Overman
She took too much heroin
Don't think that's a bad thing, she said.
I hear voices singing me lullabies.
I feel the history of the world,
evolution of ideas and memes and genes,
coursing through my veins at lightning speed.
I am kings and queens and princesses
and madmen and beggars and scientists.
I am free. I know the world is grander
than those that play by the rules say.
I don't need to be anything I can't be.
I don't need to kill all the flowers
blooming and taking flight inside of me.
Things in the past I can forget, leave behind
as they fade away and disintegrate,
shot through with fireworks and confetti
and silly string and collapsing mitochondria
and smashed tv sets, a trillion pixels shooting
through space, making their escape, living free.
I've found a road to take free of my mistakes
Elizabeth Harper
The first and last lines in italics are quotes from Overman songs, "Princess" and "Sweet Escape," respectively.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Poem read at Heartland Cafe July 8
In My Dreams
In my dreams. Get down to the truth. What are you waiting for. Hurt is the only way to get there. Where you’re trying to go. Where you’ll never get. Is she prettier than me? What makes the world so? It keeps going and going. I lose pieces of me in the scenery. Slacker wish list: an ice cream rainbow radiating out of a cornucopia of lost loves, forgotten dreams, abandoned jobs. Churning endlessly trying to get utopia to rise to the top. Writing a new poem every day only to lose oneself digging through dumpsters for scraps of old love letters trying to explain the meaning of …anything. Does he look like prince charming or just another alcoholic, spendthrift slob? Hey, even prince charming, when you find him, most likely has a day job and a substance abuse problem. The mind wanders and comes back to itself. What, did you forget milk and bread again? Why don’t you make a list? Oh, a lot of good it does folded up in that back jean pocket you use as a filing cabinet. Where are those obsessive-compulsive tendencies when you need them? Obliviousness will get you only so far, and once you get there, you won’t know where you are. To stave off anxiety, you do all sorts of things your mother and public service adds warn you against. Stocking up on band-aids and anti-aging creams. What will they think of next to fill wrinkles up with. Some stuff called “spackle.” Your face is your house. Paint it up so it will appeal to prospective buyers. Designed to sell. The Home and Garden channel. Cosmetic infomercials. We’re all about building equity here, ladies. And gender politics are so boring. Why don’t we just cut off all the penises, preserve them as dildos, and be done with it? It’s emotional neediness that keeps us hooked, keeps us hoping, keeps us trying. So maybe it’s good to long for an unrealizable ideal, a perfect object deserving of perfect love and unending devotion, while we’re munching down on a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV, eyes glued to the Lifetime channel. The jury’s still out. Maybe I’ll switch to Law and Order. Of course, it’s fascist, and yet strangely comforting. There’s always some kind of resolution even though there were false leads and dead ends along the way.
In my dreams. Get down to the truth. What are you waiting for. Hurt is the only way to get there. Where you’re trying to go. Where you’ll never get. Is she prettier than me? What makes the world so? It keeps going and going. I lose pieces of me in the scenery. Slacker wish list: an ice cream rainbow radiating out of a cornucopia of lost loves, forgotten dreams, abandoned jobs. Churning endlessly trying to get utopia to rise to the top. Writing a new poem every day only to lose oneself digging through dumpsters for scraps of old love letters trying to explain the meaning of …anything. Does he look like prince charming or just another alcoholic, spendthrift slob? Hey, even prince charming, when you find him, most likely has a day job and a substance abuse problem. The mind wanders and comes back to itself. What, did you forget milk and bread again? Why don’t you make a list? Oh, a lot of good it does folded up in that back jean pocket you use as a filing cabinet. Where are those obsessive-compulsive tendencies when you need them? Obliviousness will get you only so far, and once you get there, you won’t know where you are. To stave off anxiety, you do all sorts of things your mother and public service adds warn you against. Stocking up on band-aids and anti-aging creams. What will they think of next to fill wrinkles up with. Some stuff called “spackle.” Your face is your house. Paint it up so it will appeal to prospective buyers. Designed to sell. The Home and Garden channel. Cosmetic infomercials. We’re all about building equity here, ladies. And gender politics are so boring. Why don’t we just cut off all the penises, preserve them as dildos, and be done with it? It’s emotional neediness that keeps us hooked, keeps us hoping, keeps us trying. So maybe it’s good to long for an unrealizable ideal, a perfect object deserving of perfect love and unending devotion, while we’re munching down on a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV, eyes glued to the Lifetime channel. The jury’s still out. Maybe I’ll switch to Law and Order. Of course, it’s fascist, and yet strangely comforting. There’s always some kind of resolution even though there were false leads and dead ends along the way.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
"I Didn't Like Being in Love Anyway" read at Jaks 5-4-09
I Didn't Like Being in Love Anyway
It's alright. I didn't like being in love anyway.
