Salt In The Slickers

The Lighthouse Is Not An Overused Symbol

In the middle of the city sat a lighthouse
and atop the light house sat a Captain.
On the body of the light house the Captain painted "I'm fine."
But etched in the glass of the turning light said "Help me."
And the Captain said:
"How much more overt do I have to be?
This isn't even a poem really, the lighthouse & I are extraneous."
But the Captain sat in the lighthouse and watched the light spin on.
One day the Mayor arrived and said:
"Captain, there's no need for a lighthouse in the city.
There are no boats and we have plenty of lights."
And the Captain said:
"I know, it was an artistic choice. The past six lines mean nothing.
They are just an example of the writer jerking himself off on the page."
And the Mayor said:
"Gross."
And the Captain said:
"I know."

*

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Rice In The Hull

Draft

We keep it all inside and instead of pouring it on the page
we smoke it out and drown it down deeper.
Pressing auto-erotic biographies down in the bowels of what we could-a, should-a, would-a.

Thick rimmed Gutenbergs picking and placing letters pushed into our stomach linings.

If this is a cry for help all I hear is a click and dial tone. 

.  .  . 

Godspeed & Badnight,

C.B. Franz 

Story Yelling Deep In The Woods

From the artist "Moki"

A Sob’s Fables

If all the trees in a forest fall

but one still stands (with bad posture)

and no one is around to listen,

How long till it stops making sounds?

Stuck sap surrounding precipitation

shoves south and sours.

Needles drop and halt in amber

still it continues to make the sounds.

The fallen logs say

“Lower those limbs, grab the ground. Give yourself chance.”

It stood, with appendages and appetite

It cries “Sky!” which it’s shriek shook

Stirring a fir far away, shifting it’s branches to look at a

Bristling the pining pine peeking,

beyond the sitting sticks sat some up right foliage

Peek down to see the fallen needles,

amber and green slivers weigh heavy on roots down below.

The trunk tilted,

The calling conifer caws “Clouds!” aloud.

and not even the wind slows.

…

“Sky!”

“Clouds!”

Years later the fallen logs sit stacked

nestled in notches, cozy homes,

sturdy havens of the fallen

circle the bad postured, sap stick.

It cries “Sky!” still.

Bouncing, elastic sound back

and forth back to the tree

“Sky!” “Sky!”

“Clouds!” “Clouds!”

Hearths hum fumes out around the tree

sparks that warm chests tests the sappy, pining pine.

Drying eyes of that sapling catch

Amber rises as bark burns, a lone arson site

Needles to ashes, layers char.

The sappy sapling shouts “Sky!”

“Clouds!” to a solid blue, begging for saving blue.

and not even the wind slows.

There was boy in town who played the strings,

every morning in the square he’d sing.

And the villagers they’d, clap, clap, clap.

All day he’d play and they’d say

“What a treasure! What a joy, that singing, playing boy!”

One night, the boy sat

twanging upset strings back to content

when a flash of fur flew fast.

The boy cried “Wolf!” and ran into town.

Villagers turn up noses, and cold shoulders.

Up and down cobbled streets he yelled “Wolf!”

as doors and windows

went clap, clap, clap.

Screaming and shouting he ran harping

and pounding until one woman

poked her head out and said

“What’s all this yelling? Why all the crying?

We like it much better when your songs you are chiming!”

Before the boy could speak, the woman ran in, shutters shut creak.

Like a rabbit he waits in a barren square,

He pulls out his songs and begins to sing fear

to the empty night air, an empty night song.

As a flash of fur and one last shrieksang the empty night air.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Many apologies for how long I've been away. It's been a busy past several months, and I've been writing screenplays and also felt rather jaded and uninspired concerning my poetry. This is the first thing in a while that I've written that didn't feel totally awful and/or pretentious and/or whining. I know how frustrating it is when an author neither updates or produces new material on a regular basis, so I apologize again for that as well. 

I hope to post more soon and update everything but it's currently 4:13 am and I don't think that'll be happening today at least.

