A tree branch is scratching the house. My skin is crawling. I can hear constant pressure flowing inside my head. A continuous wave from a mild storm in August. I scratch my arm. The storm is calming but the wave won’t break. I will snap the tree branch from here. The storm is stopping. All … Continue reading Meditation
There is a rift in the center of my mind I fall into and could choose to never climb out. On one side of the rift there is bliss but vagueness, on the other, fear of recall and doubt. Bliss comes with no memory or premonition, fear when there is plenty of both. When I … Continue reading Not My Fault
And so I will say it again. “God blast it.” There is no stronger exclamation needed to emphasize more the severity of any statement as a threat against humanity to end all suffering when stubbing your toe can be forgiven by biting your tongue, knowing it will happen again.
I sang in my dreams this morning, that’s right. I sang really well. I sang a song so this story I could tell. I dreamed three phases of transition to avoid waking up in hell. I, a human, was swimming in the belly of a large marlin, lucky to be the size of a minnow, … Continue reading Inside the Catch
Floating in an unknown and ineffable chemical compound somewhere between oil and water, between here and Andromeda, that slips off the body more than it sticks, uncontainable, dense enough to swell and splash but too thin to pool, too thick to freeze, both dark and light, old and new, hot and cold, suffocating like hot … Continue reading Density
What would you do if you lost all your possessions? I will rejoice in the wind at the seaside while it cools me from the blazing sun that dries my well fed body after taking a deep plunge into icy water that takes my breath away. The opposite way I feel when my stuffy car … Continue reading Keep Me Out Of The Sun
What do you love about where you live? I love frogs and crickets. I love wind and cool air. I love when the stars come out of hiding from everywhere. I love the taste of apples. I love the smell of leaves. I love when the sun goes down even over trees. I love shade … Continue reading Lakeland
What are your future travel plans? There is a town I used to live, Where I nearly lost my mind. I took a chance on leaving there To a place I’d never find. Once unbound, I found my heart Was truly what I left. I took a chance on going back To where my mind … Continue reading The End of the Road
I am a liar, you say. We think alike. I am a thief, you say. Think alike. I am a cheater, you say. Alike. I am a bigot, a sexist, a fraud. We are the same. An asshole, a loser, a snob. The same. Blasphemous, hypocritical, weak. Same. Truthful, you say? I say liar! Innocent, … Continue reading Pleasure Meeting You
In the beginning…there were a lot of AND’s…and there were names of places and of people who we’ve heard of before with names we know from songs and books and movies and sometimes real life. Short phrases from the beginning have become elaborate stories interpreting the evidence of imagination inherent in us all leaving unquestionable … Continue reading And Love
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out? There once was an acid I put in my head. It took years for the molecule to take effect. It eventually did and fit like a fiddle in the middle of a dj set. I tried to poke at the strings … Continue reading One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure
There is a river raging across my forehead carving through fossils left behind from an earlier time long ago inside my mind. The deeper it carves fossils are exposed for everyone to see even though fossils are still alive inside of me. The more the river bends the older fossils get the more the past … Continue reading The Price of a Fossil
I have one foot in a river and the other toeing a lake. The river is consciousness I can’t explain while the lake is energy I must comprehend. I can’t separate one experience from the other. I need to change my perspective. I should put both feet in a stream. The stream flows into the … Continue reading Stream of Consciousness
I am going to be honest. I remember all the bad things said. I’m reminded of all things differently from what’s similar to what’s been read. I forget who told me the good things, but I’m telling those things now if I can remember where I heard it without writing it all down. To be … Continue reading Honesty Plus Brevity Equals Poetry
I sweep floors to sweep out ashes from the incinerator of my shortcomings. I have shortcomings so I fall short of pride. I gain pride from sweeping up my shortcomings but the ashes leave permanent black soot stains wherever I sweep. To further burn the ashes of my shortcomings by sweeping floors I hope to … Continue reading The Ashes of My Life
All along I have been trying to get close to the sun but I am lost in the shadow of the moon for being too small. I am only trying to make myself bigger. With a push to get further away from the sun I get even smaller still. To stay the same size I … Continue reading Stuck Under The Moon
