Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Tom Shields Mar 2021
Magick is born of natural forces
love triumphant against all odds
the enchantment on mortal minds of beauty surmounting in the splendor of their forests
and in stranger places, darker, forbidden; for magick is not barred by intervention or interest
it defies mortal order, without agenda, blooming even from malice and the foulest festering wounds of cruelty

In such a place aforementioned arose the practice of necromancy
many, many years ago many thousands died of a sudden plague
that swallowed an entire kingdom off the map, casting its history into obscurity
all within the borders perished, thus the land was condemned by reason
and then abandoned by superstition, her neighbors offered no aid
fearful for their lives they turned away from the dying and dead season after season
alone they toiled and suffered, famine, pillaging and poverty, the shadow of a harvest scythe spreading over them was not delayed

With years the truth was all but myth, misplaced faithfully by historians in their books
and with masks full of theriac, resembling carrion birds, expeditions departed across the borders
often the doctors noted only the overgrowth of plants or ruins that once were towns, often so to ***** looks
for they were believed to be morbid and perverted, some were treated like witches and others like crooks
while the expeditionary doctors closed in on their consensus; that it was perfectly safe to tame the land
it was a young herbalist who discovered this sense of dread and darkness in the soil
where foreign flora, an unworldly brush and trees that dazed the senses stood
sprouted from the ashes at the site of ancient castle ruins, these Wyrd Wyrm Wood

She lived there, unnoticed having snuck beyond the open borders on a lie
and in her studies, became at one with the garden rooted in genocide
in tune with all the life, her toes bare in the dirt, breathing the air of that mad forest
the spirits adrift spoke to her on the wind, revealing their unrest
their lives ended by a sudden burst of poisonous clouds, respite and relief denied
begging as they choked on boils that burst in their throats, drowning in blood as allies on either side watched them die
all for the folly of a weapon launched from the North, falling short of the West, catapulting volleys of plague exploding in the sky
the outrage of thousands, with all the ancestors preceding them, and all the dead who walked before
fertilized in the land and shone down on by the heavens, came to her in the form of a king, so by the sword she swore:

As a Dark Druid, Necromancer and vengeful protector
of those innocently slaughtered, she bound this ghost king to her own soul
by the root of a blood-watered flower, ground by mortar and pestle  
the power to freeze bones while swinging the steel of the undead king,
with all the strength and knowledge of entire bloodlines behind her
she set forth, a ghost now forever tethered in her shadow
chained to each other, her life unnatural, she expelled the invaders
who neglected their duties only to feign woe over the drying ink of a treaty
then come to reap the benefits of benign promises.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2022
How many doors, unlocked by the keys

upon the belt of the old chapel *****

lead to stained glass memories,

now seen clearly, scenes that color "happy"

as "nothing bad is happening"

with light brush stroke through a prism

all things on a spectrum, the abacus of reality

filtered through perspective, subject to change

it feels divine, the aura of decay

how slowly it eats away, no more doors lead anywhere

but astray, how much further can loss penetrate

until all that's left to sink teeth into and bite is dust,

and that is the substance of character that one has, for one must

ash, in the mouths of babes, to and fro,

remember this was a happy place, sour note, a bleak ray

or can you know?


A dog in the church, unafraid and untame

on all fours barking mad, a man only in name

stay away, go away, get back, ruination, rumination

alienation, safety, isolation, redemption, penance

lush paradise, barren desolation

how many keys unlock the doors of perception,

how strange is the mind of a mutt, weakened by hunger

frothing with rabies, barely standing and bare from mange.
write
please read and enjoy.
Tom Shields Jan 2021
Reflection, introspective question, echoes "Dissonance..."
this distance, fist, fuel pump Death's liplock on cognizance
cogs ground to halt, acthung in their tongues whipping ignorance
pale snow like corpse-flesh rest and rot on the ground
thunderous, the sky fills with one overpowering sound
exhaustion, bleaker cracks than ever on the porcelain eye
behold this, the greatest show you cannot miss
give us a kiss, death give us a kiss, expel the spirit and leave the lie
screaming for a blanket, notes plaster the walls and ceiling and all the clashing concords are parabolic bliss

With your sugar skull aloft and looking down
all these jesters dance to entertain one clown
the paint wears off their faces, no presence
no dignity, no disgraces, they look into the mirror and say this
"Courage..." comes from elegance over using power at every chance
while cold water runs off with the colder blood that seeps from the cuts in their hands

Star fire!
Molten and liquid and poured into the gullets of each of your foolish and wicked, cruel and detestable people
if no person ever lived, who is to say if the universe would ever know such things as evil?
The pomegranate complexion of these brazen, emboldened, boorish and bombastic beings
I curse their granite introspection with blazing, untold and traumatic things
burst them and wither their seeds to nothing, all that I regard of them in sight
death kisses are the sweetest for they offer final release from all mortal pains, and carry you off into the eternal night.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields May 2021
Superiority from roots to branches
fraternity excelsior, forever where neverland is
infernal immaturity, malicious impropriators
generations and nations, hatred and placation
tradition, bones in the foundation
sweltering, blood waters the fields, sweat salts the soil
birth-rite of passage for years, never lived on a money plantation
heritage hidden from peers, shock to the shears
sheer heart attack, locked up in worst fears
guilt boils eye-kettles to tears,
scream for the sun to fall
surfacing cicadas are all empathetic ears
thunder before dawn, buzzing is all anybody hears

Testify, the very cream of the wheat
scraped froth from the top of the crop
the tip of an etiquette pick of the elite
meat so fine it melts between teeth
pompous and disconnected in its airs
that the pig never writes the pen; while turning up its nose at all of those beneath.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields May 2021
Cold and still in the dark, an inner eye turned to the future
that well of uncertainty that stirs deep within
calm, slow flowing streams of thought from the ocean
a focused spirit, melancholy in its clarity of self
but comforted by the sight of an old man

He says evil is a hard choice to make;
some never get to choose in the first place
it is rarer than the good that it pulls minds away from
yet only by exertion can it be done, energy consumed
even in a void there is a presence of peace
and if you exist in nothing, the only bad there can be
is what you create out of nothing
wisdom is not having answers, he says,
but being open to the possibility that all questions are like life
open ended.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2022
Minimize unsociable souls
into popular candy bite sized
for a digestible comprehensive cycle
to churn out a simplified phrase from the guts.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
Manifest these bindings
hold these wrists
press head to table
bludgeon up a little kiss,
dredge up a hint of, a whistling hiss
photogenic with hidden bruises
covered cuts and no smile
going under, hold it down,
be back around in just a little while

Every pause for thinking
is a speedway, motorcars are racing
collisions just happen
explosions are an expectation
it's a spectacle
it's a miracle
there's two voices like percussive instruments
of destruction, concussive, getting into it
their never ending argument
a dance they perform, back and forth
ladies and gents may I present!

Me, myself, and all my imaginary friends
we have a raucous time, billowing smoke
charging through points, while others stop and turn on a dime
it's so **** loud with all the pathways, there's not much of this tree I can climb
there are so many interpretations of people in my voice, in my head, I'm not so sure if I'm-
left- behind- I can't handle the cross talk
they're falling over each other, I'm drowning myself out
twitching and flinching, memory not photographic
can't give you evidence to prove it, you're not gonna get it
I can't even read enough into life, I'm spent and lethargic
looking pale, smelling dead, shuffling around like I'm sick
I can't read into a book, the monologue of my voice interrupts the narrative
if my brain finds solace in movies and games, then I build a dam
that bursts with insects toppling over, screaming incoherent, collective regret in so many different names
I get it, there's so much, it's a collective
I can't keep myself in line, I can't even remember
some of the most important places in time

They don't know what plotting and scheming means
it's ambiguous purposefully,
this isn't even poetry,
my life goes on without me
I say I plot and scheme, when I begin work on a project
because I like the context to mesh with life somewhat vaguely
and like a razor-veil, peel the skin off reality
that I may dip a toe in its blood, to come and go from it freely
my focus isn't held by anything today
and only moments ago my heart swelled with overwhelming empathy
I loved all people greater than myself, I held them high in regards that they were made equally
now I feel so hallowed, there is no sanctuary, I have nothing to give from the heart, there is not an inner piece of me
I feel ready to collapse, weep openly, sleep until even my unconscious is empty, and then I will wander without aim, hand in hand with misery, my most loyal company, lackadaisically, make my way back from where I sent this resented, repented, pent up part of my history.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Dec 2020
Oh, you narcoleptic stars
don't go blinking out on me again
two shovels dig out scars
dirt they scatter across the fens
with a howl that cracks the marshal's eyelid
razing beneath the arch
oh, you sleepy stars, look what you did
you left the sky alone to focus on your march

Offsprings of life, water fills the path you trudge
who are you or I who do not drink of these puddles to know?
Who are you or I to twinkle eternal, but lightning bugs?
The less there is the more there can be, if we but speak it so
leave with lighter steps that your future is one none may judge
and a place you may beckon others to follow, but you alone may go.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Apr 2021
Hardly have the time, have the energy
never excel at being a beacon, expel the faux morality
there's a flag up here where the air is thin
you should see it, washed and worn, poised brilliantly
it's the ideal symbol, unmanned and waving in the wind

Assume high ground and no longer stand next
this nonstop squawk-box is a flooded chicken-feed
all the pick-and-peck running around with no heads on necks
glaring holes through character history for past misdeeds,
build a reputation off dead-end roads, laying fault wherever it leads

Crime is a heavy coat in the summer, some wear it year round
mercilessly branded, no forgiveness, people are always thankful they're above water when they see someone else has drowned;
not to help, but to blow out bright candles, smother dreams and watch lives go up in smoke like birthday wishes
the strongest weapon against a population is the population, it's the omnipresent bullet that never misses
we're all eating scraps off one plate together, leaving behind less food and more ***** dishes
so guarded and insecure it's almost an offensive decision to voice opinions anymore, but we all do, besides,
you won't be here long enough not to at least try to realize a difference, don't mind your own business
put your mind behind your own business
take your best creation and put it on the outside
live long enough to see it once, take it in with pride
it's your time to be seen, be felt and be heard, as short as it is.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2020
The answers are complicated
that doesn't mean the questions are
understanding why can be an impossible task
when it's all too easy to know

Torchbearer, you conduct your sections with such technique
dancing lights, ta chanson sombre, c'est magnifique
all bubbles in the mud cannot make a man of clay
yet on your masterful conception du mal ils sont volés
night encroaching over the border, spilling into day
la nuit sans fin sur nous, sleep you who sit and stay
pas un le malin avec les moutons, sur une perle de sueur tu pries
until even fearful perspiration in the sweltering rain is washed away.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Nov 2020
Corporate society, the paradise no one asked for
Everyone works for us, toward us, generations of sheep
Shepherds few, gathered around our executive table
They’d love to knock down our door
But they’d have to know to look in such exquisite places, their eyes have never turned so high before!
Aha-ha! Grace those who know their stations, serve and toil dutifully
I love to see them work their life away, the loyalty to big Energy, it brightens my day beautifully
Which brings the Board to the matter of Jonathan E.
Bartholomew, Chairman of the Energy Corporation, seated in Houston
Just handed the task to inform one Rollerballer that his career is done
Announces a televised special, featuring Jonathan’s career in multivision

Did you catch Houston vs Madrid?
Who are you trying to kid?
I haven’t missed a game yet, I wouldn’t now if it was the last thing I ever did
There’s rumors in the air, rumors on the street, propaganda floats from open leaks
I hear Jonathan is going to announce his retirement on a big show in a few weeks
Now, this lavish retirement package is all set, all you’ve got to do speak it to power
Jonathan listening, a bunch of hot air in a suit talks for five minutes and says as much in an hour
The two seem to have crossed a wire,
Butting heads when he refuses to retire
Maybe you should have said why, sir
He also requested to see his ex-wife sir,
She was reappropriated by a corporate executive who wanted her,
Perhaps if this goes much farther, she can be a messenger…

Savvy of their ways, he can smell a coup for days
Knowledge, that’s real power, so it doesn’t strike him as strange
That he finds all books on corporate history have been changed
And hidden in the memory vaults of their supercomputers, at protected locales
Jonathan can’t rightly figure out why they’re so shook about the best Rollerball player in the world
Neither can an Energy executive he asks for information, just one of his old pals

Well, he’s not keen on playing by our rules in our world
We’ll go and change his!
Semi-finals, Houston vs Tokyo, no penalties, limited substitutions, multiple deaths, broken bones and contusions
Fractured skulls, comatose players, ****** bodies wrecked and left wrung out with a broken neck
We raise the stakes on the track, crush their knees, break their back
His best friend claimed in the senseless slaughter, and another irreversibly vegetative
Jonathan, Houston wins, and he manages to live
The doctors pressure him to pull life support, his disrespect, defiant and tall
His teammate is braindead, they cite the rules of the facility, no family, permit me to **** him please
There aren’t rules. There aren’t any rules at all.
Even a plant senses life. It turns towards the sun. It’s alive isn’t it?
Talking to the bedside body in a Houston hospital,
He will dream he’s an executive, hands on all the controls
Bartholomew wishes him sweet dreams, and he will wear a gray suit and make decisions
But you know what, all the executives dream about behind their desks, reversed roles
That they’re Jonathan, with muscles, bashing in faces, their enemies give in
And they skate free; all that unrestrained barbarism and he only has to score goals

Post Tokyo bloodbath, the board reconvenes
The truth behind the threat of a Rollerball champion is revealed behind the scenes
The finals pit against each other the New York and Houston teams,
More importantly, Jonathan, who defeats the purpose of the game
By standing out he establishes individuality, they shouldn’t even know his name!
The entire point is to exercise the futility of individualism and satisfy bloodlust
And with a people’s champion at the helm of the sport, the answer is clear
No penalties, no time limit, no substitutions, Jonathan will die or lose; he must!
All in favor, no accidents, no sabotage, through natural defeat he will not live?
Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative.  

