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1.6k · Feb 2014
butterflies and stamps
david badgerow Feb 2014
i am a house with a door
a lighthouse with sand around it
where a man takes a **** at night
away from his friends

i am a cold accidental touch
of the false pinky finger of
a janitor at work at a high school

i am burned to death in my apartment
flipped out on ***** coke
sold to me by a ****** salesman in
an envelope marked "Kotex $$"

i am disappearing into roots
a rusted out minivan in a trailer park yard
that no one drives
filled with fast food bags and baseballs

i am a glimpse into a  lifespan
but only the part of the road that you can see
from your apartment building

i am an adventure
a warm wet raindrop
landing on your face
as you walk out of the door
onto your lawn in springtime

i am not a voice or an expression
like the quiet tattoo of a boat
you keep hidden in your brassiere

i am the cool dry pillow that you dream into
i collect butterflies and stamps
and old shoes from unconscious men
in the alleyways behind bars

and that's how i've decided to make a living
1.6k · Nov 2013
Lured, Now
david badgerow Nov 2013
Lured
by unspeakable, ineluctable gravity
Kisses, vehement, and by no means our first,
speak of experience, a wordless wisdom that now gives flight to innocence,
unprecedented familiarity among two who have spoken so little
a gentle tug of war between souls, transcending feeble sensation, arriving at conversation
Solid, fervid, with perfection of cadence – a meter aberrant, fantastic, unimpeded by numerical confines

Now
a limitless tickling between two souls
like courting doves
And the smoke in your mouth became sweet,
your saliva a quenching potion of forgetfulness,
And at this moment neither past nor future have ever existed,
There is only this delicious wine of our lips and the nonsensical *******
of two sipping souls.
1.6k · Aug 2012
shake-shaking
david badgerow Aug 2012
in a dream that i can't shake
she was standing by a fence post, shaking
all alone with tears in her eyes
with the dawn on her breast and lips
and the stains from my kisses there too

then i turned to the east
and look myself in the face
i am the sun and i am tired
i haven't slept in days
because there are
better things to do
in bed
when i'm with
her.
1.6k · Oct 2013
Blvd
david badgerow Oct 2013
parked like a limping jalopy on an amputee park bench.
watching young soft girls sell hard against the boulevard
so they can do smack out back with the white trash boys
who size me up.
hats crooked and backward like their mothers teeth and their own beliefs.
slouching and leaning in their stride like two drunken penguins
shuffling home from the ice bar, fighting over fish sticks--no real threat to any one but themselves.
their drawn out skinny arms with bad backs and barroom tattoos already turning blue.
this is our future--or part of it.
while a young couple breezes by both with their noses buried in iphones.
oblivious to anything outside their happy little bubble.
1.6k · Jun 2015
achilles
david badgerow Jun 2015
zappa blows cartoon music
out of a cerulean blue kazoo
in my kitchen while i
eat greasy cold pizza
out of a crusty cardboard box
& marcus the kitten gnaws
on my sock ankle achilles
& it's in moments like this
that i'm a-ok with being alone
my **** could stay soft for the
rest of my life no problemo
i'm beautiful alone i tell myself
out loud & marcus stops chewing
acts like he understands me
but i know it's only
temporary this feeling of adequacy
& full-time fulfillment tomorrow
i'll wake up cold & lonely again
& pining for smooth thighs
& butterflies
& a girl whose best friend committed suicide
i post little things like this to my facebook all the time, usually saving more serious efforts for hellopoetry, but i liked this one enough to make it crossover.
1.6k · Jun 2012
optimus prime towel
david badgerow Jun 2012
the morning sun
was hot and i awoke suffocating
inside an oven
of a tent
on a beach
naked

everything i owned
was in a bag in the backseat
of your car
with your *******
quickly driving
away

i found your
little brother's optimus prime towel
beneath me
and decided to
wander into the
world

and i found
my cellphone and car keys
and an unsmoked cigarette
on the sidewalk
but you stole my
dignity
1.5k · Oct 2011
Caged Bird
david badgerow Oct 2011
I will be your caged bird.
I will sing to you in sunshine.
You can put me in my place,
I won't take up much space,
and I'll only say words
you teach me, that's fine

I will be your caged bird.
I will sing to you in rain.
You can try and cover up my squawk
but you must still hear me talk
and I only try to heal all of your pain.

I will be your caged bird.
I will sing to you in laughter.
You can lay down newspapers
and I'll be your soothsayer,
but tell me now, with a word,
should I whistle like this,
or faster?

I will be your caged bird.
I will sing to you in silence.
You can treat me like a pantomime,
pretend that I'm still here
and doing just fine,
and still I won't come to you with violence.
1.5k · Oct 2015
something feels different
david badgerow Oct 2015
this time something feels different

this time i'm an angry toucan spitting eager saliva & i want you to rip my plastic beak off & whisper secrets into my slippery face

this time i'm an open book & i want you to place your fingertips on my soft worn pages & read me between the lines forever

i want you to be a magnifying glass mirror to show me my inconsistencies made of stretched wool fibers and hemp and wood held together by shiny clots of ink oil and glue

this time i'm an open door numb with apprehension & i want you to surge into the threshold of my bare bones like a molecular flash flood burglary polishing my darkest stained corners with spiraling velocity

