Everyone’s Pissed, And If They Aren’t Now, They Should Be After This

Everyone’s Pissed, And If They Aren’t Now, They Should Be After This

by Palmer Hennessey Cole

We are a generation stumbling lost, walking through sleep, seeking

the American Dream our grandparents built from Detroit Steel

and mass produced on countless assembly lines, before our parents

inherited it and drove away to college, after which they somehow lost

the keys along the way between nuclear families needing booze

to speak with each other, and one pill to sleep and yet another to fuck

the disinterested drunk in bed next to them under the nine hundred

thread count Egyptian cotton duvet, marked Made In Mexico, purchased

from a Korean distributer with a PayPal account through eBay.

I’ll tell you a secret, that most of us weren’t invited to the party. Unless

you’re one of the few gifted with looks, wealth, or greedy intellect, you

probably didn’t even know that this invitation-only-orgy is going down now

with flesh by the pound served on gilded gold plates with sharp knives

for the Catholics who like their meat extra rare. With blood diamonds

on the liquor fountains, ivory mounted to the free money machines

and all the beauty you can rape, guaranteed STD free with a complimentary

fistful of Pfizer pharmaceuticals that keep you “going” on many levels.

Of course what do I know?

I’m just a kid from the same college that institutionalized everyone else

in my generation of the walking sleep, who’s familiar with the notion of dreaming

yet has never actually had a real or original one, but suspect they know all about it

because they played it once on their Xbox. Everybody knows that experiencing something and reading about it are the same thing. Just ask the Iraqi War veteran with a Call Of Duty addiction; or the rich red-state rancher who absolutely knows, for a fact, that welfare is worthless; or even the ultra-left liberal lobbyist who bought

enough union votes to keep minimum wage low enough to keep buying his favorite

L.A.-Based, Sweatshop-Free, Partially-Recycled sneakers.

I know it’s what our grandparents built, and our parents drove home from school

and now stir their drinks over. I know I’m just an idiot with a pen and another plan, dreaming up something bad to make today seem better. I know it’s what is conjured each night in our throats as we force our eyes shut and try as hard as humanly possible to imagine a place other than here,

I know,

even if it’s a nightmare.

Published

I got one of my poems published in volume 5 of Thread, it's an undergraduate journal for literary inquiry out of the University of South Florida's English department. They made me cut a line, which is ok. It's a small price to pay for being in print.

I am a Declaration

I am a Declaration

from the son of a father more Ferris Bueller than Abe Froman

the Sausage King of Chicago.

Of a mother more Audrey Hepburn than Truman Capote’s

Holly Golightly.

I am a child

of tangled marionette strings and miscast role-

models in movies too romanticized to actually represent

this hackneyed life.

Though, they couldn’t quite put that

on the divorce papers.

I am an allegory about the difference

of knowledge and knowing oneself.

I am a blushing money’s worth

of selvedge denim, chromexcel leather boots, and slim-fit t-shirts

with some guy’s iconic name

subtly stitched onto a tasteful seam,

whose face I’d less recognize in a crowd,

before a rag or tag of his designer aesthetic.

I am designing a life that suits me,

or at least makes you think that

I’ve been tailored for this.

I am describing Plato’s puppets

with only the words for shadow.

I am shredding threads

when I don’t get a cigarette and

bleeding through blurry

rooms when I’m without amphetamines.

I am the hot snap of a needle

in skin, shooting up

doctor-prescribed, FDA-approved, bovine-grown

insulin.

I am not that addiction

you’re looking for.

I am dependency,

none the less.

Capable of curing cancer,

they told my proud mother

when the specialist tested my quotient,

four years before my brain blowfished

to the sides of my skull,

a complication

of diabetic dehydration.

My mother prayed for me.

They swore to God

that I’d be ok. Now,

I am scrawled handwriting.

I am shaking legs.

I am brain damage induced attention deficit.

I am disordered, I swear.

Except I don’t take oaths now

and we don’t talk anymore.

I am rushing through

this languorous life,

between you

and the philosophers’

fire. Speaking in shades

of a tan someone in the sun.

I am pale skinned.

Behind this view-

finder’s purpose cut prism and single-lens

reflexive box of mirrors stealing

slivers of avatars’

light and life sealed

in silver gelatin.

Monochromatic miniatures

I keep prisoner in my pocket,

until I take them

out and make them

dance, whenever

I feel alone:

enthusiastic smiles,

storied eyes,

poise and posture,

I am exposure.

