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About Me

on loneliness (January 25, 2004)
Posted on Sat Jan 31 2004  

in 1983, the glass exploded
dripping mercury, -129 Farenhiet
the Americans were squatting the continent
nobody owned.

they don't allow dogs there
because it scares the seals, so i imagine
the scientist sat with only analog blips
whispering to him, scratchy throated
and sharp. a thumb no longer opposable
twists on American Armed Forces Television
but no laugh tracks crackle through.

as it should be, though.
4,776 metres of ice up east
as deep as the Alps are high
if you melted her all the way
down, she would make a freshwater
swamp out of New York City.

the rights of society come
before the rights of the
lone man stranded.

tasting the same thing (December 27 2003)
Posted on Sat Jan 31 2004  

where did the hours go?
two grey eyes graze the clock and
two hands salute. methodical mocking.

you waved from beneath the waterline,
peering through my porthole, tapping
at the glass.

my face pressed against that translucent
concavity, limbs loose under a light blanket,
lukewarm dry.

what use is hiding in a vessel you created
without corners, circular and mapped out
in your mind?

my words are in your mouth. let me
join you, we're already tasting
the same thing.

Earthquake (January 1st 2004)
Posted on Sat Jan 31 2004  

i don't know what you do for a living
so when people ask, i say you write
instruction manuals. idiot proof
blocks of text punctuated by diagrams
designed to spare the tears of
visual learners.

a call to the help desk
a husky Persian accent
a patient lower lip pursed
and greasy in the creases
below it.

(this is what happens when your instructions fail.)

every morning you draw me
a flawless map of your day
and every night i get lost

along the fault lines, a generator is sputtering
on it's last breath and rounding the numbers down
to the nearest thousand.

(a pixelated prototype should grace your screen by morning)

Lithuania Number Three (January 17th, 2004)
Posted on Sat Jan 31 2004  

you went to my country a couple of summers ago
just before everyone started buying year 2000 sunglasses
everyone stared at me with eyes framed by zeroes
as i tore through my stepfather's tape collection
then retreated to my room to tear up the calendar
while Madonna moaned through my headphones.

twenty years ago, my great aunt sent a letter to Canada
she said Irena's mociute was dying in Vilnius
and we should send black lace for her mourning dress
immediately. When the ball dropped and the first digit
switched over, she was still going strong.

just a little while ago, i felt like i was saying
as tave myliu for the first time,
even though it's so overused that the syllables blur
when you hear it. It was mechanical throughout my childhood,
like reciting the "Our Father" and brushing my teeth.

my mother wanted to name me Leona, after my uncle Leo
who spoke for my grandmother as she was dragged
through Displaced Persons Camps during the war.
there is one line i remember of his favorite song
loosely translated to my child ears, it ran:
"i'll give you two roses when Lithuania is free."

well before the internet, i woke up to a long distance call
that my grandmother answered. i could hear her crying.
"No, no. it can't be true, Yoana. No, Yoana, no."
she sent me back to bed and said nothing was wrong.
when i was 10, she said the cancer on my grandfather's cheek
was just a spider bite. it crumbled under a laser that year.
nowadays, she goes to church 5 days a week.

none of them understand why nothing can be the same
after my grandfather said "hitler had the right idea."

when i was six years old, i was punished
for my bad manners. my head still throbbing
from a blow to the side, i told my stepfather
what happened, and was once again punished
for my bad manners.

sometimes i feel that everything i say is lost
in translation, that they never really left Lithuania
and started a construction business in Toronto
back when nothing stood beside the Royal York.
they are watching through a kaleidoscope
as i burrow through the home they built for me
and grasp at branches far beyond their tree.

an ode to diego rivera
Posted on Wed Oct 01 2003  

The last thing you ever painted was a watermelon.
a far cry from "the nightmare of war and the dream of peace",
but i understand.

