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Francie Lynch Apr 2016
If you're the needle,
Keep your eye
On the point.
Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves

Steadily rooted though they were all flowing
Away to the left like reeds in a sea
When the splinter flew in and stuck my eye,
Needling it dark. Then I was seeing
A melding of shapes in a hot rain:
Horses warped on the altering green,

Outlandish as double-****** camels or unicorns,
Grazing at the margins of a bad monochrome,
Beasts of oasis, a better time.
Abrading my lid, the small grain burns:
Red cinder around which I myself,
Horses, planets and spires revolve.

Neither tears nor the easing flush
Of eyebaths can unseat the speck:
It sticks, and it has stuck a week.
I wear the present itch for flesh,
Blind to what will be and what was.
I dream that I am Oedipus.

What I want back is what I was
Before the bed, before the knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve
Fixed me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.
Francie Lynch Mar 2015
I'm immobile
As my dentist blathers
On events and people
That don't matter.
I'd rather he just
Get IT done,
Leave rants and jokes
And silly puns
For one not in
His dental dungeon.
Today was his crowning glory,
When he'd finished needling me,
Before he filled my cavity,
He suggested
I see a cardiologist
To fill the hole
Found in my chest.
Francie Lynch Apr 2018
The Sansui turntable still works well.
Like memories, round and round,
Needling me. And the more I play them,
The more they itch.
I know the dark side of the moon,
And the way the sun shines.
The dances, whirlwind moves,
That have settled now.
Inside the sleeve are notes and our words.
I will not let the dust jackets do their job.
I set Abbey Road gently on the pad,
Place the needle softly, and hear the familiar scratch.
Standing back, like watching a parade,
I listen.
Here comes the sun on a cloudy day.
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2019
The Deepest Twist

<>
for my friends who know that when HP says this my 1300th
poem, it’s off the mark by hundreds; nonetheless
1300 is worthy number to celebrate your affections
nat
<>

you return back my older children, fully grown,
my eldest word babies who never ever visit,
blessing them anew, lavishly, with special wishes

I,
take them,
with both hands, a reacquainting occurs,
the old words, deep twist, now hurtful hurt because
reimagining when and how easy they came to be birthed and
how the replication of that process is now a
practiced impossibility

how they burst forth, in purple majesty, wheat waving,
wholly formed, bathed in holy water, leaving no stretch marks,
only just an empty sac inside instantly needing,
needling me into auto-refilling right away

even the twenty four hour, hard deliveries,
long and arduous, were so easy created faust-fast,
that the errors of typography contained,
became lasting hall marks, iconic nomenclatures of
passionate loving-nonpareil

now, well past point of urgent addiction,
unlike then every glance, each sidewalk cracking,
lamppost shadow casting was
a sea story for a deep dive delving asap

I,
supplied answers for the internal badgering incessant
happy ****** need, mine, to go, spill the words,
cab or bus motion nursing them,
now they come slowly strolling,
semi-formed, needy, inconclusive, reused,
and feeling as trite as a cloth coat from an old thrift shop,
so wanting for tender loving care,
which is to provide when you are
four score

wondering how easy it was in prior times when inspiration
fell like a deciduous tree’s fall colorings gifts or
as little children’s nightly multitude variety of dream tales,
when whole worlds uncovered, nay, universes,
hidden between summers green grass blades,
or in unique snowflakes

the semi-forgot love affairs that parented poems
by the score of scarred orchestral scores,
now love circle-turn in holding patters in the
crowded skies above nyc,
awaiting for a trafficked man to give permissions
to “run-away”land that rarely is granted

once, poems in turbulent fluid born, noisy ripping of skin,
****** by the emitting of  constant calming tenderous words,
wonderful drippings, so many multiple births in a moment,
even the OBGYN is complaining,

give other poets a chance at parenthood!

the awesome anger of human tragedy is now so shopworn
from over experience,
even god visits less and less, for it is written,
nothing new under the sun*

though soon his annual visitors day approaches (Day of Atonement) and god will require new
words of human comforting,
a new poem acknowledging that being godlike
is ******* hard work,
for humans are annoyingly capable of incredulous kindness

how can one justify allowing unlacing acts of insane violence to tear
the hand stitched lacing fabric that’s ever ready
to bring us together in an instant elegiac joining

the truth is every one of todays poem are clawed,
shovel dug out from cavities and crevasses,
your new words of recognition of the oldies but goodies,
iron of irony, make it hard, hard, painful to write
without an epidural to numb the painful
dumbing down

