Conversations with a drunk

Once again, this is a conversation in between two people with narration mixed in. I really tend to make characters with a very singular purpose and this poem is about a drunk and conscience. The bartender doesn't so much represent anything physical so much as conscience in general. Not too much more to say. This is a rather difficult poem to perform because not only am I switching characters, but voices and personalities. The drunk speaks in slurred speech of course, the bartender goes from stern to teary, and the narration mixed in. Try to keep those voices in mind when you read. Enjoy

If he said he wasn't drunk
he lied
no one can take
10 beers

"Well it's time to go
the bar is closed.
Last call
ten minutes ago."

"Hold on!"
the bartender said to the man
"give me your keys,
you're too drunk to drive."

The man held up his keys
and mockingly said, "oh you mean these?"
The bartender smiled and said, "sir,
You know you are too drunk to drive."

"I'm not too drunk (hiccup) to do nothing"
"Well your terrible grammar shows your drunk"
"I'll be fine."
"Give me the keys," the bartender insisted.

"What are you going to be?" the drunk says with a laugh
The bartender pulls out a gun and says, "I'll have your ass."
The drunk stood there
and thought

He was perplexed
Not knowing what to do next
"Give me the keys," said the bartender
as he raised the gun

"Fine, ok, you win
Here's my keys," he said with a grin
He held out the keys
for the bartender to take

why such a rhye look?
the bartender thought as he took
they keys
away from the drunk

The bartender stepped back
and with himself aghast
he saw the barrell
of his own gun

In the exchange of keys
the bartender didn't give heed
to his gun
which now pointed at him.

"Oh how the tables have turned,"
he said in a drunken slur
"Now,
give me my keys."

one million thoughts rushed through the bartender's head
and something inside the bartender said
If he gets those keys
He will kill someone.

"I am fine
and I can drive,"
he said
"So give me the keys!"

"I am sorry, I can't give them to you
I can see the poor girl that you will drive right through
I cannot give you the keys,"
the bartender said in his tears

He raised the gun
and prnounced a drawn out number "1"
"You have until 3
to give me the keys"

After 1 came 4
and the bartender was sure
that he
could not have his keys

but the bartender would die
and the battle for nigh
because he
would get his keys

As much as the bartender knew
that the situation was through
the bartender had to decide
the means

The bartender could be killed by the man
the keys ripped from his hands
and the little girl
would still die

or the bartender could be released
just give him the keys
and the girl
would still die

"1..........2.........."
He started to count in order and the bartender knew
next would be three
He had to make a decision

The drunk got to three
and the bartender held the keys
two people were murdered that night
by one man

A child, by a car unseen
and a lonely bartender, whose conscience was clean.

Bad poem about bad poetry

I am writer of poetry (poet to me just has too many negative connotations like a long cigarette and a beret.) who hates the majority of poetry and as such, I have written several pieces criticizing styles of poetry and stereotypes of people who write them. I shower daily, don't have locks, don't smoke weed, and have never owned a bongo drum (actually a lie, and old girlfriend bought me one as a joke). This poem more than anything is about the really crappy poetry that 15 year old guys give to their girlfriends.

He writes her bad poetry
so she can see
that he is so massively in love
with her

but his writing is sub-par
and doesn't go far
into any form of romanticism
just a look of disgust

it was a nice try
she says as she sighs
but your rhymes are atrocious
and the whole writing just lacks

He writes them with all love intended
and with a kiss he seals and sends them
but his heart doesn't make up for the fact
that his ideas are hackneyed and wrong

if she could see the heart behind the trash
she wouldn't have been so brash
in saying that, in all honesty
his writing was terrible

She couldn't understand the jumbled phrases
the words in between the spaces
and so she said
that this doesn't make any sense

to him she said
you're better off dead
because your love
means absolutely nothing to me

when he misinterpreted what was heard
feeling were hurt
and he said that there would never be
another love poem written

again with miscommunication
her summation
was that he would stop writing
the terrible poetry

but what he meant was goodbye
and with his final sigh
he left, with his crappy words
on white paper

never to bother her again
never to write another line
of things that he thought
were love.

Cut

The following poem is definitely not representative of my writing as a whole (too melodramatic), but it's worth posting for that reason alone. I never performed poems like this because they don't translate well into spoken word (it's not exciting or funny), but certainly a well constructed poem (rhyme scheme). The only real critique I have is that I don't particularly like this type of poem, it being serious as opposed to ridiculous.

I now understand why people cut
It seems necessary when life hurts enough
Things are stressful and times are tough
That is why, I now cut

A needle to my skin
makes me grin
I know it's sin
but it's how I cope

Life is hard
my skin is scarred
I need physical pain
to match the inward

It hurts so good
it's a pleasure
makes me forget
Gives me something I can fix

I can stop the blood
but when emotions flood
I can't fix
what I cannot see

Now my lucky charms
are the marks on my arms
doing permanent harm
but it works for now

I now understand why people cut
Its an easy answer when life is tough
when I think I've had enough
I just take out my blade and cut.

