Slinky Uprising from Marianna Kreidler on Vimeo.
5.15.2010
Overkill Issue #9 - "On A Boat" cover by Zack Price, '11, and Patrick Wysor, '09
Submitted by Marianna Kreidler, '11.
5.11.2010
Overkill #9 - Original Poetry by Maggie Rich, '11
My fingers and toes can
My fingers and toes don’t agree
on how best to feel.
Hands choose to run themselves
over stubble and through atmosphere.
Their bones shuffle to hold the
ungrateful palm of another;
both will never understand what
they hold between them.
Feet move with the earth,
leather and wool between skin and soil.
Calloused pads delight
In the hermitry of old shoes.
Dancing inches away from another,
Courting without a single touch.
5.10.2010
Overkill #9 - Original Prose Poetry by Dave Valentine, '10
Change
"And then, just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, it became a butterfly." - Chinese Proverb
He did not remember the last time he'd seen sunlight. Perhaps it had been weeks. Perhaps days. Months. Perhaps years. He didn't, to be honest, have a very good memory. He preferred to lie here in his darkness and warmth and security, and not worry about the world outside and around.
He heard things, though. He heard cars passing by below and dogs barking, and occasionally the television of the man who lived in the room next to him would give him updates on world events, and if he'd felt like listening he might have learned that the fishing industry off the coast of Japan was in trouble because of giant jellyfish, or that in the forests of the Amazon was discovered a frog whose skin juices might someday be used to cure cancer. Of if he'd listen to the man in the room next to him talking to Sunday visitors, he might have learned that the tree outside of the man's window was an oak tree. He didn't listen, though, so he didn't know any of these things.
Sometimes, when storms came and went, he grew fearful because he thought his walls and ceiling might simply fall away and leave him helpless, open to everything and everyone and the world would be too big for him to ever manage. But this hadn't happened yet, so he was being optimistic about the rest of his existence.
He wasn't sure why he had first decided to shut himself away from everything else. It had simply seemed as though he had no other option. He might have missed things from before his isolation and confinement, but, again, his memory was so poor that such a possibility really wasn't an issue.
One day, though, he heard something very loud. And very close. An earthquake, he thought at first, an earthquake come to swallow us all and shit if I can't do anything about it. He would have liked to dismiss the idea as soon as it came to him, but the evidence continued to mount. The entire world seemed to be falling apart. The cracking sound continued and grew louder until he thought his ears would rupture and blood cover the walls of his room, the walls that now shifted dangerously, and something seemed to beat against them like a tornado outside, but he could have sworn it was coming from the inside, inside with him, but that couldn't be, and then, amongst all of this, a piercing, blinding light penetrated his walls and hurt his eyes and flooded his tiny room, and then it grew bigger and bigger, and he thought for sure this was the Ragnarök and that everything was ending and the light was that from the other end of the tunnel, and well it was a good run, wasn't it, in his tiny room in the dark.
Overkill #9 - Original Fiction by Erica Belden, '10
Arson and Carrots
"What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know"
"You can't just leave me here, you're not anonymous anymore."
"I know!"
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I DON'T KNOW!"
"Your temper isn't going to help anything."
"Shut up! Shut up! You're dead! You don't talk!" I stretched my leg out and kicked her. This was so cliche. Bodies only talk in movies. But I guess the only thing holding me in reality was the feeling of cabinet doors digging into my back.
"You don't even look like me. Who would believe you're my daughter?"
"I don't know. Damn it Tammy, maybe I was adopted! Not like you have any say in the matter. You're just laundry now as far as anyone is concerned."
With that I stood up and scooped her (and all of her linens) into my arms. I would put her in her Jeep and figure out what to do with her when I was far away from this place. But it was terribly hot out, and her kitchen was a disaster. The whole neighborhood would be smelling her by the time I could leave if I left her in the Jeep.
I took her to the living room and set her on the couch.
"You know the mechanic closes at five."
She was right. I didn't have time to clean up anyway. If I wanted to make a convincing escape I had to leave by 4:30 in her Jeep, with her body, my car, and what was left of your bones in tow. You would have thought this was hilarious.
