Haircut
JCD Kerwin
I grab the scissors with both hands,
and hold the blade between my fingertips
to see if the blood will make
my hair a deeper shade of red.
I have styling gel in my eye
and it’s turning my corneas to fire,
but I’ll simply wait to see
if it’ll make my irises turn grey.
I wish haircuts were plastic surgeries,
so my former self could be
swept away with the tiny piles
of scraps upon the floor.
Maybe I’ll go blonde.
(Dec., 2011)
Day-Glo Flow
JCD Kerwin
I beat myself with brushes ’til
watercolor splashes from
my ears, and my hair
drips with the colors of
some acrylic pigment
I never knew existed.
I stare at canvases
until my heart beats a red
I saw once upon a time
in Nat Geo photographs
of a sunset Nevada Babylon.
My dreams are black and white,
but sometimes dots of color
fall across the page:
sunspots on the movie frame
of my Bladerunner landscape;
reflecting a never-ending,
water-techno-color sky.
I’ll reminisce and catch my breath
’til I paint the clouds at Dawn,
and fade into nothingness at Noon.
Or, maybe I’ll fall into the river,
mix into those liquid, color lines,
and that old, used-up turpentine…
Or, maybe I’ll wake up and find
it’s all just a boring tube of white.
(April, 2012)
Skitzacaine
JCD Kerwin
I’m subtle. Like a heart attack.
When I’m on a mission,
I’m as invisible as
an elephant on the subway.
I’m riding high, like
I’m snuffing cocaine and
soaring with wings made—
of iron.
Shit.
I fall faster than my stocks.
I almost wish I hadn’t wished
for the super dose of power
to turn me into Superinfiniteman.
Wish I hadn’t drunk the Kool-Aid and
pumped my thighs full of incrediroids
like all the other ’bots who can’t get
through the day without a pick-me-up.
I thought I wasn’t like them.
Thought I didn’t have to be.
Thought I could finish a dream without
kicking off my socks
and falling out of bed.
But I’m just another mannequin
with a pacemaker.
(May, 2013)
Photo by Don Worth
Clear-Cutting without New Growth
JCD Kerwin
Seems like I’m drafting up my future
before I’m taking three steps
in the present.
I’m signing contracts with
invisible ink and
when I look behind, I see
10,000 acres of land acquisitions
I never knew
I traded freedom for.
Yet,
thinking I am somehow special
just makes my sight foggy;
looking at those who really matter
is like watching leaves
in acid rain puddles.
Didn’t know I could cut
the fragile dreams they have
with mine…
Like a logger in a redwood grove.
(May, 2013)
Hey, I did it. I finished The Novel that Will Get Me Published. It was kind of surprising, actually. Finished is around midnight, Monday morning this week. When I realized I was done, I just kind of stared at my computer screen for a while. I think the shock has worn of now…I think. Hey, come on, the thing took me eight years to write–but I did most of it in the past year. And now it’s done. The first book I wrote in a year; the second in five years. (Those ones suck. I don’t want to talk about those.) But this one is weird. It’s different. It’s…special. Aww. No, seriously, it is.
Now I can’t look at it for a couple days. But then I’ll go back and read it. Then I’ll start editing. I already know who I’d like to send it to for critiquing. Then after that: some more editing! Then it’ll be time to put together publishing packages [which I remember so fondly]. (Oh, look how excited I am! I’m already thinking of everything I get to do next! I’m happy as a lark. A darling lark!… ‘the hell kinda bird is a lark anyway?)
In honor, I suppose this poem is appropriate:
Scriveners
JCD Kerwin
My pen writes
in a different way
each time I hold it,
as if to say,
“They’re not done yet.”
(December, 2011)
And my break’s over. Stay off drugs, kids.
J.C.D. KERWIN 