Foul Poetry

[Worm of Despite]

Yes! I only wish you had been able to read it in book form, but I suppose down the line that will happen anyway. It's reactions like yours that makes writing completely worth it.

[Worm of Despite]

Still Pulse

Grief and no tears welter here
Transgression of memories; past
Does not stop its shuttle here
The fluid fountain, the body
Standing and letting the coin drop
Accept the cold serenity
Did God decide this moment,
Pace this breath or draw
This quill across the air
Of patience and no time--
No time here in the cold halls
Of the falling fountain
And mounting thought

II.
Marble floors,
Reflecting light
And glossing faces
Silent doors
Slide open and admit;
It is coming nearer,
Growing closer
Going no further
Breath has elapsed again
Patient water
And no thought

Why
Do they roll their luggage
Rattle and let
It come no farther
I descend, and in them
My breath--

Gray day
And damper
Gray day
And voices calling, phones
Ringing
Hollow
And light and water
Falling

Memory beckons
In this gray plain,
Twisting, effecting no reason
We are all
That is enough

[Worm of Despite]

Invective Against Self

You, who stand to accuse or pity
Yet hold in your breath the same sentiment
Cleave now with lies as sharp as dread
To say
You ne'er espied the looming broadside
Or its barrowing sail through climbing breach
Crest o’er, dry words, sheets of heady speech,
Such that thoughts in recession steal peace
Sighing that no heart may grasp or reach;
But know that I, friend--I do

Furrow now;
Lay long thy trackless spirit,
Unsheathing roads yet unborn
And toss forth clouds to hide sepulchers;
Let leaves cover paths of broken faith
And tell the wind to meet once more
Through shrives of soundless air

II.
Skies raked, deepening red in fume
And awoke with salient pillars,
Degusting of the rain and soot and plume
And to bray of the time, diminished of
Its meaning now, its coming life, its
Thickening like blood from runlets, drops
And searing the life that grasped its locks
Comes crying, skies raking
Deep reddening in building fume
Dry on, crack, peeling
Sail man, sail home or away

[Worm of Despite]

I sing my song of vision, sense
Derision torn from recompense
Thrown wide through halls grown long and white
That reek no sign
That knew me not

Yea, flowing now, no union sought
Stiff judgment here, a
Light so shot
Through blindness, a sole apparition,
Whose piling of my sound and vision
Never will reveal--

[Worm of Despite]

OF A CLOSE

Day came
And it, a thought
That the gods should find peace
But how does one consummate
That which will ensure their comfort
Or in doing so

Motionless wind
Sightless are the eyes of the cicada

Help the Gods find peace

Help the Gods--
A wind slashing the breast of a tree
Leaves spilling like blood from cloven wound
On the attendant faces of the dawn,
Once flushed with pink
Now amber-gray

II.
Day fell
And it
Reached up in the hours
Like limbs striving

Tell me of desire, thy silent pain
Length of tall tree, desiring
Tell me of why you have bound thy firm longing
With the day and sky and wind
That rages now and then
And then you and I
Shall become one in mind and ear

They were branches, blanching brown and bracken
They, branches until the dusk of dying light
Swirled darkness about them, smoothing
Pitch of wood to blackening arms
Uplifted, raging
To know the stars

III.
And still
I can not comprehend
Why they implore, that self-same voice
Why they

[Worm of Despite]

YOU HAVE

Seven messages:
Friday, 4:54 PM

Mom I gotta get that money in the bank
Or I’m fixin’ta do
Some serious overdraftin’
Uh, take care of Steve, do whatever
You gotta do; piss on that son-of-bitch!
I--other people got lives ‘side him

Monday, 11: 23 AM

Uh, uh--
You sound like you’re about to die or something,
Ma. I don’t know what the problem is,
But anyway, uh, give me a call or
I can catch a taxi before 11 O’clock
And go to Walmart
And I need to get some CDs
For, uh, David to burn, uh um
Some stuff he’s got for me
And pick up some chicken
But I dunno what the shit’s goin’ on with you
But you don’t call me before eleven
I’ll call a Taxi, no problem

1819

“Let’s go down to the hanging
May is good
For visiting asylums”

Tuesday, 8:37 AM

Need one Lorsec and two Xanax, Mama
Thank you

Why do you bleed, Cilia?
Why do you bleed on the dry
Snow of pine needles
Dry and thick
With frozen drops

Throat dry
And cracked
But the man on the screen
Will always be well
Thus goes his speech:

“Friends! The world has sat silent,
Heaped in the bowels of its complacence,
Reeking of no better plane or greater good.
In the quiet contemplations that flow out,
I often see in my visage a hunger,
Reflecting in fascinated eyes.

“Fixated,
And yet always reproached and left open
Is the question of this soul;
And I see that question, friends,
Imprinted in your reflection, thy image.
Your hearts are not still but laboring,
Your eye not lying but striving.
No word can halt your search,
No hand stop you from seeking.
We wish to know, for it is our quest,
Our great generation’s last bastion.
Give in, brothers, and admit your passion;
Your bated breath and heaving chest
Quake to cry that question.
Cry it with me!”

