National Poetry Slam is this week! Awesome!
I had the american dream last night,
this morning it was already forgotten.
My futile grasps at some fleeting mental image,
overpowered my morning rituals,
the arrogance of a whiter smile,
the artfulness of breakfast color schemes,
the aroma of my Old Spice high-endurance soft-solid,
that shares its names with softcore cinemax porn,
After Hours, Showtime, Pure Sport
I racked my brain and ravaged my imagination,
the search was fruitless,
there was no Johnny to spill his Appleseed into my synapses,
Temporary amnesia rendered me apathetic,
so I opened that mirrored door to narnia in my bathroom wall
and pawed at prescription bottles,
I swallowed the dream in my commute,
with a Frappucino chaser.
then a shot of pepto and two hits of tums
to quell the revolutions in my stomach,
fuck my head hurts
is it because I’ve been thinking too much,
or not enough,
or that stupid dream is rattling around
in my cranium, contagious and untethered.
Fact: The floor of my cubicle is littered with
broken shards of it,
I spend eight hours telling sixty disembodied voices
they are in debt to the hospital because they’re kidneys gave up, or they’re hearts just aren’t in it.
I might as well be begging ghosts for change.
Lisa’s good at it,
she’s a consistent top collector and cashes in a bonus 500 each month.
she thinks she’s living the dream,
I know she’s a bitch who abandoned her heart in the womb,
How do you deal with the sorrow Lisa?
Flip the switch, she says,
some of us don’t have switches and we’re wishing it was that easy,
click, I’m sleeping.
click, I’m dreaming,
click, I’m winning.
click, I’m living.
the dream
I saw it again today,
it’s gray and shapeless,
static and white noise,
it’s a painting of paradise on a crumbling wall,
a buddhist preaches of three major obstacles of enlighenment,
quasi-equivalents to the deadly sins,
arrogance, ignorance, oppulence.
they might as well be painted red, white, and blue,
Fact: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god.
Really?
Maybe we’re just waiting for a way to jump higher,
that hasn’t been invented yet,
a 30 minute answer to an infinite problem,
that is as light and significant as the hands on a clock,
while time is much heavier,
and we’re on the opposite end of the seesaw,
searching the skies, and the stars,
pointing at clouds and claiming we’re dreaming.
it’s times like this my sole desire is to tear down
the star-spangled banner, the old Glory I've fallen short of,
and hoist my own flag,
a clear one,
create the sovereign nation of Transparence,
where ideas aren't color-coated,
life isn’t paint by numbers,
and we don’t sleep to dream about perfection,
we sleep because we need a break from it.
where we suck the hues from our technicolor fantasies,
and infuse them into our reality,
reverse colorization,
entertainment will be obsolete,
because on my island,
you’ll remember how exciting the beach is,
when there aren’t surfers and surfettes
singing the newest pop classics in their pastel swimsuits.
in our quiet we’ll hear seagulls sing,
and watch water dance,
and know that the sand is sleeping,
and it’ll finally dawn on me
there’s a damn good reason I never remember my dreams.
this morning it was already forgotten.
My futile grasps at some fleeting mental image,
overpowered my morning rituals,
the arrogance of a whiter smile,
the artfulness of breakfast color schemes,
the aroma of my Old Spice high-endurance soft-solid,
that shares its names with softcore cinemax porn,
After Hours, Showtime, Pure Sport
I racked my brain and ravaged my imagination,
the search was fruitless,
there was no Johnny to spill his Appleseed into my synapses,
Temporary amnesia rendered me apathetic,
so I opened that mirrored door to narnia in my bathroom wall
and pawed at prescription bottles,
I swallowed the dream in my commute,
with a Frappucino chaser.
then a shot of pepto and two hits of tums
to quell the revolutions in my stomach,
fuck my head hurts
is it because I’ve been thinking too much,
or not enough,
or that stupid dream is rattling around
in my cranium, contagious and untethered.
Fact: The floor of my cubicle is littered with
broken shards of it,
I spend eight hours telling sixty disembodied voices
they are in debt to the hospital because they’re kidneys gave up, or they’re hearts just aren’t in it.
I might as well be begging ghosts for change.
Lisa’s good at it,
she’s a consistent top collector and cashes in a bonus 500 each month.
she thinks she’s living the dream,
I know she’s a bitch who abandoned her heart in the womb,
How do you deal with the sorrow Lisa?
Flip the switch, she says,
some of us don’t have switches and we’re wishing it was that easy,
click, I’m sleeping.
click, I’m dreaming,
click, I’m winning.
click, I’m living.
the dream
I saw it again today,
it’s gray and shapeless,
static and white noise,
it’s a painting of paradise on a crumbling wall,
a buddhist preaches of three major obstacles of enlighenment,
quasi-equivalents to the deadly sins,
arrogance, ignorance, oppulence.
they might as well be painted red, white, and blue,
Fact: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god.
Really?
Maybe we’re just waiting for a way to jump higher,
that hasn’t been invented yet,
a 30 minute answer to an infinite problem,
that is as light and significant as the hands on a clock,
while time is much heavier,
and we’re on the opposite end of the seesaw,
searching the skies, and the stars,
pointing at clouds and claiming we’re dreaming.
it’s times like this my sole desire is to tear down
the star-spangled banner, the old Glory I've fallen short of,
and hoist my own flag,
a clear one,
create the sovereign nation of Transparence,
where ideas aren't color-coated,
life isn’t paint by numbers,
and we don’t sleep to dream about perfection,
we sleep because we need a break from it.
where we suck the hues from our technicolor fantasies,
and infuse them into our reality,
reverse colorization,
entertainment will be obsolete,
because on my island,
you’ll remember how exciting the beach is,
when there aren’t surfers and surfettes
singing the newest pop classics in their pastel swimsuits.
in our quiet we’ll hear seagulls sing,
and watch water dance,
and know that the sand is sleeping,
and it’ll finally dawn on me
there’s a damn good reason I never remember my dreams.