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912 · Mar 2021
Apathetic, Empathetic
Thomas W Case Mar 2021
The conversation lasted into the
long tooth hours of the night.
She read her textbooks and then heard a mouse with its tail barely caught in a glue trap. It squealed as if it were dying. In my heart I believed it was savable. In the agony I imagined him dreaming of fields and insects and seeds.
She had these cold gray eyes.
In one quick movement, she took off
one of her clodhoppers and smashed its brains out. She cleaned her shoe with a tissue, she said, I neither hate the mouse nor love it, it's just a thing.  At that moment I was pretty sure she was psychotic.
We're both drunk, I kept watching her *** in that tight  black dress.
She said in a very automated voice, I suppose you want to **** me now and then slithered out of the dress.
***** is *****
But I couldn't do it. I told her to put her clothes back on and not **** anything on the way out.
909 · Feb 2024
Four for the Show
Thomas W Case Feb 2024
The cats gather
en masse every
time I sit
down to write.
One by one, they
jump up on the
big maple desk,
and walk across the
keyboard.

Mojo swats at
Shadow's tail.
Bukowski nips at
my fingers as they
peck at the keys.
It's going to be
a long night.
The cats don't
understand poetry
or marketing.
Shadow hisses, and
jumps down.
Bukowski gets
bored, and bites at
the cords.
He gets overly
excited, and slips off
the back of the desk.
The wild look in
his eyes flash
centuries of power
and sadness.

I think of my feral
days on the streets,
stealing *****, and
sleeping under
bridges in
December.
I wrote my words on
the walls of the
abandoned
houses.
And now,
such beautiful
providence.
I quit drinking and
I live in a town with
a clear lake.  I catch
fish and eat them.
I've published three
books and I write my
poetry on a
computer that my
three cats view as
a playground.

Sometimes,
it all seems like a
furry dream.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2roycihKc0

My new book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems is on Amazon.com.
908 · Dec 2021
Furor Scribendi
Thomas W Case Dec 2021
A tenderhearted rage flows from my
pen, like the Mississippi river after six
months of a hard rain.  
Suffering released, I long
for peace, as I grab the pen like
a ****** grabs the syringe, like my
very life depends on it because it
probably does.

The passion that flows within
my veins give a voice to my
soul when the pen vomits
words on the paper, like a
drunk the morning after a
night on the town, trying to
drown the memory of her.

I'm bent on writing because the
world's dim lighting cast shadows on
everything that mattered to me.
I'm shattered you see by
circumstances beyond my control.
Life just seems to roll right over me,
but I take my plight with the fight of
a soldier, whose battle cry is:
furor scribendi, a rage to write; because
in the revealing comes the ultimate
healing and that ******* light will
never die.
furor scribendi is Latin for a mania for writing.  Link to my you tube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7n3PXaA5szQKvZ8VlkcxTA

check out my youtube channel

check out my youtube channel.
Thomas W Case Apr 2022
The fruit cake child molester
gets acclaim and promotion,
put on a pedestal, while the
righteous underdog gets
exiled or killed,
kicked out and abandoned
like a stray cat.
Don't look behind the curtain.....Oz
900 · Oct 2024
Blue Life
Thomas W Case Oct 2024
I've been to the crushing
place.
It smells of death, and
spider mums.
Daisy chains dropped
when the music died.
The lake is murky now.
Clowns roam the street,
looking for carnivals
and meat.
Silly boys still believe
in love and dreams, and
girls that like opera and
giving head.
This world is strange, and
Picasso walks the lonely
avenues, feeding
seagulls' peanuts and paint.
No one blames him.
It's his blue period.
All the while,
an old bent man plays
the guitar.
He smells like camels,
and hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur5pZxbd7hE
Link to my youtube channel where I read my poetry.
897 · Jan 2021
My Love
Thomas W Case Jan 2021
Writing is my love that
never betrays.
It doesn't lie or
cheat.
It never complains that I
leave the toilet seat up or
that I leave hairs in the sink.
It has never said, "You drink too much or
not enough." It always wins the bets,
sets the sun, and skins the cat.
It's always raw and never
well done—medium rare at
worst, and never burnt.
It doesn't ask me to
do aerobics or yoga, and it
would never tell me to quit smoking;
I would stake my life on it.
Writing is my love that
will be with me until
the end.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7n3PXaA5szQKvZ8VlkcxTA
897 · Nov 2024
The Champ
Thomas W Case Nov 2024
When does the
champ know that  
he doesn’t have  
It anymore?
Is it after that
first loss to a
*** he should  
have knocked out in
the second round?
Is it when his body
doesn't do what
his mind tells it
to do?  

