WCW
I am….
I am….
I am a better man.
Thinking about pennies and nickels
That are not mine and holding back
My hands. Cash upon the desk and holding back
My hands. Still I look through the wallet
And realize that these things are true,
That I am a better man
And I am….
I am…
Far worse.
There’s a smile on the younger picture
Of a Brad I do not know, and it’s not me,
Not one second is that picture ever
Going to be me. It is not the boy who I grew
Up to be, but another Brad that I also know,
And he does not smile like that.
There are moments, bent and twisted moments
Where you see upon your gnarled aging face
A warmer smile than perhaps you thought you had,
But old ones are gone. Careless like the way the room is
A mess, with magazines everywhere and the door wide
Open– if someone saw this they’d be ashamed,
Funny, but….I too, I am….
I am….
Stirred inside by the feeling of arranging things
And often wonder what comments ring
Inside others heads about such things as this.
Did others care that mixed nuts and M & Ms
Have now arranged themselves into a single jar
By the hand of some other Brad?
And now I am….
I am….
Waiting and expecting with every sound
For an engine to bring another girl here,
Through the door in the longer vinyl coat,
Or what seems like yellow vinyl,
I can’t touch. I have that hard time,
Like there is an aura around it that stings
My fingers and I become afraid of all these things,
For I am worse and better and ashamed.
I am….
I am…..
I am thinking mostly that my thoughts are unconnected,
And that poetry is far more selfish in nature
Than many do lead themselves to believe through pretense.
A door shuts. Maybe her. And up the stairs in minutes
And I must be done so that we can start.
Flickering images are all that hold people together
And that is odd. Every day I change.
And what point do these things all have in the end?
Ah, WCW, that man has made my brain a strange rant-filled place
And I don’t expect anyone to understand until
Perhaps my works are put in some book somewhere
With footnotes explaining how I grew crazy
Waiting for some day for a girl to walk through the door.
I don’t touch the nickels or the pennies, not even quarters
Like I used to, hand full in the jar hoping to God
Not that a single older eye would catch me.
I am….
I am…..
Invested in so much of my life
That I begin to notice others don’t invest.
Like renting a movie whenever you feel the need
To watch something you’ve seen before
Because it makes you happy. Not own–rent.
Where did all the committed smiles go
That broke taboo and face apart and showed
Something youthful and far more exuberant?
A chocolate mint in the mouth to cure the breath
And hope that tonight at 11:11 wishes do come true.
How many stars and things and superstitions
Carry people on and fail only to be invested in again?
Bank and bank and bank and bank.
I am……
I am……
Existential and transcendental and far more natural
In most minds than realists would argue I could be.
And expressionists make this thing that I often do
Into some art. But it is not art.
It is life. It is hope. It is ideals. It is wishes.
It is investments in the past and in the present
That may yet become something more and someday
May remind us why we broke back to messy rooms
And broken smiles that wear upon the face so that
We don’t smile like old men and women in our ages
But rather like grinning children.
And sometimes I am reminded of a mirror
When I wrestle with the Brad in flickering images.
I do not win nor does he,
Instead we just watch and wrestle in this way and laugh,
We laugh like brothers under the skin and in the blood,
Far more laughter than seventeen years of brother’s laughs.
It is pleasant to think that life gets better
And sad to think that life was worse.
I am far better.
I am far worse.
I am expectant of one more good thing that I need
And then I promise to be good and never worse,
But when does worse begin to fade away?
Knock knock.
Yer in luck. . . I don’t have to beat you! sunday, oct 19 @ 9:30 Wednesday, oct 22 @ 11:15 Hope to see you there! Check in if you want to do something tomorow, (i’m all alone. . . nobody here. . . no idea what to do. . . so if you are doing something fun. . . save me!) Luv ya tons Nik
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YOU WIN! you have left the most notes in my od this month!! kinda pathetic, though, i guess. . . nobody loves me :o( I guess you win a free ticket to the broomball game! luv ya nik
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wow- that poem was awesome…it explains so much about life in general too. =)
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