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Dec 2017 · 359
Surviving April
Sombro Dec 2017
Truly blessed am I for so
Might people think of me and so
I am, walking April days on springsteps
With pockets of passion sewn about

What heather bears thine poppy seed
What bee might chance into your scent
Aligned with lights that beckon away
Swallowed poles of north or south

Tunnels gape and gnash stalactites
And eyes bear the brunt of the dark
But I feel not with sight, not where I reap real bounty
With twig and hair I feel my way

And paint what promise I need to survive
Nov 2017 · 354
Asexual
Sombro Nov 2017
Looking at your eyes
Meat pushing out its package
Red licks my vision

Confronted with you
Flickering, guilty hope wanes
Greyness takes taxes

Talking around you
With the puppet interest
Candles drown in air

Cutting interest free
Float away, concrete balloon
Blame me together

Acceptance billows
What frost melted freed and kissed
I now show like ***
I am
Oct 2017 · 353
Sentence
Sombro Oct 2017
Grey whistles spoke shrilly
Of wishes never seen
As I sought a hobby that ne'er
Grovelled to'r machine
I saw those moor harpies asleep in their crow
There was a sentence lying dormant in me

Without much more than history lessons
To go forth was a hefty sentence
Making conversation pieces
Of the rocks I met along the way
And I hoped that one day I might
Be there for the rise
And fall of 10p states

To sentence them to mutiny
Silly, shrilly and ne'er hopeful
But at least not airborne, at least rooted
In hobbies gainst the machine
What a terrible lot, indeed
What a lot of terrible days

Ah, well
At the running track I feel
The sentence dormant in me
Bolt upright, turning the grey
On its head, as harpies fall
Into the earth and the stars come down for me
Sombro Oct 2017
She lines herself before me, eyes halting her gait like a rod rid of bait
Trotting her feet again in my way, not perturbed or frightened by me

The churning distress tongues speak about us on the whiteboard each week
Is finally bringing us together, her delicate neck craned ****-eyed

Tip-toe though your feet are crashing, and all pretense of slicing your eyes at me is mashing
But I play her game and look up at the ceiling, red blouse she's got on like honey

Her body pours over, spilling a little as her foot twitches too far and she jabs my leg accidentally hard
I'm forced to look over, that cunning smile done up like hair, you

I meet her, she smiles, she apologises, I smile and nod, saying it's ok, because it is for a while
But when she glides on by I'm angry that her mistake wasn't falling into my useful lap

Like wardrums, that sound, footsteps echoing deep bass-like from the ground
And soaking my skin in flannel bravery and horror at what I can see

Her walking away from me, until next week, the dancing meek kittens
Ashamed to make mouths say what eyes can only guess at

'Hello, how are you, would you like to know my name?'
'Not really for I learnt it long ago, but tell me just the same'
glances in the lecture halls
Sep 2017 · 620
B
Sombro Sep 2017
B
B-B-B-B
Bedtime now
B-B
B-B
B-Brush your teeth
B-B
B-B
Break your own rules
Stay up late
B-B
B-B
Bedtime now

B-B
Breathe
B-B
Breathe
Tomorrow you'll get back late
B-B
Broken phone
B-B
Broken
No time to fix it
B-B
Bedridden at the office
B-B
B-B
B-B
B-B



B
a little bit more like art this one, if I do say so myself. I'm trying to draw attention to the action of making the 'B' sound, the monotony of saying it over and over again, as well as the mundane and slightly sinister nature of the phrases between. This is about as close to the kind of poetry I was taught at school as I think I'm gonna get...

Edit - I just realised reading 'B' over and over again makes me question the very look of the letter 'B' - consider that part of the message.
Sep 2017 · 458
Ask for me
Sombro Sep 2017
If you should see me
Walking by
Hair shorter
Say hello
Say hello

If you should spot me
In a crowded dance
Body thinner, or thicker
Don't wonder,
Don't wonder

If we should fence eyelines
Gait slower,
Don't gut and run
Say hello
Say hello

If you should call me
I'm still here
Adorned in jewels
Ruby sun, sapphire waters
Ask for my emerald green
Emerald green
Ask for me
Sep 2017 · 318
Going
Sombro Sep 2017
A country road has spoke to me
Narrowly rolling out 'cross twitching grass
The wind, impatiently describes
The sea I will be crossing with a gust

