"baren" poems
These warm sheets cradle me
with memories of last night.
I can sense you --
your baren body in the same sheets as mine.
These 12 inches between us feel like miles --
back to back.
Couldn't you just hold me for a little?
This ice on my shoulder is starting to burn
The crystals grow to form a protective coat
That resemble the stalagmites in my cavernous heart.
Eyes glazed over, the warm sheets rustle
and your sweet breath grazes my neck.
Your soft lips on my jaw line
and a wondering hand on my thigh,
Yet I remain as frigid as the ice on my skin.
When you're quite finished,
you'll leave me with agitated sighs.
I'll remain and slowly waste away in warm sheets,
crystallized skin protecting the embers of the girl within.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
Roaming these empty hallways
With dead eyes I see nothing of interest
Roaming from room to room
I see no light to lead me through the dark
It's a blind stumble
There's no joy
And all I see are baren walls
As I continue on walking
I keep on searching with half opened eyes
Partly wishing to find some meaning in all the emptiness
Half hoping to find some light to bring back color to this dull life
Cliché isn't it
That it was you who sparked some life in me
With a simple smile
Simply acknowledging me
It gave my life a little bit of meaning
So I continue walking through these empty hallways alongside you
The barren walls seem to have gotten some color
The hallways don't seem as dark
The lights seem to be working again
Then others came
More beings who spurred something deep within
Something absolutely human
It itself was light
And it interested me
A difference from the same dark
So I continued walking alongside my new companions
Together we all walked
No longer did I search in empty rooms
Or gazed through broken windows
Because I somehow managed to leave it all behind when I walked through the door that led to the outside world
To the life full of color
Full of new sounds and smells
To a brand new world full of wonder and interest
But what's most interesting
Is what led me to this world
The friends who brought me here
Who were the light amongst the bland
And the friend who started it all
So I'll explore this new world with him and the others
To see what else I might find of interest
To see what else might give my life meaning
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 1:36 AM UTC
Soft silouhettes creep into my bed
and wrap ribbons around my head
ribbons for the dead.
I am what they could have been instead.
They could have been a frog
They could have been a hazey fog
But they have been all, all along.
I'll watch them dance to my sleepy song.
I'll watch them dance to my sleepy song.
There are butterfly bones stuck in my teeth
I scream!
Bare wings bounce off my boots.
Atleast if it had been spit,
I could have shined my shoes.
The butterfly had nothing to lose.
The butterfly had nothing to lose.
Lizards slither through motions lather
Curve around the edge of the end.
Pulled still by the momentous illusion
Of those fat rat gems dripping juices.
I'll drink a glass with my
Breakfast under evil's gazebo.
** HARD. MAD. SLOW.**
-StrAngel
https://soundcloud.com/spiritbarehear/thirst
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 8:00 PM UTC
Du stråler virkelig i blændende lys
og på broer over søer i københavn
og om morgenen til kaffe
og på mandage under grå himmel
og bare sådan generelt.
Din personlighed smiler til folk,
og det er nok derfor du stråler.
Du fortæller historier med dine øjne
og kysser folk med dine smil
og krammer dem med din latter.
Men alligevel kender ingen dig;
du børster tårer væk med fingrespidserne
og løber videre ud på vejen.
Du kysser drenge du ikke kan lide,
og aldrig dem du har kigget på i baren.
og du vælger altid at tage hjem med fremmede. Du fortalte mig en gang at det er den tid du bruger på at lære dig selv at kende. At du sammen med fremmede bliver mindre fremmed for dig selv. Så kyssede du min næse og forsvandt bag gadelampernes skygger med en jeg ikke kender i hånden.
Jeg er den som kender dig bedst af alle. Jeg har set dig stråle overalt, men jeg har på fornemmelsen at for at kunne stråle som du gør med folk, så er du i mørke uden dem.
Og jeg kender dig godt nok til at vide
at du har mørkerad.
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 7:01 AM UTC
Clouds of Ash
soot
cinders
smoother our lungs, and choke our souls
My blaze, once contained
loving
warm
Erupted into something wild,
Something burning completely out of control.
