Liars

When Jim's wife came home early and found him in bed with another woman, he thought for sure that their marriage was over. His wife didn't scream, didn't fight. It was as if she had dropped a mirror and was peering down over the shattered pieces. Later, Jim and his wife were at the kitchen table and she asked him to just be honest. He said that he had trouble being honest sometimes, but he would try.

"It just happened, you know?"

But that wasn't honest. The girl was an interior designer at his architecture firm. She was funny and sophisticated, did her job well, and never complained. Jim had trouble trying to not stare at her breasts. It was three days until Christmas, and he invited a few coworkers out for drinks one night after a huge deal had closed, and even though she didn't know any of his friends very well, he invited her too. Sitting at the table, Jim and the woman held their own conversation. It flowered with innuendos, salacious flirting budded out and the boys knew what was up. They each casually got up and left the two to their peace. Jim and the girl hardly noticed anyone else had left.

"We were really drunk . . .

I uh, I'm so sorry . . .

"honey, wait. honey, listen. I know what I did was wrong."

Her cold back was silent.

"Listen. Honey, listen. Im so sorry. Im so, so sorry." He reiterated "so" like an infomercial, and, although he hadn't planned it, cliches came rolling out of his mouth quickly.

It didn't mean anything and it was an accident. It was an error, a simple mistake.

He felt he could not better make her understand so fell silent, back hunched on the opposite side of the bed as the daylight died. He expected this, and shook his head robotically.

He began to speak again, finding the moment monotonous. He sighed, rather loudly, surprising himself and as his mouth opened he chose not to speak because he realized his wife had been crying. But she had stopped now and simply sat there, unmoving. He could not see what she was staring at. The realization that she was crying moved him, and so he again apologized,

"Listen, honey. I can't tell you how sorry I am . . ." he trailed off and after a distinct pause, when silence became like humidity, she said

"No, its fine. It really is; I promise."

Promise floated off her tongue like the hiss from a boiler. The room got smaller, but still she drifted over to the mirror, let down her hair, and got ready for bed.

That night Jim dreamt he was driving a really nice Italian car. He was speeding through the country for what seemed like hours. He was having fun until he realized he kept passing the same hillside, barn, and water tower. He got out of his car confused. When he turned around a black and white city was hunched there, looming over him.

That morning Jim woke up and took a hot shower. He whistled on his way to work, happy to have avoided a collision with his wife. She said everything was fine, and he felt his blockade of trouble's begin to wash away with the morning rain.

Yet he had trouble concentrating all day. Something seemed wrong, like a tired chess player will without warning give up suddenly and start making fatal errors. It was so sudden, and Jim didn't see it at first but now it wore on him like a blister.

When he came home his wife was reading Fortune 500 and didn't seem bothered. She said "hey" casually, but not too casually, so Jim knew she wasn't hiding any bothered feelings about the incident.

"What do you want to do about dinner?"

She shrugged. "Whatever is fine."

There it was again, "fine." He was looking for some sort of odd tonal shift that might give him an idea that his wife really was hurt or angry. He had recited another eloquent apology on the way home, and now in his mind he was hitting the high notes. But she really did seem fine, almost uncaring. Jim kept waiting for an explosion, or even a whimper. None came.

That night, in bed, she finished her magazine, flipping the pages mechanically. Leant over, kissed him on the cheek.

"Goodnight."

Still no altered tones. At this point Jim was almost disappointed. She switched off her bedside lamp and rolled over with her back to him. He thought about how her back looked like polished metal.

That night he dreamt in color for the first time. He was limping through the hunched city, and everywhere people were being stabbed to death.

The Story of Fathers V

Mother's and brother's cries
         wash over
     the hard wood
floor

              like an unwelcomed guest


Father died.


I try to cry but I can't
miss someone I don't
    know

We could
   analyze
   the situation

could have
   found
   other opinions-


but that isn't what I need right now

My reconstructions of the past will
bring both pleasant and sad
         memories

my hidden memories

      will reveal that I could have done everything

      and nothing more.

