Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Jo Barber May 2018
Change eats away at the past
until only crumbs of memories remain.
We spend so much time kneading and prepping,
anxiously watching the dough rise,
only to hungrily gobble the whole loaf.

Some save it for a day,
others eat it before it's even cooled,
burning the tips of tongues and fingers.

It's not just happiness that lingers.
Thoughts?
Jo Barber May 2018
My type is tall
with dark hair
and dark eyes.

The whisper of ****** hair
on a jaw so square.
Leave the clean-shaven men
for other girls.

Smart and witty,
with music so gritty.
And a smile so sweet and wide.
Not sure what I implied,
but I suppose I'll now confide
that I'd be the Bonnie to your Clyde.
  May 2018 Jo Barber
Charles Bukowski
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****** and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to ***** up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
Jo Barber May 2018
Calm, cool, contemplative.

This is all her face said to me.
Peering at me from behind pale, grey eyes,
she appeared rather wise.

Yes, those saucer-shaped eyes
reminded me much of the sky,
or a boat about to capsize.

So stormy were those eyes
that hid so much.
Her emotions,
completely untouched.

All because of those irreplaceable,
impenetrable eyes.
Jo Barber May 2018
Her thoughts
grow like weeds
through swaying reeds.

In her head
exists a garden
as bright and as varied
as the tulips of Amsterdam.
Each canal lined with bikes,
the water flowing from one to the next.

If not careful, though,
that mind will overflow,
overgrow with the seeds
of past ill deeds.

She sits still now,
thumbing through her prayer beads,
pleading for the protection
of some modern-day Diomedes.
Thoughts? It's still a work in process.
Jo Barber May 2018
It's snowing in May.
What more is there really to say?
Droplets are drip-dropping on me
every which way.

I rush through the slippery streets,
and to my dismay,
I see a soaked-through toupee
on the head of a man having quite a bad day.

Oh, what a strange melee
is this snowy Tuesday.
Jo Barber May 2018
Sometimes the world is so loud,
all I can hear is screaming.
But other days,
life quiets
and the Earth spins more slowly.
It is on these occasions
when one can at last hear
the crickets in the grass
and the bees buzzing through the air.
Flowers swishing in the wind, here and there.
Among the few humans, there is hardly a care.

It is on these quiet evenings,
with the moon so bright,
every face devoid of fright,
that living life seems quite all right.

But not tonight.
Next page