Friday, May 25, 2012

poem of the day 05.25.12


humanity

sometimes
i want to love
humanity
get to know them
love thy neighbor
as thyself
but on the buses
the streets
in the stores
the bars
and cafes
we seem to fail
each other
with every breath
humanity
you are alien to me
as strange
but not as
wondrous
as a big-eyed
big-headed
sci-fi fabrication
and i am shallow enough
to know
that i cannot love
you
that which
is foreign to me
that which
i do not
could not
understand
given only this
lifetime
dedicated to research
and finding out
the cold truth.

Monday, May 21, 2012

poem of the day 05.21.12


it’ll never change

he comes in
and pats my belly
he comes in drunk
pats my belly
and raises an eyebrow
says grochalski?
like that he comes in
and he’s every other motherfucker
that has done that to me
because they felt that they could
the doctor who scolded me
for pop tarts
the friends who used cheap shots
during arguments
who still don’t know where
my hatred for them stems
the young girls and their laughter
at my unrequited crushes
he’s every motherfucker
who has done this to someone else
he comes in drunk
sets my thinking back a decade
and suddenly i’m that kid
fat and alone
and facing the noose
he comes in
and pats my belly
and i am rage unchecked
i’m breaking in my skin
yet unable to shed my mortal coil
think about breaking that hand
the one he used
on my belly
the one that patted the fat
in front of everyone
i think about breaking that hand
turning those bones to dust
then breaking his face
he comes in
he…you know the rest
he looks at me and raises an eyebrow
he laughs
because we’re such good buddies
and i think i could probably kill
this man
but i won’t
because i’m hitting forty
and this has to change
this childhood sadness
this chain that has always inhibited me
but it’ll never change
and i know that
i’m tethered to this ancient self
because he comes in
and pats my belly
he’ll come in again
or, quite frankly,
it could be someone else
like that prick at that party
years ago
the one with the pretty fiancé on his arm
who patted my belly
and raised his eyebrow
grabbed a handful of my fat
and said
yeah, you lost weight
but what does it really matter
if you’re still carrying this
around all of the time?

                       

Friday, May 18, 2012

poem of the day 05.18.12


waves of hubris and ego

one posts about the coming weekend
one stays fastened to the political soapbox
another one can’t stop posting about the job
while the poets have readings and books
that i’m never going to by

the poets seem to post on here five times an hour
surprising everyone that they even have a book to push
for how much time they spend
glued to this thing

one posts song lyrics by an old 1980s band
but the other one puts up the video
some of them are going to the concert this weekend
a few are closing the blinds and getting drunk
but not before they let everybody know

many of the them bomb this site
with photos of their flabby families
with photos of rash-faced babies
then write about how they can’t remember
their life before the little bundle of joy arrived

i read those posts with interest and humor
thinking, sure you don’t,
otherwise you’d probably kill yourself

but this one is always mourning the loss
of some obscure celebrity
and that one likes so many products
i wonder when they have time to breath

one of them is in london
one of them is in san francisco
and i think about robbing their unattended homes
just to teach them a lesson about privacy

several of them play games to kill the hours
giving up information for points
in a ridiculous quid pro quo
many bitch about their favorite sports teams
or push a local restaurant

some don’t post anything of value at all
just type out angry diatribes that seem random and dull

a couple of us push blogs
push our self-serving business down a long scroll
trying to get our own agendas noticed
amidst the rabble one-sided opinion and emoticons

of course, all of us are nothing but old pictures
a list of interests that aren’t very interesting at all

we’re waves of hubris and ego

familiar strangers raising the value
of this company’s IPO
with every like or dislike

christ, i wouldn’t know the bulk of you
if we passed each other in the street

and i’ll be damned if i can remember the last time
i sat across from anyone whom i wasn’t sleeping with
to hear what you had to say

in flesh in voice in blood.

