My Absolute Favourites - Hello Poetry

Feb 2014

Sjr1000

"We'll Gladly Refund Your Misery" A Tale of Relapse and Recovery

I've been digging
through this dumpster
far too long
trying to get to the bottom of it all.
Slimey sweet stench
there's my first love
my first pipe
my last light
my first rush
my last gush
my first bet
my last buck
"the game ain't over
until the rent money's gone."

I am down a deep hole
and my only tool is a shovel
I've got that one choice
but to go
down
down
down.
Drunk and dial
Drunk and poetry
how did I get here
how do I get out?

I'm a spiritual wasteland
connected to no one
connected to nothing
My drug
My man
My woman
My casino
The rush comes first
The numbness comes last
until
death, insanity or jail
is within my grasp.
I do what I do
But I am allergic too
you understand
when I do what I do
I break out in handcuffs
jail cells
strapped down to beds
looking around
longing for my dumpster
and
what I might have found.

1st Step
12th Step
I've done them all
though the 13th Step
I liked the best
Sponsors have come and gone
Spiritual awakenings
have all been done
I am back in this dumpster
where I had begun.

There is an exquisite mystery
at the heart of it all
the internal shift
happens
an inside job
The 21 year old's first black out
enough is enough
The 60 year old
on his fifth DUI
going out for one more round.

It is true
I have seen it many times
Recovery can be found
Hope restored
Wisdom in these halls
Peace within these walls
The dumpster closed
and left behind
A ladder falls and arrives
acceptance and gratitude
combine
as they say
"One day at a time."

"Poker the game ain't over until the rent money is gone" was on a greeting card.
13th Stepping is hitting on new comers in meetings. I am not in recovery yet, but I always need to add the yet.

Feb 2014

Paul M Chafer

Let Your Ink Flow

Writing,
Scribbling down,
Such choices we make,
Edging the sliding doors of life,
Running, walking, or turning away,
How odd, these bold decisions,
Life-changing options,
Not bold at all, taken on a whim,
And yet, yet, they guide, hmm,
Saturating our souls, hearts, our minds,
With more permanence than we know,
Can ever know, for who can know,
What will become of us; any of us?
Are we indelibly tattooed, all of us?
Perhaps, and fate and destiny are dust,
Lives become intertwined, tightly bound,
Inextricably linked, so, so tight,
Through little more than pen and ink,
And on we flow, downstream,
Not, going with the flow, no,
Only ‘dead-fish’ go with the flow,
But ‘current drifting’ observing,
Before plunging beneath the surface,
Tugging the legs of the serene swan,
Playfully, cajolingly, teasingly,
Before emerging, drying off,
Thinking, choosing, acting,
Scribbling down,
Writing.

© Paul Chafer 2014

My poem was inspired by the poem below by Amanda FH.

We Are Art

The choices we make
The life-changing ones
Are indelibly etched on our hearts and souls and skin.
Every decision is a making, a changing,
I am tattooed
And so are you.
Let's compare our pictures
And tell each other stories.
Make notes on me
I'm still a choice
Waiting to be branded
Let your ink flow.

Dedicated to Amanda FH: a response to and inspired by her poem, We Are Art

Feb 2014

S Smoothie

You are a vampire of Passion, I am a victim of lust

Folder: Soul mates
I feel the fire in your hands
Burn before you even touch me

I feel the depth of your unspoken words
Before they hit me and pull another's love aside

I burn for you,
a blue flame of discontentedness

I melt with you
Into oily silky velvety fuild

It seeps in through my heart
And stains my soul vibrant colours then black.

You are a vampire of Passion
And I a victim of lust

Lost to the hypnotic call of an ancient
Vow which desolates for all ages to come,
my eternal now.

Feb 2014

Paul M Chafer

You

You,
Yes you,
I’m talking to you,
You know I want you,
No, not want, but really need,
Need to feel skin beneath my lips,
Smell your hair while kissing your neck,
My teeth teasing on your shoulder, tasting,
My hands on your waist, caressing, holding,
Pulling you close, ah, swaying, rocking gently
Deep breaths, dizziness, aching, till we kiss,
What then, you might ask, what indeed,
Will senses slip away, hmm, perhaps,
Reason becoming untethered, yes,
Breaking from its moorings, yes,
An explosion of delight, hot,
Raw passion, dark desire,
Riot of ****** discovery,
Hands touching, feeling,
Sensual lips exploring,
Drinking in pleasure,
Bodies now writhing,
Inhibitions crumbling,
Heat coursing, racing,
Until we are lost, yes,
Two becoming one,
Mind, body soul,
Falling, falling, ah,
Rising, drifting, hmm,
Sighing, escaping, sated,
More, needing more,
I’m talking to you,
Yes you,
You.

© Paul Chafer 2014

Inspired by and a reply to, the appealing and inviting poems on this site written by sultry females. My first attempt at such a thing and posted with hesitation.

Feb 2014

S Smoothie

War of WordSS

I write under some small delusion,

that you would want to see

me, bare my soul and that my soul

is full of colour and wonder;

that I could some how venerate your being

with Some spark of creativity

magnified in personification to a whole new status of being.

