The Literary Department

Poems

Lost and Found

SILENT ROSE

a loud angry love-starved lonely bearer of fine cutlery
pounds my door and inquires callously
of matters of my tongue

engaged I try not to respond
we wait in silence
until we hear her walk away

we wake to find
just one dead rose
hanging from the door

October 1, 1996

THE WAY YOU LOOK

I don't like the way you look
For something with a nonstop raindrop rhythm
Born as a smooth groovin' incantation over steamed milk
	and incidental brown euphoria
You look pretty ugly 

Condemned to a life of late-night ramblings
From the mouth of a man
In a coffee-induced stupor
You're no better than a day-old pastry
Sweet but dry
Like some contradictory wine
Oh you'll never see life in print
Because I don't like the way you look

With your ragged justification
Your typographic imperfections
Unparallel
Incongruous
Misdirected anger masquerading as fine art
It could be years
before you're ready
To live
in the flat world
		Of black and white

Buster, you'd better get yourself together
For now, you're stuck in this coffeehouse
On a throwaway napkin
You should have never been written down

May 29, 1999

Protest

HOME OF THE BRAVE

    
"My Country Tis of thee..."
Sweet land of incarcery
building jails and building bombs
while selling guns like guns can love
My country, sweet land of incarcery.

Solve your crisis with crushing force
dig your hole deeper, my country
dig your hole to China, my country
throw everyone in who doesn't obey

Eat the fruits you yourself have forbidden
my country, throw your problems away
my country, throw your people away
My country, sweet land of incarcery.

Break your people's backs but don't bust the banks
till it doesn't matter who you kill
My country, my country, you're killing me.
My country, my country, sweet land of incarcery.

Building jails not homes my friends
making bombs not jails my friends
this is my country, my land of the free.
My country, killing its least free
My country, land of incarcery.

Eat the land, starve the poor.
Throw your people away, my country
throw your problems away, my country.
My home, my comfy cell, my cushy jail.

My country, sweet land of incarcery.

circa 1995

BLOOD AND LEADEN COCKTAILS

and in dili you can't eat without a spy
a hell in every hope and
a soldier on every corner
as graves are hidden for 200-thousand

10 percent can make a revolution
as bishop belo prays
hail mary it's a holocaust
and 33 percent are gone

as the british hawks supply suharto
timor dies and the empire expands
"it is not good here"
intimates an inmate of the empire

blood and justice and vicious lies
indonesia breaks the backs of the oncefree
my sister knows the world is blood
and everybody has their first and second time

soldiers and my sister know who's fucking who
portuguese now javanese as my sister knows
my sister knows who's fucking who
this body their body they own it they broke it

as machine guns take aim up at the precipice
the grave is formed and left unmarked
and blood and lead collide and flesh falls
and bishop belo prays

my sister knows as well as suharto
the blood and leaden cocktails
as she and bishop belo pray
as she and bishop belo pray.

circa 1994

UPON WAKING IN A LAND OF REALITY

                               I awake silenced
                          breathing the air of order
                             stagnant and corrupt
                        with edges that dull my senses
    
                         order asks if air has edges
                  meaning to hide its flat-headed abrasions
                polluting realms of randomness and possibility
             with worship of hammers for hitting heads like nails
    
                     add six quarts simplicity and blend
                                (do not stir)
                          the recipe for order reads
                       when it smells stagnant sell it
                     
                           Your nails need smashing
                             your nails are bent
                           your nails are breaking
                            your nails are falling
                            your hammer is falling
                                 
                      Nails with heads get smashed down
                   Air with spirits gets closed in closets
                     Hammers collapse and pollutions kill
    
                 And you remain the same or become the same.

circa 1993

Spoken Like a True Asshole:

FROM THE MOUTH

    (not a poem)
    
    I'm not racist
    I just act that way
    I'm not sexist
    I just talk that way
    I don't hate the faggots
    I just joke that way.
    
    I'm not intolerant
    so long as they aren't near me
    I'm not elitist
    As long as they stay invisible to me.
    
