passive-aggressive poetry

I would like to direct my fellow Terrible Poets to a recent post on the Passive-Aggressive Notes blog.

One, it takes place in our fair city (well, in Minneapolis, anyway). Two, it involves a flair for the terrible poetry that makes this site what it is. I also think it involves a few terrible people.

Let us all imagine the following poem being read by William Shattner:

Remember how easy JH was to bag?
Give her five years she'll be an old hag.
And remember how easy she was to nail?
I wonder who will hammer her while you sit in jail.

While I, as you all well know, favor the blank verse form of poetry, I commend the former Wife of Keith (as she will surely be known to scholars in the future) on her rhyming couplets. I also must recognize her clever use of "hammer" after "nail," thus transforming her promiscuous rival into an object -- the final nail shutting the coffin of her own dead marriage.

It gives one pause. Much pause.

Also, not like I'm speaking from experience, but Sharpie graffiti on wood washes out in like one rainstorm.

(I am totally speaking from experience)

ben laughs in his sleep*

and his lips stretch
over gums and nascent teeth
what does he see?

by day his black eyes probe
and scrutinize
his brow furrows
he is will and force
and a personality that cannot be contained

but when he sleeps he laughs
and gurgles into his mother's shoulder

what movies play inside his eyelids
what pictures provoke him to glee?

or does he laugh because he knows it all
and he's not going to tell us?

---

*Poet's note: He also laughs when he farts. He is, after all, related to me.

Lies and the Future of Joey Kid

If you can hear me
Clap once
Touch your nose
Clap twice
Touch your toes

If you can hear me
Wiggle your fingers
Clap once
And place your hands in your lap
Then listen to me

Lies
All lies

My hands say I need to wash them
My feet say I need rest
My arms say I need to workout more
So does my stomach, for that matter

My head thanks me
For taking my medication today
My mouth tells me I need
Water
Maybe a beer too
Maybe

Virtual batteries
Need to be recharged
Daily
Momentarily

If you can hear me
Clap once
Touch your nose
Clap twice
Touch your toes

If you can hear me
Wiggle your fingers
Clap once
And place your hands in your lap
Then listen to me

We say these things that don't mean anything
But children seem to listen to us
They seem to trust us
I know I did
This is my past and future
This is your future, kid
If you can't listen now, you will never be able to

Get into high school
Get good grades
Get into college
Get a job
Settle down
Find a wife or partner or husband
Be successful
Be kind

You are a failure in first grade
If you don't respond to:

If you can hear me
Clap once
Touch your nose
Clap twice
Touch your toes

If you can hear me
Wiggle your fingers
Clap once
And place your hands in your lap
Then listen to me


Why should I?
Give me one good reason.
Because I said so.
Why should you say so?
Because I'm an adult?
Question mark.
End of discussion.
End of future.

by definition

desire always trumps ability, this
is why parallel lines lament their distance.

it begins with the night i slipped
my feet halfway into my shoes
and i looked at you,
whispered some dramatic metaphor
about how 'halfway' was all
we were good for, and then
you whipped me
you drop-kicked me
off my plane--you always remember
the song to sing to fend
off the leaving.

it ends with the night in the near
future, when i call out
of the blue and offer you
a drink and a set of guitar strings
to replace the ones i broke trying
to play elliott smith
with a gut tinted moss-green
and electric.

we will argue. you'll hold me uncomfortably
in that near-glare, you'll mock
my fashion sense or point out how often
i spill on my shirt. you'll keep pushing
until you get your outburst
because you know i can only
be shy for so long.

you may insist
that you know what i am thinking and you'll never
get it right but you have to keep searching
for a way to impose
the connection--you always forget
parallel lines were never meant to touch,
and bending the universe to make the exception
created the chaos that got us here.

