Reflections/ Mental Masturbation

I get home late, again, to be greeted by a silent house that seems empty- but isn't. Quietly creeping up the stairs, I feel a stranger in my own home, where I've barely passed a few words in all the months I've been here with the others who reside therein. In the mornings, when I'm half asleep, I sometimes hear them talk about me; whispered words about my habits that, to them, seem so strange. With little else to do, I sit before a mirror and think. Thoughts pass easily- freely- about the events of the week proceeding; the people met, the words said, the behaviors acted out on; it all flows like an intangible mess; a weave of intersecting realities, paid out by chance. It is possible to live in thought, without substance or qualities. These are the things I think, as I sit, alone.
   Here are some other words that represent the ideas that passed through my mind, another time, as I sat, as I do now, before the mirror. In many ways, they function as the mirrored image of my prose, filtered through the glass of poesy.

I'm not even sure if I feel like what I am;
how I'm seen by a small few
at odd occasions, every so little
but an hour or two.
And what am I when I'm alone,
but a sleeping grave
or a mass web of reflections.
Before a mirror, I ask:
'is this what I look like?'
Recalling incidents and their accidents
where I happen across platonic intimacy,
retracing the words that passed,
I think, with a wondering smile,
if I see me now as they saw me then,
and then, if so-
what's the point of it anyhow?

Can I Just Say...

... That I miss you...
Can I say that, I tried to find a picture of you
to pick me up, but
all it did was put me down
and not even the emptiness
of my stomach,
that passed the past 24 hours
unaided by a meal,
is strong enough to counter-act
the way I feel, when I finally see you
and think about the look in your eye
that maybe I was once,
in some way,
responsible for-
and the blood rushes around my head
and heart like a gyroscope.
Can I say that, I woke up early
but slept in late, because
I had nothing better to do
but hibernate and hide away.
And don't you know,
that these days I give up everything
to a cause so much greater than myself
but that I can't explain.
And yet, for all I happily give,
I just can't quit holding on
to a memory of your love.

After the Journey

I had written this a little while ago; a week or two from now, after I had finally arrived at my current abode from a few days' and nights' previous 'merry-making'; making friends, eating dinners, playing cards and so on. I had slept in three beds across four nights and had felt a little more at ease in every one other than my own, singular, bed- not just for the respective company they provided, which was in itself a blessing, but because at every stage I felt I had divined a different sense of self to match.

Hadn't been 'home' in four nights and days;
ripped clothes and lost buttons along the way;
traipsing all around, working hard, busted toes
with broken nails pushed through the torn veil
of fabric socks, into cold, wet leather.
Bruised skin and aching muscles are the sum of my efforts,
along with friendships made and beds laid in.
Once I was a pessimist,
but I lost the time for narcissistic lucubration
striving to make others happy:
When one ceases to live just for themselves,
the whole world shines with wonder,
but it takes a thick skin to avoid the abrasions
that come from so often 'rubbing shoulders'
with another; shaking hands and sweaty beds;
I showered off the scent of sex,
pulled on my boots, then I was off
and out again.

Noise

I'd been working with a friend on a project of his; an EP involving the varied included work or influence of other artists, mostly with the intention of combining poetry and music to convey an auditory journey or experience. His having an active and practical interest in field recording and music production; both to a talented degree, as well as a background in classical music; his being a multi-instrumentalist, and so on and so forth, but moreover a friend, as stated... I was appreciative of the proposal he'd made to help and accepted to write some poetry to fit with the motifs he wanted to translate. Here is a blueprint in the form of a poem.

I float on an ocean of noise that vibrates like a tremolo;
all pervading, from everywhere;
sound creeps in like a transparent gas:
all things in motion, all around.
Hear the bells? Wheels in motion;
people passing;
feet stomping.
Life roars;
the cry is carried on by the wind;
the beautiful disharmony of everything,
cast within the slumberous shell
of smog.

So Much More for The Cull!

It started as a thought, as I sifted through my belongings and came across an article of clothing to be discarded in whatever way, but then I sat down and quickly compiled this little, silly, rhyme.
Tongue-in-cheek-against-closed-teeth.

'More for The Cull,'
'so much more',
I think-
as I chuck a black jacket,
all of its two buttons
displaced,
to the side; to be thrown away;
given to charity,
or some passerby
who, just as I fancy,
I seem to espy
and of what I have left
there isn't so much
that I'd rather not dislocate,
than soon again touch.
But I do care for my artworks
and then some: my books
and with a near remorseless pride,
I do treasure my looks.