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 Aug 2020 Lee Askenas
Gary Ask
When I’m not missing you, I’m missing something or someone else.
It looks like I’ll always be a missing person, never quite content.
When the clouds are here I need the sun in my room.
When the sunshines bright I kind of miss the gloom.
When the sea is calm, and the waters like a lake,
I find I miss the storm, the sound of the shore break.
When you are in my arms I miss the space between us.
When you are far from me I need to bridge the distance.
So will I always be feeling so lonely for something more?
When I’m alright inside, why do I need an open door?
 Aug 2020 Lee Askenas
Gary Ask
Do I cry for you
or do I cry for myself
as I feel you leave, never to return?

Not knowing where we go
when we are no longer here,
I retreat  to the comfort of belief in things unknown,
yet better, gentler, eternal...
For Andrew
 Aug 2020 Lee Askenas
Gary Ask
I took a walk through the snow tonight,
felt the chill wind blow.
Saw the flakes falling around me,
piling up on the sides of the windows.
The lights from inside the apartments were warm, bright, and content.
The sounds of my steps on the sidewalk were my only accompaniment.
It could be that tonight’s snow will be the last snow that I’ll see,
until the autumn ends this year and winter returns to me.
It could be that tonight’s snow will be the last snow that will ever fall,
But I can’t say that with any certainty, so I won’t think that at all.
I don't know where we came from
I don't know how I got here
But we might not be here too much longer
I'm sitting here on the back porch of my mind

Swamp gas bubbled up
Or anaerobic somethings commingled in the sea
A single cell expanded
We keep expanding till we're free

I have a megalomaniacal mind
It's a miracle how I think
Just as I chew more cannabis edibles
Then puke them up in the sink

Take another swig of liquor
Read the Bible and curse God
How'd the Lord of all Creation
Go and get this heathen wrong?

Really though I want like everyone
And this life is just a test
Who's the teacher and group leader
Who wanted all of this?

I don't know where I came from
This is my agnostic poem
I don't know how we got here
But I feel right at home
 Jul 2020 Lee Askenas
Emily
Inked
 Jul 2020 Lee Askenas
Emily
Thinking about getting a tattoo
But, I take pause...
Looking in the mirror
I see my body’s already covered
Marked in invisible ink
Every inch of my bare skin
Painted with the joy and pain of living
From my heart to my hips
Color faded here, but poppin’ over there
Memories designed by your hands
Others etched on my own
A collection that makes me smile
Among a few pieces I regret
So, about getting a tattoo...
I guess I’m not ready
Because I can’t think of a tattoo
Meaningful enough, yet
To write over any of the life I’ve lived
 Apr 2020 Lee Askenas
Gary Ask
It's nothing but a changing thing
the morning sun and what she'll bring
Everyday is a promise kept
to live it all 'till there's nothing left.
One foot follows the other in time
keep moving and you'll keep the rhyme.
It's unfolding as it's meant to be
your fulfilling your life's history.
In Japan there is an art form
called kintsukuroi which means
to repair with gold
When a ceramic *** or bowls
would break the artisan would
put the pieces together again
using gold or silver lacquer
to create something stronger
forevermore beautiful than before
The breaking is never something
to hide
It doesn’t mean that the work of the art
is ruined or without value because
it is different than what anticipated
Kintsukuroi is a way of living that
embraces every flaw and imperfections
Every crack is part of the  history of
the object and it becomes forevermore
beautiful
precisely because it has been
broken
I’ve told this story to tell you this
People are the same way
Being hurt or heart broken
or feeling broken generally
is not who you are
It is something that happens to you
Rise up stand proud and move forward
Stop looking about what the world says
about you and who you are
The value of your worth is more
than you can ever conceive
and when you trust
in your heart you’ll understand
the Power you house within
Cracks and all your true value
can never be lost in translation
Know the value of your worth, you worth more than gold... made to an exact specification!
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