the moon is my friend
she cradled me in my past life
she handed me to my mother when it was time for a new one
she gave me fruit when i was younger
sometimes she leaves
but she always returns

Looking out over a Mountain View
was my idea of escaping.
But my feelings of
inadequacy,
my shortage of happiness,
and my lack of love
only grew.
It’s wasn’t an escape.
It was emotional poverty with a view.

there is a girl in a garden
who sits under a dying tree
sometimes I look out the window
and she waves or smiles at me

frost paints over the window
cobwebs fill the room
and still the girl in the garden
sweeps away the gloom

I've never spoken to the girl in the garden
I couldn't if I tried
but her smile is a sight to see
even if she's long since died

We rounded the corner,
the Sandia Mountains glimmering like rust-colored prophets
from the passenger seat.
Far from The Flatlands,
I traced the curves
of Mother Earth with my fingers.
I imagined the way her gentle hands
could carve existence on a whim.

I always find a way to disappear
because that's what they did to me.
I can't say it's wrong or right
but it's what comes natural to me.

They say pain
makes poetry
so I wondered why
I hadn't been writing
then I remembered
pain is not what I'm feeling
it's what I'm yearning
in all this feeling
of numb

I will love you, until we are black and blue; bruised by these pains and pleasures, that I offer you.

but not for Sal
you or

even me

these droopy white flowers
with dark

blackened blue
tasty berries in the middle

whit howland © 2021

You swore you wouldn’t hurt me,
And I swear the ache in my bones is all your fault.

Or maybe it’s mine?
For giving in too easily,
For giving you too much of my heart.

And you know I’m terrified of drowning,
But this silence is consuming me.
Swelling my lungs.

This keeps happening,
Like the sun sets and the waves crash...
People keep leaving me.

I kissed a girl with a broken smile;
nothing could come near.
She carved it with a pocket knife;
slit from ear to ear.
And she wears it like her favourite scarf;
it keeps her from the cold.
So I told her its only woven by
her enemies of old.

I dreamt of you last night
You were laughing in the light
I was laughing with you too
We had nothing else to do
We never looked ahead or behind us
I’d forgotten how life could be
Sparkling easy and free
Now I don’t do very much
Routine chains me, keeps me in touch
With reality such as it is
I do miss you and the fizz
You were my bottle of champagne
In my dreams you will remain
I dreamt of you
Yes I dreamt of you.......

Last night

Inside you

is where I want to

be,

thrusting

within the folds

of your mind

penetrating

the sweet softness

of your soul,

throbbing

as I release my love

deep within you.
                                     Jon York   2019.

There’s a tomorrow
For your sorrows
And high expectations
You can’t figure out
Today you’re feeling down
Alone
And so much work to do
Tomorrow is on the way
To help you out

Remember your art
Smarty
And party
Just party
Cause you like to laugh

I haven't wrote in a while and my words fell silent
But the war in my head still remains violent
I've changed so much and come a long way
Pushing through day by day
I've missed these poems, they kept me sane
These poems I write take away the pain

Dear me,
Don't just sit
Rise, and pursue greatness.

Don't just watch
Go after what you want.

Don't just exist
Strive and start living.

Don't just dream
Work hard and aim for success.

Don't get tired
Keep hiking until you get to the peak.

Just a glimmering of an idea--
No flesh, no bones, just a mirage in the distance--
But also commitment.
And so it begins, the beginning begins.

I write prose
poetry to
prove
I'm a product of
poor upbringing

The flowers keep wilting,
For they know that you’ve gone.
They sing out their lonely, heartbroken song.

They long for your touch,
Attention,
And care,
Breathing your water,
They thirst for your air.

They live out the days,
In their milky white vase,
Murky water subsiding,
Reflecting your face.

