Aftermath of the Columbia Protest & Street Reading!

On April 17, the ULA returned to NYC with a high energy street performance, protest, and crashing of Columbia U's highbrow Howl event. For full reports of what went down, check out this page on www.LiteraryRevolution.com! The ULA thanks our hardworking members and allies, including Philly poet Shawn Terreri, a hugely talented & very active performer...

-my soaps refusal to lather.

by Shawn Terreri

1.
it was obvious she didn't see him
he kept his tears behind the lamppost
secluded in dark cadence
she walked on into the shadows
aware of guilt and promises that hang in abasement

his eyes fell to shame for the damage he had done
--he felt the silence disrupt his throat
for fear of what's to come
in his mind echoes the last words she had sung

"and this road would be so easy
if you just came along with me
i need you here with me
to justify the sea--
just a fantasy"

she was cool like lemonade
and i'm in love with the sequence of the rain

but wish to be spared from the precipitation of
deluded introspection and anachronistic wisdom
leaving me as a ghost of myself--sailing into the drift"
--i'm a complex man

my phonebooks filled with memories of faces unrecalled
the shadows of a past once felt and a future never seen but to be written as
a dropout diary of the derailed determination of a derelict dunce
with dime store diction dedicated to a decade

...i'm rambling again

all I’ve left behind, a piece of myself erased
i tried to relieve my mind, but i was just saving face

so last night i wasted my ambition on you
sittin on the corner till a quarter past two
singing no more no more same song as before
now me and jack daniels gonna settle up the score

heading down the alley, my head to the ground
pleading with trashcans
buying second hand dreams at full price
my midnite philosophy in plastic record bags

i tried to pray but---
she's eavesdropping on my prayers

so i dreamed a picasso--
amorous drunk with a feather in his hat
bettie page with angel wings and red cap
joan of arc with ankle bracelets and coffee cup
with magic markers i painted your essence
bitter purple and black out blue
remembering lavender soap and doc martin boots

2.
i got you on my mind with gasoline and time
see patience was a virtue but now it's just design
got a 20$ bill and a bottle full of rum
it's been a long time commin and now i'm long gone
i'm long gone

sit back know that
there will never be another
heart attack, blackjack
send a kiss to my mother
relapse, jump back
another day another lover
waiting for the day to come
waiting for the daze to come undone

3.
for now i'll sacrifice my nights to
another living parody on the dancin screen
give the girl a quarter and she'll play the scene
of hollywood dreams
and heroin schemes

naked in your house
chained to your temple
the whore i love
lift up your veil to lucid velocity
she never thought about the consequence
now timeless dreams are fading
in my room i faze out
and let the dream come take me
this time

and though situations change
her voice never fades
the footsteps in our memories
the faces in our lost skies
remind me of a time
when trust never died

4.
my attention centered on her eyes
she pulls me in so discreetly
her descending aries uncovered my addiction

on my doorsteps she is waiting
with chinese takeout and a bottle of safe dreams
and there was nothing special about her hands except that they were there
across from me
leaving me wanting the wisdom found in disenchanted fingertips

she stared at me like autumns afternoon
i met her at the bottom of my wineglass
she looks like the first time i fell in love

i started thinkin
everybody wants a new drug
a first kiss, a new dream
a second opinion
the ability to scream

5.
but what do you know about the price to pay
don't you tell me i should stay
i've been wasting all my days away
now days get lost and i'm afraid

all the jewels of the winter
they all look the same to me
like old denim she is fading
drifting out into the sea

all i want is something sacred
all i want is something real
she turns away from my acclimation
my inception lacks ideals

i want the science of myrrh
the time has come to circulate divinity
and navigate notions to null the nonsense
and embark to canvas riddles in present progressive tense

writing this like a stoned priest
dazed on a bottle of wine, some peyote
and lack of dreams

writing my prayer on blind men’s pages
one silent song sent to me by sages

om mani pad me um
we made love under an autumn sun
om mani pad me um
in her eyes my life begun

6.
20 minutes late for redemption
couldn't look back to intention
i never wanted anyone’s direction
guess i'll just starve my connections
and turn my back on the rose
turn back on the road
beneath her tongue a rose
don't think i'll find my way home

here's some easy synchronicity for you:
my heat got turned off
the day that you left me
and i ran out of zoloft
so i've taken to whiskey

now i'm drunk on glory and substantial mistakes
rewriting this story with regret in mind
she has me chained to her eyes in constant nostalgia

and she is naked
awaiting my holy sacrament
amidst bell towers and autumns night song

faded
wanting
smelling like sour mash and mary jane

just waiting for the day to come
with all it's promises that she had sung
waiting for the day to come
when her regret's no longer undone

and tomorrow promised me substance
though the lite of crystal reckoning
and the tears of my mistrials come to me
in slow waves of fractured images

7.
serendipity left me
after taking my virginity
dirty sheets and photographic memories
left by my bedside
wondering if your missing me

every bottle held till empty
every shot whispers so i’m told
the jukebox dreams of the last century
a yellow moon is drifting cold

this bus ride back to civilization
doesn't bring me back to you
i'm a thousand hours from now
sparing this recollection for something new

i want delirium and it's amber night song
softly, sweetly seducing my soul
but
i only miss you when you're standing right in front of me

---------------
Shawn Terreri lives in Philadelphia. To read more of his poems & listen to audio clips, visit his page at the Covert Poetics website.