Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Brendan Roher Mar 2018
In some autumn nights
I’d sound aloud a shriek
That pierced my own ears
And fell, shortly after
To the hard stone floor
And tore what little sanity I claimed
Channeled a surreal, cruel name
And summoned a demon I wear on my sleeve for show
For I once claimed to know all about such things I knew nothing about
Yes on some autumn nights
When the sewers were dry thanks to my tear-drought and a year of northern lights shining in the distance was not enough to make up for it, on such oddly tender, half shivering nights, I found myself in a mirror or a lake looking back at myself in all that blueish haze of a time when I’d put a puzzle piece through a glitter door and call it art and dream about methodical things that spewed out of my heart
In a sky of purple dust
And amber ash
I’d fall flat on my face with a splash
In the snow, my blood would not clot, but spew out and then I guess the two distant eyes in the sky would look down and call such a thing odd
But being there in solitude
With no one coming or going; I’d lay
They’d call it art, but it’s just another off-day
Brendan Roher Mar 2018
Paranoid Daisy
Had her eyes turned pitch-blue
Under the waves of the ocean-
The salt, the commotion-
Found their way under her *******
Her locks of hair got tangled
And bent and curled in distress,
Fumbling with her feet
Until she had nowhere else to lay,
Yet within the sea
Two hands there, in front of her
And her two eyes bending,
Light need not enter the salty ocean
Fish need not lead her astray-
For her eyes had what it took
They could take her away.
Across the maiden Nausica
Through a greener aqua,
She’d grow fins if she could
But, alone there, in the sea
She cried out, to nothing
Sank a slow sinking-
Like a paper through the wind
- But the sea,
Had its way with Daisy
And gave her so much-
A greater grace
Then they ever may have seen.
Her grave was the deep dark abyss,
Of a blue unseen,
Of nothingness
Endless, her pale visage contrasted the beauty around,
The sharks, the creatures came
But Daisy was left as untouched as she came to be
Soundless as a wife to her husband-
Yes, her skeleton rode her- weighed her down for her
And by the time she sat at the bottom
Her beauty had gone
Her eyes shut close
And her paranoia, once airy, once fond to her
Swam away with her sorrows
And touched lives
In the darkness
Bounty-less, she was dead weight
All light had escaped
And blue turned black
Her beauty flooded
Daisy-
Now nothing but a sack
-
Brendan Roher Apr 2018
below a tall fig tree
stands a desperately hungry
me
sun shedding heat softly
pores exposed and accepting,
I cannot seem to reach far above me

I try it all
hoping that one might give up and fall
to my feet, into my hand,
that fig - so tender and small
will it be ripe enough for me?
can I accept from an unknown ficus tree?

if all the little fruits of substance,
gazed down upon me from a seat higher up
-in heaven, perhaps
each a different life, a different possibility
maybe then would the choice be so simple
as to pick and choose the right one for me

yet in the heart of the fig tree I stand
hungry and unable to spot difference from sameness

the fruitful choices might, then, just laugh at me
as I struggle to reach even one, singularly
sitting in the heart
slowly starving
Brendan Roher Mar 2018
Fainting desperately into nothing
I found my something
Aboard a train cross-country
But I was surely running
Away from myself and that horrible reality I realized
Triangles and circles
Spelling out my future before my eyes
Like a puzzle I did not have to decide-
The pieces fell into place
In their own pace
Handless mindless motions
Mona Lisa smiled at me
All astrology gazed down for me
Finding me on my righteous path to glory
And the moon willed itself
As my godmother
It’s true ancestor, gleaming
Heart outstandingly beating
I, it’s horrible hot-minded child-
Only a teen, yet it knew me all at once
And accepted me
For who I really was.
My past rewrote itself
My present formed:
No tears, no mistakes
The world helped me find my rightful place
Amongst all the other familiar faces
I could see myself in a crowd of millions, billions
Differentiable at long last
Even better, if only I could find that one person to hold tight
And taint with my loving grasp.
Brendan Roher Nov 2017
Is it a little pitiful thing
Shut and lock
My shutters rock slightly
And a light enters, subtly
I know what beckons me
And recognize it well,
Wholeheartedly
Fear and anxiety
Haunt my walls and furniture
Like a putrid odor:
I harbor what little will is left,
Do you still think me pitiful, yet?

It slithers in
A flowing, glowing sinner
It is the true winner
And a shining, plundering wonder
Eliminates my incense
Showers me
And makes me cower
In my own existence
Foster, don’t I still foster some adopted hope?
Outside strength
Inside weakness

And it's all blocked out of me
And I'm left alone in the colliding powers
And it explodes in my face, flammable
Understandable, for me.

