"barreling" poems
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Not for long, anyway. Cake doesn’t settle well when it’s all you’ve had to eat. It’ll churn like butter inside you, and creep up your throat to project like a cannon, barreling through a wall. Cake won’t sit right with you anymore. At the mere mention of cake, your insides will crawl with disgust and an association of icing will replace your taste buds with ***** You will never be able to enjoy cake—at parties, as a delicacy, with ice cream—because you got greedy and wanted to eat your cake first rather than save it for such an occasion. Now all the different kinds of cake you fantasized about trying—black velvet, coffee cake, buttercream pound cake—will only be a reminder of your pitfall that led you to make yourself sick with desire, for cake. You can’t get the icing off your tongue, the smell of batter baking has festered in your nostrils wired to the pungent taste of red from between your teeth. But it’s all you can think of when you’ve been wronged by your favorite dessert. What sort of chemical reaction in the bowels of your stomach caused all of this sorrow? What rejected the cake? Your body has a way of telling you things—we should listen more. Cake is not sustenance, it has no value as a nutritious food. It doesn’t help, only hurts.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
Camel crush cigarettes
Put them in a fancy box
No, I’m too poor to buy them
But if you pass’em
Then I won’t say no.
People say that it’s unclean
That you’re unclean
That they’re unclean
You smell like a hotel room
And it’s comforting.
Camel crush cigarettes
Your hugs speak of the habit
No, take your precious smoke break
**** it clean to dust
Barreling into death.
People say that it’s unwise
That you’re unwise
That they’re unwise
You smell like drunken Saturdays
And it’s delicious.
Camel crush cigarettes
I’ve never felt addiction
No, I don’t think that I could
It’s a scarlet dreamland
With one-way tickets.
People say that it’s unkind
to lungs and mind
They’re right, I find.
But you look like abandon
And it’s inviting.
Camel crush cigarettes
I’ve never loved a smoker
No, I’d always been too proper
But if you tasted like that
I wouldn’t mind a bite.
People say that you’re catering
To your un-ease
With a disease.
You feel like contradiction,
And I’m depraved.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 3:21 AM UTC
Before I knew it I darted towards her like a train.
Barreling toward her fast as I could.
Inhaling deep, releasing deep huff.
The rumble of what came to be manifested before I was seen.
The notion of steam clouds and rod hot like iron.
Darting past the station.
Caution thrown to the wind in a solid fluid motion.
The rumble of my heart lead the way.
Stead fast, the scenery of steeping in front of emotion.
Track after track.
Winding and twisting with nothing to block the way.
I shot into a tunnel.
Stepping head first into what I have always known.
The express route to desire.
To inhale in ultimate asphyxiation.
The next station miles and miles away.
We were punctual.
Breaking down in deep huff.
Trails of smoke funnel where I lost my breath
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018 at 1:30 PM UTC
At Ellis Lake, an overcast Sunday afternoon.
A lake divided into two, oddly shaped bowls in the middle of the city, surrounded by a constant stream of birds, wind, and traffic.
A spotless white swan cleaning herself on a grassy knoll, ferretting out whatever filth lurked deep within her feathers, then smoothly sweeping her sideways bent head across her back, as if to remember the long forgotten affectionate touch of an absent lover.
A gaggle of four grey geese combing the lawn for food, waddling in unison side-by-side.
A line of five mallards barreling down the hill into the water.
A multilateral crescent of black and white pigeons receiving harsh dictation from a trio of angry snow geese strutting before them.
A red-faced duck slowly approaching in the quiet expectation of food, then the arrogant acceptance of the lack thereof.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 11:13 AM UTC
i kept my hatches battened but that
didn't stop your love from barreling toward me
like a runaway freight train with faulty breaks.
and god almighty, did we crash.
you came to a screeching halt at my doorstep
and i didn't know what else to do but let you in.
you looked so cold. we did not start with a spark but a full-on fire.
i told myself i wouldn't fall, instead i jumped.
our sinking frames somehow morphed into life preservers,
and we managed to keep each other's heads above the waves.
we had seemingly saved one another.
you tossed your pills, i flushed my razors, and for a while that was enough.
but we learned the hard way that even the deepest love
can only keep the storm clouds in your mind at bay for so long.
eventually our cracks began to show.
missed calls and silent hours built houses of cards
that were blown down by too many miles.
we hardly ever smiled anymore.
my hands were sieves and yours were sand.
i want to break the hands of the clock
that cursed us with this bad timing.
i have mourned all the hours i won't ever have with you.
i have felt the thunder that rumbles in my lungs
when i reminisce about the memories we'll never make.
the moment i realized i would never wake up beside you
an atom bomb went off in the center of my chest.
but the radiation is what's killing me.
the life is being drained from me here in the wake,
in the ache of your absence. but i won't beg.
i will live out the remainder of my days
tormented by wondering if maybe in another world
our love is perfect and neither of us bleed.
