The best...and worst of EvilToasterElf

EvilToasterElf

leftovers

my destiny sits between
two slices of bread in
a half eaten bologna sandwich
sobering up behind coffee beans
in a shower of hot mustard

piled in front are my
mashed potato poems
in a tupperware square
but they were too milky
and were forgotten
pinned under my sister’s
crying bowl of peas, garnished
with a second place medal
in the 400 meter relay

fantasies of epic verse
crescendo in a squarish
piece of aluminum foil
from a two week old
second helping of tri-tip
steak, which was overcooked
left in the oven an hour too
long because the recipe was lost
in a romantic cookbook

a broken finger which
stole my baseball career
was piled under stuffing
preventing my curveball from
slipping out of the strike
zone, and the bastard
took it over the left field wall

my father’s retirement fund
wades through cranberry sauce
sinking in coagulated slush,
like the shores of new jersey
so far from his beloved
Caribbean beaches

a spot shines on a grandfather
of a turkey leg, slowly dissolving
the meat into a hard inoperable
growth, not fit for the dog
we threw it in the incinerator
where the ashes scattered over
mounds of garbage

EvilToasterElf

Vacuuming

When we were finished she rolled over
and fell immediately asleep. My maroon
cotton sheets separating her naked body
from my sweat covered eyes, which

formed tears, like those forced from peeled
onions. Was it that bad?
“No,” she said, “It’s just like vacuuming.”
It’s not the size that counts I thought, it’s
how you vacuum. From that night on

all I can think about during sex is my
penis rolling around the carpet, picking
up dirt, but my room’s still always a mess.
Were my kisses just dustbusters? My backrubs
a lint brush?

When we grinded to Sean Paul, or Cisco all
I could think about was a night of passion with
me, her, and my 8 pound Orec. It fits under the bed
when you’re done, no bags, no mess.
So now I’ve moved on, onto tiled bathrooms and a
hardwood foyer and living room.
I figure when I get old enough, all I’ll be doing
is mopping anyway.

EvilToasterElf

Right After Breakfast

The white drains out of your eyes
and hazel fills the void.
Pupils flare like a drifting lunar
capsule a hundred thousand miles from your smile,

crest white, oxidized teeth glow in
harmony, arm & hammer gums resolute
against the backdrop of plaque armies, roaming
across the wasteland of pancakes and bacon
on your tongue.

Which lashes your upper lip, tastes remnants
of Mrs. Butterworth and greedily slops it up.
Your lower lip covers the top and the top covers the
bottom, facial tectonics drive the continents
of your cheeks, momentary valleys of dimples
emerge and disappear.
Cool crumbs attach to moisture and fall like
boulders into an earthquake.
A glass of milk vanishes, it bumps
your adam’s apple out an inch
on the way down to your dark stomach.

The smell hangs in the air, from the empty
plate on the table and the taste in your mouth
into the cobwebs of your nostrils. How your face contorts,
those hazel ships shut their airlocks,
while lips twist into a smirk
Lines gather around your nose and the corner of your eyes,
and the room fills with the sound of your inhaling,
drawing in the lingering scent
of the best god damned breakfast you’ve ever had.

And how your face changes when you sit up,
to the sound of chains rattling.
How your eyes fall to the floor, when the key turns the bolt.
How your lower jaw hangs like a derelict ship after a squall,
when the priest begins reading the litany.
How the stubble on your face, hidden in the ecstasy of breakfast, is now clear,
like the growing shadow behind as you stood up, blocking the room’s single light.
How the echo of your footsteps down that long corridor, are the only thing I’ve ever
seen bring tears meandering like drunk drivers down your cheeks.
How the proudest man I’d imagined myself to be walks back bent, defeated so utterly, and right after breakfast.

EvilToasterElf

Bibliobella wrote:

The Drive

Stale pictures fill are these the best words?
the pavement
between glimpses of the road, stolen
from the storm by windshield wipers
at high speed. And I drive through it. redundant

I drive through the rain picking this verb should mirror previous action
through memories
scattered like high beams in the evening fog.
She twirls through those memories, By including “She” in this paragraph it distances the reader. If “She” is written in the next paragraph to start “She” would have more importance. Depends on how you want “She” perceived.

a parade of cameos in a silent movie, black and white should these three words be after silent?
,

grainy as the songs that flicker at the edge
of the broadcast signal’s strength. Classic rock,
classical symphony, and a talking head playing
the rusty strings of Bible verse, all fight for clarity. and She, too?


