These chattering fingers
are the only things which keep me sane
they stave off the tide of madness
which is never too far away

These pretty faced girls
are the only things keeping me nice
they stave off the loneliness
even if only for a night

These chemical pit stops
are the only things which keep me going
they stave off reality
and all of the ugliness that comes with it

These ****** poems
are the only things which keep me connected
shattering the isolation
an ocean of blank faces to vent at

The shot glass speaks arrows
arrows to tear a man down
at the worst of all times
he viewed life
not through the camcorder imagery of most
but through specific harsh globes of flesh
the eyeballs which couldn't betray him
even when life seemed to come
in violent fragmented flashes
reminding him of all that was false,
they had said it was a weekend
dedicated to a
"ruin your life sort of drunk"
he couldn't tell them
of a life already in shambles
nor of the tribulations
of developing a craft
which seems in its death throes
work seemed silly
the very idea of a boss
or a station
ultimately sickening
but still he trudged on
knowing that he was chasing
much bigger fish,
much bigger fish indeed

Maybe I'm just an *******
but I kinda wish
people would die
before they hit sixty
I know I hope I do
because from what I've seen
You only get more bitter as you go along
and people are always going on about
how children are the future
but it seems that people
try to hold on to the future for as
long as possible
but maybe I'm just being cynical
I don't really know
Just putting it out there

It is spring time
everything new
everything so fresh
so young
It is spring time
and we go off into the world
bright eyed
and alive to the cosmic mystery
skinned knees
and bruises
a black and blue childhood
which sounds of laughter
silly games
and we knew
that we were up to no good
but nobody ever told us to do good
the sun catches the dust
which is expunged
by our bicycles
exposed
globs of ice cream
fall off the cone
mutilated on the pier
tears shared
with countless others
before us
but we were still pure
children in the spring time
a smile on our lips
and the unknown in our eyes

It is summer
awoken in the pleasant morning
when the early sun
peered through the blinds
passion and sweat
and the knowledge of change
like fire flies
we try our best
to capture time in a jar
never realizing
that it was dead
phosphorescent smiles
which don't beam
quite so brightly
in the throes of our
adolescence
the sun is hot
and we are burned
for climbing too high
clipped angel wings

It is fall
and nothing could be so
appropriate
without our knowledge
we fell for the trap
a hole
seemingly endless
rushes past us
blind and screaming
after a while
the sensation dulls
and falling is just a part
of everyday life
but we always remember the sun
and always resent the blackness

It is winter
tendrils of cold mist
snake around our bones
tightening until they crack
we shrink down to the size of children
and gravity pulls us down
a lifetime of contemplation
has revealed
a lifetime wasted
but our eyes are dry
tears like icicles
we drive them into our eyes
we wish to see no more
we are in a cave
low light dies against the walls
and it is cold in here
but we will never get out now
at least not until next spring
when the ice melts
and it all starts over again

I love this venue
that cobble stone alley
I've found needles there before
So perfectly filthy
and the place smells
like ****, *****, and sweat
And we tear it apart with every show
Me and Martin and Jake
drinking beers with one of the bands
before they went on stage
The manager came out
"What the hell are you doing?
I don't want a bunch of drunk kids in my club!
Get your ***** back inside."

Buzzing we made our way inside
God this music is loud
****** fingers shredding guitars
and rapid fire growls
like a hungry stomach
I like this?
I don't even understand it
The pit was going insane
and I was just drunk enough
were I was too
So we jumped in
punching and slamming our bodies
into complete strangers
A thirty year old man
punched me in the face
so I punched him back
and he high fived me

The crowd demanded blood
Jake was hoisted off the ground
crowd surfing a tsunami
they drunkenly neglected
that it was a bad idea
to drop into a hurricane
of stomping studded boots
But they did
and we dragged him out
blood overflowing from his mouth
we had to leave early
and missed the headliner
Jake received five stitches
and wore it like a medal
I didn't go to many shows after that

