MUSINGS ON WORDS + MEANING
L.A. IS A BEACH BAG
L.A. is a beach bag
ready at a moments notice.
Have you noticed
how they notice you?
Pull out the sunglasses
so when eyes take their passes
you're polarized
to shade the stares.
La art of cashmere don't care,
casual couture.
Beware the vultures
on the shore.
Wear sunscreen to block out silver screams.
Beware the fever dream
of the startlets shooting
scarlet rot for a blood red carpet.
I'd rather not tread
upon beach towel threads weaved
into the sands and stars,
replacing stolen lands with cars
with no garage or places for parks.
The Hollywood Sign isn't mine.
Make it a shelter.
A Helter Skelter for the homeless
with placebo pills to mask the aloneness.
Dust off the hills.
Call the army of gays.
Bring in the tank tops
and fake tans for the real rays
boiling us alive on blacktop,
sucking up the last drops
from the L.A. River.
Don't fear the earthquake.
Don't quiver, it wrinkles the face.
Unless you face it,
this place is a faked set
sprinkled in palmed beaches
that make it peachy
to give alms to the preachers
dressed in crystals and meth.
Yoga, deep breaths, distress
signal your intentions,
shed your invented shell,
then manifest hell
in a beach bag.
ready at a moments notice.
Have you noticed
how they notice you?
Pull out the sunglasses
so when eyes take their passes
you're polarized
to shade the stares.
La art of cashmere don't care,
casual couture.
Beware the vultures
on the shore.
Wear sunscreen to block out silver screams.
Beware the fever dream
of the startlets shooting
scarlet rot for a blood red carpet.
I'd rather not tread
upon beach towel threads weaved
into the sands and stars,
replacing stolen lands with cars
with no garage or places for parks.
The Hollywood Sign isn't mine.
Make it a shelter.
A Helter Skelter for the homeless
with placebo pills to mask the aloneness.
Dust off the hills.
Call the army of gays.
Bring in the tank tops
and fake tans for the real rays
boiling us alive on blacktop,
sucking up the last drops
from the L.A. River.
Don't fear the earthquake.
Don't quiver, it wrinkles the face.
Unless you face it,
this place is a faked set
sprinkled in palmed beaches
that make it peachy
to give alms to the preachers
dressed in crystals and meth.
Yoga, deep breaths, distress
signal your intentions,
shed your invented shell,
then manifest hell
in a beach bag.
i am not your queer
I am not your queer.
Clearly you expect a dick sucker
To pucker up to your agenda
But I am not your queer.
I am not your GBF...
I am not liberal to your causes...
I am not a rainbow flag
Bending over backwards for conservative progress...
I am not your queer.
I am not a hot pocket steaming with AIDS.
I am not a puddle for babes.
I am of no creed and I have no race.
I have no style or worth, while
at face value,
You continue to give me one.
But I am not your queer.
I am not a methamphetamine pushing Queen.
I am no coke-snorting,
Cock-sucking,
Club-swinging,
Show-tune-singing,
Wrist-wrapping, shoe-tapping,
Hair slicked in lube
Ass lickin’ dude,
Cum guzzling
Gutter whore,
Cross-dressing
Queer.
No. I am not your queer.
I am no bear or cub
I am no twink
I am no circuit fag
No pup
I am no otter or DL brother
I am not into BDSM, and no
I won't fuck gym rats in the sauna.
Don’t wanna.
I am not your queer.
Or didn’t you hear,
I drink beer and vodka.
I eat pears and gluten free pasta.
I listen to Jacoby,
I sing to Chapin,
I write for art
On thin toilet paper
You will never read
Because there are better words on the bathroom stall...
No, I am not your queer at all.
Because I when I climbed out of the closet,
I came out alone, man,
So I forget why someone else preaches who I am.
Let’s make it clear…
I am the infinity of me, and
I am not your queer.
Clearly you expect a dick sucker
To pucker up to your agenda
But I am not your queer.
I am not your GBF...
I am not liberal to your causes...
I am not a rainbow flag
Bending over backwards for conservative progress...
I am not your queer.
I am not a hot pocket steaming with AIDS.
I am not a puddle for babes.
I am of no creed and I have no race.
I have no style or worth, while
at face value,
You continue to give me one.
But I am not your queer.
I am not a methamphetamine pushing Queen.
I am no coke-snorting,
Cock-sucking,
Club-swinging,
Show-tune-singing,
Wrist-wrapping, shoe-tapping,
Hair slicked in lube
Ass lickin’ dude,
Cum guzzling
Gutter whore,
Cross-dressing
Queer.
No. I am not your queer.
I am no bear or cub
I am no twink
I am no circuit fag
No pup
I am no otter or DL brother
I am not into BDSM, and no
I won't fuck gym rats in the sauna.
Don’t wanna.
I am not your queer.
Or didn’t you hear,
I drink beer and vodka.
I eat pears and gluten free pasta.