- m.f.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 3:27 AM UTC
Living in this yellow box filled with aging trinkets
A lonely guy trying to get by just hasn't sealed the link yet
Bout a cup of milk left in the fridge and God forbid I drink it
A shaggy dog; that ***** hog, why can't they smell the stink yet?
The junk comes barreling through the door so fast that you can blink it
There's no more room for gloom and doom, but let's fit one more inkjet
They just got rid of dinnerware, a silver and a pink set
So now to hoard an ancient sword, a blender and a mink set
Five garbage bags of someone's clothes, the sixth one's in the sink, wet
With lots of cans and pots and pans, we'll reach the jagged brink yet
They're trying to let go, said there ain't no space to think yet
They're workin hard to raise the bar, ain't worked out all the kinks yet
Pressed for time and low on space
****** I need to get out of this place...
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC
The devil's speech say they:
Rolling, clattering, frolicking, hungry.
Billows of charred skeletons embrace the air
Black soot pumped straight from the pyres of Hades
Congealing to clouds of evil intent wherever it roam.
That charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
In the coughing desert
Not a thing dares roam
Neither wind nor creature
And neither stick nor stone.
But then the silence disturbed by a horrible shriek -
The railway screams in horror and the train itself speaks, saying
"Tell me, thou innocent,
Why feel you special and best?
For when all is done I take you
And return you to my nest;
Your world is bright and happy
Full of high spirits and song,
Though soon you too shall step aboard
And join my faceless throng."
Hot saliva on the heaving engines:
Weeping, groaning, ghostly, parched.
Rusted joints spewed onwards grinding resisting
Movement spat out like a violently beaded string of curses
Sloppily uttered as incantations of a malformed mouth!
From that charred old shell so terse,
Black as sadness and dead as a hearse,
Darling to death as he brings on the rain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
That dark train cries out and all around
A mourning whimper rises like slumbering fog-
Bleak and yellow it obscures the land
Seeping out insidious in strange locales all:
The old lonely fisherman
Sleeping on his wharf,
The frustrated hawker's
Windblown barefaced booth,
Silent streets crying for attention,
Dark places hidden at the corner of every eye.
That solemn train cries out and all around
Her mourning whimper rises like harrowing fog
Calling all to upright attention and fear.
Looming like a spectre but a breath-span from your window
Slowly closing cold dread claws-
Naked numbness dumb as ice-
Cold dread claws upon thy waist.
And you,
You poor old thing,
Shivering in your pitiful shack of bones,
You never had any chance!
You were only human.
You were only human, you poor old thing.
Barreling on with brimstone slang:
Clang clang! Dang dang! Beelz Bub!
Sputtering an ocean of curses from turgid goat-flesh
Born of sadness to cause even more, yawning great maw
Jowls clanking with fresh hot oil drool steaming stark and lewd, and yet
That charred old shell so terse,
Blacker than sadness and slain like a hearse,
Is all that gives meaning to our every gain:
The dry rolling thunder of the funeral train.
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 12:10 AM UTC
Pandemonium seeps, swallows, and creeps like a crawling
Virus barreling havoc far beneath the innermost psyche
Dispatch the strike, angels discern demons alike, appalling
The flight of sparrow's circum to children below
Consumed within a thoughtless crow
All bold to make haste on an hour's race
The final shade seeps under all frontiers
A foe abandoned in fear
Passing tides in the dead of night
Shown troubled to the world's delight
Such lonesome calls to a stranger
Embark on this journey, my ranger
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 4:13 AM UTC
A sonnet to my sins
Hopeful hopelessness
Akin to Les Mis
Hypocrisy thy name is
Was I really a drunk?
A toss-away punk, caught up in the funk?
Barreling down the asphalt human landing strip
Looking back but seeing nothing behind
Self replicating machine elves on the mind
Give in
Drop out
Tune in
Hypocrisy thy name is
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 9:42 PM UTC
He called me Hiraeth
and I never knew why
he carried me in cupped hands
like water,
like evaporating rain.
