Sick Poems (May 2010)

Transition One

The Atomic Nucleus (Family)

A Pamela

The cold dark spotlight roving that she seeks
Is the inverse of a prison break
So as she shimmies under fences
Crawls along beshitted pipe
She cannot bear that she’s not lit
That she is hidden from the crowd
Forever re-arriving
She digs herself inside
Back inside again
Back to that soft gray cell

A David

He spools his heart out into shapeless skeins
A kind of kindness far less kind, more blind
The threads enjoin; they molder - then
They form a burlap sack
As the drawstring closes over
That hot darkness takes him under
Forever re-arriving
He finds himself inside
Back inside again
Back to that nice gray hell

Michael

His toys are just outside his growing reach
In pools of light that dim each passing day
Eternity has shrunk: One size fits all
Imaginary friend
At least a poltergeist of one
Waits to play unfathomable games
Forever re-arriving
He turns himself aside
Back aside again
Back to some gray pale swell

Transition Two

The Protons (Positively Charged)

The neighborhood bartenders hated to see these two coming
She hung on his arm until she’d had a few
And then she spun around the room
Like a top with sharpened edges
While he sat back and laughed until she spun right back to him
Often as they poured the drinks the barkeeps thought -
“Where the hell’d they get the cash?”
As Carla pointed fingers, Gary calmed her lash
And the folks who lived below them rolled their eyes and wrote them notes
Their friends all fell away until they were huddled all alone
Two alone against the cold
Then there were two
Then they were one

Transition Three

The Neutron (Neutrally Charged)

1. She’s lessened all her loads, it’s true
2. She’s faced her demons down
3. But like a phantom limb they linger
4. Like the locusts lie in wait
5. So she sweeps the forest floor
6. She ignores that ghostly itch
7. And a faint echo of sin
8. Brings to her voice a hitch
9. Jeannie will share it with you
10. She must, you see, she must
11. Or else all that weight will reappear
12. Even though it’s made of dust

Transition Four

The Electron (Negatively Charged)

Circling the energy
Waiting for a path
No interior direction
No particle ignored
All the world’s a game
Energy encircled
Everything is will
All be black and white
Gray is for the weak
There is no doctor brown

QE3 (Winter '03)

Her name was Betsy
She was born Queen Elizabeth
I'm still sequestered in
Her empire long gone but festering
Yeah, I'm still court jestering

So tired of kneeling down here on the ground
Bowing and scraping to the crown
Banished from my sovereign land
Dismissed with a wave of her hand
You shouldn't draw lines in quick sand

Fa-diddle-dee-da-die
Fa-diddle-dee-da-die

Read your history books to see how long its been
You can hear the kind of song its been
Longing for nothing at all again
Sipping coffee at the mall again
I step off the pillar and I fall again
My head hits the pillow and she calls again
But its just Chuck Barris banging on the gong again
Reminding me how wrong I've been
But I would do it all again
You know I would do it all again

Now all the laughter is canned
Burn me like a book that's banned
At least then the ash would rise above the trees
Drift slowly towards the sea
I always knew I'd be a royal we
Fa-diddle-dee-da-die
Fa-diddle-dee-da-die

Her name was Betsy