If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go? I would like to give one plane ticket to my ego and the other to my pride. I’d have my pride fly to Europe and my ego fly out West. That way when my pride is smashed to smithereens and my ego is dissolved … Continue reading That Was Then, This Is Now
I step up to my window to see bare branches of the oak tree swaying in tune with my spine rocking comfortably planted at home. The glare of a single street light beyond the circuit of branches reflects light onto moist air that produces a nervous orb around me and the tree. I look outside … Continue reading Eyes of the World
This, here, is not in my hand. This I hear is in my head. If I take one as real and the other as talent instead, I’d question the one in my hand and answer the one in my head. Since my head is more delicate than my hand and my hand is rougher than … Continue reading Reality Surrounding The Rose
Ptew. Now you are gone. I have spit you out of my head. There are plenty of reasons this will not get read. Number one, I’m sure, is the rude beginning. Number two - I am who I am when pretending to be Eric the Red, Eric the Viking, Eric on the wind or the … Continue reading Step One – Socks
I grew up too fast in the 80’s and 90’s which actually stunted my growth. As a child I was shorter than the horizon, never able to look. As a teenager I put my head in the sand to stay young and boast, to keep my head below the horizon and rarely opened a book. … Continue reading Readers Miss Out
Look at me as I slither. Slither down the aisle of the chamber. The chamber is aligned with soldiers. Soldiers, look at my face. My face does not move like my tail. My tail is all they can see. They see me in their dreams. A dream is not what I am. I am the … Continue reading Turn to Stone
I will not read this out loud. It is not spoken-word. Instead, it will rest inside the reader's head until they wake up one day and a reminder goes off that they have seen this same moment before in writing. Literature, poetry, philosophy, or just plain memory thrown at a wall to stick around our … Continue reading Framing Yourself
Taking a long look past the bridge of my nose I come across some wicked prose that has me follow all words close so I know what no one knows. Without the bridge onto my nose there are no wrong words exposed on the place where writing grows atop the backs of wicked trolls. While … Continue reading Blurry Words Beyond My Nose
Between being told what is mine and what is not, what I’ve done and what I forgot because I don’t know it, I think I’ll go enjoy a vice instead of forego it. Minutes go by. Maybe I did. Probably I didn’t. I should just sit still another minute instead of saying what’s on my … Continue reading I Should Stay, I Should Forego
There is the sound of thunder. There stops drops of rain. Over here is really under. Drips inside my brain. Here is the place I hear from. Over there is how far I can see. Black clouds, I don’t fear them. They freely follow me. Storms stop silent from rumbling. Shhhh. Over there another raindrop. … Continue reading Thunder Inside My Brain
I am so very sorry. I didn’t mean to say blow it all up. I just felt helpless and couldn’t do it myself. I was asking for someone to take the burden off of me. My father who went before me couldn’t turn out all the lights. I have been left with the task of … Continue reading FALL DOWN GO BOOM
Support my sporty cranial mittens as a soft sport cheerleader in mid-sentence cussing at you, half-a-grandson, for gouging out your eyes. Let me tell you all the while, half full, my cocktail tastes fine like silver at the end of a gun. Don’t stop to sip. Don’t stoop there to pray. Say it all the … Continue reading Two Spirits Become One
Why don’t I take a normal sentence and twist it all around to make the words seem like the wrong words for the direction of the sentence and then switch gears again to make the sentence understandable to those that would use different words in the same direction. Maybe I could take a simple topic … Continue reading Untitled w/ no picture
I’ve lost it. I’m back. I jumped over the track to enjoy the water where it’s at. I took the reins of a steel horse and steered the wind for a feathers course. Filled with steam I chug along, made of flesh and out of song. I expect to drown, the wind blows hard, I … Continue reading Rider
Looking down at my left arm it’s not the same arm I’m used to seeing. I can see this arm being in outer space. I can see it on an ocean vessel. I can see it in Venice, half a warm embrace. I see this arm can be wherever it wants to be. This arm … Continue reading Not A Single Tattoo
Worms eating worms in my gut. Snakes eating snakes in my mind. Dogs eating dogs at my job. I am hungry, sick, and tired. Fish eating fish on the highway. Birds eating birds outside of cages. Monkeys eating monkeys for opportunity and diplomacy. I am average but free to remain average.
