Tag Archive for Experimental Style or Form

The Other Side of Lee

Trumpet:

Weaving across the floor,

Slipping out of reach

Elusive, cunning,

A fox outfoxing, hip with hot hips,

She sizzles and twists

Sax:

C’mon baeeee-by! C’mon baby please!

C’mon baby, c’mon baby dance with me!

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!

C’mon baby dance with me!

 

Piano:

She: slip, slide, slither, glide.

He: groove and prance and strut.

They sidestep into each other.

 

Bass:

You see there’s this chick…

She can’t be caught…

You see there’s this chick…

Dances with any cat…

This chick dances and hypnotizes…

Now, you see this chick…

The Sidewinder…

You close your eyes…

She’s gone…

Weaving back across the smoky room.

A Bunch of Nonsense

I am a super hero!
I am the lingerie loving,
Plum dancing,
Popcorn serving,
Potato eating,
Viggo Aspiring,
Moviegoer,

I am…

The Last General of the forgotten creed,
The laughing Grand Mage of forgetfulness,
The Ranger of the play grounds,
The Arch Duke of the melancholy collaborators,
The Poet who talks to little hairy fat naked Fay…

                They
say to me,
                            He
shall be knighted,
                                  He
shall propose,
   He shall kiss the earth and be blessed,
 He shall cry when his children are born,
            He shall
rise and be recognized…

But in my mind I see,
                     You
curling up in the covers,
                        While
I make breakfast,
   &nbsp      And I’ll wake you with
the smell of fresh orange juice.
                  After
I move your hair from your eyes,
                    We
lay…
                                In
a half daze till our children come barreling in…

Because I say happiness is a long winded poem,
being read by an overconfident, Lord
of the
Rings maniac, with a little too much time on his hands… And
a whole lot of nonsense to share
with the world…

St. Francis’s Program for Gifted Children

Janie, what is love?

Love is a flower, sir.

Hmm. Quite. And, Randy, what is hate?

Hate, sir?

That’s what I said.

It’s, er, a fire, sir.

Excellent. Brandy, define fear.

Fear is a report card, sir.

Ah. Hah-ha-ahem. Certainly. And—oh, are we to Byron?

Yes, sir.

Mm. Of course. Very well, then. Byron, do keep it shorter this time, won’t you?

Yes, sir.

If you please, what is anger?

Sir, anger is a falling star that blazes white, yellow, then red and drops from the sky in brilliant despair. It falls into my house, where it quavers, flickers, and stands still, with mere ashes surrounding its deathly glare. Sir.

Another Person

I watched him walk by the shore, the sea whipping around his tanned legs. He looked desolate, caught up in the moment. I watched silently from the balcony as the guy I had grown to know and love… no, he was no more. The boy was still there, but his soul had gone. He was no longer the guy I had fallen in love with. I watched as he tossed a stone in the sea and stared as it bounced. As I stood a few feet above him, I felt guilty. Guilty that I had let him become like this, guilty I had just let him slip away. I wanted to believe he deserved it, I really did. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t face another day standing by and watching him mope around as if he had nothing better to do. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself even to speak to him. As he turned slowly, our eyes met, locked in a solid gaze we had come to recognize. Only this was different. His eyes didn’t bear the love they used to—only loneliness, and emptiness. Not a tremor of joy…

As I walked further up the beach, I threw a rock into the sea, not even the waves lapping at my feet soothing my temper. All I could think about was how she could do this to me. We were doing just fine, until we hit that rough patch. And all because I’d started on the basketball team. Just because I wanted to live my own life meant to her that we should throw away everything we ever worked for. Everything that meant the world to me. Then when I turned, I saw her. She was staring down at me, and I then realized that we now had nothing in common. We’d changed. She was not the girl I had fallen in love with. I read the look on her face to be sympathetic, as she had every right to be. Because she ruined it for us, and pinned all the blame on the victim. But as we stood there, gazing at each other as if frozen in place, there was something missing in the way she looked at me. There was not a tremor of guilt or shame. Not a tremor.

Young Man Ponders

A young man ponders a reflection of imperfections. Suddenly enlightened, he appears to himself as extraordinary, not dampered by the burden of imperfections. He proclaims the freedom of not being perfect. A revelation that reveals that the machine known as man and the rat race known as society is encumbered upon by imperfections. They rule all.

Modern Astronomy

“I’m always especially tired after twelve hours of consciousness,” Ryan stated, “but today was different.”

“How’s that?” Ted asked.

“I actually had an idea for a poem. Actually I probably would’ve written it as a short story, but I didn’t end up writing it because I thought it probably would’ve been a stupid story”

Ted, surprised, replied, “Ryan, weren’t you just complaining the other day that your ‘well of inspiration had become a thimble of mediocrity’? Just tell me what your little poem was about, and I’ll let you know what I think about it. You oughtn’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Well, you won’t be impressed, and it would’ve been a short story, not a poem.”

“Get on with it, man!”