Winter break is coming up and I should have plenty of time to get things back in order but until then...

Goodnight & Godspeed,
C.B. Franz

You Roll The Dice, You Move Your Mice.

And The Rat Squeaked

A rat sat on a marble,

and like a microscopic Hansel sans Gretel

it laid yarn from all the important points back to his marble.
To the pantry,

To the mouse hole, where all his mouse friends live.

To the window, to see outside.
To the crack in the wall, to be outside.
To the leaky pipe for shower & scrub.
And so on and so forth.
Lint covered strands traced labyrinths cross scratched wood floor.
The last bit of yarn he tied around his tiny rat waist.

His finely woven interstate sat taught all around.
Proud of his project but tired of the process he curled around the marble.
Sun sat below the glass panes, putting all the room in darkness
and the rat fell asleep, comfortable in his well laid out fortress.

But when morning came, when all bad news comes,

The strings had torn and floated

around the room, the place was a skew and the rat was disconcerted.

Which is how to nicely put it but frankly the rat was pissed

The rat was scared and the rat was lost and the rat was steamed 

and the rat the frustrated and the rat squeaked a squeaky yell.
The rat felt alone.
But he wasn’t alone.
His marble rolled alongside him and spoke,

and this was startling even to a rat with developed emotions & cognizance.

Marbles, though they have no mouths are very wise in their own way.
They communicate through rolling in patterns understandable to the most perceptive animals.
Walrus,

Walking stick bugs,

Barn Owls,
& some species of bats.
Baby giraffes,

Pigmy marmosets,

and a type of hummingbird (who live strictly in Tibet).

And most pertinently rats,
And so the marble rolled and he most eloquently said
“Rat, I have known you for some time now and I would tell you not to fret but knowing you I also know that it would be a vain attempt.
Because you’re a worrisome mammal but I don’t hold that against.
Let me tell you why the fact that all your yarn is gone is for the best.
The pantry is always empty,

And outside it always rained,

The windows are too smudgy

And those mice aren’t your friends.
That pipe was never leaky in fact it was always quite dry.
All your strings are gone but you haven’t noticed one thing,

and it’s the piece around your tiny rat waist, the last piece of string.
It’s still intact, and holding on to me and I’m made of glass.

Now listen very carefully because this next part is important.”
And the rat listened, even more carefully than before.
“I am an inanimate object, incapable of speech and thought.”
The rat squeaked.
“And more importantly we are both constructs of a sad man, trying to illustrate a forgotten point.”
And on the word "point", the marble exploded
and the rat squeaked. 

My Convictions, More Fragile Than The Glass Around My Neck.

When The Dust Won’t Settle.

Recently I set the universe above my lungs.

And so it pulls into me the reasons for my being.

The day fills each one with a quivering panic

understanding an impending exhale; 2 ways.

Bumbling up the throat to spill on ground,

A result without substance, sopped up with layers disposable.

The latter, here is the why

A cluster of energy was set so righteously

resounding, something shall be heard.

Not in waves, seas are held to this earth no matter how deep,

but this proclivity is upwards and out

rudely it pushes past all that was known

forcefully, madly happy, tapping on the panes of a big, broad door.

Which was not there before,

(Having human eyes I set down something to be understood, so a door.

A fitting and overused metaphor but it will not change, it is a large door.)

I seek to heave at this man-made obstructure

to open something akin to a starry floodgate.
ONE,
I heaved,
TWO,
This time I HO'd.
THREE,
The force of a combined HEAVE HO, 

it cracked opened, silent and slow.
 

The dust that settled on the day God did now coats my bleeding brow

and hangs in the air. We have “un-settled” a hard weeks work, and in the dust I press my pointer so that all passing Gods and men will know the answer to “What is the name of the one who was here?”  
or simply “Who did this?” &”What was it for?”

“Did he know what he was when he opened this door?"

The question remains, and around the imprint they stand

the same pointers are poised, scratching omnipotent heads.

Here set a man, made to open a door.