And in that static XXX song plays, I couldn’t figure out this line for a while. Did you want pauses?

booming down the rails on a genetic word seems forced train
straight from childhood wonder good

through the still quiet redundant/need opposite of wonder or near opposite?
of fatherhood.

She sits with our child wrapped
in the ambiguous white linens,
smiling a full-toothed smileadds an animal-esque element, even though I know it is meant to mean joy.
,
a cobblestone path to my our?
little girl,
who hoola-hoops around guard rails
and hop-scotches over the double yellow,
and do you need this word?
I follow her.

I follow her Reebok puddle jumps until good

footfalls fade into dry pavement.
My windshield wipers hum, need the comma?
against the blonde strands of dawn
kneading shadowy rainbows into the clouds,
as and?
she fades into the distant mountains. first time we read of mountains.

The Drive

Old photographs fill the pavement
between glimpses of the road, stolen
from the storm by windshield wipers
at high speed. And I drive

through the rain picking through memories
scattered like high beams in the evening fog.
She twirls through those memories,
a parade of cameos in a silent movie, black and white,

grainy as the songs that flicker at the edge
of the broadcast signal’s strength. Classic rock,
classical symphony, and a talking head playing
the rusty strings of Bible verse, all fight for clarity.

And in that static one song plays,
bursting through the mind’s photo album
straight from childhood wonder
into the still quiet of fatherhood.

Where my wife wraps her
in the ambiguous white linens,
smiling a full-toothed smile,
a cobblestone path to my little girl,
who hoola-hoops around guard rails
and hop-scotches over the double yellow.
and I follow her

Reebok puddle jumps until
footfalls fade into dry pavement.
My windshield wipers hum
against the blonde strands of dawn,
kneading shadowy rainbows into the clouds,
as she fades into the distant mountains.


Any better?

Ali

EvilToasterElf wrote:

The Drive

Old photographs fill the pavement
between glimpses of the road, stolen
from the storm by windshield wipers
at high speed. And I drive

through the rain picking through memories
scattered like high beams in the evening fog.
She twirls through those memories,
a parade of cameos in a silent movie, black and white,

grainy as the songs that flicker at the edge
of the broadcast signal’s strength. Classic rock,
classical symphony, and a talking head playing
the rusty strings of Bible verse, all fight for clarity.

And in that static one song plays,
bursting through the mind’s photo album
straight from childhood wonder
into the still quiet of fatherhood.

Where my wife wraps her
in the ambiguous white linens,
smiling a full-toothed smile,
a cobblestone path to my little girl,
who hoola-hoops around guard rails
and hop-scotches over the double yellow.
and I follow her

Reebok puddle jumps until
footfalls fade into dry pavement.
My windshield wipers hum
against the blonde strands of dawn,
kneading shadowy rainbows into the clouds,
as she fades into the distant mountains.


Any better?

I like it either way.I feel as though a poem can work,if the reader has the thought conceived of the poets job during the reading of the poem,which naturally should take place.If these words ,which seem as though they don't necessarily FIT, are read aloud with emphasis,the poet's piece could work.
Poetry isn't so much just written word TO ME,it has to do a lot with the individuality of the writer him or herself-looks given while read,appearance, and where the poet can lead you.But THATS JUST MY OPINION>I only had highschool poetry and chapbook publishments and 1 creative writing class.
I am by far no expert,but thats just my opinion by seeing street poets,classical poets, and educators recite-??????:)
allison vigh

Being Enlightened

EvilToasterElf wrote:

Distant Survivor

I. September 11, 2001

When I turn on the TV,
I see black smoke
billowing from the North Tower.
It is the first time I felt
all of my senses attune
to a single object
and my mind blanket itself
in thoughtless dark.
My hands do not fidget,
and no words emerge
from the crevices
of my subconscious,
to plume like fires that burst
from shattered windows.
I am distantly aware of screams
kneading themselves
into the blank walls around me.
As my mind begins to thaw
with the realization that my building,
the South Tower, was unscathed
the second plane hit.
College life is beginning to set in,
but I know that my life begins
at this moment
and I would meet it
in the position I find myself now.
Helpless,
and on my knees.


