Poems by Yrik Max Valentonis : Lost in Urban Landscaping #2, #6, #46

Lost in Urban Landscaping # 2

I stutter out children’s verses in my Grandparents’ tongue
strung on genealogical trees, the curses of sins
of fathers and wars, cremated kins
of history floating in a sea of blood
angry adolescent words, small scale genocide
back turned and eyes closed
a simple relocation
& once again alone

Eating all ancestors sins to see where I went wrong
the victims’ fearful new faith
repelled my beliefs: my gods and desires died out centuries ago
where has my family gone

children in Poland play
Cossacks and Gypsies
as I join them
is the imaginary blood
we spill
my own
or on my hands

working through recurring problems forever unresolved
old wounds which never heal
the burden of keeping alive impossible dreams
does it benefit me to know how fragile life is
trying to sleep at night

childhood toys become a household shrine
striving toward the phantom cargo of
innocence imaginary past crashing amid isolated
tropical isle sand grain plantation washed into
estuary mangroves– the shipment of memoirs worshiped
and misunderstood

the museum within the mind catalogs
and shelves every minor nuance and the only wisdom
exhibited– dust

gathers together discussing the phenomenological
meaning of time, the cyclic nature which has a grown man
attempt to entertain himself
with the progression of an arachnid traveling
along a waterspout
how not to be bit by the memory
of the fall

going to Las Vegas to play high stakes Solitaire
betting my soul on the next draw
It’s kinda like when you’re drowning
and you gouge out the lifeguard’s eyes
the only land nearby is under thirty feet of water
once you get over breathing, you can stand on solid ground
the freedom of possibilities lifts you away from gravity
the situation of drifting through life keeps a phalanx
of angels stationed at every cliff, lover’s leap
a bungee jump flinging you in the air and
sling-shot back to the abyss
eventually you are left hung by your feet over a gorge
like the Sword of Damocles just waiting
for somebody to pause underneath

climbing the tree
Ragnarok approaches my mind

eternal is before
& birth is over
all remains, a short wait
& trying to return

Lost in Urban Landscaping #6

i died
the doctor said
to me
we had to reboot

No white light. I haven’t become a new man..
The route I walk is simple: hubris of complacency.
The folly of the day is that it will be like yesterday.
I knew something like this would eventually happen.

When talking to ghosts 
remember, you will
eventually be a guest 
in their home.

Frankensteined together, scarred;
no plastic surgeon can enter my mind. 
And to think, I attempted
suicide once;
questioning my maker.
Ritual scarification,
in becoming a man.

Playing a video game, I search for the
reset button in my life.
What’s the score?
I don’t know what level I’m on, facing intangible
monsters with random violent tendencies,
the monsters will stomp upon my body until
no one remembers that I had ever been programmed.

The body quilt hung on the wall
all usefulness lost.

Lost in Urban Landscaping #46

I am my parents’ son

I wrote my Grandfather’s obituary.
I wrote my Grandfather’s eulogy.
I used to write down the stories
	he would tell me.
I used to make up stories
	for him to read.
His eyesight went
	he couldn’t read.
His hearing went
	he couldn’t listen.
He died.
He was my best friend for as long as I can remember
His other friends were gone.
They either died or got tired of his shit
	He was a cranky son of a bitch
I was his best friend

He couldn’t see the numbers on the phone 
to call and apologize
Except he didn’t call even when could 
and he didn’t apologize
even when he wanted to

I lost my GrandFather, (“Dad”) and my best friend when he died.

He woke up one morning just to
let out his last breath
my Grandmother
tried to put the air back in
the paramedics
tried to put the air back in
the doctors
tried to put the air back in
defeated  ------  deflated  -----  deceased



Bio: Yrik-Max Valentonis is the author of 120 Days of Gomorrah and Cranium Theatre. His comics and writings have appeared the chapbooks: iDEAL and this is visual poetry; the anthologies: the Alien Buddha’s Block Party, The Alien Buddha Goes Pop, the Alien Buddha’s House of Horrors #3, the Alien Buddha’s Snail Mail, Animal Blessings, Beer-Battered Shrimp for Cognitive Ruminations (forthcoming), Divided Again, Heat the Grease We're Frying Up Some Poetry, the Last Time the Alien Buddha Got Sooo High, Sinbad and the Winds of Destiny, and Zombie Nation: St. Pete. He earned a BA in English & American Literature from the University of South Florida and a MFA in Poetry & Prose from Naropa University.