« August 2011 | Main | November 2011 »
He shadowboxes the darkness
punches flailing in the night
illuminated by the barest of light
With rhythm of shoulders and fists he battles
against evil opponents:
Addictions, fears, lonliness and disease.
Solitary shadow boxer still standing.
Relentless foes connecting.
Yet he fights on
swinging in every direction.
Shadowboxing the invisible
illuminated by the barest of light.
I set out to write a poem at 8 PM Mountain standard Time
on a Friday night
and God damn it somebody calls me to ask how to write
First of all I want to say you can write anyway you please,
but you protest to me
I want people to listen
and I laugh,
people don't listen,
they pretend to listen
so you have to scream so loud
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
to get their attention
after that write any way you please
yes i am a nonconformist revolutionary
and the audience is a bunch of meek suburbanites
come to the inner city for a thrill
i take out a machine gun and rattle off metaphoric rounds
over their head
how they are enslaved to a society
that executes the innocent
and send their children off to die for principles
they have not a clue as to meaning
rather just wrap the bodies in the red white and blue
send the next batch of kids to grammar school
who end up questioning the universe
and you send your grandkids back to West Point and Annapolis
to perpetrate the American myth
and I say no no no no no no no
I don't need people quoting
Gen. Shermans's aphorisms
About inflicting blood and gore on the Confederacy
but I went off on a tangent
get back to the reality of writing a poem
just before reading it
drink a shot of whiskey and think of the week in review
I was meaning to write something good
but I ran out of drugs and overate
felt like I was ready to end all
then I wrote a poem for my mother's 80th birthday
and I had to stay around to see how that came out
yes the week was not a good one
I really wanted to write something that stung
something that really makes a difference
about the world we live in
all I can talk about is drugs and death and unjustified wars.
So one more time I take my time
to write something that doesn't quite make sense
and what I should be doing
is screaming
stop the god damn war and all the killing
I don't care if the battles are now out of sight
and people just care about Grammys and Oscars and
all that entertainment drivel
now I am confused at what I was doing so
I was writing a poem about the week
my summary of what happened
people lived people died people were killed and people cared.
Live die and care.
So I should write something funny
I went to a comedy club
it was gospel singers in Denver
no that was not the comedy
the comedy was my life
I laugh because because I still am alive
despite the disease drugs and driving
I should say the week was a monumental success
because the uranium didn't go off
and I am at the Mercury Café
reading on a Friday night
an incoherent poem about living dying and laughing.
Local News
I read the eternal Wall Street Journal
for news of drones BOMBING Al Qaeda
the Yankees beating Tampa Bay
the housing market being depressed
for decades to come
and sundry other economic and political news
but I read the Edgemont Herald Tribune
from Edgemont South Dakota
for the local news because it seems real.
The only question I have for the editor
is why why why why
do you not say how someone died.
was a 22-year-old who died
a disillusioned youth?
Wall Street Journal glories in gore
the Edgemont Herald Tribune writes with decency
with cover stories of the junior high lady Mogul volleyball team
and a hike that will take place soon
and the fact that the local jail
Cannot be expanded
without substantial rebuilding.
My input is keep it the same size
And reduce the need to jail more people.
Now I read both the Wall Street Journal
published in New York
and the Edgemont Herald Tribune
published from the edge of the world.
Personally I like the local news
of Edgemont South Dakota
even though I live in Denver.
Who knows what goes on here?
