Posts tagged ‘longer poem’

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January 30, 2011

bathe every open wound

by jhon baker

five am –

nothing like not being able to sleep due to the feeling of the skin crawling off the muscle and the emptiness invading broken bones.

A cigarette now and then back into bed –

my skin feels oily, my chest is going to explode.

insomnia – the supposed friend of writers everywhere.

try being a cripple with a cripple walk and then try wearing slippers. Mine have the image of Freud but even that bit of funniness doesn’t make them stay on any better when i cripple walk up a single step into the kitchen from the garage where one will fall right after I have outed the lights, followed quickly by the other in a scramble to replace the foot. crawling works better.

there is a child staring at me from the crack I’ve left in the door. It’s not mine.

This is probably disturbing as hell to my wife who is going to read this when she wakes up and realizes that I did not get to sleep at all or at least until six am.

she’s just learned that I’ve been cutting all my meds for weeks now.

this might be disturbing as hell to anyone reading this – or just mildly interesting.
I am not altogether invested in your reaction, although it is nice to read.

I didn’t post yesterday because a friend lost someone and I didn’t have words to comfort them.

I will probably delete this when I come to my senses later on.

until then – here’s a pome…

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bathe every open wound
bathe every open wound
murder me a rose
forgive the violations
adolescent pornographic magazine libido
a dirty young man
who has
old bones
who has
atrophied musculatures
who
doesn’t wear helmets
who
awakes in a plain mood
who
scribbles indecipherably
ill lighted back corner lots
who
limps triumphantly
dances incessantly
who
tears wildly at television commercials
who has
piles of unpublishable odes and laments
who
walks around with guns in pockets
who
gives to the rich
gives to the poor
gives lavishly to self
who
send out letters, mid-twentieth century formatting
who
masturbates feverishly under covers before trying to sleep
who
smokes privately, drinks publicly
who
once, in youth, stole a copy of John Lennon’s “imagine”
who
answers what, who, why and when
with why, what, who and now
who
walks lonely at night for no reason
who
cuts himself to cut out the childhood monster still haunting in dreams
who
quietly ignores the family dynamic of drama
who
sits up hours on end listening to poets in their own voices
who
uncompromisingly refuses to get up until all stiffness is diminished
who
rides motorcycles at 75-80 mph in route to therapy sessions
who has
forgiven people their existence but holds self at higher standard
I’ve given up
offer me that flower/rose from you garden
the one you promised me.

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March 31, 2010

joy, obsession, fixation

by jhon baker

Happy Birthday Rene Descartes, but you had it wrong – it is not that you think and you know you are but – I feel pain, therefore I am.

So, here is what I am thinking, liberals don’t know anything simply because they want to rid the world of legally owned guns – owned by responsible people, Conservatives want people to retain their rights and keep gun. Well, what does it mean that we have weaponry? simply that the government cannot become fascist without our consent. I believe the liberals want to take over and control and the old moderate conservative wants freedom. I think something of late is backwards. But this is all true.


only the poor know of love’s intensity/ you, the business man, know only of mergers (marriage)/thus propagating the common ideal.// for love you merge the bodies (sex)/thus propagating life./love, joy, obsession, fixation, release/ and good sleep.



Now I don’t know what I am thinking and here is a poem.




got this machine to work again poetry

1.

acid-free paper.
jalopy typewriter that
hasn’t been oiled in years.
I’ve quit smoking, drinking et al.
mostly I wonder if I can still write
worth a goddamn.

2.

air condenses outside and on
my water glass.
temps in the mid-sixties or whatnot.
the cat sounds and I know that he wants
but the food is upstairs and put away
the cat can find a mouse
or eat a spider, I don’t care…
   
3.

there is no innocence in the thoughts
of the 30 year old man,
no matter what they tell you.
and don’t trust what women say
when they want something.

they always want something.

4.

I have disembarrassed myself from my original family
this was a necessary move. they should call me a genius
for leaving them in affect, to suffer their own drama.

my own little family needs me to be emotionally available for them
and I can’t do that if I am tied up in fictitious drama, especially
one that disinterests so much. Maybe we’ll miss the gossip, but I
think we’ll learn to cope.

5.

Okay, okay…

I’ll be the fucking messiah.
I don’t see that anyone else wants the job.

maybe it’s the bloody end that makes people
re-think the position.

but fuck it,
I’m not doing anything else;
might as well shit can the rest of my life
as I’ve done a bang up job so far.
    or

Okay,
I might as well be the messiah
I don’t see how anyone else is pulling for it,
and there is no nepotism now due to HR
and the EOEA.

After all,
I was right about that one thing
that once
wasn’t I.

and to wrap now – 6.

it doesn’t matter how much I do
or how courteous I am,

it is always about you.

– I wrote this.

I make no apology for myself.

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February 21, 2010

Saturday… isn’t it?

by jhon baker

Getting late now and I will not post tomorrow I think. Going to take Sundays off from this blog/ journal and concentrate on hunting down inspira – bring my 30.06 and enough rope to tie it to the hood of my F-150.

This is another poem that was edited to eliminate two names of living persons who need not be attached to it for it to work and stand. Actually, I think the names took from it it’s meter and force.

poem in divisions

I must remember
tomorrow to
wash the sheets.
I must remember that
the starts above Broadway
are only imagined.

fire hydrants sit
by the street
waiting for disaster;
the mailman hangs out
waiting for conversation.
we take eleven photographs
from off the balcony.

the newspaper arrives
most days
while not arriving today.
the garbage truck comes
only once a week,
usually on time.

J. A. – I am with
you in prison
where your takers
keep watch while
the cell mates remind
you of your betrayal
to skin color.
in two days
F. will be driving up
and I’ve no fresh fruit
to offer or
tea to drink.

watching two insects
crawl on the screen
toward the holes
left for, or by them,
and overhearing a separate
apartment dweller sigh,
      “it ought not to have
      “been that way, but
      “it was.”

I must remember
to shower and
drink coffee before
going to work.
I must remember that
my clothes are
still on the floor from
last night.

I must remember
tomorrow to
wash the sheets.
I must remember that
the starts above Broadway
are only imagined.

– I wrote this

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February 17, 2010

thoughts on the secret hero in eight versions

by jhon baker

1.
piles of unpublished poetry
and I feel like Emily D.
except there is no song to these

2.
most of the verse written years
ago in a 3rd floor walk-up
an hour from Chicago
there was less between us
and moments were ours
without out knowledge or
at least without yours

3.
if this world was my will
or my idea – this
wouldn’t exist
and maybe never get written

even at 124 mph across Colorado
before Denver

4.
these aren’t poems
not one o’clock moments
of clarity

they are sleepless induced
narcotic psychotropic
overdoses

I casually wish I still drank

5.
right now
time is passing
but not without memory
and I cannot say it is painful
you cannot call it hospitable either

6.
secret hero of my poetry
where have you gone
what have you been thinking

I cannot question now
as I cannot cope with the answer

7.
x xx
some kind of monster
and I cannot even look in the mirror
around corners
or close my eyes

8.
this is not a poor film
tho we all with it were.

– I wrote this.

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