Tag Archives: anger

Weed (I See You)

You. I’ve watched you
with them. You’re a weed,
an invasive, a non-native
sucker on the tree of their life
and I see you, see how

you entwined yourself
into the fabric of their life
and grew there impeded only 
occasionally by how shallow
your own roots were regardless
of how high they rose,
and that’s a damn shame.  

It would have been far more fair 
if you’d withered there, stuck on them,
and dried up and turned to twigs
and were then brushed off and left 
in the dust behind them as they
walked forward in light and beauty.

I wish I had something more to say
and I wish there was something more I could do
but some things are beyond fairness and 
justice doesn’t grow everywhere, so instead
I’ll just remind you that I know you’re a weed,
you know you’re a weed, and while in another field
you might have been a lovely bloom,

here you’re just a strangler on another’s vine
and I see you, and I’m not alone.


Talk Talk

New Poem.

While I am always one to enjoy
a fair amount
of multisyllabic intellectual palaver
on the passions and urgencies of the moment,

I must admit
that in these times when
the world is burning down
and so many red swift things
need doing

that too much civil language
and too much theory
can incite in me

an urge
(never indulged, but present nonetheless)
to step away from arguments and speeches
and revert
to a cave-self, 
reaching for something sharp
to slide along
a set of unjust ribs,

thus ending an argument
swiftly and with 
a minimum strain
to my tongue.

It is therefore good that there is college,
that there are learned magazines
and books.

I am no casual killer, mind you;
would not toss a bomb, would not
slay
without some need to save myself;

but there are times
when I am drowned in dialogue,
when I am swept up and away
by theory, when I am turned by chatter
away from my blood-need
to sing and sling steel in response
to another’s blood-provocations;

in those times,
it is good that there is space 
between us.

It is good that there is civilization.
It is so good that there are
schools of thought
and symposiums
and teach-ins
and books
and philosophy

in the violet rage storm
in the space between us,

for I am too tired too often
of talk
to ever be safely
and
truly
a man of
peace.


Hydra

New Poem.

Monster! Look out,
a Monster
built just right
to make us smile
before it eats us —
Hydra!
Hydra — 
the right words
cooing peace
in five mouths,
slobber and fangs
in five others,
all its eyes 
focused on the eating
and no peripheral vision
in any head and we know
if we pull its teeth we get
Soldiers
but we have to kill

all the many heads first,
use Fire 
to seal their necks
against comebacks.

Monster! Monster,
look out there’s a 
Monster coming to 
make us Monsters too —
not by picking us off
one by one
till we are memory;
instead swallowing us
into itself, making
More — Hydra!
Hydra yearning
for more heads,
all the heads,
which is why
we slash at
the ones we see
even when they are
in mirrors and 
though it agonizes we
must burn open necks
shut.

Monster! Hey, 
Monster coming for
the once again and
always will be —
comes in shape of
a machine
or a form
or a schoolroom
or a prison door
and sometimes
all the same, all the same —
Monster!
Hey, Hydra! Hydra makes 
for the last exit ahead of us and
cuts us off but 
we weren’t planning on leaving.

Hydra, Monster, 
biter of Dream,
thief of Song,
scrape-shoe shitty
shapeshifter, claw
of Reason, too many heads
we thought we loved, rope-necked
dank bag full of consumed Hope,
what we do with you
is try not to die

when we come cutting,
swinging hard,
burning all of you clean
when we know
all of you
is all dead

and then, we’ll be
watching to see 

that it all stays burned
and all stays dead
because we know
how often
we’ve been wrong
about that.


Superheroes

Originally posted 12/19/2010.

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
are what I crave,
superheroes full of poison,
saving the city while unable
to save themselves;
stinging their supporters,
slaying their sidekicks,
shrugging mayhem off as
all just being their natural selves
as if those abilities are unalloyed miracles
while their tails proclaim otherwise.
The mighty carry their flaws within their strengths — 

which identity is the most secret?

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
are what I need, demigods
riding cobras, lion-voiced,
their stinking acrid presence in my dark bedroom,
looming at the foot of the bed,
demanding that I seize the baseball bat

before creeping to the living room
to see what that noise is;
arguing, pressing for murder as response to provocation
when there’s a perfectly good backdoor
not ten feet away and I could escape
if I thought before acting: 

which identities are the most secret,
which the strongest?

