And Then She Woke

Feeling irrelevant, and not knowing why.




Do you know the texture of
hope?
Sliding through your fingers,
it leaves a residue of
guilt,
a picture-perfect trail of proof
that once
you were better
than you've grown to be:
stunted and withered,
allowing flaws to scar and mar
instead of adding character.

Scuffed boots, dirty blue-and-purple knees,
swollen scratches covering
arms and well-worn fingers:
an image,
an icon
in my own mind;
but the cameras
are only in my head.

Where is my recognition?

What have I done to deserve it?

There were
plans,
dreaming big, schemes,
even a theme song,
imagined drive-by slow-wave,
slow-motion wind-blown hair strands
never catching in my lip ring
like they do in real life.
And the movies never show the morning-after taste
of dirty sunshine and how
fantasies fulfilled leave you feeling
empty.
Read more!

On my last day of ushering: first draft

just me being just a crazy fuck


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
On my last day of ushering
I will trip small children
give them candy bars for their silence
promise them another
at the end of the show,
duck out before the end
On my last day of ushering
I will not look the rich opera women
in their eyes, just their tits
When I say turn left at row M
and they so much as glance right
I’ll roll up a program and smack
their asses hard
the addiction to money has made them stupid
On my last day of ushering
I’ll kick back and enjoy the chaos
I’ll light a cigarette in the seating area
say, oh--I forgot, when others complain
I’ll hug the co-workers I like,
I’ll say thanks to the bosses,
I don’t need anymore
I fly now Read more!

Dear Patty

I just sent an ex-girlfriend the following:


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Dear Patty,
I know we haven’t spoken for 15 years, but the other night I was curious and looked you up on the internet. Congratulations, you’ve become a successful, rich lawyer. You do remember me, don’t you? I’m Mike G the poet. We dated for 4 months and you got straight As that term. You thanked me for that after breaking up with me on the way home from that unfortunate Chicago trip. Look, Patty, I didn’t mean to stick it in your ass. It was just dark, I thought it was your mouth. A man gets confused sometimes, wants to do the right thing, fucks up anyway, but you know that. Let’s not linger on the past. You intimated while I was crying in your car that maybe I was partly responsible for your academic success. You said that I was your first real boyfriend, the first man in your life to respect your Catholic duty to preserve the integrity of your cherry till marriage. Remember how cute it was when I’d walk towards you in slow motion shaking my dick, quoting Pablo Neruda: “I want to do with you what Spring does with the cherry trees.” You never seemed to laugh as much as I did, but um, I remember it fondly, and it was cute wasn’t it? Oh, let’s see--I’m sure you’re dying to know what I’ve been up to. I think you’ll be proud of me Patty. I left that cold, broken Michigan which made me so sad. I left a child-wife and a bad God behind. I sought and I found asylum in Portland Oregon. My succession of shitty jobs and parasitic relationships have finally paid off. They’ve informed my unique perspective and finally I’m confident in my writing. I’ve found the poets Patty! I belong somewhere for once. I belong in their company and I’ve never been happier. If these words bring a tear of joy to your eye I understand. To be honest I was pretty pathetic when you knew me. I was an anchor around your neck and you had to cut the rope. I forgive you. I’m happy that you’ve prospered. That you’ve moved on somehow from our unique love. I’m not asking you to take me back. I enjoy my freedom too much for that, and sorry if that disappoints you but if you’re ever in Portland maybe you can come, come hear me read! Fuck Pablo Neruda! Patty! I’ll write my own ecstatic Mike G cherry tree poem in your honor. Can you come in the summer? Does that work for you? You could crash at my place and don’t worry. I’ve matured. A lot. You’d be proud of my penis. It’s become a most discerning penis. It knows the difference between an ass and a mouth now, even in the dark. Well, I’ll light a candle by the bed just to be safe.
Just one more request, my dearest Patty. When you come to visit could you scratch me a check for maybe $20,000. This is embarrassing but I really need to take a year off work. I know you can afford it, darling. You’re single. You make 6 figures. I looked it up. Look, all I need is $20,000 and I can write my balls off in peace for a year. I’ll finish my novel, make you proud, and then--maybe you’ll be inspired to scratch me another check for another year, and then another, and so on. I’m going places Patty, I’m gonna be famous, and I choose you to receive the high honor of being my benefactor. Sponsor my vocation and soon I promise a little more luster will be added to your already dazzling resume. You can take Mike G’s word to the bank, Patty. After all, I inspired you to get all As. All those nights you sought comfort in my compassionate, understanding arms, all those hours my patient mouth and dick had to suffer while you studied. I made these sacrifices for you Patty--ain’t that worth a mere $20,000 a year. C’mon Patty--I licked your asshole! A lot! Well, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing and help me out. See you soon with all my love, Mike G.
PS: If you’ve remained faithful to your Catholic beliefs and remain yourself a vaginal virgin, I’m willing to help you out. I’ll marry you. It doesn’t have to be a Catholic wedding right? You just need to be married and we can have the kind of sex that will make God and the baby Jesus happy. We don’t have to live together. Neither of us wants that. We’re busy thriving in our separate lives. But God will shine upon our special time. Now. Let’s say yes to this Patty. Let’s help each other shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Are you wet yet? Read more!

