Technicolor Dreamburst

So I'm trying something new on the blog. Rather than just posting criticism and rants and things of that sort, I'm also gonna put some poems up here and there, and maybe a photo or two. (Granted, the poems may themselves be criticisms and/or rants, but, hey, what do you expect?) Anyway, here's one I wrote back in April; it also recently appeared in a literary newspaper called The Deadline that my friend Liz put together. OK, here goes:

I’m a supernova, baby
Brighter, hotter than the blues
A Technicolor dreamburst
With a million different hues
And it’s not about you ‘cause there’s
A thousand other yous
I don’t choose these thrashing fevered nights
Booze used to turn them off but now I choose not to lose the
Queues of yous
That form outside my head
As I thrash about, my bed
Energetic
But it’s potential, not kinetic
It’s pathetic
What can set me off
A smile, a look, a wave
Surging crashing foaming surf
Until it lands upon my turf
A clean white page
These thoughts rage
Or better yet race
Motorcycles in a death cage
My empty head
But now I’ve fled
My empty life, at least,
Netflix, no wife
And coffee, wired, watching the Wire
Eating peanuts, butter toffee
Feeding the fish, a betta, Max
Not compatible with VHS fish, blue from loneliness too, perhaps
At least I get to go out and see the other fish, the sea
While he’s in his bowl
But he looks whole
Content with only me
Or so it seems
But still I wonder
Does he wish for other fish
When he dreams?

- Alfonso Mangione
  April 21, 2010