Boy, it sure has been a while. My apologies, folks. Rest assured, I am working on a number of poems right now. Therein lies the problem, however, as I’m working on quite a few at the same time. But! My life goes on. I’m fairly sure those who frequent the site don’t really want to read random, directionless posts about life. So, I’ll keep it brief: Legally Blonde: The Musical.
Aw yeah. Ben Taylor, Stage-Ninja extraordinaire.
Poetry has been taking the back-burner on my life lately. I’m at a place where I don’t want to write stuff that doesn’t change people, myself included. If I’m writing poetry for poetry’s sake, then what’s the point? So, there has been poetry, quite a bit actually. There has been almost no poetry, however, that I’ve deigned to keep around. Why? Because, to put it bluntly, it’s shit. It’s about shit, written for shit’s sake.
So!
I am indeed keeping calm, carrying on, and being awesome (at least I like to think so)
Also, I’ve been throwing stuff up on my deviantART account, check it out here.

Thanks for your patience, and, if you’ve been coming back and hoping for more poetry, I hope I can deliver soon. Cheers!

Once upon a time
I couldn’t get myself in the right mind
To write lines and verse.
I couldn’t force a shift
And form a rift between desire and inactivity,
I was convinced of my own incompetence.
I was unable to act or move at all,
In fact I was attacked by
A tactless bout of pessimism,
I wanted to lie down and fall asleep
For a very long time.
And for a while, that’s what I did.
Until one day an epiphany came to me,
And suddenly I was free
From the cruel clutches of my
Living room sofa.
I broke away from a coma,
With my mind no longer isolated and alone,
And I set out to atone for the mistakes I had made.
I wanted to begin by finding you,
And telling you just how much of a damn I give about you,
Telling you that metric couldn’t measure the size of that damn.
I wanted to scream until you understood,
I wanted to yell until the deaf could hear me,
Until the dead got up and told me to shut up,
I had a point I needed to get across.
See, you weren’t just a plaything to me,
You were everything else.
You could be a friend at the end of the day,
A helping hand and a voice to say
It was all more than okay.
You could keep me in line,
Keep me moving down the grapevine if I got too far up,
And I would hold you at night.
I would hold you tighter than anything I’ve ever held before,
You helped me forget locked doors,
And I thought more about moving forward.
So it’s you I have to thank for the motivation,
The drive to get out of dead-end gas stations
And metaphorical whore houses,
It’s you that gave me the will to build myself back up,
And you stuck by me when shit got tough,
And that’s enough said.
The fact is, you’re the best damn teddy bear in the world,
I swear you’re stuffed with rainbows and cotton candy,
If you ever sprung a leak I would die from overexposure
To pure awesome, or all the radioactive win inside you
Would give me cancer.
Either way, I’d be okay, because let’s face it,
That’s not the worst way to die.

Berdz…
What the fuck are Berdz?
Are they just small feathered friends,
Flying to endless opportunity,
Or are they more?
Because if we were Berdz, we’d fly in flocks,
Or herds, or droves, or something,
We’d be together, forever, or at least
As long as we wanted to be,
For as far as we wanted to see,
There would be freedom and fluffy clouds.
If we were Berdz we’d be weightless,
Or damn close to it.
Love and exhilaration could replace hate,
As we dove and soared above the hoard
Of peace-seeking missiles,
As we out-flew everything on the horizon and beyond,
If we were Berdz, we’d be invincible,
Not because we couldn’t die,
But because we wouldn’t care if we did,
Because we’d be weightless in more ways than one,
No more flying from warheads and guns
And chronic crossfires, we’d be higher than bullets could reach,
Above the hateful preachings of warmongers and politicians,
Past vendettas and missions to corrupt and deceive,
Where we knew damn well just what we could achieve
If we wanted to.
We could fly to the sun,
And our wings wouldn’t melt,
We’d just explode in a cloud of incredibly loud decisions,
Our actions slowly creating incisions
And divisions of the status quo,
Switching off gravity and fixing highs and lows,
And laughing while we do.
If we were Berdz our earthy problems would be erased,
Replaced with something worth more than money,
Something worth more than gold,
Something as old as time itself, something worth running
And flying away for.

