You were here before…
Searching for something,
Your hands fumbling from spine to spine
Inferno, Paradise Lost, Michelle Obama,
Bertolt Brecht. Glance to see a figure serving coffee,
You will amount to nothing. You or I?

Life is a series of disoriented imitations…
Strange noises slip from your throat,
Strange because… you see…
You're intelligible. Bertolt Brecht.
Something more absurdist… but no…
Sisyphus. Observe him push a boulder
Over and over… Sartre…  ****.

Why do you believe a reference
Reflects intelligence? Stupid boy,
You're a pseudo-intellectual.
Why rage against the standardisation
Of mediocrity if you yourself are
Mediocre. Why use enjambment on
Lines previous for convenience?
See the banal intolerance of your poetry?

You were here before,
Stroking spines… whatever that means…
This was about a feeling…
But even that is null.
Bertolt Brecht rots and laughs…
A small child picks fruit.

It's been a long day.
Not as a day that's been filled with worries, but as a day filled with fake smiles
plastered together in shallow swathes.
It's been a long, long day
Even if I feel like this, at least I'm fine
If I take a sip of coffee, the coffee's cold
If I reach out, will you embrace me?
To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm reaching for.
The day's cold and the coffee's gone, so I'll leave you with this

The shadow of a tree's leaves in the sunlight is warm and gold
full where it should be empty
and open as a healing wound

Once is never
Or at least never enough
Life can be quite tough
But einmal ist keinmal

Let's try something new
See if it rings true
That despite what we do
Einmal ist keinmal

No inhibitions, no regrets
Do what we feel like
And never forget
Though einmal ist keinmal

Take risks, be bold
Don't harden your soul
Nor grow stale and old
Einmal ist keinmal

Live in the present
Be now, be here
Have no fear of the future
Cause einmal ist keinmal

Feel this lightness of being
As if nothing matters
Our significance shattered
Einmal ist keinmal

Sieze the moment
Give it your all
Live life to the fullest
Knowing full well
Einmal ist keinmal

I heard that
you're coming back,
but don't ever be like lush,

when things turned black,
head went off in a rush.

there were
shadows
that fought
for the right to
exist
descended off
the stairwell
fell into
the frostlake

and it continues.

before
they struggled
in the dark
then,

everything's gone.

When I'm happy a tornado of o's and 1's cascade
from my heart, a why-
an endless carousel of binary;

But to be happy should be enough,
in those moments when I freeze and smile
I should ask for no more than that,

that last little star in the background
before the lights go dim,
and extinguish everything.

is poetry really something you think about

like, can this be considered poetry?
me, here

sitting at a computer screen
typing words ever so

conversationally

this reads less like a poem
and more like a speech
or perhaps, like a friend
telling you their day over coffee
and I bet right now you can smell the roasted beans
the air, thick with the smell of caffeine, whipped cream,
possibly a cigar or two

and you hear the voice of your best friend
who's telling you about their day

how they had it rough that day
Ben from accounting really knew how to ruin a day, let me tell you
or perhaps,
someone just spilled coffee all over their notes while they were studying

and as much as fifty apologies can mend a relationship,
fifty apologies can't dry up your english notes

can we really consider this kind of stuff poetry?
it's completely free-form
against the norm,
little to no rhyme or structure
no substance whatsoever

just a mindless person rambling about things that seem ever so slightly relatable

is this really poetry?

probably not.