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topacio Nov 2015
my fingers have become bored with
the quicksand of routine
they prefer to dance erotically over my typewriter
frolicking like naked ballerinas
over an ancient stage
spilling their secret thoughts
onto blank page,
after their day job
threaded together
over my lap,
or bending over to
reveal the contents
of my burlap sack

they have taken instead
to jumping over cracks
in the nothing of night
stifling the sound of silence
with assortments of clicks and clacks
punching in the perfect pitch of keys
to leave Beethoven blind
from this symphony of notes combined

and just like that at last
they have unfolded some rhyme
unachievable with ink and pencil,
without the stencil of time
dictating to work inside the lines
Dead Rose One Jun 2015
Lush is the quietude
of the late Saturday afternoon,
rich are the silencing sounds,
as variegated as the shades of greens
of a man-seeded, nature-patchworked lawn

rays reveal some bright,
some yellowed spots,
all a potent color palette

resting worry wearied eyes,
untroubled by the gentle fading light's illumination,
that soon will disappear and seal officially,
another week gone by

the lawn,
acting as an ceiling acoustic tile,
absorbing and reflecting
the varied din of disharmonious
natural sounds orchestrated,
an ever present reminder
     that true quiet
is not the absence of noise

I hear
the chill in the air,
insects debating vociferously
their Saturday evening plans,
the waves broom-swishing beach debris,
pretending to be young parents
putting away the children's toys for the eve

the birds speak in Babel multitudes of tongues,
chirps, whistles, clicks and clacks,
then going strangely silent as if all were
praying collectively the afternoon sabbath service,
with an intensity of the silent devotion

this moment, i cannot
well enough communicate,
this trump of light absolutes,
and animal maybes,
that are visually and aurally
presented  in a living surround sound screen,
Dolby, of course,
all a plot of
ease and gentility,
in toto,
sweet serenity

here to cease,
no more tinkering,
leave well enough,
plenty well enough
for Sally and Rebecca, who love the lushness best....

JUNE 2015
S S Jan 2017
Clacks the train on pre-made track
Taps she on and on all day
Wheel on rail, turns wheel on rail
Never wavering from laid out trail.

Clacks the train on pre-made track
Oft taking souls both to and fro
Alas unseen goes the weary rail
As metal cuts through the nestled nail.

Clacks the train on pre-made track
The unjoining joint harked too late
Souls on board feel blinding pain
As loco veers off its destined lane.

Clacks she no more on pre-made track
Unhinged, undone, has no path, no role
Bent beyond all blacksmith skill
Now left soulless, without way or will.
Stephen E Yocum Oct 2014
Fifteen years old and thinking I was older.
'Assistant Maintenance Man' at a Public School
Summer Camp. Billy Deitz had just graduated
High School, I thought him the coolest guy
I knew. The first week was ended, the little
kids gone home, a new batch in two days time.

We did our work, cleaned and swept, sweated
in the summer sun. Took the old surplus Jeep
over to the creek and plunged ourselves in.
Deitz had some beer in an Ice chest, I drank
one, my first ever. We shot his .22 for a while
and ate PBJs in the shade. Then we heard it.

A train horn in the mountains is a haunting
call. It does not seem to belong there among
evergreen trees and massive granite boulders.
We drove the hell out of the Jeep and found
our way to the down grade tracks. And there
she was maybe 50 cars long, snaking her way
from the summit of the Sierras out of California
into Nevada. Through the Pass over a hairpin
filled course hugging the skirts of the rock face
mountains, slowly rolling her massive load
pushing her four engines, breaks a screeching
in protest. "Click Clack, Click Clack", her steel
wheels clanging upon the rails, a rhythm like
her train heart beating.

Deitz grabbed his coat and tied it round his waist,
looped a canteen over his head, "Lets go kid!"
I did what he said, and then we were running
along beside the box cars, more a trot than a run,
"Do what I do!" Deitz yelled over his shoulder.
A flat car with some machinery approached and
He grabbed on to it and pulled himself aboard,
I copied his moves and he helped pull me up
and then there we stood on the deck of that
moving, mountain ship, with her grunting and
shaking under our feet. We could feel all her
massive weight and power vibrating up through
that wooden plank deck of the flat bed car,
entering our legs and spines. . . It was thrilling!

