A perfect day for Salinger

To pay respects to J.D. Salinger, one of my favorite authors and the author of my favorite book, Franny and Zooey, I am re-posting a poem I wrote after reading one of his most famous short stories.



For myself, with love and squalor

There are no silent brooks
but some trees fall unnoticed

some rocks go unturned
And the heart and mouth
do not always connect

Like cupping two palms
to draw water for drink
The heart has so much to say
it runs over the edges
So when raising it up
to quench the thirst
The mouth sadly finds
most of the substance had slipped through the cracks

So little makes it through the lips
that only a stunted version
of what was meant to be said
is ever really verbalized

So with a dehydrated mouth
and a heart about to burst
I slosh about
hoping to strike the rock
and have water spring forth
Or waiting for an angel
with a divining rod

There's an ocean of life under this course surface
and I've yet for another one to want it

And my vision is illegible and my concentration fades
two and three times for a sentence
and one or less times is my s-e-n-t-e-n-c-e

Love is...

Love is like that one movie
I've been meaning to see
and everyone tells me is really good
but I just can never get around to it

It's playing everywhere
it's in the Netflix Queue
I even saw 20 minutes of it
on TNT once

But I always miss the most important part

You've seen it
They've seen it
But I haven't

Love is Avatar in 3D

I wonder how much longer it'll be in theaters

Who can say

Clicks stop, clicks stop rubber asphalt and rubber soles
blades of grass, popping acorns and dried up leaves
angry ember, seething hate in paper packed tobacco
Orange dirty light from street lamp poles

Alcohol wipes sunburnt lips, dry cracked
licked wet
prickly stubble, cactus face, velcro snap
CHA CHA lounge delays
empty buddy list empty mind
undertones of emptiness
permeate the air like sour department store cologne
sour voices, sour responses
her voice is sweet like sour gummy worms

Smooth skin like silken sheets, dark linen
Laugh like water from minutest spring
in the suncaked dryest desert
so soft, so coveted
so soft and cold
a delicacy for starving fingertips and the heart alike

silent clicks, nearly silent, surpressed language from a board
a marriage of mind and voice
voices voices voices
voices in the darkness, pops drips bleeps
bubbled conversation

the early morning looks just like night
Who can say if she'll be there
Who can say?

Everybody's talking bout Joe Frazier

Maybe it's because you're exactly
what everyone needs
and everybody has figured it out
too

Maybe it's because you'll sit alone
pleasantly warm
like two minutes old
pancakes
and don't desire more than that

Maybe it's because the sun could rise and fall
and all the air around you jump to life
like electrons before lightning
and you would continue
unaffected

You're so
unaffected

Like the ash in an ash tray
burnt out
smoldered
heaping gray dust

Like the sound of traffic never ceasing
and birds ever optimistic
sprinklers regular

Sack up and grow a pair
you said

Harsh

I woulda kissed that girl I swear
but I had other things on my mind maybe
and my heart wasn't in that fight

You're like a boxing coach
and I'm not much of a boxer
But I'm still glad
to have you in my corner of the ring
even if sometimes
it's you
I'm trying to square off with

Steven the confident

Always out of place
Out of style
Nobody's friend
The future like fake nights
in 1960's movies
Bleak, blue,
shaded.
Filtered.
The teary itch crinkles eye lids
Not laugh lines
But stress fractures in dam walls
Of flesh
Pressed by loneliness.
Smile please, breathe please
Love please
The warm fuzzys just burn
these days
If a tear should cascade from a crack
Wipe it away
Forever.
Look at me please
See what I've hidden from the mirror
And call it good
Call it
good.

Steven the pest

Annoying little pest!
shoo!
Annoying little boy

There will be no quarter
for such badgering

The boy pleads clemency
he didn't mean it
honest

She looks on warmly
okay.

But a bother he remained
So she finally shut him out

and the little boy
with nobody to bother
sits alone on the sidewalk
wishing he'd
never done anything at all.