when I am breaching my waters, I am hard to spot,
we ancient humpbacks live beneath the deep distanced,
cold waters for many more minutes
than we need surface for breathing,
the show-off fluking, less and less,
and when we birth,
every two years,
must bring the calf-poem to the surface instantly,
to breath, lest it die,
all the while repeating to ourselves:

what was miraculous writing is now nearly invisible,
to blinded fingers that arrhythmically cane tap,
words difficult to recall, recalculate, recalibrate
into a wholly poem

only the **** tears,
that same shameful violin permanent-accompaniment,
they laugh at me when now, they alone
come first quickest, all too easy,


appearing nataurally,

without a formal
written
invitation
“He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes"

Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feelin' alright”
Brycical Feb 2013
We're very much alike.

Poetry is our inspiration,
we were born writers.
People call us BBQ sauce snobs
wine connoisseurs
and brothers.

But he likes to dance
at night--
in the headlights
when the air pierces the skin.
His deep dark pockets
are an oblivion of cigarettes
and full minis of Jack.
Remind's me of Harpo.

He walks like a snake slithers--
body swaying
and a gleaming mischievous twinkle
in his eye.

We both enjoy crisp, autumn days,
but he prefers them cloudy--
dark.
He says it brings out the color
in the reds and orange leaves jumping off the trees to twist in the breeze.
Listening to stand-up is our solace,
though he says Hicks is god.
I say Carlin

His shadow reminds me of a demon--
the long lost son of Medusa.  

He's not afraid to say what he thinks,
cause he knows he's right.
Sometimes I believe him--
he speaks with such nonchalant confidence.
There's always a needle on his words
swiftly flitting and flickering
like a flame he's flicking off his tongue.
And if his words hurt breaking the skin?
"Don't be such a *****" he'll snarl
before turning the charm back on
with a giggle and ironic wink.

He likes to collect
the faults in others
cause his thinks his **** don't stink.
He keeps reminding me of mine.
He enjoys needling
people.

We've known each other
for a long while.
Seems like longer....
but that's cause my roommate is me.
It's preferable to read the poem with this song in the background...
http://youtu.be/F29Ky5ncefQ
"You Rascal You"
by Hanni El Khatib
Elena Dec 2018
Poetry is the string
         looping through and
         weaving out
the needling pain

It knits a beautiful
         patchwork, coated with
         colorful patterns
our fingers trace

threads of our lives
         create designs
a shining::
shimmering::
or dulling
our emotions blend.
Steven Fried Sep 2013
Addiction's innocent cousin ***** needling into my veins
infected me seasons ago
the ache I once felt still strong as mast's girth

From wind to wind sea to sea we internally roamed
in my mind the map was a treasure trove for exploration
i never was bound to lake shore
wind whipping tide tussling rousing mornings and dusky
nights

My mistresses my pleasure gliding goddess
drift lazily and let me sing praise with shouts "Boom"
but coy or not I coil spry
aged not with time
but lessons learned

The youngest have yet to grow
knowledge of the mystery fables tell
of beautiful passings

Land's unreachable without proper direction
rudderless a hair's breadth magnified out of reach
cool autumn leaves fall on my skiff

She tugs at my heart and at your golden hemp locks
they have all my love stolen from your deck your bow
your stern your timber your core
but let us sail evermore
L T Winter Dec 2014
My tears are--
Narcoleptic diagonals
Collapsing forward-

Motion into neurons-
Bound-by-arteries
Instead of gravity.

They find construct,
By fluorine cyclamen
And wildebeest chantries.

But to understand
Is-bygone-remorse
Made of much more
Than clovers stitches.

Needling skin into bone.
Thoughts from flesh.
O-One has been kept waiting for a long spell
N-Not knowing if one can get out of this hell
E-Endless days one has spent in an unlit well

H-Hope seems not to be journeying one's way
U-Under clouds of darkness one shall e'er stay
N-Never shall one see a bright sunny day ray
D-Deemed to be unfit to walk that old hallway
R-Realizing this fact sure makes one feel gray
E-Excluded from the folks at the homely bay
D-Dare one say one is mired in a boggy clay

A-All is lost one can't redeem one's former place
N-Negotiations with other are now a void space
D-Dear me one is in a position of sheer disgrace

E-Ever so badly one did behave all that time ago
I-In hindsight good manners needed to be the go
G-Grave is one's standing and so very full of woe
H-Heck the word one called when one had to go
T-Tidings of ejection delivered by the boss honcho
Y-Yonder one was told on the spot to quickly go

