Trembling Tyler,
he sits
in the center of a living room;
Tyler walks his tremors
into bleached sidewalk
across naked grass
grasping for thick threads
of sun
or wallowing in shade;
Trembling, Tyler
pours ice-water
over etched diamonds of glass;
a sporadic splash
of minute droplets
containing light
interrupts the uniform
of summer heat
covering his forearm.
Feeling deadly, crumpled
but not crushed, his
pulse full of alacrity
and acrid with burnt blood,
barking shins and hooking
sore insoles on hardwood doors,
trapped by the heat
of hot-boxing his own head,
clad only, as ever,
in backdrop black,
a skinny shadow
wades through summer afternoons;
Tyler tries to remember
the last time he wasn't tired.
Monday, October 1, 2012
More Tired, More Tyler
As you may know, I've been working on a cycle, series, or epic (whoa) poem solipsistically titled "Tired Tyler." Despite the numbered nature of my previous posts from this series, it's become less of a round arc and more of an ongoing diary (but more pretentious, naturally). In light of my recently reticent blogging behavior, I've decided to pull from these poetic journal pieces and share them with you, even some experiments in different voices and frames of mind, of which "It Blooms in the Gut" is an example. Thanks for your continued reading, and I hope you enjoy.
Still Writing?! What?!!!
Hey there poetry party people. I know it's been a while since this blog has enjoyed any kind of regularity in posting (possibly since I've begun the damn thing), but the sporadic nature of my posts follows the irregularity of both my living situation and my flirtations with the creative muse (who or whatever that may be). Apologies to all who have suffered for this lack of sweet, sweet poetry (and my inherent laziness). I've got a whole bunch'a poetic junk built up that I intend to dump on you guys over the next couple of weeks. And if that beautiful sentence didn't get you guys excited, well just wait for what comes next.
It Blooms in the Gut
Kelsey kills
another five
in the kitchen bathroom, not
using, just sitting and
mopping sweat
with rough paper towels, her hair
slickened and dark
across her brow.
Hangers with ties, rumpled
white button-ups, server
shirts, hair-gell, and paper
for bodies in need, this
is a utility closet
with a porcelain throne,
she muses silently,
and I'm its temporary queen.
Wristwatch, shaving-nicks
on her pearlescent shins,
bussing apron stained and strewn
like her laundry back home.
I make my mark
wherever I go. She touches
the tender scars
of her lower legs, stands,
sways for the thud
of a few blood confused moments
and undoes the latch, kills
the light, and walks out.
The sluggish bedding slips
her pale shoulders
in turning from open space and
coffee table lip
to plush furniture backing,
a vertical frame of foam
for her face to press against,
or pretend to rest as
soft voices whisper defferential
to her faux-insensate form,
sluggish and crackling
teeth
like enameled tectonic plates;
and she crumbles, and
half of her head feels thick
with unseen tunnels
ore-laden and too close
to fault-lines or
buried nerves.
The coffee taste
still burns her mouth, but
cool
water
doesn't exist in the mouth; it
blooms in the gut, an
icy bath of clarity itself, and
that's her center
for five seconds; for five seconds
she revolves around it
tranquil as a top.
Curiously (or not) cocktails
reach that spot, flowering
in hot amber and subdermal violet, or
stung red by the salt-rich sea
(only oxidizing rarely) sea-sick
with the punch-drunk
revolutions wobbling, tripping
as their centers grow.
Eyes open,
throat hot
with the thick cord of liquid
downed
in a triumph of thirst,
steady, weight
pinioned against her small, padded hands,
fingernails
too long,
trying to sink
into a frozen quicksilver pool.
She works to wright her sway.
Sails of sleeves,
white, billow in breezes
and cling to hollows
where air has escaped; her
hollows rasp breezily
and she shifts
and tugs at her bra-strap.
another five
in the kitchen bathroom, not
using, just sitting and
mopping sweat
with rough paper towels, her hair
slickened and dark
across her brow.
Hangers with ties, rumpled
white button-ups, server
shirts, hair-gell, and paper
for bodies in need, this
is a utility closet
with a porcelain throne,
she muses silently,
and I'm its temporary queen.
Wristwatch, shaving-nicks
on her pearlescent shins,
bussing apron stained and strewn
like her laundry back home.
I make my mark
wherever I go. She touches
the tender scars
of her lower legs, stands,
sways for the thud
of a few blood confused moments
and undoes the latch, kills
the light, and walks out.
The sluggish bedding slips
her pale shoulders
in turning from open space and
coffee table lip
to plush furniture backing,
a vertical frame of foam
for her face to press against,
or pretend to rest as
soft voices whisper defferential
to her faux-insensate form,
sluggish and crackling
teeth
like enameled tectonic plates;
and she crumbles, and
half of her head feels thick
with unseen tunnels
ore-laden and too close
to fault-lines or
buried nerves.