I write about my own life too much
and I don't think complaining is art
sure you may relate to the ******* I spout
but don't you think I wrote it with you in mind
you are never in my mind
My thought process goes like this:
1) how can I score something to get me high
2) what is the best way I can shirk my responsibilities
3) how can I write something to prove how smart and deep I am
4) how can I convince her to **** me
I need validation
I need to be left alone
I need to be kicked in the ***
I need to grow up
but I won't
call me Peter ******* Pan
only it's not Never Never land we fly to
no I convince you you can follow me out of your bedroom window
take flight with me
then I watch as your body explodes ****** and mangled on the concrete of your parents' driveway
then I write a poem about how hard it was for me to watch
My poems are selfish
because *******

Walking past businesses with their doors wide open
letting the spring air permeate the room and vanquish
the lingering taste of winter
I’ll have what I always have - only make it iced
an ice cream cone is melting in the gutter
and I can almost hear the five year old girl crying for another
all of the colors of this worldly palette now so vibrant
take the blinders off of my eyes
and let my heart dance to rythym of far off shores
I’m smiling because the birds stopped shrieking and started singing
I write the same five or six poems over and over and over again
but I dress them up in different costumes
I’ve always loved acting the noble fool of endearment
I have to move my car in 40 to avoid the ticket
but I might just see how far that ***** little hatchback can take me
to avoid my roots going so deep they dry up
listen to love
listen to rage
listen to petulant cries for warped justice
listen to lust
and listen to depressed realizations
listen to all of the ******* we can come up with
we love to talk but not to listen
blah blah blah
shut up
it’s sunny outside
so take of all of your clothes
and dance in your nakedness
in the middle of midday broad street
unlock all the cages
let the light in
it’s a great day for living
so quit your death march

Outside the cold strips air
from constricted throats
as the din of good company settles in
lost in a conversation
I have no interest in
My favorite place to get lost
only because I know so well
the nods and "mhm's" of good taste
surrounded by people
It's okay to let the mind wander
while we smoke ourselves
into a soporific stupor

It's not fair for me
to hand you my broken pieces
with puppy dog eyes
and to ask you
to put them back together again
while the entire time
I'm trying to sweet talk you
into coming to bed
it wouldn't be fair
but i'm going to ask anyway

The land loomed around him
full of everything
everything which he could want
everything he detested
like a mirror maze
he saw himself
bending wildly out of shape
cast in odd angles
the clouds rained upwards
and the people spoke
in a strange foreign tongue
harsh and lyrical
and blunt
the road he was on
was paved with
cast gold corpses
pretty corpses
would he become the next stretch?
it seemed unlikely
armed with only
a much needed sense of arrogance
he walked on
towards champion mountain
the best that ever was
the best that would ever come
entirely forgettable

if you look too closely at something
for too much time
the lines and details begin
to bend and blur
into inconstant fragility
and if you avoid looking at something
it becomes so large,
so all encompassing
that it takes over your life
people need to learn to walk the edge
of observation,
reflection,
introspection,
to see things for what they really are
we are always too caught up
or too naive
we never just see things
as just things

It was another boring school day
and school is out
nope, no school for me
not today at least
I've got places to be
and man to see
about a horse

I sneak out at lunch time
the teachers here are dumb
I went to the woods
behind the chain link fence
of the Athletic/Health club
personal betterment
what a joke?
nothing but a bunch of sheep
trying to fatten themselves up
so they can be slaughtered first
Well not me
They won't catch me

The bottle is right where I left it
untouched under the leaves
each gulp of that *****
is chased with another
even longer one
The world looks a whole lot more rosy
when I'm looking over a bottle
and the sun looks so **** cool
as it comes through the leaves
green and warm
like a bottle of Jager
Life is good
real good

