More WIP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQj4zr9YdzU
I'm only posting that link for the line, "I wanna hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply metaphors get jealous." His delivery leaves something wanting, but that's an awesome line.

Anyway. Here's two works in progress that I'm posting to try to make some sense of.

Untitled

warbled songs of repentance
the occupation of the ancient choir
until the can break for
mrs b's cookies             for the body
gossip about the minister's queer son       for the soul

just a dozen feet away
the choir director's wife
leads a mother/newborn yoga class while focus on the family plays on the radio
pilfered from the nursery

travel down the hall
with the hideous rusted pink runner
and cheap carpeting
in the administrative office you will find a woman
crying
because she wore jeans today
her supervisor implied she had lax morals

this is a big city church
with Concerns and Worries
and a new youth pastor every five years
keeping disenchanted youth entertained really burns you out after a while

Untitled Two

when there is nothing in my heart
that wants to let itself be written
i go for a walk
to a place with people

last saturday i went to Whyte ave and
bought a bagel
and a cup of tea
you know, oil of bergamot is a natural antidepressive

pay for said bagel and tea
hand the few coins i pilfered from
my jar of change
the woman behind the counter smiles but there's something wrong with her smile
it's not all there
it's a smile that lost something
or maybe her eyes?
yes her eyes have lost something

i stare while she is uncomfortable

sir
here's your change

she says as i realise

you saw someone die

she asks me to sit

i was twelve
how do you know?

I don't know
I just guessed

oh

i was twelve
it was a homeless man

she says, and i get the feeling this is her confession
i am the priest, and i feel i should avert my eyes or ask her questions but she just goes on

i watched some kids beat the shit out of him
i didn't get help
and i watched him die

she didn't say anything more
i handed her my tea

you know,
oil of bergamot is a natural antidepressive



That last one really needs work. It has potential though. Ah, well. Life moves on, and I have ale.

Unfinished Work

Just three unfinished poems. Wanted to go through the motions of typing them out, to see what I thought. All are meant to be read out loud, I think.

Reply
Sister
You talk of wombs ripped open
Invaded
destruction of a woman's soul
the resultant impossibility of heaven
of women who shold have been
conquering creatures of creation
of women without wings
exchanged for knees run raw
from too many prayers to forget his breath his hands on the neck

Sister
spare a moment for a boy
a boy torn and wrecked body crushed
body crushed body infused with poppers with drugs with fear
boy that should have been a man
a man strong a man gentle a man a symbol of justice and of hope
Where did that man go sister

I do not mean
to imply that your sisters pain her tears her tears (RIIIIIP) are less then any other pain tears (riiiiiiiiiiiip) tears
a woman clipped
a woman raped
a woman reduced to mistrust to fear
because of hate
is one of the worst tragedies this world has to offer us
flowers turned to cunts by pounding penises
singing turned to screaming

but that penis pounds more then pussy
it pounds a boy too scared to breathed to say no to know to say know
too scared too young to know this is not what this is supposed to be

A man three times his size
fucking any trace of the man that should be from this boy
a man too selfish
too greedy
too uncaring and destroyed himself to tell this boy what a man is
how to be one

(UNFINISHED)


Exploding on Identity
Upon introduction one says who one is
this is difficult for me

I am at a point
a glorious golden precipice     set above a pristine pool
or a terifyingly turbid sea
I'm not sure
You see, while I was talking, I jumped from that point
and it's a long way down
to where
I hope
I'll have something of a clearer image of who I am

It's hard to tell
With this wall speeding beside me
as I plummet towards my doom
so many people roads choices are yet to be known
and the ones above are gone so fast
I can't tell what they mean
how they've changed me
until I am several hundred feet further down this wall
and I can write a poem about them on small pieces of my soul that I set loose to leave record of where my spirit has been

Another problem.

What if the end of my plummeting
is not a happy ending?

Thoughts like this send a black cloud of panic to cover my eyes blocking out the wall
making me scream STOP but it doesn't and the cloud doesn't leave me
until I can remember
that I am here to enjoy the fall
I wanted to be here
I am here to be caught away
carried
completed by the light sick feeling in my stomach
like every flight of every bird there ever was
is mixing around with my lunch
and waiting to burst out at the moment I scream
and explode all over my future

(FINISHED, NEEDS EDITS)

Sheila
when i was six my imaginary friend died in a car accident. her name was sheila.

she, of course, served only as a convinient metaphor for my naive innocence and the bliss that came with seeing the world through the eyes of a child that knows nothing of real pain
hunger
hopelessness
of the scaring shards thrown by a reality so sick, so hard, so cold, that most sane persons would die upon a merely fleeting glimpse of it

Sheila was a dragon
her hide the hue of a thousand summers worth of blue skies
her eyes every star that ever shone and was wished upon by someone in need brought down to look me in the face and tell me that I am special
her wings
the very essence of uninhibited creation

my mother and i were driving
i do no remember where but i do remember the round-about with the bushes in the middle that made a dark, inner place
i imagined that place full of mystery, secrets and i remember sheila smiling down at me

another van pulled up beside us inside was a small girl who smiled and waved at me through the window

they pulled just ahead of us
a truck swerved too fast into the circle lost control
my mother slammed on the brakes
sheila flew out the window
put herself in the truck's path
but the truck was going too fast and it slammed into the van and into sheila with a sound like the echo of the last gasps of air of a million people
and a sick punch to my idealism


(not sure if this is finished)

Today

I snapped my neck
Cracked my fingers
Typed an email
And sipped coffee
Then went home
And lazed around
Chatted with a friend
And laughed
Then I slept
And dreamt of you
And how far away you are
And breathed