Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Timothy Ballan
2009
Contents
Acknowledgements.................................................3
Disclaimer..............................................................4
Experimental Poems...............................................5
Nonsense Poems...................................................15
Semi-Nonsense Poems.........................................23
Imaginative Poems...............................................44
Serious Poems......................................................63
"Maxims"..............................................................75
About the Author................................................81
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge my friend Molly Kienzler for helping
proofread this book.
Disclaimer
I refuse to use quotation marks in such a way that envelopes any
commas or periods not suggested by the quoted material. For
example, quoting a child saying the words "I don't want to go now",
I did not put the comma within the quotation marks, as the comma is
not suggested by the child's words. On the other hand, I will end
this next sentence in a different way. As someone once said, "Use
your head, not your rule book."
With a similar emphasis on clarity over convention, I also
follow dashes with commas at times. Even if preceded by a dash
as I will now demonstrate, I retain commas that retain usefulness.
Beyond just punctuation, though, I'd hope abundant clarity pervades
my writing, from word order, to sentence structure, to overall
presentation of ideas.
I. Experimental Poems
Experiment in Rhyme, Meter, and Timbre (Not a Title)
Ocuci le cantor somori,
angsfuto selemin orfithe,
Il sortu comlefin, onstru alfin lefenin,
ornibthol sontorna.
Zangst orsi alphene, on t'ua benin lefifino,
Torlei min corlefinastor, aie stron fo'lequinstro normi-trolle.
Torlemin, torlemin, alfortin quinstro!
Eifenstron, eifenstron, nebisquonti stronto!
Normon equonilon eishtontay qualefin,
Eiminilon oquinstror, fiendor lemento.
Poicu foo'poi vihalin apoi ci phav'pohe-chof,
achpo pac fore soj, poa'ofoie sma'ootolin.
Riehnd ihd'li shime or-piohf,
fjoh mofhor doif-dijifoi,
ra' ofoe dohlitoid'tie feihthro ieg'th ofrefoh.
Epho-aiifit
sohf e'pa appth'sro yigh'thit,
aph'toiheto ol satiepous,
doe sohfi dippe diht,
oihtdhi t' diohes'tioe,
n'evieglemin, trochitroi.
Experiment in Word Creation with Only a Few Letters (Not a Title)
[sad puas f'ou pofap,
[ou pufu sud foa odspo podsa fup.
5
Shickemee Pliverings
Shickemee Pliverings
Eissenberg Wuthernugs;
Eissenstein Heatherflurrs,
Eissen-Fierr; Wassworthhockhenhash.
Merramee Wackernacks,
Merramee Forfafoss,
Bobbalee Fatterback,
Batterbee Hugalee.
6
Grabbenhist Hardeleece,
Tanishmuss Smoothenstub,
Kissenfur Bellabee,
Smellakin,
Beautafin.
(Eissenfeim Witherknor,
Upselteim Anthrogreebrian.
Fabberlee Instreigleforb,
Nissernath Embrattlebee.
Bobbaloo, Babbalee
Long Brattlebash
Bill Langostroforth.
Bingtrampher Fangrattlefee
Nottlegnash Angsselstrand.)
Morrow Borrow Poorish Pilk
Morrow Borrow Poorish Pilk
Piddly Scromfroom Lorry-Lory Jook;
Finite liddul bees,
forish hee-lilly lie-fie milk;
Cacks and cramperfores,
heigh-feigh hook:
Morrow Borrow,
Morrow Borrow,
Morrow Boorow Poorish Pilk!
Clengenfoher
Clengenfoher... D'Treminste ineinstreife bessci'coun.
Deliverinstreemort'l feig'heig'nelter'streif.
Morangt'hro foreansteetine
Liberaccio enteltta everfleuore
7
himself.
Did You Know?
Did you know that Mother Lucy was a Grindle-Beir?
Did you know that Uncle Tommy used to push me?
This College
This college ain't not not have a film deree, bu it has many courses
availing in vido experimention and producting.
What If?
What if you weighed yourself and found that you were hundreds of
pounds heavier than you thought?
Kid Gloves
Are "kid gloves" made FOR kids or made FROM kids? I mean
human kids, not goat kids.
What Would You Do?
What would you do if you were a pharmacist who received a
prescription for "poison"?
Evil Doers
evil doers wanted are hopeful,
so therefore, let the limelight go.