D-Down in the dumps one has been for so long
A-Away at a lone outpost well out of the throng
Y-Yearning to once again hear their joyful song
S-So one is on an island for those who do wrong

O-Only three chances did one get at that game
F-Four weren't going to be allotted to this dame
F-Folly to think that one could avoid any shame
L-Leniency not given one has to wear the claim
I-In the finally wash up one's lesson is to be tame
N-Needling the boss honcho scrubbed one's name
E-Erased one shall be for being a bad egg dame
onlylovepoetry Oct 2017
3 hands


kidding hands,
an autocorrection title,
was supposed to be
kissing hands but either works

man overcome with an elixir of Sunday bed warming/charming/chilling, lukewarm "hot" coffee,
melodious love songs inducing
languorously hand-to-mouth,
five finger fore play love making

a potpourri of knuckle gnawing and gentling kisses
upon a hand borrowed from the a tablet holder,
while she reads the paper bemoaning the sorry state
of the world, the government permissions bad guys...
and weeps for the world we are leaving behind

a mood changer with 100% effectiveness

newspapers- a safe *** condiment

think I'll reheat my coffee

<•>

my hand

she cant sleep knows that I'm up at 2:08am composing.  
and showed her earlier today
the kidding hands poem
just as the lights were going down, downtown on
William's Measure For Measure

so at 2:09am her hand snakes over and wrap itself
around my thumb as if she was weaning an infant from
what infants like doing, or weaning grownup old men like me from doing at 2:09am, what they should be best leaving alone,
like writing poetry or it could just be the woman
pseudo-******* a poets thumb as a way of saying
can't sleep head buzzing and in between I love the
livening lying of living with your hands thumb in me

<•>
the facement of your hands*

dr. mandy is handy with a needling drink of boo boo bo-toxin
that auto corrects the face's reflecting times drawing upon it,
our bodies facement; an effacement I suppose, or maybe a
defacement.  

very little to be done to keep the *hands
couture covering
from revealing what devolutionary year it is for you: why I write of the facement of your hands and why I kiss them, your hands,
lovingly, hoping the natural  toxins on my lips can ****** their aging,
and if they can't, then it is a great way of saying
I love you

<•>
  2:53am
Hello Daisies Aug 2019
Dear abuser,

Because of you I shake at night
I see so many deadly frights
My arms quiver with needles bleeding
I can't beleive I didn't think you affected me

Every night I come home
I shower and cry about my life
Every person I talk to I distrust
I know suffering is a must

There is no silence
I only hear my weeping
And your yelling echoing through
I have new triggers I don't understand
Was this always your plan?

I yell and scream at things I love
I can't beleive in any God above
My heart panics if anyone's upset
My breath is stolen like I'm in a corset

I can't stand to be alone
But I can't stand to be too close
I'm afraid of anyone's touch
Every problem is just too much

I can't have a good day
Anything good  changes and rots
Into the memory and fear
I hate myself if that wasn't clear

No matter how much I build myself up
How strong I may become
I feel so weak and alone
I feel like I'll never find my home

I stay up and ponder if I ever could
Tell everyone about the hell you gave me
Maybe that would help me
Or maybe they'd just laugh at me

I rip my flesh open
I bruise and hurt my own heart
I give so much of myself to everyone else
Because of the guilt I feel
Cause it was all my fault

I black out and forget things
My stomach twist and turns and stings
I have no energy to enjoy anything
Nothing in life is a blessing

I've emptied my body of any emotion
Because whenever I have any
It's endless crying and falling apart
Noone can break this ******* shattered heart

I'm afriad someone's behind my back
I'm afriad they're ready to attack
I'm afraid all I ever do is lack
I'm afraid of every ******* thing even a tack

I can feel you
I can hear you
Needling through my skin
Piercing my head with sin
Burning my body
Every night I relive it

All the pain I'm feeling I can't quite explain
Because at this point I consider it normal
Everything is quite plain
I'm tired of the pain I sustain

I'll never have kids because of you
I don't deserve love becuase of you
I can't see anything but pain
I can't enjoy anyone's touch
I know it'll never be love
Just let them all **** me
And I'll call it enough

Except I'm not enough
I'm disgusting and damaged
My skin is peeled and broken
Scarred and red
Too many tears I've shed

I'm labeled a freak and crazy
Life is kinda hazy
Am I real?
Can I ever heal?
I don't think so

