Okay, be kind; these first three poems are the only ones I have that predate my eighteenth birthday. Good god, are all adolescents this dismal?
The Mind of John Doe
Never before have so many, so little
Never have so many flown.
23 = 8, we all know,
and up is down, then bow.
Love is wrong and death is rite;
Sock, sock, Shoe, shoe.
Neither here nor there, and tit for tat
when doing this or that.
Thus is loveless, mindless dirt
“Page 314, and read,” damn fool.
Never before have so many, so little,
An enigma’s drowned, confused.
Never before have so many, so little,
one can never go back home.
© 1981 Khris Fruits
Slowly, not to disturb the returning of dust to dust.
It is a sad, sad song that dies the better unsung.
A life not lived, a soul spent only of sorrow
A hollow man, filled, satiate with emptiness
Angry of love not felt from hate of self
Many friendships come to naught, destroyed.
A Dead Sea of myriad tears
An insanity grows strong
A godless son, unborn
He’s forever not.
A self-pity
All undone
A fool
Dead.
© 1982 Khris Fruits
Le Devoir
“Ecrivez un poème,
en français
s’il vous plaît.
Un poème de la vie,
un de l’amour,
et, si possible,
un de la mort aussi.”
‘Ecrivez un poème…’
sur ce qui vous intéresse.
La mort m’intéresse,
la mort des professeurs—
monsieur.
La vie sans le devoir, et
l’amour des traits physiques.
Si j’écris un poème—
je ne le ferai pas—
j’écrirais des…
des blessures de l’âme humaine.
Je pleurerais sur
les épaules de quelqu’un
je pourrais—
“Que faites-vous là monsieur
voici un poème déjà
lisez-le à la classe
s’il vous plâit;
à haute voix.”
© 1982 Khris Fruits
back to
top[untitled limerick]
A dirty old man who read Kipling
and admired Seurat’s use of stippling
procured in a trice
to sate his own vice
one night with a well-muscled stripling.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topThe Star
departure
from the norm
without guilt
please God, please
grant me this wish
upon a falling star
a fallen star
a world without a sun
a hole in someone’s sky
but will I wish
on this disaster
to an unknown god
for this plea
of innocent
departure
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topThe Little Woman
Drunken skirted swine she said
me?
skirted?
you try to conquer the world
and the uncounted enemy
ever drawing me back home
no
got get the Gauls
there are the Huns
and don’t forget the Visigoths
victory victory victim me
Lazy good for nothing she said
well,
fine.
you try to rule the world
behind every great man my foot
no
her foot my ass
bring me this get me that
pearls from here
emeralds from there
gold gold cajoled
Stupid blind fool she said
what
now?
aren’t I doing my job
you try to sleep at night
no
you already do, so let me
tighten that iron fist
watch out for that ruthless nephew
careful of that power-hungry chancellor
spy spy or die
Nagging bitchy shrew I cried
leave
me!
find the sunlight in your cell
behind every great man a woman
yes
loving hands become a death-grip
and to them come the same
driving him to the far side of the world
over the edge
ever out and out no doubt
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topHe
He said it was
okay
I remember
not one of the sheep
not afraid to be vulnerable
but he was
even then
doubling back to clarify
covering his tracks
Not afraid to be friends
with another man
but it was a lot to ask
Maybe I touched him wrong
the way men don’t touch
or knew more about him
than he was ready to tell
but I know I shouldn’t have cried
that was unforgivable
He took it the wrong way
and thought
it’s too ugly
so now everything we shared
was a lie
And I keep thinking
maybe he was right
maybe he was right
maybe he was right
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topEscape
He took it off
threw it to the side
like a ragged cloak,
but it didn’t help.
“Too late,” I cried
don’t ask me to accept you now.
Too late,
I’ve seen your smile
your bloodied claws
heard your whispering gloat.
But he didn’t understand
just watched me run away
right back to his arms.
He put it on again,
the cloak, looked fresh and new
the way it always did,
and I didn’t mind.
“Tell me tales,” I said
lie to me again
so we can stay together.
Tell me your tales
and I’ll forget the awful truth,
that I have seen your wolf.
But he didn’t understand
just knew what would work me
right back to his arms.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
back to
topThe Silence
A ledge
thirty feet from the valley floor
a single rock
bakes in the sun
from the first glint of sunrise
until the cliff above casts its shadow.
I have spent many hours on that ledge
staring up into the fading sky
as I lay on my back
felt the heat rise off the rock
took my shirt off
turned over
and melded our warmth.
It’s not an easy climb
up to the ledge
but I’ve done it in my mind
and know how each handhold will feel
as I climb the cooling cliff face.
