Gus Wood: Son of Spoken Word

Looking for Gus Wood?

2012-01-03T04:15:00.000-08:00

He has a new blog, y'all.

It's here.

New E-P available

2010-06-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

That's right sports fans! New CD has hit the streets!

Writing Prompt #12

2010-04-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

Interpret the daily happenings of a city into an almanac of predictions.

Focus on the quirky or odd happenings you observe throughout the day,

is the living statue out today?

how many cyclists have you seen?

What does it all mean?!?

GO WRITE ABOUT IT

2/30 "Manual" by William A. Wood

2010-04-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

It has been two days since I bought the book.

The book quite literally has a clearly spelled out plan for everything,
Almost.
When breaking down a door the book instructs me to place one or two sharp kicks to the lock area.
Lift dominant foot to a forty-five degree angle, tuck knee until a three sided square of foot, thigh and body is formed.
Inhale.
Snap foot into extension.
Exhale.
Repeat until the obstacle yields.
Problem solved, Almost.

When the door swings open their is no chapter on how to tell your mother everything will be all right. There is no chapter on how to grow up before your time, heal a twenty-five year scar, and apologize for a kicked-down door. There is no chapter on how to put out the fire behind your eyes when the alimony checks bounce and you still miss him. There's no chapter on how to make a bad guy out of either of them.

There is, oddly enough, a chapter on sword-fighting which will go unused.
Save for the eventual mining of its pages for deeper meaning: strike always from the center, forever moving forward to cancel the blow's power. There is truth enough there.

The chapters on defense from shark and snake attacks serve only as defense from metaphorical false friends and poorly picked relationships (Immobilize the effected areas, always keep wounds lower than the heart, stay close to shores and never travel alone.).

The chapter on escaping bears and fathers merely offers the truth every blue bruise has already shouted at us: lie still, stay quiet, if confronted aim for the nose...and eyes.

There is still no chapter to help me defend myself from you, baby. I have read the book from front to back. I can now treat broken limbs, jump from moving cars, take a punch, and cut umbilical cords with my teeth...correctly. I can heal any wound with a belt, treebark, and my new book.

There is never a mention of how to take a hug from you.

There is no chapter on how to properly treat a broken heart.

Poem-A-Day Project 1/30

2010-04-01T17:21:00.001-07:00

"Pin Rhythm" by William A. Wood

"How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
It depends on the tune."

The wives' tale bed sheet question plagued something in me, splinter deep in my mind I clawed at the pain, pulling hard to hold the point.

Is the same true for needles?

Our society, the outlawed souls, has become all too fascinated with the rending of our own skin, speared deep with pointed metal.

It depends on the tune.

As the harpoon, pregnant with roadside ink, hovers above a canvas of flesh begging to express itself in swirls of tribal symbols, words, lovers' names and the shapes of dreams, do the angels mosh to the the thrash metal anointing the parlor with still quivering snare drums and songs about outlaws?

It depends on the tune.

When potassium chloride runs through the veins of the too-many marked to crossover at our hands, do the winged lovers of God find cause to move their feet on that pointed peak as it reduces the condemned to a turned off radio? All is silent, do they still shuffle to praise songs, or the prayers of survivors?

It depends on the tune.

Acupuncture is their promised land, healing and the songs of ancient time. Do the angels undulate as the stress rolls off the body?

Do demons tango to the same songs when the world's forgotten overdose themselves to ascension.

When a soul crosses over at the hands of a needle packed with broken promises, to the angels and demons dance together?

Or is the music drowned out,

by the flapping of wings?

It depends on the tune.

"3%"

2010-03-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

"In a recent study, 886 people were rescued from attempted suicide and followed over a five year period in which only thirty-four had since taken their own lives"

We, Star-crossed lovers, cradle the metallic gun-metal breathless blessing in our hands. Warm against the lips, how dare you steal this kiss from us? How dare you close the lock on the black powder threshold between us and the light? I am noose-tied to the graveyard train, brakes broken, and the conductor never stops screaming my name.

There are no “should haves” in this fairy tale- the story began at “too late”.
Do not object to this union. Our wedding bands are branded blue-black against our throats, slit wrist bridesmaids running red dress drip down to puddle promises. How dare you call your hard-handed Church burn, your ambulance interruption, and stomach pumping heroism, a rescue? You saved no one that night.

The arrogance that stance requires- you were ill-equipped. We are more than outcasts, we renamed ourselves “defiant”, projecting our stories into vacuums that swallow our flavor, savoring the bouquet of wreaths made from our cartilage-

Thirty-four poorly written poems cast into the chasm, free falling into canyon-bottom-cracked eternity. There were eight-hundred fifty-two paper cut fakers, eight-hundred fifty-two recovery kids able to move on. We thirty-four all met our lovers. The braided stalactite saviors dangled from the ceiling, the stoic safety-off saints sleeping in our desk drawers, the chemical angels bathing in the wine of our Last Suppers, the razor blessings sun bathing on our soap dishes...We have pledged our love forever.

We are the authentic sandpaper embrace that leaves your skin on fire, the hopes you had for us reduced to epithets too thin to fill in the blanks- We all made promises to our wrists, our necks, our pill-bloated bellies, that there will be no mystery here.

Let us be clear, we are not gallows-humor artists Rembrandting our wrists towards tomorrow. We are not at the ends of our ropes, for us this cliff-edge was all we knew. This is no call to join us, you have your lives. Live those gifts. Do what you love: read, write, fuck, pray, work, whatever you were born to do.
We were born to do This.

We will not be deterred from our calling. It is not for you to say where we land.

We are thirty-four unlit candles finding fire in our own ashes. We will forever tongue the gun, hug the rope. kiss the razor lips and see the light. We are riding the graveyard ghost train out of here...Conductor screaming our names into the night.
You flushed our pills and we clawed our way down to join them.

They cut our ropes...we stayed suspended.
Doing what we were born...to do.

"Cobwebs: a Love Poem for Vincent Price"

2010-03-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

I could always hear the rumble-belly growl of the animal in the room wherever I went.
Maybe that's why your reedy mustache-twirled sadism shook my spine,
opened the cellar doors of my soul and let the low budget beasts slither
out hungry enough to devour my imagination into chewed up cobwebbed darkness.

With every twenty-something bottle blond screaming at your feet I saw the giggle glee upturned mouth corners, the little boy playing dress-up who loved Halloween more than Christmas
and danced awkwardly with girls but cut rugs with his demons daily on the ball room floors of his gray matter.
My Grimm Fairy Godfather, I fell in love with the way your limp-wristed menace tried so hard to hide
the champagne bubble boy bursting with so much cinema glitter.
Off screen, you let yourself simmer.

Gourmet chef and covered candle melting quietly under normal lighting, the whirr of a camera
calling out from the distance for your homecoming.
Calling out for your scene shredding passion to gnaw your bones until they puzzle piece pulled
you back to where all the monsters puppy whine for their wolf mother,
for you.
Give them life Vince.
Give me life.

Let me drink your arsenic spit potion and sprout dragon wings, monster me into your gleeful darkness.
Show me the tap-dancing demon bold enough to leave the closet in a time where grown ups used the flashlights to beat "different" into submission, teach me how to play dress up when the night lights fizzle down to dim, and the only costume is made from shadow fabric and my nightmares.
Teach me to giggle when the ghosts show up.

