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Shin Dec 2013
I don't know how to write happy poems
because I don't really believe in them.
I thought angst would die with adolescence,
but alas I can still feel its cold dint.

Perhaps like virginity this goes too;
no longer a creep standing idly by.
Plastic smiles taped to our cardboard faces
and yours alone I felt the need to prise.

That's okay, because the teenaged rosebud
that we claim to be so very unique
is beginning to wither, can't you see?
And now it's the thorns society seeks.

So look out over yonder cityscape.
Your mask shall be shed only by the moon.
Until then, a cartographer of love;
yours that is, we'll still pathetically swoon.
Maya Duran Sep 2019
ii.
You are in the living room at dusk
Haphazard towers of moving boxes rise around you
The furniture has been dismantled and
You divert your gaze to the underwhelming formation
Of cardboard and tape
As your mother screams and throws the cat across the room

In retrospect, it reminds you of an album cover
For some emo basement band
A collage of childhood in hues of brown
Or a glimpse of red flannel
Cardboard castles, a little boy
Holding a paper sword
Taken on a disposable camera in 2004
And reappropriated for it’s nostalgia in 2014

The boy you caught is not amongst your rescue party
You veil your disappointment poorly as you climb into the passenger seat
And it filters through the holes in the cloth like grey light
You blame the fatigue on your mother alone
Though it isn’t entirely her own
"Cavetown wrote a song about your ex and we played it all summer long" pt 2. I remember wet grass and pavement, chainlink fence and the high school running track that was a few blocks down, but I cannot for the life of me remember what the the front yard of that house looked like. All I can picture is a curb and the street I grew up on in the deeper East side.
Clive Blake Dec 2017
People living in cardboard boxes ...
What are they doing there,
Are they there out of choice,
Or there in despair?

Are they there through their own fault,
Or is the blame society's at large,
Should you give them some free assistance,
Or have police put them on a charge?

Unlike the good samaritan,
You choose to walk on the other side,
Quite happy to debate lofty moral issues,
Until you meet reality, stumble and collide.

Cardboard City's inhabitants,
Are surely past redemption,
Would you really make that statement,
If in there, lived your son?

Shouldn't they help themselves more?
Perhaps they've already been trying,
All I know is they are fellow human beings,
And in the winter ... they are dying.
Jessie Sep 2010
When I die,
I don't want to be buried.
I don't want a casket.
I don't want a tombstone.

I don't really want much of a funeral.
I simply want whomever desires
To say something about me
To do so
(Whether it's good, bad, or funny).

I want to be burned
In a cardboard box,
And as I'm being cremated,
I want someone
To read a poem that I have written
For that very occasion.

When I'm all turned to ashes,
I want them to put me
In a cheap little container
And throw my ashes into the wind.
Maybe over a field, a forest, or the ocean--
Whatever, so long as it's windy there.

Mostly,
I don't want my loved ones to have a
Specific place to visit me

Because
I want to be the one
Who visits my loved ones

So I can give them kisses
When the wind
Brushes their cheeks.
i wonder if i can put this poem in my will...
E Jun 2020
Cardboard box
Small and simple
Needs no rhyme
Needs no reason

Decorate
My cardboard box
Fill it with
Sweet memories

Cardboard box
My only friend
Goodbye
Someday, we’ll meet again
Dominique Aug 2018
I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet

I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms

I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud

I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone

I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife

There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood

Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate

These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel

We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told

We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon
The night brings comfort to those who need it most
Connor Jul 2016
And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin
Written between late June to July 13th.
Brandon Halsey Jan 2012
You awaken in the cardboard box
That you refer to as your home
The dawn is barely breaking
And already you feel alone

A *****’s bath in a public restroom
Then you’re ready to start your day
Layers of stage makeup hide the wounds
Of the lead in this lack of morality play

First up is the sadistic businessman
He knows the drugs you need
But it comes with one condition
That he gets to see you bleed

With his one hand around your throat
And the other grabbing your breast
He takes whatever looks good
And leaves you with the rest

You straighten out your dress
And try to wipe yourself clean
You’re helped back to your feet
By a schoolboy of age seventeen

He's skipped his classes for the day
And borrowed his mother's van
Now he’ll gladly pay your fee
If you'll make him into a man

It’s all over before it begins
A symptom he can't control
You can barely feel it anyway
Numb in both body and soul

At night you meet your ****
And give the devil his due
You willingly submit to him
As he runs you through

You retreat to the cardboard box
That you refer to as your home
The moon is heavy in the sky
And you can finally be alone

Your lips wrap around the pipe
The smoke molests your lungs
And slowly you begin to forget
The world that you came from

You once dreamt of a white knight
That would come and take you away
Now seen as only vestiges
Of a young girl’s naiveté

Dignity is a memory
An illusion from your past
Like pleasure or happiness
A feeling you could never grasp

You once thought you’d hit rock bottom
But there was so much further left to fall
You were filled with unknown fears
But now you’ve named them all

Add up the rocks they pay
As you break their last taboo
And the secrets that they share
When they’re deep inside of you

A normal person would go insane
But your body is no longer yours
Are you less than human now?
One of a thousand nameless ******

You wonder if they see a woman
Or just another object on her knees
You could show them who you really are
But that’s not what they pay you to be
Martin Bailes Feb 2017
Mr. Gene Huber,
salutes a 6 foot cardboard
box painted like Trump
every single day
of his life on earth,

& gives sincere thanks
to the Lord Above
for this splendid gift
this heavenly avatar
descended amongst us.

Mr. Gene Huber
loves President Trump,
loves him deeply
veritably weeps upon
meeting him,
& Trump whispers
back that love,
all thankyou's &
laying-on-of-hands
like.

He believes all his President
declares as true,
won't consider
contradictions,
all evidence,
any supposed learned word.

Mr. Gene Huber believes
this snake-oil salesman
speaks for him,
will fight for him,
cares about him,
& nothing,
absolutely nothing,
this charlatan says
or has done,
or pretends to have done,
or is found out
not to have done,
makes one half-pence
of difference.

This an adulation in a
near religious sense,
this is the masses & Mao,
this is the people
& Benito,
the children & Moses.

This is every
flawed & human
guru & rabble-rouser
ever to walk this
green, green
earth.

This is a cipher,
a vessel for hopes,
dreams & simple answers,
a man who points
to an enemy
a target for your failures,
to explain your losses,
life's roadblocks,
declare without hesitation
the answers,
the way forward
to that glorious kingdom
to come.