Jacob's Hip

Jacob's hip has manifested
itself

What is the use of victory if its
over a friend

Forgiveness is informal but once open
to it

that following feeling is too short lived
missed too easily

if caught

lonely when its gone

Oh Great;

come to me
at me
if necessary

and if I limp i know that there has been
some great contact

the pain in walking will only be
the memory

the reminiscence of something greater and opposite
of pain

untitled

Every time I come to,
I'm face down in a lake-
not dead-
but unconscious.

With great effort I must
rotate and face up
and see the stars.

I don't want this to be a romantic idea-
I need this-
these stars
this space
this night.

I need this.

This space exists
in such an a opposing way
to this city,
to this cramped coffee shop.

Its attractive in its awe,
its autonomy
that makes me feel at home.

My Modest Proposal

Hollywood and MTV's The Hills have got it all wrong. They've run the homeless out of town to feel comfortable; traded them for pillows stuffed with presidents. I propose instead that to end the epidemic of the homeless starving in America, we halt all productions in spaying and neutering; as it is so the dogs and cats in question do not have any say in the removal of their genitalia, to which, if they did I imagine would come a great howling. Likewise, the accuracy and senses of the homeless community would be incredibly sharpened, useful in future wars, and seeing as we hold all other countries, especially those of the third world, below that of dogs and cats, the homeless community's skills in hunting would be quite practical. I propose that we arm them with a particularly small amount of government aid but I say we relieve ourselves from educating them; it would be far better use for their own livelihoods in a stray hunting or war battlezone if they acquired all of the necessary skills themselves, for we all know that learning to stand on one's own two feet makes the best standing army, the regalia of which is good ol' Red White and Blue and Green. When and if they returned, there would, of course, be a great commencement and hooplah and thanking all around, because these boys both learned how to eat for themselves and kept us from losing our freedom. And in times of peace, when the world is at ease because we are at ease, we can rest assured knowing that the homeless community can retain all of their previous freedoms, without any "butting in" from the government; the government will, out of gracious thanks, turn a blind eye to any possible dis-courageous actions involving strays, and Her People, us of course, should also not think any less of these great heroes of war and stray number thinning, because while we sleep in our down beds with the heaters on, we know that our country will have been protected and and stray cats and dogs will have been thinned thanks to the great community of the Homeless.

W. K. Medlen

pun

The stature of our love
  is
     diagonal
                   towards
                                each
                                        other.

     Our Planes
     coincide
     at a perfect point.

coexistinthesamespace
even(ly).
         (Our love is behind the numbers)

Our pitch is perfect as we struggle to sing
with scratchy voices
in a world of lame
autotuners.
         (Our love is in the music)

Money means much to many
and to have many means much more;

without these, we have much more.

Ramblings...

The Story of Fathers III




Your words fall like pine cones
on a tin roof in the dead of winter.

My ears are wet tissue
being broken by your tears.

I feel the ghost caressing my shoulder
exposing and shuddering

thundering

cumbersome fear, a vile
stench that you detest more than any.

W. K. Medlen

Ramblings...

The Story of Fathers II



I'm worried about forgetting

your childhood-Roy Rogers-
you came into this world
       guns a blazin'
and thats how you want to leave this world.

What to do with this information?
       Something about your liver-
       and Birmingham-
       and the future.

I can't forget

You said you were proud of me
and I believe you.


THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN
preparationpreparation

        mowing the grass
     tending the garden-

they don't mean that much anymore.

Epistle to David Bazan

Pedro the Lion,
     the cute untame

-beautiful-

                  Mr. Bazan,
why so melancholy?
Do Bands With Managers upset you?
                         Is it our undying
love
for American Flags?



you were no Cowardly Lion
who found
              a heart-

You were a fierce King
who relinquished
        his shield-

for Fewer Moving Parts.

