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955 · Oct 2019
The Promise Tree
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2019
I.
She waits in the shade
Of a best-loved oak,
Where he once carved their names inside a heart:
"This means forever."

II.
The heart needs tending
--she visits from year-to-year.
Her security, a vow.
His constraint, a contract.
She made to open the door but he detained her,
A perjury.
Pruning stems, branching
--cognitively speaking--
Dead or alive.

III.
The landscape has changed:
This place no longer holds water.
Listen now for love's addendum,
Measured in the signal-to-noise ratio.
(You'll hear it all the time).

IV.
Oh, painfully leafless gray meadow.
Sufferance is a viable timekeeper,
When it storms the weak run for shelter.
955 · May 19
Day of the Bayonet
Carlo C Gomez May 19
Affixed to the Lee–Enfield,
this blade, this trigger point,
stricken by ambush,
enters the melee
along the false edge,
cuts to the core,
like sympathizers of
William of Orange.

There are no daggers
apart from war,
just an ocean of
death and defeat,
its water,
its ever rising water,
swallows us whole.
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2022
~
An aviation sleight-of-hand:
Random flight plan

Strange admission
This war of attrition

No friendly skies
No wings of hope

Flagship wanderer
High above the clouds
Gliding like a phantom

Holding its place in line
By sailing incognito

Without a stitch of cargo
Or living company

No laughter
No banter
No bag of nuts
Nothing for the flight recorder
To remember

Only a lonely figure
In the cockpit
Throttling down
A descent into madness

Keeping slots warm
And bodies cold

~
“Ghost flights” of the aviation industry: Chartered to fly around the world – sometimes just around an airport – simply so airlines can hang on to takeoff and landing slots.
949 · Mar 2020
Under the Rose
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2020
Tell me your secrets
unofficially
surreptitiously
on the quiet

whisper the unknown
off the record
behind closed doors
on the sly

between you and me
in camera
sub rosa
entre nous

let me be your one and only
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
Set the fig leaves on delicate
Make sure to add softener
Before the spin cycle
Then hang them to dry
While waiting
Might as well find
A Good Book to read
943 · Aug 2020
Birdland
Carlo C Gomez Aug 2020
Broken flight

They went down somewhere
in the trees

The sky is sad
and full of remorse

But never Calliope

Broadway and 52

God knows
they got to you

She sings songs
of their misfortune

Decidely the muse and
mother of importune
Carlo C Gomez Aug 2020
Ink
blots
impossible
knots
testing the limits of
a circular drive
one hand on the wheel
the other copping a feel
of his passenger mate
dutifully nursing her neonate
foot goes down
to apply the break
fracturing fingers
is what it will take
to lessen
the voice
avoid
the slade
move
the mountain
tell me, don't floaters
eventually get flushed?
Beware...there are deceivers among us, hopping from one profile to the next. These types are not so interested in poetry as they are with messing with the ladies here. Please be careful.

Note: not all those with multiple profiles are deceivers. In fact, most are not. But there are a few here with ulterior motives.
935 · Jun 2020
Fluctuations of Happiness
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2020
Whether they go gently

or expedite with force

the rhythms of the night

are there to ravish us

in the miserable nature

of indomitable, incessant need

to gratify a neglected

consciousness

fraught with dancing endorphins

that linger about

love's sea

as a salient reciprocal
Carlo C Gomez May 2024
~
Ladies-in-waiting
reflecting on
a fragile state of mind

precarious creatures, these
hunters of coal
that outlines both
eyes and words

black paint for blue girls,
they pray in a circle
for their queen's wedding night
to be one of celebratory rapture

deep into the looking glass
they peer for a sign,
a soul, a stigma,
but cannot see
beyond their own glib faces

a universe ago they
caparisoned as pixies
in sunflower corsets,
twirling in a centrifugal forest

tonight in eclipse,
in their all-together,
they merely wear masks
of their former selves

the firelight dramatically shifts
in bacchanalia pratfall
--the oblong menace
of their smiles, fingers and navels
dancing to the age of Sideria

~
932 · Nov 2019
Wishful Thinking
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2019
According to a new
Conspiracy theory,
The last season of
Game of Thrones
Never happened.
932 · Jan 2021
Marlon Brando
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2021
"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.
929 · Sep 2023
Surrender to the Sea
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2023
~
Enchantment under the sea
noted places that used to be

