Stream of Consciousness 19: Pardon my French

Pastry where’s the thinking you eat chocolate like there’s no tomorrow
Wendy’s eaten three hamburgers this week my mouthful is stuffed where’s chicken where’s the turnkey I’m eating from sandwiches every day where’s pasta where’s lasagna where’s my mother’s baked goods

I miss the sky I miss crying I miss dying or wanting to feel like sh– where’s the pasta where’s mamma where’s tangos and having s– in the garden where’s my meals where’s the oregano where’s your hands on me where’s the lipstick I asked for where’s your angles sides on me and I’m probably going to throw up and these books list things like a laundry all the things you f——saw in Paris we don’t give a f— he says f— every other sentence and I thought he was a real weirdo he plays video games and curses three times a sentence but he’s good looking and he does accents what the fuck and he’s–

here’s to being single ha we’re only just five years older than five years ago that was when I dreamed about everything I was so f—— hopeful and where’s the glory in being single the easy self-gratification self-gratification my ass my ass can tell you we’re all going to hell, and there’s zero tolerance policy around here mister I hate to have to haze you but there are certain rules you do not break and Antoinette has better yet to come and eat and serve the meals get to it hup hup and old men on the f——bus It’s disgusting get some f—— manners, and he’s on the train he’s always on the f—— train get off already

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Stream of Consciousness #18

fate put us together

but he’s still roping the rigs

besides between you and him you know you hate him

the sound of the bathwater the sound of the bath

the sound of the smacking lips the sound of tasting

the sound of everything around him the sound of

cold mountain roads or the highway nothing is real nothing is what it seems he told you

that two years ago two years ago you were in pain now you feel no pain you only feel that

you used to feel pain there is no difference between what he says and what he does it’s

the same thing he’s just here for shows and smiles and you’re the one who does the

talking the floors are all covered with soot, someone’s been smoking someone’s been

sleeping someone left there heart here someone left their liver someone left their small

intestines you’d better pick that up soon mom’s coming you’d better do it hun, all

condescending like that there’s a turnpike but you take it against your better judgement

because all he did was nod and say go there and you were only on the road because the

animals fought there he is in captivity

X X X X X

mush milk maybe he’s just calming down

i miss the days when i was still in magic, when i could hold him in the palm of my hand

and he held me by the palm of my back and it was wholesome and real and i could smell

the nights in the distance and not be afraid or ashamed or sad or upset just real feelings

real good feelings or the feeling of riding down the road without caring without giving a

damn black leather jackets picturesque you’re smiling there is a whole fleet of ciggarettes

there is a whole fleet of automobiles get in we’re going fast

x x x x x

and the start of something new you said

going boldly that’s the statement on a limb again who is the next one

who’s the next to fixate who’s my next target where do i go

why am i stranded is there any escape do i end up making it what does my

self say five years down the road does she just smile sort of or does she think a long time

is she lost in thought i hope not because that would mean she was still thinking about it

how absurd im almost done finished thinking im almost done finished with it altogether

save me jim im dying

The Empty Ears of a Stranger

The first musing

Finally, a door opens on a busy city street,
and the faint sound of a billowing streetcar on the run
leaves my hands
a sweaty mess
and a picture of you
steps into my quivering mind.

It appears as no man might see it
lips there,
eyes a set frame
from there to the strand of hair that lies
so precariously on your cheek
mirroring the things you say
offhand
out of the blue
and as bold as the day is new.

In a dream

(She is the camera’s dark-eyed ghost,
faded and half-captured before the lens could flash.
I see all of her
and yet
I can’t
describe her.

She’s a winning horse eh?
I’d bet on her yet, had I even an ounce of courage
which
so far
has been the only thing
I seem to lack.
yes, she is the camera’s dark-eyed ghost
she is the camera’s dark-eyed ghost
she is the camera’s dark-eyed ghost…),

the second musing

Then there is also that strange fascination I have with
WORDS
WORDS
WHICH WE SEEM TO HAVE
A LOT OF.
Tell me, dear,
why you seem to lack the ability
to keep your promises to the other side?
I can certainly stand the game
but not if you weren’t even allowed to play.
If something held you back that
didn’t even have to do with me, I mean
What of it then? Would it be any fun?
Would I even
laugh like it was some sort of taunting joke,
a rhetorical question which you so obviously know the answer to?
no, no….
I’ll answer, in my own good time,
but-
the answer’s not the point, is it?
The answer, perhaps,
is
to lie in your arms
while somewhere in the distance
my insides let out a scream so well muffled
that it’s vibration would only cause a slight tremor
in the ripples of the air.
Now you bat at it,
and the sound of me wafts through the open window.
take a look at it, you say
that is the true
you.
but In reality
the only sound we can emit
is stone cold
silent
electricity.

