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 Jul 2017
South-by-Southwest
Always enjoyed crossing bridges
Looking down to see what
divided the land so

I hoped to see rivers
their flow
I like the waters to be on the go

Sometimes there were
railroad tracks
Sometimes trains with horns blowing back

Then there were trees
sometimes
swishing in the breeze

I loved the bridges
connecting
the Florida Keys

And Ponchatrain
going on endlessly
or so it seemed to me

Never been to Brooklyn
no I didn't buy a bridge
I have a picture of it taped upon my fridge

I crossed the Mississippi on bridges that were high and sometime low
One bridge fell into the river and it's not there anymore

Too bad HP has no picture avatars
I have pictures of the pillars
Still reminding me and Willard
 Jul 2017
Lawrence Hall
A Soldier Smoking a Cigarette

A soldier lay beside a railway line
Smoking a cigarette, not thinking of much
Among some hundreds of other conscript lads
Upon a grassy glacis above the fields

The boxcars waited in the stilly heat
The soldiers waited like young summer wheat
Occasionally stirred about by winds unseen
And finally stirred about by orders unheard

They rippled into the cars, and were taken away -
A shadow lay beside a railway line
 Jul 2017
Lawrence Hall
Setting the Night Watch

Nature exists without anyone’s permission:
At dusk the loud cicadas in the oaks
And the soft crickets dwelling in the grass
Sing an evening hymn to the setting sun

Sparrows and mockingbirds leave off their wars
And all make wing to Shakespeare’s rooky wood
While little dogs patter the day’s last patrol
Snuffling the bounds as true as timber wolves

And as a tourist comes a straying man
Oblivious to the changing of the watch
 Jul 2017
Logan Robertson
every year
grandpa tells
the same story
over and over
like he's saying
it for the first time
he loves walking
in his own puddles
it would be
at the dinner table
during
Christmas and Thanksgiving
there's a candle lit table
waiting for good cheer
not ours
we stood sentry
to grandpa's story
as our faces glowed in horror
grandpa had that effect
he would begin
by looking at grandma
at the other end of the table
a nervousness in hers
and with a gleam in his eye
and a broken record inside
he began
there once was bag of marbles
... ha, ha
he would actually say that
and inside
all the shiny marbles cling and clung together
... ha, ha
your grandma and I
... get this
we were a red and yellow marble
and the exception
as his voice raced faster
his eyes bigger
his face a sweet melody
and he's so kid like, and he's eighty
..." we banged"
..." we banged"
the words coming out juvenile
perhaps from a drunk,
but he doesn't drink
then
on cue
he prompts us to say
you what?
"we banged"
"we banged"
..."your grandma
was in my back pocket"
his face lighting up in a smile
his eyes and ears peeking, waiting
for applause
and we did ... we did
grandma
her face beet red
she would look around the table
her eyes looking at the turkey
back at him, back at the turkey
we could read her mind
every year the same story
that's grandpa
grandma, for her part
would always
bask in grandpa's puddles

LR-4/24/17
 Jul 2017
Shanath
In this torturous silence
That has lasted weeks
And burnt the night down to ashes,
I could hear my heart beat.
Like tiny screams underwater,
Water rushing into the lungs.
I could hear my blood
Walking in my veins
Punching the walls,
Tearing them through
The order of the heart
And pour out everywhere
They could run in.
Outside I lay so still and quiet
My mother should be scared
Of me losing my voice
But she isn't.

I stopped talking at home
Long back,
When I would hear the shouts,
The blows to the doors.
I feel my screams
During my growing years
Consumed the needs for words.
So I lay and this silence
Isn't odd
So no one is afraid for me
But I am.

How else do you
Know a forest is burning
If you don't see the fire.
How else would you
Know the ocean flooding the shore
Unless you feel the waves.
But you don't.
For you are in your buildings,
Behind closed doors,
You don't know when it pours
Unless you walk out in the street.
You don't know the storms,
The tremors that could bring you down,
But in your barricaded homes
You don't.
So tell me how will anyone
Know I am dying
When they don't even see me here?
They don't.

But I can feel
The waves,
The rain,
The heat,
The water I am swallowing.
Because I am all of these
And no one anymore
Can see.

Don't worry you are not the block,
I am the one blocked.
In the silences that preceded
the on going one,
I used to stutter.
I ignored those as irrelevant mumbles
But these are the sentences
That in those stuttered words
were broke.
This block helped me decipher and join those.
If life was a painting
I'll be the artist of my happiness
Painting sweetness
To my path that may be filled with bitterness
Carving perfection to the part of my life with flaw

If life was a painting
I'll be adding colorful strength to my arms
Anything I am fainting
I'll be the architect of bountiful health
I'll paint myself an overflowing wealth

If life was a painting
I'll have the vision to see my fate
I'll always paint myself a golden plate

If life was a painting
Then my moments of joy would never end
I'll paint enough money so I'll never have to lend
I'll make my world brand new
So I'll never have to mend
I'll have plenty instead of few

If life was a painting
I'll be living in a palace with colorful chandeliers
I'll add a red pinch of lip stick to the lips of my wife
I'll paint myself another life
Even when death takes my breath away

Written by
Joey Percival Ikechukwu
:-)
 Jul 2017
r
Some mornings I wake up tired
before the fire of the sun eats
the mist covering the dust
on the long road my feet travel
each day wishing I was asleep still
just like a snake in an old tire
dreaming of young boys rolling
me over and over down a steep hill
again, forever and ever, amen.
Work can **** some days.
 Jul 2017
Cinzia
Quick! Call the poetic constabulary
I'm mincing words about my vocabulary
Help! I'm drowning in my thesaurus
evidence that i'm merely a brontosaurus

Listen up to my Greek chorus:
"Such silly word play should place her in poem prison
a ponderous place from which few have risen
Locked in the cell, losing her sense
consequence of writing with no poetic license"

Writing on with no reason or rhyme
just doing my poetic time
iambic meters bite me in the ****
trying to force me out of my sonnetic rut

stumbling on ideas most trite
all the pitfalls of making the choice to write
just having some fun
 Jul 2017
Cinzia
When you make yourself
Peaceful
you've done all you can
for peace on the planet

Not Much

still, your light,
a tiny spark in the
Darkness
can be seen for a million miles
Yoga Sutra I.2
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