We friends speak of longing, spoke of leaving
And leave I did, left you behind
Return made quickly, for I reeled
In much to do, though little told

And you saw in me, not your friend
But your friend's friend, a soul without
And gone was the boy you dreamed about
As friends do, at times

But not for better, nor for less
We spoke of what you'd lost
And I told what I had found
What learnt travellers on roads like mine

All the wonderous minds you meet
Shine like medals in your eyes
Each footstep placed broadly ahead
Lifts your feet that little more

Each lonely mountain conquered makes
Your loneliness more comforting and
Each piece of silver found and spent
Is a strand in your feathered coat

'What day we meet, some other day
Our paths should cross when I return
Or you, hungering on words I spoke
Came to find me and find me do

You'll see me at the riverside
A cup in hand, a hand on heart
A heart for her, and then you'll see
What medals in my eyes shine forth
As we turn to greet each other again'
Jul 2017 · 398
Rest
Sombro Jul 2017
If you know me by now
Nothing will feed me, but that
You understand what I live for
And try not to perish with

Lay me down a place to recover
A lyric in gold and green, you'll see
What a gentleman looks for
What a good lady frets of.

The way I need everything
Is in your hands, take
Care of me, I'm haggard
And lost without more adjectives,
So without my defence
Stay with me
Jul 2017 · 366
Drawe
Sombro Jul 2017
When I draw you
It's not as if I use lines
A dusty black to suggest you
My pencil doesn't touch the paper
Not really
I'm not really showing you to others
And I'm not pushing your face out
But just touching it,
Just feeling it once more
Through an extended wooden finger

I'm not here to tell you
Your nose could be prettier
Your eyes straighter
Your hair more flirtatious
I'm not here for them and
I'm barely here to draw
I just want to feel you, is
That so bad?

But you seem to lose me
As I bait graphite
And plunge it in after you
What the paper reflects, like water
You're warped and don't quite grip me
Though I'd pull you out
Like an arm to the drowning I'd be there
If you'd only let me
Gloomy, I retire for the day

I can only assume
While I leave and sleep away
You come out, like the moon at night
And stretch anxiously out
In darkness
And assured solitude
You look for me
And as I'm gone you
Are quite happy to
Put your hand out finally from what I looked in
And as I'm gone
Gently feel where I threw my pencil
Softly touch the dent in the table
Where my elbow leaned me in, desperate
You come out perhaps to trace my outline
In what I left for you
And maybe
Give sensing me some time
With an outstretched finger
And a hopeful mouth
Ready, waiting
Till we can speak again.
Jul 2017 · 384
Epitomy
Sombro Jul 2017
She had presence
Left my thoughts each day
With what hints she needed
To suggest her return
And make good of it

She had lips,
And oh, what lips
As if what she had to say
Needed the sweetest cushions
To lie on before leaving

When she had opinions
What she thought sparkled
And left me aghast
At the idea that she might change her mind
And lose herself, but she never did

She had a body
I suppose she did
And others stared at it, for
All the good it did them, I suppose
She was carved by men, but
Carved into a woman

She had a god to worship
A purpose well worth her life
And as such so did I
I had a reason in her
The world had a rhythm
The temples had pillars

I had a seed
It grew into a tulip
And I spent much money to give it to her
A brooch bought for our last smiles together
What a time
What a life she had
Jul 2017 · 350
Trophy
Sombro Jul 2017
I can almost expect
What you're worth to me
The search for something I care about
Leads me to consider some like you

To be honest, you're a bit of a plaything,
Some little dolly I can twist
To make me happy, one
Bird in the light's chorus

So the vanity in me congratulates you, you're in, that which I'm sure about
In my garden of the could've-beens
Where all is shelved and warm and no longer offensive

You can be great there, one of the best
And walk through the grass, the fountains of instinct
And meet the others who came before
As though you cared

There, you can taste the sweetness
Of pollen I scatter, brush past currents on the wind I send to ruffle your hair
*** it should be displayed,
Hear the laughter of girls in the painted summer
And appreciate me
Jun 2017 · 339
Finally
Sombro Jun 2017
If I said tomorrow
Would be a farewell, I lied
For today is a worrysome lesson
A grant of freedoms rarely wanted

But I never say goodbye forever
Just be one to remember that
Readily I'm returning
Every day, every night
Some way

I'm going to think a while
Throw what taste I have to other customs
Of my own interest, but don't forget
How I was born to see you
At my hand every day

I'm going away to think about what I want
And feel the brink with my toes
To rekindle my passion and
Rid myself of cliché

In days not yet with us
I'll know what I need
Nearer to what I expect to get
And redetermine my pathly vision
To make good of the promise I made
This is a promise to myself. I'm going away for a few days, but when I get back I'll have reestablished what I want out of life and have found the determination to work for it - when I get back. Don't despair
Jun 2017 · 360
Refounded
Sombro Jun 2017
When what is new
Stays through night's wading charm
And lasts not for fame's harm
But ignorance left here with thee
There you invite something special, something free.

