CHRONIC AWE
   ©1996 Martin Grider



nature on glass

The window is wind swept
on the outside surface
showing scratches like a record--
eight stories up.

In the reflected light,
which tries diligently to hide night,
there is a ghost with my face
sitting at a make-shift desk
and looking up to admire
nature's handiwork.



unfinished page...

poems like new hampshire
I've never been there, 
never seen the sky in new hampshire
Only imaginary lines
make up the sunset in new hampshire.



Kiss Cheese

REDEMPTION jumps in,
	kicking you
  in the a*s: 
DOWN on your knees.

Fall like putty, 
	hitting the ground
  and staying there,
spread out some.

Yellow eyes lift lids
	from beneath you
  tickling a little, 
you realize--

HER FACE! You are
	lying on her face.
  You wake up to
YELLOW taste, and gorge.



I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.
	-John Cage



All hail the toilet bowl God: Excretion

Somewhere like a rain cloud
thunder piss hail flying in chunks
from your penis, lumps
like curds hitting the water of the toilet bowl:
plop, splat, dribble...
There is no pain with this 
strange malady, 
you ask doctors
who tell you feeblemindedly
"everything is all right."
Some things are better left 
unexplained. 



[Loose and unafraid,]

Loose and unafraid,
frail and unsuspecting; 
I dangle by a noose
made of snake fingers. 
I am sweating hot, 
swaddled in sweat,
feverish in my fever,
drudging through mind sludge
which I have left piled behind me.

I hope 
the kidnappers of my creativity
die of asphyxiation-- drowning in it--
before they make use of some idea. 



Poetry is evolution of the human language.



Pete

He frequently stands leaning forward 
as if he is teetering on the brink of something, 
as if 
he is constantly trying to go somewhere, 
It is only the physicality of his surroundings 
	(which are not there) 
that keep him from this. 
He leans forward, 
hair draped around the book he is reading, 
teetering just a bit, 
completely absorbed in whatever; taking 
	it all in with his mouth slightly open.
He leans forward 
	tipping, 
		slowly, 
ever so slowly, 
	--so slowly that it would never be actually observed-- 
but at some point he will teeter completely over, 
taking the rest of the world with him
he is so tied to it. 



moon bloom

Outside,
the blue snow
whether reflecting the moon
or glowing from within
(because it seems to me
the night shadows 
of trees and buildings are the bluest)
strikes me heavily
with the weight of contrast.
Only hours ago
red was the sunset
reflected off the plains
and soft mounds
of warm coldness.



Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; 
it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. 
But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what 
it means to want to escape from those things.
	-T.S.Elliot



traveling together

shared company
tracing the lines in your palms
dry skins brush lightly
high foreheads gleam sweat
eyes meet like magnets--
repel each other, then 
draw together slowly.
lips are passages for rough breath
smooth touches revealing
willing skin pushing
hesitantly into touch,
the gentle press of longing.
lips are passages for emotion
shared words make hearts jump
breath sharp-- skin shiver.
lips are passages...



old letters

finding literary chunks of goodness and genus,
steaming wonderful pots of boiling ingenuity,
windswept planes of low growing metaphor and meaning
all in old letters;

acquaintances now, or lovers moved away,

words that still mean much,
mean what they did then,
only saturated by time- digestible now
words I can absorb, and
like a hot bath opening pours:
love drains in



Poetry is both real life and the transcendance of real life.



beast of burden

I am the backside of destiny,
the cross arguments which nullify reality,
the black lines on paper 
separating it from the reality of a poem.
I am the dark minds,
the stickiness of waking time
wrapped in saran wrap,
the toothless arguments,
stale air and fecal tastes of emotion.
I am the given earthquakes of social perspective,
each a little snippet of freedom
allowed those with tied wrists 
and hobbled legs;
my eyes are open
but I see instead in hyper-perspective.



a little joy

I am being shot by the sun, 
my little heart melted away.
My eyes are on fire, my hair
bursts into spontaneous combustion.
I can imagine the little wisps of smoke
curling their way around me,
circling; dancing for you
and your torture.

Your own personal Hiroshima.
Your own gas chamber, 
electric chair, hangman's noose.
You take so much pleasure:
laugh a high laugh,
put the magnifying glass down,
and clap your hands.



I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't matter.
	-Jack Kerouac



[Rotting fruit, lumpy and soft in hand]

Rotting fruit, lumpy and soft in hand
Spoiled, smelling, 
	some of sulfur and disintegration--decomposition.
Decay of life, death brings sourness--
anguish--
starting over afresh,
squeeze, squish,
so soft and slithery through fingers,
Taste of sugar in June--
	I'm dead.



[Words are tiny,]

Words are tiny,
but inside their mouths 
they hold fear and hunger,
deceit and loyalty,
crucifixion and savage religion.

Words are tiny,
but in their eyes
they hold mysticism,
romance and thievery,
worlds and universes; millions
upon millions of stars.

Words are tiny,
but in their hearts
they hold the rain and wind,
the greatest sea and smallest drops of blood,
the hold animals and people, 
sex and strangulation.

Words are tiny,
but so large
as to hold me,
in their imagination.



Sometimes in a dream the most precious seconds are realized.
Sometimes dreams are the most precious seconds.



[A man who's voice fills]

A man who's voice fills
a mouth who's kiss empties
an embrace that hypnotizes feeling--
the pulse pounding, pouring down over,
spilling something, seeping spasmodiclly
listening, loosing, drinking in lakes,
cascading forth in frenzy,
abandoning reason in falling
down, over 



eaters of it

I am currently drinking
luke-warm water,
sitting in front of 
a black and white screen.

There are little lines 
lacing their way
across my vision,
setting my eyes half crossed,
and drilling holes in my brain.

My poems are crossed, 
punctured and broken
by settling dust
I havenŐt bothered to wipe clean.

And here, in this setting,
where the words are forgiving,
my poem gives freely
to all things unseen.



Maybe imagination is the sixth sense, and each idea only a 
reflection or an interpretation of nerves we don't yet know 
exist, nerves which possibly extend beyond our bodies into 
the world of the subliminal, the social, and the subconscious.



small talk

Outside, the weather
strings little bits of cold
through the cracks in 
my windows, my doors.
Inside, where the warmth
is suppose to hide, I 
can feel the outside
held back, only so much
by the walls, and doors.