Peter Black Poems

As a kid I searched the sky for lost gods;
Drew marks on my arms for the demons to cut,
Wishing that I had a different face,
Changing my fate living in a different place:
...

I find myself living for the next day
To get to tomorrow, fall asleep, awake,
To find myself hoping for a new day,
To bring about a sudden switch and change;
...

Picking up butts,
I will not kick this addiction—
Handed a pamphlet with the strangest fiction:
Says god loves you if he's in your heart.
...

A man became rich enough,
He wrote his name up on the sun,
And drained the waters of the earth,
He burned down all the trees,
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And so it seems best to become like tar,
Black on the inside, pig iron wrought hard:
Sick and dead, so whomever my skins touch
Grow ill, fall apart, drips and is undone;
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The monster within me knows no concord
I smell like blood and spill out vinegar
But on the streets I seem like all the rest,
Noble humans: Perfect, Honest, Blessed;
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Waking for the cold night air knows
Life and death life wood and stone hold
Past and future in fiber rock molds
With my eyes heavy comes the fear
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This film seeps from our skin, out of our pores,
Makes our clothing dirty and mold,
Washes out yellow and dinged,
Like urine and smells of fat,
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Let me breathe out all the salt slime that seeps,
Into my lungs, pours, when my mind and feet,
Kick rocks over the environs,
Mirrors and relfections and memories
...

Who are they to say I need to sleep
Though at the sides of my eyes, I see steam,
White smoke rising from an unseen source,
Out of dirt, grass, couches, walls;
...