Someone turned on the tap
now every couple years
the kids must learn
a new map

So wholly and completely
was the ice caps evaporation
these cities current address
is at the bottom of the ocean
with Atlantis:

There's London
Lisbon
Venice
and Dublin

There's Singapore
Sydney
Montreal
and Tripoli

There's New Orleans
Rio de Janeiro
Cape Town
and Cairo

Don't live in fear, children
but bring your scuba gear

Can't stop the melting spree
we all surrender to the sea

~
927 · Feb 2020
Nude at 50
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
She likes to take **** walks
through the old neighborhood
to give them a lesson in gravity,
as much as a thrill.

She prefers to run the table
than walk the line,
her naked truth, she believes,
is worth the crime.
The body remains beautiful, but it indeed does change.
925 · Oct 2020
Axis Sally
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2020
Red letter days
and friendly fire.
Will I ever go home?
Your voice over
the airwaves soothes.
But the things you say
cut like teeth,
sharp and vile.
You visit the hospitals,
shake down the morgues.
The batting of your eyelashes,
a ruse to your construction:
You're a steam shovel, girl.
Digging for Nazis
at the center of the Earth.
Mildred Elizabeth Gillars, nicknamed "Axis Sally" along with Rita Zucca, was an American broadcaster employed by **** Germany to disseminate propaganda during World War II. Following her capture in post-war Berlin, she became the first woman to be convicted of treason against the United States.
925 · Jan 2020
Apples and Oranges
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
Some write from their heart
Others bare their soul
Some write for the art
Others to feel whole
Some write to inform
Others to get a laugh
Some write as a platform
Others to land a gaff
Some write to rant and lobby
Others to find peace
Some write as a hobby
Others in search of a masterpiece

They each have merit
But with every sort of objective
They just want to share it
With us, the HP collective
923 · Mar 4
Times New Roman
In fog or flood,
it has to look like news
and not wear down too soon,
not be abandoned at the shipyard;
hunt-and-peck it to death,
it remains invisible, so readable
that it does nothing to draw
attention to itself,
leaving only the content
in its lapidary wake.
922 · Apr 2024
Walls of Jericho
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2024
~
It feels like the anesthetic is wearing off

This circus of machines

From coin-operated hostility

To wholesale apathy refineries

They tell us it's winter down in the subdermal

They tell us the foundation has grown weak

Dislocation is an incoming storm

Mirrors are distorted screens

Placeholders really

In a city without children

Even the statues weep

Snow upon the ground that was once blood

Now an empire without heirs

Even the trees hate us

~
921 · Dec 2019
Carpooling to Mars
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
The drive is endless, perilous,
and being recorded for posterity,
because one planet
is no longer enough.

H.P. Lovecraft is at the wheel,
and we're looking at one thing
and not your mother.

That was a Freudian slip,
but not really surprising
since he's also along for the ride.

And when we get there
we'll scavenge for sovereignty
in the orange filter of hope.

Then a flag will mark
our demesne,
a spot defining both
pride & terror,
as it delivers a dose of ambition,
yet, reeks of future tyranny.

Pray our luck runs out along the way
or we run out of gas
or steam
or headway...

Then again, maybe we should
hope for the breast.
I mean best !
Freud's at it again.
Because one planet is no longer enough
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
Jack and Jill ran up a bill
To private school their daughter.
Jack fell into schemes and broke his dreams,
And Jill came crumbling after.
920 · Jan 2020
Houston, We Have a Problem
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
Rose was a Red
Dodgers are blue
We're stealing signs
How 'bout you?

Cheat like this
Not like that
One's okay
The other picked at

Keep to tradition
Not technology
Yeah it's confusing
So is most any ideology
920 · Aug 2020
Common Ground
Carlo C Gomez Aug 2020
Here
Now
I shall meet you
in the middle
Even a step
or two more
if need be
Once there
let's put our differences aside
- joining hands -
and with pure motive
remind each other
what we love about us
919 · Jun 2024
We Are Narratives
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2024
letter by letter,
     some of great lust,
     some of espionage,
     and secret meetings.

part film,
part theatre,
part fever dream.

we were woven together somehow,
      like we were characters in a book
      being read out-loud somewhere.
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2020
With a hint of death
mingling in the air,
the nocturnal snapdragon is
digging wells,
not just for water,
but also as final resting
places for friends back home,
in the garden,
deep within the soil.

