Month: January 2013

Puppets and strings

/ andyveilleux / Leave a comment

Sometimes a puppet can be
Identified by the strings that
Reveal the puppet master.

You have seen nothing yet,
And are an amateur at best
But if you want to learn about manipulation
I can certainly show you some of what you
And certainly the others
Have taught me.

But that’s all nothing compared to things I know
And the dark places I’ve been
and maybe you’ll get a taste of it.

Its tempting and I feel the tug of demons
Who want me to break you for this
But its not the pawn’s fault a war has started,
Although there is personal responsibility,
But I’m gunning for the queen on the board
Who thinks she is a chess master but
Is just one more piece on the board.

Ordinary people

/ andyveilleux / 1 Comment

We run from ordinary
Like we run should run from safety
Dodging it like a fated bullet
Please God, don’t let Me be
Ordinary
Anything, buy ordinary!

The big Me in all of us struggles
To be something more than one among
A multitude of the faceless,
But that’s all many of us ever are.

We have the same problems
Same sex
same stories
And same lives,
Plus or minus a tale or two,
But its all the same.

But I know everything isn’t the same,
And I just took you on a ride that should have
Got the blood boiling and
Pissed you off,
Because some people are different.

I spend me insomniac nights talking to them
And trying to feel them in my bones
Because even if I never love them fully
They will have meant much to me.

Don’t think that every person is the same,
But don’t be a fool and think all the
Minute differences we have matter either,
Some differences matter and some don’t.

For my part,
There are a few differences I believe matter:
Empathy,
Honesty,
And ambition.

These traits separate at least 95 per cent
Of the people I met from others
And are the foundation of love and happiness.

I’ve been fooled into thinking some
Lovers had these traits,
And some did,
But most did not and were simply
Blowjob artists in the guise of One True Loves,
And they didn’t even get the memo that
One-trick ponies need to master their
One trick.

Life has depth to it,
Real depth,
And these people are shells of human beings,
At best,
And complete forgeries of human beings at worst.

They walk, talk, blow, work and fuck,
But they don’t love or feel like the 5 per cent.

A shot of truth

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I tried to step around it all
And over sympathetic words
But they didn’t come easily.

Sometimes the cold truth is the only way to speak,
And it stings like daggers in the back.

You’re a clown,
And not in a good way,
Less old court jester more monotonous hack comic.

You’re a failure,
Not because of the places u have been or
The job you’ve chosen,
But because you’re empty and
Even your dreams were false.

You’re an idiot,
Because those people around you now would
Be in you then outside your life at the drop of
A hat or condom wrapper
You should have made them use.

And mostly,
You’re a fraud,
Peddling some woe is me bullshit
With a house constantly breaking down from
All the thrown stones that made their way home
And my empathy no longer reaches that far.

There’s no solace in those broken arms which
Is perfect for the nights spent in foreign beds
that span much further than your
Slim track record,
But not as far as the lies.

Love’s clearance rack

/ andyveilleux / 4 Comments

Some people have been cast aside,
hanging on the clearance rack of love,
For far too long.

You pick them up,
Try them on,
And say you can’t believe the price,
But you wonder why they were there to begin with.

Some people are too picky,
And their price is just too high,
While some people chafe your nipples
Or irritate your skin if worn too long
But some are just unlucky.

Some are just not fashionable,
Or out-of-season,
Too warm of a sweater in a post-dating climate
Where attachment is gone and summer styles
Are all the rage.

Everyone wants to let their skin breathe,
Except a chosen few,
And mist are just serial shopaholics
Always looking for a new style.

We invent ourselves through new lovers
Just like we buy new fashions
But an asshole is still an asshole
Even if they dress like Mother Theresa.

Its not the accessory on your arm that makes you,
Its what comes out of your mouth
And what you allow inside you or find yourself in.

So tired

/ andyveilleux / 1 Comment

My soul had become so tired

ragged

but my body could never catch up.

 

I sat awake,

laid in beds staring

at ceilings that did not mean anything

even with the shapes I imagined dancing.

 

There were occasionally figures dancing

on the ceiling with the brutal brush strokes

but also in the corner of my eyes

but when I turned

you were gone.