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
hold the balance I desire most,
their good as venomous as their evil
is sweet, yellow death on the rooftop
silhouetted against the sick sodium light
of the streets, in service to established
and ironclad rules that say vengeance
is righteous and destruction is excused
by rage against the destroyer, even if
the avenger and the predator
are one and the same — and

which identity do I most eagerly seize
when so many are available to choose from,
and they all look the same?


Mr. Bad Idea

Oh, Mr. Bad Idea!
Favorite cousin 
in my extended family,
come up and hug my neck
with your icy meat paws,
smear me with one evil kiss
from your greasepaint devil’s face!  

Take me out, get me drunk
and let me slip, in disguise and unnoticed,
to the floor of a convenient dive!
I’ve been such a good sweet piece
of lard for too long; elevate me
by bringing me low then work me till 
I stink like old yogurt,
you bastard, you brother!

Then, Mr. Bad Idea,
what I really want is to adopt
one of your little bad ideas.
I think
I could make it happy, fatten it up,
make it sleek.  I think it’ll work out,
but then again

if metaphor were a firecracker, 
I’d have handled it badly
and likely wound up without
an eye, thumb, or testicle years ago.  
Mr. Bad Idea,
how is it you’re always intact enough
when you are around me
that I forget this and all the rest
of my years of sense?
They call this forgetting  
something else 
in my support group, a name
I can never remember in time
to keep it from happening.

Mr. Bad Idea, you think
we’d be past this.  You’d think
we would be so intimately acquainted
by now that we’d be on more normal terms;
I’d merely entertain you now and then
and hold you at bay the rest of the time.
But you old wolverine!  You badger full
of flammable cotton!  How you do
tear your way in where it’s least wanted — 
in the face of the Queen, in the dark crook
of my left throat.  

I’m telling everyone:
you see me bloated with a Bad Idea,
you better be a friend
and kill that out of me.

 


“Boy Genius”

you hurl “boy genius” at me
like it might still be the dagger
it was when I was young

nowadays it’s more of a big stone club
I don’t bleed as much at once
but there’s so much more broken inside

back then it felt like unalloyed jealousy
now I get the aftertaste of carnival
with a note of freakshow — so you should know

that “boy genius” hasn’t worked out so well
it’s been a lot like walking the carnival ground
after it’s gone and trying to stop a memory

of ghost bells and whistles
and undead cheesy organ tunes
from smothering me

when you use those words like that
I see your loathing and raise you tenfold
putting all of my own into the pot

knowing that
like all good carnival games
this one’s rigged


Ukulele Fight Song

waiting for a table
in this restaurant
and watching an ant on the wall

can I make this more sing song

watching an ant
watching an ant
watching an ant on the wall
waiting on the ant to walk the whole wall
making bets with myself
if the ant walks the whole wall before we are called
I will take that ant to the table
I will take that ant to the table
I will take that ant to the table
how much could an ant possibly eat
a crumb or two
a crumb or two
a crumb

do you know how perfectly privileged we are
that we have to wait for a table
that in this town people can wait for a table
wait for a table full of food

that in this town the ant is suspect
for making his way on crumbs
making his way on crumbs
when elsewhere the ant would be a competitor
the ant would be a thief
the ant would be stealing from us

can I make this more singsong
how privileged we are
how singsong sing a song we are

what this song needs
is a ukulele
a ukulele would surely help this song
this song is hungry 
and it needs more ukulele

that ant is disgusting
and I crush him once I shake
my generosity off
once they call me for the table
once I get my feedbag on

I’m going to buy that ukulele
and once I know how to play
or maybe a little before that
I’ll sing a song for hunger and ants
a song with a ukulele
song with a ukulele
sing it at an open mike
sing this song
fight that hunger and fight that ant
sing this song


Me Angry

walk around angry it’s an angry world.
lovers ain’t got it.  actors ain’t got it.
warriors, real warrirors, ain’t angry.
it takes a special bag of skin to be angry right.

take a look at the guys they want us to be
all cool and when they kill they wipe their heads
and get a little pensive, say it’s just a job.
no, no, no.  we can be better than that.

