The Poetry Project

Six Poems

Edwin Torres

End Game

i once wrote
of passion without sight
blind fury
outraged by time
what inspired the balm
out of its reckoning
the wave
returned by stammer
the often replay
the one that never leaves
the heady assistance for time
to remain in its shape

how sage of i
to imagine nocturnal sun
as telegraphic tolerance
without severance or age
say it
what you mean
uncloaked by spell
by word
give the real its shell
the one that comes to you
from the core

listen
for instant
before
pleasure
where do you
think
you can take this
brevity
showered
in
litmus entrapture

Blackhole Carousel

I walked between rows of goat-eyed horses
carved into gallop by innocence and age, a man
between boys at once riding
while wrecking loose luck, unleashed by stolen clusters
of immaculate reflection. A chirp
re-burned by carousel’s eternal sarcophagi,
cotton-candied by top-forty infidelity.

Whistling vertigo while Hollywood aches
at my heels, my bare-ankled path
singed by big-boned supernovas
disguised as naughty-something carnivery.
Memory-dipped in vats of concreticized iTuned ear ticks,
tailor-made to sink below mantra & slit.
Four horsemen reveal bite-sized flashes of

insignificant forensics realigned by apocalyptic sugar babes
waiting for anxiety’s sun-etched glamour,
in the size of loser, on a race-filled pitfall
crammed with second-place hells. Destination’s
merry-go-round water test, maneuvers
bargain-filled face-offs to get newly filigreed starlets
their gold in the bloated sun.

All shades becoming they before
all hers take over. Five minutes into fifteen,
choose fame become fire, come liar
before lame. Blossomed by blip
on my helium romp, under a room made of sky, I looked
at the whirl wrapped in circular satisfaction
slivered by hollowed winklets of green-eyed rim jobs.

Inculcated through rapture’s benevolent malaise
I was led by lip to the pinwheeled concussionistas,
who take turns blowing the same spit. Each gob
thrown to the outside row, where detail derails edge
to allow sower its sight. A most intimate collection
of romance and atoms, entombed, by the closest
I would ever come to balance.

Tadpole at Starlight

a small infinity
has appeared on the crest of ignition
a curve for all things stolen
a swipe at things that magnify

i was infinite for a moment
traveled inside lightless eye
rode a width across a legion’s pupil
molded by something closer than free

about to crash into a million years
if i could just leave the floating to smaller bugs
my fingers now closed my eyes hovering
over my keys over each letter

my frogs looking to land on soft ground
that’s all we want, isn’t it
a launchpad over stellar indications of messy instability
and maybe a drain to edit

to take the universal
out of in
for all things balanced
on lunar surf

the circumstance of delicate cognition
telegraphs a step — let me go up to you,
now warm in the place i remember, and tired
— do you know how — you ask, your answer…
the one-eyed millipede

Help Me Rude the Imperfections

Help me rude the imperfections thrown my way.
Torrential past — the mortars I duck.
Let me invent my downward spire, trench the worm.
Who, in the name of telling, leaves their tower tallest?
Fire born, of distant breath, wrecks
distant come. Taut,
the devil’s gun, run aground
by stun.
Do you know actual poetry things
they ask, no I say.
Trapped in stanzas, wearing feet
for meters.

American Idle

there’s a song about being radioactive that has a catchy melody
like it’s cool and hip to be dying of nuclear waste
how do they do that
make it cool to sing about dying
it has been cool to sing about dying for a long time
so maybe the songwriter is really talking about power
is that where the song wants to be
to claim your ending by having it handed to you on the radio
what a gift
like singing a catchy melody on your deathbed
makes it easier to let your body decompose
is there a song for decomposing
is that morbid you know the word
like something funny meant to be about the end of life
because the end of life has questions about the funny
if we call the end of life the funny
but it depends what song you heard before the funny
before the singer that sings about the ending has ended the song or the life
this is the end
but maybe nobody sang it
look I don’t want to get in the way
whatever you want to hear
whatever you’re in the mood for while you wait
sounds macabre you know the word
doesn’t that take all the dark parts of life and make it the only parts of life
is there a catchy hook to the only parts of life being the same thing
especially if darkness is your bag you know the word
like everything you dig inside one cool sack
by the way is your ending the one you sing or the one you end on
because you want to be cool
and only sing of cool things that are always the same because
that’s your bag
you dig
like the singer who died because everything was cool
how do you know what parts stay in your ear when someone dies
where do you pick out what you want inside your ear if all the parts sound the same
maybe what you want isn’t in your hearing
maybe it stays inside your mouth
but your ear wants to catch it
depending on how good you sing

The Happy Skeptic

Gotta background in skepticism, exposed to skepticism growing up
given tools an'toys that tumored my fix, y'feel me!
Given bowls of that love for breakfast, ministered every Sunday
reams worth of skeptic...spat, vomited and shit that crap out every damn cold spell.

Mastered a degree, fingered a loan outta the G.O.V.
so's I could teach it, breathe it, and puppet the coffers with some lonely bullshit.
Backed up my shimmy with conspiracy sermons, served up onna moving picture I downloaded...
to honor the fears of my family, no comments no likes no santa!

Freedom in my blood from the get-go, got me...no gfe no jefe no schwarma daredevils.
Meep meep on my molars, etched in sketch "Skeptic 101," with cliff notes on my gall stones.
Coyotes on a tightrope, whistling text to wake up the winners
with an inside job, y' feel me...now that's some real world shit right there, son.

Gave up, got a high rise in 'Cino, moved in with a couple of two timing frauds.
You know, some status league overseas enchiladas
witta permanent hard-on for --- watchu looking' at...kidney stone alpha bits onna fallopian fluffer?
Cramming video after video of solar flares, so's I could pretend...

I'm the right kind of traveler, ridin' that Triple A countdown
to some punch 'n judy macho shit...just so's I can re-fresh my wipe?
NO CAN DO MISTER VAGINA! Big O adolescent,
I sucked before I could bite! Left every dive I left my come in, cleaner.

Tissue instagram...y' feel me! Fracked chlomidia with infant clorox.
Scooped up, packed tight and puffed every sock into my tomatillos to impress
them Maybelline cover-ups; populatin' little urethrans with overtwinks of mac 'n cheese...
I PAID MY RENT LIKE A MO-FO!

Graduated hard knocks and freeway bj's, supported the family biz
with reams of skeptic jiz. Flipped the bong off many a skeptic pancake,
jumped ship to CAN'T-I-SQUATUS-LAND. See my stroll on the carpet,
I got me a card the color of boss, wearin' my stink like a billable enema!

Subliminal nut job --- best backstabber on the planet...the one behind you.
Yeah I know...this is a loser talking, hitting the same damn walls over an' over.
So tell me...MR. V --- IF the earth is round...how come I
can't make it in the real world?

Issue 10

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