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Stephen Kilmer Poem
It’s raining in the corner
Stripes upon the floor
Bloody knife in a barroom door
Drinking whiskey
From a hollowed out gourd
Full of wasps
That rage in my core
Old man Mason
Got a smile upon his face
He knows the fire
And now I got a taste
Can’t stand up
Can’t lie down
Spinning room
Going round and round
Lipstick so red and thick
Devils eyes are on my hip
Right hand of the devil
Is a handgun son
I’m shooting dice
I’m shooting everyone
Woke up in a Philippine jail
I’ll sail for Hong Kong
Once I make my bail
They’ll never find me
The only evidence to tell
Is a tattoo of a broken heart
And a rusty nail
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2013
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
Well they are here again
Knocking on my door
Monopolizing my television
Decorating my neighbors homes
Blitzing me at every store
And corner in every city and hamlet
Between here and Buzzard Beak, Idaho.
It’s like a virus
A pandemic
Santa Claus is coming to town
Well I’ve been bad, very bad
And if that bastard shows up at my house
He ain’t getting cookies and milk
I’m been talking to Jesus and he tells me
That Santa is a fake, a sham, a trick on the poor people
He’s just a way to make the rich richer and poor poorer
So I ask Jesus “Why do you let this happen?”
And he smiles and tells me a long story about faith and forgotten dreams.
Then he fades back into the egg nog and I sleep with the devil.
Fitful dreams and reindeer back strap for breakfast
I eat the fake snow and regurgitate the Christmas balls
Burn the tree and bury the trimmings
The fat man can’t intimidate me.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2013
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
It’s cold here in Central Texas
Winter has laid its hand upon us
The night is clean and pure
With just a whisper of oak and mesquite fires
Burning on the hilltops
And villages of old German hopes
The coyotes are calling
Packs move in the night
Instinctive without knowing the reason
They find their way into town
Old men with rifles sit on porches waiting
But nearly always miss
For winter is the friend of the coyote
And the bones of men
Are appendages meant for warmer climates
Civilized cravings or hunger drives them here
Or maybe it’s just an Comanche tear
That fell in this place
And stained the ground forever
What ever it is I welcome them here
For they are clean and pure
Of what burdens men
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2013
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
It’s mid-winter here in Quintana-Roo
Tonight the rain has come
It is not unusual
But the tourists are not happy
I am here to write and sleep
Mostly to sleep
The rain upon the thick leaves of the jungle
Sound like small drops of blood
Hitting my boots
Memories of Asian nights
As I sleep those drops
Bring back the dead
And I wake.
And then I write.
These are not good stories
They are nightmares
They are things I wish to forget
I write them and then I try to sleep again
Ambien the devils aspirin
Keeps me asleep until
Reality comes back
The jungle never sleeps
It holds on to dreams
And men.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2013
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
Left here on the right
All alone on the left
Stuck somewhere in the middle
How can I get on
This world is passing me by
I can’t live in it
I can’t even think in it
A cacophony of sound from every corner
Sterilizing my brain waves
Flat lining my senses
Slow down
For Christ’s sake
Let me breath
Let me think
Let me be
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2014
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
If you come to find me
Look no further than you must
For I will be burning effigies
A conspiracy is afoot
Some might say I spend too much time alone
Too much time in the attic of my brain
I have fake conversations with myself
Some might say I spend too much time alone
I think they don’t understand me well enough to know
So call me a mad man.
The axe is buried deep and falls again and again
Wood chips fly as I hew the tree of death
I am working on commission
That’s right the agents are paying me
A coup d’état
To overthrow loneliness
I burn effigies of myself
Some might say I spend too much time alone
Ask me if I care.
Ask me if I can find my way home.
Ask me if the sewage is raw in my veins.
Ask me if I can crack the code of loneliness.
I dare you to ask me.
Some might say I spend too much time alone.
I can never have enough time alone.
It spares me the spirit of life with society.
I burn effigies.
Let the flags and cannonballs fly.
A war upon my soul will not stop me.
I'll ride a pack of dogs into the teeth of the storm
And rain down pain upon your shores
A coup d’état
A coup d’état
Will you finally come and spare me?