I just want you to please go
All three of you
I see all of you In everyone I meet
The yeller the ******* and the molester
You're in the eyes of every person
I can't find comfort
Because you'll always find me first
Everything I do I realize I'm very damaged. I really do have PTSD and it's why I keep panicking and why I feel isolated and closed in and I haven't figured out my triggers but they've been torturing me with nightmares and needles in my arms and panic and black outs I can't stop reliving it all
I trained my gaze to turn a blind eye
To the incessant strobing wheedling away

Weeping willow tears, burrowing footsteps
Needling the swell of pure panic

When you said to me "The anxiety's
Bad at the mo", I became heavy with

The suffocation of 'What to do'....for you
My race to the winning post to

Grab the prize. the cure of all cures
The potion that'll dilute the multiplying

Butterflies grabbing onto your
Worry beads, slung around your neck

Should you forget their existence
A never ceasing adornment lines

Your palms with moistured intensity
Slips your grip on life, where once was peace
Dolly Partings Sep 2014
When I walk into a clothing store, i'm told I am a medium size
When I walk into a boutique, I am told I am fair, and sensitive skinned
When I walk into the salon, I'm told my hair needs a little extra strength

When I look in the mirror at my bare body, the beauty felt inside of me does not harmonize with my outside.
If books could talk, they would say the same.
Paperback, hardback, French fold, perfect bound, saddle stitch, case wrap, dust jacket.
I know because i've asked them.
They'd say; "I didn't come here to write my heart out, I came here to write it in",

I stand naked in the bathroom, counting the tiles on my body until the plug is blocked with everything I wish I could wash away.
My pores may be open, darling, but they are as wide as the valves in my tenacious heart, because they're breathing.
I can only apologise, the porcelian cracked as his blimp of a hand grabbed my impressionable face and told me no one would ever love me like he did, and how beautiful I looked when I cried.
My medium, tired hips will bare a child one day, and her medium, ripened hips will do the same.
I was poor the last time someone stole my heart, I haven't flown enough to lose all of my baggage yet, my insurance never covered those losses, but I won't pander to your altitude, because I am as worthy of love as any other woman.
I can fall into another's arms in a million pieces and still be seen as whole, after all, the universe only became the universe when it shattered into dust.
I wonder if i've spent most of my life as a welcome mat, and I often wonder how muddy my own feet are.
Sisterhood is far from suffrage.
My heart feels like a Macaw in a canary cage,
I can feel her words needling between my shoulder blades as she whispers of my failed marriage and how she heard he now lies with a younger model.
And now, I lay alone.
I'm wading through molasses,
Social events these days require the brace position, your words are electrical sockets and I am seventy percent water.
I line up sugar packets across the table like trenches as you become increasingly bitter with every sip of your black coffee.
My ribcage became monkey bars for your every word to hang on to for a second there, but your sound became muffled as I dreamt of a world where women sang together.
To the moon, to the stars, to mother earth, to each other, creating a united galaxy of warrior women equipped with hardened feet, joined at their callouses, but with honied hearts that would melt through their sisters fingers.
I dreamt of a world where women tell each other they are beautiful every day, due to one single feature we all obtain. Spirit.
I dreamt of a world where our medium waist bands meet the tips of our  brittle, fair hair and our sensitive skin is more than enough to touch the souls of every female ghost that ever felt lost in this world our gentle mother made.
Calling all warriors, there's a boat named Serenity leaving the shore in five minutes,
I hope to God they brought enough life rafts for us all on this ship.
Third Eye Candy Dec 2013
before the world ends
begin.

that you may not love
is the haunting.

where your ghost is rain
your mind clouds.

and nothing is foreseen
like the past.

II

in the long watch of this blindness
we are surely rogue begonias
needling the impenetrable nethers
of our low coronas
we jest in the rage of our humors
gilding the uvula
of our golden throats
trilling in the infinite sublime
and gain no quarter
note.

unabridged, we straddle the span
of our chasm.

and there,
we seek to stand apart
from whatever wounds
we fathom.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2018
~for Victoria~

this by rights
an easy poem to inscribe

nonetheless the rhythm escapes me,
though the wordy contra-shades of
render and tender,
some incontrovertible, all well understood,
their complexity loved and
jointed-in-a-soul,
betrothing and forevermore
rendering, separating

two subtle words that shape
e v e r y t h i n g
about the this poet, 
tender boy rendered man,
by many lifetimes that fit into no
storage shed(ing)

yet this new effort requires
effort,
the verbs ripped wrenched,
the nouns hide underneath profound,
notions needed for a potent potion release;

none, ****,
do not come easy
so put aside for the
spilling
moment
though the urgency of the
needling
in-chest,
thumping,
begging
for release furiously,
fulfilling
the poets
doublin purpose:

created to create seeds

only this
a simplistic surrenders
from self, to self
emergent

tender me
the teary essence soup of human weakness
from which
to render
strength  

from that brew,
give me beauty,
the keen and the ken
the crook and the hook

to desire the next days creation
render, tender me unto,
its new chance for
beauty