If it’s hard for you to recognize
Let me make it clear for you to realize
See, I don’t lie with my eyes
But my smile I despise

Cuz everything
Everything
Makes me unhappy

I just take the punch
And move along

It hits me hard enough
To feel the pain
But still get up

And be “fine again”

Everything
Everything
Makes me unhappy

I am in pain
And see no way out

I am the deep, the sky in reverse
I have what you seek, for better or worse

I am the blue of infinite depth
I've swallowed the crews and cleared the decks

You are afraid or maybe intrigued
Of the place where you played and also was freed

Kiss me now like you did before
Give me your vow and the ocean is yours.

By design, you put roof over me
By nature, I need the sun

Don't be insecure you are special because God made you

They’d waited too long to say

“I love you”.

3 words. 3 syllables.

Yet they held millions of emotions unspoken.

and now that they’d done it, they wouldn’t,
couldn’t, stop

they told each other all the time. In the end of the argument and before the good news.

In the middle of the storm, even though it was hard to see, and after, when the raging winds had settled on a breeze

before the rising sun turned the sky pretty colors and after it flickered out and faded away into the dark

Underneath the stars that their love had been etched into

There was no love until death for them. Because it would never stop. Their love was beyond. It rose above any border that would dare to try and stop it. There was no finish line

because they were each other’s end game.  
-L.R

Why is poetry dying
when we still have the gift?
If we still have water
then we still have a ship.
We can sail to the places
these words take us.
We are still shaken
by the words that make us.
Why should we let poetry die
when there is so much to explore?
If only people read it
and discovered more.

Every day I go around the world and back
But I never leave my own head.
The thing I fear most,
And my greatest relief,
I'm averse to and crave my own death.

Ants crawling round in a nest of confusion.
Chaos and order;
Messy organization.
Spilling out my ears and onto my lap.
And my heart sinks as I realize I'm almost out of tissues and Raid.

Crisp day, sun shine;
Black death.
Birds chirp, leaves dance;
Despair.
Love blossomed, pleasure realized;
I dig my own grave another foot deeper.

What can stop this incessant ringing?

To this day,
your name
still hurts my tongue
but I still say it anyway.
Sometimes I like to
hear my soul
gently tear itself
apart.

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

I long for your voice.

when i died the first time
inhaling an ocean
they said
this was not the plan
turn back.

and when i did
i tried to fly with no lessons
nor wings
and they called me
stubborn.

but i came round
and sought a chainsaw
and then a mermaid
and then death herself
i think she was

and each time
they said the same thing
over and over and over and over:
wrong destiny. wrong destiny.
go again.

the instructions are in a language i do not possess.

If you could read my mind,
You’d see a thousand papers
Filled with broken poetries
And deadbeat proses
Full of woeful verses
With mournful pieces
Of unfinished stories
That are yet to be written
And failed to be spoken;
If you could read my mind,
You’d hear horrible screams
And earsplitting weeps
From shattered dreams,
Kept in a nasty notepad,
Scribbled on a bed
Of bloodstained words,
Ringing in my head.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the shadows
That lurk within me;
You’d hear the bellows,
Screeching the words
“I’m tired,”
“I’m a failure,”
“I’m stupid –”
I know it sounds stupid,
It’s pathetically foolish
And seems like *******.
If you could read my mind,
You’d feel the tears
I had ever failed to cry;
You’d see the people
That make the weak weaker;
You’d see the monsters
That consume my head;
You’d hear the hollers
That failed to be freed;
You’d see the heart
That still bleeds and bleeds.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see the face
I’ve failed to show back then,
The face I’ve faked back then.
If you could read my mind,
You’d see a character
I had ever failed to become
If you could read my mind,
You’d be able to read
A book you never wished
To touch and read,
But sometimes I still wish
Someone could read my mind.

Mad Man’s Emotion

A pain so deep,
so overwhelming,
his tears,
turn to laughing,
(in hyena fashion)
it’s the only
it’s the only
it’s the only,
lullaby he knows.

James E. Roethlein copyright 2021