Category Archives: Poems

Blog, Lyrics, Poems

Love in Lowercase

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LoveAn Ode to Love Songs

What is this feeling called love? We get an education in it from song titles.

It’s a crazy little thing. Tender, sweet, and strange. It’s tainted and it stinks, but we’re addicted to it. It’s our drug. We’re love stoned. We’re crazy in it. It’s all we need, provided we can get enough. We would do anything for it (but we won’t do that). We can’t buy it, because it don’t cost a thing. We keep it locked down. We don’t take it to town, don’t throw it away, and don’t flash it around.

Once we’ve lost that loving feeling, we won’t want to live without it. That’s the power of love. It will keep us together. It will tear us apart. It’s stronger than death, and we will kill for it.

We’re nobody until somebody loves us, but nobody loves us when we’re down and out. Fools fall into that love below. How deep is our’s? We rock the cradle of it. We hate ourselves for feeling it. We give it a bad name.

Love is a battlefield, it will conquer all. It bites and it hurts, especially the ones we feel it for. Stop in the name of it. Love vigilantes take no prisoners. We look for it in all the wrong places. We wonder if it was ever love? It must have been. All is full of it. It’s like oxygen. It’s in the air.

Babies do it. Puppies do it. Muskrats do it. Radars do it. We do it on trains, we do it on roller-coasters, and sometimes we do it in shacks.

Is our love strong enough? Can we prove it, justify it? We think we love you. We know that sometimes that just ain’t enough, but we can’t get enough. All we need is love, but sometimes even love is not enough.

Love is patient. Love takes time. True love waits. We’re waiting for a real love, no ordinary love, one love, not a bizarre love triangle, but a love supreme. We’re waiting for it to lead us back. To lift us higher and higher.

Maybe we don’t always feel it eight days a week, but Friday we’re in love.

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I’ve written many a love song back in my day, but following piece is one of the scant few with the word right there in the title. Continue reading Love in Lowercase →

Audio Shorts, Multimedia, Music, Poems

The Tragedy Of Headshots (Audio Short)

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(Download the instrumental version here)

The Tragedy Of Headshots

There is a tragedy to headshots
These eight by ten obituaries
These manilla folders
Leaking blood, sweat, and tears
Across the varnish
Of your desk

This innocent flesh of ours
Freckles bursting through the make up
These desperate smiles
These vacant eyes

Opened so wide
So you can see the hope
The hope that might bind you to the photograph
Through a sweet nexus of sympathy

Sympathy that might turn into consideration

These big gray eyes begging you
To terraform our homes into sound stages
To turn our landscapes into cardboard backdrops
To use our ash trays as stage markers
To put a spot light where the sun used to be

Can’t you see this face next to your lead
In your park bench picture?
Can’t you see these lips pressed to theirs
Framed up in your rule of thirds?

Or are you auditioning us for a role
That has already been cast?
Letting the understudies
Sit in the lead’s chair
If only
To keep it warm

There is a tragedy to headshots
These smiles frozen in celluloid
These sad points of reference
To the afterthoughts that we’ve become

Waiting in your lobby
I should’ve known
That I’d never get
This part

Blog, Lyrics, Poems, Writing

Fake It Until You Make It

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IMG_4323I am not one of those writers who writes only what I know. I do not chalk up my research to life experience. I do not believe that method writing makes one story more genuine than another. Nor do I believe that every fiction author is secretly penning their own memoir. Though I often write to wrench the weight off of my chest, it is not my sole reason for doing it.

I write about what I am passionate about, but I don’t always have a manifesto in my back pocket. I have something to say, but I don’t always smuggle my closing arguments into a narrative. Sometimes my subtext is just a plot thread that’s been left there to dangle.

My imagination can take me far away from my obligations, but I don’t always write to escape.

Sometimes I write just to see what will happen. To tinker for the sake of tinkering. To experiment and see if the results surprise me. To feel like I’m outside of myself, just because it feels funky.

I believe that life experience can make a story feel authentic. It helps describe the lay of the land. It gives you a quote for specific scenarios. It puts ready made thoughts into your characters’ heads.

That said, I do not believe you have to live through something to write about. You may have to research it. You may have to interview others who have, but if you dwell on it enough to bring tears to your eyes, you can write about it. Just respect your readers enough to handle difficult subjects with care and nuance. Continue reading Fake It Until You Make It →

Lyrics, Poems

Party of One

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Photo by Keane Amdahl, follow him on Twitter @FoodStoned
Photo by Keane Amdahl, follow him on Twitter @FoodStoned

What follows is an ode to self-defeatism. To those of us who over-share when someone asks, “How’s it going?” To those of us who proclaim our circular reasoning until we sound like broken records. It’s about when we need emotional reinforcement, but lack the language to ask for it. Unable to get into the specifics, we say whatever comes to mind. Too bad our minds are scrambled. Our conditions create a language gap, an abstraction, an anomaly in the exchange of ideas.

