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Music : www.myspace.com/jeffwichman

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Poetry :

Jeff Wichman
April 18, 2007

“The Floors of Lecture Room 209”

Foreign language textbooks;
longing the students,
whom they once instructed.

Nine-millimeter casings;
littering like confetti,
from Room 209’s big event.

Lambent glass pieces;
escaping brutal horrors,
witnessed by their panes.

Rust-colored footprints;
panicking across tiles,
but short of the door.

Coagulated blood puddles;
reaching cement walls,
over bone and brain matter.

Jeff Wichman
March 19, 2007

“Caught in an Undertow” (sonnet)

This Spring, she came, we left, out with the tide.
I watched the waves, I watched them turn and break
along the shore, I swore I’d stop the ride.
I’ll never get stuck swimming with the wake.

And like the tide maintains her horrid flow,
She pulls my ankles, she’s dragging me down,
a grain of sand fighting an undertow,
and at this rate I’m going out to drown.

No harbor, I can see no land for miles.
The clouds are heavy, the rain starts to drop.
“No shelter out here”, her deception smiles.
My mistake long before I asked to stop.

Then I, alone, am sitting in the sea,
unsure why this always happens to me.

Jeff Wichman
March 5, 2007

Jeff Wichman
February 21, 2007

“Guitarist’s Dismemberment”

Rest assured
those Demons…
they’ll take their time
spilling your life,
Digging out only half of your eyes
ensuring that this time
you won’t miss the show.
Their sinister laughing
at your piss-soaked blue jeans
will be the last chorus you hear,
Mocking your stage fright
through the opening act.
You’ll be gasping and gargling
for a last lung of air, as they
Saw open your chest,
Dislodge your entrails,
Pack-full the kick drum
giving it a perfect thud,
Pry off your thumbnails
and use them for picks,
Douse your shattered Stratocaster
with the gas otherwise wasted
on a four-fifths practice,
Set ablaze the woodpile
with the same steel Zippo
you used on too many cigarette breaks,
Then roast your corpse to White Zombie’s
“More Human than Human”.
As your skin burns and blisters,
and your face melts away from its skull,
They’ll douse your blood along the walls
you never got around to painting.
Once you’ve cooked through,
they’ll disjoin your bones
from their spongy sockets,
and feed your stringy flesh
to the rats that so often scurry
across the room’s iron rafters.
On the mic-stand they’ll mount
your skeleton hand,
Leaving your middle finger poised
as you showed us, the last time
we told you not to be late.

Jeff Wichman
February 14, 2007

“Foreclosure”

Mom always made sure
that dinner was served.

“It will be ready soon, Sweetheart…”
came across the com-link,
during my Lego starship’s
routine mission to the kitchen,
when radar picked up:
meatloaf again?
Kroger-brand green beans,
instant potatoes,
and Heinz 57.
Dinner was executing
according to plan.
Mom checked the backlog
of bills and junk mail.
When forces unknown
caught our attention.
Tears pinched her eyes.
The beans boiled over.
“Go play in your room, Honey…”
…an unidentified smile.
Still, we followed our orders
and withdrew from the sector,
fearless of the journey
that lay ahead of us.

We were never afraid.

Jeff Wichman
January 21, 2007

“Two Years Ago Today”

I watched you…

Toy with death and giggle
in the pale 40-watt haze
of your locked bedroom
preparing your resolve,
stirring pinches of narcotics
into a clouded solvent,
“Will you hand me the point?”
“What’s the point?” I asked,
and you reached for a syringe
like some household utensil,
irony was sinking in, you were
filling the glossy lines
of a plastic Reaper,
concealing frustration’s trembles,
as you looked along a track of red dots,
fumbled around for a vein,
tapped into your life,
pulled and pushed to
displace the apathy
of your dull existence,
reclining to a worn duet
of a chair’s tired hinges,
I sensed in you
…………. the whir in your head
……….. the tingling pulse
……… the ghostly murmurs
……. the numb in your face
…… the bitter taste
…. the closed eyes ignoring
.. the trickle of composure
left running,
escaping
certain infiltration.

“Damn…”

Your quivering voice announced
between the half-grin of cracked lips,
shattering the air’s silence
across the smoke-stained room,
where for two years
I sat, speechless
and watched you.

Jeff Wichman
November 27, 2006

“In Time”

half-Way from far away
you drive
my mind, a thousand times
changing lanes
between hope and desire
on fire
burn free and lock me in like
your eyes
too late, I realized they
own me
and the miles could never divide
this mind
set on you, shifting into view
I wait
for it will never be too late
I wait.

