A Life of Lists
Bin-bags, washing-up liquid, rubber gloves
Strawberry yoghurt to smear over you warmly
Chicken, rice, peas and carrots
A tub of ice cream to eat off your cheeks
Toilet duck, bathroom cleaner, bleach
Mice poison to slip into your tea
Homogenised products
Stacked-up on a shelf
£14.63, authorisation = 072604
CO122 ~ 0188 15:54:52 S000015 R002
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 12.10.11)
editor's note: Validate all your transactions with price and time stamp. How else can we measure the worth of our lives? - mh
A Sense of Abandonment
You were cheerful in the downward spiral I knew nothing about
Because you were cheerful I didn’t guess that’s where you were at, spiralling
You’d laugh now if I told you I didn’t know you were heading towards the bottom
You’d laugh now, but that’s where you got, the groundswell pulling you deep
The drain of oblivion calling as you decided on the ultimate down-sizing
Your forward momentum charged by negative ions, you were polarised
A rider-less skateboard shooting down the ramp
To hurl yourself far away from heartbreak, a sense of abandonment
Letting go and chucking it all in, at last
You flirted with the nurses when you woke up, temporarily
Dead man flirting, when I heard this I knew it was the end
I’ll add you to the list I suppose
With Hunter ST and David FW
Not bad company I guess
By failing on purpose you beat anyone who wanted you to fail
These dreams of dead friends
Wake me up at night
Late at night, dreams of the dead awakening
I’m talking to you my dead friend
And the lights in the auditorium flicker
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 07.24.11)
Angel Delight
She thought he knew nothing about love
Would teach him the hard side
What it’s like to cheat and lie
To watch and be watched
To get caught in the act
Devilishly
It made her feel alive
To hurt and be hurt, tortuously
What had been done to her
Could be done to him, threefold
In turn he wondered why he came
Across so many damaged girls
& if he should assume
Some kind of collective male guilt
He felt her pain, but it wasn’t his
She pushed her nails into his back
& shuddered with angel delight
- Charles Pitter
(added 07.24.11)
The Wrong Man
You didn’t like it when he looked right through you like a ghost
Transparently everything about you was about you, until you disappeared
Whilst everything about him was about others
You wanted him to escape all that, his past life was not yours
Only now he sees in the photos of you something sideways
A smirking look, as if you’ve got a bad, secret idea you can’t share
With others, a look like you’re about to get in trouble with another
Then to say he was the wrong one after all, after a tussle
Or a turn in the hay, bouncing around from man-to-man
Isn’t a way to live darling I fear for you and all your ghosts
Of the wrong man
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 06.02.11)
Raymond Chandler Part II
My therapist said the trouble with liking hard-boiled girls
Is that you have to be as tough as them, tougher even and
Prepared for ruthless games, glacial baby
They’ll crack you open like an egg and your yolk could be soft
On the inside, on the inside you may be more tender than you thought
You dumb-assed kid, that’s the trouble with liking hard-boiled girls, he said
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 04.12.11)
My daughter @ 13
Sealed like one of those clam shells
We used to collect on the beach
You know the ones I mean but
You don’t discuss what you feel
It’s all wrapped up inside and you
Don’t wanna talk to or about boys
Or much anything else now
He doesn’t see what you do or
What he does to you without
Knowing or trying to
But only makes it worse opening
His big fat mouth whilst you
Gaze on horrified like a gazelle
It should have been so different
And your father confuses you
Feel no pity
As it was he that wanted you
Not him the child, you are
Not that you ever were in his eyes
But always in his heart forever
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 02.28.11)
Your own kind of thing
Squinting at the sun, eyes-screwed-tight &
Willing a golden rope ladder to descend
You were safe in heaven-dead floating and feathered in flowers
With music from God’s own jukebox
But sick from the heat and too much intensity
Troubled by so much velocity
You knew your luck was outside
Sat waiting for an angelic type
You saw her speeding right past ya
In lipgloss and a 911 Carrera
Later she sent you a bolt of electricity
By text it shot through the night
The warmth spread over you slowly
And she told you to stop over-reaching
For what you couldn’t have, instead
Peacefully contemplate
Your own kind of thing
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 01.14.11)
Party Girls & Broken Poets
She ran fast with the party crowd
Shining bright at the camera
Flash in those dark sunglasses
They shielded her from the glare
Of notoriety and constant summer
It came long hot and easy
All in one night coke mda & mdna
Kept us right upright uptight and then
A few lines brought us down to one
Crazy whirl cone stuff and kissing
Iconically on big famous London bridges
It couldn’t fade, but suddenly
She was gone far gone
- Charles Pitter
(featured in the poetry forum 11.09.10) |
