I sometimes feel bad for writing happy poems
or silly poems
or love poems
It seems as if people only want a pained poet
like a sad clown
they want tears to make themselves feel better
the selfish little....
but I grew out of my metal head phase
a couple of years ago
and I'm sorry to say
but sometime this life is just
positively ******* awesome
okay okay I get it
a lot of the time it isn't
but that's just as awesome
how many good books have you read
where everything went fine?
we're the stars of our own movies
sometimes we take issue with the script
or get ******* at the director
but ultimately
the performance is up to us
and at this very moment
I feel like Brad Pitt ******* it
so you may have to wait a while longer
for the return of the pained poet

I read some writing advice once
It said "Writing isn't a competition"
well I'm sorry to tell you buddy
but you can go right to hell
because If you're words are published
yeah I'd congratulate you
and then I'd be write at my typewriter
notebook or laptop
sharp scrawling and tic tacs
because I love the bottom rungs
of unpublished writers
throwing their entirety against a brick wall
over and over again until it starts to crack
and fall apart brick by brick
until we see that beautiful view behind it
and everybody who makes it
is just another grain of sand in the hour glass
making me nervous and restless
impatient
so everybody who makes it
is about ten new poems
and I'm not rue if I will make it
but I'm going to try
it's all I've got

In Los Angeles It is illegal
for dogs to mate within 500 feet of a church
and if that doesn't make you
want to host a dog ****
in the middle of an LA church
right next to the holy water
then I don't think we can be friends

You stand before me
the opposite of a reflection
you are heads
and I am tails
as beautiful
as I am ugly
as sacredly spoken
as I am blasphemous
the angel
to all of my demons
as electric
as I am static
the spark of passion
locked within my apathy
The only thing I've loved more
than I neglect myself

We still have the summer
that we spent together
before you went to college
the nights we spent
drunk on the beach
you with your guitar
me with my smile
as the surf licked our feet
the times we spent
hip to hip
looking at the stars
on that patch of private grass
down the street from your house
all the times spent
wagging our chins
about whatever came to mind
we will always have the summer

We still have the summer
when the leaves outside my window
turn crisp brown, apple red, and gold
when the school bell rings
like the doorbells
opened upon
kids trying to make five bucks
When summer's lingering heat
beings to chill
and we are once again visited
by the ghosts of our breath
We will always have the summer

We still have the summer
when winter comes along
and maybe if we're lucky
it'll be a white Christmas
but this is Richmond
so probably not
but I hope we do
the city looks so pretty
all lit up on a snowy night
We will always have the summer

We still have the summer
when our birthday month rolls around
a couple of April fools
laughing our ***** off
When new life springs out
from all around
and the spring showers
turns the early morning grass
into a field of stars
or a Caribbean sea
meeting a setting sun
and the birds sing their pretty little hearts out
just like you
We will always have the summer

And when summer comes round again
maybe I will see you
not a care in the world
a world's worth of meaning
maybe we will go back to that beach
the sun and salt
turning our skin to leather
until we look like a couple
of Florida retirees
happy and wrinkled
Maybe
we can gaze up at the stars
or your ceiling fan
It really doesn't matter
Maybe these things will happen
maybe not
I find comfort
in knowing
that I will always have that summer

When the words won't come
I always have you
to refill my well
when the ink runs dry
I need only
dip my pen in your blood
when the paper is dead
the thought of your laughter
breaths new life
when hope is lost
you give me courage
you make me
a better me

I don't think I'll make it
until I know how to not fake it
until I learn how to break it
until I let them take it
the it factor
Harry J Baxter
because unless I can give me
then I'm just like that tree
that fell in the forest
through the safety net
with nobody around
to hear it yet
A sick dog without a vet
without a vestment of hope
will they like this? nope
is this really you?
your where why and who?
because people have
great ******* detectors
and unless you're the director
nobody is buying tickets
no more white pickets
see that bucket? kick it
like  a mangy mutt
kick it right in the ****
these rhymes are simple
I never had much skill
never got such a thrill
from fitting into a style
maybe in a little while
but I don't want to hear it
I just don't give a ****
if these long lines of words
leave your eyes feeling hurt
and your poetic sensibilities inert
It never stops
and I might take a shot
at making this poem
be needlessly long
an ugly song
sung by an ugly swan
or is it a duckling?
who knows? who cares?
It just leaves me scared
to think that I'm not
who I am
when I write

This might hurt
these words that blurt
out like a volcano
with debris to throw
raining down
onto the town
taking no prisoners
like an unholy visitor
why am I angry?
because sometimes
it feels **** good
because sometimes
what under my hood
likes to heat up
when I feel beat up
not physical
not mental
just a broken principal
and the hounds are set loose
I don't control these words
they control me
which accounts for
sketchy rhyming patterns
which I don't believe matters
leaving form in blood tatters
these words attack us
and sometimes
I want them to hurt
to scathing and scalding
because it lets me know
that I still care

There's an old road
where I spent much
of my childhood
back in England
that I miss
more than anything else

I tell all of my friends
"Yeah Virginia is ******* beautiful,
but you haven't seen real green grass
until you've been to that
small farming village"
yeah I'm from the sticks
it wasn't strange to come home
to stray sheep
which had escaped
from Farmer Neville

But where was I?
the road
that absolute beauty
on one side
proud oak trees
some of which are older than
the entire United States
covered in a sickly yellow moss
chlorophyll green shafts of summer
when we walked around
in shorts and t-shirts
the other side
is a field of grain
which was set ablaze
once a day
when the sun came down
to plant a kiss on the horizon
and we spent countless hours
playing on that tire swing

Now that road is closed off
overgrown
after we left
on our transatlantic journey
nobody was there to take care
no more children
whose laughter
echoed off of those
proud oak trees
and I do miss that road
I don't regret leaving it
life wasn't meant
to be spent
longing for old roads

God must have left us
or maybe died
if we are made in his image
does he get Alzheimers
his mind slowly muddling up
so he may have forgot about
his seven billion children
then again maybe we drove him away
or to suicide
because we have been naughty
boys and girls
who don't like sharing their toys
and when others
talk about their perception
of divine beauty
we throw rocks at them
for their endless fibs
because we can't be wrong
and we can't all be right
we devour and suffocate
our children
with our social expectations
and all we really give a **** about
is self betterment
not of the inside
but the external visage of our personage
weight rooms clang with
masturbatory grunts
and a piece of fabric
is more likely to go off the shelves
if it is branded with a corporate signature
or if it's what's in
****, if I was God
I would've left too