I need to start driving with a tape recorder
with the words of artists bathing me in contemplation
some living, some unfortunately fortunate to be gone
like some twisted Robbin  Hood of poetry
I eat their words, letting them fill me up,
and then photographic flashes of images
come tumbling out of me
Is there such a thing as freestyle poetry battles?
because for every poem I write
I lose twenty or so to the dead smoke filled air
my mouth forming shapes and vocal vibrations
create a stream of sacred sacrilegious words
and I speak them out to the God of all scribblers
like a possessed religious experience
touching the pure face of the divine
I only mourn my lost poems

If they come don't let them go
if they don't come
******* it go and find them
if they bore down on you
like a run away locomotive
well you just need to stand strong on the tracks
with a hole in your torso
and stream it through you
and if it may happen to pass you by
drag those mother ******* back
and sometime they only come in drug induced bouts of *****
well put it on your pallet and paint your picture
a beautiful ode to the obscene
if it comes out of you
like bullets
with a shotgun heart beat
sometimes they come gracefully
or not so gracefully
like fallen angels plummeting to earth
like shooting stars
and when it comes with rain
it pours until you are drowning
choking on endless poems and stories
If you are lucky
you can tame them
and it wouldn't be a question of if,
but rather when they come

I may not be good for much in this world which seems to have forgotten us
but armed with a handful of words
I am capable of feats
most people couldn't begin to imagine
I talk to a lot of younger kids
and they say
I want to be a writer
like you are trying to be
and I say to them
are you sure?
because every form of art isolates us from humanity
writing especially
and the rejections pile up faster than the bills and calls from collection agencies
and the doubt brings you down to rock bottom
ever held a knife against your own throat?
one slash away from a restful eternity
and if you think you can do it -
more power to you
but just know
that we're in the jungle
and I might be your friend
but it's just as likely that I get hungry
and cannibalize you
because the market is flooded
and I don't need any more competition

Matt says *******
Jake says **** that
David says **** me
Sarah says don't say ****
Mia says what the ****?

These are my children
the people I created
and I am their God
punishing and testing them from behind the scenes
they don't know how much it hurts me to hurt them
but that doesn't stop me
my little children
all trying to find their path
trying to grow into fine young adults
if only they could see the end I have in store for them
Are you still a martyr if nobody cares?

There's a man out there
and there is a woman out there
their entire lives
have been leading to this moment
connected since birth
two paper dolls holding hands
but there is a man out there
who is afraid
who believes
he can't give you
everything you deserve
who believes
he will hurt you
and maybe he's a child
who never understood
why his parents
just couldn't figure it out
and everybody always tells him
"You look just like your father"
but he won't be him
so he runs
and doesn't look back
leaving her is better than
destroying her
and she calls to him
"Run away little boy!
I just wanted to
help you understand"

the grayness has a way
of coming from the sky
and seeping into the earth
the dark clouds which never produce rain
casting a shadow over the world
the city streets and buildings are overwhelming
the buildings reach up like fingers from the ground
trying to touch the face of God
it was gray today
but it won't be tomorrow

So here's the thing,
baby girl, sugar sugar
should i tell you of the future
would you be interested to know
the tale of our unseen flow
without skipping a single high or low?
Well then I'm going to disappoint you again
i'm not perfect, just a guy clad with paper and pen
but then again
you always preferred men
who didn't prefer themselves
because they are trouble
and with a little help from you
you make it double
or triple
I was never very good with numbers

But baby soothsaying behind us
I'd like to say
I really love how you are wound up
maybe a little too tight
but what's love if there is no fight
like day without the night
so put it behind you
in a box filled with yesterdays
i feel very inclined to
just let you know
I think you're so beautiful
even on days when you don't feel very useful
and in those times when life seems too brutal
to you I will always try to be truthful
because I'm your biggest fan
who goes to your shows
always following your tour van
and lets be real
nobody knows
what the future holds
but we know how we feel,
so take a leap with me
because I'm not trying to be corny but...
I'm pretty sure you complete me
so come and meet me
where ever the hell you want
because you are really somebody
I ought to flaunt

