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.

The Last Cigarette

I stood there at the bus stop
My feet slowly sinking down
Through the depths of concrete
My back slowly merging
With the illuminated advertisement
Upon which I leaned
Staring at a street trash can
A burst blood vein of this city
Overflowing with shit.

This was the precise moment
I indulged my final cigarette
Before I'd battle the nervous
States of quitting for the third
Or perhaps the fifth time.

I dropped the smoky filter
On top of the city's blodclot
And sulked onto the bus
The way a cockroach crawls
After you've stepped on it
The way a child wanders
Into an adult.

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.

A quick 3some

1

Strobe lights play tricks
On an intoxicated man
Somewhere police barrage
Maglites – run run run
Drive drunk
Puddles soakin shiverin
Love blankets fistfights
Who’s there in dark rooms?
Could I get more?
I feel like hell

Hard wood floor shiverin blankets
Drugs drugs drugs
Stumblin
Can I have more
Stumblin drugs
Fuck!
Hello hello
Out of memory
Out of love
Out of life
Ive wrapped myself in death
Ive warped myself in darkness
Not goin down
Not goin anywhere
Not livin?

Shiverin shiverin
Drunk
Hello
This is my life

Don’t roll me over

I want to hate you
For what Ive become
But I cant
I secretly love watching
Myself die in mirrors
Thru patterned substance abuse
Ill die like this
Ive made peace with that
Don’t roll me over
Don’t roll me over
Im shit
Im fuckin shit

Don’t roll me over

---

2

Theres nothing I wont say
In my poetry or otherwise
Theres now way to censor
The pressure bombs
Exploding inside
Because theres so much
Still left to do
And say and feel

O im sorry I lied
There is one thing
I can never say
In poetry, or otherwise:
I love you!
Im incapable
Its never true.

---

3

Misplaced
I have been wandering
Through a city lost,
Decaying, and idiotic
Feeling like someones
Filled my mouth
With cotton balls
Muffling my words
My yelling
And now I am choking
Sometimes just breathing
Really is just not enough.

Primer Uniform

Primer Uniform
In these waning hours of days
Winding down like old toys
I am a soldier with a green beret,
Plastic rifle held at forty-five,
And paint chipping off my uniform.
The other toys are in similar shape:
Plastacine villages melting in the acid rain;
The town clock has slumped sadly over,
Our military is stuck in the mud
On our front lawn pointing canons at leaves
And twigs blowing evasively in the wind,
The zoo is shut down due to a rare
Strain of STDs that spread
Throughout their population
Shortly after a holiday celebration.
But days continue to wane down
Until nothing is left
But the ash from your cigarettes
And the realization
That the once brilliant vibrant uniform
You donned day and night
Has chipped and faded
Revealing drab primer.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Also, check out what A Blinking Robot did with this. With my permission of course.

Tangibility

Tangibility
Uncertainty.
Eyes fidgeting
Beneath my coma,
Glossy print gaze
Soaking in soft focus
The thousand words
I could never fuckin say
Never spit out
From my toxic waste,
Sewer pipe mouth.
That while death
Fails to intimidate
This heart thrashing
Inside my echo chamber,
Cavern chest
That there is worse
Than elongated death
Oh yes. A far greater
Torment dances
Inside my bruised exhausted,
China doll bones: to be—
Inverted via doubt
Then retrofitted without
That which was dubious;
The great ambiguous:
Love.
The illusory reality of which
Is papier-mâché bricks
Adhering to my chest.
It seems so real at times
That I loose my breath;
Only to inhale deeply
The soot of a tangible universe.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Poem Meh.

My stuff is shit right now I think.
Who agrees?


Sidewalk

I kick around empty streets
You know, the kind that are as welcoming
As a lover with open arms and large eyes.
But I’ve never been one to take up lovers
And last all the way: forever.
I’ve always found the end.
The same way empty streets
Always lead me to the same place:
The gradual stroll up the steps
Leading out to eternity’s
Ephemeral bliss:
My body feels iced
My mind drugged
In a landscape of
Everlasting short-lived
Bursts of sunrises
On concrete walkways
Lined with play-doh buildings
With iron bars over windows
That look into padded rooms
And the mats that line
Symmetrical doorsteps reading:
“Welcome Home.”
I know that behind each door
Are scared people whose guns
Line up the walls: just in case!
And I’m hoping if I stand out here
Just long enough that maybe
Some dangerous, dear soul
Will blow my brains out
And paint beauty with it
On this suburban sidewalk.
© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved

Winter is my favorite season.

Au Revoir, Passé

It’s time for chapped lips
And drawn-out sips
Of hot beverages;
Traversing cities in a storm.
It’s time for the ice to form
It’s time for all this
To never be the same,
Ever again.

It’s time we put away
The summer games we play:
The dances of checkers and chess
Upon a sun drenched desk.
It’s time for growing up
It’s time for all this
To never be the same,
Ever again.

