existential – Page 8 – Kevin Trent Boswell

honestly…

honestly,
the sun is full of razors

and, even if it’s embarrassing,
it’s still the gospel truth…
I used to collect amnesias,
but now, I’ve given all that up;
gave the whole set back
to her majesty, the queen

and now, there’s so much knowledge,
it won’t even fit on the milk cartons

but, the juice
is much more slippery,
on the other side of town

if we’re really telling all,
there are only sharks
in the sea

each bite,
delicious sadness,
if you must know

let’s be totally clear
about all of this,

we’ve grown far too close
to one another
to stop lying to ourselves, now

the party favor wasn’t punished
for passing itself around,
but for passing itself off
as a thing all nailed down

let your hairless cats hang loose, and
slip into something nauseating

it ruins the texture of the pudding,
if you don’t bleed it out just right

so, dish out the starchy,
fat parts of the story,
so you can
pick up a new one,
down at your favorite food truck

give it all away
before midnight,
and the fifth
is free

not to burst any bubbles,
but the snowman
isn’t actually
made of lunar cheese

and, all that rain is fake;
it’s really nothing more
than water

the consigliere is only guessing,
it’s all wild speculations;
hopes that no one will notice,
that they’ll all just play along

but, the wandering minstrel
has lost his will to lie down

and, the troubadour
is sharpening his boots
for the dance

on the level, I will tell you
that motor isn’t running,
only because it’s
all out of rocks and gum balls

if it’s time to get real,
then we must
suck it up
and finally admit,
all the Kewpie dolls
are dying in the streets

the cobbler is high again;
treatment didn’t take

the shoes are made of peaches,
the boats all made of pearls
and, the pears are getting fresh
with the sailors in the saloon

apricot dandies dancing
with apple cider cinder blocks
in the twilight of everything
that never happened
thrice

rehearsing old headlines
for all the latest,
breaking news

the oysters
are all full of
shotgun pellets

all the nails are soggy,
and the slugs are too tall

every day is
carte blanche
ice cream, caviar, and
internal hemorrhaging

all the wild ponies
are stuffed with loose rainbows,
loose rainbows made of oil spills,
and sprinkles of leprosy

the attraction is purely chemical,
pure forever chemicals

today…

today was
full of
not dying

and a tentative
lucidity

the significance of this is
yet to be determined

it’s either a huge win,
or it is entirely meaningless,
or it’s the greatest loss
of the entire war,

or it’s wholly imaginary,
or it’s simply
yet to be
determined

all the bubbles
are busy blowing
away in the breezes

all the busy
are stuck,
spinning endlessly,
on the quick wash
unicycle

none of the etiquette
equates to
actual manners

no one’s manner equates

at least,
not to anything short of
mannerisms

the etiquette of mannequins

the ethics of plush toys;
plush toys on holiday,
plush toys that
can’t be bothered
with all your
insistence
on being
treated
as anything
more than
a plush toy

the horizon is full of paper cuts,
and old bandaids

all the drums squeak
when you hit them

each sip is dry,
and demands
yet another

if you’re walking into the furnace,
be sure to take a jacket with you,
so you don’t catch cold

every bottle you find
is full of three wishes,
someone else’s

none of the colors run;
they all stand their ground,
ready to fight you to the death

any of these knives
are sharp enough
to do the job,
just as long as
you don’t need to
cut anything

all these silk handkerchiefs
are perfectly safe;
not a single one of them
will have been harmed in the slightest,
after they’re done
strangling you

the factories are all
at maximum production,
cranking out empty picture frames
and invitations to dinner

the lists of new lists
seem to sit flush with eternity;
none of them complain,
and it takes a hot minute
to become accustomed
to the silence

every pile of shit
that you see here, on the ground,
they all taste like
chocolate and peanut butter;
trust me

this machine gun
is so much more
convenient
than air conditioning

if we’re speaking candidly,
then, you always
preferred hanging
your laundry
out to dry

there are no more puppies
but, we’re all stocked up on
ska music, instant polyps, and
disposable consciences

