Poetry of dj moore
dj moore lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, has a bachelor's in English, and works as an office temp.
The black shaft of the eye
Navigates by tentacles as if given
Slime for lubricant
And winks us into being
To remain in the dark until skin is gel.
The factory knows growth is ultimately decay:
Even with endless fuel treads break and gears weaken;
Rust is infinitely persistent
And every light bulb's dimming
Amplifies the wheel's slow sidle.
Beauty isn't truth; truth isn't beauty:
While the living enliven
The loveliness of the artificial, all things natural rot;
The old lie that no one dies still stinging,
We witness a hecatomb of bare forked animals.
We are stringless puppets flopping through the day;
We can cut our bodies - they're wooden.
No aiúa has ambition except to merely exist -
Our throats only partially block emptiness leaving
Behind liquid black excrement to dissolve hunger's middle.
Our only joy is the unfulfilled dream, the mystery
(Changing lives is just altering the scene).
We loath the body's inhabitant
Because life's only reason, pleasure, is fleeting
And we've brain enough to be miserable.
Life's a fluke to be corrected shortly -
Multiply until the expanding sun burns
And gain small enjoyment from tedious bruit
For deep inside us, not only death brings nothing.
If we could only live in a muddle . . .
The trees are still happy!
Let's cut them down and sharpen;
People at the harbor watch their fathers depart -
We know already this story's ending:
"In a birdbath dreamt by a broken wheel."
We’re pulling it up. Grandma is dead
and Grandpa can’t manage the onions and cabbage;
both flowers and weeds must be pulled.
First, we uproot what’s too tall for the tiller
(since Grandma’s death the patch has over-grown).
Dad saves seeds from the plants he wants to take home.
J. just yanks up whatever’s in his way,
leaves a path of stomped down and pulled out;
his white gloves, green with leaves.
Away in the corner, I dig with a shovel.
I loosen dirt around the roots of bachelor’s buttons
-- flowers too tall and too thick to weed out.
Even now, some lavender and pink blossoms.
Each shoot holds dozens of branches.
Clumps of dirt and potato bugs cling to the roots.
I shake each stem and bang against shovel
till the stalks become almost weightless.
Grasshoppers the size of the Chapstick in my pocket
leap from plant to plant, piggy-backed.
Grandma used to give me her old New Yorker magazines.
She never understood the poems.
soar ye elephants above green-crested waves
the ambivalence and substance of your flight
puts lovers' fingers aflame
we can't all of us you and me
stand beside oak skin
and touch the match of begin
i grow so old i'm double eleven
soft delight of translucent echoes
you're desperate to soak yourself in
distinct eve and all is stellar
the divisions commence yet somewhere
surrounded by divine sea the Matriarch
becomes more significant in the face of
and she rises in the stars before the infallible
sweet barnacle for oven
let's let the leaves decide
whenever you see me let me know
i'll notice you forever until day
we'll spit on those that spit on us
and life will never
until boundaries are no boundaries
so let's and why not let ourselves
take the sunshine to the sunrise
little you will be and me like an atom
we'll leave the earth behind in half a second
and explore the universe which we'll expand
the gods will wish they could be us
so small imperfect ignorant and free
sore bones and grasshopper guts make
twenty-two years retroactive bad luck
tear me apart with just one hand
i'm buried by thy drop clear while
you're divided and i'm a prism's reverse
the rain will dissolve the walls
can't we be one seething mass? (we are)
I somehow manage to slice
The tip of my right ear off.
Platelets splash from the roof
Onto my thumb and great toe.
The butcher wanted to make flow
My inedible blood,
To make me surrogate corban
For his private debt,
Yet now he cries "Unclean!"
And sets me free.
I avoided the knife's bane
But not its cough:
Down the road I hobble with a split foot.
I cross the street
And nod to those I meet.
No one stares, points, or shouts at me
As red juice fills my boot.
The spit will smell another's savor:
The sweetness of ashes and soot
Within the eternal flame.