The Dandelion Effect

When we were small,
you picked me flowers,
and I laughed
because your fistful of colors
was made up of weeds and leaves,
and overflowed with bugs
that bit your fleshy pink hands;
you ran home crying.

I wish I hadn't been such a tomboy,
maybe we could have had a
Kodak moment--
I should have leaned in
like a chubby little angel
and kissed your cheek.

But I've always been better
at sorries than thank yous,
and I've always been best
at making boys cry.

And sometimes I wonder
if all the men who've bought me roses
with Hallmark attachments
and unchaste intent
have been punishment for rejecting
the only honest bouquet
I've ever received.
Read more!

Buying Me Presents Doesn't Change a Thing

Haiku dirty pretty...





I don't want [roses]
whose thorns //scratch// my skin as they
tear away the .scabs.--

I'm (healing) nicely,
no need to --rip-- me open,
with your [blood.red.lies].

Don't buy me .f.l.o.w.e.r.s.
that don't mean a thing, don't |waste|
one more word on this--

All that I wanted
was --you--, stained and iMpeRfeCt,
all your flaws ((intact)).

You want *forgiveness*,
that's what your posies say, {{wrapped}}
in shiny plastic--

Can you .take.it.back.,
all this ::emotion:: that's splashed
on the floor, puddles

of wrong, where I //slipped//
&& maybe \\slid\\ down a blade--
can you make this right?

Will your chocolates
&& pretty apologies
-.erase.- what you did?
Read more!

****





******
you are standing on the side of the the street,
the bullshit parade is coming down your mainstreet again
you stand there helpless unwillingly encouraging it
wanting to back away and run

Read more!

Clones Would Save Relationships

(I'm not kidding....)




No one is ever good enough
for each other.
Giving what we want to receive,
and somehow we always miss the cues
that should be obvious.

Everyone should have a clone.
Then we could
study ourselves,
and see our flaws acted out in three dimensions--
maybe that would be proof enough
that we take one another for granted,
and forget
the most important things.

Maybe from the sidelines
he would notice
how her eyes shine when she looks at him,
or how she pauses, waiting
for some gesture of reassurance,
and how something dies
when he walks on,
oblivious.

Maybe as a spectator,
she would see
how hard he tries to give her
something, anything,
even though he doesn't have any clue
what she wants.

And maybe,
it would just end up as a foursome.
Read more!

[something]

There were more promises
than ^god's^,
and all as x.b.r.o.k.e.n.x as
the tooth I *chipped*
when I -fell- while
running after your bus as it >>left>>.

What if I told you I [.bottled.my.tears.]
so that I could re/call
how XdefeatX tastes in back of my throat?

Yeah, I know,
[.lets.get.tragic.]--
I'll cry, and you can
((hold-me-close)) against your chest,
so that I can't see it
when you //roll your eyes.//

But don't just >blow< this
off.
We thought we -had- something,
and it's something to _meditate.on_
that it was so easily //thrown away//--
at least by you.

I can't help but wonder--
was your happiness as |fake|
as my orgasms? Read more!

