Memoires of Poison-Kissings

Memoires of Poison-Kissings

*originally titled "Memoire of Samsara Celebrations", I changed it because I thought you folks would like it more. Tell me I was wrong, please, because I prefer the Samsara one.*

3-25-06

Sucking a cold black-iron pistol barrel,
high as hell on hallucinogens I’m ready for Afterlife
so I flick the trigger, it spews my brains out
with the crescendo BLAM
then death-weapon melts into her supple hand,
brains melt back into my skull,
I rerealize my life, &
safety is always an accident.

I don’t know what wisdom is

but I know that it feels like running
until the world stings
an elegant guitar-riff pushing the crowd into one,
embracings, sweat
taking something and being guided by friendship
through flowers of crystallizing ideology
dynamic truth collisions, forgot before morning,
don’t know what wisdom is,
but feels like tearing through the countryside
hills and trees and darkness sprawling & shimmering,
the moon dressed in Earth’s shadow,
surrounded by pals who cast away doubt
to the music’s fractal symmetry,
and accept danger’s fleshy, sweet-tasting
frontal fucks.

The survivors aren’t waiting to die,
& the dead aren’t lamenting
death’s final blissful tranquility,
surfing the eternal echo;
life is a record, we’ll play it loud
gyrate optimistically in its instrumental labyrinths
hurl, blind, at the walls of the operatic maze,
it feels like wisdom when
in silent backyard japanese fountains
snow tickling sleepy air
we meditate into each other, making love
with earnest words, exploring the taste
of each other’s radiant perfumes...
it feels like wisdom when
–!
a car smashes us, and in a sudden tornado
of screams, blood, glass, and sparks of pang!Pain!
we are thrown topsy-turvy into the trees, lose consciousness,
and wake up to the terrifying clangor, reverberation–
–there was death–
–there is dying–
–there is blame–
–there is venomous & dirty castration-pendulum of Justice–
or there is more running, get up let’s go
and fleeing the country & your past is silent,
it feels like wisdom to know
best to be slippery rather than strong.

Two years pass by,
and the stars are patiently watching...
car slams shut, injecting pleasure
directly into my cephalic vein,
pleasure rushing through nerves endings, into bliss
(we all laugh, opiate explosion)
(the speakers sound like I’m under water),
We’ve burned together again,
It murmurs that this is wisdom
in the highest, I don’t know
but the peaks of collapsing misty white & green mountains
feels high as Heaven, tap-dancing reality’s roof;
and deeper, higher levels of communication
reveal their virginity through us;
ever sweeter fruits
and I could be massacred
by just witnessing the Hells I’ve forged open.
It feels like wisdom
to throw my cosmic atomic boomerang
and dodge its nuclear recoil.

For all intensive purposes, this is too long. Some poems can be long, but this isn't one of them. The Raven for instance, pulls off being long largely because its also a story. But you start off with a somewhat detailed description of someone blowing his own brains out, and it does the opposite of investing us in this poem. The structure also is a little too free spirited, and is not interesting. It just makes it harder to read.

"High as hell" Isn't very artistic, and in all reality, people read poetry to feel a sense of artfullness. Its read for an atristic deposition to the world around them. It doesn't have to be pretty, and can be graffic or disturbing. Thats actually a good angle to use, but we do need to be interested in it. So, maybe save the brain splattering for the end. Or at least the middle. That kind of thing comes away from the style that we're used too. After something like that, we want to be able to settle down, but at the beginning, we expect it to get bigger and better after that. So its kind of like your setting yourself up for a fall before you have the cliff in place.

you didn't get the brain-thing at all. He didn't splatter his brains. He thought he did, but his gun was a girl's hand, and he was too high to realize it until he had killed himself and then realized that he wasn't dead. That's drama. It builds it up. That makes all the poem a misinterpretation. And this isn't supposed to be "artistic" so much as it's a story and it's drama. For that purpose, it can be as long as I damn well please. I limited it to two pages. For me, that's pretty good.

also, frankly, who the hell are you to say the only reason people read poetry? This is, after all, the narrative section, I read things here for story, and I write things here for story, and I'm sorry that you didn't see that this was a story, but you're...

grrrrr.

tra la la - let's dance. So this was open for about an hour, and I think I have something coherent to say know. Have you ever read Bomb by Gregory Corso, this reminded me of it. hehheh 2 pages only, and then I remember Schizm :shock:. I enjoy your poetry because it tells a story, more-so than most of the things today, including my own.