That’s the last time I say “LMS and I’ll write you a poem” on Facebook.
2 hours and 22 poems later, I had a headache and an immense sense of personal satisfaction. Also, I daresay ladies enjoy poetry. I mean, so do guys, obviously. But I hope my future girlfriend/wife enjoys poetry, because she’s going to be getting a lot of it.

Someday I’d like to ride a roller coaster
That’s made of clouds,
And lasso a sunset for you,
Or wrap up a rainbow to show
How much I care.
But, unfortunately for you…
I’m not a Leprechaun.
So, that won’t be happening.
Instead, why don’t you just listen to these words
That I’m planting in your head.
Why don’t you let me paint you a picture,
Metaphorically of course.
I can’t paint for shit.
But what less intelligent mammals fail to see
Is that my words can take you anywhere we’d dare to go.
Every line could be a trip through time
Or space, all the while flipping science the bird.
Why?
‘Cause it told us we couldn’t make wormholes, that’s why.
But here we are anyway, in a verbal bear-hug,
Tumbling and stumbling over each other,
Seeing whatever we want to see.
And before we know it, we’re at the end of that rainbow.
Turns out that pot of gold is a dumpster full of hobos,
But that’s okay.
A little anti-climactic, but we can get over it.
And we can wormhole/fly/run/whatever away
From the golden dumpster full of stinky panhandlers,
And find ourselves standing on a cloud.
Of course we can stand on a cloud!
We were just at the end of a rainbow!
And there were hobos!
Remember when we flipped off science?
Anyway. The cloud.
We could stand atop a cloud and scream and shout out loud,
Or out quiet, if you’ve never done it,
You should try it, it’s quite invigorating.
Nobody would hear us scream, ’cause let’s face it,
We’re on a cloud. But we’d do it anyway,
We’d do it again any day of the week,
Because it’s warm up here.
Also, since our imaginations have turned the clouds
From water vapor to cotton, it’s also very cozy.
And if you’re allergic to cotton,
There’s a designated area made of hypo-allergenic pillows,
That you can have all to yourself to bellow
To the heavens.
So, to summarize, sum-up, recap, rehash…
Through around three hundred words
I’ve managed to take you through
Rainbows, hobos, cotton clouds, and vocal exercises,
‘Cause that’s just how I roll.

If you and I could
Crack the sky, and say “goodbye”
To the trivial troubles and tribulations
Of earthly nations,
And fade between the propaganda stations
Below the ground,
Would you be into it?
Would you hold my hand if we had to land
In the middle of a crossfire of ideologies,
A funeral pyre of decorum and trust.
And would you be with me in space, in silence,
An incredibly distinct absence of violence
And human malevolence and pretense,
Where we aren’t ashamed of what we’re meant to be.
Would you just keep on keeping on with me,
Living for headlights and fireflies seen through the rain,
Climbing to new heights and sharing stories and pain,
Slowly, but surely, cracking the sky.
Would you stick to the sidewalk beneath my feet,
Would you tell me I’m wrong if I feel
Like I can’t be beat,
Would you remind me of my vulnerability,
And be visibly opposed to any of my prose that blows up,
Could you keep your chin up,
Could you be stuck up about the important things,
Like the fact that The White Stripes
covered Son House’s Death Letter Blues,
Would you be capable of counting by two’s and tying your shoes,
Could you pick a tune on anything I gave you,
And would you be smart enough to stick to your values,
And strong enough to kick my ass if it needed it,
Which I’m sure it would once in a while.
In short, would you be opinionated,
Would your brain function,
Could you use proper punctuation,
In short…
Would you crack the sky with me?

If life is as fast as they say
Why does my soul have a speed limit?
Why is my mind incessantly obsessing
And stressing over minute details,
Why are my trains of thought constantly derailed,
And my efforts to live, they constantly fail,
My headspace is trapped in the belly of a whale,
And shit, it’s dark down here.
So, if life really is as fast as they say,
If in the blink of an eye tomorrow is today,
I’ll just lay my head down,
And turn my face away from you,
Ignorance is the best I can do,
And denial is the worst, I’m far from the first
And far from the last, but grass is greener
On the other side of my mind, I find
If I grind away sentimental shit like that,
I feel better about my screw-ups.
I could forget you if I wanted to,
I could sing blues until I’m red
In the face, But I’ll never forget my place,
Deep in the belly of an incredibly large
Water-dwelling mammal, without love.
But forget love.
I don’t give a DAMN about love.
I’ve got hydrochloric acid and intestinal tract,
And really cool animal facts about the
Quirky acts of nature, as I mature
And ripen in the piping of
A rather striking ladies-man of a whale.
That’s right, Mr. Whale. We’ll fuck ‘em
And chuck ‘em, just don’t get
Stuck in an infinite loop of lust,
I trust that you must be pretty desperate
To do the things you do,
I’m hypnotized by you and your inner warmth,
So ditch the one-night stands.
Ditch the empty eroticism’s and hang out with me for a while.
I’ll buy you a slurpee, bro.

