For Absent Friends

What's up DUP? I have been absent. I wasn't dead, but I sure was missing. I didn't write, barely did any reading, and had little to say. It was good, but I decided to wander back and see the DUP again. I figure I need to do a bit of reading as I work my way back into the written world. So how about a contest? Let's see some poems about those who are still absent for one reason or another... exiled, estranged, shamed, bitter, dead. Take a month. No other rules.

"Taxidermic (morphine smile)"

When you daydream, you look found, in the belly of contentment;
as if the demons howling down your soul
ripping each letter from words like tomorrow
couldn't muster a whisper, and they can't.
I'd break the dream to ask you what you're thinking
but I'd be lucky to make your ear, and I know
you'd smile and say nothing. A lead-boat smile that needn't be.
Whatever it is, last night's memory of rending agony
is forgotten; it never even existed but it's coming back tonight
and it's this morphine that preserves atrophy
but I thank it for this smile, while you slowly leak
through the cracks between us and a flawed cosmos.

I have a muse      
with three tiny scars      
above her lip      
     
and I can tell she's forever      
by the way that tiny asymmetry      
unlocks the deep tingles      
in me      
     
the everything click.      
     
More love than inspiration,      
she left me      
because I got lost long ago      
     
and      
     
ain't no muse, worth her salt      
gonna bedside the lazy.      
     
I betrayed the little her      
     
the her of carbon and moontides,      
of stability,    
past, and the blasphemy      
of future.      
     
Nothing now      
but to write the slant off letters      
to the bigger her      
     
and      
     
fight the will towards lethargy.      
     
     
Twice,      
this year she smuggled      
nuclear warheads
into my mailbox.      
     
More love than inspiration,      
she'd rather see me dead      
     
than sleepy.    

Hunter
---------------
A notched doorframe
covered in child like writing
and drawings unhindered
by the idea of judgement
was left in the house
we grow up in

Paint stains on
the floorboards
from the time you
begged me to
paint your space
marines with you

and your drawers full of
hand made birthday
cards, kids t shirts
and get well cards
written by kids
unknowing to the
limitations of
modern medicine.
And so many pokemon cards,
whenever i move something
theres always a million
pokemon cards
suddenly there

i laugh
what else can i do but
pick them up
and laugh and
say "you were
never one to clean"
Slowly walk to your
door and
put them back
in your untouched
room.

i painted all
of those marines
to the colours
you wanted,
and I'm sorry
that i said
they wouldn't
match.

They
do dude,
they
match awesomely.

Steve, good to see you here brother, hope you're keeping well.



Old Bathurst

Walking down the Great Western
wind carried on my sleeve.
My heart slowly thudding
beating in time to my steps.
Slow.. as thoughts wander
walking sixteen hours
not much else to do.
Nothing but the wind
and the rain, passing down my arms
adding cherished weight to my shoulders.
 
Man, it's therapeutic
I wouldn't have it any other way
along this lonesome highway
turning off to the right
pass the train station
within the night.
I've come onto Old Bathurst
heading to Emu Heights
 
Echoes of the amplifiers  
Turn the Page, Metallica
echoes out..
Wandering alone
along some lonesome road.
I've never felt more at home
than the winds and the rain
accompanying me.
On the road again..
My thoughts come in.
Thinking of her
imagining her features
I reach out subconsciously
and nothing's there..

Archaeology

Preparing to paint my room anew,
I pulled the old shelves from the wall.
For many years, their rows of dusty books
Had helped to form the image of the room.
Now that they’ve gone, I see the stripes
Of long-forgotten paint that they concealed.
Aubergine! A fashionable colour of the time,
A time of marriage, crawling infants, tensions -
Different lives lived by other selves.

In ancient dust lay artefacts and relics:
A tarnished coin, a scrap of dried-up leaf,
Memories of meals and drinks,
Wild nights and friends no longer friends,
The wounding thrusts that cannot be unsaid,
The sullen silences
That cannot now be broken,
The shards of what was once a married life.

It is a sad and sobering thing
To come, all unprepared, upon the past.
So now I am impatient
To make a start with roller and fresh paint
That covers all beneath it with one coat.

deleted. I'll come back with another entry.

I apologize for my lack of grammar but this poem is dedicated to more than one friend who have lost thier lives due to reaper finger tips.

Happy birthday to a ghost

It's hard to find an asshole you  
Connect with on every level  
When hate is only confusion  
And anger over something you can't  
Even imagine to control for a day  
When hail satan really means  
Fairytales just don't live up to  
The expectations of a broken  
Home and we all understand  
Eachothers pain 'cause we've all  
Been wallowing in filth for who the  
Fuck knows how long  
 
When you're young all you want  
Is to be treated like an adult  
But your not, so you imatate the  
Actions of an addict while rebelling  
Against the limitations of a teenager  
But maturity comes with a price  
When the day reality incinerates your  
Conscious that your no longer that  
Adolescent fighting for that freedom  
Of escaping the cage of a pigeon  
With crippled wings, but now the  
Owl with cynical clarity of the same  
Wretched hatred for a life that seems  
Just as meaningless as the first day  
The kitten in you opened your eyes  
To the shit constantly kicked in your face  
 
As the years progress it all begins  
To look like the same repetitive cycle  
Depression  
Malice  
Numb  
Slight optimism  
Deteriorated motives  
Depression  
Malice  
Numb  
Deteriorated motives  
Malice  
Numb  
Numb  
Numb  
Malice  
Depression  
 
You never really outgrow the need  
For grasping hold of that empty  
Moment when nothing really matters  
That gorgeous high when tranquility  
Is the minds eye of atramentous  
Empty thoughts and jaded perception  
 
 
Heh..  
 
