Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Blue Madness


Blue madness enveloped me all at once. My eyes grew out of my skull and into the foyer, burning Satan’s own velvet red.  Walls were at once perpendicular, yet parallel, and I felt nauseated. Blue oceans rose to drown me, but I was on a cruise ship. Not driving of course, but protesting, distracting, and playing. The games were mild but the consequences severe. However, genetic consequences are more so, I think. So I awoke blue and sweaty. No one was there, only a fly in the window, a spider on the wall, and me in my underwear laying on top of my sheets. 

Marbleized Ice Chips


Her ice cream and teddy bear
are my journal, my wine.
Leaning back, you hear a crack
we’ve both fallen out of a mountain.

Don’t envy the sculptor
for the curves of his profit,
the marbleized skin of his product.

Rather, induce crystallization
of art; art is everywhere.
How to freeze it
is the problem.

To the sculptor we vainly suffer false forms
idealized pieces of rock whom we vainly
contradict in our flesh
in our chips.

-Grant Durando
8/27/12

The Pill


Once he swallows
he is gone.
The capsule rolls down his tongue
crossing the digestive Styx and paying
a lucrative sum for it’s journey.

Rubbing down
a perforated pipe
he unknowingly massages
his gift down, down to the suburbs
of his soul, where acid burns
but living is relieved; only when
compared to the northern urban density.

Dissolving,
pointillism is more accurate,
falling into cracks and holes
built for blood diamonds
and muscular gasoline
dissolves and disappears
into an invisible warrior
yielding familiar friends.

Circumscribing limbs
torso anaesthetized
due to the solemn guardianship
of his capsule’s new home.
To the city, northward,
his chemicals run and meet
an acquaintance who doesn’t prefer
the stories that are told.

Once a pacifist,
now a warrior,
the acquaintance is gone
he becomes the larger capsule.

-Grant Durando
8/23/12

Friday, August 10, 2012

Split-End Weeds in the Garden

Gardens desire work,
time,
resources.
What happens to your garden
when you're lacking,
deficient,
dehydrated?

An Urban Affair


A daughter is born           
out of metal and urban fornication;
bred life into inanimate women,
children, and young men.

****

Bistros and cafés
wrap corners in the way
you’re swallowed by the signs
            concerning your consensual love.

Mutually developed
musings drive every step
running over the cobbled street
that hurt your feet
            and you love it
            and you love it.

                        In my city I’d let you
                        lean on me.
                        Take your shoes off,
                        clean your feet.

The subway wraps
sandcastles and tiger tails
around and around
‘till we all get dizzy.

(and you love it
as do I)

-Grant Durando
8/9/12

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Wife


Short word
long last name
makes me fast asleep
and wakes my warmest parts.

Dying in life
relieves me of choosing
to be alone in my heart
alone in my bed.

I make the choice
to set sail
with a curtain-wrapped mast
perfect for crackling seas
that burn, like oils on the surface.

Catch my curtain
I’m drowning in you. 

-Grant Durando
7/12/12


Friday, August 3, 2012

Prospective Parisian December


I’d love to see the city
in the snow; mushroom micro-clouds
surround my foot's most recent impression
displayed by its aftermath
its consequence.

The chilly frozen vodka burn
in wintertime
is the air we’ll drink.
Blow it out in tufts of tissues
steam arises from the tent we tend.

How it would surround rosy cheeks of ours,
cherried with cooperation and comfort.
Holding each other for warmth,
and other reasons, too.

-Grant Durando
8/2/12

Parisian August


All the chairs face outward
for a reason
the show is outside
around
no porous scrubber reality
no,
no, diamond caverns
all encompassing
recess of space
concentrated.

Perfect planar figures
sit on perfect dusk at dawn
champagne and espresso linger
into the recessed crush of crowd.

So we’ll linger on, then
in a light, conversational way
because the tables face outward.

Ineffable sources of caverns:
diamond as they are,
still varietal and plentiful,
emerging from alleys and lingerers
drinking wine from a bottle
sat on a curb.

-Grant Durando
8/2/12

Display of Power from the Bottom of an Ocean


I want to take a bus to the coast
vodka tonic portable bottle in hand
take my clothes off, go swimming
and float, giving my all to ecology.

It would be a night bus, one A.M.
packed with Mexicans who cook Italian
going home to crying babies and tired wives
they don’t envy me and my energetic one.

She’s only tired when I’m around
we don’t even have our child, yet.
If we did it would be far away
naked, awake, and on display.

***

Nothing can see me but the sun
cracking my skin open after days of floating
on my back.
As the sun pries my pores, the seagulls march
with hungry eyes. The water
creeps into my wounds.
I start to sink.
Face down now my eyes are just new funnels
for death through salt water to creep
the marlins love the taste.
I took the bus 10 days ago, at one AM.
Elevators take me down now,
the crabs play drums.
I can hear
            on my descent.

No one to see me now
I’ve been consumed without any regard
to my asteroids I’ve embedded in hearts
forests I’ve planted in minds.

If only she wasn’t busy being seen
she could’ve watered down with me
our eyes, only each other’s, burning
blue and green.

-Grant Durando 7/31/12

She Tells Me Not To Worry


She tells me not to worry
            of tanned caramel men
            speaking Catalan
            running their minds as
                        mine races
around the curves of her thighs
as they transform into gluteals.
                        My mind: the gluteal.

She tells me not to worry
            I selected her bikini            
            before she booked her tickets
trying to simulate
a visual stimulation
I was wrong, those sequins shine for them.
                        The shine: mating flag.

She tells me not to worry
            her middle finger
spring-loaded
safety off
neither of us feel safe.
Believing no one
I believe images when they arrive.
                        Vision: clarity.

I’m telling myself not to worry
            of tanned men
            falling in love
            with my shine and vision
            my bikini and my mini-skirt
            my heels trudging along
her heels:
my weakness.
           

-Grant Durando
7/5/12