6/2/18 11:30am
down by the riverside Peconic
victoria › water and seeds

Beautifully rendered by the one that tenders.
jo spencer Feb 2013
The  Rhino's last  stand?
my eye's still baulk .
For 15 litres used, Fina  offered collectable  cards
and this free coaster.
I  can only  think of forecourt  charges now
and blinding energy shortages,
needling the near skint.
Surely  we  had  failed  the insurmountable  test.
Eco Care conditional on my father not being disparagingly  cross promitionally  conscious?
Lily Priest May 2021
She wanted to travel
Unravel the world
Like famous explorers
Who's wandering was all the will to ask
If there was anything beyond the horizon
That they could see.

Now shes everywhere -

Frozen stare, pigtails and grey red uniform,
Tie needling south with the straightness of a compass
And shes lost.

Where is she?
Everywhere anyone turns
Trapped in the undergrowth
Where cans and cat **** go to pasture
Her wrinkled smile
Is caked onto the branches
Paper machet - ed and as brittle
As an old map.
She breaks apart like bread crumbs
That will never lead her home.

Have you seen her?
Not tumble weeding her news
Across the m2
Or pinned to a lamppost
Weeping her ink into the missing
like a watercolour.

Have you spied her?
Not tied with weak ribbon
to brown stalks who's little
Notes speak of hope
And other things, like Angel's and innocence,
The innocence shes frozen in.

Can you find her?
Not hopefully
Flying her flag of the forgotten
On the tv
Budget crew
Remaking her last seen
With shaking cameras
And discount queens of the smaller screen
Hoping for Hollywood.

Is there a tangible
Left to her name
Thrown as it has been across
State lines, and small places
That only the locals know.
She has Columbus - ed the globe
And she only left home
Walked down her drive
And disappeared.
Brycical Apr 2015
I don't write because I can,
or even sometimes because I want to.

I write because words surround me
in the air; glistening, screaming and needling
into my being--
infecting my crimson and azure paths
with their ( { ( { electric cacophony} ) } ),                       (       )
vibrating sacred whispers of musical patterns        /<+>\
dripping directly into my spirit aglow with creation,
imbuing a certain serenity of past, now and future cuneiform tattoos
unto my mind--
high as a shooting star gliding in midnight moonbeams...

It's like when a fish stops moving it will die.

Every day it is a glorious struggle to keep up with myself,
these words,
so as not to drown in the insanity.

These words once inhaled by ancestors, whales and grass
hurl through space, time and the infinite creation
slamming into me;
a mercurial, rose watery doorway portal conduit transmitter
typing bebop lightning striking your match stick soul,
buzzing and manifesting rainbow jazz steps connecting us!
Dishonor would chew me from the inside out
should I not comply.
Evaldas Eseth Oct 2010
Noises, constant struggle,
Ever ending silence,
Pressure robust, indelicate,
Colors touching my dried tongue

My shoes are now heavy,
Sun became an enemy,
This needling sand,
Burden which directs me

I do not stop upon the tombstones,
But I have read every inscription,
Many times,
Reading until the end

I deceive my sight,
With a mirage of a mirror,
With surface all sweaty,
Undusted, begging filth to disappear

Faithfully, I search for a familiar face,
And doubts are all your freckles,
Chewing on my arms,
Never was there a plan

Step by step,
I am being gradually consumed,
A perfected torture,
Every time and always,
A lesser piece left

Now do I crawl,
Or am I painting circles,
This sullen land,
Once your joy,
Now my lair.
Created 23 October 2010.
Jonny Angel Dec 2013
The low hum
accentuates the pain,
needling vibrancy,
vivid-hues,
grafting stories
& inked impressions,
etched onto
your sweet-skin.

Such memories
& hurtful reminders
are told in cracked
kaleidoscope-colors,
bright dermis-murals
of your broken dreams
screaming for release,
remembering the beauty
of your heart,
now made warm
with skin-art.
The rain falls heavily
From depressed clouds
Of dark and mournful greys,
The torrent of water,
The sky's composure slipped away.