Your unsmiling face is all we see
         slowly shaping the American youth

We can't see the pen and pad,
the Cold Beer and Cigarettes,
the Christmas Whiskey-

the God you don't see unshaping you
             more
                    and
                            more

W. K. Medlen

Ramblings

Its been a while. Im working on a longer piece which i will blog sooner or later. until then here is what i wrote while avoiding homework and listeneing to music, and considering my life



The music fills my lungs
and my eyes jump
“the minor fall and the major lift,”
the music knows how to chastise
and to enliven;
to bring down and reinforce;
it makes me think
realize
epiphanize

write.
When the music brings me down
while I think about economy
and capitalism (Lusus Naturæ)
it lifts me up when I consider
I can do anything

dammit

Ode to an Orange

This goes in conjunction to one of my fiancees blog posts.

Ode to an Orange

Little Orange! But big with Bright;

Let us taste Your juicy Light.

Round and Smooth, exact with care;

Quarter'd, or Halv'd, equally Fare

Ev'n Juic'd! A Taste refin'd and pleas'd;

Upon your sight, Taste Buds seize

With a sour and sweet, beautifully met,

As if, directly to my Soul, or Appetite, you have Whet.

Althought colors of Auburn, or Tennessee,

Your Nectar is a Truth-filled Treaty,

An unchoosing, blindfolded Light,

Encapsulated by your Rhine;

Orange, and Bright

W. K. Medlen

This has to do with poetry

This has to do with poetry. Thought it was interesting.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091225041850AApxALK

Exquisite Corpse

Last night myself along with good friends Alex Wright, Corrine Keil, Lee Ellenburg, and Fiancee Meghan Brown went to the Kaffee Klatch to watch a fantastic band called the steel wheels play. During one of the intermissions we created two "Exquisite Corpses." They are as follows:




I


In a smoky filled room, there are awkward ladies dancing
They seduce us with thier dancing and black lingerie
Oh God why have you forsaken me
you doo doo.
and never wipe enough
of baby's bottoms: the feces of the future
Will future moms even need diapers when the problem of gravity is solved
Are we not men?
Or are we the mice of men?
That ran away from the carving knife.


II


Hey why don't you just go ahead and keep criticizing?
my barefeet and culinary abilities
Neil Diamond, you hold my heart
in your hands. I wish you were in my reach
so that I could pick your nose,
hopefully finding empty, not full of vain boogers
or flintstones or whatever you kids are calling it these days
All I know is that I can make your bed rock.
Call me Mr. Flinstone, girl
cause my feet are dirty from this long ride home!

Thesis revisited

O' Thesis
again you appear before me
like a wall
or tower
or even a bully

A wall or tower, yes,
but spare me the corny cliches.
I need change!
So, thesis, will you hold me
upsidedown and shake the lunch money
from my pen ridden pockets?

Will you knock the books
out of my hands I use to create You?

You were more intimidating,
80 pages of relentless
monosyllabic unintelligent
word vomit,
all leading to a well-known conclusion.

Now I tower over you,
mere 24 pages,
more eloquent and
new, and idea-filled.
I shall come upon you and shake you

of any loose change.
I shall control you
hand you over to the authorities.

They will repay me with one single sheet of paper,
shorter and nicer than you,
O' Thesis,
and I will display this document proudly
never forgetting the torment
You put me through.

Why my job sucks

So I know this is punny, and rather cheezy, and incorporating pagan gods with puns and cheeseball-ness may not fit exactly into a standard for "good" poetry, but I just couldn't help myself.




Pharmaceutical Representative






is such an unnatural
conglomeration of words;
mostly resembling porcelain dolls
with the politically correct
one
single
African American Porcelain Doll.

I, the atypical barista
at the corporate coffee shop,
stare through you to a foamy
misty future.

You order many four dollar lattes
many, many, four dollar lattes,
affording them on the plastic credit
of your over-paid drug company.

Back to the building of dead and dying,
you offer the scissor arms
and cotton coats
your nose
to their asses
and then
the lattes I made.

They nonchalantly purchase your drugs.

