Poetry by Daniel Guyton

There once lived a girl with a lovely perfume,

With a scent that reminds you of roses in bloom,

And the boys dropped like flies

When they looked in her eyes,

And caught the scent of her lovely perfume.

But, at the same time,

There was a horrible crime,

Caused by the man called "The Beholder!"

He shot five people dead in the head,

And the sixth, he'd shot in the shoulder.

But, this girl, she was strolling along

As the boys passed out all around her.

They smelt her perfume,

And they started to swoon

From the "Beauty" that surrounds her.

"Beauty," I assume, is the name of the perfume

That she used almost every day.

But as she walked down the street,

She was headed to meet

The man with the purple beret.

The police, it seems, had arrived at the scene

Where the five people had been shot in the head.

The one who survived,

Though barely alive,

Said the killer had a hat on his head.

A purple beret, the woman came to say,

Was the hat that the killer had worn.

The one who’d shot her in the shoulder

Had said his name was "The Beholder!"

And she wished he had never been born.

But the man with the purple beret

Decided that he would kill again that day.

So he attacked the girl with the lovely perfume,

But, unfortunately for him, he attacked her too soon,

And she was able to hit him away.

She reached in her purse for something to use,

A can of “Mace,” or something else to do the duty.

But all she could find

In her frantic state of mind,

Was her can of perfume called "Beauty."

She kicked him in the groin, once, maybe twice,

Then she punched him in the shoulder.

Then she sprayed him in the face

With her substitute Mace,

And now "Beauty" is in the eye of "The Beholder!"

Samantha,

my dear,

You are my one true love.

You remind me

of dew on a blade of grass

during the middle of a rainstorm.

You make me feel

as if I were five feet tall.

Your smile reminds me

of a mouth with teeth in it.

I cannot get enough of you --

even though there is definitely

enough of you for me to get.

My heart feels something

that can’t be denied.

I think it's gas.

You make me feel so special.

I love you,

Samantha,

But do you love me?

You remind me of a woman.

Samantha,

When I look at you,

I become nauseous -

I mean nervous!

Your eyes

are like two round objects

that can be found in the eye sockets

of a human being.

Your breath

is like a lethal gas bomb

that could kill me in my sleep.

When I think of you,

Samantha,

I think of a beautiful woman

With great personality,

but, then I am brought back to reality.

You are too beautiful for me.

I hope you love me,

Samantha,

For you know that I love you.

When you are around,

My heart beats faster,

and faster,

and faster.

But then I realize that it's only you

and not some big, horrible, ugly monster

with big fangs.

Then I am relieved.

Somewhat.

Your thighs

are like bones

with layers

and layers,

and layers

of skin surrounding them.

Your nose

is like a protruding piece of cartilage

covered with skin and

containing enough hair

to strangle a person to death.

Your neck is like,

well, actually, I have no idea

what your neck is like,

since I can't even find it!

Your chin

is like a round, flabby hunk of skin

located beneath your mouth.

And so is the other one,

and the other one,

and the other one.

When I see you,

Samantha,

I want to run and hide,

But I don't, because I love you,

and because you are loaded with money

and you will die soon, anyway.

So I say to you, Samantha,

"You're special -- you're not like the other girls!"

Team Captain . smile forced . blue eyes closed . makeup caked . unnatural . brown hair wavy . stapled down . undertaker . smelling of formaldehyde . buried with a ball in hand . letter jacket . mother crying . macho daddy on his knees . pompom girls wail endlessly . I love you and I miss you lots . letters on his grave . flowers weeping in despair . an open gash within the ground . a wound of dirt and grass . little brother getting bored . too young to understand . a Labrador Retriever . whimpers . sighs . wets the ground . barely six months old . tiny drops of misty grey . cold and chilly sky . Pastor preaching . Jesus Christ . forgiveness . sin . amen . casket lowered . brown and brass . Taps is playing . shrill and soft . a shovel-full of dirt . Thump . Thump thump . banging on the door . no answer . No one home . in the casket . in the ground . a shell . no person . mind as dark as the space around him . underneath the stapled hair . behind the pasty pancake . an open gash within his skull . a wound of blood and bone . six feet tall and six feet under . unhappy and alone . a howl from above . a Labrador in mourning . Father tries to shut him up but the dog continues wailing . a boy in black is far away . nose ring . red hair . outcast . watching from a distance . moments shared . kisses felt . a tear invades his eye . Black death and puppy love . he howls to the sky .

“So?”

I say, unsympathetically.

“Who cares if your

mother died?”

The corned beef

on the table smells

like pie. An angry look,

a bitter stare. I hate the saffron

daisies on her shirt. I take the silver-

bladed kitchen knife and drive it deep

into the meat. I offer her a slice. “I hate

the taste of corned beef,” is her reply.

“Is that why you’re so frigid?”

I feel the sting

of fingers on my face,

and her hand

retracting in an instant.

We share a look of bitter angst,

of mutual disgust. I bite into a greasy

slice and find myself erect. The hotness

of my cheek where she just slapped, and

the hotness of the greasy beef contradict

the coldness of my tone. She tells me

to go fuck myself and I find the

irony amusing. I never

liked her mother.

unrelenting

never ending sending
seventy offending pornographic
pussy vending messages a day to
undefensive mostly pensive women
college kids and age intensive
personages with better
time to spend than with
unending bending men
and double cocks and
chicks with boxes big
enough to fit fort knox
and hamster wheels and
rats and cats and other shit
that can’t be real and all because
some rooting tooting self polluting semen
shooting hard cock hairy ball zit faced want it all
no class asshole gets some sleazy easy unearned cash
exploiting other peoples naked ass , so I delete and I erase
but nothing stops this moral waste this crass and vast amass
of space of all consuming business booming sin of smut ass-
uming taste and, though I fight against my fears there’s no
escape it’s all too clear , . . . . . . I’m lunatic , I need to
leer at nudie pics . . . . . . . . . . . of britney spears!

waking

up abandoned,

standing in an empty

bathroom, staring at

myself and asking,

“What is wrong with me?”

The toilet

reeks of urine

and my skin of your

infected sexual secretions

and my mind deletes the

seconds that we rolled

into abandon and it

centers on the

lesions I

imagine

that I’ll find.

Splashing water on

my face , attempting to

erase the one-night stands and

empty love without protection , like

a glove without a hand , and I feel the

brisk and cool sensation on my closed and

weary eyes, bleary with the lack of sleep from

plowing deep inside your every night is someone

new religion as I hunger like a pigeon for a crumb of

something more . I let you come , but still you go . You

fucked me like a whore. I touch my eye, and feel the dry

and cracking skin beneath my touch. . .I don’t know why I

do this to myself . My reflection plays it cool and answers,

“Stud, the golden rule is never let a woman get you down.”

The window blinds have lost the war against

The rising morn. The amber hue has shattered

Through and slain the curtains drawn.

The shadows in my darkened room erode before

The dawn. Then, slowly disappearing,

They evoke a tender yawn. My eyes arise

In faint surprise to hear the denouement.

And there beside me sleeping lies a naked

Debutante. Her skin the flesh of angels

And her color as the swan. And in

Triumphant morning rays which graze upon

Her arm, like brave courageous antelope,

Or brazen hungry fawn, her face remains

A strange melange of innocence and calm.

So, I taste her freckled shoulders, and lace

My fingers in her palm. For though the blaze

Of evening fades, our flame shall linger on...

Daniel Guyton