Old Stupid Certain Hope
Old stupid certain hope
9
This's
this's ofed and anded on abstract in long ined like othering.
I Just Saw Something
I just saw something recently, but it had rust on it.
My Message to a Celebrity
Do you realize that you are as fake as your tan?
Rename
rename uglyly volunteer in RI before March 4
Norman Devall
Norman Devall was also on the windshield.
Be Careful
I need to be careful so as not to get hurt.
Click Here
no, click here!
I Find
I find that
I cannot stop time.
Whitney
12
14
frozen lakes and pepper snakes and rosie the law did me
frozen snakes and peppered lakes and rosie and all did me
frozen lakes and pepper stakes and roseade a la did meet
I Know Not Where the Skies Lie Pitting
I know not where the skies lie pitting,
but I see for whence thy hart is knitting;
Upon thy brow,
There lies the rub,
not in or for Stangst dusty Pub!
Inside hearts' cries
long crowds and chicken friends
There lie within and weary stars
and morning Frows,
I win, I begone;
In far worlds along in lostwheir principle,
Einfrow digesting all in sorzing prayer
Pleaseclimb the forest until
Where you are is where you naught to be.
It Is Made of Cheddar
It is made of cheddar in whittled lupus as young mothers sitting in
the night.
There is no waiting or wishing,
for I am the world in a salamander's jelly,
bridled in sittled sepulcher,
curled in cochlear canals,
untwined as an ostrich egg layered in swirlded crushed cacklings
undwerorped.
There are only countless seashells baked into time never unburied,
within the world of caked enmordener,
a soul uncovering the unpattering of Deninfor.
16
Drank Hope
Drank hope and water and eat the world his father is rather
Opstoremain. I ain't a wotter or a willer but a Craffer not a teller; I
ain't your mother or a cantor fat old lass of Kilar Mashtermaigne.
Drank the littles and the lasses and the foremens and the Feedles,
They then cranked the Forbies
And the larbies
And the mothers too.
Blank aBlank aBlank aBlank
aBiddley Bleiburgh Stew!
Yah!
Quaakers and Fiddlecakes
Quaakers and Fiddlecakes lament the Stew of Dreidenstfier.
If I were you and you were I or I were I or you were you I
I you you am am be be about in store and dreighchenleischtte!
Don't fret, Don't fret, Don't fret, Don't fret, it's horrsteim leibeisch in
qrimes duelette!
En Feingst en Dwellste there letters be, in Breid in Forgst in
Feibelentree.
Blaspheme in forkes; in blate en Bee.
I Think That I Sat
I think that I sat but I learned out that the inside was about and torn
like the melted sticker of gumby dead. In a box-like figure it ran
and in tight in deepening subway still and reset, there then in and a
green yellow light which under it sits is bright beige nothing and is
eye like a dark of ovular stickness but still, in the way that a path.
And then, there has some mouth that seems like go but it won't
21
stand over here and that the things that stare on angry and are
whistling rather like a sound that's and moaning of the lights that
pressure are silented in your taste that's a ceiling, you know. (I'm
sorry.)
Undwerdst Beneath This Cataract
Undwerdst beneath this cataract I do indeed remember flack,
a place where all the inward strew beyond that which the windress
flew,
a place in which the Ungerbird sang and starry palms they flew and
flat.
In on beyond the words were none but kept unweighstreing waterin
strack.
Straing, straing, straing-straing-straing-straing, they all would sing
and none could hear
but then the whirls of upstream voice would all become the endless
woo:
the world in upside letters of vow in corl and chraistle the lingrid
non-fool.
We'd all be silent for none could know and know was to one but
there was of none,
a place where lines and corners drew none.
:There was a place where there was Tenn, abide, abid, adone, and
now.
Do not bestow a place unheard or else it never is
But unheard;
this place is gone and never unstood for these own words do die (its
death).
Go to a place where upward winds are none and all the merrymack,
they ate the Grande in feelings slack, they aim to foretaste all in
that.
22
23
Instructions:
Make sure that you staple the improvisation notes together as well
as two pages of chicken. It is surmisable to portend to keep any legs
of such understood note(s) under your mat(s), but make sure to
rather lick the upheind and keep it in its own "rank".
Thank you.
Sincerely,
April Lavinchina
A Voice Note Reminder
Make sure that, right before the desert scene, the piano isn't too
loud, and, when we come back to the picnic with the girl and main
character, when the glockenspiel drops outand make this a poem
too and put that in there and that, make sure that it has less of a
presence.