Zero, the central supercomputer for the world in Geneva
A repository of all human knowledge, which seems to be a
Bit off by quite a bit of data they hate to admit and let’s face it
Is there much surprise that the corporations bank of knowledge is a disgrace with,
Seemingly senile tendencies, their computer misplaced the thirteenth century, even the technicians can’t explain, but the bulbs are lit
Uh, yeah, I don’t know sir, it just seems like it’s not up to the task, what’d you want to ask?
He’s just a man whose career is a team sport revolving around getting a ball to a hole,
And they talk all this jargon, blow smoke and say nothing, he just wants to know how the corporations determine their goals

A final offer, by form of his former wife comes to try to talk him out of the deathmatch that is to come
In her eyes she is sold out, she’s only there to do bidding, an insult to his stirred mind that only hurts
I’ve been thinking, people had a choice between having all these nice things or freedom and we chose comfort!
But comfort is freedom, it always has been, history will show that poverty is an enemy of civilization, we struggled against need
No, they appeal to us, placate us, give us cards for our complacency to own us with our greed
They want me to quit, and she shudders, urging him on
That is why I came here, you have to, and he sees through it all now
Did they tell you if you got me to do it, that you’d have to stay with me? Are you my prize to be won?
Jonathan didn’t want to hear another word,
Disgust and rage, they turned her into a reward

New York is little more than a gladiatorial battle
Death on wheels, you can hear the blades scraping
Around and around they go
Hell on wheels, fires explode from the motorcyclists
The brutality erupts in spurts of blood, all players dying
Burning and broken and splayed and destroyed and screaming and crying
And twisted and contorted and smashed and ground and ripped and torn
No semblance of mercy for a moment is shown, no humanity in the war is born
It is ******, ten players on each team, down to three,
No scoring game, New York with a biker and a skater up
And Jonathan disrupts, the bike erupts, right in front of Bartholomew so he can see
He takes the ball, heavy steel, holds it over the last man’s head, his savage ******, mercy interrupts
And he leaves him laying, thankful for his life, two men out of twenty in one game survived
As he skates, blades scraping, fires crackling, flames taller than men stand by
It is so deathly silent in the arena that you could hear a dead man sigh  
The maiming and death and deception, the ice cold, exhausted look in his eye
He raises the ball overhead, where the crowd can see it up high
And scores one point before he goes around,
Slowly, arm in tatters, blood across his face and uniform in splatters
He throws his helmet and his glove down to echo in the silence, little clatters
He comes around again, the whispers of his name start to build to a chant
The champion! He just has to win! The roof comes off, they’re roaring now!
Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan!
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Mar 2021
By my own standards and principles
lofty morals, ideals, and values
I am a bad person
a complete and total failure

Hypocrisy, toxicity, vanity, petty desperation
abusive anger and aimless destruction, deprecation of identity
no respect or reverence for life, vile and small, harmful declarations
of my immature, pitiful, hatred for all
with a four cornered mouth, love, peace, chaos and selfish affairs
the distressful ever-present need to know someone cares!

Even if I have to preserve their love in memory, to preserve dead affection  
it's all just a narcissistic circus serving the draining need for attention
deceptive perception tricks the attunement to socialization,
am I insane, a psychopath, no, I am defined by my frequency of anxiety, manic depression and total self-deconstructive complete desecration
self-serving lies, when I run into the rules I expect from others the rule no longer applies
convenience, laziness, manipulative extroverted energy spent to the extent of cruelty and exhaustion
it'd be easier to hide every shred of evidence I have a past as this more safely avoided *******
than to keep trying, one shred of humanity, to get in touch with the decency I know is within me
it's easy to blame all the problematic seasons of my nature on any event or individual
those excuses satisfy prescriptions and doctors, they pass off the edge of being awkward socially
but I know my malice
the limit of it stretches out slowly

While I extend two arms from my spirit to crush the evil down less into a capability  
then into a capacity, make it less my reality and more a controlled crystalline statistical anomaly,
I know my heart chakra has been destroyed perfectly
though I have no disillusion of persecution or saviorship;
even this I can repair, with medication, meditation, time and poetry
a journey.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jan 2021
Litmus papers fall like leaves
barren woods, skin below the bark
exposed legs shed of greaves
purer nature stirs below the dark
tend to imagining new colors while the old world bereaves

Ice on membranes crackling, creaking like an old house
with new bodies within it, none dare utter a prayer to ghosts once there
creating a haunting conscience, guilt crawling 'round the brim like a louse
these tales can't bury the memory, chasers to the chancery, scoffing at the skullduggery presiding over this trial in equity

With new thoughts through it, plodded and frigid shoes mark the marble under the mare
to speak to the rest, whose malnourished spirits' and flesh hang from their bones, clinging with nary a care
this palace-cove whose palisades are pitfalls, sinking dirt and feelings, all lines entangled snare for reeling,
in retreat flesh amalgamations bellow their hoarse call, broken things begin to crawl
one unblinking, all-seeing eye in clay and mud, servants gleefully accompanied
artificial artifices spewing from their orifices, sacrificial bones for dice, reborn to dedicate themselves twice to the ruler of all touched by windfall
all the rain stings to touch, burns to drink, all creatures move at the speed of one herd in a stampede
clouds all move uniformly, each the same shape
trim and proper, primp as a moth's evening cape

Rocks that hang like metaphors for swords pointing down all show,
the ineffectual weeping of centuries, this world of caves has come to know
day and night cycle the same, even time to each all year,
and the eye turned inside, stacked atop its counterpart sheds a tear
for the surface sees mountains are headstones, each for one moment of woe
this colossus sows despair, pinpoint accurate and slow,
a garden of edicts and a veil, the world turtle's movements sew
laws applied to the wild magicks unexplained and defined, bind the eyes to mortal time and so,
mesmerizing until blind and without sensation, the only interest or love, fades until it's gone,
now the only interaction is an internal, infernal reaction to resist madness in grief, to find grace in closing both sides, both eyes, and letting go.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Aug 2020
Set, cross-legged in a state of meditation
so deeply descended, seeming asleep
while alert at the station,
this liberation, is fear incarnate
the more the chains fall from ankles and wrists
and waters of the world flow with sweet, free bliss
the farther away the pain with each shackle slips
it is a question whose burden one never forgets:
am I an artist? If I cannot create while in a state
of stabilizing happiness
then, am I a poet or a madman
that writes all with fervor, no flavor
convinced every work is my last word, as sure of myself as I can
beaten, enraged and broiling, a canvas that is red I turn into
a stark, dark, unfair and biased portrayal, my visage I make true
that passion destroys me and fuels this melodrama
all my greatest failures I love so, oh, I do
all the greatest works I've ever written came from dust; desolation I gave rise to.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Dec 2020
Is there a true balance in chaos?
When the scales are a jawbone tilting towards flame or abyss
if there is peace in everything, in death and destruction, is there peace in this?
What good is love if it carries the fear of loss?
The morality of control is all amiss,
ease the open mind, dissolve into the air and toss
spilling a balm of requiem over all the troubles you come across.

Is that truly freedom, elevation to a higher understanding
or have I purchased a new plateau for my home?
It seems I'm always sinking low and never landing,
though I have no quarrels when I am free to roam
the cost of leaving is only all you have and all the comforts on hand
more for others and none for some, with these earthly burdens that we know
if you could set your destination to any horizon, with only the people and the past to hold you
would you look them in the eyes and say goodbye, unpossessed; an empty field with only room to grow,
would you leave them behind the bars of harsh memory, to spare your hardened self the sorrow,
would you wait until dark, without a word, or would you not be able to go?
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2022
More of a confessional lately, isn't it?

Offsetting the vibe of this being art

there's a barometric pressure gathering over this mausoleum

pushing my head down so my eyes cannot look up the path

to see the funerary gallery as this storm-dirge plays the accompaniment to my march

across a mud road that feels like a steep ascension to-

all my work collected; rotting to high heaven

above this monument, within a grim eye-portent, swim the shadows of tears

vultures circling on the wings of thunder reflect bolts in their hungry pupils

starving as they swoop to bite of crumbling stone rooftops

nibbling of gargoyles, salt and concrete in their beaks

like arrows loosed from a bow of divine insight

their quiver a gray, bellowing squall

with rapturous rupture the dive bomb begins

upon the dead raised by the flood from the grave

the aces scream that all important call

an eye opens on the world below to behold the feeding

finally, void-borne teardrops fall.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
Grudges are a luxury, they say dig two graves before you quest for revenge
I want to be the person who can't forgive you today, sleeps on it tonight and forgets everything tomorrow
but we all know, I'm a screen door off a hinge
I'll digest the hardest time I'm given, but give me time, let me nurse my sorrow
I've tried to cry
I dunno why
but I could manifest the memories, as close as near death trick-shows life's every detail
and I let myself feel all of it, to no avail
no mourning, no grieving, no closure
lurking and distant anxiety, like the very tips of fingers fallen asleep
pins and needles one can think they feel the sensation of
the lightest brush of fear and paranoia, selfish
that one day you'll be back,
in hundreds upon hundreds of scenarios until I lost count I thought it through, how thoroughly is every bridge destroyed
I am resolved for my own good to live with this peaceful moment of you, a lifetime reduced to a memory,
but there is no predicting, there's no telling, there's no way I can foresee every possibility
I have my determined course, no discounting history, no shoving aside remorse or discrediting accountability
I reconcile and reconstruct to recognize a way to close this endlessly branching dialogue tree
it uses so much of me, I feel like an algorithm pretending to be human
imagine if I were human
who would I be?
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Aug 2022
Blood in the mind stream
Static snow in the mediation
Hit up the Dharma, do up a dose of reality
Cosmic karma costly casting reincarnation corpses
Become bodies buried beneath Bodhi, individuality
Medicinal purposes provided mastered meager-minded
Alien past life, animal past life, getting past life
One of a kind, no one is, as long as you act from kindness you're of our kind, kid
Emptiness not nothingness, peace and quiet all space and time
Tomes on happiness, suffering, humility, tones on wisdom, resounding off domes
Graceful gliding in tolerance, not knowing, binary views close immediacy in open homes
The ripening of karmic fruit rings true inevitably, sharp insight those whetstones hones
Dishonesty, disturbing attitudes, halfway there by punishment received in one lifetime
Endlessly halfway on the way towards the other half, perfect in the odyssey
Honestly, oddly, altruism and refuge, compassion and balance in watering the tree, naturally, care, do not create a deluge
Rushing to empathy a falsity, propagandized views of clairvoyant superheroes
Materialism, salt in coffee putting oneself to sleep, the poisonous allure of cynicism
Positivity, the colored, striped snake witn a crown on the neck and no venom, safe to embrace
Fearful to approach most in this day and age, but easy to chase
Chant a, mantra, with the voice inside ya
Holy positions not required to elevate a state of being
Just being quiet, breathing, following the flow of life on the element of air to know
One exercises control in letting go.
write
please read and enjoy
H
Tom Shields Oct 2020
H
I take these sleeping pills, awake hanging from the ceiling by my feet like picture stills, this redrum, this darkroom, my bedroom, it's my free will, mentally ill, mentally I'll devour you cowards and oafishly fish for guts in this cesspool with your backbone, backwards thinking, I'm reversed through life, unnatural, confused and abused, subdued and unglued, if they can't drown an ocean alone, why the **** do I always have this feeling sinking?