we’ve got that iguana thing in our heads
and when we get mad we slip the noose of
mammalia and get scaly.  don’t even know
what comes outta my mouth then.  angry

is an amnesia, a pure brain wash.  if you got eyes
you wanna wash your brain all the time.  angry 
pretty planet and its illusions.  pretty people
shocked all the time by the chaos of plain old life.

walkabout angry, sing a song of angry at every turn,
they don’t see how effortless it is to just be this way
and how clean it feels to admit the anger at play
is who you are.  scream it out: angry.  this world

makes me angry.  those clothes make me angry.
your innocence makes me angry.  my cynicism
makes me angry. optimism makes me rage.
pessimism makes me kill.  I kill myself.  break myself

on it.  lizards of glass.  me the angry lizard. me in shards.  
me cut the foot of the planet in death.  me spitting at you.
me know you care not.  you want love.  me not the loving kind.
thank god there is a me as balance for a you.

 


Vitriol

I fully intend to forever neglect you

The bees in your sharp mouth have stung you
The swelling is getting to you
Maybe you are going to fall victim to Pegasus syndrome
and start imagining you have mythological body parts
Whatever

I have learned that I don’t wish you too much well
It’s rarely been worth interrupting my horizons for you

I feel sorry for the asphalt where you are kneeling
Maybe you’ll just pop like a puff ball fungus
and become a sad brown dust
for the rain to wash off the pavement
Maybe there will be a luck that poisons your spores
and nothing will come of them 
A guy can dream

I have learned how little well I wish you
It has not been worth skipping underwear for you

Gas and rent and a little sugar
I can’t imagine sugaring you ever again
Getting grains in my lip and my eye like the small rock of my bloody shoes
You are a boulder of consequences and regret 
Maybe I can Rolf you out of here or chiropractic my own bones
back into a shape I might be able to crawl with
Given enough time

I have learned the well I wish you is dry
It has not been worth draining
I salt it and cover it and put up signs
DO NOT DANGER DANGER RUN AWAY FLEE

 


A Dog

Spilled anger
wets his mask
until it sags.

What you see underneath
is blue, reddened, splotchy,
and gaping open;

those are big teeth,
and those many, many spots?
Blood, his own.

His hands jumbling
up the scraps
of previous charade (as if

it could be replayed
now that the rage beneath
is so obviously out

in the open) — you know him,
in fact you know him very well.
The mask always has meant next to

nothing.  You were not fooled.
That was no real face visible
on his head

and you always suspected
what the face beneath
would look like.  You

are not disappointed, exactly,
by the revelation.  Yet somehow,
you pity him for this: it seems the monster’s

a dog, a mad dog perhaps but still
a dog.  And dogs?  Dogs
can be put down with very little fuss.

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Superheroes

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
are what I crave, superheroes
full of poison, saving the city
while unable to save themselves,
stinging their supporters, slaying
their sidekicks and shrugging it off
as signs of their natural selves,
acting for all the world
as if ability is unalloyed
miracle, their tails proclaiming
otherwise, how the mighty
carry flaws forever in their strengths,

and which identity is the most secret?

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
riding cobras are what I need,
lion-voiced, their stinking acrid presence
in the bedroom, demanding that I seize
the baseball bat before creeping to the living room
to see what that noise is, arguing, pressing
for murder as response to provocation
when there’s a perfectly good backdoor
not ten feet away and I could escape
if I thought before acting on their urging,

and which identity is the most secret,
which the strongest?

SCORPIONS IN CAPES
are the balance I desire most,
the good as venomous as the evil
is sweet, yellow death on the rooftop
silhouetted against the sick sodium light
of the streets, in service to established
and ironclad rules that say vengeance
is righteous and destruction is excused
by rage against the destroyer, even if
the avenger and the predator
are one and the same,

and which identity do I most eagerly seize
when both are present,
when they look the same?

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Anaphora For The Silenced

Spit the block from between the teeth
and say it:
no more block.
No more cloth to sop up wet words.

Say it: no more restraint.
No more binding of the tongue.

Spit out what has caused silence saying:
end it. End
living in this moment
and no other moment. End
the denial of potential.

End forgetfulness, end
lockdown of past
that’s traveled this same ground
and discovered what is now thought new.

End
irony.  End
sad romantic glow
and false inclusion
around petty blues.

