Amplified, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

This thing, this grey matter
This albatross, this dead weight
This filing cabinet
This runner

Bicycle courier, broken spokes
Flat tire, no pump, all that data
Suffocated by that enforcer
Putting a plastic bag over my creativity

Why damn it! Why! Why! Why!
Why can’t I get it down, these words
Doled out like a blind black jack dealer
With no table, spilling the chips everywhere

And you cling to me, inside me
My city hall, office of records
Duplicate, triplicate, lost it
Shredded it, no record of it

I would pull that fire alarm
Just to get your attention
But you just put your feet up
On your desk, taking your time

To come to my office, your office
Our office, just to dump the file
Into the trash can, just to spite me
And there isn’t a thing I can do

Unless, I turn out the lights
Cut off the power
Burn the building down
Drop you off the roof

Hey, do you want to
Go out for a drink after work?
I know this great place
I know the bartender

He’ll give you all the free drinks
You want. And snacks? No problem
Bowls of your favorite pills
Take as many as you like

Don’t worry about the tab
It’s on the house. Tomorrow
You’ll get your severance pay
But don’t look for references.
(end)

This poem is about struggling with my maladies. I have A.D.D. and high anxiety, plus a brain that doesn’t do what I want it do to, when I want it to. It shoots through the roof when I am writing poetry, and can easily lose my thought, misspell a word and miss it, or completely lose my thought and sometimes even an entire poem. And although I have not been diagnosed, I also think I might have slight dyslexia. Not to mention this can cause me to be depressed.

The imagery is about my neurons in my brain. I imagine them as a bicycle courier company that is unorganized, misfiring, scattered and disjointed, and getting frustrated with myself. I will say one thing about this format on this page, it does help reduce my stress level by not being busy in looks, plus having spellcheck. Although even with spellcheck I still can miss something.

My infection, inclination, subterranean
Shall it be, a warm bathtub sleep
Anxiety pills, whiskey on the rocks?

Did I ask you to ask? No, I am here
Reading your words, on the recommendation
From a lady who stuck her head in the oven

She thought highly of you, so why, why
This fascination, obsession, direction
To the carpenter’s questions, never asked

Never asks why, die, die, die
Is it that the razor blade is too dull?
Is it that you are not yet high enough to fall?

I am on that girder, in the skyline
Perched above the metropolis, eating my lunch of fear
Wondering why I am here, dear, my dear

It is no craft, it is criminal, this theft
Of my senses, drawing me in, with your poison
Creative poison, tumultuous, I could stir it

In my coffee, you look like you love coffee
Or is it tea? Anything, anything, will you
Just spend a little time with me, with me?

She won’t mind, she’s too busy
Being interviewed, or writing of giant statues
And prison camps, and pink fizz

And you walk in, grabbing me, dragging me
Into some sort of pact I have not agreed to
I just got here, slow down, I just met you

There you are, the pair of you
Whispering in my ears, “It is painless”
Hawkeye and Trapper sang of it

But for now, I want none of it
Just your company, that is it
Anne, Sylvia, don’t fight over me.
(end)

This poem stems from my listening to a Sylvia Plath interview in which she said she like a fellow poet Anne Sexton. Unfortunately both of them respectively committed suicide, Sylvia in 63, and Anne in 74.

I’ve been seriously suicidal in the past myself. Not now, but been there. Their poetry I can so identify with. I reference both poet’s imagery in this poem. IE, “the carpenter” of Anne Sexton’s “Wanting To Die”. And Sylvia Plath’s “The Applicant” , “Colossus”, “Daddy” and “Cut”.

Of course this is an imaginary conversation with Anne, as if all three of us were at a party that Plath invited me to, and Anne tried to steal me from her. It is really dark in meaning, meaning the “pact” I did not agree to.

Gimcrack, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

So pristine, this pyrite
Deceptively enticing
Aesthetically pleasing
Everyone is leaving

A new coat over
Over that dry rot
Over the termites
Over the faded wallpaper

The diamond is not
What you thought
What you bought
What you sought

It is the rust
The rain
The pain
You want to hide

Smiles behind
No one can see
Inside thee
Leave me be

I am as happy
As I can be
Cant you see
Cant you see?

Insubstantial
Rickety, consequently
Discarded, forgotten
Look at me, look at me

The claw trap
Has ensnared me
I cannot leave
Cannot leave

I bleed, I bleed
It cuts me, cuts me
The belt sander
Has exposed me

Sawdust and mold
You’ve uncovered
I cannot be repaired
Paint fumes fill the air

Beware, beware
I am never there. I am
The house. My own ghost
With no substance

To scare, to scare
To breath, I fear
To stay or go
I do not dare

The shutters dangle
On rusty hinges
The doors creak
The roof leaks

What of me, of me?

Do You Have A Grape For Me?, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Do you have
A grape for me?
Though I hang upside down
In a tree?

In a cave
I don’t need to see
Do you have
A grape for me?

I want to be
I want to be
Liked by everybody
Do you have a grape for me?

Why is everyone
Scared of me?
I can be very friendly
Do you have a grape for me?

You make images of me
Signals in the moon rarely
My associate rides a broom
Do you have a grape for me?

The Irwins did rescue me
They never, never, fear me
Always have that special treat
Do you, have, a grape, for me?
(end)

Bats get a bat wrap. I think they are super cute. I certainly would not handle a wild bat because of disease, but rescued bats well taken care of, are very socialized and just give them a grape, and you have a best friend for life. I watched an episode of Crikey, and they had rescued an injured bat and in its own group setting they are very social and very friendly.