Like broken computers, we don’t communicate. We spout off an error code. We kernel panic. We blue screen of death. We say we need our space. Then we forbid our guests from leaving. We ask for brutal honesty. Then we accuse them of ganging up on us.

This is an ode to those ironic cries for help. The attempts to lure people in only to push them away. When we walk out of our job, because we want a raise. When we duck out of the party, because we want people to talk to us. When we give the Batman goodbye, because we want people to notice us. We’re quiet, because we want to be heard. We hide, because we want to be found. We run, because we want to be chased.

We want to get under your skin. We want to get into your head. We leave messages on bathroom mirrors, in magnetic poetry, stashed in paperbacks to be discovered later. We soak our boots, step over welcome mats, and leave footprints down hallways. We key cars, impale pillows, and shatter portraits. We burn letters in the sink. We leave messes. We leave evidence.

Here’s to those of us who vague-book in the middle of the night. Who say something serious we can always accuse our commenters of reading into. Here’s to the divas, the drama queens, and the boys who cry wolf. To those of us who keep it real, in the hopes that someone will call us out on it. To those of us who get sloppy in the hopes that we get caught. To those of us who wear our injuries like merit badges, only to rediscover our shame.

This is about the fixes we discover when left to our own devices. It’s about the moment we spot the evidence of our own self-sabotage. When we face palm at the revelation that we’re the ones who are hitting ourselves. No one can fix our heads, until we realize that we’ve encrypted our thoughts. We’re the ones with the most at stake. We’re the ones who have to break the code.

We have to identify this pattern: stress from without creates stress from within that creates stress from without. Continue reading Party of One →

Lyrics, Poems

The Residual Blues

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3rd Blue Rose

They say that lizards can feel
Where their tails used to be
They say the same thing
Of amputees
You took my heart with you
When you parted with me
But I still feel the space
Where our love used to be

My phantom parts
Call me from afar
Like secret agents
They tell me where you are
You took an arm and a leg
Now I’m out on my last limb
Left with the chore
Of filling the empty spaces in

Clipped and severed
Left with only the stem
There’s a phantom image
Where a flower would have been
You left your aura
Your essence behind you
Open my eyes to
A residual shade of blue

Residual Blues cover

You made me feel

Like another person entirely
Now that you’re gone
That person’s here to haunt me
The ghost of moments past
Squealing like a banshee
Scaring me shitless
Making dissonance of my harmony

Did you hear a thump in the night?
Did you feel a chill?
When you think of what we had
Do your arm hairs stand still?
Don’t get too close to mirrors
Don’t even say my name
My ghost is breathing down your neck
Just waiting to be summoned

Clipped and severed
Left with only the stem
There’s a phantom image
Where a flower would have been
You left your aura
Your essence behind you
Open my eyes to
A residual shade of blue

2nd Blue Rose

I took up smoking

To taste more like you used to
You put the nicotine in me
Before I started to
Our love has been ashed
Right down to the filter
But whenever I cough
I know it’s still there

Clipped and severed
Left with only the stem
There’s a phantom image
Where a flower would have been
You left your aura
Your essence behind you
Open my eyes to
A residual shade of blue

(There’s a gallery of roses after the jump)

Continue reading The Residual Blues →

Lyrics, Poems

Harvested

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IMG_5090Her eyes
Were bigger than her belly
Until she
Got her fill of me
Left a mark
With her molars
Ate all my good parts
I’m what’s left over

And it feels like I’ve been harvested
Of all the love I have to give
Of all the heart I’ve left to lose
A bit worse, for lack of use
It’s time for me to get my shit
To perform another exodus
I’m going back to the meat locker
I’ll wait it out another year

I will
Yes, I will
I will
Oh yes, I will

Built a wall of newspapers
Comicbooks, and magazines
Headphones, bottles and
Laptop computer screens
Tried so hard to lick my wounds
To imagine myself happy
Turns out that I’m the thing
That’s been eating me

And it feels like I’ve been harvested
Of all the love I have to give
Of all the heart I’ve left to lose
A bit worse, for lack of use
It’s time for me to get my shit
To perform another exodus
I’m going back to the meat locker
I’ll wait it out another year

I will
Yes, I will
I will
Oh yes, I will.

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Lyrics, Poems

Full Red Submersion

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Photo by Keane Amdahl, follow him on Twitter @FoodStoned
Photo by Keane Amdahl, follow him on Twitter @FoodStoned

Everybody needs their space. Everyone has their comfort zone, their bubble, their line that you just do not cross. We keep our guards up, because the world is constantly hitting us with its battering ram. We wall ourselves off, because we know what it’s like to feel exposed. We wall ourselves off, because we value the things we’ve already lost.

When those walls feel like they’re closing in, it’s because someone is pushing on them. When we don’t feel like ourselves, it’s because someone has gotten under our skin. When we wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it’s because the thing that haunts our dreams is lying on the other side.