I chew bdellium not for flavor -
While dragging my hoof -
But to ease the pain.
I also eat - what is it?
That small round grain
Like a coriander seed
Hoar frost white which tastes like honey
And fresh oil. Then I witness
A cloud rise up from the gutter
Amid slight shaking and a miniature fire.
Her hands were upon the threshold;
Her soft voice would no longer sing -
Yet bruises told a stark story.
He had taken her from home
And retrieved her when she returned -
A choice mistress worth the journey.
Now horrified by bumps and welts
On what used to be smooth skin,
He strokes arm hair the same direction.
The man then divides her in twelve
To reveal the excess of hospitality.
With butcher’s knife he writes her story.
The fixed voice of remnant recalls men to duty.
Chariot abreast chariot and sword against sword.
Arrows rain over the walls and burrow into mud.
As under red feet, the dirt lips kissed
Insinuated itself inside each inbetween
Until vomited like a black conversation.
The Book is a grim sandwich:
Underneath dust mingled with blood
The child corpse speaks:
"Amid muddy rumors aqueducts run dry -
Forever life blossoming into a new hue -
The day’s diversions sometimes send water uphill.
"There are no more dams
In the trenched lines of your face.
What if my shadow were to disappear?
"I’d break my nails on a cherubim’s skull
And hide myself in a Philistine’s camp.
No more manna or creamy milk.
"And O how my mouth waters
At the memory of paternal protection!"
But none answered.
These bare paneled walls, spider web enshrouded,
Bear insect guts and the hue of dried urine.
The common façade, to the eye unnoticed,
Is scathed raw by the electric light's grin.
The plain bareness of flesh is espied by the sun
Till Venetian blinds cover this strange body
Which leans undehydrated against the door's dun.
Even when all lights are lidded, the terror remains.
What if a camera lurks in the closetry
And an owl-eyed chimera stalks in the darkness?
The bed claims physical rest its sole duty
Yet what of the occult world between sheets?
The naked window does not know either side;
Color shines beyond the genuis of the pane.
It reports merely its need to be wiped:
This bat-like blindness creates the most pain.
The white sheet over the bed may be
The shroud of my coffin. In all my younger years
I'd never considered that the sharp clawed goblin
Lurking under the bed with a rash of boils,
Ossicle horn, bloated puss-filled face,
Brain-red patina, and long lanky hair
Who yearned to tear out my heart the moment
Breath became subconscious could, after all, be me.
Mature years have replaced the bed monsters
With cockroaches, beetles, and spiders -
Although others remain invisible.
When I place what I want hidden under the bed
Distorting dust returns it quite changed
And when I lay within the comate carpetscape
Imagination brings claws and fangs
To my box ceilinged by urethane foam.
Yet even with obdurate eye closed, I know
No treasonous imps exist. Each day shines
Through holes in the blind like glittering stars
And we know it's time for the morning ritual.
A blue skin today replaces the white of last night
And a black hide will be mine tomorrow.
We know the truth lies underneath
But we must hide this bald bareness from all we meet.
I'll return to crushed bugs and unswept hairs.
A cyclops stain stares and I can't blink it away.
The bed is so low only by scraping
Can I return to the sightless comfort of womb.
No other worlds: my body is the universe.
I begin to create by paring off a nail.
My body shall disintegrate into stars
Surrounded by the darkest infinity.
Cut a cardboard hole in the ceiling
Open yourself to darkness not just during the day but
also the evening
The sky stretches blue in the evening
This world is too vast for language
Cut a bungee cord and watch them fall into soft tree
branches
Little bugs on the lawn will yawn
Yet this is not an end
All is as it was before but different
Let rain clouds carry you over rooftops
Let sparrows sing you a pretty song
Let arrows rain upon the citadel
The birds sing a pretty song
Forever in my life things have changed then changed
back
What we seek is no longer inside
Forever is tricky in its trappings
Leaves will fall upon little bugs
The world will blink with its eyes closed
Everywhere there are no more critics