Aweeeesome free verse poetry...

Oct 2021

Graff1980

It is private,
inviolate.
Yet, I intrude,
dress up and abuse,
take their suffering
as my perfect muse,
take dark interludes,
and use them as cues,
as tiny clues
that lead the way
to make poems great.

Sorrowful inflections
become wordy reflections
worked to perfection
for my ego’s elevation,
for the ecstasy of creation,
and this drug I imbibe
gets me super freaking high.

Tears and stress,
bodies undressed,
hearts exposed
and in taking those
I become criminal.

Liminal moments,
seconds stolen
for the sake
of verses swollen
with emotional clarity.

I claim sincerity;
That I write these lines
to help closed mind
break the barriers
between truth
and what emotions mean.

But as these words meander on,
I wonder is it right or wrong
to write the painful songs
that do not belong to me.

#poetry #art #storytelling #biographical #pain #humanity

Oct 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 811

The midnight sky
is large and quiet.
All of nature
has gone silent.

The stars glimmer
on the inside
and the outside
of my tired mind.

I am ready to
go to sleep,
but still standing
because I have
promises to keep.

One solitary figure
reflecting all things
that fill my exhausted
inner being
as I keep walking.

Forty-one years
have led me here,
a life I built upon
a throng
of cluttered paths
I tried to clear.

I tried to hide my fears,
but would have been
better figuring out
why I have so many doubts.

So, silence becomes my ally
as I ponder perspectives
that elude most.
I am the ghost that boasts
in poetic forms
as I declare
I still don’t know
what I am doing here.

Oct 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 809

I was not taught to write well.
In that arena I educated myself.

As I paid attention
to the frayed dimensions
my teachers failed to mention,
to the apprehension
that caused me tension
as I sat in detention
for sins no one
would clearly define.

It was clearly my mind
that wrought upon me
such severe punishments,
but in that dissonance
I found my relevance.
In my confusion
I learned to write away
my dark illusions
and replace them
with my imagination’s
strange and playful whims.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 808

Shadows
of distorted memories,
bruises and welts
well hidden,
so child service
couldn’t see,
and every time
the counselor asked
what was bothering me,
I just shrugged
and said “nothing much,”
because afterwards
I would get
threatened or beaten
if I didn’t give her
my full confession.

It was a place
where I
had no control,
a time were
I had to do
what I was told
or else.

Then on to school
where I wasn’t cool,
just too smart for
my own good,
always reading
some different book.

Poor clothes must have
put a target on my back,
but it didn’t matter
cause I always fought back.

Some called those
the glory days
but I wouldn’t
return to that
time or place.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 806

I tightened the circle
let the lines loosen,
then in my state of confusion
pulled them tightly.

I subtracted loved ones nightly,
despite my social media
connections
my real-life affections
became whispers in
the distance from
previous family members
and friends I’ve loved.

With a noose I constricted
till it was too perfect.
Then I ****** it.
It was like when
I was biting
my tongue
just hard enough to hurt
but not enough to cut
that slippery tool off.

I choked and cough
felt the loss
as I tried to break
my own neck.
I signed my own check,
by happily self-secluding,
and the excuse I was using
was the best scape goat.

As grief scraped my throat,
I tried to cleanse my palate
stirred my mind like a salad
all vegies and greens mixing,
lying and saying it was healthy
but really just tricking
myself into doing what
I was always going to do.

Death by a thousand losses,
each cut cost me
a fraction of my identity
and hopeful personality.

Until my corpse
swung from the rafters
and tears sprung from
melancholic laughter.

Then nothing came
happily, ever after.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 805

I had patience but
I lost it cuz
I've been accosted
by a boss that was
both **** and big
stinking *******.

Felt the terror
of time’s
terminal
ticking away,
chasing each day
as a parade
that works towards
my end.

Now,
it's do or die
write to live
not right to life.

So, short stalks
get lost
as I buzz by
on my
summer day drive
thinking about
what it means
to be alive.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 804

With a single stroke
all lines are broke,
the past becomes
previous paths
that I wrote.

Death is no longer
a possible future
but a present presence,
tired of playing
and predatorily pursuing,
now settling in for chewing
up my tired old skin.

Breathes are heavy labors,
and there is no hope
that they will come easier later.

A million-fold roads
collapse into one
reality,

and unlike this poem
life finds its inevitable ending.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 802

I cannot be an apathetic
version who is free
to float carelessly
through life,

I am more like a specter,
an abstract human inspector
who sits and observes this sector
of our shared humanity.

Not bullet proof because
the pain of those I love
breaks all the barriers
I placed to save myself.

No super strength like Atlas
cause my stamina will not last
as I bare the whole world
on these small shoulders.

I cannot fly by high in the sky.
I cannot speed through this life
because each tragedy draws me
deeper into dark caverns of
human suffering.

I do not have any superpowers,
just lots of empathy and hours
to reflect and write a speck
of some gloriously poetic
lines that many may find pathetic.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 801

I'm lonely
but only
temporarily
using these
words sparingly
as I search
this dark area
for some sign
of hope.

Weeping with pre-grief
because I see
uncertain future possibilities
as inevitable tragedies.

My brothers and sisters
seem strange and deranged,
lost in cycles of hate and pain
that drain the vein
of what’s humane.

So, I want to rewrite
the wiring inside
that has them dying
like others do
with withering emotions
that cause violence to brew
the kind that silences
the few who
would speak truth
about this mess.

#humanity #empathy #truth

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Poem Prompted by https://simply-eno.tumblr.com/

There are beautiful words
waiting to be seen,
poems waiting to sing,
like the diamond glistening
waterfall that plays me
to a gentle sleep,
as it sparkles
and leaves stranger in awe,
while giving me reason to pause
cause I to am dumbstruck
by my own dumb luck,
confounded by such glory
that I nearly trip on my
untied shoes,
racing forward to write
all that radiates from nature to
the amazing being of you
my emerald friend who glitters
just as wonderfully.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 797

It matters not
if in the end
all that I got
are a handful
of tender friends.

If my compatriots
do not forget
the goodness
that lives yet
in my poetry.

If only liars
and fools
speak ill of me,
but kindhearted
wise people
still feel
that I was
a man of
goodwill.

I know
nothing
waits for me
and eventually
I won’t even be
a fraction of
a lingering
memory.

But if
in these
minor instances
I insisted
on being kind
and that was
the worst trait
my detractors
could truly find.

Then I would be okay
to go out that way.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 795

So, you’ve decided to **** your planet.
This sphere can only take so much damage.
Your resources will not be expanded.
At some point no more trees will be planted,
so you will lose good air,
hell, with exhaust fumes and toxic towers
we are way beyond halfway there.

Your water will be contaminated,
but you don’t care.
There’s more pleasure to be had
by treating the earth bad
so why not grab
all that you can.

Congrats, on making that profit margin
grow year after year,
while you instill anxiety and fear
in those who work for you.

From what I’ve seen
it pays to be mean and obscene.
***** making energy clean,
human beings don’t need to exist
after you pass on from all of this
manmade chaos.

You didn’t even need a manual
cause you were a self-taught *******,
a perfect psychopath who laughed at
all those who tried to bring back
human decency.

So, king of destruction you win again.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 794

You will be diminished
as others finish
life’s strange race,
as living leaves you
in last place,
and you face
a world without them.

You will pull
faded photos from your mind.
Slightly distorted mental movies
that have been rewritten by time
will become bittersweet reruns.
Lies will soften or harden
previous facts
as you try to look back
to the past.

You will lose loved ones
over and over until
you no longer feel
an inkling of their essence.