The Happy Solipsist

I love you goddamn machines!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
The Happy Solipsist
I feel moved with compassion to let you guys in on a revelation I’ve had recently. Um, none of you are people. Only I am. I am the only one in this room who really knows what a cigarette tastes like. You guys experience taste according to the dictates of your particular tasting program. It’s not that you’re not real. You’re just not people. Look, don’t be sad--organic machines are just as real as flowers, mountains or me. You machines keep me company, and though I don’t like you all, I love you. You were programmed to think of yourselves as humans with free will and high consciousness. Some of you are poet machines, some bourbon machines, some blowjob machines, a few of you are all of the above. None of you chose what you are, but don’t lose heart. I, the only human being on Earth, will write about how well you all functioned; and when the outer space people come to retrieve me I’ll say only good things about your circuits, silicon chips, and the flexibility of your orifices, all of which I’ve explored while your machine brains were shut down, or as you call it, sleeping. As my Grandma used to say, a hole is a hole Mike G, and when you stumble upon one it’s best to fill it with the best part of yourself. I know now that she was programmed to say that for my benefit. I loved my grandma. On Sundays she’d walk with me in her garden, an entire yard stuffed with azaleas, daffodils, roses, other things I can’t recall. She had 23 garden gnomes keeping watch. Each had a name. Listen and watch, Mike G, she said. They wink and whisper poems we can’t understand like the lives we’ve tried that we can’t understand. The one with a red Santa hat and green painted cheeks, his name was Gilbert, he winked at me. That’s when I knew I was special. I listened but heard no poems, only wind stirring stalks and Grandma’s asthmatic programmed machine breathing.
I heard no poems until your poems, those of you machines in this room now. You’ve been my teachers, all of you, my sweet machine teachers. I’ve tried to think of a way to thank you. I’ve found the way. All of you have been programmed to experience pleasure, and though I’ve fucked you all already while your brains were turned off I’d like to extend the invitation while your brains are turned on. I offer you my penis, the only human penis in existence. I’m afraid I’m your only choice, and I’ll try not to disappoint. Many of you I know have been programmed for disappointment but I challenge you to be enthusiastic about this unique opportunity I’m offering. I’m the God in the garden opening his robe, exposing his fruit for the enjoyment of his friends. My fruit is not forbidden. My fruit is good times. Play with it, and I will ask my superiors to not destroy you all when they return. The fruit of life is the fruit of Mike G. You have till December 21st, 2012 to decide. Decide well and it will end well for you, and for me, the happy solipsist.

Read more!

A Letter to MC Guimond

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


Hey Mike,
Why are we not famous in this town
This Mountian of Clemens
For which i Still belong
And you frequently visit?

Why when I write of myself
Do I struggle to capitalize the "i"
Laughing when I think of we...
Trench coats and cheap alcohol
Wandering coffee shops and bookstores?

Why are our names not found at Borders, or Barnes and Noble?
Why do we live as politicians of the Big Boy instead of America
Why are we not touring the world, with or words and our banter?
Why do we still dream of these things? Are we too old?

My legend suggests the closeness I have gotten to greatness
Now I sit in a classroom, grading badly written essays and poems
By students who know me as "Mr. Conwell",
I should be what they study, as should you, not who they study for

When you walk into my classroom, in the future, when I have control
We will both be icons, even if for a moment
We will be rockstars to my kids
And then we will go to Big Boy for coffee
And pretend that was enough
Read more!

Journey (into everywhere)

TYPE YOUR SYNOPSIS HERE


Soft glimpses of the future
No turning back,
No exchanges,
No refunds,
Merely a soft pillow to rest your head on
As I dream, again, only of tomorrow

Some of these roads have been difficult
Bumpy, winding and wet,
Reminding us all again of struggle

Perhaps these words are limitless,
Surrealism in a bottle, no cap
Just a small crack for evaporation
Or elimination

My name was once a metaphor (I swear)
Truly meaning and symbolizing a word
But the word I represented was "confusion"
Because I had no idea what else to express
In my name... because I was young
So instead of depth, everyone laughed at the vision
And again I began to sink

This journey heeds warnings to others
walking hard into oblivion
Relax, stop thinking and smile
For in the end it means the same thing
Whether you cry, mope, or glow


Read more!

The Day I Cut My Hair

I carry my soul in my back pocket.

And whenever I get to feeling kind of doubtful,
I check my back pocket.
Read more!

I Love Her

I love her:
Although
Not enough
To make me say
The things I feel
When’ ere I gaze
Upon her lovely face,
And know within my heart
That it is real:
And I shall never twice,
Consider
Sweet, adultered love—
For with her,
How my life is sweet
As long as I have her to love
And smile,
And make my heart rejoice
To touch me in that, special way
Caress my heart with hands of silk,
To laugh, and make me feel this way,
And yet,
My love shall never know
The achings of my foolish heart:
The wellings of the fountain deep
Upon whose reigns,
Her lovely eyes
Doth start:
For I,
In fear,
Becometh dumb:
My tongue,
Once limp,
An iron slate—
As if the elephants doth stand
To graze upon it
When I wish
To speak, to her;
And so she goes
Believing that it isn’t so—
And not that I just can’t relate
The music
That wells deep within
My soul:
That laughs and sings to her
To praise her in that
Special way:
But if she’d ears to hear my heart,
She’d weep
At what
My heart
Would say! Read more!

