Survivorman

by Sherman Alexie

Here’s a fact: Some people want to live more
Than others do. Some can withstand any horror

While others will easily surrender
To thirst, hunger, and extremes of weather.

In Utah, one man carried another
Man on his back like a conjoined brother

And crossed twenty-five miles of desert
To safety. Can you imagine the hurt?

Do you think you could be that good and strong?
Yes, yes, you think, but you’re probably wrong.

Poetry verses Twitter.

I've start twittering. However, in direct opposition to the goals of the site, I only twitter poetry. Not strictly poetry, more along the lines of Ed Rusche sentences without the frames, or aestheticized sentences, or nonsense.
It could be any of those. It ranges.
If you are not technologically averse, if you like getting under the skin of the future and finding your word nuggets there, please, follow me on twitter.
Become my follower.
So that I can possess you.
So that I can look at my homepage and see an ever growing number of followers and grow stronger from it.

I saw a video on youtube of a 13 year old with braces talking about getting a different video more youtube hits.
so. definitely. it ranges.

on twitter as samalper
nice and simple.
it.
ranges.

Ouverture

I will point you to it. Only it can’t be so welcoming at times wading through that which isn’t for that. We sent for our brethren to beat back to come to and yes I have been planting my fist into the muck for some time now. Divisions like this are just so hampered with why exhaust the acrylics when the oil is underfoot. The larvae inch caped in corner thoughts caked in the sweat glands of my thumbnails.

Falling on the backs of letters scrunching wince eyelids machinated machines more or less come through these eyeballs and probably other pressed tears and garnished prayers. To point you to the letters like seltzer slenderizing a rock.

April 2009

[due to my embarrassing absence regarding this blog and otherwise, a poem pulled from the semester.]

A THREE WEEK PERIOD

She said The first time you go to therapy is like the first time you have sex
It's looking at each other and thinking
if we do this every week will it get
better?

She was secretly a big woman
you could only tell in off moments
like say she looked out the window
and suddenly all this size

She had a video camera and wanted to use it on me
I said no
It was from 1998, maybe, on a tripod at eye level right next to her head
Staring and
I wanted to say lady, think about it
you know
Get your brain in the game

I was alone
the other day
in the park eating a very simple
well made sandwich
prosciutto mozarella olive oil vinegar and really good bread
and next to me was an older gentleman maybe 50
also alone
and I asked him excuse me? what's your name?
and he said what?
and I said sorry. excuse me. what's your name?
and he said
Mr. Hart
and I said oh I'm sorry I thought you were someone else
when the truth is I didn't think he was someone else
I knew he was Mr. Hart the whole time

I'm beginning to understand the computer bars in Chinatown
Young men playing World of Warcraft all day
nonsensical slogans emblazoned across their chests and
greasy boxed noodles
in easy reach

Forget what they tell you
your time isn't precious at all.

350-Superduty...a poem by madisen

 

 

350-Superduty

 

This afternoon it had taken Lewis

an hour to drive home,

on account of the rain            the wind

and the lightning,

he explained to his wife.

 

When the sirens voiced their opinion

on the matter of cold and warm air’s

rapid, blue-eyed affair, crying

out for what felt like forever

Lewis proudly mentioned that the

pillows, the mattress

they was already there,

in the bathroom

next to the bathtub

waiting to comfort and protect

the couple

from the impending tornado.

 

This was all very true

and it was all very nice, considerate even

but his ol’ girl still ran screaming—

with paucity of reason, she panted

tracing out weather patterns

on the ceiling of their

trailer

opening and closing windows

screaming that the bathroom

did not have a bathtub after all

and for the last goddamn-time

a mobile home

is not a house.

 

Lewis, asleep already,

surrendering to some milky half-dream

about women he knew in high school,

in his dream, girls he knew in high school,

and about the beautiful house that he

and his high school sweetheart shared, just how

great it looked when it was wet,

the metal really sparkled something nice

in the rain.

So  lost, so enveloped was he

that when

the glass, the trailer itself

imploded

he thought it only thunder

and pulled another wet pillow

over his head.

the fourth

written just now............

The Fourth

on the fourth of her wine glasses

i wrote in permanent marker “say

sorry!  you must even if you don’t know why.” only

to find that permanent marker is

easily re

moveable when

scribbled on glassware.

 

I lay on an bare mattress in

empty room

vacant house

everyone is interning for the summer

sleeping in their old beds

sleeping with old girlfriends

or the old girlfriends

of old

friends.

 

I am paying utilities for the first time in

my life

the whole thing makes me think the

way I thought I’d feel after a

graduation

or triumphant

promenade or

maybe even a success in criminal

activity (but I never felt this after any photographable event)

 

costly, I curl and ball into

invisible sheets drawing

invisible curtains so as not to

glimpse the cleared

out room where she used

to sleep

(she never read any

of the obvious signals)

(or

emails

I invisibly sent her) with the

backside of my eyes

and the frontside of my

surprising silences.

 

oh! the hobbies we hope

to tragically acquire from the dealers

of substances we are too

old to pretend

we don’t use.

 

the fourth of her wine glasses was only a fifth of my

problems, which maybe points to the

idiocy of permanence on glassware. yet the promise of

seventh chances remains

intact.

In a reclining chair by casey (from now on I'll go by "Cher")

God sits in a reclining
Chair in my living room.
Mom sits and cries looking out
the window. When I look
in the mirror I see the
Devil is my reflection so
Leave me in a garden where
the milk is. I’ll call you my savior
and pour out my wine.