A discarded box of chocolates
the box in the shape of a love heart
the lid sits crooked on the damp floor
with a velvet ribbon tied around it
in the box there is a note
the ink stained from the drizzle
for my valentine
half of the chocolate was gone
the other half was melted
and smelled liked the dumpster
which they were abandoned next to
curious I read the note
I can't give you money
but I can give you my heart
actually I can't
so here's this instead
I hope you like it
your valentine
apparently
she did not

She didn't know what
What she was working towards
A mad men situation
Drunk chicks with drunk feelings
And a wholly drunk
Situation
We all
Fall in
Love with
Everything extra

He sits on the curb
unaware of the time
only knowing
that it is night
and that it has been
over twenty-four hours
since he last slept
his head between his knees
he tries to disappear
If I can't see them
then they can't see me
has a home
but no home worth going to
and he has a 250ml bottle
of whiskey in a brown paper bag
the night is still
cold and dead
people ask him
son, is everything okay?
he smiles
he nods
he goes on sitting on that curb
kissing that brown paper bag
is everything okay?
things are never okay
he doesn't remember when he first noticed
maybe around the time of the divorce
but he has noticed
and now he can't stop
so he sits on the curb
drunk and slovenly
waiting for something
he knows will never come

None of it really matters anymore
the amount of time I spent contemplating time
is maddening
I gave it a shot
the good life
but all I got were nicotine stained fingers
and a few shreds a few loosely remembered good stories
we’re all dead now anyways
just waiting for the boatman to come
calling our names
as we pay the toll of clocking out
I have senoritis
I have writer’s block
I have ****** stumps instead of fingertips
you have your own life now
your own looking glass to pass through
and this sigh
says infinitely more
than I ever could

they walk among us
they are always in
the same places
seeing the same people
mixing words
with barely anybody
they seem as if they
are robotic sentinels
just going through
task after task
to us
the masses
little do we know
that while his body is here
his mind isn't
it's in a strange dark place
the only lights
are neon confusions
which flicker in epileptic patterns
they hide their mind
from the real world
so that their precious
vessel of transport
doesn't become completely destroyed
it's the difference
between 2 or 3 forty ounces of malt liquor
it's the difference between
one and two packs a day
the difference between
*** head and coke head
they aren't really mindless
they're just mentally misplaced

Too broke to smoke
Too drunk to ****
Too high to lie

The frozen birds died not happy
but not sad or wanting
they just ended
not like a book or a sentimental sunset
but like a crosswalk shifts from white man to red hand
Us - Humans -  the only animal which asks why
why is the world so dark
why won’t she return my love
why do I feel this way
Why doesn’t everything work out the way I want
if they could - the birds would call us *******
it’s why they can fly and we can only pretend
and I hate those pretty little ******* for that
Why?

I walk with empty shoulders
I left my angel and devil
in my bedside table
it's soothing though
no bad choices
no good choices
just choices
like duck duck goose
the world is a playground at recess
and nobody wants to see it
because it makes them feel small
but the bigger you are
the harder you fall
or so the saying goes

A look,
a smile,
a shy look away
just playing the game,
a brunette girl
dressed with class,
a checkered skirt
past the knees
and an olive blouse
leaving a lot to the imagination,
they both know,
that they have been eyeing each other,
for the past twenty minutes,
but neither makes the first move,
they were just looking to play the game
not to finish it

The rain fell in buckets that night
hair slicked to weary faces
and gazes which condemned the stars for shining
the gaping maw of it’s almost over now
is rapidly approaching
and we chew the cud of *****
until we ***** all over ourselves
arms ending at the wrist in ****** stumps
which spurt arterial confetti
so that the stray cats which wail at the moon
can stay fed for another day or two
how dare the sun burn so bright
in the face of such darkness
snub out the smiling masses
and cover them in soot and crude oil
the man behind the clock is laughing
between a pair of ******* aching with regret
but maybe after just one more run at it
we can pull ourselves free of salvation

