Birdhouse

I hope no one knows

about the yellow bird I keep locked up in chains

in my basement.

            No wait. That didn’t sound right.

I hope no one hears the bird

I keep locked in the basement

shrieking in falsetto for help.

Fluorescent feathers flying,

as the distress could be spotted

in the yellow volley of silk

and skin shivering in suspense and suspicion.  

It’s face, a once Post-it note blaze,

doused to an ashen moon pleading for

something other than the stink of

moldy, middle-aged basements

and damp air dripping of despair.

No, again that doesn't sound right.

Let me start over,

or by now do you, Dearie, think you’ve

single-handedly solved

the mystery that is

me

the bird-burglar

trying to gain access to the

bird-seeded ransom I could be swindling from

the Duchess of Birdchestershire.

Can you envision the broken shards of glass,

scattered violently on the vibrantly violet Persian carpet,

acting as a commemoration of my glittering entrance?

If I told you I wore a dark mask,

could you wrap your mind around

the shadowy shade I swallowed

in order to melt away my circled shoulders and taut tree lumber legs

in order carry out my nutty desires?

So now you know why my once prominent neighbor,

Daphne du Maurier’s* sweet sounding canary, Alfred* is missing.

For the sake of assured resolve and diabolicalism,

I’ll tell you anyway;

It’s all because we live in a world

where peanut butter just doesn’t

calm the cravings of this flightless felon,

as well as  Alfred’s infuriating flair for alliteration.

Martha Stewart's Kitchen (Collaboration with Max Hagen)

The kitchen door started a blog about apartment fires and Christmas decorations that break when domestic violence occurs. It was unusual when read aloud in the laundry machine that reeked of glass and Parisian undies.

The doorknob struggled to reflect the cynicism felt by the tape player gagging for 90s airspace whenever flowers demanded grunge. However, the Ethernet cable snapped ending the "Cuisine and Such" blog, much to the dismay of the doormat, the decorative connoisseur.

Shaved Car Rides (A collaboration between Max Hagen and Justin Limoli)

Too bad your pen was weighed down with silk-cut cigarette smoke and clouds heaving air that reeked of bruised banana peels.

It’s a staccato, the way you spin your pen like a juke box- thinking about sheets and crosses in the same sentence.

Combing through metaphors and “oh my God"s like a polytheistic whore searching through scrap metal in hopes of finding the still-beating heart of Jesus.

If you listen to the street lights clink like pennies in a dryer, you’ll forget about shaved car rides and remember how you want to bite hoses and golf grass.

But never attempt long division over my groin that whimpers of breaches of fourth walls and similes that fall like lint freshly sheared by the greens keeper you called in verse.

Regret is that singed trip across the street, like the lack of cigarette flavor in your teeth,
And remorse is the cigarette that tastes of your teeth instead of the vibrating serenity reached through your tongue.

And your throat is broken like a tennis ball, and a lack of sound from you will mean a lack of tongues.

But this story assembles broken Chinese proverbs and Latinized anagrams marking the paths of your pelvis and the ‘x’ on the page.

And you’ll see 3 a.m. again if you know they didn’t scrape past each other, cause clocks don’t skip like Spaghettios.

Rainer M. Rilke Steals This Poem and Makes It His Own

Love is two lovers

sleeping through each other’s snoring.

But love comes and goes

like the flame that heats my aging stove.

Wine and spirits profit

harpies scream

poets moan

strangers pass unlacing looks

to other strangers passing.

All because love is just heavy breathing

and twitching fingers.

But let us not make a scene.

Love is the chaser that settles the nerves,

and the invitation after.

Love comes and goes

like the full stomach of an Eskimo.

Artists make a killing

businessmen knot their ties

grease and oil find their way into hair

strangers pass unlacing looks

to other strangers passing.

All because love is just the invitation accepted,

and unsettled nerves.

But let us not make a scene.

Love is the growing warmth in your belly

that stays with you in your sleep.

A Poet Spots a Hill and Calls it 'Woman'

“Sometimes I fit in tiny cracks in the linoleum” (Maureen Seaton)

Sometimes I do too,

other times though,

I look like,

feel and smell like

a tank-topped

polka-dot

entangled

fluorescent pink

tanned lined elephant

trying to fit into a charred peg-hole.

   

Drop your pen and coffee cup,

may I have your attention please,

for the love of it all,

please please please

just sing to me.

Peel my dead-skinned glasses off

and show me what it means

when our eyes meet,

your legs crossed,

propped up by my imagination,

which by the way,

has a mind of its own.

Tell me what it means,

when I walk up to you

and my mouth feels

like my feet do

after I run away

because the poet inside told me it would be

poetic.

