Revolution on Canvas, Volume 2

by Rich Balling

  Hire, fuck, and fire secretaries.

  In a lifetime of conceptions, never and none.

  Wind.

  Relate.

  Knows everyone by heart.

  The battle of breath.

  Gavels pelting hung jurists.

  Force-feeding the fed.

  Stenographers cutting corners.

  Hand-me-down pendant.

  Heirlooms and oral traditions.

  Giants winning the penance.

  Generations.

  Taking, giving.

  Earth drugs itself solemn.

  Tranquil strides.

  Advise a starving magician.

  To hire, fuck, and fire rabbits.

  In a lifetime of conclusions, never and none.

  GABE SAPPORTA

  Cobra Starship

  Success

  Has its price

  Can you hear me now

  That I’m dumbing myself down

  Am I filling you with doubt

  That I am

  Who you thought?

  I know it’s just a game

  But I’m playing it to win

  I won’t forget from where I came

  But it’s time to take over

  It’s over

  I’m tired of waiting

  So tired of waiting

  I’m tired of being the Poor

  Cliché

  Misunderstood

  It’s Warmer in the Basement

  You can’t escape now

  I’ve got you locked inside this room

  You know I tip good

  And soon, you will love me too

  Don’t be upset now

  You know I get angry too

  Don’t make me hurt you

  It’s true:

  No one hears you in this room

  This is what you get when you’re talking back baby

  I never bounce a check so give it up baby.

  Open up your eyes

  I want to watch you cry

  Come on, come on

  The camera’s on

  Now I’m a changed man

  But as a boy I was so true

  The world can’t protect you

  Not like money will

  You want some bread now?

  Just promise me

  You’ll never make me believe

  it’s true

  No one hears you in this room

  JOE BROWN

  A Static Lullaby

  Lola and Gus

  Embody me,

  Heal my aching emptiness.

  Render me,

  Captive upon grief.

  Agony,

  My maiden’s withering.

  Envy me,

  Roaming wild inside her heart.

  Sorrow,

  A curse I long to distance.

  Hinder me,

  Useless against her aching.

  Fantasies expire with my spirit,

  The battle between the Holy and Hell,

  Divine behind green eyes,

  A solace sleeper with blond hair,

  A vivid scar becomes my heart,

  A pale face struggles with tears.

  Depart me,

  And revealed is the object of my affection.

  STEVE CHOI

  Rx Bandits

  Purge

  Hurt me! Give me pain to see the truth because comfort gets me nowhere.

  I become gross.

  Mind polluted, the very essence of my being has been diluted.

  Objectify less! Feel more, then I’ll stop feeling like such a whore.

  But I still want more!

  Shift my desires, stabilize the mind.

  Seek self-worth of a different kind.

  Hold the face that fronts the mind that represents the soul that hides the past

  that taints the future that repeats the problem.

  It’s the pronoun that brings you down when things get complicated,

  which longs for simplicity that forgets hectic behavior which needs to rest

  when we need to wake up.

  Calm down.

  Blah

  Light me! Burn the burn that hates to love to live to play.

  Crazy! The life so loud that won’t show the way.

  In confusion surrender, in despair reach out, in triumph forget what good is about.

  These are the things that procreate, centered in a self that’s easy to hate.

  Soul, I love you for leading me well. Mind, you are wonderful for executing the passions of the heart.

  Self … you still need to put these things together.

  You have far to go but it’s been getting better.

  Live the life you want to live, give all the things that you can give.

  So many layers, afraid of getting cold, but you better learn to stay warm before you get old.

  We must believe our hearts are true.

  I practice, I fail, but will push through.

  MATT EMBREE

  Rx Bandits

  Well it’s coming down to it

  on the air raid siren

  would you hold my hand

  as the rockets hit the ground

  with a silent melancholy

  ’til it’s too bright to see

  would you sit with me here

  while the grass is still green?

  (——) is the inevitable failure of will, the wink eyed seductress in a wispy white blouse all dance and flirt, confident, secure yet aloof and shallow. She is undoubtedly blond, skipping around in circles, arms outstretched, skin ablaze and of silk, smooth and supple, fleeting and furtive. You try to gather her up all over you, feel her drip down your thighs, bunching her dress around her waist in a fervent, maddening series of thrusts, her teeth on your neck and ears, her breath moist and hot, her voice like explosions of magma from red-lipped volcano. She pulls and claws at your flesh, stripping skin and sinew ’til backbone is exposed and raw, veins bloated to burst. You build a mountain of your own and climb atop it and holding breath you leap from your body and erupt inside her, soul and structure, pouring and flooding, deluge of freedom, idealist’s revolt, beginning of eternity, slumping into flat lifeless amoeba with a slurp and a gurgle, stuck to second hand, servant of gnats and slug alike, a fly on a swatter, fried cheese on the spatula. As quick as the onset she is gone, the bites and stings and handfuls of satin a daydream, not a scar nor a drop of blood, fingers and genitals dry as desert, blank as brand-new canvas of artist or first page of poet. And then the ache, the onset of eye-bulge, disbelief, remorse, regret, self-degradation. She has left you not as she met you but rather as wraith, specter, undead minion of the half-living, servant of remorse, reproach and regret.

  we are so eager to brand ourselves

  with someone else’s words

  so sing me not your politics

  you know we’ve heard it all before

  your tried and true philosophy

  old clothes wrapped in plastic

  we’re still searching for a meaning,

  an exclusive destination

  to define us a beginning

  and explain it at the end

  now we overlook the middle

  and all that is now living

  squares of glass for looking

  covet, but do not touch

  instead we numb the feeling

  and carve out deep the present word

  scribble down the theme songs

  of adverts in between the talk show hosts

  sing me not your education

  your so-called scholars worth

  much more there is to be written down

  than that which may be trapped with pen and paper

  BOBBY DARLING

  Gatsbys American Dream

  The Museum

  I can shift the ideas around like tectonic plates in my dreams, creating a super continent where I’ll find you. It’s been tens of millions of years but I’ll come back for you, I’ll dig in the rocky ground of my
brain until I find your bones. I can see the nape of your neck and the curvature of your spine so clearly in my mind, I can feel you and smell you and see the things you did. I study your body like a fossil, and I imagine you developing wings for taking flight in the sky. I brush the pebbles from your bones, gently, so gently. I carefully remove millions of years of debris from your remains to recreate your graceful form in my head. How fragile you were, fragile and delicate and unable to cope with the rapid climate change inside of my world. So I’ll rebuild your skeleton and keep it for all time in my museum, where I can gaze upon your frame with love and adoration.

  M. S. BREEN

  Emanuel

  with your legs spread and mouth waxed.

  you’re bleached out by the sun.

  your eyes look like drainpipes.

  when your mascara runs, away.

  always surrounded by the salt of the earth.

  a nervous dance with a liar.

  when can I see you again?

  and set you on fire.

  need you.

  burn you.

  skin you.

  wear you.

  call you.

  want you.

  fold you.

  tear you.

  anathema sweetheart,

  with a dead aim to please.

  but can you trust these days,

  always down on your knees?

  you’re all aesthetics and no milk.

  a sad fashion queen.

  we’ll watch you soak up the limelight.

  we’ll watch you deep throat a dream.

  love you.

  chase you.

  fuck you.

  share you.

  need you.

  feel you.

  lose you.

  dare you.

  my anapex.

  turn me on, the way old friends do.

  you disappear and I would die to follow you.

  suck my blood, like all great lovers do.

  oh when we kiss I feel the disease, your heart’s vacuum.

  (blow her out like smoke

  with a somatic cough.

  she dissipates in the air,

  it’s over now when I exhale)

  crash my car. I’ll be your abandonment star.

  cripple me and I will crawl back in your jar.

  (blow her out like smoke

  with a late night phone call.

  she dissipates in the air,

  it’s over now when I exhale)

  AARON BARRETT

  Reel Big Fish

  Tastes Like Christmas

  marvelous madness surrounds this ten fingered ball of exploding universes and alligator shavings

  is that the flames of hell and the devil on a jet ski i see in the sparkling blue waters of her tropical paradise eyes

  she talks the armadillos out of their aftershave avalanches and makes the cattle prod doctors burst into tearful sawdust operas

  she kicks the shins and breaks the skin with teeth of gentle catastrophe

  i should be so lucky as to have my burnt chocolate chip cookie of a heart dipped in such a cool glass of milk money nose bleeds to lose a digit in that spinning saw blade of beautiful bone

  crushing smiles would be too much dreaming for day and night combined and combed over like bald men or corn on the cob destiny or the fried slices of my birthday cake and the melted candles of a wish finally granted

  who believes in this stuff anyway

  a not so poetic reflection for a girl that is absolute perfection

  ADAM TURLA

  Murder by Death

  Spring #1

  I watch from across state lines

  her long fingers

  clip roots of weeds

  scurry through the dirt

  help pumpkin seeds push upwards

  she has springtime skin

  face shines— Is that all?

  Are her eyes bluer? Lips brighter?

  No, nothing has changed.

  That sun shows its dinner plate face

  for a few days and

  out come the tank tops!

  Ticker tape! High school marching bands!

  CHRIS FRANGICETTO

  Days Away

  1.

  we live in shadow, we grow immune

  hopeful of becoming whole again

  can these deceptions be overcome?

  will what’s missing ever be found?

  time is inanimate, yet we exist here.

  a memory awakes a forgotten feeling …

  feeding this fire, keep it alive

  if we set it free, all is lost

  than alone and in the dark again

  where deep thoughts run wild.

