life and death…a buoy
life and death…a buoy
By Oscar Smiles
does he give it all up mistaken
does his plans change unmistakably
is it last call for a change
is his childhood ganged upon
by his newfound love of last calls
is his third storied
lounge compartment sunny
does he trip up
every drunken step funny
does he lay in the back
compartment windshield
eating sunny paintings
wishing to be drunk and funny
is his four million storied
sun dipswinging splitmouthed
knocked out on bubbly
wishing for blowjobs no money
does he spit out son of a bitch
underneath a picnic bench
does he take cartoon cot naps
is his mouth washed out with soap
does his parents believe him brown boots
has all the data
ran straight to
his fingers yonder aways
evil lurked behind every tree
every rotten fence post
every in between him and me
ponds
ceilings
microwaves
we got cherries
walking those fences
climbing those trees
we tore shit up
firecracked anthills
mailboxes and each other
our parents fought alot
us kids cried alot
incest and grandmother switches
we shot arrows over power lines
woody woodpeckers and oak trees
we shot out every single window
and light of an old dodge pickup
green i remember
a hell of a lashing
we didn’t know any better
we were evil and on crutches
we found marijuana in jewelry boxes
cocaine in bathroom drawers
we had pen drawings poisonedskin
those were the days
the freshest of counsels
we were staying alive
the damndest of parcels
we were miserable
sitting in cold steel chairs
uncomfortable unstable disabled
lacking all reality all memory
we’re all over him and me
we had a dirtbike friendship
we had telephone hangings
we had swat facing
you mad at me
i never meant to be
this way
evil on every level
his clock stopped
the secondhand is stuck
on the second before
secondhand clothes buttons missing
missing the first day of school
terrified
it’s about three kid miles
to the bus stop
has he thought of the consequence
has he reveille smiles
it’s hot as hell and
how often does he get a
summertime nightmare grip on death
he gives it all back
back to back me and him
mouth to mouth
bottle opener
back pocket hyperbole
back pocket of noone inparticular
just in case you figured me
to be a patient mentally
he figured on this
scientific terrific
heroic
rough
stoic
he donates organs
in c-minor while catching
sea serpents and death
he stares out his window
stares death inside out
deep dark blue clouds stormy
he’s feeling miserable
cause it’s coming down
like me outside
he’s disillusioned inside out
we spread our wings ashes
him and me
we wrestle demon gods
spread eagle lay
we both compromise
on the day of troubadours
we stand up and fall down
drunk and funny
we ran from each other
both straight rights unforgiving
rewritable rites
p
l
e
a
s
e
trite but living like a
lost control needed
beating and hurting
peace
Reads reminiscent of ‘Howl’…juvenile spirits trapped between aesthetic and moral man with a gas-gage on soul..broken.
1st 6 stanzas put forth the questions/rest of the poem states the evidence…put forth with the tenacity of a Ginsberg…
The poem bounces like a ‘buoy’ describing adventures of quests for some elusive happiness that is not water-proof.
I thoroughly partook of the ‘biographical guts’ of inner-struggle here…occasional rhyme makes for good change-up.
If it was me, would have come up with synonyms for storied and compartment in stanzas 2-3-4 (but that’s just me…). Loved 4th stanza: “is his four million storied sun dipswinging splitmouthed knocked out on bubbly wishing for blowjobs no money”.
THX Oscar Smiles!
Ein Bruchstück für Sie becca, verpassen wir Sie, Ana und mich auch.
Not the dream world this,
not strung together
in a necklace life
of perfume and wishes.
This world has fingers.
Filled with wet sand
and shaking
slightly
gracias para el poema, su trabajo es siempre cada vez mejor, pero yo
me olvido mi español porque el alemán estorba.
Dave