Waiting For The Crack

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2012 by beautifulimposter

Ok, so I am not exactly sure where this came from, but it started at the end and I had to find all the words that came before the last image and this is what came out.  It’s odd how words come, images, shapes of poems.  I am actually kind of in a happy place just now, yet here I am writing about cold, the freezing of the mind and heart in hopelessness.  I guess maybe I have been near here, when the guilt and the dark, black water rises in my mind and all you can see is every last thing you’ve done wrong, all the people you have hurt and your hatred of yourself is nearly perfect and absolute.  So it comes out here, which is probably for the best.  Anyway, enjoy a little bit of darkness here and now, maybe it will make everything seem brighter by contrast.

 

 

The stars reel drunkenly,

Spinning in slow pinwheels above

The man below, staggering, boots crunching on snow

In a wasted, ragged waltz

Coat open to the greedy, grasping fingers of the wind off the lake

Careless and uncaring, not even seeing the slush streaked pavement

Lost in his own private universe of cold and regret and pain.

 

 

Faces appear and vanish in the dark shop windows

Or rise up in the black ice sheets gleaming

Under the drunken stars

All the promises of the past parading endless

Frozen inside just like tears cutting burning frost streaks

Down scored cheeks,

An endless parade of dead white people

Eyes caught forever in stares of blame, or shame, or rage

Echoes in cold rooms of a heart where winter has settled

With no spring to follow.

 

 

Chased by these cold ghosts

Remorseless phantoms of all his failures

The man jerk stumble walks like a broken marionette

In the hands of some palsied puppeteer,

Mumbling now, breath hot, words taking smoke shapes

Babbling whiskey nonsense, appeals, denials

Barking now like a dog, the sound like a gunshot

In the dead silent winter night.

 

 

Up ahead, the lake gleams

Flat, barren as bone

Ice scab over deep, dark nothing

For an instant he pauses at the shore, maybe even looks back

Wanting to see something, someone

But there is just the white and the black

And a lonely room where there is no shelter nor comfort

So he turns, steps with more determination,

Out onto the ice, walking with a purpose he could only find

In the one thing he knew how to do well

Walking, waiting, praying

To hear the crack.

Hands

Posted in Journal, Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2012 by beautifulimposter

This poem has been a long time in the making.  It has taken shape slowly in my mind and I have written it at least half a dozen times without being satisfied that it captured exactly what I wanted, which in this case was so very important as this poem tries to say something about someone real, which I very rarely have set out to do.  I am still not sure if it really says all that it has to, but it is the closest I have felt yet to having a complete shape for the words I wanted to say.  It is about a man, a man that sadly I knew only slightly despite having grown up in his presence every weekend for as long as I could remember.  He was a hard man to know, although to this day I regret not taking the effort, but I didn’t know until far too late that he would not be there forever.  As a child, he seemed permanent, a fixture of the world, not so much a person as a part of the landscape of my world.  I don’t think I know of anyone that gave me the same sense of enduring, who could be more permanently fixed to the world of things.  Anyway, enough of this, I shall let the poem speak for itself, and me, and maybe in some way him as well.

 

A pair of hands,

Thick fingered, sure

Defining the shape of things

Drawing disparate parts together

Giving them form and purpose.

 

 

These hands, they could do anything

Build a home, provide in abundance,

Design wondrous machines,

Discover the shapes hidden in wood,

Make motors run and fix broken Tonka trucks.

 

 

I remember the man

For me forever old, slightly rumpled, young only in pictures

Looking out with firm glance in black and white uniform,

A mysterious figure, remote, full of history

Voice a low gravel gruff

Explaining the world one short sentence at the time, irrefutable

Between vast silences as hands put the world together.

 

 

I knew the hands so well

Shook them every Sunday

While he chuckled and I never got the joke,

Shook them for the last time, sitting beside a vast white bed

Looking at him so much more small, fragile in the center of it

Not the towering figure that had lynch pinned my childhood, but so very mortal

Except for the hands, still the same

Powerful, grip strong, as if they had taken on the nature of all that they had wrought.

 

 

There is so much I will never know

What stood behind the eyes rimmed with a subtle mirth,

Witness to eight decades on this earth,

Who he really was beneath the old sweatshirts and glue spotted trousers,

Forever in the dusty solemnity of his workshop

Cloistered in the scent of sawdust and machine oil,

A figure of awe, respect and even childish fear.

 

 

One image will remain

A pair of hands, so very real because they could make real

Confident, capable of any task their master could put them to

Slowly and surely filling the nothing with something

To me, nothing could ever be outside the grasp

Of my grandfather’s hands.