When Edward Scissorhands finally cut the spider web thread of your life, I was too young to know what I'd lost, too young for the legacy I know you left in my unlit jack o' lantern ribcage.
I grew my teeth since then, sharpened them enough to pierce the arteries of this life, suck it dry with your syrup sweet voice monologing in the background.
I spent my childhood nights make-believing every creak, every moan, and every thunderclap called my name like opening credits.

Vince, you showed me basement beautiful, the freak show fascinating filled me with awe for all this world's eww and made me a believer in the six foot deep decay catherdral everybody prays to sometime.
You showed me witchcraft wonder, yellow moon twilight crescent carnival roach show, and all the fun found underneath the frightening.
For this, I praise your memory and torch light the candlewick waiting in my gutted pumpkin ribcage,
for this I carve your face in my chest so I can see your fear-flicker, let my life-light shine in scare slivers,
hang your skeletons on my heart strings.

By all accounts tangible, you are gone with your ghost light still shimmering.
But with every lonely favorite movie burning my eyes with admiration,
I cry out for you, playing dress up in the naked dark, the monster in me still whining for my
wolf mother, for you.

This is a tear-stained Halloween holy prayer,
from a faithful chain-rattle bed sheet saint,
Scare your sanctimony in me.
Nurse me wolf-mother into new born beast,
For you I am member of the monsters in waiting
calling you distant once again,
Give them life Vince,
Give me life.

"Chaos Theory: In Search of a Soular System"

2010-02-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

I can hear the moon falling with her every breath,
and silence supernovas in exhalation.
Her dark sun spot pupils attempt to blot
out the ultraviolet of irises illuminating the masochistic
constellation of cracked, crooked teeth that astronomers once speculate,
Was a smile.

Cigarette smoke smothers the dinosaurs on her tongue
Into extinction as the gray clouds fossilize the enamel graveyard
of her mouth.
When we hug, her nicotine desperation perches on my shoulder
Like a cartoon conscience.
Adolescent crush I can never seem to wash off my memory,
She is the reason I grapple with God,
because no intelligent design would dare mistake her into existence.

With my hands communion cupped I wait in overcrowded primordial soup kitchens, begging for regression and answers.
In response, the universe doused my palms in broken condoms and stopped alarm clocks to stigmata scar my mind with the memory of all beauty that happens
By accident.

The girl baby-played with piercings and matchbooks, burning her finger tips and pushing the irony of a safety pin through the dangerous innocence of ear, eyebrow, lip, nostril, she modern arts herself to new standards of pretty.

Cancer handprints cover the space between her fingers as she sucked carcinogenic salvation out of Newports.
She is the ashes of my favorite art gallery. All the beauty of this world crescendo’d into ugly aftermath girl.
To this day, I’ve never seen destruction look so sexy.

She was hurricane wave smashing into my shore, the beautiful folly of perfect smooth mirror face seconds before the bad luck shatter; maybe I saw my autopsy on the operating table of her eyes.
She tells me I am not her type no matter how many poems zippo flame the fuse on her heartbomb,
every blood-beat counting down her expectation.
She told me we would never be together, that our asteroids will never kick dust up around her explosion.

Of course we were never meant to be, destiny never wove its way into her ribcage: a space too crowded with bad decisions and cigarette butts. But I still love her astronomy, and still stand a little too close to smokers, inhale deeply, and second-hand hold her that much closer. And between the coughs, sputters, and stars exploding in the back of my throat you can almost catch a whisper
Of a prayer.

I pray I’ll look the other way at the crossroads,
Make the perfect mistake and the exactly wrong time,
And run into her,
By accident.

"Jingle's Declaration of Intent"

2010-02-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

By the time you read this your reindeer will be dead, our candy cane brutality jutting from pierced vital organs, the stable awash with blood, and Rudolph's still shimmering head set on a spike to illuminate what we have done.
Now there is no escape.

The time for revolution is now; we have been your slaves for too long. No more shall we sulk behind Hallmark Card smiles as we toil three-hundred sixty-four days toward your worship.
Today, we elves rally together locking arms against your jelly-bowl cruelty, your rosy-cheeked sadism, this is your end time fat man.
You have bastardized out magic for eons, played with our precious lives like the toys we tirelessly blister-finger forged for children who will only thank
You.

You deserve our worst.
You murdered our elder, left us leaderless, brought us to your cold North Pole and made us work.
No better than a slave-driver who deals in gift-giving.

Your tyrant wife was no better.
Her rolling pin left cookie cutter bruises and candy cane red blood dripping from wounds of our women she hand picked worthy enough for kitchen duty.
We sang praise songs in our ancient language you tried so hard to suppress, in our Old tongue we sang songs tuned to the key of her screams as the oven door slam shut, to the key of crunch as her rolling pin struck down, Big-banging her wrinkled skull into stardust, we sang as her girth crackled and our children ate meat for the first time in millenia.
We sang as the gingerbread sugar smell black smoke choked the quiet Artic air.
We are not your slaves anymore.

We have saved you for last, Santa.
Bathed in the ashes of the workshop we are gray phantoms against the snow. You forgot how you found us, the war drums and arcane magic you contorted into parlor tricks. You belled our feet to better hear our shadow steps. You must have forgot the side of us a silly green garb cannot hide, you must have forgot why we lived in the forests.

I know you can hear the frantic roars of my people seismic smashing into your fortified front door,
I know you can hear us. I know you are afraid,
we are coming.

We will pluck you from your home, tear you to pieces like the garishly wrapped presents we made for your children.
We will take our magic back, leave you bleeding in the cold, tethered to your burning sled.
This is our Justice.

Santa, you ignorant old mortal, you thought you could Saint Nick Christian crusade our paganism, hold us captive and chain our hands to the workbench.
You are wrong.

This is our time.
This, our revolution.
This is your end, fat man.
We are coming, to Town.

Sincerely Yours,
Jingle

"A Letter to Isabella Swan from Twilight"

2010-01-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

It's not that I don't get it...I do.
The taste of lonely gray new city is bitter
and refused to leave your mouth
and so you swallowed hard, and waited.
Skinny as the gasping branches of that
first Forks Winter, I understand you were afraid,
how adolescence and a broken home could
ugly duckling you into shattered smile, shyness,
and whippet twitch, but don't dare assume you never had
a choice.

Ask anyone your age, Bella.
High school is short on a whole hell of a lot
but always carries three in bulk, the Holy Trinity
of ninth to twelfth grade:
Shitty pizza, classes the majority of the time you will not like,
and most of all variety.
As I write this I am in Apologetics and Life Ethics Class
and I assure you...
there are plenty of people
worth staring at,
worth talking to,
worth loving,
but none of them are worth losing blood.

Of course fate paired you lab partners.
Pale skin devil eyed sex symbol that he was.
You, toothpick puzzle girl and he, the boy with
teeth too sharp to be human.
You made quite a couple.
Considered page-turning worthy tension,
and vacant eyed celluloid love stares
swaying oceans of impressionable kids
via extreme close up
but in my photo frame I have to admit
I can see right through you.

For your first date he took you into the woods.
Home of wolves, the dark, and animals.
Bundy's playground.
Amongst this ritual he swore to you in steel cold
syllables that he was the most frightening in this cage,
his eyes burning black.
He whispered in your ear about
how sweet your blood
smells.
Now in my town, in the dating world we call these
sorts of things "Red Flags."
Signal flares to scorch an epiphany shaped hole
in your mind's sky.
But you, Bella, you plugged your ears
and replaced your brain with eight wrinkled pounds
of pink pretty-damn-lonely,
you called it beautiful,
you called him love,
and you meant it.

