typed on this screen

the seed of this thought was born in the loneliness
of space

it's a recurring dream I have

I'm a little boy rolling down a green sloping hill
before that
I'm nothing

from there to here
from then to now
is the distance of uncountable miles and
uncountable years

all I have are the words typed on this screen
the rest of my life is
an illusion
an unfulfilled dream
the day to day faltering existence
of a monster pretending to be a poet

I came from nothing
and I'm still nothing

I'm not even that little boy rolling down
the green sloping hill anymore

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

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Now playing: Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Believe, Beleft, Below
via FoxyTunes

an unfaithful mistress

night is an unfaithful
mistress
her dark eyes tempt you
but her lips are painted black with lies
kissing her will
kill you

her fingertips promise
the gentlest dreams
but they soon become nightmares
she shreds your heart with razor-sharp
talons

she feeds you to demons
you become one of the soulless creatures
a slave of darkness
unable to write
incapable of love
demented like she is demented

night is an unfaithful
mistress
she abandons you when your only desire
is to be held in
her arms

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

too many blank pages

the fog crawls over the levy

it enters my head
numbing my memories with very cold
fingers

the story I'm writing isn't being
written

I see too many blank pages

I'm staring at a grey sky
I forget what the color blue looks like

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

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Now playing: Esperanza Spalding - Two Bad
via FoxyTunes

his own dark blanket

the night leaves his mind sometime
around 3 a.m.
and goes out on the street
kicking cans in the gutter and throwing rocks at passing cars
all the places he normally buys beer have closed
and he wonders if anyone
in the houses
he stumbles by might have something to drink
but even in the numbed chambers of his brain he realizes
no one will open the door for him
the night tries to harass a monster walking beneath
a freeway overpass
but one glimpse of the intensity
in the stranger's eyes warns him it would be
safer to crawl under his own dark blanket
of bad dreams

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg
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Now playing: Booker Ervin - Tune In
via FoxyTunes

What is normally done by a creature

The monster put the leash on his creature and took him for a walk. As they walked along they came upon a man walking toward them on the sidewalk. The creature grabbed the man in his jaws and swallowed him.

"No, no! Bad creature! Spit the man out! Spit the man out, right now!" the monster commanded.

"That's okay," the man said from inside the creature's belly. "He's doing what is normally done by a creature."

The monster and his creature continued their walk. They came upon a woman digging a hole in her garden. The creature grabbed the woman in his jaws and swallowed her.

"Spit the woman out! Spit the woman out, now!"

"Don't be angry with your creature," the woman shouted from inside the creature's belly. "He's doing what is normally done by a creature."

The monster and his creature went back to walking. This time they came on a boy bouncing a ball on the ground. The creature grabbed and swallowed both the boy and his ball.

"That's enough! You've eaten enough people! Spit the boy and his ball out! Right now!"

"Don't yell at your creature, mister monster," cried the boy from inside the creature's belly. " He's doing what is normally done by a creature."

The next person the monster and his creature came upon during their walk was a girl playing jump rope. The creature swallowed the girl and her jumping rope.

"Help! Help!" the girl screamed. "Get me out of this creature's belly!"

"Calm down," the monster reassured the girl. "The creature's doing what is normally done by a creature."

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

those of us who are left

hideous creatures with huge gaping mouths
swallow the ocean whole

those of us who are left
stare at the barren landscape

and
cry

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

the morning chill has arrived

memories baffle the monster

he remembers anger
and unforgiveness
sunbathing all summer in his backyard

now that the morning chill
has arrived
along with the cold wind
and the occasional threat of rain
they don't visit him

he wonders if they prefer a warmer
climate
or if they're too lazy
to help him prepare for winter

he notices that he feels better when
they're absent

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

a mistake

the ending was a mistake

it lacked the excitement and action
a story needs
to conclude
properly

I should have written in a cannibalistic giant
or a fire-breathing dragon

it would have sprung from the middle
of the earth
and devoured
all the characters

so I rewrote it

it was one hundred percent
better

I changed the beginning
and the middle, too

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

deep inside me

deep inside me are secrets
I want to keep deep inside me

the sun and moon reveal too much

I hide myself in the shadows
and these words

no one looks for me here

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

slipping out of heaven

the rocks are throwing themselves
at me
I'm a monster
with one foot I'm slipping out of heaven
and with my other foot
I'm stumbling into hell

quickly grab my hand
hold on and pull me out of this death
the rocks are hoping to
crush me

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

run, plastic grocery bag

run, plastic grocery bag run!
flee the tyranny of the painted parking space

run, plastic grocery bag run!
the wind aids your escape across the black pavement

run, plastic grocery bag run!
don't become enmeshed in that chain link fence

you'll hang screaming at the world

and who of us hears the screams
of a plastic grocery bag?

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

Chicken barbecue (An absurd tale)

"How did that chicken get in your head and lay that massive egg?"

The doctor's question stunned me. I had an egg in my head? He took an x-ray. It confirmed the presence of an enormous chicken egg inside my cranium. It was destroying my brain.

"Get it out!" I shouted.

"We can't do that. We don't want to destroy the chicken fetus."

"We don't?"

"Just imagine how many people a chicken that big could feed."

I tried imagining it, but I couldn't. The egg was destroying my brain.

They kept my head in an incubator for a few days. When the chick hatched it was huge. When it was fully grown they butchered it and invited everyone who lived in the Sacramento city limits to a chicken barbecue. The leftovers fed the county.

And I've got a hole in my forehead too large to cover with a cowboy hat.

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg

happy

all of us can't be
happy

well, maybe
we can
but it would be pointless

we'd be stupid

and eventually we'd
be unhappy
again

© 2007 Jim Wittenberg