I always said,
"What a man has in his pockets,
says a lot abut him."
I still believe that.
A man carries what he thinks he needs,
or what he thinks will get him what he wants.
As I've grown I can say,
I like how my pockets speak of me.
Some whiskey, some ****, a couple smokes
always a journal and a pen,
or two.
An empty wallet,
and at least two lighters;
that's very important.
With a little intuition,
someone can put those pieces together,
and know me.

Do her eyes still change,
to slate grey in anger?
Do they still turn to blue when it rains,
and when she cries?
I always tried to tell her,
those demons would hang her.
"You're just bound and determined,
to decline til you die."

Her laughter floated,
like smoke on the wind.
All grace and beauty as it danced in the sun.
Short lived and,
short tasted before it dissipates.
Yet,
for all the music held within her voice,
the melody held delicate notes,
of heartache,
of sorrow.
I could always hear between the lines.
She made me cry while I smiled.

When i wrote about you , I always used metaphors regarding the worldly elements.

This was because my mind could not comprehend your beauty,
It always used to associate it with something close-by ...

Like  your passion and how it soared harder than the wind , or the tone of your voice in the late hours of the night, it was course and hard like grains of sand.
Or how when we held hands , our skin glided above our bones like slow rivers flowing downhill.

I still cannot comprehend your beauty ...or the fact that something as astonishing as the brightest star could be as destrustrive as the most frustrated fire .

My momma always warned me
She’d say
“Baby doll liquor runs through our veins”
I was making a family tree for health class last week and a third of the people hanging from the branches had beer bottles clinking next to them.
My grandfather’s favorite hobby was downing a bottle of jack and carrying out the cliché tradition of beating his wife and kids
Just like his father did.
My dad learned from this vowing never to forget what alcohol did too his family
My uncle he drinks just trying to forget.
My mother has a similar background
She remembers riding into town with my grandma to buy her granddaddy’s medicine
It was only until she was older she realized the pharmacy was an ABC
The “medicine” cheap whiskey
As the elixir slid down my great grandfathers throat it trickled into the workings of our tree
Infecting its core
Yeah my parents would always warn me
Against the dangers of alcohol
Don’t drink the punch at parties
Don’t be like your uncles
Don’t end up like your aunts
But what they failed to tell me was depression runs through our veins too
They taught me how to ward off being a drunkard
But never told me to stay away from the dark spaces in my mind
They never taught me what to do about the numbness
And in my house people are more ashamed
Of going to therapy than alcoholics anonymous.
How do you protect yourself from something already inside you?
You see those relatives of mine
They were doctors
Preforming at home blood transfusions
Replacing the bad blood with good beer
The dark thoughts with white wine
Until the depression swimming through them was too drunk to see straight
We nurture our family tree with PBR and Prozac
Helping the roots twist and grow so they can grasp for the younger generation dangling from the lower limbs and I mean
Hey we all need something to make the feelings go away
And they say alcohol’s not the answer
But it sure as hell makes you forget the question
We all need something to forget the questions
And Like my kin I picked my poison
Because I felt it
The liquor in my veins I felt it
getting warmer
Hotter
Hot
This liquid in my veins it gets too hot.
I’m slitting my wrist to poor myself another shot
It’s not what it looks like momma
I just wanna feel that buzz and my blood is all I got
I picked my poison
I’m like my uncles
A crude copy of my aunts
I’m an addict
Just not an alcoholic

i.

I shalt venerate her
In all of mine hour's;
Given I was a gift
A rose budded tower.

ii.

She is aloft
The stellar scope;
Prosperous I am
With her as mine hope.

iii.

To live without her
I canst not;
Alleluia I recite
In her quintessence, her spirit I'm locked.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley dedication

I write my lines in a corner of this dimly lit bar,
unnoticed.
People float around me like fireflies,
little sparks in the darkness
unaware of their own illumination.
I take every ember
and stoke a fire that holds me over,
for the night.
I don't need permission,
to perpetuate my own existence.
I trade what little I know freely.
Only hoping for inspiration,
one more poem,
one more line,
just one more word.
If you drop it I'll pick it up,
no need to feel indebted.
For every word I leave I know,
the world is better than when I met it.

They only want to hear of your suffering
They only whistle while you toil
They only #treadringsonagainonyour soul
So we lay down tar and feather quill to papier-mâché a roadway from our broken heart artery and bleed the anguish out into to a milkyworldwideweb.away to cure the Treading on Agony, be numb to the likes along the highway revel in the thin line between heaven and earth let your feet rise above your head and let your hand be the rubber on the road of revelations.

Fading

I am afraid
you are fading from me.
Like grains of sand
slipping through
the clenched fingers of my hand

I use a piece of driftwood
to draw your face
in the wet sand
remembering
the curve of your smile.

searching
for your lips in my memories
wanting your kiss
to breathe once more.

Needing
your eternity to live again.
I can hear you
across the waters
Or is it the southerly ocean breezes?
Leaving the salty wetness
of your last kiss
On my face

There's more singular saplings
Reading violet dandies
Instead of make believe
-Manuscripts

Where voids
Live in non-existence.

-Mountains creep slowly,
Towards the sun
While trees trample-
Moons with footprints.

And I--I feel stuck-
Suckling quicksand
From beneath my bones.

-Waiting for midnight
To catch away,

The rain.