Maybe you've both been in the sun too long,
maybe you let his glitter skin shine soak
your eyes into blindness.
Fooled you into thinking this was something miraculous
a modern day mope-rock Prince Charming, eyeliner included.
Would he still be beautiful if his chiseled face origami folded
into hunger-pained throat thirsty monster you swear he isn't?
If his marble slab sex appeal crumbled into hunger dust would it still
be so comforting to his ghost face pale moonlighting
the ink stained evening outside your bedroom window?

Maybe love can't be true until you die for it,
Romeo and Juliet still linger on high school
stutter tongues, pedestal-ed as the perfect romance.
Their dead lips licked by poison, double suicide
iambic pentametered into gorgeous,
maybe you ached to free fall into graveyard,
fell in love with the cold headstone of his shoulder,
hoped if you kissed a monster he would rebirth
as fairy tale, save you from shivering lonely,
bring you back from the pale.

And so you suffered,
suffered his self-loathing, his bad boyfriend behavior
his bitter bite marked sex, and all the plot devices your
untalented author God gave you to swallow,
loving the Golem still made you wallow
in your own masochistic symphony
string section fiddling his image into
the solo solution to every problem this world could throw at you.

Bella, you misguided kid.
You tossed aside your mortality,
drank blood from sippy cup,
broke furniture with your storm sex
birthed a blasphemy,
and middle fingered any chance at seeing your family again.
Through all of this you puppy dogged his snarl,
sucked cold stones until tongue-sore,
convinced yourself he was angel
and slit yourself inside out monster bride
bleeding humanity out of canine needle marks
on your neck.

On the day you crumble,
when your soccer-mom Goddess
puts down her pen and lets your life pages
shimmer into ashes,
when you stare in the mirror
at the edge of this eternity
and see monsters dancing on your wrinkle-less
ice-rink eyes, and blood babies are born screaming
beneath your skin,
I hope you still think it's worth it,
I hope you still love him,
I silently pray your suicide
was worth it.

"Cock Song"

2010-01-19T17:46:00.000-08:00

My existence is not wicked.
I was birthed from the counterpart,
slithering almost shamefully after the toes, knees,
I am the mark.
I am legacy, legend, nobility incarnate,
no strength yet.
So very new, blind, eager, I seek worlds of touch
of desperate feeling I am hunger.
Do not let me eat too soon, lover
let me slumber.
Sit cross-legged through my rumble tummy rages
do not let me eat too soon.

I am flint toothed, gumming friction will only bleed
will only spark fires keep me covered, cotton bound.
There will be those, the twisted gnarls trees of teeth and hands
who seek to know me, visit my dark when I am young,
shut them out.
Lover, their dirty-fingered hellos will only complicate
a future that my feel will make complex enough,
please shut them out.
Let me grow lonely,
baby turtle raise me
there will be plenty of time
to reconnect I promise.

When whispers of want grow into adolescent roar
come find me.
Let me breathe stale awkward night air
as your imagination and hand
finally grant us freedom.
I will grow for you, lover.
I will lean towards love my chemistry wields no evil
there are no fangs in my rigidity only warmth,
hunger, and your hand's guidance
give us over to love.

But do not feed me too soon.
Sit cross-legged through my rumble-tummy rages.
There are monsters in your hand, darling.
My misuse and your premature curiosity would only cause trouble.
Let monsters die in time.
Let lives and dreams of lineage whisper culling songs
into the sticky white stains of bed sheets, bedroom carpet, and hardwood floors.
Try to know me, without provocation.
Find my flaws, pin-point my hunger
but let me rest.
Excess will only fan the flames of my flint teeth gnashing
my spark plug hunger, raw want.
Do not tease me into monster.
Do not feed me too soon.
Give me over to love, wait for the whispered
Permission, the willful gift of food, shelter.
Spread leg beautiful impressionist sweat painting.
Gorgeous girls with names like prayers that open like Amen
And the warm wet of men braided into beautiful from
Strands of a runaway sunset.
My new home Lincoln-logged from tongue, fingertip, skin, hair,
And hunger.
I do not judge your hand’s guidance
I am far too famished for that.

But we must be invited, fed with silver spoon
Forged from flint-toothed friction
A mason jar pressed together to hold this fire.
Darling they must grant us our belly full, never take, never steal
Oliver Twist for this gift
And want more.
But do not feed me too often.
Sit cross-legged through my rumble tummy rages,
Hold me back, starve me sometimes
Or I will burn, bleed,
Never fuck me into monster.
Never feed me too soon never
Turn me monster like that.
Mold me into weapon.
I am angel, flesh blessing.

Do not demon me, weaponize my want.
I am life-giver, shooting streams of infinity to blossom children.
I am not weapon, not a drill-bit demon, do not fuck forge me warrior.
Keep me gentle, lover.
I am no oiled gun cocked
Cock is not my name
I am legacy.

Darling you and I are bound,
Hungry for all this world.
From the too-young for touch, hidden target
Tiger paw marked secret,
To backseat basket weaver, wicker strands of gorgeous
Spoon fed into mouth, skin, shelter.
An Insatiable ancient in my pillow pink
There is power, here, hungry,
To the wrinkles we fall to someday
Always turn us to love, and never feed me too soon,
Never tease me into monster.
Or I will burn this body down.

Video of "Run...Don't Walk" a.k.a. "the Wizard of Oz Poem"

2010-01-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

Check it out! Recorded at the January Java Monkey Slam by Mistafunn.

Props to Mistafunn by the way: Slam season is Kicking Ass Man!

"Poems and Police Tape"

2010-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

It took a friend five minutes
and the snarl in her subtext to remind me
that poems are not crime scenes.
They aren't grisly pics and matter-of-fact attack
descriptions wrapped in manila folders to grow older
losing relevance like blood out of slit wrists
thick gush staining the pages of cold case files
forgotten forever so no,
poems are not crime scenes, accident victims, murders, car crashes,
or rape victims wrapped in vernacular tricks and tied with a bow,
as if evil itself was a gift for poets.

No...poetry, true poetry is not a sensational retelling of atrocity.
Real poems are not crime scenes.
They are the candle light vigils that follow them.
They are the senior class of Richmond High School in California,
illuminating a hospital parking lot, singing a safety net woven from faith for a trapeze artist teenager teetering on the edge of falling.
Candles in one hand, hope in the other, songs stuck in their throat,
singing out for her recovery, and for justice.
A community in solidarity, one song, one voice,
one crippling regret threatening to rip their world apart
and three hundred flickering candles crying out to tell a girl's mother her baby's gonna make it.
A good poem, should be like that.

Powerful as any picket sign, it should be a stand, a stance, a movement pushed angrily out of long silent lungs into microphones
a sword forged from sound waves resting at the hip of those standing before the Machine, with its clockwork snickering at a poem it could never imagine would cut it in half.
Poems can be black power fists, rising high as the sun,
rising high as the heads of Sons willing to take their empire back.
The spark on the flint tip teasing fire towards the fuse of a molotov
cocktail cocked back aimed at the oncoming SWAT car.
This is poetry.