I listen to Jacoby,
I sing to Chapin,
I write for art
On thin toilet paper
You will never read
Because there are better words on the bathroom stall...
No, I am not your queer at all.
Because I when I climbed out of the closet,
I came out alone, man,
So I forget why someone else preaches who I am.
Let’s make it clear…
I am the infinity of me, and
I am not your queer.
EPHEMERAL HANDS
That hands be forsaken
to theft
No end could steal the sum of a gaze
given by your beating eyes
as no hand could grasp
the corona of the sun.
To reach past Icarus is
a daunting temptation,
a task to be undertaken
by a foreign form
for sight has sailed away with me.
My hands
left unadorned, forgetten
dry ink
on paperless pages.
And that to which press
never came.
My synapses silenced,
Digitized to decay,
as passé as old passwords.
A eulogy will be all that's left of me.
The secrets...secretious worms slipping
through fingers forged
in fighting brass
to hold on
until the record scratch...abandoned.
We will never catch on
to the vulnerability of our hands.
Thumbprints polished off the phone case.
Ephemeral, as I. As you.
to theft
No end could steal the sum of a gaze
given by your beating eyes
as no hand could grasp
the corona of the sun.
To reach past Icarus is
a daunting temptation,
a task to be undertaken
by a foreign form
for sight has sailed away with me.
My hands
left unadorned, forgetten
dry ink
on paperless pages.
And that to which press
never came.
My synapses silenced,
Digitized to decay,
as passé as old passwords.
A eulogy will be all that's left of me.
The secrets...secretious worms slipping
through fingers forged
in fighting brass
to hold on
until the record scratch...abandoned.
We will never catch on
to the vulnerability of our hands.
Thumbprints polished off the phone case.
Ephemeral, as I. As you.
TRICKLE DOWN HYDROPONICS
Patter in the garden mud.
Trickle-down hydroponics.
The tomatoes drink their share & some.
Veggie Reaganomics.
The imported lawn,
a stupid sum.
The lack of leaves,
alarming.
Logging trees
to traffic lights,
Air conditioned
Global warming.
The politicians bend
to super PACs.
The lobbyists
to management.
Volunteer the few, the proud,
E pluribus the One Percent.
But fight on, fight on,
swing harder across the aisle.
Double tap the thirst trap
Ignore polar bears
On trash piles.
Drink seven cups of plastic a day.
War for myths in books.
At 1.5 degrees
the capitalists will dine in space
while we're all left to cook.
Trickle-down hydroponics.
The tomatoes drink their share & some.
Veggie Reaganomics.
The imported lawn,
a stupid sum.
The lack of leaves,
alarming.
Logging trees
to traffic lights,
Air conditioned
Global warming.
The politicians bend
to super PACs.
The lobbyists
to management.
Volunteer the few, the proud,
E pluribus the One Percent.
But fight on, fight on,
swing harder across the aisle.
Double tap the thirst trap
Ignore polar bears
On trash piles.
Drink seven cups of plastic a day.
War for myths in books.
At 1.5 degrees
the capitalists will dine in space
while we're all left to cook.
Election Night 2016; or my 26th Birthday
Social Studies:
A fixation--
A mind languishing
In fascination
Over a textbook case
Of factual manipulation;
A soul anguishing
In hate, a pheasant under glass,
Because of our state-sponsored system
Of education by class,
Sorry, alternative facts.
Don’t believe it? Check the flashback...
It's the night it sucked to my asthma
Catching the election on my birthday bar's plasma,
And choking on the moment
Little hands beat capital Hillary!
LIVE on TV!
Can you believe it? Can I?
That son of elites
Beat the sheeple with lies!
Now I'm staring in shock,
And weeping with millions
Pounding our last shots
To the rhythm of "billions and billions."
Pure disbelief--
Watching results pour across the stations
Knowing we just witnessed the decimation of
A young nation;
Now we caught up in conflict
Over the nomination of a convict—a racist
Whose policies are baseless,
A tyrant in a tie championing uncivil lies for the final inquisition.
You think it's just superstition?
Try three nails and a cross
Dictating a dictator's bosses.
Class, the next chapter’s all about
Civilian losses
A fixation--
A mind languishing
In fascination
Over a textbook case
Of factual manipulation;
A soul anguishing
In hate, a pheasant under glass,
Because of our state-sponsored system
Of education by class,
Sorry, alternative facts.
Don’t believe it? Check the flashback...
It's the night it sucked to my asthma
Catching the election on my birthday bar's plasma,
And choking on the moment
Little hands beat capital Hillary!
LIVE on TV!
Can you believe it? Can I?
That son of elites
Beat the sheeple with lies!
Now I'm staring in shock,
And weeping with millions
Pounding our last shots
To the rhythm of "billions and billions."
Pure disbelief--
Watching results pour across the stations
Knowing we just witnessed the decimation of
A young nation;
Now we caught up in conflict
Over the nomination of a convict—a racist
Whose policies are baseless,
A tyrant in a tie championing uncivil lies for the final inquisition.
