"chainlink" poems
I see you.
Peering through your chainlink fence,
Anxious to see what’s going on outside,
But, not enough to actually come out here.
With your rickety lock and rusty old key,
Ready to lock me to your fence,
But never considering locking me behind it.
I can see the scars you fail at hiding,
From prisoners who got away.
But, why can’t you see,
That you really don’t need,
That fence or that lock,
Or that key to keep me?
Take down this fence,
And, let me step in,
To love you completely and let you breathe easy.
I do have eyes that work.
06.2011
Jul 13, 2011
Jul 13, 2011 at 10:20 PM UTC
A face full of light.
Strong bare arms and
Hair covered.
You can think still, you
Can keep your heart.
You can have my canned fruit.
Child turned away at the door
But bright tropical morning through
Caged bar doors
And the human heart can make even
The red late night light, your
Only light up through the
Little windows with the bars in it
Beautiful.
Caged but
Grey is the color of hope.
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 1:52 AM UTC
by Barry Lopez
I'd heard so much good
about this place,
how the animals were cared for
in special exhibits. But
when I arrived I saw even
prairie dogs had gone crazy in
the viewing pits; Javelina had no mud to
squat in, to cool down; Otter was
exposed on every side, even in his den.
Wolf paced like a mustang,
tongue lolling and crazy-eyed,
unable to see anyone who looked like
he did–only Deer, dozing opposite in
a chainlink pen.
Signs explain
the animals are good because
they **** animals who like oats
or corn too much.
Skunk has sprayed himself out,
with people rapping on his glass
box. Badger's gone to sleep
under a red light and children ask
if he's dead in there (dreaming of dead
silence). And
Cougar stares like a clubbed fish
into one steel corner all morning, figuring.
Only Coyote doesn't seem to care, asleep under a
creosote bush, waiting it out.
Even the birds are walled up here,
held steady in chicken-wire cages for
the staring, for souvenir photos.
And this, on the bars for Eagle:
The bald eagle was
taken as a fledgling
from a nest in New
Mexico by an
Indian. He planned on
pulling feathers for cer-
emonial headdresses
every year. The
federal government seized
the bird and turned
it over to the
Desert Reserve
for safekeeping.
Bear walks in his own
*** smells concrete
and his own **** all day long.
He wipes his nose on the wall,
trying to **** it.
At night when management is gone,
only the night watch left,
the animals begin keening: now
voices of Wood Duck and
Turtle, of Kit Fox and everyone else,
Bear too, lift up like the bellowing
of stars and kick the walls.
14 miles away, in Tucson, are movie houses,
cold beers and roads out of town,
but they say animals know how to pass the time
well enough. And after a few beers
they'll be just like Indians–
get drunk, fall down and spoil it all.
Sep 5, 2015
Sep 5, 2015 at 2:20 PM UTC
Free Will is a ***** and a half.
But ***** ain't free, he costs and costs, and jaws you, gnaws you, spits out your bones, retargets, redodges, zooms in, looms thin, steals a hat from a child outside a movie theater and vanishes around the corner, through the alley, under the chainlink where the filthy mutt from the movie dug his way to freedom Steve McQueen style.
But the dog's name is not ***** and she would prefer you call her a ***** then whistle. It doesn't make any difference to her what you call her, but she knows whistling your sexuality at strangers in the street is bad for your mental health, worse for your dignity.
She will stare you down, swipe left, steal your money from the begger, and brag She left you dead in the street next to the twin corpse of the ice cream man that won't stop ringing his bell.
If you are too lazy to make coffee in the morning the nightmares will follow you all day, headache throbbing like a hammer on memories like nails.
On the morning of the day little baby Jesus decided to ease up on the whipping you were at the Portuguese diner out by the highway on the toilet listening to the rain drops gather rhythm on the rooftop, thinking about the idea of mathematical randomness, wondering if perfect beats like Ringo Star or clocks exist in "nature." I mean not man made. You know what I mean.
