collapsing in on myself like a dying star
in the middle of the floor of some bar
on an idle Tuesday

I've already lost the keys to my car
and I've got a burn on my arm from a cigar
it feels like doomsday

don't know where love or life are
I just know I've seen them from afar
maybe they'll visit in May

Speak every time you stand - do not forget yourself.

Do not let one moment go by that doesn't remind you that your heart beats a hundred thousand times a day and that's enough gallons of blood...

to make every one of you oceans

If you have all the egoism of a child and none of the innocence
try bringing your body back from the wild and pen it behind a fence
Instead, pen the page with your ink
-its your new sweat and blood-
Don't stop to think
let it come out in a flood
and throw in the kitchen sink
trust me. This growing bud can't get enough drink
once your words have been spoken
you may feel empty and broken,
your soul ****** up the plant's phloem
and that is when you have written a poem

The great turbines now rusted
I wonder if I can still cry
the heavens make it look so easy
when tears fall from the sky

the wet rags of emotion can no longer be wrung
the sobs to the beat of a tearful drip have been sung
those sonnets have been passed to another's lungs
another's tongue
are tears what it means to be young

This resident hedonist
is feeding false promises, premises,
had precedents
lacks presence
get off our premises president
our countries bloodied and blemished
supposed genius turned menace
made a promising entrance
now with vehemence, menaces
subverts his messages, sentences
burn our nemesis' edifice
don't hide in the crevices
its prescience

Snatching ghosts of the nights from the mouths of men,
I am the watcher on the walls.

Holding your hand through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil.

From hellish waste to emerald isle
From sad to smile, I'm worth your while,

When I was a kid I didn't know my right from left
so I always woke up on the right side of the bed.
But my innocence soon left and was replaced by pain
and all I want is to be all right once again

look at all the Leonard Cohens writing poems
filling their prose with death morose
this isn't a poem for your pleasure
x simply marks there IS a treasure

sorry I mix between serious and surreal
in these serials of her
swapping sense for splendour
subtlety for superlatives
her bark for a purr

No, said I, the rock on which you thought to build your love.
Don't dash yourself on me.

Atop a roof
in the neighbourhood of my childhood
I leapt for the stars
as I never thought I could

The breeze rushed past
I looked back where i stood
thinking to myself
so far so good... so far so good

see now,
the cement has never meant so much
cold heart hard to the touch
and soon back to dust

god's angel before I fell from the top
falling for the melting ***
I'd always been covered in freckles
now out **** spot

and the music trickled from his fingers
and transcended / ascended through the ceiling
straight through a cloud
and the stratosphere freeing

I dress from my shelf of self-consciousness
hoping to impress myself with anomalous self confidence
mirror mirror on the wall
In truth I'm jealous of you all
not just the fairest
a more acute awareness
of all these greater things to pursue
on gods great green and blue

Love dragged me down to the river
Me: kicking, screaming curses
Love: steady hand without quiver

Love held me under the rippled surface
silent bubbles translated my biblical verses
and I questioned it's purpose

But the one thing without indecision
was me and her in unison
and I rose from my baptism

me?
it was bukowski
who helped me tear through life loudly
who helped my mind settle soundly
profoundly through his profundity
and, quietly, in his subtlety,
i found me

and I realised
everything I missed
like feeling her lips curl
into a smile or a kiss

I look into her eyes
while she stares into the abyss
her fingers uncurl just a little bit
and we fall asleep like this

I was too late.
She'd already been kissed by the sun.

actually I've run out of poems
and a pen is no longer my totem
as I wander my dreams

I'm trying to think less material
but I can't distinguish here from the ethereal
for reality's tearing at the seams

What about a dream itself
I know the weight of them so well
I guess, maybe, others will too, that means

I guess I'll stay here forever
whether I be real wherever and whenever
in the upside downs and in betweens

she loved like the first rock in the rings of saturn
solitary circling space flotsam
still invisible. not yet beautiful

she loved like the first eye formed
in the primordial ocean.
what was ever less seen

she loved like the first word.
what so fully shaped, so fully intentional
was less understood

she loved like the first note,
some harmonic oscillation played by a nascent zephyr
on a Pangean chasm; heard only by what some call god
and others called nothing - well before there words or eyes
or rings of saturn

and she loved like the last love
the whimpering call of the last dodo on its last day
a requiem for a dream always realised too late

is this -feeling- or is this just love
that old hormone that fits
humanity like a glove

is this my soul or is this a balloon
both are reaching for the sky
but are stuck in this room

I don't know why a balloon would be in my chest
or if even a soul resides in my breast
but both I'd prefer to divest

so we must discuss
why this lust and thrusts
weren't just for us

saw your flush and smelled his musk
now this tusk is stuck deep in my guts
Our trust is rusting
I'm just adjusting
injustice gusting
injustice huffing an puffing
don't mean to be brusque
but we are dust

I'm sleeping in the lounge
because I can't sleep in my bed
because you're stained in my sheets
and a stain in my head

I've deleted all my music
and I've started anew
four thousand songs down the drain
that you listened to, too

yet I can't wipe away
all the footprints you left
down the memory lanes
in my head and my chest

Every second a star dies
And I'm not sure what that signifies
But when we met I used to see supernovas in your eyes
Now there's nothing grand but something simpler
And that's how it always ends
Not with a bang
But with a whimper

an i for an a makes the whole world bland

Does the true artist run out of paint before pain?

