The Red Tanager

“Sit down, grab a pen and paper, and make a mess.” - Deron Larson

[theredtanager]

9-2-5

I go to that soundless slumber

once more defeated.

I’ve Mistaken myself

with capabilities.

I’m thrashing

In these cold sweated sheets.

To dreams of me dying

Only to repeat.

I follow my restless Monday nights

With big morning pills

Washed down by stale weekend beer.

I’m in a stupor

Behind my computer.

Flashing people by

With an enter key.

Tuesday is cocktails

Before sunset

And suggested therapy

By friends with a leaflet.

My sleep is tardy before Wednesdays.

I follow suit

When I adjust my tie as a noose.

And feel my coffee stained teeth

Fall out as they rot loose.

Thursdays are for quenching that thirst

And deciding whether to buy the stool

Or the rope first.

Every Friday is black Friday

And the only thing on sale is my memory

For the next 3 days.

I have tinitis on Mondays.

In the shape an alarm-clock.

Im clocking in everyday

But checking out just as often.

Tuesdays are my murder spree

On everyone that looks like me.

Wednesday are the performance review

Thursdays are when I’m furloughed

And Fridays are when I’m fired

[theredtanager]

Pumpkin Eater

They were kept very well.

In a hollowed pumpkin shell....

Carved with Jack O' Lantern Face,

With a candle lit in place,

They loved every little pumpkin smell.

She made whipped pumpkin pies

In her oven that would rise

As she made nothing sweeter

For her happy little pumpkin eater.

He ate what she baked.

No matter the taste...

He looked to her eyes,

And smiled to her face

Just to say

"More pies please." ....

They were cooked perfection

And a tasty selection

The candle stoked

All their hopes

But one day the eater was alone

With his pumpkin wife absent

But as the candle flickered long

The pumpkin pies were too far gone...

As the candle wick

Did burn so quick

As Jack was nimble

And Jack was slick.

Alone in his pumpkin shell,

A dim Jack O' Lantern TELl, ...

The Eater cried in his pumpkin place

And carved a phrase

Into the pumpkin face

"For I am Peter, Peter

Not! The pumpkin eater.

There was no wife!

only a candle keeper!"

He left that pumpkin shell

To rot in pumpkin hell

To find another

And be sure to love her

To be rid of that pumpkin smell.

[theredtanager]

The Woods

Callous is my pate. 

Turgid woody striations swirl to my thought, 

I grow to oak and stiffen in ways that only forests know. 

Stiffness ambushes my dreams and reaps me of lucid pleasantries. 

My walks become strenuous and taxing, 

My skin bubbles to chalky birch. 

My muscles engorge with viscous sap.

The blue sky dulls,

The meadowlarks lose their song,

They nest in my leafy hair.

I become centuries old,

I timber,

Wooded in the head.

[theredtanager]

Marching in Place

Caught stuck in house. Qued up for something that doesn’t stray far from a screen. Locked down by means of trace. “Is it even real”, “is it even harmful” built down and built up in every fiber of the being.

[theredtanager]

Page

Commotion takes the time.

Stay swindled to the books.

The glee of a beer. And A stomach splitting laugh.

I’m still in the books.

Two-step is five miles away playing dress up in a barn.

My date has curly hair and a cute dress.

I’m hungover the page.

Even the proctor sees I’m thinking about the page and not the question.

Not the formulas, just that story I was reading to myself.

These passages

They are all so entrancing.

These paragraphs

I want my page for the story, but my life speaks away.

[theredtanager]

Complete Deprecation

“For three days the body was bent and broken beneath an obstructive weight bound to the superior cranium slowly forcing the head to concave in upon the body. the body has not been groomed or washed in what is forensically analyzed, as hundreds of days. Soaked down in vomit covered casuals, stuck on the lowback with shower water dousing the full chin and husky frame, the body is bloated and sprawled open. Time of death 3:47 pm.”

- Lancaster County Coroner’s Report

Who’s hot now. Who wants you now?

Look at you, all sprawled open with those frameless folds taking up useless space. Water splashing that rat chubby chin and pencil neck. Head split down laneways, giving a good haircut to a bad head. Done yourself in now, with that fat pig gullet peering between your belt and button up. Body swathed in putrid odorous pustules by mouth and face, you were gross then, you were gross now, but least i’m not walking around inside you all day. Rummaging for silver linings, making excuses for the bad days. No it’s always been you, you’ve always been this sucking way.

Moments before that fatal crack of the head and belly jiggle you caught that last glimpse in the glass of that fogged up med-cab mirror. We both had the same revealtion.

You weren’t worth the thoughts. 3:48 pm

- Sincerely,

Effigy

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Edna St. Vincent Millay, from The Collected Poems of E. M; “True Encounter,”

[theredtanager]

Death of Thrush

What lies in the bush will always be unkown. It isn’t till the plant wilts. We see what harmed the roots.

[theredtanager]

Good Luck!

Good luck isn’t good because it’s arbitrary in the amount of luck had in a single moment. “Good Luck!” Just means that good luck is present, but not how much. Good luck is present as opposed to bad luck which is always present. So just saying “Good Luck!” Is just as good as saying “Bad Luck!” We have to be careful, we should be more specific in what we say. “Barnaby, I wish you the maximum amount of good luck for your particular situation!” This phrase is good and more specific but yet there still lies an implication. No matter how much good luck we wish unto someone, there will always be some form of bad luck present. So the very best thing we can do in each situation is to wish one another the most miniscule amount of bad luck. “I wish you the smallest, most tiny amount of bad luck today!”