Ive seared every inch of you to blisters
to bleeding
to exhaustion.
I took, unwaveringly so, to feed my flames,
to feed their insatiable destruction.
My love and passion, once demonstrated, turned
to madness
to deafening
to draining
Fire took ever inch of us.
I watch now helplessly as the Ash disintegrates
taking to the wind
dissolving in the air
The Earth, our foundation now lies scorched
seared
and baren.
I desperately pray for rain, or a mighty Phoenix
ANYTHING to regenerate the beauty
the growth.
I desperately pray, for a second chance
from you.
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 5:56 PM UTC
There are so many people I miss, especially my wife, and the very exciting things we used to do together. Sometimes I am sorrowfully speechless at the thought of them, and often drowning in a pool of private tears over the loss of my one true love. She looks past me as if to see through me as anything and everything deserves her attention more than I do. However hard I try to pretend it isn't there, a gnawing heartache lingers through the day from the hours of crushing melancholy in the night, seeping into the tone of my voice, fading the vivid colors of the world to a drabby gray. Even in laughter, I have to fight the dark clouds that threaten to cast a shadow in my expressions. Can't pull a rabbit out of the hat anymore. No more escape tricks. I am, fresh out of hope, physically exhausted, emotionally defeated to my core. It is a very lonely place where all the doors have been shut and bolted from the outside, and the four baren dingy walls that fill my vision in the dimming landscape of life are a stinging reminder of my failures as a father and the inability to measure up as a good husband. That hour is here, I knew it would come. I'm off, to a better place. Goodbye.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 10:43 AM UTC
Great boulders of strength blended with murky brown,
standing tall with baren trees scattered in between with greenery.
Ocean's deep with aqua blue and silverlined waves .
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
Sometimes we get lost in our darkness.
The only light beyond windows we keep covered in blinds
Someone opens them, someone closes
Yet no one seems to notice, nor tends to, the bleak starkness
The naked baren-ness behind those
Blinds that cease to conceal but rather reveal; a red rose
Enchanting and wondrous, I suppose
Not a soul knows about the treasure I find in the darkness.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 12:52 AM UTC
Years sprawl backwards
Across the baren hills behind me
From this distance I see more clearly
The tangled knots of pain I tied so tightly
Trying to lock away the burn of loss
Trying to hide the sting of caring
The intricate dance of ropes
Gently cascading together
The ache is all connected
All the hurt melded into one system
Across the landscape of my history
Too many years pretending I didn't care
So much time spent shielding my eyes
Filling the space with distractions and
Convincing myself that I had to do life alone
Abandoning myself and my people
Under the false pretense of self-sufficiency
I traded showing up with vulnerability
For empty space and loneliness
Feelings I could hide and fill instead
Of risking rejection from those I love
I've cut connections with a blade
So sharp and unnecessary
Instead of trying to hold and support them
Knotting the end like a clean cut
When there's nothing clean about loss
Ignoring the burn like I didn't care
Until years later I can't run from it anymore
Back home for the first real time in 10 years
There's nowhere left to hide
The ropeburn aches across my limbs
Leaving tattered patterns along my skin
Now I'm trying to live inside the fire instead
Not running or hiding from the truth anymore
If I want to grow beyond burns and flames
Then I have to feel through all the pain
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 8:43 AM UTC
It’s hard to meet someone serious at college. Everyone’s busy,
self-centeredly grinding away at their dreams. So much so that
people tell you to not even try (especially as a freshman).
I was mostly at ease with myself—as a freshman. I had an
excellent skincare routine—it was downright luxuriant, and it
kept me going, through that romantically baren and lonely year.
But we humans hope—we buy lotto tickets to dream on—though we know the awful math. We Gen Z’s seem to have our own unique brand of loneliness, born of covid and Internet-age experience.
My romantic expectations, sophomore year, were low—ok, unmeasurable.
Looking around was depressing. There were socially awkward STEM majors, jocks, frat men (sure the world’s laid-out just for them) and ‘CSOM Bros" (business majors more interested in parlaying my Grandmère’s money than me) and the elusive, emotionally reserved, ‘regular guys.’
