Title is: “Puke”, I Guess(in the style of Dr. Seuss)

January 17, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ 5 Comments

Tyler R. Martin

Drink too much bourbon and then puke on the bed,
I suppose these things happen, but then again,
Sucks sleeping on the couch when you stop to think,
Wouldn’t it be better to puke in the sink?
Regardless of just how much nightly you drink,
Isn’t it just so much easier if you would just blink,
And take a deep breath, stop, breathe and think
To run to the bathroom and puke up your guts, for
Isn’t the cleanup much more better and such?
But doesn’t the sink just seem a deep dish of disgust,
And sometimes that distance is too much for a lush…
…So, sometimes just maybe
Don’t have that last shot,
Unless, maybe just maybe that last shot’s
All that you got…

New Chucks

January 16, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ 3 Comments

Tyler R. Martin

I bought new Chucks a week ago
And now they’re dirty.
The white had sparkled and glimmered,
The black was stark, rich and deep,
The laces, pristine as fresh fell snow.
But now they’re dirty.
Now the white is grass stained green
And the laces dulled with dust
And stark black has surrendered
It’s rich deep dark to the elements.
A week ago I bought new Chucks,
And the world
Has made them dirty.

Another Cigarette

January 15, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ Leave a comment

Tyler R. Martin

Light another cigarette,
The world won’t care in the morning,
Just another butt in the ashtray, another
Glob of flem in your lungs.
Light another cigarette,
The dog’s asleep on your couch,
He watches your house and he won’t mind
If you light another cigarette, and
Light one for your girl too before you wake her up
To smoke one with you and maybe crack two beers,
She’ll enjoy that, you know?
Amazing how she sleeps through the music, dog too,
But they’re used to it and a nocturnal man needs his nicotine,
His muses and his music, all at maximum volume.
Light another cigarette and
Type out a poem at two in the morning,
Two in the morning is undoubtedly a poet’s time,
Its unavailable to the cogs of society, so we snach it up
And light another cigarette without the slightest inclination
To go to sleep in the immediate future.
So you finish your beer…then finish hers…
You light another cigarette and look out the window.
If you’re lucky you’ll see the sky and the smoke looks so pretty
Against the star peppered abyss of heaven.
So light another cigarette and sigh,
“Perhaps, if I am lucky,
I’ll do this every night
Until I die.”

Just…Wreckage

January 14, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ Leave a comment

Tyler R. Martin

Life is more a second to second, day to day, drink to drink,
Mood to mood, cigarette to cigarette type of deal with way, way
Too many variables for any kind of long to term plan.
Today I drove up on a car, two cars actually, splintered and savaged
In collision of scattered steel and warped plastic as if the two cars
Were melded into one fiery display of wreckage and carnage and blood.
The passengers, all of whom were burnt to a blazing crisp,
Were being carted away like slaughtered livestock in black body bags.
It was early, the sun was just rising and the sirens stirred the cold,
Crisp morning air. Both sets of vehicles were on their way somewhere
To go do something with some other people. Planning their day
Their week, their year, the rest of their waning lives.
They were moving forward onto the future, willfully blind
To the metaphorical brick wall boldly awaiting interception,
They never would have known it but
Hell
They shoulda just stayed
Home

Madness, So Mundane

January 13, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ Leave a comment

Tyler R. Martin

Asking yourself what lies within
Winter fields and all that freezes in the storm, or
Perhaps burns in horrid heat, floods, drowns, or
Withers with age and decays under pain of time, or,
Drinks and smokes and fights over status disputes, or,
Reads to find reason and understand the empty void, or,
Revels in the combat against self and man and nature, or,
Becomes sickened by the gross anomaly of existence, or,
Breaks down in a grand display welled up from years, or,
Gives up and self inflicts a gunshot wound to the head, or,
Chain smokes for days on end without eating anything, or,
Breaks knuckles against the wall in puffs of white plaster, or,
Writes a poem about apathy and contempt for existence, or,
Drives too fast in a rainstorm with road beers and crashes laughing, or,
Admiring winter fields and all that freezes in the storm, or
Learning not only to live with hangovers but to enjoy them, or,
Trying to figure out what it means to really “live”, or,
Trying to figure out what it means to really “die”, or,
To die “nobley” and wondering what that even means, or,
Large swaths of star speckled skies over the desert, and,
Is there still a meaning to things arcane? Or,
Has all madness become mundane?

To Avoid Choas

January 12, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ Leave a comment

Tyler R Martin

Smoke screen of a thousand cigarettes,
in a place where tomes of madness fell,
Where silent nights go on forever
And your own thoughts become a hell
In this self imposed abyss of blackness
Where the torrents of dark rum swell.
Through this shroud I cannot see
Imprisoned by my ending…what tragedy
Has God in store for me?

But, by now I should have figured
And deciphered all the plans,
By now I should have noticed
I’m weakened only by my hands.
Engaged with my goliath
I cannot submit to my demands,
For through this shroud I cannot see
Imprisoned by my ending…what tragedy
Has God in store for me?

To gaze upon a dark horizon–
The horizon glows as day becomes alive
And ask yourself the solemn question “why
Was it only the darkness which I derive?
For is day’s illumination always so bitter
That tis only in deep abyss that I survive?”
For through this shroud I cannot see
Imprisoned by my ending…what tragedy
Has God in store for me?

And there’s a comfort in seeing nothing,
Yet, still darkness fails to quell the woes,
And my locked doors still feel so fragile
And it is this I fear life’s horror knows;
So i meditate on each second passing,
As outside a terrible chaos softly flows
For through this shroud I cannot see
Imprisoned by my ending…what tragedy
Has God in store for me?

Another Dead Bird

January 11, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ Leave a comment

Tyler R. Martin

My dog, with a dead bird in his mouth, was waiting for me

This morning on the stoop of my home’s back door.

I stood in the doorway, waiting to let him in, hung over,

Bleary eyed, still naked at six AM, drowsy and half asleep,

Desperately wanting him in the house so I could grab

Another hour of sleep without fear of him pissing on my floor.

And there he was, staring up at me, ears up, tail wagging,

Dead bird in his mouth and big blue eyes popping from

Their sockets with excitement. “Put it down!” I told him,

“Fuck you,” his eyes responded, I looked down at him,

Dead bird in his mouth, gray sloberry feathers hanging from

His jowls, tail wagging very rapidly. “My bird,” his eyes said.

Fuck it, I lit a cigarette and let him and his dead bird inside,

Head high, tail wagging, he trotted into the house, almost skipping

Towards my bedroom to show his prize to the hungover blonde

Still comatose in my bed. I sat at my kitchen table smoking,

Head back against the back of the chair blowing plumes of smoke

Into the stagnant air and waited for the inevitable screams.

O Solitaire

January 10, 2021 ~ Bourbon, cigarettes and syllables ~ 9 Comments

Tyler R. Martin

Playing solitaire on my phone,
Red queen resting comfortably
Under black King, black Jack’s below her.
Aces stowed away atop the board
Beside the clock with seconds ticking away.
I’m lost at two minutes thirty six seconds,
There’s no hint button so I restart.
After three minutes ten seconds I win,
My screen throws a little parade with bright lights
And red confetti and the a big:
YOU WIN!!! in the center of it all.
Then another victory after four minutes flat.
The next game, I concede defeat after only
A minute thirty nine.
The next is another crushing victory at
An impressive two minutes ten.
And there it’s is…. added up it comes to
Approximately fifteen minutes of my life
Diving head first down the drain.