Jeff Wichman
January 20, 2006

“Matter”

Where do we end
this journey,
you and I.
Our spiral of a path.
Our ups, my downs.
These restless scratches
stain this path twice-traveled.
Were you not my partisan?
Did you not pick me up
onto broken legs
left standing
fighting for balance.
Were you not my rescue?
Did you not pull me top
from the current
left floating
in your wake
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It settles and foams,
leaving a trail to mark
the distance,
ever growing,
between you
and I.

No matter.

These aberrations
a result, in part,
of your proposals.
While yet
your proposals
in part, a result,
of my aberrations.

No matter.

Blame as you desire
if it pushes you.
Justify this resign
by propulsion.
Rest-assured
inertia will take care of the rest,
as I rest in retrospect
for the rest
of my life.

No matter.

For I have no surplus of indifference
to burn through this solstice.
Rather, a shortfall of spirit
to travel your distance.
So roll your die
as I toss my coin,
and we’ll foster disclosure.
Put your faith in fate,
whatever that is.
As I’ll mine in this life,
wherever that is.

No matter.

This crutch of an answer
you convey,
lends weight to the jaded.
My void of a question
you neglect,
leaves space for solutions.

No matter.

Should our maps of decision
draw our paths near,
I shall take your hand
and light the way
down this sole fate.
For no Matter
My soul mate.

Jeff Wichman
December 6, 2004

“Circles”

Circle:

She’s a boundless array, so magnificent and innate.
…First let me tell about the other Day…

Driving nowhere putting miles behind
Refining old memories to pass the time
Burning old stories, ashing the past
A nail in the road on the overpass.

[ ] Flat and Fragile- Slowing Now- Breaking Down- Idling- Dead…

. O .

Come, take a trip inside my Head.

ideas; chasing thoughts.
inevitable yet infinite.
tragically endless.
seeking the answer,
while searching for the question.

Fall to the fact that she’s indestructible.

like the ocean’s tide
attacking a sandcastle
battlements crushed by the wind and the sea
sound the retreat! fall back to the keep!
the salt and the sand breaching the walls
the curdling foam filling the halls
a child’s tear falls- afflicting, confirming
“Checkmate my lady, they’ve taken our king.”

Strong and courageous, yet lucid and abandoned.

like an orphaned child
holding her own
misplaced into solitude, such a beautiful girl
ambitiously aspiring to show the world
how to stitch your way through a life full of scars
look at me sir, I’ve made it this far!
fighting to find reason, she desperately sings
“I’ll never give up” while she spreads her wings.

She haunts our souls, reason over fate.

like a troubled emotion
pouring our hearts out
dangerously close to breaking the rim
the spill was saved by the surface tension!
bound together by forces unknown
science explaining, religion condones
searching for answers, avoiding The Day
“Help me God, I’ve misplaced my faith.”

hope; desperation defined.
worthless and unconstructive.
tragically crushing.
waiting for answers,
while avoiding a let-down.

Come, back to your senses Now.

. O .

[ ] Worn and Weary- Won’t Give Up- Try Again- Moving- Go…

A push from the rear rolls me over the top
Faster and faster speed away down the drop
Stop again Never! to this I swore
Hold on a second, I’ve been here before.

…God-damn these Circles, need I say More?…

Jeff Wichman
November 7, 2004

“Stagnant”

Numb

warmth, sight, sound, precede existential years
of peritoneal safeguard
lethargic now, the days I was alive
buried by memories soon to fade

Cold

frigid nights frostbite a life once full of fire
apathetic walls prevent
an onslaught of potential pain
affliction always warmer than solitude

Dark

fields of green become an ocean of shadows
February clouds suffocate
rays that illuminated a path
once so explicit and bright

Senseless

My voice transpires into a murmur
screaming into congestion.
waves pass like wind through a forest
until they abate and die
die like my soul
departing, unnoticed as sunny days
like the sterling moments of our lives
tarnished by ignorance

My eyes merely allow vision
of enmity, anguish, misery
apparent like blood stains on cotton
tenacious and unsightly
like the trails of my tears
racing to evacuate a breakdown
saturating the surface
of pale dreary skin

My ears trap voices bouncing inside my head
muffle reception dying to get in
faint and blurry like an underwater orchestra
exasperating and unclear
like advice from a friend
a heart pouring out in attempt to make use of suffering
giving reason and hope
that better times begin

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