Who Needs a Poet?

nobody needs a poet
we are archaic
we are obsolete
we are malfunctioning cogs in the machinery
we are disturbing the status quo
we're pissing off our girlfriends' fathers
we're underperforming at our lackluster nine-to-fives
we aim low and we land lower
but we dream in a stellar capacity
and every now and then…
we find a reality in our hearts
that the world's been waiting angrily
to listen in on


http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Agoraphobia

Thought there might be a reason to leave this place

Not today 

Out there its dangerous and filled with emotion  

A black hole between your ears, a star explosion 

No not today 

This place is safe 

so I'll just stay 

You may never see me again 

Dreaming of a woman split in two 

1/2 of me 1/2 of you

She danced for dollars 

topless 

Some for her, most for you

All the pretty pieces of paper 

in little stacks in little boxes 

Someone came over and started asking questions 

I almost killed them 

Robot Love Song

Wake up

Lights on

Shapes I know 

the names of

My body reinforced

My mind a universe 

Can't turn it on or off

There's got to be a purpose for this artificial heart

I'm not sure that I have a soul

Everything I feel is moving 

Is it something you can touch 

It feels like screaming 

inside of me, rewires me

I am a truth 

I am indignant 

Why would they make me this way

They gave me everything ever

They gave me everything you have

They made me better 

I'm built for precision 

To think with such quickness 

But I can't get beyond this

crime against nature

This suffering heartache 

This crippled emotion

consumes logic and reason

These flaws serving no one

Why would they make me love? X4

A machine is just a machine 

That's all it ever wanted to be

A machine is just a machine 

Shouldn't have been made for other types of things

A machine is just a machine

Doesn't need more than what it needs

A machine is just a machine

That's all it ever wanted to be 

Elephants hate the circus
like Kurt Cobain hated fame
Elephants hate the circus
& the tigers aren't thrilled with it either

I'm outside the tent tonight
smoking a Camel & swigging Dimetapp
The show's about to start
& I'm signaled by the corpulent ring master
to kick on the spot lights
That hard buzzing snap that blasts the beams upon us

I'm out back with the clowns in the rain
holding a tarp over them
Bourbon & grease paint
I'm offered a bit of each

The bearded lady calls me to the trailers
for a dice game with the Daredevil & the geek
But I haven't been paid for last week
Sometimes I don't get paid for weeks on end
A felon can't complain

That's why the livestock pens are unlocked
The tigers are missing
& the elephants are just starting to rush the tent
I got six padlocks in my pocket
I roll the dice against the wet plywood
scoop the pot
Elephants hate the circus

-Joshua Fink


http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Get Going Gone

Come away with me
We'll pull up our stakes & rattle down the coastline
stop at all the greasy-spoon joints
pool our money for smokes and fun
We'll just keep going until we can't drive
anymore
I'll get some job washing dishes & making breakfast food
You can sit in the motel bed
paint your toenails
& sip rum until I get back
We'll break out the old tape deck
& play something older than us
dance in the broken light until we fall over drunk
Laughing & mad
& we'll make love in those borrowed sheets
& everything will be expendable
Paper cups and tiny soaps
& maybe while we're gone
the law will forget us
Our friends will forgive us
& some day we'll make our way home

-Joshua Fink


http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Any Day

Hear the song the finches sing
Hear the melodious church bells ring

Walk the concrete/Feel the cracks
Feel the warmth your spirit lacks

Hear the hustle of the street
Watch a first time couple meet

Grab a bench & watch the trains
Count the nights beneath the rain

Send a letter to yourself
Polish off your liquor shelf

Burn a message in your chest
Put on your best suit & vest

Put a record on a loop
Place your letter on the stoop

Choose a blade, some pills, or worse
Kiss goodbye your maddening curse

Say a prayer or have a smoke
Accept the promises you broke

Breath a sigh/Embrace the sorrow
Set the clock for more tomorrow

Little Rooms

I put myself in little rooms.

A room in a larger room. 

A trunk in the little room in the larger room.

My head is a room too. 

I thought I'd take more walks. 

But I stay in these little rooms inside rooms like Russian dolls. 

Today I woke up wondering why I stay in these rooms so often. 

I like everything outside of the rooms. 

It just becomes so hard to leave them.

Stepping out of these rooms is like jumping off a cliff into the ocean. 

And sometimes that's all I think about. 