His punches are
slow.
His legs are
weak.
He once was one
of the greatest.
Iron Mike, they
called him.

He loses to an
overhyped cute
boy with little skills,  
and blonde curls.
It was brutal to watch.

He was king of
the jungle in those
early Brooklyn days.
Old lions don’t just
wander off and die
alone.  
They get killed and
eaten by  
younger lions.

After this charade,
I hope the champ
hangs up his
gloves for good.
Here's a link to my youtube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbj9bj58Txw
888 · Mar 2021
Shreaded
Thomas W Case Mar 2021
The blue sky cuts
the woman to shreds
Sunflower saves her
from extinction.
Mountains want to crumble
with her into the lake,
but they can't,
they are strong, and
they have their place.
Time has got her,
she just doesn't know it
878 · Sep 2024
Look at Me, Mama
Thomas W Case Sep 2024
I'm an athlete.
I can throw and catch,
and run in the sun-
all shiny and bright.
And you just sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look at me, mama.
I'm a writer.
I do poetry and stories,
all pretty and pink,
and all you do is,
sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look at me, mama.
I can dance.
I'm lonely,
I'll move to France,
meet a woman, get married.
Look at the ants crawl through
the spilled red juice on
the grass; nature everywhere,
as you sleep, sleep, sleep.
Look mama,
look at me, mama!
I have children now,
all good and wise,
you're a grandma.
Why don't you wake up?
Please look at me, mama.
I'm lonely and afraid.
I'm old now, and cold,
and you still,
just
sleep, sleep, sleep...
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry and go on boat adventures. Lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHB1Q13LID4

My recently published limited edition e-book, Rise Up Collected Poems and Short Stories is available on Booksie .com
877 · Apr 2023
The Wrong Stop
Thomas W Case Apr 2023
Sometimes, I think I feel too much, like I crossed into a world of shadows; like there's been some kind of mistake.
Life seems to sharp, to vivid,
too right there in my face.
I feel like a stranger.  It's as if I were on a bus, and out of the tinted windows, things looked vaguely familiar. I pull the string and get off.
It's the wrong stop, it's the wrong world. The bus has disappeared;
there's no way home.  I used to stand on a bridge that a river flowed under. And off in the distance, high atop the ash trees, the eagles were nesting. They were so beautiful and serene.
I can't watch them anymore. It breaks my **** heart to see all the concrete and construction inch closer and closer to the little slice of heaven they found in a piece of nature
that seemed vaguely
familiar.
876 · Apr 2023
The Tall Grass
Thomas W Case Apr 2023
Words will be my
food today.
I don't want
to get dressed,
eat breakfast
or go to church.
I'll stay in bed and write,
until the demons stop whispering,
and humanity quits
******* on me.