I am using twenty six letters

someone else created

to form even others’

words into lines and pages

that posture your conscious

view at uniquely the right angle

to show you the secret

at the center of this universe

and its revolutions. Not

the forest or the trees.

I am uncertain

how one swallows the sun

without cliché.

I am in duress.

over why it is

people like me

that have begun to catch on

to the trick

of this more perfect mousetrap

we’ve been designing

that keeps the kill

calm

with soothingly painted walls,

high definition television sets, and over-stuffed couches.

I am fearful

that we are furnishing our coffins

with inconsequential posters

and scotch tape.

I am decorated in the palette of the American

Dream.

I am a collection

of mistakes, emulations and,

other people’s expectations.

I am the empty spaces for all the beauty

I’ll never capture

in any medium. I am just an addled actor

selling designer jeans, reading a reworked message-

lost script to a camera

for a movie that no one bothered

selling tickets

about neither side of a certain coin

that hasn’t yet landed,

flipping somewhere between

poem

and

portrait

and

puppet

and

shadow

and

sun

and

you

and

me

and

cave

and

fire

and

The Tritely Herd

The Tritely Herd

There's no more
show or one
trick ponies.
Only whipped
tired workhorses,
with gift mouths,
who've never been
led to water
without
an eager
sip.

for the jitters

Even Those Who Run Away With The Circus Can't Smoke In The Stacks

Because I'm sitting in the library
trying to silence
tapping toes that sound like
rhythmically gifted elephants
who'd give even Gene Kelly 
a run for his money in the rain.
Because I should be breathing in
the kiss of this spring corona
instead of storm-clouding over
course projects about writers
whose names I've let slip, forgotten
whose fruit I've let ripen, squeezed
every last drop of juice
from their literary acrobatics.
Because all I see are trapeze artists
forming human helixes and smoke trails
written over air, inked, feigning
death, punctuated at the last
second by the connection of hand
to handle as quick as a synapse.
Because we are all just holding on
to the claims of some ring-leader
under a big top trying desperately
to stamp out the ever tapping,
tapping realization:
it isn't only monkeys and elephants
who perform for mere peanuts.
Because I really should have
skipped town with the clowns
on the last train car, painting
sanguine lips over homeless
frowns, fine brushing deep blue
tear-drops under eyes too porous
to do anything but laugh
at the roid-raging strong-man
blotting warm salt from his eyes
whimpering himself to sleep about
hypodermically tapping his vein
tomorrow and his trypanophobia
tonight. Because the tap
dancing bear and the ticket
holding businessman are separated
only by the bars of a cage, and
no one can seem to remember who
it was meant to keep safe. Because
A man with a pen is no different than
one with a megaphone. Both selling
a refrain, a salvation titled
the greatest show on earth.
Because I should have given away
my tall leather boots, put down the lion
baying leather whip.
Because even without the red and yellow
canvas above I’ll always be underneath
the tangerine sunset dripping warm
citrus into the squinting eye of the boy
blazing cigarette chains
blowing rings
the size of circus tents.

Chance At A Dinner Party

It wasn’t that she was trained to listen

or that I was taught to speak,

it was how both of us knew

that we were going to

sneak the silence from these walls

and burn down the burden of civility.

Tongue in cheek, cock in twat, boy and girl

playing man and woman playing boy and girl.

Eyes tripping down stares

and up stairs,

ripped pages from books

sailing stolen tongues towards throats.

Get to a man’s heart

through his stomach I’ve been told.

We didn’t care about the burning coffee

or the belching guests snooping

through her husband’s medicine cabinet,

nor the record skipping its one trick

pony song over and over. And again,

we were throwing thigh music,

on the couch, on the desk, on that spot

on the floor where countless wingtips

had run the berber carpet thread

bare like our rosy pink backs, fresh

racing with sweat and the echo of youth

through a scar on her knee from falling in

the shower and hitting, perfectly,

that pink porcelain soap holder.

Gaping her once taut god-canvas

that let the open drain taste

the iron and pre-ripe wine

of burgundy ambrosia.

It wasn’t that he never listened,

she said, or that he never understood

what she said,

was that he never felt

whatever it was he was dreaming of

It wasn’t that either.

It was a thousand unspoken promises

about pacts to go back

to play peter pan longer

than our fathers,

to put our shiny dreams on shelves

just a bit higher.

She owned the room, but

I wrote her that night’s sky

with pockmarks and pinpricks,

shining hot white light through

that black canvas cover,

rejecting reality and really really

believing that just for a second,

if only a second,

those seductive night’s

holes were the scars of lightning

thrusting bolts that brought

pure chance to the solid soil.