 
 
 
Yeah..  
 
 
I love that shit  
It's like having the power button  
Jacked up for a few hours of desolate  
Internal liberty without the hassle of  
The humane inclination to nostalgia  
That eats away until all the looking  
Glass emanates is self inadequacy  
 
I wonder if some people are just  
Born reclusive or if experience  
And society have just beaten them  
Into a solitary submission  
Loathing the very species they share  
Disgusting genetics with no matter  
How hard they try to separate  
Themselves from a vile, poor excuse  
Of a so called superior race  
 
I refer to myself in that context one  
Could say if they dared the mundane  
process of actually attempting to  
Get to know who this vessel of  
An impregnated serpentine really is  
This controversial snake of accepting deceit  
When all I do despise humanity yet  
Cherish the few friends I have with  
Unbearable desire to see them happy  
 
It's hard when emotional attachments die  
Especially when family no longer  
Means the tie of blood and abandonment  
When your siblings are the night  
Walkers who share substance and  
Animosity with you in the streets  
It's soul crushing to be the sole  
Reason the most important person  
You might have loved died Even more so  
When another friend, regardless  
Of how insignificant they seemed  
For a time, also falls victim to a  
Reaper with invisible hourglass  
Decisions  
   
It's ironic how suicide fails, multiple  
Occasions, only so one can descend  
Into turmoil to rip and claw blood  
To redeem who you once where  
From a pit that only gets deeper  
Just so you can watch every motivator  
You had to convince yourself grief  
Mends with the taunting hands of  
Time fall into the deceased caress  
Of coffins with dyslexic names  
 
Maturity comes with a fickle price  
I'm (blessed?)(cursed?) with another  
Year of age next month, yet Matt  
Turned 21 today with his only  
Recognition the indulgence of  
Maggots against putrid flesh  
Perhaps he's found the Nirvana  
We all fantasized about in Zachs  
Party shack, no longer bound by  
The cycle we, the breathing  
(suffocating),  
Still revolve around  
Lilly as well, who fucking knows?  
Happy birthday bro  
Just remember I'm right there with you  
Withering away in that cemetery  
With each godless day that passes

Threnody

I'd sit with you for
an eternity or two,
and hold your hand.
I'd hear you talk,
laugh when appropriate.
I'd shed an ocean
or two because you left
and I stayed.

“Poets through the Hourglass”
http://media.rhizome.org/blog/2157/HourGlassGreenSandF7.jpg
Remember the
days of our lives,
as the world turns,
like sands in the hourglass?
Geeeez, I heard it
a million times
on the television.
These days revolve,
endlessly.
So do the people in our worlds,
constantly.
I sure miss some of those
Deep Underground folks,
they were on
My Poets list
for a reason.
No joke fellow rhymers.
The seasons turn,
I wonder what went wrong.
Are they happy?
Are they sad?
Did they have a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack?
I’ll probably never know.
Oh, please come back,
you hungry-hearted-runaways,
I miss your writes!

Never Alive

There were times when I offered,the specialty of my ears.

You'd sew your mouth shut,and just talk with your tears.

There were those times when I reached out my arms,and my hands.

You'd turn back toward the ledge,and just ponder the land.

Then I cut myself open,to give you my heart.

From the bed to where I was,was always too far.

I peeled back my flesh then,exposing my soul.

You told me you couldn't compare,to something so old.

So what could I do for the girl who wants to die?

I watched you until you did...But you were really never alive.


iamsorrysarah...

FOR MY MOTHER - MAY SHE REST IN THE PEACE OF THE LORD

Life has wiped out her memory

She lived longer than her friends

When she died

Four people at her graveside

Where are the others?

My father, in another city

Her family….all over the world

She did not deserve the life she had

Nor the lingering death

She lived much too long

Begged for an early ending

Against the religion and the laws

I think she hung on

For me.

***************************************************

My mother was also my friend.

Haunted Eyes


I cannot recall the day
that you disappeared
or why I let it happen
without warning
you were gone

Your smile
always reached your eyes
you loved life and living it
no matter how many times
it beat you down
even when it broke you
you still got back up
and carried on

I miss you my warrior friend
will you ever return?

There is someone else
that now stands in your place
her smile never reaches
her haunted eyes
when she looks at me
the tears quietly fall
and it hurts so much
I wish I could reach her
and make her believe
she is beautiful

but when I look at her
that possibility
seems so far out of reach

I long for my absent friend
she brightened my days
with her vibrant laugh
but when I look in the mirror
I only see the girl
with the haunted eyes

I miss you my warrior friend
will you ever return?

Bump

He was my friend

He was my cosmic candy
an affirmation, when I needed one
had wires as stripped and tangled
as my own
a soul to release
a life to unload

Sporadic, he was
yet, dependably so
Til his highs were too happy
his downs too low

He blacked out cold
or left me hanging
on certain days
I still wonder what happened

I'm soothed on occasion
by feeding the notion
that he'll return again
like a wave to the ocean

and rock me
hard or to sleep

With still wet poetry
tears that I can keep