Merci Pour le Venin

I guess at the end of the rope I wouldn’t have time to apologise

Our hands are slipping apart like each star slowly dying

And we like to watch it happen.

Give me your worries and I’ll put them on a pedestal to collect dust

If only you’d told me

I’d be better than I was.

But sounds out of your mouth are like bumps on the ground

The blind man on his knees,

desperate

needing

I try to help him but in his pride he shakes his hand to the sky

Showing me that we will never get far with one set of eyes.

Eventually weary hands show heavy calluses 

You’ve tried so hard

For so long

And that rope is so tight around your wrist it burns.

The bigger picture never accounts for your pain 

Condemning stares articulate the message of no words to compare

But I’m rushing to you, running, sprinting, spitting, coughing, bleeding

Feeling all these things to show you

I feel pain too.

I feel my legs giving in

I feel 5 years of smoking cigarettes

But there are lions behind me 

And if I stop, I’m dead.

I wish you knew this because it would be so much easier for you to run too

If you understood that you absolutely cannot stop

You never would. 

Rolling in reverse at every mockingbird’s call
I forget that I’m human.
But, stay,
Just for a moment longer
Memory takes more time than I have.
In between job, work, and school
They hear silence like a throb on their temples
Posed like a Hindu Goddess
Waiting for their prize or praise.
With requirements not met
The love we didn’t give
Becomes the hate we receive.
Tender spots on the arch of your back
Twisting and turning
Waiting for embrace
We all want what we never give.

I’d rather see you on your knees in fear
Than in prayer
We are so hung up on the apology
We seem to forget the recovery.
Let’s wait for the bones to be buried
So we can dig them back up.
Let’s calculate our percentage rates
Based on the New York Times
And try to ignore the sexual tension.
We’ve exchanged our dignity at the pawn shop
For a cubic zirconium ring we’re sure
That slut we want to fuck
Will think
is diamonds.
We are not unique.
We are used and repeated.

The Riots

henrycharlesbukowski:

the riots

I’ve watched this city burn twice
in my lifetime
and the most notable thing
was the arrival of the
politicians in the
aftermath
proclaiming the wrongs of
the system
and demanding new
policies toward and for the
poor.

nothing was corrected last
time.
nothing will be corrected this
time.

the poor will remain poor.
the unemployed will remain
so.
the homeless will remain
homeless

and the politicians,
fat upon the land, will live
very well.

5 May 1992

I’m sure the questions being asked are with the best intentions

But I’m giving myself to you

And leave nothing for my soul.

I feel myself above the talking

Watching myself eroding

I’m feeling too much.

Like a tarot deck I predict the outcome

And I leave the way I came.

I could never explain this,

Never write this down.

But I’ll attempt as I always do

Feeling nothing because I can’t do much else.

No matter what you say

The cards will be as they are.

I think you’re pathetic. 

I think you’re never going to be ready to be with someone

Because you’re fearful, you’re an addict, you say things you don’t mean

And things you do

That do

So much worse.

You try to let people in with a contract and a set of rules

This won’t work but I’ll try.

You dream of other lovers when I’m gone

And you see them in other bodies.

Below the face there’s a body that you mask

The fingertips resembling so much of what you’ve had

If only I knew your infidelity,

I’d not waste my time.

No, love

No, care

I’m making up for you in my mind, trying to find you

Trying to be comfortable with myself and my life

You’re a leech

You’re not my fate

But I’ll keep pushing

A new born

Unwanted.

We’ve lost faith in the Earth

Regained it in things we can only see

Bound by paper and sound and everything passing so quickly

Act now!

Buy now!

The Mayans said we’re dead, carpe diem!

I wish I could explain the wonder of waking up each morning and how I never forget its worth.

I can’t contemplate the audacity of this world and I revolve around my ignorance

Blood is only red when oxygen mixes in it.

We watch our lives in the eyes of disagreeing members of society

Always checking to see if this or that is the “right thing.”

Apologising for real encounters that ultimately

are the only real thing we’ll ever have.

Our illusions keep us away from the naked bodies near us

beneath those clothes

your curves

your thoughts

covered in a cultural fashion statement

Instead of wishing and staying quiet

find your haven!

I can’t touch my life,

I can only feel it.

It was 2010.

It was 2010 and my life was shit

I was too young to do anything about my life and where I was going

I was alone but so crowded and didn’t have a sense of morality

It was 2011 and it repeated again,

In a new town with all the same problems.

It was a repeat of the same day for a year.

It’s 2012 and everything I took for granted is never coming back.

Money isn’t plentiful but it puts food on my plate

Great people surround me while assholes fight for spotlight

Never lit

Bound by nothing with a slate cleaner than my past

and it seems as though it’s the first chance I have.