Tuesday, 8:51 AM

Uhhh it’s me callin’ ‘gain
See ya

II.

Silent is this highway
Long and contiguous
The line of dreams

That I did not barter
Or show longing
Before the eyes of death
Silent, we lay

Tuesday, 8:57 AM

Uhhhh will ya pick up the telephone,
Mom? Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?
Anybody at home? Is there anybody there?
Pick up the telephone. I’ll try later on

[Worm of Despite]

AGE OF ASSIMILATION

The blind cannot cheat
No, they can’t?
Yes, they can
Just as readily
As you sit by

And let the man that hangs
Twist with your heart
And he is as blind
As I

I. …introduced 1896

The music of Benny Goodman
Plays out of style
Over clubs and lecterns,
Sports and ethnic heritage
And let us provide
Industrial education, kindergarten
Child care and crafts training
Pack them in the plants and
Stockyards; lift them up
Among the churchyards

II. What

Are you reaching for,
Over there--?
Yes, open your hand
I have nothing,
Sir--
No, you do

What
Are you doing?
Looking for a woman
For my husband

[Worm of Despite]

LAST CHAPTER

I woke in waves
Of darkness, the music fleeing
To artificial light
From empty train cars
Full of corpses
And a single scavenger
Whose bony hands
Found loose jewelry
And articles of clothing

Dingy and thin
Was the brown cloth,
Faces flushed fat
With death
And the hand stirring
The still bodies
Did not see their depthless eyes
Or gaping maws,

Neither taking
Nor expulsing breath

[Worm of Despite]

O’er this heart, this vast complicity
Sighs reason, fused of intractability
And in all emptying focus a maddened desire
No air between these eyes held upward,
Conducing pious to a greater being.
My needs, caught bleeding, such a tender thing
Throw bouts of passion, rings of fire
I know naught but the timbre of my heart,
The acoustics of her swing.
For what other rare drift may beat eternal,
Suffused against such dying lifts.

O, terrible inquiry that wrought this strength,
Fashioned thus of flesh and mind
What great engine spewed us out
What vast thought in finite time
For lais upon the lute so stressed
Immaculate the hands that wring
Bring forth such pealing notes, so light
And cause this mortal voice to sing.

[Worm of Despite]

Maybe and Perhaps

Maybe my heart is burning my chest
And
I around it.
I hear the echoes of lost friends
In
Long gray hearths.

I turn my head;
I see no more.

I lay my palms out
But feel only darkness

I seek out voices;
My heart hears weeping;
The voices rasp
Like cold, dry leaves.

My face is crying
And my body is afire:
Living fire and dead water
Mixed with clay.

Where will I go
To find
My people?

If there is no tower,
Where I took the squires,
Where will I go?

Perhaps my heart is burning my chest
And
I around it.
I hear the echoes of lost friends
In
Long gray hearths.

[Worm of Despite]

Alzheimer's

Song-less, I
Feel alone;
I can’t even find the tune.
Things I felt the other day
Stale into deep maroon.

Every memory dies, anyway,
So what’s to say they’re right?
Can I pick up and go,
Or must I relinquish more light?

I
Can’t tell anyone apart.
I
Can’t tell any sun apart.

Faceless seems this nameless crowd
That was once family,
Congealing songs I wrote myself--
What a travesty.

When I’m gone, they’ll move on, muttering “what a fool.”
Son, you’d not exist this day had a father not been cruel.

I
Can’t tell any love apart.
I
Can’t feel throughout my heart.

[Worm of Despite]

ZEN

And when the night is long and your dreams are wide
When the tears are dry and you hurt inside,
Think of everyone you knew before--
Dreams of every love that made you soar.

And it’s only tears
That pass you by--
Your loving glances,
Your darling cry.

Times of Kings--jesters too.
Songs of green, tunes of blue.

And when you discern beyond the waves,
Descry the seagull and how she behaves.
Think of times when you too flew high;
Think of heights that made you sigh.

And it’s only tears
That pass you by--
Your loving glances,
Your darling cry.

Times of Kings--jesters too.
Songs of green, tunes of blue.

