Drop the rocks
Full-grown pop in the jaw
Bleeding gold
Won't save your soul
Moving again and again and again and again
Until the pacific
Closes behind your back
because criticism smacks
kids out of whack
Morphemes-phonemes again
and again
Given the knowledge
of a recycling bin of
letters

Use them again and again
Won't save your soul
Atom smash logic replaying
and playing before your eyes
Some days it's too much
coal to mine
Mouth covered when you
step in time
Won't make your life
I'm a goner if I can't
stand on the rocks
and if the laundry doesn't burn
If the grim reaper doesn't speak
nonsense words from one
state of consciousness
to the other

Drop the bomb
Call the mob
Stock our shelves
Grow the letters
Feed all those starving
tongues

Let me tell you a story
Once the grim reaper
dressed like an old woman
and bought denture cream
just to know how it feels to
grow old
A human is an animal
Some think an olive is a fruit
A dog is a wolf on the inside
Begging to learn the trick
Speak

Next in line most wait
for straight prose
pinch their noses misguided
Want blood to bleed red
Don't want ideas to smash
their bread
Won't save their minds
from a punch in the gut
Mine closing in their faces
and their Atlantic drowns
shattered glass
encasing words upon words
owned by streams of

Consciousness running
all around
Those nonsense words
running aground
can't swim though all
the world's frowns.

this memory
this ghost for hire
for which i pay dearly
is worth as much, or more

these blue night skies
and black sky days
deserve as much, or more

rainy eyes my mind clouds make
sunny eyes my mind clouds fake

take, take, take
that is all she does
it is all she knows

this ghost
this memory
this love

©Jason Cole

there is hidden elegance in the grotesque
some are able to detect it, but most won't even begin to attempt
even the word grotesque is both horrifying and beautiful
a viscous, slimy drip from a rusty ball of barbed wire
a flawless rose sprouting up through a pile of moldy leaves
anything initially perceived as disgusting can become poetic
just as anything that radiates beauty has an ugly side
the latter is much easier to discover
for people quite enjoy the destruction of a saint,
but to turn coal into a diamond takes effort and motivation
one must have a strong desire to expose the potential secrets
within things that don't normally receive a second look
the people who are able to unearth these gems are artists,
taking the repulsive and placing it on a pedestal
they transform their pain into a painting,
their cries into a song,
the least we can do is listen

i tell secrets in the form of poetry
each of my subjects is a special fruit hanging from the limbs of my mind
once they become too heavy, i must pick them,
tear them open, and reveal their matter before they become spoiled
not for the world to see, but more so for my own relief
i'll place my subject right in front of me for dissection,
but only when it's ripe and i am fully ready
my subject transforms from a drunken pith into a gem,
from a simple thought into a sonnet
this form of expression is the only thing keeping me from endless suffering
writing frees the subject without its knowledge,
and it frees me from having to protect it any longer
for it is a burden with which i have a sporadic love affair