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1.7k · Apr 2013
(dis)connect
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i wish it was 1963
black and white tv
cold milk in a bottle
and none of this

i wouldn’t miss
any of this

still, there would be
your cliques, greasers and
preps

rich kids would get the ***,
the cars, the better ****

the poor will always be in
need of things

doesn’t matter the year

even broke,
that cold milk
in a bottle would
be there in the
morning

i wouldn’t miss
any of this
1.6k · Apr 2013
barbeque
thevagabondking Apr 2013
early saturday morning i woke
to a smell lost over winters breath,
that of barbeque and meat

stepping outside i could see the
smoke down the street so i walked
down

black man by the name of Myron
was sitting on his steps watching
as these rabbits jumped over top
of one another

he noticed me and motioned me
over

jumping off the steps like a old
man turning young again he
grabbed a white paper plate
and opened the grill

what is it about black men and
bbq, how do they cook it so well?

thanking him, i said i should go,
there was a ton of meat cooking
and i didn’t want to interrupt his
family function

Myron mentioned he lived alone,
that his wife Glenda had passed
away three springs ago and the kids
have all moved away

staring at him closer i realized how similar
Myron was to my own father, only a different
color

my dad sits on the porch during the day sometimes
and i wonder what it is he’s thinking about
when he sits out there

i imagine it’s the same thing we all think about,
death … when is it gonna happen
but before we die we worry about other things, too

like is this our last meal?
1.5k · Apr 2013
Rush Hour
thevagabondking Apr 2013
There is an innocence in the first beer of the night.
when the mind is still free to breathe
and the legs free to walk
and the eyes free to see
and the heart beats on its own

As the cap twisted off
and my *** got comfortable in
the chair that knows all to well
how long this hell would last
I knew that the innocence would end fast

Time seems to fly by
while you sit and
do nothing more then
observe it


And I crave that dialog
that swims from my eyes
to my mind, like this secret
symphony played only for me

But you see, everyone sees
the same things that I see or
you see

This symphony has always been
that for all of us
but some of us listlessly rummage
in the darkness that anger breeds

Like seeds tainted with the devils
come it penetrates the hardest of
shells and births the **** we see in
the shadow of societies twisted ties

I’ll never understand why it is that
I am so enamored with watching this
destruction cross my mind but I am
and in the end it will too, end me.


It’s after the second or third beer that you become
cognizant of that candle that’s burning
in the front of your face

It smells like ginger and reminds you of
your grandma’s house for some reason

But everything reminds you of your grandma
when you’re into the bottle deep and wishing
you’d spent more time listening to the words
she tried so hard to give you

You remember the times that she wrote you
letters when you lived in a house with no
cable television, no phone, no VCR, **** there
wasn’t a computer let alone the internet

So forget about Tumblr or Facebook or
emails or any other way to avoid the mutiny that
mankind has become

Walking the plank was real and
no one wanted to be told to take that walk
so everyone acted like men and women
with respectful fingernails and clean socks
that could be seen when pant leg
raised when sitting down for dinner with
your neighbor

I always wondered what she would have done
if she’d been born instead of me
with all these tools
and resources at her disposal

She was a smart cookie for
the time she grew up,
writing poetry on a ledger that
time has forgot

And here I am just waiting for the
garbage man to pick me up
because I never had time to drive over to


her house before or after happy hour
always told her I tried and that’s not
a lie

You see there is a rush hour for drunks
like me

The traffic is stand still and
bitter and you can see the pain in the way
the driver in front of you clenches the steering
wheel, hunched over and ready to drive through
as many cars as he or she has too

Just for that dollar off a drink he or she
is going to drink regardless of the time
or deal they make

And it’s about that time that my right foot
begins to shake because I remember that
I am nervous even when I am three beers into
a black out night.

I’m never safe and you aren’t either
so says the sigh as I finish number three
and order number four

And one more before I hit
the door and cross the street
to buy the party treats for the
rest of this ******* night

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Hemingway.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Bukowski.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Celine.

Eighteen beers and a pint of
Wallace.

So I settled my tab and I shook the old man’s
hand who had sat and told me about all the
various things that could break a man

I checked them off one by one in my
head like a baseball card checklist that
at one time was the way I killed time outside
sitting in a summers sun

But now I *** stale cigarettes
and used up ***
to pass the days
as time slowly kills me
inside

The indian with the ***** beard
has my beer and pint on the
counter waiting for me

He sleeps at ease at night
knowing that he’s slowly
killing every drunk that
walks into his seven
eleven

Looking for heaven
looking for salvation
looking for ripe virgins
to sacrifice
for the betterment of a
whiskey night