Here set a door, made to open for man.

With entirety dangling under his chin,

He set to articulate, knowing the secret to the best questions.

The greats have not just one answer but when asked the right way, resounding (not like waves)

Upward & out each man has his own answer, from under which

more questions sprout. Creating mad force for a happy tapping on the panes of a big, broad door.

“NO SOLICTING.” It says

which was not there before.
Inquiring, tapper taps, more ever more:

"What came first?

The Man or his Metaphor?"

_______________________________________________________

This poems was an immensely pleasant surprise.
I just wrote it today with no inkling about it before hand.

I had been working on The Leper King Acts 1 & 2 but I haven't finished them.
And a few other unfinished poems, which is odd. I usually don't start a poem and 

put it off for so long.

Either way I hope you enjoy this one, and I apologize for how long it's been since I last posted something with some meat on it's bones.

Good Evening & Godspeed,
C.B. Franz 

Blogger Said I Needed A Title So Here Is Your Damn Title.

I apologize guys.
I haven't written you anything decent in over a month.
Almost had something tonight but nope, here's all I got.

The Leper King

Today a rat took my toe,

Not even good.
Sigh,
Often when angry/sad I just channel into writing and then it just flows 

out like an angsty chocolate fountain but this just makes me feel like yelling into a quarry.
I don't even know any quarries personal.

Fuck.

Godspeed & whatever,
C.B. Franz

Take the road less traveled though all lead to Rome.
And do as they do; take time in building your city and fiddle when it falls.

Nice Walkies

Less of a poem and more of a story.
I hope you like it all the same.
________________________________________________

It Had To Be Grand

And I sat with my blocks under the shadow,
and the cylinder rolled away, as they often do.
I went to get it (knowing the cubes would be fine on their own)
but the cylinder had rolled out past the edge of this shadow.

And I was scared.
So I left the cylinder,
But my block-castle was incomplete,
having only three towers on the four corners.
And I sat and I thought of ways the castle could be different.
To leave a corner un-towered was out of the question.
A triangle castle, maybe? But then there'd be blocks left over.
And a two tower castle is no more than a wall.

And I was discontent.
But I was still scared.
So I sat & I sat pondering my wooden castle.
Could I make just a house, with a neat wooden roof?
Would simply a tower make due?
No, it would not and I always knew that.
That's why I started a castle, it had to be grand.
"It had to be grand.", I thought again.
"It had to be grand." and I stood up once more just as I had before I'd sat.

And I was scared
And I was discontent
But my block-castle was incomplete.
I walked over to the edge of this shadow
and put out one finger, then two, then five.
Warm felt my hand, and what more I was alive.
It was bright and I held those five fingers above my eyes
And before me, well, well I was quite surprised.

A mountain of blocks, not just cylinders or cubes
but rectangle, pyramids, triangles: acute & obtuse.

This is better I thought, than under that shade.
"With these", I exclaimed "Oh the things that can be made!"
"I'll have a four tower castle, but not simply that.
I'll have dozens of castles three no, twelve times higher than that!"

And I walked out from under the shade, as they often do.
I went off to be grand, (knowing that, I too, would be fine on my own).

Soda Soda Simple Simple

All

One day they called and said
“You’re the last man alive.

You’ve got much to do and not so much time.

Please water all the gardens and

feed all the dogs. They’ve gotten quite hungry

since their masters have been gone.

Find all of the bobby pins, put them in a jar

and wind all the clocks, they’re off by an hour.

The stores are all closed, please open them all

and replace all the paper in the bathroom stalls.

The cola’s all flat, please fill it with bubbles.

Next to mow the lawns and when that’s done

wash all the cars and

take all the nickels out of the fountains just for fun.

Visit all the cities, on all the skyscrapers all the windows need washed.
And when you get back collect all the black cats

so there’s no bad luck for anyone.

Pave over the cracks, and push all mirrors into the sea.

