On Loss

The living life vanished left a vortex of sadness swirling dumbly on the damaged horizon, numb
wellwishers caregivers and undertakers making small talk over an open casket
Making not to lie, made not to lie, wishing well
with little heart to spare I’m so sorry for your loss Mrs. Johnson, a man
standing quiet with less and less to say he was a fine boy
and today’s the fucking day I say God Damn You God
and thanks for all the truth I can’t think about
and thanks for how much life he could have lived
but You were a little careless this time
with Your Untimely Death
So here we are all gathered together birds of mournful feather beating wing for dear life
Spinning in the storm

JWR & NDW

balance

spitting shitfaced bullshit belligerently
silly thoughtless thought unsullied by examination
from without
without fear of retribution
without grace or style or any other element
without myself to blame

i was drunk once at a party
telling everybody how old i was
and that i loved them

i was drunk again last night
telling myself not to know
it wasn't the same

straining to stand on foreign land
when all land feels foreign
from within
(as long as being is fine,
as long as i can be mine) is fine to me
as long as i can balance my bellicose verbiage

JWR

All Through The Night

Poems are like shit
   There's always a part of us
   eating the other part
   or feeding the other part
   And nobody thinks their own stinks
   until eyes blinking their thoughts
   evaporate like coal dust
   flying through the aether like it
   all  hit the fan and becomes nothing 
   but when the door
   (rusted shut)
   blows open
   it is the wind fighting the light
   All Through The Night

PDM & NDW

I'm John Russell (a voicemail transcript)

I'm John Russell.
I'm John Russell.
I just hit my head, hard.
My head hurts, but I'm still John Russell.
I'm in love with Torie, Shipley.
And I'll do anything.
It doesn't matter what it is th–, that it is, you know,
It doesn't matter what it might take
I'm John Russell.
And uh,
I don't like things being explicit,
I like to be really–
I like my life to be like The Beatles wrote it.
I like it to be special.
Uh,
Nobody should really say anything, unless they're they're they're li- they're like
“John, who's equal to John Russell?... There's nobody.”
So, you know, praise the Lord, thank the God, um... the God of Gods, the Metagod, he's the god.
Who's alive and he says John Russell is the fucking, motherfucking shit.
Who cares? Nobody, except I'm Torie Shipley.
Except I'm–
You know,
Nevermind... that I said that about myself.
Alright.

NDW

Party I & Party II

I. (Hazy)
Make the great pilgrimage to the Mecca of the mind on a misty morning
of marijuana meditation
Ride the caravan to the far-flung corners of careless thought ‘cause
We spend our days downstream, dazed
In a downdream marijuana haze
And we must pay homage
But
We bow not before some weird black stone from the sky
Nor before the great pyramids testamented to nothing but injustice and our own stupidity
Nor any other silly shrine
We pay it simply to ourselves
And the chemical combinations we call our selves
taking tokes in the mean meaningless madly moaning morning
having sexual intercourse with blades of grass on our skin

II. (Dazey)
Climb the great mountain at the bottom of the sea of drunkenness
Immerse the heart of hearts in obeisance at the apex
Bow before the obelisk of drunken alcohol
For tonight we dine on wine and enshrine all the forgotten memories
All the impromptu perfect poetry
All the garbage flung from our trashy smashed mouths,
Shouted slurs at 3am slung with high hopes
That heaven might crack open and crack up with us
The chair teetering at 5am
These are all relics
Of times partially forgotten and exhaustively recounted
And now placed at the drowned drunken peak of Mount Party in an offering to the evening.

JWR & NDW

pure mind vomit revealing that i desire to produce a child

holy mcgod squad of squiddly squuddles
slip me a sly one alone like a dead swordfish

sling a jiggled squiggler a larval mesquiteo
to finally finish and forget my greatest apology

a marriage of one to oneself would be legal
if you could fuck yourself but you cant and thats why i tell you to

and the frogs vagina turned into a chickens vagina
spewing forth forlorn lullabyes of the simple unknowing of perpetual youth

NDW

Baby Avalanche

Small Steps
Baby Avalanche
He took one step
and a little avalanche rolled under his feet.
Jah does rule the world

small steps
cause a Baby avalanche
small parts
of a grandmaster plan
Jah does rule the world

small steps on a staircase
Causes a tiny avalanche
which rolls
down a huge hill
Jah does rule the world

small steps taken to avoid
tiny avalanches
are a good thing
when
Jah does rule the world

small stone falling
part of an avalanche
does damage
but
Jah does rules the world

PDM

the georgetown vision killer (perpetual work in progress)

youre an original sinning virginal whore
with a cold shoulder for the aboriginal in darfur and or flint michigan

just a woman alone
with no love from anyone
a poor twin spore of your own blood kin
her engine of war
worn in gore
torn and sore from skin to core

warning children of the foreign army storming the border
swore informing us and imploring for medicine for her father
a bit of water for her mother
a pittance for her simple daughter and dead son

but her important horror storys a boring chore youre ignoring
snoring from beginning to finish
youre soaring in azure in an invisible dirigible touring the morning
soaking in gin and orange glory on the shore
or fidgeting with digital belligerents blowing four dollars on your phone
thinking youre scoring or winning
somehow or other getting your load on

every now and again tripping and bitching over nothing
but mostly missing the broken notion of emotion on the floor
closing the door on her though theres more hurt in store for her before more

youre numb

but there are hundreds of millions of such women
and youre killing them all at this very moment

and so youre the spitting image of a primitive criminal
loving yourself
an intelligent but ignorant little individual murderer
a literate idiot who knows about numbers and words and thats about it
your incentives were invented in a libidinal religion in earlier millennia

