SPOTLIGHT: The Book of I.P.: Idle Poems by Chris Courtney Martin

amazon.com/dp/B0B148JKLM

HellHound

A liminal space
Is a location outside of time
Detached from typical human perception

I’ve confronted demons
Literal, not figurative
Flesh and Blood
On the steel economy line

Sex demons
The murderous, callous–
The kind that would see a human
Trafficked
Simply to barb
“At least she has some value”

I was Poe’s Pilgrim Shadow
A Spirit of Philadelphia–
A town where violence
And ingesting horse shit
And un-fuck-ability
Precede any pleasantries

I took it upon myself
To stand and ask
What circle of hell are we in?

I did say, that, Yusuf,
I would tell the world





High Concept

Some reach straight for the DMT
I’d caution them
There’s a strain for that

You might feel it in your scalp
Maybe the tip of your tailbone
It’ll fuck you up and
Set you free

After the voices in your head dip out for a quick melee
This will free them
Out for a permanent recess
Replaced with images
Your favorite’s favorite
Will tear his/her/them-self in half with envy
They will straight up fucking
Rip out hairs greyed by laurels

I don’t purport
To know the secrets of the universe
Because there really are none

Art was always here.





Hostel California

You can hear the melody
Plays through the leaves of the palm
Vibrates like the haunting echo
Of a nostalgic song
It will be refrainless
If you cannot guess why
The words hold a sedative
Like a lullaby

Eager on your Fool’s card
As you step off a cliff
Tuck your knees on the way down into
That psychedelic abyss
And if the sun trails behind you
Just let it stay that way
Feel the sea crescendo
Wade into the waves

Everybody here has got one
A reason to pray
A reason to neglect their God for
A roll around in the hay
Tell yourself your secrets
The currency that you own
If you find it, keep it
And simply ride it back home

Never been a traveler
Never saw the need
‘Always’ is a blinding white knight
‘Pon a cremello steed
But when a dream lies somewhere above that broken sign
Take the murders up with Mgmt.
Hold onto your place in the line

Maybe we have lost ourselves
To Un-American Dreams
Maybe we have courted Hell
And fell asleep to the screams
Nothing can be argued that way
Not that no one would care
You get just what you asked for here
So pay your fare to the (un)fair





Intuition

Who are you?
I been knew.
Who am I?
I, too, fly.

Shorten your syllables when you address me
Self-importance– it kills– truly stresses me
You find your wish is fulfilled, come back and bless me

If you know things
They will never unknow you
When the bell rings
The guides wish to show you

Let me know how that all works out.
Disabuse that I’ll excuse your doubt.

Who are you?
I been knew.
Who am I?
I, too, fly.





Jeremy Laramie

Jeremy Laramie had it in mind

To live life in verse, dedicated to rhyme

But this form of speech had a hold on his fate–

It held love out of reach, how he’d communicate

Without backbeat or music, it would become clear

His peers found it quite weird–

“Bruh, fuck outta here!”

Nevermind his pure heart, sweeter than summer honey

‘Twas no love for the art if it didn’t make money

And so Jeremy took it upon his own self

To gather his savings from his top closet shelf

He Googled his research, he studied his facts

He scribbled a list of Top Musical Acts

He knew if this sadness he was to escape

His singular hope was to cut a mixtape

Half his cash for the booth, half for wardrobe so dapper

Now his mind is made up– he’s becoming a rapper!




Kira & the Fly King

Whether it’s the Sloan Grant
Or the Nobel Prize
Such a damn long shot
You might as well shoot yourself in the face
With acid
Say a Billionaire did it
& hope to catch yourself a case

Money stops more things than it starts
Important things
On both ends
On all sides

They will say that this brand of
Sociopathy
Is too far-fetched to depict this way
As if That Pharma-Gollum
Was a figment
As if the Rooff were not
Just on fire
Atop this burning house
Dis-Integrated

Be angry
Her
Them
Non-Cis Him
Be honest

They will catch up when
Your blood, sweat, tears
have written, approved, distributed
Cashed the check for
their own Grant

They will golf-clap
Even.




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