Twas at the bookfest today

At around noon if I do recall

When among the literary sprawl

I saw but a fluttering of wings

A little moth fluttered and fell

Twitching to show it’s still mortal

A dying oddity in state of decay

–

I claimed him my new friend

Passers-by would think me droll

As I began to speak to the soul

Clamber aboard I said to the beast

As I set a finger before his trail

And he took rest atop my nail

We set about our path to the end

–

We spoke of much as we browsed the book

Where once quaint I now seemed mad

I heard the crippled moth be sad

Hold now here just a minute

I said to my lonely acquaintance

You’re not alone while I’m in your presence

He flapped his broken wing and gave a solemn look

–

Trouble arose only when the time came to pay

I could not pay out with him in hold

He took one look with eyes of old

And it hurt as I saw his time had come

He spread his broken wings out to the sky

and stepped from my hand and began to fly

I was happy to have seen his last day

Nine years since

I sat down to dine upon the last meat

25^th, Burns day, haggis before me

I drove the knife deep as I capped the address

“Gie her a Haggis”

And the Haggis was shared

–

Nine years gone

And meat met my mouth upon the eve

Of the 25^th, Burns day, haggis before me

Tentative, returning to this strange land

“I’ll start with a haggis”

And the haggis was eaten

–

One day longer

And I dine down further on meat

The 26^th, a day of no significance to me

I forked a slice of ham in the sauce

“It tastes a bit odd”

And carbonara was eaten

–

Any time further

I may dine more on flesh still

The Future, a world unknown to me

I may arrow a deer down my own eyes

“Slit its throat”

Meat, the vegetarian, has eaten

Hello citizens, I hope you are all celebrating yourselves well on this day. While many in the land I live look forward to tomorrow as Australia day, I look to today as Robert Burns day. The day of the national poet of my homeland, Scotland. Burns poem’s are absolutely beautiful. Today I do not write for you a poem, but I beckon you to go and read some of his.

Sometimes, just sometimes.

–

–

I’m lying in this bath with a clear tulip filled with the red blood that drives my mind

A book in my hand, water all around me, it feels part of me, the words on pages are extensions of my fingers, and the water is my boiling womb

I can feel the heat through my body, though my face never touched water it drips with salty sweat

My book feels so light

I feel cold above the water, I dip my hands under the skin to feel the scolding heat once again

I touch the hot water to the brown paper, the book soaks it up, a thirsty wise man trapped in pages, dying for a drink

–

I pull the plug

The water starts to sink from around me and I grow heavy

So very heavy as the water sucks me down

I feel I am water

I am waiting, every time waiting for the water to drag me with it

Deep into the drain as my body turns to liquid and I flow through the pipes

Through places unseen

I could drown in myself for it

–

Madness, madness of the water me in water pipes

I need that madness

The water has drained and what now

I sit in this tub, naked and pruned

Like a long dead rat left to rot in brine

And I lie there

Staring into the ceiling

Feeling that pit of despair

Flesh feeling so very flesh like in a way that it never does with clothes

Clothes become you

But wet, naked, without anything to cover you

Feel like a wet mush, where the skin of your arm cannot differ from the skin of your stomach

Cover yourself

–

I stand and all hell breaks loose

My mind goes red, my face explodes and the thudding

Thudding so strong so heavy so constant

Thudding in beat, beat of my mind, beating like never before

Waterlogged in body but beating in mind, beating so hard

Mind goes cold, face goes hot, drink more blood

The thudding is begging

Begging for madness

–

When did it become like this

When waterlogged bodies drummed for my mind

It needs so much

It needs to feel

This body does same for so many days

Nothing is new

New is needed

–

New madness of the water pipes

Without madness what am I

Yes, it’s that angsty time again. This one is a little personal and I hesitated to post it, but the things we do to entertain strangers online. The internet will be the death of us all.

–

–

We all fall sometimes

We all take a drop

For some of us it’s worse than others

For some of us it’s easy to stop

–

You know the signs of your drop

You fall hard and you fall fast

You fall in a world where voices go silent

You fall in a way that’s hard to grasp

–

And I try to help you when you drop

But I’m still so new to it all

Though you’ve been doing it for so much longer

And you missed it when I took my fall

–

You drop hard when you drop

You drop fast when you drop

But I drop slow when I drop

And it’s more like a trip than a fall

–

I dropped and it put me out of the world

For two months or longer I fell

Till I hit the ground and pulled myself up

Told myself I’d never tell

–

Then I got back into it

Back into the world and spoke to you

I could never tell you about how I broke

Only pretend I came back anew

–

You watched me drop and didn’t know it

You watched me trip and saw me fall

But I don’t blame you for not helping

Because you didn’t know anything at all

–

My demons walked past you to get to my mind

But it was Halloween and they were wearing my skin

They shook your hand with slimy fingers

You nodded politely as they wandered in

–

They teach girls how to cry when they hurt

They tell boys we shouldn’t get hurt anyway

You knew how to say when you were suffering drop

I knew how to pretend like it would just go away

–

But now I’m back in the world again

And I still can’t tell you I ever fell

But you’re making it feel like I dove on purpose

Like my drop put you through hell

–

But I don’t blame you for not helping

Because you didn’t know anything at all

And now I’m sitting here and smiling

Hoping you never read this and fall

So I’m having one of those tiring days and I think sometimes everyone just wants to live like their dog.