and its totally uncertain if youll ever get the message
or ever turn your own ignition
or just become an adult
go get some exposure
no one can know if youll earn your citizenship as a person of the world
or give a gift for a minute
or a single shit
go fuck yourself

but surely your unforgivable petition for a personal reward is the single worst and most hypocritical structure were forced to endure

pull your own fucking trigger

NDW

right about the one thing

phase: interrupted
it didn't work out
visions corrupted by a roundabout

when you're right about the one thing
and wrong about the rest
visions creep
from the opened chest

life interjected
by an offhand remark
safe but rejected by a blow from the dark

when you're right about the one thing
but wrong about it too
who are you to tell me
exactly what to do

safely allocated
to a place under the stairs
i am relocated outside of that affair

when you're right about the one thing
and wrong about the choice
emotions cling
to a quivering voice

PDM

Souls

Souls seriously searching
themselves
Minds merrily smirching
the shelves

Souls seriously searching
for other souls
My mind remarks about
the results

Souls seriously searching
for friends and
Men merely waiting
without wreason.

Souls seriously scandalizing
some serious shit
That they found in a magazine
(something gained & something seen).

Some souls search seeing signs
in the wind
While weary wreathes wringed with
weathered cones
float as feathers.

Seriously singing soles sought souls singing,
sinking into the mud,
but were caught
but were rescued.

PDM

Love & Respect

Love & Respect
Love & Respect
Love & Respect
3 words which when one
rereads them act crass.

They refuse to be understandable
They refuse to see wonder and say whatever
2 people come close to what
3 words represent.
but some connections fail,
and some electrocutions of frail men
read better off the paper in the morning
before the shredded oats mix with milk.
Some things simply taste better
on a stomach crowded with orange juice
& granulated sugar.

A comedy flashes on the screen until a butt cheek grazes a button:
a half-sleeping groan emerges.
A respected man inspects again (without his spectacles)
the spectacular show, which he deems,
well, over valued.

PDM

"Who's What?"??

You Aren't What You Eat (working title)
_____________________________________

"Who's what?" asked a friend of mine, but not to anybody,
About the scene we made of fake play people at the party.
I took the chance to tell him that that's not how he should think,
That people shouldn't be confused with alcohol they drink.

Because the fair question to ask, of course, isn't "Who's what?" but rather "What's whose?"

He said, "I spend my nights, floating, in a glass of gin."
I said, "Listen friend, it doesn't matter, that means nothing."
People remember clothes you wear or videos they show you,
They might recall the times you share, and even think they know you.

But at the end of this long day, is our question really, "What will we be having tonight?"?

From when you wake in a haze, 'til your daze in the nights,
It's like all that you love are your likes and dislikes.
You can hope the good life goes forever and ever,
You may vomit your laughs, and full-throated "Whatever!"s.

And after enough time has simply passed, you'll forget most of them, and go on that way.

I've wondered too much, about what was whose,
Assessing the damage, examining my shoes.
They're the ones my dad wore when he tried psychedelics,
So it's not like I only care about my own relics.

In fact, convince me why I shouldn't hang on for dear life to all of it.

From the hands that I've shaken and streets that I've crossed,
To the places I loved with the people I've lost,
For the ones in my mind I give most of my time to,
And to most of you, who are somewhere I can't find you:

Thank you for coming, enjoy yourselves, and please remember to remember.

NDW

Whiskey Poem

Be Provocative; Be Organized.
Put an evocative look in your eyes.
Realize that you have yet to theorize me.
Leave it locked between your thighs,
Before your eyes beget sore eyes.
We are talkative and horrified
When your rarified and ossified lives revive
A sight for sore eyes.

Arrive at the door of Mordor alive.
Thrive and bask in the last cask of Amontillado.
Store your soul in a low lonely dive,
And ask not to not rot but to slowly imbibe
Until the sky cries for a slow rise in temperature,
And hampering your temper dampens for sure
The cloth clinging to mossy oak.

Bridge the Docker-and-Mocassin divide.
Divinely described, the poem's subject walks smiling.

NDW & PDM

food stamps

Movers & shakers
givers & takers
are you a doer? or a does-not
What have you done lately?
to help yourself, or, hell, to help me?
   Don't forget to sleep off all of that inactivity
   you need to be well rested to Do nothing at all.
An iced, cold coffee might make you give a damn
But its more likely to speed up your digestion.
Don't worry, dad's on the line
I'm sure you won't grow hungry this month.

PDM

Unmake the Chaos

Crystalized envelopement:
The final battle begins.
Passionate; irrelevant;
remarks from the wings.
Three pairs of wings are beating
It is one of them
the seraphim
The terror wings, which
"Quickly; Quietly; Nervously..."
Whose wings were they?
Were they whose wings war was worrying about?
About renching and rending?
When God made the world,
he forgot to unmake the chaos.
So it seems that chaos
Would unmake the world.
Halos of Gold, Powerful feet
Wings which would have served
   the sun itself in their
magnificient wingspan and tremulous power
in their agitated states.
Halos of Gold, Powerful feet
Eyes which could have seen farther than sight permits.
Replicated orbises of visions volume.

PDM

Broken Back

can you Imagine?
to lay a tortured body to rest?
a day that begins on one day
& ends 3 hours before the next
dollars may fill my pockets,
but the wounded and broken back
still cannot heal &
will not heal.

A man who cannot bend does
   not bend in the storm
A man who cannot bend to touch
   his toes, does not stop to think
   about the consequences of
A Broken Back

PDM