I would make this climb
remember the pull of each muscle
drink the warm blood
from the gash on my finger
and cherish each panting breath
after I reached the ledge.
I would sleep
above the valley floor
beneath the starry sky
would wake up slightly cold and stiff
descend
to place my feet on the dusty ground.
This dream dies
so I change the dust and the valley
but it is still dead
so I change the cliff face and the stars
and realize
it is the warmth.
The dream dies
because I need the warmth
thirty feet away and warm
and so I cry.
I tell him
of the dream.
He knows the valley and the rock
has sat on the dusty ground
so I tell him
of the dream.
We go
to test it
thirty feet from the valley floor
on the single rock
baking in the sun
from the first glint of sunrise
until the cliff above casts its shadow.
We rest there
and laugh
happy with our fatigue
grow quiet with the warmth of the rock
and uncomfortable
with our ease.
It is this warmth,
as he touches my hand,
not the rock
and the dream dissipates
in silence
being thirty feet away and warm.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
back to
topjour par jour
Il tient ma tête
sur sa poitrine
et je somnole;
nous, portrait d’une peinture.
Il caresse mes cheveux
sans penser
et j’entends ses souffles
et ses battements de coeur.
Je sens et pense
comme une peinture impressioniste
dans les demi-pensées
et les demi-sentiments.
Je m’appuye chaque jour
sur les souvenirs
de ses souffles
et ses caresses sans penser.
Nous sommes comme une peinture
sur un trottoir
qui s’évanouit
avec la pluie détersive.
Et il tient ma tête
sur sa poitrine
pour que j’oublie
que nous sommes comme une peinture.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topday by day
[translated by Khris Fruits]
He rests my head
on his chest
and I doze;
we, portrait of a painting.
He strokes my hair
without thinking
and I hear his breathing
and the beating of his heart.
I think and feel
like an impressionist painting
in half-thoughts
and half-perceptions.
Each day I depend on
the memories
of his breathing
and of his idle caresses.
We are like a painting
on the sidewalk
that vanishes
with the cleansing rain.
And he rests my head
on his chest
so I can forget
that we are like a painting.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
back to
topWe woke, my friends and I
almost glad to greet a new day
but the weight of my oppression
was enough to hold us back.
They helped to lead me out of my house
from the back-projected home
past the cardboard figures of my parents
down a path they had traveled alone.
Like walls of styrofoam
we watched schools collapse
and fled in surprise from the screams
of the young without protection.
The delicate origami shapes of religion
were next to fold
but their gentle forms were not forgotten
and their patterns only laid aside.
The tangled chains of ideology
were unlocked and discarded
(not exchanged for old or new)
to frighten us back to the comfort of their illogic.
Keeping bits of Mom and God
retaining at least one link
and setting the bounds of a finite knowledge
we continued down the path.
As if it were a piece of scenery
we rode past the sunset
but remembering Lot’s wife
we didn’t look back.
--Hope, Lamour, and Crosby
© 1985 Khris Fruits
back to
topIn all empathy for K.
For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In
appearance they lie sleekly and a little push
should be enough to set them rolling. No, it
can’t be done, for they are firmly wedded to
the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.
-Franz Kafka
A mole
deeper, deeper in its hole
filling its burrow with fear
or an artist
starving beneath the straw of his cage
and a slimy bug
bigger than a baby
dying because of its father’s ignorance.
These things I understand
and don’t know why,
fear for my own sanity
and wonder why
I understand the dead Don Quixote.
I try to be normal
and cherish Walt Disney
try to love Norman Rockwell
for fear that there may be a sociopath
lurking beneath my depressingly young skin.
I understand those things
that make normal people squirm,
understand needles carving in human flesh
understand a lonely man waiting on a deserted road
understand tree trunks in the snow.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
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topDistance: Time and Space
he followed me
but he didn’t want anything
only to follow me
and get to where I was going
then leave me behind.
so I did the only thing;
I watched him depart.
but strangely he grew
in my memory
as he shrank in my sight
and I knew I would never get
to where he’d gone.
© 1985 Khris Fruits
back to
topin a fierce release of someone else
as I looked in the mirror
I looked in the mirror
and no longer saw myself
I was
someone else
I felt like the skin of a balloon
hollow
tight
and knew that the next touch
would either set me free
to rise through the night air
or make me explode
in a fierce release of tension.
I stared through the glassy figure
in the mirror
half expecting to see the approach
of a fresh new personality
but wasn’t disappointed
when it appeared I was only shrinking;
a smaller emptiness
must be less empty.