I had not had time to think all this through,
"Now what?" I asked some what perplexed
"Reno Kid." Deitz yelled with a grin.  

We climbed atop a Box Car, our rail bound
ship crawled out of the upper pass and we
started to descend towards Donner Lake far
below.

Looking behind and ahead it was hard to
understand how they had cut those tracks
out of solid granite rock and how the rails
maintained their frail finger tip grip on the
sheer mountain side.

We ducked nearly flat going through the snow
tunnels, the clearance was tight and it seemed
that a guy could lose his head. The diesel thick
air made us cover mouth and nose with our shirts.
Two tunnels in we noticed our faces getting
smoke blackened. We laughed at the joke.
Soot faced on a boxcar in a tunnel of wood.
Two city kids playing Hobo.

We reached the lower valley, passed the place
where the Donner Party met their grisly end.

Truckee was next and the highway grew close.
We got back down onto the flat car, hunkered
down by machine cargo, more or less out of sight.

I thought of all the down on their luck men that
had ridden those rails, not on a some lark. That
whole Grapes Of Wrath, Woody Guthrie period
of no joke, for real ****. Pushed by poverty and hope.

I must admit at that moment, I felt more alive than
at any other time in my life. I felt grown up, like a man.
Until my belly began to rumble, the speed increased
and the wind began to chill. The Click Clacks of the
wheels quickened and grew irritatingly redundant.
The loud wailing of the engine horn no longer exciting.
Now only hurt my ears.

It was dark by the time we hit Reno, we jumped off
before the train yard. Walked into town with its
bright lights calling the casino gamers to unholy service
and nightly prayer. Proceeded over by hard-bitten
dealers in communal black, with cigarettes dangling
from their unsmiling lips, possessing the empty
dead eyes of the badly used up and down-trodden.
Through the ***** windows, the people there seemed
to possess no joy in their sluggish endeavors.
Both players and dealers all losers, merely Automatons
of those despairing games of chance.

Reno was still rough-hewn in those days, a hard
scrabble place full of cigarette smoke, ******,
card tables, slot machines and not much else.
It seemed to reek of lonely desperation.

Having seen our soot ***** faces in the
window reflection, we washed up in the
cold river that runs through town.

We walked around, ate hot dogs,
Downed a Doctor Pepper.
"Now what Deitz?"
"**** I don't know kid,
first time I ever did anything like this."

"What?" My world collapsed right then,
I thought he was much more than
he turned out to be. Maybe everyone is.
I even started to get a little scared.
No money, no place to stay and apparently,
like most of the denizens there, **** out ah'
luck. I'd never felt that way before, from
mountain high to valley low in two hours.
All that excitement turned to Dread.

We hitched a ride with a long haired
guy of questionable gender, who kept
staring at me in the rearview mirror.
West, to a Truck Stop on the edge of town.
Found a trucker willing to give us a lift
back up to the summit.  Jumped in his rig
happy to find, that his cab heater worked.

Badly judged our get out spot, searched
and stumbled around in the shadowy dark,
dim moonlight looking for that **** jeep,
all that friggin' night.

When the guy that ran the camp returned
and found us sleeping at half past two,
in the afternoon in our tent, to say the least,
He was not amused.

Need I say, I felt much older that next day
and a little wiser too.
I wrote this memory for my kids.
may they never jump a freight train
out of ignorant curiosity.
P-Postponing all those things until another time
R-Rostering them for attention down the track
O-Offering all sorts of excuses stalls one's climb
C-Constantly one defers the mounting job stack
R-Repeatedly ignoring their pealing bell chimes
A-Acting upon them requires an assertive knack
S-Still one avers in responding to their rhymes
T-Taking not a step forward nor any back
I-Initiative and get in and do it isn't one's paradigm
N-Never does one heed their ever tolling clacks
A-Always sitting in an idle non moving show time
T-The day shall arrive with a great waking whack
I-Into motion one shall soon be called to climb
O-On one's toes the chores are waiting in the rack
N-No more disregarding the many sounding chimes
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2016
~took a walk in the city today,
and this happened in the O'Henry traditional way~


the blind man crossing E. 15th,
does not look, nor does he care,
all foes on-coming,
come hither, he dares

his light is red,
yet his cane extended,
he click clacks steadily ahead,
unaware and unbeknownst,
his new step by step sidekick,
Sheriff Natty,
is writing an air poem to a
taxi driver with his
shotgun *******,
a NY gesture of
welcoming *******...