    I'm perfectly open
    Because you're perfectly free
    And I risk nothing
    When you stay away from me.
    
    I'm for giving you jobs
    so long as you can't get mine
    I'm for letting you learn
    if you've got as much money as me.
    
    I'm perfectly open
    Because you're perfectly free
    And I risk nothing
    When you stay away from me.

circa 1993

Miscellaneous stuff

DEMANDING THAT SPECIAL DAY

    No fucking hello kitty
    No chalky candy hearts with words written in cheese
    No breathless moanings and soft sighs
    
    If you're going to get cute get chocolate
    Because only chocolate is truth and sex rolled into one
    No fucking jello
    No chewing gum
    No thinking pink and red and white anything
    Because only chocolate is truth and sex rolled into one.
    
    No more heart shaped boxes
    No more diapered gods
    No more cute
    No more
    No
    
    Because only chocolate is truth and sex rolled into one.

circa 1993

RAY'S LESSONS

    Eat up the pain like a chocolate Sundae
    but force feed it to me
    and it'll kill you
    		(Ray, Lesson one).
    
    The Well-Versed Voyeur
    	stares not at lost teenage love;
    	no narcissistic regrets
    	nor onanistic loneliness;
    	not at ladies of perfection
    but nudity and truth.
    		(Ray, Lesson two).
    
    Sex, you see, is literate
    and you should not kill her
    with old come-on lines.
    If you haven't finished Shakespeare
    you don't know what you've plagiarized.
    		(Ray, Lesson three).
    
    Politics and sex are alike
    and chocolate is a taste of both.
    Profane Sundays like a good Roman boy.
    Wear no clothes to dinner
    nor pretentions of unpretentiousness.
    		(Ray, Lesson four).
    
    Sex and politics of course.
    But by all means
    have a conscience.
    And wash your mouth out
    after reading Henry Miller.
    		(Ray, Ending the lessons).

UPON A LIMB

    On the limb
    I sit calm waiting.
    
    I dream of exhalations
    poets and playwrights
    would have Brutus read by.
    
    Here I dream to grow
    Here I dream to conquer
    Here I dream of Shakespeare's errors
    Here I dream, upon a limb.
    
    Trees and goddesses breathe
    inside this limb
    whilst I sit awake
    dreaming.
    
    Marc will take the world
    through gentle words
    and Brutus falls
    when shedding blood.
    
    Here I dream upon a limb
    As heroes die and heroes grow
    Here I dream of trees
    As gods watch swords fall.
    
    Here I dream and heroes die
    As heroes soak in blood red streams
    And heroes have no homes but hell.
    
    Now my heroes cast away their swords.

Cheese left over from high school
A blast from my past...

PAUSE AND REFLECT

    vision is inner
    seeing only life
    experience is ephemeral
    seeking only thrill now kill later
    lucid panda dies enigma panic wonders why
    I I I I I
    answer
    
    when all I have is
    this little phony lung
    and lots of friends with guns
    seeking only thrill kill now later
    fuzzy agent kills enigma panic wonders why
    I I I I I
    question
    
    answer
    question
    with
    promise
    
    love nature kill nature
    the human spirit is undying
    killing itself killing answers
    with promises
    to question
    after finding answers

circa 1992


Silly Stuff

Sentence

Some people just don't know sex when they see it... or don't see sex if they know it... or something that Jesse Helms-esque like that.

Teen Angst Poetry Game Contribution

    Black.
    Knife.
    Bloody.
    I am so alone.

(Variation on minimalist teen angst poetry). Teen Angst Poetry Game Poetry must include something dark, something sharp, some blood, and the phrase, "I am so alone.")

Generation X is really maddening.

    Roses are :)
    Violets are 8)
    The vax is ;)
    with too much *-(:-)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    I wonder if it rhymes.

© 1993-2000 by Jason Truesdell. All Rights Reserved.

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Last Edited: Thursday November 03, 2005
Last Automatic Update: Sunday, January 29, 2006
© 1996 Jason Truesdell except where indicated. All rights reserved.
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