While your down there find those sunglasses I lost on a cruise

and
all the oysters have pearls,

string them up on laces

you’ve pulled out of shoes from the Lost & Found

in tourist-y places.
Next we’ll need you to check all the libraries

for a copy of “Lord Of The Flies”, I have a report due on Monday.
Next week’s my birthday, so I need you to learn cursive

and write all my invitations and then on Tuesday-“

“Just a minute” I said.
“Who is this?”

And I heard a click. 

How Good Arch Support Can Make For A Bad Evening.

Rubber Necking OR
How Good Arch Support Can Make For A Bad Evening.

So long and say farewell
What were all the people for
whom I've met and forgot?
All the mis-communication for
over which we bickered and fought?
Why longingly stare if it's not to be requited?
Why even bother at all to only be denied it?
Question mark, question mark

Walk along the dinner table
stepping in each meal
Question mark, question mark
How does everyone feel?
My loafers in their mashed potaters
the heel is in the quiche
I threw my Seiko wristwatch on top of the cobbler, peach.
There's gravy on my dress shirt
as tightrope the hors d'oeuvres

Stale cut grass floats from my elbows down to their red wine.
And I hear applause, palm against palm they praise my callousness.
I bow for my audience, slipping on the embroidered table cloth.
I crack my head off the silver candle sticks
and the red wine stains that embroidered table cloth.

Mingus carries me out of the room, into the parlor.
Tweed & elbow pads pour bitters into crystals and talks.
"Quite the performance young man."

So long and say farewell

Blue Canary

At 5 a.m. He Sang To Me

There's a small bird 

singing in the corner of my room.

He swears:
"Nobody loves you.
Your bed will be empty till 2023, Noon."

Go away sweet song bird,

Such an asshole you are.

Orioles & one night stands.
Song birds & sideways glances.

The naive ripe with brevity

these and a low center of gravity.

make up your modern romances.

"Your dim blue light & ink stench

will not save you from their jaws, clenched 

ball point pens, masturbatory this is your current purgatory."
Such a well spoken asshole indeed. 

_________________________________________________________________

I scribbled this short little piece down at 5 last night, it's kind of reminiscent of my older stuff which focused more on the rhyming bits and a little self indulgent, then again all my stuff is "a little" self indulgent... Though I don't think I can call it my "older stuff" because it was neither that long ago and I'm not a famous poet. How pretentious we are.

Godspeed & Good Afternoon,
C.B. Franz

Poorly Timed Falls OR The Art Of When To Glance Back & Why.

Over-Under

Bottle Cap 1, 2
Bottle Cap 4.
Dancing around side halls to see you some more.
Wishing I knew you when fire drills
sent me up and down handrails
yours over mine, I thought over time
You'd catch me and I'd bounce right back to the sill.
But the stranger beat me to it
and you bounced back through to someone
who's probably no good for you
*click* *click* I knew it.
Put that ampersand I threw between our names
in the waste basket,
wrap my waist length jean jacket just above your hips
swish swish
Back & forth I stare from the audience
Etchings in a college ruled campus
Back & forth
Hello. How Are You.
Hello? How Are You.
We're fine.
You're damn fine.
and I cringe the for smallest second I know you were
with him. He wasted it.
Tossed it into that waste basket
Be my straightjacket, pull me out of the
room they missed when they padded all the others where she's

Wrapped in blanket in the back of my totalled car.
I thought this '93 Volvo would help me forget who you are.

Skimming books on the art of then, meditation,
clear my head and you cling to the stem
my-dully-obligated heart has to extend
no further than the hem of your dress.
I'd put that arch in your back
Even if you didn't lift the weight off mine. You see
Overall your overalls send me up those beige cracked walls
I've seen you matted against, I've seen us up against.
How I hoped the only thing separating us was that relations, tense,
but it's the fact that in my stifling defense you'll never know who I was
No, not at all.

Abandoned: All Those Who Enter.

Walk Outs Welcome

Some sort of critical mistake I'm making

causing a lack of double taking

and keeping in contact.