The way I'd look at you with total devotion and admiration.
Getting excited and happy by every phone call, email,
conversation, kiss, touch. Telling you everything on my mind,
reading your poems, showing you mine. Who needs that kind of closeness,
intimacy, involvement with another person. It's bound to get messy. Hell,
it was scaring the shit out of me.
It's alright. I didn't want a baby anyway.
I'd have to find a place to put it. They cry and drool.
So noisy so messy so needy so happy about the simplest things.
I like being alone. Take-out Chinese and anything I want to watch on TV.
There's always new people to meet, to keep at a cordial distance,
to hide from while smiling.
It's alright. I didn't like being in love anyway.
The way I'd look at you with total devotion and admiration.
Getting excited and happy by every phone call, email,
conversation, kiss, touch. Telling you everything on my mind,
reading your poems, showing you mine. Who needs that kind of closeness,
intimacy, involvement with another person. It's bound to get messy. Hell,
it was scaring the shit out of me.
It's alright. I didn't want a baby anyway.
I'd have to find a place to put it. They cry and drool.
So noisy so messy so needy so happy about the simplest things.
I like being alone. Take-out Chinese and anything I want to watch on TV.
There's always new people to meet, to keep at a cordial distance,
to hide from while smiling.
Monday, April 27, 2009
"She's Not What She Appears to Be" because I had a request and also I just read "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
She’s Not What She Appears to Be
Jasmine knew that evil lurked in every pore of her being. She knew that everyone would be truly horrified if they knew how she felt, what she thought. The way she’d fantasize about torturing and killing the most helpless creatures—little white kittens and small children. She would do it slowly, savoring each and every moment, every cut of the knife and the patterns on their flesh that she would trace in blood. But Jasmine couldn’t help what she was. After all, one enjoys what one enjoys. One feels the way one feels, and there’s no way to change it. Reason told Jasmine that her deepest and truest desires were impervious to reason. But she knew that she would have to keep herself hidden, always. Some people were shy and introverted, but then they would gradually show themselves, let little parts of their personalities show, let themselves be seen, even, eventually known by someone. For Jasmine, this was not an option. She could never be known or seen. For if she was, she would be destroyed, just like a vampire in an old-fashioned horror movie hunted down by frenzied villagers. She knew she would never be loved for who she was.
So, in order to survive, Jasmine would have to keep herself hidden all the time, even from herself. At first she seemed introverted, not revealing very much of herself. But soon people would become suspicious. They would suspect that she had another life that she hid. They were suspicious of someone that would not reveal themselves even a little. So Jasmine had to reveal little bits of a personality, share little facts about her likes and dislikes, her habits and hobbies. But she had to be very careful that what she revealed in no way indicated what she truly was. She realized that she would have to construct an entirely new persona for herself, somebody totally unlike herself, somebody that she would always have to appear to be.
Jasmine was selfish and cruel, so she would have to act as if she was the exact opposite. She practiced showing consideration for others, putting their needs and preferences before hers. She took up volunteer work: serving at soup kitchens, tutoring underprivileged children, visiting burn victims in hospitals. But of course, though she pretended to be motivated by sympathy and altruism, she secretly enjoyed witnessing the poverty, witless stupidity, and deformity of others—though she never let on to others or herself. She gave money to charities, but of course not all that she could have, because she had her secret selfish desires to feed, and that took money.
