Jerimee Bloemeke - Pyschotropic lyric poems: Stars are tonight, it is legal to fire white males under forty because they’re unprotected, they seek peaceful environments where they can replay the messages by pressing ‘1’

Jerimee Bloemeke, Cosmic Latte, Floating Wolf Quarterly, 2013. 

floatingwolfquarterly.com/14/jerimee-bloemeke/

Cosmic Latte is both the average color of the universe and the title of Jerimee Bloemeke's new chapbook of pyschotropic lyric poems. "The nothing / I could do to do nothing / anymore ridicules me," Bloemeke writes in one. "O to be on drugs / all the time / a little bit," he writes in another. These poems are filled with energy and verve, the lines echoing each other in the "kinetic periphery." Jerimee Bloemeke lives in Iowa City.

Harm's Way

(quiet with music)

Cicadas purr behind foliage.

The same things keep happening.

Tonight I’ve stolen a silver car

I am really good at driving

drinking clear West Indies rum,

clear music tropical moiré

surfacing the windshield

like a pattern untoward

trying to get out of me

platinum massacres of sorts.

Revving it, as if I hadn’t

already said I had, some  

passenger says, with the

strange cadence of a prayer,

I thought you stole this car.

Ferns in the rear views jump

pylons and we receive

undeserved glares in drive-thrus  

and looks from innocence  

at bus stop shelters where handles  

of grocery bags get grasped  

by hands and the nothing

I could do to do nothing  

anymore ridicules me,

but by the looks

of the car’s speedometer,

one can put their money in the bank

that these numbers mean something,

something is being done.

Delicate flame-scarred neck skin

shiny as a pin is reflected in the gimcrack

console plastic, a derby lap

accident too obvious put down

by a nepenthe and the current

nervousness met head on

by popular antacid without effect.  

To see where I stand, my passenger  

emerges from an open window

like a damned butterfly to walk the earth

prematurely, deformed by rushing,

then more grub than finished.

This should not be happening,

but I don’t know why.  

Promethazine Prometheus

(five-sided trains, the pentatrains)

People hate and do  

lovable lines of coke

minutes prior to when

they do another line  

of movie shoot fake coke.

  

Poem section

  

In the car, vapor trails and hats,

you are a benevolent king,

you put your fingers out  

the sunroof, scraping the sky,

you are a benevolent violet,

which sounds like benzedrine  

violence, but instead

you are a benzedrine lord,  

“xylophone music” (from the radio)

and “these cons” trying to con you

somehow like metanoia

or tripartite intercourse are  

defining moments.

  

Poem section

  

You say that capicola,

the traditional Italian cold cut

made from whole-pork shoulder or neck,  

makes you a tolerant

and understandable leader,

the stewardship, with honesty,

you place the meat upon a street seed bagel,

a “everything” bagel,

saying give me one with everything

you say make me one with everything  

and hahaha-ha-ha fuck  

(unwanted small talk),

the dreaded double tap.

  

Poem section

  

A bumper sticker reads

No One is Perfect,

a short but powerful quote

from an unknown author.

Put in perspective,

insight only matters if it’s salable,

if it’s alcohol soluble poison

or a solvable crime.  

In other words: waterproof jackets

versus water resistant coats.

In other words, talking over  

Italian lounge music  

(amore or erotica),

there’s salt.

  

Poem section

  

Stars are tonight, it is legal to fire

white males under forty

because they’re unprotected,

they seek peaceful environments

where they can replay the messages  

by pressing ‘1,’ where morale increases

with the sound of a Bic’s spark wheel

as it turns, and the little gas flame  

burns as the bowl is smoked,

coughing on the other line.

On the other hand, packed bowls

smile leafy green smiles.

Words seem to be happy, too.

  

Poem section

  

In a tent amongst cypress

we lick melted candy coating  

of Advil off our fingers; we do so much

with our fingers as humans, move the fingers

healthy and conscious, then look at them  

pick up the red, discarded head of the tulip,

viewing Earth through actress lenses,

over our shoulders, stooped, considering

if we are correct in saying  

that one who expresses displeasure

at receiving an unexpected gift

is not ungrateful.  