Stigmatized, By Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on twitter)

The terrible stigma
Attached to those
Even full bodied
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Buck up”
“Be a man”
“Shake it off”
They’ll never understand
Mental illness is
As much a malady
As a missing limb.

Russell Island, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

From the veranda
Overlooking the sloped backyard
To see the beauty
Is not that hard

Mangrove trees
With octopus roots
In low tide
Attack the drying mud

Great pretender
This halfmoon lagoon
Pretending it is dry riverbed
In some scorching part of Africa

But no,
It is just a slight indentation
In my friend’s backyard
High tide will remind it

Shimmering silverback waters
No, you are not Africa
The underlying turquoise
Of the bay, will remind you

The calm tide slowly creeps in
It wants to sooth the angry roots
Lapping around them, as if
They’re photons acting like both particle and wave

Those clever double slit waters
Undulate the shadows of the roots
Swaying and snaking
Under the broccoli branch mangrove

And those chimps
Are not orangutans
Any which way but loose
They’re kookaburras

Lap, lap, lap
The tide slowly creeps in
A heavy piece of deadwood
Submerges like a Navy sub

But it is only temporary
The tide retreats
Those angry roots
Exposed again
(end)

This poem is about where my late friend Bob lived, on an island just off the tip of Victoria Point in Queensland Australia. I fell in love with his back yard the minute I saw it. In low tide the mud would dry like a riverbed in Africa, and the tide was so gentle going in and out, it would reflect the branches of the mangrove trees. FYI “Any which way but loose” is a play on the real comedy movie staring Clint Eastwood “Any Which Way But Loose”. And I don’t know why they call kookaburras “laughing” birds, they sound like they are screaming to me. But anyway, I love Russell Island and Brisbane and I got to see lots of Queensland, coastal and inland. My favorite island in the world actually is The Great Keppel Island just off the coast of Yeppoon. It is tiny, but looks like it could be a movie set in a romance or adventure movie.

Absent of torch, by Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet On FB and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

She took the one you never had
Her father Bartholdi put it in her hand
Guiding the immigrants into the harbor
How long will she stand?

You, the ancient inspiration
Sea merchants and warships
Towering over the jetties
You guided them out and in

Parallel tug of rope sideways
Vertically, violently up and down
Thumb push puppet
Despite your washboard abs

The scholars of the day
Kept some of the Helios
Tradition mandated it so
Not to rebuild the final say

She took your crown
The tumulus mound
Her epic bereft
Following her father’s death

I’ve seen Lady Justice
Crumble and crash
But that was rigged
Luminaire avoided Lars’s head

In shambles and crumbles
Like salad croutons
Crushed and sprinkled
On the tasteless iceberg

That melted and wilted
You left on the counter
For your weekend adventure
The green olives turned black and red

And when you came back
Limp and useless
Tossed out like rubbish
In the trash can

Where was your head
That dreadful morning
When you decided
You’d rather be dead?
(end)

This poem is based on Sylvia Plath’s “Colossus” and a not really about her dad, but her tragic life and death. She to me is Lady Liberty. Her poetry is my therapy. The ancient statue “Colossus of Rhodes” is what Lady Liberty in NYC is based on. Sometimes he is depicted with a torch, but most of the art I have seen with him, shows him without a torch. Thus the name of the poem.

The alleged ancient statue “Colossus of Rhodes” was reportedly destroyed in and earthquake. “Thumb push puppet” is a kids toy, it sits on a push bottom pedestal, you press the bottom of it inward, and the figure goes limp. The figure can be of a human or animal, but when you release the bottom of the toy the figure stands upright again. I am using the metaphor of Colossus being fragile despite being depicted as strong, and also suggesting that our Lady Liberty, is also fragile too, and while not likely to be taken down by an earthquake, our free society can be taken down by authoritarianism.

Plath’s suicide is also metaphor for me as to art dying. She will never know how free her poetry makes me feel. I wish she were still alive for me to tell her.

Metallica’s “And Justice For All” tour was amazing. It had two rigged statues of Lady Justice and The Statue Of Liberty on both sides of the stage, rigged to wobble and crumble towards the audience. And at another point, a light rig above Lars’s head was rigged to drop one end suddenly and swing just a couple feet over his head. Both events during the concert made people scream because they thought it was real. But this in this poem is saying that life is fragile and suicide is final.

A Stone, by Brian37/Brian James Rational Poet.

I wish I were a stone
Hard and Enduring
It doesn’t blink
Like me
At the thought of snow

I wish I were a stone
Tough and firm
It doesn’t care
Like me
If mud soils it

I wish I were a stone
Unyielding to blows
Unlike me
It needs no defenses

I am glad
I am not a stone
For a stone
Does not care.

Out Out Brief Candle, By Brian37/Brian James Rational Poet.

To-deities, and to-gods, and to-God,
Creeps in this petty tyrant from day to day
Until the extinction of humanity new ones will be invented
And all of our yesterday’s Gods have been created by fools
The way to tribal death. Out out brief myth
Claims are but a walking shadow, a poor reflection
That struts our narcissism upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by the credulous, full of sound and furry
Signifying nothing.
(end)

Looks familiar doesn’t it? Well, it my skeptics version of Macbeth’s act 5 scene 5 line. Macbeth in the play was equating it to the suicide of his one true love Lady Macbeth, and was saying his life was not worth living without her. I took that line and made it about belief in the super natural.

I think most humans are good people. I simply do not agree that they need a god or religion to do good or be good. But in any case, I hate bullies and authoritarians, so when a theist gets in my face and threatens me with their god like the minion of a school yard bully, this poem is my response.