paratommi

[paratommi]

They say the layer of dirt keeps 'em warm

3/3/18 

Living in pistachios shell-

I am the creator of sap.

I sweat on tiles of a pregnant orange, a casket I never saw, we bind hot glue together on the bone marrow. I was always so far away, I move my head up and down for the moon to wink at me. I whip scented Yankee cleaner around tiles and pick up scraps of toenail clippings. Floating in the tank of non-photogenic. You might be the wood mirror that peels to my upper left. 

The fence of Barb's Barb coiled like the blue pinwheel. I hastily work to forget. I sow pitchfork pockets on to my socks. 

The tides of unveiling uncertainty make the floor veil.

The sand never knew where I was.

The sand never knew where I was.

The sand never knew where I was.

 Remember tommy- tables are for glasses, not for asses.

I never did see her fade, the table of summer glass. I would wrap my arms around her like the umbilical cord wire. I come from the land of no sidewalks and loon wails.

I would kiss embalming fluidity from flavored sleep apnea lip balm. 

I am a petrified Ouroboros.

Grandma sleeps alone.

Grandma sleeps alone.

Grandma sleeps alone.

[paratommi]

Initiation

July 24 2020

The bell lost it's scent after the musk

of termites ran red rover.

The split of Iron carried across the bell.

Marble lied near the 

toes of a specimen.

White enclosed the crystal blue

pool of water. 

[paratommi]

Suit and Tie // Girl

May 10 2016

A classic feel, a personality is born.

Expensive but humble. 

One stitch crafted by humans.

One rip equals an outcast.

Laundering to be worn.

A slave to society norms and class is overlooked by the few.

While merchants brew for new ideas. 

The girl grows up like the vegetables. 

Her life withers away

Nourishment and care can only make her bloom.

Reincarnated as a flower

only to be forgotten and trampled down.

To be discarded, as the weeds. 

[paratommi]

Faux Pas

January 23, 2018

I'm not sure if that's really you. Cliental kaleidoscope wishes madness upon my reaper of woes and fish scales. Listening to the party awaiting my Townline rails to clip my toenails. The snail slips on a banana quenched in the parking lot Hubble bubble wrap. Polaroid polar bears game change the time out. Time is a lasting in the gasket lights wishing upon the quintessential trade for me. U NEVER WISHED TO BE BORNED. My highlights reap of never existing, my failure lies upon the death of the trash can. U LIVE IN AN  TRASH CAN APARTMENT.  The falls leaves steps intoxicated lava lamps border lining enough ennui. The principal's princess announced, “Scabba uche oppas lops fuclas weshas”, she debated the publication of Richard’s ability to develop his horse prostitute corset. My nail cleaner deepens the splitter gelatin yellow. The candle that sits upon my desk smells like a bitch that have never been to. All beaches drift into dog sweat, pollution and fish shit. The sun rays levitate my fallen asleep hand; whimpers definitely dehydrated York peppermint patties. The triple bag booshwah sloshed of unraveling dollar store pencils plastic coatings and ingrown hair. The Bluetooth drains my battery but not my will. My will drains from the commitment of betterments and the endless appraisal. Thank you for never making a second date, the roses that I was going to give to you dried out. The rose tea that I have made aboard melancholy and the nights of last summer. You've been my Purple Skinned Bubble Gum Chewed from a first kiss gal. I am decaffeinated like the rose petal tea: her petals remind me of potato chips. I am as white as those chips. Her flakes remind me of fish food, the pet I never could keep. I'm not saying that you're my pet or I can't be yours. Simply I wade in bath of loose tea. I drip the metal conjoining connection in the hot water and let it dry. I make another glass of hot water and put in the spiced chai, my hands sleep and drag the paper thin tag in the water. Oh, how it soaked up the commodity. I too, soak up the words you spit in my mouth. Yet, everything you have been taught tallow in regret.  The common side effect of coming in for “coffee” is the madness of non availability, I stood there as a teen exhibit. Chatting to the dismaying female, we didn't even drink coffee. The preferred method settles in a tea cup.