Last night,
on my way to the
bookstore to get some
Bukowski, I found a
mourning dove,
not a baby
but, too young to fly.
It was huddled against
a concrete wall.
I picked it up and put it through a fence hole in some tall grass,
so that the dock cat, Prozac,
wouldn't **** it.
She caught a lot of birds,
and ate them.
When I went outside
the other morning at five,
She was stalking sparrows and starlings with a murderous
look in her eyes,
and I thought to myself,
Someone should have put me
In the tall grass, a long time ago.
869 · Sep 2023
After the Rain
Thomas W Case Sep 2023
I watched a young
boy beat his
chest and scream at
the dawn until
the liquid sky drove
him away.
He chased thunder
and
butterflies with the
same enthusiasm;
oozing a lust for
living in his chasm
of youth.
Ten years full of
questions and scabbed
up knees, freckled dreams
running across green fields
and sunlit meadows.
Golden little life,
resting beneath a
willow tree to sip the
sweetness
from the clover and
honeysuckle flowers.
Hours full of pocketknife
afternoons, whittling sticks
into arrows to
shoot at the moon.
And after the rain
oh sweet green youth,
run barefoot with the
wind
toward a sinless
sky.
And live, live
live, for tomorrow
will come with a sigh.
reposting an old one that didn't get many views
864 · Aug 2021
Relapse
Thomas W Case Aug 2021
I take 3 steps forward, and 1 step back .
I was sober almost 4 months.

Doing swell, the job, prolific writing.
and then, wham, A bottle of Absinthe in two hours,
Not even Van Gogh on the box or the worm wood could
make sense of the garbled words I wrote.
**** Hemingway and Fitzgerald.  And Stein can go to Hell.
.
864 · Jan 2022
Raw and Cold
Thomas W Case Jan 2022
That bubble of a moon is 
playing peek-a-boo behind
the wispy night sky.
Confirming to me
everyone's lunacy.
Words stick to the
roof of my mouth
like peanut butter.
It could have been 
a better world,
I should have been a
better man.

January snowflakes
are like guilt falling from
the sky.
little frozen starfish...
cold and raw on 
the soul, and tongue.

  

.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read this poem and others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjeCroHYQx
862 · Nov 2021
The Vultures will Come
Thomas W Case Nov 2021
Three burly sheriffs showed
up at my neighbors
house yesterday.
Scowls on scarred faces.
Tattered lives, tarnished
brains.
Five minutes later,
they were walking my
friend out in handcuffs.
He shuffled, head down.
Autumn frowned and the
leaves scuttled away in
disgust.

Today, the vultures swooped
in, picked the bones of all
his earthly possessions that
littered what was once his
front lawn.
Jackals, and hideous
hyena faced men and
women took the last of
his things.  

Even though he was
arrested, he still
grows.
and although they are
free, they die more
daily in their own
private evictions.
I've seen more
humanity at a
hanging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYKOiMoVOY&

check out my youtube channel
860 · Apr 28
All the Difference
Thomas W Case Apr 28
I've been to the
bitter, dark place
where dreams are
decorations in
dilapidated houses,
a building haunted by
the ghosts of spring.
I tasted the wine of
****** and convicts
there.

I've prayed with the
broken and wasted.
I spent
days and months,
almost forever with
the feral men and
women of America in
homes not fit for fleas.

Then one cosmic day,
while the wounded slept,
I chased a beautiful
moth that escaped the flame.
And that has made all
the difference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEeNcBC_mnM
Here's a link to my YouTube channel where I read my poetry from my recently published books, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and Jump to the Madhouse and Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.com
856 · Apr 2024
Wanting (A Sonnet)
Thomas W Case Apr 2024
On wings of ravens, your sanity flew.
Taken to the shadows, your mind is lost.
Life's cruel fist, and melancholia, you knew.
You traded it all for such a high cost.
Too far gone in distant time, your eyes.
I can't go to where you have wandered late.
In pain, you can grow, but you bought the lies.
How does your vast and empty world now rate?

I read of sanity lost in old books
But never thought it would happen to us.
Thank God you are immune to all the looks.
In my weakness, I scream, you succubus!
I wish I could have saved you from yourself.
And now my love sits lonely on a shelf.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s
853 · Apr 2023
There's No Sure Thing
Thomas W Case Apr 2023
It was a four horse race at
Santa Anita.
I was with my old man and
little brother.
I put everything I had on
the number 3 horse to show.
His name was Dusty's Diaper.
Shoemaker was aboard;
the shoe for God's sake.
It was a sure thing.
All he had to do, was not
come in fourth place.

I learned that day,
in a horse race,
anything can happen.
I was 12 years old.
And like horse racing,
In life, anything can
happen.