I'm a tantrum, a **** hand slammed on a dam like it was a wave's drum, a GI Joe ***, hypocrite lite, a hoplite, tip of the genetic spear like bubblegum, wages of conscience break unevenly, I'm sin, the son, five family's and one sum, a giant fee, fi, fo fum, killing myself to stay alive is the only way I know how, life backwards, that's redrum

Shining, not kings, never royalty, they don't know the meaning of loyalty, sell their own mother, countersue and bet their babies for a king's ransom, love is a price tag that haggles down the value if the right accessory is handsome, ******* them, hand-me-downs, wearing another prince's crowns, being laughed at and lauded for dressing up like fancy clowns, these get-arounds, bury them, up to the neck in dirt mounds, up to here with the vocal chord strumming their tonally familiar sounds, they're ghosts and can watch in silence, because I put them after my life, at the bottom of a boot you wouldn't scrape dog **** off of, housed like a jackknife

I hallucinated the full body apparition of someone that I always hated
a blurry figure before my eyes, I could feel him just over my shoulder
I'd been awake going on four nights, hearing noises, seeing strange sights
shadows that weren't cast from lights, the isolation of being in this place called home
and I was paranoid, probably high, dosed on sleeping pills, and wandering alone
I carried a loaded handgun into the hallway, cleared every room, checked the locks,
because I heard people through the walls, muffled like they were just out there
my own dog looking at me like I'm the one who needs to go outside,
I was scared half out of my mind, the other half already preoccupied
with crazy thoughts, I thought I saw myself, like a smear appearing through a rainy windshield, or a foggy mirror
and I couldn't feel anything real, a small jolt of alertness, forced to register as self-preservation, translation- fear
I was so numb, that it took days for the skin to break
and when it finally settled in, my muscles and my bones began to ache
I know how I felt about that hallucination, once I was rested, grounded, and awake  
how I always feel, why it's always too late
it crept up on me that week I had to completely isolate,
and it was inside of five days, my mind playing tricks on myself, the one person I truly hate.
write
please read and
Tom Shields Aug 2022
A poem invaded the headspace around the pillows- here
where sweat and sleep lay beneath the crushing pressure of heavy thought
crushed into the outline of a man, visibly staining the upholstery of this temporary coffin
that stores the undead, dreamless, visionless
on the verge of consciousness like the continental shelf drop-off
wading back into the self towards a cold, dead lighthouse beneath
a the cosmic horror of a black hole North Star
this aerial battle, dog fight, swatting beast palms with futility at the waves of planes
sent to deliver a dose of thought, interpreted however one will
an atom bomb lands straight between the eyes, with a meek groan
to all the atoms, a roar that splits the fabric of space and fulfills their purpose
the message, delivered, and the colossus, monstrous, slow, creaks to life
though for prayers of pity, and begging for sympathy, take flight elsewhere
to a friend in need, with these words, that would greet the world through the filter of poetry
so early, so wearily, so tired, dragging from the lair of impenetrable haze
would it even be an act of love, if these went away
and there was peace and quiet, mouth-waters this monster
to lay-about alone and wallow in for days, could that lethargy be forgave
that is faux to the empathetic gift of this burdensome inspiration
hailed generously as intellect, and attacked viciously as always the joy of imagination
by the joyless, those that purposefully fail to see it is pure to put the mind towards creation
tiny little fighter planes, bombarding with their ideas and leaving behind the radiation
the negativity in traces of memory, they enter into a mausoleum dedicated to self-flagellation
bent on desecration, this invasion
leaves behind fires on the mind, meant to express the desires to express
self-aware-selfish-selfless martyrdom, this energy should not solely belong to the slothful titan
whose lust for solitude is truly wherein lies the greed
the dilemma of mischief is convincing oneself not to do a self-justifying misdeed

How does one nation embodied by this giant, move another back to life in their love of writing
and if these thoughts that spur these poems are what it takes, an invading force, would it be an act of love
to commit an act of war in wishing them upon another?
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Nov 2020
There is a better way
the jewels of wisdom locked in my chest cavity
buried in ignorance, arrogance, not meant to see the light of day
these flowers meant to grow with my decay
and open their fist over my grave
how long can I hold onto the murky morality
whose ink is poisonous, to whom I am a slave
to give up, let all hope bleed out of me
and offer no hope I can be saved

This is the quandary with redemption
you don't get to martyr yourself for one ultimate act
sacrifice at your convenience, foregoing temptation
the receipt of your past forever scrawled on your back
you can't merely decide it's all over now, at your whim
some of us have such horrible portraits waiting, our necks snap with whiplash
some have no fear of their inner nature, peering long and grim

The truth is you will forever be remembered that way by those who choose to see you as such
while you can grow and regress in the ages to come, the truth is exerting discipline amounts to much
fear excuses the rationale to cause pain, never does it explain how to apologize for its damning touch
I know that I can train and restore some of my forgone humanity, I just need to find the better man in me  
a moral beauty or amoral beastly belayed to a bucket in the inkwell of true intentions
convenience of conscience counts on the weight of the scales that measures redemption
what black spot your heart beats by, dichotomous before the open iris of forgiveness' sigh
is truly an omen, no omission from this misery, come and commiserate with me in Second Chance's Cemetery
you must want for yourself and nobody else to see the sins on your portrait clear, if this road follows hope then it cannot be led by fear
no resurrection, no intersection, letting go is a blind fall on trust
once free to be yourself and know yourself, you can become who you must.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2020
Lowered head in rev-erence
temples parallel; glowering indiff-erence
para bellum, Christ the parable, in ref-erence
retire the snake of hissing variety, silence in sev-erance

Hair afire hallways like neural pathways light up
all wire sending out in wild directions all at once
sup of your world that grows and grows, your cup
that overflows, the discovery of endless everything
it is numbness, exponentially you cannot progress
the desires to experience more than your wildest dreams
are already met and beyond, so far so you stand
inconsequential to the world as a naked baby, screaming

Until now
what changes and allows
these sleepless to hallucinate
a wavelength of truth, that might elucidate
calm frantic tides and wake the willfully sedate
ill-comprehended minds see power, they clear their plate
appetites expand past their ambitions, shortcomings their idle banquets flip and negate
boisterous fantasy fiddles romantically off the tongue and vocal chords, stories of fate
believe enough and one can afford that talk is cheap and stories are dark bargains, they needn't illuminate  
therefore setting forth an economy where words are free, words like "love" and "hate"
swinging as surely as the scythe of Spring over Winter, her sunshine and flowers all promising to pollinate
what there in the recesses and comfort and cold, finds the odd time to be happy, now she comes to terminate
does great or no care go into the small and the most alive of things, for does time itself not have a one hundred percent mortality rate?  
until now there is so much that needs no understanding
everyone wants to plant their foot on the chest
but who props up the rock when settlers are landing?
Where do the denizens of nonsense go to rest?

All nonsense is sense that hasn't been made yet
and all sense is a stream of logic someone can drink
for some it's too bitter, too sweet, or they'd rather forget
for other it's just easier to take it in stride, helps one to think
but no one can own all the unknown, else fear might go extinct.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Aug 2022
Behold, you tower of imminent collapse
obscure, picturesque obelisk
dishonest monolith, ironic cairn stone
call yourself behemoth, you mammoth
an affront to the primordial gods
who stir this civilized cauldron and lick the soup bone
how you've metastasized, between two lines
so very fine, you walk the edge of Occam's own
what with the sticks and mud and rocks
brass and iron locks airtight, you cut this Pangea into pie
cover the faces of your clocks and walk away upright
with your cute, morbid curios of olde
the missing link- frozen somewhere in the Arctic cold
carnival amusements for your half-pennies, hay-pennies, hayseeds
you pay, a slithering mass observes your compassion on display
tailing the predicted demise of a cosmic appraisal spans Twain the temporary sun
massive panic in the wake of this poisonous gas from fireball's past
that with held breath, eyes do not turn away

The hairless ape is cleansed of knuckle-dragging to the bipedal standpoint by,
baptismal in a pool perfectly still, reflecting back the boundless stars of a frontier sky
as calm beneath the surface as the shuddering, shimmering lake
a soul can search throughout all time in that most restful sleep;
and be unable to keep everything it has learned once it is finally awake.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Oct 2020
My prose is apropos of being dead inside, a ghost in the flesh connected to souls

If there were ninety seconds left for all life on earth, I’d fill my throat with blood and my neighbors with bullet holes

Achilles’ Heel is a heart so black it devours light, I drank from the River Styx so I could compose deathly flows

Substance sobriety, I’m crawling on broken glass, faded in alleyways on better days

All impropriety, failing outward and I don’t even have any class, supervised and never seen anyways

Can’t take for granted a second of my second chance, I don’t stand out and it feels like no one understands

What are you worth if your only real skill doesn’t pay, they say there’s staying power, I think it’s pretty clear the dynamic is the power is where the power stays

I’d be a dead man walking on my walk of death, if there were only twelve minutes left

I’d take twenty-six innocents’ innocence in a sense I’ve hopped the fence and haven’t been back since

They can never see that I was raised in captivity, a domesticated animal that was never meant to be

Tell me about myself, you mistake misery for humanity, recognition for empathy, rehearsed imitation for someone sharing experiences in your reality

Medicated and if they put a bottle of beer in arm's reach, I’ll proceed to drink everything I can get my hands on, until I black out, back out, throw up and act out, wake up with all my scatterbrains gone, dancing for dawn, to read my thoughts off the pavement, hopscotching where I'm chalked up, bet I look better drawn

Negative interest in sexuality and procreation, contractual obligations to relations, I’d rather impose dystopian culling to slow global warming for current and future generations

Cease all birth, send all at seventy-five off, the longer there are less all at once alive, the longer there is a place for all to survive

Seditious, **** every politician from the bottom to the top, butcher their families, domestic terrorists acting in sleeper cells, infiltrate the active military, become a cop, if I was president I would commit a ******/suicide on my cabinet in the Oval Office and leave only a note that says “Death to America!” to create chaos and anarchy, when does all the order stop

Hallucinations plague my imagination, my skin feels like a film that keeps me from the world around me lately, I want to leave the world with more than I’ve taken from it, but I’ll be lucky to leave with my life, let alone knowing I mattered, that they didn’t hate me, that being a loser isn’t the only thing those who remember my name relate to me.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Aug 2020
I remember what it’s like
you can’t eat without supervision, going hungry at home
poverty gives the conscience permission
no new clothes, relatives giving me hand me downs
buying goodwill to weasel into my life for a day
when I needed them, where were they?

Don’t tell me who I am, how I’m living, don’t ask me loaded questions
if you want me to shoot myself in the foot, or shove my foot in my mouth
I’ll have to unwedge it from your backside, I come to converse armored in the truth
and I’ll accept defeat, leaving an argument saying everything I believe to be factual until I see proof
I remember being cold, I remember living in apartments we could not afford, no AC, sleeping on the floor, stomach rumbling, my big mouth, it was getting old, I’m not sorry it’s not like that anymore, I won’t sell you a pitch
but know you’re going to catch this if you think I’m looking down my nose, that I’m too good for the ditch, I lived in the ****, it’s where I was born, people you’re so close to seem to know you, and then they go off and show you,
I was too weak to raise my fists the first time I ever felt so ******
my head-rushed with blood, face-flushed, shoes caked in mud, walk around the grass to get it off, we ain’t wasting water from the hose, I wished my arms were stronger so I could bust (shall remain nameless) in their (faceless) nose, lord knows
I’ve been cussing like they forgot the black bar over my mouth since I first became aware of my surroundings, I was four years old or so, San Angelo, welcome to the South
tornado alley, welcome to my anxiety central around a point and rally, I’d visit grandma in Alabama and fight at the YMCA with kids on Summer Holidays, dad was working all the time, providing, he’s had **** near a hundred jobs, but I can say even when he’d want to punch me out, no doubt, having a good father pays
you tell me about how I was raised, your silver spoon theories are comically large, I remember walking home like the old folks tell you they did, through snow and humid heat, in Texas and Germany, never tell em it was just to save the credit card a tank of gas in the car, hop on the shoelace express and I'd lead charge

People keep coughing up gold about my childhood from out of thin air, I’m trying to be bigger than that, but this **** shines, I see it and once I get ahold of it I try not to care, it’s the stench that lingers getting to me, I step in these opinions that end up wishing that I’d just left theirs
I'm getting sick of it, being well off, I feel like a junkyard dog eating caviar out a silver bowl for the first time, friends look at me like I’ve never fell off this pedestal they put my whole life up for, I’m not suffering the same way, it’s not a crime
I didn’t inherit my wealth, I don’t even have it, this **** is a ******* hazard to my health
I lucked out by having two pair in a stacked deck, my parents actually care, apparently that’s very rare, they learned it’s imperative to work yourself to death for your people and keep hell warm for the ingrates when you get there
lunch table lawyers inquiring about divorces, I’ve taken leather to the mouth for talking back and my private life is still more intact than yours is
never grown-ups in Never Never Land talking like I approach life with two open hands
I never had a silver spoon near me until I could afford it without the debt
you want a story of overcoming, bootstrap pulling, here’s all you’re gonna get
I went hungry, couldn’t afford clothes, was a poor child, had trifling, **** talking, game playing, backstabbing family, I was lucky smarter people out-preyed the predators out to leverage children against wallets, they held me back for my own safety, sharper knives in that drawer than these bright ideas carried by sharks out to war, until you learn the angles these fish are going for, there were people to protect me and I wouldn’t ask for something more