 

 

For Harry Brewes, my grandfather who in silence taught me purpose

Something My Daughters Reminded Me Of

Posted in Fun stuff, Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2012 by beautifulimposter

I took my daughters to the park this afternoon and as I was watching them run about and play a memory of my own youth came back to me, which was the main inspiration for this piece.  I remembered how when you were a kid, if you grabbed the corners of your jacket and held your arms out straight and apart behind you so that the fabric was taught between them, you could fly.  You could start running and just feel as if the ground was actually falling away from your feet, run until you were giddy with the speed and for all intents and purposes you were soaring over the woods and fields and lakes.  It was real for you, just as real as the gravity you seemed to defy.  I write a lot about dreams, and about the sense of wonder because I think these two things are vitally important and are lost so easily as we are battered by the tides of every day life, of bills, work, relationships, politics, and all the little ways we can be reminded of how cruel, hard, and arbitrary all of what we encounter in this existence.  As I watched my girls and enjoyed my own reminiscence I was as always struck by how magical a thing the mind of a young person is, that it can encompass so much belief and joy in the simplest things, transforming them into acts of adventure, of such completely exuberant life.  So, when we came home, these words were there, waiting for me.  I think that they are a fitting addition to the one year anniversary of a site dedicated to my professional dreaming and I hope that as you read them, you too out there may be reminded of running with your jacket behind you, or whatever other acts of wonder you might have committed as a child.  The last thing I feel I should mention was that there were three songs as well and their effect on me that were lesser inspirations for this piece, “Take To The Sky” by Tori Amos, “Learing To Fly” by Pink Floyd, and “Given To Fly” by Pearl Jam.  I dare anyone to listen to any of those and not think they might take wing.  Now, without further ado, here it is…

   

 

Today I take to the sky

Forsaking bonds of earth,

To climb ladders of light

Gather arm-fulls of firmament,

Falling upwards into heaven.

 

 

Today I take parliament with owls,

Commit to a murder of crows,

Bright eyed feathered carnivals,

Of loops and pirouettes in fool’s motley,

Singing free and pure.

 

 

Today I will burn bright

I will be the portent for the birth of princes,

Twisting the stars to write new destinies

Breaking all covenants, loosing all chains

So that the multitude will be free

To dance the ether along with me.

 

 

Today I will steal all the hats

From the bowed heads of the upright and righteous,

Make mockery of those who take pride in their grimness,

To show others the buffoonery as they chase their hats like black coated monkeys,

That they know no more truth than the dust their own dreams left

To drift in the cold, empty chambers of their reason.

 

 

Today I will forget to be a prisoner of gravity,

Let all raiment of my life fall in fluttering, drab rags,

Plunge naked into the deep blue ocean mirroring sky,

Carving the clouds into lewd clown faces

To shock and confound those that commanded

I look only at my own shoes.

 

 

Today I will stand the earth on its head,

My disbelief in the “this is so, this is not so” will give me strength,

The proof against all those small, mild minds

That there is no magic,

Because really, how the fuck else do you explain a flying man?

 

Today I keep all of my promises,

Today I dream of flight,

While tomorrow…well, tomorrow I will dream something different.

Year One

Posted in Fun stuff, Journal, Poetry, Previously published elsewhere with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2012 by beautifulimposter

Well kiddies, The Beautiful Imposter is one year old today.  Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I thought it worth mentioning that for the last 365 days I have been poisoning the precincts of the interweb with my particular brand of mad ramblings, ravings and scribblings, all at the suggestion of my sister.  So blame her, it is, as usual all her fault, which is why nature made younger siblings.  The last year has been at least a trifle trying to say the least, but having this forum has been able to offer a wonderful outlet and has given me purpose when I needed direction so very much.  I have produced some of the best work of my life so far which I probably would not have done if I had not started this blog.  I want to thank all of the people who have taken the time to read or comment, as let’s face it, a writer without at least and audience of one is just talking to himself.  That’s all I really have for now, but fear not, this next year in the life of The Imposter shall be even more infuriatingly arcane, obscure, and pretentious than the last.  In closing, I am re-posting the first poem  of the blog, a piece that when I wrote it was the first thing that I felt had a voice of its own, and has been one of the very, very few pieces that I felt completely satisfied with.  It got a bit overlooked though I think as I kind of buried it in a flurry of subsequent posts, so here I am, dusting it off, wiping its little cheeks with a spit on piece of kleenex and bringing it out to meet all the nice people again.  Cheers one and all, I leave you with the words I have always felt have been the best waring for this places …Here There Be…

Blood and Fucking

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 21, 2012 by beautifulimposter