Mr. Gene Huber
is only human,
after all,
& I guess
we feel for him,
but a man who salutes
a 6 foot cardboard image
frightens me
in more ways
than one,
of that
I have
no doubt.
soul in torment Sep 2013
A cardboard box some building blocks
some scissors and some string
four paper plates two Apple crates
a frizbe and a spring

A roll of tape a sheet of crepe
Some paint pots and a brush
five lolly sticks eight lego bricks
quick Ted we have to rush

Pram wheels four maybe one more
***** driver and some screws
A saw some wood there that looks good
With this we cannot lose

place two wheels square right under there
and ***** the screws in tight
Now same again that's done now then
let's fit the seat alright

The Apple crate will look so great
when painted red and green
The box cockpit is where we'll sit
and steer this wild machine

Add blocks and bricks and Lolly sticks
to make my dashboard bright
spare wheel on back now all we lack
are fireflies for our light

Jam jar ******* tight that looks alright
now place them there just so
what's that you said dear mister Ted
you want to have a go

The boxcar race is taking place
so we will have to run
I'll pull you steer were oh so near
to having so much fun

The starting line now grip the line
as dad gives us a push
We're building speed taking the lead
as past them all we whoosh

The end in sight Ted please hold tight
and please don't move about
Ten yards now nine we're doing fine
eight seven six... look out

FIVE more to go let's start to slow
the wheels with the brake
what's that you said dear mister Ted
we've made a big mistake

No brakes oh no two yards to go
and then the three bar gate
but wait just look it's off the hook
and open wide... oh great

1 yard we won the race is run
and yet we still race on
past in a flash we end up SPLASH
Stuck in the village pond

We may be wet but don't forget
we won a victory
For Daddy said that me and Ted
could have a winners tea

So party cake till bellies ache
and then it's time for bed
From bits of trash we made a splash
me and my best friend Ted
the thought of death is an uneasy thought
in my case it's a ****** nightmare

on the 16th day of May, 1967, Mr Youngblood took his 6th grade class to the playground as he always did, every Tuesday after lunch. The kids spread out to their usual positions. Some played catch with Mr Youngblood. A few, like Roger and me went to the basketball net and several played on the monkey bars, both of which were part of the big asphalt square. Just opposite this area was the soccer field and then some good distance between that and the Middle School. Lots of open space for a bunch of suburban kids to have fun. The Sun was bright and the wind was light and the temperature was right around perfect. We had been playing for 10 minutes or so when the wind picked up and clouds seemed to move in out of nowhere. We all thought it must be a storm coming...and it was. A distant laugh froze everyone. At first no-one saw him, but then we all saw him at once. He was walking across the soccer field towards us, long deliberate strides with long thin legs that seemed to bend once slightly below where the knee should be and again slightly above, making each stride awkwardly horrifying. Where he came from is a mystery as there was nothing but open land behind him for several hundred yards. He was tall and lanky and as he approached us, I noticed that his face was contorted and discolored...a pale, almost painted white and he had jet black hair combed back, long and greasy. His lips were thin and black and his eyes bloodshot and almond shaped. He wore a black suit, a black shirt and candy apple red tie. He looked like a mosh-up of Curry's Pennywise and Ledger's Joker, only I would have traded for either one of those ******* right now over this guy, ten to one. He came to the edge of the concrete square. Johnny ****** his pants and Charlene fell from the monkey bars, landing awkwardly on her left side and causing a compound fracture, her radius protruding from her skin leaving her hand dangling like a dead fish. She did not scream either because she was scared it might draw his attention or she was going into shock...or maybe both. He took two more steps forward and then began laughing as if he'd just heard the funniest joke he'd ever been told. His teeth looked as if they'd been replaced with shark's teeth. I swear there were rows of them and his mouth stretched inhumanly wide. His laugh slowly winded down to a snarl, and he gave a long look to each one of us, as if he was burning the faces to memory. And then he spoke..."You children just go on having lots of fun! Well, except for you Johnny...didn't your Mom just rip you a new *** for ******* your pants at Grandma's? shame, shame!" And Johnny was off...tripping twice before he got his feet under him. "You run home and ...Ha Ha Ha...oh my...change your pants, you pathetic little ****!" Mr Youngblood picked up Charlene and started to carry her inside. By this time her pretty pink dress was soaked in blood. The freak addressed him. "Nice man...but you can't save them. In a few days they will all be mine." He laughed again and every kid ran for their lives back to the school. I was the only one who stayed. To this day I'm not sure why. He turned and walked towards me slowly. "What have we here? The little man isn't running with the others. Are you not afraid Billy boy? Afraid for your life?"...and he leaned in close...close enough that I smelled a foulness that cannot be described. "Because that is what I'm here for...your life!" "Who are you?", I asked... and with that his dark black and pointed eyebrows raised and he straightened up. "Who am I...Who am I? My, my the boy has a backbone. The nerve to question while others lose control of their bladders. Well, I'll tell you who I am, child. I am God's worst nightmare. I am every ***** little secret thought you've ever had. I am evil in all it's forms wrapped up in one little package and sent to collect the souls of the innocent. All of you here today will be mine tomorrow. Roger will fall down the stairs off of his front porch and break his neck. Charlene will die from infection due to that nasty little accident and Becky will be hit by the school bus Thursday morning. That will be most nasty! Almost a decapitation. I won't bore you with the rest, but they will all die. Hmmm...you know what Billy... I like you, so I'm thinking, perhaps...yes, I'm going to make a special offer to my new special friend. I won't take your soul until you die from natural causes. What do you think of that idea? At that moment, when your family is gathered round your bedside after suffering that...well, maybe you don't want to know the details... you will see a bright light...but you won't be going towards the light Billy...at that moment I will place my hand on your shoulder and that light will slowly fade into darkness and we will meet again, and you will become my apprentice. So, what do you think of that, Billy? Do you want to be my apprentice, or do I **** you now? Come, come...I haven't much time!" I tried to answer, but my mouth was as dry as cardboard and I could only manage a weak gasp. That laugh again and he turned and walked away in the same direction..."I'll take that as a yes. Remember, you are mine upon your death, Billy boy!" The wind died and the Sun appeared again.
By the end of the week, every child on the playground that day had died...exactly as he stated they would.

And now you know why, even in my darkest days, I never, ever contemplate suicide.
this story was prompted by a Joker bobblehead I found in a collectibles store that is creepy as hell - I think I will make it my annual Halloween post!
Lucy Tonic Nov 2011
Mechanical house-slave, iron foot
Beast of burden on everyone
I don't deserve my portion
Your eyes scream abortion
Where once there was overkill

No more working for the man
Nine to five suicide
Instead I'll rot here slowly
No risks or big explosions
No walking into traffic

Turtle doves laugh and procreate
While my hands move on *****-dish clocks
Wonder how long I could gargle this soap
Before finding the golden solution to cope
These walls are nauseating

Drink to oblivion
Take but never give
Don't ask me why my heart's still beating
Or why my good behavior's fleeting
I didn't make any deals

Don't know why these things have happened
Nor the names of these sins
Locked lips have turned to skeletal stitches
My unknown crimes became their riches
And now I'm in memento limbo

I'm trying so hard to escape
To unravel these fists into fingers
All I need is a bus ticket & some fun
But maybe I'd be better with a trench coat & gun
Put this cardboard city on the map

Never knew secrets could ****
Change can't come without shedding dead skin
I fear I've nothing to build upon
They're all planning bets and cons
While I'm Pierrot in a small air duct

Arctic hearts turn blind eyes
I want to lift these weights off your shoulders
But nothing seems to suffice
Perhaps all that's left is self-sacrifice
A charming, tragic gamble into dust

Meanwhile, you should buy another pet
Their souls are more immune
To the metamorphosis disease
Doubt you want to be the one to clip wings
Off of locusts & flightless birds