She dated, because she had insatiable sexual desires and a need to dominate and hurt people. But she didn’t let her dates know that. She pretended that she wanted marriage and a family and to be taken care of by a big, strong, capable man who would keep her in her place. In truth she had only contempt for all of that, but she went through the motions, asking to be fixed up by friends and placing wholesome, conventional personal ads in the local paper. The trick was to get rid of the hapless dupes whom she ruthlessly used for sex and the pleasure of humiliating them without letting them know what had really happened. She managed to do this in various ways: by giving elaborate versions of the “It’s not you, it’s me speech,” being busy with altruistic pursuits, causes, charities, pretend friends and invented family responsibilities, or seeming fucked-up in an irredeemable but adorable way, such as being emotionally wounded, or ambitious and driven, but for a noble goal.
Eventually she married. She manipulated her husband in order to have free reign with the credit cards for her extravagant shopping sprees, while keeping him convinced that she was the most wonderful, virtuous person in the world so that he would continue to worship her and she could continue to keep him at an emotional distance. She did this by continuing with her charities and being a generous gift giver, and also spending an inordinate amount of time on her appearance so he would always be in awe of her pulchritude. Eventually they had children, and she was a perfect mother and a model citizen. In actuality she hated her children and imagined torturing them in various ways including tearing them limb from limb while they screamed in pain and suffocating them under piles of writhing and venomous snakes. Her children knew nothing of this and adored her and believed that she adored them. They grew up into successful adults with a healthy amount of self-esteem and a sense of ethical responsibility. When she was on her death bed she was surrounded by her loving family. And as they held her hand and wept over her, she hated them as she always had. She died without anyone ever knowing who she truly was. In a way, she had succeeded in the use of her life strategy. In another way, maybe not.
Jasmine knew that evil lurked in every pore of her being. She knew that everyone would be truly horrified if they knew how she felt, what she thought. The way she’d fantasize about torturing and killing the most helpless creatures—little white kittens and small children. She would do it slowly, savoring each and every moment, every cut of the knife and the patterns on their flesh that she would trace in blood. But Jasmine couldn’t help what she was. After all, one enjoys what one enjoys. One feels the way one feels, and there’s no way to change it. Reason told Jasmine that her deepest and truest desires were impervious to reason. But she knew that she would have to keep herself hidden, always. Some people were shy and introverted, but then they would gradually show themselves, let little parts of their personalities show, let themselves be seen, even, eventually known by someone. For Jasmine, this was not an option. She could never be known or seen. For if she was, she would be destroyed, just like a vampire in an old-fashioned horror movie hunted down by frenzied villagers. She knew she would never be loved for who she was.
So, in order to survive, Jasmine would have to keep herself hidden all the time, even from herself. At first she seemed introverted, not revealing very much of herself. But soon people would become suspicious. They would suspect that she had another life that she hid. They were suspicious of someone that would not reveal themselves even a little. So Jasmine had to reveal little bits of a personality, share little facts about her likes and dislikes, her habits and hobbies. But she had to be very careful that what she revealed in no way indicated what she truly was. She realized that she would have to construct an entirely new persona for herself, somebody totally unlike herself, somebody that she would always have to appear to be.
Jasmine was selfish and cruel, so she would have to act as if she was the exact opposite. She practiced showing consideration for others, putting their needs and preferences before hers. She took up volunteer work: serving at soup kitchens, tutoring underprivileged children, visiting burn victims in hospitals. But of course, though she pretended to be motivated by sympathy and altruism, she secretly enjoyed witnessing the poverty, witless stupidity, and deformity of others—though she never let on to others or herself. She gave money to charities, but of course not all that she could have, because she had her secret selfish desires to feed, and that took money.
She dated, because she had insatiable sexual desires and a need to dominate and hurt people. But she didn’t let her dates know that. She pretended that she wanted marriage and a family and to be taken care of by a big, strong, capable man who would keep her in her place. In truth she had only contempt for all of that, but she went through the motions, asking to be fixed up by friends and placing wholesome, conventional personal ads in the local paper. The trick was to get rid of the hapless dupes whom she ruthlessly used for sex and the pleasure of humiliating them without letting them know what had really happened. She managed to do this in various ways: by giving elaborate versions of the “It’s not you, it’s me speech,” being busy with altruistic pursuits, causes, charities, pretend friends and invented family responsibilities, or seeming fucked-up in an irredeemable but adorable way, such as being emotionally wounded, or ambitious and driven, but for a noble goal.