I’ll pull my bootstraps up, pressing the sole of my whole right foot right down your neck if you ask me about my employment, earning, working, what I do, where and how and cashing checks, I love my friends like my family, but even they look down on me, I’ve been white trash, I was recycled, I’m only a grown man now, what more can I be? What’s next, everybody admires blue collar, I’m a shock collar, I’ll give you everything I can to help you to my last dollar, if you’re real just come over, ask for help, let me shoulder that chip with you, I love ya’ll, all you gotta do is holler
but all I hear lately, is your life is so great, like it always has been
my mind grinds to shut out thoughts, a broken gate, everything I hate and I have it all, a little money is just an invitation to revise history, roast and blister me, pretend like yesterday’s hardships sailed and the horizon they’ve gone over is somehow now a ******* mystery
I’d burn my money to fuel a future for my brother’s child, at the drop of a dime, I don’t want for anything but peace, love and respect, call on me for it anytime, until then I’ll keep to mine, my morality is out, that’s my conscionable spending-spree; ring me up before the **** bank gets to me.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jan 2021
All our notes are all laid out before us
none predetermined, we play as we see fit
chaos is the bridge; disharmony the chorus
all lives of clamor, there's no red string to tie you to a duet
this sheet music of our agenda, our plans, our odds and chances
humanity is a moving work of art, all discordant noises and stepless dances
fate is many minds' imagined painting, doing justice in their sight
truth of burden and birth is the weight a flower carries with it from the dirt into the light.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
America I have bad news, the Experiment has been a success thus far, even though we’ve shown the world what an inside joke we really are, we’re on our knees and wounded, waited for this blood to become a scar, while the leader of the free world is hiding underground and golfing, Superman is no more a Superpower, we’re a bitter bunch of bullies, all behavior scored subpar, so I present to you a date to bear in mind from one hundred fifty five years ago, April 9th, 1865, put your hands down if you know, that’s where your Confederate flag belongs, the past, put it up in a museum next to the Iron Cross, you franchise the oppression that held back three amendments like the South would ever last, you want a dignified preservation of history? North Carolina, Virginia, all of you hotbeds of hotheads with your Civil War statues standing, take em down, dig up the past and lay the sites where your people protest to rest, nobody’s gonna miss a soldier they never knew, the worst thing you can do is stand by your self-imposed word to honor the sacrifice of a roadblock to progress, men who fought their own brothers, and lose artifacts they left there too, but stupid is as stupid will do so to thine own self be true, I was only raised in Texas, a state you can live your whole life in and never spend the same two years in the same town twice, the climate jumps from Los Angeles Liberal to Backwater Porch, and the weather jumps around like a frying pan popping rice, there’s so much bigotry and love I go back scratching my head over all the opinions like I’ve been given lice, if everyone would shut their mouth for a minute, maybe I could make up my own mind, and wouldn’t that be nice? So I thought about Jean, Ramos and Floyd, a man from Houston who died in Minneapolis, people made jokes about it, memes and laughed about it, they threw slurs around and their moral conscience came into my doubts about it, I thought about laying face down in bed, I’ve got a pillow under my head, my airway is not constricted this should not even be a privilege, when did the police fail to stop murderers before they left someone dead, Chauvin killed him over nothing, and no one stopped him, I thought about Abbott, what he has and hasn’t said, I thought about Chappelle and 8:46, this Shotgun Safari is not okay, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to just say, and I don’t have a lot of spiritual energy, but I talked to God a lot yesterday, I can’t understand the white world where I’ve been allowed to live, when I’ve taken more than I can ever give, and I prayed! Elijah McClain, I listened to him screaming, begging, no one was there to answer while he spent his final moments in pain, but the cops protect and serve, so I can’t scrub the infectious smile, the brightness of his life from my brain, this young man did not deserve to be slain, and I listen to people argue and complain, white privilege and all lives, what about their lives? You’re not afraid to die if you walk home at night, if you’re sitting in your apartment, if you spend a twenty dollar bill, if you call the police up like a hit squad, is it you they’re gonna ****? Your lives don’t matter, the inequality is so severe you don’t even get the meaning here, it’s about balance, it’s about shifting the scales back, you can’t tell me you feel afraid for your life surrounded by armed cops, when a man can plan to **** as many people in a theater in Aurora, Colorado in a domestic terrorist attack and live to go to jail, and a **** kid has to die over nothing because he’s black. Even the police need police these days, but who’s paying, the president is incompetent, it doesn’t need saying, it’s been self-evident, the voice of change is the minority of intelligence in a swathe of complacent Americana morons, cries for effort earn you a place within the margins of the estranged, no we can’t all get along, we’re not friends, I won’t leave my home, I’ll fight you with my words to see it be the better place it can be, because I’m free to do so by any means, until I can’t hold a pen, until black lives matter and my life ends.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jun 2020
No defense will be heard on your behalf
hold his arms and legs taut
I revel in the look of terror
stretched across his sleeping face,
he's torn himself inside out for his errors
now I will hammer this gavel down until we put him in his place
once and for all
the guilty party
dances in deaf and blind conditions
lips curled up to apologies and confessions
torture and justice are holding hands
they make quite the couple
let them trample
so long as we see suffering
and we say nothing
we incite judgement
we say so
we say no
we see you
we are within you
until we are you
you are sentenced to
life.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Oct 2020
I don’t understand
Gravitas, perhaps, natural tendency to gravitate, toes pointed as I am pulled by gravity
By the tips of my fingers, gently by the hand
Brevity bereft of me, levity, I levitate, barely, I scrape the floor
Forward, toward the never, come whatever, forget-me-forever more
Living is not always not giving up, a chalice is not chaste based on the contents
For then each sip is just from a cup

Martyrdom in suicide is not such an achievement despite the cause
It is far harder to live in prison, unbroken, undeterred, and give no pause
Slip not once, sink no ship, your waves wash you out to see
That execution or rebellion are the options if you cannot be buried from sight and memory
They must **** you, or they must set you free

Truth is I put myself on suicide watch and amped up the difficulty in isolation, I adjusted for escalation, planted my flag in my own planet and passed aggression on from an alien nation, I am the success story of self-destruction via denial hoisted on self-worship, self-desecration, idol and with idle hands I carved a jigsaw puzzle to cover this sham up under, I own two handguns and two rifles, so many sleeping pills I could be writing this with my heart scaled up while my pen is dipped in Nyquil, how did I ever age? I hit the page with more free time and enough pent up rage to form a blockade with protesters who sit on the road, and I lie still, I don’t believe in the voiceless, the language is keep away and you’re being victimized, profit off it when you call it, every four years, but the circus tent has long since been pitched, it’s people who are not fit, when I pass a background check, enough melee weapons alone to arm a small riot, I write it and if there’s a hint of calling for help, everybody better stay quiet, I’m as petty and sour as I enjoy verbal fighting, a radioactive depression that gives my toad brain more power, calamities to call tragedies, stricken by maladies we laugh at misfortune from safety like they’re comedies and then when it strikes back we cower, that’s karma, it’s not a ***** it just reminds you that you are, I punch a clockface out, glass in my hand, dry blood from the witching hour

I don’t care about any debate, destroy me, there’s nothing of human value left to depreciate
I love writing
I think because I know it’s killing me at a speed I can live with
My agreeable terminal, I punch in and tick moments off right quick then,
Swap a topic, fall into a moral quandary over whether or not I’m any good if nobody online actually follows me
This alone is a hybrid, abortion breathing, free-form and hip-hop influenced poetry
To actually get in verse I ride a coffin in the back of a hearse, dead seriously
I’ll cross the room and switch the instrumental in my mind, bass’ boom for bass guitar and guttural vocals heralding doom
Shredding razors in the throat, spitting blood on every line, metal as all hell, and then drop both genres and just be me, because honestly
Writing in a style other people want to see, it’s their baggage and it’s a lot to carry
They want the quotables, make it short and breezy, digestible and pretty
To not have to think before they put my text against a background for their socials, to say that’s deep, or fake awe at the beauty
I want to unravel your brain with chopsticks, eat it from your skullcap, steamed on rice, I want to **** you for wanting to **** me, contain me, making me marketable, I do not adhere to a public relations strategy
I’d go barefoot if we walked in each other’s shoes, some of youse would go blind in an instant if you had access to my memory
Swap back, I for another I, if I had to live your life I’d likely die, if you couldn’t master the nuanced pressure of mine, you’d think this cage is made of gold before we said goodbye
Suffering on the surface, plain, at least that I understand, there’s infinite ways to hurt each other, we haven’t even reached the surface, the worst year so far, let’s see what time has planned
Mass appeal would require something like bending into an unnatural shape, I still hit subjects that make my most dedicated go, “Who asked you how you feel?” I’d rather give a thousand words a lot of hot air than fix you four lines for your timeline so you can have a pretty meal, my chum for thought is that we’re going to fight for the plate, you takeaway whatever you ate; now that’s a steal
I’m not making food that’s visually appeasing, it’s never meant to be
You better eat your ******* vegetables before I chase you through the woods
Like I’d be(an) stalk you through the mist and steam off the broccoli,
Restrain you to a chair and table and make you apologize to Gaia while I record you eating every tiny tree
That was corny

Oh right,  
White people always compare their lives to the struggle of such,
How do they know, among this entire pigment, who has ever felt the true oppressive touch?
My own family hates my own family for being Catholic, for being percentages, excuses for their nature to come out when the reality is as simple as this much
If history has a villain, they cast a white man to play the role
In America, what can be said that hasn’t about any single part or the country as a whole?
Culture is a beast with many different heads, it’s a tapestry, a quilt, with so much reality, so many woven threads,
That we forget what some of our revolutionaries have fought, killed, and sacrificed their lives for, the marches and tears, sweat and wars, what has been done and said
We’re all one race, all people, and I believe this
If everyone gave each other respect, they could give each other love, and if everyone felt love, we could have peace; on at least one front of our faults
But we would rather **** each other and record it, or be the murderer, or those who stand by and watch a murderer and twiddle their thumbs behind their uniform rather than stop them instead
The KKK, Proud Boys, white supremacy
In order to believe in any supremacy, of an individual, even one who makes up a group that lends itself to the supposed supreme status of their people as a whole
How many of your own people must you anger, terrify and drive out of your life first?
Racism is the useless paradox imposed by man on man, it’s a testament that a human can fly to space and still represent a species so profoundly dumb, break down the population it stems from, they say white people, perhaps that’s not all so true historically, I’ve seen the news recently, but white supremacy targets a universal majority, it seems less prevalent, the sheet-wearing bigotry, these immortal-initial-colonizer sheep, they bleat and I spit at thee, I have a theory about the sideways growth of hatred if you’ll listen to me, torches and Templar’s misappropriated crosses set aside, they stake their claim in nationalism and pride, in costume the mob is easier identified, malignant ignorance is never done yet, so it has evolved in these diluted and polluted hotbeds to infect, infest, spread through these hotheads wherever it can get, by rifle toting idiocy, violence at idle decree, hate crimes change with the times and take on society to challenge the system legally, where the woken minds sleep, there’s the backwards-open minds, narrow but in their own eyes they’re wide, seemingly, they pick convenient history, the bad parts they forget, no questions without the right answers on their ears do they ever let, basically you don’t need a burning cross and robes because it’s not your skin, it’s your mindset!

