This is not a poem - Jan 2016

I think the month of January was pretty good creativity-wise. I managed to write 23 poems! How nice is that. I was aiming to write daily, but that's not really practical and there are things like life etc often in your way, but whenever I felt like writing, I did. Some poems do not want to stay in your head, they just want to be born into the world. It's like water collecting behind a dam, either you open the valves or the walls start to break. 

So, anyway, 23 poems. And we're almost in second month of the year. Time flies!

Let's talk about poems, then. 

I remember reading a quote somewhere, that if a poem doesn't rhyme, it shows a basic lack of effort on a poet's part. Which really depends on what you're trying to do with the text at hand. If you look at it in a clinical manner, what separates a poem from a piece of prose other than the formatting of both? A sense of rhyme and rhythm is important in a poem, but on the other hand, you have poetic prose too. There are some people who just breathe and it feels like poetry. 

Knowing how to rhyme in a poem is important, but only to a degree. I am no authority on anything here, I am just talking from what I've read and seen. (Again, which might not be too much, but it's something, it's an ongoing process). So, yes, rhyme, but don't dilute your ideas just to satisfy the poetic meter. I always believe that at the core of any piece of creative effort is the heart, and if the heart beats strong enough, it will follow it's own rhythm. 

You must have something to say. And as long as you have something to say, the words will not stop flowing. They will fall in place like Tetris pieces. 

What do you think about this? Let me know, drop a comment, let's get a discussion going on about poems.

Feb? More poems! What else did you expect? :)

:@)

I've got poems

I've got poems
Running around
In my head
Round and round
Like excited kittens
Like puppies on speed
Like sloths on NOS
Like a man consumed by greed
Write me!
Write me!
Write me!
They scream at me
Like psychotic chickens
And if I don't comply
The plot fucking thickens
Look at how these words rhyme, say they
But I don't have all the time, I say
Oh, but can you let go of the deliciousness
And just like that I'm back in the word mess
I've written on pages
I've written on screens
I've rhymed when I shit
I've rhymed when I dream
But the flow of words just keeps increasing
Their lust for eyeballs doesn't seem to be decreasing
Put us up online
It's fine
Or send us to a magazine
God damn, we want to be seen
So the words they dance and they prance
On every chance of romance
With some fucking attention
Do I even need to mention
How hthey give me so much tension
And the only thing I can do
Is set them free every day
So I can get away
And they start to hound you.

bad habits

a man is made up of his bad habits
what good is a good man
simple, predictable, a calendar of dates

bad habits are bad for every man
chaos angels that live for mischief
disorder, disorder, however brief

bad habits that almost no one knows
swimming under the surface like a shark
sitting alone on a bench in a park

bad habits that are just simply there
till they become a part of atmosphere
so breathe and breathe it in

---
I started with something else, but then this one wanted to be written. Tomorrow, I'll write a non-poem post about this blog, and the things I am doing with this. 

Only Darkness Now

consider
consider this all
the longest letter
written over time
a life time
as seconds tick away
squirrelling away into minutes and hours
the ink on this page never dries
the page never turns
the light of this lamp flickers
the words seem to take shapes unseen
in darkness they crawl up
through the nib of this pen
to dig under the fingernails
to find the veins beneath
they crawl in the bloodstream
making the fingers their slaves
for these fingers have stroked a million keys
yet, there are a million more to caress
so how could I be careless
the best is yet to come
as they say
among all the other things
there is nothing glorious about grinding out words
no coffee cups ensos staining hand made pages
no coffee shops or cigarette stains on fingers
no alcoholic writing binges with promises of sober editing
no stream of consciousness and thousand page typewriter roll
only a certain cold feeling and hot breath to make the fingers work
only darkness now and a sliver of light
the light that gets brighter
the faster I type
the faster I type
the quicker I'll reach
wherever I am going

---
I am dropping pop culture references in my poems now. Huh, who'd have thought.
Drop a comment if you catch one, or two or three. 

The Hammer

we're all waiting
waiting for the hammer
as it floats above
like some kind of spaceship

the hammer doesn't care
if you're a sinner or a saint
it comes for all, and it will fall
on every fucking face

the hammer only knows
the one thing, the one role
to smash everything in its path
and leave nothing in its aftermath

the chill of the hammer is oh so close
it might tap your head, might break your nose
when you face the hammer, you do it alone
for the hammer is held by a hand that's your own

Lights

This room is closing in on me
The walls are jaws of ugly sleep
I ignore it and focus on the light
Even though I won't win this fight

I'll get bored eventually
With my eyelids heavy
Shutting down on their own
My heart ticks like a metronome

I'll sink, sink deep in this void
Till it fills my insides
Darkness in my thoughts, lingers
Marionette dreams on broken fingers

I'll still look above for the light
As it becomes a pin point of hope
I'll become one with the night
As it takes me down the sleepy slope

----
Fighting sleep, for no other reason but cuz I slept some in the day. I need to re-learn grammar and sentence construction.