the third musing

Perhaps I can deceive myself into believing
that when the music sings of you
you were simply
whispering a song
into the empty ears of a stranger
or to me
as I lie thinking
in the late, late abandoned hours of the night.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Air and Smoke–Stream of Consciousness #14

Frogs croaking at midnight
a twin heartbeat
like moss engraving stones entwining with spongy hearts that bleed
the question now is who will carry the porridge?
who will listen to Sumter describe the events that followed his desasterous night of frogs croaking, camping in the woods?
who listenes to him, the dusky hours grow long
the day widens into a smile
furrows into a frown
the clown
Sumter,
banned from the camping ground just as the air was warm
in the chill,
he knows the only comfort can come from
humming a silent tune
a tune which he will pick himself
in doing so he sounds just like the twin heartbeats of the two croaking frogs
he must find his little world
he must find it
or the summer will drag him through an endless pit
and he will see himself as a small boy
groping for the sidewalk and the sun
not knowing that the only eventual destination was death and lead,
the spongy twin bleeding hearts his own.
he feels the ground
the moist air lightens his eye
upwards is an unforgiving sky
tinged with something else he cant describe,
but we shall call it a vague
and unmistakable hope.
he clings to the forrest ground, the moss,
like a child refusing to leave behind his blanket.
the porridge is on a stove growing cold
it’s breakfast fire
warming time
but poor Sumter on the forest ground
the enemy of which he made last night
sleeping on a bed of firs and pine cones.
the last of his breath escapes from his nostrils,
tendrils of air and smoke in equal measure
percolate the air
but he is not there with his friends to see the fire or to hear the stories
because he has told them his story
and that was the one story
they could not hear
so instead they decided to shut him off
and he, with his breath
and they, with the fires, keep burning aloft in their own separate ways,
he pains to think of them, the little children he has left on the
other side of the mountain.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

At the End of the Day

just before we begine, meditation:

uncharted island
of somewhere in-between the
right and wrong

where can I find you,
queen mystery of it all
that hides, unseen?

don’t find me a fire
a berating sun-drenched love
who follows my tracks

don’t find me the steel
or windy night time blue,
but some cool temperate:

I think I’ll just bathe
in the medicinal sway
of unfailing breath.

xxx x x x x x

an afterthought

yes, that’s it
she eases into a chair
her bones ache and she
finds that the view is not as lovely
as she thought it would
be.

A ticket or the house key
is misplaced
but the train station still finds a way
to make it’s contents drip in an empty thickness
depositing the worker and civillian,
the unceasing drama that
plays at the day like a child with baloons,
too soon bought then let out of grasp
floating higher and higher
and up to the sky:
watch it fly
watch it fly
watch it fly
watch it fly
At the end of the day,
And it passed me by

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Stream of Consciousness Number 13: Still Dreaming

while finding the crevases in the road
the earth swells before me
lost in some unturned dreamworld
where the cantonese i hear
is strange mangled French.
please tell me I’m dreaming
please tell me I’m asleep
please tell me no one can find me here
please tell me someone will find me here
love will find me here
you will sneak up on me like my lover
the house will crash
and its still a nightmare
the air is still and chilly
you say that
we are good
together
but i say thats the last thing you dumbo
how are we supposed to fly with those ears?
you have the fattest lips
the biggest nose
the longest neck
and the smallest toes
OH HOW
did i think you looked smart
on those walks in the park
eating shrimp and ice cream
i think it was a dream
and the songs we would sing
were childrens rhyme
what a strange mad
time
when it was just you and i

x x x x x x x x x x

I feel young
I feel strange
the sides of the road always carry spare change
so keep watch
of the lights
and the lampposts at night and the devilish sight of the stream
and im still in a dream

x x x xx xx x x

realizing the sound of subsiding dreams
is the strangest things
you are hearing me now i don’t even know how but through glass
no sound will pass
so how the hell can you hear me this well
when i scream
cant you see
I’m begging you please
set me free
i thought we were just playing
I’m your friend
not you foe
why don’t i make it up so you can let me go
ill be good
and charming
and not as alarming
and sweet
and charming and neat
ill do all of your clothes
i adore your small toes
no really i do
and the size of your shoe
all of it
is just the right fit
for me
i take everything i say
unseriously
please
make sure you don’t leave me
here

