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Mose Jan 2023
My heart is spring in January. I can feel it in my bones when it's about to rain. The smell, the unearthing of everything we buried. It's the way in grief too.

Anniversaries are the seasons we never can quite escape. Pulling us back into the tundra & frozen in time. We revisit the moments as if they never quite left us.

I swear each year the midwesterners must reckon the seasons changing yet again, but each winter all still feels the same to them....

Like it was the very first time.
Nicole Aug 2021
I am falling
Perpetual spirals into the dark
I feel my hands grasping
As air passes through my fingers
Something feels off and
I really can't tell
If the caution is real
Or a phantom of my fear
I'm in the land of ghosts and demons
Haunted by these oppressive memories
It's hard to know what's worse
The monsters or the claustrophobia
Flowers can't bloom in the darkness and
Humans cannot thrive in isolation
This place is lifeless, suffocating
Only tolerable through inebriation
Kindess is but a mask here
Trusting no one a necessity
Half these people want me dead
And a quarter could care less
Don't tell me I'm overreacting
When even family aim their guns
I've made my escape and now
I know what growth feels like
I've tasted the freshness of freedom
Witnessed the miracle of peace
It is not like this everywhere
So don't try to normalize this hate
I found celebration beyond tolerance
And I've built my home there
This place is a noxious poison and
I'm done trying to survive it
From a visit to Wisconsin after moving to Washington state.
blue house
brown house
tan house

brown house
blue house

brown house
brown house
brown house

backyard inside the fence
rocks inside of rivets

dead grass and
rocks inside rivets
rocks inside rivets

bridge over tracks
bridge over trails
bridge over the river
bridge over rails

parking lot
parking lot
parking lot
parking lot

high school called
a dead man’s name

circle
avenue
court
lane
colette alexia Aug 2020
It couldn’t have been more predictable
That you fell for her
And everybody knows
And I’ll let it go
But it still hurts

You’ve really got a thing for us Midwest girls
And distance
Which you chose
Though you and I
Could never make it work
08.24.2020
Taibhsear Apr 2020
Mountains,
roiling across,
just as sea tempests toss'd.
Frost'd froth on brackish peaks churn
the sky.
Mark Toney Nov 2019
When I was growing up in Wisconsin, dairy farms were everywhere.  It was always fun visiting my aunt and uncle's dairy farm, even though they put me to work.  For many years the only bathroom they had was away from the house!  I read an article today about people complaining about smells coming from dairy farms and pig farms.  It reminded me when our family would drive the 3 1/2 hours to visit Grandma and Grandpa.  Some farms hardly had any bad odor, but others reeked!  This was especially horrible to us city kids.  "Mom, what's that smell?" my sisters and I would ask every time.  We asked Mom because she'd answer us.  Dad would only laugh.  Good times!  

Midwest dairy farms
intermittent putrid stench-
fun childhood road trips
10/28/2019 - Poetry form: Haibun - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2018
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