King Arthur's DNA (or a history of things I've written)

So instead of being productive this morning, I felt like I needed to unburden my brain a little. I needed to throw up my past. Instead of deeply analyzing my life, I looked through my old poetry. All the way back to middle school. Sadly I'm not much better now and in many ways I'm worse. I can't seem to tap into the beauty , faith (even if it was misplaced then), or hope the same way. But as I've said here before, I don't think that's what my poetry is for anymore. It's more to get through the day. It's better than any antidepressant I've been given. I woke up in funk and cured myself with coffee and an hour of writing. So cheers, and if you read this, remember being 12 or 13 and do it fondly with life's ever present rose colored filter.
(note this poem is unedited in total because I have to return paint to JoAnn Fabrics: oh the exciting life)


King Arthur's DNA (or a history of things I've written)

My first attempts at poetry were heroic
Rebellion.
Against my inability to meet girls,
my few friends,
my somewhat isolating view on the world,
My optimism that one day,
I could be a superhero,
Like Spiderman,
or Luke Skywalker.
The refrains of those poems
often still ring in my head,
like Hootie and the Blowfish songs
or English class darling Robert Frost.
Poetry that justified my inability
to crack the starting line up in football,
and used my love of Jesus as shield
for my fear to try new things,
G-rated poetry as
middle school
high school rebellion.
Then it changed,
I grew up,
Read Chaucer,
Le Morte De Arthur,
Shakespeare.
Clearly my mature tastes
led to better words,
a wider vocabulary,
less AABB rhyme schemes,
and more grand ideas
and chivalrous descriptions,
that gave me slightly more luck
with women,
and sounded slightly less
like I ripped off a Matchbox 20 song.
Then the knights in shining armor,
magic, and castles fell to ruin.
A renaissance of rebellion.
as I embraced punk rock,
threw of romanticism and religion in one go.
Rhyme schemes and beauty were gone.
Questions came in.
Why government?
Why God?
Why sex?
Why no sex?
Why love?
What’s love?
What the hell am I doing here?
So many questions that I failed to answer
with the darker imagery
minimal rhyming and anger.
This questions were finally answered:
cynicism.
I embraced politics and profanity
sprang from my pen and keyboard.
If I couldn’t tell what was going,
and I couldn’t make it pretty,
it would be pointed.
Sarcastic.
Current,
and (in my mind) funny,
poetry written for the slam,
to bring down the man.
Throughout all this was one constant.
I believed in love (like a bad movie)
and I found it, and got married.
My love became the new target of bad poetry,
as I wrote toasts to mundane things,
a habit I thought I’d broken in middle school,
after I spent days writing about Diet Dr. Pepper.
Here I am not, probably fifteen years or more,
since I first tried to write.
My words soaked in nostalgia for the heroic knighthood,
or the innocence on asking questions and expecting to find answers.
I tend to put more science in now,
with the historic images.
King Arthur’s DNA runs through the bloodstream
of my poetic lineage.
Now peppered with an image of myself that is much
older and beaten than I really am,
an old soul who’s listened to too much Tom Waits,
and read some Bukowski.
and I’ll keep going,
with my current view,
that bicycles and coffee are cool,
that these words only purpose is to keep me going.
and to get the girl (which I did)
and to change the world (which I still say I will)
and to somehow make it past thirty.
(Depends on the Mayans but I’m going to count on it)

Interview: Waiting

This was written with a glass of Scotch, after a bottle of wine, while listening to the Gin Blossoms, trying to quiet my brain so I could tuck Morgan in and go to sleep. Turn this video on while you read this. It'll at least put you in the right frame of mind. Also, look up the band Yuck. They're new and younger than you probably but drip exquisite 90s nostalgia. It really wasn't thought out. Just how I felt.



Some days,
Stretch beyond one, beyond two,
and are a life time.
It’s 1 am, and my wife sleeps soundly on the couch.
I can’t say when it was I woke up.
I just know the day opened with big decisions,
and is ending with the need for patience,
and an uncomfortable quiet.
Is there a hidden glory to fading out for the night
to staying up,
till you can’t anymore,
like a high schooler finishing their
summer reading list,
the last day of August.
Oh of Mice and Men,
for that simplicity.
Now life hangs on other’s decisions,
and I can’t recall if I really put forth my all.
I must have.
You sleep so soundly.
As our cats run circles and races,
waiting for a midnight snack,
and I stare at this screen,
finding peace in puzzles and flash games,
and nostalgic torrents.
Tomorrow will be an adventure,
as the future fires up its welder,
binding my anxiety
to my inner analog clock,
two to four weeks is forever to hear,
if the days have today's reach.

remnants of an old life
on an expired student ID
that I still use
to get into the movies.

a poetic experiment:

So sitting here sipping on scotch while Morgan prepares some eggs at near midnight, I decided to try a sort of a Madlib poem with her. I wrote stream of consciousness and yelled questions that she answered and her answers went straight in. I continued writing non-stop. The results:

It’s twelve-o-clock and I’m tired, my feet are sore,
The airport is far away,
My bottle of red has one sip left.
On a scale of one to ten I am a nine,
And God is stupid.
Don’t judge me,
I told the judge I was pregnant,
And they dropped all charges.
I want to go swimming at the pool,
Diving in the shallow end like risk,
But I’d prefer scrabble like my brains,
Not scrambled but hard-boiled,
Accompanied by 3 cats,
Flanking me like battle hardened
Alligators, ready to conquer
The bayou of your souls,
I will make you swivel your pelvis
Like Elvis,
You’ll climb to the top
Of Big Pink buildings,
And purple mountains,
To ask me how the hell
I got here.
What?
How?
This doesn’t make sense?
Zitty Booger Head.
Doesn’t have to.