this time i'm an oak sapling planted in your backyard spinning & dazzling in the sunlight & i want you to water me daily so i can grow
with you to unbelievable heights & suddenly sprout flowers from my sinewy arms

this time i'm a babbling brook cascading over slick brown rocks on a lush hillside & i want you to stir the moon like the wind & listen appreciate my serene grace

because this time i need someone whose lips
can be a tissue to the tears on my soft cheeks
before they turn cold & calloused

i need someone to sink their teeth into my
shoulders & collarbone to wake me
from this superfluous daydream

i need someone who beds naturally
into the ribcage nest of my plaid flannel shirt

i need someone who will dance with me
across an empty landscape into
something bigger & deeper
than just the starless sky above us

i need someone who wants to learn
the overlapping language of my eyes & hands

someone who will lounge with me
like an odalisque on the birth-bed of aphrodite
drenched in the shivers of the moon canopy

someone who can blur the lines
between my cerebrum & theirs
so that we become a stitched together
quilt of soft memories in our imagination

someone who has been in a trainwreck before
& knows precisely where to kiss
to make it all better
1.5k · Oct 2011
The Empties of the Week
david badgerow Oct 2011
the empties
of the week
hold guard over my room.
they stand
like brave sentinels
and we watch the sun rise together.
bottles, cans, flasks, drams
these are my friends,
the empties
of the week.
sunlight burns
off of tinted brown glass
and i am alone,
except these are my friends,
the empties
of the week.

Pabst (7)
Coors (4)
Magic Hat (12)
Sierra Nevada (6)
Heineken (8)

Jack Daniel's (3)
Tanqueray (2)
Jameson (6)
Crown Royal (2)
Wild Turkey (5)
1.5k · Dec 2011
looking for a pencil
david badgerow Dec 2011
i seem to have lost my number
can you replace it with
yours?

i seem to have lost my mind
somewhere in your sofa cushions
can i stay here for weeks
not really looking for it?

i seem to have lost my pencil
can i watch you for hours
so that my mind creates a stencil?

i seem to have lost my keys
are they with your blood red sweater
or somewhere underneath
something secret
something wetter?

i seemed to have lost something dear to me
can i look for it
with you near to me, lying down
with you on top on me?

i seem to have lost my wallet
i think you might have swallowed it
can i search with my tongue
while you **** me off
for fun?

i seem to have lost three quarters
somewhere
in your memory foam
i need them for the bus ride
home--alone
but i'd rather
just
sit right here
and


get ******.
1.5k · Nov 2011
mold you a statue
david badgerow Nov 2011
i press my shoulder against a cool brick wall.
the birds are screaming at the sun
rodents hide in the thick grass and
burrow deep in the cool soft ground.
i will find a safe place to bury goals
and innocence, bad ideas
a new deck of cards
and a bottle of something.
i will mold you a statue of my kiss.
so beautiful it will cement your feet to the ground
so silent, all you'll hear is sound.
all i have in my pocket is a swiss army knife
half a pack of cigarettes
and a folded paper bird.
1.5k · Feb 2014
white trash beat down
david badgerow Feb 2014
i remember the taste of my own blood
fondly
i remember my broken nose bone fellating my own
grey brain-mush
and how i could smell my own
ocular nerves
and my scattered smile
like a third period hockey player eating
a puck
and glancing at his mother in the crowd
i remember a moment suffering in the opposite of blindness,
and a canadian wearing a sombrero and chinos holding a guitar
i remember high testosterone levels
and blurred vision
i remember what knuckles taste like
and how bone feels against bone

but he remembers it too
he remembers how concrete tastes
and how embarrassment runs
like blood to the head of a man hanging by his feet
he knows the conclusion of concussion and
how much a hospital visit for a broken arm costs.
1.5k · Nov 2011
Kitchenette
david badgerow Nov 2011
her kitchenette
smelled like lust
and strawberries
and sweat

her hair
smelled like trust
and coconuts
and summer air

her hands
looked like daisies
and beaches
and starfish in the sand

her lips
tasted like red wine
and marshmellows
and secrets, slowly slipped

her eyes
looked like diamonds
and oceans
and wide open skies

her love
felt like pennies
and apples
and a beautiful white dove
1.5k · Nov 2011
Back When
david badgerow Nov 2011
Back in nineteen
eighty-five when we
had a turkey for president
and all that jive
Back then
I had a blue duece coupe
and a flat in Brooklyn
I was a low-life **** daddy
and you were a classy ****** then
Back when
you had a **** little bobbed haircut
and a social addiction to black tar ******
a best friend named China White
and a body that was outta sight
Back when
you introduced me
to your sister
and she crushed me
from the start
and I ****** her on our wedding day
and it broke your little heart.
david badgerow Mar 2017
as honeysuckle grows tight on the fence
& the scent of jasmine burns in my nose
i can hear a child's laughter on the hills
& watch your cheeks burn hotter than the sun
when you tell me about your **** addict mother

how she lived in the econo-lodge dumpster for a while
painting cryptic symbols & mountain landscapes
on the outside walls still wearing the unsteady boots
she's had since her life in colorado
but she was scared of someone checking in it
while she slept so she didn't sleep
instead she conversed with the wimpering wind
& used the toy telescope she stole from your baby brother
to sing to the stars so she didn't feel so ******* alone

last summer you say she camped in the graveyard
behind the methodist church in town & spray-painted
the headstones as they climbed up the hill together
because she harbors too much pride to be
just another tweaker with her hand out