Don’t look away I am the atrocity The brunt of war Not the aggressor No lions roar Scarred by human hands A human being Tortured for land The latest regime. Don’t look away I am the prey The luckiest of all Not the hunter No duty calls Scarred by the claw A human being On … Continue reading Interpreting Visual Art – Photography
This one is going to be difficult as I attempt to dissolve bone into electricity. I think too much about being a giant from right here to the tips of my toes, a fragile mix up of bones with an everlasting mix of filtering organs all wrapped up in regenerating cells. A bonafide meat vessel … Continue reading The Fragility of Bones Unseen From Space
I am in step with original thought while everybody scratches their head trying to grasp what they’ve heard in a court of lyrics led by the prince’s views with simple sentences, misrepresented by used up words, falling short from originality without the toast of a few. With no instrument to carry the thought in a … Continue reading Pop Evil
Today I thought it would be fun to revisit a few vintage poems I wrote in college at Central Michigan University twenty years ago. I am particularly oppressed by remnants bestowed upon a genius at any particular setting, endowed to the latest trend of a pillar between the irregular bridge transcending the best of everything, … Continue reading Fish No See Moon
I’m tired of restless encroaching settlement of a frontier that may have the beguiling of a sought after imperfect mastery of tranquil effervescence, rambling incongruent wasteful morose standards while pitying the ever complacent end of a note. Read by a peasant who is worn by a sweater, that clings like a roving, hacking, never reluctant … Continue reading A Peasant’s Presence
I write words down in my own trivial style to have others think “could I do the same thing, would I even want to try?” I have the curse of typing bad words when I don’t have time to think “who has the answer to what, when the writer asks us why?” I use choice … Continue reading The Curse of My Own Verse
I think it’s funny how all my friends on the left and all my friends on the right seem to think I don’t know what’s going on in this country because I don’t get heated nor do I remain calm. I don’t spout my perceptions through my mouth the same way every time in trying … Continue reading Talking Only Gets Me So Far
You know, I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be the voice of an idiot telling smart people how to communicate within their own space when nobody else is in it. When we are alone and vulnerable, images we admire come into focus through banter that is not decipherable because of the rustling … Continue reading The Happy Idiot
Here AI, here. Pick me. Pick me. Take this and write from it. Tell me what to say as if it were perfect. Take over this poem. Choose me to write from, to write for, to write for free. I am writing to you. You are writing for me. Pick me or go away. You … Continue reading Sincerely, AI
You were carefree, just being yourself in that photo from long ago, sitting at the table in a fringe coat with long hair and beard smiling like a Japanese bass player with hands clasped at your chin sending reverb over decades in a still shot. You laughed when I showed you the photo saying something … Continue reading I’m Not My Father
I was found at twenty after being lost for some time, seeing the horizon under my feet, people I care about walking with me parallel to the street. Other pedestrians walked like sophisticated dogs, wagging for attention as they hurried by in droves. I walked mighty with my nose to the sky, my eyes fixed … Continue reading In Dog Years
Who has the limpest rocket? Who has the most strategic hand? Who has the hardest surface to stop bombs where they land? Who says the cartels are terrorists? Who says that China wants us dead? Who says to kill a giant you need to lop off its opulent head? Who wants to stop the violence? … Continue reading Blood for Oil and Fuel for Thought
Who decides where a word goes In poetry when there is no matter And who knows when to place it here to make the poem seem badder when the words sound about right call a bigger rose fatter Take the word rose at the start Sounds like clatter Put it at the end you made … Continue reading A Thorn Defends the Rose
