Flattered You're Reading

Tape Recorder Poem, #2

This is a strange way to write, I don't know how I feel about it yet. There's something so refreshing and raw about letting it come out of my mouth, but I can't wrap the poem up neatly the way I can when I'm seeing a visual representation, on my computer screen or piece of paper.

***

Are we confused or are we troubled off a child
seeking some orange incandescent
which won't describe
the meaning of the words
which underline the thoughts (that you provoke).

And then we're smoked out,
on cigarettes,
beer appears in cheap stories
and I told myself that burning houses
can't undermine a thought (that you provoke).

Or did they panic?:
"Save the dog,
save the kids.
Save the tragic trash
left in the backwash alley,
run down,
in a cut-off supermarket highway."

Didn't seem like I had a jumble,
Write-off rhymes because this time
I'm thinking in a whole new sentence structure:
syntax first and then the worst,
we don't need to believe anything has a direction or dreaming,
scheming, which we thought was caught up
in the silent winter night,
which bites at your ankles and nips at your cheeks
when you forgot the scarf that grandma bought.

Bouncing on beds is much better for the head.
Who didn't PLEASE a part of them?

We blanked out on our burning house.

Comfort


Confront

And then everything with the blog changed.

Adam thought up a blog post... one he wasn't sure he wanted to put up or not.

He worked on it, he finished it...

he posted it, then somehow forgot he posted it. Or perhaps he did it by accident.

At 4:30 in the morning, he is shocked to see it, there on the web in plain site!
How long had it been there? Had it been published? Who had read it? What was going on?

Totally paranoia with a touch of humor gripped him as he tried to play off the situation by writing his thoughts into the blog.

I'm going to kill you, Mr. Blog. Soon. Someday soon.

Joe: Blogger? Blogger.

Fred: That's not anything!

Tom: He's defacing his property!

Fred: Relax guys... he's just trying to cope with having a blog -

Joe: Blogger.

[pause. Fred looks at Joe, annoyed.]

Fred: He's lowering the stakes.

Joe: I am blog. I am blogspot. I am blogger.

Tom: So you are. But let's not forget your real purpose.


And then we all nodded, because we understood.

Transformed idiosyncrasies don't leave us half-shelved or dropped off inside the empty smock of grandmother's living room, torn two-tabled by the wind in your ear that faded off your fucker's breath. We can't control death, only reaffirm the promises we kept ourselves, shape up for greater decadence and joyously carry out our rituals while we still have the ligament. Don't shake me from my lovely sleep, I'd finally forgotten how I got here, where I became, or what's that strange about rewriting hieroglyphics that no one cares to read anymore. But I suppose that's the real travesty, the tip-toeing and the black stand overtures, white hallway window dressing on the silent moments that follows your laugh when you recreate the symptoms you were trying to fake, only a moment ago.

God, I love Elliot Smith.

Can't say I really listened to him that much before he stabbed himself. I was very fond of "Miss Misery" and that was about it.

Right before he stabbed himself, I started listening to a few more of his catchier tracks. But once he stabbed himself in the chest, the way I listened to the music really change. One knife thrust and suddenly every sad note is legitimized. Who can listen to this stuff and say, "I don't know, it's a bit poppy. A bit contrived"?

Beautiful music, though. I really think.

I've spent a good chunk of time recently worrying that I'm too self-involved. Oh, the irony.

This is the first time I've ever tried just recording my voice on a tape recorder and make up a poem. A strange sensation, appeals more to the performance side.

***

i'm breathing through this existence and waiting to find myself on the other end of speculation
where I can redefine the way the recorder works and reinvent the wheel.

i want to purchase power with such a means that it hurts,
no one loses and we're all together in a tiger winner circle where we can
bounce and prance
an upside down roar
while the hunger artist fasts on the bedroom floor.

I don't believe in anarchy
and I don't believe in luck
and I don't believe the way in which we're stuck
is somehow going to rearrange itself

we can never find the money that we need,
never find our greed
(an outside artist, which we bleed)

we rant and rave and carried ourselves across the craze,
the country, the origins, the mountains, the lions,
wit in the discoveries:
untamed, unchartered.

Plains
of reflection: audial, or visual
or seemingly trite and trivial.

cute little packages bundled up for truth
to be redelivered through sarcasm.

tube tied, hanging low,
trying to sleep past the swoop
within which feelings must go.

and it's not as if we're untangling any secrets
because it's not as if we ever really felt alone.
it's not as if there are two of us here
writing or speaking or breathing.

I can't realign,
switch minds,
or redefine
what you thought
was the world around us.

We were marching through the garden, and gradually began to pick up a melody, soon singing our impromptu song at the top of our lungs:

In the garden,
in the garden,
we are marching side by side...
In the garden,
in the garden,
we are marching side
by side...

It was wonderful. So stupid, so clear of any wit. I wish I could sing like that more often.

Helicopters taking off out the window by his death bed, I bet its not too much of a thrill when its your job. Jokes dropped like nervous laughter that follow silence and presumes an absence of tears, let's try real hard to make everything okay in such a way that can help us all be comforted by modernity: traffic lights, islands. "I don't believe in God," he told me, "but maybe I can be on your shoulder, in life." I agreed, I didn't see why not. Choking back tears because its not fair to ruin it, keeping this Halloween at its lightest ever, no one's mentioned the leaves yet. Sunday's coming with an absent certainty, eating delicacies to help with the nausea: finger sandwiches, tiramisu. Did I ever get a chance to tell him I loved him, to do what was necessary, to give him an epic or just listen sternly? No, Ma'am, I was busy reading Glamour while his daughter cut up masks, we were blasted off our concrete emotions because when things get that real, intensity becomes a theme or a literary device: I told them I thought I wasn't talented enough to pull off being an alcoholic, and they chided my inappropriate comments. And to think that there was a dying man facing my back. I would have ran into the hall to cry, but it was easier to just drink tea and eat finger sandwiches.