I’ve moved a lot of my stuff off this online art community. I do enjoy lots of the art and some rather cool people on there, but as a whole, I guess I never felt it was much of a “community” (more like a middle school). I really never thought it was very beneficial in terms of helping one grow as an artist, either. Hell, the best critiques I ever got weren’t even when I was in college, which is where I should have gotten them. I–

I digress.

Here’s a poem. But first, some background: M has blue eyes, thus the “Blue.” Also, I’m a painter. “Majored” in it as well as writing  in high school. There you go. Now go have fun. Remember to zip up your jacket. It’s cold outside.

Knickamickarickatee
J.C.D. Kerwin

[The artist hasn’t slept in days.]

I’m stuck inside my head again,
It’s nice to be back insane
and kicking.

I can’t escape the lyrics
I keep overplaying in my mind.
They keep the blood dripping from
my forehead and the acid from
burning down my spine.

[Keeps me on my toes, you know.]

I twitch explosions in my sleep
when the nightmares come calling
and my nails start clawing
at skin that sticks like film
to bone.

I’ve been smoking pencils
like they’ve got nicotine
but nothing’s really
like it seems.
(Just like these poems
I think are gold but
are really chicken shit on paper.)

I splutter, scribble
half-written pieces of
abstract paintings I can’t even get
myself to buck up and paint
anymore.
I stomp them to pieces
on the floor.

[They were fun, once upon a turpen-time.]

I got hiccups in my head,
so I cough blood onto paper
like Pollock stains
hoping the word ink pains
splatter something better
than these level five migraines
I can’t escape.

I got my squirt guns blazing,
so I sit here waiting
for the inkblooddrops to start forming
words to make sense of worlds
I’m avoiding
with coffee cups and headphones
every bullshit droning day.

Time to give it a rest with the bullshit,
fairytalehero reason that’s not pleasing
to anyone, no one,
anymore.

Maybe these dirty ketchup stains
only look good on broken refrigerators
with crying compressors
after all.

[I spell sauve moi in the tomato sludge.]

Nov., 2011
Revised September 2015