TFLN Poem - Cuckolding, Contemplation

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

 (434):

Maybe if I get to know him I'll stop wanting to fuck his wife so much.

Sure,

He’s got the personality

Of a stone.

But that’s just

Me

Making a hasty imprint.

People are unkempt

Yards,

Hidden from time.

Given access,

Given the permission of grace,

There’s got to be some dormant dram of color.

Because she once savored him

Because she once matched his murmured breath

And found him flavorful.

TFLN Poem - Missing, Muddled

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(401):

This is a mass text. Does anyone know where I am?

Cradling three pieces of a Lincoln Log set

And

I’m wearing what’s left of my broken pair of glasses like a

Monocle

There’s a fistful of auburn hair inside my wallet

But small ones

Curled

Got all these clues and yet, no clothes

Inside somewhere     Can’t see where the other wall meets

But it smells like pencil shavings

And fish

Please   someone feed my lizard

And match up the pic of the hair thatch

With our circle

Buy some tape or superglue

Head towards the ocean

I think I can hear the ocean

Pack my pair of emergency chinos

I’ll be waiting

Time I Whisper - First Draft of New Song

Hey.

I feel like I'm either close to shutting down or to the start of career-defining work.

Not sure what.

Winter and depression and doubt can muddy that diagnosis.

But I'm here.  I'm clicking quietly away.


Got a new song.  For me. For anyone wondering out there if it's their moment to eke out a sense of purpose, to be known.  To be bold, and compassionate, and sharing. To prosper. Even be loved.

Here we go.


lyrics

first verse

ive given up on suffering

chant
is it my time i whisper
is it my time i whisper

tucking in for winter
ill see you spring

chant

prechorus one
see me lay down
beg the night my soul to keep
know
ive never earned love good as sleep
head crooked
watch the silence fill the room
year spent chasing urequiteds sweet perfume

chorus
legs
if you gotta run
talent
if its hard won
signal
like a flare gun
lets make it binding
make a promise to finding
what were worth
dearth of motivation
moldy conversation
leaden deprivation
am i unwinding
is the madness still grinding
me

verse two
im getting smaller
take less space
chant
staring out the subway
and i see my fathers face
chant

prechorus two
see me talk less
every word its a thought grenade
you wont catch me turning round
seeing what ive made
blood
the lost traveller
my guide
ill course
ill scribble on
this little wick of pride

chorus

instrumental

verse three
ive buried loss
so calm collect
chant
still mouthing syllables
in a manner circumspect
chant

prechorus three
see my debts paid
by my spartan living style
im just a monk serving nothing but my own guile
write
and i summon in the air
a little nonsense
no one seems to care

chorus

TFLN Poem - Texts, Truth

Hey.

Here's this week's  www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(248):

if you dont talk to me in person you cant text me

If it’s not a grainy,

Sun-shy letter, stuffed in a shoebox,

Move after move,

Almost forgotten,

 Or a foggy evening

Overlooking the Edinburgh center,

Hands locked, creeping quietly between the mausoleums,

Trespassing, sharing.  Silent, yet staring at the cages

Of the dead.  (Their mortsafes, their iron ribs,

Hoping to spare one last indignity.  A leg torn here,

A body resurrected there,  

A fresh, shining corpse sold to a medical school

Otherwise. )

If it’s not

Strip poker on a gnarled shag carpet

Or

Watching you spin yourself

And shake to fits of giggles

As this boomerang in my impatient grip

Remains determined

To exist solely

As a stick,

If it’s not even a gram

Of disarming, aching hope,

If all it is,

From word to word,

(these disposable and effortless words)

Is lather,

The dull, warm compress of common talk,

And no blade,

Then stop, Now. 

Let us see each other.  Let us be loud, bracing.

And let us love clearly again.  

TFLN poem - Charity, Courtship

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(708):

seriously when did my vagina become a soup kitchen for the poor

There’s no epigram

On my goddamn mons pubis.

Emma Lazarus didn’t scribble out some

American Exceptionalism between

My thick and curlies.

Ergo,

I don’t want the tired,

The wretched

The homeless, the tempest-tost .

Yearn to be free away from me.

My clit wasn’t supposed to end up

Like a dented can of apple pie filling

In a food drive.   Lacquered in dust. Pawed at with

Itchy boredom by the disenfranchised.  No tools or time

To make a decent, thoughtful meal. 

