Tag Archives: writing

A MILLION TINY PIECES (ONE GIANT MACHINE)

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america is ducking behind desks in classrooms
america is running out the exit door
america is locking their front doors
back doors windows storing up their water
putting on their deadlocks, padlocks
america has been bruised, but america
will recover, we are not made to be
victims of fear, we are made to be
those who grow in fear

we are the cactus flower
that can grow
in the middle of the desert
we are the new moon
unseen but ever present
we are a part
of the human race
we are buried
by terror
but we are grassroots movements
of insanely
insanely insanely insanely
powerful fucking momentum
we take debris
and make it into mosaics
beautiful mosaics
that we plaster onto dead walls
onto empty buildings
that we fill with love
when the floodgates
are opened
we learn how to swim

we are the wall of people
drowning out the westboro sounds
of hatred
we are the loudest country
on earth
but we know
how to mourn
in silence

a bomb is one giant machine
that explodes
into a million tiny pieces
but america
is a million tiny pieces
that come together
to form
one
giant
machine.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “BRAIN IN A JAR”

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BRAIN IN A JAR

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4

tonight feels like
one of those nights
where it feels like
the whole world
was invited to a party
some grandiloquent party
with a giant chandelier
and blurry visions
skirts lifted up
high into the sky
beneath the golden sun
of nighttime
a black and white affair
black tie, red dress
toss your woman up into the air
as the band plays on
their notes drifting
through cigar smoke
over the alcoholic ground
and the universe collectively cheers
to itself
but i
am sitting here
severely alone
in a room with no windows
banging at the stupid, stupid
typewriter

i am doctor manhattan on mars
i am thirty-seven days of peril
lost among the thick, thick smoke
of the american earth
i am the man
who drowned
in a sinkhole
that came before the anticlimax
of the writhing desperate night
and swallowed him into the ground
i am without reason
i am outside of myself

i am the sound
when you scream
on top of a mountain
and there is no echo

breathless air
flowers for the dead

has the world lost me?
have i lost the world?
did we ever have each other
or were we just fuck buddies?

now
the phone don’t ring
and i am left to be
a brain
in a jar
in the middle
of nowhere

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “DINOSAURS”

DINOSAURS

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1

you know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? what happens when you rip a picture in half? is each half worth 500 words or do they each become worth a thousand? does it lose all value? a picture may be worth a thousand words but there is an aboriginal belief that a picture takes away a piece of your soul, so is a piece of your soul worth a thousand words? they say the soul is twenty one grams because when the average person dies they find that the body weighs that much less. so assuming that each gram constitute a piece of your soul, that means your soul is worth twenty one thousand words. the average novel is about sixty some odd thousand words. so if you get three people together, you have a novel. sounds about right. because when two people talk to each other, you have a conflict, but when three people talk, you’ve got something bigger to consider. that’s three short stories clashing together. that’s sixty-three thousand words. that’s sixty three pictures. when you times that by two billion, you get the world, and what you end up with is a big big big big mess, but certain souls weigh more than twenty-one grams. i believe that. some people feed their souls. as hemingway said, some people burn the fat off their souls. but they might replace that with muscle. there’s not much here. if anything i’m saying i want my soul to be a heavy one. i want my footprints to be deep. i want to scratch my name into the styrofoam to-go box and proclaim BRICE. B. R. I. C. E. Until time washes that away and all that is left is a fossil of my footprints in the earth, and they will blame it on the dinosaurs.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “ESCAPE FROM THE FILM NOIR CITY”

AMBIEN

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8

i don’t know where to begin
i’ve got this heaving weight on my chest
this endless weight
that just keeps punching at me
spitting in my face while i’m crying
i keep thinking my adrenaline will kick in
and just shove itself off of me
but here i am
la dee fucking da
briefcase in my left hand
right hand shaking suicide’s
i will never do it
i will never gun-to-mouth it
i don’t want my skull broken
i don’t want anything
(that’s kind of true…
…and kind of a big ass lie.)

oh fuck
i’m falling asleep
let it happen
these rocks will roll
good night

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “A REQUEST TO DELETE YOUR HISTORY”

AN EMPTY ORCHESTRA.

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9

i was put on this earth to bang my head endlessly against the keyboard
to splatter pollack jizz on white white white white paper and to listen
to jazz alone in rooms with no windows and ageless space and dull air
air that’s been processed far too many times in and out of my lungs
exhausted carbon dioxide monoxide dihydrogen oxide and blood
these walls they bump like raised veins through skin and my lonely om
is the tone that brings them so close to climax in this heroin binge
this lapdance to the past half of my life as i approach sigh my
quarter life crisis

i was put on this earth to bang my head endlessly against the keyboard
and walk down endless sidewalk approaching dawns and dusks that want
absolutely freaking nothing to do with me the sun is far too busy
trying to keep up with his endless addendum to wonder about me
don’t you worry about me, darling, i’m just fine swimming in the tempest
in my teacup, the sound of howling wolves echoes through porcelain skulls
turned upside down and as i lay in this mug that says “life’s a bitch” on it
i stare up at the night stars of moab and realize that we are just as close
as we are far from this timeless waltz, timeless waltz, timeless waltz
this masquerade of atoms in the eve, bowing and curtsying in the garden of eden
we keep digging for the garden in the middle east with guns like shovels
and diplomacy like pails but our king’s cup runneth over, our holy grail
spilleth in rivers of blood as baby moses is swept away into the dead sea
when really we should turn our eyes to the skies and see that peace is floating

