Poems

Here are the 3 poems that I sent to Sarah, in all their unedited glory. Feel free to judge me as much a possible. I certainly would.




From Start to Finish

He won’t wonder why waking up
is the hardest thing he has to do.
Once his feet get moving and his hands stop shaking
nothing else will be worth worrying about.
There won’t be any more
empty bottles or spilled ash trays, until
later, when all the tears have dried
on his dirty clothes that will be worn again

and again. The world’s volume is turned down.
Walking seems easy; working
won’t make any difference.
The bruises will be laughed at while his
friends wonder why they act
in that way they do, when troubled
times mix in with the good.

The long days run in circles, curious at first.
They drop off again
through clouds one can’t fly through,
only to fall back into that same place when it started.
The hardest thing is the deep breath
he takes in, before the world
forms upon waking.

No alarm will sound,
no hand will gently caress him
His eyes will just flutter
open with his nails
digging through his sheets.
Dogs clawing through dirt.
He won’t be surprised when it’s the morning
that finally kills him.



Scary Zombies Run Fast

All I can hear is the my breath as I ignore
the stampede of blood covered sneakers
I know is right behind me. Then suddenly the innocent
screams are running along side me, pleading,
begging, looking for a way out.
I keep looking forward trying not to see
the terrified faces of those still warm
in bed when cold hands rip their skin, and dull fangs
slowly chew their last few minutes of life away.
The carrion parade sets out silverware
on unswept sidewalks, and carefully kept grass.
Nothing but gnawing and scraping as the zombies feast
and fornicate. Though zombies don’t really fornicate,
people do, which is why there are so many
fucking zombies.

My body becomes a furnace,
a boiler about to blow. Acid courses
its way though my veins,
and with each labored step or missing breath
I am reminded of all my bad choices. The fire
gurgles and I feel like a sixth grade science project,
a vinegar volcano churning and splashing before
its fizzes and sends thin red liquid down its side.
The same bad choices that once
got me through my days. God
bummed me a cigarette, but the devil had the lighter.
Now the devil had us all running, struggling
to breathe.

With every step I see a scrapbook of body parts,
Scotch taped by memories to crinkled pages
and coagulated pools. A severed hand,
the one that shoved and slapped
me before I was big enough to fight back.
It tried to yell fatty, and faggot
but couldn’t, its fingernails long
since ripped out and stuck in
bricks while trying to get away.
Bits of blonde, brunette, and phony
red hair, litter my path in sprinkles of stubby
patches of scalp. Strips of soft skin, and tattered
fabric that used to make flattering all those pretty
faces that wouldn’t fuck me because I wasn’t
cool enough. They sit along side the other strips
of skin and tattered fabric that would.

Was anyone left alive?
With so many people how could I decide
who to find and who to leave behind. I turn
a corner to the mouth of the city. The horde
of ghouls still avalanches
down the road behind me,
when I finally stop before an even greater army of flesh
eating phantoms, content to devour
what was left of all the people I knew.
Visceral decorations are festooned across streetlights,
all torn and tangled, with streets painted by blood,
splattered in splotches on the ground and walls.
It’s a kaleidoscope of gore, the bright red color
of death twisting in the light and spinning
around on all sides.

Every discouraging word stays stuck
to the ripped out tongues left to drip and dangle
on the edge of sewer drains, while gouged-out eyes
make soft squishy piles only to accidentally wriggle
their way through your toes as you walk.
It’s every stare of disapproval I have ever received.
It makes me think back to when I made
claims that no one loved me.
I look around frantically for the remains
of my loved ones,
but the whole mess mixes together,
a murky gumbo of cracked bones, limp muscles, and fading
screams. I think of those same people, being dragged down
by a swarm of greasy rotting palms, covering
their eyes and mouth. That first bite
piercing their skin, making their blood flow, as they kick
and try to scream past all the hungry moans pouring
in on top of them. Were they thinking of how much
they loved me, or if only they could have seen me
one more time, before the world went dark, and there was no
more time to breathe or bleed.

Would those same people then get up,
the now newly recruited dead, bearing all
the gruesome marks of their demise.
Would they also run just as fast as the scary zombies
behind me, or the ones in front that had yet to notice.
Will that same mob of voracious fingers
and palms cling to my body and take me down
to the ground, tears streaming with no more energy
to kick or scream. My skull will be bashed on jagged rock
spilling my brains so that they may slurp them
up through small cracks made large. My throat will be torn out
to spray again the ruined city, leaving a small part
of me stuck to the grains in the walls. Then
my ribs torn asunder and my heart crushed by malicious hands
greedy for every last bit, before my guts are finally ripped
open and wrapped around what’s left of me
to perfectly mummify the end of my wretched life.
Then perhaps I too will rise again
and do the same to someone else.



Falling Up

He’s falling up. A child
of a man being pulled
by grey hands
lined in silver from stage lights
shining behind.
These hands eclipse
the sun. These hands
who are trusted.
These hands that mold skin
by breaking bone, tearing away
shirts and jeans for bed
sheets and white robes.

They shove plastic limbs in his
skin spread open on tender shoulder
blades then staple it shut sealing
it off with black packing tape. Feathers
from dead parakeets and left over
chickens are cemented in
by blood and hot glue. Razor
wire sprayed yellow embroiders
his spine stitched by dull needles
and propped above his head
by hair greased with spit and time.

He’s falling up still closer yet
to lights casting silver hues on skin
and shadows. Hands become
faces obscured by the edge
of light and darkened seats. His wings
will fly affixed to the curtain. Rising
and falling to applause soaring then
sinking wanting to drop down
descend and splatter
on the wooden planks below.
Till one day when his own exhausted
hands finally pull the rusted halo
down around his throat and the curtain falls.