Spark Head

Something different. Hope it works.

Time Worm

somewhere in the stream of time
some seconds slipped off the drift
grouped together they formed the minutes
that turned into hours
then like an ancient organism
the Time Worm crawled out
into the muddy reality
it shook the water off its back
at the bank of the stream
so all that was seen of its absence
a hole in the stream
filled with a glitch
a void, a vacancy
that would never be complete
the little worm pranced its way
into the forest of forever
carrying memories on its back
that would never fade
blood tattooed
soul imprinted
never to be erased
and in some future forever
when the time stream will grow sluggish
the worm will crawl back in
to reboot the water
again

---
some memories fade, but some things are imprinted in your mind forever, that's what the time worm is carrying. and it's important because memories are the fuel that keep us going. love or hate,  thoughts are like bombs.

2 AM [Reprise]

I held the cup of coffee
in my shivering hands
to transmit some warmth
to my fingers so I could
type
type
type away
on the highway of night
as it fucks itself away
into a new morning
through the hour of bad things
the hour of the wolf
and the hour of drunken sunrises
on some lost road
where the passing cars
send shivers of death down your spine
and you stand there
you stand there
staring at the rising sun
ready with your fucking cameraphone
to capture it, put a filter on it
and upload it on Instagram
HOWMANYFUCKINGHEARTSFORMYSUNRISE?
i am sorry, i apologize
for this random outburst
i have a little right to be angry, no?
how come your sunrises get more hearts that my sunrises?
is it the filters you use? or the angle of your camera?
how many megapixels is the soul of an image?
i am just asking
but you need these answers
because i know, baby
i already know
as a mad man once told me on the side of a road
buddy buddy, he said, you can write all the lies
in your prose, you can create a world of lies
but when you write a poem, buddy
you'll be naked hung upon a cross
and crows will poke your eyes
if you dare to lie
in a poem

it's 2 AM again
and i'm here with my story
my fingers are cold
my coffee is gone
i am feeling a queer sort of sadness
i should've slept early
i should've slept early

rust

creeping like a predator
sated, but killing just for play
you feel the fetid breath on your neck
still you look the other way

who can look this creature in the eye
face the bright promise in this blue sky
the conspiring susurrations
of all that could've been

the glowing poison in its veins
words drenched with just the right sound
pleasure promised with a hint of pain
it speaks to you when no one is around

this predator knows the bones of its prey
it always does
always
and patiently, it waits

so when your time comes
you will face its jaws
you'll gladly rip your heart
and place it in this thing's claws
you will love and you will trust
till it takes you over, like rust

----
Just saying, do not write poems like this one. I've broken some rules, but I've been doing this for a long time and I have the poetic license to break the rules. If you're sticking to a format, stick to it. I am a professional and I know what I am doing. I have the papers. And please, I beg of you, do not try this at home.

Lost Poems

A word
A phrase
An image
A rhyme

Forgotten
Abandoned
Left alone
Resigned

In sleep
In smiles
In sinks
In soap

Left them there
To fend for themselves
The words together
Huddled against the cold

Flowers

I've sat and looked at flowers
As my life went by in hours
I've seen the fuckers bloom
With my head enveloped in clouds of doom

I've stared at rays of sun
As they converge from many to one
With motes of dust that dance
Swirling in some hypnotic trance

I've heard the cats that yowl
Ominously hiding in night's cowl
If I looked for them I'd not find
Maybe those creatures are in my own mind

I've tried to rhyme my words
With no logic, mostly absurd
But the meanings few would understand
As I slyly bring this poem to an end

---
I lost a poem somewhere in the digital wasteland. It's gone. Forever. So read this one instead. And remember, dear reader, I love you.

sitting here

Man, oh man
I've scrolled through links and link
I've cycled tabs over and over
I've searched google and even duckduckgo
But no

Hell, I even switched off the music
I thought it'd help me think (it didn't)
I went through two bottles of water
Drinking and thinking and thinking
But no

Too much thinking and too much scrolling
My brain pan on fire and my eyes feel swollen
My fingers shake with the stress of speed typing
I've ground my teeth and my tongue smells
But no

When I finally find what I was looking for
I'm too fucked up to enjoy it
I want to close the lip of this fucking laptop
And go to sleep
But no ;)

Should've Been

Maybe a pirate fighting a violent sea
A biker on the run, forever fucking free
There are so many faces I'd like for me
But here I am making two cups of tea

An explorer freezing his limbs in the Arctic
Or getting sunburned in Saharan sands
Waking up in middle of a gun fight
But here I am with soap suds on my hands

A fighter bleeding on opponents in a ring
A dictator if that's still a thing
Maybe under the sea, fighting a shark
But it's evening I've to go for a walk in the park

A drunkard losing million at cards
A serial killer stalking hospital wards
A sniper with my scope on some president
But it's first of the month and I have to pay rent

Should've been.