We’re always told our problems come from within, this piece is about the times they come from without. Continue reading Full Red Submersion →

Audio Shorts, Blog, Multimedia, Music, Poems

The Writer’s Alibi (Audio Short)

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This is an idea that originated on Twitter. The Tweet went:

Turns out a lot of writers have had this thought. We’re a solitary lot. If some flatfoot thought we looked good for a crime they’d be grilling us for awhile. We’re the red herrings that are mistaken for piranhas. They’d see our calm demeanor as a mask to hide our neurosis. They’d see our quiet manner as a smoke screen for an underlying rage. They’d peg us as self-involved sociopathic narcissists.

They wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Under the harsh interigation room lights, they’d make us tell our stories. They’d ask where our ideas came from. They’d ask, “What do you mean you let your characters tell the story? Do you hear voices? What else do they tell you to do?”

Tread very carefully when answering their questions. They’re not fans and you are not at a reading.

Tell them to check the date and time stamps in the meta data from your document files. Tell them to interview all those poor souls you’ve pushed your story on. Get your beta readers on the line, tell them you’re going to need a whole lot of feedback to get you off the hook for this one.

***

This is my fourth audio short to feature a soundtrack. These pieces are heavily influenced by the Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe a radio dramas from the 80s (worth your time).

I’m digging the contrast between the jazzy upright bass and the haunting ambient synth. It’s like beatneck poetry scored by Aphex Twin.

Now it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take you for a stroll through the graveyard. Disembodied fingers walk the scale of a harpsichord, unearthed from the basment of an old manor, clogged with cobwebs, detuned by time.

Top that off with some knee slapping, finger snapping percusion.

I’m really proud of this piece. I’ve listened to it way too many times already. Continue reading The Writer’s Alibi (Audio Short) →

Audio Shorts, Blog, Multimedia, Music, Poems

The Baseless Hate (Audio Short)

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Quitting smoking introduced me to a new side of my personality. There was a thunder cloud where my aura ought to be. It drove my nails into my palms at the first sign of conflict. There’s Dr. Jekyll, there’s Mr. Hyde and then there’s Sir Nicotine Withdrawal. Guess which one would win in a fight?

I found myself grinding my teeth at the announcement of each new homework assignment, gripping the desk, like the Hulk preparing to launch a car into a building. I saved my short supply of nicotine gum for just such an occasion. These anger attacks weren’t justified by any slight against me, they just were.

This got me thinking about the nature of anger, how I’m predisposed to feel it, with or without cigarettes.

Sometimes my Subconscious Mind just observes something, a song or a fashion trend, and says, “I hate that.”

My Conscious Mind says, “Care to explain why you hate that? Could you show me the data that brought you to said conclusion?”

My Subconscious frowns, shakes it’s head, a child who didn’t get the toy he wanted. He says, “I hate it therefore you hate it. We both hate it.”

My Conscious Mind sighs. His exhale whistles through his teeth like a tea kettle. He says, “You don’t know a thing about the thing you hate, but you want to make up both our minds for us.”

My Subconscious nods, “And I’ll keep bring it up until I get my way.”

This 2 minute audio short is about that internal arguement our conscious minds have with our subconscious, our super-egos with our ids, our brains versus our guts. It’s the 2nd audio short to feature haunting music and won’t be the last. Enjoy! Continue reading The Baseless Hate (Audio Short) →

Audio Shorts, Multimedia, Poems

Curbside Noir (Audio Short)

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This is a soundtrack for those moments when you’re stuck in limbo with just your impotent rage to keep you company. When you’re pacing back and forth on the same street corner. When you’re caught without an umbrella and you just soak it all in. When its pitch black outside and it suits you just fine.

This is an internal monologue for when the bad guys leave you in a pit of snakes. When you’ve got no traction and you’ve got to claw your way up. When life doesn’t bother to give you lemons. When it just squeezes you dry. When the hand of fate presses you down into your lowest possible moment. The one that comes right before the revelation that you either have to make a change or be changed.

This too will pass, but you’re the one who’s stuck with the mess it leaves behind.

This is your pain in black in white, emphasis on the black, on the Rembrandt lighting, on the shadows it casts. This is the alley where they catch you. Where you make your last stand. Where fedoras are helmets and trench coats are security blankets. Where you’re puzzled but never quite defeated. You’re an artist with a brush up your sleeve. It’s time for you to make some outlines on the sidewalk.

This audio short is about that film noir attitude seeping into our lives, empowering us to stand up to each and every son-of-a-bitch that comes our way. This is the first of my audio shorts to get its own score, a haunting piano melody, infused with synths and a subtle beat. The piece needed this haunting soundtrack to bring you to that dark alley, where you’re surrounded by thugs. Pain and its henchmen, here to collect their debt.

Pain has already made such an awful mess of our lives. Let’s make a mess of it. Continue reading Curbside Noir (Audio Short) →