another poem abt distance

Some people can’t
stand the city-
too many eyes
too many faces

They don’t understand
the thousands of acres
that separate
each of us

Distance is the reason
that ill intent
makes a good
fairy tale

No one wants to know
that our opposition to
one another
is part of
evolution

Whenever I try to see
my path in others
rather than vice versa
I get impressions

My cat likes
the warm spot
on the couch
that I leave
almost as much
as my lap

We think provocation
takes us elsewhere
when the grapes
might as well
be sour

Distance is where
our affections lie

There is always
another cheek
to turn

Passive-aggressive
cuts
only hurt
when you look
at them

Distance is our blueprint

Behind closed doors
when the lights are off
we close doors
& turn off lights

Distance is closer
than we think

In March of 2010
scientists at
the University of California
were able to vibrate
a tiny metal paddle
w/ electricity
until it was moving
& standing still
at the same time

Most of us
can barely count
the difference b/w
Entitled &
Considerably Entitled

Distance
is no secret

We are fashionably
aghast
watching predators
get caught
on MSNBC
while fashionably
amused
by the old man
trying to fuck
Peter Griffin’s
teenage son

Distance is this poem
weighing itself
while yet feasting

Modern hipsters
prefer the coxcomb
to Ginsburg’s halo

Distance is
now showing

We worry abt
those that we will
never know
but what they’re playing
on the big screen
is us

Distance is
a background hum

At the Mapco Express
the girl behind the counter
no longer cards me
when I buy beer
since the register says
“Please show ID”

She could at least
lip synch

Distance preaches
to the choir

Dostoyevsky
Camus
& countless others

I haven’t quit
my day job

But I could have it wrong

The pixels could be
holding hands
as they whisper
not-so-very-distant
nothings
in yr ear

The zeros
could be undergoing
some important
rite of passage
to become Ones

Failing to see
blue blood
under
brown skin
could mean that
we really are
colorblind

Distance could be
the most
that we can
manage

There could be
intimacy
in the words
that we speak
around
one another

Distance is staring
at a cell phone
while the big ugly world
is screaming
all around you

Lest you be
diagnosed as
autistic

Distance is a compromise

Remember when
you stopped playing
w/ toys?

Or when
you stopped saying
what you really
feel?

When you
stopped feeling
what you really feel?

Distance is seeing
Memphis
on television

Aquamarine
or turquoise
playing the role
of blue
while Karo syrup
glistens on
airbrushed
mahogany flesh
& mercy is had

Distance is laughing
when someone falls

We have all snickered
watching gravity
synthesize
Hegelian dialectic
b/w flailing arms
& hard pavement

Distance is more
than one

Candy bars come two
to a package
when one of them
is lying

Distance is the sum
total of the shadows
that we cast

In the East
more concise thought
allows tones to compete
w/in each syllable

Distance cannot be measured
b/w bark & bite
anymore
than it can be measured
b/w crisis & pretense
or minor inconvenience
& mass hysteria

Distance can only
be measured
in the city
where you can
always count
on too many eyes
& too many faces.

filth

She started noticing the same sticky film on her music, her DVDs, coming through as pixels when she watched TV. There was no sense trying to explain it to her friends or her family- they had come to love the disgusting residue w/o even knowing it was there. Exposure to anything not covered in this film felt awkward to them. "Couldn't this be more urban?" "This makes me feel things that could be potentially racist or gay. Not gay gay but gay."

xmas wishes

Santa Claus told the children to make a wish into one of their hands before instructing them on what to do with the other hand. Moments later, the children were staring at their own feces & agreeing that the hand that had been pooped in was indeed the one that had filled up the fastest.

from a dream i had the other night

The image on the screen is a close-up of a man's hand pouring Caucasian flesh-colored liquid from a clear vial onto the surface of a table around which several children are gathered. "I wanna touch your ski-i-iinn...," the children sing to the tune of the classic Beatles' song. They sing in a creepy deadpan voice, like they don't really mean it. The puddle on the table hardens almost instantly into a leathery residue complete w/ life-lines & wrinkles. The children rush frantically to the table, shoving one another out of the way for a chance to run their hands over the fake flesh. Their singing is heard in the background as the camera zooms in on their hands touching the table. "I wanna touch your ski-i-iinn..."

crime

Victim: The experience was nothing short of scrumptious. I love how he took me out of my comfort zone. How chic. Criminals can never have too much jewelry.

Perpetrator: I could have been more intimidating. My mind wandered. I was too busy thinking about our two destinies becoming one singular path.