I re-cover my pillow covers in an act of disobedience. I rarely change my covers, the crude sweat and skin cells lock the DNA of my beautiful sleepless nights. My eyes cry the cruellest moth balls. He dampens the poster card with laxatives and fringes of scarfs. The shoelaces revamped melatonin; the virginity always scares off Burt's bees. My lips crackle of pear and coconut. Transferring device deja vu: my clothes slump on God and prematurely exhaustion. Why do I request for an answer. Posters never fall straight by themselves. How can checkerboard tighten it's gripping uneasiness romantic palace.

I always lick the strawberry cream cheese off the metal butter knife, a suburban nuance. I could see your eyes in the clouds. I'm sure that Marcelo invites a game into his head, coming soon to retail stores near you, “How Many Layers Are You Wearing?”. The awards rarely leave at one and two, the high fours and the upper fives is the expected delivery date. The contractions of my cold hands contradict the amount of layers. She was a homeless romantic: you could still smell me after I left. 

Intense hugging contests a sport I would excel at. The insurance of sweat and the compliance of the crowd. How could you even tell what cheering is referred to. Boos and yells considers reflexology in my actions. My boos transformed into laughter. The kiss cam is a grotesque cult classic. I would never spend my own dollar on an event like such, ain't that further future reference. 

[paratommi]

Eagle

9/16/18

I walk on irritated eye mucus and scrape skin cells from my dark brown forest. I am amongst beings that I once knew-

Yet I am neither of their sweat glands of rocky bumps and gone from the Caesar crew cut. I am tied down from a gift of rubber and thread. Their heads pop out of old wooden obedient machines carved from red cushions. 

Two beings bumble around the black projected screen to show their earnings.

A man of origin organ authority signed my sheet plastic

     that tells others of who I am. I bask in half earned clapping and walk away still the same green tinned cookie cutter of last year's Goodwill sale.

I am still unknown to the rustic seller in the white towel of metal. 

I suffer in the sun bleached plastic cart.

[paratommi]

Games we used to play

March 16, 2018

We travel under a gaping tree hole, the sun cannot see us. I sip from the tin cans under raccoon's whiskers.

The dents from rubber take the worker’s slip away. 

A bee bee gun loosens it’s shoulders upon the tight racking of fly carcasses and melting dust. 

I breathe skin cells that was shot off the hill by the tattered heart. 

One metal ring with a string 

One metal hook

They looked if they sat took long with the yellow pages. 

We find clear stones at the roots of saplings. 

The weed whacker hums- go where you belong. 

After the last drink, we smirk at the humming bird spit and rest under the tree identification guide. 

Analysis

This poem is about all how I would keep busy at my grandfather’s home. I want the reader to view, though the English language, how I felt at his summer home. He had two homes, one in Florida Keys and one in Mt. Pocono. Going to my grandma’s house in Staten Island, my family would stay one night to rest up. The first line eludes to the bunk house that was built by one of my relatives. The wooden door that leads into the bunk beds felt like a tree hole. A tree hole represents escapism. When I got to his house, I felt like I was in a new world. To past time at his house, I would help out with maintenance. I would also clean out the gutters and move sticks down. When looking up at a tree, it is like an umbrella, blocking the sun. This umbrella was the house’s mossy roof top. The line about under raccoon’s whiskers is an experience I had when the lids to the garbage cans were not closed all the way. The raccoons had used their paws to rummage through the food, which is common in rural areas. I thought it was interesting that they did not clean up after themselves. The line about the dents from rubber is eluding to the game I played called kick the can. The diction of taking a worker’s slip away is in the perspective of a machine that takes the time in and out slips. This line is used to emphasize how long I played this game, like a nine to five shift. I used personification and the use of a homophone for the word BB gun to show the use of a toy rifle being animalistic. Also the connotation of a bee is directed to how a bee can sting you. Like the stringer from the bee, the metal balls can only inflict the same pain as of a sting. The use of fly  carcasses and melting dust is to show how forgotten the gun has been. Which could be a metaphor for the elderly. The line about breathing skin cells is about how marksmen control their breathing to get a steady shot. The line about one metal hook is another game I used to play. There was a hook on a post and a string attached to a metal ring. The objective was to get the metal ring on the hook, I had to have painful precision to get one in. The line about the yellow pages was to focus on how this place has been abandoned during the winter, since it was my grandfather’s summer home. The line about finding clear stones was about a time I had found clear aquarium gravel next to the roots of a tree. I would also help my grandfather with deweeding his backyard. The wording of going where you belong is a sense of being away and finding home again. The last line eludes to many meanings. My grandfather had hummingbird feeders on his porch which was very bodacious to look at in the morning. My grandfather is also a functional alcoholic, so this humming bird spit could be a reference to his favorite drink, gin. Spit and gin both have the same colorings as well. At his house, we would have bug juice. A very sugary Kool-Aid that would attract bugs. This could also be a reference to how colorful hummingbirds are and how green Mt. Pocono is in the summer. Since my grandfather does not own the summer home anymore, it is now owned by my uncle, the title is very fitting. The past tense of the verb signifies how time passes.   

