Category: Poetry

The Anatomy of a 29 Year Old Human (2017)

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

*just about every year on my birthday I write an “Anatomy of a … Year Old” poem. Thank you for reading.

i am a giant lizard monster
trying to lay down comfortably in a sprawling metropolis but the buildings scratch at my back

the cars pierce my feet like legos

i fold myself ragdoll into a suitcase in attempt to be smaller
i’ve tried my hand at big, i wish to be little

i stare into the mirror but it’s not a mirror
it’s the ghost of marley and he’s eating my cereal

he tells me i need to grow out my beard again

he reminds me i am a joshua tree at the end of the western world
he reminds me that it is crucial that i push through heavy desert ground

my veins are filled with marathon runners sprinting but only when it’s dark out
i’ve begun to name the avenues they run down, federal, larimer, colfax

rush hour is a real bitch
my hands shake at the horns honking screaming for attention

i’ve spent twenty eight years sawing myself in half for the big audience
i want to spend the next twenty eight sewn together

maybe salinger, alone in a boat in the middle of a forest

maybe vincent, a militia of mad men in the fields of anxiety

there is hair in my ears and when i was signing my contract this was not mentioned
television led me to believe that this corresponded with twilight years

meanwhile the movies led me to believe i would be a wealthy philanthropist batperson by now
i conveniently ignore al bundy’s belly, his thin hair, his vicious kmart realism

my eyes are the brownest they have ever been
this is good

this is spirit in form
petrified wood to be built into rocking chair conversations and tobacco pipes

i am seeking a clean definition of masculinity
and my femininity is my best hope to get there

there is goldfish in a glass bowl lodged in my heart
i still haven’t figured out what that’s all about but i feed it pellets

i remember that though the castle it swims around is small it is still a castle
and the castle is me and the goldfish is the music of it all

i’m confused
i’ve wrapped myself up in ace bandages but i’m not injured

i decide to play a mummy because for a brief minute this year i was a pharaoh
and now all i want is to be surrounded by true gold and sleep sleep sleep

and wake up thirty and haunt the shit out of these fuckers for at least a few more

cropped-king-boo.jpg

The Anatomy of a Thirty Year Old Man

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

I kind of feel like a field of ten thousand oranges,
like a universe made up entirely of suns,
like some sort of cosmic relief to be freed from subterranean dirt,
like I’ve worked my way through codependent alcohol-induced relationships
and deciphered every single Fall Out Boy lyric.

I kind of feel like God,
except I’m buying Glide floss at the grocery store
and everyone around me is God too.

I kind of feel like the flower section at King Soopers.
I feel like the succulent on clearance at King Soopers
but then I purchase myself and water myself back to health.

The sky is a Charles Mingus song,
my eyes are an audience drunk on sound.

I’m chewing on the clouds like white taffy.

I’m mourning ten years of residual teenaged angst
but teenaged angst isn’t dead,
it’s just hiding under ground
punching the lid of its coffin until it can break through
and avenge the man that massacred my wedding party.

I kind of feel like love.
Like I’ve arrived in a nice suit at a wedding.
Like the king of the dance floor, drowning in waves of hands held high.

Like my twenties largely prepared me through the trial and error of shit mistakes
to enter my thirties entirely renewed and ablaze
and ready to make all sorts of new and interesting mistakes.

My bones are bionic.
The marrow is whiskey.
I am whiskey now, I don’t need to drink to get there.

I’ve aged in barrels.

My beard sleeps soundly against the walls of my face.

If I had ten thousand blenders I’d turn them all on to high.

I am a giant monster that could attack the city but instead
I’m opting to dig deep in the dirt and plant large gardens of flowers.

I am realized chaos,

I am a cat thrown into the sky
and landing in downward dog.

My tongue spits om after om
as I regenerate my bones.

I am sailing on an ocean of great intentions
and I spent a quiet night with Hemingway
taught how to punch caustic sharks in their stupid faces.

Neruda has taught me that revolution and love
are one and the same.

Warsan taught me that our pain is our story
and it can be behind us,
like a great thick wind pushing us into new pain.

I am naked and painting myself to blend in with the grass.
I am green and inseparable from everything,
except I’m acutely aware I’m 30.

I’m acutely aware of the position I’ve established on my doomsday clock.

I am the clock hands of Doctor Manhattan in the mouth,
along the sides, in the cunt,
floating like oceans across the breasts of a lover.

I am meditating on Mars about my goddess of war,
and how she has awakened inside of me the armistice of my arms,
now outstretched into great giant fields of oranges,
where I reach out,
and grab them,
and peel the skin,

and I try to pull the pieces out neatly,

but the orange says no,

the orange says,
enough already,

dig your face deep into me and eat me rabidly.