----
Hat tip to those who'd know. We all have dreams, but some dreams are more illogical than others.

❤️

I swear something moved

just in the corner of my eye
a glimpse, a flash, a stutter
a ripple in the fabric of reality
and then it was gone

the only thing left
was an afterimage
burned into my retinas
a ghost made of negative light

that and a thought of what it was
if some day it would tear through
to stand in front of me
a monster, a mirage, a myth made real

maybe i'd shake its hand (or claw)
ask what the fuck was up
if it wanted to kill and eat me
or just scare me half to death

whatever the answer the thing gave
one thing is for sure
if i closed my eyes and opened my mind
maybe i wouldn't see it anymore

---
I think something gave me a start just now. Not sure what it was. And I got lazy in the last paragraph, but that's off the record, alright? Do you believe in ghosts? Apparitions? I've got some classy ghost stories, maybe I'll tell them at some other blog I have.

No Home

untethered, the umbilical dissolved
floating, drifting, drowning in a void
a spaceship with no port to dock
a man without a home

at the end of the day
there is nowhere to go
except through the same old motions
we repeat things we already know

all that's left is a ghost
a ghost of desires forgotten
like a flower undeground
that forgets the taste of light

the skies are grey now
without a hope or sign of light
locked in permanent cages
every heart dreams of flight

---
There are days when you just feel dissociated with everything and you just want to connect with something but there is nothing. Think of a USB drive hitting a brick wall on repeat, there is just no port for it. This poem is really funny, too but that's just hidden between the lines.

Crows of Morning

The curtains are diluted
By stray shafts of soft sunlight
Soon there will be none
As they build buildings all around me

The sky is a muted gray
The color of dirty water in sink
Is it supposed to be beautiful?
Or a sign of what the day would bring

Somewhere the crows of morning
A murder of them is up and alive
Dominating with harsh cacophony
Others survive but crows thrive

Feeling prufrockian as I muse on all this
While touching the crown of my head
Have I lost a few more strands
Should I go bald or dig my heels in
Against something that's bound to happen

----
A murder of crows woke me up, man. And now the pigeons have joined in too.

live wire

there is a live wire wrapped all over my spine
barbed and spiked it has dug in deep
i still smile and tell everyone i'm fine
as i try and try but i get no sleep

some days the wire is silent as death
some days it whispers words to me
if i focus really hard i can make out the meaning
but if i get distracted it all turns to gibberish

there are times when the wire is all for commands
and then the times when all it does is demand
i have to comply, there's naught i can do
i'd rather listen to the wire than listen to you

it's uncomfortable, but i'm kinda used to it now
but i wish i could get rid of the wire somehow
i hate how its always tapped into my thoughts
i guess i'll keep the wire till my spine rots

---
What is this about? I think I was listening to Fear Factory's new album, Genexus and this image of a spine wrapped with electric wire just came to my mind and how the wire is slowly taking over the thoughts of the person it is attached to that in one thought he hates it, but in the next thought he wants to keep it attached to his spine forever.

What's attached to your spine?

the thread

hanging, hanging
by a single thread
invisible like spider silk
maybe strong too

the cobwebs have found me
now wrapped all around me
i clearly see a distorted world
in this beautiful, beautiful dream

hanging in this semi-darkness
i wait for the spiders
to come and eat me free
make a happy meal out of me

shrouded in this elemental fog
judgment shred to pieces
i am whole in my silken cocoon
hanging by a thread from the moon

the tides come and go
waves far away, yet so close
so i listen and i listen in my spectacular prison
and despite myself, i smile
(i always smile)

for the thread is of my making
i spun this web all around me
limbs stretched apart, crucified
i am the spider on a cross
and i wait
for myself

----
This is about how you build your own prison and how only you can set yourself free. But there is always the wait and you've to make it through. It's also about insanity and roland mcdonald. How does that fit in? Figure it out.

