CHRONIC AWE ©1996 Martin Grider nature on glass The window is wind swept on the outside surface showing scratches like a record-- eight stories up. In the reflected light, which tries diligently to hide night, there is a ghost with my face sitting at a make-shift desk and looking up to admire nature's handiwork. unfinished page... poems like new hampshire I've never been there, never seen the sky in new hampshire Only imaginary lines make up the sunset in new hampshire. Kiss Cheese REDEMPTION jumps in, kicking you in the a*s: DOWN on your knees. Fall like putty, hitting the ground and staying there, spread out some. Yellow eyes lift lids from beneath you tickling a little, you realize-- HER FACE! You are lying on her face. You wake up to YELLOW taste, and gorge. I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry. -John Cage All hail the toilet bowl God: Excretion Somewhere like a rain cloud thunder piss hail flying in chunks from your penis, lumps like curds hitting the water of the toilet bowl: plop, splat, dribble... There is no pain with this strange malady, you ask doctors who tell you feeblemindedly "everything is all right." Some things are better left unexplained. [Loose and unafraid,] Loose and unafraid, frail and unsuspecting; I dangle by a noose made of snake fingers. I am sweating hot, swaddled in sweat, feverish in my fever, drudging through mind sludge which I have left piled behind me. I hope the kidnappers of my creativity die of asphyxiation-- drowning in it-- before they make use of some idea. Poetry is evolution of the human language. Pete He frequently stands leaning forward as if he is teetering on the brink of something, as if he is constantly trying to go somewhere, It is only the physicality of his surroundings (which are not there) that keep him from this. He leans forward, hair draped around the book he is reading, teetering just a bit, completely absorbed in whatever; taking it all in with his mouth slightly open. He leans forward tipping, slowly, ever so slowly, --so slowly that it would never be actually observed-- but at some point he will teeter completely over, taking the rest of the world with him he is so tied to it. moon bloom Outside, the blue snow whether reflecting the moon or glowing from within (because it seems to me the night shadows of trees and buildings are the bluest) strikes me heavily with the weight of contrast. Only hours ago red was the sunset reflected off the plains and soft mounds of warm coldness. Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from those things. -T.S.Elliot traveling together shared company tracing the lines in your palms dry skins brush lightly high foreheads gleam sweat eyes meet like magnets-- repel each other, then draw together slowly. lips are passages for rough breath smooth touches revealing willing skin pushing hesitantly into touch, the gentle press of longing. lips are passages for emotion shared words make hearts jump breath sharp-- skin shiver. lips are passages... old letters finding literary chunks of goodness and genus, steaming wonderful pots of boiling ingenuity, windswept planes of low growing metaphor and meaning all in old letters; acquaintances now, or lovers moved away, words that still mean much, mean what they did then, only saturated by time- digestible now words I can absorb, and like a hot bath opening pours: love drains in Poetry is both real life and the transcendance of real life. beast of burden I am the backside of destiny, the cross arguments which nullify reality, the black lines on paper separating it from the reality of a poem. I am the dark minds, the stickiness of waking time wrapped in saran wrap, the toothless arguments, stale air and fecal tastes of emotion. I am the given earthquakes of social perspective, each a little snippet of freedom allowed those with tied wrists and hobbled legs; my eyes are open but I see instead in hyper-perspective. a little joy I am being shot by the sun, my little heart melted away. My eyes are on fire, my hair bursts into spontaneous combustion. I can imagine the little wisps of smoke curling their way around me, circling; dancing for you and your torture. Your own personal Hiroshima. Your own gas chamber, electric chair, hangman's noose. You take so much pleasure: laugh a high laugh, put the magnifying glass down, and clap your hands. I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't matter. -Jack Kerouac [Rotting fruit, lumpy and soft in hand] Rotting fruit, lumpy and soft in hand Spoiled, smelling, some of sulfur and disintegration--decomposition. Decay of life, death brings sourness-- anguish-- starting over afresh, squeeze, squish, so soft and slithery through fingers, Taste of sugar in June-- I'm dead. [Words are tiny,] Words are tiny, but inside their mouths they hold fear and hunger, deceit and loyalty, crucifixion and savage religion. Words are tiny, but in their eyes they hold mysticism, romance and thievery, worlds and universes; millions upon millions of stars. Words are tiny, but in their hearts they hold the rain and wind, the greatest sea and smallest drops of blood, the hold animals and people, sex and strangulation. Words are tiny, but so large as to hold me, in their imagination. Sometimes in a dream the most precious seconds are realized. Sometimes dreams are the most precious seconds. [A man who's voice fills] A man who's voice fills a mouth who's kiss empties an embrace that hypnotizes feeling-- the pulse pounding, pouring down over, spilling something, seeping spasmodiclly listening, loosing, drinking in lakes, cascading forth in frenzy, abandoning reason in falling down, over eaters of it I am currently drinking luke-warm water, sitting in front of a black and white screen. There are little lines lacing their way across my vision, setting my eyes half crossed, and drilling holes in my brain. My poems are crossed, punctured and broken by settling dust I havenŐt bothered to wipe clean. And here, in this setting, where the words are forgiving, my poem gives freely to all things unseen. Maybe imagination is the sixth sense, and each idea only a reflection or an interpretation of nerves we don't yet know exist, nerves which possibly extend beyond our bodies into the world of the subliminal, the social, and the subconscious. small talk Outside, the weather strings little bits of cold through the cracks in my windows, my doors. Inside, where the warmth is suppose to hide, I can feel the outside held back, only so much by the walls, and doors.