Unpublishable Poems By Michael T. Smith

Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of the Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University, where he received his PhD in English.  He teaches cross-disciplinary courses that blend humanities with other areas. He has published over 60 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 30 different journals.

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A Poem Excavated from Naked Lunch:

He turns

into Rock and Roll hoodlum.

"I screw

the old gash

like a crossword puzzle what relation to me is the outcome if it outcome? My father already or not yet?

I can't screw you, Jack,

you is about to become

my father,

and better

'twere to cut your throat and screw my mother playing it straight than my father or

vice versa

mutatis mutandis as the case may be,

and cut my mother's throat,

that sainted gash,

though it be the best way I know to stem her word hoard and

freeze

her asset. I mean when a fellow be caught short in the switches and don't know is he to offer up his ass

to 'great big daddy'

or commit a

torso job on his old lady. Give me two ---s and a prick of steel and keep your dirty finger out of my sugar bum what you think I am a purple-assed reception already fugitive from Gibraltar? Male and female

castrated he them. Who can't distinguish between the sexes? I'll cut your throat you white mother fucker. Come out in the open like my grandchild and meet thy unborn mother in dubious battle. Confusion hath his masterpiece, I have cut the janitor's throat quite by mistake of identity, he being such a horrible like the old man. And in the coal bin all cocks are alike."

Valentine

a heart, not so very distant

a heart, not so very distant

a heart, not so very distant

a heart not so very distant

a heart, NOT so very distant

a heart, not so very distant

a heart, not so very distant…

Just Be By Eve Harker

Eve Harker is a remarkably talented healer/creator who, with her husband Brian, also a remarkable artist, own and operate Luna Datura's Curious Gifts downstairs from Zombie Logic Press. Here she writes about battling the beast, depression. Today is the one year anniversary of Luna Datura's Curious Gifts.

JUST BE

It falls upon you like a soft down comforter.

It hides behind the illusion of safety and security.

It descends gradually like a light snowfall.

Gentle flakes drifting down and in their wake leaving a cold sensation.

All at once, where no sleep was to be had – too much sleep seems to be the standard.

It is never enough –

The sadness wells in your heart until it overflows and spills over

Tired

Lonely

Melancholy

A dulling of the senses

A desire to slumber countless hours

The mind in it’s infinite wisdom – will not shut off

Racing – interwoven with thoughts of

Isolation

Desolation

No sensation

A withering of the heart

Trying so desperately to protect its self

Wanting to shut down completely

Inability to function – or better yet – not wanting to function

A gray light falls over everything.

Where once was vivid and bright and full of life

Dark wings flutter around your peripheral vision

A sign that all is not well

The constant headache

The body aches

The consistent lethargy

All indicative of a soul crying out to be healed

A necessary part of healing though

Without grieving – one cannot heal

Many steps

Many roads

Many emotions

All required to be able to let go

Not allowing others to deter you from your path

But allowing them in – to aid and help

So hard

So extremely hard

The trying to not go it alone

But so hard to reach out and say

Hey – I am feeling really sad and down

That you don’t always have to be up

It’s ok

It really is

Be sad

Cry

Sleep

Cleanse your heart with the tears of an end to something

One cannot experience the next without releasing the last

Take your time

No time limits

No restrictions

No expectations

Just be

It’s really ok

Nurture and love yourself through this

Never deny yourself that

You cannot move on until you do

It IS ok

It’s a part of life

It’s a part of death

The death of something that you knew for so long

Why not mourn it?

Why not cry for it?

Being

Healing

It’s ok

It will always be ok

Never doubt that for one minute

There is hope

There is light

There is laughter

There is love

There is peace

There is a beginning

All in good time

Just never doubt what it is or kid yourself about it

It is an end to something

Everything has a start and a finish

And you must experience all of the emotions

Not just the ones that are convenient or “nice”

But all of them

The good

The bad

Depression IS healing

Is necessary

And it will pass

Just be…..

September 29, 2008

Luna Datura's Curious Gifts Rockford, Illinois

Poems By Richard Holleman

Richard Holleman is one of two poets we will feature today writing about how it feels to battle depression.

A Terrible Thing

It is a terrible thing

to be caught

under love

like under a rock

in Death Valley

where thirst sucks

your very breath.

It is a terrible thing

to worship the same photo

while waiting for that one day

different from all others

like that one rock

when struck gushes water

for this terrible thirst.

It is fortunate

for me I am only stirring

around in cognitive distortions.

What a relief

to be brimming

at the esophagus

with brown sickness

than to be in…

(Don’t you say it)

love.

Newport in Times of Many

A dog, a stray won’t make a neighborhood.

Some coral, wood, some drift are not a beach.

Are things not missing down the oldish town?

The fish won’t vend themselves with none to buy.

I remember the town had salt to it:

purchase, haggle, each walk an obstacle

through teeming crowds, bubbling over noise of birds.

For each merchant there popped ten ready smiles.

I recall families fishing on the pier,

the rusted, green tackles, the sweating box,

tuna inside. Locals are gone today,

inland the boys with dads and girls with moms.

Proximity Alert

A cigarette, a rum and coke,

strange refreshments

while nature stitches

tissue to tissue

shunning threat of

tobacco burns

or alcoholism.

I once thought

we were the same

tissue until

I was grafted

into an olive tree

wild but adopted

by a new root.

You and I thought

we tingled with the same blood.

We were simply breathing

in the same place

at the same time.

We mistook the fragrance

of tomatoes on the vine

for the fresh bond of love.

Yes, a happy mistake

corrected by the taste

of too many taboos

rubbing the tongue raw.

Keepsake

We must store these things

in a strongbox separate

from chest, skin, pulse.

Funny, the size of things.

The world will not fit in a box

but my tattooed world is small

enough to fit inside you;

when you move my world

moves in your femurs

like marrow in your bones.

Was it a mistake leaving

something as large as

my world in your body?

Maybe,

but even so, I say

keep this world in you.

It stores the best of me

and maybe it will bring

out the best in you.

Things That Cannot Stand The Light Of Day

I have crumpled

my last apology letter

you will never read.

I would mail it to you

in its wrinkled imperfections

but I do not trust you

with my return address.

Our soggy sand castle in Carlsbad

is now back to its original form.

It is just wet, white sand.

What a day that was!

We were arrogant enough

to believe we had built something

worthy on a shifting foundation

on this temporal side of heaven.

Forgiveness will have to come

from another place, foreign to you.

Closure will have to come

from another place, foreign to me.

And healing will come

from a place we have yet to discover.