From the ashes: Favorites

Mar 23 From the ashes

Thomas W Case

I had been sober for
awhile and was getting that
itch to drink.
I couldn't recall the
degradation and misery of
the last drunk a few months
earlier.

It was spring, and I was standing
outside of the flophouse, I was
staying at.
Just then, a big sunflower of
a woman walked by.
"Hi Jenny," I said.
We had a past.
Not much of one though.
It resembled a Dali painting that
had been soaking in the rain.

We ended up in a motel with a
bottle of Absinthe.
Jenny wasn't much of a drinker,
No problem, more for me.
Jenny wasn't much of a
conversationalist, and half-lit on
robust *****, neither was I.
I walked around the room talking
about Hemingway and Van Gogh,
Fitzgerald and Picasso.
Jenny wasn't interested in them.
She wanted me to score her some dope.

She said, "If you want this *****, you
will buy me an eight ball."
I didn't.
I wanted to write, but I was too drunk.
We wanted different things and neither
of us
found them that night.
And later at about 3 am when I got
up to ****, I could have sworn I saw the
picture of Van Gogh on the box of Absinthe
laughing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSKnZMnMlTw
Here's a link to my YouTube channel, where I read poetry from my recently published books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems and It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, both available on Amazon.

www.thomaswcase.com is my website.

#drinking #life #motel #writing

Mar 23 From the ashes

Dreary.

Mar 23 From the ashes

Nolan Bucsis

Dreary.

We are the last children.
Of ostracized individualism.
The dark creepy kids of the witching hour.
Drab dismal black.
Clad in ghosts.

Left aside.
Losers.
Rejects.

Caste out dalits.
Who could never fit into.
Whatever normal is.
Unless we are confined in your consternation.
The someone's who refuse your society.
A jail of good intentions.
And pride.

Unlike you.
We live in twilight.
Sleep at dawn while waking up right before dusk.
To watch the sun set on our dismal days.
Never to rise in us again in day time.

We are.
Delighting in darkness.
Dancing in shade with the oscillating shadows.
Of what's going bump in the dark.
When all of you are asleep.

Maybe we aren't pretty.
Maybe we are a melancholic menagerie of misfits and malcontents.

But how dare you call us vain.
We don't want your attention.
When like insects we scurry away from the illumination of your light.

We'd prefer to be left alone.
Ignominiously ignored infamous itinerant.
Mendicants of Midnight.
To own our own lives.
Ran on our own circadian rhythm.

But you.
Have dragged us into the sun.
Demanded we obey.
Conform to your cancerous cacophony of fragile ideas, tiny egos, and your desire to destroy.

So why then.

Are you shocked that we hurt ourselves.
Hurt you with our existence.
And lash out in desperation for the dying of the light.

Life was better when you left us alone.
And I will certainly shut out the rising sun.
With a cascade of blasphemy.
Pouring out of the sword of my mouth.

Mar 23 From the ashes

what

Mar 23 From the ashes

irinia

what

nobody tells me what to do with longing
unquantifiable as only the sand is
exulted light dives in my hair
my shoulders are amazed like a cactus flower
your blood self-absorbed rehearses abysmal cascades
tigers are still asleep in your dreams
will you chase the moon on my surface, will you, tell me,
leave your silence on a chair
what if love is this cypher for the mystery of time
what if the pulse is a form of photosynthesis
we have to stay away from any fire since
we would exhaust its thirst
a step into a surreal second that augments me
second after second the one who loves
disturbes time in its mazing grace
the sky this gestational field
the space between each word a cosmos
a white truth will repeat itself
again and again bearing witness to
life hand in hand with death

#life #death #longing

Mar 23 From the ashes

Paradox

Mar 23 From the ashes

Agnes de Lods

Paradox

Like a moth,
you fly toward the fire,
you’re so close now.
Do you want to warm,
to burn, or extinguish
the light?

#paradox #moth

Mar 20 From the ashes

Search & Destroy by Iggy Pop

Mar 20 From the ashes

badwords

Search & Destroy by Iggy Pop

I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of ******
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
Honey, gotta help me, please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching only to destroy
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Said, hey, forgotten boy, said
Hey, hey, hey, hey

Search & Destroy by Iggy Pop

https://youtu.be/-jiU5pEgzzY?si=dVAbviwaE76OUKw_

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

#iggypop

Mar 20 From the ashes

I spy

Mar 20 From the ashes

John Edward Smallshaw

I spy

We're not there yet
so
stop your squawking
or
you'll end up walking

he drives on
they go on and on
whiney
whiney
time he
got to where
he's going.

I'm going
my age is
showing me
the way,
dining on the years
getting fatter on my fears
but
I'm not there yet.

Mar 20 From the ashes

Verkering

Mar 20 From the ashes

ahintofpoetry

Verkering

Control is a moment fleeting,
A fading feeling in-between fate.
Therefore, it's said that love just happens.
Clearly, it's a lie too great.
"F*ck you, my puppeteer..
A Fool you make of Me!"
But when I look up,
I see the strings strung tight
around fingertips of mine.
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Don't look back to me like that at all.
"Who is to blame of the land?
Why, it seems control was in your hand.."

'Verkering' is Dutch for relationship, but it's older meaning isn't used any more in this time, which is 'something that happened'. It inspired me to write this poem.

#love #control #responsibility #fate

Mar 19 From the ashes

never enough.

Mar 19 From the ashes

alia

never enough.

I try, I change—never enough.
I smile, I bend—never enough.

I give my all, I break, I mend,
But nothing seems to reach the end.

I speak, I wait—never enough.
I fade, I stay—never enough.

No matter how hard, no matter how much,
I’m always too little, I’m never enough.

this is about trying so hard but still feeling like it’s not enough—no matter what I do, it feels like no one really notices. It shows how exhausting it is to keep chasing something I know I’ll never reach.