These were all written while I attended a poetry class taught by Maurice Kenny at NCCC. At one point in time, a few of the students from the class were selected to partake in a poetry reading in Albany. I think it had something to do with Amnesty International, but I am not certain. What I remember was that I liked being up on that stage. There were about 3 to 5 hundred people in the audience and I read: “Is It You?”, “Press” and something else (not sure if it is in here).


Amplification

Amplification
The speed runs like a river
Mass adrenaline
Sediments of hatred fall
Strike out
Kill
Slash
Beat
Split
Punish


Parables

Educate the unteachable
Teach the uneducateable
You’re left with you

The conformists get fucked in the head
The unconformists get fucked up the ass
No one is a virgin

I prey on them
They prey on me
Starvation is non-existent


Bone

Bone and meat grab hold of one another
Tendons stretch, pulling upon the other
White from strain your skin is translucent
I hope it doesn’t snap all a fray
Imagine it being cut today


Press  Have a listen.

Hiss, slip, click, clack
  Tubes suck at paper
Whoosh, chuck, flack, flick
  Cross hatched wheels gyrate
Whirl, whack, shift, swing
  Motion accents movement
Snikt
Finished product

Hiss, whoosh, whirl, snikt
  Finished product
Slip, chuck, whack, snikt
  Finished product
Click, flack, shift, snikt
  Finished product
Clack, flick, swing, snikt
  Done


Deadnail

Confusion mists from her dying breath
Fresh laundry drapes off her soul
Winds like sleeping smokers
crash through the park of dead nails
White snakes burn the black sky
Her hair is still growing


Glass

Smears from hands feet faces
    they make up it’s dimensions
Cracks as if in containment
    search for a barrier
Reflections distort the outside
    world and it’s inhabitants
Lights from windows from windows
    are bent by windows
Flashes of uncivilized vividness
    are temporarily contained


Don’t Know

Crack Fzzzt
My whip draws blood
    electricity leaks out to form
    bubbles on their flesh
Sometimes I leak
The ones closest feel it
The whip dies
Crack
    no more brilliance
    rechargeable
I too am rechargeable
Fingers in the socket
Jittering like an epileptic
I finally fall filled with heat
Thinking why
I died


Daisy

political
    anti-political
political
    anti-political
political
    anti-political
polit…
    I knew it
    I knew it
political anti-political political anti-political
    I was right


Is It You?

If I told you I was a suicidal psycho,
    would you laugh and walk away or scream and run?
If I told you I wanted to die with my victims around me,
    would you try to help me or hinder my way?
If I told you I was a prejudiced bastard,
    could you possibly hate me the way I probably hate you?
If I medicated you, and you woke up tied down,
    would you start to thrash about vocalizing your throat raw?
If I cut your clothes off with a wood burning tool,
    would you hold still in fear of a burn or resist?
If I shaved all the hair off your body with a dull razor,
    would you scream as I tore through your epidermis?
If I collapsed your right eyeball with the second hand of a clock,
    would you lose your bowels and lie in your smelly feces?
If I took hold of your teeth with a pair of vise grips,
    would you gag as the blood and saliva filled your stomach?
If I told you, again, that I was a suicidal psycho,
    would you want to watch me put a hole in my head?
Is it you, the one with the white BMW and an American Express Gold card?
    Or is it you?