Nearby building: The whole thing was tedious. I prefer chalk outlines to people.

setting for possible future events

Somewhere past
the miles & miles
of gameface

Where your
hurt feelings
receive neither
apology nor acclaim

Where people hunger
for more
than
red herring

Where all of the
stifled
facial expressions
are forced
to confront
one another

(but only for lack
of cellphone reception)

Where demons cannot
be held at bay
nor itches
scratched

A place where
your voice fits
in my ear
no better than
my foot fits
in your ass

Where the urgency
w/ which
we put on
each new mask
is less abt hiding
than it is abt hoping
that the mask
is still warm
from when
someone else
wore it last

It’s the exit
that everyone passes
on their way
to Otherwise

A world of convenience
where children are born
w/ their spirits
already broken

Where even
a generation lacking
moral compass
knows enough abt
Compromise
to measure the
distance b/w
hippies & hipsters

Where not even
a million internets
could get me to
hold your hand

Where those who haven’t
been LOL’ed to sleep
by the incessant hum
of human activity
still sing the blues

A world where adjectives
& adverbs modify
nothing, since everyone
is fashionably obstinate

Where the Numbers
always win
because even
your indifference
has been calculated

Where we need
only two dimensions
to placate
one another

All is for
the Beast
in this
the only world
that is
currently available

Where we dream of
a discrepancy
b/w worlds
brave & new
& a grt big pile
of neverending
Suck.

meeting my birthfather

Levity sticks out
its cruel yet
unimposing
beige tongue
reminding us all
that unprotected sex
works just as well
as a pie in the face
or slipping
on a banana peel

Did I really wait
35 yrs
to hear
this old man
farting
in my bathroom?

Just yesterday
at work
old woman on a walker
was leaving the men’s room
w/ an embarrassed
albeit relieved
expression

“I went through
the wrong door.”

She should’ve
opened
all of them.

Busy dying

It’s too bad
we’re no good
w/ names

when it no longer
matters what
is being adorned

when we cum
together
but always
wake up alone

Busy being born

learning to add
on fingers too fat
for counting

behind a veil
of lead

according to
an evolution
that favors
blk holes

That he not

does Schrodinger’s cat
share the values
of his/her
master?

Is.

weltscherz

The reason
to be embarassed
watching the white kid
play the black kid
is the reason to cringe
when your daughter
dreams of vampires
& the reason
you only put
the words of others
in your mouth
& spent your best years
chasing reflections
of reflections
which is the reason
that builds nations
of people not admitting
that not even
your best friend
or your own mother
or your very own partner
can hurt
where you hurt
how you hurt
& there isn’t
a damn thing
any of us can do
about that.

working man

By chad_wthrfrd | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

“Divine Absolute!

Your shape
framed by angles
like prime numbers

Divisible only
by themselves
and the One

O Glorious Magnitude!

Anything less tangible
would lack
the gravity
to make our world
so deliciously flat

Judge! Jury! Executioner!!

Sculptor
of comfort zones

Architect
of paradigms
& status quo

The soft squishy world
of Meritocracy
shall be
our foundation

The only remaining distinction
being that
of 1 & 0

Their lives
will be like
those hardly noticeable
lines in the background
of a masterpiece

They will want
no more
than to accentuate.”

And so on. The others were careful to control their facial expressions as they watched the man kneeling on the asphalt give the dilapidated building an impressive erection.

A*a* would describe scenes like this to people on the street but no one believed him. “When’s the last time you saw the horizon?” No answer. Stockholm syndrome he called it when the dark places in your head become part of the landscape. But no one listens when they’re comfortable. He didn’t help telling them he had apotemnophilia.
“I am God’s little flower,” he said during his spot on Search for the Real. “He loves me. He loves me not.” **am was a working man after all.

like soot

By chad_wthrfrd | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Neither of her parents was thinking abt the other one the night that she was conceived. Everyone agreed that she had done well for herself after a childhood spent looking for the hand that wasn’t holding a cellphone.

S: “So you have a pretty unique success story. How did your spiritual quest lead you to being the host of Search for the Real?”

E: “Well, I met A*** in Nepal, where we were both doing a bit of soul-searching. We decided that, much like the tree in the forest, our search was irrelevant if it wasn’t being
narrated.”

X: “?”

S: “Did you find what you were looking for?”

E: “Our show is less abt trajectory & more abt feelings.”

X: “?”

Off-camera, she connects the dots.

“It looks like soot. Only I can see it. Some of us are completely covered in it, while others just have spots here & there.”