she's on guard against wickedness at all times & no longer
sells her love to method-acting men who don't love her at all
but she doesn't wear ******* anymore either because
her last pair were so soiled with *** she burnt them
in effigy on their last night of action

you say you miss her
& wish she'd get sober
but she's never been sober
& that's why your brother
was born with a stutter

she has warrants for her arrest in two counties
& surrounds herself with withering flowers because
she feels dead inside already
when she sinks her face into
the stem of the bulb & inhales she thinks
she is the one thing in the galaxy
god doesn't have his finger in
her stomach churns with hunger
flies hover around her & light on her
big as black crows resting on a dead tree

you say you haven't heard about her in
going on a month & ask me if i think
she's still alive
i say i saw her just last week
i was a pensive beetle perched on the wainscoating
she was stumbling out of a parked car at dawn
to take a wilderness **** down by the river

her smile is no longer a pretty thing i noticed
as she crouched to release the stream of early morning
maple syrup ***** knocking on the biological door
she said she's slept in her bedroom-car
so many consecutive nights that she distrusts houses
says she's scared of walls &
****** outside so many mornings after
that she's terrified of bathrooms
claims an allergy to porcelain
she even feigns an aversion to trains but
we've all seen the tracks on her arms
& the pits in her cheeks like she
sleeps draped across the railroad
at night tempting the cycloptic executioner

but she doesn't sleep at all &
she doesn't dream of you or your brothers or
of the days when she lived in a house
her tattoos have all become crude wax crayon
depictions of sunflower blossoms
needle drags & match strikes
she wraps & braids her hair with gnarled fingers
& bottle caps she finds on the riverbank
she bathes in hysteria at midnight
& washes her swollen eyelids each morning with dew
she fights paranoia with the ghosts in her throat
& stupor with stones from the dark bottom of the river
she is a frail bag of muscular potential living
in a finger-painted 97 pontiac sunfire with
a splintered patchwork windshield
& she is never coming back to love you
1.5k · Nov 2011
Lump
david badgerow Nov 2011
i've scribbled my lies onto
napkin dispensers and
on bus stop windows
hoping their distorted reflection
would resemble someone i recognize

i'm sitting here between
train tracks between
reasons to live

the lump in my throat consists of
a tired shoelace
a broken wavelength
a bottlecap
a cigarette ****
a brick of charcoal
a shard of stained glass
1.5k · Nov 2011
Grenade
david badgerow Nov 2011
I had a dream last night
You were a bird
and I was flight
You were a plane
and I was Orville and Wilbur Wright

I had a dream last night
I was a helicopter
and you were the hot soft sand
I was taking heavy enemy fire
And I came crashing down to hold your hand.

I had a dream last night
You were a grenade
and I was my legs
Now I am a torso
confined to a wheelchair
You blew me to pieces and didn't seem to care.
1.5k · Oct 2011
One More
david badgerow Oct 2011
i saw this kid today
he said his name was george
he was not driving or walking
instead he rode a skateboard
he had eyes just like venom
and a face just like a boar
he said his dad had just stopped drinking
but his mother's still a *****
he asked if i had a warm dry place
that he could call a floor
his shirt was violent and wild
i guess you'd call him poor
but i invited him up the steps
i hailed him through the door
and that's all that i can think of yet
so i cannot write anymore
some reason i am rhyming today
so i thought i'd rhyme one more
1.5k · Oct 2011
Motor Like an Elevator
david badgerow Oct 2011
I am an idiot child
walking down an abandoned railroad track
with an eye of bewilderment and
a mouth full of gibberish.

I am a clumsy acrobat
swinging aimlessly from the ceiling
with a coat on my back doused in gasoline.

I am a ***** escavator
with two fists full of sand and
a motor like an elevator.

I am on drunken autopilot
with no hands on the wheel
and my head sloshing vilolently in the sky.

I am the keeper of a hollowed-out heart
with darkness in the center and
plenty of room for spare car parts.

I am the staggering contradiction
of the paralyzed adventurist,
too sick to cry for help and
too scared to defend myself.
1.5k · Dec 2011
fold in the universe
david badgerow Dec 2011
tonight, i am far too weak to become a star
i am a drunken river, all is possible until i reach another life
i am a weeping madman on the creeping sidewalks of solitude
i make secret deals with buddha in the desert
we will find the temples on neptune
with flaming radars and silvery kisses
we will battle with this massive electric dream and
undoubtedly become monsters with nowhere to lay our heads

my feet are washed with death
my breath is tinged in ecstacy
i am naked without identity
i am the black felt tip
of a pen dancing
across white paper
i should be left alone

there is a fold in the universe
surrounded by millions of suns
and diamond gold and mercurial fire
we can dance and sing and live in it
without ourselves
without money
money made of nothing
bellowing over eternity
money made of failure

pure thought
written on paper warheads
being fired off
at the moon

i will ***** and become
the hidden son of whitman
i scream
i starve
i will walk through fire
and be reduced to white powder
i will leave jet plane streaks in the sky
i will be remembered bliss on your lips
you will see the mediterranean rainbow
hear the seagull flying over dolphins screaming
and i will swim through the atlantic sun and
weep for this antiquity
1.5k · May 2012
6 day old pavement
david badgerow May 2012
today i'm feeling like a dead dog
on six day old
august pavement.
no lovers swarm around me
to remember their spontaneous moment.
only flies.
who among you will kiss
my fever-blistered lips?
my bloated stomach wretches
for the comfort of the
old green dumspter
i called my house,
so homesick am i.
i'm so sick of hope and
trust, and no sun has ever
shown me favor without
burning me first.
i'm wearing the best of
my saturday night special,
the old duck sauce t-shirt,
unraveled shorts, sandals.
i wear a culture-shocked heart
on my sleeve so everyone
can see i'm naive.
1.4k · Oct 2011
hungover
david badgerow Oct 2011
I was going to write today
But this morning I felt like ****
My stomach was all knotted up
And the pounding in my head wouldn't quit.

