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Andrew Rueter Jun 2020
I’m turning from Blanche DuBois into Chris Benoit
taking a streetcar named Desire to Monday Night Raw
after the oppression of the law got stuck in my craw
because the discretion of the flawed became the voice of God.

I’d always relied on the kindness of strangers
only to find the Million Dollar Man’s danger
directing the Army Rangers to Jesus’ manger
letting the Undertaker deal with the remainder.

I relinquished my rightful place
to the bank’s Crippler Crossface
taking everything until I lost grace
going into a holocaust craze.

I’m upset about the places I can’t go
because I’ll be ***** by Marlon Brando
when I ask the referee for a hand though
he just responds with a ****** no.

I have retired my display of Vivian Leigh
now Whatever by Our Lady Peace plays
as the Rabid Wolverine walks to the stage
to fight the Big Boss Man in a cage.

I gave up teaching class to my sister
to fight an *** who’s a mister
whose slaps can blister
so he blasts this spinster.

The law is a tougher opponent than Eddie Guerrero
so I apply my aptitude into becoming a pistolero
after getting jabbed by my French Quarter pharaohs
I can feel resistance down in my Marc Mero.

I start to take steroids
because there are boys
whose terror noise
impairs my poise.

I go all out performing flying headbutts
fighting until I see the dead’s guts
exterminating enemies like bed bugs
but then I start to dread hugs.

Now I assume a stranger’s spite
so I can immediately fight
I’m swallowed by night
wearing these tights.

In my rage I **** my wife and son
now my anger is no longer fun
even if it came from their gun
it’s me who’s the loneliest one.

I changed from a lady to a wrestler losing my ****** mind
fighting Mankind while stepping on landmines
until I can’t find any grand signs
and I’m anger defined.
Andrew Rueter Nov 2017
We live in the unlighted state of America
Where what happens when we turn the lights off
Is dealt with darkness
And matters of delicate touch
Are treated with sharpness
When our only language
Is to inflict anguish
We cut connections in the bedroom
To clear our cynical head room
For contempt and judgement

People looking for a feeling to fall into
Or a reason to live
Must face frigid climates
When the public invades privacy
And ill fated ****** exploits
Pervade salacious tabloids
Our ****** regrets
Cut the deepest
Society reaps them
Sowing us together with resentment
We provide each other with relief
But not the relief we're looking for
We give each other hours of relief
Until those useless hours become days
And those fruitless days become years
That engender endless tears
As it remains warm in our car
But the winter outside freezes anything that breaks the plane
And our air conditioning only helps so much
When the spinning wheels are in our faces

There is a national coverage in the media
That presents a bleak picture of the ****** health of America
I feel I sit somewhere in between
*** offenders and a disgusted public
When I observe the observers
Who are too scared shitless to ever face their own emotions
Judge those for overindulging in their emotions
They lived their life in fear and safety
So they could be the righteous ones
To admonish the risk takers and mistake makers
Yet they are of the least value to humanity
They're the people who grade all your answers as incorrect
Without providing their perfect alternatives
While trying to erase the context
Because of what the context has to say about society
People feeling that they can never be emotionally vulnerable
Until they experience sheer desperation
And no dollar contract
Can replace human contact
Yet we give men so much money and power
And ask them to feel fine in our cold shower
Until we are soiled by their intention
A nation committed to selling Stella Artois
A nation full of Blanche DuBois

