Richard j Heby: Poems

I cannot

Richard j Heby Aug 2018

I cannot

Iodine cannisters, notwithstanding, bear twosomes live within outer units.

i don't care about you

Richard j Heby Oct 2012

i don't care about you

I write this to show you
I don’t care
about you
at all.

i don't identify with white

Richard j Heby Aug 2016

i don't identify with white

i don't identify with white
not when i'm on my bike
not when you call me ****

i enjoyed that fearful falling

Richard j Heby Feb 2013

i enjoyed that fearful falling

I’m starting to like you so
I’ll go fulfill my self with other girls so
when I really like you I’ll convince myself not to fall for you and
that won’t work,
because it never works,

and when i fall i’ll try to grab onto something, no
i won’t.
it will not be in a place or pit.

the falling is a somewhat pleasing surprise into dreaming,
but your fragility awakens me.

Still
, I enjoyed that fearful falling.

i'd love suggestions or advice on this one

if i were an artist

Richard j Heby Sep 2012

if i were an artist

If i were an artist – and most importantly everyone knew it –
I would paint ****,
sculpt dung,
write crap
and see the masses awe in it.

i'm not afraid of death

Richard j Heby Feb 2016

i'm not afraid of death

i'm not afraid of death,
no but
dying, dyeing
my hair
is different.

Change and pain scare me.

Deathbtwndust:nothing
but dying is rust,
something
going
away.

I'm stricken

Richard j Heby Jun 2016

I'm stricken

With you like
You struck with
A stroke of
Luck, lightning
Of beauty,
Your hair hot
With humid
Air, your full
Breath sticks, breaks
On my neck
And my cough
Of coffee
Down the wrong
Hole after
Seeing you
Whole stark bare
With delight
I just might
Take you, tip
By top tongue,
My lungs soon
Wet, heavy
With words, birds
Chirping now
You're mining,
In my bed,
My lines, beat
Banging red
And gentle
On the sill
It takes all
My will and
Attention
To mention
Something but
What i should
Not mention --
Your tough tuft
And my hand
Every hand
Busts with lust --
We pitter
Patter on
Together
At one time
Singing out
Coming or
Going songs,
Fleeting like
Vagabonds,
Butterflies,
Or gas and
Air, right there,
You burst, then
Lay down white
With what did
You just say?

#metaphor #***

in a blazer pocket

Richard j Heby Nov 2012

in a blazer pocket

I don’t have time to care;
it’s too early in the morning to open my eyes
and be someone worth judging.

Sleepwalking with an intention
is a way to escape reality
in a pocket of reality,
a way to bundle up
and only show a little
white triangle in a blazer pocket.

it's over – haibun

Richard j Heby Aug 2016

it's over – haibun

three years and it's over in an instant, i can't face the reality of my reality growing so different. I used to look over to the empty couch and think you would be there, but you often weren't, you were somewhere else and now you won't be there at all anymore

froglet
hiding shy until –
the passing train

#haiku #haibun

it's spreading

Richard j Heby Sep 2015

it's spreading

they call it diamond fever
everyone's engaged

I wonder

Richard j Heby Jun 2012

I wonder

who loves me the boy
who spoke about wonder
in front of all my graduates

i wonder
who thought i was lying
when i was lying about my story
and i wonder who thought i did well
well, because i guess i did

i wonder who thought i messed up
and who thought i did not
probably all on the first
besides my grandmother

I won't

Richard j Heby Feb 2016

I won't

Be picking upyourused contact lenses

July

Richard j Heby Feb 2012

July

The fireworks are bursting in the sky,
(like breadcrumbs kids are throwing in the bay,
to fly in fun and freedom of July)
like fish we rush to see surprises blast away.

We foolish, footless bandits in the night
were playing spin the bottle under trees.
Like fireflies and glow-sticks, we were bright,
But now we've lost ourselves and lost our keys.

You, gone with summers past and freedom's will
have lost the will to seek and seek a thrill.
And strapped into conformity, you're dying.
You're lying. With each dollar earned you ****
that child that your son is. Sighing,
you wanted to play hard ball, but no one's buying.

June

Richard j Heby Feb 2012

June

That rose perfume inclines a love divine
which flies in natural drifting with the birds
who perch themselves alight with silver chimes
unspoken, ringing silence though no words –

pop! The question he meant to always ask
was if she liked, him liked him. Like a rose
he picked – so precious but it couldn't last –
his fleeting presence shipped away in rows
unbeautifully unpacked until it passed.

They'll gather all life's mysteries – her eyes –
and still in love confound him after all
and sitting on a park bench you'll recall:

the hands on sailing ships all wave goodbye
the fireworks are bursting in the sky.

just as anyone

Richard j Heby Feb 2013

just as anyone

Just as any one could,
I’d like to show you the sunset.