To Drive More Slowly
I subconsciously choose to drive more slowly than I could,
to be closer to the car behind me,
because it's a lonely night and this is a rural area.
A Bird
There I sat and sat I did
when a little bird came and yes
a-fluttering upon my nose and
back and between that crevice
of that ridge below my
forehead he flut' and a-twittered
25
And, what makes it worse is that no one ever saw her but me,
Even when I showed her to them.
So now I will play this song for her:
Heroic Couplets
If I were to one day turn into a pumpkin,
I would call myself Allie Lynn Lumpkin.
If instead I became a frozen swordfish pie,
I'd convince myself I'd never die.
What if I turned into a chicken, though?
I'd tell myself: better a chicken than a crow!
One Time
One time,
a goose ate a sheep,
who ate a lamb who ate a ghost who ate me-toots,
who ate a lobster made of crabs and Dorothy-eggs, but not the kind
well-known,
who ate a ham,
who ate a clam-bone and dinosaur and a goat-sucker,
who ate a lot of pizza,
and my soul,
and the wee-little twinkle in my eye.
Thankfully Not, or Thankfully So
Thankfully not, or thankfully so
Grandpa came and so did Flo.
Thankfully not, or thankfully so
Grandma sang and sung with woe.
Thankfully not, or thankfully so
28
Li had a pet
korookadoodleoo monster.
3Don't worry the Latin Birds will sing some day! The jack on my
fingers and not on my toes. It helps out a lot if everyone knows. If
only love and joy would mix, the world would be a better place. I'd
love to live in a world where people respect your feelings.
Especially when ya danta flaga mourana la realm! That's all the fire
my fee-ee-eeli-ingsss knooooooooooooooooow!!!!!!!!!!
4"Sorbit Mountain"
It was a treacherous stormy night. A strange woman was passing
through a clearing in the forest with something unknown set in a
basket held close to her body. She approached another grove of
pine trees with several small log cabins at its edge. Ah! It was the
third house down the woman was heading for. The house of
Tangual Marshibia! Twice she had knocked on his bug-infested oak
door. Finally the door opened.
A cheerful voice answered. "Hellooooooh! Oh deer now den, let'z
zdep inzuide heer now!"
Wet and soggy, the old woman stepped through the door while
removing her draping cloak. The young lady who answered the
door was so astonished at the stranger's appearance that she almost
completely tumbled over. The strange woman did look quite
startling with balding dull grayish hair, a permanent wrinkled face in
the shape of a grimace, evil deep-set eyes, and a sharp hawkish
nose.
Her hard heels whacked the floor almost leaving indentations as she
spoke, "I am here to speak with the count Tangual Marshibia. I am
his annual medicine dealer."
The young lady quite hesitantly replied, "I dant truly rememer
30
hers.
It is true that Ms. Molly would have purposely taken
advantage of our darling in such a way as to convince her to
consume her own ankle, thinking it her daughter's? But why ought
there to be any resemblance here to the agriculturally formidable
trading system of South Africa?
"Why How dare you contradict the felonation of Saint Dorris's
philigamyand in such a manner! You ought to bein the most
unprecedented of fashionswith or without the slightest pity here,
and then forevermore... Dorgle's Mary-Ann, I reprove thee, though.
Scoundrel!"
"But, who art you to judge in this"
"Only on your account, only your head. But why sacrifice such
nonsense amidst anciently escaped philanthrophers running about
even in a climate such as where one would be apt to offer up a
rusted pail of dandelions", fading away, dreamily, "on the top of a
bare hill-top, all alone..."
"But, why descend into such maddening clamoritivity, especially
when Dorothy is currently appealing to assume her reign..."
"I am only avoiding the representation of committing to your
dictatorial ralphanom sordinization!"
Bitterly, "Don't defy me."
After a long pause, turning away, and then walking while speaking,
"Death. Death. Only in death."
Georginia's Letter
Hello Emille,
32
My name is Georginia, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about
myself! I come from Saharan India, where I crop on waters not far
from our village, Tavia. For the moment, I prefer dancing with little
octopi and visiting splendid children rather than over-employing my
skills by pursuing what is not profitable for our company. Other
times, I fly the northwind up upon the ferry wingdrop alventhrough!
How delightful it is here: Have you any daughters of your own?
