Putting a Finger on It (by Merritt Waldon)

 

Putting a Finger on It

Putting a finger on the
moment’s reality.
Lukewarm skin, twisting
turbulence beneath
the ancient death mask
armor.
Streets outside sporadically
hum with traffic.
Dragons never sleep.
They are always hungry
always merciless
in their rule.
Visceral swells of a
tortured machine
puttering away at a
more meaningful motion.
Through every doorway
imposters await
a further
quieting of songs.
The momentum changes.
The sacred strangled
by the moans of steelgirders
& glass & tons of
sculpted metal.
The finger now being
used to nervously
light another cigaret.
Too distant a stare
into the future bog
of hours. 



Merritt Waldon is 38, has been writing since he could write. He says it’s the only thing that makes sense to him most of the time.  He lives in Austin, Indiana.

Aborted Meditation (by Merritt Waldon)

 

Aborted Meditation

Towering truths and various misfortunes crawl like worms.
No mouths really. Just holes, like vacuums.
Concrete breeds with nature.
Nature becomes a solidified scab being picked
& opened– giving birth to the darkest
theories.

 

Merritt Waldon is
38, has been writing since he could write. He says it’s the only thing
that makes sense to him most of the time.  He lives in Austin, Indiana.

POMES in loves dark celebration (by Merritt Waldon)

 

POMES // in loves dark celebration//
(written sometime before my Daughters were born)


55.

morning sunshine. the world is still revolving, you
& the sky is filled to its zenith with smoke from
candled forests.
clean shaven, brutalized by dawn, good wake up sex,
thoughtful sweetheart, thoughtful as a dream
leaving no ghosts for the evening.

slammed doors, parking lots, rooms with no view,
cigarette holes in eyes, something tells me there isn’t
going to be
anything as important as the universe
revolving you


66.

Woke up this morning swearing I was dead.
dreamt of old haunts, & even older ways of being, of
becoming
Sinews of currents & wings electricity building the
days shape
This was good, eating beans & rice, huff jug & cocoa,
isn’t there any actions to be mused?

Tranquil. handful of pills, & I too can play the
game.
Some have asked me, what game it is we are playing,
All I can never seem to say is in the dictionary.

Work sucks. life sucks. love is the biggest bugger of
them all.
Alcohol use to be a sedative, so did sex, now it’s
warranted death
splitting the atoms of daily devotions into the wind
where Raphael sneaks behind with his sword

sworn to protect us from the demons,

Hey man You forgot the poets! The dj’s/musicians! The
dreamers in their sleep!
The maidens in their towers of self mutilated prisons!

Yet these mechanical physics of synthetic souls do not
give currency
to angelic principles/ there are zero/
empty wings
have collected here under my pillow.

No more walks down silent street. nothing to remind me
of the hospitals,
nor the hallucinations of demons chewing off the face,
or skeletons
walking down Guadalupe & Houston, suns colliding
falling to surface
destroying the planet. No ruins. I don’t want them.

Somehow. Somehow, I am reminded anyway.
PERHAPS IT IS TIME TO PURGE. BULIMIC. FORCE THE CURD
UP & WASTE ALL OVER THE KEYS

fuck it!

I don’t want to clean up the mess. Don’t want to
expend the energy.
waking up dead, believing in nothing, nothing but
dreams of old
friends & lovers, chewing off my faces, chewing on my
bones.


77.

Being strapped down. electroshock. haldol.
anti-depressants.
hollow man. loss. suicide. utter joy. desperate
sadness.
in trance(ndence). loss of time. cry for help. no
fear. meateaterhellspawn
sewn together by ink.glass.spooge.&. piss.&vinegar.

spiraling memory of violence leading to black out.

nothing helps. no cure. don’t want to keep thinking.
shut up. breaking the mirror. destroy it all. wash
away any implication
of being born. being strapped down. wrist
bruising. feeling the needle
return. currents of
static running all over body, into brain.

everything short of a lobotomized angel.
silence.


88.

drinking gasoline in hell.
puking in heaven.
one foot on sidewalk.
the other in grave.
empathy. sympathy. no thanks.
give me purity.
no. I’d just pollute it all over again.
just give me silence.
& a couple keys to pound,
& I’ll give you history.

Merritt Waldon is 38, has been writing since he could write. He says it’s the only thing that makes sense to him most of the time.  He lives in Austin, Indiana.

Mythological streets leading nowhere (by Merritt Waldon)

 

Mythological streets leading nowhere
(July 13, 2013)

From across an abyss

two princesses looking back

this way.

At a distance in other worlds

He tries everything to continue

sending wisdom in parcels

he wonders if all those

messages in bottles will ever

wash on shore.

At odds with all of it

outside, nothing makes a difference

and he wonders if a person

can suffocate under the weight of the

implications this life

bleeds.

Transitions in form,

and content smash into

the bearded mystic’s

bicycle.

SMASHED by the universe,

crackling solidity. Streets

aren’t as revealing

as they once seemed

in the days of Shields,

Carroll, and Spine Levy; in the days

of pure voices

and speak easies.

An entire world will drown on its

own blood

and all that will be left

are these streets

that lead us

nowhere.

– 



Merritt Waldon is 38, has been writing since he could write. He says it’s the only thing that makes sense to him most of the time.  He lives in Austin, Indiana.