Tonight!

Tonight! I shall bear witness
to false testimony, imbibe the
cheapest of spirits, and burn
down the burden of civility
with it! Tonight! I will lie,
beg, borrow, and steal
my way to tobacco, foreign
bedsheets, and suspect
situations. Tonight!
I will cavort with nefarious
characters, loose women,
and those whose
blood simply won't
let them settle
for anything south
of the line between
living and knowing
you're alive.
Tonight!

Apostrophe To The Sea

Can you reach that old crow with the camera obscura

Nestled above the bank, hiding, a sniper in a clock

Towering over time, tweezing lint from her lens, making you

Into frozen water, with the release of her shutter holds

Your explosive power wickless forever exploited in her celluloid scene.

You who came from meteors can’t be stopped by flesh

Or glass or stone and gravity holds you like grandmother’s

Toothless empty suggestions about tattooed sailors’ past ports and stamped

Passports riding on your back and tasting the oranges they

Wish they had, for the skew of scurvy slants their

Skeletons and bends them to a bow of reverent benevolence

Mourning the loss of brothers sleeping inside the insidious sea.

 I bet they won’t compare to the crisp taste of that

Crone’s camera, do you feel her stealing your salty soul

With that light box, if you had ears you could hear

The screams of the boys and the buildings and ladies

Gnawing at the leafy landscapes of flora and blossoming bastilles.

Rise up and snuff them out. Show them your depths

can get deeper and how your boundless appetite could swallow

them whole, a slow digestion of soak and silent violent

weight crushing the air from their lungs, the ones that

used to breathe, used to know, used to live in

You, could do it I bet, that woman and her

Arid town could become your personal playground of soggy seesaws

And muddy merry-go-rounds and starlight song to keep company. 

mine

while you stare at this page

you can’t possibly see

the strings that now connect

you to me

watch me pull and yank

your porcelain puppet-

eyes line

by line

feel me slide my ink

stained fist

under your sweaty shirt

inside your broken back

my dummy

when I speak

you speak

when I breathe, you

breathe, you’re going to need it

as I rip your

jeans at the seam

and rape you

choking your stolen flesh

with the power of possession

don’t worry

you’re safe
as can be

sitting in your chair

it’s only my fingers you feel

running through your hair

a last caress to remind

that before I go

to feel me

burn
in your mind

that this second

this moment

I’ve made you

oh god the sleep

This is how I'll die.
Run my body to the ground.
There's no more stress
When you're not around.
It's the meds
And the booze
And the smoke
and Oh God

The sleep.

If I could just quit shaking
and catch my breath,
I know my eyes would
Rest.
It's the want.
Unwavering,
Unquenchable want.
It'll drive me to the
Box in the earth and
Push me up
Through the
Hole in the sky.

To Save From Tripping

We’ve been taught not to reach

For our hands will get slapped

Told not to run

To save from tripping

Learned to speak

Only to be told to shut up

Taught to walk

Then told to sit down

We’ve been mentally castrated

Don’t go against the pack

Or you’re left alone in the rain

I’ll tell you what

Being alone isn’t that bad

And even the rain stops

Sold Short

Cooking breakfast we parried life.

The world’s wrecked and demoralized.

A life of excess has left us excessively bloated.

Selling ourselves short for

Post-apocalypticly priced pleasures.

We need something

‘God is free’ she suggested as she flipped

The bacon, its fat popping in the frying pan.

Screaming to escape the heat.

Taking me by the mouth she taunted

‘I'll show you how to pray’

As she undid my zipper.