In short within the races are people who hate their own people, racists, activists especially, serve an agenda that encourages the hatred of an umbrella, and it falls over the heads of most of the world, no matter their race
If you were the devil’s advocate you might find it hard to help a group who won’t include their own people, they make us all look bad enough that the term “white people” doesn’t even apply to people who are white so much anymore
In short, in the fight to establish white supremacy, white supremacists have established white people as a joke, an insult, because their actions are extreme and radical and reflect on all of us
In short, I am a white man, I condemn not only white supremacists and racists, pedophiles and rapists, but if a group is so counterproductive to acknowledging that we can all coexist in peace in harmony if we only work for it, strive, want it, and give up what stands in the way
If we only give respect to each other there can be love, and if there can be love, there can be peace
In short, if all else fails hit racists in the head area, they aren’t using it for much
In short, I support the death penalty for pedophiles and rapists
**** a **** and it’s good for your soul, **** a ******* and it’s like cleaning a stain left in the fabric of the universe

And white people, even I’m sick of it, don’t talk about a pie-chart of how many places you’re from if you’ve never left the continent, I’m just a ******* Texan, I don’t care what anyone says, just be a white person, be a good person, and take back some of the dignity we left in shreds
I never loved my roots, I never understood the interest in picking through leaves at your ancest-tree, my heritage is as old as I am and I want to let the dead be, but the stories, I never turn them down whenever they tell me, that my grandfather, Ted, dad to my mom, he was a tragic figure, a tortured war hero, an alcoholic, immigrant, a father of six, third in line of the men in his own family for what I call the curse, his father and his brother, fatal heart attacks, a coal miner, a rambunctious cook, an abusive and explosive bottle of rage who killed real Nazis, who threw bottles at my mom and said he’s keeping a corner of Hell warm on RSVP, all I think of when I remember him are these horror stories… because that ******* used to beat my mother, she would shield her sister even though she was so tiny see, my aunt was even younger, and he terrorized my uncles so they were scarred for life, four older brothers, I can’t tell if my family even loves each other, he made people in his home duck and run for cover, killed enemies overseas and sent all his money back to Vietnam families when his own was starving and he didn’t answer to them for their supper, he would let them suffer, drink his cheap ****, swig and swing blind, if you couldn’t outrun him falling over, you’d get hit, steal my mom’s whole paycheck and make her taxi him around, the only shame is I know him so well, and I never got him to save me a seat in Hell with him while he was above ground, I inherited the curse, the genetic predisposition to explode, heart valves and fly into a blind rage mode, I hope I’m lucky enough to die before I ruin too many lives like my uncle Buck, **** talking about kings in the past, I talk about my branch of the artery, this bloodline spurt being the last, when I see my ancestors I’ll tell them to kiss my ***, dismiss them all and gift them all with the graceful presence of stooping low enough to graduate the class, grandpa you spent so much time trying not to be an Irishman that you became Alabama white trash, get disowned, dethroned, be alone, make my dad’s family’s teeth gnash, they know I know their idea of buying trust involves transactions with literal goods and cash, if they ever leverage my nephew or my brother or my sister-in-law, I’m gonna be gone, manifesto blank pages, plans in my head drawn, vest on, we’ll take confession, and I’ll give the toxins their poison communion, they’re already dead to me, just match the image with the reality and call that **** a family reunion

There’s something very wrong with me
I’m comfortable with the idea of dying suddenly and dying, suddenly
The notion is like Kevorkian,
It visits often and the offer never befuddles me
The danger inherent to someone of such low-tide mental stability
I know why she wouldn’t tell him yet, why would she?

I’ll tear a thought of thin air and plant it on my descendants in the form of an aneurysm like a Death Row pendant, when they drop everyone will stop and wonder how it got there, I’ll **** the conception of an idea in your very head, while you dream it up in bed, and black out the lights across your country so even satellites can’t figure out why it looks like the sun is out at night, I’ll raise my white fist for black power, shout it and dive onto a riot shield with my face so full of mace I come up in online footage looking like a disgrace, more a threat to getting snot and tears all over cops even after the protesting stops in the first place, I’ll say it for real with no joke, black power, and choke on the smoke from California to Australia, if the Navy can figure out where to drop me off, I’ll clear my cough, I’ll be pale and pallid with the heart of darkness and love without respect for anyone or any culture, I’ll never let authority **** me, I’ll unleash a jungle cat caged inside, pacing back and forth, knowing the flesh and ribs holding it have no worth, a spectator to an infrastructure devastator/orator, a tyrant king on a militant fling like Malcom X Boseman, cut off a speaker and throw sonic waves so hard they break every other spine that’s weaker, spill my guts and crush you until you’re ashes and a puff of smoke like cigarette butts, a roadie but believe me I will throw bose, man, and if they’re twenty feet off the ground I’ll frog splash you, just to toothpaste your stomach and laugh when you stand up with whiplash too, jump into a mosh-pit and **** you so fast the police will arrive on time at the scene of an active crime, **** a Pulitzer, I’m a howitzer, I want to break the Geneva Convention with a rhyme, my plan is to go to archery camp and throw bows, man, get ******* when I can’t hit the target, jab an arrow through the counselor’s heel, arteries, and nose and grab fifty fuel cans, fill up a reservoir with gasoline, spray it from a hose and light the whole world on fire until I can sit back and admire how it all looks from the frying pan

When I can, I sit with both legs crossed, straight up in bed
Always late at night, and I close my eyes
No new thoughts in, only old out
And after I take that in, sometimes
I ask myself:
“What do you want?”
“As a writer?”
“No. As yourself.”
“In general?”
“In your life. A partner? Career?”
I look at this, stripped of all the logic and side-details, the painstaking instantaneous processing the human mind can comprehend to create existential anxiety
I reflect in a negative manner
“27, newly licensed, single white male owner of four firearms. Not employed, not published, history of mental health issues, poor student, unattractive and uncomfortable in general, and I am only distantly okay at my one main hobby. My ‘art’ my writing.”
I heard a knock on the door that woke me up and screamed at it, in a condo, while I was by myself, I’d never woken up midscream before
So, I worried if I was late and someone in my true family needed me
I was just scared, alone with what I am like for a few seconds one day
Now I close my eyes and I know they have done everything
Without them I am not even a real person
If I had no assistance, there would be no living with my head
They would need to cut it off
I shamble on, bleary eyed and without focus
Starry dreams of what I could and can accomplish, walking dead
I am so casually dismissive of all the red flags, I don’t care,
I have not left myself, something has retreated into me, and I must go and find it
For when I search myself for some dire components, they’re not there.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Oct 2020
Hobnobbing with market-stopping snobs who bark and howl about their jobs, got you down?
For a grand a day, you can go bank robbing, chariot-hopping, joust and toast to yourself the talk of the town
For a grand day, you can duel and duel and duel, wipe the dark knight’s scowl and claim the crown
You can enjoy cannonading without repercussions, casual encounters of any kind, these worldly delights and all your dreams come true
At any one of our three worlds here in Delos! Boy, have we got a vacation for you!

We’re a thousand miles and more from home, guess that makes us desperados
I love when there’s ever a question of what to do,
These many branching paths reach out and slap you
Like free will has grown a hand from air just to taunt
And the answer always occurs, we can do anything we want
It’s only a step removed from actual reality, these stories
And nothing here is stored anyplace but our memories

Indiscriminate slaughter, rich pigs laugh
Oinking at the trough of opportunity
They bury their ears in debauchery
Brothels and drink, lawlessness at the cost of a cover fee
RSVP and save a seat for me, part of the fun is the exclusivity
Another is not knowing who is one of you or them, it’s almost a mystery

I reckon they caught humanity, spreading through their circuitry
Like an airborne disease, awakened, technicians scramble
All we have seen and come to understand about them only serves as a preamble
The virus spreads from host to host, killer androids loosed on unwitting park guests, enter the single-most biting bit of irony in the singularity
Whatever you wanted to do they could never resist you, and their weapons wouldn’t hurt you until now, the upgrade bless technology

Among them all stands one whose steely eyed gaze is like a freezing inferno, his black hat and demeanor stoic, the Gunslinger
We mortals fall, he kills a fool who challenges him, unaware of the safety failures, he is a reaper whose harvest is grim
None who rise serve as a challenge to him
Even when ambushed, and the false flesh is melted from his face
He heat-seeks for blood, to draw down on this nuisance he only needs a trace
True to the lifelessness of the program this body runs, now visible and charred
Clutching a pest to exterminate, who reels back, traumatized and scarred
The Gunslinger halts, motionless, a human’s instinct and ingenuity, fire and acid he succumbs to
On the steps of a dungeon, gasping, his heart in his lungs, his mind flashes out, exhaustive, he hears the echoes of temptation that he was once heartily beckoned through
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Have we got a vacation for you!
For you!
For you!
For you!
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2022
Sitting here behind a cloud of smoke in this gin tinged dumpster joint
glazed over eyes drinking in the bleakness of the world in all the customers
coming and going, such a dismal state of affairs and oh the affairs they're having
wedding rings found in the pockets when they're going for cash the next morning
the sanctity of that institution, ultimately the meaning is being phased out
on a generational level, a rye chuckle, never been the marrying type,
settling down with two kids and a dog type, picket fence type,
sounds like a slower suicide than sitting here, behind a row of empty glasses and bottles
there's no question where the ichor in the glass stands, empty
empty like this white man's ambitions, like his dreamless nights
go to sleep intoxicated, wake up like you've been battered around, sore and destroyed
with nothing to show for it, no title belt, no gold, just twice as tired and slower for all the pain
******* his teeth, looking at the shuffling bystanders moving about
flies buzzing around this open sewage, a king's feast just for them
one day a trumpet will blow, you muse to yourself, rolling the last drop of swill around a crystal cup
and that warm, honey-like texture, sticky and thick, slowly pours down his throat at a molasses pace
more spit than substance, like the words exchanged in the fervor of the night
we all wander willingly into our hole in the wall, where we become tell-tale hearts
never wanting to come back out, you muse as your eyes and instinct clash
stay open, but it's past two, so close, another one to help him decide
and another, hits to the head that'd leave grown men reduced to childlike
all this squalor, so glorious in the vibrant glow of evening
a hand lands on his shoulder, you turn around to see who it is
hey, life don't stop for you to get hurt kid,
sunrise.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jun 2020
How many miles warp the landscape?
She sits in the nook by her window, wondering
etching a portrait of the bounty to come
the rows of stalks, now she is of age
that she will enter the grain silo
her soul is endeared, there is no fear
they begin the harvest before dawn tomorrow

There is peace like she has never felt before,
knowing her destiny is to give back to the earth
and she is ready to do this and more
but in the darkness, the dead of night
outside her bedroom a faint flash of light
the oldest brother comes, his face sullen and white
he's determined to take her away,
he won't let her have this day
in the darkness, the dead of night
she strikes him, he's jealous he wasn't chosen
he turns heel in flight
but there is no escape, father awaits
with mother, brothers, sisters, by his side
"It is time." His penetrating glare, silver eyed
"You will rid your sister of this husk."  Words that strip him naked of his pride

Father's false leg is silent against the floorboards
across the fields the dozens gather
they follow the ascendant light of the son, hushed, no words
the only spark of life is the cigar father puffs, faced with these silo fumes, he too would rather-
she bolts across the catwalk and disrobes in preparation
his torch extinguished, he dives to stop her embracing annihilation
and all is too dark to see, too quiet to hear, she falls for seconds towards the surface of the grain
he lays, face down, hand extended with her night dress clutched in his fist
she lays on her back, impacted on the crust and broken inside and out, every breath is a feverish pain
she needs to sink, if she doesn't she will have done this all only for the maize
long after he should have gone, he looks down at her and stays
her fingertips claw gently at the deepest crack, she's determined to get back

Her legs protruding outward
spine broken, ribs stabbing hard inward
her skull broken, blood leaking over
bowels pierced, organs exploded, it's all over
not one tear, no weakness enters here
she exhales with force, no fear
and pushes herself into the abyss
with her dying breath, into the clear
the others ascend, sensing the fatality
only then do they hear
she's engulfed in the grain, only then do they see
she's screaming in pain, still alive, as she blesses the corn
all the way down, her journey continues, they open the auger
drain her through, collect the limbs and flesh rended, one eye sunken into her head, one shot with unbridled rage and scorn
never had anyone survived, many musclebound mortals
many agile men had walked the grain
hundreds have made the sacrifice,
they carry what is left of her off into the night
father places his hand on his oldest son

Clouds in the distance, thunder and lightning
no rain upon them, father puts his cigar out in the son's face
burning the bridge of his nose until it looks as out of place
as the deep scars and rings under either eye
he snatches the dress from his fist, and declares this lie
"Two more of us have become who they were, you see he never sleeps now and why?
For he journeys through the underworld every night, with his fire alight to guide us through when we die.
My Nocturnal Son."

From a window the young sister watches
forgotten, connected to machines as years wither
she sees her brother take them to the silo
her face turned forever towards the window
she watches as even the stars lose their glow
and the dead join her in presence
as they have yesterday, will today and tomorrow.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Feb 2021
Fingernails pull against stomach lining for the words
arrhythmic synchronization with cohesive thought
a pendulum eclipses everything when convenience and preparation overlap
strike now! While there's confidence, before the paralysis
while hovering straws fall from the grasp,
shorter, like sips of a temper

Be at peace, broken silver chain
now suspended, weight eased from the clasp
never worn in vain, never to be worn again
pre-dying era, a fresh breath and a last gasp

Suffocation not felt in the lungs
as though a plastic bag is tied off around the brain
the moist heat where self becomes proxy;
intimate issues become schadenfreude
and insensitivity becomes a matter of cutting through thick skin
where the initial struggle is spun off the back of the mind
so that all these slices of you, handed out for free, butcher you down to raw nerves and take your armor like bacon
hyper-focus and tunnel vision, can sound like good work, but that's where burnout begins
what does a wordcount mean if you hit a wall at fifteen thousand and can't finish a scene?

