grant maierhofer — three poems

3 poems

by grant maierhofer


Outtake

Have begun to worship
sorts
or forms
of pain
and lust

have begun to reject holistic
thoughts
of all kinds
have begun
to fall apart

have not witnessed bad generation
but merely clown shows, blue
red
pink-eyed kids
running fast and away

I look out for them
but it’s no use
never is
never was
I look out for them

talk with strangers today
tomorrow maybe
sit on couch
bad posture
bad posture

frenetic nonsense
drivel
bad posture and my spine
is falling apart
is not unique
purchased many things
now to be rendered moot
and this is good
or bad
and this is good

Christmas comes again
smiling through black teeth
smiling behind my father
smiling behind my friends
my friends hate me

my father hates me
my dogs spit on me
my village is a town is a city
hates me
I listen to one song

it never ends like pain
or dancing
or living
when all you need is the ending
it never ends

creeps and children and
ugly women and men
seek me out
seek my family out
spy on us, the watchers

I have witnessed them
I have fallen apart spying back
out the windows of cars
out the navels of women
out the ugly spark of love

purchased brand new red jacket
burned it down
ate large apple
far too large
witnessed miracle

witnessed ugly young man
reading book of stories
all about his youth
and domesticity
smiled and thought, ‘huh’

went to sleep two nights in a row
not tonight
can’t sleep, to sleep is a chore
to stay awake is natural
compelling, new

new like red novels on blue shelves
or ugly talk show hosts
or coffee
or friends
or ideas

I witness three never ending songs
they won’t end and I won’t stop listening
I carry them with me
strange little things
carry them home with me

mom and dad are home
carry them past their bedroom
out to the shed, the songs
and the shed suddenly
burns down

sister takes me to apple orchard
salve the pain
mollify me
sister’s name is molly
molly-fy me

dead siblings or rather that ship
out on lake Michigan
dead now too
lost lonely loons
lunatics like exley

I have two children now
both of them are named Robocop
both of them speak
both of them use the toilet
both of them are ugly children

I have submitted twelve
science fiction stories
to religious presses
and they won’t publish
my work

they say that it’s derivative
or recidivist
or contemplative
or bad
they say it’s bad now I remember

I burn down their church with friends
tell the police it was their fault
am jailed for five years
spend the five years reading the bible
find out it was smart to burn it down

run away to new cousin’s home
burn it down
eat brand new apple out of storage bin
local grocery
store

kill myself
kill myself
kill myself
kill myself
kill myself



reports of hurricanes on Saturn

my life became the storm
and I was at the center, lying/
weeping, not knowing brain
from refuse, intelligence from
mere flashes in so many pans

of light. we watched storms
grow on other planets, brilliant
red spirals of depth and fear
and none of it registering for
that internal cloud, the Other

I wept over my own misunderstanding
childish in the lightning-light
holding fast my keys hoping
for the flame to swallow me
up completely

my tiredness is just beginning.

I left earth for something grave
an exile finally and in the truest sense
as so many immortals had before me
I left
I walked out beyond the firmament smiling
sweeping plateaus of fire like eyes
children horrified in the face of the sun
I am like them and like this rare moment
of pure unadulterated chaos
complete and total submission to the idea
that you cannot matter nearly as much
as the star that will someday inhale your bones

and as time drifted sleepily into new millennia
I saw this with some register of hope
I saw the faces of new politicians and empty
faces staring up at them in earnest
waiting
wanting desperately the answers that
would explain these questions that led us here
to this
to this expanse of shit and fire
to this bubbling pit of lost hope and
everything impossible to recognize

there were gods once, this perhaps the gravest
thought of all
that a creator begat this world of black
spectral shit, to feed us not of love and beauty
but of indecision and chaos and constant
unsatiated wonder



decisions prior to a mediocre existence

I was bored before I was born
the two bits, sperm and egg
were these bored, jaded cells
whining about ‘eggs today’
or ‘the way sperm #349 writhes’
bored

the two met in an anticlimactic
gust; flesh and ambience and
strange, strange vibes, and bored
this completely unimpressed zygote
watches the red develop to fleshtone
etc.

and out I came with such indecision
such absolute indifference, that I
spat and shat and pissed atop myself
not even laughing, unable to grasp the
intensity, of a fart-joke
whoops

so here I become this bored ghost
inhaling odd influence, etc.
desperate to feel something so rancid
so strange, that I’d feel alive
watch me feel alive, watch me breathe
cum

I smell blood or shit or anything at all
and the boredom flees for a second
but only then, and then just barely
and I realize I’m doomed to like obscure
stupid/strange/misogynistic/feministic
things
and nothing much will happen for me
here, that’s what they all say, and I’ll
say it too; because I’m here, I’m stuck
and I’m fucked; and yet the boredom
wraps me up so entirely, that I just can’t
care

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