-----
I stood up and wiped the oil off of my face. "What are you laughing at?!"
"Your face," you spat out between guffaws.
"I did what you told me to!"
"Well you obviously did it wrong." I wiped my face on your shirt. "Hey, this was new!"
"Whatever." The oil made a slow path across the cement floor. "You're cleaning that up, this is your fault."
"Hell no I'm not! You didn't have to be an idiot about it. Why would you let the oil out straight onto your face?" you asked, stifling another giggle. "You got yourself into this mess, you clean it up."
-----
Your words echoed in my head, or in the kitchen. I wasn't sure which. Like with the oil, I had to be creative here.
I hated to always be setting things on fire, but I had no other ideas. It dawned on me then that it was finite creativity more than anything that doomed a serial killer.
Am I a serial killer? I don't like to think that I am. Sure, I've killed either 3 or 23 people (God knows if there were people in that diner, or if I was actually even there). If it's the former, I think I still fall in the category of murderer. If it's the latter, then I would probably be considered a mass murderer, which sounds less scary. A mass murderer kills your government officials. A serial killer waits in your bedroom until you're safely tucked in.
In any case, I didn't have much time. How do I start a house fire without it looking like arson? Realistically, it didn't need to be a big fire. Just enough that the bloody mess I made would conveniently disappear. Fortunately for me, I had opted to make this bloody mess in the kitchen, so I didn't have to set up her bedroom for some candle-riddled rendez-vous or something awkward like that. No, all I had to do was start dinner.
In retrospect, I suppose it didn't matter what I put in the large soup pot I found in a cabinet next to the oven. However, I was so nervous that some bit of my soup would survive the fire that I couldn't stand to make it out of whole carrots and leftover cereal, which was what I found first.
Instead, I peeled and cut up the carrots and some potatoes too, and put them in the pot with all of the meat in her freezer. I'm not sure if meat cooks in boiling water (I can't cook) but I know it cooks in fire, and by the time anyone sees it, it will be done cajun-style.
Now to start this fire...I thought about putting a towel between the burner and the pot, but I wasn't sure if that would work. I needed something that would start for certain and be hard to stop...a grease fire! But where would I get grease?
I made bacon and knocked it over.
Well this was hardly believable. Why would I be making bacon and a stew at the same time? I guess that didn't matter, but how would it get knocked over when nobody was home?
Where was that cat?
I found him in the living room, curled up asleep on top of some sheets and his dead owner. "Heeeere kitty kitty..." I cooed, holding a piece of bacon out as an offering. He stretched and came over to me; I snatched him up before he had a chance to run off.
After making sure it wouldn't burn him, I set his paws down in the spilled bacon grease. He struggled mildly as I opened a nearby window and tossed him out. Giving me an alarmed meow, he took off into the backyard. Sorry, kitty.
It appeared that the bacon puddle was accessible from the window I threw the cat out of. I grabbed a lighter, a red one with a long black neck, and went to pack up my dead surrogate mother.
____________________________
I had watched you hitch a boat trailer to your truck enough times to know what I was doing. It was a good thing she drove a Jeep; they're built for this kind of thing.
The pastel-coated steak of a golfer emerged from a house nearby, this time heading toward his Mercedes with a whole bag of clubs. He set them down when he saw me.
"Do you need help with that?"
"No I'm good thanks" I replied, standing up and wiping the sweat off my face with the back of my arm.
Remember The Stranger by Camus, where the main character kills a man because it's too hot outside? I finally understood why.
I was in the Jeep with the motor running before he could say anything further. The damn thing was a stick shift, which I hadn't driven since my friend tried to teach me how a few summers ago.
My friends. I remembered them all. Their faces, their voices, their eye colors and their birthdays. I wondered if any of them had tried to get in touch with me after you and I disappeared. I'd imagine a few did, but I don't think I'm the kind of person you keep looking for. I was sure it had been weeks, at least, since any of them had thought of me.
I pushed the clutch and started down the street. Everything about this Jeep felt weird to me, from how high I sat to the weight of my car in the back to the fuzzy blue cover on the steering wheel. Everything seemed unnatural. I suppose it was only fitting; if I'm pretending to be someone else, the more things that are out of character, the better.