Where you use what is new
And usurp the old order
You taste what lore old beggars do
And beautify lost tomes once more

When you find what was forgotten
And wrap wedded slogans on yourself
Raise slightest youth from its ignorant ways
There, thine work is well founded,
And your spirit well freed
Jun 2017 · 279
Poet
Sombro Jun 2017
A poet's not the one who shouts the loudest, no
Not the one with flowers in their hair, she who declares
Her wishes to those who cross their heart
And write about dying, listening to her
A poet's not one with a crystal ball, Tory Taurus,
Nor one who speaks to glass caverns, taking themselves in
Reflected light, a poet
Is not one who paints themselves green to be seen

Listen, and you're the poet,
Stunt light's tracing fluid in your growth room
And you're the poet
Grow to hate crowds and you're
Write in the silence of apathy and you're
Put your collapses into verses
And you're the poet
You gorgeous night petal, you
Misplaced word
Thank you.
Jun 2017 · 256
Light and dark
Sombro Jun 2017
On a painting
I know
No white will be as pure
As the page left untouched
And no smudge as dark
As that scribbled in too heavy-handedly
For a need of perfection
Jun 2017 · 294
Word
Sombro Jun 2017
I don't remember
Having an answer
For this buried
Putrid in me
Grey that I feel

I don't believe
In what's special
About me my
Melancholic attention to
All I disagree
Exists, furrowed relationships
Between cells in
My mind, exist

If I move
Towards what I'm
Afraid of, I
Can forget it's
My guiding star
And smell flowers
And talk conversations
But all I
Work for is
Still hopeless. Word.
That last word isn't meant to be like a cool way of finishing sentences, it's there to express the abandon of formal structures due to despair. Have a nice day :)
Jun 2017 · 236
Musing
Sombro Jun 2017
'I'll do anything to hold back myself'
She said, hand in the youth bottle
I tried anything to disbelieve
I thought, eyes watching the lines on my face
Jun 2017 · 264
Country-Wound Clock
Sombro Jun 2017
While the city's often pretty
It tends to exact a price
For I'm a particular person
With a particular paradise

A country-wound clock, head to toe
Is what I'll always be
A place of solace and wooly fields
Is the promised land to me

So don't be sad, for back I'll be
When months have dribbled past
But before then, I get to see
My homely place, my land at last
A silly poem I wrote for my friends to say a goodbye until I go back to the city :)
Jun 2017 · 357
Pink hand
Sombro Jun 2017
It's the strangest thing,
We can all blush over really
What we're all made to do
By the pink hand of biology

The coated sexuality
We claim and occupy readily
What strange things we tend to see
Under the pink hand of biology

Roaring flames burn angrily
When met with female gasoline
Or the match of male anatomy
According to the pink hand of biology
Jun 2017 · 251
Blues and Reds
Sombro Jun 2017
One way we unify, One way we attest to ourselves,
Making short statements with the most jagged bits of our silhouettes
In, out, back, back,
One way we speak to each other, One way we pound thoughts into
What little shivering objectivity we have left
Long shadows describing his form, as he bounces here and here

One way we bridge what art describes
Colour, inference, red courage and pink desire
With a brandish of certain shapes, certain shapes
We find ourselves a little more than people. but blushed
Bound, exalted in the puffing of our slung forward rhythms
Your breath her suspended, surrendered image

How strange, we may form
And embody the body body of our longing
Of our skin-soft hope, sweaty
Snorting Showing yourself
Dancing, a little art, a little embodiment
Of echoes in all we want within
a note on the nature of dancing
Jun 2017 · 379
Vive?
Sombro Jun 2017
I thought
Pipe-fed freedoms
Would stay at bay
Behind minds fretting needlessly
Then I was told to buy a lottery ticket