And I wrap myself up in this warm delusion.

It helps me sleep at night,

I feel better about the world,

even a little less lonely,

at first...

Because then you're driven

by some constant compulsion

to draw out the emotions.

You plot and plan words

and the schematics of affectations.

The tiniest hopes spur you on,

through endless trials and drafts of possible perfection

not yet in words perfected.

You stretch your minds limits

you seek new boundaries of thought.

You while away hours forming possibilities

based on a line that becomes the hook.

You become the friend of empathy.

Seeking to somehow bring a voice to others pain.

All the while selfish and conceded

it is merely a means to an end.

The is no torture greater than this discipline of arts

with such limited tools to drive a wedge of emotion

through the eyes and drive to affect the mind

to cause a heart response that reaches the soul...

I please you.

This is my delusion

that sparks the wars of many wordss.

Fighting for the chance to venerate me.

Feb 2014

Kasey

Coffee and wine.

I like
Coffee
As a motif
For reasons I don't even know.
I think sometimes it's because wine comes and goes
But Coffee.
Coffee.
Coffee
I have every night.
To keep me up thinking about the
Bitter taste
That life leaves in my mouth.
Sometimes I think that it's coffee,
The one thing I have in common
With the rest of humanity,
That keeps me alive.
Maybe I need to be awake to feel
What coffee does to me
What you don't do to me.
You should do to me.
Coffee.
Coffee doesn't confuse me.
And coffee tastes the same.
And coffee comes
And coffee stays.
And wine.
And people,
They just don't.

Feb 2014

Jonny Angel

If or Even If You Never Think About Me

I know I have
my share of problems
& it doesn't get any easier
not being able
to wrap your arms around me,
to pull my fingers
through your nice hair.

You were always
a natural high for me,
rock steady,
trustworthy,
my healthy dose of lust.

I trust you are well
& will always wish you
the best
in everything that you do,
even if
or if
you never
think about me, too.

Feb 2014

September

The Ego.

I am the narcissist that
fell in love with my own
mind and sadly found out:
It's an abusive relationship.

don't purge your ego. embrace it.

Feb 2014

Jonny Angel

My Rapid Eye Movements Are Deeper Than Sleep

I dream of you & slumber,
constantly finding myself
in these hardened-states,
seeking relief from
such sensuous visions,
I explode with you.

And if you only knew
the depths of
my rapid eye movements,
you'd be sleeping
with me too.

Feb 2014

Terry Collett

FOR A DEPARTED SON.

Grant me a corner
in which to cry;
through joyous eyes
I saw my son born,
through bleeding eyes
I watched him die.
Grant me a corner
in which to cry.

Permit me a quiet place;
let tender fingers
sew together
a wounded heart,
which through
my son's death,
has been torn apart.
Permit me
a healing place.

Allow me a soft bed
on which to rest;
let someone soothe
my aching brow;
keep the memory
of my first born son,
not amidst the dry reeds
or dull souls,
but amongst the best.
Allow me a bed
on which to rest.

On the 27th January our first born son, Oliver"Ole" died suddenly in hospital aged 29. He was unmarried and lived in his own flat, but we saw him everyday. We miss him deeply.

Jan 2014

A B Perales

My Need For This

I stared hard at
the night.
Half drunk in
a public park
that was still so
alive with
happy memories.

As a boy I
dreamed of
becoming nothing.
Now all I long
to do is this.
The words are all so
dear to me.
They've kept me warm
as I laid in cold
jail cells and
cold hide a ways

I promised myself
to free myself of the stress
of desire and need.
And to in gulf
all of what is
left of me into
this.

Only in the dark
can one truly
see the shadow
of madness
that's always one
more drink
or one more failure
behind it all..

I used all of
whats hidden in
the night as a mirror
to the world.
Scattered images and
the sound of the
night bird.
Traces of all
that lays stark
still in the night.

I warmed myself with
the last of the bottle.
I felt the presence
of all that is left
of the wild and
untamed in the city.
The Elder trees
stood stone silent
in all of their
greatness.
A testament to
the strength
and will of nature.

I whispered thanks
to the sun even
though I
felt better without its
presence.

The sea crashed
and sounded
its rage against
the edge of the world.

And I sat drunk
and alone in a
public park without
any of the clueless
public anywhere
near.

Jan 2014

Elaenor Aisling

A Literature Critique

I read stories of women,
dressed in silk and wool,
quiet, passive, faceless ladies
defined only by their spontaneous romances
with strangers on trains,
who dug out childish notions in their heads,
as they forsook their loving husbands of twenty years
for slick haired young men,
who pretend not to mind their sagging *******.

Madam Bovarys for a modern age.
Afraid of fading youth, dying embers,
bringing up the same high school insecurities,
they felt when their prom date flirted with the cheerleading captain.
And quenching them just as quickly
when they fogged up the windows of his father's car.

But maybe I should keep quiet.
What do I know?
A thin, ******, school girl,
who has known little of passion, but some of love.
And when I learned love, I learned loyalty.