I created something perfect once, too.
ever since then, it's been embossed in my shadow
the highlights and reflections swelling and sinking
with the sun. it's my name now, my signature-
like Jesus was to ressurection,
this hideous glory is to me.

they say that's why you went abstract
to scribble out that flawless idol
you created- but it wasn't enough to chip away the finish.
after Trotsky died, you stayed awake at nights
imagining an ice pick piercing the plaster of David's head
as he stood on guard in Italy, a pornographic picture
of divine creation.

he was not ashamed. why were you?

they wrote you down as lost at the Rockefeller Center
like a mother dead in childbirth, so crumbled your brush
when they tore down that mural. many years later,
i saw you at the Hotel del Prado, all sagging eyes and anarchy
scrawling "God does not exist" on the wall.

now everything is clay and oil.
the pigments have passed through every creature,
settled and separated. the women never stay very long,
they can't stand Frida's eyes following them,
the painting scrutinizing the artist,
the dead dancing on puppet strings
suspended from the wooden cross you hold.

the last thing you ever painted was a watermelon.
you were tired, it was solid, easy.
but hey, i don't blame you
i created something perfect once, too.

eva's lament
Posted on Sun May 25 2003  

i tried to call you around twelve thirty today
to tell you i felt like an old woman 
i felt like i should sink into
my leather sofa and submerge my brain
in a bubble bath with rosemary and rosehip oil
and rosie o'donnell if it is convenient

for you, i ran into
an old friend yesterday

her hair looked like it had been pulled out of little holes
in a rubber rainhat and painted blue and silver
rain colours to complement their dissonant shelter of
yellow, a hue of wishful

       thinking: about the polyester dresses i
       left in toronto, the maternity shirts with
       multicolored alphabet print, the waitress
       apron with backdated quarters in the

pockets, of air between your bodies
behind a backdrop of undeterminable nations
originally set to wait for a few minutes
for their eggs and toast, set to sign
the thinning paper and be done with it
sign the dotted line where the grease
and coffee soaked through to the wood of
the table

   of 
   values

this was your system, not mine.

i used to deliver newspapers in toronto, not too far
from where the man you loved resided less than comfortably
with an inconsolable urge to blast Bon Jovi at 2 AM
with his head hanging over the edge of the bed, as though
he was trying to drain away the thoughts like you drain
pots of decaffinated coffee every morning before you
arrive at his apartment to pay your

respects
or inside jokes
  we might never
     know, all we could
tell from his face in
the  paralell slots
of   the      drapes
wherewelookedquietlyfora reason toignoretheobvious
likehewasjusta normal manwithastrangemindanditsnot
hingtobe concerned aboutithinkweallneedsome timeoff

hey, i didn't invite him in.
it was your system, not
mine.

not a poem, just some pimping
Posted on Tue May 06 2003  

go read my new <a href="wackypenguin.net/blog">blog</a> on my new domain!!! it's in Movable Type and it's snaaaaazy! :)

big test tomorrow
Posted on Sun Apr 27 2003  

big test tomorrow
and all i want to do is
write an epic poem

how utterly unfulfilling.

i don't know if i turned
the iron of I don't
know i don't if I turned off
the iron I turned off if
i turned the iron-

often i wonder how long it would take to
build a shelf out of Popsicle sticks
so I could reuse some worthless crap
to house more worthless crap
and a couple of pencils if there's room

_________big test tomorrow
and all i want to do is_________

a man was playing a recorder on the sidewalk in Kingston today.
he held out his shoe and people dropped coins as they passed without
shifting their gaze. i think it was 'ode to joy' or something by the
Backstreet Boys.
      

 i'm finding it hard to swallow
 i think i need a witch doctor

i used to say i didn't hate people. sometimes certain people would get on my nerves but i still didn't hate them. i used to watch the basement flood too and imagine a drain swallowing all the water without a care in the world while it crept around my ankles.

i used to say
i didn't hate bugs
i petted a wasp that landed
on my hand
just to scare my mother

i used to pretend there was no problem at all, while it crept around my ankles.

big test.

tomorrow i will wake up and put 2 pre-frozen pancakes into the toaster, get a fork and plate and the syrup from the fridge and a cup of orange juice and some Prozac without thinking.

           good for you good for you
           i am so pleased i am so happy i am so proud
           of your success yes yes yes laud gladness
           ensues i am overjoyed absolutely ecstatic

i think you stopped caring a long time ago
and it's just now coming to surface
somewhere in the atmosphere a star burned out years ago
and i'm just now seeing the light

sometimes
people write epic poetry
to escape something
sometimes people do drugs
so they can write epic poetry
to escape something
sometimes people make friends so they can do drugs
so they can write epic poetry to escape something
sometimes people write epic poetry so they can make friends
so they can do drugs so they can write epic poetry
to escape something

tomorrow, big

                  testing is an essential part of the learning process.
                  it assesses one's ability to comprehend concepts
                  and apply them to new situations where they can
                  have a family and raise a sweet heterosexual
                  daughter on vacuum sealed peas and carrots
                  phallic propaganda

i used to listen to this band
there was a little blue logo
at the top of the website
where other people who used
to listen to this band got
together and talked. this

is when a lot of weird stuff started happening

     i knew a man who liked singing giraffes and movies
     about fast cars. i knew a man who liked teaching me
     about QBasic GOSUB commands and how to take advantage
     of them. i knew a man who made three brilliant albums
     and died before i could thank him. I tried

to call him in heaven once. God answered. He said He'd tell Dave I called.