An Old Woman of Arles

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

though once
her hair was wild
it is now tamed
seeking refuge from
a long life
in the sanctuary
of a black bandana

her eyes sunken in
like great ships
set ablaze
in the starry night
beneath her eyebrows
like clouds
that dissipate
slowly through time

her wrinkles have
formed like drylands
under the salt water crusades
of lovers above her
long gone
onward to other women
other lives
and down the stairs
six feet beneath the
ground

there is no symmetry
left to her face
there is no falsity
of balance
of give and take
of war and peace
just the residue
of what lost
and what was won

she stares
at the artist
like she is staring
at god
like she stares out
into the great void
that hovers over her
small bed
the great void
that comes whistling
out of her teapot
the great void
that consumes
not only the old woman
but the artist as well
but youth

he does not know
that when he stares out
at the old woman of arles
that he stares into
himself
but god
does he know
how to paint
a self-portrait.

'An Old Woman of Arles' by Vincent Van Gogh. 1888.

You Are Not a Flower

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

you are not a flower.

you do not rise
from the soil
like some dandy little
spark of life

you are not
overflowing
with green vanity

you just are.

when spring hits

you do not bloom

you do not rise up

from the cold winter

to burst forth into
some spectral showcase
of expressionistical color

you are not some
kaleidoscopic
manifesto

you are not
in constant competition
with the bright roses
around you

you are not
in constant praise
of the sun

your tongue is not
held out before you
drinking in
the ultraviolet rays
you’ve been fed

you do not
think of your roots
as being for
gathering life
into your body
like stranger prayer

you are not a flower.

you bloom inward
you burn circles
in your living room rug

trying to find
unidentified life lying
in the widening crack
of your ceiling

you lick the salt
from your wounds
and watch your hands
swell

you waste days
you boil water into boredom

you’ve torn your roots
from the bureaucratic soil
of bureaucracy

lifted
your two-dimensional legs
from the blueprint
they laid out for you

and you’re not always
so beautiful

you don’t have
the distinct privilege
of a best laid plan

you are something else

seedless
fruitless
without petals

you dance best drunk
and to heavy metal

you are not a flower.

you are the crayon
that walked to the edge
of town
and outside of the lines

and when you bloom
it’ll be in the middle of winter
in the middle of the night
and you will not bloom delicate

you my dear
will bloom fists and fury

—

From Stupid Flowers

 

Enter the Cartoon Bluebirds

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

oh god dammit
enter the cartoon bluebirds
enter me skipping through green fields
eyes closed turned upward to the sun
soaking in the thick mushy grossness
of love

enter the sleeplessness
enter the constant churning thoughts
of the idea that someone loves me
enter the wrecking ball of puppies

enter footie pajamas and popcorn
enter the endless tsunami of kisses
crashing over me again and again and again
drowning me in salty awful wonderful

exit nights spent sleeping on half of a bed
exit the bull from my china shop heart
he just floats off into the sky
like some strange giant concert blimp

exit this one brand of loneliness
let me find in its place a true fireplace sense of purpose
this red string tied to my tooth
to a door

holding me on the brittle bare soul of my truth
face squished tightly
mouth wide open
hoping
praying
that someone doesn’t slam the door shut

Strange Ceremonies

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

His coworkers were worried by him.

The way he would disappear to the window around noon to stare
for what felt like timeless hours
at the orchid while it soaked up the sun
placing his hands on each side of the vase
closing his eyes with intention
and humming.

It was ritualistic
in an otherwise bleak uninterested environment.

He might as well have performed
an ayahuasca ceremony in the middle of the conference room.

He didn’t really care that he made anyone uncomfortable.

There was a certain freedom in understanding that when you are true
it is very often going to tug at the thin stretchy strings of the plastic mask of society
it is very often going to leave people quiet on their nighttime commutes
back into their caves to sit around fires
performing ayahuasca ceremonies
or alternatively microwaving a hot pocket and watching Maury until they fell dead asleep.

I guess you can decide which ceremony is stranger.

WOLF.

Posted on by Maiurro in Poetry

You’ve caught me in your net, my dear.
I’m not struggling I’m just begging for more food.
I’m napping and dreaming of never leaving your doorstep.
I’m napping and dreaming of your blood running down my chin.
I’m chaotic neutral punchy dry lovely motherfucker these days.
The way I smile around the grocery store with pound after pound of red meat
filling up my shopping cart.
And you fill me up.
With love and anger and the messy mix between the two.
I’m crunching numbers with my canines.
I’m sleepless and waking up behind dumpsters in Cap Hill.
There’s smashed glass on my bedroom floor.
There’s ropes tied to the side of my bed tied there to hold me down.
And ain’t nothing gonna hold me down.
I daydream about biting into your thighs, swallowing your moans.
I would kill just to taste you again.