a green light means passage
is a taxi's right,
but my left shoe firm
attached to his bumper,
plus multiple looks mine,
any of which could ****,
his argumentation poses
do somewhat chill...

the sheriff of the city, his motto,
sic transit finger gloria

~

among the sadder sights
of city life
is contrast...

the dark-only coolness
of an Irish bar,
on a bright spring day
when life and love
is bud sprouting
while old white men,
on single soiled solitary stools,
their colored cheeks green
from the reflection of
TV emerald diamond fields,
sipping many pre-game $3
Guinness draughts

around the second inning,
they switch, onto
boilermakers to make
the languid afternoon stretch on,
this I know for sure,
for in the large gilded mirror
behind the bar,
see the barkeep's back asking me,
"what will it be for you
this fine spring day?"


~


next to the bar, in the corner market,
an old man's hands tremble in an old man's way,
in a way I only know thru his testimony,
as he does his daily self-feeding,
his wallet removed, fumbling for two
single soiled solitary one dollar bills.

the shopkeeper's fingers
beat the counter impatiently,
the old man's beer brown bagged,
transport ready, though the old one
rather be next door,
the extra Dollar saved causes
a last minute delay, shaky fingers,
asking for an extra purchase,
a small can of dog food please,
so he can watch the game at home
and share the same meal
with the man's real and best,
and only true spring weather friend

~

the mayor proclaimed as a matter of
public safety, public decorum,
a pack of three or more woman
wearing all black Lululemon athletic wear,
were now banned from being outside after nightfall

later this night, in Carl Schurz Park,
many vamp(ire) voices were heard
singing the lyrics to
"i want to do bad things to you,"
but they staked him only
to a free color reeducation

~

these takes I witnessed,
all or some,
these tales I took
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit
injected beneath my skin
came with the title,
City Boy,
and honored me
with its O'Henry life and lore,
and the vision to believe what is
in my bloodstream
just another true tale of life in Manhattan.com~
published her 4/14/14
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2014
~took a walk in the city today,
and this happened in the O'Henry tradition~*


the blind man crossing E. 15th,
does not look, nor does he care,
all foes on-coming,
come hither, he dares

his light is red,
yet his cane extended,
he click clacks steadily ahead,
unaware and unbeknownst,
his new step by step sidekick,
Sheriff Natty,
is writing an air poem to a
taxi driver with his
shotgun *******,
a NY gesture of
welcoming *******...

a green light means passage
is a taxi's right,
but my left shoe firm
attached to his bumper,
plus multiple looks mine,
any of which could ****,
his argumentation poses
do somewhat chill...

the sheriff of the city, his motto,
sic transit finger gloria

~

among the sadder sights
of city life
is contrast...

the dark-only coolness
of an Irish bar,
on a bright spring day
when life and love
is bud sprouting
while old white men,
on single soiled solitary stools,
their colored cheeks green
from the reflection of
TV emerald diamond fields,
sipping many pre-game $3
Guinness draughts

around the second inning,
they switch, onto
boilermakers to make
the languid afternoon stretch on,
this I know for sure,
for in the large gilded mirror
behind the bar,
see the barkeep's back asking me,
"what will it be for you
this fine spring day?"