Callous hands and feet
speak of insufficiency
and misery under the sun,
the one lone solace comes
with night,
and the partaking of
her body's delicacies,
bringing her innumerably
to the helve,
as she sings heavenly things
about the architecture
we creatures fall
so easily from.
We fragile creatures are here for such a short duration. Make it meaningful.
919 · Oct 2020
Broken Autonomy
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2020
Our inheritance
is loss

I don't care
about liberation

Freedom is
the ignis fatuus

Everyone's a slave
to something
916 · Dec 2019
Farsighted
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
My wife has eyes in the back of her head
So I got her into hats
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
The sky today
is like the meal you just served

Brittle and distant in some sections
but overall palatable

Why don't we ever eat out?
you ask

Because things abruptly fall
when we least expect

Like prices and temperatures
or your basic need of me

If we go somewhere we might
meet other people

And that could only end badly
for the both of us
"While some possessive individuals may try to control every aspect of their partner's life, other possessive individuals may only show mild jealousy. Regardless of the level of possessiveness, such relationships are typically unhealthy."

https://oureverydaylife.com
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2024
~
Dead channel skies
Segregation in the flat fields
A hole in the silver lining
Where the fence is low

~
They fell from the moon last night
Caught in a strange
Chapter of fear
The land is inhospitable
And so are we
Wipe them from your mind
We must preserve what is left

~
912 · Jan 2020
Fishing with Roy Scheider
Carlo C Gomez Jan 2020
Backstroking
into a midnight snack.

That's some bad hat, Harry!

See the sign with the fishy graffiti?

It's supposed to be scary.

Come one, come all
on the fourth of July!

Put your kid on a raft
and watch him liquefy.

Then sail the high seas
with Captain Ahab.

Three men in a tub.

Too far out to hail a cab.

Guess we'll see who ends up grub...
906 · Jun 2024
The Lacemaker
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2024
Into sky
Synthetic sky
Into cloudless recesses of
Artificial sun

Help me lift it up

Tubercular layers
And acetylene light
Below I sleep in a spiderweb
Where scavenger's reign

By design
Delicate
Intricate
Singularity
Worn for a vow
Worn as a shroud
Our night is falling

I come and stand
At every door
Next to manufactured girls

Hoping to lift you up

The ghosts they draw
On my back
Want no light to shine

And so I must
Leave it behind
For the man coming after me
901 · Jul 2020
Opera Sauvage
Carlo C Gomez Jul 2020
I so dreamt
Music

Untamed
Agrestal

A boundless arrangement
Estranged from

The whispered waters
Confining

This sullen cathedral
In thoughts hushed

As anxious lips quenched
Their thirst

From the passionate
Oeuvre

Trapped within
New rhapsody
900 · Nov 2019
Pause Button
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2019
Having to eat our own words
should give us food for thought.
It opens in transition
Warm Texas rain in June
Dallas in a cocoon
--
Kingdom of the sad harvester
Crop of tears raised in the sun
Forming long shadows on the screen
--
Starlight in cathedral
This explosion within
Enter the soldiers
Enter the dragon
--
Framed insects
Relying on hidden stairwells
To cover their hasty escape
To seal their fate
--
Inside a fascist restaurant
The men hiccup and cigarette
The women just smile and pirouette
Dancing around the blast zone
Detonating minds and hearts
Just as the end credits roll
899 · Apr 2020
Driftglass
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2020
Timeworn,
"she was weeping, banally, in the moonlight"

We, in some strange power’s employ, move on a rigorous line

Our thoughts broadcast in reverse of linear time

Laying down fresh electric cable so our minds can again spin webs and half-eaten threads

To stand ready for launch from
Cape Canaveral

Young astronauts, and cultural fallout, spun in exhilarating swirl of places and vividly half-described incidents

Experiments explored in zero gravity

Starlight, starbright
first time I apogee tonight

Impaled upon the high temples of Min
flowered in the sun

A collective come undone

Circumferencing quicksand
as worlds tilting badly off-center

In the death ovens  
they go spiraling down into driftglass
898 · May 6
One One Thousand
~
man on the moon,
woman in orbit,
unrequited science.
nowhere to land,
nothing to feel,
it might as well be Siberia.
luminaries change,
control lingers in the framework.

the heavens revolve
—deasil and artificial.
she has revolutions of her own,
legs that once swam
everyday in his backyard pool,
(that once draped around his coil)
now openly kick free
from his lunar confines.

he starts the countdown
—one one thousand,
two one thousand,
but she's not coming for him.
she's chasing other transmissions,
the bones of what she believes,
hoping something out there
can activate her heart.