But the unexpected can happen. We all know how crowded campus coffee shops are—the students move in and out in tides as noisy as the real, salty ocean. And then there you were, a rumpled, 25-year-old doctoral student—from another world—asking to share my table.
The loudest thing in that room was your sense of stillness. You seemed to be a new and distinct species, and as we talked, you seemed to somehow smooth my anxious edges. After a few meets, the thought, ‘I really like this guy,’ seemed to have its own gravity.
We somehow managed to thread the ‘too busy to care’ dynamic, and as time went by, you helped me channel my absurd, fiery, pastel-painted, first-love, early-twenty girlhood heat into something longer lasting, deep and authentic. Congratulations! It’s been two years.
Separating now, would be like removing the salt from the sea.
.
.
Songs for this:
Playing House by Kudu
So Much Mine by The Story
After Last Night by The Revlons
Jan 18, 2025
Jan 18, 2025 at 1:00 AM UTC
It was a breeze that eased over the swamp with a fog that longed in slowing song to the swaying trees, sleepily reaching for the strings.
The breeze turns into a gust, rolling up, and bellowing over the street, shaking the budding leafs of bushes, and pushes up the side of me, slithering through my sleeves it eases into my breathing, and coiled up the meaning into one exact laser pointed anointing of a singular fact.
And I, Am, Back, from circling colors that leak from the seams of everything, pooling in black encapsulations around the reeling remnants of sentiments hosted in a picture perfect frost.
As they melt away in the fading facade of the finality that fettered away, as dawn gave way to days breaking in the lights that refracted in attraction to the baren redacting of my status upon the pavement of the street that i stood for so long on, waiting for the fog to lift its grip, but instead we drifted toward home again.
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 4:11 PM UTC
Is it fair to say
I've found the one
I hope to lie next to
In summer heat
near the crashing waves
as the fading sun
bursts at its seams
to kiss as people sleep
and run down baren streets;
Not caring what people think
as we scream in woods
once the stars are at their peak;
I've found the one
to make memories with;
Apr 6, 2011
Apr 6, 2011 at 6:04 PM UTC
Dark,
gray,
lonely.
Baren with lost souls wandering the streets,
empty hearts,
empty stomachs,
empty eyes.
Then,
it came.
It dropped from the sky
the way tears fall from my cheek.
Little bundles of cold,
freezing the burning
hurt,
drenching the scars
with a blanket of a new day
a new thought.
They rise from the dead,
back,
alive,
and ready to roll.
Smiles leap across like rainbows on skies,
eyes lit the way you build a bonfire with frosty trembling hands,
movements jerky with fervor.
They're back.
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 12:31 PM UTC
I went adrift
Into the wood
Wouldn't you know
I couldn't or should
But I am a fool
And that's what I did
And nonsense
Is all the woods
Would me give
The ground is but rock
And wet is my sock
And rangers are strangers
And city folk mock
So fire we made
While the baren trees swayed
In the pitch black of night
In a yurt hovel cave
The drinks were a pouring
As camping is boring
And What is there other
than waiting for morning.
Why the did I go
What the hell did I think
Knowing that outdoor activities stink
The sleep is not sleep
And the food is all meat
And strange ranger Rick says you must be discreet.
So **** all the bears
And the fly's and the ticks
If I had more than one
They could **** extra *****
So head what I say
And stay far away
From state sponsored
State parks
the rocks and sticks
Stay home and inside
just turn on Netflix
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 7:57 PM UTC
I am the aggied oak ,
. . . a hold fast of reality .
Now autumn's shield has been lifted
and cold chills my scaly limbs ,
. . . adorned in acorned memory ,
buried beneath the fragile leaves
. . . I will do as you ask of me ,
forget all , so be it as you please .
My thoughts of love
are now hollowed out empty words ,
that fall far from from my presence . . .
like autumn's flying leaves.
The sentences of given grieves ,
can no more bare . . .
the crunch of forgotten feet .
Life naked , stricken ,
stripped down bare . . .
falls the last days of autumnal leaves .
The evening wind sends leaves racing .
So stoic now will I pretend . . .
as the cold chill embraces ,
all my baren limbs .