A Junkies Dream

I don't think that personal experience should ever limit a writer. In contrast, I think that writing can be limited by personal experience. I wanted to dip my toe in drug writing, but it's limited by my total lack of experience with drugs. The writing all around is weak (there is no getting around it, but if I only posted the perfect poems that I have written, the blog would be pretty empty). The ending needs a lot of work. You may have realized by now my style of writing. I like creating characters, and I like destroying them. Very few of my characters survive my writing.

On the street a junkie wait for his fix
His mind now playing tricks
He thinks he sees his dealer up the street
but it's only a mirage the drugs make him think

Soon the itching starts
clawing at his track marks
He craves a needle to break his skin
to make him whole again

His mind now filled with the sounds of reality
Again the pains of life he's beginning to see
Everything is becoming blindingly clear
and now returns the fear

What if he he has to face reality today?
What if the dealer never comes his way?
How is he going to take it
without any drugs to make it

all ok?
Apparitions appear
and innumerable voices he hears
He can no longer trust his senses

His perceptions, nothing more than a series of guesses.
I can see something
my dealer's coming
He will bring me hope

but nope
Just seomthing else he can see and hear
that when comes close, disappears
He's beginning to see friends long since lost

entering into his own personal holocaust
He begins to hit his head, forcefully against a concrete wall
to make it all
go away

reality makes no sound
now laying dead on the ground
from out of a gash on his head, the blood freely flows
soley because his dealer didn't show.

Shoot me in the Face

My school notebooks are half class notes and half creative writing. If I get to class early or the lecture is just so boring that I need something or anything to keep me awake, I write. The following poem was written in June of 2008 (from what I can discern from its placement in my notebook) It is one of many "Shoot me in the face" poems I have written. It sounds selfish because I don't think I portrayed the frustration well enough, but oh well. Enjoy

Shoot me in the face
Just pick a spot
Doesn't matter the specific place
and take your shot

They call my phone
I don't answer
So they come to my home
and it's always another chore

Something someone needs me to do
Another number on my "to do" list
another endless project to persue
I will have to do it all even though they say they just need me to assist

It's another nuclear attack
and shopping trip
and delayed step forward for five steps back
so I eat my nails, tap my fingers, bite my gums, and chew on my lips

Hey, thanks for thinking of me
When you wanted someone to ease your day
If you want to make me happy
Shoot me in the face.

CNN Generation

I think I finally figured out how to do videos. I invested in a moviemaker (sort of.....I actually just found that I already had one on this computer) and so future videos will not be in this "home made porn" style.

The first portion sounds more whiney than scared. I will work on that in the future. I apologize for the sound quality; I believe I have the solution for that.

Performance poetry

Some of my writing can be harder to perform because there are multiple characters. The hardest poems I write have two speaking characters and a narrator, which makes performance nearly impossible. I generally explain beforehand that I will talk on one side of the microphone as one character, on the opposite side of the microphone for the other character and in the middle as the narrator. With the little to no practice that I do before a performance it makes it fun, if only to laugh at how bad I screw it up. The following poem is not the hardest poem, but certainly in the same spirit. Afterthought: I wrote the following poem approximately at the same time as the start of the (second) Iraq war and while parallels can be drawn, I assure you, that was not my intention in the least. I was just writing a story, nothing more. I realize now that I say this in almost all of my posts, I wish the ending were stronger. The cop didn't prove he was a man as it says, he just protected his pride. Also, there are too many exclamation marks, but this is really a poem to perform and not to read. I will have a video up (hopefully tomorrow) with this poem. (I finally have access to a camera, so we will see.)

"Drop your weapon!"
The cop said to the man.
As to face him, the man turned around
"Drop your weapon to the ground!"

The cop pulled out his gun
and started counting, "One!....."
The man then shouts
"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"I know you have a weapon, so drop it now!"
The man knew he had to explain, but he didn't know how
"Twooooooo
I will not hesitate to shoot!"

Tears started to fill the man's eyes
as he realized he was going to die
but why?
for some cops pride?

The cop thought the man had a weapon
but now, obviously wrong
the man's life he'll take
as to not admit his mistake

"If you don't give me the weapon I will shoot!"
"I don't have a weapon to give you!"
The man wished he had a weapon
so he could lay it down for him

But the man was unarmed
about to be permanently harmed
"Three!
No choice you've left me!"

The smoking gun in the cops hand
proves he's a man
He's saved the world again
from a threatless man without a weapon.