I supposed
My wasted wants
Would keep in my sleep
Beneath griefs of weakness I'd never possess
Then I discovered I'm one more normal mind

I believed
'My' graceful gods
Were lame in their frame
Below fallow understandings in flaking canvases
Then I was told what to believe

I refused
And was suddenly different
Shown the ropes of a living wage
Pariah,
Burned alive
until I was so different
I was marketable
People came to me
And suddenly I was someone
Suddenly I was understandable
Like never I was as one of dissonance within -
One of picture frames without, the label
'Vive le différence,
Ici ça meurt'.
Ok, so I google translated the French, a cardinal sin, I know, but I had no choice :(
Jun 2017 · 740
We
Sombro Jun 2017
We
We're not human
Riding on what waves
The length of our spines will flex to
Shiff ff fting focus as if from congealed lenses, blushing crimson worries

I forgot what I was meant to be told
I lost the talismans given me
Pupils leave glass classrooms
And can't be hoped for any more
Than in the grim mission they're handed, but we're not human

For we aren't sorry, not grieving the passing off of pleases
And the absence of grace
No churches, ties or classrooms push us forth no more
We're no longer human
For we forgot how to spell that word
With every ounce of our body
Jun 2017 · 307
Justification
Sombro Jun 2017
It moved before my eyes
Expression bent into exposure
Angle stretched as if to lean in and
Thank me for creating it
Chalked hair ghostly in the wind
Pencilled grin pushing charcoal cheeks to the sky
Wry and simple, cleaning my image
As if I were so like that, so obvious
To it, but I was
It moved, I saw
And all this work was warranted
Justification
Jun 2017 · 259
If
Sombro Jun 2017
If
I cannot tell you
What dark flowers grow in the shade
I can only say
What their perfume smells like
What nectar they sweat
When brought out to the light
Unable to bear
Exposure, steep reliance and responsiveness

I cannot tell you
What creatures lurk at night
Were I a child I would say
They surely bear great fangs and
**** the blood of innocents
Were I an adult I could tell you
They bore faces I knew
And hissed like air escaping
The dying kiss of goodbye
But I am not, so I cannot say
What desires take form from light of day

Were  I like you
I could say
What breadths the world asks of us
When we seek to cross it to see one we miss
I could make a guess at
What the ocean sounds like as it sputters in protest
With inconvenient waves slapping sense into our journey
But I'm not
Nor are you
If I were really focused
Perhaps I could ask
Why
But I'm not
Jun 2017 · 182
Wings
Sombro Jun 2017
To fly
Requires fear
And to topple with your empires
Till breaths are spent
And all else is freedom
Is wings
Jun 2017 · 452
Her
Sombro Jun 2017
Her
Reproaching, leaning against my attention
Her cupped body, my eyes trickle down her
Luminous hair, jealous dress against her earthenware, earnest skin
Framing what she knows like the book in her hand, her palm
Eagerly charitable, arms
Unconcerned, unlike eyes
Describing tempests I only assume she has
Found within, espoused without, our gorse lining
The blooming of social trials
And her look, glance, flitted worry
Grey eyes not surrendering the reflection
That's not there
Luminous, grotto ragazza
Is what I see, what I see
Jun 2017 · 377
And to the hermit
Sombro Jun 2017
And to you, the hermit
I give the world
Such is your domain
And your quality
If God were ever to give travellers one thing
Jun 2017 · 243
Scapes
Sombro Jun 2017
Those scapes
Rock brows with frills of yews, pines
Cloud ruffled about it like a boudoir dancer's hem
I see worlds beneath them
Under the foot time long stamped down, buried
Barrows and dungeons, first glimpses of ebony and gold
Riches piled in mountains, infant
To the soil above
And surrendered to otherworldly hand so,
Minds like mine may see them
And let daydreams grow
Like the yews and the pines
And feed the clouds
With the breath of our sighs
Each time
Jun 2017 · 258
Academy
Sombro Jun 2017
I just learnt something
And narrowed my world
Pulling corners of the table
Closer to me

I just learnt something
And my friend did not
So when he speaks, when she comments
On waste on her tongue, elastic in his breath
Wrongs don't decompose and I don't forget the smell
Error, errors in their legend
And a narrower world with less space to breathe