Believe me when I say I'm sorry for wounding the womb
Just wish I could comprehend the deed
Please enlighten me
I want to make amends
Before this dull flame becomes a house fire
jack of spades Feb 2015
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic: I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an eighteen-inch waist because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
having to choose
between eating and breathing with not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a thirty-nine inch bust and three times the forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine squeezed to a three, spending
three to nine avoiding mealtime because my weight loss book says
'Don't eat.'
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic, but...
I'm not plastic.
I've sat here listening while you complain about society but I don't think you realize that
society is made by you.
You complain about masks but you're masked by your poetry and
trust me,
it's trendy:
Psychiatry.
A bottle of capsules captures your soul and your dreams,
fading
reality.
I cannot be defined because a definition leaves no room for change and I
am a flame,
ready to burn the cardboard box of priority you put over me.
All the cool kids are lesbians and thespians on about repressions
and I care,
I do,
I mean... I'm standing here among you.
But words are just air.
You can stand on this stage and tell me I'm beautiful, but
I am more than my face so
disregard my mild distaste for your
inspirational speech.
Now, this...
This isn't a call for help.
This is a call to arms.
This
is a battle cry because
I
am sick of waiting for a future that should've happened yesterday.
So use this air to live the words you say and
rally.
Do not soothe, because we've already been cocooned by soothed reality in
Shawnee,
Johnson County.
I'm a real girl,
in a real world.
Life's fantastic, and I
refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
a neck moulded perfectly for both eating and breathing so I don't have to choose.
I refuse to be plastic,
a bust that you don't need to be sizing
when I've got eyes
a green not of romanticized meadows but of drunken
puke.
I refuse to be plastic,
a size nine foot in a size nine shoe,
spending three to nine
enjoying my meal times,
because my weight loss book is
chucked down the chute.
I'm a living girl
in a beautiful world.
Life's fantastic,
because I'm not plastic.
highlight of my career ****
Kerry Hickman May 2010
The coffee you gave me was expensive,
I know because it came in a cardboard cup.
Only the from the best coffee shops
Do you get such luxurious containers to hold your beverage.
In a working man's cafe you get a china mug.
No cardboard cups here. They wash them themselves you know.
No trees were injured when making their coffee.
It's not good enough, it's too cheap.
No. Coffee must cost the earth to warrent cardboard cups.
Thank you for paying so much for my coffee.
lucidwaking May 2022
Your tongues all taste like cardboard...
Mostly because you are all cardboard,
But that's besides the point.
Even though your kisses can never give me warmth,
I'm still hung up over each and every one of you.

To you, fear kept me from loving you.
As for you, we eventually drifted apart
Across of the sea of remembrance.
Then for you, I had to drop any notion
When you asked "are you gay?"
With a skeptical gaze.
You made it clear that
You yourself were not.

However, I keep dusting you all off
To pull you out of my closet.
Standing on the ***** of my feet,
I'm hanging little beaded necklaces
Around all your necks again.
Torin Apr 2016
Pack it up and move along
Load it up again
Turn on the radio
In a u-haul truck
An old familiar song
The same meaning
In a new home

These cardboard boxes
Take on a meaning alone
My home was not my own
And the only life I've known
Was just a short time
When I'm looking forever

Tape it up and load it
Duck tape or Scotch
Like the many pieces
Which hold together my heart
And hold together these boxes
Containing my life
Containing my heart

My cardboard heart
Has a meaning unknown
My love was not my own
And all the love I've shown
Was just a short time
When I was looking forever
Sarah D Dec 2014
"But I'm damaged" she said with watery eyes fixed on the moon

"We are all damaged goods...we are all cardboard boxes with fragile stickers handled by people that don't give a ****..and that's why we are shattered from the inside and that's why the deeper we get to know each other the more we hurt ourselves on the broken pieces but I guess rarely you find people tough and willing to rampage through it to find the pieces of you that aren't so sharp around the edges...the beautiful pieces of who you really are..and then they stick them together and try to fix us and sometimes they can..it's like we were never really broken..and if that's not something beautiful I don't know what is"
Not exactly a poem but I hope you like it
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016
obviously to think and enjoy it
you have to turn your mind
into a mollusc in an oyster shell,
slow... slow... (yawn)... slower...
then you suddenly get electrocuted!
boom! now you're thinking,
you're not as tense as a running
cheetah, hard rock heart muscle,
not too eager on karaoke of karate,
you're the tortoise outrunning
achilles; because the brain enables
such functioning, it's not exactly
an eager heart in the university of
the body - and why is it that domestic
life has completely succumbed to
the gratifications of chemistry with
toothpaste and bleach and other
cleaning materials; i wouldn't
be against doping athletes, i'd tell them
to embrace it... let's synthesise another
world record sprint in the olympics,
because an analysis would mean
talking about 9.58 / 9.51...
and that would be as interesting as looking
at the rosetta stone for clarification
of ancient egyptian: owl, big fish, little fish
carbohydrates boxed;
and still a flea could outrun you,
a flea, yeah, never mind the cheetah.
The line didn't move, though there were not
many people in it. In a half-hearted light
the lone agent dealt patiently, noiselessly, endlessly
with a large dazed family ranging
from twin toddlers in strollers to an old lady
in a bent wheelchair. Their baggage
was all in cardboard boxes. The plane was delayed,
the rumor went through the line. We shrugged,
in our hopeless overcoats. Aviation
had never seemed a very natural idea.

Bored children floated with faces drained of blood.
The girls in the tax-free shops stood frozen
amid promises of a beautiful life abroad.
Louis Armstrong sang in some upper corner,
a trickle of ignored joy.
Outside, in an unintelligible darkness
that stretched to include the rubies of strip malls,
winged behemoths prowled looking for the gates
where they could bury their koala-bear noses
and **** our dimming dynamos dry.

Boys in floppy sweatshirts and backward hats
slapped their feet ostentatiously
while security attendants giggled
and the voice of a misplaced angel melodiously
parroted FAA regulations. Women in saris
and kimonos dragged, as their penance, behind them
toddlers clutching Occidental teddy bears,
and chair legs screeched in the food court
while ill-paid wraiths mopped circles of night
into the motionless floor.
Oscar Tarango Dec 2014
happiness comes in a cheek
happiness comes rapped in plastic
happiness is the first new i phone
happiness is 8 car in your drive way
money is happiness?
happiness is spending time with your family
happiness is playing with a ball and a stick
happiness is making a space ship out of cardboard
wealth is not happiness
things are not happiness
people are happiness
imagination is happiness
Helen Mar 2013
stacked high at the end of Seventh St
in a darkened alley, as high as seven feet
is a condominium of empty dreams and hope
falling down in the rain, slipping down the *****
home to many of one of the finally lost
coming home, breathing crystals of frost
averaged by the meaning of the total cost
Here, they are no more less, than garbage tossed
stacked high at the end of Seventh St
where home and hearth is just a heartbeat
where a pillow under the head is just concrete
there is nothing less than a lie, a thief or a cheat
and laying on the ground, with nothing to eat
is an act of defiance but the moment is fleet
stacked high the end of Seventh St
in an alley that echoes with the sound of defeat
compressed paper layers become home complete
here lays just one person,
inside his castle of cardboard,
blessing the ****** Mary for his penthouse suite
kayla morrison Apr 2014
I saw a homeless man,
and like most people,
I rolled up the window.

I saw a homeless man,
and like most people,
I locked my doors.

I saw a homeless man,
and like most people,
I drove right by,
I saw a homeless man,
and like most people,
thought “I have nothing to give.

I thought I saw a homeless man,
but like most people,
I diverted my eyes.

I thought I saw a homeless man,
but like most people, I can’t tell you
what His cardboard sign said.

I thought I saw a homeless man,
He held a piece of cardboard,
it said “need…” but I don’t know what.

I wonder, did He need,

Money
Work
Food
Love?
I saw a homeless man,
and I wonder
how long had it been since He showered?

I saw a homeless man,
and I can’t help but question
how long He’s been that way.
I saw a homeless man,
and I didn’t make a difference,
even though a bill burned my pocket.

