Pile of Spit
These words plopping down onto the paper
Resemble a big, steaming pile of spit.
The pungent smells of the putrid vapors
Choke my nostrils in a great, gasping fit.
My eyes go blood-shot while seeing the stink.
My throat clenches, closing from the foul air.
My disgust rots at the way that I think.
My mind suffocates in a teary glare.
Then I flush the crap down the clogging drain
That contains my spiritual plumbing.
I try to remove the residual stains,
Plunging at the rank source of my dumbing,
But there's a blockage deep, seeping and thick.
This diarrhea makes my stomach sick.
Ok, it's not spit. And I know... this poem was made in poor taste.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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The Shepard
The kind, loving shepherd
Takes his hand, with the shears
And shaves his flock of sheep
One by one, fleecing them.
Gently, he makes the wool
To cover his raw skin,
Insulating his body
When the cold weather comes.
The sheep sleep in the snow,
Resting beside the fire.
The shepherd heats the pit,
Throwing wood on the pyre.
He cares for them, their needs;
He feeds them, gives water.
He tends to their living,
Paving their survival.
[...] Read more
poem by Tim Stensloff
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The Sound of My Alarm Clock
The sound of my alarm clock
Strikes me in-between my eyes
Like a crack of lightning,
And all my subconscious thoughts—
All my dreams—
Splatter on impact,
The residue jettisoned around the room,
Looking diffuse through the rolling curtain
Of heavy morning fog.
In that moment, my body is electrically charged,
Pulsing with an evanescent throb of energy
That seems to fade before it began,
And the world starts to pour down on me,
Raining the speckled flecks of wandering thoughts
And lethargic indecision—
The wu wei of discomforted wakefulness.
For another five minutes,
I experience action through non-action,
And what a glorious five minutes those are!
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Zen EDTA
My dream is
to chelate
the chrome-coated,
heavy lead machinery
that processes
and manufactures
my stock of mass-produced
thoughts
and the residue of their
components.
I want to wash their clawing ligands
from my rusting porphyrin rings,
And dissolve them in the disemboguing
trails that flood through my insight.
I want to watch them
crush, fold, and collapse
in the concertina
of bathetic synthesis,
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poem by Tim Stensloff
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Smart Phone
Your life lasts only as
Long as your smart phone has
Any battery power.
Time sifts away in apps
And the seconds collapse
To be consumed each hour.
Your pocketed moments
Seem to troll—to foment—
As they are all devour'd.
You have cameras to
Capture the world that you
Can no longer remember.
It's phosphorescently
Beautiful—what you see—
Preserved in the screen's amber,
Tempered in sepia
And social media's
Briefly smoldering ember,
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poem by Tim Stensloff
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Unsettled
An unsettled body rests on an unsettled sea,
Staring always upward through the cloudy gauze
OF white, foggy eyes. The body sways, slowly
Deteriorating in the sun; slowly soaking in the salt,
Crisping up as it shribbles—drenched and water-logged.
A single rib in the curving ribcage is split,
Puncturing inward, a small red pool shading
The ocean like the minute hand of a sundial,
Like magnetic pulls on the arrow of a compass.
Carrion rots, but this is flesh preserved
In the saunter of its myth, its iniquity
Of half-destroyed instruments and lost cargoes,
Damaged sails that've lost their luster, their color
In the glow of the sun. The westward wind carries over.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Intimacy
I hear people say, "I love my iPhone, "
Or, "I love drinking a Starbucks coffee."
Sometimes: "I love my Versace cologne, "
And also: "I love having this money."
I hear people say, "I love my Walmart, "
Or, "I love the drive-thru at Taco Bell."
"I love my TV. It's state of the art."
"I love the shoes that Nike has to sell."
I hear this: "I love American Idol, "
And, "I love a nice, cold Budweiser."
"I love medicines such as Demerol."
And, "I love my internet provider."
Yet, one thing I don't hear is, "I love you."
Saying that is too intimate to do.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Pyramid
You and I built a pyramid
Out of granite casing stone
(That we quarried across
A flooded river) .
We fastened the structure
Together with the sweat
Of our hands,
Fixedly spooling an organic
Glue that we believed was inseparable
When applied to the pieces
We mounted
And put on top of each other
In passionate labor.
We wanted to deify ourselves,
To create the demiurges that
Each other could worship—
Transfusing our souls in the moment—
But we were unsuccessful.
Perhaps we should not have constructed
Such a monument on the clouds,
[...] Read more
poem by Tim Stensloff
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Motions of Asphalt Grey
The cars are lined up
down the road,
their headlights twining
the pavement
like bright christmas lights—
all gauzy—
through a fogged window
with cold rain
in percussive taps
drowning out
the thin, algid glass.
The tires screech
against the blacktop,
howling in
wounded animal
pitches where
nobody really
hears a sound.
The air has been still.
The thawing
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poem by Tim Stensloff
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Structure of Design
Structure of Design
In order to avert
The impending evisceration
I envision
On the cusp
Of the horizon,
I construct cathedrals
And cities
Beside a white beach,
Beside a diamond sea
Glinting in the
Splinted light trails of the sun.
I build what does not exist—
What cannot exist—
To find a shelter from the
Intrusion and imposition
Of invasive thoughts
Or deeply buried
Forgeries of the mind.
I dis_ solve my_ self into:
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poem by Tim Stensloff
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