The well of my soul might be full
but the cogs by which I once drew forth water rusted long ago
I  twist, contort,
strain and force
but the rivers ran their course
and as much as I ***** my eye
I can never cry

We begin to fall asleep
well before we run out of words
as I hold her in my arms
or am i held in hers?

i make a wish on the shooting stars
that roll down her cheeks
a thousand tears over a thousand hours
a meteor shower; crashing onto the waves of her lips

couldn't sense her sin
couldn't tell a thing
even as the choir sung,
the bells were rung
and flowers flung
for i was strung, roped, hung
by the misdirection of her perfection

a ghost roams this house
it's yours
and its one of the many things you left behind
when you left behind nothing

-not even a toothbrush
just your teeth biting deep

not even a perfume bottle
but an aura
like how a dead flower sitting in its vase still leak lilies
and how a dead body laying in its casket still bleeds love

but if i know one thing
it's knowing nothings are something
like how even though you took my heart running
I don't need it to keep my blood pumping

**** and the word
they've both had their prophets
people all over the world
have used them for profits

both needed mules
to carry the goods into the city
i'm out of puns
not very witty

******* powdering our guns
white powder powdering our gums

this is the new world

is this poetry or is this love
is this business really something
to discuss in the tub

is this drowning or is this drinking
or are these overwhelming feelings
products of too much thinking

is this sleeping or is this blinking
because i don't know how much further
life can keep shrinking

poetry is sleep, death and rest
and while these have not truly been addressed
I guess poetry is also life's digress

Day 4: Here is my heart

Day 1: I left my heart at the bar but you mistook it for finger food

Day 2: Nibbled and chewed, I gave you a gun to stop its thrashing
            but you shot at my feet and I danced to your beat

Day 3: broken and bruised I tried to leave but I was stuck on your leash
            part of my heart on my sleeve, the rest in your stomach
            you were the master of me. The master of puppets

Day 4: ready for a long awaited rest
            I've painted a target over my chest
            please, shoot straight
            you can keep what you ate

The sun is hung.
The day's at end.
Hello, night,
my only friend.

The page is black
with ink i've penned
all words unwind,
blend and distend

candle flickers
mind can mend
my body -wasted-
so to my spirits, tend.

she                     like           poem
          walked                a

hello HP
today what may be
in store for me
oh - death. i see
heartbreak it seems
darkness it breeds
lines breaking at the seams
and not one single beam
hashtag love broken | hashtag lonely
backlashed love tokens | backstab poetry
walk through this fire
we're blanketing the embers
but leave your ex in the mire
and be welcomed by the members

like ball to glove
like light to match
like fish to hook
shes a catch

wined and dined till i wound up dead
drowned and cold, alone in bed
i hid in bottles and bottled smiles
i fought to forget and wasted my whiles

it took a year but i woke up
swapped the pint for the coffee cup
There's certainly less ache
in this life i will not forsake
but the smile is still fake

Stop.
Hello. I'm Sam.
And I'd just like to say
that I hope your day
was as good as mine.
#this is what poetry can do

whirling til I wheeze; I scream flowers
they grow from my eyes in great forests
both block the sights and sounds of god
and I look for him elsewhere

drinking til I drop; I bellow oceans
sinking, weighted, the sea drinks me
but God wasn't in death
and I looked for him elsewhere

laughing til I cry; I yell joy
swinging, weightless, in a park
the playground yells joy back to me
and god spoke in the creaks of the rusty chains
because he had been looking for me

Like a rose petal falling off its stalk on February the 15th

Don't reach too far nor climb to high
there is little there for you up in the sky

The wind sails over the waters surface,
quietly,
but surely.

make or mar
and make or break
wage your war
or wake and bake

the moon pulls the tide over the sand like a blanket over a babe that turns in their sleep

It’s midnight somewhere and the waves repeat simple instructions
ssshhhh

Sea pecks sand with tidal kisses
salt spray perfume reminisces
granular tingling in curves on shore
toe curled footprints shifting floor

flooding valves and deepened flush
foaming roar and heaving rush
'til surf sweeps scene with praticed care
a promise there was nothing ever there

and at the end of time
the meek will inherit the earth
and all its worth
which will be nothing

She said sure
but I've never done this before
then she got on her knees and she lied even more