Just for once,

stop sashaying your flared hips,

looking with pouting eyes,

and conversing in silence,

because all it does is make my life

completely

utterly

truly

and biblically

unconventional.

A stroll through the park and a meditation in a stranger’s garden

The bags, which are too heavy for my eyes

A magnifying glass that caught your smile

A microphone that told the world of your laugh

A breeze that informed me that you wouldn’t be coming

A line that was too forward

That night a tree showed me that I wasn’t a very good dancer

The gentle breeze that provided the tree with encouragement

A floral scent that I could have sworn tasted like your neck

The book that told me that this was bound to happen

An air vent that thought it was Thom Yorke

My mattress that refuses to let go of your memory

The infomercial we made love to, (because you thought it would make a good line in a poem)

One of your cigarettes I finished, but never threw out

The burnt toast that made me proclaim my love for you

Your tiny toes that I needed to tickle in order to wake you on the weekends

The pillow you reacquainted my face with soon afterwards

The grey streak in my hair that you would groggily ask for the time

The rest of my life I’m willing to spend in order to figure out why your smile never explored the outer regions of the universe like mine did.

The Party

1.            He wakes up

I wish you would go away

Phantom, poking the angry bear

brained fool who didn’t bother

getting the right digits;

the code to open your doors.

I spoke truthful words that night,

setting your hair ablaze causing

my cheeks to cherry, and our eyes

to seek new centers. But as the music ended,

you only gave sugared, pit-less promises

to the forgetful, opiate idiot

with a sweet tooth.

Even now, fermented memories of

your fruity scent cling

to my thankful nose.

My tongued hands still crave

the taste of your buttered hips.

My two feet remember

the date they had with yours;

swinging around like drunkards

in trivial conversation.

All I can do is wish that

I had a giant elephant

that night,

who would slyly raise its trunk to whisper,

“Alina,”

instead of that blubbering Petrarch

lamenting about some Laura he met

at an adult church function.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I just wished for an elephant,

instead of your name to

reacquaint itself with my tongue.

2.            She awakens

Till this day I do not understand,

what the hell happened?

I wish your lemon scent would stop

creeping from some unknown crevice

and kick my puppy

nose. Bastard.

That night, I swayed limber tree arms for you,

while you Strong Wind, smiled

shattering grey masks to reveal

cherry cheeks and Highland eyes.

I didn't care that our feet entwined

like jumbled clumps of ivy vine,

as long as you were close.

You boy, do not realize

that you became the breeze

to the meadow

I wished to be.

Stirring my barley strands

with warm breath and calloused hands,

scented spring flowers erupted,

enjoying the love of lemon citrus cologne.

I wanted you to lie on me, with me,

brushing my nervy roots with your hands of creation.

I yearned for you to smell fresh scented soil

upturned and bare, waiting to submerge

sun kissed curls and warm silk rind.

Our bodies could have formed

nature’s perfect line.

But digging through me,

you only grabbed fresh herbs

when I could have served you

my garnished heart on a platter.  

Boom

The communists are coming.

Sirens howl wolfishly,

groggy from their dormant sleep.

Hammer and Sickle bombs penetrate

Grandpa Sam’s shelters.

But I have more important things to do

than to just stand idly

awaiting the coming of the atomic bomb,

who, with fiery rapture,

will convert us prisoners, to pagans.

You lean on the cement wall

in your white summer dress

yearning for a fresh breeze

to run a curious hand

over your pulsating neckline.

No breeze will come though.

Mother Earth’s two favorite children

are playing war,

and no hand will be left to place

that white chrysanthemum

on her empty tomb.

I can’t see anything beyond these

sheltered borders.

I try to read brailed reverberations,

like a blind man with calloused fingers.

Occasionally dust would fall from the rafters,

fleeing from the inevitable end.

“Where the fuck did those commie fuckers come from?”

is our mantra.

From the bowels of Satan.

Red Talons tear through

our red, white and blue womb

with “Bloody Vengeance,” the tragic bomb.

I grab you, and through the explosion

my starving lips lunge for yours.

Ignited, our emblazed bodies join,

outshining the fury god

raining down heated retribution.

I’m surrounded by death, but

all I can see is your eyes and bare thighs

quivering like the support beams

plunging deep into the Earth,

struggling to hold their ground.

I hear screams, but all I care about is the soft drip-

drip of our mixing fluids forming

on the splitting concrete.

Our tempo increases.

Your eyes close,

my lips tighten.

Our cheeks flush.

One last taste of you.

Boom.

Paranormal Medicine Cabinet

I wonder which spirit is going to woo me this year?

Tylenol

Will you unravel my blankets and sneak a peak at my nakedness?

Nyquil

Is it weird that I sleep naked? Pajamas are flammable.

