Poetry archive 1

[Elven Doritos]

Something about the
way the wind
blows the silt into
my lover's hair
on the lush afternoon
meadow of memory
transforms the way
I look at her,
very  Mexican,
kind of a half-Spanish
sort of thing
without the lisp

[Elven Doritos]

Jacques Rimbaud, a very French sort of fellow with a double-chin and a drooping cigarette stuck between his cracked, salty lips that pursed whenever he talked in an odd sort of way where he would huff and puff for seconds afterward, left a dime for the dead flowers he put on his lover's doorstep on the counter of the florist he had quietly robbed the previous afternoon. The woman he knew, a Spanish girl with pale skin and a moon-shaped face, long dark hair that was glossy and recalled the undeniable beauties preserved in the white porcelain of antiquity, was leaving for the low rolling marshes outside New Orleans where the property was cheap as hell and Katrina damned the poor to the ghettos of the world outside civilization. Tomorrow was dangerous, for jilted lovers who are at a crossroads naturally demand the absolute moment of romantic inseparation during their final moments together; one or the other seeks a strand to hold the other by, some symbolic sort of sweat and lust that keeps the memory of the other crowned and left upon the shelf to show to others like an emblem or trophy.

So was the tragedy of the commons that left Jacques Rimbaud, known to me and the others in the gang simply as Flat Jack for his hat, about as French as he was, an old pancake thing belonged to his grand-pere who died in the war after being an officer of some kind, pining for the touch of some girl down in New Orleans who probably found another pot of honey to stick her mouth onto the second she reached whatever shack on a bog she set her porcelain ass into. Jack was a habitually somber chain-smoker who had no real problem with attracting women, he had a very gaunt sort of brilliance and his raccoon eyes and the veins on his forehead left women at first feeling maternally protective of him and then endeared to his jaundiced sort of poetry, very froglike in that it hopped around and croaked but still stood on its own legs.

Jack's mother was a hypochondriac, and every time you went up to old Rimbaud's place she would be up there, smiling with her half-smile in between coughing fits that left old Jack rather half-hearted and unconcerned, everyone would walk in with her coughing and wheezing and sneezing and running off and claiming allergies and sinuses and headaches and Jack would sit there playing with a jigsaw puzzle trying to figure out how long it would take. He would talk in halting sort of half-phrases, a very digital thing that left everything abbreviated and gave the impression that nothing he was doing was where he wanted to be, always rushing off into the distance and even the time to speak was too much time wasted because he knew you couldn't keep up and didn't want you to try. 'In't '˜bout time you'n I wen' out'n saw th'world?' he asked me on a Saturday afternoon when the fog was just rolling in off the bay, and I told him that we'd have to split the gas with another person and he suggested a teenage Moroccan gas attendant he knew, everyone called him Ali but his real name was something Jones. Ali Jones was thus drafted into our half-hearted road trip that swiveled in and out of our excitable daily routines, and it was the planning of the voyage, our own Odyssey to return to ourselves after the industries had washed them away, that was probably more important than any actual journey we made.

Hard times fell, as they tend to do when young men make bold plans to ride off into the sunset with a pair of bloody spurs and a cigar stuck between their yellowed teeth, cursing and spitting and swearing and letting the desert shanties give them what belongs to the brave. Nature is cruel to those who seek to captain its provinces. Ali rushed in to tell us his father was no longer working, that he was now the provider for the Joneses with his dark curly ringlets and his sunken eyes and tarp-like skin that told its own stories, every scar and line and wrinkle letting his pains and joys ripple through the air as he flashed his teeth upside-down and let out his horse-like laugh. 'Don't worry,' he'd say, tongue wetting lips every few words so he could keep his mouth free from errors caused by dry and hanging lips, 'we'll still make the trip, my man.' That's how Ali Jones ended every sentence, just a slurred and automatic 'my man' to let you know that he was cool and down with whatever you wanted to do, my man. We shook hands and he went off, unshaven beard into the unshaven night, trapped and shackled by an inverted responsibility chain he was born into. Worse things could happen.