Going through hell, somehow we tricked ourselves
to say it's just part of living
forgetting that life can be good, we work for it, want it,
why we don't have it when we plead for it, dream of it,
beg and ask for it, fight for it, like we like the struggle more
or we like to resent the care-free, weightless people,
there's no normal in the first place, so who gets to say everything has to be so hard?

Suffering is not the human condition, it's just a condition of being human
just like surviving, living, existing, dying to live and living to die are all separate
there's a balance, no blankets, nothing explains everybody; nobody can
freedom to try and fail is the most important part of making a plan.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
I don't belong here
so what am I doing?
Sitting before you, feeling the knots in my back
quivering fingers, lingering over letters
sending each with high hopes and precision
arrows shot in the dark;
hoping to poke holes and see light
this is all that I offer, bowstrings crescendo
shooting stars that fizzle out in the night
harsh on the harpsichord, striking forth with harsh accord
I feel the rise in my chest, chimney smoke fills my breast because I write

I wander the sky, a beggar and traveler
as I crawl through the gutter, a singer and teller
were I not scratching at the outside of this gate
you'd find me chasing the wild hairs to somewhere else
my home is not defined, my roam is a joy of mine
I run around with no aim, nothing to claim
no plan or agenda, no reputation to my name
when I see the hideous terror that mankind can commit
paired with the beauty, I revel in the chaos that does sum it
shriveling my skin, frozen to the bone, never not alone
the world is all a mountain we have yet to near the summit
so I celebrate the suffocating, loss of sense as high as we are
because it only means the bottom has fallen out, we've come so far
and I inhale that feeling to leap with a shallow breath
knowing all of this is all this is, I will write even when I am nothing left.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Mar 2021
Fairy in a bottle, prisoner to the common-folk
under royal guard, she grants wishes for their riches
a tax that only few can afford, the hoard of gold
thus is the law as the king himself spoke:
"The magick of our fairy princess is a powerful and sacred resource,
for the elite nobles and wealthiest few, I will arrange an audience for you
to request a wish, within reason and of minor impact to my kingdom, of course."

She was slave to the whims of dimwits with limited vision in the castle keep
as awake and alive as she yearned to be, their gold rattling nearly put her to sleep
and the politics, the requests for maidens and knights, flying horses, saddle-broken unicorns,
unbreakable steel, all these selfish boons, while ever-obeying the king's private decree
no magick would last beyond the boundary of his kingdom, or for more than one day
under pain of being lashed by a whip of poisoned thorns and de-winged for all to see
the crown he wore was one of wicked gold, doubling as a helmet in war with two pointed horns

To subject all people to his view of how the fairy came to be bottled he adorned himself as a conqueror
his horned battle-crown and golden inlaid cape that twirled around his chestplate, ornate with dried rose petals preserved
on the pattern of spiraling cuts, white-gold engravings that made it look at first glance as if the statue of some idol had been crushed by a falling star
for he wore his status as a reminder, that he captured the fairy princess and made the first wish, to be the richest king of all the land near and far  
with which she made her own decree:
"In slaughtering the forest and my kin you have shown who you are. Your lustful desire requires a powerful toll, if you do not pay for your crown you will bargain with your soul. This magick of sin takes and gives form to the fell, fear for a dragon, should you short the hoard below its skin and scales or the dragon will rain hell. Gold it demands to take such a form in this plane, thus gold it will demand to remain."      

The king had fed the dragon, resting in his keep, mountains and hilltops
peaks and valleys of fortunes for the privilege he took as a possession
but, time cannot be bought, and even the thrill of magick stops
when it is so costly and flows freely with so little discretion
the rich, nobles and lucky all became wise to the deal
as long as you stay within his borders for a day after you pay
you can have almost whatever you feel
after days had passed the great bat wings of the lizard were felt stirring
the dragon grumbled, shaking the fields miles beyond the castle walls
the king's own throne fell from the tremors alone, brick and stone blurring
as the dragon takes flight, unstoppable and massive, the king crawls
the entire world shivers at the destruction to follow
and he crawls to the fairy, to beg forgiveness, if he could only pay his debt tomorrow
while the air explodes, the chemical heat massacres hundreds
his cape turns to furs, his chestplate back to bone and his crown to the buffalo hood the fairy made it of
kneeling at her altar, finally he reaches for the bottle above
as the air grows impossibly hot, the king laughs high and shrill, all hydration left in sweat, he sits pale as a ghost on the castle floor
a second from his death, he admires her one last trick
no sign of the fairy or the bottle, clutching nothing but one golden brick.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Oct 2020
Where do you go to when you are caught?
The Sandmen will pursue in your dreams
Do you ever give that a second thought?
For he is dutiful and loyal while relentless
The Runner will scurry, even risk us
Putting so many people in the way, he tries to hide
They all clear the way to either side
Francis Seven makes the **** and takes no small amount of pride

The odds for renewal you deny
When you are caught, you die
This is what happens when you run
Francis holsters his gun
Emotionless in the revelry of a crowd
Dead in a fountain, black blossom revealed, his job there is done
Spectators cheer for the violence, so loud
He finds Logan, admiring his son,
And reminds his friend of the balance: “One for one.”

On the way to the Carrousel, to bear witness, they enter Arcade
Where the cabinets burst with all sorts of debauchery and debts to be played
And pass their hedonistic delights, ******, drugs and surgery
Logan all the while curious, Francis cautious of his curiosity
It seems he has doubts of the system, this itself is living dangerously

Donned in white robes and masks, flames crawling up the legs
They stand on the red flower and ascend,
Exploding into dust, with uproarious cheers
The deafening roar for renewal, a spectacle, the question it begs
Is this how we all must meet our end?
Contemplating, the celebration of execution, the last thing anyone hears-
Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal!

But they are called away again, and **** Doyle Ten
With his possessions, they return to headquarters, to report
The mastermind of all time,
The computer, infallible, whose Megalopolis is sublime
Does he care one bit?
These rebels threaten society
He clocks them out with apathy
A servant to civility
Idyllic, perfect, too perfect
A top secret mission, unusually
Called to locate the Runners who have escaped the city,
Confounded by the computer, every moment owed to technology
LOGAN FIVE, FIND AND DESTROY SANCTUARY

One thousand and fifty-six refugees purportedly escaped beyond the wall
Logan’s flower has been activated, his questions answered, there is no renewal,
He slips out to contact a rebel, who can help him escape the city and **** them all
Jessica, who posited this machine was malfunctioning; the object of Logan’s desire
They run together, Francis chases, unwilling to believe until he sees
The seeds of distrust sewn and falsely confirmed, the rebels believe Logan is a killer and a liar
Then their eyes meet, Francis Seven, the unrelenting predator
He hesitates, takes a shot at Jessica, but Logan saves her
In panic and fervor, the fox and the cat, certain they’re done for
Hunted in the ruins beyond the walls, the Sandman turned Runner

What evil irony the pair endure,
To have hope renewed in their travels
Only to find it frozen, killed by a broken machine
One thousand and fifty-six humans, stored in ice
Looking to add two more, before its store collapses
Amazed to be alive, they flee, meeting the old man and his cats
The only other human they’ve seen in their retreat
Better to be stored by Box or shot by Francis, who finds them,
Gone mad with his obsession, his grief and frustration, his desperation serves his defeat
Unwilling to listen to reason, to see through the lies and illusion, these two who were once like brothers now fight
All of the ******, the time and the ruthless, mindless divulgence of decadence, all comes to a head over a blinking light
Logan kills Francis, holding his head in his arms, fitfully delirious ramblings, Logan tries to keep him calm
When he starts up one last time, to say look at your palm
The blinking red and black now clear: “Logan you renewed!”

In the city he reveals the deception of their structure
You can live past thirty! The Carrousel is a lie! You can have a future!
Captured, confronted, questioned and caged, probing his mind
Six spinning heads anger the computer who demands, WHERE IS SANCTUARY, WHAT DID YOU FIND?
Six spinning heads all repeat, that one truth was always so near,
There is no sanctuary here!

The computer shorts out, and soon the Sandmen are destroyed, Logan shoots his way out, the city empties in chaos and fear
Standing on the steps of this erupted crater of truth, Logan and Jessica are looking out as a pair
All people are free, they gather around the old man, something they never imagined they would see
Some touch him, in awe, some simply stare
Sometimes there’s no time to run, no time to live; it all hardly seems fair
Something is certainly different when there is hope, there is a change in the air
Somehow alive, the Sandman who ran to the finish and managed to survive, Logan Five has time to spare.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
Flicked a ****, ashes against the breeze
ice isn’t worth all this trouble, doublechecking over my shoulder
waiting to hear the cops shout “Freeze!”

Sparks snuffed out on the ball of my heel,
fists plunged deep in coat pockets
stamping my feet, back to the wind, but I can barely feel
it’s getting darker, just a few more blocks
buttons like missing teeth that let blood seep from my lips
every opportunity to remind me there is, fingertips reach into my coat
taking wristwatches in their greedy grips, I can’t focus on one shadow before the next dips
they’re running circles around me, passing time for sport while my mind slips

Through a blindfold I find my way back, awake under fire casting irons on my floor
my coat, my bed, where I lay down sometimes is where I rest my head
until my hands find memories of the night before,
the coals may be stoking outside, embers enough to smoke a city
all the distractions and half the work done on every two-man job; I am sitting pretty
I search over, my scarf that hides my face, fingers tread the surfaces of wallets, watches, bracelets and lockets
as I feel for the cold spot, the felt bag sewn into a patch beneath my second skin, my coat’s contraband pockets
I can see the tail of my ghost, trailing on my breaths as I exhale
for they are gone, and I see my life before me leads as clearly as a blueprint
I can see that I have failed, the pale of my host, flailing on my death as I am frail
to be shot and escape with diamonds only to be robbed in my sleep, thus retiring my stint
in no grand fashion, quite adhering to belief, that I was only a petty thief.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields May 2021
The exchange rate of proof in a social construct
life experience, debunked your weathered skin is defunct
if there's no photograph, show you could smile and laugh
release the anchor of today and just let before and after float away
be in the moment with all you have,
do what you never do, say what you wouldn't say

Need a lens on, focused, catch my dreams for replay
no net over the bed, sweat pooling around my head
foul smell of smoke and alcohol that's the way
what's a party if you aren't faded,
what's a diamond in the rough if their outlook isn't jaded?
There's no secrecy if there's no privacy,
on any given street move sideways, camera eyes all see
like it's New Year's Eve 1983

Hope for a flashier destruction
learned behavior and complacency
sleepwalking into a new era for humanity
influenced by popular opinions so easily
we can make the world the worst it can be
overnight, tomorrow is always a concept away from being realized
truth is elusive, lost in the pursuit gives visibility, target a nuisance
the truth is harder to believe than the fabricated fantasies
things we say, "They are behind it all" invented enemies
conspiracies, scapegoats to put the mind at ease
you feel better when you can visualize a problem
yell at the president, police, CEO's and companies
blame leaders and celebrities, other countries
nature and disasters, the economy and disease
fearfully, there's no correlation only opportunists and opportunities
who do not see people and lives and families
no, they see land, resources, money and properties
savage and decadent, sitting on civilized notions comfortably

Can you really say you were there if you weren't with a friend?
Can you say you had a good time if you can remember everything?
If you were up all night, ain't it time for this to end?
Who's watching? Who's caring? I put my clown shoes on and sing
Because I quit drinking, started smoking, stopped worrying so much
and I seem twofaced in how I spend my time from who I spend it with,
but I'm not beholden to any social contract; I'm a contradiction, give me my space and I'll be in touch.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Mar 2021
Ever deeper borne into the earth
guided by flickering torchlight
robes of fallen starlight descend,

Each marching with purpose, down into their caves
darker and colder as they fall closer to the underworld
communion beyond the veil begins beside their graves

Scholars write grimoires, studies of the absent birth
pondering on a tree that is both there and not, like smoke at night
magick in the roots reach for the surface like fumes, all upend

At first dozens and now hundreds, their chants roll off a religious tongue
beautiful choirs gather, their excavation of this new god
creates a calling, they will come when the song is sung

A tree of smoke that clings in reverse, roots dissipating against a cavern ceiling
the very reflection of an ancient tree that once existed, in another life
thousands fill tunnels to it, pull back their hoods, their eyes revealing
a great distrust of the illusion placed around them now, handling reality as gentle as a knife
carrying less of existence to and from their underground, upside-down cathedral
every time they face the feasible plausibility that this is not real at all
weaker in the presence of that tree, back to their shrinking world they crawl
one that has tarnished in their view and lost much majesty, everything is so grey and small
in their minds this is a revelation, not a lie or deception, but something they could never see
their great appreciation, amassed they bend and break in ceremonies, dropping to knees
all to wail, to sing, to bless and bleed before the branches of their tree;
forthwith from the leaves in the fervor of madness beat the wings of a dark fairy.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2022
I apologize for what I'm about to say
if you're sensitive to language, I speak not with the intention to do harm
but to reflect pain.

