4:21am.
with nowhere to go but up
but up
but why
but when the rug
is up and pulled
while you’re standing
waiting for the magic show
to start
there’s no up
there’s only down low
maybe not yet
but when you’re floating
then the ground is gone
the magic is done
you wake up
and you’re falling
up and away
thrown aside
before the sun
before your daughter
before your life
behind the times
behind your eyes
idling
behind a steering wheel
with nowhere to go but up
4:22am.
I was digging through my old hard-drive and unearthed some lost song lyrics in need of a song. I wonder what the song sounded like…
He’s a goner.
barelling by went the train on the tracks
inches from my face, I just laughed
nothing left to fear in this world
hope the next one’s still got a few cheap thrills.
all the stars up the in the sky have names
wishes floating in the airless dead of space
I’m full of shit. I’m so full of hope
I want to stay here, to watch you mold
the joyous sound
of breaking bones
an eggshell walk of shame back home
a million years long gone.
a dog howls at the shadows that don’t bark back
macabre puppet shows for those who don’t react
all the places filled in on the map
there’s nowhere left, nowhere just to relax
I’m low on life
get high on death
I’d rather bleed out than live with this
i learned to hate
looking within
but lay the blame on the camera’s lens
look at me now, all of my reasons
laid on the slab for all to see
what an awful, useless person I could be
“he’s a goner”
“pay your respects
wish him good luck
no more regrets
everybody’s got a lonely journey ahead.”
sitting by the river drinking beer,
eyes grow heavy, gonna be a cold year
sitting by the river drinking beer,
throw your arms around me,
it’s not worth the tears.
There’s as great a description of poetry as I’ve ever heard in Lena Dunham’s movie Tiny Furniture. It goes:
Poetry is a very stupid thing to be good at. Poems are basically like dreams –something that everybody likes to tell other people but nobody actually cares about when it’s not their own. Which is why poetry is a failure of the intellectual community.
I write poems. I share poems. I will continue to do so. That doesn’t make the above quote any less accurate.
Note: I wrote this for my Grandfather (Bampa) for Christmas to go with a photo of our growing family.
I never had much use for math.
Numbers tell you one thing today
That’s entirely different tomorrow.
I used to believe one minus one equaled zero
But then we lost someone dear to us
And here we are,
at minus one.
When my wife and I met,
It was as two halves of the same whole
And together we became one
Following that math, adding one more
Should have made us two, or maybe three
but it didn’t.
It made us infinite.
Time marches past us, individually
But no matter how fast the hands run,
They can never out lap us as a unit.
Forever is in the palm
Of her tiny outstretched hands
As she reaches for stars
that are already hers.
Allow me to sum up my feelings upon beholding my new born daughter, Maya Ariel, in the hospital.
Bioillogical Wonder
It was biological
And yet, bioillogical.
Enough mountain dew to fill a pool
And blindness tempted three times daily
Should have killed any chance I had
To behold her eyes
And within them, that infinite Milky Way.
What a curious thing she was and is, and am
All yawning, skinny and small.
Covered in hair, still a chimpanzee
On the wrong side of evolution
But in the cradle an angel,
And in my arms my saving grace
When she raises that voice
And severs my ties to a life gone by
I let it fall away into the pages
To be pressed, preserved and savored
On holidays and birthdays
Because one day, when my heart skips out on the beat
Hers will play lead, and everyone will dance
To the biorhythm,
To the biohymn.
By: Brian Stewart, June 2011
The boar got fat on the richness of the land,
until his girth was too much for his frame to hold
and he returned drowsily to his mother
with the hope for milk from teats long sucked dry
At his back every minute of every day
the shadow of the tiger uncaged.
no longer was he nimble, and he couldn’t turn his head
to see his passing fancies double back upon him
revenge in their heart and daggers in their hands
the tracks that lead him deeper still into the jungle
may have been his own, but still he fret
the shadow of the tiger uncaged
“There’s nothing to fear,” He told himself twice over breakfast
“All of this running will only leave me weaker,
for when the real striped menace appears, I should rest.”
but his restlessness was too much a habit,
thinner still his fearful body grew in
the shadow of the tiger uncaged
Then one day
the boar
stopped.
Eating.
Drinking.
Running.
He stopped all but the living.
And there before him came a great and powerful Tiger who said,
“Why did you run away from me, pig?”
to which the boar replied,
“Why were you chasing me?”
to which the Tiger replied,
“I wasn’t.”
The pig closed his eyes
and there he lie within
the shadow of the tiger uncaged
Happy New Year to all my inu-tachi. The future is what we make of it!
(based on a painting by Steve Purcell)
horrible clown
a happy-go-lucky smile
paints over a frowny face
those sagging canvas lines
that framing once held straight
the myth of folly took its toll
until the mirth, it mirthed no more
swept comically into the void
where once a glimmer gleamed its glow
laughter with whom he once was close,
she looks the other way.
fat squirrel
come down, chat with me
pound back a red bull
we’ll talk as equals
fat squirrel
what’s got you so scared?
unwitting witness
to winter’s striptease?
fat squirrell
with round: white belly
but also purpose
you will decorate,
such straight minded trees
with serious leaves
bowing to your weight.
