, sick of standing aside,
decided to fight and lost to Fear.

A woman drove by in a minivan. Her children were laughing.

Disappointed with the falling leaves,
a man tried to throw his rake at the sun.
When it stuck back in the ground,
he told people it fell from heaven.

I saw a group of people worshiping the rake
through a window at my optometrist's office.
I looked down and saw a child playing with blocks.
The lead-based letters spelled out one word:

"Death"

No one noticed and I wasn't surprised.


-Brad McKenzie