Now that I have caught your eye with the provocative title, here are two more brand new pieces all fresh and dripping with afterbirth from the diseased womb of my mind.  The first one is more of a fragment really, and is far more honest than people will be comfortable with, but hey, the title alone should frighten away the squeamish.  I have often felt some need to censor myself to a certain degree in my work, leaving some of the pieces I wanted to be visceral far more sterile than I would have liked.  I think in large part this is because while writing it down is one thing, speaking it is entirely another and in the back of my mind I am reading aloud to an audience somewhere and getting horribly embarrassed.  These are a bit of an exercise in abandon, hopefully leading to shedding some of my own imposed prudishness.  With the first poem, I am being perfectly honest in having entertained these thoughts, just the feeling of being moments away from perpetrating horrible acts of violence.  I often feel this impotent rage that desires nothing more than the complete suffering at my hands of another.  This may make me a rather disturbed individual, but by getting it out and onto paper, it may prevent several felonies, so that can’t be all bad.

   

Given half a chance, less than half, maybe just a heartbeat

I would kill and write songs about it,

Rend flesh to ribbons, blood under my nails

Grind bones to powder,

Make a perfect hymn of slaughter

Chorused by wails, whole harmonies of supllication

Exalted by the pleas for mercy

Sanctified in my pitilessness, cleansed of remorse, pure

Hip deep in gore and hard as hell

I would kill you all

Laughing and cursing you week, pathetic sheep under my blade

Glutting myself

If I were given a heartbeat

Even half a chance

Do not doubt it

Not for one fucking second

It might be your last.

This next poem I feel is more complete, yet rougher in some aspects than the first.  It is yet another poem about sex, again, hopefully one that despite its many crudities will inspire something like arousal in the reader.  I have one other note about it and that is that I am a heterosexual male and all of the images reflect that point of origin.  I have tried in the past to write from a more universal standpoint, so that man or woman, straight or gay, whoever the reader is will be able to find identity within the work.  This may in fact be possible, but not by me.  I am writing from what turns me on, and that is me and a woman copulating.  I don’t mean to imply that this is the only or correct way of doing things, just that when I think of sex these are the images that are most potent to me and what comes out onto the page.  If your tastes run different, feel free to imagine the body of your choice and just gloss over the anatomical or mechanical bits with those appropriate to your own sense of the erotic.  Here we go…

I’m going to be perfectly honest here

I like to fuck

There, I said it

Don’t get me wrong, lovemaking has its place,

All sighs and chaste throbbings

But given the choice of satin sheets strewn with rosepetals

I’ll take a back alley and a rough brick wall any time.

So much of my life is civility

Sterile, flat, white, bland

So the one animal thing left to me

I want as just that, animal

Raw, immediate and pure.

There should be abandon

Gasps, sobs, moans, grunting

Clutching, tearing of clothes and flesh

Salt, blood, tears, ragged edged breaths

Throats raw, hoarse,

Twisted, sweaty limbs tied in know mazes of lust

When I fuck I want Bacchus himself

To take one look, turn away blushing

Crying out “too much, nay that be-eth fucked up!!!”

No soundtrack of symphonies or tender pop ballads,

Seriously if my fucking were music

It would be KMFDM raping Rammstien

Getting a rimjob from Trent Reznor

With Tool behind the camera masturbating

Industrial clang throb machine dripping fluids,

Pistons grind, scrape, gear teeth nash

In billows of steam scalding oil slick skin

Dirty, hot, biomechanics penetration friction guzzling hunger.

I want need, desperate, pleading

Fucking should be a prayer of two bodies

Thrusting against the barriers of flesh, aching to break through

Consummation by total and complete consumption

White hot fusion core meltdown

Her in me, me in her

Nothing but burnt flesh alters

Bright as a thousand suns in a dark room,

For one aching forever instant.

In that moment

Spasms, death throes

Having spent so much

All life sped from a shell of meat

Now corpse and bleeding its last

In that thunderous, echoing silence

Falling forward, head coming to rest

Between pale, gleaming breasts

That crash of heartbeat against its cage

It is right there, all that I ever needed.

And that is why I like to fuck.

…But Wait, There’s More!!!!…

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2012 by beautifulimposter

Yet another piece I wrote today, this one while enjoying the felicitous precincts of The Pharmacy.  I am feeling very contented in what I have made, although in writing this piece it just did not want to seem to end itself.  There is usually a point where a poem will feel done, complete and this one just did not want to co-operate.  It just kept running back out on stage, ducking the giant cartoon hook and obstinately refusing to yield the spotlight.  However, I did finally bring it to some form of conclusion and we shall just have to see if it’s the right one.

