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18.9k · Jan 2019
Chains of the past
Mr Shankley Jan 2019
I kissed a girl with a broken smile;
nothing could come near.
She carved it with a pocket knife;
slit from ear to ear.
And she wears it like her favourite scarf;
it keeps her from the cold.
So I told her its only woven by
her enemies of old.
2.3k · Dec 2018
Starsigns of Mould
Mr Shankley Dec 2018
The stars don’t define my life,
But the specs of mould on the ceiling,
I study them carefully at night,
Reading them in true light,
A sickly soul they’re revealing.

A wondering eye sees all,
And repulsion overwhelms it so
Much that one gives out a hopeless sigh.
The ceiling is too high,
To wipe Aries and Leo.
675 · Mar 2019
One for sorrow
Mr Shankley Mar 2019
An old deflated football
where the lonely magpie sits,
singing melodies of memories,
of a trampoline and a stolen kiss.

When I couldn't tell the difference
from your smiling eyes of green,
if underneath you were reptile,
or just plain naive.

But with my pocket full of dust caps
it doesn't matter much at all,
run away, take chase,
shoelace slapping against the wall.

And if our little fingers are strong enough
to make a promise that will last,
i'll keep this magpie singing,
until our cigarettes have turned to ash.
599 · Jun 2021
Mind The Step
Mr Shankley Jun 2021
I banged my head too many times,
Up all the steps I didn't mind,
But up the steps I didn't mind,
That I banged my head too many times.
469 · Nov 2021
False Stars
Mr Shankley Nov 2021
There’s an infinite sky above
Our land of salt and muck
It bares its beacons in the night
That you may try your luck.

But the brightest star tonight
Has gave its dying breath,
Still men who speak so clever and wise
Will follow what is dead.
308 · Jan 2021
Siberian Fur
Mr Shankley Jan 2021
I’m the master of darkness
You can’t seem to find,
I’m the recluse in the light;
Too divine,
In the bedroom waiting tight,
Inspired on the balcony
With the rhythm alive,
She seems to curse me
With every sound she makes,
And disagrees
With every breath I take,
Another love on a starlit night;
Wine is blood,
Heart is spite.
By Peter Wolfe (wolfman)
272 · Jan 2019
Meaningful words
Mr Shankley Jan 2019
You say,
you believe
that there
is no meaning
in life.

If that's true,
why do you
say the words
like they
are right?
254 · Mar 2019
Untitled
Mr Shankley Mar 2019
The garden overflown
with rolled up cigarette buts,
Where the roots of our ruts
grow beneath the sut.

Suffocated;
Like statements never stated
That daisy chain bracelet;
You won’t find it here

“Enough we’ve waited”
you say losing patience
When the words “I love you”
Are hard to hear
239 · Apr 2021
Promiscuous Swans
Mr Shankley Apr 2021
If you want the swans
To get a bit promiscuous
Soak your bread wine
Before you throw in the river
So they realise HE
Died for their sins too
Or at least wine and ***
Tastes better than virtue
236 · Feb 2019
Romantic meal for two
Mr Shankley Feb 2019
We feast on the rotting corpse,
Of the dead horse we beat,
The words unsaid are the maggot heads,
Stuck between our teeth.

You ***** a smile from a wincing face,
As your stomach bile regurgitates,
All the promising lies contaminated,
within sour skin.

Dont spit it out in front of me,
Don't tell me your not hungry,
These festering worms beneath the bones,
Are still good to eat,

See I've dressed it up all nice,
Peeled lemon zest with lice,
With spite infesting every memory,
All crawling inbetween the lines.
206 · Apr 2020
The Bottom of the Pit
Mr Shankley Apr 2020
At the bottom of the pit
runs a river of spit,
In the subway, rough play
pays out a quid,
Sally's getting pally
with a scally in the ally,
And there's no time to dally
if she wants another hit,

Because it hits the place
that's away from here,
Where the kids don't die,
and the kids aren't feared,
Where poets and dreamers
escape fate sealers,
And the doctors and dealers
are not one and the same.

But when love is laced with
intoxication,
You find no shame
scraping up the pavement,
Twitch the fiction from your lips
when they ask about your kids,
Let them think that your a victim
when your asking for a payment,