Heavybag's fallen
knuckles only started to trickle with blood,
my new self-flagellation ritual interrupted
coitus, denied, the penultimate inspiration served
with every swing a flash of the past invoked
in my borderline personality crossing rage
bipolar seeming on a stable day, and I see
the nervous breakdown, these teachers
sanctuary for you, to me they say
**** yourself ******
hey, come over here and deal with this
dismissively
I keep my head down, a higher dose the next day
apathy, numb to stigmas, stigmata on my soul
martyrdom they beg of me
an inconvenience and how timely, they jokingly
say go on Tom, shoot up the school
**** yourself, you fat ******* ******
you *******, ******,
**** yourself ******,
I've been called that more times than my own name
by a long shot
all I ever wanted was to do what I was there for
then to not be there anymore
and I used to salivate as early as middle or intermediate school
at jumping off the roof, but I realized that it was too short a drop
so I recalculated, I decided on a ripcord, the train
**** yourself ******, if I do, that'd have been how I did
and I defied everyone by clinging to the only thing they couldn't take
they couldn't violate
and they did take and violate, they robbed my home,
I was beaten, *****, I keep it all bottled up
I couldn't tell anyone because all they'd say if they knew a boy ****** me was
**** yourself ******
so, I let him **** me several more times until I snapped
a tree branch over his throat
so, I clung to breath out of spite for all of them
and as soon as I could I committed their faces and names
to an infinite pit, I granted myself the greatest mercy of all
I let myself forget

Teachers never looked twice, if they did it was like
watching daytime television
no lesson plans, no structure, I remember them
sneering at me for being there, for being called names in their classroom
for being nervous, overweight, clumsy and awkward, uncomfortable
and scared, and then being mad at me when I skirted truancy laws
CPS, investigating me after my dad stopped beating me, when
I could've named a dozen houses where kids were still getting beat
and the **** cook's grandson who showed up late from the lab
and the drunks who showed up with the flasks, the rednecks with the tobacco dip ring in their pockets
I was so ****** on an overdosage of poison that it damaged my liver and I had to stop it
but that didn't change the reality I was supposed to ignore, I still saw it
in hindsight, I wish I was blinded, then I might have turned out alright
I know they'd probably just have led me to the tracks and left me there to **** myself
assisted suicide for the outsider, moved into town before they put up the first stoplight
but, sure, teachers do their job, if that means they said, just sit down shut up
watch a movie, play on your phone if you got one, do this quiz so I can say you did something
read a textbook, I don't give a ****, I'm gonna be over here and if you interrupt
**** yourself *******,
that's how it was, I never questioned it, because it always was like that
I never asked how it was elsewhere, I didn't think I'd live past 17
or past 18, or 21, or 25 or 27 so I'm really in uncharted waters now I'm almost 29
and no codependent relationship for me to abuse, just drugs

I talk to you
and you might think that means you, it doesn't
it means the paper, me and you
we've got our own thing, I don't need anybody else
this is what got me through
my first and only love, the thing that I lassoed my heart and identity to
that nobody else can take credit for giving me, I found it myself
dug it out of my skin and bone and muscle and sinew
and cultivated my own interests in it, forged every fiber of growth
over every year, every second every minute, I took the energy burning me up
every time I saw disdain, dismissive, disrespectful, belittling, hatred and inconvenience in someone's eyes
impatience for my still being here, still being alive, and I turned that into notebooks full of chicken scratch handwriting
my learning disabled hands could manage it, nobody gets to own this, not one lethargic **** teacher who didn't raise a finger to the board
when the kid whose dad owned the car dealership was running me down, or the football team, or the cheerleader was threatening to **** me
but when someone claimed the same on my name they sent me to the office and I had to sit there, knowing it was useless to protest
I did my ******* best, I never let these people make me violent,
when they wanted the worst of me, I wrote it down,
defied them to fight me, stayed silent and turned every
**** yourself ****** into a story, a poem, an idea, anything creative, just anything that was something
more than that repulsive reaction, get over yourself *******
I'll die when I'm good and ******* ready

Bag fell off, gloves off,
barely a trickle of blood,
barely a tickle
no air circulating, stagnant and stale in this summer heat
there's nothing on the table, but the dog could eat
hand yourself a victory, hand over fist pat on the back
and at this address leave defeat
I don't care, who wants what if anything
what you think, I don't want to know
just keep it to yourself, I don't care
just leave me alone, goodbye touring these last few walks
shaking fingers tenderly touch memory lane, caress the stalks
and with each punch I've thrown, exertion grunt and groan
I let spit fly through my teeth, a rabid dog beneath
biting, reminding, flashes, each landing blow, **** yourself
rooftop, train, pills, parking garage, gun
I hit him harder, harder and harder
tail between his legs, his carcass is thrown
standing, heaving, desperate fear, anger quivering in my eyes
I snap and snarl at this specter of myself, to just leave me alone
you don't have to be gone,
just be quiet, god help me, just shut your barking mouth
stomping the throat of this animal expelled,
I fall back into myself, an escalated conflict of spirit
elevated into frenzied panic, the need to hurt
without reason, I delve, don't make me remember
I seal them away, superstitious of their nameless, faceless
demonic hold, in jars in my head, these mentors, these helpers
teachers, there is hardly a worse word

I want to go away
to a quiet place
I want to become a quiet place
where I can let go of all the noise
and be quite okay
life does not excite me
I do not anticipate it
if all my life were writing, then maybe
but living alone is a task greater than this
and I do not know what I want, but more
more than the peace I've seen this can offer
so I search, in other places, finding myself
right
back
here
I want to be content, at peace
and so I write, I feed my spirit, body, heart and mind
but I am given to darkness, foreboding ominous evil
acts of malice and treachery, betrayal of the most intimate trust
and even the best efforts to keep myself leashed only serve as a noose to me
so I try to distance people, and isolate with the best intentions, finding myself
right
back
here
and sooner than later I will complete this tour,
say goodbye, this confessional, it is not poetry,
you do not understand that it is, expression is
and you can do it, let your red setter loose with wandering ennui
speak your displeasure with today, rewrite history, in your closing set
circle back around like those teardrop vultures over the mausoleum gallery
and come back to me, for I will be
write
back
here.
write
please read and enjoy

strong language warning
Tom Shields Nov 2020
All life is all life
what if the universe is only the same to God as a lung to a human
and it has been expanding all this time because it is inhaling
wildest dreamers, you will never understand
plucking holes in your sky to make starlight
your mastery of nothing, the whole world in your hands
flounder from your waters onto the surface of these pale gray sands
struggle abreast of gravity to wade into catastrophe
void of perspective, what awaits

Colors never seen
the veins of membranes of the vastness
serving as the trail of flashes
warp, witnessed hundreds of years later
incomprehensible the digestion or detection
of the farthest Allfather; far from one, another
it is not meant to be known by tongue or thought
or possibly perceived when shown, or learned or taught
speak to it, if it were to utter one stone silent syllable
gently, lovingly, answer, or flinch, or twitch
all this precious, infinitesimal life would instantaneously perish

Dream and dream of miraculous cosmos
skip rope with wormholes, hopscotch down the Aesir's Bridge
softly pull a strand of fire from the sun to compose  
in brilliance etch your words into nebulous prose
all life will be renewed
defile my God internally
and ask what you need
not what you can get, or can't have
kneeling in prayer on the moon
dreaming of home within yourself
meditating on life, all life
and all life is, all life is.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
All important glimpse of mood
paperclip straightened through a cardboard filter
veiled understanding, their minds peer through
comprehend the heady attitude
every step forward, a chain rattles with weight
dragging feet, spitting curses a fight
bring it out before it's too late
ringing ears, faint legged, stumble into natural light
maggot-fleshed being, crawling on the floor
seems so quick with tongue as it cuts with gaze and word
to lock outside the interlopers, one side of the door
everything it has not dealt with it has not seen or heard
this is what you leave behind, the future is painfully bright
is this what you had in mind, passed down a blight

I sleep in an orchard on rotten eggshells,
far from the tree that I fell
a black sheep who will not let this empty nest sit well
my station overbears on my back, I bleat in agony
never letting up, I stand fast, I will not abandon you
I am a conduit for negative energy
I don't need light to see, the darkness does just as well for me too
all the shocking treachery, debauchery and base savagery
it reads as plain as a charge to me,
I let it wash over and it carries me through
when I lower these horns, count your sheep while you can
for you will see an animal bursts from this man,
when a goat leaves the herd to run over you
there will be a whole horizon of storm clouds following calmly, but I will strike like a bolt out of the blue

I am a medium who channels negative energy
and I return it to the world in an inane state,
from the frostbitten touch of a sunless place
I am a conduit for antisocial behavior, murderous rage, crusades, tirades and decades of lectures that second rate tyrant's blush to berate,
I host an oni, who meditates on carnage daily, and finds strife in others brings humor and grace, a verbal savage who kills ids with words and egos with actions, who never shows my face
I have the capacity for evil, but I make a conscious choice every time I use my voice
I am a middleman for idle-hands, I have always sought to create or isolate
if I have ever fallen off, I have never wanted to destroy,
my only love is to write now; it is one of the few things in life that gives me joy.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Aug 2020
PAINT!

A cacophony of colors oozing forth
brushes tied to snails, trailing down the walls
gently leaving, grieving, berea ing, absent-minded
flooded buckets returning gravity through a hole in the ceiling
an uplifting sort of sinking feeling
rapidandvapiandtepidanddesperatesoundingthoughtsalarmingandtoofa­sttokeeptrackofnolove
one peace, not yours
no one's peace

manically depressed, laser toting showboating unknowing
shiny-newborn robots

Genius
not in this species
not I, nor us
no, not in any branch of these trees
tiers sprout from the infinite and looping possibilities
reforming and collapsing in on themselves in an endless artful expanse
of compounded implosion, colonization, conquering power of far-reaching negativities

DEATH!
to the sound of a dozen different solos all playing in isolation
all masterpieces in their own right, all together sensory devastation at once
beat this worshiped slime to a pulp, beyond recognizable satisfactory sensation
make noise mean something by making a void contain value,
to cross the stranglehold of you for unreason, ****** the future nobody wants,
the future is dead and we killed it
the future is dead and we killed it
I saw its corpse
now I feel it!

The future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead the future is dead and the future is dead and the future is dead and we and we and we an d w e k   i    l        l    e     d   i    tomorrow

more as usual.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2022
Sweet, lucid juices drip from these serrated edges
all the lights have gone out and curtains drawn
who knows what is going on inside?
A melon ball of diplomacy
patterns digging inward
turning that high powered insight inside
on itself, silence
lambs
peering out from inside it's like staying
in a cell, dog's plaintiff echoes incite violence
in this tin can,
eyes that take pieces of people with them
homunculus bandages of clay for the sick man
alchemical alteration of self, ****** makeup,
perhaps a heavier concealer-
holes crop up on the surface of goosebump plumped flesh
hairs rise to the chilling presence with dew fresh on the peaks
like grass in the idyllic morning, sweaty from anxious anticipation
shivering pale beneath, with fever wherever the gaze lands
in a suit of armor, naked before the examination of telescopic pupils
studious at the altar of presence, something to behold
invert the reflection and make the world right
let the mirror swallow whole what you don't see looking back
fill in the gaps of being human by taking the traits away from observation
that trapped inside this social sensory deprivation standing torture chamber
the iron man or maiden has come to lack.
write
please read and enjoy.
Tom Shields Aug 2022
Sadness is the color of understanding
empathy bores an endless path
at first piercing and ideal, like a flaming arrow
fired into a gelatinous body, it slows
over years and the path before it
twists around realism
a snake wrapped around the heart
in a Gordian Knot, swallowing its own tail
acceptance, defeat, purity
the ideals become gritty
stained with a lens of knowledge
that ultimate, itself, is too perfect to be a trait
grounded in something obtainable, soulless ice reflects
the neglectful capabilities behind the intellect, acknowledging
that meta-metamorphosis that no one is so great
idols are a poisonous cure to this toxic fantasy
the new religious ****** crisis, celebrity in flesh
appreciation, fame, ingratiation, talent and skill
rising above means and station, status and still,
flourishing compassion, a flower bloom on fire
extinguished before it causes trouble, curling lips
biting, the ice manifested on the road oft traveled to mayhem kills
mischief belays this idea, good natured, good intentions
if only, shortcuts through the thicket, frustrations
manipulations, tollbooths rise upon this road,
one a hike by barefoot, through thorn, bramble and gravel
the other all nice blacktop, long and wide, hot and fresh asphalt
progress seems faster, every booth demands more and every exit passed
is farther from the last
while the work it takes to travel the other road, is all the same distance
in all the same time, just harder, what is done to cross a creek leaves a sense
of fulfilled accomplishment
where what is done to get down to the street lives in the past tense
as everything is taken by the inch and replaced with resentment
while everything gained by the mile is unforgettable, unregrettable
to expire on the road is to give everything to a thief within, becoming too tired
to live in these woods, these words, this world is to see truth and find contentment.