2c-e

(the universe slows since day one)

for Shulgin

No compassion enough to include

what are familiar details contained

unsatisfactorily (object irrelevancy),  

for those who possess more  

than they can love or hold

dear recognize the preface.

Bent knees and supine bodies

ground blot out the sky.

  

Poem section

  

Bothered alive, not yet dawn,

energized eyes see warm  

drinks (warmed) coat bones  

and the throats driven into coral

with regional design traffic lines

at the cabin’s chosen rooms,  

memory eaten with ease.  

  

Poem section

  

O to be on drugs  

all the time  

a little bit.

  

Poem section

  

The wall mirror from the wall,  

the Bank of America credit card,

spherical lumps of Wonder bread  

tasting like chewed pill medication,

calm and tenderness surrounding

plaid curtains –– interesting –– O stupid glory  

in young minds tripping down downslope  

runoff giddy up down the path to town  

flashing naïf expressions of clear, contained spirituality,  

that prescient sluice.

Palm Reading

(little batter stickers)

I, an organic, levelheaded adherent of a prescription,

feel nonexistence overriding my skin like an ant,

spider webbing shoot or a single of my own hair follicles

tickling the neck back, or my shoulder, behind a knee  

or at an ankle, I feel like whatever this feeling is  

is inexpressible circa twitching quick scratches  

of any of the aforementioned parts of me, kind of rubbing my nape  

with my left palm and finger padding, I do not feel too  

anxious or as a paranoiac, there is no withdrawal  

I cannot quell easily enough, and of an undiagnosed epidermal malady  

I know nothing, I don’t use topical applications such as Icy Hot,

I don’t have a flatland case of quivers of the anus, that vertigo,

for only at great heights am I afraid enough to play dead  

like some opossum in a jumpsuit, in a ’coon’s nest,

parachute placenta hindering the progress,  

I eat mac ‘n’ cheese from a box for Christ’s sake,

powder and rockhard pasta, must something be wrong,

some condition or conundrum, I’m turning up somewhere

unsavory, under some overpass, wedged up in the gutter  

at the casket clearance space at the top of an incline

to sleep inches below an interstate, feeling semis hauling  

colorful rusting containers of consumer goods rumble

to distribution centers in the relative middles of nowhere,

their suggestive Yosemite Sam mud flaps asway  

waving narcoleptically as the fluid’s wiped from my nostril.

  

Getty Images

Even squirrels fuck

and scratch each other  

in bushes, even cars  

drive by slowly, and I  

have that look on my face  

and the demeanor unable

to express terrific things  

happening on tape  

and in photos detonated  

online which may  

or may not have  

anything to do with us.

  

Beater marble-sized

tiny tiny bird  

amongst boughs  

with red berry clusters,

people react to explosions,

bomb squads investigate

an item along the course

post-the terrifically archaic  

Twin Bombs of Boston,

and maybe I’m just sweaty,  

but I’m cracking me up. Please  

don’t crack down on me.

 

Blue M&M Mascot

There, a mound of seven or eight

crumpled debit receipts on the futon

within arm’s reach of hairy paunch.

  

Thunder’s heard as rain dies down.

Portions of routines like sad chords.

The paunch blue and shiny, mouth sighs.

  

Eyes like a stoner’s and the thumbs up

(I sware it makes me think) then the rain

matures enough for ponchos. White arms,

  

white cartoon gloves and sneakers,

that kick the box elder bug dead on

its wings, are counterfeit. Ach. Gloves removed

  

to wash hands and mouths with mouthwash

and hand soap, and the angle of the tall bay

window blinds evoke displacement, luxury

  

allowed only the situated. Deep breaths

of Crest peppermint, seeming sadder, employed,

what they will call this century one day.

  

The Copious

to know what it would be like
when I did not know better
than knowing what it was like
would be worse than knowing

Turned back to get the cdr I

  forgot and recognized the

blue and white fertiliser [pellets]

  under my boot tread, and in

  the night sky a cloud, its

cloudy [trim] haloed [white] by

the moon shine behind it. No

  less the tail lights [spanning]

  the back end of a

challenger blocks ahead in

the direction im headin.

