Sunday, April 28, 2013

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. 

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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

Thursday, April 18, 2013

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.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

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.