Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Your baked cheddar scented hands
and your newly thinned feet
Your trimmed hair strands
and your smile with teeth
I grew you inside,
always my baby you’ll be,
if I can keep you young

A crooked, watchful smile
and shoes on wrong feet
Singing along
and bruises on knees
I’ve known you the longest,
always my baby you’ll be,
if I can keep you young

If you need a hand
walking along an uneven surface
or help falling asleep,
you’ll always know that I’m there
caring so deeply
I grew you inside,
always your mommy I’ll be
If only I could keep you young
I was starving in
Pennsylvania.
One night, I had
enough.
Done with it all.
The poverty and
sickness.
The drunken mad
nights
and dog-fight days.
Brutality for breakfast.
Served sunny side up
runny yolks with
butterflies trapped in
the yellow sunshine.
Spiders built webs in
my soul.

I stood on the torn-up
couch in my living room and
yelled at the walls.

Listen, you devil.
You want me, you better be
ready for a fight.
I paced the floor like a
washed-up heavyweight champ,
eyeing the ceiling like a
drunken sparrow in a cat's mouth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k5NY8ZMx3I
Here is a link to my YouTube channel, where I read poetry from my recently published books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems and It's Just a Hop, Skip, and Jump to the Madhouse, available on Amazon.

www.thomaswcase.com
Run, old man, the winter comes
Ice and snow impede,
Run, old man, impending cold
Will spur you on to speed.
Run, you fool, on brittle ice
For shattered shins to shard,
Run, old man, in howling gale
As pelting sleet hits hard.
Collect thyself O ancient one
Thy lungs have shred to bleed
Run, old man, on memories
Thy legs have turned to seed.
Remember then, in times of yore,
When muscled limbs would stride?
Alas, old man, your day is done
For physicality, died.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
Joy is a sunflower in bloom,
a burst of yellow laughter in the throat of dawn—
it dances barefoot through fields
where even the scarecrows smile.

Sadness seeps in shades of blue,
an ocean swallowing lullabies whole,
waves cradling broken boats
and the moon’s reflection—shivering.

Anger is a match lit red,
flickering like a war drum’s pulse,
a wildfire in the chest,
burning bridges before they’re crossed.

Fear creeps in gray,
a mist dragging its feet through alleyways,
whispers behind curtains,
the silence before a scream.

Love is crimson spun with rose,
a heartbeat wrapped in silk,
sometimes soft, sometimes savage—
a fire that kisses and consumes.

Peace wears the hush of lavender light,
a hammock beneath wind-whispered trees,
a breath drawn slowly,
unfolding like petals in spring.

Hope is the color of sky brushed gold,
a sunrise you almost missed,
a window cracked open
in a room you thought was locked.

Loneliness is the aching indigo,
stars you can see but never touch,
a winter coat with no one inside,
quiet as a room full of eyes.

Jealousy glints a poison green,
a vine curling where it’s not wanted,
something sour behind the smile,
a mirror cracked just slightly.

Gratitude glows in soft orange,
a hearth with arms,
warmth that hums
even when the fire’s low.

Shame is a dusty blush of muted brown,
an old coat you never meant to wear,
muddy footprints you try to clean
before anyone sees.

Confidence roars in emerald and royal violet,
a cloak stitched with thunder,
feet firm on the earth
as the sky bends to meet your eyes.
within the solitude of the dreadful span
of the blackened and bowed sky
the deep withered grass bends in the moonless dark
quieting the cold and murmuring earth

hushing her into fitful sleep

the air is hard
and the wind lacerates the night
razor incisions left behind
in the icy flesh of obsidian hours

open wounds howl like wolves
on the trail of prey in flight

I hunger for you
under the restless stars
Next page