American terrorists we are
when the dark hits the
tip of our cigarettes and we’re
fine with shutting our minds off to
the plight of everyone’s fight because
we have enough liquor tonight to


ward off the demons that come out to
play when happy hour ends and your
back in the thick of rush hour
The walk from that seven
eleven to
home is lonely
possibly the loneliest
walk you’ll walk
because you are left to think
about what you’re about to
do

See society has tied us up in
it’s restraints, painted us a picture
of wholesomeness that
ends up burning down the white picket
fences and ****** the daughters
while the son’s fail out of school
and end up in a trade
shuffling feet on desert land
dying at the hands of
the real monster
the monster with a real face
and no trace of giving a **** if
the enemy is man or woman
sinner or saint
just another enemy at the gate
trying to take
what ain’t
his

At the door now
you can feel your arm pulse
your ears twitch
your soul scream
you’re about to pour the first drink
fire the first shot
pretend that tonight
one of them won’t be blanks

I’ve retained this habit of keeping the caps of
my bottles next to my drinking area
or inside my pockets

I’m not sure when I began this
habit but it’s ruined a few washers
a few dryers
and at least one ****

At the end of the night there’s a little
graveyard of caps
a drunks Arlington
where you can morn the passing
of one bottle
after another
senseless, this war
you laugh as you keep pulling the
necks of these brown *******
drinking their life’s spirit away
with little remorse for them
or yourself

And that, in the end, will be your
undoing
My magnum opus
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i woke up this morning ******* from the night
before about something petty
my ***** itched from sweating all night
forgot to turn the heater off
passed out drunk, didn’t really forget

work called me in early
so i missed my morning ******* and ****
coffee was cold; who am i kidding the coffee was old

******* in korea with more threats, government bans
something else, electric is due and i’m tired as ****

work sent me home early
said i stunk from last night, who are they kidding
i’m still drunk

bomb went off in boston, who ******* knows who
did it, bunch of ******* wack jobs living in this country,
gun lovers, gun haters, baby lovers, baby haters, *** lovers,
*** haters, very few lovers of love but even they fight at
night when the shower runs out of hot water

all i know is my ***** are blue and stink with pain
1.2k · Apr 2013
cookin' lessons #1
thevagabondking Apr 2013
the secret
that isn’t a secret
after i tell you
the secret

of what makes
my steak tacos
so delish

steak
cooked in beer.
1.1k · Apr 2013
salesman
thevagabondking Apr 2013
really
i thought i was being sold
time share

white suit, black tie, easy voice
clean fingernails and a wedding ring
laughed nervously and never made eye contact

i offered him a cup of coffee
he declined
so i sat down and said
go ahead, sell me on whatever you are selling

that’s when began to talk about heaven

standing up he looked down
i grabbed a bottle of jack and a glass
sat back down

that’s when i began to tell him about hell

his hands were now shaking as i told him about
the time outside my sisters hospital room i said:
**** god
and my mom said
don’t say things like that
and i said it again

he gently interrupted and asked if i
believed in his lord

no, i said, and even if i did,
i’d still tell him to *******

he got up and left, not looking at me once

i didn’t have any cash on me anyways.
1.1k · Apr 2013
red eye
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i needed to get
home
i needed to say
goodbye
her body
no longer with
her mind

i took a red eye
back home
to say
goodbye
993 · Apr 2013
d-day
thevagabondking Apr 2013
sometimes we look past the
flowers
and the soft skin
past the cage
but never to get
to the heart

just to be inside
where we think we're safe

safety doesn't exist
not in this place
never in this place

where blood boils
where marrow leaks

safety is what we seek
but we are to weak

can you hear the coyotes
off in the distance
they're waiting for us to die
978 · Apr 2013
tears don't burn
thevagabondking Apr 2013
the ice cube sat there at the bottom of the unfilled glass
slowly it began to melt
flooding emptiness
just like the bourbon
before
911 · Apr 2013
the sapling tree
thevagabondking Apr 2013
a seed
that’s all it takes
just a seed
and some dirt
and some water
and eventually
a tree will
grow where,
once, nothing was

a seed

a seed
that’s all it takes
just a seed
and some death
and some tears
and eventually
fear will
grow where
once, nothing was
879 · Apr 2013
conspiracies
thevagabondking Apr 2013
my dad and brother sit around
on sunday afternoons
talking about conspiracies

kennedy
area 51
princess diane
911
all the **** no one really
understands

some of it they say
was planned some if
it not so much

i sit and take it all in,
scratch my sack when needed,
watch outside for the storm that’s
coming waiting for five o’clock when
i can stop thinking and drink a bottle
or two

heat filled sentences shooting
thought process half dead
get me mad

if everything is a conspiracy
then **** this heart of mine
and **** all this time i wasted
waiting
870 · Apr 2013
i put my pen down
thevagabondking Apr 2013
on the thirteenth night of
our affair
i kissed her forehead
said goodbye

i wrote that night how
her collarbone felt like
a noose trapping a
sheep before slaughter

