"backbones" poems
Stand up for what?
To collapse back down
my ankles turn to water
whenever you're around
I can't stand up
when i don't know what i stand for
like my brain is in the clouds
but my heart is on the **** floor
or a platform
my face is in a sandstorm
and i can't form words
with my lips between your teeth
our bodies now declare war
and my throat begets a siren
that your backbones can't ignore
your shoulders hold me down
while i beg for
just
a
little
bit
more
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
Don't have a wishbone
Where your backbone ought to be,
They told me, so often.
See, wishbones are meant
For Thanksgiving dinners where
Two children break it
In half to see who
Gets the first turkey leg,
or something like that.
See, wishbones aren't strong.
They aren't reliable, strong
Enough to support you
When what you ought to
Do doesn't comply with what you
So dearly wish for.
If you lack backbones,
And have a wishbone for a
Spine instead, you should
Get to breaking that
wishbone right out of your mind
And body because
At the end of the day,
A backbone is all you have
When wishes aren't your
Reality. No,
A backbone will keep you up
Whereas a wishbone
Will break easily,
As easily as your heart
Will when your wishes
Do not come true. A
Backbone is something you ought
To have instead dear.
Aug 16, 2013
Aug 16, 2013 at 11:44 PM UTC
I swear,
I love
a girl
with
biggg-ass
lips.
The kind of lips
that could pull a ****** into
a sanatarium.
I'd go crazy
willingly.
Put me in the strait-jacket
of your mouth.
I'll kiss every crevice because
you've got two anacondas of muscle covering
perfect teeth.
I'll grip the shoulders of your jaw,
as you squeeze me with those
biggg-ass lips
so hard
that my backbones
break.
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 10:30 AM UTC
skeleton hills
stand tall
even though
they stand dead
trees like
backbones
poking through
the hills flesh
don't cry
my dear
they chose
to die here
death shall
be beautiful
just look at
those skeleton hills
low clouds
hang frames
along the
mountains back
wildflowers
grow promising
life does show
on skeleton hills
dry your
tears for
it's the sky's
turn to cry
If I
could chose
I'd die
right here
dignified death
for they
stand dead
on skeleton hills.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 4:47 PM UTC
An armor of cloth
is all I have to offer.
resonate like tiger lilies
A shield of granite
splinters like glass
extend further than orchids
A sword of ink
spun from the backbones
of poets awaits you
bleed thicker than roses
This is the art
of flirting with
death and
having a *one night
stand* with life.
.
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 10:16 PM UTC
on the last night
of the june breeze
that i spent tucked
between your hips
and my home
i heard
almost as faint
as a wing flutter
your tongue unfurled
the sounds of your streets
against my ear.
pavement hard but
sweet as a plum liquor
spelled out avenues that
have become rose pastures.
hoods that have
grown thick in themselves
with petals stained
of red rich violence
cross brown bones
but those bullets
bear no color.
taxi swift
yet city street thick
buzzing the sounds
of a place with half
the people
yet twice the traffic.
the kind of
tuesday twelve fifteen traffic
that i never understood
but you made action
where you lost sense.
dropped clips into the alleys
where the cops
wouldn't go
and pierced a limb
or two on the way.
cheeks filled with
with sticky bliss
bashed the demure
of downtown
cause the magnificent mile
ain't got ish
to the brick backbones
of them cook county temples
tourist tend to
trip past.
on my last night
here with you
i want to do
nothing more than wash
the windy city out of me
before state lines
baptize my view
of your anatomy.
pipe my gums
with this Crest
and brush your
taste out of me.
see big cities
have stained my tongue before.
new york is still in there
and i ain't even been there
in years.
i've caught tears
streamlining down
the crest of my cheek
at the taste
of chips of bay ridge
in my teeth.
so why don't
you just get lost?
the lingering lisp of your
shoreline sure does
last a tad
past welcomed.
matter of fact,
a tad past passed
two ticks before
your beach sands
sank my hips.