I saw your face and it made me sick
So I said
"**** this"
And went back to bed.
1.4k · Oct 2011
Shit-Talker
david badgerow Oct 2011
I'm not trying to be
A ****-talker
Or ****-starter
But I'm also not
A side-stepper
And what what I really want to know is
Why there are so many god-awful poets on this site?
Who gave you the right?
What idiot told you that you could write?
This one might ruffle a few feathers.
1.4k · Jan 2016
on writing (hemingway)
david badgerow Jan 2016
write at midnight. edit in the morning.
write on a mountain. edit on a beach.
write inside a dream. edit & exist in reality.
write in a fever pitch as starlight kisses your cheekbones.
edit in the cold dawn light without excuses.
write loudly with Bjork screaming into the curtains.
edit in silence.

write as the clouds gather around the gibbous moon.
edit as the sun crests the hill & burns away the fog.
write inside, cozy under a blanket.
edit naked, cold on the front porch.
write asking questions.
edit demanding answers.

write blindfolded with your fingers waltzing across the qwerty.
edit bespectacled or with a monocle.
write like a mass ******. edit like a suicide.
or better yet
write like a homicide. edit like a detective.

write toward the open sky with your legs outstretched before you.
edit facing a clean white wall with your knees against your chest.
write because you are innocent. edit because you are guilty.
write during a fit of hyperventilation.
edit during mammoth exhalation.
write with complexity. edit into simplicity.

write, as Hemingway did, drunk.
edit, not sober, but hungover.
see your flaws in the sharp mirror of a headache.

write during sloppy explosion. edit during precise implosion.
write with your head in the clouds gnawing at the cumulus.
edit with your feet firmly planted in the ground.
write during violent collision.
edit during calm separation.

write with a pencil on soggy paper in a hot shower.
edit with a red pen sitting in tepid murky bathwater.
write among raucous laughter & banging skillets.
edit in secret while the kids are asleep.
write like a sadomasochist.
edit like a psychiatrist.

write while running on your tip-toes.
edit while lying flat on your back.
write in several languages with abandon.
edit beside a translator dictionary.
write as you are engulfed in fire.
edit with an extinguisher.

write with careless fluidity.
edit without assistance from amphetamine or coffee.
write with a full bladder,
standing up,
jitterbugging,
squeezing the tip of your *****
closed--urgently
squirm & trickle
your ideas onto
the porcelain page.
expanded thoughts on the misquoted author's advice.
1.4k · Nov 2011
call me
david badgerow Nov 2011
i have tattoos
i have stained my skin
with ink.

call me a young dumb kid stupid *******
unintelligent imbecile

artist.

idon'tgiveafuckwhatyouthink
1.4k · Jan 2014
heard a shot
david badgerow Jan 2014
shot of whiskey
i shot my mouth off at a bible salesman
shot a man with a glass eye on a street corner
he shot me a mean streak
shot out a candy cane window
a king in a powder blue sedan shot down the turnpike
never had a shot with her in a red flannel shirt
shot a broke down dog at a fire hydrant in birmingham
he shot out of a lawn mower
shot towards some handshaking stranger
shot down some train tracks
shadows shot with arms upraised
being shot at by electric trains
i shot a mirror at the stars
they shot back with a voiceless gesture
she shot right through my heart
her hair shot gold to kingdom come
1.4k · Dec 2014
heaven's blue sea
david badgerow Dec 2014
indigo dusk spreads across
inexhaustible country sky
torn wet clouds stretched blue at twilight
a big-chested wind comes howling off the lake
dissecting our immortal kiss
as the pink sun meets her planet-doom
leaking on my balcony like a falling curtain
blessed with an affinity for moonlight
lingering drinking pale wine
we took baths in lukewarm vanity

she is a long legged sorceress smoking a cigarette
half awake because i've got the covers again
goose bumps crowd onto her little bare *******
dewy legs sliding among mine
rousing my bones and heart alert
as the bright sun dances silent
like a new carnation dragged from bed
bringing a giant unscrambled sunrise
across my section of heaven's blue sea
but is mercifully eclipsed by the cream-skinned
breast of a purified failed angel
exploring the feather-soft mountain of my body

we drank cointreau in the early morning
against the collage of saxophones
expanding among criss-crossing body odors
and thin magic on my lipsticked neck
i'm gaining strength over my neuroses
all my fear and doubt disappears into joy
no longer huddled in paper misfortune
reintegrated with ecstasy
in the smoky labyrinth of her eyes
as her fingers light as dreams
draw complex patterns in the flesh
of my back and buttocks
like secrets written on wet paper
none of it       was            real        before          this           moment
1.4k · Oct 2014
eagle
david badgerow Oct 2014
you told me i was an eagle
simple as that, i believed you
tied my shoelaces together
took off my shirt
jumped from the roof with you
holding my hand

you told me i was unstoppable
so i never gave up
still making propellers
out of paper mache and
over-watering the succulents

you told me you loved me
with your fingernails in
the soft young flesh of my back
you swore you weren't a liar
but we were both drunk
you wrote your phone number on my cast

you told me once
that i was a big engine
and i took it to my powerless heart
did some body work
ran screaming through the streets
roaring naked at midnight
perched on a solar eclipse
singing sinatra to a cat.
david badgerow May 2012
you're probably
too young for me
or looking for someone else;
a guy with more talent,
and a sense of adventure
or someone with an exotic accent,
who knows?

