Emmanuel & Zina

It was such a long time ago
We were only children playing
A game of hide and seek

We would take turns
One of us immersing into illusion and disguise
While the other waited
Then came to discover

We built a little garden
A playground for our game

I came into it and hid
Amongst the landscapes and the livestock
Amongst the elusive passage of time
And many bright and shiny things

I hid so well that I forgot about the game
I mistook my mask for flesh
And began to imagine this all as real

It is only now that I remember
Why I have been hiding for so long
And i wonder if you are close yet
To finding me
Or are you even still looking?

© Robert Emmett McWhorter (circa 2003)

 

Cricket Hill

Labrador Dali 07.18.09 CJ Arthurs

Saw you standing by the keg
propped up on your wooden leg
We raced down to the beach
and up the top of the lighthouse

We threw our empties into the lake
and you said you might make a mistake
I said “There’s a train I’m supposed
To be on, and I wish it was you”

You didn’t think I’d mind
what was on your mind
We didn’t think they’d mind

We can turn down the gravity
just a degree
not enough to fly away
but just enough to see

That we can feel the space between
the surface and our feet
Feel the creeping, revolving
world slipping by underneath

Saw you up on Cricket Hill
as far as I know you’re up their still
Waiting for some bus to come back
with your veggie burrito

Well here’s your change
Here’s your chance
Hear them calling for the last dance
And I’m the only one left here
who can stand up straight

I didn’t think they’d mind
what was on your mind
If We Were out of our minds

We can turn down the gravity
just a degree
not enough to fly away
but just enough to see
That we can feel the space between
the surface and our feet
Feel the creeping, revolving
world slipping by underneath

© Robert Emmett McWhorter/
published by Hermetic Medical Records (ASCAP)
all rights reserved

Igloos

Alaska’s moon is a headlight from heaven tonight. All the stars arranged perfectly, distributed evenly across the sky. One of those nights, chill winter creeping up your spine for the first time. Diluting summer memories, a moment alive; you can touch someone and feel like you’re really holding on, you talk and it sounds like something is being said.

Our plastic masks removed, we can escape these awkward shells and drift endlessly over the icy ocean waves. Our secret names revealed, we talk without tongues in words unstrained by mental filters. This is where we should be forever.

But so much time is wasted, alone under this moon, the door to all our dreams.  I am unable to make the astral step myself.

Nothing feels real but the memories, and the knowledge of another day wasted.

I stare at the moon, hoping you’re watching it too. I try to reach you, casting homing thoughts into the cold air. I’m hoping you’ll meet me halfway, your empty gaze colliding with mine, somewhere between us, underneath the moon.

© Robert Emmett McWhorter

Like

B.

A Storm of Conscience Awakening

Fingers Combing for Fleas

The Thrill of Time

Runs Down your Spine

Like History is a Disease

Pick of the Litter Recycling

A Monkey turns into… ME!

And I’m just Scared that

I won’t be Afraid of the Things

That I should really Fear

I Feel like Praying

Pick a Religion

Choose your Confusion

Poke out your Vision

Love Made me Blind

Blind Made me Fall

Fall on my Face

In Love over You

© Robert Emmett McWhorter/ 

published by Hermetic Medical Records (ASCAP)

all rights reserved

Foot In Mouth

 

Chewing on a nerve you ask me
If the pain ever goes away,
And the world is enjoyed.
Chewing on a nerve, I ask you to stop.
The beat goes on when the heart is broken,
The song goes on but the record’s broken
Until we can’t go on anymore

No wonder I can’t get anywhere.
Walking in circles, my foot in my mouth.
Flush this one right down in history, wash it right out.
Let’s toast to our full glasses, let’s shake on shaky ground.
Eat the man-eater and let your insides out.

Sometimes you cry when you feel like laughing.
Sometimes you laugh too hard to cry.
Sometimes you feel nothing at all.
And it goes so long, once it finally hits you,
It hurts, I’ve never laughed so hard in my mouth

No wonder I can’t get anywhere,
Walking in circles, one foot in my mouth.
Flush this one down in history, watch it wash right out.
Let’s toast to our full glasses, let’s shake on shaking ground.
Eat the man-eater and watch how it all turns around.

I’m letting my insides out,
I’m letting my insides out.

© Robert Emmett McWhorter/ published by Hermetic Medical Records (ASCAP)

Happy New Year from Mars!

(aka ‘Martian Dixon’)

Here, the Hot air has nowhere to go

Labrador Dali- Possum House CDI light a cigarette
The smoke rises into my eyes

A line of cars waiting
A line up of lives
Stalled in the passing lane
Passing their chance
To take a chance on life
And on Mars it’s New Years Day

And I’d give anything to break free
From these chains of traffic and responsibility
Longing for the feeling of longing

Search the sky for a sign
Check the back of my eyelids
For the vision I once had
I can’t wait ’til I don’t have to wait anymore
Somewhere, it’s New Years Day

© Robert Emmett McWhorter/ published by Hermetic Medical Records (ASCAP)

Fliegenden Fels verpasst eng Kopf von todmüde

i dreamed of her again
at the end of a strip mall,

they held an open mic
african rhythm section and dancers
behind each of the performers

the chill night air tinged with an echo of pounding drums,
pounding feet,
and the reveling crowd around.
dancing and yelling and laughter
but someone is throwing rocks into the air.

i asked to borrow twenty dollars,
she said i can give you six
she turned away and i rummaged thru her bag
until i found a ten folded up like an origami swan

someone on the edge of the crowd
is throwing increasingly larger rocks
into the air, over the people
circling the perimeter a few more join in the game
tossing large clumps of land and boulders
dangerously close to our heads

the scene begins to spin out of control
a fear like ice cracks from the middle of the crowd
outward toward the maniacal grins on the edge,
taunting, glaring with shining eyes

my ride arrives as i am counting the sixteen dollars
i suppose i shouldnt to ask him to borrow me a twenty

About the Author

I
am a
pledge
drive on
pbs without
any guests to
go to and no one
behind me at the phones

I,
the
guy who
cant give a
hot dog away
in times square at
rush hour on the day
after the last day of lent.

goo
goo
ga joob

my parents apparently met before i was born. many odd occurrences ensued.

at the age of two i was, for some reason, given a crayon. within two weeks i had learned the alphabet.

in two more weeks i was eager to tackle my first novel. unfortunately i was very poor, and could not afford paper until 1995, some twenty three years later.

in those years i was restricted to drawing and writing on my clothes, around electrical sockets, and upon sugar packets. i held on to that first crayon until i was fifteen, and finally able to beat up little kids for chalk.

i built my first guitar, a one string self electrocuting menacing placenta of ill thought technology that never had a chance of being near tune, out of a stradivarius i borrowed from a museum and bits of old smoke alarms.

more will be revealed as it becomes apparent…

© Robert Emmett McWhorter