Selected Poems (2006 - 2012)

by John Christopher

  I rode my tricycle down along some animal cages.

  My hands grasped tightly to the bars,

  The cards clapped within the spokes.

  I saw a chimp mother with her fat little baby,

  Hung around her neck.

  She was reaching for a bag full of exploded kernels,

  Which had fallen too close to her air conditioned environment,

  And she looked longingly with a bored look.

  Orphaned

  Let us all be orphaned,

  To forget the rapacious creed-

  The guilt that dwindles,

  Like our mother’s menace of words-

  Let us become this folly to the world.

  There is a Question you are asked

  There is a question you are asked-

  When you are very young-

  a small bud, a sapling yet to bloom.

  It is asked beneath a blanket with a flashlight-

  Toes on your bottoms-

  In your childhood rooms.

  By the river and the waterfall-

  Like imagined inspiration,

  Pitter pattering like rainfall-

  The secret serpents’ carnations-

  And the lunar eclipse.

  Quiet and imperceptible,

  You feel the mist and splash/

  Without words to form its asking,

  An adjunct to its quality,

  You will be unaware-

  Of its call to action.

  With pink blossoms in your hair.

  And a pout and dribble-

  Down your cheek.

  Will you sleep?

  Will you sleep?

  It will be the whisper of the fallen flakes-

  Who sprinkled beads of water-

  Which smote through vapor,

  and smoldered the flame-

  in the molten center of the world.

  The tragedies and odes,

  Of the garnished and named-

  Faces of famous relics-

  Cast out of cement.

  Will you follow?

  Will you follow?

  Rise like steam.

  Prisoner

  There are many heart sick and

  well meaning women,

  Who send their love away in letters,

  Written on a crinkled pad-

  And when on visits to the penitentiary,

  They ready themselves for romance-

  Seeking an exchange of promises, separated by the glass.

  Yearning and hoping for an escape,

  From the boredom or the loneliness of their dull lives,

  They seek to save, and to give themselves away-

  Like nude or erotic photographs of themselves-

  They send through the mail with the courier,

  In order to ease a prisoner’s sexual longing-

  Again, the desire for release.

  But, I have yet to commit any crime,

  And no woman has ever proposed marriage to me-

  To save me-

  Has ever exchanged promises with me,

  or written her love in a letter-

  Never has she sent me messages,

  detailing her state of undress.

  Poets and Prophets

  When I see what has become of my poets and prophets,

  who have wrecked upon the rocks,

  wading through the raging river,

  and left their planks and paddles floated there as drift wood-

  whose forms have been dispensed, but perverted,

  through the ripple,

  yes, even I grow tired of my philosophy.

  A Sad Suffering Grasp

  Take heart lonely dreamer in the night,

  Forgive him a trespass.

  A man can’t live for so long without tenderness,

  But whose seeking to touch outreaches his length,

  And is the cause of his error in judgment.

  A sad suffering grasp at the air,

  Is a pain more sorrowful,

  Than a proud one which lands,

  But, which is more dangerous?

  Faces of the Mob

  In the faces of the mob,

  I see nothing but complacency.

  The women worrying about fashion,

  and the men worrying about women.

  It is so frequent for them to borrow.

  I hear, the wagging of bitter tongues.

  the parlance of the times.

  Complaining so loudly that it makes them all useless.

  Sighing so loudly from boredom,

  that you could be blown over from the wind.

  Ego's so large they could bust at the seams.

  In the faces of the mob,

  I see hideous constraints-

  I would not even be vindicated to be vilified among them.

  They will try and kill you with their warped speech-

  warped from the popular culture/ cliché’s that they readily consume.

  And you cannot fit among them, if you are different,

  and you cannot sleep with any of them

  without becoming contaminated.

  If you try to step around them, or walk over them,

  they will cling to your boots.

  They will glob together as if a jelly,

  and will come at you with common hatreds-

  and common in their hatreds they will feel it is justified,

  and they will call it 'truth'.

  The Ultimate

  I am not willing to compromise myself,

  by working a job for the government,

  pretending that it makes some difference, to someone,

  to hand out a few false vows or statements,

  to a crowd of idle minds, who grasp at thin air.

  I am not capable of being responsible or reasonable,

  or caring for myself, or about myself in general,

  when it seems so unimportant,

  too careful, too trivial, too condescending, too civilized.

  My shoes are untied, my clothes are all wrinkled,

  my teeth are not brushed, my hair is not combed.

  I stink of yesterday's late dinner, or like sweat in my palm.

  I have nothing to think about, and the time drivels on.