~
896 · Dec 2019
Frost on the Windshield
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
There's an apology written in the snow
'I'm sorry about last night. Can I see you again?'
Her wordless exhalation causing the glass to fog
In nearly the same way as her thoughts
About last night

Second date
First ****
"25% of college women report that they survived **** or an attempted **** at some point in their lifetime.
Every 21 hours, another woman is ***** on a college campus today." --  HealthResearchFunding.org
893 · Feb 2024
Choir Of Blessed Youth
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2024
~
Once upon a timid willow

The sweetest songs of

A hyacinth girl

Floated on waterlilies

Had a sleepwalking lyric

The moorings of her heart

Overlooking undercurrent

As she dared all things

Gently down the stream

~
887 · Mar 10
Shut Boxes of Eternity
Carlo C Gomez Mar 10
Reality is so unreliable. In the water of life we surf the wave of chance. Rise or fall as hunters in the snow. The isolating future is already here. But people are still people, they still need each other. The anachronistic branch of knowledge we are dedicated to - the day in, day out - is a deluded science. It is we who would be the objects of enquiry and fascination to an alien mind. Humanity is the true wonder, the true miracle.
885 · Nov 2019
Dead Man Working
878 · Jun 17
Zero Is An Even Number
Carlo C Gomez Jun 17
Rings of Headrick
Stabilize the flight
Of a broken equal

In zero atmosphere
I record you remembering to smile
Pixel pleasure
Whether or not
In zip ties

Cloud on the brow
Rain in the ashtray
Storms we all breathe in heavily

An end to camaraderie
By critical distance
By counting back from ten

Zero is an even number
When discord is no longer odd
877 · Apr 2024
Plot Zero
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2024
~
It's all about
to become reimagined
along a foreign coast

Embattled shorelines
an archer on the beach
girl in a sling
facing the other way
playground martyrs

Random acts
of senseless violence
the warm taste of human failure

~
876 · Sep 2024
Careful Now
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2024
The holding place / The tablets of your memory / Little slivers of death / We can keep finding ways to go further
876 · Feb 2024
Gasoline Rainbows
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2024
~
Dressed for purgatory
But early to the party
So many bodies in the house next door
A living dance upon dead minds

A grocery store sunset
Thru the windshield of an SUV
Gets you distorted colors in
Gasoline rainbows
From those precise lines
Of the turning lane
Love ends at a traffic light

We do this to ourselves
All in the pursuit of happiness

Church of questionable things
Descending like vultures
Where idols once stood
For individual suffering

A pageantry of jackals
Quiet like sirens
Picking at parts of bad contestants
Playing a game called 'poisoned trees'
Fallen soldiers in strange negotiations
With meantime brides
Riding on the train of irresponsibility
For no apparent reason

We do this to ourselves
All in the pursuit of happiness

~
876 · May 2020
Plastic Cups
Carlo C Gomez May 2020
It's a small world
for some girls. They live

in shadow
of the Himalayas,
and other assorted mountainous
peaks. They daydream

of being followed
by the camera eye,
adored for the top heavy
weight they carry with
a grinning bounce. They want

to be a cruise ship,
stacked to the deck.
They want to be
fashioned with torpedoes,
a bombshell to
reckon with. And so they lie

on a table
to become a sculpture in plastic
for a renowned
architect. A mad scientist
in his own right,
experimenting with his creations
on fragile psyches, banking

on insecurities,
giving them a deflated hope
that what God didn't
bless them with,
his derangement will.

It's a mind game.

A mantra to "she who sends up gifts":
if you feel as good as you look,
all is well.

There's no harm in that, right?
Let's ask Pandora...
For individuals considering breast augmentation surgery, take note of the following statement from the FDA:

“Breast implants are not lifetime devices; the longer you have your implants, the more likely it will be for you to have them removed.”