Inventing Bukowski is also fun. He loved to write about his ***** "The best of the beer ***** hot, wet, steaming, and glorious ..." What a role model.
The thing with J. C. is he is just one of three people, none of whom yet exist.
Humanity is still basically crawling around in the forest waiting for the Aliens take the time to drop by and share a few tips. Maybe more than a few.
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC
Sheltered promises
fitting male into female,
and I hold out in this hotel room
standing up for nothing.
There is a time to pay the price
and just get on the ride.
The local folk, they don't smile much.
So I hunt my alone time down,
only to set it free when caught.
Get a whiff of that!
It smells like someone died in here,
their spirit choking on crumbs of thought.
Metal bars and a chainlink fence,
chewed torn sleep when it comes.
Some only sleep,
maybe they are free until their lids separate.
The toll being too high for me to cross beyond.
Unsweetened, sweaty dreams chide and natter,
becoming bitter yearnings
off in the distance,
only markings made by memories.
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 6:09 AM UTC
On the last overpass
Before the outlet malls
Sits a park green with trees
A little oasis before
Altered desert sands
One bush bright with weeds
Pulls its arms in and through
Gaps in chipped olive chainlink
Flailing in the vicious
Car-spun winds beneath
The brambles on the inside
Long to fly without dirt underfoot
The knarlled flowers on the outside
Wish they had the shade
And cool company of trees
But of the branches flowing
In and out of the in-between
I can't say if they want for
Anything but stability
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC
Lately, I have been postponing
Writing about the palms of your hands.
Procrastinating thoughts written down
Concerning the color of your eyes.
In fear of looking at you in a positive light
Once more.
You see, when I dedicate verses
To the specifics of your smile.
I tend to get caught up
In feelings of attachment.
And I live with the fear
That you will leave just as easily as you came.
I suppose I will let myself cling
To every lingering thought of you.
Allow myself to ponder the rasp of your voice
In the early hours of the morning.
Allot myself time to reminisce
On the tenderness of your touch.
Slowly, I am becoming more attached;
Sticking to you like sweet honey.
Your words are half of a chainlink fence;
And mine connect with yours exclusively.
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 11:19 PM UTC
It's like a jungle sometimes
that's what The Grandmaster said
but learning about bodies being found in alleys over colors
that's maybe not what he saw in his head
the streets are cruel, but they teach you a lot
every day in my city it seems
someone's getting shot
More bullets pop every night
And more kids don't get to see the sunlight
to quote Run-Dmc whatever did happen to unity?
we lost the concept when getting money and turning up became the only objects
of our fascination and now our babies won't grow up to see outside the chainlink fence that symbolizes the divide between the hoods, north south west and east side we need to call a truce put all the beef aside and let's grow as a city it won't be easy at all
but I guarantee if we can do this it's together not apart from the homies is how we'll ball
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 7:40 PM UTC
The 101 slopes like a spine bent too long.
Camarillo yawns wide in the morning hush,
valley stretching slow, hills bare-shouldered,
fields glistening, half-asleep, half-prayer.
Lemon trees blink slow, bruised gold in the mist.
Figtrees call a name behind a rusted gate.
Sagebrush whispers gossip through chainlink,
its breath full of stories that outlive the tellers.
To the east, the nursery stirs,
plastic sheeting *****
row tags flutter in the wind.
A thermos, abandoned, rests by a wheelbarrow.
Mud boots, discarded,
stand like sentinels
against the wood plank wall.
No footsteps follow.
I never asked where they went.
Matilija poppies raise their paper-white heads,
and the raspberries, furred with morning dew,
shiver, just slightly,
as if remembering friends
they were no longer allowed to say.
A coffee roaster hummed somewhere distant,
low and steady, warming the wind.
That scent I never could shake,
burnt and sweet.
I could almost belong here again,
but it’s not mine without them.
I worked inside this valley with my back.
With my knees.
