Confessional Poetry - Hello Poetry

Oct 2021

Graff1980

Death makes
imperfect things
into haloed beings
with white wings
fluttering in
ascension.

It turns attentions
away from the
anger and towards
more perfect abstractions
of past painful actions.

Uncomfortable truths
becomes distorted memories,
that we extract from all of these
filtered false realities.

Grieving becomes
the reweaving
of what was undone
into a long-viewed narrative,
as our current imperative
is to turn chaos
into purpose.

Oct 2021

misha

reaching out

bike spokes
and chalkdust
and sunsets
and street lights
and
being careful of how you sit
can't show those bruises
can't get mud on my dress
or there will be more
i can't i can't
i'm too scared
the chalk will be thrown out
and the bike will rust
but the laughter remains
just outside my window
but they bound me
like a straitjacket
i'm not insane i promise
do you still want to be my friend?

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 810

Oh, my dear
adorable nephew
let me hear your
heartstrings sing,
let them go on
vibrating in daydreams
all day long.

Let the chorus
of Angelic voices
raise you high
and all your
bad choices
help you
grow up to be
better than me.

Do not be
limited to
what you see
or how you were
taught to believe,
do not let logic
or religion confound
the heart of
compassion
when it is found.

These are not
the best or
worst of times
just moments
passing too fast,
precious seconds
that will not last.

So, what I ask,
is that you
remember how to laugh
and have a blast
in this one short life
you have to live
as I impart
the heart of love
I have to give.

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 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 800

Its two thirty a.m.
or maybe later,
as she lays there
on the outer limits
of the small town
gas station parking lot
just off the highway exit,
trying to sleep as safely
as she is able.

Couldn’t be
more than
twenty-three
with a fully loaded bike,
and body tightly curled
under the cover
of her safety vest
of bright colors.

She smothers herself
under bright streetlights
cause at this time of night
or morning the lights
offer some limited sense
of security.

A concerned security guard
tries to wake her,
mistaking a mam for sir
drops a bottle of Gatorade
for her to drink later that day
and a sandwich.

He tells her
the gas station attendant
called the police.
Then to ease
his concerns
passes a couple loose ones,
leaving when he is done
getting a short explanation
of where she is coming from
and where she is going.

This is where the narrator’s
lines end but leaves him
wondering miles down the highway
if the police hassled her
or left her undisturbed,
so she could get
a few more hours of rest
before the hot day
forced this girl
back on the frontage roads.

#real #traveler #poetry #human

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 799

When we were young
we’d set our guns to stun,
play war game,
and make fairytales
to tell ourselves
that everything
would be ok.

But in modern days
machine gun ways
keep blowing us away.

Lies get harder to accept
and our innocence
gets harder to protect,
so ignorance becomes
the preferred state.

Halloween horror monsters
become less chilling than
those modern killing men,
and evading destruction
becomes an impossible feat.

While those who try
to fight the guys who lie
end up napping in
the dirt beneath our feet.

I am stumped,
shoulders slumped
as I stumble off in defeat,

and all that remains
to mark the pains
of our passing race
of humanity
is the poetry we leave.

Sep 2021

Graff1980

Untitled 798

I want to be swollen
with sweet word growing,
impregnated with that which
is made for taking darkness
and transmuting it into
a light of love for all to
fall comfortably into.

I want to take this language,
work and refine those fine
lyrical lines that make minds
turn towards acting kind.

But I have lost the eloquence
that was once my treasured gift,
and all that falls from my lips,
is red and brown drips of ****.
I’ve gone from child optimist
to exhausted adult cynic.

I have lost the fairies and dragons,
unicorns, and gentle care bears
and now dim dreams live there.

Vague impression of once vibrant
brush strokes, and dancing limbs
have giving in to warring men’s
disturbing intentions.
Nightmare too horrible to mention
have become my waking certainty.

But what is really bothering me,
is that it has become much easier
to accept this sick distorted reality.

The canvass of life has become
the splatter art of a billion broken hearts,
and I have mastered the skill
of numbing what I used to feel
in favor of current forms of
self-amusement.

#language #art #creativity #hope #fantasy

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.