I saw a homeless man,
and I realized,
I’m still a poor college student.

I saw a homeless man,
and He didn’t receive my sympathy,
I gave Him fear, distrust, and invisibility.
I saw a homeless man,
on the way home,
in my old truck.

I saw a homeless man
He found a backpack
and was given $100,000.

I saw a homeless man,
and thought maybe he’ll be lucky too,
but then I realized it takes someone like me
to make someone like Him
Lucky.
I know I will see the homeless man
again and again and again.
Maybe I’ll read His sign.

I know I will see the homeless man,
on my drive home in the evening,
I know I won’t change.
But, I wonder, who will?

I’m the girl who saw a homeless man,
and like most people,
I did a few things,

Locked the door
Rolled up the window
Looked away
Kept driving.
I’m the girl who saw a homeless man,
with twenty dollars in her pocket,
and I didn’t help one bit.
Sky Apr 2018
i don't know when it was but one day, my apartment began to grow
cardboard boxes. they came from

nowhere
and
everywhere

all at once-- a silent
invasion, i felt a faint ache in the back of my neck but
alas, what could i do? i allowed it to
continue.

now as i sit amidst the cardboard boxes, and hear their
rich conversations
and articulate speech, i cannot help but realize that the apartment is a stage. and the boxes have more stage presence than i have ever had. and suddenly i am the most pathetic, lowly actor on this cardboard stage of cardboard boxes and i wonder to myself, where did i go wrong?
ottaross Aug 2013
Once it was garbage, refuse, trash.
A jumble of foul-smelling detritus hauled to the curb
And removed by sinewy men
Contributing a harder day's work
Than anyone else in the city.

Our energy now removes its entropy.
Sorted and classified into coloured bins,
We add order to our rejected matter.

Specialized trucks arrive to collect
The date-synchronized bins
Emptying them into functionally compatible mechanisms.

Most desolate is the black box of paper and cardboard.
Brochures and flyers, old magazines and letters.
Annual reports and cereal boxes.
Once these were enameled with crafted sentences,
Painstakingly typed, edited and debated,
On the monitors of copywriters.

Now they are just millions of words printed on flattened fibre substrates,
Jumbled into the bruised and scarred black box,
Entering into the recycling stream.

The nouns and adjectives,
Prepositions and gerunds,
All jumble together.

Fragments of precisely-crafted sentences and paragraphs
Are gradually broken, shredded and pulped.
Incomplete thoughts, broken phrases
Like those of a rejected stranger
In an lonely, unknown country.
Then words without context.
Then just disparate letters
Are all that remain.
Their  M  ea  N inG
G  r a Du all y
is re mov
e d
.
King Panda Oct 2015
this is a medical emergency ossified
in utero part the hair to cover
pink earwax scar innervated this
cochlea this ******* that steals
the spotlight and rooster’s comb
braised sockets for teeth wired through
the rafters kissing corner braces
shallow chromium double-eye poke
like a pile of face bones stacked
paul bunyan forest slide and jump from
the peak to the pool shallow and
undisturbed to dunk your face and
see future pure voodoo spirit board
and voice box locked with tongue-ectomy
removal of cough through neck hole
cardboard cut stickers in half to
write ******, I’m done.
Danny Valdez Mar 2012
Back at Donnie's place
this chick had shown me her ****.
Her brother was some guy we ran with.
She had just gotten her ******* pierced
and wanted to know what I thought.
She was a thick girl
with blonde hair
and big chubby ****.
Later
we were at a bar
one of our friends was the DJ
and another was the doorman
so all of us 18 year-old scumbags
were able to drink without too much hassle.
The night started the same way it always did
the first song of the night was always the same
'Symphony of Destruction' by Megadeth
our whole crew sitting in the corner booths
out of the light & in the dark.
We were the dimmer of lights
The party crashers
The woman stealers
The Black Circle.
We downed shot after shot
of this green **** they had
called 'Zombie'.
Drunk off my ***
feeling warm & fuzzy
I went outside for a smoke.
Matt W. ***** lay next to me on the concrete patio
in the back alley of the bar.
I had barely lit the cigarette
when the thick girl with
the big pierced ******* came out back.
We made ******* conversation
for about a minute
before I asked to see her **** again.
She carefully pulled them out
wincing at how sore they still were.
We started making out
and she asked me if I wanted to go somewhere.
I motioned towards the darkened alley behind us.
Matt lay on the ground
Laughing to himself and staring at the night sky
Taking long drags from his cigarette.
In the dark behind some cardboard boxes
And empty liquor crates
She kissed me hard and messy
Both of us reeking of ***** and cigarettes
That stinky combination.
“Why don’t you let those get some air?”
I asked, pointing at her massive mammaries.
“Okay, but…be gentle okay? They’re still really sore.”
“You got it darlin’.”
And out they came, hanging like gods in the sky
I was down on my knees
With my head under her skirt
Just going to town on this thick chick
Like I hadn’t eaten for weeks.
Her hands gripping my greasy hair
And pulling hard
As I got faster and faster
Licking and ******* like my life depended on it
Reaching up and squeezing those *******
As gently as I possibly could.
And then she tensed up
Her knees shaking, trembling, and finally
Buckling as she came
Still holding me by the hair
She pulled me back and out from under that little red skirt.
“Oh my god. Just give me a second.”
She asked, trying to catch her breath
And stop her legs from shaking.
I stood up and gave her a ***** flavored kiss.
“Well?” I asked.
“I’ll go down on you…..if that’s what you want…”
“Of course.”
And she got down on her knees
In that dark alley.
“Ouch.” She squeeled.
“What is it?”
“The ground’s got a bunch of rocks or some ****. ****.”
“Here…” I grabbed one of the cardboard boxes
broke it down in a matter of seconds
and laid it on the ground
at my feet.
“There ya go.”
Before she put it in her mouth
She laughed.
“You’re such a gentleman.”
“I have my moments.”
Afterwards
I walked back over to Matt on the patio
Buckling up my pants.
The lady thanked me
Said it was nice meeting me
And walked back inside to her brother and friends.
Donnie was now sitting with Matt on the curb.
“Where the **** did you go?”
I just started laughing.
It took him a second, but Donnie figured it out.
“Did you just **** that fat chick?”
“No man. I just got a *******. That’s all.”
“What the **** Danny? What are you a male ******* or something?”
I just kept laughing
“Hey ******* man. Nobody gives a ******* like a fat chick.”
Matt rolled over and spoke up,
“The man has a point Donnie.”
Larry Potter Sep 2013
They say, in the wheel of life, you'll spend half your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the bottom. I guess they got it all wrong. I believe life is a crooked tire that can never roll up and down. Pretty sure, it is nailed to the ground where weeds could grow to entangle it forever. Until now, what they keep trying to say remains a puzzle to me. Perhaps I can never understand what they mean. Or maybe I just won’t. Why? Because from the moment our eyes opened for the world, we’re already stuck down below and I’m afraid we’re trapped here in this limbo for all eternity.

We’re just simple people living an ordinary life. Like every family who seeks refuge from the storm, we do have a place we call home although it’s not much of an architectural delight. However, for some reasons, I find our roof appealing like a real work of art. Patches of cardboard embellish the underside while a combination of tarpaulin and ad posters works in harmony to provide an extended shelter. On bright mornings, we’ll wake from the sunbeams piercing through its many gaps. On rainy days, however, the sound of raindrops falling from the gaps down to our water containers serves as our wake up call.

