Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
You're Always the nowhere
in every location.
An Umbra unspoken:
Pure carbon black.
The way you're trying to erase me
Only tells me
That you're still utterly terrified
At how much you love me
 Jan 2017 Brian Foote
Zelda
Have you known? Awhile

In coffee shops I sit for hours
Trying to compose a symphony  
As eloquent as the words on the pages of the novels I’ve read
But nothing comes
Sweet Lullabies - I hear
Black Swans
Float away

I’ve seen the way the light hit the maple
Small delicate bites across the table
I’ve been waiting for summer days like this
Hoping to be inspired
But nothing comes
Sweet Lullabies - I hear
Black Swans
Float away

She smiled at me
I smiled back
The words echoed through
A slap to the face and I woke up
Sweet Lullabies - I hear
Black Swans
Float away


So underneath a chandelier of forgotten hours is where I’ll be
Surrounded by open windows staring through me
Dancing on a cloud of thorns and bleeding ashes on my tattered pink dress
Wondering “Does it make a difference?”
After all, I was promised your undivided attention
As soon as you walked through those doors and took your seat
The lights dimmed, the curtains rose
I came out, ready
Yet my movements were ignored
My voice forgotten
My masterpiece shattered;
Sweet Lullabies - I hear
Black Swans
Float away
 Jan 2017 Brian Foote
tarma-de
There’s this list:
an almost perfect year-ender,
a chord that didn’t fit so
you had to play it broken,
drafts written for the purpose
of being great poems
but remained as is because
they were missing powerful
words.

The deafening silence.
The feelings you tried to ****.
The misunderstood hints.

Or tropical countries waiting for snow
and insightful books selling poorly.

Somewhere, a boy caught up
in a scenery and bright sunlight.
He wants to be a photographer
but fails to capture passing moments.

“They were too fast”, he said.
things we want most but will never have.
 Jan 2017 Brian Foote
joe thorpe
I'm write, where I'm to be
in the corner
brick & mortar
bookstore
lone hard chair
my right arm broken
with all my problems
I'll bet again sorrow will solve them
toboggan mountaineers
harden before me
in sections of books
that seem to only
be About poetry
they're already dead
the story for them
is on the dustjackets

I, and the wise
throwaway in trash baskets
 Jan 2017 Brian Foote
Lydia
You have become completely two dimensional
You live in photographs and in the shadows
In the rings left by a finished cup of tea
You're face is dripping with nostalgia and regret
And it's not your own
We were both bleeding
I couldn't kiss you better
I couldn't stitch up your hand, I couldn't even hold it
I was terrified
Now you live in old journal posts
And those few pictures I can't bring myself to delete
I can't shake you
I'm sorry. Those words feel astronomically small today.

Inspired by Rusty Clanton's One More Cup of Coffee (particularly the line, "And it isn't in the leaving/It's in the way they don't look back."), as well as a decision I'll never know whether or not to regret. But I know that it hurt someone, because words are like atomic bombs, leaving us burnt and disfigured. Sometimes we become super heros, but usually, we end up just a little more broken. If you're reading this, I want you to know that I look back all the time. You didn't just disappear to me. You left an impression.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=osCh6-yz-M8
When all is gone,
that matters now,
one last poem,
survives somehow.
And so you read,
and so it goes,
explaining this,
in rhyme or prose;
My dear sweet love,
I love you still,
with all my heart,
I always will.
The ocean looks safer
than your eyes
Though we both know
which I would rather drown in.
Next page