II. Severed Elevator

I rolled from my bed as the coffin of night slowly raised its lid.
The sun always hit the windshield dead on,
for five minutes of the drive to the train station.

I parked far from the platform,
because the 6:50 is the third train of the morning.
Michael Asher, Jeremy’s father, also took the 6:50,
also worked in the World Trade Center.
We sat together and talked or slept through the ride to work.

He spoke to me one morning of abandoned mines
he had explored with his girlfriend in California,
the shafts filled with cold water and the debris
of miner’s lives. That girlfriend became a wife,
that wife a mother of two.

He worked in the north tower, I in the south.
We departed at the foundations of rock and steel
to go to our separate elevators.

We met occasionally on the ride home,
we talked about our jobs and
our love of hiking and steaks.

Two weeks after my summer job had ended
I stare at a TV, when I flip the channels the
smoke and fire follow me.

I call Jeremy’s cell phone,
because his father’s tower was hit first.
The answer to my question is the one hundred and first,
for a company called Cantor Fitzgerald.
The girlfriend is now a widow, and the phone
falls from my hand when a small piece of metal
is replayed in slow motion
crashing into my office.


III. Funeral for a Friend

A week later we are at Adam’s funeral.
His wife is besieged by breast cancer,
the growth that will not stop
swallows her complexion,
and her smile.
It is here I meet the friends and coworkers
who are left, and embrace each one
to prove they are still alive.
Adam also made it out of the building,
his was one of the few bodies recovered,
crushed under the rubble outside the front door.

The casket is closed.

At the end of the service music plays above us.
A voice that everyone in the room recognizes
but would never grace the airwaves.
It is Adam’s voice, in the band he led before
the business world stole him away.
His words slowly tear down all the walls the
crowd had erected, all the breakers erode
before the squall of those songs.

There is a dinner after the storm subsides
At some point I notice my father is not at the table.
I walk awkwardly outside, to take a break
from the intensity of dinner eulogies.
I see him by the car, his face is flushed.
I have never hugged anyone as hard as I hug him then.

It is the first time I have ever seen my father cry.


IV. To those who fell from the 84th floor

I lie in bed, rolling from side to side, staring from wall to ceiling,
unable to blink,
or conjure up any empty space,
because I am afraid.
Not the usual fear of heartbreak or mortality,
but the fear of memory.
The simple act of blinking floods my sight with faces
a new one every blink, every second of darkness is someone
who burned or fell.
With every blink, and every face, an eternity flashes forward and I
can’t keep up.
The same people who shared Chinese food and cubicles make me afraid
to close my eyes.
I lie awake with the lamps on,
but there is no comfort in white walls and dark windows.
I am waiting for tears while denying they will help.
The memorials are short, but empty caskets fall nightly into the void of my eyelids.
The sun appears through the half drawn blinds
I am sweating
I pull off my covers as if they were the death mask of some decaying pharaoh.
I don’t know how to live anymore
with the knowledge that so many lives have gone unfinished


V. August, 2004

For a while it was hard to take the ferry
past those two holes in the sky.
I was convinced the downtown smog
would avoid that patch of air.
A memory that exists
like the clarity of immediate space
around cars that drive through the night fog.
And now I take the subway,
like walking through a cemetery blindfolded.
The train buckles as if driven on rails of shame and corpses
This concrete hole in the city shivers
it is the womb of modern history
A dream played out on the eyes of a coma patient

Footsteps echo through the nearby office buildings
who have for the first time seen the sun.
What is a fit tribute to the ghosts who stumble in the dust of public records?
Any park, any place of forget and remembrance calculatingly mixed
serve only as a wilted bouquet in the terminal wing
a reminder of life for that fleeting moment
between a memory of a dead relative
and a drop of moisture pressed from the brain
to the ducts behind the eye.
All around those concrete stumps are the carrion and vultures
of tragedy


VI. Tiny Strings

I am at my most vulnerable falling asleep.
When memories drift like mist over a graveyard,
filling the black closets of thought with
colors and figures I can imagine, but cannot see.

I remember watching a bus burn.

During a clear afternoon in October
I saw one of London’s double-deckers
stop in the middle of the street,
with black smoke rising from its engine.

I saw people scurry out in waves
like rain water from a gutter.

Flames followed the smoke
and I was so awestruck, that it didn’t occur
even if I’d had a phone, to call for help.