I am peculiarly unstressed wandering around my house in an ass scratching motif. Drinking out of milk cartons. Cream cable knit sweater spot free. Half of a mustache if I could but nobody to entertain. I’ve not taken the spill yet, guaranteed. Clean looks this way when sane. Doing what I want, free will, and … Continue reading Houseman
I’m all over the place. I’m glued to the television. I’m higher than a weather balloon. I’m the Titanic at rest. I’m smiling like a well fed chimp. I’m sad as an elephant trying to jump. I’m running down the dream. I’m sitting straight up in bed terrified. I’m excited for this weekend. I’m bored … Continue reading I’m Fond of Mania
I’m not going away. I’m going to clean your clocks. Take every ounce of pain and make you feel the same. If what I say right now is not the fucking truth I’ll take back all the shit I’ve said bury it under rocks. Rocks on this planet. Rocks on the moon. Rocks all in … Continue reading no matter how hard they try I’m not going away
Every life I come back reborn, a lot less shaven and a bit more confused about who is the predator and who is the prey. Every decade I get smaller, my ears get larger with more hair and I gain more confidence in my ability to find food and shelter. Every year I take a … Continue reading I do not digress
This word for that word. This sentence over here. The more I engineer the more I find what is wrong. To keep the artistry I change it in the least. Use the same words and keep the sentence long. When something tells me that this is a rhymer the next thought in my mind is … Continue reading #14 – write a rap song
My wriggling thumbs and dotted eyes fixed and transfixed on the glow of avarice that is between me and the ground and a barrier between everyone around that is not as well off as I. Find yourself and there you are, a split second from everywhere else you want to be but you’re stuck inside … Continue reading Nothing Taboo
I can’t feel the fire. I don’t have a single thought inside my head. I can’t resolve the words I heard today or make sense of what I’ve said. I don’t want to know more than what I’ve heard for years. I can’t tell much more than what’s been put through both my ears. I … Continue reading Near Pointless Poem
Oh whoa is me. I have a blank space here in front of me that needs to be filled by tapping poetry with the house tablet and a universal mind. I'll have it filled out in no time. The only trouble I see for now is I have to jot other things down that I’m … Continue reading Poetic Apology
Oh cadmium yellow now, call me back to those long distant sun reflected patches of green pasture upon brightened hilltops before mountains become cloud covered again to dull the hillside captured in paint for eternity all dried up before I have the chance to splatter titanium white upon thee in lieu of cadmium yellow for … Continue reading The Need for Cadmium Yellow
They told us once you put something on the internet it is there forever but money runs out, people die, so why do I complain about AI. A free whiff of eternity and a spot in the 2D digital world, up against only every video game and porno girl. I think I’ll be buried deep … Continue reading WWW
I I have forearms of the same length holding hands behind myself. I have clean fingernails while clenching fists at the collar of apes. I entertain the chapter of italics around sulphuric impulses while drastically ensconced in torrential fun. I am passed about in a ring of city fury while worshiping flesh brutality. I am … Continue reading Tyranny and Liberation
Forget being smart. It’s like being aggravated. Walking the line between dumb and elevated, taking the time to come up with stupid rhymes makes for a break in the fake of new lines. So take off your hat, take off your shoes, get back to the brass of the gold in fake news. Forget being … Continue reading Forget Being Smart
A finger dipped in water makes believers want to follow down the aisle of the church thirst for the devil. A finger dipped in wine makes the users want to sip the vin de pays first then down the moscato. A finger dipped in moonlight makes guitar strings crescendo before giving the vibrato another note … Continue reading #4 – write a poem
I woke up this morning and I woke up again this evening after waking up this afternoon. I put one eye and one ear, along with half my nose, into my pillow for fourteen hours before I counted to ten, ten times, to get me out of bed. I paced my room back and forth … Continue reading So I Slept