What greater than the milking-tangerine smiles of such precious
creatures of the night. I simply then float on stars!
Oh, Emille. You simply must hear my designation: I've never
visited the Sakuri River, but on one day I'll eat my leg if I don't.
Have you ever seen the inner dynasty? I don't think I could imagine
a descentable life without one. I eat a peach, smiling on a log. And
it is sweet and wet and happy like my inside feelings! Right now
I'm toward the center of the moon where all around is preborn
volcanic ash older than my mother, I've heard it is! Mother never
informed me of such a decision, but I suppose no one's been there
before.
Without delay, I propose to light a fire, an endless fire of the night. I
will seat it upon my head and walk the rivers of my country so that
the little birds and animals can be warm and have a little lighting at
night. That will be enjoyable. But until then, I assume life here will
have to travel in its assumed patterns of expectancy, wherein all else
is fatal. And no, mother-of-felia, I don't intend on porchifying my
lip upon any calgaries! Without you, I wouldn't be unhappy. Your
smile looks beautiful in your picture and I hope to send you one of
my wood paintings later on. I hope your weather is kind and that
one day you will visit my homes!
Dorothy
Too Much Thinking Can Be More Dangerous Than Too Little
33
Karen,
Me was just about e-mail you let you know about me phone! But
then me thought you think me up too late when you got it in
morning... but then me remember it not that late and then me saw
that you had sent a message already right before I checked my
messages a few minutes ago, probably around the time I was
thinking of e-mailing you before I decided against it. Although, I'm
not completely sure of the exact times that those thoughts occurred
in my mind and how they corresponded to the time that you sent the
e-mail and I don't even think that I know the range of probable
cause of lapsing times abounding about through the air that is really
light but I think particles energy but I guess I or anyone that is or
can be but I'm not sure if that is there or not but I will conclude that
I can't be sure that you aren't a piece of tape or a grape.
Dr. Nathan
Hi, Dr. Nathan. I'm really glad you got to respond to me today
because I really have been needing to talk with someone who can
help direct me to the necessary resources concerning some acute
treatment to get me back on track. I've been feeling myself
approaching that place where it seems I lose touch with reality. This
usually happens after the anxiety, as I'm feeling now, builds to a
sudden "breaking point". But, thankfully, I haven't crossed that
threshold and am confident that I will be able to maintain a sense of
grounding until I am able to speak with you tomorrow. Being able
to see the light at the end of the tunnel always seems to help
peopleno matter of whichever challenges they facedhold on
just that extra mile. Hopefully talk this and.
Thankfully, however, I have, thus, contacted you, my happy squirt,
and in this, or, rather, therefore or instead of it, I will avoid starting
to eat the ceiling and the ants that are driftwood but not quite yet
nostrils on the plane of interconnectedness of pen caps. Naked.
34
Goose.
Bubble-Blood-Boot
Note to Heather
Heather,
I ate a story, and her name was WallaWalla-Walla Bear precisely
(though some write her last name "Beah"; yeah, it's funny). Other
than that, the girl fell through the hoops, as well as "feel"! But none
other than the rhino Timmy ate a quilly, pickly apriotapple. Yeah? I
said it; so there is a snooper in her own barn house.
A Problem
She has a problem where bullets randomly shoot out of her butt,
so she must always wear a bucket like a backwards fanny pack,
but tilted at such an angle so that bullets hit the bottom of the bucket
and ricochet toward the ground,
instead of back toward her butt.
I Won a Baby
I won a baby in a contest,
and I don't know WHAT the FUCK to do with it;
it keeps on like meowing.
A Story a Girl Told Me
"So, I was just looking at my poop, which I seriously don't always
dothough maybe I should!, but, anyway, there was a
SUNBURNT BABYVERY badly sunburnt! Like 18th-degree
burnt!that was BREADED with seasoned bread crumbs!
35
Phone
(Inaudible)
"What?"
(Inaudible)
"I have a really good story."
(Inaudible)
"I'm looking at Paraguay on the globe right now. But, um, I'm
recording this because I don't want to ever forget it, soand you're
the first person I'm telling.
"So, I was taking my pills, and, recently, the past few days, I've been
gagging on my pills for some reason, and today Iand yesterday
the same thing happened; when I took them, I felt really sick like I
was going to throw up, but I didn't gag, well after I gagged actually,
I did gag.