Amidst the California evening,
On our way to the car,
I thought my Dad
Would live forever.
850 · Feb 2021
Reflection of the Soul
Thomas W Case Feb 2021
I've said her eyes had
the color of a madness shade
of blue.
That's not true.
They are the color of
love and angels, and
eternal spring.
Her eyes sing of
motherhood and light rain.
The sun shines through them-
a tepid pool that I
want to jump in and swim;
back float through the
daisies and spilled juice,
through the ravens-
all the way to heaven.
Check out my you tube channel where I read from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuA8Y43KHPE
848 · May 2021
The Womb
Thomas W Case May 2021
Another lunatic trip to
the hospital.
Nine days, this
go around.
For the first two
days, I just pulled
the covers over my
head and pretended I
was back in the womb.
It was warm and safe.
As much as I
wanted to stay,
I knew it was time to
be reborn into this
strange world of
sick streets, and
broken dreams.
847 · Jul 2020
Rain (Haiku)
Thomas W Case Jul 2020
torrential down pour
life giving water for plants
sad at the window
847 · Jan 2021
I Thirst for your Footsteps
Thomas W Case Jan 2021
I long for the majestic
sunset of your hair,
windblown, dancing across my cheek…
The burnt orange and lavender…
I want to consume every drop.
I’m thirsty for your
footsteps near my bed, parched with
desire for your presence—your essence.
How long until you wet my
tongue, and quench this fire?
I stalk slumber like a shadow…
my only release from the
hunger and yearning for your
moist lips, like peaches
pressed against mine.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjeCroHYQxU
832 · Mar 2023
A Flower without Soil
Thomas W Case Mar 2023
She is my unopened
present
my box of regrets,
the locked door;
the letter without
a stamp.

I'm a
flower without
soil
A fish on the
beach.
I'm a lame dog,
and the gray in
a beard.
I'm an
albatross on a
gray sky,
a ship lost
at sea.
I'm the unanswered
words...
Marry
me.
Check out my you tube channel where I read from my recently published book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khU1Mo5AKE
Thomas W Case Nov 2023
You do it a
little at a time.
You start a holocaust at
5:30 am, over your
sausage and instant
coffee.

You do it with
your small hatred
and your snide
comments--your prideful
looks at the ***** man
with no shoes.

You do it in
one moment, by not
calling your dying
brother
over childhood
trivialities.
You do it by gassing
the goldfish, flushing love
down the toilet;
clogging the sewers with
your hatred and
malevolence.

You watch the green
grass die and the ants
drown, while you
smile over your
newspaper, and plot
your next hostile
takeover.
You did it when
you punched the
dog, and pinched
the child.
You do it when
you smile.

You're a mean
one Mr. Finch,
Mrs. Jones,
Mr. Smith.
But guess what?
You are dying alone.
Every day, every second,
and the moon and the
sun and the stars
celebrate your demise
and so do I.
You've never lost
any thing.
To loose, you must be
found.
You have to have a
bit of gamble in you.
You don't.
You're as useless
as an eel in
a quiche.
826 · Oct 2021
Cock Soft
Thomas W Case Oct 2021
Here comes another
classic case of
writer's block.
**** soft,
I spew
across the
white pages.
Maybe age is
catching up
with me.
Time has been
a friend,
but I'm only as
good as my last poem.
I long for the days
when songs filled
my heart, where every
part of me smelled
the rain and the
wet dogs, and the
streets of Spain.
The pain was always
fodder, the joy, the sadness
the madness of love and
*** and passion.
The rancid anger and rage
became the words of
a sage when I broke
out the notebook.

Not tonight though,
I will wait for the
******* and the blood
to simmer in
the red dot on the
white snow.
Patiently waiting for
the hemorrhaging of
the soul.
819 · Jan 21
The Pull of the Streets
Thomas W Case Jan 21
It's hard to understand, unless
you've been there.
There is a pull to the streets.
I can't count how many dead
end jobs I've held—how many roach
infested rooms I've
crashed in.
The inevitable day comes when
I tell the boss, '*******, I don't need this ****! '
I walk out into the misty
afternoon—I look left, then right.
I drowned out thoughts of the future with
a cheap pint of *****.