The bright red paint darkens on the bottom
and fire fills the windows at the top of the bus
A brightly glowing tumor on Tottenham Court Road.

All of the emergency training that life affords
shimmers between eye blinks and vanishes
somewhat like dead farmers
who capture the fury of tornados in their camcorders
before their homes are sucked into the maelstrom.

I think perhaps we cannot blame those who strive
for destruction.
Who consume themselves in explosion

Maybe we should share the blame
Didn’t we create government to shelter us
from the beauty of panic?
How long is it since we forgot that the world is sewn
with the strings of spider’s silk?

Very moving, indeed. I like that this one is more of a personal account, it hurts more reading it.

EvilToasterElf

Ali wrote:

I like it either way.I feel as though a poem can work,if the reader has the thought conceived of the poets job during the reading of the poem,which naturally should take place.If these words ,which seem as though they don't necessarily FIT, are read aloud with emphasis,the poet's piece could work.
Poetry isn't so much just written word TO ME,it has to do a lot with the individuality of the writer him or herself-looks given while read,appearance, and where the poet can lead you.But THATS JUST MY OPINION>I only had highschool poetry and chapbook publishments and 1 creative writing class.
I am by far no expert,but thats just my opinion by seeing street poets,classical poets, and educators recite-??????:)
allison vigh

It's definately true - but some poems only get their grace and power from the emphasis of a reading - slam poetry is almost impossible to follow on paper alone - but most of my stuff is decidedly more focused on being good poetry on paper - head poetry I like to call it - and as such I spend a lot of time tweaking this line or that - where it might not make too much of a difference spoken - you only hear it for a second - it can be the difference between remembering a piece of poetry twenty years from now or letting something you read fall into the obscurity of everything we see and forget.

EvilToasterElf

Being Enlightened wrote:

Very moving, indeed. I like that this one is more of a personal account, it hurts more reading it.

This one took a lot out of me - the first few times I read it out loud I barely got through it - I'm glad it can be moving for others - I like to think the message is more important than the pretty words of a poem

EvilToasterElf

White Noise

The snow drops from salt shaker clouds,
the last ingredient of a landscape.
Invisible in the darkness
until it reaches the swathes of light
cast by the tall lamps
above an empty parking lot.
Snow covered bats race between flakes
like the blind doves of winter.

Each flake unique
until it joins the gathering mass.
Crystals break and re-form, melt
and freeze, and surf the currents
of a winter breeze.

They fall to the rythm of my snow shoes,
trundling through the suburban night,
to a melody of thoughts, breaking
and re-forming with the Rorschach
of my foggy breath. Cartoon bubbles
that I have no words to fill. I can
only offer the snow my footsteps,
the lonesome song of my white noise.

Ok, this should come as an improvement

twin1

Ali wrote:

I like it either way.I feel as though a poem can work,if the reader has the thought conceived of the poets job during the reading of the poem,which naturally should take place.If these words ,which seem as though they don't necessarily FIT, are read aloud with emphasis,the poet's piece could work. Poetry isn't so much just written word TO ME,it has to do a lot with the individuality of the writer him or herself-looks given while read,appearance, and where the poet can lead you.

I agree with Ali. Good poem ETF, I liked it alot. Either way I could envison it easily.

EvilToasterElf

twin1 wrote:

Ali wrote:

I like it either way.I feel as though a poem can work,if the reader has the thought conceived of the poets job during the reading of the poem,which naturally should take place.If these words ,which seem as though they don't necessarily FIT, are read aloud with emphasis,the poet's piece could work. Poetry isn't so much just written word TO ME,it has to do a lot with the individuality of the writer him or herself-looks given while read,appearance, and where the poet can lead you.

I agree with Ali. Good poem ETF, I liked it alot. Either way I could envison it easily.

There's a hair's breadth between the right word and the perfect word - greatness often comes with being anal

coachchris

EvilToasterElf wrote:

Next...this is a newer and much less polished piece

Chance

In Trabzon the streets bleed into the Black Sea,
which isn’t black, more the color of a vast bruise
below the flesh of the horizon.
It is the color of every small city,
the color of used cars and used clothes.
Families live in the revolving door
of generations, spilling into the same
jobs, the same marriages, the same
dreams as their parents.

Thousands of seagulls drift upwards
with the fireworks that accompany
a wedding reception.
Their wings flicker like snow
suspended in the distance;
their squawks become white noise
against the moonlit screen of clouds.