your lips have learned
too well
the outline of
my spine poured
against your banks boy.
so no thanks boy.
i don't want your tee shirt.
i don't need your silhouette
sketched in my memory
let alone my key chain.
and you keep saying
i'll be back
but i'll believe that
when i'm 30,000 ft up
straddling your boarder
by boeing.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 10:39 PM UTC
Night Train, travel through the world unknown
The black hills with a maroon sky thick behind it
The metallic sound of friction valiantly losing battle to the poignant silence
Night Train, write an epic of the hands that cup around the eyes
Of the eyes that talk to the distant light
Of the lights that blink and the ones that stay still
Night Train, don't slow down for each breath falls faster than the wind outside
Night Train, don't slow down for the still is more piercing than the dark blades of grass lying far below
The rhythmic oscillation of the half sleeping bodies stacked one above the other
The threatening aura of the stiff backbones stoically awake
The lone observer is lost in the nightly delusion
Night Train, chronicle a dark fantasy of the broken fragments the night narrates
Night Train, stop, send a jolt, deaden the incantations
Before the dawn or its harbingers intrude
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 2:16 AM UTC
October, you are made of dust and I am a gun.
I killed men once.
When I lifted her veil I felt all of their features melt into one.
I smiled, it was all your storm in me.
October, you are a briefcase. You are six months long.
Tonight, there are tigers reaching out over my head
and I am your god out dancing on his weekend, say,
would you look at all your glass, bursting at the seams?
Would you ask him if I ever got there? Would you tell me why I keep pulling your explosive from my chest like a name label? Would you explain how metal peels as easy as skin with the right amount of madness?
October, I am no more than your casualties.
I am every sadness they ever said you would be.
Silver hands. I can carry these men but I cannot hold them up.
Mother, I thought I saw you standing there but it was just a bullet trail in the darkness.
I am buried in all of your letters, imprinting the both of us on the backbones of these papers;
they tell me I've become all the keys you sent.
October, you are a ballroom with all that break break break and I am falling but I haven't even left the ground yet.
When I rain down on you remember me, like the first sunset you ever wrapped yourself up in, and when they say
that I was never a stronghold, show them all the letters I tried to write you but never sent,
tell them about how the flesh ripped from my bones and left me a relic,
ask them if they can hear me breathing over all that storm.
October, you are confetti leaves falling under tyres on your wedding day,
and I can't be the light that catches them, I can't tell you that this world will wait long enough for you.
So tonight I am burning my name like it's the last thing I'll ever have.
And when they bring us home in our body bags,
remember that the choices we made were the choices we wanted to make.
October, you are a dust storm, and all your colour's left in me
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 7:58 AM UTC
In the mountains,
obviously,
there were
other
philosophies...
I knew when to shut up
and sip my coffee.
I know the old
rainwater story, of course
I'll speak up again
when it's time to discuss
the cracked backbones
sunken ships
broken
skeletons of wood
dancing
at the cold black
gates of solitude
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 5:31 AM UTC
All sounds lay dormant
Packed tight, no leaks
Dark stages none sing
Crowds of ears that still ring
Breathalyzers and torment
Parched throats
Contamination
Cold stethoscopes
Skin damnation
Pair of lungs that lost repetition
Rigid backbones with no support
Will not stand for any court
Needle ****** neck
Fluid builds unnoticed
A spinal tap not quite in focus.
Jun 6, 2010
Jun 6, 2010 at 4:24 PM UTC
Ashen grey, weathered wood
splintered, white bone
hollowed by the desert sun
skull and backbones
laid to rest, wind blown
sunk in sifting sands, exposed
by wet washing squalls
drinking water into steam
interwoven, dead with weeds
iridescent beetles and scorpions
glints of pyrite, diamond stones
the haunting wind, that moans
wild through hollows and holes.
Feb 2, 2016
Feb 2, 2016 at 6:40 PM UTC
Women are the vessels that hold life
for Nine 1/2 weeks like Kim Basinger
Call me Mickey.