[paratommi]

Father, eye have greatly sinned

March 12, 2018

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Sippin on fanta Z’s, Inhaler of übermensch, & I wish for the day again where I was hearing the trampling of crying hoofs      

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Analysis- 

The poem is a critique of mass incarceration of minorities and expresses the culture of escapism. The form gives the poem more meaning. The repetitive capital “I” forms a jail cell/boundary. The form of a boundary is used to box in the words and create separation. It can also look like a roll of film which serves as a form of documentation. The size of the font for the second line is how the representative feels represented. This feeling of depreciation is dwelled in suppression. The letter “I” is also a homograph for the word eye. The eye is a symbol of surveillance. The second line can also visually look like an epitaph, a transcription for the living. 

The common drink of Fanta, adding the letter “Z”,  is used to sound like fantasy. Fanta, like the common use of Sprite, is used to create the drug called lean. This drug was created in Texas and is used to escape reality. The subculture of trap uses this as a social status symbol. One would want to escape in a life of where murder is common, having constant fear of being jailed, and being placed in systems that fail.

The effects of the drug make the user feel like an übermensch. The term, übermensch, was created by Friedrich Nietzsche. He used the term to mean hyper-man like the DC character superman. The act of wishing symbolizes repetitiveness. The trampling of crying hoofs is focusing on how we are all animals and the naturalist lens of how we treat each other. 

[paratommi]

Men don’t cry

16 February, 2018

The night before a red and white valentine. 

His hazel eyes were like red wine and salt.

Men don’t cry, his tears tasted like shoe shine.

He forgot his lipstick, bellowing like a swine.

Working his time shift, his drywall covered boots halt.

The night before a red and white valentine. 

He felt like he had Parkinson’s disease- the failing dopamine 

A gal in a goldmine blonde, the split was her fault. 

Men don’t cry, his tears tasted like shoe shine.

Her feline hair was a mix of turpentine

and yellow pine, androgynous assault

The night before a red and white valentine. 

Their eyes met, he slugged like an oil pipeline.  

He drew a line, his stomach did a somersault. 

Men don’t cry, his tears tasted like shoe shine.

His armpits sweat, making him miss his hygiene.

Standing there like a mine, he desalinate in the vault. 

The night before a red and white valentine. 

Men don’t cry, his tears tasted like shoe shine.