Prose.
Like Poe,
Sappy like Fabio
On the cover of a book,
You want a second look,
But you’ve been blinded,
By science,
My brain evolved for this.



This is what married people do...

Enjoy.

Dolphins and other short thoughts

I'm going to post some short things I've written lately now, and possibly later edit and post some longer pieces. Enjoy or not, it's all groovy.


On Jobs-

I am underpaid
overqualified but
I have a job.


On Japan,

Earthquakes and leaky reactors, Toxic radiation, but it's ok,
as long as there's a seaward breeze.
Dolphin's mutate.


On Anderson Cooper or Records

I thought it was
Anderson Cooper outside the record store
in a light rain,
clutching Huey Lewis.



I want to rule a sunny day empire,
all roaring 20s, pax romana, and the sun never sets.
Just ignore the b-side.


On failure and being emo...

Failure forces you as far forward
as success.
Time's unrelenting wheel.


1. I have bad teeth
my eyes are going
as I squint to write
this in the dark.
2. I'm cold and you're snoring
but I won't move you and
I can't sleep wearing a shirt.
3. I want to be a poet
a gypsy, a blues man,
Lost teeth are personality
and we'd never need to sleep.


Isolate yourself
in a room full of happy people
to find yourself


On Hockey and memories...

The hockey playoffs
and memories of triple overtime
heartache at three am
before school.


On our health care system...

Revenge comes in many forms
like bad songs on the radio
while you take a shit at
the grocery store.


I greatly appreciate the
artfully designed smoke rings
you blew up my ass.


On coffee...

Some days I'm convinced
the meaning of life is baked
in the awkward smallish pastry
that the cafe throws away
at closing time.


I want a service
Animal Badge for my cat,
so he can sip coffee here
with me.


On tour guides....

"and these are two
of our hallways," said the tour guide.
Thanks.



On Spring...

In this first sun of Spring
the empty trees long
for the caress of leaves.


Northwest, Early Spring,
Hippies and Punks bloom,
pasty white into the
still chilly sun.

The Lights in the Castle (Perspective) +

One long slightly serious piece written while listening to gypsy tuba and fiddle music and two quick one.

The Lights in the Castle (Perspective)

The lights are lit in the tower castle turret again,
as the clear moonlight turns to clouds,
then to an ominous still,
before wind falls and rain blows and the walls
and mountainside are only visible in terrible flashes.

In the village below men swallow harsh whiskey,
and feverishly smoke seasoned pipes.
They argue politics to hide their inner child’s
fear of the storm and the meaning of those lonely lights.



Children are far less worried about appearing brave than their
fathers, especially at night, in their homes,
away from the war games and dares of their peers.
They first crawl into bed with their siblings, then,
all together with their mothers, who welcome
the company as the night transforms into the setting
of most nightmares. Terror.
and through it all, the constant lights in the castles highest tower,
accent the dark.

An hour into the storm and nearly every villager
has found an excuse to light their lanterns
and heat up fire places and stoves.
The village’s elderly priest opens the
heavy wooden church doors for stranded
travelers, husbands who swallowed too much spirit,
and the homeless alike on a night the likes of which
the building was built to fend off.
The tattered hand copied Bible is fittingly open
to Revalations, as the pages are blown by wind
coming through the open doors.
While the priest tries to joke about how he knew he
should’ve built an arc, the castle lights are still visible,
through the beautifully violent stained glass
depiction of the crucifixion.

….

In the highest tower of the castle,
every candle is burning and the fire is roaring
a lone man, possibly a king, sips his wine,
and nervously watches each light lit
in the village below, before he turns to
witness his young twins, their teacher,
the cook, and his aging mother all come
through the door, to wait out the collapsing heaven,
and get the best view of a new sunrise.





And something completely different

Haiku:

My smile gets bigger
the harder the rain hits my face,
as I peddle to you.


Crass:

I
Have A
Screwdriver
For Every Type of
Screw
Except You

Back to the Start

Back to the Start (new game +)



Now that I’ve got the equipment
and I’ve collected enough heart,
I’m going back to the start.
and you’re coming with me
because I can’t make it alone,
on this journey I need you,
to make this road a home.
We’ll meet a lot of people,
some we’ll call friends,
some will come and go
others till the end,
but when we reach that last stop,
and we’ve given it all we’ve got,
life is a big circle,
and we’ve collected enough heart,
we’re back to the start.