Someday There'll Be Sunshine

Someday there’ll be sunshine
In the world I call my own.
There’ll be fields of pretty flowers,
There’ll be happiness, and song.
And the mountains, and the valleys
Will abound with shades of green,
And surrounded by this beauty
Lovely quetzal birds will sing.

There’ll be clouds up in the heavens,
Powder puffs of snowy white.
And the stars light little diamonds
Will illuminate the night
And the peaks of lofty mountains
Will reach up to touch the sky
And the pain known as reality
Will always pass me by.
Read more!

Song of a Blade of Grass

I see you walking (from the lawn).
I’ve watched you race about
                            since dawn.
Alone I stand, in autumn’s breeze,
as fairer
          flowers
                     fall.
My frame erect, my head held high,
you’ve never seen me
                                  passing by,
but I’ve seen you, running about
eyes blind 
                  to who I am.

I have no way to make you see.
No voice
             to make you stop.
I haven’t even any legs,
                                    and cower
when you walk.
I’m somewhat meek, but stand alone;
(I have no fear of Man.)
…and every day I watch you rage!
eyes blind
                to who I am.

I pity you for what you are;
for what you’ve come to be.
You’ll never know the joy I feel
in my humility.
So proud you hasten towards your doom
“Progress!"                 —the fall of Man.
And when you’re gone, I’ll still remain:
content
            with what I am. Read more!

Valentine Blues

Valentine Blues
Again the calendar marked with a black rose,
this high holy day for lovers, this business feast
of chocolates, tears squeezed from a lemon heart.
Ouch, the wound says, then cringes, embarrassed
like a poet applauded for work he knows to be sub-par
This is old pain. Shouldn’t hurt like a love letter,
should feel cozy like a good book at bedtime,
a blanket snug to the chin. No snores but mine.
There’s an old wedding video I could watch.
I could pretend it’s Halloween and put on the ring.
I’m pretending I’m a married person today,
I’m a got-something-to-live-the-next-forty-years-for
person today, I’m smiling at these words today,
hoping I’m not serious, afraid that I’m afraid.


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Read more!

Book Release Party

sh, don't talk about this


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Book Release Party

When the sky falls for me
I’ll take off my glasses,
lay my head in your lap,
ask you to read poems aloud
from your latest chapbook

Bitterness, the spit of regret--
spilt beer, balls kicked.
I no longer tongue
the floor for leftovers,
I’m tired of pecking

I learned it late
I learned it from a sick pigeon
laying in a girl’s lap
as she read poems aloud
from her latest chapbook

When the sky falls for me
hold me like a favorite dream,
release! like a favorite dream.
For you, the Spring comes.
Your sky, young and strong. Read more!

Stuck In Blue

Picture Prompt:




Where rays touch skin:

break apart,
flake away,

textured with intent to heal
yesterday's scars.

Ask me if it hurts,
sloughing off the past;

I'll answer: I'm still afraid to dream.
Read more!

Home

Through shadows
and bent stalks
I noticed
motes
and
movement,
more lively with noise
than the highways
back home,
in my sunshine state.

But what is home,
unless it's where your blood
has been turned into the soil,
where your sweat has watered
hard-packed earth
and nursed
the poppies back to health?

I'd forgotten
that my roots run
back up the coast, and away
from oceanside
to mountain hot springs,
pastoral landscapes,
the smell of a hard day's work to come,
fresh on dawn's first breath,
the aroma of coffee and
wheat dust
what tugs me from a
toil-induced coma--
the restful slumber
that comes with
not enough time to over-think things.

I've been away too long,
living on
coffee and cigarettes and
the energy
of people pressed closely together on a train,
and the nightly
restless, toss-and-turn
sleep of the city.

I need to find
an eastward-winding dirt road
that leads where all roads do--
home.
Read more!

Wild Abandon

(13 words...)


Admonitions fall
on deaf ears;
self-control dissolves
as I dive into your eyes.
Read more!

A Gentle Death

A snowflake
on midnight's breath
on moonlit waves
finds gentle death
as it slips into its own embrace
in liquid form.

In the same way,
I find a spot for you:
on top of the old scars,
but underneath the new,
and you slide perfectly into place
without a backward glance--

unless you did look back,
at the moment I glanced away.
How normal, to miss
each other in just that way.
I guess some things never change--
that, at least, was true.

Fast forward:
presenting fluent
gestures of denial,
emotions truant,
each muscle carefully arranged
in artificial joy--

sometimes lying
is the only way that I can breathe.
Read more!