Millions of women worldwide have developed symptoms after implantation in the 50 years they have been on the market.

These symptoms have been coined “breast implant illness.” From minor irritations to greater health challenges, research supports that in some individuals, both saline-filled and silicone-filled breast implants can cause significant adverse health effects, leading us to question if breast implants are safe. In addition, implants have been found to increase the risk of certain types of cancer.
875 · Mar 2024
Fade Into Latin
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2024
~
So where did you go?
Where in daydream tarnation are we?
     If only you could see my exodus
     and relent

Where are you now?
Matters of blood and connection
forming at the mouth
we are the fabrication
      --an image apart from ourselves

To break is something sacred
in the Morse code of brake lights
     through time stained windows
     through a thousand contractions
the dead are getting younger

If only you could see me
walk into the blackness
not to build a fire
       but melt, wander, disappear
       and relent
       relent
       relent

~
873 · Feb 2020
The Trouble with Socrates
Carlo C Gomez Feb 2020
Nice try,
My didactic friend.
Only the foolhardy would use
A can opener
To pry back the lid to their soul.
If even such a thing were viable,
Which, for the record, no es posible.
But let's say it was,
In a fluffy, touchy-feely kind of way.
Performing surgery
On the immaterial
Makes as much sense
As being a ghostwriter for
A blind man's alphabet soup.
Id doesn't make sense.
Could be the hemlock
Is talking back now.
So drop the act, you gadfly,
And take up cycling.
You might as well enjoy
The scenery along your mind trip,
Sharp turns and all.
Your over-the-counter philosophy
Is quaint, but comes with a price:
Fisher Price.
Carlo C Gomez Oct 2019
We now return
to your regularly scheduled dream.
Do the math: ducks in the pond
swim upstream to spawn supreme.

Then pay it forward
as a string of numbers.
Continuous in series,
strung out and unencumbered.

There's some **** saxophones
lifting off in tune to the rhythm method.
Save the soft jazz for when you're really in the mood, and read a bedtime story instead.

Vision begins when the lids
are closed and threading the daisy chain.
This is where we
place the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.

The lines blur
where the vertical and horizontal collide.
Can't stand the swimming in the head,
yet enjoy the peripheral ride.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure,
even as far deep down as this chasmic seabed. Living with technophobia,
But married to sensory overload instead.

Making new babies in safe mode.
We lose sight when plugged too long into this hub. Just another anxiety in need of a pill
--join the club.

We meet where there's free Wi-Fi
so battery life doesn't drain.
This is where we
repeat the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.
865 · Apr 2020
Not Every Ocean Can Swim
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2020
Where I end
And she begins
Is open for debate
There are places
We overlap
Blend together
Little between us
Is on the surface
Some are long entrenched
Others postpartum
And they will hold on
To the bitter end
Ebbing and flowing
Careening and crashing
So many create
Their own storm
Those wise enough
Allow them to drowned
865 · Dec 2019
Pural
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
The ransom note came this morning
And you were listed twice
First as the abductee
Then as the abductor
I'm not even going to ask
How it was that you captured yourself
I just want to know
What's going to happen once
You have the money
Do you free or ****
The hostage?
862 · Sep 2020
Cranberry Fields
Carlo C Gomez Sep 2020
The wetland red
Cranberry fields
Ripe and glistening
Like the morning dew
That forms on wild thicket
In anticipation of harvest
861 · Nov 2019
Girl Without Shoes
Carlo C Gomez Nov 2019
Sixty-three...
Sixty three days
you went missing.

Nine...
Nine weeks
a candle burned in your window.

The same window
you were taken from.

Petaluma, outraged and determined,
became a colony of ants.

Ground searches to mass mailings,
they never gave up hope
and soldiered on.

In a high-tech dragnet
you became the first internet child.

Your anxious mother
fretted over every detail
concerning you:

"I have a daughter out there--without shoes."

You would always be your parents
beloved little girl.

You were laid to rest
the day after the butterflies flew away,
migrating to a warmer climate
where they could play in safety

--the life we wish for all children.

Twenty-five...
Twenty-five years ago
you went away.

A remembrance
that is felt everyday.
For Polly Klaas (1981 - 1993)
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