 

Life can hurt you when you are laying around

in the quiet and isolated moments

where no one is being touched or touching you

and there’s too much gravity to get comfortable.

 

Bukowski spoke of his soul dropping

down through the mattress,

but maybe if it was just a soul

I would cut my losses and move on without it.

 

It wasn’t just a soul being left behind

and there wasn’t a mattress expensive enough

to lull this tired mind

and worn-out body

into dream’s clutches.

 

The condo echoed the ticking, broken clock,

a casualty of one of my latest good memories,

and the condo snapped awake with heat against

an uncharacteristically chilly St. John’s evening.

 

The place had no apt defenses to the cold

just as I had found myself savaged not long ago

because the cold of places and especially of people

has a way of taking us by surprise.

 

The frost sneaks up around your

walls of trust and respect

and bites at whatever it can touch

and unfortunately

we let it into the most tender and

intimate

areas.

 

I wasn’t sure if the scars had accumulated too much,

the real pain of all of these open woulds stung too much

or the phantom pain of everything lost and still felt

was the culprit,

but sleep remained elusive nonetheless.

 

The reason doesn’t matter,

because humans aren’t built on rationality,

not at our deep and tender levels,

and that’s where all the real danger was.

 

There were many ghosts that became my friends

even though they prevented me from sleeping

and there was a white elephant in the room that

I wasn’t going to talk about anymore.

the boredom following the kill

/ andyveilleux / 2 Comments

I'm not sure where I go from here,

with no demons left to exorcise

and no skeletons left in my closet,

I debated borrowing some of yours

for at least a few days

or helping you.

 

Like Abraham Van Helsing,

I find myself onto other endeavours,

as this vampire has been slain,

but it was never my full-time profession

and only occupied my life for a few years,

not the first or last conundrum to arise

in an ever-interesting world.

 

Maybe I am more  V,

Shadow

or Paradise Lost's Satan,

than Van Helsing,

heoric to some

but certainly flawed to all.

 

We are better known for our flaws

than our personalities

and certainly

for our failures over

our success.

the poet as failure

/ andyveilleux / Leave a comment

My task as a poet is to

write something like the truth

while weaving it with enough fiction

to make myself seem

bigger than life or

maybe that's a lie.

 

Maybe my job is to tell the details

and intricacies of my life in such depth

that it grabs onto your heart and pulls you

into the void the sits my inside

my chest where nothing but despair

and occasionally the feint flame of love

exists.

 

You get to watch the caverns walls

shed water and occasionally a stalactite

gives in to gravity and falls to the floor

like so many poor and forgotten memories,

but nothing much lives in there,

at least not for long.

 

We poets try,

by spewing over pages and computer screens

with the hope that something will catch your eye

and you will come and sit with us at least for awhile

and let us into your heart

and give us the attention we desire,

or maybe we just need to write what we do,

it's pushed forth like a volcano explodes

lava and ash pushed through the atmosphere and

any hole that is available,

much like my memories of some of the ones,

and afterwards we lie dormant,

spent.

 

Mostly,

poetry is an act of failure,

I try to describe the infinite in finite symbols,

these semi-useful words,

in an attempt to record events

and initiate the desired emotions,

and sometimes I succeed,

surely sometimes I succeed,

but I also fail often,

and that's the beast of poetry.

The new old place

/ andyveilleux / Leave a comment

The location never changed
but there was a snap change in
My surroundings and how they felt
A switch went off in my head and
Suddenly this was not the place with
Forbidden memories and ghosts.

The red changed hue and saturation
Suddenly becoming red2
And the bland off-white walls that
Were painted in so many memories
And looked like the bones of all
Our skeletons
Suddenly became off-white2.

Not even the bed felt the same
As suddenly it felt as comfortable
As the catcher’s mitt boys always dream of
Sleeping within.

A temple of demons became home again
Overnight.

It was the lack of you,
Your ghost has shut the hell up
And skeletons no longer banged in the closets
Or on the couch
And suddenly I was the master of this domain again.

You fell out of my head
Or somehow
I fell out if the boyish desires
And a new freedom was found in me.