Sliding off shoebox tops

flipping through headshots

of cancelled callbacks

reminiscence mixed with sighs

Walk pasts

and un-read texts.
Modernity

only limits your chances

of a pity ffffff-….riendship

Polaroid went out of business

so we can’t shake each other

to make the image of some past thing any clearer

Snippets of lyrics left on doorsteps as steps away

a disappointed head case sees that his knocks

will not move onto your doc-martin boots.

Like cars during a black out at an ugly carnival

There won’t be bumping any time soon.

Belly button snap shots

jump rope over morality

occasionally tripping face first into bed

with nostalgic tee – and sweat- shirts

draped on office chairs & bar stools

picked up the morning after

put on the next night.

burning eyes, flat hair covered by one

of many hats covered by several of even more pins

collected to assign a meaning to a barren skull

Exit strategy

existential crisis burying a second voice 
down an ashen sink drain with fermenting friends. 
And trapping that fox with the 16 stones I was given.

Not who they wanted but who they were near.

Turned to mockery and cynicism out of fear
Should be living alone, locked in that shoebox he burned long ago.

“Poetry? Oh yeah, you’re really into that?”

Yeah I guess so.

3 Years Time.

(C)ash  Only

Lonely and lungs full

We form smoke rings with

lips pursed.

I mention women

and that’s the last of it.

black and white squares

stand under pairings

of artsy fartsy thick rimmed

and beautiful blonde dealings

through films and tobacco

tattoos and taboos

Meeting in basement parties

Befriends make out buddies.

Becoming mean and spiteful

blending into my surroundings:

a cheetah finding his spots amongst ash trays

and bargain bins, and pass go educations

When I leave the house check the mirror thrice

once more in the car window

two more times on the way down the hill

and I catch a glance in the bus

I don’t feel safe in this skin

I mean I don’t feel a-t-t-r-active.

To scan the room,

eyes shoot to cleavage of

deep v-necks and weekend matches.

This time it was too rough,

ice next time, yes we should get ice. 

Il ne se passe.

Piecing the ceramic

into understandable sights

for far away voyeurs.

And like bull to the shop

i'll set my horns about the ground

to wreck who and what I can.

Becoming, knowing my friend

to see what I need to be.

Hawthorne effect sets in

Reflective rainbow oil spills off

urbania’s streets to my lungs

Red Hand
“Don’t do it.”

White Man.
“Let me go.”

Red hand wrapped tight

around the cheek of soft

French whispers.

Warm rain and cold days

You can borrow this hoodie

There’s a story behind it

a few for what’s in my pockets too.

A lighter for no reason,

except when I start smoking

after a girl who does the same

“When In Rome…” When In Rome.

a black book for thoughts & occasional dreams

of anonymous  photographic queens.

The title? There’s a story behind that too.

I hide behind my lobes, and drown in clothes

and those smoke filled lungs and juice.

I hide in the fact

that every little line

that’s been written since your hiatus

hasn’t been condemning you

but to pick up where you left off

of things that left me.

Year 1:

Friendship

Year 2:

Confidence

Year 3:
Morality & me.

When I was with you the writing stopped

which I should’ve taken as

not the first, but one of many bad omens

But “Il ne se passe.” You'd say:

"It happens."

_____________________________________________________________

Well, at least I wrote something on National Poetry Month.

Godspeed & Goodnight,
C.B. 

Czech It Out! I'm A Somewhat Legitimate Poet!

Here it is!
A mighty thank you to PressBoard for publishing and posting a bit of my work. I've posted the two poems "Rockwell" and "Infini-tea" on here before so it's nothing new for you regulars (if there are any regulars...*cricket cricket*). Anyways this is very cool for me and much appreciated!

http://pressboardpress.com/2013/03/06/two-poems-by-chris-franz/

Godspeed,
C.B. Franz

Antiquated Biofeedback

The In-Laws

Want to watch the world fall

and think of ways to build it up,

know all the ways to cry?

What will you think when others die?

Hell fire & Skeletons.

Be my Helter Skelter.