If you haven’t ever read the wonderful web-comic-that-is-for-smart-people that is xkcd, head over there now.

Thanks to the Badger for thinking of me when he saw that!

30 degrees is pretty hot, at least if you’re in Canada.
It was 30 degrees one day in June,
Which makes sense, because even in Northern BC
June is practically summer, at least when it’s not raining.
It was 30 degrees that day on my school bus,
The same day a few of the homo sapiens who
Were still discovering the use of their thumbs
Decided blunts on a bus would be a good idea.
The same day, in 30 degrees, that those
Hopeless, helpless individuals lost some morals
And drugged up on a bus full up with little kids.
Now, don’t misunderstand, I can understand
And accept why one smokes the green, it’s by no means
The worst thing I’ve ever seen,
But when the third grader at the front asked his friend
“What’s that smell?”
I wanted to walk to the back of that bus
And make this asshole puff the other end,
And do the same with his friend.
And I couldn’t see their crazy train of thought,
But it probably went along these lines:

Yeah, that’s the point.
Anyway, the bus driver wises up, because he wasn’t born yesterday.
In fact, he was a old grumpy bastard,
But he was decent enough to call the school who called the cops.
And when we got to the bus stop, what happened?
30 degrees of waiting, that’s what.
And the police arrived and derived a system that involved
Taking us off the bus three at a time
And treating us like criminals.
“Where the fuck is the weed?”
“Who has drugs?”
Now, I can’t speak for everybody,
But I prefer it when my law enforcement officers
Offer up some decency,
But that obviously wasn’t a priority when dealing with a bus full of criminals.
It was 30 minutes in 30 degrees, which was 40 in that
Melting pot of a vehicle.
They wouldn’t let us leave, see, until
They got the culprits and the weed and some justice.
Now, I wouldn’t have a problem with that, in fact it makes quite a bit of sense,
But a little respect would have made
The situation a whole lot more bearable.
It’s not like I have an issue with authority.
I’m no rebel, no angry kid who hates cops because he’s been busted one too many times,
I’m just a foolish youth with a mind and some simple rhymes (and no scheme to speak of)
But when you’re treated like a criminal,
How long until you give in and become one?

I’m lying awake, and telling the truth,
Play me a song, I’m not sleepy.
Show me right and wrong
Throughout the night, a tune
To show me the way away,
To slay nightmares and bad times,
To forget the bad rhymes I’ve created
And destroyed, the bad lines
I’ve structured, and it’s a fact
I’ve fractured and manufactured
Enough bullshit to make peanut butter cheap again,
But that’s another story,
And I want your story.
I want your words playing Picasso
In my mind, unbinding my imagination,
Creating independent nations of thought
And belief, of rot and grief,
Of every emotion your tongue can conjure,
Images of skies above and dirt down under,
Clouds torn asunder by lightning and thunder,
A spectacle that makes you wonder if there might
Be a god after all.
I want an everlasting impression of love and depression,
Because with no negatives, positives are pointless,
Any clueless math teacher can tell you that,
But I digress to stress my request that you give me
The best you can be,
That you take me away to a whole new world, but please
No magic carpets,
Just a destination, if you would,
You can teleport me by starlight.

So sing for me, sing once more,
Help me forget lost time
And lost wars,
Sandblast the last bastions
Of my ignorance,
Eliminate my hostile intent
And show me where I’m meant to be,
Stay where grass and starlight fight
For the product of mass times the speed of light twice,
Where maybe I just might make it
Through another night,
With your face and a medley by my side
I’m not scared anymore.
You make me care, you make me
Stop, drop, and give a damn
About who and what and where I am,
I can stand tall
And even if I do fall, it’s all good,
I can get back up and lie back down,
As long as you manage to stick around
As long as I have that perfect sound.