End class disdain.

End feeding of the demons
that breed in racial memory and suspicion
and their domination of the better angels of particularity
and unique experience.
End
fear of difference.

End selective love and listening.
End confusion between
the naturally separated
speaker and words.
End careful
point choice, end the perfection
of the figures traced between
chosen points.
End fire set to voice
and water poured on craft.
End deliberate pouncing upon
every simple inconsistency
that is the hallmark
of humanity.

End the reliance on love
to stop all bullets.  End
the invocation of love
as a blind for the killer.
End the exhortations of
hating game and not player
as if they are ever seen as separate.

End
how the self imagines
itself as only hero, not
villain, not bit player,
not bystander, not ignorant
complicit agent, not
collaborator at the same time.

End in this:
the naked, the skinless,
the wet muscles pressed nerve to nerve
in pain and necessary contact.
End in this:
contact. Blood clotting
as if in love with other blood.

End
with this last closing of gaps
and pray for no regeneration
of the previous ease with how
distance can be sanctioned and welcomed
in the service of clustered living
among those who see only each other
as worthy of the touch.

End the need
of the disregarded
to spit out and discard the gags
transferred to their living mouths
by the hands of the favored.

Spit the block into their hands.
Let them marvel at how moist
it has always been.

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Repeat

Do it.
Shoot yourself
in a place where it will be bloody
and fatal.
Shoot yourself in something like a church.
In a manner designed to stink up the place.
With your foot in your mouth.
With a bullet that fits between your toes
after it’s traveled through your teeth.
Do it.
Tell everyone you’re going to.
Surrender the life you’ve succeeded with
and focus on the failures, they’re heavier
and are more coherent.
Explain it in a note that seems pathetic
even before you’re done.
Decide to say nothing but make sure
you announce the lack of announcement.
Spit the poison you’ve chosen into a face
that meant nothing once, still means nothing
at all, you tell yourself.
Do it.
Suicide the daylight poem
that is you
and maintain the night time novel
that is you.
Disallow the comment period
like some sleazy politician.
You are a sleazy politician, you know.
You never knew that.  You knew that
the whole time.
Vigorous, dumbfounded regularly,
you were always a bored benchwarmer
with a fine sense of imbalance.
Blame it all on your bipolar disorder
then blame none of it on your bipolar disorder.
Try to explain how many times a day
you have thought about it since you were a kid
and let them yawn.  Yawn right back.
Baboon them with a threat display
that will end in an attack.
This time, you really mean it.
Putz, footnote, prove it to them.
Do it.
Do it.
Make it happen, you procrastinator.
Just because you like putting things off
doesn’t mean
you won’t have to follow through
sometime. Do it
do it do it.  This time
the voices aren’t just babbling,
they have a point.

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Dr. Feelgood

Bullets, blades,
torches, and nooses:
tonight’s prescriptions from
Dr. Feelgood.

Said treatment indicated
by symptoms which include
eyes narrowing at opinions
not worthy of consideration

as they seem to have been
derived from
a past that never existed;
repeated punching of talk radio

in the car; raging at
snide bumper stickers;
spitting
on the television.

Diagnosis: reason insulted
beyond reason, patience uncoupled
from motive, fear of the future,
visions of hate and oppression

returned to former levels.
Directions: take all weapons
and wave them in the street
until response is seen.  Then,

let blood loosely, spilling
as needed.  Lift sticky feet
and march to wherever the center
of infection is located,

and repeat as needed.
Prognosis: terrible, terrible
fires and eventual cold winds
over ivory and splintered bone.

Brains and heart decayed.
Limbs splayed on the wreckage
of infrastructure.  Love of the war
and the danger, the glee of scorching

and pillage.  Eventual
shame, ending in a final solution.
Signed, Dr. Feelgood,
master of the moment, prescribing physician.

No return visit indicated.

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Tool

Chisel
calm, aware
of his own edge
but having nothing
to strike him and
make him cut,

he sat there
looking around
at conversations
he thought stupid

until the time came to go home
and return to his sharpening
in the dark.  His edge
was brittle in no time.

God, he cried,
you’re a lazy craftsman.
Take me up, Lord,
and let me make a groove
in your dumb wooden world.
I need a smiting to act
as I have been forged to act.

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