Knowledge and Sin (HaikSon)

Richard j Heby Sep 2012

Knowledge and Sin (HaikSon)

All unattainable
love is unconscionably
empty, while it's full

of "complimentary"
compliments and praise lacking
features resembling

features; they are signs,
which haven't been named or seen,
and make us human

only by grotesque
standards of knowledge and sin
(which grow conflated).

If morality is skewed then the root
is knowledge: the unavoidable fruit.

Life on a Loading Screen

Richard j Heby Jun 2022

Life on a Loading Screen

I sit idle,
awaiting
life – life
on a loading screen
inching forward
at indeterminable increments
one fraction at a time,
waiting for the screen to load.

What
could it
be – be-
yond the loading screen?

404
object not found
please return home,
your mother is waiting
for you
there
for you
to become
something

or other. Or other-
wise – wise
guy – you would have wasted her time.
For God's sake what is living for
– loading
?

You can
abort program at any time
and stop the loading
the result,
in
the end
is
the same,
it's
the end. The end.

Life on Spin Cycle

Richard j Heby Aug 2015

Life on Spin Cycle

i'd like to be a small ocean every day
ebbing, flowing

with a few tumultuous tidal waves.

Instead, the dishwasher, laundry machine
washing over
every second
with routine.

Find it here: http://www.rawdogpress.freesite2you.com/web_images/spin_cycle_heby_sept.jpg

#micropoetry

life would be much better

Richard j Heby Oct 2015

life would be much better

if we had a bigger place,
you say,
and i agree.
if we had our own beds,
and own bathrooms,
and own apartments,
and if we lived apart
in the world,
life would be much better.

living dying

Richard j Heby Jun 2013

living dying

distraught hands, wrinkle face, cracked out lighter
a fire used for smoking cigs and crack;
a burning which you are the only fighter,
but you like the burn, the empty black

inside your lungs, and organs, void of life,
but you are you, still moving, to – crash,
deteriorate, into roaches rife
with living. You are alive, but as hash-

marked-meat, a vessel for the vultures
yelling as crows, with anger in silence
and calm resentment, held with stiff sutures
like a dead doll, button eyes pulled for pence

or dime. Ordained as evil, you are human
I’m here to hear you cries, as hell is moving.

Lust

Richard j Heby May 2012

Lust

I must have it: be
skinny, be skinny; don't eat;
that has to be me.

thinspiration

makes scents

Richard j Heby Jul 2012

makes scents

And now without sense
Your scent has overtaken me
And my common sense.

Making a Stink (limerick)

Richard j Heby Sep 2012

Making a Stink (limerick)

I farted, at once, on command
I'd hoped that my gasses'd get canned,
but when they did not
I went out and bought
some stinkbombs before they were banned.

March

Richard j Heby May 2012

March

on Narcissus*
The sort of love that's lust is most unplanned.
The self's the harshest lover there could be.
"There is no beauty more than thou I see!"
He calls back to me, "Thou I see!" His hand
outstretched is soft and reaching towards me,
and I reach mine to beauty young and free.
His muscled body causes mine to stand.

But when I touch this creature fair and strong,
that image scatters; beauty must be shy.
When he returns, my passion cramped too long –
I need those rosy lips before I die.

To lust and pride Narcissus was a slave –
but daffodils are growing at his grave
to show desire's poison for our sake.

May

Richard j Heby May 2012

May

a fairy I cannot catch*
It taunts my curious eyes in blossomed green;
that light elusive sprite which mocks my sight,
in gardens where that fae comes out at night
to dance among the flowers' subtle sheen.

This fairy is disguised by buzzing lamps;
by day she hides in flapping butterflies.
In every blade of dewey grass and damp
reflective flower's gloss she hides. She dies

whenever someone says they don't believe;
as children wish on dandelions, she lives.
And flower's dust is magic for her breed:
spring's silent sparkling fairies. She gives

me joy in every fleeting light I see;
I cannot help but love her mystery.

me or me with you

Richard j Heby Feb 2013

me or me with you

You cannot know me
but, lovely,
i will tell you all about
me with you.

musing

Richard j Heby May 2013

musing

My muse must be a jokester or a ****,
who’s starving at my fluffy luscious words.
My musing is so sensitively sick
I doubt my muse has ever talked to birds.

But when my muse is gone they sing to me
and he returns to tell me what they’ve said,
but makes no sense and speaks predictably
of seasons, love, the grief for long-lost dead.

I guess my muse is old and out of touch;
for everything he says is nothing new
and where the secrets are, there aren’t much,
with him i win the hearts of just a few.

