The Poetry Marathon

What the hell is that?
I’ve never seen anything like that, have you?
Take a picture of it.
It looks wet.

Touch it.
You touch it.
Get a stick.

Should we call someone?
Did it just move?

What the hell is that?

“Last night, I dreamed that we all got fired!”
We all laughed at the absurd idea
Strenuous hours, understaffed, unsupported
We made the best of it we could

The next morning, the phone ran
The dream became a premonition
“They fuckin fired me”
“They’re calling me to fire me too!”

Heart sink
Tunnel vision
Blind rage
Fuming smoke

“We’re really dissapointed.”
“You’re not ready.”
“You’re just not meant for this.”
Lies to my face point blank

Sometimes
You’re the hero
Sometimes
You’re the scapegoat

Your best isn’t always good enough
To those who hold no merit
The next time it was better
The next, I didn’t blink

Thanks for coming by
Its really great to see you
Yeah, we shouldn’t wait so long next time

It’s a strange thought to think
You think of me when I’m not around
Or even to have an opinion

So to find, when I step outside
You all gather round and praise
“He’s such a good dude, a really great guy”
I just don’t know what to say.

When we lay in bed at night
Our skin touches
Our bodies sink in
Our minds ease

Then we say the silliest things

My beard looks like I’m trying to sell you a pan for mining gold
Sir, please stop stacking those rocks
Can we train worms to play the theremin?

I keep going
Until you can’t breathe
Your stomach muscles ache
So I can spend more time with you.

“Nah, I’m good, thanks.”
-Not Very Hungry Hippo

Canned tuna fish brings forth smells of the beach.

Not from the actual smell of the tuna fish. That would be gross.

Eating tuna fish that smells like the beach would not remind me
of my grandma’s house on the sound.

“Grandma-Beach”

Thick brine base with notes of seaweed baking on tide worn stones.
Hints of washed up dead things and seafoam.

Checkered tablecloth, hummingbirds in the feeder, a happy little man made of shells and googly eyes.

Canned tuna, packed in water, mayo, white Wonder Bread. Washed down with a Pepsi.

The Crow is a master scavenger. A sleek survivor
built to think, to adapt, to communicate, to overcome

the harshness of a world that is designed
to stop you the moment you look down.
With a head on a swivel, though,

you just may find a shiny thing,
a discarded bauble, a worthless treasure

worth picking up with only the slightest inclination
it can become something more.

A craftsman in cleverness, an inventor of ingenuity
a fat crow is a survivor, thriving in its creativity

in finding the value in the shiny thing
discarded by the world
that sees only desert trash.

Can it survive with out it? Probably,
but it may come in handy some day.

Blurred from drink
Blurred from low light

It was not a birthday then
but it had been

Dark
Neon

New friends
Oldest friends

Stealing happiness from tomorrow
But tonight there is enough to go around

HEY GOAT ROPER

When are you going to get your ass up here and go camping??? Mr. Bigtime Hollywood is too fancy to get drunk with rednecks? I found a spot further up that logging road where we tore the bumper off, lets get Jason and Joe and go grill! I want to put a new shell on the ranger and insulate it so we can go up in the winter. Remember when we hit the ice and I told you to bail out, and you slid under the truck? That shit still cracks me up. GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!
I know your really busy, im proud of you man. I didnt want to see you go, but im happy your doing what you love. That took a lot of balls to pack up and go. I didnt get what you did until I helped you on that shoot, that was really cool seeing you work. Tell Brad Pitt to FUCK OFF and lets go CAMPING! I miss you man.

Love you Brother.
-Ryan

My twenty first birthday was spent in an asylum, not as a patient, but as a guest of the ghosts

They watched us make our little movie

Maybe we helped them forget, even for a little while, what kept them there

Entertaining our spectre spectators

Their doors were still locked

Their files covered the floors of the hollow halls

Lead paint chips

Asbestos tiles

The beds looked uncomfortable

The windows to the courtyard were broken, and the outside was coming in

It will never be known if it was from the vines entering, or the victims trying to vacate

I hope they enjoyed the show