Needling drops ***** my skin
And crowns my saddened soul,
Sodden and embraced by cold.

My mind wanders far
Above these burdened clouds,
And their tears run down my face
Concealing my own
And washing silent pain away.

Now I and the rain
Have come together
In mournful harmony.
topaz oreilly Jul 2013
The  Love  children gather in  saffron meadows  
needling their aura  for
a  portal  beyond  innocence.
Prophecies  anew
points towards  the  stone  canyons  
where  form undefined, almost contorted
settles  on the former  Moon children,
whose antecedences  coexistence  with their seven moons,
orbited  the limitless  vacuum.
A perchance  to dream
to dare.
Krison Nov 2018
I dare you drive your car.

I'll walk between the crosswalk lines and bare the weight of all the lights and corners of the street.

The road is ground, ash and dust and still the dead can beat, there heavy hearts on souls of steel and never see what barrels down, but look to left and right.

So can you see the signs stamped
go? and stop, and find they mop you up.

From the road, they pack you up and weigh the load, with measure of your weight, with violence free.

So I doubt you ever will, allow your blood to spill.

But never will you know the cold.
Fruition at it's pace.


That in each turn see a door
without a mark,
to warn you halt.

Behind the the truth is stark.

It might be, that you have heart
and fear not cowards dread.

If of trial or not of trial, no courage and be dead.

So inturn be ground to black
the burnt and paved and lost.
Those with station ever grave,
and cross your heart intact.

For all is only constant,
Yet all the roads repeat.

With, of this the nothing.
Though we have the shapes.


Squares for stores,
Circles round,
That of destined loss.

Hope suspended,
reprimand, light house roundabouts.

That heavy air unbreathable,
And acts on ground conceivable,
Until the light you bend.


But yet we strive to different shines.
Those of different lamps.
Cramps of youth
Yearning now to smile at us, back .

For it was us in tiny rooms
destined to the sky.


The guile lost, with hope to find your foolishness intact.

If not of them and only you
Trails for them you make.

A road of trials, tribulations , so don't retract one act.

For such is shame.
The needling.
To never chance, the why.

That the hope might
Be there still
For daily do we lie.

That it is to the woods,
And oceans reasonings.


This our dusk with glimmer, gleam.
Our making's of a dream.
Jesha Dec 2017
25
You told yourself 25 was a good age to die
Ghosting on the tail end of youth,
The Grey would never touch you.

But 25 is here, and the razor is coppered from neglect
And the pills in the cabinet have long lost their voice from bitter age.

25 is here, and you're reminded of the deal you made with Death at 18
When the weight of life nearly killed you
And your idea of hope was the promise of an early grave.

25 is here, and you don't want to die
But the burden of years that have not yet arrived
Press down on your shoulders like the heavy hands of unwanted men.

And yet.
You don't want to die.

So you rely on your emergency exits
collecting dust under tarnished jewelry and gold-strangled hair ties.

Like old friends you meet up with once a decade, you pacify their need for acknowledgement,
Weaving nevers into not yets with empty promises and shallow reassurances,
Brushing off their needling whispers as they bounce off another day gone by.

Because you're 25.
And you're not done yet.
To read or not to read at Open Mic night...
RJ Days Apr 2014
Deep tensions draw the shoulds and hold so much
While hells are made from can’ts and still-might-be’s
With magic care great weeds and blooms are ******
Upon real earth, no final fantasies
What does she owe herself and so the rest?
I strain to view but maybe it’s unclear
Though few embraced those true but hollow jests
well hewn from mind as sharply filled with fear
For needling help the price of scars she paid
She brought them forth, in love she did enlist
Defying self, unworthy world was stayed
Creating joy in order to exist
And now to hold us, tend the garden too
Is what we all need mothers' hands to do.
for Keri
Steve D'Beard Mar 2014
I scramble around a petrol token mug
purporting to be an ash tray stained in neglect
needling between ash and cigarette butts
looking for some spent tobacco to recycle
and breathe in the cancerous smoke of belonging.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I am strong when you are feeble", he said.

The doctor twiddles his fountain pen
a parting gift from his late father
held with the poise of grace
and wielded like a lance
the pen can do many things for he and I
prescribe or chastise
the freedom with solitude
and the four white walls
of limiting restraint.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"We are symbiotic you and I", he said.

I wonder though is it:
Mutualistic
Commensalism
Parasitism or
Neutralism -
Who benefits who?

Do we bathe in each others glory
holding hands in the lost age of reason
comfort in the loneliness of winter
or just a dream of the endless
a figment of the imagination
and the passing of time
looking out of frosted windows.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
"I lead you in the dark, I am your light", he said.