Future Tense

This morning I awoke early in my bed

My ever-vigilant alarm was set to erupt

Forty-five minutes ticking down

The clouds were having an early morning party

Toasting to the humidity, no doubt

The first real time they had done so this summer

The rain poured down and all I could do was smile

Wide awake, grateful for the moment

Serenity only maintained briefly

Perhaps five minutes

At most ten

And soon I started to drift away

The reliable alarm on my phone danced in my head

I could no longer relax while I counted the minutes

Dreading the siren, awaiting what was to come

Last week I had the distinct honor of watching my niece

She warms my heart like the sun only dreams it could

I stretch smiles for hours after being with her

She makes me want to love like I only have one day to live

I dwelled in those moments with her, just the two of us

I tunneled away from the thoughts of past mistakes

Of adventures and heartbreaks to come

We ran through sprinklers while screaming

We battled with her Transformers toys

We watched Cars for the fifteenth time, reciting all the lines

She fell asleep twenty minutes before her parents came home

I kissed her forehead goodnight while I tucked her in

The rest of the week?

Instead of taking those lessons my niece had taught me

I worried about graduate school

I pondered over and over about the research I was working on

I did not taste food that week, so anxious for Fall Semester

I drove mindlessly as I thought of having to write this poem

My surroundings failed to register while I biked and walked

I was not conscious of the conversations I held

So lost inside my head and what I thought would happen tomorrow

Could happen

Never will happen

We spend hours upon hours daydreaming of the future

We adore it more than our partners

Dedicate more time to it than our families and our friends

More in love with future promises than our own lives

I wrote a letter to the Future

All it said was:

Fuck You,

Sincerely,

Alex

P.S. I am in the process of getting a restraining order

Math Problem

Only in the United States of America

Does

2,998 = 18,500 + 94,272

Seems like bad math to me

FRIDAY

Enduring minutes

Saturday’s promise beckons

Patient as a cloud


(Mom felt a little left out, so she composed a haiku of her own, claiming it had been 40 years since she's written any poetry at all. Pretty good for someone who claims to be that rusty, no?)

where we're going, we don't need roads.

The future!
The year 2000!

They promised
hovercars
and
flying skateboards

holograms and
food you take in pill form
that doesn't make you fat.

but nine years
into this
brave new millenium
all i have

is student loan debt

Ode to a Muffin, in Haiku form

Fluffy rich goodness

a perfect complement of

Whole grains and berries







Sadly, I can't claim credit for this gem. It was contributed by a co-worker of my mother's named Margaret after consuming one or more of her Friday treats at the office. Thanks Margaret! (I bet you didn't think you'd make out to the Internets, did you?)

Papillons

The bed is a pristine cocoon for this slumbering butterfly.
She dreams of flooding her burgeoning wings
Over dew-laden petals of columbine and honeysuckle.
In her floral haze she laps up the honeyed sap
that the blossoms drizzle in their trembling
haste to feel the iridescent light.
Filtered through her gossamer arms,
the light murmurs as it grazes their velvet centers
with ruby, sapphire and emerald glow.
My mother loved the butterflies in her garden,
swooping and diving into the chrysanthemums,
but they never dreamed.
Summer afternoons would leave us speechless
like a cluster of perch wheezing and squirming
on the prickly lawn, dreaming of liquid revival
but with spade in hand, she would squat in the crackling dirt
and croon to the gasping flowers.
She would sing her Beatles to the butterflies.
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on
was her gardening bible verse, her whispered wisdom
to the fragile bleeding hearts, lying comatose in the shade.
Under the scorching rays of a diminishing childhood
our dreams of milk and honeysuckle
wilted into mulch for earthworms to wriggle over.
We were drowning in crabapple blossoms
drifting down from the uninspired trees
in our safe corner of the world.
We grew tulips from our hair and paraded
along the sable rooftops in our reverie.
If I ever hope to fly I must paint delicate
watercolor patterns on my forearms that echo
the dreams of the embryo, sleeping in her forgotten chrysalis.
Les reves des papillons sont passagers--
The flower buds groan and droop their ripening heads
clinging to illusions of gemstone feather wings
swathed in a stiff, oppressive cradle of silk.

Are There Hippies in the Desert?

Minnesota weeps as I leave treadmarks on her back.
Crossing the border,
Double-crossed for a Southwestern lover.

My heart is heavy but I've been here too long.

The road is waving wildly
and I'm adrift on the limber asphalt
as it roils and turns on its endless
headlong journey to
anywhere.

