Darkened Orange

2009-03-20T21:22:00.001-07:00

I.
Three steps up
Like a trophy
Familiar landmarks
A sense of family
A sense of need
Everyone here knows it is wrong
These men have been wronged in the past
All of them hiding
The world cannot give them light enough to see
Darkness fills my glass
The former taste of happiness
turns bitter
The poster on the wall speaks:
When?
When will you dare?
Same faces
Same places
Same ... crack within my glass
Nothing changes in this place.

II.
Twelve steps down
Deep into an unknown
Such a lonely place
No familiar face
Yet--I would give it all
Give it all
For a taste
Yes--Just a taste
The fruit within has fermented
Changed
Transformed
(such a smelly process)
I am a new man

Poetry

2009-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

I am almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them. -- Socrates

Sing poet!
Sing your song that no one understands.
Tell us the tale of some Greek hero
(It’s all Greek to me)
Producing your potboilers
(Yeah, look it up)
You paint your fantasy world with words no one understands
If the common man cannot understand it
Then what is the point?
Shelly, Shakespeare and Donne
Byron, Thoreau and Prufrock
They all stand a loaded gun
The power to kill
Without the power to die
But they do die
A death that is not proud
For modernity ruins their sport
It used to be that the man in a suit told me what a good poem was
Now, he wears jeans
Either way it takes me a hour to read one paragraph
With dictionary and mythology books at my side
They establish the rules
Infecting me with their folly
To judge eternally based upon the word of another
Who lives in the dark ages now?
No--Poetry should flow out of every man.

The Dance

2009-03-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

I.
She never looked as beautiful as she did that night
Sparkling pink dress
Her smile made the gods envious
She seemed to glide around the hall
Full of femininity
Full of beauty

II.
Across the hall sit’s a half-drunk man in a rented suit
His life is going nowhere
Love just never seemed to happen for him
Year after year you could smell his virginity
The occasion is a wedding
But for him, it is like he stands over a grave

III.
The festivities forces him to raise his glass
He tells everyone stories
About his best friend
About the times they have spent together
It is as if he is giving a eulogy
(If only he knew how true that really is)

IV.
The dance! The dance!
The public celebration
Of hidden romance
Man and wife hip-to-hip
The rhythm of the moment
Moving to a beat
His activity
Her receptivity
Their love in bloom
He feels the sweat on her back
(Dancing is so erotic)
A couple of minutes and the song is over

V.
Inebriated from the feeling of love in the room
And with the help of a few cocktails
He addresses her:
Would you like to dance?
His voice exposes his inability for these types of things
Their naked hands meet
Her soft skin contains the power to heal
Suddenly his life make sense
Today he has lost a friend
But gained the better part of his soul