Cleanup: A Collection by
Bob Nelson
Volume I: The Hectic Collection
All Poems Copyright 2010 Bob Nelson
This collection published by Brick Cave Media.
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Table of Contents
Capitalism (And the Little Tin Heart)
Moonlight Serenade
River Water
Spinning
The Toys
Moonlight-Deepest Duet
GX/Hard to Find/Metamorphosis
Java Road Girl
Capitalism (And the Little Tin Heart) 1993/1994
If money is what you prize
If wealth is what you cherish
I see you as most unwise
To desire such possessionist things
Greed teaches you little
of what is possible
From life, from love, from man
When you lash out at those around you
because they deny you such possession
you expose infectious want
When you are so flustered
because your wealth it grows too slow
You expose diseased desire
One day you will see
You are alone with Mistress greed
And she will take and never give
Until you are alone
With nothing that you need
You wealth knows no human touch
Your money knows no love
Currency has no soul
When all is said and done
Have you found the strength to justify
Those you saw in your way
Those, you tossed aside
Moonlight Serenade 1994
Moonlight reflects
off dark waters
my eye takes in
all I can survey
Within the cataclysm of a confused reality
The water still flows
The reflection shivers in a chilled breeze
as do I
as does my Reality
My thoughts trail inward
with the undertow
in the pail blue light of the past
reflections move and change
In the waters of time
River Water 1995
Stories, songs, poems
Creative thought around me
Think of it as a river
Socrates, Shakespeare, Ginsberg
Dylan, Beethoven, Poe
They and those like them
They are the oarsmen
Close your eyes...
The river is coming for you
Thoughts, ideas
Drip from the neurals of your brain
Close your eyes...
Imagine floating in liquid thought
Look around
You will not drown
Your only more aware
Let your emotions move you
As you move through this experience
Reach out, embrace the tear
Let it touch you...
There is no pain within the river
Open your eyes
Open them wide
You can see the source
The source of this great tide
The source...
Is you
Spinning
unknown (sometime between 1997-2003)
Spinning ideas of what is “good”
what is “art”
what is “Selling out”
pulling your references from times past
spinning them forms a circle
what come around, goes around
todays trash
tomorrow’s neavou
spinning in endless repetition
like a revolving door
around, and around, and around
The Toys 1986
Today I sit alone and stare
At the toys of a younger child
Toys that have darkened with age
Grayed by dust
time
And neglect.
They strike a memory
The great battles;
Soldiers crossing the wooden floor
The ecstasy in a young child’s eyes
The great games
Won by the swing of the bat
That wooden bat with no glory
And that brand new glove that made the great catch
The joy of a young child With nothing to worry for
Now the child has gone
Grown and changed.
Yet the toys are left behind
To age in their own misery.
The soldiers long since discharged
The bat and glove
retired
Moonlight Serenade The Deepest Part Of The Night
1995, 2004
Moonlight reflects off dark waters,
My mind’s eye does survey.
Within the cataclysm of reality,
The water ebbs and flows;
The reflections shiver in a chilled breeze;
In the same way,
so do I
And my reality.
My thoughts trail inward now,
Caught in an undertow
In the pale blue moonlight
That lights my past.
The reflections move and change
In the waters of time....
When restless souls take flight I think of you
Your softly sullen curves glow with undue light.
There in the deepest part of the night
Silver permeates my constant stare
I am caught most unaware
Of just how much I truly care
There, in the deepest part of the night
When the world around me falls to black
I think of you
Your gentle sweet eyes,
they take me back
To the deepest part of the night
Forgive me love but I must say here
Of how much your magical touch subdues the fear
There, in the deepest part of the night.
GX/Hard to Find/Metamorphosis
I sang a song of total dispair
I cried foul
Voice consumes the air
I went for gold
Screamed agony
The story had been told
What do I want?
What do I need?
I wish I knew
You said to me your pissed
All about chills and bills
Repression and Suppression
And just about everything else
Well little girl get a clue
The streets that we drive
Are paved on two sides
And I’m in the same bus too
The day that rain fell in paradise
You packed your pretty little shack
Promising never to return
And I was left in the Vice
So you spend your nights
Tripping around the town
Thinking your so free
That that’s the way you want to be
I’m left here in the morning mist
With goals I’d hoped to see
Shades of what I had always prayed
You and I were meant to be
Somehow I find I’ve closed a door
That cannot open anymore
Only now I see what I lost
Yet I barely know the cost
The story is over,said and done
You do not know you were the one In my brain
I need to scream
To shake this loss to dream
My mind, my soul, they slip away
I have lost touch,
I cannot stay
I’ve started a journey never to return
My soul has chosen to crash and burn
Deeper,deeper into hell’s fire
A helpless, lifeless, evil liar
Satan’s call so warm and inviting
A lovely maiden, my soul she biting
Yet now I feel like a new man
As only a lost soul cm
We no longer need to care
Why do you stop and stare?
The man you knew, the thing I am
But then you never gave a damn
You see the start of a new story
of two together, quite contradictory
I give myself whole
To you each and every day
Please do not forget
Java Road Girl
Hair of blazen red
Move of sheer grace
though nothing has been said
This is a moment of time and space
You came and sat beside me
I was astonished to surmise
You could have sat anywhere you see
The air
Filled with your scent
I am lost for word
And for content
The structure has collapsed
Oh shit
I am lost without words
To the Emotion
I must explore
I must experience
What are you
Who are you
I need to know
Do you know
Who you are
Do you know
What you want
I know that I
may or may not
must give it up
You will leave
And I will be
alone again
For more information about Bob, visit his website:
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/boboratory
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/boboratory
Bob supports Anthology, inc.
because poetry doesn’t have to suck
Born in Boston, Ma., Bob has progressively made his way west. He currently runs a microglomerate (Brick Cave Media) out of a- you guessed it- a brick cave in the back of his house. He is also the Executive Director of Anthology, Inc., a literary nonprofit based in Phoenix. Bob, as of this writing, was also working on directing his first movie, Sacrifice.
Cleanup, a series of chapbook chronicling Bob’s early poetry work, are available intermittently, as Bob creates them in his secret laboratory.