You think it's just superstition?
Try three nails and a cross
Dictating a dictator's bosses.
Class, the next chapter’s all about
Civilian losses
CLICKITY CLOCKS
Alarmed by silence,
City hearts bloom to catch the morning dream
Before work.
A lucid grey water sweeps over their
Clouded visions of night,
Jolting heads from their flower bed
Only to be caught, trapped alive
In their own concrete web.
Weakened, blinded by the fluorescent radiance,
They are repackaged and shipped
Into a bigger box fit for work--
A cube made for Masters of a single matter:
The ladder.
Tick. Tick. Tock.
8 o’clock, Post Mortem.
Subways chime the roaring
End of hours.
Souls crawl underground
In a fleeting escape to
Drop their hopes off at at home,
Only to return once again
To walk through twilight
As shadows of someone else.
There in the streets,
In the ever glowing darkness dusking
Over the obelisks, they say,
“Night is drank and dreamt
Until the clock reminds its hands:
Time to work.”
City hearts bloom to catch the morning dream
Before work.
A lucid grey water sweeps over their
Clouded visions of night,
Jolting heads from their flower bed
Only to be caught, trapped alive
In their own concrete web.
Weakened, blinded by the fluorescent radiance,
They are repackaged and shipped
Into a bigger box fit for work--
A cube made for Masters of a single matter:
The ladder.
Tick. Tick. Tock.
8 o’clock, Post Mortem.
Subways chime the roaring
End of hours.
Souls crawl underground
In a fleeting escape to
Drop their hopes off at at home,
Only to return once again
To walk through twilight
As shadows of someone else.
There in the streets,
In the ever glowing darkness dusking
Over the obelisks, they say,
“Night is drank and dreamt
Until the clock reminds its hands:
Time to work.”
Tax Day
The currency of taxonomy
Is taxing me.
Classifying classes
Just to calculate my taxes
And the duty's free.
But it's taxing me
Making exemptions for castes
Breaking bread from my back,
Just to feed their dependents from the elephant's ass.
And it's taxing me
Writing day on day
For pennies barely able to turn a page
Dreaming of the moment there's no debt unpaid.
Excuse me sir, can you spare some change?
Sorry strange', my pockets are plastic
But if you take credit, can I please get some cash back?
Cus I'm struggling to pay
More taxes to pave
More streets and more graves,
Concrete to cover
More homes of more slaves;
More price fixed prisons
With room for more names.
And it's taxing me
Donating to the IRS
So freedom fighters can drop dollars
on the Land of Daesh,
It's a land of death
Another headline headache
About trouble in the west
And it's taxing me
Seeing factories in foliage
Gangrene ripening industry into spoilage
Watching the rust belt whipping dad
Because a factory job's all you ever needed to have
And it's taxing me, how
In a flash of my lashes
Fear secured the safety net
Around the political classes
Who say terror's due to coalition crashes
Not colonies,
Not cold wars,
Not repercussive actions.
And it's taxing me
Breaking the bank to breathe
Until there's nothing left for them
To tax from me.
Is taxing me.
Classifying classes
Just to calculate my taxes
And the duty's free.
But it's taxing me
Making exemptions for castes
Breaking bread from my back,
Just to feed their dependents from the elephant's ass.
And it's taxing me
Writing day on day
For pennies barely able to turn a page
Dreaming of the moment there's no debt unpaid.
Excuse me sir, can you spare some change?
Sorry strange', my pockets are plastic
But if you take credit, can I please get some cash back?
Cus I'm struggling to pay
More taxes to pave
More streets and more graves,
Concrete to cover
More homes of more slaves;
More price fixed prisons
With room for more names.
And it's taxing me
Donating to the IRS
So freedom fighters can drop dollars
on the Land of Daesh,
It's a land of death
Another headline headache
About trouble in the west
And it's taxing me
Seeing factories in foliage
Gangrene ripening industry into spoilage
Watching the rust belt whipping dad
Because a factory job's all you ever needed to have
And it's taxing me, how
In a flash of my lashes
Fear secured the safety net
Around the political classes
Who say terror's due to coalition crashes
Not colonies,
Not cold wars,
Not repercussive actions.
And it's taxing me
Breaking the bank to breathe
Until there's nothing left for them
To tax from me.
New York Pick-Up
I see the taxis passing by
Catching all us cattle flies.
Catching all us cattle flies.
To Ogden Nash
We live two lives,
Or so it seems,
One through eyes
And the other,
Dreams.
Or so it seems,
One through eyes
And the other,
Dreams.
THE FLY OUTSIDE THE WINDOW SILL ON A NOVEMBER MORNING
Like a fly facing winter,
life splinters.
Do Frost's two paths converge?
It knows.
For the fly dies
Whether or not
He sneaks inside,
Or it snows.
life splinters.
Do Frost's two paths converge?
It knows.
For the fly dies
Whether or not
He sneaks inside,
Or it snows.