Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
pain
my focuss

happiness
drained

in my thoughts
what is real

with the devil
was there a deal

pain

happiness

i drank
to **** them away

everyday

i walked across hot coals
to see if i could feel

i did not burn

in the turn

what have i become
my only friend

happiness ends
it became a fast trend

i tried to disappear
i am still here

at my age
accepting things

is everything

in my end
will the pain bend
will happiness begin

if only i could start
again
Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath


Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013
your effusive and lengthy comments are each a poem in their own right.  

Tinkered with June 22, 2013
With a push from Bala,
A serial peeper, thank God!
Krista said it well and then left me to tell the tale,
But the point was more elusive than these birds,
That swoop from out the sky of mind
to fall down some deep well.
Well,
The truth is hard to catch just right in words.

If I had half a twenty for all the times,
My words weren’t what I meant,
Or even less…?
Then all the meaning buried,
Beneath defaced US bills,
Would break my heart,
It’d be a ******* mess.

So, heads up poets, final warning,
The reader needs you now.
Best not **** it up, my friends,
And make to them this vow,

Please don’t preach,
And break no hearts,
Try not to show your ***.

Use plain speech,
Put away the thesaurus,
Let’s have a little class.

‘Cause out there words are spoken in vain,
In the smoky air they are forced to fill.
Talking heads make truth seem insane,
Finding meaning takes all of your will.

It’s hard to find the truth these days,
And even harder still…

When dangerous lies are sold as truth,
Common sense can sound absurd.
When empathy and integrity,
Are ranked in second and third…
Then the poet is needed more than ever.
The truth is hard to catch just right in words.
Here’s a clever poem about poetry-making…

If there’s one thing that I cannot abide, it’s clever ******* poems about poetry-making.  
They always feel like masturbatory exercises when we should be writing to capture the hearts and minds of people who don’t even like poetry.  Okay, rant off.
I do kind of like how the meter lends itself to some kind of rambling, Dylan-esque folksy, talking-blues format.

Hello Poetry poet Krista Dellefemine commented on one of my poems, “Loyal Hearts”, saying “The truth is hard to get just right in words”, which became a kind of a suggestion to be a poem in its own right.  I joked that I would do it and, hey, presto!  It only took five years to get around to it.  My inertia knows no bounds.
 Nov 2022 mybarefootdrive
Louise
I'm not sure if he knows
that often, my eyes are without mascara
and lack the soft sweep of a muted brown

Does he realise
my limbs are not long and slender
and definitely not as lean as they once were

Is he aware
that my stomach is no longer flat
or even slightly firm but rounded and fleshy

Does he know all this
because each day
he looks at me as if I am beautiful
Life is a puzzle never meant to be completed

Our lives are never born to be forgotten - deleted

Memories may carry the weight of pain through a torrential rain

But they also carry the love of those loved we have forever gained
Next page