[Worm of Despite]

Ravel

Basque notes in the river
Lived with sediment; curling, keening
Rock and eye; bathing every line, colour
Form or angle; white gust in the evening
Farthest map of the farthest image of the mind

White, ceaseless center; interlocking waves
Of matrices in bindles; shackles wrought
Cold-iron hands in prayer; Song of Songs; breath of breath
A-swing in distant timbres, hollow ambers; buried shore
Of burning eyes; cynosures; passage pressed
Of flesh and time; no mooring on the line of dawn;
No voice applies;

In reeds, heart beaten; wind on night; dissonance
Tends her flock; waves of shadowed light
Burning far-forgot mist on cabin of seas of floors
Of men and time; space in congruity, cracked wells
Of columns, blood running, roofs slatted
Marble floors of draped, papered skin of men
Pebbles hardly move or arms or features
Nothing stands; drapes made of stone; paved
Eyes no detail, no nose; chipped; running; faded
Marbled knots of limestone

So many died
It took a century to count
Bodies cremated by doors; ash; homes
Curtains; windows lay on brick, steeped gray
Plume of ash so high; in mist as wave in cloud;
It fell far, lapped fire, air stripped; stones tell
Of their remembrance

II.
Earth without boundary; road unborn
In mind or eye; long and listing
Palace of wind; no form or hall; no body
Leaning on cave wall to catch or call; no delving
Wind in mouthless rock, desiring scent of pine;
Gaping moon in full desire; stiffening shadow; wind
Moves again, scurry—slightest touch; highest
Scent; brushed floors with pebbles; without
Force

Earth without boundary; life;
We've lived so long
So long with flesh and blood; feel
Am I possessed of mind? So long
So long to hear and here this moment;
Is gone; one moment; more; one more
There is but form, lineation
Tears that blemish; we die
Each mind, alone; each mind
A feat to touch another's; how
Is this done; how; one more
Another moment; time

[lucimay]

you are an insanely talented and wicked ass writer foul.

i'm a huge fan.

<-------anne would love you.

[Worm of Despite]

Thanks Luci. My aim is to create poetry that gets closer and closer to "breaking through to glory" and moving me more and more as I develop my style and complexity. I will never be satisfied, and I hope the poetry I write when I'm 40 (and hopefully 80) makes this stuff look like dry runs for the real stuff!

[Fire Daughter]

You're awesome, David. I have nothing to say other than that. Incredible stuff!!

[Worm of Despite]

Tape

I.
Blood of my fathers
Resplendent in my youth
Eyes that have neither seen nor known
A dawn; line of red, vastest red; vast
Uncounted time; another moment; a
Last verge of last memories
Sinking in itself: sinking

Sighs, fluid
Lapsing fluid fills
The body lapsing time
Uncounted, ne’er reeking distance
Ne’er piling, accounting
Last upon very last; final

Seek, please
Merely sought eyes
Voice, transposed memories; sighs
Fixtures; light; moment and hand
Voice; buried time; announce
Your sin, grievance, mortality
Announce the water in your eyes

Every moment wilting
Before its birth
Sat reeking of a different place
In tongues with memory
Or thought, transgression sat

White; tan, white
In filled space in white noise
Tape slaps recorder, undone
All run; done; recorded
Played out; voices locking
Memory, transgression, moment
Some white noise here; breath; eyes
Perfect sequence; grain; edited

II.
Every marching lilt or tone, affixed
To some bent form or cast, some note
Very slowly, ever in your heart and eye
Was there before this came, is there
For all time

[Worm of Despite]

Harbor

I sat and heard waters converge
Of voice and thought and time
Strengthening and weakening wood
Lisping like springs on dry docks
On sundered, bleached bones of patios
And steam from homes focuses
And ripples

Steam and light on windows; lay
With me a moment, repeat these words
Lay beside the dumb, idle time

Focus; choose; requited
Ever on a leaning new year in
Sharp refuse of dawn in rungs
Of bamboo stalks stir tropical form
Of stars on a new year; stars wilt
Placement; figures; fugues
Desirous of its leaning
Shape in shadow made in night
Of gracious holiday and sound
And memory, sundering
Cicada calls: smoke, tender in a wind
Coals inadequate before they die

Time abounds and weaves
Leaves its song before a harbor bay
Before he is speaking in dawn
I lay prostrate like a mask on night
And wind; night is nothing but its shadows
One sees nothing much has changed

Along its song by harbor bay; he speaks
In dawn; I lay prostrate; like masks
On the lies of night; nothing but shadows
One sees their form like steeples
Slain upon the ground forevermore
And stinking with a song more suzerain
Than the first note rose steaming from the water
Or its earth

[Worm of Despite]

Wind

Grey mash of earth and brown grass
Soft swill of evening mist
Dead and dying lights October
Homes besmirched by winter grass; wet
And firm, stirring; lifeless; shrill
Call of morning, death, God scurrying
In open space, a thousand year embankment
Of dirt and bone pressed to hold our skull and light the earth

A thousand year; not even eye may read or know the thought
He held; blush time held and swaying, leaves practice on morning
Sanctified-grey and brown, dappled, cleaving open wind; sought
Pain and love, blood and redemption, torment, misery;
Mazes upward

Sore and chaste, resolute
Climbing path held upward
And over ice; yawning lank
And distant shadow; timorous breath
Saintly presses a thousand keys of
Open consonant keys keen and voiceless
Brushing, plain, voiceless, setting hills awash
And twisting forests as if one voice

Brushing, burning; setting hills awash
And twisting forests as if one voice
The winter grass wet and firm
Stirring, lifeless

[lorin]

I can feel the icey wind in every line. Beautiful and sad.