Flat Jack was still lusting after his Spanish girl left like a piece of driftwood in the open wound of Louisiana, and he talked me into asking around for the money we needed to get started, we'd move down there with two hundred dollars and find some old blind blues player he knew that we'd stay with, he wouldn't tell me the name but said his grandfather knew him back when he owned a club and played the sax for someone who, to be honest, I couldn't recall either because when he would drone on like this, the few times he didn't abbreviate with huffs and puffs and gasps for breath, you wish he would, admiring his usual brevity and disdaining the dishonesty of his explanation.

I never found two hundred dollars, settling for seventy five, two credit cards, and no forwarding address. The President talked on about an era of responsibility as Rimbaud and I drove off in a cheap Geo that his mother had given him less than a year ago, filled it up with gas using the card and lit a couple cigarettes to celebrate our headlong break into independence, with or without the puppet strings dangling from behind us and connected to the windfall parachute of the creditors whom we desperately needed to fund our expedition. 'Wan't a smart'idee,' Jack said between drags of his cigarette. 'But th'bess iii-dee-aaas ain't alway th'smartes.' I tried to make sense of what he said as I drove the car into a little gas station where we ate butter sandwiches and talked about what the future would hold.

[Elven Doritos]

I encourage you to be battered
by the open frequencies we both knew
I'm sitting here, bleeding on this page,
hemorrhaging  Kerouac as we talk
and your appreciation
is all I need to feel alive

the bridge stands up and shivers
looking into the evening gloss
there's a hard rain and it's
too damn loud and too fast
to see through the windshield

motorcycles dancing, magnetic
attraction to the trees and
a slip-and-slide mentality off
the starboard bough but
astronauts and cosmonauts
are cosmopolitan, cosmologists

hit the gas
we're going somewhere
anywhere that's not here
mannnnn, who cares

[Elven Doritos]

For the young, love comes quickly
rising and falling in
glorious bursts of crimson light
sweat that rolls from
togetherness unearthed and
hold her by the back of head
double untold hopefulness
teaches moisture in omniform
enlightening and elevating as
eyes lock in perfect silence

[Elven Doritos]

Mother Earth
A sea of green between
Which the world seems
To dissipate, axis unresolved
Distorted, out of balance
My universe is swiveling

O, loquacious rivers
Between which sense surrenders
A smirk, a heady wisp
Dancer, pure, and healed
Off the medicine
Turned on to knowledge
Yes, I dig it

I dream of a woman
She must be a dreamer
Her slender fingers tracing
The edges of crisp book pages
Pale, with wit and pain to spare
I adore her razor glare

And yet
She is
Taken
By both
Distance
And another.

[Elven Doritos]

My lover crawled onto my doorstep
As hornets swarmed around her face
Trumpets scorned my tainted honor
Pianos warned of my disgrace
The ocean parts, the sky is empty
Save for birds and thorns above
The smell of death is what calls them
They smell the death of my true love

Silence thunders in the chamber
As the beggar steals my throne
The taste of summer fills my window
And on my love, the smell of bones
The glades and glaciers cannot hide her
Nor the totems of her home
Laughter leaves her lips in rivers
As she drops her bloody comb

I had hoped to find her lair
With my guitar, my pack of rags
A knife that gleams in harvest moonlight
Where the shadow always sags
I found her lost within my footprint
Stumbling blindly to my door
She pleaded for my own forgiveness
As she died upon my floor

[Elven Doritos]

As I sit before this crackling fire
My thoughts return to her, to her
I know that she will never love me
I know that it will always hurt
Crimson splashes on the mountain
My blood trickles on the tracks
Then the poet shall be martyred
Then the priest shall march for war
My heart aches for her mere presence
Her fingers pressed against my arm
My lips brush angelic wholeness
Her heart, tha-thumping, glowing hot
The stars that hide in her blue eyes
The oracle slides into a dress
Shoes creak against her floorboards
It was the last I'd see of her
And now the plucking of steel strings
Or the caw-caw-cawing of the crow
Or the sight of burning money
Or the drought of thought surrounding
Or the open smell of sewers
Or the drifting clouds and storms
Or the thunder of true wisdom
Or the purse-strings of a lord
Yes, these and all such wonders
Mundane within the Father's eye
Remind me of the Once we had shared
Remind me of the Then that died

