Dark
By
Stan Grimes
Smashwords Edition
* * * * *
Published by:
Stan Grimes on Smashwords
Dark
Copyright © 2011 by Stan Grimes
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Table of Contents
“Dark” is filled with, what else, darkness. Exposing all of the acne on life’s face is sometimes difficult but necessary in my mind to give honesty to writing. This is especially true in writing poetry. For me, poetry is nonfiction. Fiction can be one magnificent lie and every reader knows it. Nonfiction should be an expository of truth. “Dark” is just that, an expository of truth or perceived truth escaping from the mind of Stan Grimes. That’s a bit of a scary thought.
If I were to write an autobiography about my life and title it: “The Life and Times of Stan Grimes,” I doubt many people would know the main character in the book. It’s difficult enough just to write fiction and poetry with my god-given name. Who cares what I have to say and how I say it? Not many, maybe a few members of my thinning family would like to understand or decipher the insanity in their grandfather, uncle, brother, or father’s mind.
So here I am undressing my mind for you and there you are gawking at the scene of this car wreck. Sometimes you may want to turn your head and close your eyes because it’s not always a pretty sight. I can guarantee that you will walk away from this small offering challenged and not totally understanding why I insisted on publishing it. For you I say that what you read is what is. “Dark” is a only a statement of how the writer views the world around him, ugly and raw that it often appears.
Does everyone have a dark place? I believe so. In the ink black night of your mind there’s a little section of darkness. Is it evil? Not necessarily, perhaps it’s a dark memory, a dark desire, or an obsession no one knows about. A dark night with low hanging clouds hiding the moon, a dog’s howl, or the sound of movement in the trees. Darkness is scary but so is the light of day if your particular darkness pays a visit.
How obsessed this moon bent so
on exposing raw nakedness of night
disrobing nightshirts off each tree and shrub
searing holes through drawn curtains
such rude discovery
of my nudity how pale the voyeur
seeking keyholes in every cloud
respecting none oh silent rapist
goes unscathed until sliced into a quarter
until sliced into a new.
A Toast
Here’s to the blackened doorsteps
the darkened hallways tainted with hate
abandonment and disdain for the ugly side
it is the ugly side isn’t it those with meth
pocks needle tracks let’s sing halleluiah
to Jesus who dared to duck out of town at the sight.
Let’s hear a halleluiah for the hanging trees
rope burned necks of rape victims the tainted whores
of Babylon. Give praise to God for the brown skinned
woman hiding in a forgotten alley near Damascus
she is alone like graves in an isolated cemetery covered
by the poor man’s projects of war torn Detroit.
Drink up all of you without sin without shadows
in your souls glass houses each and every one.
No judgment day no Armageddon no exit no excuse
egotistical harshness to your fellow crusaders will end
on that special day when vacuum meets air
wealth is not excluded from the jaws of Mother Earth.
Dusty Desk Drawers
Albino eyes stare
from forgotten scrapbooks
longing to be remembered
but never are.
Miles of dead voices
cry to be exhumed
from wooden graves
crypts of silence.
Where do memories go
the faces the voices
enshrined
in plastic tombs forever.
The Iron Lung
If you lived in the fifties you’ll understand the invention of the iron lung. They were used to keep people alive who couldn’t breathe without artificial assistance. The sound of the iron lung was distinct and to a youngster it was much like the sound of a menacing god. Please read:
The Iron Lung.
I have seen you so many times
horizontally dead
dead to touch but labored breathing
gives your secret away.
Friends come as if to visit you
in silence they stare
they’ve never viewed electric lungs
clicking and hissing in unison.
Sometimes I felt like god.
Alone with you I wanted to remove the anvil
from your chest forever
but the electric orchestra plays on and on and on.
Eternity is a Scary Thing
I am scared sometimes in empty rooms
not certain why, maybe it’s the ghosts
of my history silently floating clouds
old haunts old guilt old miseries.
I am uncertain about the hereafter
heretofore hereby and here
it confuses me to think somewhere
in the dirt of my grave will be an angel.
Do you understand the Armageddon
the burning ring of fire Johnny Cash
whistled in the shower with June
July and August somewhere in the background?