your purity
and shining blond hair
and quirky sense of style
have me wondering--
did it hurt when they shoved that metal in your nose,
and if you'd do the same to my heart
david badgerow Feb 2012
In the heart of your ears through splendid cities pierced with light,
the river murmurs of mad seas in lonesome rooms
of the veins in the arms of notorious daughters, oh blue waters!
i sing and the woods sing!
she stands polka dotted in a great bronze chariot
the shivering willows like an ***** of iron down the long black river
we entwine our thin arms and great conquering black eyes
the sky is hell-red where the stars are sleeping.
in the sacred woods, under the light of the horizon
the poet speaks of eternal voice *****-pipes;
I cared nothing for all the horrible spinning eyes of the ferris wheel,
clamouring birds seen as archipelagos and the eyes of panthers

nodody gives a **** about real birds like the voluptuous coyote eagle
1.4k · Aug 2016
turul
david badgerow Aug 2016
she was a peregrine
& appeared to me
shimmering in the
primordial morning
between purgatory & hell
talons like a crucial valve-handle
carrying me outside the gaudy dream
my heart's vagrancy
the latent tendency i had
of putting chemicals into my body
despite the ugly consequences
one man's poison
another man's high

now sunlight fractures into spectra
wind blows thru century-old oaks
becomes tangled in my
******-length blond hair
as we march hand-in-hand thru
these narrow streets
the pinched labyrinth
the last dusk light
this swamp

she was a peregrine
the hungarian turul
genteel brown eyes watching me
howl at the midnight moon
& yip like a fox at the first dawn light
now she shares her own
breathy yelps with the pillow
like fumes of lavender
sprayed in a strand of oaks

i know for a fact she has claws
she swore she'd never use them to hurt me
but sometimes i let her anyway
i need to feel those
dead fingernails buried
in my living shoulder-blades
propelling me into a new kind of manhood
redeeming my weaknesses
weaseling into my shorts
pains & insecurities
melting like cloud's spit down the windowpane
lazy & safe on a warm sunday
morning wrapped together in the skin
of this gyrating palace

this is no longer casual desire:
joni mitchell sound-tracked
our first makeout sesh
as stars bloomed fat
behind a surly multitude of clouds
over a tar-colored lake
so if you think i'm ever letting her go
you're a *******

pants-on-fire
1.4k · Sep 2011
all you got
david badgerow Sep 2011
listen up all tube socks
draped lightly over stiff cots
rise to the knee
this is a call to arms.

cleanse yourself of nostril snot
store it in a safe spot
this is for a poor old sot
with whiskey-breath
whimpering forget-me-nots.

drop pure silver into jangling slots
while your veins rot
and your heart and brain begin to clot
ask your neighbor for a quick five-spot

spin the wheel again, sonny
this time, give it all you got
1.4k · Oct 2015
ode to sister (2nd version)
david badgerow Oct 2015
i'll let you be recluse & writer
you can describe how strange horrible
it feels to suddenly realize that one of us will someday die
the other left standing in the dark middle of a railroad
silhouette illuminated by a single streetlamp
mouth open with a granite rock wobbling in hand

i pray that it's me who falls first
after our parents so they won't have to bury a child
& you my only brother can remove my name from
the lyrics of every song you wrote for me

i can't give you the words to write
but find them & add them to your own memories
of me on a spring afternoon standing in shorts
on a softball field or rooftop with
hands on my knees & two wisps of hair in my face like
moths orbiting shafts of remembered yellow light

stick out your tongue & i'll teach you to whistle
without your fingers if you teach me to scowl & squirm
**** with my armpit & spit melon seeds at lowing cows
we'll dangle from plebian treebranches upside down together
& when i fall off the monkey bars you laugh
but when you're on your head in a heap of kinetic energy
i pick you up & brush ***** tear spirals off your chin

i'll drift away first into sleepland with a smile plastered on my
strawberry cheeks squirming legs & my body
coiled tight like a bedspring with laughter stomach cramps
from the stories & jokes you whisper on the floor in the half-lit gloom

i will be your darling sister forever lying to mom
about the time you burned a hole in the linoleum
& you will throw rocks at the back of my head
from a young persimmon tree like a noisy bird gargling bug juice
pretending to skip them across a pristine lake in the
blue grayness of the churchyard before dawn
1.4k · Nov 2016
wrapped in heat-foil
david badgerow Nov 2016
there's a secret place i found to keep my fear
to hide my tenderness & be vulnerable --
it's next to the smallest bones in your inner ear
the fluid skin blanket of your swooping neckline
lily-soft & somehow stiff enough to break
open my seed-pod heart

