Miscellaneous Poems

by James W. Harris

For About Three Minutes

What a glorious thing
to be alive. 
To be aware of 
your body
the planet 
the air
the sun
your mind

I was alive today
for about 
three minutes
and it was 
wonderful. 

_____________________

They's Been Zombified
 
He was a 
Voodoo Priest,
Controlling zombies
In a factory
In the Fulton County
Industrial Park.
He called himself
A plant manager
And he called the magic spell
Jobs
And he called the zombies
Employees
But it was Voodoo
And they were 
The 
Walking Dead

_____________________

Me
 
I will buy a second TV
Rather than feed
A starving child
In Africa.

And that single fact
Is perhaps 
What you should 
Most remember
About
Me. 

_____________________

In Wal-Mart They Dream 

In Wal-Mart 
they dream of
murder 
while telling you 
Electronics 
is on 
Aisle 9.

_____________________

Hurry
 
Hurry hurry hurry
Rush rush rush
Worry worry worry
To your
grave.
 
_____________________

COMING SOON
A LIVING DEATH
MORE REAL
THAN
LIFE
ITSELF

_____________________

Shielded
 
Shielded from
    the glow
         of
the moon outside
     the girl 
    worships 
    shadows
        on 
       TV

_____________________

Yours
 
go
    go
     soar    fast    delirious
     take the
                   moon
          and   sky
          and   sun
          and   sea
they are yours
this moment here
it is eternity

_____________________

What Time It Is
 
He worried about the time,
He would always pull out
His big gold watch
And check to see 
What time it was.

Then one day 
He died of a heart attack.
It was never o'clock,
Forever.

_____________________

Flight 143
 
For centuries
Men have wondered
And dreamed
And argued
About 
What lies on
The other side of
The clouds.
 
Well, 
I saw it 
Today.
Miles and miles
Of fluffy white sun-lit 
Rolling clouds
And a sky so incredibly
Blue…
 
Ancient kings

would have traded
Their kingdoms 
For the sight.
But it cost me
$173.40,
Baltimore to Atlanta,
Delta Airlines
Flight 143. 

_____________________

No One Really Believes It
 
No one
Really believes
Those old men
Were once
Young.

Later,
No one
Will believe it
About you,
Either. 

_____________________

Irony
 
The ads
Use irony
To sell products
And people think
How smart they are
Because they "get" the irony.
And so they buy the products
And feel 
So smart.
 
Ironic, isn't it?

_____________________

Dooms
 
You are
Doomed
To be
Lonely.
But
Others are
Doomed
To not be
Lonely,
Ever,
And your 
Doom
Pales
By
Comparison. 

_____________________

In The Bar

They are drunk and stupid.
Later they will sober up,
But it won't help 
The other.

_____________________

The Dead Living

Monday through Friday 
At 6:30 a.m.
They rise from their coffins
Across the nation,
Cursed victims of forces
They do not control.
They fear the dark,
They fear aloneness,
They seek reassurance in crowds,
They seek protection in tepid religious symbols
And will not drink wine
Even as sacrament.
They cannot see themselves
Except reflected in the mirror's superficial illusions,
They seek out the cross on Sundays in church
And die on other crosses the rest of the week.
They live on the blood of others, but
Would never put it 
That way.
They are not the living dead, 
They are the dead living,
And vampires watch them crawl through their lives
And shudder at the horror.

_____________________

My Wish

I wish I was 5000 feet tall
So I could squat over this
Sick fucking town
And bury it 
And everyone in it
Under a giant stinking toxic
Two-million-ton
Turd.

_____________________

Room Full Of Books
 
He had a big room
Filled with books.
He had read them all,
Underlined salient passages.
He could quote the great sages
And recite Shakespeare.
From memory. 
 
He loved his government
And thought the police 
Were there to 
Protect him.
 
All those books, and
He was still 
A goddamn
Fool. 