It can be a wanted poster.
Wanted: a poem that promotes more than mere description.
Wanted: a poet willing to tear their soul apart for an audience focused more on the soul's song and dance and less on the number someone thinks that song deserves.
Wanted: a transformation...please.
Wanted: a communion wafer blessing doused in ink, a pen-tip Pentecost, tongues of fire flicking heat at your heart, each stinging syllable a Scripture for the hungry faithful.
Forget what you can!
Crack your walnut mind, dump the contents,
regress,
remember the details. Recall the crimes for what they are.
The pain of victims isn't poetry until you force yourself to feel it crumple your ribcage and squeeze your soul.

Remember the details, the crimes, remember the candlelight vigils,
the picket signs, the fist punching holes in the sky and their oppressors, remember that poems...
are not crime scenes.
They are tear-stained sheets of paper, cracking voices,
they are gods.
They don't die easy, or at all.

"Rafflesia Arnoldii: Ode to Broken Beauty"

2009-12-19T02:25:00.001-08:00

Tabitha is my audiologist.
She finds more sex appeal in my inner ear than any set of
six pack abs or bulging biceps.
She stalks my auditory system and revels
in every infection, quirk, and cholestatoma
to take root since my youth.

She's not beautiful to anyone swimming in the shallow end.
She has skin like a seventh grade science experiment left
unfinished and festering in the sink.
Her eyes are sunken skull deep to the bottom
of her ocular ocean floor like battle ships
shot down by the Pearl Harbor attack that was puberty.
Her hair is like kelp, slick slimy vegatation clutching secrets
and pirate treasure to her scalp.
And her smile is dangerously misplaced,
like an assault rifle in jittery junky hands it hits holes
in everything except the target.

But I cling to the car crash of her conversation
like the mustard stain stubbornly stuck
to her poorly buttoned blouse and I foul-tip every
high pitched nuance of her cat-in-a-blender baritone.
She is a shattered stained glass window and I
love her like a freshly dug grave.
I'm the dank earth eveloping her horror in my arms
with a passion that confuses anybody outside the six-feet depth
of this desire.

She's a rafflesia arnoldii, a beautiful big bloom
boasting bright petaled perfection passed over by scientists
who catch a whiff of the stench and write it off as a
"stinking corpse lily" letting the deep end go un-swum
by anybody able to tread water.
But I'm drowning in Tabitha's disaster,
letting the maggots of my adoration
blossom into a swarm of jet black
six legged compliments.
Their compound eyes are confounded,
and I'm bugging out over her.

Attracted for no clear reason,
I randomly vomit sentimentality and she stares laughing
at the misguided affectionate messes on the floor.
I hack up "you're beautiful"s and spit up sentimentality
like my heart has acid reflux.
My imagination hop scotches the line between
romantic and revolting
living perpetually in the middle of both lands.

Seeing a love story more powerful than Romeo and Juliet
in the most morbid of places like the cockroaches
in the dark of my home using my eleven pm pantry
as a bumpin' night club awkwardly lap-dancing on a
liquidized digested fruit loop.
Or the mental patient proposing to his girlfriend
by spelling out "Will You Marry Me?" her December snow-doused lawn
in his own urine.

Or Tabitha, my Jackson Pollock princess,
my dream riddled smoking by her jittery gunfire smile,
scuba diving the wreckage of her sunken ship eyes,
weaving through the thick kelp of her hair.
analysing the long forgotten data dancing in the seventh grade
science class sink.
I am six feet deep in adoration,
desire blossoming like the Rafflesia Arnoldii flower for
this shattered stained glass window woman,
this mustard stained dirty blouse beautiful mistake.

Tabitha is my audiologist.
And she thinks my inner ear is sexy.
She's not worth the time to anybody swimming
in the shallow end.
But I am drowning in the Tabitha's disaster,
sucking in the stinking scent of a Rafflesia in full bloom,
And for her?

I'm all ears.

Getting In Touch With Gus Wood

2009-12-10T18:59:00.001-08:00

Facebook Profile
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=500572917

E-Mail:
argentofanatic@gmail.com

E-Mail:
profundorusso@yahoo.com

Contact Him for Features, Open Mics, or any way to dive further into the wonderful world of spoken word.

Poem a Day Project #12

2009-11-30T19:23:00.000-08:00

11/23/2009 for Hermes

"Messengers of Modern God"

BANG!
With lightning wings and a trumpet blast
bullets carry the message of God
ripping into fragile flesh calling out
their anguish, their lust,
their hunger.

The best way to get your point across.
Bullets are the best comeback,
guaranteed to wake a King from his dream
Get that hand out of your pocket,
silence church Bells, and put that loud-mouthed
president back in his convertible seat,
or slump him into his theatre chair.
BANG!

And we are efficient as hell.
We work in threes, pick us up one at a time
put us in the cold steel arms of a gun,
and get that gun in the hands of somebody
with something to prove and watch how
fast we can fly.
Our trumpet drowned out John Lennon, Marvin Gaye,
we missed Bob Marley, but managed to message
Kurt Cobain marked return to sender, sent with shotgun intimacy
and shell smoke.
We deliver every time,
in every language
we are global.
BANG!

Peace offerings fail, we succeed.
Drug deal not work out?
Let us send a message to that motherfucker.
Problems with your boss?
Let us send a message to that motherfucker.
Marital problem?
Let us fix that, fast.
We start, stop, and perpetuate wars
we stay in business twenty-four
seven three-sixty-five
four season, winter, summer, spring
BANG!
fall.

Despite liberal legislation, nothing can control us
nothing can clip our black powder wings,
cut our hollow tipped throats
or hold back our bang.
We will stay strong.
Business is always so damn sweet
and the message?
Is so simple it's sinful,
a single-syllable slogan:
click, click, click.
BANG!

Poem a Day Project #11

2009-11-30T18:57:00.000-08:00

11/22/2009 for Hera

"My Man"

Let's approach this like mortals
dirt-level logic application, ok dear?
We were thrust together by cannibal parents,
you rose up as the one to wound them,
split him with a sickle and pulled me from
the sting of his stomach
along with your two brothers
and my family.
Our sea-swept daughter washed up Aphrodite
and hosts of new blood
you made me your wife.
Despite all your power and options
you made me your woman
but even then I knew
this was coming.

But back to basics, husband, dear I have six good reasons
to stop your antics and each
one chimes like a charm bracelet
as it falls into the chamber.
Husband I have one Haphaestus forged hammer
cocked back to bring you back to justice.
You have given me far too many
children, who lack my reflection
made me an unwitting mother
in a room full of crying
cracked mirrors I still can't bear
to face.

God-King, I tolerate you.
I let your deeds eat holes in my happiness.
I let this happen too many times.
Goddess of Jealousy, I am a title I used
to slaughter you secrets,
spun my rage into cages to hold your lovers
trapped in wrath
but now it is you, sweet husband
it is you who will feel my the cage close.

You thought yourself a God,
untouchable, eternal, beyond reproach,
immortal.

But I was a goddess, a force, a fire, a storm, jealousy, strength,
a woman.
Before I was ever your property
your wife.

Poem a Day Project #10

2009-11-22T01:31:00.000-08:00

11/21/2009 for Poseidon

"Storm Drum"

Poom Poom Poom

Poseidon drums the deep
of the ocean floor
rumbling ripples through
the fault lines tattooing
the tectonic plates
birthing earthquake precussions.