Eventually she married. She manipulated her husband in order to have free reign with the credit cards for her extravagant shopping sprees, while keeping him convinced that she was the most wonderful, virtuous person in the world so that he would continue to worship her and she could continue to keep him at an emotional distance. She did this by continuing with her charities and being a generous gift giver, and also spending an inordinate amount of time on her appearance so he would always be in awe of her pulchritude. Eventually they had children, and she was a perfect mother and a model citizen. In actuality she hated her children and imagined torturing them in various ways including tearing them limb from limb while they screamed in pain and suffocating them under piles of writhing and venomous snakes. Her children knew nothing of this and adored her and believed that she adored them. They grew up into successful adults with a healthy amount of self-esteem and a sense of ethical responsibility. When she was on her death bed she was surrounded by her loving family. And as they held her hand and wept over her, she hated them as she always had. She died without anyone ever knowing who she truly was. In a way, she had succeeded in the use of her life strategy. In another way, maybe not.
Friday, March 27, 2009
"Looking for a New Way to Break It" because I feel like it
Looking for a New Way to Break It
Rifling through old emotions,
thinking, this same old shit again,
isn’t there any way
to get out to get over to get away
come up with a new play
in this old game dressed up
like it’s something new.
You’ve been through this before.
It’s an old song and you know
the song is as sick of you
as you are of it. How many ways
can you say: I’m tired, I’m hurt,
I’m lonely, and I’m sad. I’m angry,
foaming at the mouth, looking for
a place for my fist to hit. And
I would wish for love but I know
I couldn’t take it, my heart
always looking for that someone
to come up with a new way to break it.
Rifling through old emotions,
thinking, this same old shit again,
isn’t there any way
to get out to get over to get away
come up with a new play
in this old game dressed up
like it’s something new.
You’ve been through this before.
It’s an old song and you know
the song is as sick of you
as you are of it. How many ways
can you say: I’m tired, I’m hurt,
I’m lonely, and I’m sad. I’m angry,
foaming at the mouth, looking for
a place for my fist to hit. And
I would wish for love but I know
I couldn’t take it, my heart
always looking for that someone
to come up with a new way to break it.
"Waiting for Spring" read at Trace 3-24-09
Waiting for Spring
Jumbo-legged anarchists, kindly giants, bitchy and bovine in their ways, make their way past storefronts overfilled with stereos and knickknacks, gewgaws of late capitalism, incense and condoms in all different colors, assorted flavors. I am your whipping boy, but it's all just pretend. My heart has been broken so many times it doesn't bother to mend. And when will you show me the way to Prince Charming. Am I forever to be slipping on banana peels, falling in the snow, in the freezing rain, in the mud, humiliated by the eye-scorching sun. You humble me. The coins fall through the hole in my pocket one by one. I am not a record player. Play your own accordion. Master scrabble and monopoly and staggering in the dark.
And all my non sequiturs fall on deaf ears and unsoiled panties. My only friend is the piano player playing all alone in the dark, cigarettes lighting burning ash, Jack Daniel's on the rocks. Where my thoughts meet the sharp glass edge of a flat world reflecting mirrors, synthetic plant life. Just as you called my name, I saw a giraffe, her long tongue reaching for a leaf, her eyes partially closed in enjoyment? Memorize anecdotes, long-winded and peppered with caricatures unwillingly coerced into making you look larger than life or science fiction concoctions bubbling over with narcotic side effects and new hairstyles. Left behind are incoherent memories, days you wished you had soup but there wasn't any, and the walls were too plain. Where were the posters of rock stars dripping sweat onto ecstatic but disconcerted audience members?
Foggy-headed super heroes flying over skyscrapers tall and lean, gleaming and mean, forget their lunches, lose their hunches about what could have and should have and might have been. I'm just another rock and roll addict, crazy lady in the attic, in the palace you can no longer call home. When you call me, don't forget how vulnerable I am. How I fall apart like a jigsaw puzzle, and the dog chews some pieces and hides some others under the couch. Play my game your way. Leave me in the cold on the sidewalk in the dark. Sex toys, brightly colored dildoes adorned with flashing Christmas lights, seek me out, put me on display, make me feel at home like the spaceship of aliens from my home planet coming for me at last.