I had originally planned to set Tammy's house on fire right around five, when she would likely be getting off of the job I said she had and I might still be at the mechanic. Now though, it seemed too suspicious. That golfer would see right through it. First a new-found daughter, then a house fire, and then...well it was just too obvious. I had to think of something else.
I tried to turn as little as possible, to be able to return to her house. And because I'm not exactly the best at driving large conglomerations of vehicles, but that's beside the point. After fifteen or twenty minutes, or maybe several hours, I came to a Wal-Mart. What better place to abandon a car for a few days? Car unhitched, I retraced my path and went...home.
The next week went by in a blur. Every morning I would get up at seven, shower and brush my teeth (one of the benefits of house-sitting for someone you murdered is the free access to warm running water) and be out of the house by 7:45. I'd stay out until five, pacing grocery stores and loitering in bookstores. Anything to kill time. At night I'd watch television and try not to think about the continually worsening smell that oozed out of the laundry room.
Eating was difficult. The kitchen was sticky and smelled kind of like rot, but different than what I had, sadly, become accustomed to. This was not only Tammy decaying in the laundry room, but also the bits of her that were stuck to the cabinets, and everything I had taken out of the fridge to accommodate the large pot of carrots and raw meat, which also smelled. Coupled with the bacon grease (which I would have to add to before I left for good), it won the prize for the most unappetizing smell ever.
This went on for about a week. I continued the eight-to-five routine, even through the weekend. People could just assume she worked then or was out running errands, and I had no idea what day it was, anyway.
And then it was time. I woke up at seven, took a shower, brushed my teeth. I made myself breakfast: two eggs, over-easy. A side of bacon and a glass and a half of white grape juice. I tipped the frying pan on its side and made an awful mess of the stove before washing my hands and gathering my things. Well, her things really. Her cell phone, her purse, her keys, her body.
I wasn't sure if what I did next would work, but I couldn't think of any other reasonable option. I went to a gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. For the next couple hours, I sat behind an abandoned building and smoked as many of them as I could. Having never been a smoker, I coughed, and then I puked, and then I coughed some more and passed out. Apparently it is possible to overdose on nicotine.
When I woke up, the pavement around me was sweltering, and I was so dizzy. I let out a nauseous "ugh" and just like I had hoped, my voice sounded husky, older, and not like mine. I sidled up the wall of the building and regained my balance. Was I ready to do this? I guess I didn't really have a choice.
Driving through her neighborhood, it appeared that I had chosen a weekday; cars were missing and garages were closed all down her street. I parked about three blocks from her house and went to do the deed.
I had just barely started driving away when her cell phone started ringing.
"Hello?"
"Is this Ms. Tamara Lowalter?"
Lowalter. "Speaking?"
"This is the Jameson County Fire Department."
"Oh my God."
Overkill #9 - Nonfiction by Katie McHugh, '13
(“I can’t prove this makes any sense, but I sure hope that it does.”)
Before I began writing and drawing, I immersed myself in music. And I’m not talking about tinkering on the plastic keys of some electronic piano or cutting my fingers on guitar strings…nah, that came years later, and not very far.
Why it’s so hard to write about music: It came before language. Before I could speak well, there was the car radio and WDVE. A child can’t articulate the deep senses of wonder thrumming through her, can’t take separate things like hot, clear skies and luminescent leaves of grass, and tie them together into a fitting frame of reference. Expanses and pieces of beauty assure her, though, of a larger world than herself, one she’ll join soon, someday. The child knows she contains multitudes because bigger things than her tell her so.