And I'm homeless
Again, it seems.
Joy
Brendan Roher Nov 2017
Joy
Oh wondrous life,
Oh merciless sin,
I have had to look past you and similar kin,
For a deeper meaning:
An understanding within.
A way to walk about the earth
With a heartfelt grin:

On a surface of solid,
I had sunken deep below.
That mud I once stood on, unsure
I soon found myself on a stone, white and pure.
Believing I might just get by
With a glory, sly yet shy,
But to the naked eye
you wouldn’t see much:
A bunch of hair and a soft touch
Rough patches and scars, few and much
An item, a glare, my delicate stare:
Unfortunate, my fortune had once been so unfortunate,
To look at the ground I stood on
The mud I grew upon,
And become sunken in,
When all along I could have been
On that stone, white and thin
If only my imagination,
If my thoughts had let it in,
That sly, shy grin:
If only joy had claimed my skin,
With its biggest win.
Brendan Roher Apr 2018
Pain sang its tempting song across my waters again
Babylon
But I cant find it in me to move anymore
Unwillingly, the clock’s finger moves to its own accord
Following each tail end, endlessly
In a mocking game of sorts
Numbers eying me viscously
Telling me You Can’t Stop Me.

Ripping out the cord,
Shelf-shed, flying metal clock head-
Hit the wall and sank slowly
As time came undone, dead
And my own song-
Silently weeping, grasping my head-
Brendan Roher Mar 2017
Untimely,
The old woman's life had been made undying.

Her husband looked down,
Awaiting her with a frown.
And all the while the woman mirrored this frown,
And stared upon her velvet gown,
Looking for the words to fit her despair,
And causing stress upon her old hair.

The witch had found this to be her accomplishment,
Despite God's look of judgement,
Sealing the witch's fate,
Hanging her body like bait.

But still the woman sat,
With a velvet gown and a hat,
Hunched over on her rocking chair,
Playing with her gray hair,
Knitting more than just a shirt,
And feeling very hurt.

Her husband's voice still sounding fresh inside her head,
She killed herself and was laid upon her bed.

And God looked down with another sea of disapproval,
For a sin is a sin,
For a law is a law,
Her ghost drifted along,
Knowing this was wrong.

Her husband still looked down,
With a smile, not a frown:
For her wife had died for the chance to see him,
Even though she never got another chance to see him.
Brendan Roher Dec 2019
it was a terrifying thing-
waking up in the middle
the facade of night still
shrouding my head from full
comprehension.
my body like a damp linen;
drugged, torn, held up to my face-
musty, the pangs and echos of
horrifyingly false dreams rush
all throughout my bloodstream;
straight to my face, big and bulky
i think i might explode soon-
yet before an intelligent thought, quickly
quickly! it's a memory of a person
supposedly next to me!
turning my face on its electronic pedestal
i meet the bedroom doorframe,
i meet both sides of my bed
in frantic panic, yet
it seems to me, so suddenly
in my single-sized bed-
my heart has yet again
fooled my pretentious little head
Brendan Roher Mar 2018
A true friend, through the eyes of me
And as others may not see, he had his own way with me
Inspired my hand to glide and glee
Far away from me
Like no one else had seen;
On depressed days, he’d comfort me
Belittled by the daytime, he’d come at night, eyes drifting on their own, shining for me
I wavered in his eyesight,
Green and meticulous-
Got caught up in his self-assured might
Amorously, I’d wonder about him
In my nightly dreams;
Eyes craving a man of greater curve, slightly more assured
But I’d find none, after days of pondering
I’d wonder how he came to me
Why he left me so, hanging;
And it’s true- that’s how I found him too, oddly
On that one forest tree
The day I said it was the last he’d ever see of me
Brendan Roher Mar 2018
A plane
Drifting through the wind, the rain
In its own dimension, it’s own plain
The sky of the Caribbean
Lust and meaning-
Scattered throughout its passages
Yet it carries itself
Sure in its own capacity
Divinity and celestial depth
Self sustained
Capable, gliding
Without real definite meaning.
Lights go down
Thunder strikes all around-
Wings fly, in spite,
Trajectory shaking its hefty massed might
And in the moment, the path it glides and follows
Sure in its travels-
Shakes and quivers
Stutters a bit
And is lost amongst all other possibilities.
Tonight is a weird night
Will it make its flight?
-These wings fly and glide onward
The stars will guide tonight
Skyward
And let the plane fall back in place
In the Caribbean
Where it may have lost its pace
Yet, nay
It will make its own mark
In its own distance
Amongst the sparks
And constant side shots
Reliance, it remarks-
On its own
Donning inspiration
To the wind
And fellow offspring-

— The End —