To jumpstart ourselves for another day’s challenge, we could either eat breakfast (if there were any), or just sing our skipping meals away and spend the rest of the day with sacks of scraps and rubbishes on our back hoping to make a good deal with Mr. Gomez, the junk shop proprietor. He reminded me so much of my father but without the alcohol problem and violence, though. During nighttime, we bring with us our drum to sing carols on the lonely streets. If our feet become too weary to walk, that’s the time we head home. We rush all together, eager to count the coins we’ve collected that night. We make sure to put a plastic cap underneath two of our table’s feet so that it won’t lean uncontrollably and spill the tiers of ten, five and one peso coins we’ve dedicatedly piled over. Then the next part does the trick. A portion of our collection for the night goes straight down a big jar and joins in the many others which fill more than half of the container. The remaining part is used to buy supper to save our hungry tummies from
shrinking again. However, during slack nights when drivers and busy people decided to become miserly, we’re fortunate enough to have a pack of noodles for supper. But if we ran out of luck, we just set our untidy beds ready and drown our raging stomachs to sleep. I know there’s not pretty much but this is where our lives revolve. And as they say, life must go on no matter what.

Together with the three most important persons of my life, I continue the journey for a better living. Along the way, we try to search for the good things out of life’s bitter truths. We never let misery **** our hopes and dreams. Instead, we work harder and tougher. Take Islay, for example. She’s cheerful,
clever, aggressive, talented, a model of hard work. She’s got most of everything. Well, except for height, probably. I wanted to be a doctor so I could help the needy. Islay dreams of becoming an elementary teacher. She said she really likes kids and teaching them would surely be a more exciting thing to do.

Then there’s Nova. Her looks may require you a little more time to think and consider, but she has a good heart. However, she gets a little, uhhm, what term do we use for an unsociable person? That’s it! She’s a bit of a Killjoy!

Islay and Nova caroled a store swarmed with drunkards. It was always Islay who’ll find every creative idea and propose it convincingly to Nova, who in turn hesitates and rejects it but then ultimately respects it in the end. Islay always has the winning edge. Maybe that’s one of her abilities. Her convincing power deserves a credit to the list.

The two didn’t mind the ***** that welcomed them. Inside her mind, Nova asked herself how many people could waste their money on a doze of liquid or spirit that can poison their mind and bring them to imminent danger. If only they have given it to the poor and needy, they could have saved a lot of lives instead of ruining their own.

But Aling Nena, the wicked storeowner, unleashed her witchy wrath to the two. She looked at them with eyes of contempt, of prejudice and disgust. She accused the two as jinxes and blamed them for the
store’s unprofitable end. If only she could look at herself and discover a chest of shimmering blame, she might shrink into shame. Islay and Nova ran off not because they were afraid of Aling Nena or the drunken men but because of what Aling Nena said to them. They cannot defend themselves from such
an attack. How could they when they were surrounded with eyes of ridicule?

And of course, there’s my dearest sister, Juaning. We’ve only got each other since our mother’s death. It has been months already. Juaning was still 15 when mama left us. She’s 16 now. It’s been quite a while and I know she misses mama a lot like I do.

And so they fought life’s bitter realities. They begged and implored to the unconcerned passers-by, almost falling to their weak knees for one very important thing - to live. But even if the three of them were sitting, lying, and rolling down the cold pavement, these people with more graces just pass by without even sparing a glance of concern. Wouldn’t it be happier if they shared their God-given blessings? But as the day continues, they have to endure the hunger, the contempt. Because other than filling their
hungry stomach, they have a sibling, a friend to support.

That’s my part of the story. It has been months now since I caught a serious illness which bound me
to this bed, flat on one’s back, weak, inutile, and useless. Every time they come home, I wish I was with them to taste the sweet and feel the pain, not just a good listener to their stories of survival and moments of friendship. Someday, I’ll become strong again, and this curse of a disease shall be gone.

I woke up to the longing for water. I’ve never been this thirsty before. I called out their names but my voice just echoed deep in the four dark walls of our crooked house. With no one to help me, I summoned my strength and decided to get a glass of water by myself. But my legs aren’t as strong as my will. And as I attempted to stand, they betrayed me. I collapsed and plodded down the floor. Luckily Islay came and helped me get back to bed. She scolded me for being careless. I cried. I can’t help it. I pitied myself all
over again.

The cold evening wasn’t a problem for Islay. Seeing me cry like that crushes her heart. I know, as a friend and a part of our family, she wishes the best for me. And that’s why she’s still out there in the middle of the night, working late to earn more for our better future. She ignored the chills and the exasperation. She knows she has to work harder and she’s more than determined for it.

But something happened to me while she’s away from home. I cannot move my body, not even my mouth. Tears just fell from my weary eyes. And before it’s too late, Juaning caught me unresponsive and paralyzed. My sister cried for help. Nova sprinted to get the jar. Juaning told her what to do. And wasting no time, Nova rushed to the nearby pharmacy to get me some medicine, and most probably to save my life.

But Nova’s effort was in vain. Prescription drugs cannot be bought that easily. The pharmacist closed down the only lining of hope for me. The security guard felt pity on Nova and he suggested her an alternative decision that will change our lives forever.

Islay was still busy serenading the busy streets with her chants of joy and sweet hums. But the clouds become unwelcoming. And by the sound of the thunder, big droplets of rain started pouring down the highway. She ran as fast as she could and sat on a corner where she thought of something deeply. She hugged the drum that she was carrying for five hours or so and tried to remain calm in the presence of the bad weather.

After half an hour, Nova came back with a pouch of medicine on her shaking hand. She handed it carefully to Juaning whose faith and hope were hanging to the tiny bottle of miracle.

Days gone by and my condition wasn’t going any better. It turned out that my medicine was consumed to the last drop. Still I remained immobile and my hands are going number by the days. Slowly I was losing hope. I wish they weren’t mad at me. I’m trying my best to live on. That’s why I’m still here. But Nova shared something worth listening to. She revealed how and where she got the medicine.

It was from a quack doctor on a stall put up on the corner of Rizal Avenue. She said he was well versed and very convincing. And that she spent all of our savings for a bottle of deception. But we can do nothing about it. We did not have formal education. We were fortunate enough to meet kind children on
the streets who would try to teach us something they have learned from school. We would attempt to read newspapers and the description in the carton boxes we spread beneath the Badelles overpass.

Nova cried in guilt and shame. Islay was still angry at her, and it can be understood. My sister, Juaning, comforted Nova with a promise that everything will get better in time.

December 27. It was my birthday. And more than anything else, what I wish is for the four of us to be happy. Nothing in this life is more important than seeing everyone you love smile with absolute
happiness. Juaning never forgot her job and that’s to buy me a cake. Every year, they will try to surprise me with every creative possible way. But that’s how their surprises become predictable with my age.

They sang me a birthday song. But this time, they were the ones waiting for a surprise. As my sister was about to hand me the cake waiting for me to blow the candle, she noticed something she was least expecting for. My lips are pale and my eyes are shut from the light of the world. I caught my last breath and before I gave it away, I left a smile on my face that can never be changed forever. That is how I want them to remember me. Not that heck of a frown clown whose audiences are stricken with sadness.

They say, in the wheel of life, sometimes, you'll spend half of your years rising to the top and the other half tumbling to the
bottom. Maybe they were right. It was then that I’ve come to understand what they were trying to say.