i never ****** her again.
820 · Apr 2013
rockwell
thevagabondking Apr 2013
there were never pies on the
window counter
or cakes baking in the oven
there was never the smell of
home style type of cooking
in our house

fried chicken came out of a
box; frozen and dropped into
the fry daddy

we’d listen closely to see if
you could hear the chicken’s
soul scream in the greases soup

dessert was apples from the tree,
some day’s you get them before they
hit the ground, others you ate around
the soft spots

conversation was initiated by whatever
news story was airing, commercials
for **** breaks

while the pie was never there,
the cake just a dream,
while home made fried chicken was another
time period

this was still home, this was still where the heart was
in-between drunken fights over finances, despite cold winter
nights on hand cut wood, regardless of
living on the edge of over every
time we began to think it was safe to feel safe.
792 · Apr 2013
mistakes
thevagabondking Apr 2013
my actions are always
fast
sometimes void of thought,
sometimes void of vision

i am my own worst enemy
i always have been the greatest deterrent
to my own determination

a damnation within the
hearts beating, a black
hole in my minds eye

my actions are always
fast
sometimes void of thought,
sometimes void of vision

full of feelings, however fleeting, they may be.
765 · Apr 2013
the heart is a tornado
thevagabondking Apr 2013
the thunder right now is
loud, it’s knocking the walls
around and the lights have all gone
dark

i suppose this is
what they call a
heart attack

the beats of my heart
are beating the back of my
chest, i close my eyes and everything goes
dark

i suppose this is
what it’s like
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i’m gonna be drunk
before i even get out this house,
kris is sleeping
not feelin’ it today
i’m drinking it
startin’ to feel it
big bass bumping outside
my windown
tall drink of water
sippin’ on her drank
she’s feeling it too

prince fielder looking
******* pointing
his finger at something
across the street
not at me
someone else
maybe there will be a fight
tonight

the storms have passed,
but i can still feel them, too.
thevagabondking Apr 2013
its weird
knowing that
thirty-six years
and ten months
ago

my father
slipped from
my mothers
******

limp,spent
satisfied

i wonder if that was
the last time
he was ever
satisfied
with her
with us
with life

it's weird,
thinking that
he loved her
once
705 · Apr 2013
i am not a poet
thevagabondking Apr 2013
honestly,  i don’t see myself as
a poet -
i am a historian who
writes
in poetic form

as are you
readers
and writers

our eyes
record
history as
it happens

storing it
in our hearts;
ushering it safely
on passage through
time

trading it with blank paper
in hopes of not
repeating the bad;
and reliving the good

i hate the word poet,
i am a historian
and so are you
668 · Apr 2013
portraits
thevagabondking Apr 2013
sickness or
cynic i’m not
sure

see, there are these
pictures on their wall
happy family and all

smiles so big, eyes so
cheerful

but all i see is disaster
in the end

maybe i’m jealous,
maybe it’s a sickness,
maybe i’m a cynic,

you pick
657 · Apr 2013
yesterday seems so long ago
thevagabondking Apr 2013
she used to light her cig
and let it hang on the
bottom lip as she
spoke about god
or denny mcclain

i never understood
what they meant because
they were before my

time

so i’d sit and listen to
dad say he was an agnostic
and my mom say she was a
christian and my grandma laughed
and said she believed they were
both correct on different days

mcclain turned out to be
a criminal, embezzler
i believe

maybe that was lolich
or god
i don’t remember

i was drunk on
pepsi cola
made right chips
and love
635 · Apr 2013
"caught"
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i keep missing work
because i wake up
drunk from the night
before

when i call in
i whisper

"i'm not coming in,
today, i've been
caught in a
cobweb"

i scream when i
hang up the phone,
sit down and open
another bottle

next day
the same thing

"i'm not coming in,
today, i've been
caught in a
cobweb, again"

the scream is real
it details the fear
in my hearts beat,

eventually i'll stop
calling
eventually i'll stop
trying
584 · Apr 2013
it rains in the end
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i went to her grave again last night
over eight hours away, i went and laid next
to her ashes
i brought her brand of cigarettes
her brand of beer
i brought her a crossword puzzle

she didn’t have much to say
so i did most of the talking
as usual

like when i was six and Tony Bluto would
pick on me during recess, i’d slam my book
bag into the ground and hide underneath the
kitchen table as she’d peak under her glasses
as she’d peck at the typewriter