the one i thought no one could pry apart
but with rosebud ******* -- lips --
the figure of biblical magdala takes me
away from a lone satsuma tree raising its
shriveled offering from the crippled earth
on sunday strolls through duckpond parks
kicking cobbled streets of augusta block
or scooping water at me smiling in cutoffs
on a hot hometown riverbank

you came to me on barefeet out of the smoke
& rain silence where i was invisibly sobbing
where heat-lightning waltzed
sneaky-pete over the prairie
& what are you if not a rain -- a zephyr
flowing through stone temple
just as the dry-mouth dog days of summer
brought hell's fire across the southern field

so i've abandoned the hermetic existence
& buried my old dead shell with a
harp song hail glory to the contortionist god
vaulting off the balance beam in the
back of my mind beneath the
rain soaked topsoil of dawn
among the mound palaces
of ants & mourning mud hornets
while the gray shadows of the magpie
dance & writhe on the mosaic faces of
the trespassed lupine forest

& the sun still comes up on time big
gold fluttering like a delusional cicada
over the empty pink street
i'm still fidgeting because
clouds with tails like jellyfish sting
with rooted memories of azaleas but
you kiss away my all my latent
restless gypsy fears & keep the harsh
light dimmed or wrapped in heat-foil
in your front dress pocket & you only
give it back to me in brief drips --
pinches -- wet tongue kisses --
we talk with our eyes as only animals
can our butts in the damp sand
beside the breathless sea where streaked
clouds seem free to finger the horizon
but are cut by the city skyline --
a switchblade
1.4k · Dec 2011
pretty girl in the snow
david badgerow Dec 2011
to the girl across the world with
the prettiest green eyes i've seen:

o, radiant-eyed
girl with hair i imagine
to be as soft as
the hair on a butterfly's tummy
young delicate heartthrob,
limitless flower under silver wing
o, emerald rainbow
you are the horizon
sit next to me
i will kneel before you
and be blindfolded
david badgerow Jan 2012
Mike Arms--1 day ago
write a few lines, I'll match em. Can you do it ?

david badgerow--14 hours ago
banjo strings frayed by broken fingernails
fistful of downers to sleep this night away
i open my eyelids out of dream, singing ladies'
eyes downcast thru fear & tobacco smoke
wake up, roll joint, get this day started.

Mike Arms--10 hours ago
being pure ether ain't no ****** picnic
this september looks right at ***** smearing
its pale arms reaching clearly into murderers
lungs groping mute celibate
if you beheld her whole form means silence

david badgerow--10 hours ago
lying back on the car seat, her eyelids heavy
she breathes diamonds and pure electricity
in an endless velvet desert, radio warbles over a hill
"oh, if i were young again, legs spread leaning against a table."
hard labor, aluminum tubes between
continental divide
echo chamber vibrations plunging
their tiny lamps in and out of her eyeball

Mike Arms--8 hours ago
Hard Luck Man
crossing floods
inanimate intelligence

is assassinated
they cross themselves
a world deaf

*** revolution
worst gamble
you remain
this is something mike arms and i just threw together. pretty raw, but it's nice
1.4k · Nov 2011
shooting fireflies
david badgerow Nov 2011
I'll never forget that night
We killed all your mom's wine
And shot at fireflies with
Your dad's old forty -five
I'll never forget that night
We kissed and walked by starlight
Against a creek on your
Grandfathers property
1.4k · Nov 2011
broken
david badgerow Nov 2011
hi, how are you today?
i've broken every bone in my hand
writing you this letter
i've hidden away every past mistake
in the cushions of your puke green sofa
every broken promise from an ingrained diety
coffee cups and cutlery that i keep
as monument to one night spent with you
a thousand killing smiles and a hundred stolen kisses
i bend my knees and take a shot of clarity
the outline of dreams and IOUs
the place where awkward belongs
the sign of recovery hides in a dimly lit alley
***** and hungry and lonely and desperate.
1.4k · Aug 2015
blooming by a bonfire
david badgerow Aug 2015
sometimes on rainy days we stayed in
chugged cheap red wine out of a bag
that stained our teeth
& i made you listen to
old jazz saxophone records or
you forced me to dance with you
to really awful dubstep tracks
you used to like to poke my skinny ribs
laugh & say i danced like an alien as you
pulled me with your small hands
to read my palm by the window where
the sky water trickled down the glass
spilling over from the gutter
& when it comes to your natural perfume
that damp fragrance of sagebrush cloaked in dew
i'm still a recovering addict
& sometimes i relapse
baby i'm asking to relapse

i haven't seen you since the garden on my 21st
with the thick sound of crickets squealing in the trees
& big dogs barking way off in
someone's backyard across the river
that starry september night you read my cards sitting
on the dusty trunk of my car while your best friend
rolled slick blunts in the backseat but i was drunk
& ***** we got distracted i bent you over
weaponizing the leverage of my body to
put your face near the pretty sunflower bed
with a tall can of bud still in your hand
& the muscles of your thighs glowing by moonlight
outside that almost abandoned house we found
with my birthday party blooming by a bonfire not far away