I doubt it.
I am not an anomaly
I am free to ramble in loneliness
It burns my flesh, flesh that is hard as gasoline
Underneath the muscle is sinuous and built for pain
Come save me if you must
I am not an anomaly
I just spend too much time alone…
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2015
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
When the fall came we knew everything had changed. Whispers through the Aspens became a shrill voice of winters warning. He was changing like the seasons. They didn’t understand it at first but it became more apparent as time went on. The old man was tied to a cycle and that cycle was the changing of the seasons. In the fall he was anticipatory and melancholy. Sometimes irritable and other times reflective of his life. He had lived here for 20 years. Twenty years in a nursing home…who would do that to a man? But he took it all in and lived on despite the wrongs done to him. He was usually a gentlemen but he had his temper and God hope you weren’t working that shift. Christ. But as time went along he came and went and we all got used to the cycle. And he didn’t seem to notice. He had cancer and it was going to kill him. Sooner or later. He was working on later.
He used to say, “There is a spring that flows eternal, and I am swimming in that spring." He told us he would out live all of us and see us in that spring if we were good people. I’m not sure how good or bad I am but I would like to see him in that spring, if only for moment in time.
I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go and see the old man. He's almost gone and I don’t know what say to him. Brown tobacco stains run down his chin and he’s all dressed up on like them old people. It hurts me. It really hurts me. He is my future and my end and my beginning. It’s a cycle that was invented by a sadist. But he lives on. And I think of that spring and wonder when I will be swimming in it one day. Will I see him and all my children? Will I be able to locate my dogs? I hope so. For living on earth is heaven but crossing the river and getting to the other side in one whole piece must be paradise. I pray for those around me. And I hope that I have not done too much wrong that will keep me in this dark place I loath.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2015
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
The last living light
Twinkles in his dead eyes
Alive a moment ago but now gone
Someone should shut them
A stare so lonely
Into a place that only he knew
He’s lying there on the floor
Bleeding hard from the head
Police don’t even bother
Just pay him his respects
It’s cold and lonely down there
Watching life go on
Knowing your no long part of it
Just a passenger who had made the final stop
It may not be where you are going
But it’s definitely where you will be
Somewhere down the line.
As he bled out no one stopped to care
He was nobody to them just a drifter
But even a drifter has a mother somewhere
His mother would have cared
Take him sweet Jesus and show him the way
He hath walked with the devil and a sawed off shotgun
Wrecked the lives of plenty a poor boy
Down on the wharf along the shore
Somebody cover him till darkness falls
Then we will carry him to Pointe Coupee parish
Across the river
And find his next of kin
Put him deep in that black gumbo
And let the devil do his work
For John Batiste was a man
Who needed no help
They’ll be frying up cracklin’s
At JP’s on Saturday night
Someone will crumble a beer can
And cuss John Batiste.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2013
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
I got a freeway view
Behind the curtains
Pianos sound like broken glass
I can see the darkness from the bed
They keep banging away at the door
But I won't let them in
What I am is what I am
They want philosophy
Out by the freeway we drink beer
Under the halogen lights
Watching the trucks roll by
Wishing we could be Bobby McGee
Bandana and all
But we're just kids
Chucked in too deep
No place to sleep.
No parents.
No life.
Just in life too deep.
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2015
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Stephen Kilmer Poem
The streets are gold and red with leaves
From the autumnal rains
Rain on windows glistens and returns
I wipe the fog from the glass
To see people with broken umbrellas
Walking towards a downtown train
Buses hiss and roar as they stop to pick up passengers
It is a hullabaloo.
Monet paintings reflect my emotions
Eyelids wide shut.
Why?
Can a moth make you insane?
It flutters around the flame.
It has a purpose.
Like the people on the street
We are all destined to end.
Yet we keep on going.
Knowing there is an end.
The droplets slowly make there way down
Inklings of death
The truth is not known
But the end is clear
I watch the leaves swirl
They are already dead
A season pasted
A season too early to have ended.
What is it that makes us tick?
The leaves move in slow motion
Lifting up towards the heavens and then….
Dying….
Compost
Copyright © Stephen Kilmer | Year Posted 2015
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