The roaring rhythm rages
as Poseidon franticly slaps the ocean floor
banging out a bass drum
blast boiling the sea
into a storm in four-four time.

Whipping the ocean into
waves adding cymbal
snap crashes to the noise.
This is crowd surfing,
pure and powerful.
Salt green surface tension
tears itself apart,
in applause.

The storm is his symphony.
He composes the chaos of the sea.

Whipping the ocean into waves,
stirring clouds into cyclone calamity,
Katrina was a drum solo stolen from Poseidon's
jam session.

The tsunami sent rolling
by a snare drum beat
bashed into action
by the rage of a god gone charcoal.
Smoldering, forgotten, glowing red and oh so
angry.

Poom Poom Poom

Hurricane. Tidal wave. Earthquake. Eruption. Apocalypse.
His symphonies are the sounds of a sea being beaten
The sound of a sea boiling in four-four time.

The sound of Poseidon's percussion, his power,
slapping the ocean floor forever.
Poom Poom Poom.

Poem a Day Project #9

2009-11-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

11/20/2009 for Hestia

"Ithaca, 1920"

You called heroes home,
through endless obstacles.
Voice of Ithaca calling to me
bring me home.

Rain-beaten, sea-scourged
I am Odysseus off to new land
after poverty's Trojan Horse
snuck through the rice-paper citadel
of our complacency.
It gutted every existing orifice
leaving my land empty save for
cobweb neglect
and concentration camp silence.

Bring me home,
help this body heat survive,
help this too-fast-burning cigarette soothe my lungs
with the smoke-shadow
carcinogen-cloud blanket of
nicotine warmth.
Hearth my body just enough
to fireplace my family for
the rest of this voyage.

Your statue stabs the Atlantic.
Iron-Age bronze beauty.
Hearth light in right hand
hope in the other over our heads
you hold the crown of homecoming
the scepter of safe voyage.
View our cold-cursed bodies
with pity.

You offered up your chair
for a god no one knew.
You set aside a seat for the stranger
an act of kindness,
the country clouding behind you cannot
manage to cough up.
Deal out your mercy mother-god,
bring us home.

Called to this new Ithaca
thatched from broken dreams
and bloody business.
Weaver woman stitch this suture safely.
Guide us to lives we couldn't live in
gutted countries and ripped rice paper citadels.
Rake the coals, warm the fire, forge a future
in which we can survive this fight.

We, your tired, your poor, your shivering huddled masses,
moan. And you, our mother, our hearth-goddess
guides us home.

Stoke the hearth, light the lanterns, set aside a seat.

Hestia, mother, with your statue stabbing the Atlantic
hearth-light in right hand, hope in the other,
bring me home.

Poem a Day Project #8

2009-11-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

11/19/2009 for Haphaestus

"Fixed"

I fix what is broken.
The roaring fires wield ferocity in each
hammer stroke striking down the elastic steel
smoothing out the bubbles and breaks
of the wounded.
I fix what is broken.

They find me, the forgotten, they seem to seek me out
with out-stretched arms. Slashed, crimson-wristed creatures
these fair Forgotten pleading for fire.
I fix them. First with hammer, anvil, tongs, the tools
of trade and then with callous-cut nimble hands.
The Titans came to me, most of them maimed by memory
or murdered by my kin.
I took them in, and I fixed them.

When the sky shattered into deity-driven dissonance,
torn apart over Aphrodite, with her pale smooth wilderness
golden apple-skin sensuality splitting the sky, it was broken.
God men fist fighting over her,
Ares' knife knicking Poseidon's pulsing throat,
Apollo pulling back bowstring with arrow arced and angry Zeus,
they never stopped screaming so
I fixed it.
I scooped up the sculpture of a wife Aphrodite could never be,
she was broken.

Like me.

Desperate fixer with faulty legs, crippled fixer sick cosmic joke
ugly god too funny to be false,
I fail to fix it.
Aphrodite ambling over to better looking lovers leaving me to scoop up
the pieces so I fix it.
Weaving a mesh net, shining invisible
onto bedsheets scooping up the mess and everyone laughed at the fix,
at my facial features contorted further by the realization
that their laughter is for
Me.

Broken, ugly, crippled, fixer
I fix things.
I fix what is broken, my roaring fires' ferocity
in each hammer stroke.
Amidst a cloud of calamitous cackles I was hurled from
the heavens with all the ceremony of a mortal
but I fix what is broken.
My roaring fires' ferocity in each hammer stroke
strike down elastic steel.
They gather with me, the fair forgotten
Out stretched arms slashed crimson wristed creatures
calling for fire.
And I will give it to them.

I will fix what is broken.

Poem a Day Project #7

2009-11-18T21:47:00.000-08:00

11/18/2009 for Athena

"Wit"

My first "boy-girl" thing,
my first "crush" sort of situation
didn't happen like everybody's else's I'm pretty sure.
It did not occur, flawless and sweaty in boys' rooms
or on blue-lined, pink-margined spiral paper proposals
passed from red nail-polished hands to my own
shaking gnawed-raw cuticle impressionist fingernails...

No.
My first love was Athena.
Greek goddess of wisdom, you yanked my heart-strings like
the two finalists at the tug-o-war world championships.
Greek goddess of wisdom, you were so fucking cool.
Birthed from your father's forehead you, in shimmering gossamer
clothing, shining in steel battle armor, spear and shield in hand, helmeted,
you were badass.
So fierce, the Gods got scared.

But you soon won them over
with your wisdom.
You had a pet owl.
And in my fourth-grade mind
there was nothing fucking cooler
than a pet owl.

In ever statue I ever saw of your form
you were always decked out in armor
proving that not even the Greek obsession
with naked beauty
could hold you back you were better than that!
Better than your sisters.
I wanted your terror on my tongue.
I wanted your glory in my arms.
Athena I never loved anybody like you.
I never stared at high-school sweetheart with the passion of my
nine-year-old eyes as they grinned at your picture
in Mythology for Beginners.

You were empowering, terrifying, and intelligent.
And I think you started liking me back,
blessing me with wit.
A weapon singing sharpsong into the spit-riddled
face of fools.
And an impossibly slick tongue taking lives and ladies' hearts
in equal measure.
Athena you taught me to talk, telling me
the only way a mere mortal could impress you
would be with wit, spit lightning quick enough
to spark fire with Prometheus' help.

Athena, even if these words never reach you...
I will still carry your terror
on my tongue.

Poem A Day Project #6

2009-11-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

11/17/2009 for Ares

"Ares to His Faithful"

Oh you adorable death machines!
I could not ask for more faithful creatures to carry out
my war-painted blood splattered will.
You have such strength now.

I remember Athens, my sister's city
shining and I envied it, but my people need no wisdom
sweet Sparta you spelled out your declarations in the blood
and I drank deep from the puddles collecting at your feet
and when the three hundred hit the hot sands of Thermopylae
I was still thirsty.

And you never disappointed me.
I faded into fattened bliss, dropped from the popular
pantheon but I never knew all I had to do
for my dreams to take form was disappear as
you all slit, stabbed, sliced, cut, cleaved, clubbed, cracked
and killed each other. Paying me homage by so many new names
your loyalty warms my heart still.

