Nostalgia & Missing You

You arose
out of the blue and
withdrew into
the black
rhythmic wheel of a
passing bus.

I feel something like
nostalgia and missing you.

You who paid dearly for
every burning minute
of all those late nights.

And once you're gone
you can never
be lost again.

HIRO-SAKI

Some poor shadow's lips are sure to have muttered an "I told you so" before a belated and epically awful FLASH turned solid matter into poison vapor.

The skeptic remains depressedly optimistic while waiting for the horrible twist to reveal itself and it always reveals itself to the anxiously patient.

I
know
why
your
struggle
never
ends
cause there's a man
who rides his castle
cross the gray
littered sky.

For you, Mr. Nothing

Mason jar spirit
maintain leash length.
Hearts under home arrest
subject verb agreement.
Realization re-run
static on the edges.
Toothy tribal grin aimed at the aboriginal camera.

The need for metaphors and
other murky means of
information have ended.
Why not come out and
say it, that the United
States government has been
lying,
abusing,
maiming,
misplacing,
killing,
creating its citizens
even before the first
frigid native placed a single frozen foot
in our conquered land.
By which I mean the terrible
authority of the United States
government is exactly the same
ancient authority that cursed Prometheus
for a flick of his bic.

the imaginary night is full of imaginary jazz

tin cup stuck up stars
break black ink on moonlit bars
where everyones a shadow
of something great before

midnight blue birds perch on stoops
urban chickens free funk in their coops
coffee stained teeth chatter pretentious caffeine
where everyones a silhouette of
something great to come

and i wonder if it ever does
if it ever will
and who knows the names of
shadows and silhouettes

Cloud Control

Empirical opinions held.
It was the old books I first learned to weld.
Mental fists clench sweat.
Found fast land sailing shallow seas.
Embellished words and lofty chains
only add more weight.

disposable city

I can't yet understand
just how disgusting
it really is.

Jessica says,
"Philadelphia, one of the most notoriously segregated and poverty-stricken cities in America, is closing its public library system in the face of budget cuts and lack of funding on October 2, 2009."

A city crushed
inside an ashtray,
tossed into the street.

Riding my lady's bike

While riding along the
river I'm thinking,
"what does Buffalo smell
like?" and fuck, like
cheerios. General Mills
is right on the water front
and the whole place reeks
of cheerios.

The smell is out of place
like finding my childhood
wrapped in plastic
left to die behind
the train station.

Fulton used to smell like
chocolate before
Nestle closed the plant;
the first chocolate
factory in America.
I remember riding my
bike through town and
smelling it everywhere
especially when they
burned a batch.
The baseball park
was down by the plant
and you know I never felt
like a part of that team,
those people, that town.

Abandoned buildings
and buildings yet
to be abandoned
look exactly alike
under Sunday's metal sky.

I'm driving through a neighborhood
in a city
I can't understand,
in a city like
any other,
so full of
hunger.

I'm driving through this neighborhood
and see two
plump white punks,
they are
imagining themselves
broken.

The boy is lying
in the grass
wearing a cool smile
while the girl
begs on the corner
bulging out of ripped jeans
underneath gelled hair.

Her cardboard sign looks,
cute
HOMELESS
BROKE
HUNGRY
each word its own
color.

It's not romantic
to be poor
insane
lost
hungry
dying
filthy
afraid.

It hurts.

I read a poem in ArtVoice the other day.
The poem said
"Buffalo smells like cheerios".
I disagree.
Buffalo smells like
locked doors and flooded
basement floors.

Buffalo looks like
a beautiful billboard
above an abandoned building.

And it doesn't feel
like anything.

Realization

There is little
I
can do
to ease the sufferings
of this world.

Why I Choose to Unsubscribe

Political poetry has become
incorporated in the political process
and therefore is corrupt.
Revolution is also
incorporated in the political process
and is corrupt.
The president,
the poet and
the patriot
are recurring archetypes
in the melodrama of history.
Hope cannot be truly inspired
through such a simple medium
that is man.
No one
should ever trust
a man.

poems I never finished

Blank pages smell the same as ink filled pages and great words look the same as dull words.

Artists, painters especially should be careful using text signs, takes away, steals the viewers chance to reach that idea on their own. I want mystery not definition.
Writers, poets especially should be careful using imagery, takes away, steals the readers chance to reach the picture on their own. I want mystery not definition!

The pen is a power chord.

Dear smiling picture with the prefect teeth,

I see you in the magazine my mother buys and keeps on the bathroom floor. Why do you care so much about your own health living through science? I can see how healthy you are living through science, with your face cropped so neatly. Fucking shrunken anonymous head propped up in a window I never opened show your true self for once. Have the common dignity to be morose. Can't you see you are incomplete?

I woke up depressed.
She's in an ugly city
and cries every night
as we hang up the phone.

The idiot world wants
to burn sodom, gamora
are back again. Emprie has
us by the throat and we
laugh piss drunk.
Empire tightens its grip and
we stare blindly back.
No, that's too abstract. We
refuse to move, reject our
strength, cage our minds behind
electronic joy, we will burn
in flames built with
books we refused to read.

Flying over Dresden he dropped 500 lb bombs killing 325,000 civilians. (not so much a poem as it is what an old man once told me on a greyhound bus)

How many more times will I have
to leave her crying outside
a greyhound station? Two more
times at the most.
How did I ever get on the bus
after she smiled through tears
that fell straight from her
eye to that bitter Philadelphia
sidewalk? With lead steps.

I'll trade you
my romantic ideals
for whatever
change in your
pocket.

I think this pen is sick. It will die soon. I abandon the pen as it has lost its capacity for value and mainly use, just another broken tool.

Bloodshot eyes are the broken windows
of the soul and life force leaves
like heat driving up your energy bill
that you pay for in years of your life.

My cultural critiques are antiques
I am relic I am dust in the lungs
cough me out in clumps of snot
cross me out like
pre-pubescent prose.
I will go quietly
cue exit music
dial up modem dialing up up -out

and on and on and on and on and on and on it goes....

wasted days

I feel like
the smallest island
in the largest ocean
today.

free will versus the flux capacitor

Time travelers never
have to ask themselves
"how did I get here?"

A time traveler chooses
his or her own destination
unlike the rest of us
who get swept around
like so much dust.