Month: August 2013

8/30/13 1:39am – 9/5/13 12:58am

frozen grapes
(the last life’s coattails)
(same time last life)

the last time he died he died so well
looking back on a past life well spent
and this time wondering where it went
riding still on the last life’s coattails

approaching thirty-three turns him pale
the pastel greens flush his face with mint
same time last life with where all he’d went
the past tells nothing could make him dwell

and what is left of his second wind
all the proof you need man came from ape
he’d rather pick up where this life ends
and spend what’s left trying frozen grapes
whining they are not the seedless blend
advertised on the bag’s frozen shape
hurting to the touch of cold he sends
sensitive teeth a jolt of red tape

8/24/13 4:06pm – 8/29/13 2:57pm

accidental waterbed
(excusing the mess)

brother,
wet marks the spot
the bed you wet marks the spot
another accident is yours
but the fault is not

today it’s a dripping faucet
tomorrow a dipping finger
tales you’re told by an old wife
excusing the mess that you bring her

riding on an accidental waterbed
drifting farther and further along
and wherever it is that bed may take you
at least ‘you’ know it isn’t wrong

8/21/13 11:06pm – 8/21/13 11:38pm

our cloth separation
(for the sake of losing light)

if you told me the buzzing was coming from inside my own ears i might believe you.
i know now that it comes from them, the mosquitos, fluttering just outside of our cloth separation.
in a matter of hours this trip has already proved worth our efforts.
if this night is any indication of the nights to come i’ll sleep more sound than i was already planning.
detouring for the sake of losing light, the shooting star missed by the corner of an eye,
accidentally facing the blinking lights of airport landing strips instead of a full moon,
the gentle decline in battery life of flashlights, the mating calls of young adults in heat,
the consideration of tide coming in at a lake, the cheap wine with bread that is named
differently depending on what part of the country you are in,
exceeding the expected
average time it
would
take
to
construct
our tent,
being told to look to my phone as an unofficial editor, not knowing if a sound is rain or
bugs smashing into the side of that very tent, one hundred years of literature,
planning to sleep with a ready knife, the admittance of alien life, the denial of ownership over land,
the catholic hats, crystal pyramids of bermuda, dead bodies tied to other buoying dead bodies,
giving up on holding anything against my brother’s newborn daughter all in a first impression,
and the unfortunate circumstance that the first to wake will find himself in ALL make sleeping
easier and all the less desirable.

8/20/13 8:39am – 8/20/13 9:07am

“Cody S’Round”
(opposite beds)

jason bateman stars as the typical warm-hearted good guy with his usual
brand of dry unknowingly aloof sense of humor.
in a giant school yard it is announced that any kid who is a bully, cheats on tests,
tattletales, disrespects their parents, etc. have all been visibly  categorized
and charged with further imprisonment.
chaos ensues at the hearing of this.
but still there are a good chunk of kids not singled-out.
until it is announced all best friends of those found guilty are here-by guilty by association.
best friend-labeled charges descend.
somehow more chaos ensues.
kids run amok now labeled and lawless as security personnel spew out from far corners
upon the kids now made-easily identifiable.
a narrators voice can be heard.
“with his kids at risk he’s up for the task:
he’s a normal dad who was picking up his kids from school early and accidentally got
locked in unbeknownst to the  faculty, no he’s a caring vice principal who was left out of the
plan by no accident who is at the top with a long way to the bottom of things, no no he could
be the adult actor who plays a child, but who is made funny for obviously not resembling a
child to us, who in the movie plays an undercover cop already aware of what’s going down
and feeds us the details as we stare in awe of his secret agent-like preciseness and tact,
but either way he’s ‘Cody S’Round'”.
my ears interpret this as my name, cody swann, but it was in fact
“Cody S’Round” when heard conveniently repeated by the narrator.
intermission

8/19/13 12:15am – 9/12/13 12:09pm

playing telephone with yourself iii

but can you trust that memory
that’s going now on twenty-three?
over the years your drowning cries
seem from second sets of ears and eyes

over those years could it have blend
with the second time it happened?
watching from above out of body
with someone else’s memory

playing telephone with yourself
taking tours of the unsure self
at the bottom floating was it you
at the age of terrible two’s?

8/19/13 12:15am – 8/21/13 1:39am

playing telephone with yourself
(twenty-three year old memory)
(memorable past drowning occasions)

the twenty-three year old memory of near-drowning
could actually be the product of playing telephone with
yourself over the years.
even your visuals seem to be from some second set of eyes.
your watching yourself drown through an eye witnesses
account that’s mixed with more memorable past drowning occasions.

8/16/13 3:05am – 8/20/13 3:36am

thinking about blinking III
(pinning a number to pain)

does it hurt?
only every time i blink
from one to ten?
between four and five i think

you were doing what?
trying to put out an eye
how did that end for you?
with a face that will not dry

where was safety if not first?
off making an excuse
did you think they’d just grow back?
i can’t see what’s their use

what am i looking for?
what i can’t seem to get rid
can you be so sure
there is a lash beneath your lid?

8/15/13 11:28am – 8/15/13 12:18pm

treated to soft serve

inside of a museum soft serve ice cream on a cone is offered,
but only allowed within the confines of a sanctioned area of the exhibit.
the enclosed area is marked off by four large strips of beige tape that make up a square.
guests are only required to stay within the square for as long as it takes them to finish their cone.
eating the soft serve ice cream outside of the sanctioned area is strictly prohibited
and sternly enforced by guards who dawn either all white fifties style ice cream man outfits
or candy-striped uniforms.
the candy-coated guards have it under strict orders to remove any violators from the soft serve station
to a smaller taped square in the next room labeled “jail” where prisoners are subjected to
being treated to soft serve on respectively smaller, thimble-sized cones.
the “jail” square is made up almost entirely by a desk and chair that faces a transparent safety glass wall
on one of the four sides.
visitations with the outside world are offered to prisoners by way of telephones set up on
both sides of the glass wall.
prisoners serve out the remainder of their sentence by finishing their thimble cone.
intermission.

8/9/13 10:48pm – 8/16/13 1:16am

the dog that bites into chocolate
(the dehydrated daughter)
(solving awkward)

if you give it long enough
any hand will find a pocket
wanting to be out of sight
an eye jumping from a socket
but do not feel sorry for
the dog that bites into chocolate

she says anywhere else would do
with a well-timed sip of water
you wouldn’t think so but all’s said
in the second that it bought her
mechanisms of defense
quench the dehydrated daughter

if you gave it long enough
any hand would find a pocket
you must not feel sorry for
the dog that bites into chocolate

8/7/13 12:39pm – 8/7/13 3:47pm

maternity ward with the leaking faucet
(the closest you can come to enjoying yourself)

it just goes to show how fragile your state of being really is.
you do not allow you to catch yourself after slight missteps.
you let the crack in the lens take focus over the picture ready
to be taken in front of you.
you are quick to throw out the maternity ward with the leaking faucet.
you claim to want to lose this day, but if it were lost you’d double your
efforts tomorrow in an attempt to make up for lost time.
and worse you are fully aware.