Once

I search for you between legs late at night

Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of you

In the bottom of my drinking glass

Once I could have sworn I saw you

Smoking in my ashtray

I’ve been seeking you for so long that I’ve forgotten

Your face or even if you had a face

Your name your story your laugh

The way you smelled just like lilacs

I’ve forgotten all

Hazily I remember feeling good once

One night toxic panting in my sinner’s bed

I thought I heard you calling

Turned to the tongueless girl next to me

No it wasn’t her

Sometimes if I take enough pills

I feel you creeping up my fingers

Your soul in my muscle memory

Everyone thinks I’m crazy

I burn the earth to impress the moon

The path I search is paved

In vices blisters and stubbed toes

Once I thought I caught your scent in the mirror

Next to straws and razorblades

It’s hard to navigate the scenery

When the trail’s been erased

Someone’s taped over you

With their favorite sit-com

Had to catch the last laugh

Maybe I dreamt you

Compiled you from books

And movies and other lies

I was sure I felt you in my wallet

Full of sickly dead men

Maybe you’re just a masthead

A banner I wave something to show

For this revolting foot race

A fictitious prize for drowning myself 

Hazily I remember feeling good once

Awake

Who knows what we have missed

When no fingers told us to look

Or tongues told to listen

Without whip cracks and whistle calls

To wake us from our sleep, the

World has passed us by

Every second slipping past squanders

Our numbered heart beats

We aren’t invincible We will end

We need to be battered need

To be broken, and still overcome

A life worth living needs a fight

Bloody knuckles and bent noses

Show the face of a man with eyes

Who have seen

Won the right to point his own

Finger and tell with his own teeth

Look in the mirror you

Soft sightless tongueless coward

Just because your eyes are open

Doesn’t mean you’re awake

Pretty Poems Aren't Pleasant

I’m tired of hearing about love lost and bleeding hearts,

Tired of their rhymes pertaining to paisleys and daisies.

Stop the putrid pitter patter of pulchritude and

Too vague sentiments to that one sultry seeker

That passed you by, no one gets it but her anyhow.

I want stories of sinners with an atrocious heroin addiction

Begging for quarters and salvation. I want portraits of heroic

Men who’ve had the world beat them down, brutally.

Or the sound of the loving mother

Who fed her beautiful baby the butcher knife.

Give me the dark that eats the light.

Pull back your chain mail skin and show me your

Black heathen heart, where the only hope is that

It will beat just one more time. I don’t want

Lines of fine or pictures of perfect, I want

Dissonance Agony Defeat Anger Destruction

Deliverance.

Show me the loathsome slashes on your wrist and

The bleeding blade nestled in your broken back.

Something so disgusting you can't keep it hidden.
I beg you

 Young poet, put pen to paper and write in black ink.

On dark parchment cover the white.

Show me your grime, your lie, your betrayal

Give me your insidious insides…

Catharsis

My body makes a fool of me

Betrays my obsidian lies

It’s hard to keep in

What pours from porous eyes

Only so much can be taken

Before seeping out a

Sobbing sinewy mess of

Flesh faced yearning

And too truthful confession

A squawk a squeal an

Unstoppable utterance song

As the tune closes and the

Chokes between syllables

Subside, the tears come less as

The bricks of resolve come one

At a time, the wall is rebuilt

A Foundation of soul, with

Extinguished emotion as mortar

Someone enters and asks

Are you ok, you don’t look it

I am Fine

My Lying teeth tout

Back

We made a pact to go back

Before our dreams were ablaze

Before the stars lost their shine

Before life removed our spine

We made a pact to go back

To the place where laughter

Met tears in a blinding

Youthful bolt in the sky

Where pupils weren’t polished

Reflecting man’s sin, instead

Fresh hungry eyes uncalloused by

The torrent of time and old lies

We made a pact to go back

Where anything could and

Nothing couldn’t

Where God was Alive

Behind every tree peeking

In every song singing

Under our pillows listening

We made a pact to go back

Before we rolled over, belly up

Before friends were connections

Before money masticated our morals

A pact to go back

And no one did

Wild Ones

We are the wild ones

Stepping into the night

As we stuff lust into our pockets
We get close to God

Playing fast and loose

With our expirations

Wearing our youth we are

Invincible irresistible untouchable

Staring down mundane

We are the monsters

Burned torn and wrecked

Our faces are perfect

Life isn’t for us

We are free

In only the way the

Dead can be

With fingers on placid pulse

We are raw

Mocking thunder we are

As loud as hope

Taking truth as our authority

Undaunted we

Bite back

Epiphany

I had heard there was a phone booth where you could talk to God.  I found it in the dingy glow of a ‘5 Dollar Sex Show’ neon sign. I put my quarter in the worn slot. I held my breath and listened. The voice sounded like a thousand hands running through soft hair, or every leaf in every tree undulating in a gentle breeze. He asked me what I wanted before I die.

I answered:

Before I die

I want to give

Without wanting

I want to know there is a reason

I want to be still

And be ok with that

I want to see the symphony of life

In silence

I want to love someone

In the way that nothing else matters

I want to change a life

I want to quit faking

I want to be happy with myself

Quit expecting to be

Someone else’s expectations

I want my parents to know

How grateful I am

I want to know fear

As nothing

Know happiness

As an old friend

I want to teach someone

That wealth in money

Is meaningless
and that wealth through knowledge

Friendship and experience are the
true bounty

I want to believe what I just said.