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 7:54 PM UTC
YOUR NAME IS EDWARD
LIKE THE KINGS
AND IT'S FUNNY
BECAUSE YOU ARE THE KING OF MY HEART
AND YOU WILL ALWAYS REIGN THERE
SITTING UPON
THE HEART SHAPED THRONE
WHERE YOU BELONG
AND WILL ALWAYS STAY
RIGHT THERE IN MY RIB CAGE
BUT THAT KINGDOM USED TO BE
COVERED IN FLOWERS
BECAUSE IT WAS BAREN
AND ALONE
AND SILENT
AND DEAD
THEN YOU CUT DOWN THE FLOWERS
AND GAVE THEM TO ME
WITH THE PROMISE TO KEEP ME SAFE
AND HERE I AM
ALIVE AND IN LOVE IN YOUR ARMS
AND YOU DO KEEP ME SAFE
FROM THE DEMONS WITHIN ME
I LOVE you
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 11:29 PM UTC
THE SKY IS FALLING!
THE SKY IS
F
A
L
L
I
N
G!
our sitch
at the moment
is quite the same
unless we are crying
WOLF! WOLF!
thank u
miss info
dis-em-e-na-tor
donny j
without whom
we wouldn’t
be standing
under umbrellas
with baren spines
as the thunderous
angry skies
fully open upon us
Presidential now, are we?
Yoda would posit
To the game, late you are #45
THE SKY IS FALLING
as wall street is
we
shelter in place
social animals that we are
self isolate
worry catastrophize ignore
attempts to hold on
we
reach out to comfort
to be comforted
get out your cards
throw the i ching
the runes
program & grid your crystals
wash your hands
cover your mouth
maintain isolation
social distance
daren’t cough
sneeze
touch
try not to breathe
thru all this
cling to sanity
cuz baby
looks like we just
stepped on the carousel
Mar 21, 2020
Mar 21, 2020 at 9:15 PM UTC
Walking on the streets
I used to know
In the cold night's winter air
Stepping back in time
to see if I
could recapture those
moments I lost there
In that tall oak
of baren arms uplifted
Where once kisses were freely gifted
And the cracks
in the sidewalks
makes me wonder
did I break a back
Way back when
When I claimed
these lands as
mine
Now I am a ghost
of what I was before
Without merit
Disinherited
The cold my constant
companion
A bank of ever
widening cracks
The cold
is hungry for
my heart
It demands my soul
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019 at 9:35 PM UTC
I treasure these stone walls that keep me warm at night, when I know its other occupants share no spark. The bitterness and filth of the night hold no triumph over me when the darkness of these baren walls hold me tight, bundled in their sheet of black silk. Walls are so inviting, they make a home and a fortress for my dreams to spindle into webs of mysteries and delights only I can fathom. For there is no need for windows nor doors when I do not intend to leave and there is no reason for me to depart. The moon has broke my heart, and the sun has crisped my soul far too often. My mind is all that remains intact and must be protected. No rabid creature can disarray my beautiful mind again. It must be kept sacred in these beautiful stone-cold walls.
Jan 4, 2019
Jan 4, 2019 at 3:41 AM UTC
In the baren wasteland I call home
There's clouds that hang overhead.
Dark, mysterious clouds.
Swirling, in an endless, ballet of misery.
They sit there. Teasing me.
I want it to rain so badly.
I yearn to be held, kissed by the moisture of the dreary gems.
And sing a lullaby most sweet.
Gentely murmuring the darling melody.
But no matter how much I beg and plea, I probably won't feel, let alone see..something as enchanting as the rain of today.
I can only remember the damp rain of yesterday.
And dream of the Mist to come
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
Sometimes life is perpetually the calm before the storm.
Everything can be fine,
peaceful silences, and
glowing sunsets
but you always feel that tug of regret,
for what is yet to come.
Living life in this state of unknown
can grind you down to the bone.
Can make even the most familiar of places,
not feel like home
anymore.
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 12:02 PM UTC
“Will you barter for your garden?”
the familiar stranger taunted.
His haunting talk caught on a loose thread in my heart,
recalling time and battles fought.
