Perception of the reality you show me breeds only distrust

On this rainy day
I just want to cry
Not like some others
Who wish they would die

On this rainy day
Just want it to end
*** somehow I thought
He was a Godsend.

On this rainy day
I wish I could weep
And all my troubles
Could roll down my cheeks

On this rainy day
I just want the tears
And just to erase
All the past years

On this rainy day
My emotions scream
And boy do I wish
This was all a dream

On this rainy day
Want someone to hold
Someone who'll love me
Even when I'm old

On this rainy day
A painting's my heart
He graffitid it
And made it his art

On this rainy day
Breath seems like torture
A thing of unknown
Like a new culture

On this rainy day
I just want to cry
But oh pity me
My tear ducts are dry

On this rainy day
I just want to choke
On my wet tears, but
My tear ducts are broke.

New words in old styles

Tracked on a canvas of brick

By a precocious kid

Sneaking on the lines;

The little *****.

My morning art show

Laid out in illiterate words,

Scribbled by artists

Who failed art at school,

Then shat on by birds.

An exhibition of names

Written worryingly wrong,

Evident to the system

That failed before they

Even joined the throng.

We pause at one piece

Daubed in indelible paint,

White streaked on black,

A chaotic sprawl of letters,

"**** al saintz".

I've been there before;

A nice school I thought,

Catholic of course;

I doubt the child gave

The saints a spare thought.

And what about Al?

Does he care at all?

Does he pause here,

On his way to work,

And dream their downfall.

It drives me up the wall

To see tracks filled with art,

But are they to blame?

We let them loose

And they play their part.

If these walls could speak,
They'd tell you all about Art;
Whispers from spray cans.*

- (A.F)

Floating, drifting,
Slowly it passed from his hand
To the cold, hard sidewalk.
It once was a pretty flower,
With petals bright and cheerful
And a stem green and healthy.
Johnny’s night had not been great,
As was anticipated by his mom.
“You’ll have fun!” she said.
“But what about…” he trailed off,
Remembering the hulking ex-boyfriend
Of Lily, the girl he thought he loved.
“Just have fun,” she soothed.
Walking- no scuffling -down the street,
He remembered those last words she had said.
Even though this hadn’t been the night of his life,
He could still have a good time, right?
Five minutes later,
Johnny exited the nearby hardware store.
Four cans of spray paint in hand,
He drifted into the community center downtown.
All Johnny needed was a blank canvas
And about an hour before they closed for the night.
I thought I was going to get my first kiss.
I could have sworn she was going to be my girlfriend this time.
If only I wasn’t such a dork,
Then maybe she would be interested in me.
I hate everyone and everything!
The paint sprayed and splattered onto the canvas.
Johnny was breathing hard now.
Now he was ready, he was energized.
Ready to take on the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With a cover over the painting,
Johnny headed back to the dance.
He hadn’t even entered the building before,
Which meant he still had his ticket.
Johnny threw his ticket to the usher
And made his way over to the DJ.
“Turn off the music for like five minutes. Please.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll give you three dollars
And whatever else is in my pocket.”
“Fine. Five minutes. No more.”
“Thanks.” Johnny smiled.
As soon as the music was off,
Johnny dashed over to Lily
And her giant boyfriend.
He set the painting on the floor
And grabbed her in his arms.
Johnny then kissed her
As passionately as he knew how.
Lily, stunned and confused,
Teetered back onto a chair.
Then, just when the huge brute was about to punch him,
Johnny swiftly clutched the picture and ripped off its cover.
The boyfriend gazed, along with the rest of the crowd,
At the beautiful ******* the canvas.
“You painted this?”
“Yeah.”
“You really love Lily, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you need to kiss her again.”
The ex-boyfriend smiled at Johnny and Johnny smiled back.
He looked over at Lily.
He handed his painting to the ex-boyfriend.
Johnny reached for Lily’s hand,
Wrapped his arms around her.
“Will you, Lily, be my girlfriend?”
Lily gazed into Johnny’s eyes,
Leaned in,
And whispered in his ear,
“Yes.”