Led Zeppelin was the music of my kidhood. Next came U2. Rush after them. But Led Zeppelin:
When you’re eight years old and listening to the layered lyrics of “Ramble On” on the radio, your comprehension skills, so valued in the standardized classroom, are put on hold. I guess some people, listening through all of the CDs for the first time, wonder how one band could sing themselves hoarse in “Heartbreaker,” then, on the same track, switch to the jaded, jaunty “Livin’, Lovin’ Maid,” and then traipse onto “Stairway to Heaven” and rattle through “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Ramble On.” It’s not hard to figure out, though. They’ve just found out how to fully express their range of comprehension. They created and defined their external frame of reference. Each song is the crystallization of several emotions, thoughts, fantasies, impressions, memories…
When you’re ten years old and laying in bed during a hot May night, and you can’t imagine yourself anywhere else but school, school, and more school, you wrap your headphones cords around your fingers and snap shut the flimsy jaw of your cassette player. First there is the moment of sacred silence before you press PLAY. Headphones encircle your head; you crush one foam disc painfully against the pillow, sinking into a reverie. The button clicks and suddenly Bono is howling, singing U2’s unusual brand of dignified anguish. They are searching. So are you. Their songs are thrillingly spiritual: you have no understanding of God except for what you cannot express, but these guys introduce you to expanses of the soul you never thought to tread. They lift up your days and light up your nights.
When you’re twelve years old and crammed into a yellow cattle car every morning and afternoon, jolting along home and bruising your knees against the hard seat in front of you, there’s the electric trill and thin falsetto of Rush to make the long ride worthwhile. The only way to handle this kind of music is to throw open your windows at home and turn up the stereo as loud as you can. Nothing can contain the spirit of the radio. You just let it permeate the still, cool atmosphere of a late March afternoon. Rush is really something else, you think. They even quote Shakespeare, whose glorious sonnets are finally becoming clear after months of unknowing readings, like a muddied creek shining clear after a few hours of peace. One kind of music leads to another.
About five or six years later, I got a four disc set of Led Zeppelin that had most of their songs on it. I’d tap on the CD player until it worked, and I’d lie on my floor and listen. Sound filled the room. I just lay there. Joy by osmosis. Yeah. I guess that’s all what listening to music really is. You are what you absorb. Maybe, if you rewind the tapes enough times.
—Katie McHugh
Overkill #9 - Even more poetry, anonymous
A Reminder to Myself
In my sleep, I have burnt down houses with a cigarette.
I have driven my car into a river in the dead of night.
I have coughed down drinks to help me forget
One accident while causing another. Two wrongs are not a right.
I would cut off my nose to spite my face,
I would cut off my feet to lose a race.
I have drawn my own blood in the name of art
Just to see the picture it would make. I tore it apart.
But I would never tear out my eyes.
They serve as a reminder of everything I lack.
They remind me that I am not human inside.
Playing Pretend
You are a child dressed in your father’s ties.
You are a child in your mother’s make-up.
Quit telling yourself lies.
Put down the cup.
None of this ever made you brave or strong.
None of this ever made you beautiful.
You were always so wrong.
Stop pushing, and pull.
Give something to yourself. Quit playing
As though you were born as a victim.
You know where you’ve been laying
And where you should’ve been.
Gather up your guts, if you have any enduring.
Climb over the hurdles and walls you built
From the accidents you found reassuring.
Don’t trip over your guilt.
I would punch you square in the mouth, you fuck,
But I do not want to risk seven years of bad luck.
Tower of Babbel
I will keep speaking Arabic, and you keep staring at me with those dumb eyes.
I do not understand a word of your advice; it can never be properly applied.
Talking to you is something like teaching calculus to a second grader
Because he will try his best, but he cannot do long division without getting a remainder.
I am good at math,
But I struggle at arts and crafts.
Everything get shifted or skewed to the left before the glue has dried.
I see that you mean to be sincere, but I cannot fathom your advice.
It is for people that think there is such a thing as love and an afterlife.
I am lost for words that make sense beyond a tombstone epitaph.
Everything you utter is foreign, even your laugh.
My throat is so dry
For water or a tequila sunrise.
I really cannot tell the differences anymore, like the one between death and life.
It is all so redundant and all of the metaphors are empty.
All of the comparisons are painfully obvious and adolescent.
Each subtle play on words is lost on carelessness. You cannot see.
I am waiting until summer. I need something iridescent.
Crime and Punishment
You cannot pretend you’re unobtainable or fake confidence.
You cannot fix all of the imperfections of your face and body.
