Coming from where I’m from
Muffled crooked needles that rattle veins under forearms
Can be heard, shattering in the back of the building.
Didn’t need to look to wheezing skies when
People where he’s from
Throw their shooting stars out at night.
The dope boys wear fitted’s, Yankee cocked back but
Loaded Jimmy Hats can be found clinging to every floor.
Just lust released from the corner when
People where she’s from
Disregard future kids dead or gone in staircases.
Faded chalked lines encasing the life of a “project” man
Can’t be found after all the commas he made
To project out of the hood
From where I’m from and into this poem
Where words, not girls, play hopscotch on his worth.
Heart Attack #1
After nine revolutions around noon’s brightest star,
My clock died.
Like dad’s boat,
I tick down to slow, unanimated sigh
Into the obscure.
Waves of hands keep me afloat
Above the ocean playground.
Like dad’s boat,
My cabin light dims in the stomach of the abyss,
A starless night.
Even the moon isn’t as lonely as I.
Two steel eels with corded tails
Charge and charge the failing battery,
Like dad’s boat,
It jumps the engine awake.
I finally cough exhaust until I whimper a roar.
“Welcome back son” the doctor says.
Obsolete
Skittish mainframe creaks and exhausts air on every step
with blurred perceptions in the window of my soul
and a hard-drive without updates.
Plenty of corrupted files to attend to
before the power button runs out of power.
No longer the man the world built me to be,
a durable man,
a sturdy man,
a working man,
a man who runs like a machine,
a man whose sometimes obscene,
a man who loves to drink,
a man without chinks,
a man who is either before or past his prime, a man who has the time,
and keep up with your time.
With memories of once was
that will never be again,
my goldfish mind restarts.
5 minutes ‘til another memory is gone.
5 minutes ‘til another memory is gone.
My ticking ticker is barely ticking
As a second hand tinkers the past.
When they open me up,
I hope they change me from the inside
So that I live to be used again.
Julio Montalvo Valentin is a semi-confessional, socially awkward poet. As cofounder of Cringe Worthy Poets Collective, he aims to make poetry accessible while engaging in deep topics with simplistic writing. He has published two chapbooks, "Don't Give up the Ship" in 2015 and "Ship Lost" in 2016, both with Cringe Worthy Press.