But, what’s left?

Where’s my wild-eyed man who needs no saving,

No rehabilitation.  Someone who smiles

In the dark, when there’s no one left to please.

A man with a landscape of scars, thin white constellations

Of open, examined suffering.    Not hidden.  Not raw. 

Ornaments of kindness.     Where is that earnest, unblinking love…

TFLN Poem - Dorm Sex, Debate Skills

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(202):

Is 36 too old to fuck a college student? THIS IS BOTH IMPORTANT AND TIME SENSITIVE

I’m in the cab, Simon.

Got maybe twenty-six minutes left to reason me down.

Otherwise, I shutter off the phone,

Pop a Tic-Tac,

Make it to her dorm,

Spend the weekend straddling the top of a rickety twin bunk bed.

Fighting for dominance with her stuffed animals.

Rules. Of course.  I know – divide in half, add seven.

And that gives me, what?  26? 25?

Sex math’s hard.  And fact upon fact,

By mid-twenties,  (twenty-one minutes,

And no, don’t play the dignity card –

That’s like trying to start a fire

With wet leaves)

Women wise up.  Seek more.  See that ramshackle

Stare on my face, see me as a tourist of

Human experience.    (sixteen minutes, Simon –

You’ve got to really flex your rhetoric, buddy.

Been a dry spell.  Some goddamn

Annus horribilis )

And if love’s a tomb of compromise,

If I still, years later,

Wake ragged, screaming,

And I justify yesterday’s hateful word,

Each blow.  Each artful punishment.

Clearly, something deserved and true.

If there is no anger in response to that decade,

That child who earned no comfort or protection,

But only a well of manicured sadness,

Then let me live as a charming ghost.

I'll cope.

Be of service.

Entertain. Whisper.  Listen.

Hold court and self-protect.

It’s time.   I’ve paid the fare.

There’s a spittle of snow starting.

Too hot to stick.  Just makes a flitter and melts.

Talk soon.

 

New player on ODES AND NONSENSE - King of the Hobos Cast Soundtrack -

Hey.

There's a cool new player on the website.  You can stream and listen to all of my original songs written for my one man hobo musical: KING OF THE HOBOS .

Heck, if you'd like to keep some of it for your very own, each track's available at Bandcamp for a buck each, and the whole album's as cheap as 7 dollars.  Go to it!

To stay updated on new information about this show, "Like" our Facebook page!

 - Jara

TFLN Poem - Force, Fallout

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(310):

Sorry I punched you in the throat. You got in my way. You understand.

Mass.

Acceleration.

They couple.   The muscles contract.

Force yields.    

I cook in the resolute dark, Nana.

Can’t draw candy until it’s cool and still.

Every stir, every cricket in the mosaic of night,

(that shift and lens of cloud-sight where moon shines

On flakes of dead, whispery skin)

Shapes what I make.

No room for surprise.

You watched your telenovela,

You had your cinnamon tea,

You wrapped your brown, scuffed robe

Against your frame

And you went to bed.

Not to wake until 5 or so.

That’s what’s done.

I closed my eyes.  A moment.  Thought again of

Typing condolence letters in the Green Zone,

Boxes of ash, slightly warm,

Laden on my desk.

Working at night.  I was not prepared

By your footsteps

Or your shadowy hug.

And I’m sorry, Nana.  

It’s just a motion my body makes.

The chocolate seeks optimal care.

 

TFLN Poem - Fans, Friends

(908):

She dumped me and then asked if I wanted to come to her improv show. Fuck theatre majors, man.

It’s this.

People come in two types.

Some want to be your friends, your company.

Some just want you as their fans.

Seat fillers.

Lasting validation lapping the flames of their candle of pride.

And if I’ve learned

A lick of anything

In this score and sixteen winters,

It’s this:

I’m not fan-chasing anymore.

You want a wall between us, fine.

Tight smile and a pause where confession should eke itself a home.

Too firm handshakes on the train, overly pitched exclamations to

Get Coffee Sometime.   Doors close.  Empty calories of time.

Me?  I’ll make with upstart living

Finding artists who are broken,

Friendly, crooked, open, not always sure.

And I’ll give my dire and impeccable word for them.

Create for them.

Pine for them.  Watch their tiny struggles as they slide their work

Into place.  Bear them witness as they grow.