A Poem About Something
This is a poem about something
That I can never hold.
Wakefulness tires me
And belates my past.
Tombs reach up above the trees
Singing crumblesongs
That startle something in me
A brick pops out of the dam
And my doom howls ‘howdy-doo?’
A rusted crane looms above crush crawfish dizzy spells
Memories trigger my head falling off
Screaming for the reignition of bygone realities
Casting walls upon shadows
My flickering tomb, a bouquet of rainbows.
Now, have yourself a merry little July
Sitting in your shed, sucking on a nalgene bottle
Pining for the throes of winter.
A Loving Friend to Lick Your Hand
Nothing in particular is what I have to say.
No flying fancy into suns of Monday
Or silver spoon conversations so divine.
No chests of coins to behold in pirate coves
No little toy racers: only cooing doves
To drag you out of the corner where light forgets to shine
And darkness erases the divinity of your smile
And you’re allowed to choose your own tomb
Before the sewer rabbits find a way to strip you
Of your flesh and touch you in places you’ll regret later
When your underwear is flying from the flagpole
And the other campers are pointing and laughing.
To Hell with the pretenses of Christianity: I need God right now
To upload the head of the New Millennium into the urinal
So that Right and Wrong can be overhauled
And Jesus can bask in warmth and acceptance despite his pain.
Soon, he will be deported to a strange land
Where seal pups bathe in Perrier, and lions beg for belly rubs.
For now, he lives among us in the form of a dog:
A loving friend to lick your hand
When the Spiral starts to unravel your heart
And the Light seems so far away.
Allow the furry gates of Heaven to jostle you out of sleep
Drain your wounds and fill them with sherbet
For the sunrise will mimic orange vanilla
When Hollywood movies regain their originality.
On the day that the world eats itself out of existence,
Marshmallows on toothpicks will guide you
Through caves of sixteen-bit pixels
Filling pop tarts with the thoughts
Of a girl you knew in high school
Who hated you for gawking at her braids.
Try as you might to misremember these events, you never will.
Brett Petersen is a writer from Albany, NY who loves language and gets a kick out of arranging words in various combinations. He obtained his B.A. in English from the College of Saint Rose in 2011 and is planning on pursuing his Master’s sometime in the near future. Aside from writing poetry, fiction and essays, he plays drums in the band Dynamite Pleasure Chair and has recorded over ten solo albums on which he sings and plays guitar, drums and bass.