Today I made it five hours
unless you count the six cups of coffee
and the cigarettes
I don’t
it’s convenient that way
I don’t know what it is
It is the one thing I can’t find the words for
probably because I am afraid of the implications
those words will surely bring
when I was a young *******
I knew way more than I do now
and I was never unhappy
but I grew up -
admittedly slower than my peers -
and bit by bit the wallpaper was stripped away
until all that was left were pipes and studs
a haunting skeleton creaking in the night
so I slipped more and more as I got older
because I wanted to go faster
wanted it all right away
and I was foolish
because all it got me was a handful of good words
and me sitting in this chair
lamenting the fact that I only made it five hours today
but tomorrow is tomorrow
and just maybe
I won’t be this me

when it gets too dark
and the daylight is just a lingering memory
forgotten by palpable blackness
She leads me home
when I can't see
but one foot in front of me
and every sound
is amplified to the point
of disorienting confusion
she grasps me by the hand
gentle yet firm
and drags me safely past
the obstacles and debris
she leads me through
night after night
always in search
of another sunrise

you wait
and seconds become years
which haven't happened yet
but you feel like you've already lost them
you wait
like the good little boy
or girl
you wait
like you've been told your whole life
good things come to those who take them
so why wait
why wait for what you want to be passed down
hand to hand
like a Chinese whisper
until what you get
isn't "strawberry ice cream"
but "very sore need *** cream"
you wait
hoping the time will come
but that train already left the station
and somebody else is conducting

Hey guys. Thanks for reading my stuff, and if this is the first time you have heard from me, I hope you will read my stuff. Lately I've been working on a sort of pet project of mine. An online space where young writers can showcase their work. So I started this blog called The Lost and Found (hbaxter94.com). But I don't want this site to be just my work. I've read a lot of good poets on here, as well as other places, and I wanted them to be a part of it. So I am hoping to get some submissions. Poetry, Fiction, Non-fiction - it doesn't matter. (Fiction and non fiction pieces under 3000 words please) If you write honest, powerful stuff which is relevant to growing up in today's post-modern post-internet era culture then I'd love to hear from you. Message me on here or email me at hbaxter94@gmail.com
I hope to hear from some of you wonderful people
           -Thanks Harry J. Baxter

Maybe it's youth
but I'm impatient
I want it all
write now
words which come from a place
that I can never find
but always seems to find me
dreams of other souls
walking around lost
finding solace
comfort
companionship
in these silly little poems
write now
not later
because standing still
doesn't go well
with my restless leg syndrome
write now
because tomorrow
is never a certainty

what happened?
a simple question
which is too complicated for me
a ball of nerves and synapses
electrical smoke signals
all a part of the story
of what happened to me
your own face a stranger
who mocks you
a reflection
which looks better than the photos
but it's a trap
a trick
its mean and it's *****
who care what happened to you?
what is going to happen?
and only you can answer that one

this life
can sorta pile up on you
so much so
that you begin to feel like Atlas
waking up every morning
complaining about your sore back and shoulders,
sometimes it gets to the point where
you feel it rising up inside of you
thrashing it's way upwards
from the pit of your stomach
and you feel like if you don't scream
or curse
or break something
that you will go truly mad,
I was on my way to either being mad
or having a very sore throat
until I decided to write in an old school notebook one day
and it all changed,
I still need to scream,
I just scream with my fingertips

I wanted to write this
As an ode
To my oldest hero
Charles ******* Bukowski
But the thing is
Sometimes genius
Is impossible to ignore

a light breeze on bare chest,
while the sun bakes the sweat on your back
a deep breath of ocean air,
while the energy of a city runs through your veins
a moment of bliss,
while the world crumbles all around you

Words amount to nothing
yet hold more power
than thick leather wallets
bursting apart
green at the seams
on their own
they are just symbols
a vocal vibration
indicative of emotion
hunger
but with the right backing
an idea
an unspoken truth
prayers whispered
over candle light vigils
then they are infinite
no knowledge of death
a light which shows
the true face of fear
a mirror to the self
the true self
bombs which drop
with more force
than Nagasaki
A light so bright
only few can stand to look at it
only words
have the ability
to pass through
the meandering rapids
of time
and they touch us
awoken from life long slumbers
ancestral in power
and they shake us
to our very souls