I've seen twenty-
six snowy Novembers
but--
dammit--
this time I'll eat tofurkey in eighty
degrees.

I've spent almost ten
thousand nights
dreaming of lush African hills,
steaming islands of the Caribbean,
buzzing lights of NYC,
and most recently--
the spiky, alien mountains of Arizona--

My world could be limitless.
But there are risks, too:
John McCain could be my neighbor.

I could get mighty sick of cacti.

I could be the only ass in a sea of
red elephants,
thirsty for hippie blood.

A kamikaze believer in liberal thought,
the rattlesnakes could eat me alive.

But...

But.

No buts.

I will do this.

Will wake up to the desert,
see the sun in wintertime.

Will display Obama bumper stickers
on my three-ring binders
with pride
(and will ignore the jeers).

Will somehow meld myself into
the life that I crave.
A life that sparks and spins on its own,
where I am only a passenger in the
glorious
crazy
mess--
a life that is real.

Real.

For now...

New Month, New Theme

When you think of THE FUTURE, what comes to mind? For many of us here at Terrible Poetry for Terrible People, the future brings an overwhelming theme of uncertainty, questions, unanswered thoughts, themes, prayers, etc. What is the future, and what do you think it holds? What do you want it to hold? Why is it important? It's your vote and your words. THE FUTURE is yours, and yours alone. On your mark, get set, WRITE.

Time for a little group effort poetry

The future is in the eye of the beholder
But do the blind understand a different, secret truth?
Making a mockery of the concept of disability...
Piss me off and see me blow
I would rather be taken
Away on that eastern wind
I hear we're a lot of
Coughing and running
Moses what could it
Be? The wine, garlic
And beer has some feeling
Glow and slow but others
Full of glee with a hint
Of mystique. When
Water rains down
From the sky
Some spirits fly
Higher than
Kites.

this is my masterpiece

I have this pic on my own blog -- it is from my three mag-po sets: Insult, Romance Novel, and Yiddish.

This is the greatest magpo poem ever created. I should know, I effin' created it.

Caretaker

And in my most brilliant of moments

While forgetting unanswered emails

And dodging the dialing of your phone number

I am busy building the most beautiful ode to love I can muster

I am engulfed in soil while I pull the weeds from our bed like they are umbilical chords

Leading to the birthing of our new form

While you fight borders and create homes

I can only think of us and what we will become

You are oblivious while I mop the floors

Scrub the toilet

Decorate your room

You are unaware of what love is

So you do whatever you need to keep yourself distracted

Yes, I could become what they always do

Forgotten lovers who turn to anger or apathy

But too long have I been intoxicated with resentment

It is empty and only makes my belly swell like a starved child

And apathy leaves us dry like the river that used to cross-section fertile plains

No, I instead hunger for genuine beauty that does not hide behind shadows

Where friends rejoice over new lovers

Build a bonfire to worship the hopes and dreams of the future

While sacrificing forever to be here now

You will come home

You will lament being away

Forgetting all of the beautiful things you have been doing

You will long for what we had as lovers

Who we were will be gone

But you will say

“I am glad he has been taking care of this friendship while I have been away.”

Gregarious G-Chat Garrulity

(An alliterative g-chat battle between myself and bikenhorst)

Brent Eikenhorst: right

the conditioner helps create more friction with your fingers to remove dirt and other stuff

me: hmmm

interesting follicle philosophy

Brent Eikenhorst: i didnt invent it

i learned it on the internet

me: following the follicle philosophy of former freedom-hair fighters

fascinating!

Brent Eikenhorst: only took 2 minutes to get that alliteritive sentence out

me: well

i am doing other things

i would say 1 minute

i looked up faustian

too tough to work in there

Brent Eikenhorst: in where?

me: in my alliterative statement

Brent Eikenhorst: i'd imagine it inconveniences individuals

me: that was good

though i'd doesnt fit

Brent Eikenhorst: subjects starting sentences sometimes sound silly

me: really? rarely reticent remarks revoke rambling reiterations

Brent Eikenhorst: alliterative allstars are afoot

me: damn dawg, dontcha drool dreaming dastardly delirious delusions daily?

Brent Eikenhorst: shit son, superb sentences streaming seamlessly