I learnt something today
And burnt one wick of wonder,
And now all I have
Is a certainty
Ahead of an error
As concrete ink
On a page lies ponderous
And I feel my way fall lower
I learnt something
Jun 2017 · 275
Boy
Sombro Jun 2017
Boy
His red shirt lingered on him
Drawn across his back, casual as he liked
In a sense his dark jeans and red shoes,
Gently tossed his image to my eyes
Where he lay in my imagination, etched into a rhythm that stayed still
Peaked features pointed in all directions, ears
Perked to listen, eyes
Sharp and facing anywhere but me, face
It, his hair seemed to say, we're not meant for each other
With a casual wave of a parting

But I kept staring, though my attention almost slipped
And I regretted it, though not the tale he threatened to tell,
But the sense he could have said more
Never moving from his corner
With red drawn about him,
Like a poisonous warning to all
Who might see more
Led me to such feeling.
No more.
Jun 2017 · 354
Them
Sombro Jun 2017
There's nothing we could have said
No reason to arm ourselves with
No common purpose to bleed them dry, we
Couldn't call them wrong, for that which
We know by the word has meaning only in sensitive minds.
There was no way to tell them
They hurt us, for they knew and
No way to push them back for
Rage was on their side, fear
Ignorance and the gnawing of doubt a terrible wealth of battle for them and
A cotton shield for us, such knowledge cushioning only the shears
We could not stop them with the knowledge that we were right
With the hope of forgetting what tomorrow seemed certain,
They were poised to defend
What little they saw through red lenses what
Crimes they saw committed in the name of justice
Our thorn bush burnt out and
Our knowledge of fresh kindling in seeds of the morrow
Was no use to us, we
Could not stop them.
A comment on all the hatred and ignorance that has repeatedly shown itself - horrible awful departures from what know is right because only the just listen and the just are few
May 2017 · 229
Tracks
Sombro May 2017
Don't trust trains
They take you places, shuffling
Across steel paths cut for them
And take you for the pleasure of places
With  no thought of the coming back,
Not of home

Don't trust trains
They sprinkle your sense of home
Across a wilderness of bright faces
With a sense of shallow humour, dark as
You'll never meet them again, like all
Upon rare returns all has changed, trains have swept all on, flash
Don't trust trains

Don't step to the pedastal, platform
Lest you've been warned a thousand times and
Disregarded every word
For the churning of wheels, you
Have laughed with a wheeze at the choke of belonging
And wished for more, I
Wish not to see you on the train

For just one time, if you are ready
To love and lose me
I'm here, bitterly tossed
At your sweet lap to take some hours of each other
Sprinkled on our lips like momentary dew
Until we evaporate and leave only the salt of loss
Adding what we can to life, no
Unless you really are ready for that
Never trust trains
I'm travelling on a train! A poem about making friends while travelling and losing them just after they become precious to you, after they're made indispensible, it's sad, but you can love and lose and feel happy for it, I find
May 2017 · 271
Down the dawn road
Sombro May 2017
Take me on a little trip
Down the dawn road
Hold my hand gentle, softly
Beckoning with sparks in your eyes
And all familiar things
Down the dawn road...

Laugh with me a moment,
Sat by a road we know not the name or direction of
Sugary pointless nothing
Sip vitamin C with me, vital nature
Pointlessly, aimlessly
Shroud us in each other

And complete that tapestry begun together, don't think
Like before, certain of the second time, we're
Not going to meet again, never forever friends
Feel my hand and hold my heart
Squeeze it tightly, as I yours will
And let's walk together
Down the dawn road
A poem about memories and friends made and lost
May 2017 · 977
Poppies
Sombro May 2017
Pretty poppies
And burnt earth for horizons
Crackling savage against the cool blue
That burns you without and tightens within
Endless green and poppies

I wish I spoke like you,
In red earth, pebbles spilling from my grin
Able to lie as much as gabble
And taste the impatient air
The scent of expectant poppies

Hurriedly, I'd rush back there
And feel the emptiness apart from me again,
That kind of emptiness that lends itself to
An adventure in you
And blushes
Like poppies blush
In turbulent valleys of burnt dirt
May 2017 · 247
To know
Sombro May 2017
I wouldn't call this an anniversary,
But what I have of the old you
Resurged today, and I barely knew its creases,
Barely knew where to buckle when it looked at me
So I suppose that's a waystone, a twist in my gut worth mentioning...
I remember you -

I remember when you came downstairs, naked
And looked at me with bloodshot eyes
Shuffling your swollen feet,
Dripping

I remember when you begged her to come home, touching a clammy hand to my face
Not knowing I wasn't her, but
I was so close to leaving

I recall, when I said I wouldn't care if you died
And thought of what your legacy would be, distant
Shufflings of bald wax and steam
Breathed through a desperate engine
Firing wrong, chugging wrong, wrong
I remember you.
..