now i'm wondering
since i've got another birthday coming up
& a little more meat on my bones
if you'd be willing to try it again
because i'm working hard to change my future
by itching at the old scars left on my shoulders
until they open & bleed again
only i won't drink so much this time around
& you can try to not smoke ****
i'll let you steal & wreck my car again &
i'll stop chewing my fingernails or
you can still practice your happy ending massage
techniques on me when i'm stretched out & tired
i'll re-twist your sloppy dreads
with careful fingers
like tiny insects crawling over your scalp
because i never wanted to touch them before
& you can maybe try to not
flip-flop **** my best friend
as much or at all
1.4k · Mar 2015
late night heartbeat
david badgerow Mar 2015
we live our lives in harmony according to no one else
and after a saturday night full of dope fiends and loud club music
i wake with her giant hair covering my face like a black sunflower
or wisps of a bonnet stretched around my chin
she is a sedated beauty after growing up in an all girl ***** den
i begin searching for her magenta lips with my own
stopping thirsty at the softest spot behind her ear and
this moment is immortal glowing ferociously in my mind

it's a misty sunday morning i'm
watching cartoons in my underwear
while she paints a bowl of oranges on the kitchen table
for the twelfth time this month
when she has it perfect she strips
the windows of their canary yellow curtains and
dances passed me in sock feet singing cake for breakfast
with a japanese cherry blossom branching toward her belly-button

i am drowsily courting my lady after practicing
barefoot naked yoga on the front porch together
like a cricket struggling at a zippo touch on a midnight
tree branch after the rain stops hammering rooftops like meteors
but the air is still wet hot waiting on a sunshow and
the water has sealed my legs together

after following her into the kitchen hands
lunge fast and happy into crevices of hair and sweat
she poses with a wistful smile as
i press her into a tile corner and she
becomes malleable on top of my fingertips
whispering you are the mountain
into my dilating sternum
and we give the sun to each other
two warriors in an open rainbow
alpha rhythm projected on the wall

after drinking a cup of grapefruit juice
she joins me in a short pair of worn out levi's
and a torn sleeveless shirt for an overcast sunday
afternoon walk by a fissure creek as pine limbs
bend and crack overhead in middle florida
we exhale royal purple smoke clouds in a
deep loop through remembered shame

after a long day of frolicking breathless along
perfect beaches of connecting energies
our toes entangled rolling in the grass
i see the clouds reflected in her green eyes
with her head tilted back toward the ceiling
and lightning fingerbanging a starless sky outside
my hands once again find the deep reaches of her hair
and i pull her close to kiss her face muscles tight
with pain from laughter i confess that the sound
of her late night heartbeat still turns me on
1.3k · Nov 2011
Curl Up in a Ball
david badgerow Nov 2011
I haven't seen the sun in three **** days.
sometimes
i want to curl up in a ball and catapult myself
into her fiery core and burn alive in joyous flame
but for now
all i have to feel is my own cold loneliness.
nothing lasts forever.
david badgerow Nov 2011
the clouds are mocking me
the stars are bleeding rainbows
the trees are fiery torches
the grass is sharp wet earthworms

the clock on the wall means nothing
the wall is a prickly caterpillar
that will soon emerge as a beautiful speckled butterfly
& it will scoop me up & we will flutter by

the ceiling s leaking paint now
& the couch has disintegrated beneath me
the chandelier is a majestic eagle made of liquid crystals
& my heart is an innocent white rabbit
my arms are two tube socks full of sand
& my feet feel like sleeping
my eyes are just like bowling *****
& my head is bursting with
light & thought & colors & shining metallic dreams
1.3k · Oct 2011
Body of Water
david badgerow Oct 2011
Two weeks ago, on a day that I'm making up for this story,
I was in the city.
I don't prefer the city, because you can't see the stars.
They are being snubbed out by streetlights
and to me it makes everything seem uglier, without the stars.

Anyway, I was sitting on a ***** riverbank.
It wasn't actually dirt though, because people in cities
have forgotten
what dirt smells like
and tastes like
and feels like between their toes.

It was the city kind of *****:
spent condoms and cartridge rounds
syringe needles and bags of brown
scraps of metal and wrappers of plastic
gooey globs of gum and broken glass bottles.

I won't lie, I had a glass bottle to call my own,
about half full of the Good Stuff
and I was feeling mighty fine about killing it alone.

When I looked skyward and off to the right,
I noticed a city bridge, what with its' running lights
and dangling cables and roaring traffic,
it was standing in stark contrast to the
quiet county bridges of my home.

At this point, and it may have been the *****,
but I could've sworn I could see someone
on the bridge
clinging to a tether
swaying in the swift city breeze.

I had only just convinced myself
otherwise, that it would actually turn out to be
a bag of fast-food garbage hastily tossed out
by a careless city-dweller,
that the man let go
                               and
                                     he
                                         fell.
he flailed his arms and failed
to gain traction
and kicked his legs but
they abandoned him in midair
                                                 and
                                                       he
                                                          fell.

I was close enough, and listened
and I heard him go
                               splat
                                      against
                                                 cold water.

