Thread: What You Get

What You Get

Daddy’s a poet with psychedelic lips
for sucking when he talks about the way
it hurts to pray. He’s got fingerpaints
in his pockets and treasure box buttons
for you to break open in the now-I-lay-you-
on-a-pole, bedtime rehearsal.
You’re a glass angel.
One hit is what you get
for being so holy.

Daddy writes about needles
and the way they look half-through wings.
He takes paper napkins and rolls a punctured ball
to dab your eyes when you start to cry.
His lips look much better in a dead-red,
liquid bed—when you’re just coming down-
stairs. He’s twisting cracked nails in every finger
and through the headboard—
what you get when the beat
is thrusting just right.

Glass does not judge. Glass does not
budge unless its breaking.

Daddy brings you to the city
because poets like breathing in dirt,
and you can be that naked angel in the cemetery,
and every piece of gray is a little harder.
He places a stone in homeless half-shirts,
then in open, decaying mouths.
Be exposed. Hunt those stones.
Cement them to your body. Now’s not the time
to get cracked up wings.
Be the barbiturate, what-you-get
babydoll.

Daddy mixes metaphors in ice buckets
to stand in. Until you’re too numb.
He’s got his hands folded like those paper napkins,
then he pops his fingers out
and says he’ll make them fly.

I like the internal rhyme flowing through this - it's much more natural than some of your other rhyming. I also like your use of line. The line breaks here are much cleaner than what I've seen you employ before. nice work!

I always love your work.

This particular poem conveys it's message strongly with the use of languid imagery.

It sparks fear, exposure, sadness....true emotions in the strongest of ways. you define exactly what I perceive it means to be a poet.

Beautiful. I love the rhythm and the flow. The way it reads like a stream of consciousness from one idea to the next works wonderfully. I love how the two lines about glass were their own stanza, it really gives them the emphasis they need. And I really loved the line about mixing metaphors in ice buckets. Your vivid imagery and haunting mood really makes this an awesome piece.

This does have a nice flow, and the imagery is powerful - there is a quiet horror in there, and anxiety and fear - you certainly have a strong poetic voice all your own. I can't quite say that I am drawn to the subject matter, but you definitely have a very poetic way of expressing yourself and your ideas.
---todd