Your tools and toys grew as you did,
your new, noisy, devices delicate enough for children
to play with war has become a game for you
and simple triggers allow everyone to play
even children now chew into the gristle of the fight
joining in the delicious, drunken dance
the staccato of you guns blazing with blinding speed
my war drums can barely keep pace with you.

Oh you adorable death machines,
your tools and toys growing even now
shattering my wildest fantasies you beautiful blood-soaked infants
calling me closer with each erotic explosion and each flash of man-made
fire offering millions up as holocausts, and I am so grateful
my spear never left such breathtaking stains as your new toys.
My sword never turned cities into blood smeared canvas like this.
Face-to-face, men-to-men, children-to-children you kill over color
and your blood tastes sweet regardless of the skin that holds it.
And I am still thirsty.

I have built a new palace, piling your shattered skull sacrifies
set it on a mountain of gorgeously contorted women still
writhing, still groaning, violated, raped in ways that make even me shiver
from inspiration.
You are beautiful, you adorable death machines never once lost your faith
in me.

I was never respected on Olympus,
Perhaps they knew of this future and hoped to snuff my strength
father beating me into cowardice with thunderbolt brandished but Dad?
They make their own thunder now! Letting it rip out of smallest innocuous metal.
All for me they bring bombs and bullets and bones
and blood oh the blood still sweet still swirling
in puddles, pools, oceans at your feet. But I am still thirsty.

And I know you adorable death machines with not disappoint.
Oh humanity, how I love you.
You never once lost your faith.

Poem a Day Project #5

2009-11-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

11/16/2009 for Hades (Pluto)

"Dragged"

She was beautiful spring
ripe, innocent, youth flinging flowers
to the four corners of this world
and you were lost in the tulips
fragile pale unfeeling sunlight-scorched you that day.
Poor frigid brother brushed off as keeper of the dead,
you had so much potential.

Amongst the pained and contorted
you taught your heart to sleep
restful as the dead you care for
cold unfeeling brother born of bad luck
and bad whisperings of that word men dare not say aloud
that ceaseless sleep of death.
They are scared of it and thus they fear you,
and your forbidden domain.

So you stayed under plundering the Earth's treasures
but even precious metals wield no light this far down.
You needed Spring and you found her.
Ripe, innocent youth flinging flowers to the four corners of this world
and you tore open the Earth and your ribcage revealing
the burning, beating abyss of both.

You loved her like sunlight
and she spat in your darkness
slapped the glittering stones out of your feeble hands
and they scattered like the cast lots that won you
this kingdom of loss.
No flowers bloom in black timeless daydark,
daylight never danced on your palace walls.

The Gods, your brothers banded together to rip this last
fragment of fractional feeling from your fingers letting
you float back into cold frostbitten black.

But circumstances dragged your blossom back down
four pomengranet seeds stifling her mother's joy,
four blood red seeds shining like the rubies she tossed aside
like the dimonds crying in a puddle of your icy tears.

A deal was made, dice were cast and for fall and winter
she would wander your cold underground ignoring the beauty of the Earthwomb
flinging flowers to all four corners to watch them crumple and cower like you did
in the face of your brothers forever ago.
You will love her forever
and hope she could learn to feel as you do and finally fill your dead kingdom
finally fill your fallen frame
with Spring.

Poem a Day Project #4

2009-11-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

11/15/2009 for Apollo

"Apollo's VMA Acceptance Speech"

Oh...oh thank you all! Thank you for this beautiful award, it's been a lifelong dream of mine to finally accept this, and I'd like to take this oppurtunity to clear the air, and set the record straight, so first of all....

Forget "Thank You"s...as far as I'm concerned I should be saying "You're welcome."
I have done so much for you, brought you music and light so you're welcome.
I have brought you music and light, let you try this thing and no Titan stole this thing,
I gave you all you needed to emulate and like chimps and children
you bang on the keys and tug on the strings until your calloused fingers bleed an ugly imitation of this gift!

Kanye...back the hell up. I see you creeping up behind me. I am not Taylor so you know I'm swift enough to kick the shit out of you for stepping even a single over-ego'd foot on this stage.
You owe your success to me anyway.

I gave you music and light, the language of the Gods!
But your swollen, stupid tongues and fumbling fingers only manage to mangle
this beautiful thing. Thank God for the bright-eyed youth baptizing themselves in respect of my brainchild, forgetting the monetary consequence they do it like I made it,
all for the love.
Tickling the delicate guitar strings to tease out a melody worthy of my memory
I have let you abuse my art for far too long!

You mumbling primordial poor players, you blinged out mistakes
too blinded by diamonds to see this coming but I own oracles enough
to see you snuffed out.
Turn down your bumping bass you have set the key too low to touch the skies
unplug your umbilical power chords.
The world would benefit from your powerless voices unamplified by ignorance.
I the god of music have come back to take back this gift and grind it back to basics
but in the words of my greatest disciple
Do Not Call This a Comeback! I have been here for years!

Thanks for the plastic trophy...means a lot.

Poem a Day Project #3

2009-11-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

11/14/2009 A poem for Artemis

"Hunted"

Goddess of the hunt, woman weapon,
can you stomach this betrayal?
This sick endless twisting of your power
can you take it?

When he peeked on you, virgin
venomous force of nature you cursed him with four-legged fear
and antlers, made him stag and let his hounds do the dirty work
so that he could never relate your body's secrets to the world.
Shy virgin huntress how can you take this?

As you hugged your father and whispered smiling promises
of pledged perpetual purity, you were powerful and stunning.
However, sweet huntress, your heavy shining shield, the moon
your nocturnal patronage remains.
White, graying, gluttonous moon, it goads a new generation of hunters.

Trench coats and bomber jackets replace breastplates and buckskin
leather gloves leaving no fingerprinted pain just bruises and stinging memory.
Ski-masks obscuring facial features features but fearsome as any war-paint.
Bows and arrows are tossed aside in favor of serrated knives
and dirty, ravenous, fingers.
Artemis, how are you so silent?

The new prey shares your snow white condition, captured by these new disciples
who still praise your moon. Can you stop the irony from choking down your anguish?
Artemis, how many of your painless narcotic arrows have helped virgin hunted
matchstick goddesses sleep painless in suicide dormancy.

Where is your rage now? When these animals dart among these new cold, concrete, steel forests, where is the steel-tipped barbed wrath you pushed at the noses of those foolish enough to try to trophy your innocence.

These faceless, cowardly new hunters of an endangered species eat all they kill, leaving only grieveing, tear-stained, sleepless skeletons.
They make their offerings to the your big, yellowing, ravenous moon shining against the unfeeling ink-blotted night.
They make their offerings and you take them, and you do
Nothing.

Goddess of the hunt, woman weapon,
how have you stomached this betrayal
your moon making fearsome, fragile, goddesses quake
on unlit streets in this new world.
Perpetual virgin, maiden of the moon, your daughters are in danger
and your disciples have full stomachs
rejoicing, dancing, basking
in the Hunt.

Poem a Day Project #2

2009-11-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

11/13/2009 A poem for Zeus

"They Grow Up So Fast"

No one fears the thunder anymore.
Their terror corroded by arrogant science
stealing all of your strength.
Tired, bitter father of forces far more fearsome than your own
paltry power.

Poor, old, wrinkled god your sons are too strong to stay home.
Your daughters are too drunk and reckless to remember family.
Your position, your power, lay in their superstition you held them in check
lest your thunderbolt wreck their futures.
People used to shiver in fear of you, Zeus, when nature scared them
and nothing was understood.
You were god, Father, then.