EDIT: I actually like the first title better. Poison-Kissings doesn't seem to quite fit. And I like the connotations of Samsara better.

line by line.

1. cold seems a little flat; perhaps icy, crisp, wintry, arctic, frigid...

2. when I read it the first tile hallucinogens came out as hallucinations, silly me. I love this line and the alliteration/rhythm.

3. a instead of the.

4. freakin' A! I heart this.

6-8. favorite lines.

9. love it

11. stings - great feeling there

12. colon (:) instead of comma (,)

13. confused... is sweat in conjecture with embracings or taking something...? If it is with embracing a semicolon (;) after sweat, if not semicolon (;) after embracings or something like that.

16. forgot? perhaps forgotten instead?

21. pals - it seems very slang, and out of place.

22. music's fractal symmetry - *whistles lowly*

23-24. I love it, love it.

33-34. love the imagery.

39-40. oooo, very nice.

42-43. amazing diction: topsy-turvy / clangor

47. wow, I love it. (space between dash (-) and pendulum, perhaps).

48. I don't like that or.

53. ellipses (...) are superfluous.

55. shivers: cephalic vein.

57. Another favorite line.

58. oooh, nice simile.

Last lines are a fantastic ending.

I hope this helps, hon. Ciao. CL.

Psy--when you put your poetry up for critique, and someone critiques it, it is not the time to become defensive and try to explain yourself; rather, it's time to either accept the critique and change the poem or ignore it. If you need to defend your poetry, don't give it to the public. Because when you make it public, it is no longer yours...

Brian

yeah, well, nuts to your white mice.

The original title strikes me. Without the hint of Samsara I wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about. Samsara, or ignorance of the true self, is the anti-Nirvana, and this idea is reinforced when you state "I don't know what wisdom is." Our subject seems to be having an existential crisis. He is so mentally unstable that he imagines his own cranial penetration when in fact it is only the caress of his mother. He longs for the untainted state of childhood, the virginal purity of prepubescence, when his mother provided for him. Now, in his insanity she has invaded his hallucinations and become a brand of pain on his consciousness. Later in your poem, he is plagued by her sweet-tasting "frontal fucks," suggesting that he subconsciously longs for the warm sanctuary of her womb. Her womb, which can now only be touched through sexual intercourse. I can sense that you have much respect for Freud; many of his writings are plagued by the constant sexual attraction to one's maternal figure.

I absolutely love the epic journey of the sperm in the third stanza. You state that they know their destiny and are willing to die in the painful process of creation. The work together for a greater good. As a collective working toward one goal they are as efficient as ants and honeybees and are stronger than they would be alone. This poem calls for the unity of mankind, a unity which surpasses traditional moral values and encourages free-love between all humanity, even between a man and his mother.

But I digress...back to the wonderful spermatic imagery.

You say that each one "gyrate[s] optimistically in its instrumental labyrinths/ hurl, blind, at the walls of the operatic maze"
This reminds me of every human's struggle through life, each having the potential to achieve enlightenment, but that there are the rare few who succeed. The sperm are an excellent symbol of humanity, confused and blind as it plunges into the uncertain abyss of the future.

That his partner is his mother sugests that the right path may be towards our childhood. We have been spoiled by the influence of others. There is a huge Taoist undertone in this poem. We were only truly happy in our childhood, and this poem calls for a return to its simplicity and innocense.

In the fourth stanza, your piece takes a violent turn. The violence is a metaphor for the entrance of a young man into adolescence. In this period, like many young men, he becomes extraordinarily violent and lashes out at the bonds that restrain him. Suddenly, he turns from the ways of Nirvana--and comes to accept Samsara...the death of the soul. For when he accepts that he will be reborn, he also accepts that he will die rather than attain eternal enlightenment. Childhood's end is the first step off of the righteous path to true happiness (Nirvana).

I would call your poem a Freudian-Zen synthesis. It is very unique and I think that it is an artistic achievement. The imagery is vivid and intense. It's edgy, hip, and transcends traditional thought. Your style reminds me of the poetry of the great Wilfred Owen, one of my all-time favorite wordsmiths.

You know, as they say: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

All I can say is...


wow.