Analysis

This poem is about a man that works a 9-5 job as a drywall finisher and catches a glimpse of his ex on the day before Valentine's day. His occupation have weight like a relationship. He works a mundane job, seen through the beginning of the villanelle, which has high importance on why the writer choose to write in American Realism. Encompassing form, the line, “Men don’t cry”, is a social statement that is slowly decreasing out of fashion. With his ex being a central conflict in the poem, the writer chose to strikethrough the line to break down this social barrier. In a interview with Basquiat, he said that when the creator puts a line over a word, the activator is more curious and drawn towards it. This statement from Basquiat is also an influence in the writer’s form. When the worker forgot his lipstick, The writer was showing that the man feels more feminine. The bellowing of the swine is feeling of cracked lips on a winter day. The moisture and emotion has dried up in the lips, which is a metaphor for how his ex feels about him. When describing his ex, the writer backed away from American Realism to portray how powerful she is to him. The power formed from glancing at her is portrayed like having Parkinson’s disease, which affects the movement of the body. One could say that love is a disease. This effect of the subsidence of dopamine is why the writer placed a dash after disease. The word dopamine is a forced rhyme in the poem. Which is a use of form to portray the constriction of flow. In the last stanza, the word hygiene is also a forced rhyme. This portrays the smell of sweat and grime coming from the man’s armpits.  Focusing on rhyme, the B rhyme scheme is thought provoking. In the B rhyme scheme there is always a A rhyme before it. For example, “Her feline hair was a mix of turpentine/and yellow pine, androgynous assault”, the end rhyme of turpentine and yellow pine are in the A rhyme scheme. Where the punch comes in is from the hard T sound coming from the B rhyme scheme. This is on purpose to demonstrate the power of seeing a past lover. In addition this also disorganized the flow to make the reader feel whiplashed. The line, “Standing there like a mine, he desalinate in the vault”, uses mine as a double entendre. One way of looking at it is that the mine is the caricature you can see on the street like pretending that he is trapped in a box. This is a very powerful interpretation because like the mine, he cannot speak from being flabbergasted. The other way looking at it is that the mine is war explosive. Like the mine, he will explode into tears and emotions. In the second half of the line, the word desalinate is used. The word means to remove salt from seawater. The second line in the villanelle says that his eyes looked like red wine and salt. The connection of these two words make the context of the poem more intriguing. The act of crying takes his hidden emotions out of the body. From the writer’s experience, tears do taste salty. The day before valentines is important to the the villanelle as being one out of the two repeating lines. This day can bring up emotions due to the effect of recalling the past. Like the American Realism, the past is who we were or more importantly who we became. This dark “obsession” quality from the repetitiveness of the villanelle shares the same tone the man is feeling when seeing his ex again. 

[paratommi]

Outsider

February 6, 2018

Sitting in a white horse

Cattle up within the track

The introducer picks up, Red Chaise is the winner

The hoof of an American classic gathers. 

The blue clouds mingle on white dust

Gathers in her eyebrows. Inside Jokes and laughter picks at my eyes.

Picking at my curly hair, my big nose, my small hands; at least I think that is what they are laughing at?....

Tick Tock My endures game of chess, live off the struggle 

of self- awareness and despite. 

I’ve always had a hard boney butt

the kind where sitting on mahogany floors 

were toucher, a bit of the war dissolution as a classroom.

In different positions, pressure on my calcium-stable bones. 

Pressure unlike any other, Internalize, as an outsider.

[paratommi]

Migraine

02/29/20

A pulse of radar 

crushed my temple.

Projecting mountains upon my bearskin. 

I become washed with oil that 

comes from the dirt.

My back tows iron brackets

encased with clogged circuits. My hand thumps

to the groove of dreams.

A siren of wanting with a pinch of dust.

I will to the dusk,

planting concepts to their master.

[paratommi]

A vending machine behind closed doors

March 30, 2017

Cornered of gold and silver lining. 

Glistening within the lighting of chandeliers. 

The details in the carved wood and in the Victorian carpet; evocative yet…  

The windows can’t see. The doors can’t see. 

Only I can see the deformed plastic vending machine

Hordes of oily fingers touch the vile instrument. 

 Technology changes history. 

Fitting in is obsolete.

Smoke wafts to the Pfister. 

Pouring from the street. Flowing up the stairs and down to the chair where I sit. 

Invisible clouds of smoke glide to my nostrils. 

Blemishing my clothing. Destroying the virgin thread. 

A vending machine behind closed doors

Corner of gold, silver lined, 

Glistening cave lit by chandeliers. 

Above-- Whorls carved in wood-- 

Below a red Victorian carpet patterned with circles, diamonds, and paisleys.

A royal castle disconnected...    

the windows can’t see, the doors can’t see. 

Only I can and before me-- see the deformed, plastic vending machine,

Made oily by hordes of fingers. 

Technology changes history. 

[paratommi]

What is abstraction?

Handmade definition: Taking two or more units and destroying their identities, conversing into an eternal link. An example for thinking in abstract terms, what is the same in an anchor & a fence?

Since concrete ideas are able to be dictated as right and wrong, abstraction is harder to judge because it comes from perception & the subconscious. One possible answer is that both an anchor and a fence take an item and position it to a 3-d plane. That quality from their essence is what makes both items the same. 

Lets look at the sentence, The ball is big. A concrete thinker would resume that the ball is fairly large. An abstract thinker would ask how does the size determine the ball? and how does one measure size? 

Questioning and juxtaposition is a good way to incorporate abstraction in creative mediums such as art. This is because abstraction in art points to the real but becomes subjected to experience.