joshua mertz's Shared Poems

Bigger pieces of paper
Means I can write
Bigger poems
More words, perhaps
Mountains of metaphors
Similes like pollen in the wind
Bigger paper on which to
Flail and grope for Deeper Meanings
Somewhere down there
At the bottom of the page
The Architeuthis of Truth
Just an ugly bag with tentacles
Tasty when deep fried

Stop writing poetry! Stop it!
These scribbles on screens and
Sheets of crushed trees
Merely indicate the oscillation of air
Flowing past a particular piece of
Meat in the throat
Words say nothing
They are not the thing nor the idea
We are the idea of light
We are the hand that sings
We are the spirit of flight
The thing of things
Running to arrive at where
We already are

But in order to arrive
The journey must be made
There is no forward without a path
No words without breath
Nor steps without feet
Breathe, make pathways, walk
Travel wide
And write more poems

Rain falls straight down
Bright in the sunlight of a half-clouded sky
Against the dark clouds, a rainbow
Vibrant, calm, strong
Some say the
Rainbow is a miracle
Others insist it is the rain
That is the miracle

Twentieth day with the septic tank
That’s brimming full with shit-soaked roots
It’s full of feh, it’s dark and dank
And smells real bad from yucky poots

We dug it up and found it fetid
In need of fixing, outflow broken
Our love for this is rather tepid
We shoveled much with curses spoken

So now we fix it P.D.Q.
And scoop the roots, such icky fun
We’ll lay the pipes and stick with glue
Then fill the ditch and call it done

I feel that I am filling up with time
Not full of days like some ancient sage
But full enough to notice
That the great glob of time within me
Is beginning to ferment into a bitter hooch
That dulls me into stupid, hoochy thoughts
I don’t understand you
Everything moves too fast
That’s not music
What’s with all the tattoos?
Even though I swore back in 1967
That I would never think those thoughts
We are but paltry flesh balloons
Filled with the juice of days
Fermenting away until we swell and burst
Psychedelic splatters on a cosmic sidewalk