I was jealous of his bravery.
I envied his resolve.
I admired him.
I lusted after his finality.
1.3k · Oct 2011
Finishing a Book
david badgerow Oct 2011
finishing a book
is just like
killing a christian family
on a drunk Sunday drive

finishing a book
is just like
slamming your clean-shaven face
into a brick wall

finishing a book
is just like
inhaling pure oxygen
and then spontaneously combusting
into thin air

finishing a book
is just like
brushing your teeth so hard
that crimson paste drips from
the corners of your mouth

finishing a book
is just like
watching a toddler bathe
himself in lighter fluid

finishing a book
is just like
puking when you're passed out.
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child into the back yard and shot it." - Truman Capote
1.3k · Jun 2021
Surgery
david badgerow Jun 2021
i caught a glimpse of her once,
just as she was leaving.
the sunlight cut her face
like a scalpel, and she flinched.
in the doorway, the dogs
barking at her feet, the day's
bags suspended from her frame.

the one with her wallet, her phone.
her purse pinched in the crook of her elbow.
the one with her lunch, also there.
the backpack with her water bottle
and planner riding high on her
trapezius muscles. the ones holding
last night's tears still hovering above her
cheeks.

and she isn't wearing the necklace
i gave her last year on her birthday,
i can see the pale line on her collarbone
where it lived. but why would she?
the ring i bought fits perfectly
in the kitchen junk drawer,
she is unadorned.

i tried calling out to her, but the dogs,
and she didn't have the time. the earth shakes
and the world sharpens it's blade
again. she turns toward her car in the driveway
and melts back into routine.
a piece of blue-black hair falls across
her face, and i am in love with her again.
but things change, and look how naturally
she goes.
1.3k · Oct 2011
I was there
david badgerow Oct 2011
I was there
when they built the cathedrals
I was there
and I watched them stand tall
I was there
for the villagers' upheaval
I was there
and I answered their call

I was there
when they fought in ancient Rome
I was there
and I watched poor men die far from home
I was there
when we ate just like kings
I was there
and I fed you a grape
I was there
when they sold you into slavery
I was there
and I helped you escape

I was there
when ****** built an army
I was there
when Stalin rose to fame
I was there
in the Jewish death camps
I was there
and I forgot my own name

I was there
I was a pickpocket in London
I was there
when Dickens wrote the Twist
I was there
when it happened, all the sudden
I was there
and I raised up my fist

I was there
with Daniel and the lions
I was there
when he went down to that cave
It had
nothing to do with a God up in heaven
It had
something to do with the knowledge he craved.
1.3k · Nov 2011
Goals
david badgerow Nov 2011
my hands
smell like
dog hair
and there's some
on my jeans too
my feet smell like the inside of shoes
and dirt and nothing pleasant
i took a pill earlier and now i feel woozy but i will drink that down, no problem
today i woke up and knew that i would write something wonderful today
and you know, when you have those kind of goals it never works out.
1.3k · Oct 2011
sorry, critics.
david badgerow Oct 2011
I'm sorry if I don't give a **** about
couplets
or rhyming words
or patterned stanzas
or structured lines
or even making that much sense.

Poetry to me is about
drinking too much
smoking too much
speaking too much
and spitting words onto paper.

I'm sorry if I
swear too much for your taste
or my poems are scattered remnants of dreams
or I mix tenses and completely make up words sometimes
or maybe I hide behind vices.

Poetry to me is
finding out who I am
and what honesty is
and trying to appease the beast
and telling the truth even when I lie.
I'm not sorry at all, actually. I didn't ask you to read it.
david badgerow Oct 2011
A recipe
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was half-baked,
but what is edible will say:
something about instructions,
something about parts making a whole,
something about convection,
something about mixing in a bowl,
something about dough
and something about kneading
something about confections,
something about breathing.

An epitaph
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was rotten,
what wasn't will rise and say:
something about a journey,
something about fate,
something about love and
something about hate,
something about laying on a gurney
and something about decay,
something about destiny,
something about history,
then it might yawn
and lay back in its grave

A pamphlet
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some parts were mute,
others that weren't will speak and say:
something about tolerance,
something about abuse,
something about inhalants
and something about a noose.

A brochure
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was fake,
but what is real will last and say:
something about a lawyer,
something about curruption,
something about justice
and how it serves a function,
something about admittance,
something about plastic surgery
and breast reduction,
and a catholic priest mumbling
something about perjury.

A eulogy
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was dead,
but what was alive will stand and say:
something about a life
and something about living,
something about a wife
and something about a thing worth giving,
something about a family
and something about foes;
something about winning
and something about woes.

A book
I wrote one of those in my head today;
some of it was filth;
but what was clean will shine and say:
something about character,
something about freedom,
something about development
and something about respect
something about supplement,
something about unity,
something about revolution
and how I think the world should be.

A song
I wrote one of those in my head today;
but it was a bird and it flew away,
If all that's left is just one dying wing
it would flap around
on the ground
and try to sing:
something in near-pefect pitch
something bluesy and
about a *****;
then probably something about flight
and finally something about a
bright white light.

A poem
I wrote one of those in my head today;
the lines were seeds
I planted before the cold;
some froze out, some took hold
but what remains grows bold and will say:
something about a heart,
and how you had it from the start;
something about sunlight,
and how you make it seem less bright;
something about the wet wet rain
something about willingness
and something about refrain.
1.3k · Dec 2011
the view from my backyard
david badgerow Dec 2011
i have remembered this night one hundred and sixty-seven thousand times
i have written these words with an iradescent hand
where were you at the beginning of the darkness?
were you smelling the glitter of the galaxies,
did you have the blast of disillusion in your ears?

right now, i am standing
openmouthed & exhaling
into a spacious sky and i can see
the Lion breathing lilacs in the garden of Eden
i can see a Ram dying in a thornbush
and i watch as the Bull devours the matador
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