Junk man, rust man

Sing a song of dust man

Naugahyde  stretched taught

Over wheeze gasping calliope lungs

Mumbling carnival barker

Under tatterdemalion coat

Of Ray Bradbury autumn leaves,

Guardian of the lost and forgotten

Tipping of the pork pie hat

To passers by but see nothing

Save their own pavement two step shuffle.

A wink and a smile

“Right this a-way”

All the wonders of the world

Heaped in ossuary boneyard profusion,

Books piled and stacked

Licking cracked leather bound lips

With rasping paper tongues,

Tottering piles leaning drunkard

Among alleyways of refuse dreams,

Fugitive, dusky, smirking

Desires lascivious under discarded petticoats

Everything lost, unclaimed

Just two bits

You can claim your own piece

Of someone else’s life,

All the fragments shed or discarded

For after all, one man’s junk

Is another man’s fantasy.

C’mon in, try this on for size

A day at the lake circa 1957,

All golden, blue and innocent forever and ever

Or that, over there,

Have a taste of a first kiss

Sample the quick, hot breath of a lover’s clinch

All yours, just two bits

Sings the rust man, the junk man.

If joy is not your thing, happiness not your style

Perhaps the sighs of melancholy poets

Trapped in matchboxes

Or widow’s tears, heartbreak sobs

Wails of the dispossessed stoppered and bottled

Whatever your fancy, fine sir or madame

We got ‘em all,

Spent confirmation candles

“A Lifetime of Faithful Service” gold watches wound down same as those who earned ‘em,

Used car back seats

Redolent of youthful, sticky fumblings

All right this way,

Slightly used emotions, faintly patina’d memories,

Shopworn, perhaps forlorn, but still worthy…

You’ll probably pass him by, may have done so a hundred times already

Seeing only a heap of tangled wire hangers

Clothed in rags and feathers,

His cries no more than the rustle

Of empty cellophane wrappers,

This hawker of spent lives,

Pass him by even as he snatches from your heels,

All magpie quick, artful dodger that he is,

The bits of your life that trail

From your coat tails.

He’ll be there though, as he has always been

This mad, capering organ grinder monkey shambles of a man

Just in case, maybe once

Stop for a look over his scraps and clay pot shards

Perhaps find that missing treasure

Hidden in the folds, trapped under fingernails,

Something you have always been missing,

Something you might cherish more than it’s former owner.

All the pleasures and the pains,

All the losses become someone’s gains

All for sale, just two bits

Sings the junk man, the rust man.

This Was Not What I Meant To Say

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2012 by beautifulimposter

What follows is not what I really meant to say.  I would have to say that most of my work isn’t what I meant to say it all.  It is what happened while I was trying to say something else.  When I sit down to write, there is this blazing vision, beautiful, perfect complete and wondrous.  The problem is, between this vision and its realization is my ability to articulate it, which is apparently somewhat less than the ability for a sparrow to articulate Shakespeare or a dog to articulate the laws of thermodynamics.  That’s not to say that what I wrote down is something I don’t end up being proud of, it’s just that it is forever to the side of what I wanted to talk about.  This piece is very much like that.  Anyway, I think that is enough introduction for now, I shall let the poem speak for itself.  It seemed to want to so very badly, standing at the back of my mind with it’s little hand raised and piping in a soft voice “oh, oh, oh, pick me, me I want to speak, oh please” and so i had to take pity on it, clean it up nice and put it in front of the class.

Sometimes, when I am all alone

I secretly go mad.

You think I’m joking but really

How else does one explain

Seeing whole worlds in the folds of  light

Between the dust motes

Or hear tress gossiping in twiggy rustlings?

 

 

There’s an ancient man in my attic

He knows, he snatches the leftover bits of dreams

Lays them out on the roof

To feed the birds

That’s how they fly

Ask him, he will show you how it’s done.

 

 

Or the girl who dances

On top of lamp posts

In her green frock coat and striped stockings

She could tell you, but of course

She wont

Because her wine dark lips

Are the promise

That you have to chase over the rooftops

In the rain.

 

 

Nonsense I hear you say, and you may be right

But who are you to say

That the cats don’t dance with the mice

When no one is looking

Or that they all know more

Than they’re letting on?

 

 

I can’t help it if angels

Sleep in my coat pockets

Or that mirrors hold worlds

That we are mere reflections of,

It’s just the way of things.

 

 

I try to spread it where I can

Letting loose little glamours

Seeds of my own little madness

Dripping from the lining of my coat

To twist and beguile

Splinters that pierce the eye and heart

Fragments of the bright and terrible

Burrowing in the ripe soil of all of you

(as I titter into my hand at the thought)

Subtly changing the picture just a little

Tilting the world so that others might want to tilt at windmills.

 

 

I want to leave wonder in my wake.

 

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