I sometimes step back into the gloom
He fills my capillaries
clogging up my arteries
with his dark and mischievous veins
calling out to faceless strangers
walking past in the haze
the ones the others do not see
just out of line of sight
mottled and disfigured and blurred.

"Have another drink on me", he said.

I am distracted by the minute
leading this shabby existence
and the opening of unpaid bills
and the carnage of last weeks washing
and the bottles of empty beer discarded
like a tramps ***** in the drying sun
monuments to a day before when we were younger
and wrestled in the long grass of salvation
and the long summer days of liberal libation.

"I am the one and only constant you will ever have", he said.

Without him I will be hollow
like a rotten tree trunk
gashed in initials of love letters
with a pen knife
saturated in the remains
of fortified wine bottles
and leaf litter molding
in the dying frost of spring.

"Just don't ever talk about me", he said.
Just don't ever talk about us, is what he meant.
There’s a drum set in my room. Just beside my bed.
I have 4 pairs of sticks; one has a broken head.
The cat is roaming around, finding a place to sleep.
He plays around with my blanket. Needling it with his feet.
A bottle of beer, half empty, half full.
Another half drank bottle of wine, a commodity of a fool.
A ***** ashtray in the table and a cigarette between my fingers.
Just right between my pinky and the ring, where it putridly lingers.

No one’s playing the drums, yet the silence is deafening
The broken stick head is still on the ground, where it fell from breaking.
The cat now quietly resting, just licked his nose after yawning.
His name is Sae, the syllable I say in a high pitch when I call him.
The beer is now quarter full, around hundred fifty milliliters
It’s 750 if full, but empty when touched by drinkers
The ashtray, dozen of butts, ***** of ashes
The loneliness, the silence, an evidence, a witness.

It’s just another night of my life, my joy, my agony
They said young life was fun, not for me.
I have no job, I have no partner, I have no money.
And just to make it worse, my father was taken away from me.
Now, I’m alone, though I still have family.
One from my father, another from my mother and a brother younger than me.

I’m not complaining about anything, I love my life and I live it too.
A philosophy of mine, ‘if you love love, love has got to love you.’
Even if love loves me, fate has other plan planned for me.
An invisible web of thread hidden from me.
Though it would be easier if I knew where I should go.
And not think of excuses and impromptu responses once the troubles grow.

I see the Sae staring at me, his eyes mildly close, but looking at me.
He wants to sleep but still waiting for me.
If only it was that easy, that one can sleep and forget everything.
A beer and a cigarette and every problem would be nothing.

A potion, a smoke couldn’t change anything, nothing at all.
But helps you forget the times fate made you crawl.
It would only give music for a silent night but noise for the trouble.
Lets you sleep, but wake up in the morning with the trouble doubled.

Fate, oh fate. If beer, smoke, music and Sae could only convince you.
That I’m young and senseless, would you make it easier for a fool.

If only the silence bear music, the beer give solutions,
the smoke give predictions, and Sae tell me that in fate, there’s no absolutions.
Graff1980 Jan 2015
It starts with a needling sensation. Pink ****** poking around the back of your mind. Consciousness receding in retreat as something else overtakes your brain. Placing time at its’ own weird intervals. Fuzzy projections like tiny porcupine quills sting and stain your flesh as you try to recall. It is one sensory input after another linked by some unknown band with its’ own elasticity. Memory is not immutable, but a soft and fleshy permeable thing, changing with the rearranging of your current identity.

       Identity is a sea of broken lines, experiences forming disintegrating and reforming again. Changing ever so slightly or ever so drastically. There is sadness in the losing of solid beliefs, in coming to terms with the transient nature of your memory. Even when soft connections are made, when emotions seam to tie you to old memories there is still sorrow. There is still an aching, longing for something better, or a baleful pain gnawing at your gut like an angry cougar. Memories attempting to devour you in its’ strangely reconstructed past.
There is still a magic of the rituals, especially when we’re vibing together, stimulating an extreme climate of moods and intense thoughts, that I sweat out blood, consolidating the past to my parent of my future, Lucifer for I’ve meet you before death, through lalent needling threads dusting aura in a silhouette of temptation that backs itself up in forms out reality fulfilling meaning. For the mysteries of mysticism isn’t replaced, just enhances, at least now I have forever to understand, while I’m formed into a symbol of light, where illumination is and I praise in the darkness. The Holy war provides more complex, while it’s veil is simple. People cannot win the world by using the world to fight for their purpose for society in false revolutions. Humanity isn’t worth fearing. I’ve peaked beyond the curtain and saw only horror on both sides of good and evil. It’s frightening to see what people do for their side and personal success. Do not feed into their fear. You have mind, use it, live your life, before they take your life, there is a lot more enlightenment within yourself. As for me siding with Lucifer, for he hates all religion, ideology and culture, uplifting individuality to allow them to master of their own realm.
(please checkout current publications on Amazon. Just search Darcy Prince for titles.)
Jon Tobias Oct 2011
The word “Enthusiasm” comes from the Greeks