all the mountains shatter
when you step on them…
if we’re being totally honest

the days, all ripped up,
for tourniquet rags

the hours, shattering into dust,
if you so much as
glance at them sideways

each of these
marvelous things,
all made possible
by your presence

now, the hounds
will go without their supper,
and the king’s innards
will spill out at his feet,
there, on the palace floor

and all the poor children will cry,
because none of the salads
will ever be scrambled again

and the tumbleweeds
will all starve,
for want of the suffocation
you so graciously
bestowed upon them,
in the days gone by

none of the little assassins
will get Christmas cards this year,
despite having been such
good girls and boys

the coffee is full of conspiracy,
and the fish all taste like marshmallows

the sleet sings sweet lullabies,
in which there are no names

just between you and me,
and this scarecrow, here…

as long as we’re
shooting straight…

it’s terribly worrying
to think that
none of the boils will be
allowed to fester
and ripen in time
for the harvest

because you
will not be here
to feed them

it is tragic,
how much you will
be missed

the traffic
moves right along,
screaming its miseries
into the night

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell

remission, poetry by Kevin Trent Boswell — Available on Amazon

bullet holes

a crisp vertigo
has bitch-slapped me
right out of my seat,
and taken my place
at the table

how is it that one can be
gun-shy and trigger-happy,
at the same time?

these lesser mysteries
fall pale and sickly,
into the dim, sour heat
of winter’s chamberpot

fasten a few severed limbs
to your Christmas wreath,
and sing that classic
advertising jingle once more;
it does so warm the hearts of the masses

put a few coppers
into the wooden collection box
to help the neighborhood children
raise enough funds to
burn down the old cathedral, and
replace it with a house of mirrors

it’s a good cause

or, at least, it’s one that they’ll
never write songs about,
and hence, we’ll never have to
listen to them singing

you scrunch up your brow
and wonder, with a new brand of vexation,
what is this peculiar dip
you’ve been invited to
plunge your nacho poker chips into?

it is gray with fear,
it cringes and recoils
when you move towards it

and, what’s more,
it reeks of both vinegar
and victory

a blind man sidles up next to you
and tugs at your coat sleeve, saying
“I’ve seen this movie. Trust me,
you won’t like it, either.”

the cat has dragged home, and
ceremonially draped, a hippopotamus
across your threshold

it is more than a little incensed
that you show no appreciation
for its generosity

fickle creatures,
all of us

more inscrutable nightmares,
injected straight into the jugular

night wipes the sweat from its brow,
takes another shot of whiskey,
and motions disapprovingly
toward the calendar on the wall

the constable slurs an order
to the lieutenant on duty,
who promptly douses the wall with gasoline,
and sets the calendar ablaze

before exiting, he salutes, and
cheerfully says, “No worries, sir.
We’ll have a new one nailed up
in time for the New Year’s festivities.”

all the stops have been ripped out
from the church organ

now, it will do little more than blow bubbles,
and coo sinister, atonal choruses
of “Hail to the Chief,”
“Ring Around the Rosie,”
and “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”

“Ashes, ashes…”

we are always
falling down

it has been said that
there are worse things
than you

still, it is truly
impossible to know,
and difficult to imagine,
where such monsters
could possibly
exist

©️2023 Kevin Trent Boswell

portland, december

outside the building where i work,
the wind whips and wails

it raises holy hell in a way
that you just wouldn’t believe,
not unless you heard it for yourself

it moans and cries,
bawls, screeches, and shrieks,
as if this was the set of an old,
black and white movie

i shit you not, it got even louder,
louder than it’s been in hours,
just as i typed those last few lines

it’s as if the bad director
of this old, 1940s horror film
(or maybe it’s film noir)
was really hamming it up,
failing to understand the intrinsic value
of restraint and moderation;
not realizing that less is often more

if you’re caught out in it,
in all that wind,
it slices straight through you,
like a gangster’s switchblade

aside from the wind, it’s so
oddly quiet,
here, on the inside

that’s why the wind is so obvious,
there’s nothing
to compete with it

there’s only the sound of the heater,
and occasional fragments of conversation

but, that wind is so strong
and so ridiculously loud
because it’s coming
right in off the train tracks,
up a smooth hill with nothing on it,
and then, it smashes up against
the corner of this building