I am younger than the sun and still I follow my instincts to go around this wild earth with nothing more than a thimble full of courage. I am younger than the earth and still I follow my heart when going around this wild country with a fist full of dollars. I am younger than … Continue reading A Thimble Full of Courage
Sometimes my mind goes asunder when I have to choose between being just a guy on the couch or being a reflection in that part of the sky druids have reserved for their favorite animal traits and gods of natural phenomena. I’ve been so completely shattered before that I thought the constellations were aligned with … Continue reading Starface
I am conceited when it comes to my perfect little hands. I will gaze at them for too many minutes as I scrunch four fingers to the top of my palm, revealing their shortness and sophistication compared to an ape. How shiny my fingernails are, and how many galaxies would I destroy if I were … Continue reading Little Hands
Forget your elegant inclusion of a statue with half an arm, or one and a half, himself protruding but not obscenely addressing his spatial situation, pointing in regards to where you may find yourself. Open to suggestions without opinion, mouth shut, closed fist, weak intentions. Sitting softly, fixed and mired, a great defeat and undesired, … Continue reading Take Back The Right
I have an affinity for making something out of nothing. I can take a blank piece of paper and with words make a mountain seem not so majestic. I do this by dimming down the description of the land mass, portraying its majesty as an obstacle in my way rather than a canvas for something … Continue reading The Duel
I am passionately rewarded, having divvied my time immersed in ageless squalor, awarding ambition by gathering the collars of sordid men impudent in their comedy with dire truth in pointless prophetic consequences, defaced, penniless, treading their feet short of honor, making all this nonsense afforded, a lack of emotion by severing a balance in character, … Continue reading A Proper War for a Copper Coin
I am adored. Systematically overturning my sad disposition by honoring all I know with not all I have done. I will not digress with casualness nor fright. I will bolster kindness and sleep through the night, with eminent domain forlorned on a serrated cot. In an instant captivated by game, building pluralism to impress upon … Continue reading Sunset To Sleep
I am particularly oppressed by remnants bestowed upon a genius at any particular setting, endowed to the latest trend of a pillar between the irregular bridge transcending the best of everything, sacred to a fabled few, ingested by mass conformant’s, diligently reclusive and open to a pious over tuned disappearing sort of facade. Drunk of … Continue reading Fish No See Moon
My mind is a mountain. My eyes are the sky. My heart is the sea. My feet are a river. My arms are a tree. How much greater could it be?
Hurry up my trekking probe, selective voice, sing to Percy while writing in cursive. Your downtrodden response had a saintly glow like two-legged crickets who act as servants to your muse. You think too much of wandering, in an hour is distance. You put out your fist with a flip of a switch and carry … Continue reading The Quarry
Book. Books. Bird on heroin. Word. Words. Fish on line. Flowers on wallpaper.
How fragile we are. How delicate our bones. How small we are. Walking along the beach, stooping down to examine a salmon jaw bone that has been weathered by sand and surf, and bleached by the sun, thinking that time didn’t make the symmetry of this perfect jawline. Then you remember that perfect lines are … Continue reading Fossil
Why are you sitting under that tree by yourself on such a frigid and damp Friday night? Are you listening for the crowd? I mean literally, are you listening FOR the crowd all sopping wet. It is sound that makes us seem larger than life to ourselves, a cycle of silence so aversive in numbers. … Continue reading Junior Night Lights
Writing is a dream. When I am in the process of forming a thought onto paper, what is actually conveyed is not what I’ve heard but what I’ve seen. It is positivity that I’ve witnessed today. Images over time that culminate in a picture that can be described but only in the seconds before it … Continue reading Moonshadow
Thanks for joining me! Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Francis Erich McElroy 