I see one eye George on my travails,
he's half-lit—living in the woods.
'Don't let the ******* get you down.' He says, as he
stumbles by bent, and taking a standing eight count.
Mickey the ****** stops me a
block from my flop-house.
'Tommy boy, I'm sick…gotta a couple of bucks so
an old drunk can get well? '
I slip him a five.
He says with a tear in his eye,
'God bless you Tommy—you know I
had it all, I'm afraid the
streets own me now.'
'Keep your chin up' I say as
I plummet down the
street, pretending
tomorrow is a decade away.

I climb the three flights of
stairs to my room,
slip the key in the lock,
turn the ****—it opens.
'I love these little miracles' I say under
my breadth.
My three-legged cat Walter saunters up to
me—he's white with marmalade splotches.
He does his best to rub up against
my leg—I pet his matted fur.

I passed out in an alley one
night, and woke up to Walter lying next to me.
I think something crawled into
my ear and made a home,
it's been there ever since.

I crash down on my chair,
and watch Walter scratch at
the door with his one front leg.
He hasn't been neutered—he gets the
pull of the streets.
I let him out and take a long swig of
the *****—the potion does its magic.
Life doesn't look so bad,
there will be other jobs, and I still have
two weeks left in this
dump of a room.
A writer needs four walls—yet there is
always
the pull of the streets.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read this poem and others. (Music by Tom Waits)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZptFkj_ezoo
815 · Dec 2024
Pink Clouds, Like Petals
Thomas W Case Dec 2024
The tower penetrates
the puffy pink
clouds, and the
horizon squirts
sweet rain.
My face gets
sticky.
She is the sky.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvnUCN6Rmc&t=8s
809 · Jan 2021
A Short Putt
Thomas W Case Jan 2021
After a tortuous hour of
math (algebra to be exact)
I start dinner; Middle Eastern stew:
Cardamom, Coriander, and turmeric.
Cooking is a little like math, but
much more like art. My mind begins
to ease as Bach pumps out
one of his symphonies from
the CD player. The stew boils, and
I want to go outside and play,
chase windmills. Where's Sancho?
Dulcinea's here, frustrated by my inept
ability in the equation game.
I ******* despise algebra.
Where's the Bluebird, the Sunflower,
Bukowski or Eugene O'Neil?
I want to smell a six-week-old puppy,
taste Van Gogh yellow, **** until
I can't walk, and ease my
way into old age.
Vivaldi plays his victorious song.
And I know I'll conquer the
numbers game, but probably not
before it drives me crazy;
actually, it's a short putt.
Hey everyone, check out my you tube channel where I read this poem and others from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s
809 · Feb 2024
The Love Button
Thomas W Case Feb 2024
A long time
ago
when I was
a teenager,
I had a
wonderful,
tender-hearted
girlfriend.
She was patient.
I was wide
awake, and green
as a frog.

She said,
don't rub it so
hard, you will
hurt it.
Think of it as
a new toy you
discovered.
It's small, and
you need to be
careful.
It isn't a
pimple that
you are
trying to pop.

I can still smell
her hair, lilacs and
pond water.
And on
gentle summer
nights, I hope someone
is being kind to
her love button.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2roycihKc0
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
808 · Oct 2023
Little gods
Thomas W Case Oct 2023
Some people serve
little gods.
They keep them in
a shoe box with
other odds and ends.
They take them out when
they need something.
Their gods don't expect
much of them.
I can tell by the
way they treat people.
Cold and cruel.
Wars break out,
famine hits,
families disintegrate.
And there goes Betty,
reaching up in the
cupboard for her
dust covered god.
She asks it to
make everything okay.
She lights candles for it.
Sometimes she has a
little ceremony.
But her tiny god can't fix
her heart, it's brutal and lost.
It does like religiosity though.
https://amazon.com/author/urlthomasw.casepoet