Women adorned Da Vinci paintings with a half smile
martyrs in the flames of freedom
Call me Joan.
Women that nurture life
the greatest man to ever walk our path
call me Mary.
-and yet we’re reduced to calling them *****
because our male brains can’t reach to nothing more.
Women in revolutionary trenches
artist, poets, our strongholds, mend no fences
call me Frida.
Women our souls, our backbones
endless spinal chords that keep us up
call me Theresa.
-and yet ***** is the word that dominates our tongues
when we refer to them.
Women the leaders, the warriors
the fighters, the valor of the coward
call me Cleopatra.
Women the lovers, the pleasers
that feed us and keep us up on our feet
call me Anne Boleyn.
-and yet ***** infiltrated our vocabulary
like a terminal cancer, let’s get rid of it.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 1:06 PM UTC
Where best to hide?
Where shall darkness and death abide?
Where to curl up and die alone?
To close my eyes,
Feel now.....more.
Dance as darkness embraces,
Spin the golden thread,
O’ thin despair.
Gravelly moans, pain streaked face,
Can I hide from this dance?
Backbones slowly bending,
Growing to earth,
Crawling soul,
Dread’s painful prance.
Sliver of flame,
Enveloped me, as a wreath,
Cries muffled,
Murmurs:
“Close eyes,
Feel now.....more,
Take this rite,
Bleed, feed me forevermore”
Overwhelmed, I close my eyes,
Overwhelmed, by that second,
That second my heart bursts and bleed,
That second my last, perfect breath is freed.
My crooked jaw,
Hangs free,
Sinister smiling,
At dread’s painful prance,
Thin despair,
Now this is how I dance.
-Firefly
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC
Forever from now, after we are dead and gone, scientists will x-ray our bodies. They will see the way our backbones sit behind our breastplates. Our chests will resemble busted church gates. Any soul big enough to do that to a body is ******* beautiful.
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 3:54 AM UTC
I dreamt I looked in the mirror
I could see my backbones & I was so
happy
but a kind of sad happiness
because there's no true happiness
inside my
bare bones
but I felt alive
when I was actually
dying
and I feel like I could jump to the stars
and glow in the dark
but I couldn't barely crawl on my knees
I am so weak
Oh I'm so sorry
i can see those bones again
but now they're buried
six feet under
my skin
but they want to crawl back
with me
and I can't say no to them
I can't say no to myself
I can't say no
to these urges
in order to be able
to see what's underneath
my skin
I'm so sorry
I'm really sorry
but I can't say no
not yet.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 9:47 PM UTC
You are like a paisley sunrise -
A tapestry of gorgeous spirit.
Your sheets radiant with laughter
Are patchouli spiced dances
In the sweltered tunings of cooling dusk.
Now Eros' altars wafting incense;
Sepia backbones stir spectral sighs.
Poised for splendid primal reckonings
Back door brains melt lucid minds
For in fluidity we thrive.
Through eyeing eternity
the prophecy is absolved
By monastic deflection I
Gained what the animals saw
Gypsy moth set your passion in plaster
Metamorphosis looms wherein
Wings strive thereafter
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
I hope one day it will fade
Like the breath or smudged finger print
on a freezing window on a car
that’s driving a little too fast
I hope that one day you find her
Whether that’s me or she or we
never speak again,
at least I know you’re happy
I hope you remember
I hope my eyes are burned into your membranes and every night
when you fall asleep you see a flash of blue
and feel a sting of red
I hope I am the forget me not and the remember me always
I’ve always been the stranger flower in the garden,
but you loved that
I hope you love yourself
like I loved you
Fully, compassionately, with a loss of all fear—
soaring on the wings
of child-like faith
I loved you like I loved Santa,
the tooth fairy and
the Easter bunny—
I loved you like
I knew
you weren’t real
I loved you like
I knew
you couldn’t stay—
But love yourself in a new way
Love yourself within the steely
strength of a thousand straight backbones
A thousand concrete cubes
A thousand “I love you”s
You were my first kiss
of the old year
and my last poem
of the new
please tell me
I
didn’t waste my new words
on you.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 11:18 PM UTC
In the basement sand is melting.