Eternity seems to be immeasurable
in terms of finite and infinite math
Jesus played baseball for St. Louis
God built a damn somewhere in Idaho.
Evangelicals run it all someone declares
Pope Benedict polished his silver hammer
I’m lost in this man-made universe called heaven
who ratted on Moses and his Red Sea magic?
Gender
Carry your books to school
like a man on you hip
carry your sins to god
like a man in your chest.
Learn how to fix a car
like a man with a wrench
learn how to fix your heart
like a man with a laugh.
It’s a man’s world out there
so keep your genitals clean
wrap them carefully
they are precious stones.
And always smell the wind
before going out to hunt
before going out to rape
before going out to kill.
You are man indispensable
the foot soldier for all of earth
toss your helmet to the earth
and ride that Harley to hell.
Give Me Your Poor
Bitter wind cold sweeps across
a dead parking lot as an old man fumbles
with his collar and staggers against
a deadly bluster.
Cars leave trails like smoking snakes
passing him swiftly into a blackberry night
the deadly freeze enshrouds him
inviting sleep.
Poverty a chameleon
changing only
when pinstriped men feel selfish danger
man’s cold night is eternal.
Greyhound Gods
Smoke filled dungeons crowded avenues
desperation scattered along golden highways.
The gods have died they just gave up
couldn’t cope so they left town swiftly.
They left some pot a couple of beers
a few love songs and a hole in my soul.
Hangman
What possesses a man and grips his soul
squeezing to death his will to live?
What is it?
A question eternally haunting
I place my feelings upon public gallows
hung until dead the audience quite pleased
the masked hangman whispers
that’s all my friend.
Now my spirit glides across a moonless sky
staring down upon
what used to be. A thin line guards
studiously the border of reality.
It seems broken hearts can create an opus
of eternal melodies rhyming
to heartbeats of sadness so I ride this winged myth
until I fly away into myself.
It’s Time
Sing the way you used to do
you know like Neil Young
Don Henley and Bob Dylan
songs of hope and despair.
Winds of winter are coming
this old man is cold and wanting
soft breasts milk and honey
time has brought him down
Down to the rawness of aging
the hunt is over the hunt is all
driving youthful impetuous
need to mate to breed more soldiers
Foot soldiers for the black boot heels
kicking in doors eating dust for lunch
like animals trapped without a fence
with only scrapings of sustenance
Read newspapers and see the power
wrought by god’s mystical angels
their magic lies in the torn bodies
torn minds torn hearts of the black-heeled soldiers.
Loveless
Spherical madness this love
that goes around orbiting insanity
stifling brain logic
no rhyme nor reason
for my mornings and ring less suns
they’re only there
I never see them I never care
Parasite to dreamless nights
I’ve truly have become loveless.
Moral Hangover
Morning breaks like a shattered mirror
each piece reflecting a gray dawn
lying in pools beneath my eyes
I must face this canvas called living
today thoughts are dry brittle twigs
crunching beneath my walking brain
people greeting “how are you” “have a good one”
are dried blood, coagulated facades
clinging to my tongue like sour milk
arise Lazarus and walk into a pretentious world.
Obituaries
Names written in jet black once friends to others
unknown faces have died before them
some with high school pictures to cover
for emaciated faces now canvassed by satin pillows.
Friends read and say how sad how bad
step in their polished shoes gray dresses
gray suits to lose themselves in a gray crowd
a cloud of mourners uncertain how it came to this.
Lovers once warriors once, once railroad riveters
waitresses hairdressers nurses lost in a sea now
gone to heaven for sure a better place with no pain
as if pain was the whole of their lives.
It’s true you see time gives us pain gives us torture
fragile hips fragile existence living on a nickel
while youth dances at the barroom scene
drink a beer drink a toast and don’t forget the casseroles.
Randomness
I
Heat waves ripple
in a street
the young dog is lost
II
The reeds are brittle
in the wind
and the swan is pale.
III
So easily threaded
when younger
the eye is barren now.
IV
The whale sings
to emptiness
my ears are hidden.
V
Rap rap rap
ring
the shower curtain slides.
VI
Dripping with dew
the green blade
greets the morning sun.