my author page.
800 · Feb 2020
Chaos is Sexy
Thomas W Case Feb 2020
Debauched nights, destruction waning,
There is a twisted pull to the underbelly.
Chaos is ****, like silk stockings and
Bonnie an Clyde.
I can smell it a mile away,
like a dog in heat.
It lures me from the
safety of my sweet calm life.
There is an existence beyond
the bridge, but it's boring and soulless.
I want to ****** the light, and
the routine.  Dredge the marrow
from the bone
As I wrote this, I thought about Charles Bukowski, and the pull to the wild side of life.
782 · May 2021
Why I Drink so Much
Thomas W Case May 2021
Frozen clothes on
the clothesline, blowing in
a vagrant wind.
My nose red from the
Wine and beer at
the bar.
December of '87 came
hard and ferocious,
forever changing my life.

I was working night shift at
the nursing home up
the street.
A few of us went to
the tavern after work.
I got home around noon,
and went to bed.
21 years old, with money,
a job, and a car.
I didn't realize
life was borrowed.
Mom couldn't find
her sweater, so she
came to my room and
asked if I had seen it.
I said,
"No Mom, I'm trying to sleep."
I should have realized that
there's plenty of time for
sleep when I die.
But youth produces ignorance,
and I was drowned in it.

Mom asked if she could
borrow my car to go
Christmas shopping.
After more discussion about
her sweater,
I, with eyes closed tight,
held up the keys,
and that was the last
time I saw her.

My last words,
"Quit acting like
a *****."
Ever since, there has
been and itch to
punish myself.
I'm not Freud, but
maybe that's why I
drink so much.
Happy Mother's Day
Mom.
780 · Apr 2020
That Sorceriffic Ass
Thomas W Case Apr 2020
Vicious eyes,
ferocious smile, and an
*** that begged to be
rubbed all night, like
Buddha promising good luck.
But, what that
*** brought, was
jail, soup lines, and
homeless shelters.

The heart pounds the
head, then the feet pound
the street;
walking mile after mile,
aimless roaming,
doe eyed thinking

What went wrong?
Where the hell did
I go wrong?

Then it dawns on
me like the dew
soaked morning.

It was the ***.
Always that
sorceriffic ***.
I'm an *** man.
779 · Jul 2024
When the Light Came
Thomas W Case Jul 2024
Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry from my recent books, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, on Amazon and Rise Up Collected Poems and Short Stories, available on Booksie.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qum45hpUqrg&t=16s
772 · Jul 2024
I Will Rise
Thomas W Case Jul 2024
There is a gravity to
sadness; it pulls me
downward into a
deep dark well.
I can't climb out.
It's my own private hell.
I pray for levitation.
I jump, only to fall.
I feel forgotten.

I put one foot in
front of the other,
and I will rise.
I move on.
Hope returns like
a long-lost friend,
and I find my sanctuary.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
Here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qum45hpUqrg
772 · Jul 2022
Sonnet for an Angel
Thomas W Case Jul 2022
If not for you where would I be today?
Most likely dead or on some distant shore.
Your love does not drift like the ocean waves.
It stays close to my heart, I can't ask for more.
Your skin So Soft like velvet on my tongue.
Your orchid, sublime, responds to every kiss.
To my ears your heart beats like a song.
If I never met you my life would be amiss.
But now we build the future bold and brave.
There is no fear when I am in your arms.
The ***** is gone and I'm no longer a slave.
My soul is not in a state of alarm.
Your breath is like the wind on barren land.
I swear to you I'll always be your man.
771 · Feb 2021
Miles and Miles
Thomas W Case Feb 2021
I know the wind
cries for me.
The birds sing of
my loneliness from
the sky.
I don't even see
you in my dreams
anymore.
Your red dress
hangs from the mahogany
coat rack, and the
storm clouds in my mind
never go away.
Baby, these miles
and miles are making
me soul sick, and this
trumpet will be the
death of me yet.
The inspiration for this one came from Miles Davis, his Trumpet playing on this French film I was watching was amazing.
769 · Jan 10
Delightful
Thomas W Case Jan 10
The view from
between your legs,
with my glistening
face in the soft
lamplight is
more than
sublime.

