Dominus Terra

The worst is the money,

which shits coins into

your pockets, saturates

your already sweaty

month; sick, comforting

like breaking a bottle

against a factory wall,

draped with a flag’s

shadow, hymns of war,

stagnant poesy, called

names in the fifth grade,

refusing to stand at all,

then a suffering breath,

a collapsing mania, it’s

still here, the quiet a

song to the introvert,

passion among perverts;

please give your heart

to the meek, the weak,

the losers digging butts

out of ashtrays, bottles

half-full, half-empty;

and we sat on the roof,

after we tossed eggs at

passing cars, I never

believed it would come,

but it’s past, I’m alive

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Summer’s Sucking Wisdom

What do you

think he’ll do?

 

• languish in the urbane?
• relish sane real mundane?
• trash uncomposed paramores?
• sift tacitly acrid behind doors?

 

challenges suffer manically deep

troubles hungry sanity sleep

 

baste long-lost memories

souped and sop lemmings

 

I’d like to apologize sorry to her¹

but it’s best kept in the lurch

 

evidence is bloodiest’s proof

I’m² a saturated bastard aloof

 

tomorrow’s night another crying

I’ll lay in bed and wish of dying³

 

 

 

1Mom

2I’m

3Sorry

Vellum in Video

We do nothing, exist in space,

I trace your lips, the shape

of each word, the motion,

clipping the air – between us,

supplant my revenge, arise

sweet sanctimony, sweep us

away and plant us with the

corroded batteries and coffee

grounds; alkaline, acid, acrid

and freedom, let muscles burn;

sugar ants cry out, whipping

saints, flagellates, flachette,

grinding and withered, thrones

covered in magma, purpose a

song to dying gods, so we suck

the teat, gorged: we drown, stuck

inside the body of our own filth,

crying in the foxhole, subtle

music above the horizon, wax

figures melting, as dripping tears

clean our faces, yon a violin

takes flight, busts of Greeks rolled

down hill like wheels of cheese,

but it’s only Friday; time’s illusion.

Death Rides a Pale Goat

With death, I struggle in two ways:
1. I fight death everyday to live.
2. I fight to die in the face of death.

For day’s light and night’s dark,
I stand against the finality of it,
cursing its name, loudly, yelling;

no one should greet death warmly,
death is no friend, the gift it brings
is the end, nothing of a beginning,

those who welcome death, think life
is the start to a greater ending, hold
onto it, behemoth scripture; idiots.

How much a person must suffer to
help death by not laughing at it,
by holding its hand and offering beds,

how terrible the night must be; grip
tight the handle of life, grow contra
to death’s shackles, satiate spring,

burden everyone with your joys,
whisper to the birds, hold your loves
for evermore, death wants you to quit,

it makes the job easy, doesn’t even
need to punch-in, lazy Sunday for
death, hungover and gettin’ paid,

stare death down and tell it to fuck
off, tell it to beat it, tell it to catch
the next flight, offer it liverwurst,

nobody likes liverwurst, tell death
your here to live, tell it that this is
everything that there is, show it how

you can laugh, how your can drink,
how you can love, how you can eat,
how you cherish cold sheets in summer,

how you can’t wait for something to
happen that really changes how we feel,
how we live, how we fight to live in

the horrid face that eclipses our being,
tell it how often you think of those
that died before you, and how you

don’t wish to be with them, but how
you love them, and how you miss them,
the onus of the living, show death that

you dance alone while you’re cooking,
that you watch terrible television but
pretend that you were watching PBS,

savor every shitty moment you are alive,
suck the marrow from the bone and smile,
show death that life is living, and death

is a failed concept, or, if you chose your
thoughts, remember Brautigan: One
day Time will die, and Love will bury it

If You are So Inclined…

Check out my poetry chapbooks on Amazon:

amazon.com/author/shawnmyoung

In the Absence of Frost

the grass is

seeding,

it’s Thursday

What’s Left

There is no more; seas filled with blood,

we let the canary fly free, light and lithe,

it drew uncaptured, with grace like leaves,

we watched crying: clasped; drunks at port,

in the wicked winter, winds eat your soul,

but this morning, spring cast its shadow,

across each dogwood, fountains of life,

saturated magnets, wooded sprouts gloss,

sun warm like first loves, our discontent

a memory defunct, we held high our cup,

wishing for our worth, again travelers,

again lovers, again sinners, again dyers