You cannot say intelligent things about interesting topics,
But you can get on your back or your hands and knees.
You eyes look so vacant now, but nobody sees the fade.
The glint dissipated gradually until you were not even human.
Yes, you are still sad when you look in the mirror at the mess you’ve made,
But it is only because you know logically that it is a sin.
You ironically do not even believe in god’s existence,
And you resent the church, but you use all their terms.
You label your wrongdoings with jargon to create a distance
Between yourself and everything that hurts you. You never learn.
So keep crawling from bed to bed, and wake up in the morning
Feeling even more empty and alone than you used to be
Before all the drunken, weekend whoring.
The worst part is deserving it, as far as you can see.
What did you do to earn anyone to keep you warm?
What did you ever do to earn anyone meaning a word like love?
You know everything you have done has torn
Other people apart. You are too wretched for words, when push comes to shove.
Please, just stop talking and stop writing.
For everyone’s sake,
Just go out in an instant, like a strike of lightening
Or sleep but do not wake.
Cyborg or Almost One
He tasted like poison and tequila and broken glass,
And I would never apologize enough.
I wish that I could fall in love,
And I bet you are glad you did not. Or it did not last.
I never meant all of the mistakes that make up my skeleton
Or the torn wires and rusted machines
That made up my organs and kept me lean.
The only thing I wanted to eat was a heart, so I could feel one.
But I will never hold one, pulsing in my hand and still alive
Or even from the grave, cold and hard.
That is too much like myself, and the living are on guard.
I would just bury myself, but it would be redundant if I died.
So spit your cold words, and pull the warm ones inside yourself.
Keep them thriving inside your guts
Because everything I am will never be enough
To be a true mother, lover, friend, or sister. I am nothing else
But a robot full of nuts and bolts,
But mostly nuts.
Overkill #9 - Original Poetry by Rachel Panepinto, '13
Wasted Winter
Lost I was in the midst of a bitter night.
Unaccompanied, but comforted for I
saw myself standing between
two dark outlines; a silhouette of trees
all leaning steadily. And me, arching my back upon its
tense, torn bark, looked through and up
around the fog to find all the misplaced birds
absent with black feathers
that welcomed themselves upon my winter skin.
Yet flicking them once, I was baffled to find—
looking up, what my eyes observed
were all but colors upon their bare wings!
And the fruitless vines, broken branches still
watched over me as the birds let out a fierce trill;
tipped the skinny cigarette between my fingers
downward, down, until the ashes met the grayness
on the ground. How I realized still, that Me, Oh I
was older than now. Smarter, braver, wiser—
altogether I saw what I could not see before,
sinking in my darkened essence I remembered
to look back at me-that-was-lost and point
toward home. That's when I knew I was not
alone.
Rachel Panepinto
Overkill #9 - Original Poetry by Kevin Brazda, '12
While I Wait
Every word I gather, I take a chance
That you’ll be there: my soul’s romance,
For even when you are gone, you still remain
Like a painting that needs no frame
There is only time between us,
And so many signs that will give way,
And on the day I have you again
We’ll hop scotch over the sun,
And wag it’s tail until it begs for night
I’ll never deny it-- you are a gift
For so much gone and yet so much achieved
I’ll be climbing the hills seeking you
Because you are so fun to chase--
It is what made us happy in the beginning,
You were thumping your paws beckoning me
Ready to venture off with me, next to the greenhouse
When the crowd was in session.
Every word I gather, I take a chance
That you’ll be there; my soul’s romance,
For even when you are gone, you still remain
Like endless pleasant thoughts on board a train
And when I reach my destination
I won’t be sad that you are not there
Because your presence will linger the air,
And that is prize enough for centuries without you,
And your trail will carry me forward again,
My sprightly evening star like a beacon above a vengeful sea,
Showing what light has come to be--
Only space lies between us,
And all that can come in a day-- means nothing,
When I dream of the curiosity in your heart
So many signs will give way so quickly,
Before I know it, I have thumped home again,
And your warm footprint is upon the grass,
And when your not there I will look up and smile,
I’ll bask in knowing I’ll wait awhile,
You are above,
My shining sun and promised song,
For in this endless repetition of buildings, bombs and squares,
It is you that I follow so fair
And every word I gather, I take a chance
That you’ll be there: my soul’s romance
For even when you are gone, you still remain
Like endless pleasant thoughts on board a train.
