We should all be measured by the
feelings we stain into memories
long seperated from the real.
The ghosts
the dead
the separated and the lost
leave fingerprints on your eyes
and some never fade away.
The dead have it easy
and there is some
sweet
sorrow about that.
One
alone
untouched, unspoken to
unloved
and sane.
The pain words can cause,
and what if the sun never rises?
cold
dark and lonely but
there is something else.
There's gotta be something more
than
this
and it mattered fifteen times less than
anyone was willing to admit.
Faux poets and fake spoken word artists
dance in a room
speaking in tongues
and patting each others back getting each other off and saying
just how fucking GREAT
they have gotten at nothing.
Not a literal nothing,
and this poem just hit me with deja vu.
Have I disgraced the circle-jerkers before,
or is this the first time, and why the memory being
rehashed like an egg mcmuffin?
Future uncertain, but leave it to the back-patters and
drum-beaters
and forgotten poets who killed themselves before publishing
to dictate the scene,
because it matters as much as
someone re-writing Shakespeare in ebonics.
the subtle difference between
a thought and a
whisper
seperate the
angel and phantom.
Who once was genuine
has become spectacle
a shadow dancing from candle light
in a four-walled cave of my own design.
Nights like these bring new clarity and
understanding,
new categories for old problems
and old people.
What once was an angel,
conversation dancing off moist lips
and engaging my own heart,
now cackles and spits venom through
forked
fucked
tongues.
The very words
a series of missles aimed with no particular
malice or accuracy,
but deadly nonetheless.
She who would move freely to heaven
suffocates in the lazy, charcoal clouds.
A misguided perspective
searching for a line among dots.
Any line will do and it shows.
Pull me out of my skull
where the thoughts tumble and
crash onto the ground like glass figurines
of old lovers and family.
A piece of heart for each leaves
a small sum remaining
but the metaphysical may reproduce
or re-grow or
maybe heal itself.
No,
let go of the self and
breathe.
Ascend.
Blame it on me,
you know I can take it,
blame it on your family and
the hand you were dealt
and the way you don't give a
fuck
about anything.
Blame it on the way you have no roots
and don't know what it's like to belong
or how you pretend philanthropy is in your
selfish bones.
Blame it on me,
and the way I cared,
still care,
and the way I always get back up from
every lie and let down
and you pretend not to notice
or feign ignorance.
Really,
blame it on me,
and make it sound like I made the first
move and the first mistake,
and any other firsts you want to put on me.
Put it on me, baby,
you know I can take it.
Blame it on the way you live in secret
with texts and accidental phone calls
and act none the wiser
because I can take it.
Blame it on the way I shut down
shut you out
buckled down and made myself
stronger
faster
void of the outside emotion endemic in man.
Blame it on anything but yourself
blame it on the little green armymen,
or the real armymen,
they can take it.
I will pretend to sleep it off,
work it out,
walk it off.
I can do those things and more,
ut justice isn't the only thing that's blind.
A rust has come to roost with the
complacency of the now
as experienced through the mind
of a solitary satelite.
A kick is needed,
a spark.
A something to break the nothing,
the big nothing – only ever properly described
in the intrninsic link between sorrow and death.
Who could dare to dive into the mess?
Few,
and by default they are no longer with us.
What of the survivors?
Cowards, Bukowski would say,
or they did not hate it enough – yet who hated more than he?
Puzzles on the back of mysteries veiled in a fog.
Maybe he never shook the rust off
and it consumed him until he was nothing else.
What a broken poem
too much rust – and how does one shake it?
Machine aspirations,
a constant race to be mechanized,
ending in what?
Throw out free will,
stomp on the buddhists,
burn down natural medicines.
Inject it all into your body,
you number in a world of numbers
causation moves you anyhow,
and nobody asked for
an expression of
the opinion your
biology forms.
Break down anything that can not be explained away
by science,
the infallible dogma of modern man
as flawed and subjective as what came before
with a few fancy tricks and facts to cover it all up.
Why explains the holes,
or even acknowledge them?
Shut them the fuck up,
and let's wait with wealthy promises
and blind faith that gaps the size of canyons
will be filled eventually.
Blind faith,
partial truths,
dogmatic obedience.
Yup,
we have since this all before.
All your stupid friends were wrong,
are wrong,
and will never
grow up
learn the difference between
something real and fake
breathing.
How many head boards did it take
to alter her brain
– either way
she hit more than was necessary –
and you can take that to the bank
though not the bank she would favour.
And what mud slinging mattered
on late nights where idiocy is laid bare
and honesty rolls off the tip of the tongue
– which has more uses than she would lead you to believe –
she was never much for talking,
never having much to say.
A rant of razors,
dagger words slicing their way to the
core
and what matters.
Who are the you in ‘your,’
as if there was a Sherlockian puzzle to solve,
but like Doyle I haven’t laid bare all the required pieces.
There is implication,
but it is a falsehood,
because it isn’t about you or who you may think.
And who cares?
The whisky hammering is
a soft, slow touch
molding you as putty to
the recesses of your mind.
It rubs you,
coerces you,
like felt in a world
filled with cactus feelings,
people with razors for teeth,
it's never-ending,
the scorn of an existential hell.
I'll give you one hundred years
free of charge
and it won't matter anyways.
Soak my brain in one hundred
years worth of whisky
in a night and it won't matter
anyways
because we're all waiting for the same train,
some depart earlier than others
but it's the same destination.
I love you,
I hope you burn.
Andy Veilleux 