and that’s where i sit,
right near that corner

this wind, it produces
the caterwauling music of lonely banshees,
raging quietly o’er the moors,
weeping for lost loves,
ready to punish anyone
for their unconquerable sadness

i sit here and read my book of
dark, lonely poetry

i know the frustration of this poet,
i understand why he settled for
booze and prostitutes,
why he gave up on the idea of love,
altogether

i understand it, but
i don’t drink,
and the women i chased,
they didn’t charge
for their madness

they just scooped it out
from five-gallon buckets,
the way shark fishermen deal out chum

they served their love
on platters made of quicksilver,
adorned with rubies, emeralds,
bits of gravel, and chunks of broken glass

the whole soupy mess just
floated through their veins, and dripped out
from between their legs,
with that cosmic wine of ether and arsenic
on their breath

it slapped you in the face,
like that cold, december wind,
coming in off the train tracks

i hear that mournful banshee wind
and i know, that i too
will always be alone

not because i wasn’t
good enough

but, because
everyone these days
is just too broken
to know how to
love anyone

or to love themselves

instead, it’s
an unending parade
of impossible tasks

herculean shit-tests,
and promethean tortures
for imagined wrongdoings

it’s always,
“if you really loved me…

then, you’d endure
this bit of bullshit

and this one

and, a thousand more
just like them.

and, you’d thank me
for the privilege.”

it never stops,
the goddamned shit-testing

it just never stops coming

it’s just like
that goddamn wind
outside

always wailing

only,
more full of tragedy

more imbued with a primal rage

and, full of an
over-the-top
loneliness

the type of effluvial, melodramatic sadness
that pumps straight out of old
black and white movies,
dripping bombastic sentimentality
all over the celluloid

i would step outside,
shake my fists at the sky,
and yell, “stella!”

but, nobody’d hear it

and, they wouldn’t get the joke,
even if they did

people these days,
they don’t know shit about streetcars,
or any kind of desire
that isn’t a fleeting whim

their desires are all
easily forgotten
beneath the next,
pointless distraction

they wouldn’t know a maltese falcon,
if it fell on their heads

they can’t sit still for classic films
they can’t sit still in a dark theater
they can’t take the wailing cold
of the cutting wind

and, they certainly can’t stand
to be alone

the wind whips,
stinging like a shapeless jellyfish,
zapping you with a high voltage charge,
like a downed power line

it cuts,
like the edge of a
cheap gimmick

cuts
right thro
ugh you

cuts you right
in half

soldier

stiff upper lip,
thick-skinned baller,
rolling with the punches,
and all that other
factitious bullshit

the bliss of liar’s cup
is but a cup of blissful lies

dreams of
copious other things,
receding like melting wax,
into the past
fading away,
leaving behind the sweet perfume
of burning plastic and ammonia

hairlines

fissures in consciousness,
blessings of intermittent sleep

control panel fuses
all crisp, and awry of order

all correspondence
resides now in dwellings
other than original
intentions

settle for
smaller and smaller
portions,
pieces

easter egg fractals
of memory

“didn’t there used to be
something that went right here?
didn’t something or someone
occupy this space?”

now, quiet dogs
bed down in the
cold, wet trenches

stale toast and seagull meat
empty ammo box for one
in the center of the house

unseen earthworms,
misunderstood by
all the happy eagles
and fish

whole continents fall,
and yet, not an inch
of ground is gained

roll off the edge of the map,
and onto the floor,
to lie in the dust,
with all the broken grease pencils,
and first draft plans of attack,
torn angrily into ribbons,
and bursting into flame

siphon off
the last sour dregs
of wedding wine

no guest sits at the table
to taste it

it is useful now,
only as vinegar
for cleaning the stains
left behind
by revelers
who dwell in the
realm of the living

wines and cakes
are wasted
on the forgotten dead

celebration farce,
ersatz holy words
of hollow power

the gut pinches up
and knots
at the thought
of each new
sunrise

Mutable

Shimmering glitter
Eye-catching flash
Mimicry appears
Exactly as you want

Finishing bitter,
Post-performance rash
Freshly stirred fears
A new belfry to haunt