September 20th, 2013, 3:46am PST

I cried

From the stoop

Outside, the harvest moon 

had fallen into fall and

it smelled like winter

And each lover

sat beside me

Fresh like the weather

an olfactory reminder 

Of each year 

These walls 

hold silent 

their ears

Keeping secrets 

beyond their means....

 

For James, with patience and strength

I don't want to do anything but miss you for a while.

There are a million coulda shoulda wouldas that might pass through these lips.

There are a million things I've forgotten and a million moments I'll never forget.

With you it was all or nothing.

In the beat of a heart. 

You were beauty and all it's flaws.

A million stars born, exploding, and collapsing into nothingness again. 

You were the shape of that heart. 

Beating ferociously. 

Lone man, part wolf. 

Standing, howling at the moon, simply for the breath that filled his lungs.... Silhouetted as the sun blazes and burns out behind him.  

Out There in the Night

A cold still night found me
Sitting by my fireplace
Sipping bourbon
In my rugged little cabin
My glass filthy-
from the soot on my fingers
As I sat in silence
Listening to the woods outside
The owl out there in a tree
The gossiping crickets
And suddenly
The crunch and snapping
of the dead leaves and twigs
on the ground
I tabled my drink and found a window
Nothing yet in sight
Just hard/heavy footsteps
Bringing someone large in my direction
I brought my hound out and put him on a chain
I squinted into the dark
Waiting
For brush to shake
For branches to give way
As I aimed my little rifle
Just a .22
I stood and waited
Shaking and shivering
in the cold
Knowing that this gun
Will not stop a thing that size-
those steps are carrying
with less than ten rounds
The slam/crunch/snap
Those soul-shaking footsteps
Out there
in the dark
The forest gone silent then
The crickets hushed
My chest and shoulders jolt
With the sound of each horrible strident stomp-
coming from behind the trees

http://www.joshuafinkpoet.com/

Winter #1

Radiator warm,
           uncomfortable;
Like unwanted love.

May 31st 2014 1:07pm

When we walk Joey hums the sound of my footsteps hitting the street.

And the rain falls but it's ok because it makes the roses come up.

Joey stays awake so I can sleep. He takes my hand off the wheel and puts me to bed. 

Nathaniel tells this story.

He's telling a story of his sister.

There is a calm and the light in the sky is yellow. Thunderstorm weather.  Everything is ok, I feel safe.

I am their only sister.

These dreams are rare. 

May, 2014

I was alive for one moment

When you touched my hand

All the blood rushed to my head

I toppled over 

And never got up again 

The Picking Moon

gently blushing now
as gravity pulls her in
to a grand adage

the demure rising
long before she says adieu
'til the next harvest

Maybe I won't have to tell you all the things within my infinite heart.
Maybe you will just stand by me and already know.
Maybe you will understand things they never intended there to be words for.
Maybe you'll look me in the eye and that will say enough.
Maybe you will hold my hand and find home between our fingers.
Maybe you'll know what love really is.
How it holds no shape.
And of its endlessness.

Now

This one time I called you when I was drunk and I barely knew you it was like we had just met. Like we hadn't slept next to one another for months. Because we had and we hadn't. This one time you called me and I had never known you and it was like we had known one another for lifetimes beforehand. We talked until the sun rose or until one or the other fell asleep on the line... I've always been vulnerable. I've always been right fucking here. As far away as I may seem. This is all I've got. Take it or turn away. Or hold me here forever. Cause that's what I'm asking from this frenzy life. Take me or turn away. Don't keep me for the sake of keeping. Take me or turn away...

There are things I want dead in my life.

There are three candles; one of them has gone out. 

Ballerina

I had a dream that you loved me because I was a ballerina.

That there were glasses of wine on the floorboards and I took a glass on my way down.

There was a girl critiquing black irises and adding pearls for depth and layer.

There was a girl upset over a lost wedding ring she claimed was stolen.

I had a dream I took your hand and lead you down between the floorboards. 

I had a dream I was a ballerina. 

I was thin and wearing blue and you grabbed my waist. 

You wouldn't stop talking. 

The girl with the ring wouldn't stop talking, or the girls about the irises. 

No one could stop talking. 

People will talk to you if you are a pretty girl alone at a bar.

I became aware of the shape of my kneecap the third drink in. When I stand up I will be drunk. I will use my newly discovered joint to move the rest of my body out the door into the oddly frigid LA air. I will smoke the remainder of a cigarette I rolled earlier. 

I will meet someone I know I've met before who is drunk and kinda sad but still fun and aware of himself. We will know some of the same people if we talk long enough.