-Kevin J. Brazda
April 6, 2010
Fishing on the Shenandoah
Open your curtains
to the sight of burning pages before the sun.
Watch each word make its way softly into the glow
While children play market music with picks and wooded instruments.
The trees have given them time,
and ripped each day to shreds,
so that they can say, “we’ve made them mine,”
but keep they’re shadows wafting the mind,
they never go, they have all of time.
Look now—down at the passing streams –waters covered by shadow:
a combination thick with incognito desire,
and restless charm like aqua wire
then stare deeper into the waters meeker
what would the bottom say if it had a speaker?
pass on and see the clear shimmering bass,
whose scaly-sunned bodies echo color like brass.
Shake out your rugs upon the waters,
that you want to believe hope for daughters,
wash them consolingly,
red bold cloth turns dark brown in water--
dock your canoe so to Fly-Fish in the shallow waters
under the shade of both species: tree and fish.
Eyes closed, as you smile because of the sound of water
playing around your legs,
that sound whispers to you:
“Love the surroundings so much because they are silent,
and yet still so loudly in love”
Purple Velvet
Quickly, you elope with the nightly fancy
That one that is clothed in purple velvet
And it engages the invisible while you know nothing
But the smell, that of rose water, so full
Quickly, you elope with the nightly fancy
Again, a figure in purple, this time angry
And seeking blood to be thrown upon
That invisible something, so that it can be seen,
But the smell, that of sadness, so full
Quickly, you elope with the nightly fancy
Much the same, a rocky red road,
And that damn purple velvet again
Beckoning you for bowling pins
But the pins, are the heads of vanquished innocents, so full
Quickly, you elope with the nightly fancy
That one when you sit in silence,
And a tickle works its way up your spine
And your eye-brows curve like waves
But the sharks, they hide in those waves
And bid they’re time, for evening is giving way to dawn, so full
A Poem of Titles:
vanguards of the vine, do speak now,
or hold in silence the drops of Los Angeles rain,
keep in secret the wisdom of all time,
while i nuzzle my head into the hedge maze
whisper small notes and clues,
and here is what you told me:
table scraps and worn keyboards
as umbrella companions
under a once red moon
in control of our little italians
so we don't steal away from those writers
they're own idols and emeralds of connotation
tapping away all day on one useless machine
wearing it thin until you see your reflection
ate away yesterday's leftovers
and syphoned serenity out of television pipes
over that rainbow when there is no sky
but fluttered Veterans hoping to die,
richer and taller in the rain,
hopeless and kind
under a once red moon
Yellow bush Driveway
In my old cracked cemented driveway
where I used to live and play,
the gentle summer breeze
filled my sneakers with pep and charge
to climb the tree in the front yard,
where I leapt with superhuman strength
onto the roof and looked down
at my old cracked cemented driveway
where grew a yellow bush.
Up here I can see it all,
from my cul-de-sac
onward I would dare to look—
at Other worlds down the street.
The binding sounds of youth would fill me,
chalk spread by small hands on asphalt,
someone, somewhere playing Crash Bandicoot.
There is no question about it,
Deer Park Lane was the Origin of something wonderful
My own yellow driveway bush-
a marching free lion upon pale murmurs in autumn.
No endless volume could describe where I have got to now,
don’t go looking for me in that old lane,
or in the bulb flashes of a Name,
I am charging by in all directions,
bringing communion to earth’s inceptions
like the birth of that yellow bush
in my old cracked driveway.
-Kevin J. Brazda, April 6, 2:30pm
The Strength of Strings
Feelings –all, we know too well,
Like storms approaching us on our
Little row boat –that we fear but still
We smile back at them
Feelings –all, we know too well,
The approach of dark green skies
Troubling our still waters with rain drops
Words from angels who wish for play time
Feelings –all, we know too well,
The instruments in tune with each other,
A romance of time that cannot end
As long as talent abounds like curious listeners
Strings –all, we know too well,
Awaiting for the crescendo and refrain
The promised song of god breaking quickly
Like damsels and swordsmen running
With haste to the cathedral door.