~


next to the bar, in the corner market,
an old man's hands tremble in an old man's way,
in a way I only know thru his testimony,
as he does his daily self-feeding,
his wallet removed, fumbling for two
single soiled solitary one dollar bills.

the shopkeeper's fingers
beat the counter impatiently,
the old man's beer brown bagged,
transport ready, though the old one
rather be next door,
the extra Dollar saved causes
a last minute delay, shaky fingers,
asking for an extra purchase,
a small can of dog food please,
so he can watch the game at home
and share the same meal
with the man's real and best,
and only true spring weather friend

~

the mayor proclaimed as a matter of
public safety, public decorum,
a pack of three or more woman
wearing all black Lululemon athletic wear,
were now banned from being outside after nightfall

later this night, in Carl Schurz Park,
many vamp voices were heard
singing the lyrics to
"i want to do bad things to you,"
but they staked him only
to a free color reeducation

~

these takes I witnessed,
all or some,
these tales I took
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit
injected beneath my skin
came with the title,
City Boy,
and honored me
with its O'Henry life and lore,
and the vision to believe what is
in my bloodstream
Just another true tale of life in Manhattan...come walk with us...even if not present, my present to my sidekicks are these vignettes from an ordinary city walk...always present with me...my crew...

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/482482/in-my-sweet-city/
Who’s to say how
He might come back for a second
inhumanely heaped-up helping,
if we grant that immensity
of our assumption He did come
kingly first into this inside-
out size from a do-you-miss-me-
yet’s mirthfully mythical realm

I have seen Him
lurking in a particle-board fine
finish on the thin outer membranes
of our estranged and better faces;
He’s Higgs-boson omnipresent,
but far too theoretical
for our broadly practical, turned-
away gazes to rediscover

There He is now
rising in the favela’s gap-
toothed grins with fabulously naughty
corners this glee-pawed grandpa twists
using cur jests his ***** charges
imagine as flightless quarrels
grey-hooded pigeons would gaggle
were they over-stuffed on golden grain

And there again
on a Calcutta mound’s cluttered
conic end, smog-like He slowly lifts
with the crust-gnawed, razor-wire crimps
of a soup-can’s unconsummated lid
as dainty fingers crawl in toward
a gelatinous glob still clinging
to the powerful pretense it’s meat

And there once more,
conceding oms, He restless flickers
at the margins of blocky beige
Beijing screens as crisply clicked clacks
circumnavigate the darkling
smooth patches and spit-spark a few
conscious drips to squiggle out from
the babble of noxious red seas

Emerged, this welp
won’t toddle off to dribble-stain
the dressy linens of a made-up
nanny’s well-mannered and ornate
evil; it will curl up instead,
a swaddled yawn with no yearn to
suckle under His real mother’s
gaping wide and grungy bloused best
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
softcomponent Jan 2014
creating something in silence (save for keyboard clacks) is a practice in subliminal listening. Thought is like air and you can hear it whispering through the trees of your foresty dendrites.

Misery mixes with ecstasy and love mixes with confused dislike-- for 11 days straight, I've been losing myself in the phosphene glare of love for a girl named Sasha.
She insists she's not a Xanax ******, but by my standards I'm still not sure if I'm convinced altho this seems like an unfair snap-judgement that still hurts her feelings. Perhaps she needs it, and I'm just blanked as the next heretic to go on trial in the pharmacratic inquisition.

For the first time the other night I experimented (incorrectly) with DMT. Sprinkling it over a packed bowl of tea (marijuana), I drew back a breath and felt nothing more than life as a conceited dream with a strange alchemical hangover-fear of psychosis.
excerpt- - 'the mystic hat of esquimalt'
Rick Warr Jun 2016
the man nearby on the train clacks his laptop offensively
like the annoyance of noisy writers in school exams
when I was stultified by writers block
I wonder what the black girl would taste like
passengers feed their fatness with crinkly cellephane food substitutes

did you have a good weekend?
conversation openers start to chorus
corporate cockwombles
talk in jargon tongues
as they sell their souls
to white shirt organisational ambition
common sense takes a back seat
in the street car of Progress
there's talk of profit and effiencies
from men who never made their wives moan
there's talk of scalability and security
from those who know nothing of flexibility and risk
there's talk of innovation
from those whose personal best
is a smart phone