Our life’s wheel revolves around things way beyond just money, food, and shelter. It is about the moments you spend with your loved ones, friends and family that will be forever carved in your heart. We can never know when our life here on earth will be over. So let us cherish every bit of it. And for me, even if we skip breakfasts and eat only noodles for supper, I have realized in these last fleeting moments that my life has always
been on the top of the wheel after all.
Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?

I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.

How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?

How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?

I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.

The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.

I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco.  My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.

I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.

I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.

The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”

Friday never comes.

I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.

How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?

And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.

Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.
feedback, opinions, ideas are appreciated and encouraged.
ali Jan 2014
he is the unlost lost boy
the one who sold his soul to reality
to escape Neverland, get out of the dreamworld
because no matter where you go,
your hometown is always your enemy
a thing of your destruction, a catalyst to your demon's whispers
but you will always miss it when you move on
as he drifted off to sea, his eyes were overwhelmed with waves of blue
his cuts were cleansed with ocean water, then doused with sea salt
he's really cute when he's high
and even when those blue eyes are so far gone, they're deeper than the ocean
and they light up at 1 am for the dumbest reasons,
because he finds comfort in the littlest things.
his voice in the darkness is my lullaby,
my ode to staying up to o late and regretting it in the morning
but then I remember a story,
or a laugh,
a dare,
or a secret
and I realize he is my hometown.
He is the beat up white car to get me out of here
and I'll pack him up in a cardboard box,
spread him out on my floor when I finally miss it too much
and realize maybe it wasn't so bad.
(l.g.)
Lawrence Hall Aug 2018
I.

         “No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the Revolution.”

                      -Kamarovsky, Doctor Zhivago (film)

Everyone seems to clench his fist these days
In solidarity with ephemera
While setting fire to green recycling bins
Hurling someone else’s bicycle through a window

Armed with their undergraduate degrees
The comrades liberate a coffee shop
Wifi-ing the revolution of the day
Empowerment by beating love to death

Loudsplaining authentic victimization
Posing for selfies with a stolen ‘phone

II.

Their inhumanity seemed a marvel of class-consciousness, their barbarism a model of proletarian firmness…

                         -Doctor Zhivago, p. 349

Everyone seems to clutch his flag these days
In solidarity with a past that wasn’t
While setting fire to misspelled cardboard signs
Hurling someone else’s beer into a crowd

Armed with their lurid Confederate tats
The Something.Right liberate a dumpster
Bull-horning the counter-revolution
Empowerment by beating love to death

Bellowing their Reconquista of stench
Posing behind their cheap gas station shades

III.

I used to admire your poetry...I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead…”

            -Strelnikov to Yuri, Doctor Zhivago (film)

Some few embrace civilization these days
In solidarity with humanity
While lighting one small candle as a votive
Whispering an Ave into the Light

Armed with wonder through pen and flute and brush
Recusants choose the liberation given
In singing of the eternal verities
Self-empowerment happily denied

With love, with poetry, music, and art
Celebrating life on this summer day
Anand Acharya Sep 2014
Unicorns in the cloud
Pug marks upon sand.
Fleets of paper ships,
Flooding down the drain.

Canvas at the crystal
Wooden swords on grass.
Defense of cardboard castle,
And things that do not last.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
could you ever, with your ears, express a piece of music, as: fluffy? dark soho's piece is fluffy; and by god i was the pretentious one at the beginning of the 20th century critical of the emerging music... but i'm the one merging at the beginning of the 21st century: and it's a T.S. Elliot scenario: the overload of rhythm: industrial core due to the industry being foetal sieg heil! and so many have fallen for the nostalgia trap... it's not coming back: against the thump thump gyroid reproductive muscular we emerge from... for whatever lack of drums in the orchestra: we're paying for it with an excess of techno techno Bob the goldfish cardboard box dance sequence... or as some would suggest: filling in the gap about the joke concerning a triangle being a part of the orchestra and the person educated in it, rather than the harp.

