Two-Way Funhouse Mirror

'For whom is the fun house fun?'
John Barthe, Lost In The Funhouse

The waddling crowd,
silver glossed uneasy smiles.
Flashes of beauty wished,
glimpse of deformity cursed.

Behind the smoke mirrored,
The beautiful and the grotesque,
disgusted and vengeful, removed by
thin silver optics fractured and twisted
by the hot sea of blank eyes.

The crowds unease builds to resentment,
In the dark, unseen disgust builds to cruelty.

Cracks spider web and universal panic spreads.

The self-proclaimed heirs to
the pre-dawn builders of mirrors,
the ambitious repairmen of all sides,
go about their quiet work unnoticed.

September 11, 2007

I sit in one of the cafes
On positively fourth street
Too certain with no fear
Reading Machiavelli
Like this Sunday’s editorial
“the state will collapse”
When god dies and fear revolts

God is grasping for breath and we have nothing to fear
Our parents have felt the seams of society come loose
So they dare not ask us for a sacrifice
With their wealth they don’t need our bodies
But we will need the bodies of our unborn children

We have no memory of the altar
Never had to make the choice
To burn, to run, or to fight and die
With anxious but spotless minds
We ask our lambs to sacrifice
But they will not fear a dead god
They must fear us
If they refuse to ascend the steps
they will at knife point
but fear will revolt and the knives
will be at our throats
and with our blood a new god will rise.

...

inspired by W.H. Auden's September 1, 1939

Knots know

No knot, not knows
nothing. Sum things
know things nautical,
some not articles.
Knot art tickles
cots caught
gnarled cuticles,
tickles cut.

Raccoons in His Eyes

Raccoons in his eyes
Squirrels in his heart and
Bees in his blood
And folds of skin
like warm wax

He opens his mouth to laugh
The squirrels pierce the ears.

Another drink, and another.

“How long have you been…”
Raccoons dance
and dart,
rolling folds find their proper pose

Another joke, more squirrels, another drink

And the bees begin to infect my blood
And the skin on my face disconnects from my soul

Temptation Divided by Torpidity

Temptation divided by torpidity,
split asunder by academy's devior.
tepid rivulets carving time's soil
to conjugate 'nief the light of a city

Telephone Poem

Sitting here at work
bored.
Time's death,
held off by ten short lines.


Her
blue words, are a cure for

beige.

The Solipsist

The solipsist reads her words
and “cringes at the sight”.
Not to be discouraged
He diggs into the verses’ blue soil.
Stained with ink and confusion,
He comes back up for air.
And covered in words not his
he looks into the mirror
and recognizes himself.

Escape

Dust pumps slowly
through the narrow veins
in the crux of my arm.

Dry air leaks
from a dozen small holes
in my chest,

and beige thoughts crawl
around the florescent lit knots
on either side of my head.

My yellows eyes rest
on the pithy quote that adorns
my cloth lined cage

“Bureaucracy is a circle
from which one
cannot escape”

And I smile.

Comments: So yeah this the first poem I have written that I am not completely embarrassed to put out there. Not sure how comfortable I am about writing about work. I mean, shit, I already have to be here, not sure if i should be spending time writing about it. Unless of course...i write about work while i am at work. Yeah i guess I am ok with that. Oh, quote by Karl Marx.

Some Poems, Vol. I

The Solipsist

The solipsist reads her words
and “cringes at the sight”.
Not to be discouraged
He diggs into the verses’ blue soil.
Stained with ink and confusion,
He comes back up for air.
And covered in words not his
he looks into the mirror
and recognizes himself.

Telephone Poem

Sitting here at work
bored.
Time's death,
held off by ten short lines.


Her
blue words, are a cure for

beige.

Temptation Divided by Torpidity

Temptation divided by torpidity,
split asunder by academy's devior.
tepid rivulets carving time's soil
to conjugate 'nief the light of a city

Oscar-Meyer

A Quote from Oscar Wilde: (which might imply that I know something about the man or that I am familiar with his work, which I am not, this quote coming off some Google “quote of the day” page, I wouldn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea, like I know what I am talking about or anything. I am currently reading D.F. Wallace so I am really pushing this whole “meta” thing, which is of course referenced in the title of my blog “Meta .44”) Oh yeah, The Quote:

“A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets make a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”

I was going to make some comments about it but I no longer want to. What do you think?