He called me Hiraeth
and i never knew why
he held me in clenched arms
like ghosts,
like people he has already lost
He called me Hiraeth
and I never knew why
he dropped me through stratospheres
like atom bombs
like war, famine, hate
He called me Hiraeth
and I never knew why
he watched me through refugee eyes
like a burned home
like a train barreling into the night
Aug 19, 2020
Aug 19, 2020 at 1:17 PM UTC
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Where art thou?
Come hither unto me
And take me somewhere right now
I need a change of scenery,
snap snap, take me there
I need a different memory,
Who, what, where?
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Thou hast my heart
Approach upon me carrying
My new start
I require your assistance,
My demons are close behind
They follow with persistence,
How I wish they were blind
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Taketh mine own heart
If thou cannot save me
At least let me restart
Rubber onto road,
quick before they see
For my demons, they have growed,
and are still chasing me
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Thou hast the only escape
To be or not to be,
Breaks the image agape
Barreling down the alley,
faster please, oh dear
this may be my death valley,
the reaper, he is near
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Thine hast tried so hard
"Here, buy yourself some new wheels"
I say and give my card
I'm cowering upon the horde,
they're towering up above
Oh my, what I would reward,
to my peace dove
Taxi cab, oh taxi cab
Run while thy has the chance
Pitter patter down the road
Don't give me another glance
They dive unto me,
I wretch and scream
The scene plays out violently,
Sadly, not a dream
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 3:08 PM UTC
I wish to peer at Paris, under-dressed and ***** in all of its neoclassical splendor.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see a prehistoric forest, verdant, overgrown and jumbled.
Before evergreen mysteries I would be ever humbled.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see Rhodian gardens and from them, smell the flowering fig and taste succulent honey suckle.
I wish to glimpse zaftig temptresses dancing twenty thick amidst courtyards of ancient Persian palaces.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to be blessed into an inenarrable life on an unalike mysterious planet.
I wish for an Atlas resembling and proportionate soul.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I've demanded an even temperament from my unruly emotions.
I've settled for continuous disbelief at the loquacious ignobleness of humanity.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've sequestered my innocent dreams and bloomed monetary means.
I've avoided death narrowly, my fingers gripping, fear will always transfix, while barreling down 36'.
I've inhaled profits and installed transformation.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've burned my midnight oil, taken offensive slander, and burned bridges with gratuitous candor.
I've witnessed coal falsify a beautiful gloaming sky.
I've had gasoline dreams filled and fuming with intensity, all drowning under an ocean of oil.
I've envisioned bleached beaches to hide stained soil.
These are moments I would give up.
There are things I've realized outside my reality, outside my internal soliloquy and physical tactility.
I've come to understand my words are nothing more than symbols on a closed door.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 11:54 PM UTC
You're a thumping aggressive *******
I fight you, I hate you
I love you, too
You're a beast with no care
You stomp on my life
You stomp on my soul
Like King Kong on a truck
Or Genghis Khan to a neck
You've only been here to win
A huge body of heavy hard muscle
Barreling down at me
A two-ton man, you are
You truly are. You truly are.
Heated & selfish
You're sickened by my weaknesses
A King of kings indeed.
I can't tell if you even hate me back
So I'll say goodbye now, to the man who ruled
Over my personal Iron Age;
Your eyes are empty animalian jewels
And
I'll be fooled
No more.
Aug 14, 2012
Aug 14, 2012 at 2:09 PM UTC
Walking on the sidewalk
Down long, winding roads
Carving through the city while my mind explodes
I see a little girl wearing a velvet shirt with Marilyn Monroe
It made me think of you as I found a new place to go
Staring down the windows
Looking for a friendly face
Pushing through the avenues with nothing left to replace
I see a starlight sky and a million shining eyes
And I remember the time we watched them go by
Leaning on the windowsill
Listening to Midnight sing
Only the lonely seem to remember everything
I hear a country song coming from an open bedroom door
It was the words you sang when you couldn't take the silence no more
Here comes the morning
With the sweet summer sun
Barreling down the alleyways and shining down on everyone
I see a gypsy woman wearing a sundress painted red
As she twirled her hair I couldn't get you out of my head
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 17, 2016 at 12:16 AM UTC
There is sea salt all over my hands, and I know I'm not the ocean.
So let's drink tea out of mason jars,
with cold porcelain shards instead of ice,
and let's cut our mouths on every argument we've ever had.