I love to blame my muse, though i’ve come short
or quickly come, his unrevised cohort.

my anxiety

Richard j Heby Nov 2015

my anxiety

lives at the connection of my spine and brain,
somewhere in the spinal cord
and in my brain
where things
go bump
lump
a line
and a rhyme
together with lime
shake it up break it up
and the crack the ice. have
a bowl of rice and let it EXIsT
thru your hands typing your toes
tingling, ms. miss, mister mark sullivan
singing the song of your death, yes it's ms

my hands

Richard j Heby Nov 2012

my hands

my ******* hands
are attached to
restless wrists wresting
control
of this keyboard.

I’ve got to put something down
and I don’t want my fingertips to stop dancing on the keys.

My hands move faster than my mind can think
today. Today,
I am a writer. Yesterday I was a poet
and my hands could not keep up with my words
which could not keep up with my thoughts –
thoughts (n): dreams computed by the mind.

my love

Richard j Heby Jun 2013

my love

Make me naked by petal, walking by vine
and just a seed, two lip pieces, tulip
then bury me in you i know you’re mine
rushing slowly soil, sunk, blossom tip

give me kiss for color, coming on to
you. On you, no limbs but falling leaf
by leaf, bipedal, standing—but bent, you
blow the dandelion dust, white, belief

is something but lust for a wish to come
true. I have to lay here next to you.
It’s spring already, by trunk gold bees hum,
new roots are sprouting from the wish you blew.

Fold you over, fold me bare and red
then dwindle, unkindle, lay your sleeping head.

Nothing beats the buzz

Richard j Heby Oct 2015

Nothing beats the buzz

Nothing beats the
buzz of jazz,
guitar
blues, blue
hydrangeas like popcorn feathers
in spring, buzzing bees on daisies,
but now it's fall | that's all.
https://youtu.be/-IIjik7WvP8?t=35

#micropoetry

November

Richard j Heby May 2012

November

a circle of life*
The bright red leaves are whirling in the wind,
their passing reminiscent of her days,
when auburn hair would break from fragile skin
like cracking umber leaves in fall's malaise.

Her daughter saw the doctor twice a week;
the pregnancy was moving well along.
The two recalled chrysanthemum's conceit:
in life is death; and death is life's old song.

The funeral was on Thanksgiving day;
her daughter in the hospital was ripe
and could not mourn, as one soul blew away –
and one without a Nana burst in hype

to life. The birth would turn out perfectly,
exactly as expected it would be.

October

Richard j Heby May 2012

October

a waiting affair*
I could not hold my breath for quite that long
awaiting your arrival at my door.
My wife is out and though I know it's wrong,
the wrongness only makes me want you more.

I cannot help but wonder what you're wearing,
and if you think about me like I do.
I wonder if our spouses are as daring;
or if they maybe know of me and you.

I rake the leaves and hope you'll soon arrive.
I put away the pictures of my wife
and stare intently at the empty drive;
then that roaring engine brings me to life.

Your car drives by; I cannot help but grin
the bright red leaves are whirling in the wind.

odd ball

Richard j Heby Sep 2015

odd ball

everything
feels that it keels
over
like a
pinball
in a machine—
hits green

and falls to your fingers.
save it
or you die

but you have two ***** left
and that's all you need.

oh my, I

Richard j Heby Oct 2012

oh my, I

Oh my,
I
could hold you

Safe
in heavy arms,
against my strong
chest pressed with aroma;

and there you could press gentle lips,
show me weakness
and strength
in myself.

Oh my
what I
would trade to hold you
would never let me hold you as I can.

ottava rima

Richard j Heby Sep 2012

ottava rima

A boy lived atop a hill
pleading for a way out
that did not require skill,
experience, or clout.
He decided to drill
for oil -- with doubt.
In spite of these doubts he grew to be rich,
but was turned to a mule when he married a witch.

poem

Richard j Heby Oct 2015

poem

eye cantaloupe
batshit Midas
writer's iambic
within usurp
ender's egret
wherewithal
nearly Mykonos
orangutan elsewhere
eye dye.

#poemcode

poetry

Richard j Heby Dec 2015

poetry

political correctness and affectedness
overtly appeal to the need to appeal to
everyone who thinks they aren't everyone, but
truthfully, are a worse form everyone,
yelling yawningly boring lines about
raw fruit and other metaphors, published in the New
Yorker

#acrostic

pretend

Richard j Heby Jun 2012

pretend

it's best to pretend
you're drunk
-er

than you are,
then you can get away with more

Pride

Richard j Heby May 2012

Pride

Feel your collarbone;
it means progress. You don't want
to ever stop feeling bones.

thinspiration

Rage

Richard j Heby Jul 2012

Rage

The wrath inside you boils from your rage;
your anger elevates to drown your sense.
My blindness has deluded me as sage,
serene and irreproachably intense.

