Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Nick Stiltner Oct 2019
top brain forward eyes severed diluted
down mind feared essence ignored
star gaze rays smogged polluted
connect connect widen the gap
flow flow hand meets ice-water
growing numbness crackling bones
crack sip sigh Relax

unattended, withering, left to rot
chime chime signs direct where
why lark fly vines hide
the corner
beads dangle I move them
and they fall back into
they fall back into
their places
stages lights tread lightly across
and bow be sure to bow they like that
humming bird wings on twilight canvas
blurs blurs the paints and hues
dreams and views dreams and views
severed sinews, unabled motion
crack sip sigh Relax
lean back rising tide blanket and jaw slack
Nick Stiltner May 2019
Tottering at the cusp on the brink
Floorboards in the night hear the creaks
A *** overfilled and it’s constant leak,
Minds connecting, a dangling link
Blinking blinking light shrinking shrinking

Line splitter the vultures pecking at my liver
Time quitter satellite eyes swimming above the river,
Lit by moonlight, desert sand dunes and their silver shimmer

Wind on the Sahara and behind the sky
Sits the great tailor plucking at the seams
Knocking and shaking the supporting beams
And sending bricks falling and smashing
Into the floorboards of the empty room
With a porch overlooking the swaying ocean
Nick Stiltner Apr 2019
The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The ebb and flow the shore it goads us
Static focus, a layer peeled off and cast aside
The tide it whispered it spoke to me
but I turned I looked the other way
Upwards roads and downwards roads
Set the rock aside Sisyphus,
Bear the weight no more
Stare in lost, in vacant eyes at a boatless shore
The lotus, I choose the lotus

Wayward streams, down and around it floats us
And spits us out,
Our isolated Elysium or tortured chamber
It’s a matter of where you spend your days, in or out
On what you rest your eyes upon,
The whirlwind, the spinning cannon
Fates bolt it shoots us in twirling spiral
And all along from the corner lit dim
Float the soft tunes of a harpist,
Deft fingers pluck the taught strings,
And her eyes overcast, cloudy grey
Stare vacantly out like person drowned

The lotus, I choose the lotus!
The sweet nectar it covers it soothes me
Puzzled pieces glue me, paste me together
Pluck me, toss me, say that I flew
Let’s play who knows who
Be honest who really knows you
Reflection from the lake,
a familiar face it greets me
Whirlpool tides, how they rip they pull us
Oh the lotus, give me the lotus!
Nick Stiltner Apr 2019
Man is made by the void pressed tightly around him
A silhouette with an outline flickering on gusts, in flux,
Do you see does anyone see
The mirage behind eyes and hands from behind
That grip and shift the sky

The freedom to fly to fly
but also to lie and wither,
a copperhead on dead leaves
slowly slithering
its venom dripping teeth and flickering tongue
sliced by knife wrung quick,
as i fill my glass and take a diluted sip
fade fade to fade a crossing

Man is made by the weight
that props up a fading outline
of borrowed understandings
which binds us which holds us
and releases as the tension grows slack
and in bleeds the black, filling its glass
inside the outline where breath and fire once
passed and flowed,

Will I hear a scream at the beginning
of the ceaseless dream,
or will the taught string be cut in a slash
delivering me back from where i was brought?
Nick Stiltner Jan 2019
Shattered glass
The Fallen, the other path
Gathered moss
It’s overdue
Slippery and slimey
But coated, wined in
Shining shining
shimmering substance
But they know me
It has to look like this
I keep moving forward
With mushed moss
And over growth
At my boots
And treetop
Clouded lights
For my eyes
Nick Stiltner Dec 2018
in the abandoned palace sits an empty Seat
an arching Hall left empty after the retreat,
grab my hand grab my hand
let us depart the hallowed land!

rising Star a tangerine sky
mourning dove's calls echoed across the pond,
dew on blades of grass wove
and filled the endless plain.

I woke up I don't know where today
my exhaled breath fogged and dissipated
into mist, caught on the breeze
gone to who knows where
i haven't heard from one
who goes there.

who knows where
light and life go to hide
as the sun reaches higher into the sky,
a sky that doesn't look the same
from this side of the line

who can know
where the white streams of jets go
as their cutting lines dart across
the light blue canvas and fade away

to be one or the other
a choice like a ripple from a rock
tossed into the tranquil pond
an oasis where the animals come to drink
in the swirling scene of a tangerine sky.
Nick Stiltner Nov 2018
You see I was I was
reading this book right
this real great book
and i had it in my hands
and im seeing this scene
that its describing
im not gonna go into the details
right now per se but im seeing it
in my head, you know
you know like how when
youre reading the words
but not really because they
are becoming blurred
and the picture just
kinda appears
in your brain
like you are living it,
like you are actually there
but you can't be
its just something that you see
without eyes
it blooms and engulfs the inside
of your mind
it opens the door and enters calmly
and makes it self at home, like a
painting on the wall
or or
like a number youve been meaning to call
do you see what im saying?

so that got me thinking, hear me out
you can imagine anything, yes i know duh
the pictures can sprout and bloom
become overgrown and be trimmed
maintained or treated with disdain
or with some good ole TLC,
really anything you want
a home a gnome a crystal phone
in Rome trapped on the wrong end of a honed
pearly white bone,
what does it mean oh let me tell you
i havent got a clue not one
but what about
a light you were shown when you were
younger but somehow still aware
that what you really need is somewhere
out there
or in there I should say,
does that mean something or does it
only hold significance because its your memory
of what you did when you were young
because right now you arent moving you arent seeing
anything you are just there with a blank stare
and if you measured the time that was lost
in this state it would be sad it would be
disappointing yeah if you watched it from the side
but from my view its fantastic i see lights
in different colors and see crystal worlds and
different others, thoughts borne of differing
mothers from different places
but all the same
down the same path
from the same origin,
its all really a walk down the map
to find your own x
but thats a discussion for another day
but as i was saying it could lead
to so many different places
filled with beautiful faces and cases
left shattered and broken on the ground
and everything is sound and safe
but then there is a clap or a pop
and bam you are awake, aware
that you were stuck staring into thin air
trying to see shapes  
awake awake awake
and then its all gone like an old song
that youve forgotten the words too
but sounds so so so so
familiar,
you know?
Next page