"And then today I gagged and then I felt sick after I took them, then
I really gagged and I threw up twice but I was over the sink. And
there were chunks of chicken in the sink and I hadn't had chicken
since two days ago. So it clogged the sink, andum, so I went out
to go get breakfast while I thought it would unclog itself and then I
got back; it still wasn't unclogged, so I had to take my dinnerware, a
glass bowl and my spoon, and fish it out and put it into the toilet,
and it took a long timeand I got throw-up everywhere though I
was trying carefully not to spill.
"And then I had to dig down deep into the drain and take out theI
didn't think to do this before butthe drain stopper, and there was
hair from the previous tenant and wrapped around a hair-tie, and it
37
was in my throw-up, so I had to put that in the toilet with my throwup and flush it down the toilet, even though it was hair and a hairtie, and it was really gross, and then I cleaned up everything."
(Inaudible)
"What? Huh?"
"I said, that sounds like a good story."
Wall-to-Wall History Between Matthew and Timothy (Written by
Timothy Ballan and Matthew Barbis)
Matthew: I love Tow Trucks
Matthew: If I was going to eat a small country it would most likely
be Brooklyn NY because that's how hard the lord told me to hit you.
Only we need love if not to love but be loved and see the face of the
emperor or doom in the small cartons of milk left in the cafeteria.
Matthew: nope
Timothy: Let's stop it. We post too much on each other's walls too
much. Love, Grandfather Goose
Timothy:
Yogi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPr6gw0wi9E
Matthew: Thank you for being a dirty whore when I needed you.
TICKLE ME!
Timothy: I need help! How do you retract a "friend request"? I'm
scared! Also, you are almost 1! (I had a dream that this girl was
talking to me and it turned out she wasn't even 1 yet. She was
smart.)
38
Matthew: Slip.
Timothy: This is how I laugh: "BOP, BOP, BOP, BOP". This is
how I cry: "BOP, BOP... BOP, BOP...".
Matthew: HAM.
Matthew: I miss you.
Timothy: Please delete your status at 1:26 AM on December 1st
from your history. Thanks
Timothy: This state of affairs lasted only some ten trillionth of a ten
trillionth of a nanosecond before the particles we see now
"condensed" out and froze into space-time.
Matthew: Lucy and I would like to invite you to a very vampire
Christmas. Bring your fangs!
Matthew: Please be aware of falling hermaphrodites on parade.
Timothy: Everyone's dead. EVERYONE. Just thought I'd let you
know via this medium.
Matthew: Stop selling slippery sandals to sleazy sailors for seven
snippets.
Matthew: Abdul?
Timothy: Gypsy Horses SALE - gypsyelite.com - Spectacular
savings on Gypsy Vanner horses. Must go NOW. Make an offer!
http://gypsyelite.com/
Timothy: Hey, have you seen my friend? He was asleep, wearing
40
43
44
My name is Marilyn
My name is Marliyn;
Wrapped in silken garment, streaming fair,
Seated I loned upon my ostrich friend,
I ride in the desert, the Sewers of Standrofore,
Apart from the bewildered appropore of men,
Across the hidden valley of the country's due south or winter's end,
There lies a secret which only I and Salzee know;
Withstanding all in fleure,
My heart becomes the world in a soapdrop.
Lullaby
to fly with the watermelon moon
in the midnight sky
as the lily bears pass me by
apart from
Winthrop and
caterpillar tea
among all,
in the midst of
me.
in this dream I see by and by
in woven,
all must be
is the midnight sky
[in dreams we counter
to share a thought
an apple upon a palm, upright
foreto all within an old meandering
lullaby]
45
Steaming Orchids
Amber-steaming orchids shut up into Hell,
yielding ionicized honey-leaves shadowed
to recite glovingly ovaled eulogies
in obliviolized convincation,
singeringly swallowing into frost
in miscertained trucing with an invisible God.
cathedral of the woods
entwined with curling twigs
come creeping pipes spewing sound
from a chasm's deepest crevice
where alone sings a lost and frail maid
The Birth of Pity
Where is the world anymore forgiven in the depths of timing?
Where is the turning stillness in its forming of turning centered?
Tell me, is it in your quietude that the hearted has fallen?
There it is appearing stormed in torrents draining,
and in deepening graces in strength romped so inward.
This is the birth of pity:
When the walls of inward hope become whence and all is drunken
circled.
Beneath the crest doth
Torrents reign,
unseen apart from bending.