Better to let a feeling go
than normalcy

For obsessive games
become fodder
for embarrassment
in very short time

And make for
red faced little boys
who deserve no sympathy

and garner no award

Malls as an analogy of greater societal oppression

To all the families wasting away
in a food court
Leave, I say
Wake up and see the mall for what it is
not a destination
but an orgy
of blind expenditure
and impulsive pleasures
Parents take up your children
whisk them away
from all the gilded
brass treasures

See the outside world
See a library,
read a book
take a picture
Use your holiday to become closer to one another
and not credit card debt

Don't you see?
the mall is a lie
The mall will always let you down
because it is not a resort
but a prison

So flee the prison
before escape
is as ignored
as a PA announcement

We live in a society
where people are content to
sleep
they have no aims
they have no knowledge of fulfillment
left a lone-edness
is the most common desire

By and large we groan and roll over
and eat the slop put before us
like the swine and bovine
in the south valley
And like the valley, the stench is nauseating to
anyone passing through
but to those who live in it
of it
around it
they can't even remember what it smelled like

The mall is a trough
and entire families will feed from it
for entire days
chewing the cud
and staring blankly into blandly decorated
space

I will be waiting behind my counter regardless
wasting hours
being pressured to sell you things you will never need
and sign up for cards you will never use
the money may trickle in
at a minimum wage clip
but I swear to you
the moment the cage door is left open
my exit
will be
swift

Because everyone else is boring and because you're different

Not one inch is ever given
a nod, a sign
a hint
No smiles
no flirtations
No long deep stares
or short ones
when caught looking

It's cold outside today
cold and drizzling
yesterday though
was much gloomier to me
all the way home
thinking about
how this
will end

ALWAYS ends
The red lights in front of me braked
and I thought about plowing right through
Saying
"Forget it"
This mortal life be damned
This freeway crawl is not for me

This freeway crawl is my timeline
a 20 mile stretch
elongated into 50 minute drive
You don't like me
I'd just as soon know it
than agonize along at 13 miles an hour
in complete silence
head in hand

While the afternoon radio DJ's
go on and on and on
about Zep and Mick Jagger

I realized the other day
my balance had been off for a while now
all the sound from one speaker
distorted and thin
and now hearing it through two ears
my stereo more appropriately lives up to its name

I am but a single speaker
making up for two
but I'm afraid
I'm so near tearing
it wouldn't matter if I was balanced out anymore

It's best to replace me
in that situation
a torn speaker is no speaker at all

There's not much else to say
but please,
say what's left anyway
I'd rather have hope dashed into nothingness
than ration myself on
barely there apparitions

I'm saying
let's take this thing right through the car in front of me
let the particles of glass impact my skin and eyes
shooting outward like an asteroid field
pockmarked and jagged
ripping me to blood spattered mess

let the crumple zones meet
and in them we will too

while air bags deploy and tires deflate
and everything goes
mute.







Anything is better than traffic.

Failure to Appear 2009

Life is not owed to anyone
love isn't either
as rights go
Jury duty is more certain

I've gotten out of jury duty
every single time
only set foot
in the courthouse
once

Life?
Well my existence is being played out
as we speak
I guess you could call that
living
in the strictest
Oxford-English sense

And love
well, love is rather much like
me missing my jury duty on purpose
only love isn't jury duty
love is me
and I'm the jury duty

Every few months or so
I send love a letter
explaining to it
that I am it's obligation
and right
going so far as to delineate
a time and place
to arrive

But love never does
she always rips the letters
and shreds them
shreds the second notices
and failure to appears
and on the off chance love
does decide
to show up at the court house

It finds that court was canceled
thus ultimately fulfilling
it's duty
for another year

Without ever really showing up at all

I sat with on the asphalt waiting while the sun set on Christmas Eve

I've been
chronically
dissatisfied since the
day I met you

And now hopeless
and on edge
because I can't get
to you

It seems like everyone around me
is just making fun
mocking
me
while they order soy milk
or more whipped cream

I think i heard them say
"Give Up"
and sometimes I want to
but then I realize
they just wanted
it iced instead of ice blended

My car blew a tire
on the freeway
because I blew up
on a lady
who felt I was trying to keep her from merging.
In that second
I hated her
with everything I could hate a nameless woman
in a white Honda Accord
with an unpainted replacement bumper
who I get anxious about
even now
while writing this down

So I sat
by myself
on Christmas Eve
in a school parking lot
in San Dimas
trying to take the hub cap off
without a screw driver
until I gave up and called
my house

And that's how I feel with you
prostrate,
Missing the tools I need
but having no way
to call for
help

A bluer shade of pale

Skipping out of mind
things yet to be known
and still
14-24, sooner a decade
not under the influence
but hiding from it

Cold nights, colder still
even colder than that
Warmth in a smile
and flash of the eyes

