18+

18+

by N3ko

cracks
in the pavement,
like those in my head -
alone, I walk on:

followed, turning to
following; their tracks
(sweat-dew-soaked) dusty.
morning seven-thirty:
chattering, their voices
float: two. happy.

I lift my head.
endless paradoxes engulf
and drown me, torrents
of melancholy :( meant to be)
"accepted or rejected?" I still am
myself, alone I walk on:

my shadow beside me
thinks i'm too dull, thinks
i'm too dumb, i think to myself:
"halitosisshortdumpystalker
blurwackosociopathgeek = me"
therefore,i Am

weird - how they avoid
and stare back, and laugh -
how funny, a portrait of the inmate
as a young artist, raving paranoid
on and on about mushrooms and Alice,
butterflies and eggs, Hamlet & Juliet:

cracks in the pavement
(Lo, the oracle bones indicate
the hexagram DUL AN: trouble
arising as incessant rain and thunderstorms.
Avoid sliding doors and curry chicken.
Come back in three days
if you still can't feel
your teeth) are cracking up my head.

***

i go on, brazen, driving
rhythm-foaming-mouthed rearing -
on the flat whiteness
of the shore; only fragments remain
of your smile, sad
resignation - playing along
over the dim-swelling tide,your song:
silver sharp, seldom heard, ceases.

shake shake shake that old tattered rag:
it's an imitation, such a lovely notion -
that one can write with one's own mind
possessed - i foretell the hour or the day,

which i know not, being of insubstantial importance
like a half-misread canto of misrepresented misery
in my mind, i rule the barren plains of bone,
wiping my eyes with a rag, leaden verses whirling through my head -
no wonder the tears are leaking
out! dear, i have folded
many, many - for you, just for you: cranes
out of reams of nonsense (all
the above) were reenacted specially

for you (i avert my stare,
the kaleidoscope of vision
through coffee-hazy eyes, i ignore
the shadow beside the sunrise, yet again i strain
my neck again to steal a glimmer
of you, through the sheer starry distance.
for you, i hope and want) to crack up my head

© N3ko 2009

Listen to this poem:

N3ko is born and bred Ipohite, rarely logically coherent, terminally sceptical, usually found reading something, often found in a state of hunger or starvation.