Love –all, we know to well,
Like a gentle snow falling in silence
On our little tea cup house, cold but –
Warmed by one heater in the corner—
Melting snow as we smile back at her.
Lost Poems: A Lament
I shed tears in my arms
For all the writings I have made, have been erased,
Either directly or have been lost in time
I still cry and miss them like they are mothers and fathers
How can I find them, where can they have gone to?
Maybe if I create a search party we can look through the forest
But the rains have come and the wind howls down the trees
And their leaves flip and shake away my hopes
And my eyes are burning because I have lost the pen
Where has the paper gone?
Where is the promised group that will guide me along?
But, suddenly -- such a gentle and ease of spirit comes down in the lightning above
And it scares me with its unkind delight,
Oh -- how can I ever tell you where I am going if you cannot be in here watching with me?
This forest of endless mockery and scorn, it shreds my mind to conclusions.
Why do we fight I ask so simply? Please listen, I promise:
I promise that the refrain is coming, the chord that tickles your spine will arrive
But first we try to scower the soil for my leaflets
There is a dense smell of tobacco smoke wafting from a house that I see ahead
No, it is a cabin, and a man is looking at me, he stands in the kitchen doing the dishes
His hands move rhythmically applying soap and a smile digresses onto my face
Because I know that his movements are like the return of spring--
And his form is the assurance that there are many tears to come before we can go home,
Before we can hold hands again: but I am also smiling because I know
That even though the writing of my early teenage hood is lost,
That man is still standing in the kitchen window:
Applying soap, lifting, cleaning and staring out at me,
He sees that I am part of the woods,
He sees me.
Playing Poker
Here it is, the, the entrance of this, this great, hopeful, majestic
And innocent child, he dances with his arms chopping the armies of the air
And the commandant reaches down to scratch his back,
The response from the audience is one of endearing emptiness
People, here it is, what you paid for, the entrance of this, this great,
This pure and unblemished child.
Do not do harm on the child that lives within, never dare tamper with the muse
That cold oboe and clarinet that elongate themselves onto the trajectory of sin
Try, how the muse tries to stay calm and remorseful and without canopies of copies
This is the invention of emotion, the return of what you have already danced upon
But no sword stroke is like any other
No sand pebble is the same nor -like the snowflakes—such clichés
No, the people seek for their elbows and knees to be only so sore,
Truthfully, only a select few are strong enough to dance.
Here it is, the, the entrance of this, this great, hopeful, majestic—
Just stop it there, the adjectives need to go, the words should remain:
But only in small portions, the music should rest, the cards are random
We cannot choose nor burn those who lose, but play well the tunnel:
When you are fenced in from both sides by stronger hands,
Engage in speedy prayer and swift removal,
The way back home is thin, narrow and nearly impossible.
Thus you must forget the roaring of the engines that echo
And reverberate off the cylindrical cone you find yourself in.
Go not forth into unreasoned decision,
But prefer the damaging truth to advantageous error.
And when you win, which you will, slowly smile into the denouement.
For a smile, a smile can command oceans.
Rise
There is a place on the distant shore
Where all is new and you never bore
And to this rock we gently offend
The markings on it that bear no trend
To the markings on our rock in our den
For call me foolish or forceful or both
But do not expect this to not help my growth
By speaking with toxin’s tongue
You have climbed that ladder another rung
Of which Jacob championed and fell again
For it is the nature of all the men,
To appeal to places, appearances and sores
But I sing not from a shallow bluff
Hidden in the risen cuff,
While I have avoided metallic chains, hooks and gangs
Where all is new and you never bore?
On that swiveling rock do you gently offend?
What I see is a swinging arm bent to snatch and erase
All of the most juicy wonderful dreams and leave no trace
Well, that is the battle,
We all want to call our rock the true and only marking
But call me foolish or forceful or both
But I see plainly --- many rocks scattered about this field
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