  I have no desire to farm the land, or to build great buildings,

  like the stadiums or the amphitheater halls.

  I see no reason to contrive mechanisms of modern engineering,

  like working at a bomb factory, or spinning things out of yarn.

  It is not interesting to me, to sit on the assembly line,

  or to go off to war, full of a false courage,

  or to fly to the moon on a rocket ship full of love,

  or to ship out to sea in a vessel full of hate,

  or to put on a uniform, to try to save my fellow man.

  Most of them are beyond the saving-

  and I am not willing to have them even as a vassal-

  like a fortune teller, or a business man would have.

  they're like spilled pennies, or water through my hands.

  I need something more, some nearer connection,

  some instantaneous reaction- some cause unknown,

  an effect unseen, for which to make my stand.

  I don't want to live in a realm of false choosing-

  to be condemned or ordained- the winning or the losing.

  I want something more fully realized, more impeccably truthful,

  nearer to religion, but not of any common brand.

  What I want is the ultimate,

  and for that, I'll give everything I am.

  No Masters!

  King’s and Queens with their stolen jewels,

  Set in their heavy crowns, with their faces stuffed,

  And their populations in awe, at the pretty princess,

  Who has a wedding to her prince in the Abbey.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  Tyrants in military un
iforms, spending the poor’s blood,

  On themselves, and have harems of beautiful eastern women,

  At their beck and call-

  Stockpiling armaments against the West-

  Stealing from their own people,

  bringing guns into the streets.

  They imprison all dissidents, defectors, and critics.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  Napoleon and his generals, or Julius Caesar,

  Who went to war against their neighbors,

  Becoming national heroes, for leveling towns into dust-

  A trail of blood in their wake, orphans by the side of the road-

  Their names now renowned for their ‘greatness’,

  The historians have fallen in love.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  Hitler, who attempted to create a ‘master’ race of men,

  By convincing everyone of their superiority to the Jew,

  Who used bombs and bombers, tanks and munitions,

  To try and take Europe for his own-

  To span across the sky as a hawk.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  The pope, and the religious elite.

  Who have convinced the chosen people-

  they are necessary to their salvation,

  -that there is a heaven and an afterworld.

  And the catholic men smell sweet incense

  Around their father’s caskets.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  The capital in Washington D.C.

  With men who stand before crowds waving their arms,

  Making speeches for the voters- people who vote-

  And making promises for a future of equality,

  and liberty, for all-

  While setting themselves up as the leaders of the ‘free’ world.

  No Masters! No Masters, I say!

  On Watching the Parade

  Watching the parade, I saw the military men,

  Carrying one thousand little flags.

  And there marching rolled by a tank, a bomber, a scout,

  a marine, a guillotine,

  A rocket, and screeching above an F-16-

  a cruiser, a bruiser, a battleship,

  a tomahawk, a six shooter,

  and a bunch of people taught how to walk the same way.

  And the crowds wept for the fallen-

  With children held up high-

  To watch the hero’s on their march home-

  And the mother’s all weeping waving red and blue ribbons.

  Fireworks to light up the sky.

  Manic Depression

  These are an assortment of poems dealing with my emotional exuberance, either being high or low. I go through many extremes of emotion, and I write poetry at such times. I have included in this section the remainder of those poems I wish to publish.

  The Stars Gone Out

  Tonight is a weary and cold winter’s night,

  My thoughts are all bare, and a chilly unwanted breeze blows.

  My dreams, like those lost little dots in the heavens,

  that have so long enacted upon my own image,

  have silently closed up-

  leaving no more than a trace of themselves-

  not but a pin prick in the great amplitude of the night sky.

  All flame and light, from my soul,

  has mercifully been trailing off-

  There is now only the blackness of an eternity in its place.

  The nervousness of my cold black state-

  Oh, tonight is a weary time, which makes waiting,

  or wading through waves impossible.

  So long and unmerciful has the long waiting already been.

  I have been spent-

  my body- my hopes- my dreams- all spent-

  among one thousand wounded cries,

  among one thousand cursed reproaches-

  among one thousand churned and bubbled faces-

  melted, in the boiling cauldron of the starry sky.

  Let Me Be

  Let me be but a weak cry or a whimper – from the storm of my soul.

  A weak voice with a wasted sound- Wasted on the obtuse.

  Let me be a secret infant, with a secret coveted pain.

  A devotee to my own wind and my own rain.

  Let me be outrageous, demented, and insane.

  A fellow sufferer with a perpetual oppressor- Perpetual,

  you feed on his body.

  Let me never be so full, but always hungry to go hungry.