Band-Aid

I hope you whisper “get well” into my ear when you finish doing whatever spirits do to a sleeping 20-something on Halloween.

Valium

You wouldn’t wake me though, would you?

Advil PM

I hope I don’t offend you with my wine breath or my blocked-up sinuses.

Vanilla Listerine

All I ask for is a piece of something sweet under my pillow whenever you finish.

Lemon ginger cough drops

Will you please let the taste of my kiss hover over you,

like a ghost finding a naked 20-something in bed on Halloween?

Puffs tissues with Shea Butter

Could we talk about God in my dream after you finish? Is that weird?

Frankincense

Can you at least tell my stomach is happy?

Alka-Seltzer Plus (Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh! what a relief it is)

If you find that you have a voice, please hum some Barry White (or a hymn if you’re up for it).

Ground-up rose petals or any suppositories lying around.

Can you please film our pungent encounter, and then sell the movie rights (unless I’m snoring)?

A warm glass of milk and Breathe Right Strips

  

When you leave, just remember how warm I was and that my name is Justin.

DayQuil plus Vitamin C

Single Parents Rendezvous

The clock’s hand falls

Like a slow-motion decapitation

Can you hear the masked victim’s moan?

Will it wake the sleeping children?

The ice attempts to elope with some aged scotch out of boredom.

Long live the happy couple.

We lie together bobbing our heads in disbelief

like two chastised puppies after pissing on the carpet.

Tonight, we were both covetous concubines

shifting our bodies, creating amorous lines,

Proving that this house still is a home to vampires and addicts craving for

some substance other than the emptiness of space and the longevity of time.

As your tongue becomes dissatisfied with the after taste of bad scotch,

your cheeks signal that it is time to move on to thawed goodbyes.

Sigmund Freud speaks to me through my repressed subconscious and dictates an introduction

Dear Honored Sir or Madame,

I realize that what you are about to read is neither a manifesto nor a paradigm by any means. Dearest reader, please understand that Raymond Mack is not right in the head. Some would call him sane, but those people are generally as competent on knowledge of neurosis as a hamster scrubbed down with sand paper and bleached to accentuate the wounds deserves a medical degree. I am (or was) a doctor. Raymond went into this work like a mother trying to explain the concept of make-up to her freshly conceived daughter. Oh boy, are you in for a treat, but I must warn you that what lies ahead is an open-door to a dark room that smells of a Chinese herb shop but resonates with the fear of castration. Mind you, Mr. Mack is like all men, and therefore while buried beneath the heavy mist of sleep, he must be weary of dreamless women mouthing, “Si, mamá." My point is this; artists purposely shroud their eyes with filmy disdain (silly, I know) because no one loved them as children or something to that degree. No need to worry though. What you are about to read is no nostalgic yearning for what once was, or even artistic for that matter. It is simply a textbook that tries to unearth nothing in particular. Think about it this way; a homeless person comes up to you after a pleasant evening and asks you for change. You naturally do not give this sub-person what it asks for. Instead, you of course would say, “No, get a job you smelly scoundrel.” This is exactly how one should approach all poetry. What is poetry anyway? Or even a word for that matter? A word is simply a thing. A two-dimensional thing, that is too inept to transcend even the smallest mound of dirt. Words were made for propaganda, essays, and the occasional joke (two cannibals are eating a clown, and one asks “Does this taste funny to you?”), but never art. Reader, if you covet this ‘artwork’, go to the Sistine Chapel, or examine the human brain, and then tell me that “Not for one moment…/Have I stopped seeing your beard full of butterflies” is beautiful.

Enjoy.

                                                            An embittered doctor,

                                                            Sigmund Freud M.D.

Concerto for Blood and Vocals in Whatever Key You Imagine Dying To

Replace the orchestra with children in ragged clothes carrying sharp rocks. If rocks are not available, use instruments. The children will then be instructed to throw the objects at the audience. Make sure that they draw blood. If any members of the audience are heard crying, the children should then immediately yell, “K should never be silenced, fish only swim in milk bottles, cardboard boxes do not hold secrets, and in a fair world, none of you should become famous for saying ‘A is for parrot, which we can all see.’ But then again, who the hell cares? Honestly, who the fuck cares?” (Crescendo) (The chord progression is as follows; I-ii-V7-IV-vi-V-IV-ii-V7). The audience will then listen to the blood drip from their temples, broken gums, gashed foreheads, and sliced salami forearms. After 20 minutes of aural masturbation, the audience shall then be asked to kiss the person seated to their right, in order to taste the blood God must crave after reading Grapefruit and anything written by the conceptual artist, Raymond Mack.

The audience beforehand will be asked to sign a waiver.