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At the sun setting
Emptily
I realize I've been staring
Directly at it
For hours without
Dropping
A tear
 Jun 2014 Hayley Neininger
Jack
~

Licorice and lavender and lazy afternoons
On a beach to nowhere in a sea of red balloons
Cotton candy carousels that spin so ever slow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Silly putty patterns in a shade of tangerine
Violins and cellos hold so tightly to the string
Daffodils in dancing shoes across the valley flow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Puzzles painted purple play a perfect polished part
Rivers made of chocolate and the places that they start
Midnight moons now mingle with the fireflies aglow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Pizza pies and railroad ties and cherries jubilee
Silhouettes at twilight in the shapes we’ve come to see
Sidewalks on the mountaintops that ramble through the snow
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

A tiny leaf, a strong belief that spring does now arrive
The summer breeze, magnolia trees and lonely roads to drive
Shadows of the evergreens upon the ground to show
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Caramel connections in a sweet and gooey mess
Secrets and forsythia, a yellow summer dress
Skipping pebbles on the water three times in a row
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Peanut shells and wishing wells and taxi cabs to hail
Paper airplanes folded twice through aqua skies to sail
City streets and movie seats and popcorn we can throw
Everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go

Any day is everyday if you are here with me
Sunny skies and butterflies abound for us to see
Take my hand and understand that I do love you so
And everywhere is anywhere if you would like to go
I kissed your best friend
Loved her like I would love you
She called my name like you do
She dug her nails in my back
Like I was a scratch pad
She did all the things you did
I don't know how she knew
All she did was whisper in my ear
The very sentence you screamed every night
I'm sorry I know you'd **** me if you ever found out
But I'm not going to run away with my tail tucked
I ****** your best friend like it was the end of the world
Like the sky was falling
Like I would make love to you
Still it was you I came to
Your face I saw as it all happened
No excuses I deserve whatever is coming
But if you only knew
Your best friend was always your reflection
Your shoulder to lean on
You'd always run into the bathroom after a fight
Talk to yourself for hours
Tell me you hated me
But rushed out before the words even pierced the door
Kissed me like it was forever ago before you had them
I'd never love anybody but you
And I'm glad I traced you on my mirror so you'll never disappear
when we met, it was tipsy tuesday and donnie had swollen fingers
and nate sank into his plaid frock and dropped his shadow
on the patio like a heavy slug, and the flies
cavorted in the vortex of our subtext
as the night skies spat stars
at our foreheads.

you were beautiful;  too beautiful then.

i was smitten, i was tossed on stormy seas, unsick.
i was healed. the world spun filth and dull glamour
but your face hurled fireworks
and my mind leaned into my heart
and i knew i loved you.
whoever you turned out
to be.

i babbled and groped, as the inertia
of falling, filled my sails
and I was purposefully adrift -
in your brown-black eyes;
as a dog fetched a frisbee
for an illiterate.

and i think i bit my lip a bit.

I saw you for the first time.
for the last time
in my life
and was never
the same.

my heart, now more precise.

you had fierce speech
underneath your sweet speak
and long hair.
i had you in my soul's yurt
on a plain of windswept pavilions
with free horses and costly
remoteness.
i was ' there ' less
and more somewhere else
alone with the perfect you
reading my lips
as they tremored
delight of it.

i babbled speechless.

i remember you tossing your locks
at my cage. and i was set free.

please add me to your wishlist
and complete me.
I sit amongst rampant consumerism,
Yet I smile as I sip my Starbucks tall Pike Place.
To my left, old ladies decked in Tiffany decry their neighbours folly,
Even while they sit blind to their own.
To my right, Chapters!
Book store that offers so much more,
A perfect monument of society's needs answered in one storefront.
We don't shop here for a read, or for the escape some unknown author's words spell for us.
No, this masterfully crafted shop answers our shared need of empty spending on soulless items that will lift us from the mire of our meaningless lives for one instance,
Before that scented candle or witty greeting card is left to collect the dust of our fallen gods.

Behind me the street is full of noise but no one is listening,
Busses carry the many but each is a world onto themselves,
Thoughts not of their making wrestle for attention with smartphones,
Before long the thoughts echo what the eyes read on the digital screens glowing below them.
The enemy of my friend...
Don't let consciousness wake!
Combined the noise without and the noise within will drown whatever chance we had at relevancy.
And so Oprah wins,
Look under your chairs,
It's your new life,
Not to be mistaken with your old one,
This one comes with a shiny new automobile, trip, ring, dress, shoes,
Anything but enlightenment.

Before me,
Possibilities.

You?
We built cathedrals on street corners
under heavy orange lights
cascading down our faces.

I loved your imperfections:
a narrow, twisted spine,
a long, indented nose
and a shrill voice slicing through
the midnight summer wind.

I'd love you forever
in the sagging bench
on your thin front porch,
where I'd spend eternity
tracing outlines of silhouetted trees
covering soft, flaring streetlights.

We burned through hours
recounting the wounds from our past.
Every kiss was a lightning bolt,
and cracked like raging thunder.
We felt a violent forgiveness
exploding like stars in the pits of our chest.
I am distant

I am
the cold wind
howling through
Bare trees

I am
a single
snowflake
falling
to the pavement
melting on impact

I am
the spitting
before the rain

I am nothing
except a warning
before the big storm

It is nothing
Because
I feel nothing
I mean nothing
To this lonely world
A cup of coffee in my hand,
Fresh aromas rising with it's steam
In this cool crisp morning air,
As I sit and read,

Your poetry inspires and moves me
As I catch a glimpse of your soul's echo.
We remain strangers separated  by land
Yet together we find community in words,
In prose,
In the release of voices that reside inside of each of us.

This is my morning routine,
I greet the day with your rhythms and rhymes,
I sip and savour them,
Along with my coffee,
And my heart knows peace.

I am ready for this day.
I truly enjoy my morning routine of reading the work of the fantastic poets on this website. Great community.
Warm rain drops beating the pattern of my heart's pulse on the shutters of this old barn house while far away a lone wolf cries, unanswered.

Wind kissed tears from hollow sad eyes form wet trails over dried out wrinkles, whistling through the caverns of past glories on this war torn face, bringing colour and life with the desert rose.

Softly playing violins couple with the lone broken voice of a fallen angel, singing of maladies forgotten, joys yet birthed and a promise, a promise that you fulfill with each breath.

Morning bird song chirping of fresh hope and new love, a sweet tune warding off possible predators even while in search of prey.

Rumbling thunder, the roaring approval of gods reverberating within my bones, my soul, even as the hairs on my arm stand on end at the sound of the fickle lords' voices.

The silence of night captures my imagination, from it's seemingly emptiness rises fables of faery love and poems of ***** desires, all falling short of your brilliant black opal beauty.
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