Just

But guess what, I know you now,
I know what a glint in your eye means
I know, not remember you tell me you love me
Every day
And I answer back, hesitant
Because I fear
Memory doesn't sleep so well under soil
As feelings, so carefully buried
And locked away
Only sprout stems and
Bloom, without my knowing
Without my permission,
But saving what life left me    anyway

I know you now.
May 2017 · 324
Twist
Sombro May 2017
Like a tap, cold and misshapen
You can twist me and watch words come out
Mixed in with the tears, fluoride confessions,
Equally dangerous in quantity
As bitter I'm pushed
To tell you I never wished to speak
To tell you I'm alone
That I long lost what you were
In cramped days

I feel sick
Not learning, not learning
And dashing my mind against you
Tearing myself up
And pouring out like
Feral confessions

Turn me off, stop me speaking
For only your eyes
Have the strength to twist me up inside
And pour me out
Like a tap
May 2017 · 598
Digital
Sombro May 2017
Do lady pieces dream electric dreams?
Do the men they chase cast electric shadows, while
They glance? Do they
Expect what they look into, shed longing
Like snakeskin and decide
They're not in love any more?
What's a life
When boiled down to a greeting,
And thinned out in the time spent together?
What flavour do her lips bring up?
Bitter desire? Electric dreams?
May 2017 · 332
Circus
Sombro May 2017
Whoop, wow, careful now
Don't slip don't fall
Don't break into a misty skip
While dull as ditchwater sirens call

Keep your balance, toe the cord
You have stolen someone's sorrow,
Safety nets long rotted away
From expecting gone what's here tomorrow

But think with what grace you have left
And don your jester cap once more
What spasmic leaps you made, what fun
You got to see while on the saw

Up and down and Romeo
You capsuled dose of fun, you joy
Stop leaping over fields of mould
Stop making endurance your toy

I'll crack the whip and flair your shackles,
Shiver, shake, for soon you'll see
A spirit of pain has blown through with the wind,
But pass it shall, as easily
May 2017 · 522
Skeletal
Sombro May 2017
I forgot when I
Felt success warm my pallet, tickle my spine,
Familiar lover, I
Forgot your touch, and now
Charged with desire for you, you are absent
Like so many flames in winter, or
Hoary kisses on sweltering skin, what contrasts, my prayers
Repeating murmurs I heard lost birds bring
Of far off summers
And tingles on my spine came back
As only the tang of needles
Gritty blood, gritty residue,
Defeat, vengeance, my new Summer and Winter,
Tears my new spring rain,
Despair what was a growing pain
Has now set roots, and I
Forgot success' name
May 2017 · 284
Kneel
Sombro May 2017
Jokes aside, what we're waiting for,
Is a penny promise, so cheap to take
And for you to stop ignoring us,

All jigs downstairs, falling
From my stilness
Ah, I remember
What you told me

Pounds of likeness, oozing from your
Oaths
I just remembered
We have somewhere else to be

Paradise
May 2017 · 316
Smithy
Sombro May 2017
What's a ferrous person
Doing here, they asked, those bars of gold
Clutching iron filings as if seeking to squeeze some life into them
Some heat
I clenched my teeth,
Furious

Snobbish, looking down on baser metals,
Mixing only with the company of diamonds
I pulled no punches, held my fists
Red while they jeered
The cracks of ore in my coat
Furious

I bandied through their
Glittering parting like oil and water,
Sliding off me like I wished their wit might,
White hot and flaming, cracking brittle,
Fragile filings
Melting furious

Uncontrollably smelted
Hammered by their eyes
Clenched by their sneers
And burned, scalded, reshaped, reheated
Abused
Scarlet-whipped and chamber fitted

A drill, to reform to a drill,
Aimed at
Softer metals, I
Turn on them, they
Shy away, anxious not to mix
With baser metals, throwing
Iron filings to the floor,
To the earth
Where gold wishes it could be