I don't get the local news.
k.s. lewis
All recordings written and recorded by k.s. lewis on Garage Band
I cannot seem to get caught up in life
Some part of my existence is lagging
that theory cannot be according to relativity
but I notice little bits of me missing
they lost their velocity
I am a sample of modern humanity
not subject to sanity
or the rules of physics
made that way by a mix
that goes something like this
the IRS, CBS, ESPN, CBI,
my drivers license and passport
the telephone bull from a company
I never heard of before
And Sprint to the finish
Billing me for my cell phone
Pour on mouthwash by Listeren
Add a two hour wait on the phone line
Only to find that it is a wrong number
I scream
I NEED AN ANSWER
BUT GET A TONE AND A VOICE
HANG UP AND TRY YOUR CALL AGAIN
Writing at midnight playing with Dragon Speak Learning how to write and how to change things warming up for a brief . So here goes
Writing from perspective lesson 1 (Essay turned to story and poem)
he be a curmudgeon writer
not much for love himself
write about the alien topic all the time
some regret
everything for character
(pause)
love hate,
fear courage,
confusion realization,
he says he has to to stand on both sides.
sketch contrasts
to give you a ride.
curmudgeon writer antihero
that's what I write about this piece
he writes as a columnist
answering questions with black ink
but he's not me
and who am I
Reading this dual character poem
wait-and-see
that's advice me to you
I discovered this curmudgeon character years ago
I said I like him, I
discovered a complete character
strange one this one
he holes up in his house
computer listening to his rants
edited into semi-sanity
calls himself a curmudgeon writer
which brings to mind
a creepy former husband of mine
who called me cold
and calculating
I'm not trying to get even with him
but suppose he was this curmudgeon writer
and I am a scorned ex-wife
taking up the pen for the 1st time
here i pause and say in a manly narrator voice
caught you with this one, huh,
hopefully I confused you amused you
change my identity
within a few lines
And now for the conclusion
of the illusion.
(pause)
I wrote a scathing exposé
about a creepy ex-husband of mine
who was a favorite of the public
I called him a creep, a creepy creep,
I called him stranger then strange
then a very strange thing happened,
this creepier than creepy ex-husband of mine
curmudgeon writer who called me cold
when faced with a column publicly wrote
where I threw him in the moat,
This creep,
this former husband of mine,
curmudgeon writer wrote a column
about his ex-wife's portrayal of him
oddly proud that I took up the pen
not caring about what I did with his character
because, as he said, paraphrasing Vonnegut
if you have a character
in a fiction
you can kill him dead
makes it a story.
So he proposed in a column
And I accepted, so we are married again.
And I'm not cold and calculating and
he's not a curmudgeon.
so that is the end of the story and lesson.
Pause
And the result of this whole poem,
if indeed it is a poem?
Learning about perspective
not about invective, save that for next time.
I search for justice in life and law,
for myself,
for clients
for family
for friends
yet all I find are design flaws
purposes gone awry
a legal system not programmed for justice
rather to keep the masses
aboard their busses
In their hovels
or in jail
and not on the streets
where they could protest
big government bailouts of big business
pardons complimentary to the executives
so I decided to write an Exposé
Started with the mundane
then delete delete delete
and delete again
Words dropped in the garbage can
I start again
water has to be ice cold
to cause glass to sweat
writing has to be bold
hotter than hot
to melt the glass
then hotter still
to vaporize the water.
Where is justice when its needed most
jaded judges don't care
I search the law for passion
find none
so now i write
at 3AM about theories of the case
black letter law
that does not explain why my client got screwed.
then i stop,
no longer knowing the answers
abandoned by the muse
Begging for inspiration
fighting nervous perspiration
the time runs down to the deadline
and I
write throwaway lines
trash
that are deleted without a thought.
but in the middle of the night
the muse visits me again
opens the door once more
to let the visions in
words magically appear
outlining a plan for justice
in black letter law and more
a beggining to our
quiet evolution to revolution.
Me words come jumbled,
Burrowed deep in covers,
morning cold,
Speak!
think I impossible is,
Move!
cold ,
rabbit-like,
I like rabbits,
Scared,
cold outdoors.
Warm in tunnel,
fur on,
my own.
Out no,
only in today.
Me words jumbled,
stay still.
i woke up very early this morning and said to myself
Engage
engage in life
sometimes it's easier
to play a game
ignoring the screams
of the tortured
but no more
I am engaged to living
time to draw the sword