  A starving man with a rotting body, I refuse my jailer’s refuse.

  Let me be all elbows, knees and knuckles.

  A pincushion penetrated by an ugly beauty-

  Penetrated like virgin beauties.

  Let me be an old disgusting man-

  A victim of your health, I diminish myself-

  Because of your ‘what should be.’

  Let me be ‘what is’ and keep my torture for myself.

  A child in his cage refusing to eat, old in his wounds- and stuck by his feet.

  Let you be an obtuse beauty feeding my jailer- and my jailer’s great love.

  A penetrating beauty is the hunger for freedom- in an oppressor’s bed.

  Let me be struck down by the sacred winds of my being-

  And let me be at peace when dead.

  I'd Rather stop the world and listen to the sounds

  I’d rather stop the world and listen to the sounds,

  The sleeping sounds that kiss with sweet lips,

  thoughts that glide frictionless, and cut to the quick,

  A quiet kind of sound,

  more thoughtful than our waking confusion.

  I’d rather listen to the sounds of my inner-voice,

  Rather than one thousand other voices in the day,

  For the night is sweet with gentle lips,

  And it kisses gently, and corrects me gently,

  With my room like a cavern, with my own reverberations-

  A remarkable incantation, like ghostly dolls, or water sprites-

  That spin and spin and spin, through illustrious mazes-

  Or go falling down through steep havens of the mysterious.

  Dreams are delusions-

  But they are my delusions-

  and I love them so.

  Why do I love them so?

  Because they kiss me gently and correct me gently-

  Like the sleeping sounds-

  And they know only me, and comfort only me.

  Surely as One could write upon the stars

  Surely as one could write upon the stars,

  Or explicate their beams,

  The more so to aspire,

  Towards one’s individuated meaning.

  Confined within the cellar,

  Dungeon window, moonlighted-

  Which glitters and sparkles, your perceptions,

  With the cold flake.

  For the night,

  When it fades,

  Is just another painful etching.

  Surely, I obsess over her image still,

  And am haunted by it ‘till,

  Inspiration challenges me through that window.

  She moves with lustrous violence through the pane,

  And I ravish her in the bedroom.

  She is driving me insane,

  With her love and beauty.

  When dawn reaches through the wavering curtain,

  And the sun in ghostly hardship is strained-

  I reach back into my silence still,

  Of these images to continue to dream.

  But, as surely as I sleep the day by my ever living hearth,

  Is as surely as I suffer in my poet’s suffering heart.

  The Vine

  The Vine tangles around my concepts,

  And my metaphors.

  Leavi
ng only yellow glistening gloom.

  The smell of cologne makes me sick,

  I recall lost evenings.

  The feeling is of doom or damned.

  The suffering of it.

  The shallowness of it.

  I would have nothing.

  It shakes my tendrils.

  Clear water I say,

  clean water,

  fresh rain.

  Rain that alleviates the strain,

  And allows me to sleep.

  Sleep is what I want,

  Clean sleep, deep sleep.

  Without images in the night,

  Which come to me and leave me in hurt.

  To rest in the cold by an empty hearth.

  A bed of spent matches having swiftly burnt.

  My verse is in the vine,

  Twisted and crooked-

  Around this poem,

  And around all my poems.

  The words are stressed and repugnant now-

  This melody isn’t rain,

  It is sleeplessness.

  My Apartment is a Mess

  My apartment is a mess, I feel like Silverstein,

  got an unwashed plate and a bed sheet over the window.

  If I felt a look from behind, I’d worry about being unclean.

  But, as it is, I got a big lock on the door

  -and the smell isn’t so noticeable anymore.

  My friends got their apartments all set straight,

  Everything right and dust free, set in its proper place.

  I don’t think I will, it’s uncomfortable for me, an empty space-

  a clean floor or a bed without books trapped in the covers.

  When the place is sterile, my mind is still a ramble-

  I pace back and forth- shot off to no place-

  I’m really just waiting for the fall.

  Sometimes in the day with my brown penny in my pocket,

  I feel like Silverstein’s clown,

  Everybody is laughing at me,

  and the world’s having a day that forgot about me again.

  In my messy room I am in a way, content.

  My hurry of spirit, by some inexplicable variant of nature,

  I cannot contain it, and it spills forth,

  and when I spill my soda on the floor, in a black gooey pool,

  I care not what I wipe it up with-

  My sock, underwear, or a pillowcase- there are no rules.

  I got a standard practice of not caring where I set things down,

  Or running out of silverware, every cup is in the sink.

  I forget where I put it and pour another.

  When my mind is bouncing around,