the days of
S F, Berkeley
a crater forming
an intersection
snort a citizen
16 a minute
The Man in the Ghost. A Poem by Griffin Silver
The leaves billowed from the heavens, a roasted brown or Sunkist yellow. Mixed into the mess is the liter of the ages; a pattern, a rhythm, a song of color against dismal grey concrete. I pass the man with the tenderized face, jeans with holes and a twisted limp. But he smiles, teeth like termites. And though he smiles, later he won’t. And though he greets me with a kind face now, later he won’t. We know this, we know the binary of the demons and the angels. It remains unacknowledged, but the distance is respected.
Dangerous Naivety. A Poem by Griffin Silver
Skipped drinking
Never could find a seat
At the bar
Skipped driving
Crashing everyone else’s
Car
The wrists barbed wire
Barbarous world
Convict the girls
If I grow tired
For the male empire
Masculine empire
If I fall
Just look away
Feel the shame
All damned day
If I break
Cherish what’s at stake
Don’t forget to take
What is made
Can’t forget to get paid
The shaking hand staid
Shooting up in the terminal
Flight delayed
Addictions relayed
The children crowd in suburban street
Plastic fork paper plate
Knights of the round table
The soft water burns the pores on my face
I love you most
Ensnared in your curls
The span of your Arms
And the world In Between
The cold sweats of hell
And the burning of thighs parted
Wide eyed
When the child asks,
Why must the dresses burn
And why must a love of literature
Turn me and my agency
To kindling?
Or any curiosity of a child
Wriggling beneath the surface
Just as entitled to the answers
As yourself.
It makes me nauseous too
The way they turn away
Disappointed
Like a disease
The gangrene up her arm
Severed above the elbow
To keep from spreading
Keep very still
Maybe they won’t see
The little creatures
Passing knock knock jokes
At the front of the bus
Their small signs of admiration
Their shadowed affection
Spreads like hellfire
A pleasure to the eye
But nothing “beautiful”
The words buzz like
Time
You get lost in a story
No
A government document
Pit filled, unedited dribble
Only to find you’re dissatisfied
When it ends
Looking back
At the camps
Fondly
Addiction. A Poem by Griffin Silver
Isn’t it just like a man?
Sitting, watching the swaying hips
each conniving turn.
She slithers
through the blue cigarette smoke.
I do things differently,
doorways for suckers.
I brace for impact,
through layer after layer
clearing out foundation after foundation
taking years to establish
but moments to dissipate.
She pulls at the meat
twirling it between her fingers
throwing it from her talons
into the air
to her tapered beak.
Could we all be monsters
demon lurking in the night
loitering under street light
looking to the painted faces
and the saber tooth heel?
What could I feed her?
What cherished memories sacrificed
for the next high?
(I do not support; strongly condemn the type of misogyny in this poetry,(though it is a perspective in society that needs to be addressed) she’s intended to be terrible because of what she represents, NOT because she is a woman.)
My Critique of the Beat Generation (Poem)
Transforming fragility
The center of
Moving
Breathing
Feeling
Life
Bewildered by mistaken
Wilderness
Broken in the backseat
While neon television sets
And an endless assortment of
Drugs
Take shotgun
Leather straps
Tied to the padded
Coffin cushion
And they call me
Prancing through the woods
In the dead hours of the morning
Naked laughter
Endless euphoria
They call me mad
Brandished by green caress
A child of god
Serving a lone soldier
This battle will surely be my last
Against marching, marching, marching
Drones, prioritizing
Without soul
Profiteering
Stripped clean
A big business shopping center
Passing along the tab
Until quack dilly oso
And it’s all over
Until then
I’m getting arrested
Inside Abercrombie
With sagging asshole
And flailing genitals
Tarnished Silver 