–

–

Carry me sweetly sweet darling,
To the dreaming land were the dreamers dread to dream.

–

Carry me softly slight Mia,
To the loving arms of the clouds that lull the lazy mind to leave

–

Carry me quickly quiet puppy,
Away from the world where the heat makes pools of the skin

–

Carry me slowly singing angel,
Away from the world where muscles must ache to feel the cool release

–

Carry me,
Carry me with your soft kisses that sweep the worries from my mind

–

Carry me,
Carry me with the simple actions that could never come from a world of mine

–

Carry me,
Carry me to the world where you live, where all is simple and love is pure

–

Carry me,
Carry me to the time when life was easy, carry me to this cure.

I’m not going to lie, I just didn’t have a better title for it.

–

Are you actually accusing all these alphabetic acrobats

Of Bombarding the brave beautiful bachelor baking

English

Dialect?

–

Dialect that ducks dodges and dribbles the deepest doubts drives and desires

Of the fantastical furious flame feeding

Gear grinding

Human that hangs by his

Intestinal integrity of the integral intellectual idea farming improvised

Jargon jousting

Love

Making machine of the mind.

–

No,

Overt opinions outside the

Perceived persuasive piece of putrid prose that poured pathetic

Questions on the quality that

Regarded my recreational

Speech-craft.

–

To,

You

Vain vapid vampire

Who wonders why

You got yelled at as a

Zero-to-one-hundred zone crossing zit on the face of life.

I think I may have over thought this one.

It’s been a strange sort of day

The kind you write a weird poem about.

–

The Lizard in my room died tonight

I don’t know why this surprised me

The little fella never stood a chance.

–

He was here when I moved in,

A little over two months ago,

I know it was him, because when he saw me he shed his tail

He never did grow it back.

–

I saw him a lot since then,

Skittering around my carpet floor,

He would often poke his head out

As if to say hello and ask about my day,

But he’d always run off before I could respond

–

I picked him up just a minute ago,

Prodded him first to make sure he was gone

His limp little lifeless body was a ragdoll

It was sad, the way he was all shrivelled and dry

Even his eyes were still open

I would’ve shut them if I thought lizards had eyelids.

–

And then I flushed him down the toilet,

What an unceremonious end

Hardly the Viking burial I’d have liked to give him,

We don’t have a pool in this house

I didn’t even bother turning on the light

Just propped open the lid in the dark

Shucked him off my fingers, then flush.

–

I always thought he had somewhere to eat

Or at least something he could drink

Maybe I should have offered him some food

Left a pile of sugar to bring some ants for him

They’re never had to find when you don’t want to

Maybe I should’ve left out a little bowl of water

Or something just for him to drink

He might still have died, but perhaps not quite so dried out

–

I wonder what he used to eat,

Before I moved in I mean

He was definitely here before me

Was he just visiting the upstairs, maybe scouting for a family home?

I wonder if he had family in other parts of the house

Should I tell them about his death?

Maybe write a little lizard obituary on a post-it

Stick it to the bottom of the stairs

Or maybe in the back of the pantry

–

I always wonder what he was like in life

That little lizard kid

I wonder if his death was painful

I think he starved so it most likely was

Poor little lizard kid

I think I’ll send my thoughts with him

Like some strange Christian prayer group

If he can I like to think he’d end up in heaven

Where god would welcome in the lizard kid, dead.

Maybe he could get into heaven in my stead

–

It was probably a girl lizard anyway

–

–

Any and all are welcomed to eulogize the Little Lizard Kid

I wrote this poem many months ago when I broke up with my partner at the time, the angst is real.

So I recently, with the devil on my shoulder

Started up a phone in help line

The idea is simple

I would take the money of many poor saps

Who can afford it from swimming around in Olympic sized laps

They would tell me their droll problems

And I would give them advice

Words that could be no colder.

–

I got my first call three months ago

I believe I was eating lunch at the time

Honey and peanut butter sandwich if I recall

“Help wordvelor, I’m afraid I’m going to drink again.”

The frantic older woman cried.

“All your problems come from drinking,”

I replied with apt gusto,

“So perhaps give marijuana or cocaine a go.”

–

High of the victory of my first phone call

With a thank you letter coming next week in the mail

There was a heart drawn in burned heroin

And the name was signed with a urine splash in the corner

“Help wordvelor, my boyfriend just broke up with me.”

Another victim whose aid I must meet

“If your boyfriend just broke up with you,

Break him in two to teach a lesson to all.”

–

That woman’s thank you letter came

By way of the mail handled by a courier from state prison

All these snail mail senders were not to blame

As it was my advice for which they came.

“Help wordvelor, I can’t stop dancing.”

This problem was truly serious.

“Dancing is no horrid crime

Keep it up, and earn some fame.”

–

The man’s thank you came from the West End

He had scrunched up a piece of paper

And stomped all upon it

But my next caller was to be the most serious of all

“Help wordvelor, I want to kill again.”

Now I took no faint light to this address

“First my friend, find a politician

And then with an axe, show him his end.”

–

As it would happen though it was a police sting

They crashed down my door

Broke through my windows

“Gentlemen, relax, my house has done no wrong”

But they threw me through bars

My lawyer was unhelpful

The judge unsympathetic

So they threw me in jail where I started to sing.

–

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