Cuban in my pocket, bon

fire of the future awaits

  

Poem section

  

The copious, spider webs to

  the exposed skin of face

and wrists, copies imperfect

. Kind of lightly [trailing] like

cells  

[one can't remove]

  

Poem section

  

Twelve people here, but fun

  

Poem section

  

Theres a bit more people

here / getting more fun

  

Legalize It

(cigar cutter)

Beyond a certain point, movement itself changes…
…aim for the point of no return…

“shangrila”

Walked to the drugstore  

to buy sports drinks  

(swimming pool blue and red).

  

The knock-kneed girl stood  

on the overpass railing

stepping into the nook of the tree

overhanging the creek,

her face red that shed tears

over some rec center cruelty

(unknown).

  

On the opposite street-corner,  

two adults beamed on an infant  

sound asleep in a carriage

then gazed into their eyes  

silently, still, smiling, the cacophony  

of the parking garage,  

the street and the cars,  

as nonexistent for them as I.

  

The recounted familiarities

so there when passed by

on one’s way, in an OTIS vehicle,  

to install an elevator, escalator or moving walkway,

moved; we tilted our helmet.

  

Poem section

  

The jungle crosses the threshold.  

We contact our friends.  

“Jungle Boogie,” obsolete machetes.

You should choose your place in this  

bush adjacent to my screened-in porch,  

birds. Because only the strongest gusts  

jostle the wind chimes, there.

  

Poem section

  

The last time I was heard

I had coughed,

no one within 100 feet of me

(I was being polite).

  

I blew away a red spider  

hanging from an oasis

in the midst of the parrot man  

and the parrot man’s enthusiasts.  

  

The plumber repaired the jumping water jets

on the stone hill near the masonic lodge

as I lit a Parliament Menthol Light

because that is what I smoked then.

  

I was in a 3000GT  

with a decorative spoiler so slick

I was too hot (by which is meant sexy)

to be a terrorist.

  

I was too polite to discard my cigarette filter  

into any neighbor’s garden

because I believed litter belonged in the road

and I was alone.

  

Poem section

  

On sleeping pills, paint in the painting moves

when we focus on areas of the painting

the paint moves around

(kinetic periphery).

  

You cannot forget you are falling asleep

with your disagreeable hand on your face,

the fingers smelling of odd creams,  

soap, smoke or dough.

Un-to the Sepulcher

(slow of heart)

How did I awake? No boulder needed pushing aside

although it felt that way, tallying eight deaths, a little blue

in the sky (notice the compact size), dressing for mass

downtown where design imprisons, where the spires

quiver tentacular, and the sinners, their futility, trying

to erase the X marks on their hand backs. Mary, Mary,

quiet St. Mary fetishizes ideas of baby, of contracts,

punks put out on her cheeks, diving head first nude

into pool water drank and flicked onto sinners, those  

dehydrated Caucasians day drinking and hung over

indoor ponds, water pouring from golden decanters

onto infant crowns, mothers smiling ecstatic and wild,

fathers a blur the congregation cannot see, their tan lines

nothing but lines, but seen, giving the bends to fantasies

of inner tubes in lazy rivers of megamalls in late afternoon

light, waterfalls soothing me to sleep… How did I awake?

In a glass hexagon cell on cushions, glared at, my soul

mate’s nipples perked and I am feeling like I am falling

asleep to a thousand Newton’s cradles clicking, clacking

and sinners neighing holy holy holy holy holy holy holy

* and the scintillas tumble out of my soul mate’s purse

onto onyx tiles, my cirrhotic mania devolving into cackles

ringing off the porcelain toilet where my caca sinks like

macaws of smoke. It is said: It’s not what is done, but what thou call it.

Stunts, stick ups and lust. The outlined creases between her thighs.

The laughter thru her hair is hers, yes, as she takes down her panties,

looking close up at the third world details of my dark sneaker

with her weed eyes. At peace, I said unto her: My god, if only

I could put a little order to it. : Rab-bo’ni, which is to say, Master.