My jewelry
A bit aggressive, this one, but I'm stressed :)
May 2017 · 237
What Lasts
Sombro May 2017
I'm an ounce of honesty waiting in the night
Council houses, broken bricks
Muddy boots and tight ribbons
So tight, so far out here,

I'm a kind of filth that reads
And looks you dead in the eye
Beatings, belts, rooms with no air
My, my my creation, perfect
Muddy rooms in broken council houses

I'm a rocking chair
Seizing up
Tying you in blue ribbon
Seeing if you know what's coming,
Broken
Beaten
Council houses
Sombro May 2017
It's at times like these,
that I remember the sound of a piano,
skin crumpled within an armchair,
arms wrapped like a present,
and two burning river stones here to hear stories,
It's at these dark times I remember that...

when all was calm,
and time did not stand still, but sat with me, deflated in the silence,
Looking into the fire, we shared deeply,
hoping homely things
would come to us,

so still, so slow, as if we were never born to move,
but sit and watch without thinking,
I remember those nights when all else broke down,
and sat quietly with me watching twigs crackle,
Describing a night solemn
and thick with temptation to sleep, but
somehow never managing it...

but to tiptoe through the thoughts we already had...

I remember that time
When the moon peered in,
anxious to share,
unable to dazzle us,
accepting second place beside the fire
and singing, if silver light could sing,
and I swear I heard it, constantly serene
Hum an eerie silver tune...

hmmmmmmmmm, lightly, haaaaaaaaa...

Even dust does not venture through this space,
gathering around the dull armchair
in every seam listening quietly,
listening peacefully,
As thoughts lap the shores of unconsciousness,
and slowly descend into a dark sleep,
Where even the moonlight cannot reach me
and no troubles can disturb me...

yes, I remember
I quite like this one, a calm thoughtful mood took over me. I like to think when I have nothing to rush me. It's at times like these I wish for nights like those the most
May 2017 · 448
Wandsworth
Sombro May 2017
I'm fond of thinking of
Little towns I never knew more of
Than a name, a blooming of meaning
For someone else

Wandsworth, for example
Where is that?
What root colour does its name bring up
Through ink and rising yeast of
Mucky history, what
Legends roam there, who tells the stories in
Such a place?

My questions lie in courtesy
For I expect no wonders from a place such as Wandsworth
Nor would I expect my own beginnings
To tingle much whiskers
But I know

Every corner and straight of my hometown
Every cranny and nook of where I'm from
Every thought of deflated or ardent home grown hope which springs
From every river I know my place
And someone knows Wandsworth

Some lover is leaving there now
Some legend is lacking a purpose there
Some houses are filled with public displays
Of memories made, of remembrances paid

Who calls that place home?
I know they're out there,
Thinking of something
And looking up hoping
Perhaps writing of me
As I ponder what life read to them

And had me read back
Curious love for knowing of others
And the sleep which follows
To forgetting such things
Forever
The town itself is of no significance, I just needed a name I liked to ponder the fact that people out there are living completely different lives to me. Makes for musings, I think
May 2017 · 918
Waves to the Sea
Sombro May 2017
Our wooden frame crawls on tendrils
Weeds soaked in seawater soaked in city muck
Grit shuffles into water, disturbed by our passing,
The canal boat slinks on wooden planks and pedestals,
Wicked bears a traditional name

Ice breakers and thought takers,
Our narrow hull rests on its corals
Shuffled into dock
By the bay leaves, short and smooth,
Which flinch and blanche
Feeling their way apart from us
As our engine leaks

No indeed, our boat is shaped like tree trunks,
Lashed together with fickle plastic rope
That bleeds earthly vitamins from the bowels of exploited grass seed
And stewed history, burnt alive within

What I feel is comfort,
But I know the fish below me
Are choking, feeding on
What arsenic they can reach to
Escape the slick of molten carelessness
As we imitate the seabirds that
Come in to roost
And hurt nothing.

I don't think
We managed more than damage,
But HELL


I had fun doing it,
As long as tomorrow comes,
Ours is fine

?
This poem turned into an environmental one - no matter how much we try to adapt our lifestyles to nature, we're always doing damage
May 2017 · 844
Post Boom-Town Economics
Sombro May 2017
How to start a conversation?
That's the question, isn't it?
Don't you dare try to tell me I forgot
What niceties bear the *****  of tightness
I'm here, aren't I?

So how are you? insipid
So where were you? cutthroat
So what can I call you murderer
Since you left?