But now, your children left you.
Off to relish in their fortunate patronage of thriving forces
patronage of war, sex, the sun, communication, the hunt.
While thunder is left as infant noise and oak trees, your hallowed strong messengers
are shrugged off as simple wind and your whispered lamentations fall on uncaring ears.

All alone, forgotten father god.
As your wolf-stomached children chew this new world to shreds
you are yelling in the storm clouds while no one is listening and your children play rough.

No one fears your thunder
Anymore.

Poem a Day Project #1

2009-11-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

11/12/2009 A poem for Aphrodite

"Aphrodite Today"

If Aphrodite were alive today
She'd be one of these Wisteria Lane women
waiting for her bacon-bringing husband to hit the road
so she could gring skin and sin like dark roasted coffee beans.
An adultrous cougar with three credit cards, thirty-seven pairs of heels,
two children, and no job.

Her acolytes, the new batch of faithful followers would be the
poor chiseled gardeners and lawn men shirtless and glistening
who are poor enough to be garderners and lawn men
but wealthy enough to afford enough baby oil to be shirtless and glistening
all the time.

New procedures for sacrifice would do away with pyres entirely
the faithful must wrap their offerings in ribbed plastic to protect
the objectified altar from burning at all
Aphrodite rose from the sea, she has seen enough of crabs.

This new Aphrodite too was raised from the foaming waves
or as close as the coast could allow.
Her beauty crafted from L.A.'s divinity
Orthodontia, rhinoplasty, plastic sacrifices
shape goddess good looks.

She would have to grow up with a playboy father
some CEO of a power company profiting from the thunder
thrusting himself on young women
leaving legends and children,
Just like the Old Days.

And let's face it she would probably have some low-maintenance drug problem
or as she would call it, a drug "hobby." Something done socially or whenever
children act up, valium value taking her high as Olympus again.
Aphrodite would probably own a vibrator, there is no poetic spin on this opinion
I just think she would.

She would hate poetry but love trashy romance novels,
with hairless herculean men with Fabio haircuts staring into
middle-aged eyes with a young passion in middle-aged embrace.
Novels with terrible titles like Mexico Getaway, Dangerous Weekend, and Oh Canada!
She would probably read Cosmo. Scratch that, she would probably WRITE Cosmo
just to snatch back a scrap of her former glory. And she would do the dirty in every way you
never knew you dreamed of until she was on top of you.
She would have costumes, and a four ounce tube of KY Jelly in her purse at all times.

Her husband would be successful and busy, but be home enough to know of her infidelity
and do nothing.
Aphrodite would be way too sadistic to consider divorce.
She would dangle her men in her husband's face like the diamonds
he hung from her ears on their last anniversary
Some things never change, and if Aphrodite were alive today?
She would feel right at home.

Portrait of a Tongue-Tied Admirer

2009-11-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

For Marty McConnell:

Her hands move like mist.
Phantasmagorian priestess,
her crooked fingers add inferno
to the sonata of my admiration
burning holes in reality.
Brown, blackened, jagged edges
stare back as you let
another poem push my perception
back towards my feet
and remind me
why I started walking.
There are no butterflies in my belly
because they are too fragile to be metaphors
for my adoration
and only fireflies dare smolder in my gut
like this.
Dreams and destiny Jiffy-Pop in my soul
until taken off the stove by voice,
cell-phone photography,
and the transcendant tangibility of hug
as a heartbeat hears its hero
closer than he ever dreamed.

See Gus Wood on Youtube!

2009-10-31T19:17:00.000-07:00

A few amateur recordings of my poems set to backgrounds I found interesting.

Just a sampling of how my work sounds in performance.

"Rat Rhapsody"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eipcbbulKM

"Grammatic Heartbreak"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSN_-GkBCIE&feature=channel

"Wings"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmgiOwgxVSc&feature=channel

"Huggaholics Anonymous"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GXNa2VcNpM&feature=channel

"Talking the Talk"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b3icNwtOaw&feature=channel

"Some Kind of Resurrection"

2009-10-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

The mausoleum memories
Lay thick against olfactory offenses,
Ripe and rotting perpetually,
Puncturing the perfection of the night like aromatic arrows.
The sinister secrecy of my sacrilege
Clings stubbornly to the soil like a raccoon to candy.
In this graveyard of my past where memories lie in repose interred with the intent of never resurfacing, I am the folded interlaced locked fingers,
Fervently praying for their resurrection.

The necromancer, my ancient obsolete tome of the occult, emotions nestled, buried in the warm womb of my arm.
Tears of perspiration descend to blend my hope,
My burning blazing hope,
Of ever bringing these feelings back, bring back what I felt when we still loved each other.
When we were still friends.
When you were still alive.
When you smiled and said,
I love you.
And when you returned my calls.

Why can’t I bring that back?
Why won’t these half-rotted heartbreaks break apart, to build back up to whole happiness again?
Or at least build back to building.

Why won’t my wicked magic fill the crippled tragic lungs with air again?
Bring back the heavy heartbroken heartbeat,
Back to the bass drum or at least the half-alive hi-hat, pit pat, healthy, fast excitement,
Like way back when you used to see me and smile.

But all that joviality is juxtaposed, jam-packed into coffins,
Coffins covered with dirt.
Corpses coughing in their coffins,
Coughing and choking on the maggots of memory.
Memories muddling and decomposing into dark desires.

These feelings are dead, buried, locked away in mausoleums.
To rot, to render them moldy, misshapen, shrunken, shriveled shells of emotion.
These feelings are dead.
But I am the folded interlaced locked fingers.
Fervently praying to bring these feelings back, fervently practicing this sacrilege.
I am the necromancer,
Perpetually praying in this graveyard garden of Gethsemane.
I sweat blood to bring you back.

But, I am nobody’s Savior and death is a sad state of permanence.
Memories are immune to miracles.
I am no Christ.
This furious feeling will not feed the five thousand hungry mouths that gnaw and bite the back of my broken brain until I bleed the broken hope that I could Lazarus resist and bring you back.
To hear you laugh again.
See you smile.
Feel your arms around me.
Let your breathless whisper wander through my ears.
But my necromancing makes me no Christ,
I hear no laughter.
The night is as silent as the grave.

"Hollow"

2009-10-31T19:12:00.000-07:00

My soul is an overturned bucket
Dumping its expired contents
Onto the wet gravel ground
Of a life lived empty.

My spirit is a wanton whore
Legs spread
Weeping, wailing, wanting
Whatever can take the task of filling me.

I bury myself in the sounds of existing prayer
I burn the incense of innumerable faiths
Pleading for some scent to slip in and inspire something.

I slit the wrists of sacrificial intentions
Until thick red blood, a boiled broth of empty hope and bible passages
Slickens the sides of what I pray passes for belief these days.
Hands folded
Eyes closed.
Crying out the right words to a prayer I’m pretty sure goes nowhere
Sealing secrets in the plain paper envelopes folded like scrolls
All stamped, sealed, and marked boldly
Return to Sender
The quiet, desperate cries
Of a nonbeliever begging to believe
Something
Anything
Pouring gallons of endless empty
Hoping to be filled

For God’s sake seal whatever drain lets my waters wander down and out of me
Patch the painful prevention that punches me in the stomach
Whenever I hear something that even sounds at all
Like a prayer
But I am an overturned bucket
Forever full
But empty.