Humanity folds in on itself
When we attack with ***
Humanity does itself a disservice
By not trying to understand these attacks honestly
We forsake forgiveness
And embrace desperation
Until we become unbearably desperate
For attention
For approval
For ****** contact
For money
For validation
And sometimes our desperate desires become tangled
I'd like to think of that as love
And not a meeting between two practical rapists
That conjoin in the middle
Yet somehow come out distorted on the other side
cleann98 May 2018
i was young...
      well, younger than now----
   it was when it first struck me
it struck me hard.
          it struck me like reality...
       but more like
         reality when reality comes
    in the face of your
             family
        all in chains...
     then, reality looks like dreams altogether;
            no not fantasy----
              not exactly a nightmare either
                         more like
                  ----ecstasy-----
      "you are a special weapon"
           "something of great potential"
        "and massive power"
              "but you only have one shot"
          mom always used to say.
                   i even once thought
                       she stashed some kind of
           deathray or sting ray or something
           in my arm----
    ----it won't be the first thing
                 she stuffed in me anyway...
              i was eight years old when she
                     finally continued the sentence.
           before total silence.
                  "make it count."
       "cause whether you hit"
         "or even if you miss..."
           "you would be broken"
            "shattered-----"
            "torn to pieces-----"
            "torn apart."
                                 "so please"
                               "don't"
                        "break"
                         ­   "yourself"
                                "shooting"
        ­                            "for"
                      "nothing.­"
                  she never taught me
                  how to use
                  the weapon
                  myself-----
       she just fragmented
           in tears before splintering
                  tearing to shards herself
         it took me til 15
               that i was afraid
                      to yet touch
     even stare
               even think
        nothing.
                  i never knew
           what i was capable of
                      i never knew how
              to control
       to even activate
                 all i knew was that
i was powerful
i don't know what of
but i have to save it
           keep it         live it      nurture it
       store it               amass it                  seep it
             savor it                understand it
    study it            feel it
             polish it                         train it                      
              let it breathe
   let it sing
               i could hear it sing
    i could feel it whisper-----
          and i was so afraid...
                    all i saw of my mother was
      that she was in pieces
             long before i knew her.
                 shambles
                 and
                 shackles
         and i don't want to be that when i fire----
it wasn't supposed to strike me
      but it did, and it struck me hard
   reality
           i was 16 when i
       first made the discovery
                 ----love-----
          all at once
                and much, much too completely----       all off guard.
         it was like
                    you suddenly turned
                a blinding light
      on something that had always been
                 half a shadow
        that's how it struck me...
            that's how it shattered me...
    it's like a full flashback
           of my mother saying
      'i told you so'
                  except she never did.
               and it struck me.
      like i hit the right target at the wrong time
      or the opposite of it
          but truth is
             i just hit
      a poltergeist
           way too soon
                 and it wasn't like
        it was the wind that was hit----
    that's how it struck me,
              love
          and that's how it tore me apart.
                 ----fragmented----
and it did not take me long
to realise what glass cannons we were...
          all my life
      i never tried to
         activate my strength
and when i did
              it imploded.
                               it was a long time...
and i was blinded----
         it wasn't the hit
             nor was it the miss
that tore me apart
                        it was love that broke me
     because shattered pieces
                    are not
                all that bad
                            splinters...
                   shards...
                       fragments...
                                    blades...
      ­       one shot was all it took
        to break my heart
                    and so suddenly...
                    every part of me...
                              was a weapon
                         everyone who held me
                                 hurt
                                 bled
                              cried
                        ­    pained
                        burned
                    wai­led
               enraged
      agonized
                   they turned to anger
          then turned to hate
                            they turned to each other
                                 pretty soon turning to waste
          it was then that it struck me
               what a glass cannon is----
and it was until now that i was eluded...
                        for that long a time
       i thought shards were
       all love could offer...
       fragments were
       all romance could be
                     i met
            your father
            your father
            your father
            your father
    and your father
    all through different shards
                      until i saw what i had
                 all in shambles
                 and
                 all in shackles
     just like my mother
             that's when it struck me
        ---ecstasy---
                       cause looking into your eyes
              my children
                     i love you
         as a whole
                  not like with your fathers
            or like with the guys before them
        or like the guys before the other guys
                         i wanted more than ever
                    to love you
                more than
                      a few shards
                  all tainted
              with blood
          or with anger
                  or with both----
                  that's when it hit me
           and it hit me with so much pain...
           what my mother really should have said.
being a glass cannon
     doesn't mean being
          a weapon to hurt others-----
                    it means one day,
              no one knows when,
       but it will surely come
          like a thief in the night...
                 love
  and you will give your all
  even if it shatters you to pieces
               and even if you are already in pieces
       because you know love
       can make you again whole.
Inspired by one of the most famous lines spoken by the protagonist Blanche in the play A Streetcar Named Desire---- the line shown in bold and italics----
Title by Marianne
olivia Oct 2017
I expected the spaces left to shrink
I thought my body'd forget your square shape
I hoped my holed heart wouldn't be left agape
Boldly naive, a baby dressed in pink
I hate you for leaving me stuck to think
You were the only one here not an ape
I don't want to patch my canyon with tape
But no choice I have, you left in a blink
Now, it's my duty to bat my lashes
First to mop the crystal geyser of tears
Secondly, coquettishly-over to him
Who he is matters not, only passion.
Hotel? Motel? I'm sick of these affairs.
Alone, I must remain-with him in Grimm.
written in the perspective of Blanche Dubois, "A Streetcar Named Desire"
olivia Oct 2017
Did you forget all of me was inside you?
I only used your holes for my spare parts
At first-until each ounce I extracted
Now, looking in the mirror asking-who?
I think I lost myself inside of you
I can't retrieve now that you've retracted
You've broken me with your breach of contract
I used to see color, now only blue.
Love or life, I wonder which is the greater loss?
Is ownership a prerequisite of grief?
If so, my pain I am not entitled.
Although relieved I am of albatross
I'm now racked with curs'd thoughts of that thief
Alone, sans my resource for survival.
written in the perspective of Blanche Dubois, "A Streetcar Named Desire"
Alin Feb 2015
Farewell Sickness
You left me!
Invaluable was the darkness cherished
the beloved heart
body, mind
and half of my age
all of it
devoted to your love only

and secretly

You crowned me to your queen of darkness
I grew up slowly in our palace
where
I could hide
and
Stay
if I wanted to
always with you

Our home
the holy eidolon

but a shelter for me
as long as you were there

There
was where
we honored  shadows
by becoming shadows

The Black Mountain
of your teaching
was made of the absolute
Color of our eternal love

but Love
You forgot one thing
or didn't you know me well?

Dedicated by desire
I climbed that mountain
Kept my promise
To see  the irrefutable
To be the unconditional

No
You weren't there

You haven't made it that far?
or was your share to have me ebb

There was Black
as absolute as you said

Stroke my face apart
and I fell
at once for another
at an opposite end

One I became
with the luminous cilia
of a man
a plain man
made of brightest light

All of a sudden he came
All of a sudden he left

Seeing all of me was possessed

That loss slowly turned me to a sheer pain
covering my home
with an opposite color of white
I got petrified
by an equal fever to your love
and
A battlefield were my heart
lodging the war of the tantamount
of identical charge
repulsion of the supreme
dematerialized matter
cracked the eye
and I died

Colors of all wavelengths
between black and white
fill that deserted heart now

Yet there is a new spirit
sleeping inside
Soon she will wake up
and sing
an ancient lullaby
of life
not remembering
but with a knowing:

*I am of dark and of light
not necessarily of good or of bad
whatever you make me
I will be
which matches to which
by any color of absolute  
you’ll be bewitched
but virtuous
make a difference
by your poetry
let me be your
one magic word
until truth is met
in heavens
Title is inspired by Man Ray's 'Noire et Blanche' (1926) . I tried to remake a picture for a photo contest recently and that effort also produced this poem :)

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