And this is the birth of pity,
the everlasting tail of lostness in its desired undercurrent.
49
A Concept of Heartache
It was upon the cherry limb she wept,
A tiny girl and an eighty-year-old collection of bark
One forcefield between a ninety-year-old gray whale
Who began singing starry dreams into her heart.
It was only a narrow hole in the desert,
But an impossible obstacle for a human-like plant
From seven hundred galaxies removed.
A year walk away would be a field of wheat,
and there a small child, saved from the crush of a cherry tree limb
broken by the waves of a song in her mind.
She, and each, heard the sound
Of a distant saddening groan and a plaintive song,
or the fall of tears, or a pained future cry.
A concept of heartache,
It is the strangest things we follow.
June in Amsterdam, New York
Swaying with motionless limbs,
whose scratching twigs and branches
claw the corn below,
turning with the thousand drummers
hidden in his ashy cloak,
as the light pushes the lord's water,
a blackened stump still lies with its hissing ghost.
Children's Storybook
On one sunny day in Springfield,
On Sunny Road on Springfield Hill,
There were seventy-seven kittens who were born.
50
man and dog ran off, the perspective of the audience shifts to a halfshadowy room where another man shoots up from bed maniacally
chanting, "Someone killed me! Someone killed me! I don't know
who but someone killed me!"
The audience's perspective widens out from focus on the man in bed
(in a room that is mostly light yellow with white) and overlaps into
an even wider perspective and also widening, and then several more
levels of widening perspectives. It soon becomes obvious that the
room is very large, open, and empty.
No Absolution
What if you were locked in a room, a room with all the things you
could ever want, a phone, computer, TV, supplies to live off of for
the rest of your life, and all the things you could ever need for
sustenance or medical aid? But you were told that you may be let
out in either a few minutes, never, a few years, several months, a
few hours, several days, a day, several years, a few months, or
several minutes. And, upon being let out, you could be tortured for
years, a day, granted the life of a king for years or a day, or
something in between these extremes. And there would be no way
for anyoneeven high government officialsto access this
information or interfere with the computer inside this impenetrable
steel door keeping you in your bomb shelter from the world you
may never see again.
Her Prayer
Upon the rage of miserly enhoused potential,
She ran within the debt of time.
It was just throughout the rain she cried,
with visions of Sequarians biting apples dripping upside her throat.
Sitting at the table, breathing,
52
Just before the next day's very first ceremonial chant designating an
unfamiliar face,
Molly tugged loose from her mother immediately upon feeling a
slight lessening of grip,
the slight recoiling of her mother's hand in preparation for tenser
clenching
as predictable as the receding of the tide before a great wave.
Her mother was so overcome with fear that she began to shake
and shout nonsense words that were jumbled crossings of
"stranger" and "danger".
All the while, the stranger in the trench coat, fedora, and slippers
beckoned a shy but willing Molly closer and closer.
At the point where all this seemed like a dream twisted and garbled
enough to allow Molly surreal invincibility,
she began to quite boldly sing,
inspired by the songs of the radio she would sneak in here and there
away from her mother's ear,
as her mother fainted.
"Hey baby stranger put it all in my mouth,
tee-ti-tah
Hey baby stranger put it all in my mouth,
tee-ti-tah,
tee-ti-tah, tee-ti-tah, tee-ti-tah,
tee-ti-tah
Hey baby stranger put it all in my mouth,
in,
my,
mouth.
In my mouth."
54
Debilitated Woman
a debilitated woman with no eyes, no hair, broken legs never healed,
arms sawed off (but with cauterized wounds),
spits and gurgles from her mouth and eye sockets,
wailing on the corner of main street,
until the busy world-members force muffins down her throat so she
chokes and remains quiet,
until the next morning.
An Experiment
But if he stopped now he could live, and still even days from now.
He may need to use life support and remain in a coma, but he still
could live.
He began this slowly, first with staying in bed even though he
wanted not to; this encouraged him to further test the limits of what
he could bear while still remaining deemably "normal". But that
barrier soon broke, around the time he lost his job for giving
business executives messages different from what he knew to be
true, and for plucking out all the hairs on his face on site. From then
he worked on testing the boundary between moderate pathology and
debilitating derangement. To extend at least basic functionality as
long as possible before truly collapsing, he would cauterize his selfinflicted wounds to prevent levels of bleeding preclusive of meeting
day-to-day demands of an independent though low-functioning
individual.