With the same hands,
now soft on the wheel,
muscle memory steering roads
as if nothing ever left,
as if the ghosts still ride along.
I pass a strawberry field, stitched in silence,
no voices rising in laughter today,
no corrido escaping from a shirt pocket radio,
no teasing between the furrows,
no calloused hands tossing tools,
only the soft ticking of irrigation
and the hush of work
that now waits for no one.
This silence has been swept, labeled,
nothing out of place but sadness.
I was here with them,
but only as a pair of eyes,
that never opened wide enough.
The strip mall stands like a broken promise,
painted stucco, faded western wear,
alongside roadside markets
missing the opening crew.
Still, the hills lean in to listen,
velvet green with memory,
quiet as folded hands.
Even now, under this sun,
the dust knows who knelt here.
Who sang into the rows,
who fled before sundown,
their names erased from the ledger
but carved into the earth.
And in soil’s hush,
their names still root and rise.
Jun 19, 2025
Jun 19, 2025 at 5:24 PM UTC
I think a lot about the scents of my youth
The lavender soap by my grandparent's sink
The honeysuckle in the chainlink fence
And the smell of my home that I've forgotten
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 12:46 PM UTC
i remember five months from now
how i sprawled across your lap like chainlink
and you traced an urban skyline
peeking through my skin.
i asked which radio tower was your favorite.
what's most beautiful about the city
we have yet to build.
Feb 10, 2020
Feb 10, 2020 at 12:22 AM UTC
A glutton for devotion,
is what I would say of myself.
Reserved only for singular reverence.
Chainlink fence around portrait perimeter.
Love lies lusciously
where the marvelous maple
lets leaves lay in the autumn.
Core, contained in a thick cluster of
counterculture conscience.
Averse to all wealth, save
the cornucopia held
within my sternum.
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 30, 2025 at 10:45 AM UTC
Leave me alone maybe means
go away yes but be here
in one call. When the ground beneath you
shakes keep going but turn back when
mud stops being thick.
Avoid getting too lost.
The unknown place after the reed
is off limits. Maybe
I put up the chainlink
because I want the trespass.
But that
way we only go so far.
The hope is that
you’re still an animal
by the end of this abuse,
unquestioningly
returning to the long-haired girl sweeping land with her herding call.
There in a blanket of mist, she stands barefoot and unmoving like a scarecrow.
She moors the cows to her side of silvery dawn.
—unquestioningly
because what is there to ask?
It is known to work, the ancient
Scandinavian song of lure.
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 12:35 PM UTC
wait long enough
for whispers to slide
behind trapped colors
remember how to burst out from chainlink
a pebble speaks silence perfect
dislodged from the angel's ****** throat
paragraphs of rain
pages of grey winters
a shrewd plea sneaks in
restless like a sincere nightwatch
written by furtive moons
waiting for the next swift eclipse
to sun stain alien sand
everything dead waits to be hit by shine.
This is it
a misprisoned child
escaping wisdom's dark house
on the deep face of silence
I stole expressions from Buddha's still pond.
Forest green eyes
curls around his ribs
forces him to listen
long vines of prose
jail cells can never take away
feel it rip puzzles to jigsaw
slice me like a spiked saw
tainting midnight's first sun born child.
Meet me in a meadow of new fresh colors
so we can reinvent ourselves on carousel of wonders dripping bright sparks into sink holes.
In wild quiet soil
brightness cannot conceal its majesty
be harmless as summer darts
beaming across a doorway.
Open like switchblade
nothing to hide
some still look at you
suspicious hunted curious
walk through darkness
watch broken fangs from sharp bulbs
light up anyway.
Down corridors of lightning
whiffs of burnt Eden
a bright companion dragged through
broken nail sands
dressed in white rags
when you look close enough:
Everybody cut in half
like confused air
haunted in twilight
nail biting silence
hoping for peace to land
Feb 2, 2019
Feb 2, 2019 at 8:26 PM UTC