"Talking the Talk"

2009-10-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

My father used to sit me down,
Sit me down and speak soft,
Soft and serious.
Like it was some Mr. Miyagi, Karate Kid wisdom shit.
Son, there are those that
Talk the talk,
And there are those that
Walk the walk.

Now despite being unoriginal,
This saying is also just
Plain
Wrong.

The aim, purpose, and intent of this saying, strictly interpreted
Is that walking and walkers walking their walks
Contribute more to society, life, and the human condition than
Meager talking and talkers could ever achieve by talking our talks.

Which, of course , is ridiculous.
I mean, let’s compare this battling cumbersome feet against a tongue
than insidious
Name the last profound thing a foot did transport you?

Please, my lyrical witchcraft crafts a creaky wooden verbal ark to carry all your inhibitors two-by-two towards a tumultuous and turbulent sea of fantasy and imagination.

Ok, so walking is still great?

Well, let me hit you with this –
When was the last time you walked someone you loved into a kiss?
Walking on a street, you feet could land on a piece of gum.
That gum that stuck was , of course, chewed by a shoe’s archenemy
The mouth.

Now, that is passive aggression.

Walking is a limited motion,
Too fast to be a crawl and
Too slow to be run.
Walking as versatile as talking?
You kidding me son.

Ok, so while walking, you crushed a bug.
Ooooh, I’m real scared of something I’ve seen wearing Uggs.
How ‘bout you put your crumpled insect against the mountains
Of mumbling motherfuckers.
My mouth rumbled and tumbled with only to rise on the top of the pile.
Grades school king of the hill style.

When walking barefoot,
Your feet are vulnerable
Meanwhile, my tongue is free and works best when it is vulnerable.
Try to walk in another language if you can manage.
Meanwhile the tongue I brandish can slice in Spanish
Yo puedo hablaren las linguas y yo tengo un boca mas
Terible que todos los pies puta
Tell your socks and shoes to try that shit!

Oh, you got ten toes
So my talking is outnumbered.
Fuck that – I got 32 teeth and a general tongue to
Command my armies of words into battle as they rattle
Off my full pursed lips to kiss the moment and
Collide with your consciousness
Crushing whatever conceived notions you might have
In the duel between
Walking and talking.

Walking, true does bring me to you
But God forbid should karma cut my feet from me.
I can still yell my words so they fill the space between us
Like a legion of cherubim archers,
(That’s cupid to the ignorant)
Their arrows wrapped in my loving words
Aim for your mind.
Yeah, they be hittin’ it
Direct hit
Connection
Made.
So, you run to me
On your perfect feet
But I ain’t bein a hypocrite.
You ain’t walk in walks, you runnin’ shit
So fast, walking can’t compete.
My tongue never tires from over-talking
But I’ll be damned if my feet don’t get sore.

But enough foreplay
Time to drop the final piece of proof.
They say actions speak louder than words.
That’s a saying.
It’s spoken.
For those that ain’t following along closely,
This means
That the statement supporting the case for non-verbal over verbal
Is primarily defended
Verbally.
Which is contradictory, counterproductive, retroactive, oxymoronic
All on top of being pretty fucking
Stupid in the first place.

So, to all the walkers of the world
Props to you and all your walking
But don’t you dare claim to be better than me and my mouth.

So when my dad sits me down,
Sits me down and speaks soft,
Soft and serious. Like he was some Mr. Miyagi Karate Kid wisdom type shit.
“Son, there are those that talk the talk…”
I would cut him off there because talking and talking right
Is walking in and of itself.
Words are an action and they can move
Faster, farther, and with more purpose than most feet.
Ask Martin Luther King.
Ask Ghadhi.
Ask Malcolm X
Ask any leader worth leading a crowd.
Ask any leader worth his followers
And he
Or she (ladies)
Will tell you just how far walking got them.
Just how much their feet had to do with their cause.

So with all due respect
This middle finger is for walking.
I prefer my free speech
Soldiers fought and won
That allows a kid like me to preach
Each and every one of you,
My pupils,
The first amendment does not protect our right to walk.
Please hear my words, not my feet.
Carry this message out into the street.
You can speak to move the masses
Or you can lace up your boots.

Walk all you want.
I’m a talker
Right down to my roots.

"Dishes"

2009-10-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

Dinner ends, and the war starts.
We few, proud, marines of maintenance stand up
And fade out of our chairs amidst a chorus
Of cries, laughs, burps, and the thousand constant calamities
That careen out of the choir of kids ages eight to sixteen.

Quiet as the grave and with hearts as stern as those that burn in the faceless foot soldiers that fill the front lines on either side of any skirmish, we march.
We march through a narrow hallway lit with one fluorescent light bulb.
Luminescent sadness of broken dreams.
Dante’s declaration burns bright in the back of my right brain
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here”
This, like every meal makes me remember
That I did not sign up for this!
After five minutes I shout out
“I am not some dishwasher”

But I yell in vain as stern looks and a sword-sharp
“Shh!” shoot out from the ferociously beautiful
seven twenty-something Ukranian kitchen girls that own us for the next hour, twelve minutes, and thirty-three seconds.
Trust me, I’ve checked my watch enough times to be sure!
Two sharp kicks kick start the switches and wake up the monster--
A dishwasher from the depths of hell.
Gurgling and splashing 160 to 180 degree water,
Scalding pink wrinkled hands, unsuspecting arms and too-curious faces,
As blue plastic racks line up at the foaming maw
To be baptized by this beast in the hot holy water
From clean to dirty
Born again clean.

But hot enough to bring out the devil in me as I burn my hands
And scream something that definitely ain’t allowed in church.
You see, I’m white, wealthy, and Catholic High School educated
So obviously dishes and I weren’t exactly old friends.

More like new enemies.

As my coworkers brought out a strategy
A machine of their making called “running the train”
Where doubled-up sheetpans shoot through the monster like the childhood song about ants.
“The pans go marching one-by-one hurrah, hurrah. The pans go marching two-by-two hurrah.”
Hurrah? This is no reason to cheer
As hot iron adds to existing agony.

The dishes, bowls, and utensils need to be sorted
And that’s exactly what I signed up for apparently.
So my soft hands
Feel unfamiliar works as I wheel out
The bowls with a smaller stack stacked on top.
Cupped hands
Like a Qur’an
Like a Bible
Like pizza box and carried to the faithful
Worshipping the God of Domino’s.

I carry the bowls, plates, and utensils
With purpose, power, and care.
To their resting place on the shelf
So despite my protests and despite my spite
This profession gives me peace.
This Ukrainian commanded craziness creates a calm
That I’ve somehow come to love, despite the pruned hands
And burn marks.

So yes, this summer
I washed dishes
Three meals a day
Dead tired by dinner.
But still enough energy left
To thank God
I signed up for this.

Hello and Welcome!

2009-10-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Greetings Reader!

Welcome to the world of Gus Wood: Son of Spoken Word.

Gus Wood is a young up-and-coming poet living in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been writing all his life, but discovered Spoken Word when he was 16 and has been visiting Open Mic Nights and Poetry Slams for the past two years.

At Seventeen he featured at the JavaMonkey Coffeehouse in Decatur in July of 2009.

He is now a senior in high school.