The Ties That Bind

Picture prompt:


Stitched up like some unwanted hole,
amalgamation of pain and
everything forgotten--
velveteen dream,
we all grow up eventually,
and your dewdrop tears can't change that.
Miscarried hopes
pressed between your shoulder blades
held in place
by threads of doubt--
is that the weight of the future
on your tiny back?
Too small for such a burden,
not strong enough;
you mirror us all.
Manufactured monster,
poor sutured babes, at least you know
you'll always have each other.
Read more!

Fade to Black

Empty words led to empty lives,
sacred moments turned to dust;
greedy hearts and smirking lips,
blackened souls and shattered trust.
A legacy, you left for me,
you stripped me bare then set me free,
the bruises there for all to see
the worthlessness inside of me.

You called me back, a siren voice,
a lure that I could not resist,
and in the dark, with silken lies,
sewed shut my mouth and bound my wrists,
then took the blade and drove it in,
between my ribs, again and again,
such smoking heat, a feral grin,
sweet as honey, close as sin.

You finished fast, then fell asleep,
satiated, quiet at last,
I crept away to weep in shame,
resume my life, bury the past.
Still tainted by your touch, your kiss,
I let you turn me into this,
I long for you, and even miss
your special brand of painful bliss.

It never ends, an aching hole
where once your eyes burned into mine;
in ashes now, this life, this love,
it stands for you, a rubble-shrine.
And still I wait, and still I ask,
for you to come and take me back--
pins and needles, broken glass,
fading, fading, fade to black.
Read more!

Learnin' to Fish

Ah, childhood . . . So many POVs


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Learning to Fish
mommy? why is it that in every dream of you
you have a penis for a nose?
why is it that I snarl and bark at you in those dreams?
why did you emasculate my dad
my formative role model of what a man is
and not let him live his own life?
have his own friends
and goin’ fishin’ with me was his only respite
but I didn’t like it, I never learned how to fish, mommy
but I watched him bury his sword into the rock of safety
nothin’ but stoic misery remained, all his greatness
stuck in that goddamn rock
and I’ve popped my guts with 2 hernias
trying to pull that sword out for him
I repeated his mistakes, tugged and tugged
allowed my own balls again and again
to be snapped shut in a woman’s purse,
tugged and tugged,
allowed myself to forget how to say no--
I won’t be a martyr anymore
my attention was on the wrong sword, mommy
the wrong rock
dad had to pull out his own
he didn’t, that’s his decision
but I left a cold and broken Michigan
and at age 40 I finally ripped my own goddamn sword
out of my rock mommy!
and I swing that motherfucker over my head
with my dick hangin’ out and my balls swingin’ free nonstop
and if I slash myself and bleed from the blade
of my own zeal and heat at least I know it’s me
who does the slashing
I’ve done it mommy!
I’m out of your pretty little safety box and can’t be stopped
and I won’t stuff myself down there again!
because unlike ee cummings mom, my I is a capital I
Brrring!!!
sorry guys--mom?--this isn’t a good time, I’m performing
no--there’s no money in it--it’s more important than money--it’s poetry
mom, I gotta go, this is like my church
and I’m a new convert in love with my new gods
and I don’t wanna piss people off--especially not Frank Sauce
he’s a serious character like Ezra pound
but we don’t have time for that now
I’m sorry I haven’t called. Happy New Year to you too
be quick mom, this is Starlite Motel’s big night not yours
SIGH--I’m sorry--she’s a great poet, she’s the goddess tonight
next week there’ll be another--our gods are legion
New year’s resolution? Finish my chapbook, mom--
No mom--I’ve told you before
you don’t wanna read my poems
they have swear words, they’re not pretty
because bad things are more interesting mom
I’m like a toddler ok?
a toddler who wants to put bad yucky things in his mouth
when a person tells me no mike g, don’t mike g, you can’t mike g
you shouldn’t, thou shalt not, it’s wrong, it’s too risky,
I’ll take my love away from you mike g if you do this thing
mom--I gotta put the bad yucky thing in my mouth,
taste it for myself
you should try it sometimes mom--sometimes it’s
the sweetest thing in the world and once you get
that taste in your mouth not even your bar of soap
or your God can take that taste away
don’t cry mom--I love you, you know that
we’re not friends, and that’s fine
I left the nest, didn’t die in the nest, found my own
that was your job, you did fine, and that’s the bond of mother and son
I Gotta go now, tell dad--
dad?
I did it dad--I’ve finally learned how to hook my own worm,
I’ve finally learned how to hook and reel in what I need to eat
and when I come back in June we’ll go fishin’
just you and me--2 men fishin’.


Read more!