The restaurant where I often eat has a raw cinderblock shell to show the world
It was painted a long time ago, when a new owner bought it out
It was meant to beautify, it didn't work
But I guess it's the thought that counts.


On the East wall, near one corner, is a rectangle of thick white paint
in a field of grime. Always fresh, always clean.

It is marred by a series of looping black slashes.
Stare at them for long enough, relax the muscles behind your eyes, let them slip out of focus
And you'll start to see letters
In the dipping and diving bands of black.
It's writing
An alien calligraphy
People as woefully uncool as you or I weren't meant to decode it

There is energy in the strokes though.
It's a performance frozen at it's moment of completion
You can see velocity, grace, excitement, a little fear, and a deft, darting contempt.
All of these things in the broad and narrow ribbons of paint.

When I'm in the right sort of mood, with a full stomach and a lazily sunfried imagination, with the heat from the asphalt making things in the middle distance quaver,
I can make out the dim shape of the artist.
See where they stood, the sweep of their arm
the turn of their head, wary of witnesses.
Days in and out, it goes on.
Bare white one day,
blackened, besmirched, beautiful the next.

The snowy rectangle grows thicker.

Why the owner never stakes out his restaurant one night, I'll never know.
Why the artist doesn't venture beyond that one little pen, or choose a new wall entirely
will remain a mystery, probably for all my breaths to come.

It's like some mad story penned by a poor, gibbering lunatic.
Each is doomed to a war neither can win, and neither can lose.
I bend double I'm laughing so hard

They take it so seriously.
But then, don't we all have our petty conflicts?

I wrote a beautiful poem today,
and then I frowned when I saw it again.
Someone had stopped by in the comments to say
their own sonnet; they put their own poetry in my margins.

I'll be brief, and I'll be nice, and I'll attempt patience at least.
Clear and concise: I want your poetry, but not on my lawn.
I don't want it in graffiti in the margins of my piece.
Leave your words in your "New Poem" section where they belong.

I promise I'll look at them if you ask, and if I have the time.
If you want to reach more people, don't use me as a conduit.
I realize I said I'd try to be nice, but it would be a crime
if I didn't put it as blunt as possible, and honestly?
          If you need to plug your work that badly,
                                                         it's probably sh*t.

          If I inspire you with my words, then respect that inspiration;
          Please cease. Hawking your wares on my turf reeks of desperation.

Don't look at me and say you see
good,
They don't like that. The way
my hands are caked in colour. The way
the wall behind me is now
desecrated, they say, how can you
question those who wear
well with grain on their
lips?

The grain is their gun and
it's always on their
lips.

In this city the bright lights can blind you
let you forget the rustic coins littered around the floor
caught by grimy hands belonging to a woman
she holds her life on a thin piece of cardboard
written in faded Sharpie

If you ever lose your way with the crowd
and stumble upon the empty alleyways
they possess cracked glass from beer bottles,
old shopping advertisements, broken toys
and the stench of trash mixed with lost hope realizing
the pavement isn't always perfect but littered with cracks

Walk further down and you will pass the rejected streets,
houses gone foreclosed and no remorse
all that matters is the country's history,
pressed on notorious green paper belonging to greedy hands
forgetting about the family that lost their house

Wait at the train station,
for the rumble and two yellow lights
The snake of a train claims passengers
trapping them between closed doors,
only allowing them to face their own misery
some escape with headphones
others just stare into the darkness with sunken eyes and drunken sighs

Walking home see the gum wrappers and dead leaves skid around
the soles of your worn shoes
Graffiti garage doors only display discarded art
And when the night is still
you can feel the empty consonants and vowels crawl up your legs
forming the unspoken words from unwanted voices that lay

Hidden under our feet.