The trust
is thick,
and
sweet.

Your happy
moans are like a
symphony from
Mozart as I wait
for the
grand finish.
dun dun dun dun dun dun dun
dun dun dun dun dun
Dun Dun

DUN

You pull me inward,
and I smell
Paradise.
Sticky faced
ambrosia.
Here's a link to my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psGsLxRoaII
764 · Aug 2024
Waltzing Down Love Street
Thomas W Case Aug 2024
There is an
eternal winter
that lingers around
my heart.
It beckons with
icy music,
gray clouds, and
marches by Wagner.
Vultures, like ghastly
puppets picking at
my brain.

I drive it away with
sunflowers and walleyes,
fish fries and the gathering
together of friends and saints,
old soldiers that beat the odds,
and the neutered con game.
Leonard Cohen overcame,
and so did I.
Life was playing chess,
While I was playing
checkers.
Well, baby, it's checkmate.

I didn't need lucky bamboo
or a four-leaf clover, I needed to
use the wisdom that God gave me.
I made some changes in my actions.
When I behaved differently, I found
serenity and a Winnie the Pooh and
Piglet sort of happiness.
I was drowning, so I grew gills and
swam away to a river that flowed
through the Million Acre Woods,
and now when I am on land,
I waltz down Love Street.
Check out my youtube channel where I read my poetry from my recently published book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khU1Mo5AKE
762 · May 2020
Smoke and Write
Thomas W Case May 2020
"When you have 20 bucks in
your pocket you act like your rich,
then you get that itch to drink.
You blow through your money
like a cyclone, like sand through
your hands."
She didn't treat similes well,
and she was always *******.
"You eat up all my food,
and you don't do anything except
sit there and write.
Write and smoke, smoke and write.
Your cigarettes stink up my apartment."
She was always lighting incense, and
spraying air freshener.
I ask her why, if she hates smoke so
much, does she get drunk and
smoke all my cigarettes?
She doesn't respond.
"When are you going to get off
your *** and do something?
But no, you'd rather sit there and smoke.
Smoke and write, write and smoke.
Sure, you **** me, but your ****
doesn't pay the bills."
I ask her if she wants it to, and I
think she might slap me.
"Yea, the *** is great, but we can't
just live on ***."
I suggest we try.  She doesn't
even crack a smile.
"And when I get wine, you drink most
of it, and then you strut around in
your filthy boxers and spout poetry.
Then you just sit there and smoke.
Smoke and write, write and smoke."
She storms off, and an hour later,
with childlike innocence, she asks,
"What are you writing?"
760 · Nov 2021
Hammerhead Insanity
Thomas W Case Nov 2021
Yours isn't gentle lunacy,
It's hammerhead insanity.
Great white crazy.
I'm not even safe walking on
the sand.
You ******* learned to graze on
the land.
Evolution is a *****.
Check out my youtube poetry channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HKJ1zzc77o&t=123s
760 · Nov 2023
Wolfie
Thomas W Case Nov 2023
Mozart makes me
feel like
I'm soaring through
cotton candy clouds of
pure joy; if joy were
fluffy and white, and
soothed every ache in
my body and mind.
Wolfie is far better
than ***** and ******.

As I lie here getting
older and closer to
death, I feel so young and
alive.  I think I could
climb a tree.
759 · Nov 2023
Limited
Thomas W Case Nov 2023
Once in a while,
my poetry will bring
women.
They read my stuff.
They find me.
The talking is great;
very literary.
We speak of all
the little gods:
Hemingway
Pound
EE
Shakespeare
Dickinson
Buk
Ginsberg

Some­times, we ****.
That's always nice.
They soon find I'm
fallible and have
bad habits.
They prove human too.
They **** and drink my
*****, occasionally
burn dinner.
We try though, while
Joan of Arc burns at
the stake, Robin hangs
himself, and
Don Quixote fights
windmills.
I always love them.
And in the end,
we accept our
limitations and
humanity.
754 · Aug 2024
The Picture
Thomas W Case Aug 2024
Chain smoking sadness, slapped by time.
Winter doesn't freeze the pain.
There was one thing that
Mom wanted desperately:
It was to have a
picture of her
seven kids all together,
in one place,
at one time.
There was an age
difference of 23 years between the
youngest and the oldest,
and 1000 miles separating us.