Writer's block
does not exist
if you are a writer
then you can always write
and you always will write
writer's block
is just a convenient excuse
for when you are too lazy,
defeated,
preoccupied,
sad,
and you know what?
when all of that is coming down on you
all you need to do
is take a deep breath
shut up
and write

I put a pistol to my temple
and told you
just ask me to
nuts insane no good
don't do it
she pleaded
but she knew all along
that I wouldn't
it was more of a showing
a presentation
an introduction to the concept
that we are expendable

for the people who made my days
the people who perked their ears up
when my unattended fire hose
started to spray bile like rainbows in the sky
for the people who put their word behind my name
the silent friends who never knew it
for every single person who took the time
to define the way my mind unwinds
the people who had advice to give
the people who had nothing but adoration
these words sometimes fall flat
and my mood can be at rock bottom
but I never stop thinking of you all
the ones who pulled me up
when I was all but ready to give up
a simple thank you is order
thank you.

so there's a girl
***** her name
that matters to me,
but not you
she's my best friend's girl
but she's great
we click just like how I can't snap
She's a good chick
and I never say chick
but she's cool
she makes him happier
but she makes me happier

When I was still a young kid
following dad's job all over England
My granddad died
and I could only have been eight or nine
but I remember my Mum told me
sitting on the windowsill
of that old house I miss so much
"Do you see that star up there Harry?"
I followed the vector of her finger
gazing up to a diamond cluster sky
because this was the sticks
so the stars came out in numbers
But I thought I saw the star she was pointing at
I nodded
"That star is your granddad
there's a star up there for everybody."

Now being a young boy
I of course took this as the whole truth
and now that I'm a slightly less young boy
I figure
why can't it be the truth
Standing in the vast field
that was my back yard
I remember talking up at the night sky
Talking to granddad
knowing he was too far away for me to hear him
I just wanted to know if he was okay
and what it was like being a star
and maybe I will never get my answer
I just hope that when I go
when you're feeling lost
you can look up
at the stars in the sky
and I can tell you
that everything is going to be
just fine

Powerless power
We compete for the entire world
And end up splintered
Like fragments of matches
Burnt out shells
Of everything we thought we could be

The next time you see a girl
who is wearing a T-shirt
with writing across the chest
and she gives you a ***** look
for trying to read it,
just wink,
and tell her you're illiterate

She walked in
with a group of other girls
and some older women
I can only assume
played the parental role
They were either
seniors in high school,
checking out the campus for next year
or college kids,
ready to move back home for the summer
Their voices, and their dispositions pleaded the former
but there was one among them
and Hot ****, she was looking good
A dark blue and black plaid flannel cardigan
covered loose fitting yellow top
and from a little above her waist
fell a teal skirt
made from some gossamer material
which had a split down one side
so that when she walked
porcelain flashes of leg lit up the room,
and lemme tell you about this walk in's hair
the color were brown and red meet
braided in the back,
the thick snake of hair
cascading down her left shoulder,
it was killing me,
So I watched,
and drank coffee,
and had my breakfast
and watched some more
knowing she was just a walk in
and nothing more
I sat my *** down
and went ahead and wrote her a poem

there are two types of women
angels and demons
and I'm not sure which one
is my favorite yet.

I don't know which one you are
but you're in that bed
and it gets me thinking
what's the difference

You feed me pretty words
and pearly whites
starlight flashes of your gaze
and oddly enough, belief

so take me in your hands
and steal away in that night
because I've already accepted
that it will happen anyway

logos,
cattle brands,
what's the difference?
the difference is we pay for logos.

What is it
that lives behind your ribs?
it beats all night long
keeping rhythm with songs
which have never been sung
keeping me up at night
wondering if at times
we find synchronization
in the pulse of our passion
because nothing is more poetic
than that moment
when I realize
that what's behind your ribs
and what's behind mine
are one in the same