It’s likely that my passive nature’s pushing
my little brother, you, – who hates that term –
straight to hear discordant, silent ringing
as wrath’s contorted demon crisply worms

into your weakened ear to fill your mind
with bubbles, red, and bursting sound, and DARK –
which spread like darkened dust-storms into mine.
That ready wrath, red and quick to spark

burns best those minds invulnerable to sin –
such smug-singed souls sink – slaves to self-delusion.

reality

Richard j Heby Apr 2014

reality

reality does not exist
in the mirror

#reality #existence #mirror #zen

Rearranging the furniture

Richard j Heby Dec 2015

Rearranging the furniture

The rest of the furniture arrived today
And now i need to rearrange it,
But it never looks good with you in the room

i built it with your words
a box of nervous nails
an angry hammer and
screwdriver of spite

remember wanting

Richard j Heby Mar 2017

remember wanting

can you remember wanting,
otherwise regret is haunting
and the thought of it's over is daunting

the other night i literally fell into a flower bed
and it did not smell sweet, or much at all
i think i broke my nose
putting it where i shouldn't
it's always a power play push and pull touch and tumble
tickle my interest and i'll pick your incense
sometimes sounds surpass *** for sensuality
make a face like you're angry and you're evil
eyes roll back and take it tack it shoot a shot then rack it

everyone wants to say hi
until you say hi, so i get high
the reason why:
promise > reality
so i lie
in disguise
find a fine line
between casanova and creep
riding in a jeep or other 4x4
we hit the floor in a 3x3
went to the sea floor 2x2
noah's angels and all 1x1 have fun

respect

Richard j Heby May 2016

respect

isn't a thing you should expect
or demand, otherwise you'll be left
with nothing but your
**** in your hand.

Romance (a sonnet)

Richard j Heby Oct 2012

Romance (a sonnet)

Of withered petals just and nearly red
which falling from my hairy hands to bed –
these flower pieces can’t make up a whole
but soon enthrall your drunk and curious head,
and puff as fervent, brisk i lay you down;
upon the busy spread soft, scattered soles
of four (some sockless) feet, one evening gown,
and fresh-laid drying petals bounce around.

It seems your innocence that this night stole
but ****** ties were freed as we were wed –
the Stolen are the flowers from the ground
now serving us as petals in a bowl.

Our Romance culminates in quickly dying,
you, sitting on the now-red petals, crying.

I would appreciate any feedback on this poem. The words I have in bold are those that I believe need work. The first one because I believe there can be something better than and, the second because i want to imply something ******, but quiver is not quite right and dance doesn't really make sense, the last because I believe (partly) there is too much sappiness involved in this couple being wed.

Also, I am looking for a word that can mean both, "cut" and "tie" or "tie" and "untie," as I am looking to imply that her virginity was freed when she was married, but they each assume a sort of piety, or virginity in the sanctity of marriage which is somewhat chaste – compared to unmarried ***. I guess the word I am looking to replace is "freed" or even to change the metaphor of tied virginity.

sand on that dune

Richard j Heby Nov 2015

sand on that dune

We are always running
late
to something but slow on the road to love,
although caring,
in the form of sharing
i-s un-
-equal

my things are bent and *****,
a mangled man, and burly

when you, my things, return me
they smell faintly of perfume
flowers in June,
and the ever-moving
sand on that dune

from april 2013

September

Richard j Heby Feb 2012

September

Defiant is this youthful balmy air
which cracks in cold like horses' rapid feet.
And you, my friend, in silent fall are fair,
but chasing tracks in circles when we meet
discussing how a love disguised by dust
could lead to such a loathed disgust. In lust

You fall for what you, hopeless, thought was true
in moot pursuit the tracks are chasing you.

And though you're young this lesson you've learnt best:
that chasing dreams in circles brings no rest.

A carriage drawn in sunset central park
in clanked incessant beats brings wild joy.
And catching wild leaves you hoped a lark
would sing an angel's melody, young boy!

September

Richard j Heby May 2012

September

my first carriage ride*
Departing is the summer's balmy air
to welcome cracking cold and falling leaves.
Before we left my my mother'd taken care
to fasten on my mittens to my sleeves.

The foliage was bright, the air was brisk
I walked between my parents faint-clenched hands
and watched the business people rush and whisk
to work. But we were there with different plans:

My poppa propped me up into the car.
the horses both were brown and standing stiff
but like the whirling leaves of fall thus far
My nerves were buzzing crazy. Then a whiff

of something as the carriage moved along
I could not hold my breath for quite that long.

shaving

Richard j Heby Jun 2012

shaving

lucky boy
gets to rip his face off
everyday
with a razor