Because it hits the place
that's away from here,
Where the kids don't die,
and the kids aren't feared,
Where poets and dreamers
escape fate sealers,
And the doctors and dealers
are not one and the same.
192 · May 2021
Lord Byron: LARA
Mr Shankley May 2021
In him inexplicably mix’d appear’d
Much to be lov’d and hated, sought and fear’d.
Opinion varying o’er his hidden lot,
In praise or railing ne’er his name forgot;
His silence form’d a theme for others’ prate;
They guess’d–they gaz’d–they fain would know his fate.
What had he been? what was he, thus unknown,
Who walk’d their world, his lineage only known?
A hater of his kind? yet some would say,
With them he could seem gay amidst the gay;
But own’d that smile, if oft observ’d and near,
Wan’d in its mirth and wither’d to a sneer;
That smile might reach his lip but pass’d not by,
None e’er could trace its laughter to his eye.
Yet there was softness too in his regard,
At times, a heart as not by nature hard,
But once perceiv’d, his spirit seem’d to chide
Such weakness as unworthy of its pride,
And steel’d itself, as scorning to redeem
One doubt from others’ half withheld esteem;
In self-inflicted penance of a breast
Which tenderness might once have wrung from rest;
In vigilance of grief that would compel
The soul to hate for having lov’d too well.
I like this and maybe you might like it too
183 · Aug 2020
When the war comes
Mr Shankley Aug 2020
Our teeth are black, their teeth are white
We praise the day, they praise the night
We know the way of right and wrong
Their tribe is weak, our tribe is strong
We can't be abel until they feel pain
So lets break their bones with a blood soaked cain
Hide their name where no one knows
Under sea or soil or the holy ghost


And when the war comes
We'll take their lives
Take their home
Take their wives
Take their children as slaves
And no one gave a **** about the world
That they created


The man next door has a real nice car
And he walks and he talks from a land afar
His garden shrines are of a different kind
Whatever they are, they're not divine
And if i turned the other cheek he'd spit on it
And if he got the chance he'd be sleeping with
Our wives and daughters
I think its time we taught him
That this place is no place
For a stranger


And when the war comes
We'll take their lives
Take their home
Take their wives
Take their children as slaves
And no one gave a **** about the world
That they created
181 · Oct 2021
Uninspired Flesh and Bone
Mr Shankley Oct 2021
Crawling from the catacomb
I’m uninspired flesh and bone,
Face so blue, lips so cold,
Please kiss me from my sleep.

I'm poor, deaf, lame and blind,
Void of anything divine,
I hold my breath until the time,
You kiss me from my sleep.
158 · May 2021
Around the corner
Mr Shankley May 2021
There’s beauty in this life
Such abundance to suffice;
The sick, the ******, the beggars cursed hand,
And all their eternal strife,

You’ll be forgiven for your youth,
And every badly told excuse
When you stumble, fall, and dent the wall,
In your drunken search for truth,

So when you pass the places
Of past humiliation,
Look only with kind eyes in hindsight,
As you’ve grown so old with age,

If your heart is getting fond of
The darkness you may wander,
Remember, love is, most certainly,
Just around the corner.
157 · Mar 2020
Ripping the furs off Venus
Mr Shankley Mar 2020
Severin speaks in silence
of ****, abuse and violence,
He plays the fool masked tyrant,
when the chance arises.

Conscience keeps him prison,
cataclysm, anarchism,
were thoughts he wasn't missing,
when the chance arisen.
154 · Feb 2021
Something About Venus
Mr Shankley Feb 2021
Her Dad rolls cones, her Mam racks lines,
Her home is built from lie on lie,
She lies her bones on the bed thinking why,
That boy took a rope to the neck and died,
She held him high in her arms;
Higher in her mind.

He looked at her with reluctant love,
Reluctant enough she’d think nothing of,
His seductive eyes; the boy was shy,
He tucked his pride deep inside his sighs,
Until she held him in her arms;
Held him high in her mind.

The river cries;
Walk beside it.
Untie the love locks,
From the bridge that flies it,
And if they sink,
And Venus floats,
It’ll wash up at your feet,
If you walk far enough.

And now she sees it for the first time,
Beautiful Venus undisguised,
Looks that shook the butterflies,
Inside the veins she cut with knives.
When she remembers she held him,
Not just in her mind.
140 · Jun 2021
Certainly Something
Mr Shankley Jun 2021
There's a certain type of vileness,
Only seen inside her iris,
The dagger lips and forked tongues,
Only add to the surprise
That you believed she was genuine,
But the detail's where the devils in,
And I can see it all clearly,
In the feature of your face.

There's treason, ****** treason,
In every single reason,
Why I love you, I still love you,
Won't you come and stay with me?
In this house I have built,
From the cards up my sleeve,
And I promise it won't blow away
As long as no one breathes.

There's a certain kind of violence,
Only seen inside his kindness,
The wine is spiked and the roses,
Grow sick within our minds,
The worm that flies in darkness,
Laying eggs in broken hearts,
Plants its seed inside of me,
Left me labouring the dark.

There's ******, ****** ******,
In every single word of,
"I love you, I still love you"
What a tender little curse!
Why don't you spit it in my face,
From the depths of you lungs,
I'll be waiting in the bedroom,
Just to catch it with my tongue!

— The End —