I hope you don't mind if I make a home out of you,
and I'm sorry if my spirit doesn't fit so well inside of yours, you see
I have been carrying dead weight with me like a terminated pregnancy,
and mourning the emptiness inside of me like a miscarriage.
Now it seems like I'm only giving birth
to the sorrow that my heart cannot hold.
Now I'm starting my mid-life crisis early, stating over, starting with you.
I'm writing my past into the sand, waiting for the tide to clean my slate.
So just wait a little but while I hold my breath hostage,
and I will wait for a ransom to come,
and I will pray that it doesn't come barreling down my door, looking like you.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 2:55 PM UTC
It was half past noon as Professor Lynch came barreling into the drive way in his hunt for the unknown. His actions so urgent he forgets to even close his car door. He sprints up his steps and swings the door open to his house and there it was.
Why was he is such a hurry? Well this goes back a little over a week prior when he had some guests over for the first time since he bought his new home. It was the day after he had finally unpacked the last box. This was a gathering to celebrate his new job as a History Professor at the University of California and his beautiful new home. The gathering was going as planned till he heard a strange noise coming from the basement.
The guests didn't hear this noise and continued having a great time as Lynch went downstairs to check it out. As he opened the back door he heard some things fall over as if an animal had skirmished to the noise of the door. As he continued down the stairs after this so called animal his heart about hit his stomach. He has a small door in his basement he figured was used for child’s play made by the family before him. So in his unpacking process he had left it alone. Well he could of sworn he seen the door **** to it turn. Too afraid to check it out on his own he ran upstairs. Trying not to embarrass himself he quickly ran up the stairs into the main room and continued the gathering as if nothing had happened.
Once the guests left he found himself sitting in his living room saying to himself “it was nothing, you’re just seeing things.” He talked himself into believing this because he hadn't slept much in a few days with all the unpacking trying to get ready for the new week. So he finally decided to go to bed and get some rest. It wasn't for another week till he had started to notice some strange occurrences. He came home from work that day and noticed his refrigerator was left open. Lynch however was uncertain on if it was him who left it open so he shrugged it off.
Another day had passed and again he came home from work and his refrigerator was open again. This now struck an uneasy feeling; he had made sure he closed it before work today. As he continued through his house with caution he had seen nothing unusual nor seen anything more out of place until he walked by the basement. He once again heard this skirmishing sound of what seemed like an animal trying to escape the basement. As he entered the basement the sound stopped. He was frightened but hadn't been threatened in any way, so he continued throughout his day although not in ease. He was uneasy about this happening a second time so he decided to come home early from work and see if he could catch whatever it was in action.
So at work the next day as he planned he left work early, about half past noon. “Professor Lynch came barreling into the drive way in his hunt for the unknown. His actions so urgent he forgets to even close his car door. He sprints up his steps and swings the door open to his house and there it was.” This was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Something so frightening, so terrifying his jaw hit the floor. Before Lynch could speak a word, he was snatched and drug into the basement through the little door he thought was used for “child’s play.”
-Joseph B Schneider
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 8:20 PM UTC
Hurtling across the horizon
inside the belly of a great ribbed
silver beast, barreling singlemindedly
down its prearranged tracks at speeds
previously unobtainable my mere mortal men.
Modern marvels of man-made comfort
surround us daily. So that we can exist without
need of fear or worry from our environment.
Our fight or flight responses are being systematically
removed, slowly, generation by generation.
Our dominance of the material world
and the animal kingdom is destroying the world
as we knew it. This world of ours that we now reside
within is entirely foreign to what existed before us.
We are the aliens of our own futures.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 8:55 PM UTC
never content:
withholding love out of what?
fear? envy? greed? sadness?
how i long for peace, stability and change...
a constant contradiction. barreling from heart to heart -
never finding ground long enough to lose myself
in someone else’s arms.
feelings stronger after i tear them out.
have to look at them in the air in front of my eyes.
bleeding, dripping their blood on the carpet,
heart beating in my hands.
to be clinically inspected and torn apart
only to discover that this was what i wanted all along.
like a tree, felled to tell its age,
dead, but finally understood.
too late to say,
“ah! look how old it’s branches, how deep its roots, how wonderful it’s shade!”
dead. dead and decomposing on the floor.
will i always glorify love lost over love in front of my eyes?
