God, I hate 3am!
You make me late for work and grind my mind into bite sized peanut butter cups.
My thoughts are not a drill,
but they ***** me like Debbie did Dallas.
*really? You're doing ****
references now? *
**** off!
YES, I said **** in a poem!
*who are you talking to? *
YOUR MOTHER!!!
always voices at 3am!
Voices like shadows barely perceived on the edge of your ear.
*you can't hear shadows *
No one ******* ASKED YOU!
Sleep is a midnight UFO hovering behind an old farmhouse.
You may have seen something... once, but you can't prove it really exists.
Not at 3am when shadows walk like peeping Toms passed your window.
Not at 3am when your eyes are shot and your skull tingles like peppermint body wash on a squeaky clean ********
What the **** am I saying?
I don't even know anymore.
©Nathan A. Brock 2022
Oct 6, 2022
Oct 6, 2022 at 6:00 AM UTC
How do you hide from the mirror so well?
Your tears are so faint I almost missed them;
I almost missed you!
That fluorescent smile, so wide and so "true".
As though your lips were not curled
around rough cinder chips…
Hide the cuts on your lips
so masterfully, too.
A smile and a laugh.. you dance like a leaf
blown by hot fume and ash…
Your tattered edge hidden from view.
No, I'm not like you.
I dance more like pebbles rolled by the tide..
all scattered, and cracked…
My smile is chipped and askew...
And my laugh is absurd! Halting and gruff..
not lovely like you.
Not chorus triumphant with heaven's imbue.
You're harp strings and viols in rhapsody blue!
And would you believe, I once had the mind
to smite myself coldly and leave me behind
to emulate all that is you?
To laugh and to sing - to dance like a flame - to speak the way only you do?
Yes, I wanted so much to persue!
But, your lips drip with nightshade in honey-sweet dew, so viciously rich!
My ache is entwined in their hue.
No, I could not be quite like you!
May 4, 2022
May 4, 2022 at 10:51 PM UTC
You were the only one I hated more than myself, yet...
Somehow, that was the best idea of love that I had.
© Nathan A. Brock 2022
Apr 5, 2022
Apr 5, 2022 at 10:33 PM UTC
I Know how the moon feels.
Used to reflect the haughty brilliance
of a star too arrogant to close
his eye to the night sky.
Does the sun not see the frozen
tears that stain her face?
I often wish to be cold and empty, too.
To pass- silent and unnoticed through
my own dark expanse.
To keep my thoughts,
my secrets,
my tears behind the black.
Yes! I know how the moon feels.
Jul 18, 2021
Jul 18, 2021 at 11:52 PM UTC
You will always be the broken
structure where I hide
in my hypocrisy.
Yes, I shall build my crypt
with your stone, and I
will be the mortar;
Stacking you high into the
shadows overhead;
holding you fast where I
deem is your home;
My mortar will hold you!
Indeed, it shall outlast your
stone;
Holding it's vague shape
in chalky, skeletal ruin while
men gaze, not knowing what
that shape could mean.
© Nathan A. Brock
Jul 18, 2021
Jul 18, 2021 at 1:35 AM UTC
My rage is a dandelion seed head scattering
to the wind; I can't catch
every piece.
Though, sometimes, one may float
into my palm, and I examine it to find
that the spiky yet soft hairs of the fury white drifter make no sense to me.
© Nathan A. Brock
Jun 12, 2021
Jun 12, 2021 at 1:14 PM UTC
My desk is a boring place.
I sit for hours scrolling through
long lists of emails, service requests;
barely enough coffee inmy cup
to erase the blur from my screen.
Ahh, my desk is a
boring place.
There’s a cat on my calendar that
stares at me in aperpetual state of
nervous anticipation,
as if awaiting my next movement
that it might spring out of view
and hide beyond the edge of it’s page.
But it doesn't- it sits and
gawks unmoving.
Outlook pings...
Yet another printer is down.
The same printer from last week.
What an absolute headache
printers are. But, at least it
relieves me of my desk.
My desk is a
boring place
When I return I may write a
line or two, but don't expect
too much.
Not from this poem.
This poem is a
boring poem.
© Nathan A. Brock
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 10:25 PM UTC
You are a tequila sunrise
and I take my bourbon
neat.
Mar 24, 2021
Mar 24, 2021 at 12:02 AM UTC
If you’re expecting a poem, this isn’t it.
It might not even be prose… I don’t know.
as I write,
a combination of bourbon and rye
with a foamy Guinness finish
is lapping against the walls of my stomach;
I’m intoxicated, and I feel good…
but I digress.
I just want to share the experience.
Anyway, there I was in a Skid Row bar
enjoying my whiskey when I overheard
a conversation.
Bukowski was mentioned.
I happened to have a copy of
‘The People Look Like Flowers at Last’
in my bag, and I - already feeling light and fluffy- took it out and waved it around
as if it were the congressional medal of honor.
A man spoke up. He was a very old man;
wrinkled and hunched over,
and he wore a colorful fedora upon his
(likely) hairless head.
He claimed to have met Bukowski
in the very bar we were drinking in tonight.
I was intrigued; I bought him a drink
and he told me the whole tale.
As it goes, Bukowski was in the bar one night,
drunk and waving his name around and saying things like “oh, c’mon! I’m Charles Bukowski! The writer… the immortal poet.”
It sounded like Chinaski - and this guy
didn't look like much of a reader, so I decided
to give his story some credit.
Anyhow, the man I was speaking with was
there that night, and he had something to say.
He told Bukowski “you’re an *** hole!
You might be big with the colleges
and the fancy journals, but down here
you’re a drunken *** Just drink your *****
and shut your ******* mouth!”
He seemed to become angry even as he spoke to me. I was in awe!
There I was - in Skid Row of all places -
sitting as close as I will ever sit
to my greatest influence.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 10:48 PM UTC
Dark and cozy,
playlist of metal and punk,
generous doubles -
above the 4 ounce standard;
I like this place.
The bartender’s drinking too;
looks like *** - dark and sweet -
neat.. my man!
no one bothers me,
I bother no one;
only sit and sip my drink,
peace.. solace.. tranquil..
listening to the montage
of ***** ***** jokes
from the men center bar.
They laugh - not loudly,
they are quite old.. mousey..
squeaky voiced..
I chuckle as Skid Row skids
just outside the door -
it doesn’t come in
until after dark.
This city hasn’t much to
offer a redneck like me,
but I like this place.
Jan 19, 2020
Jan 19, 2020 at 5:40 PM UTC