In December of 1987
two weeks before Christmas,
I held a picture of
the seven of us all together.
I put it in the
right front pocket of
her navy blue blazer.
After the funeral,
we buried her with it.
Oh, Mom, I wish we
could have done this
when you were alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHB1Q13LID4
Here's a link to my you tube channel where I read from my recently published book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.com
750 · Feb 2023
It's Like a Tomb
Thomas W Case Feb 2023
She loves the
darkness.
It’s like a scar on
her soul.
She constantly complains about
my drinking,
yet daily, she fades
to black.
Sleep, oh what an
escape, but she
rapes the sunrise with
worry and
dreams deferred.
I write by candlelight because
she’s in a  
foul mood.
It’s like a tomb.
Thomas W Case May 11
Hook him up to the machine.
Shock his brain into
mediocrity.
Death stalks him;
he is aware.
There is too much
flash in his eyes.
His brain needs a reboot;
he needs to forget,
like a goldfish, like
a monkey in the zoo.
Hook him up to the machine.
He is too sentimental.
Salmon swim in his blood;
he has a paisley heart,
and a tie-dye soul.
He can smell colors.
Hook him up to the machine.
He has Van Gogh eyes, and
a Bukowski gut; he walks
like he's lost in a maze;
hunchback sadness,
butcher knife nerves,
Hook him up to the machine.
He believes in love,
and has too much trust.
His vivid green memory
is a curse, we need to
crash it, **** the eternal spring.
Hook him up to
the machine.
My latest book, Sleep Always Calls, is available on Amazon. Here is a link to my YouTube channel, where I read my poetry.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzFlYnbGZU&t=1s
740 · Feb 2024
In the Attic
Thomas W Case Feb 2024
On days that
I have a
difficult time
writing, I let
my mind wander
to another
place and scene.

Today
I imagine a
musty attic.
It smells like
mothballs and
old perfume.

I stumble upon
an old trunk.
And when I look
inside
I find hundreds
of my poems that
I wrote and
forgot about.
I thumb through
the brittle pages,
and read.

"Hey, not bad.
This one is pretty
good.
Hey, here's one with
multiple layers.
Writing as a
metaphor for
******."

This silly exercise of
mine just netted me
this poem.
Wanderlust of the
mind promotes
creativity.
Now I can nap,
after I ***
of course.
Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2roycihKc0
737 · Oct 2021
Eternal Spring
Thomas W Case Oct 2021
Although my
body
dwindles more
every day,
my soul and
emotional strength are
renewed moment by
moment.

And even though
fall turns into
winter, and I
feel the icy
wind in my
bones,
spring will come
eternally to
the core of who
I really am.

And for that
I celebrate.
Live life fully brothers and sisters.
736 · Oct 2021
Poetry is my Loving Wife
Thomas W Case Oct 2021
She rubs the ache from
my back, as the
morning sun
breaks through the
blinds.

She gently kisses
my lips in the
long hot summer,
and brings me
piles of leaves in
the fall.

She doesn't smash my
fragile-glass ego,
nor leave me wanting
in the night.

She births me
hundreds of
children that live
forever.

And she stays young,
while I grow old.
731 · Jan 2021
The Purple
Thomas W Case Jan 2021
For the first time in my
life, I saw colors- not like
normal people see colors; my recent woman
sees colors all the time.
This morning, there was
purple splashed all over my room.
Once, in her sleep, she said
the word 'purple.'
I asked her what it meant,
she said, 'Knowledge of the future.'
I know she will try and ***** this
sickness out of me; God Bless her.
What do I know about the future?
I know it looks bleak, and the
doves are crying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_arvp3Q6C8c
Check out my you tube channel where I read from my recent book, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, available on Amazon.com
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