We play Turkish monopoly on a rooftop,
the hat pays rent to the battleship,
and I look into the face of a girl
whose name translates to waterfall,
when the sounds of seagulls bursts
into a wave of Arabic song.

I follow the sounds of a wrinkled voice,
beseeching me to praise the creator of all things.
The call to prayer comes in stereo,
the desert God’s dirge bounces
from the mountains and surrounds me
for a time, before it fades
into the watery bruise of the sea;
black now under the half moon,
which lolls in the night sky,
a picture on the chalkboard
smudged by an absent minded teacher.

Thinking of old classrooms my gaze wanders
to the windows, to the sky, to the water;
and I see a train of lights along the coast.
The moisture rising from the water turns
the lines of streetlights and houselights
into a procession of flickering torches.
The landing strip for an angry mob,
at the climax of an old horror movie.

Coming for the monster who thinks
there is poetry in daily struggle.
The hat lands on a square
and my friend translates my monopoly directions
on the back of a card that reads:

Chance

This poem is simply amazing. The ending left me breathless!! Thanks so much for sharing.

EvilToasterElf

coachchris wrote:

This poem is simply amazing. The ending left me breathless!! Thanks so much for sharing.

Thanks for reading

EvilToasterElf

Warwick Castle

I climb for fifteen minutes,
in sun and spirals
on cobbled paths worn flat,
surrounded by high hedges.
Shafts of light explode through those shrubs
like bullet holes,
and I peer into the distant past,
to Warwick Castle---
Gray walls grow, the crenellations
more distinct,
the archers sockets black.
The empty moat covered with an oak
drawbridge, drawn by chains
too strong to succumb to rust
that announce the Earl of Gloucester
riding his moon colored horse,
with half-drawn, veteran eyes.
The moat was not filled with water
but human and pig waste.
Its heavy brown bubbles promise
sores and blindness.
The gateway, a dozen feet wide
caddy corners to another gate further inside,
and in between a murder hole.
Space for screams and corpses,
pierced through the face and armpits with arrows,
and melted with boiling cauldrons from above.
The stone walls block the wind, and only a sliver
of sky can enter with me
No army ever breached this castle, or fought
through this gate.
But one entered
with promises of wealth
for the captain of the guard,
who hung from the church spire with his master,
until the sounds of bare feet slapping rock
in the elevated wind
faded into fairy tales
and post cards.

Murder Hole – An area in between the gates of a castle, surrounded by archer’s slots where the heaviest defense of a castle was usually mounted

EvilToasterElf

Filler

When a butterfly flaps its wings,
One theory says, the breeze
can cleanse a man’s soul.

Another theory says
There never was a soul at all.
Just an empty space,
we never bothered to fill.

And the day we fill that space
we die. As there was only
so much we could hold on to.
The heart can only beat
through so much gelatinous
memory.

So many leave this world
blissfully unaware,
of how much space they wasted.
How many faces lingered
long after they disappeared
from sight, before we had
the courage to engage them?

If our bodies were weather beaten
fishing trawlers, scowling
across the Atlantic, our souls
would be the nets. But we
can’t throw back the license plates,
and old tires, or soggy boots,
they stay there on the deck,
with all the lovely tuna.

Being Enlightened

I seem to find that many of your works leave me feeling like living every day as if it were my last.

EvilToasterElf

Being Enlightened wrote:

I seem to find that many of your works leave me feeling like living every day as if it were my last.

I guess I've got plenty of time to reflect on mortality living in the suburbs

Ms. Haiku

EvilToasterElf wrote:

I guess I've got plenty of time to reflect on mortality living in the suburbs

That is a signature line quote in the making, you funny Elf

EvilToasterElf

Laundry

I watch colors spin in the rinse cycle
through the foggy glass of a Laundromat
I see hours spent buying jeans and shirts
A Spanish woman falls asleep behind me
with coupon clippings in her lap
and an open scissor in her hands
A crack runs along the dirty tiles
from her chair to the front door,
a few dollars and glass and silver bells
that make a depressing chorus to the
hum of washing machines when
the next customer limps quietly
inside
Their frustrations stored in plastic
laundry baskets, in dirty socks
and yellow armpit stains

Ms. Haiku

Out of all of these, which 2 do you want me to focus on now?