Imagine that, millions of years of crustaceous love stories, rocks slowly poisoned until they, along with ancient deep sea lovers, washed ashore to become the nuisance of the crevices of leather seats of automobiles.
In the basement the rocky lobster lovers are taking new shape as
the girl in the goggles
with the hair
tied back into a bun
forces air from her lungs into the
sticky
clearness.
That can’t be very good for you, breathing in a million
(maybe more)
years of betrayal and ****** and friendship and laughter
between ***** and clams.
It can’t be healthy to take
in so much at once.
I wonder what it’s like to speak a language known by so few.
To walk down an aisle in the supermarket and reaching the curves of a coca-cola bottle,
the girl in the glasses
with the bun
cries uncontrollably yelling,
“Do you see that?
All the beauty and the sadness
in the waves of molten sand in
six little bottles.”
To give your soul a little clear house, letting everyone look inside
(without really seeing)
letting everyone walk around it, and nodding and saying
“Oh will you see what she did there?”
and seeing nothing but a misshapen
coca-cola bottle.
In the basement backbones are being melted into a new mold.
They are somewhere hidden in the waves I cannot read, amidst the million years I cannot hear of crustaceous love stories.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 10:41 AM UTC
Heat,
Epic fires exploded behind me,
Giving my greased-up hair more shine.
The look on his face, horror,
My limbs stretched, strings of flesh holding together,
He screamed,
My head flung back, smile,
Contorted dark desire.
He screamed again,
This time one of high ******** proportions
Scream, lust, fear, urge!
Moonlight now dancing among light-fire,
Space burning,
Limping, backbones growing to Earth.
Growing smile.
"Wider! Wider!" I screamed,
Growing smile, lengthening, graying hair,
Blueing heart, ashy bones, growing smile.
He screams, seemingly forgetting feet,
He screams, real mis'ry melting his face.
He screams...... Awake now,
Alone in his midnight room.
I stand in the darkest of the shadows,
Waiting to be washed away,
By the light of dawn.
-MoonFirefly
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 12:09 PM UTC
How many echoes did you count
before your night light burnt out
and the sheets were no longer enough
to keep your teeth from dancing?
For me, it was November
when I found my eyelids
violet and blue.
I dreamt that I knew you
before there was much to know,
and now I know that on Sundays
you still sew patches
to your elbows and knees.
I dreamt of your streets
in the folds of my palm,
but I've got to say,
I always expected more footsteps.
And so I let the echoes go by
and never bothered to catch them
because they never spelled my name.
For me, it was November
when I stood barefoot in the alleyway
Armed with open-book thoughts
in a watered-down town.
Keeping the beat for bad company.
Wandering eyeless in this city
casting sharp, midnight shadows
on the backsides of blindfolds,
and holding their hands
and aligning our backbones.
And Howling.
Howling
the way wolves praise the moon.
Wake up, you ********
you've got your whole lives ahead of you.
Bend your bed frames into
the shape of an untamed altar and
celebrate Today,
Because it's all we
will ever really have.
And alters come in many different shapes
there's no right answer
so stop looking for it.
Just dance your feet from
bed springs to concrete.
and remind Tomorrow that
it has to wait it's ******* turn.
We walk blind to remind ourselves
that night lights only illuminate
the reasons why not to try.
For me, it was November
when the Sunday,
curved-spine crawlers
begged us to sleep.
But I let the echoes go by
and never bothered to catch them
because they never spelled my name.
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 3:32 AM UTC
I like to think (sometimes)
That I am a voice of Reason,
Especially when Reason
Eludes the masses.
I am the back-up plan
When everything goes
Pear-shaped, and You find
Yourself in a Living
Nightmare, struggling to
Survive in a hostile
Hostel far, far from home.
I'll be Your kernel of hope,
When all Reason evades
The light of day and
Night encroaches doomily.
