Love, Family, & Citrus Fruit (M's High School Remix)

Recently, I rediscovered many of the poems I wrote while in high school. The poems are uniformly horrible, (filled with oh so much angst, jokey digressions, and unnecessary exclamation points) but many of the lines still remain valid for me. So in one of those spurious, what-the-hell moments, I spliced together my favorite lines from poems written over the course of three years. Now let's be real, this piece is still bad, but it is, for me at least, a cool reflection of my (slightly) younger self at a weird/emotional/wonderful time. Apart from the stanza headings, I have kept almost all the individual lines intact, and added only around six new words throughout for purposes of transition. There are only two instances where a completely new image has been introduced, the rest is just some inventive juxtaposition. The centered justification, capitalization, and punctuation are all remnants of my old style. So buckle up and hold on tight, cause we're taking a ride down Memory Lane, a wild road fraught with holes and hairpin curves and treacherous bandits besides. Here we go, one more time...

REMIX! YO DJ BRING THAT SHIT BACK


Entr'acte
Please allow me to introduce myself,
(The first of many allowances I will ask you to make.)
I just thought I'd correct a common misconception:
It's pronounced like a H, spelled with an E,
Comprende?
Question: What's in a name anyway?
Answer: A bunch of spaces and letters.
Yeah whatever...moving on!
I get all my appliances from infomercials,
All my culture from music videos,
I'm just going to open my wallet and stop talking.
Let's shop til we drop.

Love
Levitation's a pretty young thing but what happens when Gravity gets jealous?
Abstraction is all in good fun, but too much personification is dangerous,
Meet me under a shady tree on a warm summer's day,
And whisper strange yet delicious things.
Of course things can be both strange and delicious,
Have you ventured into Hot Topic lately?
And if the topic is truly hot, you know I'm an expert.
All you have ever been is lukewarm,
I just wrote this poem to make you boil.
So read these lines softly now (but always with purpose!)
My heart pumps not blood but citric acid.

Family
A deluge of wedding rings hit the ground like raindrops,
Humming so loud they drowned out the sounds of the party,
Just as we were about to cut the cake!
What dreadful timing on the part of my parents.
Thier hearts pumped not blood but citric acid.
He burned me twice, she burned me once,
Only once was enough to destroy all the bonds,
Fill the air between us with smoke.
You know how that old saying goes about the true parentage of inspiration?
So what does that make my mother?
Necessity Re-visited?
Or is it,
Reused? Rehabbed? Reloaded?

Citrus
Abstraction is all in good fun, but too much personification is dangerous.
They took away my citrus fruit and I was faced with two simple choices:
I could fight for it and be punished,
Or I could move on, try to remember what it felt like,
The ecstasy in tasting the sour sting, and the surge, the surge in my heart,
My heart which pumps not blood, just citric acid.

Exeunt
The time has now arrived my friends,
We have finally come to the end,
And even though it lasted for only such a short time,
Believe me, it was the best time I ever had.
A moment of silence please for memories not quite forgotten.
In keeping with the proper tradition I now ask my final wishes;
To all the poems left unfinished,
To all the beauty still un-witnessed,
I humbly beg for your forgiveness,
Know that I love you dearly even in my ignorance.
The sun sets, Apollo's chariot departs, the surf crashes upon the rocks.
Maybe one day I can start to love myself,
But that day seems such a long way off.
I walk out across the dunes as the tide slowly advances,
Erasing all my footprints.

SM Aug 2010

For A Friend

I would paint myself in crimsons and blues, the coldest hues, if only to preserve your warmth.
And I would live on water and hard bread, for days or weeks or when, if only so you can feel sustained.
Would face down the mob, charge heedlessly into the end of pitchforks as the distraction for your escape.

Well the song is true ya know, cuz you're a god, and i am not.
Imagine my surprise to fall asleep next to a friend--and wake up beside a deity.
All the others may not believe in your divinity, but I do.
They have not walked the dark paths we have traveled; they did not wrestle with angels in the desert.
Some love to test my devotion, play-acting trial and temptation as I lean casually from skyscrapers.
Some attempt to stage you in their portraits, always end up with sloppy lines and wrong dimensions.
Then there are those who deny you completely. I can only look on with pity as they turn gradually into pillars of salt.

I woke up next to a god shivering in the bed. I grabbed a brush and started living in violet.
Many will hear me, few will listen, but, really, the only person who will find any meaning is you.

SM Aug 2010

Her Big Snake

I can’t touch her without breaking skin,

fingertips, like magnets, make blood pool under flushed pores

until it bursts!

out of guilt-cuts from glances averted under a razor’s edge

and runs down your body like ribbons--

or maybe snakes.

I am overcome by a reptilian urge,

a desire tightly packed in a hidden corner

behind my lips, pinned shut with principles

because I will be damned

if a woman cant have a snake as big as any man’s.

What is that?

Up in the trees?

oh dear lord BIG SNAKE

She better run,

better watch out for fangs—oh no

too slow.

Now we’re stranded in the jungle.

Can she still see through cracks of furiously blinking eyes?

Can she feel the venom inside?

Feel it mix into her blood?

Is that why she grows so numb?

She will not answer me with words

just an expressive narrowing of the eyes with a sigh,

spasms in the mud.

Ha!

Oh God…

It was just empty skin all along

She molted and left me wrapped in paper scales

I succumbed to a poisonous sleep,

And dreamed of heels licked by forked tongues.

SM Apr-Jul 2010

Roaches

The roaches are on the 2nd floor.

It must be freezing down there,

I see Them as I pass by on the stairs,

always wearing at least three layers,

dirty jackets, frayed blankets, something

underneath, but I sure don't want to see it.

One can always know by looking at Them faces,

something that must be inherently wrong inside

expressed on the surface,

missing teeth, scarred cheeks, that odd yellow tint to the

skin like a book left on the shelf for too many years

without being read.

I must be on my way, can't afford to help,

Besides, Them stares creep me out.

The roaches are on the 8th floor.

It’s where I live, but not for long.

I am not like Those here, living on the block of

just-barely-getting-by.

Where the wrinkles grow deeper with every night

spent looking desperately at credit-card statements,

distracted by the finger-paintings taped to the

fridge of a small house under a green sun.

No, I am meant for better things.

I'm college educated, sophisticated, downright

intoxicated by the voices that will tell

how one can be better than Those.

The Roaches are on the 16th floor.

Been here all along,

turns out they were upwardly mobile,

just like me,

and there is nowhere higher I can go,

can't avoid the Roaches anymore.

In this dim light, the walls themselves flex in and out like

muscles, or maybe lungs.

I can feel the thump of thousands of little bodies

as they scurry toward some suspicious end.

I fear the Roaches are planning something.

But I pass by to the window untouched and see

below Them and Those have gathered, pointing and

laughing at me because I didn't know,

this building was constructed on the back of a roach.

SM Oct 2009