SleepCoat League Presents: Dr Bonejam's Poetry Pot

I can now see everything

As the trees de-robe like strippers,

But it tells me nothing.

  The birds used to sing

But now their Silence makes the dark days worse.

I can now see everything

  Each balcony is waiting for Spring

To come and lift Fall’s cold, bone-hurting curse

But it tells me nothing

  The unemployed pool boy is waiting.

The squirrels, now in slumber with hearts’ barely beating, have collected their stores.

I can now see everything

  Beyond the nappy brown branches in the thickening

Air, I nurse my coffee, the world melts, my thoughts disperse,

But it tells me nothing.

  I am not averse to the worsening chill or the exposing

Nudity of slumbering Nature’s cyclical verse.

I can now see everything

I remember

The smell of gas cut grass on a blue summer day.

Trampoling to safety from dog teeth.

Collecting brown cracked leaves with my small niece.

Dancing 'til the Sun bled through the night sky.

Bug plagues of DC

A crunching carpet on the grey sidewalk

The DC Sniper

Who then killed most victims in Maryland.

  DC Sniper had

A better scan than

We had icicle bones

Wept petroleum tears

Our tune – trembling trombones

Our skin – branded like steers.

  Brains cudgelled with learning

Scoop Gravelled overfill

Our defiance – threaded

Nesting walls dry twigs spill

  Ing over Sunrise fat

And Syrup gold. Blind kids

Stumble through each thick wet

Step, mewling for eye lids.

  Popcorn teeth, fluffy like

Wind. Entertaining chew

Toy made of puppet string

When Time no longer matters

And our space is all used up.

Memory will lie in Tatters

Just like an old, used, paper cup.

  Outside will be a blasted heath.

Inside will be a soothing cell.

Yet outside will offer freedom

Inside will be a uterine Hell.

  No choice will be the better

No thing either simple or clear

Yet Life is full of choices.

What thoughts gash the mind of that

Dropping

Sack

As I look on

Unconcerned?

  I am disinterested

Too distant

To be real

  To far off

To be happening

  To abstract

To be humanized.

  A Flailing marionette

With thoughts and dreams and

  With each

  Slip and slide and bone-

Jarring crack and

  Will now be mourned

  No doubt.

  Loose shale

Or

A push perhaps from

An unseen hand

Of a seeming friend.

  It could be in my head

Wafted

Cries of pain

Pleading with God

Weeping

Begging

Forgiveness.

It could be in my head.

  The bus stop is empty

The wind ruffles my hair

I push it from my eyes.

I continue to stare.

  Gravity is God to this hapless thing.

Fate has decided to finally bring

This one to the end of its pilgrimage

As I smoke this cigarette from my cage

Of disinterest.

  It is such a clean summer's day

Did they brush their teeth this morning?

Did they put on odd socks?

Is their underwear clean?

What was their final meal –

A hearty breakfast

Or an energy bar from their pack?

Who was their final hug?

Is Approaching Death

Peace or

Mind-numbing terror?

    The bus arrives.

I look again

But it has gone.

My cigarette

Burns out.

  I tell no one what I saw

It doesn't make the papers.

  Life continues.

Distant mountains.

Search the jagged seam where sky meets rocky scar

I am waiting for a bus.

I hear  

Echoing

Scribble-scrabble

Rock fall.

  The Irregular Parabola

Distant.

Leaping,

Bounding

Down, ever downward Leaping Rag-Doll.

  A Million innocuous moments

Shatter

The lives

Of People,

Strangers to me, not present to see.

  It gains Control momentarily

Then

Arcing

Crashing

Flipping.

Taking to the air, then meeting scree.

  Part of the mountain.

Part of its neighbour

I MISTILY remember my very first

Plunge. Wrapped close in vodka's sweet, warm blanket

I stumbled with my giggling Aphrodite.

She was, to me, the entirely beaut-

Iful, but so drunk was I, a moist fruit

  -

With cored-nook, more than Heaven (even bru-

Ised) would have been. But her eager wet-

Ness, warmed with woman's flush, began that night

Of febrile fumblings, synthetic starts and

The weakened will of Desire's wanton wand.

  -

At last, with volcanic idleness, Influ-

Enced by dawn's golden glimmer, dormant yet

No longer. Life's spray captured in her tight-

Ness. My vigorous fountain pooled then, in

IMPERFECTIONS yet superior still

To Circe's substance. An empty fickle

Heart yet more intense still than scorching, brill-

Iant Sol, scalding, past Time's sickle,

-

My withered shuck; shackled by Memory's

Insidious, insipid influence.

With a late lapping longing I barely

Breathe without recalling still her sens-

-

Ual soul. I seek oblivion from

This ever flowering, chaotic obses-

Sion. No respite can I detect; no brom-

Smoothly blue.

The air is full of many things

That make my body thrive

Oxygen and Nitrogen

Both keep me very much alive.

-

Of all the food that I can eat

There was a little mouse

Who had a little house.

He had a little wife

And had a little strife.

House Mouse Wife Strife

One tiny unravelling thread

THE WORDS melted wetly together

Slickly sliding across the page.

I was dubious; unsure whether

I could, should, would control my rage.

-

Confined to this fibrous vehicle

The seeping slowed gracefully like

Honeyed thought. Soothed by the treacle

Glow of newly found delight.

-

Then it's liquid limitations

Congeal, curdle; all thickened.

Each wet syllable, parched then, shines

Oh now help me dear Lord,

What am I gonna do?

I'm so very drunk-tired,

Gotta hole in-ma left shoe.

*

Been wanderin' since...

Been wanderin' since...

Been wanderin' since...

Since you threw me out,

Out of your heart,

Your barbed-wire heart.

*

Temples pulsate with off-

Ended remorse. Whiskey

Guilt's a-flowin' and I'm gettin' me a cough.

Think I'm gonna rest down under that ragged tree;

*

It's old and twisted, cracked and rough,

Just like me.

I lean back on some creaking bough,

Sinking then into dreams free-

Dom:

*

While the Cocytus flows into Acher-

On's course; Interlaced in abhorrent em-

Brace, dithered along their fractious borders.

*

Nothing proven remains true.

Time's initial casu-

Alty, grasping, hopeless love.

*

In her was contained all perfection.