[Elven Doritos]

The sky was orange, unrelenting
The wake, the waves would swallow hope
In the breeze were vulture's feathers
In the trees, the hangman's noose

With regret, my heart is quaking
With distaste, my friends rebuke me
So the soldier plans his chaos
So the liar joins his court

Love has flushed the cheeks of strangers
Love has washed away from us
Yes, they seek my hastened ending
Yes, they reek from hateful rending

Oh, but naught could e'er effect me
Oh, but naught could burst through stone
Until you broke my inner sanctum
Until you burned my cottage home

I see you dancing with the jester
I see you dancing with your smile
Know that I destroyed your ticket
Know that you are black and vile

Death to all who have disciples!
Death to all who feel no pain!
Can the world go on without you?
Can my life remain the same?

[Elven Doritos]

I know a dark gypsy
Who lives a sad life
Cutting holes in tents
With her silver knife

I know a sweet singer
Who lost her tempo true
Tapping out her memory
Melding, melting hues

Brass and percussion
Strings and then the bass
War and repercussion
Jacks and then the ace

I know a euchre player
She just makes up the rules
Humming to her matchbook
Testing iron tools

I know a lost angel
A nova of the night
Bursting in the sky
Tangled up in light

Brimstone and thunder
Smoke enshrined in lye
Serpents and surrender
Reverence must die

[Elven Doritos]

I'm looking out the window of an old hotel
Something here is rattling, can't see too well
The breeze is rolling in since the heater broke
The wind begins to flutter on my lover's cloak

I recall some ancient melody, a wind-swept song
The words are flooding to me, but they're all wrong
A pen becomes a dagger as ink becomes blood
As sand mixes with water and converts to mud

I closed my eyes in hopes of finding some inner glow
Discerning unreality and unearthing what I know
Distorted highways rolled into my closed eyelids
Mountains can't remember me or what I did

A bandage wraps around my porcelain wrist
Salvation hammers amnesty  in parting mist
The lists of history begin to burn with force
I scream my poems to the wind until I'm hoarse

I wake unto a waiting sky of green and gold
The wanderers and wonderers have bought and sold
The dreams of ancient mariners and railroad flats
Slaves in shackles, daughters to aristocrats

[Elven Doritos]

crumpled songs delight the children
hate that you can see my brain
life like limericks dance and tremble
hope you heard my glowing name
look at me you pointless warrior
i can heal your broken pain
let's remind ourselves of anger
let's deceive the clock again

search yourself for truth and taste it
understand we were not one
laugh with all the other liars
escape with me to see the sun
ostentatious lords will preach it
lovers will reject the sum
and as you protect the pavement
i must then protect your son

turn the pages turn them forward
hopeless strings of petty lust
bustle to the bus-stop banners
earn the sailor's only trust
regard what you could have done
learn for what your mother fussed
gouge the temper of the stranger
run away from this you must

query: could not you be me
could not i have then been you
could not yellow be mismanaged
could not squires sing the blues
hardly harrowed is the sparrow
hurried hateful and with clues
hurt the ones you love the most
and then you will also lose

africa has touched my soul
africa calls to my ghost
rhythm mother of my knowledge
love me mother love me most
jungle desert mountain meadow
i must touch her ivory coast
sunder sanction savior sandal
i am evil's only host

rust is lining on my car door
saws and drills burn in my head
ample apples and demeanor
left me with a numbing dread
long for langston and for dylan
leave your thoughts inside your head
boast and blame the bumpkin bangles
bleed from poison and from lead

suspend your hopes from daggers darling
sustain your lyrics from my love
listen to my symphonic movement
release your didactic dove
lasso lines of laurel lombards
put on now a silken glove
put me then on your misfortune
give me then a little shove

hunt your hyphens hate your hangers
hundred hands of huns rejoice
have it happen historic handles
hulls of ships have little choice
guns and ammo green and orange
have naught but a passive voice
leave me with your tongues of fashion
ledgers and a lost invoice