But even now he holds his breath for periods enough to further
damage his brain and body, though mostly paralyzed otherwise.
This was his experiment to betray his self-protective instincts and
prove his own freedom.
But he only proved to be heavily
ineffective for his own and others' purposes.
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I Am Taboo
They whisper apart from me in their darkened hollows and corners,
their fingers coil and stomachs tighten.
Aching minds do not see but shudder in their own places,
intruders to their own lives:
It is recognition of fragility that defies the crowds and denies their
boundaries;
I live harder.
What is thought unapproachable
I have tread over and conquered;
I am taboo!
Forty-One Were Left (Part of a Flowing Dream)
At first, it was about building pressure in a water-heating furnace
system, and we were trying to escape from the cellar where some
main pipes and sorts of barrels were, but I guess the doors at the top
of all the stairseven the hidden staircasesseemed locked, but the
more immediate problem soon became potential lava flooding, lava
rising from deep underground.
Thankfully we found our way out, though we soon found the house
surrounded by a parking garage flooding with lava too, and faster,
faster because, somehow, we had actually descended further into the
ground by leaving the house.
As we ran from the lava up the curling garage platform, we met a
roadblocksome immovable cement blocks stacked as high and
wide as the passageway that would otherwise be. It now became
clear that we could only either return to the lava or wait for it to rise
to us; we chose to wait.
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My Friend
It's only ever night when I see him,
through the clothes in my closet.
I see that he has no eyes,
bones protrude through his grey papery skin,
and a dark liquid emits from his mouth
as he whispers truths to me that I do not want to ever face.
A Dark Place
And from this invisible ghost she ran and ran
and became forever lost.
Where I Died
Mommy, that's where I died!
What Curse
A flashing and fading dream as I awake,
A large man-like creature in a black cloak far into the woods still
walking away from us,
A man shouting from behind us but with a voice gone unheard,
"What curse? ...What curse?? ...What curse?! ...What curse?!
What curse?!"
It Was There
It was there, that night afore, a place I'd ne'er assume you'd be.
I walked on silvern shines and twiggs and all that growed was
glow'n with moon.
In some such heartened light it was your lost and saddened face I
mourned.
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A tiny child four yards hence, turned back to glimpse but then away,
from some glen's grave returning.
I called,
and once again you turned,
and with your stray and weepy face you whispered, "fearly".
I heard it so lettered on that deafened night,
not just with my ear, but tighted chest and winding temples.
My emptied stomach drained and swallowed in some hole,
between my heart and endless'd darkened hells afar.
Waved rippled poundings of aching retreat and torn longings rushed
you once again from me,
whilst questions,
where you'd go and what you'd feel or be,
lay still.
I knew you called me,
in my coldest skin and searing hairs.
You hollowed and stole me that night;
for what I'll never know.
It's Hell Being a Zombie
What could it be just beyond the edge of these darkened woods
but a world I know so well, just unlit?
But I know of so many creatures of the night I have never and may
never see.
And these woods could veil those of night who intend never to be
exposed.
What would there be to fear in the steps before me?
At arm's length, a few feet, or not at all,
the subject of possibility,
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V. Serious Poems
A Just and Magical World
Life is good
because everything happens for a reason.
Children who only know suffering until they starve to death
help people who are strangers to pain better appreciate what they
have.
a small god, a small world
They have a small god
who they understand through
simplistic rules of how things must be
even for this god
who they refer to as large only in
holding invisible solutions to
unavoidable contradictions present in
the extracting of the dimensions of what must be,
what must be even for this god,
from an old, tired document;
the fault of an unimaginative system is a sense of
enclosedness that,
though bringing comfort,
offers little freedom for questioning, learning
exercise and development
and causes enemies, and, ultimately,
a small world
The Attempted Brain-Washing of an Intellectual Youth
I see no wonder in their blank yet angry eyes
even in their songs to an infinitely magical creator.
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Yet your cult feeds you lessons mostly about trusting feelings
to believe what is not real but feels good,
as trusting feelings allowed your silly faith to rise,
and as the most natural horrible inclinations of humans like you
are encouraged by or exemplified in it.
You trust what you feel and condemn all outside of it,
trusting also the feeling to condemn.
You are the embodiment of a piggish stupid child,
enough to scoff at a Unitarian hymn not of magic,
but only of thoughtful values you have never possessed.