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Stream of consciousness # 12

the fondest
expression
like the lightening bugs you catch in your hand
this lost finger this lost hand
this little ember and this tramp
this little ember and this lost lamp
this frog and this water and this
and all of this at the same tense time
the bug on your shoulder sleeps softly and hums to the banner
the stars spangle
and the night hums
and the machine drums
the night air warms you and rouses you to an upright position
you cant sleep
i cant sleep
the coffee cant boil
the slippery soil
is to deep
i cant sleep
you cant sleep-
why take the sleeping pills?
there is the nature frond
this erstwhile pine
the grubby tree
the coffee tea
like and lake and sun and bake
creep soft and slow
lightening bug
catch me fast
light from the lightening i can finally
finally see your face.
what a while its been
i didn’t realize i missed you.

night comes:
we have to talk about the nighttime.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

The smell of rain

Bernard, a free spirited man in his forties is with his wife, Amy, a close- minded woman in her mid-thirties. On their balcony. It’s about to rain.

Bernard: doesn’t it feel like rain?

Amy: looks like it, yeah

B: I was just wondering, do you, maybe…like, can you SMELL it?

A: rain has a scent?

B I don’t know, it gets kind of moist…sorta invigorating, but i don’t know how to put a finger on the smell…

A: its the smell of imagination. I have no clue what you are talking about, Berny.

B: neither do you, apparently.

A: oh really?

B: Yeah, I know plenty of people who can smell rain. its like another sense, Amy. Hey, have some fun, will you? you’re so uptight all of the time. Maybe it’s limiting you’re sense of imagination. Maybe you’re forgetting what freedom’s like. Come on, it’s rain! Have some fun!

A: Bernard James Patrickson, just because you earned a degree in psychology fifteen years ago does not mean you can try to be my shrink.

B: I’m not trying to be anything, Amy,I”m trying to be alive!

A: (looking away. Long pause.) do you want to go back inside and watch tv?

B: What?

A: Never mind. Do you want some ice-cream? some toast? I have Bryers ice cream in the fridge.

B: What are you talking about? Ames. I don’t want ice cream. I want you.

A: no, bern-

B: I want you, amy, I want you.

A: Stop saying that, berny, stop saying that!

B: But ames-

A: (shouting) stop saying that, just stop! ( lowering her voice). Can you just come back into the house, bern?

B: why- why are you always changing the subject?

AMY exits stage right.

B: Ames…

BERNARD burries his face in his hands.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Stream of Consciousness #11

like this was the last straw already

(we leave for home on Thursday)

and those people who have never felt the sand dunes think that the river must be huge

they are so wrong, i have seen the bridges,

I have seen how they break. Your life is not as easy as I thought

and the suitors do not love you, but they conspire.

your father gloats with pride.

envy me!

he says

but doesn’t know his daughter’s plight.

like the stones that are on the beach, the sights would reach the northern hemisphere

imagine the northern lights

Borealis

as the wind rocketed sand onto the mist filled sky.

what would you do about it, girl, my love has entered the house and he is not happy

we can all agree that you do not love me,

so I can go my separate ways.

I love the sound of stone in autumn, or just the sound of anything

like the name you gave me,

Fedora

love wasn’t that easy for me with a name like Fedora

I was splattered with mustard on the first day of school,

they threw old musty hats in my face and I glared at them and shouted

the busy cowards didn’t know what they were missing,

what they had been missing out on, oh those stupid little cowards,

how could they ever understand?

that’s all behind me now.

I sit under the rain post and become naked

and run through ten valleys stripped of corn and stripped of forest

and I bask and bathe and I don’t care.

Fedora, Fedora, sing me a song, they all say

yes, this is the day,

and I know you see me as the queen of the land

the empress of all being:

I’d like to see you try this on a hot summer in July.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Photo Copyright 2013 by Golden Star Poetry

Stream of Consciousness #10

the armory-

god, it’s this banging

the trodden are down on their heads and are spinning

and their spindly arms are touching the spout of where the sun should be

they are clamoring up on their tip toes and shouting

like bunions on my feet are like the road smelling sweet

what a treat to hear and to eat meet and to feel beat

like it’s nothing to know no one and to feel the nothing I’ve known all along

what was the air like in December morning

in the winters and evening sun and summers you took me and kissed my flowering mouth

like a soft petal of rain in the ornery bushes?

that singing…

what is the name of my gods?

they are changing

what is the name of my god, for Pete’s sake?

you churn butter and you tore the street apart but you never listen to me when i speak,

I am just lifting my arms and my spindly legs and I am crawling out of the earth whispering like a madman

you don’t need to call me that

you can just call me mother or darling

or kiss me like you did when the world was new and we had nothing to do and I was only three (or was I two?)

and you saw the stars as they shone through

and we were too young to know why I wasn’t me and you weren’t you

we were just satisfied to be fully ourselves

but the knob on the door was mine always

and I knew that love was never just around the corner.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry