Blooper Reel

The editing process forces one to make hard choice. Some poems, though you feel fond of them, just don't fit, transition or sound right within the collection. These are the outtakes from my chapbook of poetry Night Poems. *queue laugh track*

18:02

Christmas lights

Alone and distant.

Their screams and yells

Have faded into thoughts.

Snowflake memories

Too dark to see.

03:09

Bottles to bottles;

Breasts to more breasts.

Learning to speak,

Regretting your words.

Crawling away,

Forgetting to walk.

Crying for everything,

Crying for something.

Soft food to hard food

And back to soft food.

The cycle’s as ugly as

It’s less than beautiful.

04:48

My wallet and my mind

are drained. The weekend’s

hit its end. And so have I.

Sleep is rushing in.

I feel the current

Pulling me.

I can’t resist,

Don’t feel the need.

It’s comfortable and

Beautiful like death.

01:27

I’ve left my consciousness in pieces

A little here, a little here,

Stashed in mothballs,

Jammed underneath the bed

Between a floorboard

With my tell-tale heart.

You see cobwebs in the attic,

I see neurons clinging to a surface

That I left behind.

03:25

Some of us are dying.

                 Right now.

You might know a few.

You might know more.

You might not care.

It might brush off.

But never stay off.

Feel your pulse.

It’s ticking down.

Your heart’s a clock

With broken hands.

05:31

Selective cataracts blur visions

In my memory. Fog sifts, distorts

Refusing to blank out completely

Mistakes that I have made.

I think it almost would be worth forgetting

And repeating just to feel my conscience clear

Itself as if a taped confession recorded

Over with smooth jazz.