signs are sticking from the highway
hierophants have failed me still
lurking lurches swerve with fervor
i feel like you just want a thrill
stop with all your malcontent
i miss the fields we once would till
underneath the oaken midnight
where the crow would never kill

touch me please and give me patience
kiss me while you walk away
stand as two on ocean shorelines
tell me that you want to stay
monuments of nothing matters
where the gods of yore do lay
live with me and let me move
along the silent gleaming bay

pipers play so rats may live
ants crawl to the building stair
knives are known to scar my psyche
and to steal my curling hair
come with me and tell a tale
of how you never once will care
for affections of another
as i set my flowers there

graves, glimmer, remorse, divorce
all together shout your plea
slaves, sliver, hoarse, discourse
remind me of the great queen bee
knaves, silver, horse, distort
everything you want or need
hey, listen, don't report
and please recall, you called me

[Elven Doritos]

Alas the world, it comes undone
Alack the thunder heaven sprung
Aback are taken seven sons
Seven systems, seven suns
Seven prisons, seven Huns
Several sentences and puns
Pi times two divided twice
Never shall entwine, entice
Advice to all and none to hear:
Please remove your outer ear
Plus and minus pants and coats
Bras and shirts and oven coals
Hatred envy lust and gloom
Panscendental panic rooms
Pumas maul and make their name
Miasma and must and pain
Words that blurt their layered Danes
Hamlet, omelet, all that jazz
MacBeth and his unholy spazz
Candid armor, harm her, man
Plan to pan her play and hand
Huh, believe it? Yes, I do
Cancel cancer! you can too
Varnish furnish earnest harness
Dead old wives and mist will tarnish
Burn, burn, old Isis, through
Ahab has no use for you
And Abraham and Isaac too
Live alone and read the news:
Hammer, scythe, angels? nice
Number litter lumber lice
Sandwiched in-between your vice
And life that likes a lively price
As slithers in a sudden light:
What the hell did I just write?

[Elven Doritos]

Look at me when you look away
Mimic a limerick's lie of life
The sky cracks and we waltz
We waltz
We dance and drink to my demise

Look at my gravestone
See the crucifix at Kerouac's
That could be me up on that cross
Jesus, think of all the times
That Kublai Khan and Mr. Darcy
Imagined hypnotism and discourse
And force-fed their respective Eisenhowers

Stutter, shimmer with the oboes
Buddy Holly wants his face back
Melt back in with Anne Boleyn
Guy Fawkes hates your stupid hat
Hunger like a mouthful of
jingoistic banjo bangle players
tigers tearing rajahs new beginnings

Spit atop the Eiffel Tower
With Carl Sandburg, Arthur Rimbaud
David Copperfield, Leonard Cohen,
Mengele, Daisy Buchanan,
Jeff Foxworthy, Northumberland,
Odysseus, Jack London,
and of course, Jean Valjean

[Elven Doritos]

I'm standing in the window
I see your shadow crawl
I hear the sound of angels
And Lucifer, the fall
Feathers of the seraphim
Halos made of light
Dust and danger rattling
Fields of fallow blight

Quarrel with the quarrymen
Hold the sacred tune
Keep a gold harmonica
Silence will come soon
Purchase some security
From the renegades
The revolution will begin
Upon the barricades

Sweep the streets in irony
Knock on the mayor's door
Slaughter dreams of sailors
Upon the killing floor
Bottles lined on the window
I can hear you cry
The blood, it runs in circles
Humanity shall die

[Elven Doritos]

The King died just yesterday
The masses huddled at his side
They tormented him to death
They're happy that now that he has died
They lust for blood, they lust for him
They lifted him, they threw him down
They clamored for his end to come
They gave him then his thorny crown

The King died just yesterday
His kingdom halls are empty now
The annals of his court remain
His heirs will not remember how
He held himself in times of pain
His armies marched across the earth
The huddled masses loved him once
But revolution killed his mirth

The princes cried, they held their tongue
The dukes spoke so wearily
The music died, the songs replied
That now we all must drearily
Accept that endings come in time
Purchase hope from rum and gin
Lift a bottle to the sky
And say without a hint of sin:
The King is dead
Long live the king