© 1986 Khris Fruits
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topWords and Deeds
[a duet]
| My son threw stones | My son throws stones | |
| he was corrected | this he was taught | |
| and told a parable | and told to do | |
| a parable | do this | |
| from fairy-tales to parables | from rattles to stones | |
| I sit back | I sit back | |
| smiling | drinking | |
| waiting | watching | |
| goading | guarding | |
| smiling | drinking | |
| My son is becoming subtle | My son is becoming aggressive | |
| we now converse | we now box | |
| and discuss Kafka and Joyce | and discuss sports | |
| Kafka | sports | |
| from fairy-tales to Joyce | from diapers to pads | |
| I sit back | I sit back | |
| proud | proud | |
| impressed | impressed | |
| amazed | confident | |
| proud | proud | |
| My son is strong | My son is strong | |
| as am I | as am I | |
| we are both children | we are both men | |
| children | men | |
| from fairy-tales to childhood | from fairy-tales to manhood |
© 1986 Khris Fruits
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toptout seul, sans bruit
I don’t want your words
they don’t mean as much
as what you can say
while we fall asleep together
watching a black and white movie
turn to black and white snow.
What you can say to me
sitting across the breakfast table
drinking your muddy black coffee
is more than any word.
Even your absence
speaks aloud to me;
but I do want your words
the sound of them pleases me.
I only wish
they would stop
meaning what they do.
© 1986 Khris Fruits
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topdona nobis pacem
I’m petty
I’ll admit it,
I like to look
at good-looking people.
A nice car
and a big house
expensively furnished
impress me.
When I ask for peace
I don’t mean world peace
I don’t even believe
in world peace;
when I ask for peace
I want a peace all my own.
© 1986 Khris Fruits
back to
topWhen Worlds Collide
In two worlds
as if in different times
I live
half lives.
I ride
a thin rail
and must never
fall into one world
when I am in the other.
The two
have met
only in my mind.
There they are dangerously
braided with a strand
of imagination bonded by fear
and I know
there must be a day
when worlds collide.
© 1986 Khris Fruits
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topstones
swallowing stones
for ballast,
but inceptive children haunt me
from deep inside my belly,
ask me if my impotence bothers me.
I try to explain to them
that my life is not a lie,
try to resculpt my life
to accommodate change,
so that from every perspective
this statue may be seen the same.
my children haunt me
beyond this inchoate life,
tell me that only a sphere
may be seen in such a way.
having sculpted myself down to a pebble
I learn to throw stones behind me
for ballast
© 1986 Khris Fruits
back to
topIn Other Words
Language is a virus from outer-space.
-William S. Burroughs
I. Sometimes I feel like I’m caught in someone
else’s dream, like I’m a musician or a singer
who works for Laurie Anderson or Philip Glass
and wonders why I’m singing “whoop, whoop,
whoop” for five minutes in four different keys.
II. Maybe, with the inability to score my own
dreams, it’s not so bad playing someone
else’s music.
III. If you imagine life as an ocean, perhaps it’s
okay to ride someone else’s wave rather than
trying to make one, but sometimes it’d be nice
to have something other than just the decision
to follow to call your own.
IV. Perhaps language is a virus, and to overcome
it we must learn to control it.
V. Sometimes the dream I’m caught in is my own,
but the music is still unfamiliar.
VI. Perhaps silence is a virus.
VII.
© 1986 Khris Fruits
back to
topBlood &
Coconuts
down
is this my destiny
on a ball with no gravity
like a plastic universe
stretched tight on a frame
we speak of time
as a color coordinated fabric
sewn together by einstein’s brain
but this is only an idea
harmless as fuzz
most people would have us think
as though Oswald Mosley was just an idea
as though his sister, Joan of Arc
that black-bloused maiden of Urban II
was just an idea clothed in the night
what if she had fallen
down
would it have been
a fall
from a figurative heaven
destiny
does not exist
on a ball that has a frieze
of parallel lines converging
when we speak
of a point in time
as if it were a place
we plan to visit
a vacation spot to take the children
when the rain
of an unholy war
has dropped from some century
onto our back lawns
like a coconut
on the sand
that finds its
destiny
an unavoidable consequence
of gravity
down
does blood fall
with less vivid purpose
if someone
suggests to us that falling
is not a possibility
it should consider
for an idea
© 1988 Khris
Fruits
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top
flesh
I am the hum of an insidious note
played low on a cello
behind an intrinsically
haunting melody
from a score uncovered
after hundreds of years
by a composer previously
known only to have written
marches or mazurkas
dedicated to a person whose name
is most mysteriously
neuter
© 1988 Khris
Fruits
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top