i said thanks for leaving the message
i said thanks for holding the door open
i said thanks to the boy who didn't speak english
i said thanks to people who deny my requests
i said thanks to people who hurt me
i said thanks to people for existing
they called me weird. i said thanks.

        sometimes people say
        i apologize to much
        common courtesy

is PC bullshit, depending on who you talk to, we can all wade and wallow or we can express our appreciation for the lady who sold us coffee on our way to work.

sometimes people are frustrated
by epic poetry. it's like a movie
with a thousand false endings
that skew the plot so horribly
that you don't remember what
the movie was about. they say
it would have been a good movie
if they had stopped at the first
ending. it would have been a good
poem if you had stopped at the
second stanza.

several years ago i asked myself if i had turned the iron off. turns out i hadn't. it sunk an entire island. God was pissed.

    some people just don't know when to stop.
    some people don't understand that too much
    of a good thing makes it a bad thing.

if i kissed you every morning
for fifty years, and you woke
up the on the first day of the
fifty-first year and i didn't
kiss you, would you be upset?
or would the kisses have been
better if they had ended after
the first ending or the second
stanza?

there are a hundred opportunities to refocus your energy
during the day. there are a hundred ways to curb any perpetual    frustration from a cause deemed not worthy of your energy in the first place by some higher powers.

           Dave called me back yesterday. i told him about
           singing The Mountain with Jaimie. i told him i
           wished he could've heard it. he said he did.
           i didn't see him at the concert. He said he was
           sitting in the balcony.

i was looking at the balcony while i sang. but there were a lot of bright lights in my eyes, and i was also looking at the lyrics, my hands, the drum, Jaimie.

 all the trains stopped
 this morning. the buses
 are still running.
transportation is so slow these days.

 

 

I would like to talk to you even after i ran out of things to say. talk about stupid things like the weather when every subject in the world had been exhausted, when every argument had been scrutinized and analyzed and every possible adjective used and every possible thing able to be communicated by text had been communicated, when there was nothing left to do but talk about the weather

and kiss you. fifty-one times three hundred sixty five times. and more.

now that time has come.
and i guarantee there will
be more to talk about afterwards.
however, i can't. sometimes
people say writing an epic
poem is like a kiss, is like
a message to God or Dave or
Jaimie or Mother, a thank you
or a verification or a
disclaimer. i say it is like
taking a test.

i have a big test tomorrow.

(what do you) mean [this is] war
Posted on Sun Apr 13 2003  

burning in bed
bleeding from the blisters on my lips
             that suckle the missiles like a sugar stick
             
bubbling and bursting and rubbing me raw
ruby, dribbling down - the juice on the skin of a strawberry shortcake

stagnant, crepe paper streamers crumbling from the ceiling
                     strung along rusty nails, effort
                     wheezing breathless from a helium high

reckless, miss beauty pageant summer school spring break limousine
              crawling sleepily to the all-night diner
             
         ease her down slowly, even, settle her, that's it-
         now you've got it.
           
sandwiched in between your morning coffee and the prayers of parlaiment
melting the crayons and licking what they leave behind
         waiting for the words to harden in your throat
         and your struggle to swallow-

(what do you) mean [this is] war

thrust of grace
Posted on Sun Apr 13 2003  

little blue bead of fire, feed us all
and bleed fluently from your gaping mouth
or the glue that holds that smirk upon your face
and the lust deserting Cockburn's thrust of grace

        condensing in the cream filling of culture
        punched cleanly through the frosted glass
        or the meadows, the medicine-
        the knick-knacks in your drawer

and early Spring's suburban whore smacking greenbacks
or the laissesz-fair laxative leaking mud and sinew
streams, one pearly tooth gleams in the fluorescent lamplight
and sinks in the saddle and spills sludge into your shoes

        there is a man who's gruesome parody
        of Elvis Presley gave me nightmares

chugging prayers to spite the salted sea of buoyant waste
a sock misplaced, a space disaster scattering the wreckage

        on my face.