I know there is no home, not for very long anyway. Things change too fast and where are you and who am I? Little mice are talking. They're taking trips to new places and changing colors. He said, "I wish I had penises in different colors, shooting semen in different colors. I could paint as I came."
Wherever you are, I'm someplace else, and there's the rub. The crowded pub, the substandard grub, the back aching to be rubbed. I'd be someone if I wasn't so self-absorbed. I never get used to "I don't care," no matter how true it is. Rent me a spaceship; lend me a lipstick. I'm ready to roll with the punches; do abdominal crunches; steal the lunches of school children. Mesmerized victims of sudden and inexplicable pangs of paranoia huddle and grapple with difficult and self-defeating philosophical concepts amongst themselves.
And at the playground, there are used condoms and cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and fast food wrappers partially buried in the snow, awaiting a toddler treasure hunt. And the Easter Bunny can't help being an alcoholic.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Poem read at Weeds 3-9-09 "Messed Up on a Friday"
Messed Up on a Friday
Messed up. Took my night meds in the morning because I was tired and in a hurry and didn't know what the fuck I was doing and was trying to blend a protein shake into yesterday's cold coffee, but it wouldn't dissolve so I tried the electric hand mixer and then the Cuisinart. And then it worked but it took too long and then I was worried the night meds would make me sleepy or act high during the day and I had to stand up all day and be nice to people and act like I cared when I just wanted to be in bed masturbating and sleeping.
Messed up. Told him I liked him when I know I should play aloof, like I don't care and I'd be so much better off if I didn't care. How I hate being in love. It makes me crazy and sick, mesmerized by erotic daydreams. I have to pick and poke at it like I'm trying to pop a zit, like getting all the built up white pus out of there will make it better, but it just makes me feel wounded and ugly and then I have to wait for it to heal, washing it over and over again, covering it with makeup.
Messed up. Told my boss what I thought. How am I supposed to avoid expressing any opinion at all while at the same time appearing to have opinions and good ideas and insights to show that I'm a valuable team player, but not a real person with an actual point of view? Someone tell me, please. Maybe I'm just not a good actress. But it's just that saying things I don't believe makes me confused. I can hear people inside my head contradicting everything I say as I'm saying it. Sadistic stereo, demonic radio, rapist TV.
Messed up. Believed what I was told, because, really, constant skepticism and cynicism is exhausting, not to mention depressing and soul-destroying. On the other hand, being a sap, a dupe, a sucker isn't fun either, because when the sham is exposed or the gimmick doesn't work or you're worse off than before, you think somehow that you're responsible, that you should have know better, been smarter, shrewder, on the lookout for con artists. But you just wanted to believe that something good could happen.
Messed up. Took my night meds in the morning because I was tired and in a hurry and didn't know what the fuck I was doing and was trying to blend a protein shake into yesterday's cold coffee, but it wouldn't dissolve so I tried the electric hand mixer and then the Cuisinart. And then it worked but it took too long and then I was worried the night meds would make me sleepy or act high during the day and I had to stand up all day and be nice to people and act like I cared when I just wanted to be in bed masturbating and sleeping.
Messed up. Told him I liked him when I know I should play aloof, like I don't care and I'd be so much better off if I didn't care. How I hate being in love. It makes me crazy and sick, mesmerized by erotic daydreams. I have to pick and poke at it like I'm trying to pop a zit, like getting all the built up white pus out of there will make it better, but it just makes me feel wounded and ugly and then I have to wait for it to heal, washing it over and over again, covering it with makeup.
Messed up. Told my boss what I thought. How am I supposed to avoid expressing any opinion at all while at the same time appearing to have opinions and good ideas and insights to show that I'm a valuable team player, but not a real person with an actual point of view? Someone tell me, please. Maybe I'm just not a good actress. But it's just that saying things I don't believe makes me confused. I can hear people inside my head contradicting everything I say as I'm saying it. Sadistic stereo, demonic radio, rapist TV.
Messed up. Believed what I was told, because, really, constant skepticism and cynicism is exhausting, not to mention depressing and soul-destroying. On the other hand, being a sap, a dupe, a sucker isn't fun either, because when the sham is exposed or the gimmick doesn't work or you're worse off than before, you think somehow that you're responsible, that you should have know better, been smarter, shrewder, on the lookout for con artists. But you just wanted to believe that something good could happen.
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