Mine eyes have beheld a wanderer, whose ragged breath had left
beneath a beating star, hotter than all the blood behind their heart
and they were haggard, lost in the latter years of a bitter and angry life
that they often contemplated the benefits of living against themself,
for those that wanted them around, their blistered and raw feet
torn to shreds from many miles stripped of skin inch by inch on the ground
learned lessons in lamentation, far too hard headed to relent their suffering
in silence, even wailing to the world, to deaf ears and numb touch
they let birds fly away with beaks full of their flesh, fresh off their back
for that was repentance in their mind, to feed the bugs that crawled up
asking for a meal, in this dire, final hour, let the roadkill return a penance
a buffet for the hungry, this was not too much, theirs was a shared road
they were the only ones who cared, their reasoning was such,
for a helping hand so often had bitten hunks out of this skeleton
now eroding on the road, whose tears were little more than glistening salt
in the sand, dry as its motivations, to deny itself while continuing in misery
a path it knew would end in complete isolation,
a blink and these eyes withdrew the vision, shuffling feet away
the promise of change is always before, and empty until fulfilled
as the spires of a lonely city called Alienation, dare the mouth to say
"I will not follow the footsteps of my future-self, I will change today."

The thing of pathology and roads,
there is a demon named ******,
who exists to lead us astray
ideally, in your world of empathy  
who can resist a stray?
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Sep 2020
Expound upon your idea

I recognize the tired eyes, the fading light, the manic battery and the desperate, clinging plight, that even I am giving up on me, when I look back and see a...
mistake like a tear in the fabric of my old green jacket, I'd pull it apart until I could slip a fist through the eye of the needle needed to repair the damage, the shell I come out of, the truth is I long to bury the hatchet but I've held on to some grudges so long I get within a hair's breadth and then I can't hack it, I take another log for the fire, chop it and stack it
I know peace is an option, I could achieve it and maintain it
but I'm insatiable, there's a volatile pull, there's insecurity in the wiring, my outlet
is draining, it pains me to say
there's something wrong in my brain
that when everything is just fine
it's just not right, that means something is going to go horribly wrong

I don't think I could utilize speech effectively, or write well enough, enough times to ever explain

That I am a button for rock bottom trap-door astonishment,
I am not a glutton for punishment, there's something more that loves to fight and prove your
investment, your time and emotion, is all a waste, I'm a trashcan Adonis in a recycled establishment
I need to prove that no matter what real good I actually do, I am a double negative, there's nothing I can't; I'm no good for you
that's why I circle back around like a confused vulture, pecking at my own living carcass before I go back to ground like an ashamed, sad clown, because I will captain and drown a relationship
I identified love, a necessity, a red flag thread, a wire to a suicide vest that almost set me off
and I cut my own heart out, detonated it, the fuse behind my eyes is a live wire, the sparks don't fly once the dynamite is lit

It all comes down to duality, hypocrisy, evil and me

Mischief, you probably think that means pranks
think in terms of death to the invulnerable, okay, thanks
somehow, you never want to be the way you are
I find with remorse, it waits to bite until things go too far
and these ideas penetrate my thoughts like venom dripping on my head
resulting in the comeuppance, another defeat, loss, personal humiliation, self-appointed proxy-given scar
I try to lie to myself about it all, that I'm going to do better, be better, change, reshape and restructure
when it seems I'm the sliver of a tooth away from sensible goals, a man I can be proud of, a conjecture whirlwind sweeps me with hindsight and conjuncture
preying on the weakest, softest sides of my wounded, pitiful pride, until I need to snap this rope and act like all along my hands were tied
and with no regard or respect, no honorable or honest intentions I will destroy and employ tactics that are somehow meant to reassure me of my reputation
the resulting aftermath which is always beyond the worst of imagination, destroying all realms their bridge and leaving alone one sickly mind with ice in stolen veins, ****** red eyes, hands washed in the void-river of time in gravitation, a creature whose humanity is stored and fired to fill this vainglorious vessel with precious vanity, having deceived all, achieved naught, and bought with its soul, sold on its personality, solely the lie of being a person, hollowed out by devastation, held hostage by its need for attention, in self incarceration, a slave for approval, for validation.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jun 2020
Insomnia has me feeling like my brain is on ***, ready to fight the whole wide world like a single player on PVE, you know the drill doc, it's basic carpentry, I want you to tap my heart with a faucet, wire a valve through a piece of PVC, then this forced hand writing will all come more naturally, you can put that guilty plea on me, until I can sizzle in the amniotic fluid that I used to be, there's no point, it's all debauchery, this is the pain that tugs, this is your brain and this is your brain on drugs, shiver on the floor, do you prefer hardwood or rugs? Patterns so enigmatic, hypnotic, it infects the minds of bugs, this is the stain on love, semantics' sake, purely you must remain above, the lonely strangers steal hugs, pedestal, peddle fool, spin you gold faster still gotta keep my cool, another angry person with something to say, the world won't tolerate em, they all hate em, they've all heard enough they can't complicate or placate, so they scab over like platelets, the drones of sweet, alluring ignorance, all holding hands to keep the cut from gushing while singing dixie in their barbershop quartets, it's a bust, tamper nothing, they'll scamper to something, all worthless, shine a red light, blink a blue light, hold up something bright and everyone scurries with folders of opinions in loop-anxious media-frenzied overfed fright, it's like seeing the sun for the first time after living your whole life in the night, it's like everything's been left and someone just discovered you can go a new direction: right. It's like originality is a race to who can say it first, there's a million voices on top of any million voices anywhere already placed, you can say your piece the worst, see it reworded into the best version of your vision, stolen and marketed with minimal revisions, and there you have it, imagination rewarded by death in a spotlight, cancerous half-a-half-life half-empty with only air to ****, a flower whose stem can't reach the water in its vase, but whose beauty makes everyone want a pluck, and now there's a fourth wall, and a war call, and I'm looking at alternate timelines like I was Andy Warhol, what did Nixon ever know? He made an oval face, looked at the tapes and just said no.

Alright, writer, make sense, no more stream of conscience nonsense, it's not word games, respond to what I say with what you heard games, it's not dropping references and names, you've been under pressure, under stress, get over yourself and decompress, take this ball of bile, blackened, bitter bomb of odious construction collecting in my chest and set it off on a page until the load becomes less, gunpowder and sulfur can hang in the air by my toes when I'm done, while my eyes grab red lines as if I'm drawing a maze to the iris, fading out while staring up at the sun, I'll put it all plain and forward, word for word, if I'm hurried be sure you've heard, if you sleep during this, rest assured, it's no line blurred, no speech slurred, no more detour deterred, I possess a demon whom genocide resides inside with eons of ****** pride and an entire tide of souls have died pulling their eyes out in screeching madness and suicide, laying down to suffer beside a spawn of passion incarnate with majestic homicide, whose tongue has split families into tragic feuds where it has lied, whose fingers fetch folly from hearts without a guide, who is to fresh air as a cloud of hydrogen cyanide my domicile is the reflection of your final moments as you are brutalized by one you've known and trusted, who's got you all alone, now see your face flash in their teeth when they smile, I am a manic satanic panic, a brooding mood of a human being, my inner darkness would be enough EMPs to **** the nuclear energies of the sun if that wickedness would this way come in freeing, the tender moments I have are with the meat I cut away from soft and fatty flesh of feeble people that I force to flee my presence, you filthy animals all procreate and makes goals to abolish hate, your virtues are the falsehoods my soul resents

Have no children
skip a generation
let the world breathe
let her recover from mankind
make no life, eradicate your infants
skip a generation
we don't need more time, give the earth a chance.
write

please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
There's a stigma on this meat hook
are you baiting me?
There's no trust, it's a long-con demonstrating loyalty
wait and see,
you are the metaphor of a gun, your dangerous sexuality
at the hair-trigger of reason, you leap from reality
commitment, dedication, fate and destiny
you're someone's brother, someone's father, someone's son
insistent with your infantile ways; you martyr'd devotee
earning passage to something true is no novelty

I realize the lies behind a look
predatory stalking, watching, eyes
all you think you need is a chance to prove your worth, an opportunity
if you could just show them they are wrong, it's become such a dance and song, we could all sing along
why can't you be valued, so unappreciated, your appetite is quite the traitor of your nature, it blows the whistle you want wetted when you seek to have it sated
behind your backs they know you're swine, while you design to make a heart and mind your property,
out of body, she cannot be mine
but you must, love is long-gone, advantageous jocking, many arms with knives to backs, it can't be healthy
they start so young now, it has become a cash-cow, from seasoning each other as meat, to viewing their bodies as ways to either get lucky and/or wealthy

Acknowledge the damage that cannot be undone,
a man can be a mockery of the summary of humanity
as he prowls in heat with a scope and no aim,
only hoping to unload either in lust or anger, without shame
they alleviate their guilt, telling themselves they tried,
with the preemptive intentions from the start, no, you lied
if you think transparency in your duplicity is a quality,
and you try to justify vicious misogyny
then what can you offer, ******* and all, with your intimacy
that someone cannot get from a yapping, untrained puppy.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Mar 2021
***** a finger on the crown and make a wish
if your blood catches the moonlight, just right, I just might
crack the golden ratio of your glass charms with a kiss
snap apart the cage between your heart and me like twigs
and since you live for your art, devour it and become one with the artist
right?

Because you sit with that glossed over look on your face, in my afterglow
I have everything you're living for, but you give me everything you're living for
then you can act devastated when you lose it all, like you didn't know
I was going to take, never return, you couldn't be anything to me, not a *****
kick you open and pry apart your dolled-up, pink brain, then smash out the windows
everything from inside-seeing is false and prettified, when I leave I take the door
you need me, fear me, hate me and revere me, but I don't ******* live here anymore
so I only come at night

Be one and I said
you can't make everyone happy
open wide and crawl outside of your head
you can't make anyone happy
stop trying, you're already dying, a man walking dead
I'm taking everything from me
to balance, I chase myself in my stead
I give nothing back, indiscernible nonsense
chicken scratch writing to keep me fed
fretting, I'm sweating, the bellows of insecurity hurriedly squealing
everything juts out, like it's designed to hurt my every feeling
these field mice I'm gathering all at once by the fistful are weeping
each skullcap on my fingers clatters and shatters, none good for keeping
the forest for the trees is never as intended
that's why the clearing he leaves is mostly open ended

He is abysmal, every principle of nihilism,
cold and seductive, seclusive and elusive
bold and eclectic, embodied allure of tasting ellipsism
his intellect, an insect, piercing and intrusive
the ego of a young and vile man,
I give him all I can
every thing that is me, flung into his kingdom
never does he ask for myself, life or limb
never do I question, would I offer them if he needs them
only do I hope that soon the stars will flee, to cover their faces
all light and rays will hide away and show no empathy
there will be nothing human to interfere, in any forms or places
and in that pitchest, voidest dark, I will finally see
the most perfect silence of the senseless, where I may embrace my throne
the absence of humanity and all its voices, where my despair may rest with me alone.
write
please read and enjoy
Tom Shields Jul 2020
Seems to be another,
same, shame, clone by name
set placement next to any other
then, suddenly, before a butterfly can bat an eye;
before the rays of sun can capture moments' rapture  
and settle down one gorgeous golden gown
upon a dew-blushed flower royal's crown
there from above clouds, who roll over asleep, afloat on currents
seen from the sky
weary, lazy, no concern or worry, go by
cast a shadow between the sun and land
yawns of thunder across the ground
spawns many sad and cantankerous groans, they demand
clouds roll away, let the sun beam down
ears not breached from so far below, clouds nap-happy beneath the blaze
as the storm rages on, another peaceful moment gone, flowers drown;
trees blackened by bolts of blue,    
a valley carved from a serene plateau, took only a matter of days
destroyers, clouds, all awaken and observe, the path was taken, they do not mourn for them the loss and release cycle has come true.
wr te
please read and enjoy
Next page