“problems, Denny,” she would say

and i’d unload

when i went to her grave again last night,
over eight hours away, her ashes laying there
alone, i unloaded

but nothing happened, nothing was said,
and i ended the evening with a question

“how do i become a better person,”
and that’s when it began to rain

***** made it rain.
581 · Apr 2013
parchment skin
thevagabondking Apr 2013
if only it were that easy
that i was actually just ink
(instead of blood)
it would make you erasing
the beginning of our story
(when we said forever)
so much ******* easier.
561 · Apr 2013
morning
thevagabondking Apr 2013
tomorrows whisper
is never
heard
until it's turned
into
a scream
557 · Apr 2013
cry of the siren
thevagabondking Apr 2013
first of the year,
not the first time
however my heart
has beat in my chest
faster than my DNA
designed

terrified
these storms control my
mind with a tempest I cannot
touch and lightning I cannot
catch

useless and helpless
a storm is a lot like love
itself

here and gone
with the wind
536 · Apr 2013
hd
thevagabondking Apr 2013
hd
high definition
camera
details
the image
for better and
worse

now you can see the
dirt under the finger
nail of the poor;
the bone from working
so hard

you can see the vibrant
color of a flower, more
vivid in it’s yellow or red,
than ever before

its the pain, however,
that i see, that breaks
my knees, begging
for polaroid film to release
me from all this

beauty
517 · Apr 2013
Hero(w)ine
thevagabondking Apr 2013
I don't make light of the darkness
i lived within all those weeks?, months?,
years?, spent in a run down home with
windows covered in garbage bag curtains

mornings spent drinking three dollar wine
by the bottle till the bottle was to heavy
or my need to much

calling in the big help, the needle man
would needle me and i'd see her again

only she was not her, she was someone else
each time
sometimes
she wasn't even a she, maybe it was a he
or a they, or a them

whatever they were,
he or she or they were my hero
in-between the ******
and the wine
503 · Apr 2013
life lessons 2
thevagabondking Apr 2013
i hated king kong bundy
for so long
as a kid
for beating up
and hurting
hulk hogan

then i learned it
was fake
and i had
wasted all
this hate
on
nothing

fast
forward

i hated rachel
for so long
as a man
for beating up
and hurting
my heart

then i learned it
was fake
and i had
wasted all
this hate
on
nothing

fast
forward

it got better
i learned how to feel
i understood
what was real
493 · Apr 2013
our first love song
thevagabondking Apr 2013
for most of us our first love song
was written in the middle of a first grade day,
between reading and math class
where instead of
1+1=2
it was
you+i=forever

even though forever was an apple sauce after dinner
and a kiss on the forehead of your loving mother

heartbreak was the next day when you realized that
each day at lunch time would be an opportunity the
universe would offer up a chance at a tear or two in front
of an unforgiving school, in front of the first girl you'd
hate forever

even though forever was a game of catch and a
nice long talk about girls with your loving father

forgiveness was so much easier in the days before body
hair and friday night despair, when you could sit on your
wooden chair and carve next to Jody's name her replacement

for most of us our first love song
was written in the middle of a first grade day,
between recess and time to go home,
where instead of
1+1=2
it was
you+i= forever
482 · Apr 2013
"untitled 1"
thevagabondking Apr 2013
we keep waiting for
the music
to start
and the doves to
magically
fly in

but what if
the music never
starts
and the birds
never appear

shouldn’t we
just dance
anyways
459 · Apr 2013
2 days removed
thevagabondking Apr 2013
the heater is on
again
two days removed from
72 and sun

i can hear the little kids
playing like they did
two days removed

splashing in mud puddles
that were not there
two days removed

he splashes her
she splashes him
they laugh

down the street
forth and jasper
her mother and his father
sip wine from a bottle
as the temperature
continues to
fall

winter hangs on longer
as the years pass by
she shakes under the pressure of the cold
air

teeth chatter, promising to shatter
if the song remains the same
much longer

his chin grayer
her skin cracking
the heater is on again
two days removed from
72 and sun

she asks if he's okay
he's says he'll be fine
just another day
in paradise

***
you can listen to a spoken word version of this poem here:
https://soundcloud.com/jadednoizeradio/two-days-removed
416 · Apr 2013
kid
thevagabondking Apr 2013
kid
she showed me her heart that
day, freezing rain slapping
the roof relentlessly while
i picked through her defenses

as she showed me her heart
i showed her mine

one was beautiful
one was mine.
400 · Apr 2013
30
thevagabondking Apr 2013
30
as long as there is heart
there
will be love
as long as
there
is love
there will be
hate

we borrow from
and take away
each day

sometimes we run away from it
sometimes we run right into it

unsettling as it is,
nothing surprises me
these days.
373 · Apr 2013
mirages
thevagabondking Apr 2013
In some eyes,
i’ll always be
what they think they see

I can’t change their
image of me

I know who i am,
what i am
where i am
365 · Apr 2013
"untitled 3"
thevagabondking Apr 2013
life support
only works
when there
is life to
support.
325 · Apr 2013
"untitled 2"
thevagabondking Apr 2013
a loud voice is
silenced
by a million voices

regardless of
right or
wrong

— The End —