Mammon
is satiated,
Moloch
spares you the furnace
heated by a multiple of 7 times
this quarter,
replenishes your credit card's
empty belly.

You return to me like
Porcelain Dolls,
with the politically correct
one
single
African America Porcelain Doll
and a list of names
and more names
and multi-named drinks,
and drinks that don't even exist.

If you do not smile, you're face may crack,
and mine certainly will not.

You order, you joke, you
don't tip, and I again
do your job for you.


Except this time you're getting all decaf and don't even know it.

hmmmm

Don't know what happened, but I accidentally posted on the fiancee's blog... thats what we get for sharing computers! its like sharing needles, only not...

http://mbdowntown.blogspot.com/

utterances

I'm a big fan of George Herbert and John Donne. If your'e interested in religous poetry, I recommend these old guys. They're great. Much like Herbert when he was young exclaimed "When I grow up I want to write religious poetry like John Donne," I have an increasing interest to do the same. It seems writing things does, in a way, to me, mean more and is more understandable and many many other reasons than just saying it. or whatever. I guess its the same reason anyone writes. Even if you don't like God or necessarily believe he exists, feedback is still welcomed.


Utterances








Lord



To utter Your name
is to desecrate it
distort it
deform it

defame it,

For my tongue is a railroad spike
not used for Your continuing methods
but for death and fornication.

To allow my utterances is pure grace,
to allow my silence while you are hammered on the cross
with mouths, my mouth,
is grace.

Lay Your track Lord.

I'm an engineer
lacking skill
surveying the land
questioning.

I am an orator who has lost his language,
and like Babel
I stare at my sky scraper unable
to explain it
or praise it.

It must exist alone
and I must
walk away

from it,
following those vaguely familiar
tracks
returning long way round
to a vaguely familiar home

following sunsets
and the sounds of birds
the mouth of the river speaking
more perfect than I.

MIni Iambic

Mini iambic






I'm looking at you from across the room,
the fears of the world melt and drift away.
I hope I will be back in you're arms soon
and unswerving, face the resistless day.

God's Blood

God's Blood








Shaking you held the tray of God's blood
but not out of fear
exposing the seriousness in your brow


you cried during a Christmas church service
over a sermon you didn't particularly care for
you yelled hoorah
even though you were a mechanic
for the airforce

my grip on your truth is shaking





As a child I envied
the fearless with
disrespect for authority
embarrassed
I spent nights crying

I remember the smell of the
gloomy classroom staring
at the road darkened
by the clouds I anticipated
the end of the day doodled
played with my glue


my memories of childhood are shaky
like your hands on God's Blood.

untitled

This is a generally unedited, sort of list of thoughts that I put in line form. its untitled because I couldn't think of anything

Discontent!

Brows pushing eyes down
wearisome frown
can't sit still.

I don't want to be asked about it, my

INSATIABLE LUST...(god help me)

GOD HELP ME
chokedown this medicine,
ring the bell of
discontent, the chord of

DEAR JESUS I CAN'T STOP

but you won't stop it will you?
In what way could I exercise my will
If I didn't have the freedom to work for it . . .



I want to retire to the bedroom
and watch the long legs make blisters on the floor
pacing, over and over, like the ebb and flow
that is my desire for natural skin.

The Words, the Word, these words,
your words,
crawl on my skin like spiders,
and like a web,
I can craft the truth just so
you can't see it unless the light hits it
just right.

Ah, the light. Well, the light. Yes, the light.

It would be honest,
but it would make me utterly known,

exposed, naked

like the flesh I long to devour with my eyes.

What is this feeling? this “temptation”?
Why do I wish to hurt and disappoint you?
This feels like adultery, but maybe―
more complicated.

If possible, dear jesus, dear jesus...

be sure to take this seriously.

What stitch can mend this?
Can time loosen the memory?
or will it just continue to stretch, to contort
to broaden until it is a thorn buried deep in the flesh,
working its way towards the heart?


Similar to what I did to you?

W. K .Medlen