There’s no cypher to garble
No secret code to crack
In fact, if you must know,
There’s nothing there at all

A bagful of one marble
One card in the stack
No place to go
Everywhere to fall

Sparkling illusion
Soap bubble pop
Wander the hallways
Thrown off directions

Sorry for the intrusion
It was never planned to stop
Meant all of it, always
Especially the corrections

The catbird seat is hot
Royal straightjacket robe
To privileged places, ascend;
Climbing through the gutters

For a thing which is not
Search the whole globe
The mind and spirit bend
The secret only stutters

What can be spoken?
What truth for no ears?
A face that’s for rent
The dark moon is obscured

The chamber is shattered
Chamber pot full of tears
A black swan event
Necessarily absurd

Blistered lips kissing
Chaffed ass on the concrete
From here, to eternity
To wonder, and to fail

Try guessing what’s missing
End up on the street
Erroneous paternity
The sting of single-tail

Better clowns have been here,
Mimes with greater skills
The right hand rarely
Keeps track of the left

Now, it’s painfully clear
A dispenser of thrills
A void missed, just barely
The ball landed bereft

Soft linen bedding
A daily stipend for expenses
The galloping, not a horse,
But, a zebra, after all

Where it’s all heading,
The land of pretenses
Defenseless, of course,
Still accepted the call

Perhaps you were expecting
Someone else to be here?
Just because the invitation
Said to arrive at six

Host, busy protecting
A cruel, smiling sneer
Mocking imitation
And, suddenly, it clicks

An ambush, assault
A bear trap in the woods
Skinned for the flesh
And, laid out to dry

But, it’s nobody’s fault
No one got the goods
The gears didn’t mesh
Then again, didn’t try

The taunting is worse
On the self, than the others
Hardly an excuse,
A license to slay

A versatile curse
It drowns and it smothers
Says, “It’s no use”
But, tomorrow, a new day

No one to complain to
The box office, closed
A theater, empty, every last seat
Only pale ghosts, up on the screen

Consoling errand, nothing to do
Fresh catch, decomposed
Folding the hand, walks away beat
Folly, asking, “What does it mean?”

The wander, without end
A broken wheel, turning
Each rotation leaves everything
A little more off-track

The mechanic won’t mend
The fire will keep burning
The eyes left to sing
A dull melody of black

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Flypaper

You can’t write
Beautiful poems
About love, nature,
Or friendship

When you’re under
An endless barrage of
Of deceit, disaster, and
Disappointment

If you’re trying to
Sit quietly
Under a bridge

And, everyone up top
Is chucking rocks at your head,
Hurling insults at you, and
Some things that are even worse

It’s going to break your concentration

You’re going to get shit
All over the pages
Of your notebook

It just doesn’t work;
You can’t do it

You can’t do it,
Anymore than a painter
Can put the finishing touches
On a huge, oil-on-canvas piece,
While sitting beneath
A flock of seagulls

The dammed birds
Are just going to keep
Shitting
All over that artist’s head

Shitting
All over the painting,
All over the palette

It’s pretty goddamned difficult
To write sweet, starry-eyed,
Optimistic poetry

When gut-wrenching
Distress and betrayal
Keeps falling all over you,
Getting all stuck to the pages

Poetry is flypaper

Whether hits your life,
Whatever hits you
Right in your gut,
It stains the work

It’s probably more accurate
To say that
All the bullshit,
The lies and
The letdowns,

Really,
It stains
You

It’s all over your face,
The dust of it is
In your eyes

The hunger of all those
Empty calories
Is in your belly

The holes, from all the
Drudgery and false promises,
Have punctured your heart,
Your lungs, and your veins

The greasy, foul-smelling
Residue of
All of it

It’s all over your hands,
And so,

You can’t set pen to paper,
Or touch your keyboard

Not without
Getting that shit
All over your writing