  2.

  happy is a point of view, up and down coexist, but I’ll never give up being real, tell me … was there a point to us? you see my name and think of a random proverb, I can’t do that again for some reason. As one person goes … so shall we all, trained like animals to follow in suit, make up your mind, use it as it uses me, it’s easy to assume I lost because I didn’t win, I came out of a dream and forgot to bring my mind with me. I know you know me. How do you feel?

  3.

  When my bones are frozen, sentences will never be completed. Alone is a feeling that is a disease. It must be stopped. Love is a naive pimp, and anxiety its coldhearted whore. One of you can inch closer, and I wouldn’t oppose. True I am, but what you know is not always the same as what you see. A lost faith in another is always hard to overcome. A syringe in many ways is like romance. It carries you away, deceptively heaven, then it doesn’t let go, and soon our dream pops just like the balloon.

  4.

  falling isn’t easy, I never felt pain before this, clamps on my hands, these shoes cannot go where I need to, must take a chance, fear is near, minutes—hours it all means nothing, give me a moments silence and I’ll repay my debt, arms of passion, thoughts of her, crowds are for fakes, hidden in my sleep—are all my demons waiting there for me?

  clear as the ocean looming in the night, my life is. so uncertain are things I once took to be natural. laughable my thoughts are, cant even connect anymore. wanted memories become unwanted ones, keeping myself together with scotch tape is fun. a new window … could u open it? I know you’re not afraid, I’ll be on my way now. Lines are for beggars. make me smile again. inclined to do so as is the will of others. in my hands everything was so good: even the worst times were the best. Leap of faith. what is faith?

  5.

  the stretch marks on my soul keep expanding … the capacity amazes even me sometimes. I live for you all, not a thought about my own wishes. death would never strike fear into the hearts of men of my design. what is one more gravity bong hit … why not, I ask u? giving in, is what we do best these days.

  A drink over good conversation is never a bad thing.

  I’ll be sleeping alone tonight, how many times will I repeat this process over the next week, the next month, let’s try and not make a habit of it.

  fight to win.

  I’ll do my best to revive u, but will you keep me waiting long? it’s dark and I’m lost … meet mr. ignorance, he will show you the way. hang on to what you’ve got, or it will die like everything else.

  6.

  my dreams are crowded as of late

  sounds of demons returning to their origin

  wearing fake clothes doesn’t cut it anymore

  originality is seeping from holes in my spine

  incomplete wrongs, and yet created similar

  A deluge of pain and haunting desires

  formidable is this foe i stand alone to face

  A clean slate, I won’t stray from my goal

  time bleeds from stress just like we all do

  Care to share a lesson, I too spilled the coffee

  plans wont change the living on days like this

  darkness always comes from behind your back

  leaping into a bottle solves all my problems

 
Loneliness is coming down the street

  The child inside forgets what he once saw

  Mirrors show the capacity of a man’s lust

  don’t hold on to something that’s proven to grumble

  the hearts of man are as confusing as they come

  hurt is a Capricorn these days? not likely

  Structure or happiness … no way is safe

  blocks of desperation feel strangely comfortable

  death, is it living inside of us all?

  My feet wear what magic I have left,

  Don’t order me around, I keep what I kill

  If they are too cunning, learn to hunt better.

  I’ll leave you where I found you.

  STEVE ELKINS

  The Autumns

  One Central Fire Against Two Craters: Part One

  When one of the boys places a rock in my hand, I have an unexpected flash of memory. A Bollywood actress in an ornate turquoise sari walking in slow motion through a cow pasture, like Radha toward her Krishna, pupils rippling with emerging tears. Then a voiceover: “Rani, the actress, tells me that where she comes from they say there is no difference between God and a stone.” The surfacing of this memory can probably be attributed to the fact that both the boy and I are aware that the identity of this object as a rock is incidental. What he has left in my open palm is a language. A skeleton key. An instrument that has been known to make a sound that penetrates deaf ears. He knows that when it leaves my hand to trace its arc, this otherwise unremarkable object, which only two days before could still be identified as part of a wall in a home, will sink like karma into the flesh that reduced it to rubble. About a hundred pairs of eyes are waiting expectantly. I am surrounded and I’ve lost sight of Vikrum. One boy speaks what has remained unspoken: “Stop the bulldozers.”

  When I met Vikrum on a bus to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lives spearheading the Tibetan government-in-exile on the slopes of the lower Himalayas, I could not have predicted that our friendship would result in my being asked to lead a riot in the biggest slum in Asia. Back then, navigating through goats and children on the boulder-strewn slopes, through occasional small villages of terraced green fields drowning in mustard flowers on the way to the snow line, Vikrum told me about the work he was doing in Bombay, educating children in the slums and teaching self-esteem classes. Knowing I would eventually be flying home from Bombay, he invited me to crash at his apartment there for a couple days before leaving. I asked if I could accompany him to the slums to meet his students, many of which were from villages in some of the bleakest regions of India I had visited earlier in the trip. With lacerated optimism, I hoped that this would provide some long overdue counterpoint of good things happening in very dark places.