Is there a line between eroticism & artistry?
Will you make both me?
Understand my hypocrisy

when I say this world needs to change

then stay home to watch TV.

Know I have a dozen tattoos

no intention of getting a single one.

Don’t watch while I air guitar

This world is my own,

know I can’t let you into all of it.

Can you follow that

I’d love nothing more

than a mattress on a loft floor.

but that hope carries a past.

“Awesome” is a phrase

from my Jesus-lovin’ days

and I’m not sure where they went

I had a family back then.

And to keep them happy
I’ll still go on Sundays.

I want to save this world

and I know so little beyond.

I don’t know what’s wrong

and I want superpowers.
And I’m telling you all this

because I know you don’t exist.

An Analyst

Chapter One:

Hemingway

Miller, Mamet or Hammett

never found themselves on the chaise

Cummings & Eliot

Sylvia and Levy had their own way

but never needed to talk about Daddy

(No, yuck. I don’t even know that for sure.

plus there’s too many allusions. It’s like
Saturday
Night

Live

on Prozac.)

and I feel as though

if Franz should be the one they’re alluding

then with hard liquor &brooding

That’s the way to do it.

New Yorke tunes  & pathetic scrawl

I’ll publicize the worst, almost all

except I must stay (husshhhh )

cause that’s oh so (husshhhh)
Stalling till I kick it cause

post-mortem is where it’s at, man.

Leftovers

He hadn't counted sheep for weeks

Until he heard your name

Two syllables bounced ear to ear

As he desperately tried to wrangle

Ewes turned black with fear

Over a section of wood fence

And they fell as his head tilted.

A hypothetical made possible for him,

He understood what he had done

And what he was doing as he looked through

Texts to exes

He only has one ex.

Less sex, more drunk sunken thoughts of flirtation

At occasions with women & boys where the main attraction

Isn't a fraction of how hard he’s pressing his back against the wall.

Leaving smashed and paranoid for home so he won’t face the

potentiality of  understanding that acquaintances like

Dirty Dancing 2.

And friends can amend but they won’t tell him of their future

Because now he understands what he’s done.

It’s a slippery slope and he’s got his ski’s on.

Because he wants to get his fling on

A kiss with a girl he’ll never miss at the home of

A friend with a girl he adored a love requited then withdrawn

Breathing in smog from a bong in a toy house of a little sister

To forget two syllables

And start thinking about sisters and leftovers

Spit shining sloppy seconds to swap spit for seconds

At a showing of “Friends With Benefits” without any.

Taking the TP with him to the dining room seat.

In the basement there’s a VHS of “Titanic”

Playing and they watched the whole thing with no interruption

But I’ve never seen “Chocolat” the whole way through

And I don’t intend to. 

_______________________________________________________________

My, my, my it has been a while hasn't it? This is actually good for us though, we needed some space didn't we? To be honest I wish I had posted sooner and to be even more honest these poems aren't all that new. I was flipping through the Word Doc. where I keep all my poems and I found these three little gems and was surprised that I hadn't posted them. To be honest I think the needed to breathe a little, to age a bit. I hated "An Analyst", I thought it was too pretentious & forced when I wrote it but now it's pretentious and forced but I like it. 

I also have some good news!
The site PressBoardPress (Pressboardpress.com) , which publishes short stories and poetry, has selected a couple of my poems that I submitted and are going to be publishing them tomorrow/today (Wednesday, March 6th) at Noon! So now, I am almost officially a published poet somewhat. Next step is to ACTUALLY be published on good 'ol fashioned paper and be sold to middle aged house wives in grocery stores in paperback with hyper-realistic sexy covers.

Anyways I will be posting the publishing tomorrow when it is out and letting you all know again. 

This is also the reason I am posting three hot from the oven poems for you all because I wanted to have some new and interesting material for newcomers (Hello to all you fresh young bluejays!) who see the PressBoard posting and come to check the site out.

Well that's all I have for you tonight and as always

Godnight & Godspeed,
C.B. Franz