I heard once
You broke formation, and told the wave of indifference you'd call me...
Where was that, that
Stuttering star sign
Supposed to make you divine for me?

The truth is I'm lonely,
But not worn, like
So many rocks in the ocean,
I think I prefer the company of schools of fish
And dark things from the sea
Than... Well
You know

But how to end a conversation?
You're the best at ending things.
Lonely? What's to be alone?
Better, you said it yourself,
Better than being apart.
A poem about meeting old friends, old partners and finding awkward conversation can't end too quickly. Time spent talking to such people is considered quite critically, I find, as if you're asking whether it's really worth it, despite the old value of the talk - that's where I got economics from :)
May 2017 · 333
Erosion
Sombro May 2017
Only a clenched burden can bear my face today,
I mellow with billowing sinews, flexing
As a dove who learnt to fly in muck
Grin

But the week brings the strong
The forceful losers who taste a candied concept
Of decency, directed to strange tests
Fight

As defended hopes take faces snarling at the blistered skin
Turned raw to the winds my indignant child blows
I can't help but feel forgotten a little
Puff

But it matters not - as sweat from malice brings out the best in me
I'll strive and forget the reluctance
I felt while crawling here
Success

Let's just hope, when mirages whisper the past to me
I **** an ear and still know
My voice among the desert breezes
Forgive
Describing trials of endurance and losing yourself to harsh forces, I'd like to think I stayed the same once they are over
May 2017 · 1.0k
Tipsy
Sombro May 2017
A sense of purple, royal inadequacy
Siezes me as I gloss truthly spirits
And invent what they tell me to feel,
Pretty woman, pretty thing
Primitive lonely, primitive thing
Don't look into my skull, for
I'm thinking what they pay me for

But lovely is the feeling
That saviours walk on educated steps
Frowns draw well wrought lines of ponder
Ditches of leprosy dug by the brain,

Pariah, well maybe, well just to myself
What it is I'd forgotten what wishes I work with
I'm leaving a nutshell and entering an essay
Donning a thinking cap woven in led

So there, I wrote something, and it came out coherent
Though I've no idea what it said,
My ramblings lost purpose and for that their quest,
But they buy me a future, and for that
I'm happy
Or perhaps I'm easily *lead
A poem about university and thinking like an academic. Haven't written something in ages. How's my favourite site?
Feb 2017 · 317
I am Dyspraxic.
Sombro Feb 2017
I cringe like coiled springs
Taste ways of knowing only fogs let me see
I binge on water
And find it turns my stomach

Sitting at a table,
I write, I draw, I scratch ink into my patience
Scratch, scratch
I hear the radio, like voices biting on my earlobes
Laugh, laugh
Oh must make them stop

My frustration buckles in my fist,
Holds tight, hot coals I clutch and wrestle
My burnt palm lets them free
Tumbling to the floor and scorching my senses.

Work comes back, lashing forked tongues like leather
My skin, they invade my skin
And sink into pores like second homes,
I can't ignore them.

People can't know what it's like
To have someone ask you a question and walk away with your ears
To hug you and walk away with your attention
TO SLIDE INTO YOUR BRAIN LIKE A SHIP BREAKING ICE
And leave you falling apart.

What I ask
Is a world simply softly
Is a world organised to what I need
Simply.
What I need
Is to stop feeling tomorrow
Will be better
When I get so angry I want to scream
But can't find the words
Because I've been told I lost them.

It's a struggle, reading really.
Had a tough day
Jan 2017 · 536
Precious
Sombro Jan 2017
I knew a woman
Trinket to little pieces
Puzzles making frowns and faces
She lay, lay down blankets and tablespoons
For a man who looked at her
With a quivering, ivory eye

She grew to him,
Shockingly a bud meeting rain
Thirsty for him
Leaving what she thought she was
Behind for a man like him
And she told me
She had no idea what he was
Behind closed garage doors

He bled a little every day, she said
Till there was nothing left
He burned away his wick
And hung, string-like from a beam
Swaying in a wind she never knew she blew
She left herself in his arms

Now she doesn't smile the same
I know, though I met her
Long after
Now she doesn't sleep, but sedates
Now she walks on blades of glass
But so kind
So good
She never fell like he did

I never think I knew her
Like she was
As what she was just cries
But what she built
Talks to me
Lets me know there are people who keep going
Through her smile
She lets me know
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