A wee handful

021708
i still have dreams
of a mind blowing
blue-sky green-grass
everlasting expanse
where inevitable she
and insatiable me
will be encapsulated
never. moving. soaking. in.
a flickering moment
perfect. half. time.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

---

021908
yeh, ive got these late nights
lined up like all the feelings
that i falter to find appropriate
Similes and metaphors to express:
This emptiness is like a ___
My loneliness grows as ___

perhaps, Ill let the reader
fill in the blanks
after all - is not all poetry
subjective?

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Inconvenience

I like how convenient store clerks
Think that when I come in late at night
Im high on some kind of drug
And proceed to play games with me
From behind their formica counters
Their PhDs hanging on the wall
Between the large letter B
And rows of cigarettes standing
Like rows of soldiers - taking aim.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

020108

Thank you
For getting out of my life
Little did you know
Your rude departure
Your leaving on bad terms
Your betraying of a friendship
Only made it easier for me
To butterfly forwards and
Fly.Away.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Chemistry

Then theres days
You spend awake
The whole 24
Just to watch stagehands
Rearrange the scenery
So when the characters
Enter stage left
You’re still stage right
Both moving towards
The center.impact.zone.

When you and I
Meet center.stage.
Critics will call it
Chemistry.

Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Poems regarding spacial arrangement

012908
It occurred to me
And seems highly probable
That I merely exist as ballast.

That perhaps someone else
May feel that much lighter
Is almost a comforting thought.

Although, it does not illuminate
The fact I am heavy laden
With a burden never lightened.

Liam Elliott 2008. All RIghts Reserved.

---

013008[am]
Listening to a song
Makes me think
Good times.
Gone times.
Nothing left but this
Bleak.Extraterrstiral.ism.
Memories of a
Home.planet
Melting into a
Distant.memory
Reach up.
Look back.
Smokestack.
Chimneyface.

Liam Elliott 2008. All RIghts Reserved.

012108

It never ceases to amaze me
Just how estranged we are. now.
Things may make more sense
If I was just a renter. here.
If I was just to leave. here.
Was not your stranger.child.
Not your eternal project.defect.

This feels more like an interrogation
Then a friendly chit.chat.
Do you think you could get your
Righteous lights out of my eyes?

I’m trying to keep an ember burning
But you’re pissing it out.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

011408

Drove down your street
Just to see if I remember
.still.
.do.
As I round the bend
I see the house
On the corner still
.the door.
.the fence.
Where your dogs
Would bark
.out back.
I remember walking
Those dogs down
These streets
They’d stop
.here. and .there.
.piss. and .shit.

Then that day came
.as they do.
You. the airport. your mother. me.
LAX yellow goodbye
.take me with you.
.you can’t. .apology.
.goodbye.

Its clear now .to me.
That these days come
.as they do.
It’s unfair to blame
.my lack.
.of faith.
.in love.
.on you.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

011308

I can’t write
There’s no fuel
There’s no flame
There’s no want—
desire. passion. hate. love. angst.
I’m an overcast second
In twilight.
The sun. no longer. rises.
The sun. no longer. sets.
Everything seems aquiver
The earth is a twitching muscle
On a boy’s un-kissed lips
Moments before. IMPACT.
This continual limbo state
Where everything. hangs.
As if life were on pause
While the viewers
Retrieve. fatty. foods.
Actively. forgetting.
They too. have been paused.
By overweight viewers.

© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

010808

0108089am
I don’t: talk
Face2face
Make eye contact.
Why?
Everything I feel
Is here.
Honestly, at times
This is a cage…
And I don’t know
What I feel…
Most of the time
I feel nothing.
Somewhere around 17
I hit an ice age
Been pretty numb
Ever since.

Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

---

010808am(2)
We all have that one
Who tattooed her name
Across the front of our heart
Leaving an eternal memory
Prior to an eternal departure.
Thing is – I scratched
Out the name…
I didn’t want to recall
What it had said.
And now? Well,
I still have the pain
And no way to call it.

Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

010308

010308
When you told me
You were known as
A Heart Breaker
I remember knowing
I would be the cold hand
Of Karma and I wished
That it wasn’t so
(As I always do).
Nine months later
When it did occur
I remember your
Tears raining on
My shoulder: a plea
To stay a minute longer
I didn’t
(As I always do).
I remember that drive
That feeling of intoxication
But still sober
Shoulder still wet
Eyes still dry
Drifting off into the
Distant setting sun
(As I always do).

z© Liam Elliott 2008. All Rights Reserved.

1229-3007

Seems these days that I write more than one poem a day and I dont title anything anymore so everything is just gunna turn into dates - whatever. I divide each poem by a little line and a copyright thing. Thanks for reading.

---

122907am(3)
I want to pull
HAND CANONS
Out of my sweatshirt
And paint the word “LOVE”
With bullets and bullet holes
Wait… ive got it all wrong you say?
O dear,
I better take these clips
Out of my hand canons
I better erase what I know
About the word “LOVE”

::START OVER::
I want to give
HAND CANONS
To preschoolers
Chewing gum mid-play
And then have them
All
DROP IT
So that peace
Could be possible
someday
and love
could find a way.

Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

---

123007(am)
Dim the conversations
Echoing inside your head
Make them like these rooms
Only half lit by naked bulbs
Make them something
Seen and not heard
Take those words
Dropping off mind lips
And hang them up
Effervescent and lovely
Recycled from the day’s
Worth of words we hear.
The song plays background
Filler:
Do you still remember
When we were little
We would play in the park
And you asked what happens
When we die
I SAID we forget everything.
It reminds me of
A childhood in London
The circling streets
The swarms of crowds
The day trips to the park
Where I would run
And run and climb trees
Where even the dingy city
Seemed to be ablaze
With summer light
And the car rides home
Streets moving like a slideshow of
Black and white photography
Depicting city
Painting loneliness
Screaming desperation
Crying inherited sorrow.

This is where we go

**Song lyrics from Ólafur Arnald’s “Himinnin er ad hrynja”

Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

I am

I am
Old haggard
Slouched and spent
Unfolding his life
Folded in half.
I am
Wayward soldier
Returned to home
Discharged for
Deciding not to side.
I am
The imbalanced
Balance for the
Eternal balancing act.
I am
Unable to continue
Just carrying on
I need to carry
A little less.
I am
20 years
In the making
The masterpiece
Unfinished
I am

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Simple pleasures

Simple pleasures
(The way this landfill
Looks in setting light
Driving the speed limit
Because you have the time
Roaming the hills at sunrise
Because you never slept
Watching those couples handhold
Feeling only freedom yourself
The sun flickering through
Swaying tree branches backlit blue
Walking into an empty house
Because everyone else is busy
Sleeping away the lonely hours
Then waking up happy solitude
The way the bass vibrates
Throughout your bones
Carrying a secret
That is actually secret
A fresh haircut
That’s rejuvenating
Feeling warm eyes
Massaging you
Being in that right place
At that right time)
Makes life worth living.

© 2007 Liam Elliott. All Rights Reserved

for the War Children

Oh look, wasn’t Suzy a pretty young lady?
Shame about the stray bullet that popped her head.
And look at little James, wasn’t he handsome?
Shame about the napalm that melted his face.
Hey, there’s his friend: little Rafael – wasn’t he so big for his age?
Shame his village was disintegrated by an atomic blast.
Check out Jennie – wasn’t she so smart even for a child?
Shame a group of soldiers raped her and left her dead.
And look at all the parents weeping at the funerals
Blaming everyone but themselves.

Those who are directly affected by war
Are our [war] children who inherit
Our violence and hate.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

EX

These two pieces are related - originally part of one whole but then separated (seems fitting haha)

When I told my mother
Ive never met anyone
Who could keep up with me
She told me:
Stop running.

When I called her by her first name;
The way I always do - always will,
And told her with plain words:
Im not running—
Just walking
While everyone else lays down
She laughed.

And its raining – almost x-mas;
Emphasis on EX because
We dumped the Jesus Christ out
And replaced him with light trees and
Presents that last about as long as love
And that’s never very long these days.
Honestly, this season brews atomic bombs in my gut
Then sets of mutant chain reactions in my head.
Why?
Because everyone gets so nostalgic
About whoever they’ve loved since last year—
And it makes me sick cos
-They all dropped and broke
Like fine china hurtled to stone floors.
Hey!
Realize this:
Our hearts are that stone tiling
That china?
Yeh, its true love;
Crippled and codependent
And it’s so one-dimensional.
But it’s the prettiest thing
You’ve ever let slip by.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

---

When I got home today
I found a new message from an ex-lover.
You know the one: the girl you loved
Fervently briefly then
Threw on the floor and walked out
Into the blizzard.
And I won’t lie to you all
That yeh, I looked back
And yep. I kept walking.
Now its 2 days before what would’ve been
A one-year anniversary if I hadn’t
Aborted the mission halfway
(And I don’t regret leaving)
It was inevitable
Like burning the bridge
Back to a broken home.
So I,
Home now with this message
A lurking shadow in my dark,
Sit here mother’s words ringing:
Stop running
Stop running.
But Mum, it’s the only way
This world keeps turning.
So, I do what I do the very best
Run
Its why I live this lonely life.
Don’t feel flattered, honey—
There’s enough people
That I have cut from my life to fill
A big smiling peace loving country.
This just works best for both of us.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

sobur(st)

Transcend the borderlines:
This skin and bone - the cage.

Move past what your finger
Tips feel and reach out
Without moving muscles
Without moving molecules.

Transcend the frequency:
This physicality – the lie.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

vroooom

I have a car
That runs on nothing
But my dreams!!
. . .
Whats that?
It broke down?
Nevermind then.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

sshhhhh

I would give you
All my dog-eared pages
If I thought you’d read.
I would say
So much more
If I thought you listened.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

ghost

I have no reason to carry on
Goodbyes and hellos
Are now equilaterally related
Joints, alcohol, and everything else
Breeds the most transient friends
It never lasts when you’re sober
Hello, it was nice knowing you.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

The sun also rises

Dare I say it: (happy?)
Without substance
Without contact
Without worry
Without sound
Without you
Without me.

Just for a moment
Lend me your eyes
And also your ears,
Your hands and feet,
Your arms and legs,
Your body; upper and lower,
Your heart and organs—
These are unnecessary
Because it is all in your mind.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

---

(2)
Could I speak a moment?
In empty halls
In houses full
With nothing but
Mirrors and recorders
Although no one hears
I feel it is important
(At least for me)
To speak easy
My thoughts.
My audience? (empty chairs)
My reward? (seemingly none)
Other then the ability of
Weaving words in vacant spaces
Because if there were crowds
I would be worried about saying
All the right things.
Fuck
that.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.