Ryan cleared his throat and collected his thoughts so he could clearly explain, “The story goes like this: There’s this astrologer… or astronomer, some guy who studies space; well, this guy is looking through his telescope one day and he sees a planet, or star, or something of that sort that’s so far away and blurry he can’t be sure what it is. What he can see of it, though, he finds to be the most beautiful object in space he’s ever seen. He knows maybe this is all in his head, you know, like he subconsciously knows that he’s overdoing it because one day the observatory he was working for upgraded to a more powerful telescope, but he never zoomed in on that beautiful body even though he could. He didn’t want to find out that the thing that inspired him and occupied his creative mind was just another ball of gas or chunk of rock.

“That’s basically it, except I would’ve written it with more detail and with a dramatic feel. I can see it on your face that you weren’t impressed. I told you you wouldn’t be impressed.”

“Well, first thing is your story wasn’t stupid. Seriously,” Ted said in an almost patronizing voice.

“Enough of that. What was it, do you think?”

“Honestly, it’s just starting to bother me that your story was just another of your typical whining-romantic themes. Its obvious that the star represents that Girl. I’m just trying to say that these types of stories, in excess of course, tend to warp your mind from a sensitively sentimental one into a morbidly depressed one.”

“How do you mean?”

“You still like Her, and you never stopped liking Her. It frustrates me to see you doing this to yourself. That wounded heart is self-inflicted.”

“I don’t like Her! You’re being very rude.”

“I thought you’d want me to be honest.”

“You’ve just got to feel like you’ve got everyone figured out, don’t you?”

Why Can’t We Reach Out

About a hundred meters away from the busy intersection the robot turns orange.

Then red.

“It’s time to stop,” it says. “Sit back, relax and take a look around you.”

Her eyes, yes, as always, looking down at the road.

And on her soggy, grimy, corrugated-cardboard ‘licence plate’ are four similar downcast faces.

Young.

Sabotaged by the climbing ivy wrinkles of unnecessary worry and… confusion.

“Just look at her! She could pack bags at ‘Clicks’ if she were not so lazy! She makes more money here! The fool! The… the…

The robot turns green and the car rolls away…

It’s Sunday; we sing a hymn and a tatty old man stumbles in and sits down.

He is sitting alone, by the last stanza…

On my way to school a taxi flies past, full of noisy, tightly packed, screaming ‘animals’ off to their enclosures.

They are unaware of themselves.

Just minutes after…

another one!

But, this time full of children. “Gateway Village Bus” flickers in the sunlight.

Little faces—badly deformed—are pressed up against the windows.

As the bus goes on, they smile at me so warmly, oblivious to the hurtful, harsh criticism filtering through my ‘sophisticated’ mind.

Their faces disappear down the road.

Still smiling…

Sometimes we pass “the flats” on our way to the city.

Two young girls play with knives. They hack away at an empty cardboard box lying in the mud while their parents lie drunk on the patio…

My mother drops me off at the school gate. I wave good-bye and walk into yet another sad story.

Some stand in groups and talk about their exciting weekends. How they went to the ‘Vaal’ with their speed boats and had a really good time.

How they worked all night on Friday, but got a good wage.

They laugh together.

Their friendship is special and warm.

As I walk over to my own group of friends (happy to see me), I see others walking side-by-side sharing with one another… and I see those standing alone, looking at their watches, reading through their school diaries. Looking busy.

I know that they are just shielding themselves from the reality that no one is willing to be their friend.

“And me?”

I turn my head and walk on. Much faster then before.

“Got to get to my friends now!”

The bell rings. We go to class, only to face more mysteriously withdrawn characters. Only, they sit at bigger desks. They are less approachable.

Yet, they have lives, too.

Some of them.

After school they climb into their cars and drive off.

But I’ll see them again tomorrow… perfectly veneered.

“And me?”

Well, I only have to see them for a few more months. What’s more, I have my own veneer to polish.

And yet, when I go home (to my comfort zone), put on my music and stare out over the hilltops and see the ‘sophisticated’ human anthill from my mansion in ‘Florida Hills’… it hurts…

Because I wonder how much I actually care.

“Not much,” I say and pick up a magazine on the glass-topped coffee table.

“So?” I think.

“Who cares anyway?”

What if Alone

What if alone I cannot walk the roads?

What if alone I always lose my way?

What if alone I have no strength, no will?

What if alone I turn my world to grey?

 

What if alone I don’t know why I’m living?

What if alone I don’t know how to start?

What if alone I lose the strength of giving?

What if alone I even lose my heart?

 

What if alone I don’t know what is caring?

What if alone my smile is just a mask?

Why do I carry burdens not for bearing?

What if alone I don’t know how to ask?

 

What if alone I wait while Time is passing?

What if I even can’t give you a hand?

What if I only need your smile and blessing?

What do I do to make you understand?

Dream #45

“That is a dangerous dream,”

the giant praying mantis told me

“It is a vile, vile thing for us to have

to walk this bloodstained earth—”

“—But we are doomed to it,” I finished

“It was bloodstained before us, and so it

will be so.”

“Yes, all of the blood has mingled together,

so we cannot tell which is which,”

said the praying mantis

“My love said to me that if the house

was full of water, would I swim deep

to rescue him.”

“Of course you told him yes,” said the

praying mantis

She paused

“But it is dangerous to dream like that”

“Who said it was a dream?”