I have a plan
For this winter
See you next
Summer.

Au revoir, passé.


© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Snickers anyone?

Dinner
I’m hungry
But I hate eating alone
I’ve got text on a screen
Representing a companion
But I don’t ask
Because I am horrid
At dinner table conversation
Somewhere in my childhood
I befouled my parent’s sacred table
Repeatedly and without shame
And now I am socially crippled.


Dinner 2
I think I’m hungry
I’m having an internalized
Debate on whether to take the fall
And go out for dinner
But then, I ask myself, who with?
Tables are awkwardly built
For two these days.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Kind of sprouted at random

Old

Even as I tell
An old friend
About how great
You and I were
Together—
The good times are replaced
By memories of how
I fucked you
Metaphorically
Speaking
The colour fades
From an arm chair
As I do from
My own life
Effervescently
Playing itself
In a fashion
Of a record that
Slowly sounds incredibly
Old.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem

See You (Scrambled Eggs)

I dropped her
Like a cigarette
Into an ash tray
Spent, but still
Alive. Somewhat.

I grabbed at air
Like bottles
Filled with freedom.

Now,
I’m riding
A snail to victory:
To a finish line.
See you.
See you there.

There.
I load
Pills in my mouth
Like bullets in a clip
Bam!
Scrambled eggs
All over the place.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.


Sauce

Its funny how I tell my friends
I don’t miss you
Yet
I do and I don’t.
I miss not having
Nightmares:
Scrambled eggs
Running from
That hole in my mind.
But you? No.
More, myself
Before me
And the blender
Crossed paths
And I got sauced
Constantly.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

NEW NEW NEW NEW NEWNEW

Bullets In Our Spines

Time
That’s really all we have
Right?
So why waste it with games;
Trivial pursuits.
Why not chase
Down speed and listen
Hear it explode
Like the orgasm
You dream to have.
Trivial pursuits;
Women, money,
Sex, and fame.
Why spend all
Time searching
When you could
Listen to speed
Explode
Embrace
The void
Like children kissing
Stars
With bullets in their spines.

But we don’t.
We chase down
Dreams
Recited to us
By corporate America
And we buy
And sell
Abstract stock:
Like happiness,
Contentment,
Self realization,
And so much other shit
That is meaningless.

Then we kiss the sky
Then we kiss the sky
With bullets
In our
Spines.

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.

And here is a rather muddled piece.


Killah

If looks cold kill the whole world would be a black hole: a void in space where nothing and everything exists. The last thing we would all remember would be me sitting in a back seat of a friends car staring into the sun as we belt along the 101. I used to hate the bleached out essence the world dons when your eyes are engulfed by floating flames, but now I am enthralled with it. So much has changed, but some things are the same: like how my mood changes faster than tracks can switch in the CD player up front. Or perhaps, how I still contemplate how I would experience brief pleasure while gently grazing the face of God - right before the freeway slams into me and my limbs scatter after diving out the backseat of the car at eighty miles per hour. What is the same is how I occasionally live life like I’ve lived it before and now I am bored. As if, in this one sun bleached 30 minutes I have played out every scene of my life – only to get out of a car at the very beginning. Other times, I walk like I just got legs and damn it feels good when these fresh legs bend. I move and jive down the street as every molecule around me dances to my footfalls at 120 bmp: and damn how this city loves to dance. Damn how this city loves to move. Occasionally, you may see me stopped with old legs. An oil leak on these rusty kneecaps: fucker at the store ripped me when he said “new legs” – more like new paint. I limp home in disrepair. I’ll have to go in and get serviced tomorrow before work – there is no way in hell I’ll be able to deliver boxes of lies with an oil leak. How did I get on this topic of rusty kneecaps and oil leaks? Ah, well. But if looks could kill the cheap greasy spoon cafeteria’s plates would be impaling prime ministers, presidents, the senate and senators, the house and congress, the IRS, presidentes, dignitaries, royalty, sluts, my boss, my various managers, movie stars, rock stars, porn stars, and anyone on a pedestal who praised themselves to the top and expects you to respect. I cannot respect a man who has not crawled on his belly cast down – and those listed above for the most part have never crawled; or even walked bent down. Their pride is foolish; a barbiturate they take daily to cover up their multiple failings. Failing makes us human – it’s how Adam and Eve designed us when they mistook apples for oranges; and fucked us all. I wonder if they will formally apologize for making my life shit when I die. Or am I being far too arrogant? huffed up on my own sense of pride for spending most of my life crawling on my belly and then gaining the strength to get on my hands and knees; and take it like a man. And let us all be men and do manly things: kill puppies with shot guns, beat sense into some and out of others, smoke, drink, jump across train tracks with bags of money in the back seat with the police in hot pursuit, fuck bitches, screw bitches, avoid marriage, end up dead. What’s the point then? And how did I get down here? I started off talking about how looks could kill!

© Liam Elliott 2007. All Rights Reserved.