ah, the blank, and i have to work on it: let's imagine i was just
cooking a pork stew for my father and you don't
bother to ask why someone's surname is written
Raßer - and you don't know how
to pronounce it: and you end
up with razors - which you end up saying
racer - or how about sharpening
the s into a zed - how's that?
this is surgical activity while you you're
at at the butchers: necromancy aplemty:
when god speaks, the devil whispers -
American divergence of the pronoun
y'all / you all -
                           we the safeguard
and they the paranoia -
                                    take it slow,
imagine yourself living in Alaska:
you're exposed to the elements
and Prometheus isn't handy:
  all you have is west London drool
that later translates into easter in London,
Ld: isn't even an postal code:
given Greenwich, bellybutton on the world
they're bound to abuse / feel special
                 about, it's just a John Bishop
          Scouser type of beating.
                  ya - i say i aye, you frostbite of
culture, ya yarn ball of ****!
    oh 'ere we go: the red-coats are hunting
foxes: sort of scenario -
   the sooner they ******* a killing
the better for me: 'ave that one with a grizzly:
             some say the longer the yawn
the greater the applause -
      yo! Yogi! turntable of Las Vegas
says you better gamble on hibernating in the
effing Hermitage!
  - we say a lot of y'all when we imply the
plural, don't we? terrible, ****** thuggish
'n' all, to say it.
   i have five pages worth of notes,
and even though i'm drunk,
i came across a foundation, i'll never be ask happy
at i am right now,
   i signed a copy of my book (look! i don't
have a publicist, i don't have the ******* swagger,
i have the inferno that says:
  when the writing dries up, get a proper job;
if the writing doesn't dry up?
             you're less than necessary than a
supermarket shelf-stacker...
                 there are succumbing reasons that
explain the affair later) -
      no i'm about to sell my first copy -
  i say to her: when you working this circuit next?
Friday night? i'll tell you how much i'm selling
for, well: i'll never be this happy: ever -
it really doesn't matter how much for how little:
   i'm not exactly a family animal: farmed -
i'm political: through and through -
   by the time i finish this whiskey i'll be
demanding something new...
    i don't think your able limbs do idle chores:
i just think admire that they do them
and hardly complain: i blame it on the workers'
encouraged banter - and that's called solidarity.
still, right now, it's all about
dark soho's: dark moon in stonehenge -
       or why you never take l.s.d.
   question arises with Bach...
and polyphony - again, non-linear polymers:
   back when the Germans were at it
music sliced through the air
                   - or the modernity of lost
string (quartets) and woodwinds -
          only the thing plucked rather than in slicing
stroked kept from the strings:
    it was truly a devolution via brass -
   you can have the iron age,
but this is the brass age -
                   and subsequently the evolution
or filling the void of orchestral percussion,
which began with jazz: how orchestra was stripped
of woodwinds and strings and elevated
the humble triangle and enforced drums
and the rhythmic transcendence of limb and heart
and less ear and mind -
           oh the spontaneity thus involved:
forever the enigma of the composer's ability
to say much more than *A
, when saying in A# -
oh hell: music used to be the Mongolian horde
of all things imaginable,
                  the screams, all the entrenching
embodiment of battle: soothed -
  but in our apathetic guises: music is a variant
of the once exfoliated, thus hushed:
music is expressing a war in waiting - or a war
that's not to be - once music music ascribed
wind and tornado toward its elemental composition -
these days there is less wind, and more earthquake:
we are exposed to a trembling -
           an overt percussion methodology:
that's not fire and the storyteller / poet by
the lonesome huddling of nomads by the fire
with oud and recitation of the to come Quran:
we are experiencing a complete reversal of wind:
here we have dark soho's tectonic cardiovascular:
over stating the percussion until the eventual
obliteration of breath, and subsequently
the flatline of the heart's rhythm: to reach the zenith
of a flatline: beehive musicology.
         it's all earth: and the quaking
rather than a waking into.
                  sure: to the alien ear outside the populace
of those that listen to that kind of "****":
but let me assure you:" you can intellectualise
anything beyond the guilty pleasure:
or else - care to disclose your opinions about doggy?
once we were slicing and ******* -
these days? we're hammering, Soviet committee
said: hammer hammer hammer...
            gravitational drilling against the Catholic
lessons of worldly-detachment akin to a Gagarin:
and all the world's problems morphed into
an image of moving away from earth...
    far far away...       well: we're grounded, like it
or not.
              i love that: y'all -
                          it's as if we all need to agree, ~.
and what better way to actually open a poem up
if not to say how prose is a miser and poetry
the mad spender, or compose: he had / another thought
he wished to take / but...
           originally
                    he had
                  another thought he wished to take
                 but...
saving an Amazonian tree, suggesting that: one by one.
i'll sell my first copy on Friday,
i just need to know how much money was put
into printing it -
   and it will be the happiest i'll ever be -
who cares that it's only 1... if i were selling
100,000 copies i'd be thinking of buying a Mercedes
to do away with the capital...
      oh right, the poem (six pages of notes):
the question, what does it all mean?
       i'm thankful that the all means very little,
or at least enough for physicists to take a bother
in answering:
               i'm just thankful to say that at least
bites / bytes / isolated units have more meaning
than the whole... i.e.?
do i care what the universe means, more so
than i known what the word darkened means?
                 pause for thought -
the well established organic search engine that memory
is: and never will be: an algorithm (engine) -
           still the organic variation of accessing it
reveals Rodin's statues -
                        post-Rodin (Rho-dan: ****** iota!
why so naked in the first place?!) -
            the point where it's not so much enigmatic that
you wish to replicate: but entomb, and mould
a statue worthy of the perpetuated cut-short
and mediating the idea that thought has also
the faculty of imagining and memorisation
that hardly translate into being via ergo...
       if that's the case: you're demented via the
ergo of memory... and deluded via the ergo of
imagining -
                      or Frankenstein / Disney respectively:
but never the extinguished cogito, somehow,
oddly enough:
                          and by the way - no one is going
to question my opinions because dialectics was
giving the hemlocks... my opinions
will only become passed around like Bulgarian
Versace copyright thefts, or because they
were never ideas: attachment .pdf
                   will never entertain someone else's thought,
or because they were originally always opinions
will be consecrated on the attachments of .jpeg:
ever wonder why the crucifix always
mobilises so much emotional foundation to
react and protect a torture-filled instrument
worthy of worship? me neither.
                but that's the whole beginning:
we ensured our memory is eroded by an easily
accessed algorithm - we prefer the goggles to
mensa -
                   and if i were a technophobe: e ah e ah oh...
McDonald would turn out to be McTrump:
'cos' i wouldn't be using it.
              then how to synchronise the senses:
you surely can't leave one the prime consumer of
all the things around you:
     i guess that as stated: you can't live out a life
whereby one is polarised, and the others recessively
make your thinking into potato -
   then again: not polarising one of your senses
will leave you thinking that old fantasy that
you live in a hologram "reality": which i mean by saying:
if one of your pentagram limbs isn't polarised
like a blind person, your thought will claim a sixth
sense status - and subsequently you'll experience
either a second chance of allowing one of your senses
to be stressed / polarised, or all your senses will become
overpowering your non-sense: that's thought into submitting
to a polarity / vector: kindred of
the manual worker feeling his trade take
perfect replication -
a composer polarised by "hearing" -
a painter polarised by "seeing" -
a poet polarised by "speaking" -
a chef polarised by "tasting" -
   a perfumer polarised by "scenting" -
and within the sixth sense extension:
a politician polarised by "thinking" -
  the first antonym suggestion comes within the latter's
parameter: mobilising or puppeteering:
would i care to find variations for the latter? no.

     interlude... opening of page 3 of notes on a windowsill...

and how often is soul ascribed a sensual dimension?
i guess as many a time thought isn't ascribed one:
necessarily made into nonsense.
soul? what do i mean by that? the part of you
that isn't indestructible, but, rather,
the part of you that feels that ease: the uninhibited
correlation (verbiage necessary, darling,
if you want the gist of it) -
when at ease you're not really ascribing to yourself
thinking, but a narrative -
  hence your notion of being indestructible,
or young.
      when thinking is easy we're not actually thinking,
we're narrating, hence the majority of us
are clogs in the machine, and once the machine works
we're upbeat about it, because we prefer to narrate
ourselves into life than think ourselves into it:
primarily because (even i included):
we lack a public addressal attache to make
vague concerns over our: inhibitions -
we are entrusted with inhibitory encrusting
for the sole purpose (we should be afraid of
suggesting): let's see who falls off the ferris wheel
first and we can entrust our congeniality toward
the joke: thank **** it wasn't me, later...
          but still:
if were were really intended to think
rather than narrate we'd be given global warming
solutions everyday...
   there's nothing in us that suggests an 'ought',
a moral choice to later say: thought
                      that could fish-hook us out of
kissing the narrative goodbye -
  narration is an undisturbed faking of thought -
as such the 'ought' is never thought of:
because there's a narrative going on
that's more important than anything requiring
even the most basest obligation.
       we are never obliged to be, because we are
never obliged to think: it's strange how the
two are anti-synonymous due to the ergo disparity:
as if one produces the other, or the former
the latter.
              thinking you're good never precipitates
into being good - and vice versa:
   for all i know i know fake rather than falsifiable
saintliness: the power of the scientific
  suggests that i should be Baron von Scorn
when it comes to the ignorance of testifying
         against people who abhor science
and reproduce, nonetheless, with failure to
transcend deformities: because deformities are
glorified and all forms of ability demonised:
so it looks quasi-Vatican-e.
                   preface to a Michelin star:
start with a ******: work your way down:
enjoy your meal, bygones-be-bygones:
you very happy people.
                  but i never understood why
the idea of thought has never the opinionated phrase:
me, exponentially, to no book's avail!
        p.s. as to be ever written!
    thought conscripts man to rubrics -
for example? examinational candélabre -
  some call it i.q., other's call it: for god's sake man,
****** shoot! shoot!
                        and the flying toes and digits:
thumbs away: booh booh Blitz.
                        first thought: that Jersey song:
fifth of November - that Fawkes ****
who almost.... n'ah.
                            in case you're narrative:
thought has its narrative: it's transcendental -
phenomenology comes into play with
narratives and Lady Gaga and how you're an
"individual": thought is acquired trying to transcend
atomic electron orbits that says: electron clouds -
or it's there, but it isn't there, but it's not there,
but it's there: huh?
                         narration conscripted to the rubric
of school exams at school: palpitations, sweat,
nerves... in this scenario thinking is actually
regurgitation -
                          actually we're still doing the Elvis
Costello hope: while narrating we pass from
these shackles of having to think lessons through
when in fact: we're gearing to having no need
in having to learn them primordially, period!