Love Not Just for a Watching God
A man, kind, generous, and humble died vulnerable to the
distortions of history, to an unkind, ungenerous, unhumble man
insecure in his own thoughts enough to lie for the cause of an inane
religion. Invented letters between them showed the man who died
to be exactly his opposite, exactly the man writing the letters, but for
a tie to religion. Thus, through a loud voice, the stupid masses were
convinced further to hold to often-maladaptive emotion and
emotional reasoning rather than reason and reasoned love.
Small Towns, Corporations, and Protectionists
When the bluejays came into town,
they invited the starlings and sumac and the
squirrels;
they chased out the orioles and weeded out the orchids
and all other delicate beings that once blessed this place with
sensitivity.
But it is the strong who survive,
which is why I shot the strongest bluejay,
but then somehow became deemed worse than he.
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all my once young neighbors were really now only walking, talking
carcasses of children
dressed in socially acceptable identities of mannerisms, styles, and
titles.
I suppose I could have become this,
but I always managed to find a time and place to think undistracted
by my own reflection.
Without time alone in the woods,
there is neither a discovered connection with what is beyond human
nor what is human within you.
Parade of Chariots
Falling not,
but disorganized,
they took to their boots instead
and stood in line.
They marched to Hell and back,
and in fury,
gained discipline,
and became the Devils,
only to fall.
It Shines Through
whatever it is you do
it is the sadness that shines through
Psychotic Entanglement
I am trapped in a maze of mazes,
using a faulty mind to distinguish confused thoughts from sane
ones,
all the while wanting to communicate some sense of deep beauty,
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complex natures,
communicated in necessarily both primal and complex ways,
aiming to transcend the physical nature of all communication
The Expanse Behind
I look at his picture with the sun just past setting through the
window behind him.
The times we spent are colored brightly in my mind
just as his face and the sky blend together
in some whirled aurora of light,
a mix of simple materials and energy,
yet deepened by colors of emotion
in the knowledge that the past only fades.
The Silent Universe
The silent universe
Holds its secrets
And those who call to it in question,
Who cannot claim anything
While the universe claims all, inaudibly
A Song of Loves
When the universe began,
the separated stars
swiftly glided through the sky
without song, without connection.
When humanity began,
each isolated voice
slowly learned to sing to others,
no longer apart, no more alone.
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Realistic Imagination
Hiding inside the fully-enclosed realm of a well-received artful film
on gay rights history,
I feel a personally-unprecedented warmth in
picturing my growing old with James Franco's presented character.
Slowly and sadly re-emerging from this realm filtered through
visual craft, music, and some sexiness,
I at least happily remember the possibility of learning and aiming in
my own world;
Though I cannot transform myself or my
environment with magical imagining,
I can through realistic imagination.
a conversation
despite a connection
where two sides saw each and proportionately doubted and believed
as were not wont to,
a warm linking of the eyes,
the two part and continue in stride for the sake of sanity,
as if they did not exchange souls for a time
The Deer
It was under the linden tree
she birthed a tiny skeleton,
where the timid giant doe approached from the pines
and offered the gesture of slight touch,
her nose wetting the cheek of the weeping mother
who thanked only an empty field upon lifting her head.
And yet through the shaded grove's edge
bellowed the small cry of a lone newborn deer.
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VI. "Maxims"
Everything is only the never-ending nightmare of Nothingness.
we bind our lives together with pieces of string that often break or
don't hold well to begin with
All we have and are will soon be tiresomely told history to future
generations.
We are the feces of the sky (and unobservable universe).
The universe will not cry for the end of humans.
Every day new authors purport to have a/the answer to a huge
problem/everything, usually by rehashing old ideas while adding in
a good amount of increasingly fashionable "spiritual" mumbo
jumbo. Every day it becomes a new contest about who can out-do
the previous day's new authors in terms of ridiculousness in
opposition to common sense yet appealing to a sense of desire for
freshness/uniqueness and even magic.
history's supposed lessons
are really the ever-popularizing opinions of an ever- growing
majority unquestioned,
history as a static answer instead of a multitude of elapsed nows
We speak most loudly against what measures least against our
standards, as the least moral of people speak most loudly against the
most obvious, usually accidental, of wrongs.
The one somewhat liberal voice on Fox News appears to be old and
out-of-touch while all other individuals appear charismatic and
smartly convinced of their rightness. However, maybe the authors
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