I'm for the under-classes;
The voiceless throngs -
The Real backbones
Unrepresented by the Elite.
I'm for the Prostitutes and the criminally conjoined groupies;
I'm for the Legal Aiders - The reps on the ground, helping as best they can;
I'm for the lost-in-the-system; the poofs and lesso's; the avant-garders -
I'll be the rear-guard actioner, protecting Our arses from undue surprises.
I'll be the validator for the vilified,
And I'll not allow undue cruelty to trouble myn own loved ones -
My hard-lifers and my ugly-fuggly beauties --> Hands off!
And, I'm for the silent souls patiently waiting...so long, so long...
But ever hopeful that someone will rescue and love them too.
[Sorry I took so long to get up to speed. I know You knew way back when.]
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
The two sip wine
from small styrofoam cups
they've stolen from the general store.
The wine? Stolen from the church.
(Take and drink)
The cardboard sign rests on
the knees of the
man. A scarred face of a
woman rests on his shoulder.
The sign reads:
Will you have the backbone to seek the love we have lost? Will someone give us anything to feel?
Every day there's the dull roar
of shattering backbones.
(This cup of blood)
Jun 3, 2011
Jun 3, 2011 at 4:48 PM UTC
Let’s catch for us some puppets
Let them get caught between our rubbing hands
Let us collect them at their
lowest point
attach some strings
at their weakest joints
let us show them we care
Let them think that we love
Then let us rain
some money over their heads
and put them under burning lights
then let us fight
over the weakest
the most pliable
the ones with the least sense of worth
the ones with the most dirt in their past
Then let us surgically remove their backbones
and their minds
let us disguise their strengths
and clothe them in some new attire
then finally when they’re ready
let us escort them
into our fire
© 2011 Zoe Ray Johnson
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 7:36 AM UTC
HE. IS:
A whirlwind of absolute rage and apathy
Cruising through life like a pitfall
Without a place to land.
All these problems, all these horrors,
Mugging, ****** ****** genocide,
Making people pay to live,
Making people believe money is the root of all evil.
When I met you, I wanted to dominate you.
And you wanted that. Is that really right?
Because now all I want is to show you affection.
We would take each other as ******
We must take each other as we are.
I love you for every single thing you ****** up.
I love you for every single thing you did right.
I love you for understanding I am a child.
And so are you.
We are children, wandering and wondering
What is it we're going to do?
"I can't take care of myself!"
Neither can I! But I can take care of you.
Let's eat.
Let's enjoy it.
Let's not feel disgusting.
Because we're beautiful.
And putridity is wondrous.
I wanted you to hit me so hard.
I wanted your lips to break in mine.
Your teeth are wise, your tongue is buzzing and fluttering.
Your eyes, red and itching,
Burning and running black down your cheeks
Your pupils so large,
Your irises glowing
The whites were just water
Water and salt
And pain
And agony
For him
For you
For me
For our parents and that girl I met when I was ONLY NINE
And alcohol and war and self-loathing
And lack of confidence.
We will cry for everyone we can not fix
And it will be the best thing in the world
Because when we're fixed, we're going to be real adults.
Geniuses.
I hope you don't have to leave.
Because you are strong enough to do this yourself.
And no matter where we go...
No matter what God is watching
(if there is one), I love you.
And ****** I love myself.
Jan 2, 2011
Jan 2, 2011 at 11:06 AM UTC
What makes someone irresistible?
What is it about those scrumptious men and women?
Why it so impossible for us to not dive into the many fathoms of their depths?
Their Sunlight
Their Twilight
Their Midnight
Their Abyss
Their Trenches
Why are we so driven to understand them?
The dreams they have for tomorrow
The struggles that built and marked their backbones
The tantalizing perfume of their scented thoughts ...
... That tease and lead us to the out of reach places of their minds
How privileged we feel just to hang upon their edges
For a chance to breathe the breath of their soul's exhalations
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 12:50 PM UTC