                                               

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

poem of the day 05.09.12


the lancing

as a matter of course
i used to bite my toenails
instead of clipping them

would grab my feet like a monkey
and go to town
biting nails and spitting them on the floor

sometimes i’d bite too deep into the nail
get the flesh and bleed

untreated an infection would show up
and hurt like hell

there’d be pus and blood
a big white bulb on the side of my big toe

i got a perverse joy squeezing
all of that shit out of my foot
for some reason enjoyed the sharp pain
the ache of the swollen toe rubbing against
the leather of my shoe

my mother would catch me
hobbling around, wincing

she’d ask me what happened
if i was biting my toenails again
when i thought that i was being so stealth

let me look at it, she’d say

then when she saw it she’d frown
have me soak the toe in epsom salt and warm water

if it doesn’t get any better
we’re going to have to go to the doctor
to have that thing lanced, she’d tell me

we went through this
each and every single infection
always the threat of a lancing

i had no clue what a lancing was
didn’t want to know

my child’s brain imagined a lancing
like getting stabbed or pierced
because i related the word
to television and movie fantasy

to knights and horses
madmen fighting windmills

that goddamned doctor is going to stab me, i’d think
sitting there soaking in the epsom water

i vowed never to bite my toenails again
or my fingernails for that matter

i was always good
for a few weeks after the infection subsided
but could never stop myself
from doing as i pleased

i always went back to biting those toenails

like an addict

taking my chances
squeezing and squeezing at the pus and blood
if an infection came again

enjoying the pain alone in my room
reaching for the epsom salt
like a seasoned war veteran
for a good long soak in an old rusty pot

a lone knight without chainmail
the don quixote of my block

doing my part
to keep those doctors and their swift
shiny blades
at bay.

                                           

Monday, May 7, 2012

BoySlut Poems

too lazy to post lately....but thanks to Devlin de la Chopa i have poems
over at BoySlut.  please stop by this awesome online mag.

thanks
JG

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

EXTRA poem of the day 05.01.12


mayday may day

after all of these months
he’s still trying to figure out
the vast liberal conspiracy

like someone must be
funding these maggots, he says

they’re dirty and they got no job
yet they have blankets and food and everything else

still america keeps rolling on and on and on
the bloody same as it ever was

put them all in guantanamo, he says
let them occupy a cell down there
with those muslim motherfuckers

even better let them disappear for a while

but the government won’t do that
not with this hippy-dippy in the white house

if only bush was allowed a third term
the streets would be empty of their kind

and all of those liberal writers
and all of those hollywood know-it-alls
would have to find something better
to spend their money on
than a bunch of lazy sacks of shit
too good for an honest day’s work

jesus christ, he says
they have jackets and books
whatever their little hearts desire

but they wanna block my roads?
they wanna take over my bridge?

keep me from getting home
at a good goddamned hour?

let them choke on their protests
i hope the cops take them out
each and every one of them, he says

shoot those bastards in their knees
let them know what real pain feels like

may day?

what in the hell is may day
but some commie holiday.

they want may day, those motherfuckers?

this is the united states
we’ll give them may day until their blue in the face
and bloody to a pulp

still america keeps rolling on and on

                                                                        05.01.12

PoemS of the day 05.01.13


Happy Birthday to the talented Ms. Ally Malinenko


watching ally photograph
the clopton bridge

you’re as beautiful
as the river avon
standing there
and oh christ
you know
i’m not much for
sentimentality
but you look
amazing there
right there
next to that
old yellowing brick
you’ve taken the
cobwebs off of
this old town
my lady
you’ve shaken
elizabethan boots
and rattled
those haunted bones
resting seventeen feet
under ancient marble
you’ve made
the old new
and something
different over
and over again
sometimes i want
to see the world
through your eyes
and other times
i just want to
watch you photograph
the clopton bridge
after eating nothing all day
and drinking a pint
of real cask ale.

my love
don’t you know?
shakespearian sonnets
have nothing
on you.  



allyson

if it wasn’t
for you
i would be nothing.
you know this
and are thankfully
modest.