the paranoiac "they" are eroding our protective
membrane -
    they begin with memory -
         it's not that we care to remember certain things,
but by educating us in the Pythagorean theorem
they're not necessarily dressing us in bow ties either -
they need to implant an abstract educational
thought to replace our natural assimilation into
a narrative that we ourselves have created -
       they need to create erosion within our
memory to stop us coagulating our sense of memory
within a framework of us imagining backwards
rather than forwards:
      the cinema of the mind means memory utilises
imagination to do cartwheels backwards
rather than forwards: because forwards is always
a Disney pharmacology of the neon hyper colouring.

or how they made us escape the "Alcatraz"
of the couch of cognitive narration into an
iron maiden of thinking -
                    in this realm narrating is disparaging
from thinking: narrative is a comfort zone:
thinking is a discomfort zone -
                       but neither me nor you will
become a Newton in terms of narrating the ideas:
so why the hell would they want us to think?!
       concerning Heidegger:
the problem is not that we're not thinking -
the solution is that we're narrating and have
no urge to write books, and thank god for that!
               or man, as the pentagram of the senses,
reversed into thought as the sixth sense calamity
and reversed back as that sense missing
and the tetra exemplified...
         when learning what is the weakest point,
the audio or the optic-receptive stimulation?
                         i mean, the senses over accuse
thought's complexity as if it were a sense akin
to them, hence the suggestion nonsense;
well of course, thought is actually non-sensory -
     i just suggested that when thinking
i'm not polarising any of the penta -
         i'm suggesting that when thinking i'm
invoking the tetra - as if blind or deaf -
but that means i'm deviating from the superstition
that a sixth correlative mediatory balance exists
between the two dichotomies -
                            the senses will always treat
obscure thinking as if obscure narratives:
even though i know how much a price of bread
costs in the 21st century -
                              what i'm saying is that
the nonsense assertion is also true for the other:
not having had the chance to polarise one
of its senses to point toward the artefact use of
wh
Christina Cox Dec 2015
For an hour and a half I sit on the floor
holding a piece of shaped cardboard.
I turn it round and round to show all side
while holding a paper plate of paints.
He holds the brush like he holds his pencils
                           “wrong.”
He pays attention to the cartoon at his lap
and sporadically looks at the tip of the brush.
Colors are scattered with no rhyme and reasons
and brush strokes are seen without hesitation.
He paints and paints and saps his little energy
to make a Christmas present for his little sister.
DieingEmbers Feb 2012
Curtain up on cardboard courtyard, spotlight moon frames first figure seated

Logeverchy ~ Ache not solemn heart for solitude of beat tears night asunder,
                        leaving my breast a hollow soul, as I alone am left to wonder.
                        Wait whom skulks in shadows midst and pry's on secret pain,
                        come hither phantom make intention known or as my heart be slain.

Vanalausch ~ Tis I my lord your honoured bondsman see my hand a letter,
                      scented with a hint of promise, from the Maiden of Valetta.
                     
Logeverchy ~ Can it be nay be away foul night vapours of fetid cheese
                        and with your words and false hopes another may ye tease.
                        oh if but for a chance halt, again to me and may in truth
                        Thy proffered offering give unto doubtful mind unreputed proof.

Curtain falls and again rises on silk draped bed chamber where a maid attends her lady

Anvibility ~ If er' heaven blest so sweet a union let it be this night
                  and may his heart on feathered wings be given up to flight.
                 
Nuxominal ~ Hush lest your words meet with unwelcome ears
                    and give voice to tongue to speak aloud my fears.
                    Hast thou not heard the footfalls upon yonder stair,
                    I know not what evil deed awaits my true love there.

Anvibility ~ I will away and light a lamp and place it by the door,
                  if only now to settle thee and to guide to thee amour.

Curtain closes and reopens painted canvas corridor with candle flickering

Logeverchy ~ Be it ever thus that so simple a light could herald me such hope
                      for two in stolen moments steal away and into night elope.
                     
Door is opened by Anvibility and Logeverchy enters bed chamber as Nuxominal looks up

Anvibility ~ Harken my words and be away let not this moment bind you,
                  the horses and provisions wait lest now her father find you.

                    exit stage left lights fade curtain falls and all is quiet..
sandbar Oct 2010
A dreary September day, raindrops the size of quarters,
smacking into the windshield at 60 miles per hour.
Passing through this subdued city, a concrete jungle,
grown quiet in the tempest.
Gravel & broken glass tumble over flattened bottle caps
& cigarette butts, into the gutter.
A lone man in a white shirt & blue tie rushes for his car,
stomping through puddles, newspaper covering his bald head.
He must be thinking about getting out of the rain,
or getting back to his office, his tired cubicle life,
or how he's going to make it through another endless day.
Selling his soul & happiness for enough money to support
three kids, his wife & his mother, to put bread on the table.
To have a nice little house in a nice little suburb with a
nice little lawn, a tombstone, a paragraph in the obituaries.
Now we're crawling along the asphalt, the scene replaying itself,
a different story, but the same, always the same.
A figure strolling between dumpsters, looking for a dry spot,
a blur down an alleyway as we speed by.
If it wasn't raining, she'd be on the corner with a sign,
living on dollars a day, enough to buy a few beers &
forget about it all for a while, until the next day.
To many signs with "Veteran" or "I have children"
or simply "Help." To many people with signs.
Then you really begin to see them, crouching under balconies,
one or two at first, do you really even notice?
Just a nameless name, a faceless face among faces, a storyless
story, with so many stories to tell you.
Mismatched shoes, a shirt to small & to thin for this
ripping wind, this freezing, tearing wind.
Under overhangs in any dry place they can find,
a kingdom of soggy cardboard & pipe dreams.
But this is nothing compared to the overpasses,
every single one packed to the brim with the homeless,
escaping from the downpour, trying to find a place to sleep.
The night is coming and the rains still pouring, and the winds
still howling, and I have a warm bed to collapse on.
I have food in the pantry & food in my stomach, & clothes on
my back, & hope for tomorrow, such hope I have, such illusion.
I remember his face, as we sat at the red light,
waiting for the trivial green to wave us on our way.
Old enough to be my father, huddled in his blue poncho, slick
from the rain, shaking from the cold, waiting for the night.
Beard like tangled roots, hair gray as concrete,
just like concrete.
His eyes told of emptyness, of routine, clenching that
brown bag idly, watching the world pass by.
Another name that fell through the cracks, for no particular
reason, things piled up, what could you do?
No job would hire you, you were just a pink slip, then a
foreclosure, then it all went to ****.
Your eyes catch mine, for that brief second as we pull away,
& I finally see your sign, such beautiful handwriting:
"I am human."
Hannah Beth Sep 2014
I am not scared anymore
For I know
That for every horror that has been endured
Every scar carved into my soul
Each hardship
That has made me who I am
There are ten thousand stars out there
Shining bright against the dark
Like holes poked in boxes
of a cardboard earth
And they shine bright, beam with promise
Of joy and light
And have simply waited to reveal themselves
Until my time was right
A bit more personal than previous poems but ***** it if it's positivity it deserves to be spread
A L Davies Oct 2011
old soybean crop dry & brown
---empty rustcap 12 shot bottle canadian club premium
---broken ("good quality")
wooden blinds
crowfeathers.

muddy packs of darts:
ménage (4)
peter jackson (2)
next (1)
number seven blacks (3)
john player (2)

shreds---plastic . . . bags of earth
all manner cardboard thinlike
drinkcups (tim horton's mostly)
******.
                                  child's wristwatch (..plastic)
frog in a cardboard box
dozen pair new (white) socks? still bagged---
a man walking in the ditch collecting bottles sold me some art magazines.

— The End —