it is orbital, it is all around us, the intentional space between the skydiamonds
that do not compare how bright they shine they just be and burn the midnight oil
of themselves and we trek to work to make the coffee to fax the paper to
shake the hands to kiss the ass to assist the customer to spin in chairs and
try to mimick the gravity of being shot into space but we just wear our monkey
suits to work and trek to giant metal death machines through energy drive thrus
and past last call and we cheers our glasses to fiscal responsibility while the
karaoke machine just cries in the corner. an electric death. an empty orchestra.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “SINATRA ON THE MOON”

SINATRA ON THE MOON

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20

sinatra on the moon

i’m trapped on the moon with a bottle of whiskey
i’m sitting in a lawn chair watching the earth
rotate around the sun and it reminds me of the way
we used to dance together, in strange jazz clubs
whose names i don’t remember, i could never remember
i remember the way we reclined our car seats back
and pretended to stare at the stars, when in truth
we were just staring at the ceiling of the car
where the cigarette smoke had eaten away at the fabric

how things have changed
your spaceship left long ago, at my request
and i awoke from dreams that i had sent you away
from earth, only to learn you had left me on the moon
trapped on the moon with a bottle of whiskey
i’m sitting in a lawn chair watching the cell phone satellites
hover around the twittersphere, swing around the blogosphere
the big blue ocean and the waves that crash that mean nothing
to me but form the sand that forms the glass window
you maybe stare out like some cheesy fifties movie or something
at the moon, the full moon or maybe the absent moon
i don’t know, but we could be staring at one another
but maybe that’s just the whiskey talking
and to think i almost didn’t bring the whiskey with me
the only thing that could have made the moon more lonely
debateably

i feel like frank sinatra up here in the stratosphere
not charming, young sinatra
washed up smoked stained suit sinatra
sinatra knowing he will never sleep with a woman again
as beautiful as you were in that red dress at that ball
in new york city on new year’s eve in america on earth
the sinatra who proudly proclaims the glass of whiskey
in his hand and shares with the audience that he is
in fact, quite belligerent, and when life gives you lemons
you take the first spaceship up to the moon
so you can sit forever and collect your thoughts over whiskey
which, of course, are muddled like a weird trumpet solo
like when the band drops off and there’s no drums and no nothing
just miles davis solo romantic silent – listen, just shut up and listen

i’m trapped on the moon with a bottle of whiskey
and earth is this gem that i used to own
that i auctioned off in exchange for an eternity of quiet
endless space, endless silence, peace and god damn quiet

peace and god damn quiet.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “BIRD #2″

BIRD #2

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4

you pulled over
on the side of road
and you played a song
for a cow
in the middle of nowhere
i don’t remember where
because it’s not important
but you played that song
to that cow
in that field
in the middle of nowhere
and some may say
why the hell
would you play a jazz song
for a cow
in a field
in the middle of nowhere
but i guarantee you
that cow went back
and he or she
bragged to all the other cows
forever more
that bird pulled over
in a field
in the middle of nowhere
just to play a song
for him
or her.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “BIRD #1″

BIRD #1

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i can just see you,
charlie parker
watching television
at the stanhope hotel
hard of breath
hard of head and heart
i can see your glazed eyes
as you watched the juggler juggle
on the dorsey brothers stage show
and you juggled the drugs
with the loss of your daughter
you juggled your bebop revolution
with the aftermath
plane rides to los angeles
red eyes back to new york
days on end in a garage
you jazz players
love to lock yourself away
with the discipline
of a madman

thirty-four years old
but you must have looked
twenty years older
watching the juggler juggle
on that black and white television
and you laughed
you laughed and you laughed
and you laughed until you were choking
and the baroness asked
if you needed to go to the hospital
earlier that evening
and you refused
you couldn’t juggle any longer
but you knew
if you stayed where you were
you could die laughing.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “POEM”

A BREAK-UP LETTER TO AMERICA

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19

dear America,

you are everything I’ve ever known
and that’s the problem.

i feel
saturated by you
consumed by you
i feel as though
you’ve branded your name
on my ass.

you’re blurring
my vision.

you
are gorgeous.
really you are.
your desert dry skin.
your baltimore scars.
the way you refuse
to let me be on top
but you are the crazy girl
you don’t know how to say no
to anything
especially yourself
and especially me.

it’s weird
the way you tell me
you’re overweight
and you don’t care
that you’re happy this way
that life is all about
doing what you want to do.

America
it scares me how good you are
at firing a gun.