Make no mistake about the fae.
I must admit I was afraid, for I have seen my adversary
tear out the grass’s screaming hair,
poison the soil with atmosphere arid,
strip the baby branches baren,
shave the landscape clear.
I need not obey him.
I have in my hands a *****
and around this place an angry hedge.
He can not prevail unless I show him the way.
“No,” say I,
“No bartering in my garden today.”
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 2:15 PM UTC
Boxford (Trees)
Something wicked
Towering over
All that lives below,
All seems quiet
Until a storm initiates
Armageddon on the lives beneath.
Newburyport (Snowball Fight)
You ever hang out
With a dude you think
Is a complete *******
But then you realize,
After a wholesome
Snowball fight, that
He’s actually still *******
Terrible?
Salem (Fake Witches)
Demons are supposed
To be horrifying-
Morbid creatures
Who wish the destruction
Of all mortal begins.
So yes, I’d consider
You salem freaks
“witches.”
Haverhill (Badasses)
The towers here are
Reinforced with pure
Awesomeness-
If something was going
To fall, it would have
Done so already.
Dogtown (Real Witches)
The four mile hike
Was terrifying.
Each sound
Proliferating
In my mind
As we walked.
There were witches there alright,
And at anytime, they could extend
A cold hand and pull you into the night.
Plum Island (Heath)
Oh ******* ****
My tank is low
Why did I drive
So far alone?
It’s cold and baren
Not a life form in sight,
I’m about to break down-
-And campout for the night.
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 11:52 AM UTC
The walls are bare
and impossible to break down.
No way in.
and no simple way out.
The windows are boarded shut,
with splintering wood.
The shredded shades are drawn,
to **** any possible hope
of even a sliver
of light.
A single bulb hangs from the ceiling,
long since burnt out.
The hard concrete floor
is cold beneath her bare feet.
A wooden chair
stands in the center of the room,
but she prefers to sit on the floor.
Thinking that maybe,
hopefully
if she curls up enough
she’ll no longer be there.
Then, she can simply vanish into thin air.
Is it bad that she thinks of such a thing?
Yes it is
she’s just thirteen.
They wonder why she feels this way,
her life is perfectly lined up
with every detail planned out
and every possible event accounted for.
The perfect life she is expected to live.
She will do well in school,
get A’s in all her classes,
get into a private high school.
Then she’ll go on to an Ivy league college.
How can she not be happy with her life?
Doesn’t it sound perfectly perfect?
What more could she want?
Maybe she just wants to be heard
but no one will listen
because all they can think is
what more could she want
than this life?
Maybe she wants to go to high school with her friends.
Maybe she wanted to go to that party yesterday,
but couldn’t because she was studying
because if she gets below a perfect score on the test
she won’t be the best
and that strays off the path of this life laid out for her.
Oh no no no now we can’t have that.
So maybe it would be easier to just sit in a room
with baren walls, closed windows, and concrete floors
where no one can get in.
A room that was never there until
she came along.
A room she built with her own two hands,
piece by piece,
bit by bit,
until she put the last nail in the last window,
making it impossible to get in,
but not impossible to get out.
She could just leave.
She could kick down the door.
She could unnail the boards.
She could be free.
She could escape.
She could finally burn down
this House of Hate.
But out there,
there are people,
there are people with expectations that want things done
the same people who are forcing her to be number one.
But she doesn’t want to be number one all the time.
She just wants to have fun,
to be free, to have a say
in how her life is layed out
because you think it’s a neat straight line
but she would prefer
it to be a scribble all over the page.
She just wants to have a say.
But no one will listen to her voice,
it is overpowered by too many people
saying no,
too many people
saying this is what you do.
But her voice is never heard,
so why keep wasting her breath?
Her room is never found,
and no knocking ever comes.
No one ever starts banging on the door.
No one screams at her to let them in.
No one comes to save her.
And she’s gotten used to life being this way.
So instead of wasting her tears,
on “friends” who don’t seem to care,
she just sits in this room
staring at the wall
hoping
wishing
praying
that there was
none of her
at all.
Sep 24, 2019
Sep 24, 2019 at 3:46 PM UTC