Winter (Safekeeping)

Winter (Safekeeping)


these days you leave your warmth at the door

the careless take it with them,
arrive stripped and breathless and blowing it
into their hands

you know it's worse
to have something stolen than to give it up willingly
which must be why last night
before you left you pressed it into my lips
full and quick
a parting gift

for all the moments we wanted to and couldn't
outside in the cold when you invited me in
but i, in my skin stretched so tight
couldn't move for shaking and excused myself,
embarrassed, left you wondering
was it something you'd done wrong

for safekeeping
for when the time comes to brave the cold
and we'll lock the doors

valentine's day comes early. enjoy!

//Ill Arrows All Awry//

//Ill Arrows All Awry//
A rose cigar end between his fingers and a thought blossoming into the brain:
“The death of a cigarette proceeds you”.
A man smokes putting his ashes into his wife’s urn,
at around one in the afternoon and
an irremissible crescent of sun shines on the horizon.

“How tragic that love between two people can never be anything more than folie à deux, déjà vu? …quelquechose, comme un trou dans le vent.

Taught nothing but enough
There’s nothing to say.”

Nicotine
Will never reach nearly the right shade of yellow
reaching through his ears like pollen kisses on his rosy way.

>>------->
Ill arrows,
all awry
<-------<<

Something I've been milling away at based on an as yet incomplete rather post-apocalyptic short story I was working on about nuclear winter in England. These are just my thoughts on an allegory of a man that the main character encounters at some point on his way across part of the country. The tone's rather noir. The last bit came to me just now after talking to James a bit about the absurdity of Valentine's day even when you're with someone.

French traduction: 'folie à deux, déjà vu? …quelquechose, comme un trou dans le vent.' = 'a madness shared by two (rare psychological condition), already seen (self-explanatory)...something (an implacable intangible something), like a hole in the wind'

A classifaction of circumlocution to a point of location. That being:

Santiago.

We hunt and forgather at the capital of ceramic.

It is jealous and lost.

But we have our vases.

The street is the horse,

and it runs. Red.

Clay, we coagulate; a need for succession?

Perdition? Prevention?

No. We have our paper cliche.

Shelved heads.

They are lost and jealous.

The vases: "Spurn enervation."

A streak-- Spanish horseflesh-breeze on the gritted streets.

Compounded existence (that is, Santiago–- Ed.).

My love, unknown greets, bemoaned, these fleets (that is, of foot-- Ed.).

Those, of the capital of ceramic (that is, conventional-- Ed.).

In light of James' nostalgia, I dug up one of my own poems of the past. Back when I had the confidence to write, when I (blessedly) didn't consider, couldn't conceive or perceive the notion that anyone could write better than I could, or that they did. I was a huge fan of using the thesaurus and unearthing exotic words, the type that you could drop in a sentence and create an area of ambiguity and uncertainty (there's a certain term that Wordsworth used for it, but I can't remember what it is). On top of that, I was also rabid about (and still am) creating one-shot locations and characters (in this case, 'Santiago', despite it being a real name/place) that produced more mystery than definition or something definitive, that would give the reader (hopefully) so much more to think about than the actual words on the page. A lack of finality, a prolonged existence for the poem, etc.. I don't know.

In short, but not really in summary, it's an approximate opposite to James' most recent post ("What's More Important").

Despite possibly being premature, how would you guys feel about compiling some sort of sampler (themed, maybe?) to publish in print. Something to get ourselves out there, as the adage goes, or something to get Pedestrian Protection some publicity (equating to an audience/readership). Thoughts?

I ask because the group that inspired this one, Mediocre Militia, is releasing their own sampler of art and comics this month.

Gunter, post something.

What's More Important

What's More Important


is the kind of honesty where
I'm able for a fleeting moment to return
to the truth that lines and gives shape to the days
that make up the months that make up my life
as I live it.

what I want is to bypass entirely
the insignificancies that have attached themselves
to me with the passing years,
to know what changed within
the scrawny, rubbery figure

who watched television and, inspired,
told his mother that if He were to play football
professionally,
that after every down He would get up
and hand the ball back to the official.

has He forgotten that dream of kindness?
so soon, has He popped the balloon
that was only just tied to his wrist?
what does He need to accomplish
before He arrives at that place
He knows exists (or at least used to),

that place that He can only glimpse and find
reflected in so-called trivial moments? that place
he knows is a little closer when He stands up
too fast

and for half a second
gravity forgets to breathe
and the horizon and He lock eyes,

or lies bed-bound all day
following the ceiling fan, thinking helplessly
about Blair C; of how she disappeared
because her mom got fed up
with just about everything;

of her hair, and the way she always smelled
like watercolors, and the valentines she sent
carelessly to fragile hearts,
never meaning to break them,
never knowing she could;

of how He had loved her,
and what He’d try to say if He saw her again,
and those stupid, aching motions of the heart.

the last submission was an old one, but this is comparatively ancient. still a few people tell me it's one of my better creative farts. yes of course that's how i think of them.

Liberal & Complicated


getting by these days, glad you asked
but not ecstatic, see I’m self-sufficient

digesting the latest Radiohead album
and my upped dosage of Wellbutrin

it’s empowering not to care about the gov’t,
old friends, new friends, whomever
stands on two legs; they all exhaust me

it cost too much to run away, in many ways, and
I thought about ending it but
in the end it was easier to just check out

show up to class, find a routine
watch TV with a friend or two

ridicule commercials for not getting me
say I Do to five miles twice a week

maintaining distaste for the status quo
still acquiescing, getting by

swearing, if I can’t do something with this life
I won’t try

IX

The queen quakes.
She slumbers, unencumbered by callous thoughts
or splintered, shredding worries.
Her bed is soft, but bears my
blistered hand by her side; a
bold brandisher of battle-blade
and blood-bludgeoner.
It trembles amidst comfort, laid
in domesticity.

Nothing to say about this one. Just a return to the eponymous 'Plain Praetorian' poem.

Expect more, for better or for worse.

Radio


Mary loves everyone

listens
to the radio

doesn't mind
commercials

likes knowing
somebody's there

loves to
listen

guards her heart with an
infinite kindness

sleeps in

asks the ceiling: "have I not been
Good enough?"

waits for answers

has doubts

pounds the wheel
at night in her driveway

takes a
deep breath

turns on the radio

loves everyone

i have a mild fascination with the name mary, as gunter knows. he put it better himself than i could: "on one hand, mary the mother of christ, on the other mary magdaline, the prostitute. every man's ideal."

this doesn't deal with that at all, but it's a fun way to judge anybody you know named mary.

i'm james by the way! howdy! harass me at http://kidjumpsearly.blogspot.com/.