But walking around aimlessly
reading, writing
no guidance
or satisfaction

Thinking only of one thing
constantly thinking of only one thing
Sickening, pathetic
desperate for affection

And a couple walking by at lunch
in the eve
stopping
leaning in for a kiss
innocent, love filled
not lust, not selfish
not a game
nor lie

Look away,
these nights my skin turns
a bluer shade of pale

I'll be home for christmas

Looking through the clear plastic
plating, grated by
brushed steel
barrier
the sound it makes as the motor turns
and waiting for the moment
I can duck in under
without straining too much
or waiting so long
it seems impolite

The mall is empty at this hour
and my shoulders slump
hands in pocket
trying to keep warm
because even in Southern California
the weather can be chilly
at times

"I'll be home for Christmas"
echoing the food court chapel
while a 30 foot model in a one piece
is the stained glass
representation
of material heaven

The waiting game is only so
fun
when the waiting actually
cuts chunks of time
out of my head
12 minutes here
23 there
though occasionally
the game only yields 2 and a half

and those 2 and a half minutes feel longer than any other hour of that day

Dead horse politics

I have a dead horse

At one point
it had some life left in it
but when it kicked
I reacted too late
or maybe too suddenly
and the poor foal

breathed it's last
I think

I wanted to save it
to bring it to life
but the horse seems so lifeless lying
on the floor

Frustration is pointless now
and there's no sense beating it
anymore

I thought I saw it breathe again
but maybe
it was just
me

all along

Me and the christmas tree, nervously optimistic

I always light up
when
you're around

But do you notice?


I hope you do.



- Me and the Christmas Tree, Nervously Optimistic

Franzia and coca cola

Red
Lips like wine
Wrinkled for a second
pursed and intoxicating

darkness and drying machines
face down on the white metal surface
laughing

Giving a smirk
conversing through sight
because that girl doesn't know what she's talking about

Fill the goblet
to the Gothic brim
with Franzia and Coca Cola

My cup runneth over tonight

Daydreaming while driving home from work

Today
I thought about the day
I'm not alone anymore

The idea
of the moment I realized
I could stop searching

I felt warmth
radiating from that day
who knows how long away it is

Deep in my being
like Hot Cider

I know it's coming
I believe it as fact

The weirdest part
is I can see a face
not of anyone I know
or will know
but the face of satisfaction
of happiness
looking upon me
and feeling the same thing

People think I'm cold and negative
but I really want to be
Hot Cider

Self diagnosed insanity wont stand up in court

I thought your voice had left me
for good
Silent though it's been

And my heart jumped
like an Olympic athlete
right into my trachea

I don't know why
It wouldn't change a damn thing

It would just be change

Something i'm surprised to be frightened of
when really it's all I'm looking for these days

And what's that called?
A longing for stasis and dynamism
simultaneously

Insanity
I'm insane
Self diagnosed thank you very much

I thought I missed your voice
but my heart
jumped out completely a while ago

I think I miss it more

You don't have to remember me

It's okay
You don't have to remember me
When the sun beams come through your window
and in bed
you press play
to a song that pours
into your memory vat
all the things you've forgotten

I don't have to be one of them
it's okay, really
I've been forgotten before

There are people I haven't met yet
who will lose my name and face
in the crowd of life
so it's okay if you do too

I wouldn't hold the future accountable
So,
why treat the past any different?

Someday i'll be thrown against a wall
and someday
I'll stick

The faces in the background

What is understanding
closeness, community, caring?
Is it measured
in hugs
in kisses
I have few of these

Or comments, hits, views
messages,
higher numbers, more characters
more
I staked my life on less

What is real emotion anymore
and what does the dust on the ground
have to say
about being wiped away?

Dirt, grime, untouched, unmentioned
unloved
un-un
prefixes and negative tenses
these are my company

Downtrodden

Real

The dark faces in the background
out-of-focus
they are no less captured than
center lens subjects

So why do they mean so little?

I'd die to be a word writ by else

Write about me
Say from your blossomed depths
my name as bursts of color within

Let your mind be a catch-all
senses filled to brim
all the time

Let me know you in your words
and read me in mine

Write about me
converse your heart
trade notations in mind and soul
and beyond

I've written nearly everybody met
Sensations and brushes
Silence and loud
everything always
everybody

Ulterior motive
I'd not deny to desire selfsame