_____________________

Dig It

If you could dig a hole
Thru the earth
Eventually you'd come out
On the other side
Of the planet, 
In China.
Then the Chinese government
Would put you in jail
Forever. 

_____________________

The Man in the Cardboard Box
 
He lived in a cardboard box
In some woods behind
A convenience store.
One day some kids
Doused his box with gasoline
And threw a match.
He went up like a torch.
The kids laughed and then returned
To their brick 
Apartments. 
They all died in one way or another 
In the next few years,
Then God looked them over and threw them
Into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:15),
Where they would burn in agony
For all Eternity.
The man who had lived in 
The cardboard box 
Was an angel now, 
And he heard their piteous cries,
And he begged God to let them out of
The Lake of Fire,
Because he had burned up himself 
And he knew what that felt like.
God told him to mind his own business,
But he kept pleading and begging,
And finally God threw him in the Lake of Fire, too,
Just to shut him up.
The man who had lived in a cardboard box
Now was burning forever, 
And the kids who had burned him up
Still hated him even as they
Sizzled and blackened and screamed there,
Next to him
In Hell.
But somehow he still felt better there
Than in 
Heaven. 

_____________________

The dead have
The most important
Message of all
To tell us
 
But we foolish living
Will not listen
And so we
Miss it 
Entirely
 
And 
All too soon
We also are the dead
Who never really lived
 
And then we too 
Scream the warning
But almost no one
Hears. 
_____________________

With life so short, 
So precious little time,
You’d think there’s be no time
For hate

But of course
People do find
the time.

_____________________

Your Eyes

 
I wish I'd never 
looked into your eyes.
I saw myself reflected in them
And I wanted to grab a kitchen knife
And cut them out
And put them in a box
And bury it
So I would never again see myself
The way that
You do. 
_____________________

My Neighbors
 
I smile at my neighbors
And wave
Like we are
Old friends,
Yet I scarcely know them
And if they could
Read my heart
I wonder if they 
Would kill me,
And if I could
Read theirs,
Would I 
Kill them?  

_____________________

The Day
 
I worried about trivialities
And fretted about nothings
And fed petty grudges
And felt no joy
 
And suddenly
The day was over
And I had 
Once again
Spat
In the face 
Of God.
_____________________

The Hotel Is On Fire
 
The hotel is on fire.
The alarms are ringing.
The sirens in the street
Blare day and night.
Sometimes water
From a firehose
Splashes through my cracked window
Or puddles a bit 
Under the door 
Of my
Room.

The hotel is on fire,
You can sometimes hear
shouts and screaming,
but faint, muffled, far away,
and because the hotel 
has been burning for 
days, months, maybe years now?
-- I don't know, who follows such things --
you hardly notice the shouts
the screams
the sirens
the distant roar of
collapsing walls
anymore,
and after a while
you get used to
the heat 
from the approaching
flames.

The hotel is on fire,
But it has been burning
For a very long time,
And we are all too busy
In our separate small rooms
To do anything about it,
right now, 
anyway.
I have my huge ball of foil,
Four feet in diameter and
Growing daily with every cracked
crushed shiny piece I
dredge from the garbage or 
find on the
street.

Corrigan in 317 is experimenting
with Moroccan recipes.
The quiet man across the hall
has numerous TV shows he cannot
bear to miss, not including
the televised ball games
that must be followed daily
during the season.
And three doors down
an insurance salesman 
continues his longtime affair
with a plump junior high school
girl.
 
The hotel is on fire,
but it has been burning for so long now.
Many rooms -- countless rooms --
furnishings, clothes, possessions,
all are ashes now,
as are their former
occupants.
Room numbers, names, faces, 
all forgotten,
remains scattered 
in the smoke.
Ashes to ashes. 

The hotel is on fire,
and no one can put it out,
and no one can get out,
and you get used to it
and it seems normal
as alone in my ever-warmer room,
I add yet another strip of foil 
to my 
ball.

More poems by James W. Harris