Incredible Loss

I am not one of those writers that have random ideas on sticky notes and cocktail napkins. I have a notebook and a laptop on which most of my writing goes. I upgraded laptops about a year ago and my friend offered to buy my older laptop to give to his sister, who was going off to college. I agreed and being the technological idiot that I am, asked him to copy all of my writing to a CD and just give it to me whenever he was done. He did just that and then erased everything from the computer. I took it for granted that my friend would find all my files. I popped in the CD one day to print off one of my poems. The disc took several minutes to load up and when I tried to access a specific file, I found I was unable. It seemed that all my writing was lost. I have always said that in a house fire I would go back in for my writing and nothing else. The Xbox could melt to a puddle of plastic, but if I lost my creative writing, I would be exceptionally upset. This corrupted CD had the same impact. I stopped writing knowing that some of my best (most recent) writing was lost. Some of the pieces that were lost were:
1. A love poem to a cigarette: Probably the funniest thing I have ever written.
2. Video Game poem: Another great performance piece that I use to read to the music of Mario Brothers.
3. Marriage Poems: I wrote a 5 part poem right after I got married that was about a guy who just got married and went from Love, to suicide, to divorce, and then back again over the course of his journey and in parts was very funny.
4. Two of the best performance pieces I have ever written that either having me sing or play the guitar (neither of which I do with a shred of talent so use your imagination).

I was devastated. I finally told my friend what he had done and to my surprise he told me that he had a copy of everything on his external hard drive. I was relieved and ecstatic. My livelihood was saved. I didn't bother getting the files for a couple of months because the knowledge that they were okay soothed my soul. I eventually got around to getting a new CD from my buddy and I immediately popped it into the computer to see if it would work. The CD worked fine and all files on the disc worked perfectly. The problem? He had not saved the majority of my writing because it was off in another folder that wasn't my primary documents folder. There were a couple pieces of writing and that was it. The majority of my work (even school essays were gone).
Now, a year later, I am finally starting to get back on my feet with my writing. There is no way that I will be able to remember the poems that I have lost; my inspiration just doesn't work like that. The way good ideas come to me is fast and fleeting. If I don't take advantage of a bolt of inspiration, it is quickly gone, never to be found again. (I always keep a notebook with me for that reason)
I was reminded of this because in my attempt to find something to submit for today's post, I found the two performance pieces that I thought were lost forever. I found them in an old notebook. I was so happy to find them, but even writing this now, I feel a weight on my heart about losing those great poems. It may seem silly to feel that way about some random piece of writing, but to me it feels like losing so much more. (I didn't mourn this much when my grandmother died)
I am trying to figure out how to post audio clips on the blog, but I should have a performance posted in the next couple of days.

Most Recent Writing

I wrote the following poem in my car on my lunch break which is where a lot of the newer writing is coming from. I wish I could go out and write in the mountains, but that always gives me flowery garbage writing that I am embarrassed of anyway. I guess my car on my lunch break with a lingering sense of dread that I have to return to work bodes better for my style of writing. This poem is not very reflective of my style, but I wanted to try more alliteration and see how it felt, but as always, the poem is a story more than anything. (The following note was written after transcribing the poem) I really do like this poem, but it would not be something that I would perform because it's not funny or entertaining to a large group, but something better read than performed. The last two lines could have rhymed better, but overall a success. I like having the lighthearted beat and rhyme scheme (almost childish) with very adult overtones like that of murder.

Once upon a time there was a man
Who had no plan
He wandered aimlessly in no particular direction
There was no goal and therefore no progression
But he had no worries like the rest of us
Which made us rage with jealousness
Someone screamed “the sky is falling” and we all cried
But he carelessly walked by
On his way to nowhere
With no worry or care
The terrified mass was amiss
"Why do we live in fear while he gets ignorant bliss?
He didn't know any better
And no one deserves to be happy forever
His lightheartedness makes me as sick as his smile
We should light his house on fire
He needs to live in the real reality
In which people are too stressed and oppressed to be so damned cheery”
They assembled and torches were lit
There was an inciting of rage from a soap box then they would march in a bit
“He can't go on trying to infect people with his mindless optimism
Someone, everyone, all of us must stop him”
They raised their torches to the air and yelled in excited shouts
“Let's march to his home and burn it down
Give this ignorant ignorer of all things real
a reason to join us in the misery, worry and horror we feel”
They marched loudly with torches in hand
Talking about delusion and responsibility until they got the house of the man
A perfect circle of softy lit mob faces surrounded the man's house
The foreman previously on his soapbox spoke up screaming, "Smoke him out!"
Torches touched porch patio and trees and in a moment all was ablaze
Now he will have to come out of his stupid worriless haze
The fire quickly scaled the walls of the house
And in the reflected fiery eyes of the mob they saw no one coming out
Within the flying ashes from the fires of hell
There were no cries for help
Just a man who freely slept through the entire ordeal
No idea that he was ever trapped in a flaming seal
He didn't even cough as the smoke entered his lungs
And as quickly as it started, it was done
The crisp and blackened frame towered above the ash
The mob stepped back aghast
This was not their intention
They just wanted him out of his optimistic delusion
But they reeled back in realized horror
as they had all just become murderers