[theredtanager]

Land and Sea

I’m straw and twine, they’re steel and anchors. Do you want a farm? Or a Boat? A farm grows, and a boat goes, I guess you’ll just go with the flow.

[theredtanager]

To my Unbeknownst Child

I want the first beer you drink to be cold. To be bold in your cheeks, and Bitter on your teeth. I want the first slap you feel to be the “pffft” on the outside of your baseball glove. The soft knit thumped by an easy underhand.

I’ll be honest I don’t know much about baseball but I’ll learn with you. If we don’t like it we can try other things, football, wrestling, hockey. Maybe you’ll see you can skate well but you can’t seem to slap the puck. Maybe the stick offs your balance. Maybe you’ll wanna do spins and turnstiles. You’ll want to look beautiful when you do it, you’ll want the roar of the crowd. To have them watch you shave the rink into a masterpiece of motion and grace. Maybe you’ll want to write, or just flow, maybe you’ll hurt people, god only knows. The only thing that won’t be a maybe, is this: You will walk politely. You will speak to all people, all religions, all races, all genders, with kind sublimity. I want you to challenge each side with notion of the other, no matter how vile, how cruel, know that with perspective there exists no evil. Don’t follow in a fathers footsteps, but make yours worth stepping in.

[theredtanager]

By the Day

It’s hard to go insane on the path of straight and narrow. You’re Bleeding happiness by the face of the sun, all teeth and no wincing. But by the scarcity of dim lit nights you’re caught drowned down by the propensities that gorge and bubble up in that clang of wrought iron head churn, they excruciate out the temples and peel out from under your finger nails. But you’re all similes, you’re all smiles. Milking the corners of your mouth like you got the world unwound, even when you’re thinking about sweeping up the last few crumbs of life you got left, it takes something to keep this train chugging.

[theredtanager]

The Start of Something Good, but Odd.

Have you ever worked out until you cried? Pushed your body to its fundamental limit? Banned yourself from sustenance and nutrients in order to obtain a physique to end all physiques? I did that today. I worked out and moved and pushed and didnt stop. Even after i was back from the gym I decided to do a final 10 minute ab routine. By the final excercise i was in tears, I felt defeated, I felt as though I’d been beaten and harmed in a way that was all too personal. It made me scared of what I wanted from my own body. Of course I want that extra muscle, that good tone, but its painstaking because I now spend all my time in the gym rather than what I truly enjoy. I do it for the exterior, for the lookers on. Whats the point of being so good looking when we all end up wrinkled, accosted of good health, and dead?

[theredtanager]

Bullies, never go away. They age, they age like the rest of us.

[theredtanager]

Sid Says

Shed born instead of the House form, Sid led life from black lightless Den, to city skyline naked in sunset red. Gone Counting smoke stack steam in low-income industry to thumbing green stack, spread all over rich mahogany. Crazy maybe, it might’ve been all that lead paint as a baby, but Sid was the kid that bleached the neighbors cat and sat when he peed because he was too fat and tired to figure what he’d need. He’ll make a finger gun and shoot the caldesac kings. Mothers would advise their sons about Sid, He’d say what he stood for, and he’d never piss on anything below him. Sid did what Sid always had to do, say whatever’s in his head.

Sid whet his own pallet with his own words and and his own wit. No brakes on Sids locomotion mind. He breathed spontaneity and ruckus till the sun came up. He’d howl at the light and sweat from the moon. Sid wasn’t a straight shooter, he shot with a goddamn harpoon. Sid shouted to the Lollygaggers in the open. The world ain’t a lustrous one, and Sid knew. So Sid does whatever any superstitious kid would do. Say whatever’s in his head.

[theredtanager]

Runner’s Prayer

Hawking up the runway, blinking out years of time trials, and dirt trails. memories of muscle ache. Fatiguing iron throat draw for drink. For the glory. For the goal. For the self. We don’t run for weight. We don’t run for looks. We run the champion in our own right. To shred the track like no one knows bounds. Yeah it’s four hundred down but we’ll double back up on laps, and make easy work of our nerves, slipping our fears into our pockets, tearing it up, spike to track, our front heel down passed the partition of first and last. We don’t make gang-way for nothing. We run down the path we do for glory. So we fix our spear spikes on rubber road, and hoist body by tens and twos like young Jesse Owens staring down that little mustache in Munich’s skybox. Tapping his toes, itchin to bum rush that bright blue ribbon and catch the glory of a nation. We don’t run because we’re scared, we run because we’re fair fought in our good days. Maintaining, exceeding, bursts of long strides, head high sprint spurts, always trucking because we have what it takes; wheels in our heels, we got the gusto and blood breathing oxygen. We race today, so let’s make haste to slay.

[righteoussness-deactivated20210]

Sokrates’ central argument, as he goes on to reevaluate madness, is that you keep your mind to yourself at the cost of closing out the gods. Truly good and indeed divine things are alive and active outside you and should be let in to work their changes. Such incursions formally instruct and enrich our lives in society; no prophet or healer or poet could practice his art if he did not lose his mind, Sokrates says. Madness is the instructment of such intelligence.

Anne Carons, Eros the Bittersweet