The coffee taste
still burns her mouth, but
cool
water
doesn't exist in the mouth; it
blooms in the gut, an
icy bath of clarity itself, and
that's her center
for five seconds; for five seconds
she revolves around it
tranquil as a top.
Curiously (or not) cocktails
reach that spot, flowering
in hot amber and subdermal violet, or
stung red by the salt-rich sea
(only oxidizing rarely) sea-sick
with the punch-drunk
revolutions wobbling, tripping
as their centers grow.
Eyes open,
throat hot
with the thick cord of liquid
downed
in a triumph of thirst,
steady, weight
pinioned against her small, padded hands,
fingernails
too long,
trying to sink
into a frozen quicksilver pool.
She works to wright her sway.
Sails of sleeves,
white, billow in breezes
and cling to hollows
where air has escaped; her
hollows rasp breezily
and she shifts
and tugs at her bra-strap.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Vesuvius I
Vesuvius I!
Accelerator of heat and steam
conjuring visions
like volatile wisps of smoke
marrying neurons, making
the forehead dance
like a buttered walk, a shingled house
under tropical rain; my pain
is the under-earth river, the
stoppered spout turning its tide
around
to lick its original lips, grip
and shake shells boiling their
insides solid; and liquid heat-dreams
squeeze dark
across ruinous landscapes of pillow,
shadows lapped and layered like batter,
clawed
and caressed
like clay, profane
as heathen dancers
spinning the wrong way,
Or is it me? a wheel
or globe, a centrifugal
molten core, a gestalt top
of stars bounded by far-reaching black
and sweat-stained blankets.
I kick at quilts, leave
slug-trails face-down, licking
run-off
from my lips.
I'm a pressure cooker
on a vision-quest, pressing
hands against the rattle, ready
to burst reborn, fully formed
of phlegm
from my own head,
an expectorate god of wet and whooping wind,
and my sighs are saturated,
and I am thickened
by vicious soups of viscous sin,
cracking the nut I live within.
Accelerator of heat and steam
conjuring visions
like volatile wisps of smoke
marrying neurons, making
the forehead dance
like a buttered walk, a shingled house
under tropical rain; my pain
is the under-earth river, the
stoppered spout turning its tide
around
to lick its original lips, grip
and shake shells boiling their
insides solid; and liquid heat-dreams
squeeze dark
across ruinous landscapes of pillow,
shadows lapped and layered like batter,
clawed
and caressed
like clay, profane
as heathen dancers
spinning the wrong way,
Or is it me? a wheel
or globe, a centrifugal
molten core, a gestalt top
of stars bounded by far-reaching black
and sweat-stained blankets.
I kick at quilts, leave
slug-trails face-down, licking
run-off
from my lips.
I'm a pressure cooker
on a vision-quest, pressing
hands against the rattle, ready
to burst reborn, fully formed
of phlegm
from my own head,
an expectorate god of wet and whooping wind,
and my sighs are saturated,
and I am thickened
by vicious soups of viscous sin,
cracking the nut I live within.
Willing My Eardrums to Rupture
Go pop!
Break the levee
of my inner-ear
and drown out noise,
peaceful relief, a
liquid sigh
of red and green and air
commingling, estuarial, a
drip drip
onto the pillowcase
slick with
pain bleeding out.
Oh, how it would spout!
Cooling slowly
in magma scabbed mounds, a
gorey rorschach
of brown, shaped
like brain matter
splattered, in Pollocky spurts
down the easel
of my lobe.
Break the levee
of my inner-ear
and drown out noise,
peaceful relief, a
liquid sigh
of red and green and air
commingling, estuarial, a
drip drip
onto the pillowcase
slick with
pain bleeding out.
Oh, how it would spout!
Cooling slowly
in magma scabbed mounds, a
gorey rorschach
of brown, shaped
like brain matter
splattered, in Pollocky spurts
down the easel
of my lobe.
Back to Poetics of Grossness
So, as often happens to me during times of good weather, eating relatively well (for me), and generally taking things easy, I've come down with some sort of sickness, most probably a flue (though I secretly suspect brain-ebola, or nostril dwelling head slugs). In any case, I thought this would be a good time to return to some of my favorite stylistic tendencies, namely the descriptive power of grossness and disgust. I explained my use of subjects normally considered odious or repellent in a previous post (which I'm sure you remember, dear reader), but to illustrate those principles again, I'm posting a couple of poems inspired by my sickness, both mental and corporeal. Hopefully these verbal children of my fever dreams are of suitable poetic interest, or at least a decent read. Enjoy!
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