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 Nov 2016 Irate Watcher
svdgrl
What a task it must be
to hold a candle to me,
a stationary puddle of wax
colored grey and crimson
by twelve seasons
we've shared juxtaposed or apart.
I've found your hues on the faces of others
often impervious to my flames,
hardened with my tears.
And our marriage
demands that I believe
we will melt together
or fall into the cracks
of another holder.
It's the hardest thing to move on with someone who betrayed you.
Everyone advises you against it. It's so difficult when you genuinely believe they are right- but you're so broken you don't know how to leave.
 Nov 2016 Irate Watcher
Sjr1000
In the time before the distance
there was a woman I dearly loved

Her eyes they
shined while we
stood in a moonlit alcove
making love

She told me of the
bad places she had
come from once before

She said you'll
find my nightmares
will scream from  
the dark to the dawn

She told me
not one could ever hold her
she needed to be free

She said guilt
is what you
give yourself for
doing exactly what you please

I thought about my wife
I thought about my children
I thought about my past
I thought about my future

She said
which misery do you prefer

she said
come on upstairs
I'll meet you there

We were stuck on the street
neither of us
had the key

I looked at her
She looked at me
Neither of us knew
what to believe

She wound up
with the other guy
moved me along so smoothly
I didn't even know how she did it

I ended up
stuck in Reno
in the crummy apartment
by the river
trout fishing every afternoon
my children on the phone

She sang me a nightmare
song
She showed me exactly where I  belonged

If you are out on
the avenue and you
see her there
tell her
after all these years
I probably still
care
At least when the moon and mood
are blue
and I'm thinking about
my past and future too
thinking about my fate
in the time before the distance.
 Nov 2016 Irate Watcher
r
Some nights
the moon throws its light
like an old man
who can't hold his liquor in
and spits blood in the morning

Someone ought to kick some sense
into me, if they did I'd hum
like the body of a fiddle

I propose we all strip down
and take a swim with my friends
the dragonflies, but no one will listen
to what I have to say when I throw my voice
like an empty bottle deep in the forest

When I think of all the dark
and swift things of my rivers,
I wonder why time the old boot -
legger hides his maps and goes
on traveling the low roads

Alone I can tell you there is so much
beside the point of the thorn of the rose
and why the moon is with me always
whenever i choose to go it alone

I drink from that blue jar of time
and breathe the breath of sweet infants

Believe you me the dead shepherd
we sent up the river in a faraway land
in a time so long ago still holds us
all by the holes in his hands

You can see the dark clouds up ahead,
my cloisters I am always walking through them
with you children of the lost dreams,
and with you fifty-something snow-headed men

We have just collided with our lost sons
on the high road of morning, we are rising
dust like the dirt on our children's graves
saying nothing to our brothers the stones.
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at ****** are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to **** you
to **** anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art
the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.

they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.
 Oct 2015 Irate Watcher
ross
It hasn't stopped raining since the day you left.
Pouring.
I've been waiting for you to walk through that front door.
Home.
And I'd be lying if I said I've compared and mapped your every freckle to the stars in the constellations.
But there just wouldn't be enough time in the world to intake something as so beautiful.
Especially when you sailed away so long ago and left me to buoy with the tiger lilies
Until I finally sank to the bottom.
Drowned.
It started with a jacket
left unattended.
I grabbed it as a friend
no intentions.
Wore it the next the day,
it engulfed my shorter frame.
We laughed, a platonic encounter
then I forgot to give it back.

It started conversations,
we discovered who we were
beneath our social façades.
That's when I fell
for you
and somewhere, you fell
for me.

A borrowed moment
A lasting affection.
this is a rewrite of an earlier poem "borrowed shoes"
 Oct 2015 Irate Watcher
Coop Lee
earth boy.
air conditioned and living.
/or
following the light of something far from home.
begin:

old town and lovely she.
loved she.
love she like there is no other she.
the one and only she.
she dumps him.
finds a new he.
has *** with the new he in a far corner apartment complex peak
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles;
like screeching howls of love spit and ****, city
at midnight.

he buries his hopes and face in pie
at the café
volta.

new her,
wiping the counter calm yet tired yet cute and soon to close shop.
she tells him -
about the keys of lost lovers.
the doors to remain open for the sake of dreams and all possibility.
she tells him -
of the pies at the end of the night.
the cheesecake and the apple pie
/entirely gone.
the peach cobbler and the chocolate mousse
/almost gone.
but the blueberry pie, always
/untouched.

he’ll have that.
some sort of broken in the heart have that/love that/eat that/pie.
they talk for hours.
he rests his head on the counter and sleeps
icecream on his lips.
she almost kisses him right there.

and she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s in memphis
/or
some other southern city.
he's on somekind of journey.
he works kitchens for more money to motion further west.
westward sweat and burgers. see/saw.
little money, little love, little city
and onto the next.

she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s deeper into the glowing desert dome
/or vegas.
/or, you see the stars above?

she writes him letters.
and he writes her back, and in return, they fall
toward a thought, a light, a lit-up little idea of life full
on good something.

return.
to new york and old scents. old town.
corner apartment complex peak window and memories of a once-was
girl.
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles no more.
return/
to pie.

to café and concept
of sweet-tooth, sweet real something, sweet blueberry nights
and icecream.
and there she is.
with warmer winter/spring smiles than even dreamt.
and her words for hours.
she almost kisses him, but kisses him.

something perpetual
is love.
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