five poems i found (and the source of "nightcrawler")

1.

Cut yourself off again
and get even closer to your mothers heart.

You could cry years ago
when life still stood before
us an undefinable fog-

but as the hours and
days and years
become a sure fire plan,

your eyes have dried
your hands ache
and no light emerges

From any part of your voice or eyes.


2.

I have a neon heart that
flickers in the night

adds to the chorus of noises
disguised as the city light

but which pulses to the beat
of blood, of my blood

not the whistle of the train
or to rush hours flood

it glows with the good intentions
of a fireplace
and the wisdom
of a lightbulb dangled above the face.



3.

From time to time I have heard my own heart cracking.

(It doesn’t ever really break because I won’t let it.)

It’s never one strong blow
inflicting damage

but a slow pain

like someone dropping one OED
on my chest at a time

(and at first the weight is hardly noticeable, but it builds
incrementally until)



4.



The wildwood boys’ chain’s glint in this nearly unlit club.
What light there is reflects off the mirror panelled walls,
bringing out how unlike the seventies reality truly is.

And, all I can do in my self-conciousness at wandering into
this club in an old t-shirt and dirty jeans while girls dance on
the bar in heels that make them three inches taller than the
truth, is stare at the cute bartenders lower back as her shirt
slides up when she bends over to grab a bottle of Malibu or
leans across the bar to hug another familiar new jersey nightcrawler's face.


5.


I was at a party playing a drinking game and overheard some ex-famous band manager say to his companion, “Their game is like poetry.”

I hate guys like him. washed up and looking for art in everything.
Life doesn’t chase poetry, or art or music-
those things chase life, since it is usually far more poetic than anything
I will ever write.

This is what I thought, then stood on one foot and bent down, picked up a paper bag with my teeth and tumbled drunkenly onto the hardwood floor.