America
it’s funny the way you pretend
to dig through your purse
for your money
when the check comes at dinner.

i don’t think you realize
i am enamoured by you
really i am
it’s been years and years
and i am still in lust with you
thick lust
deep lust
the kind of lust
that i don’t even know
if love is buried beneath it.

i’ll never forget
that little box in your room
where you keep those vintage photographs
of dead native Americans
and old money
and your rosary.

it seemed to me
that every night before you went to bed
you’d apologize endlessly
for your sins that you still
just keep on committing
am i in love with you
because you make me feel
like a better person by comparison.

i don’t know
if i can continue to be with you.

remember the ferris wheel
at coney island?
we passed cotton candy
between each other’s mouths
like we were forcing our opinions
down each other’s throats.
remember the way we felt
when we walked through ellis island?
we were so small all of a sudden.
we were so lost in the same dream
together.

do you remember
watching the fireworks
because we were too impatient
to wait for the bombs?
do you remember the time
we got drunk in Vietnam
and Afghanistan and Iraq?

is that all we do together?
get drunk
get into fights
and get kicked out of bars?
you never pay your tab
you just leave your card
and cancel it the next day.

do you realize, America,
that i have a box of i.o.u.’s
from you?

do you realize, America,
that you called Joe Frazier
a nigger when he wasn’t in the ring
and a God
when he had your flag on his shoulders?

do you realize, America,
that i’m only with you
until i find someone new
if there is anyone new?

i can’t do this anymore.
we just sit on your dirty apartment floor
and watch the roaches crawl around
on the television.
we’ve got too many shows recorded
and not enough hours in the day
to watch them all.

you’re exhausting, America.

you’re annoying, America.

you’re sexy as hell, America.

you know how to drive
a corvette through the mountains
at ninety miles per hour
with your red high heel
pressed against the accelerator
and brandon flowers
playing from the tip of your cigarette
and into the radio.

you drive a stick shift
like manifest destiny.

your sirens
are red white and blue,
America.

your arenas
are the size of God’s pockets.

your phone
is dead half the time,
America.

i’m writing this letter to you
because i’m afraid
that if i break up with you in person
you’ll threaten
to kill yourself.

your videos
are viral, America.

your impressionable little sister
dresses just like you,
America.

i remembered when i realized
i don’t love you anymore.

we were sitting on a swing
on your front porch
in alabama
and you were singing
but all i could hear
was lies in your words
the gospel was gone
the folk wind had been
knocked out of you.

i need to make something clear.
breaking up with you
might be the hardest thing
i’ve ever have to do.
i love you to death.
i crossed out mom’s name
on the heart tattoo
on my bicep
and put yours in its place.

you kiss me
like we’re on a hill
in the fifties
with the top down
king and queen
of suburbia
teenagers
with chewing gum
and a yawn
that is just an excuse
for me to put my arm
on your shoulder.

you’ve taught me
how to dream,
America
but we always see
the horror movies
in theaters
and they give me
nightmares.

night terrors
of los angeles riots
and sandusky
and columbine
and politicians
snorting coke
laughing
like hyenas
i wake up
in sweats.

and it’s strange
because then you comfort me
you wipe my forehead off
with the bill of rights
and you sing to me
“oh lord
won’t you buy me
a mercedes benz.”
and you’ve got
just the right amount
of makeup on your face
and i can see driving through
nowhere between western cities
in the black of your eyes
i can see me smiling
with a quarter tank of gas
hoping i make it to salida
before i run out of
gasoline.

i can see gasoline
in the black of your eyes
spread out
over the ocean
like a blaze of glory
like a belligerent night;
like one of our one thousand
belligerent nights.

you smell like
chanel perfume
you shouldn’t
it’s french
but you just do
whatever you want to
don’t you?

you make me smile
like a god damn
happy meal.

what am i saying?
i’m breaking
up with you.
i’m not in love with you
anymore.

yes i am.

oh god
you must think i’m crazy
go ahead
throw me in your white padded room
tell me
what you want me to be
i’ll be
whatever you want me to be
because you have always been
what i wanted you to be.

we all ran away
from home at some point.
some of us made it
to the bus stop down the street.
the light of the world.
but you ran away
and you never looked back
you rode bareback
to the end of it all
to the last frontier
where we met
in san francisco
because we couldn’t afford
hawaii
and we kissed
sitting down
at the top of lombard street
and you promised me
that you would never forget me
you promised me
that you would try your best.

this is not an easy breakup.
half of my underwear are at your house.
my c.d. collection is tucked beneath your bed.
my trust is buried
in your backyard.

we bought a dog together
and we named him rex
and we gave him a backyard
to play in.

what are we going to do
with our baby?

you’re not going to
try to collect the money
you offered to spend on me
are you?
are you that person,
America?

okay.

okay,
i’m sorry.

we need
to pull
the trigger.

i’m leaving you,
America.

i want my favorite
t-shirt back.
the one with
the graphic
of bruce springsteen’s
ass in demin jeans
on it.

the one i wore
when we stayed up all night
laying down on your parent’s roof
watching the fireworks
watching the planes fly by
talking about our dreams
and how we had
to keep each other accountable
for them.

i’m leaving you,
America.

probably for a girl
who looks just like
you.

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2013

READ “THAT GOOD OLD-FASHIONED DUBSTEP”