Poetry Compilation 1

A Riddle to Solve

Behold this great beast!

Born of Earth and Man

To shudder, shake, slide, and screech.

Encased in armor, strong yet hollow,

His organs lie above and below, snapping and crackling with bolts of life and fire,

Demanding sacrifice.

Under the soil he reigns, faster than most wheels

Eyes bright and unseeing, mouth large, hinged, menacing

Inviting the practical to enter

But he is stunted, imprisoned in the tunnels dug for him, unable to ever leave

His tunnels, a regal display, royal halls stretch for days

Mysterious clicking mechanisms bring him to a warm boil

But comfort roosts far from here.

He eats wastefully, energy burnt to serve others, others who use him.

Pray that he never meets another of his kind

Hark! The beast calls

His siren proud as the fire of his eyes

A wail comes from him as he stops before us,

Mouth open, opportune, and hopeful

To drag us to places we rarely wish to be

Cigarettes, Porn, Guns

I am the black mirror

Buzzing, din, bathe in my brick soaked melody

Hollow carpet, plastic moon

Who else knows what I do?

I am the seller of velvet milk

Builder of a great and long brevity chain

I am the melter of truth-paint

I slam the anger door open

I am television

 

Lament of the Alternator in Adolf’s Volkswagen

Look upon me, and say you feel no pity

For the task I was made,

My father bid me, do!

And so I do

Yet the man I carry

Cares not for my electric finesse,

But only for wipers that work on command

And command he does

For I move for him his legions

And keep their lighters hot

For I have not a choice in this

If I could resist, and if he could

Have me shot, I’m sure he would

Do not envy me, dynamo of old

Perhaps I replaced you, but despite combustion

The top is cold

I give and give, charged copper speaks in glorious light

But my master’s interest

Seems to be steeped in fights

My oblong piston, doomed to spin

For my maker bade me, as though on a whim,

Could he not consider my dreams?

A future, I envision, in steel and silicon

An engine of fission,

Or a perhaps a cosmic mission

But all this will vanish

To be no more

And leave me like the dynamo

Should I be remembered,

Not for my splendor,

My dense, iron mystery

My long, earthen history,

But for this pale rider

Whose men demand a hot lighter

 

Peter is a Monster

I find myself lost, where is this?

A far and strange place, found through fog

There is youth here,

Youth remembers

I’ll ask them where this is and home, I’ll go

My cane catches, crinkles, cracks, against

Branches billows, brambles, and roots of willows

The boys scorn me

They sneer, laugh

A fine cane, you have, old man!

They say,

An old man, how odd!

They exclaim,

Hook’s husband, no doubt

They crow,

And leave, flying bravados

No help were these youth, I find

Youth who can fly?

In this land greener than my lawn

In the distance a forest

Thicker than the fog

Through which I walked this morning

Through these dense woods I stumble, cane first, legs uncertain

Never had a walk in the woods been so surreal

Not since I was a boy

Thirteen, maybe less, maybe more

Beyond a ridge to the west

Between the trees and the hours spent

A kiss first received

But then I walked home, and I walked smiling

Now I walk away, and it is harsh

My bones cannot do this as they once did

My body cannot stand as it once did

What do I crave, more than what those boys owned

Flight? No.

Youth

Yes youth

To walk these woods, in comfort

In joy

And to fit into this,

This never-ever-ever land.

Good Luck Nicholas

Cast view into the harbor

You will see

The victim of the militant machine

Named by Italians

Built by man alone,

In any place where he is

Malignant sight,

His body found stripped,

Bled out in water, before he could drown

His kinsmen, an ancient tradition, say

Bavarian nightmare!

Beer bombing badge

Swollen, water-logged reality.

The march of his children

Cold mean, special gold club

Sharp suits, brown costumes,

Hundreds rise to take his face,

His beard, his clothes.

Mommys go shopping, snow speckled

Daddys go chopping, snow dappled

Elysian shellac,

Slicking back black hair

Of rosy cheeked salesmen,

Or a crooked faced cop on the watch,

Murderer, collector of slaves,

For the afterlife only.

Burn down our false heaven,

Maritime borders collapse into plastic trinkets,

A dead figurehead, a live one,

To march to the mall,

And demand our rights

Laughed at, spurned, burned

And turned around

Tear gas and mistletoe gets me down,

Let’s collapse into cheap rhyme and say,

Fuck this, let’s go home

And just watch Charlie Brown.