VII
Old man in a ditch
paper sack
cars keep racing by.
VIII
In the storm so strong
a twig bends
with deep respect.
IX
Brown guitar so dusty
sitting in a corner
I knew G and G7
I never knew you
four strings left
three work
where do you go from here?
X
Black fog rolling black
olfactory
senses tasting black.
XI
A stranger knocks and enters
from Japan
new flowers grow.
XII
The neon sky awakes
a sleeping night
I am alone.
XIII
Her towel and mine
side by side
married for a moment.
XIV
A mountain stream
and the leaves
are friends forever.
XV
The mountain is high
my rope is short
the fall is brief.
XVI
Your intentions
upon entering
oft times leave with you.
XVII
Intrusions
ominous flowers
blooming.
XVIII
The murkiest of water
can offer
the clearest of reflections.
Reality vs. Fantasy
Often times my curtains stand still like soldiers
on a battlefield where comrades die
their heads bowed in desperate prayer
for want of wind for want of life.
And often times I kneel upon the war
shredded carpet of my room and pray
soon the soldiers begin their march
to poundings of my aging heart.
Closing my eyes I hear roaring of canyons
smelling scents of flesh upon the land
alas I feel the depths of my awareness
escaping into jungles of my fantasy.
I awake to see my ghostly curtains
fleeing in fear from angry winds
I awake to see crumpled sheets
remembering you’re not here and never were.
Self Esteem
There is a hole in the floor of my life
when lights go out I am afraid to walk.
Sleeping Alone
I reached out so many times
into nights linen soft
feeling only moonlit cotton
covering my naked emptiness
like snow on a childless desert
where is death, the pallbearers
are creeping into another s' nightmare?
Am I not alone?
Suicide
Sadly sifting through the hourglass
watching grains of life escape
brown eyes clashing with the sand
the old man smoked his newborn’s gift
he senses the air about him
as if a creature in a forest filled
with smells of danger dangerous
odors of urine feces and semen.
With hands that tremor like twigs
beneath a vulture’s claws, the old man
unlocked his island heart so carefully
and placed a bullet there.
Unknown
He killed and was killed in a faraway battle
he’s unknown
unknown like your neighbor’s name
unknown like the bird flying above his stone.
The unknown soldier they say how can that be?
everyone is known by someone yet he’s unknown
his tombstone broken by unknowns
some parent surely knows the unknown.
Who are we to place a blanket of dirt on comrades
naming them unknown
unknown to an unknown world distraught
with ignorance of what we know.
Wouldn’t You Know
Johnny came to our vampire dance
searching for O positive
but Johnny came marching home
wings in a tizzy, sour taste on his fangs
wouldn’t you know
it was an AB Negative night.
A Song for Suicide
My song began in a small copse of trees
behind my daddy’s farm
where miracles never ceased
I was a hero for all time.
My song began there
a song no one heard
I sang it to myself
myself and the wind.
I sang a song to my daddy’s grave
on a green hillside
with two sons tombstones bleached
a wind blows forever
How I long to be there
beside my daddy’s soul
listening to his labored heart
beating to raindrops’ rhythm
So cheat me not sweet death
allow my dirges’ wing
unchain my song eternal
please lay my life to rest.
Death Bed
Ghostly apparitions
faded in
faded out
the old man’s darkened room
distorted faces lips moving
smiling
speaking nothing.
He reached out for his lovely’s hair
flowing across unscented sheets
her eyes sparkled like diamonds in a sun
then faded.
Hey dad can you bait my empty hook
the old man smiled trying his best
the tubes damn tubes
his young son smiled
walked into the water
Water
water please
no one heard
no one came.
An old man died
beneath green glowing
flat lines
his legacy
never told.
The End
It is unknown and will remain unknown if such darkness is familiar to you. One can only guess that it does. If you’re the forever optimist my poetry may give you cause for sadness. Don’t feel sad for the writer. He only writes what he feels or what he felt when thinking about life situations and the serendipitous events which occur each waking hour of our lives. Time changes much. For the writer of such miseries memory is often fogged, recollection clogged like happy meal arteries. Much is said about much which has been forgotten. Thank you for reading and visiting. Visit with me again someday.