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the thing is
you never know
if
you'll be
smiling
or cursing

at least for now
i'm smiling
let's be honest;
there will probably
still
be sunshine
when
          she's
                   gone
James Rives Mar 2020
you speak like glasswork--
hot, measured, and fragile.
empty promises and murky
depths, opacity that chills
and stuns.

you speak of love
as if you know it,
but you've never let it greet you
at your door.
it knocks and you freeze,
pretend it's a stranger,
though you knew its name before it did.

you've stolen more
than you can ever repay,
and brevity in stillness still stings.

you will do well
without your opaque glass
and brittle words,
but I can't promise the same.
we all write poems to play a game
monique ezeh Jan 2020
I walk through the park every day.
Sometimes I squeeze through the crowd and toss a coin into the fountain, longing vibrating through every molecule of my body.
I’ve done it maybe twenty times now. I wish for the same thing each time.
(I can’t say what it is, though— then it won’t come true. And I really need it to.)

Amid a cluster of intermingling people, I stand almost-alone;
Me and my coin and my one wish.

I wonder, sometimes, how much it matters.
If I’m just deluding myself and tossing  
pennies nickels dimes quarters
Into the water, emptying my wallet splash after splash in naive pursuit of something I know I will never have.

Small children join me in tossing nuggets of wishful thinking, their parents laughing at the naivete of it all.
I imagine a world where I don’t rely on a coin to shift my luck.

I wonder if I know somewhere beneath this self-deception that it doesn’t matter.
That no matter how many pennies I toss,
No matter how many stars I wish on,
No matter how many dandelions I blow into the wind, eyes squeezed tight with desperate desire,
Sometimes wishes just don’t come true.

But I know I’ll toss another coin in tomorrow. I don’t have to wonder about that.
Tony Tweedy Dec 2019
Every year ends in darkness and starts in darkness.
Why does that seem like a revelation?
How long was it that I hadn't noticed?
What kept that from me?
Mitch Prax Dec 2019
I wish to be a
man of hope again but this
life is just too cruel

11:16 AM
22/12/19
Tony Tweedy Dec 2019
How fragile built a world,
where each thought and chosen attitude,
Lies safe, secure and constant,
on foundations built upon some platitude.

How to deal with life,
to face its tumultuous ride.
To see every obstructive hurdle,
as if from some brighter side.

To see not what life holds,
but some glass measure of its fill.
To somehow look beyond the quality,
to let quantity somehow shape your will.

To heed not the dark storm clouds,
when horizons fade to black.
To see only silver linings,
somewhere beyond fates latest attack.

How glorious it must be,
to hold onto some distant hope.
To blind yourself just enough,
to enable strength enough to cope.

My world seems no more stronger,
though on platitudes I cant rely.
For as life has shaped and taught me,
forever so, to be the pessimist am I.
We all deal with ****... pessimist or optimist... good luck.
Mitch Prax Oct 2019
Let them leave-
it doesn't matter.
If life is temporary,
how can they be permanent?
Nothing really lasts so
strap yourself in and
enjoy the ride.
Tony Tweedy Oct 2019
If you want to see what becomes of optimists just look upon the faces of those people coming out of betting shops and casinos.

A pessimist will tell you that optimism is an addiction that will cost you as much as you are willing to wager and eventually the house will win.

You can only be as optimistic as you are lucky.
I bet you I am right....
Justin Aptaker Aug 2019
it's ready to happen
hours count down to launch, but the burners hum already
the structure is taken up
siphons slowly into the bloodstream

the catalyst, the moment
the agonist, the imitator

the perceptual set is set, and it's famished
not even lit, and it's waiting for more-
the stimulant, the ignition
the doctor, the system

like inlets of blood, the freeways carry us to the city
like carcinogens, like poison medication
like aluminum, like exhaust

i too am carried
and when i reach that center
i am deposited, and begin to take effect
while i wait for my own poison to take hold of me
blood within Blood
and
poison in Poison
medication in Medication in MEDICATION
we make sure all of our cancers are medicated

it has happened already
but i am waiting for it to happen again
the freeway now quiets itself in anticipation
a new day to repeat
the city is ready for more
Written ca. 2006
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