I almost left it at fourth paragraph, but the last two just flashed in front of my eyes, had to get them out. I think they give a different flavor to the whole poem. This could have had a tighter rhyme, but it's got a certain rhythm. I know I'll see the typos once I hit publish.

the fight that sky lost

dark
dreary
dull and
drab

a fucked up landscape
filled debris of dying dreams
they reached for the sky
seeking redemption where there was none

the sky closed its eyes
breathed in the promise of rain
as a name rang through the wind
like a bullet through a god's brain

somewhere in the darkness
the wolf of night howled
a song, a wish, a desire
that made the clouds shiver

as the pressure builds
something will have to give
some will forget, none will forgive
but end it will, it will end
with a wolf's jaws
on sky's throat

----
i'm in a weird, funny mood. tired beyond tired, hungry and irritated and this is all I could come up with.

the cigarette

lit
it dangles from her fingertips
a prisoner hanging on
waiting for salvation

her thoughts wander
survivors in a desolate land
ignoring the glowing ember
living its last breaths near her hand

a puff of callous breeze
making ash out of the cigarette
tendrils of smoke swirl
escaping to a certain death

she lifts the cigarette to her lips
lips that breathe in the smoke
smoke that reaches her lungs
lungs that exhale
exhale and inhale
while the universe holds its collective breath
and she says hello
hello, again.

--
There might be technical issues with this poem, because I do not smoke. I am gonna show my Poetic License if you stop me and ask me about any factual errors in this one. But that said, there is something extremely sexy and charming about a girl who smokes. And, uh, cigarettes are pretty cool too, till you get cancer and die.

spitting colors

i bit into the world
just this last tuesday
i chewed and chewed
till i broke it down in chunks

i rolled the pieces around
in my mouth and on my tongue
till the blood of the world
dripped down my chin
like some unholy ichor

then i chewed it some more
till the pieces were mushy paste
that i could swallow like some hungry bird
then i took another bite
chewed and swallowed

but something was wrong
the world was too much for me

i clenched my jaw, grit my teeth
as my mouth filled up with saliva
and an old familiar feeling in my stomach
of something that won't stay down
something that just keeps fighting
just doesn't shut the fuck up

up it comes
like a volcano, a hot geyser
erupting, ejecting, emerging
bent over and fucked in the head
i puked out the world and watched it assemble itself
and scuttle away on filthy claws

leaving me there all alone
i sat on the pavement
with my head in my hands
a bad taste in my mouth
spitting colors
all the colors
--
i can do this all year, i swear.

aside -- hello, readers

hey all,

New year, new me and all that jazz? not really. This is one of the rare non-poem posts on this blog. There have been one or two in the past, I think.

Happy new year to you, constant readers, (if any). I hope your year is filled with creative outbursts and time and inclination to bring your creativity to some kind of final form. Because, a poem un-written in as good as a dead poem, and poems need to live, to breathe, and it is our duty as writers, as poets, as creative people to birth those poems out into the world, no matter how painful the birthing process is. And then you let those poems or works of art go.

Let them find their own life's course. Let the go with the mistakes and missteps, let them stumble and let them fall, just wash your hands off of them and jump into creating something new and something weirder than before.

My reasons for writing here are many, but the one that has allowed me to constantly keep this place alive is that if I didn't write here, I'd probably go insane. Maybe I am insane, but there is no way for you to know that. Sometimes, rhymes come to me in my sleep, sometimes it's an image or a word that will keep weighing on my spine like some kind of alien monster and the only way for me to get rid of it is to write it down, to birth it, to bring it out into the world, and give it to you.

I do it as much for me as much as I do it for you.

So, say hi some time. Leave me a word, or two. Poets, writers, and artists can live more months on a kind word than other human beings.

Sometimes it gets fucking lonely in life, and we all need words to wrap ourselves with.

I've got plans for this blog. And other than just my poems, I think I'll discuss some poems that have left a mark on me through the years.

Anything else you'd like to see here? You can always leave a comment. Don't be shy, ok? I don't bite. (Just ignore that one incident in 2007. It was necessary.)

Right.

This is fucking awkward writing a non-poem post on this blog.

uh, bye.

roots

i have seen the roots that dig in deep
under the surface where secrets sleep
i have seen the roots feed their fill
till they lie filled with lies, almost still

these same fucking roots send their poison
above to become a part of the trees
then the black flowers grow, they blossom
like some kind of fucked up cancerous disease

the lies spread their seed further in the air
poisoning and staining the fetid atmosphere
it bubbles and crumbles in pieces that stink
slowly draining all abilities to think

it's all at the roots if you care just see
it is as much you as much it is me
our roots intertwined, we're in this together
so kick back, relax and breathe in this weather

--
i wish i could work in more profanity in this poem

2016, what a time to be alive.