Meaning

God within the self

There is a god inside myself

Needling my fingertips when I touch you

I think they had it right

When they said

There is a god inside of everything

There is a god inside my mother’s voice

Calling me back to sleep

And inside

Broken beer bottles

On beaches

Inside the blood that runs from my feet

When I step on beer bottle beach glass

There is a giant of a god

In the ocean

And he’s dying to swallow me

There is a god

Inside every passing moment

His voice as subtle as a whisper

During an earthquake

Reminding you how to be calm

You have to be calm to listen

I have heard

If you play a piano

Tuned to the key of broken

You will hear the voice of

Humility

It is the sound of a god

Reminding you

Every beautiful thing breaks too

Every beautiful thing

Breaks too

There is a god

Kind enough to white noise my panic

Living in every deep breath I take

So that I might have just enough time

To explain how I love you

There is a god in the words of wisdom

Falling short of the ears they were

Supposed to take

Take my ear

Take my heart

Take my breath

And beat the dust of back country

Back into the god living inside the man

Who’s fingertips burn when he touches you

My fingertips burn when I touch you

I am pretty sure they had it right

When they said

That there is a god

In everything
Alexandria Hope Apr 2016
It's a dead end heat, walking along the black asphalt,
Gravity pulling heavy on my ankles, needling my sore shoulders,
As various A/C units kick on, droning against the dead leaves,
Heavy as rushes at the edge of a pond.
I can almost smell the moss and peat and crave the cooler air,
Mouth watering for that earthy atmosphere and paths, outside this blistering concrete,
On and on the days drone on, on and on they fly by, and I'm missing,
Hours spent inside back tracking hours, reminiscing the haze
Over an abandoned playground, or the touch, of a forgotten moment,
Blood slowing, shutting down, circulation sluggish, dead,
Trying to cool down for just a breath
Aman Dheer May 2016
A seed broke through the sky
springs up in my altar
and inside the coffin
personifying my numb skin
with the fluid still rolling deep
skyrocketing the clock hands
and winding the old spring toy
into unwanted motion
orbiting around the arms
of a poor grandmother,
needling the old hammer struck nails
into the thick ledge gliding down
like paper planes that I made
racing like pigeons on the tree tracks
taking note of the honking of the cars
and vehicles whose breath is taken in
by our already blood-filled, puffed lungs,
the clogged drains are unblocked
to let my friendship sail on the waves
of the boat with my hands on seek,
the tired soles of the shoes are worn out
sending a letter everyday now and then
whilst sitting in the mirror of colours.
VISIT - www.amandheer.wordpress.com
Horrid actions
Taken;
Lives lived for lives
Forsaken;
Hapless people living
Broken;
Caved in throats
With words unspoken.
Hurting era of
Lost desire;
Hateful speakers,
Smoldering fires;
Storms that threaten,
Not just the weather;
People that won't work together.
Hate and anger
Running free-
Sickening,
and twisting me.
In this world
That speaks of doom,
Living, trapped, inside our rooms;
Every day, the news gone bad-
Needling us,
To make us mad;
A thousand things,
Innundating;
The disaster
In which we are participating.
I cant unsee
Or deny
These things, events
That make me cry-
But I wont give in,
And thusly lie;
That its all ok,
Everything is fine.
Ellie Belanger Oct 2014
hello.
you wanted answers
to your questions
they are bleeding
you dry, like so many
needling worries
do.

I'm calling you to tell you
that I don't have anything to say.
It's a lie,
but I'm too stuck to tell you
that the thought of sitting
somewhere quiet and cold
watching the stars pop out of their
black velvet bed
as the wind and the cars
whip by
to turn and look at you
your eyes reflecting red and green
bound in gold and browns
it's the only thing keeping me
going,
like a thread of ribbon,
beautiful delicate
stronger than you'd think
but lost against the
repeating fabric
of daily tedium and survival.

— The End —