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 8:37 PM UTC
i wish i was still your lover
i wish it was your hands tracing circles across my flesh
instead of the grimy man next door who doesn't really feel it
i wish it was your lips gently pressed against the nape of my neck
instead of the icy cold stares that I get from the people passing by
being drowned under their judgements and my own sinking feelings
3750 the house with the pine trees on the left and also on the right
the one that we spent our last night intertwined in
the one that we broke in
do you remember?
looking for keys at 3
and laughing or maybe it was screaming my name from rooftops
we practically drank ourselves blind
that night. you probably don't remember.
i mean we were both so wasted
but we were in love
i miss that, i miss you.
i regret it as soon as the words leave my mouth but
there's really no other way to put it.
no distractions to take me away from the reality of it.
you were gone, and i was alone.
but truth be told you were never really mine.
i knew it was only a matter of time
before you grew and explored too far
before you found other souls to confide in
other souls to lose your mind in
but before i get lost in my anger and sadness
let's take a moment to go back to our happiness
i remember you
let me drown out my sadness within the miles of your arrogance
never afraid, never hesitated
you have an inflated superfluous sense of self i mean who even are you
i don't blame you, i know that i, too
am in love with that stupidly
brilliant mind of yours
you let me drown in your strong arms and confident strides
barreling down the highway with your hand locked on my thigh
with rock blasting in the background
the world feels slightly like a gorgeous haze
sort of the way i look at your bruised face
sort of the way you keep your eyes on the road
i guess we'll be the love story that goes untold
but i can't get your hands, your voice,
out of my head, i know that this was your choice
but were time reversed i'd go back
to that lonely Friday when you said you needed space
i know i'll be asleep by the time you make it to my place.
but i promise i will remember to wait,
and to always choose the saints.
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 5:05 AM UTC
A car occupied by ghosts
Barreling down a busy highway.
I wipe the snow from my cuff.
I don't know what home is
But I am looking.
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 1:06 AM UTC
I have written so much
****** poetry across this city;
left it in bars, under streetlights, and
In the bathrooms where people have ******
all over the toilet seats
and I had to use my poems
to clean it up.
They are on napkins
and receipts;
pieces of toilet paper,
and even a one-liner
on the carcass
of a piece of paper
that once held a straw.
The words get soggy on wet bars
and bloom like black flowers
losing all consistency and coherence.
Sometimes
I write them out of pure impetus.
To get me going,
I need a couple beers and those
Pabst-drinking, past-drunk
drunk girls that get close up to you
and put their lips on your earlobes
like they want to tell you a secret
But all you get is a present
of soft stinging breath.
Sometimes
I write them for some girl I meet,
like the one who came up and sat down
right beside me.
She said her name was
so and so.
I said my name was
so and so,
so we got to talking
And the topic finally reared its
fat, ugly head:
“Are you going to school?”
“Yea I go to State”
“Oh that’s cool, whats your major?”
“Creative writing”
Then she smiles at me
like I’ve got some broccoli
in my teeth,
and she wants to figure out a way to tell me
without breaking
this three-beer-good-buzzing mood,
finally she says:
“write me something”
And I become a dog for her.
In my doggish way
I take my tail
out of my pocket
and tuck it's wiggling self
onto a napkin.
I write
about how meeting someone new,
is like trying to figure out
if what you’re looking at is a skyscraper
or a mountain,
or just a Norfolk freight train
barreling down the tracks
with your name on it’s front grille.
Nov 18, 2011
Nov 18, 2011 at 8:47 PM UTC
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late
And how can man die better
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods”
Soft murmurs along the front line crackle like a broken prairie plough,
The maples and oaks snapping with
Every burst of the cannon.
Crested breaths choked out by
The ferocious blasts of this entrenched
Jungle.
Shrieks punctuate the deathly silence,
And sobers the divisions thirst for war.
I, a dead soul among the living.
The soft wind at night is the nefarious fingers of death,
Soaking the earth and ****** boughs
Of the old oaks with the veins
Of golden purity.
(I am standing on an eagles skull.)
I can hear the Rebel yell beyond the tree line,
BLASTING the barreling notion of liberty,
Stacked within our Union souls.
A Bundren coffin takes form in the mist beyond the wasteland.
My kin lay wait at home,
Shall I return one day and parade through pastures
And creeks until the days grow old
and so shall I.
With kin side by side.
My vacant mind floats off to distant lands along the
timbered forests of the Free North.
Orations from my Grandfather resonate like wind chimes
Rattling among the inner confines of my sanity,
Strewn images flash like the lines of Virginian regulars,
A sparse reminder of my ever so soon fate
In the Wilderness.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 5:32 PM UTC