have you seen the latest?
what do you think?
hey, that's what I think!
we must be brothers!
in a cozy co-ordinated mediocrity.
A dystopian stream of consciousness in commuterland
Molly Morgan Feb 2010
Hidden stigmatas fall from your heaven
Solidly landing as a pathway to your righteousness
Running from your broken land
Broken lamp
To provide you with silver thread no more
Centuries of torment squeal under burnt rubber
And mudslides turn to avalanches
Room for the becoming
Pens leak ink over new white blouses
Draped over chairs like makeshift tents
Next to fireplaces to read
Seclusion from enormous intruders like yourself
Dusty pills litter the night table
Subtle reminders of doom once left
Left to chance
Echoing clacks as ***** scatter everywhere
Across the green felt next to the portrait
Covered by the heavy burgundy velvet drape
Whose eyes are blind to your savage beauty
You put the bell in the jar and cried out lonesome
Too many times before
You tried to pick some mushrooms
But it’s harder than you thought.
Del Maximo Mar 2014
wind was sweeping darkness
clouds cluttered the horizon
in all directions
encircling clear, midnight sky
foreshadowing the full moon
shiny, twinkly things beamed brightly
in pollution’s absence
mulberry, guava and palm
swayed in silhouette
dancing to wind chime songs
soft clacks, tinkles and bongs
fragrant breezes carried ocean
like a sweet smelling memory
gently stirring the stillness
© 03/26/14
loggi Jan 2018
My mother likes to hang bells
On the front door,
And I always wondered
What they were for.

They would jingle
Whenever someone
made entry,
and glitter
With the light
from the lamppost
On the street.

But they became dull
Hanging all day,
And the giggling clatter
Mulled and dulled
to a brassy bray.

Mom has a small wedding bell
Of a silver boy
Holding flowers
With a smiling grin.
He’s asking her to ring him
And bring back memories.

But father’s guitar glistens
Whilst the sun lays low.
With one pluck
The vibration hums
Smooth and mellow.

But can you hear it
Sitting on the steps?
This house is so large
But there still lays unrest.

And through The corridor
Clacks the patter
Of greyed canine feet.
But some of us
Lay silent
And reap the past
From the sounds
That do dare speak.

the living room clock
Drones with That of a distant chime,
Because the living arrangements
Have changed overtime.
I.
I want to walk out
into the ocean’s gentle swells,
and feel God’s palm
cupped around me.

II.
I want to step,
over the smooth, fluted stones,
and the whorled shells
of bright abalone,
to sink down
onto sundrenched
sea-ground
and close my eyes
to see my blood-red sun-lit lids
flicker and flash, as
shuddering net-designs
dance, threaded and lacy;
as they curl,
tangling across me.

I want to slide my fingers
through the slithering white sand--
the grains carved into
ivory ripples by the
currents’ deft hands.

III.
oh, I want to lie
and close my eyes
and feel the soft lurch of each wave
jerking overhead, its
strong tug like a kite,
watch the shining fish
scything past above,
and let each dancing point of light
reflected
from their scales
scar my pale face.

IV.
Oh, there is a howling, starving dog
that circles on the shore,
alone.
he’s keened his frantic misery to the
deadpan moon
for so so long
that no one listens anymore--
they gave it up long ago
and just sprawl, licking the dunes;
they lie and swear the grit quenches their
aching thirst
until they choke on their sand-covered tongues
and die.

V.
You see,
I want to see the moon rise,
quivering through
deep-water blackness;
listen to the dolphins’
ghostly shrieks and clacks,
and the whales’ deep, grieved noises.
I want to forget
the sound of human voices.

I long to close my eyes,
sink,
and never rise.

VI.
bright, irregular globes
flutter from my mouth
quick,
coruscating orbs
of prayer,
they shudder and
dart upwards

VII.
saltwater, salt tears,
ask Him if He hears
you gasping.
Asena Seleno Oct 2017
It was the darkest hour of night
With deadly silence and full of fright
My body was hurting
And in pain, my soul was writhing
Under the bare sky I was lying
Knowing that I'm dying
Was getting echoes of flashbacks
Was hearing horrific and dreadful clacks
Sensing seizer of souls howling around
Ways to escape I knew I wouldn't found
Was thinking about the days, I used to spend
How I forgot, everything 'll be questioned at the end
I begged, O God, please one more chance
My life, my deeds, I'll enhance
But it was too late to pray
I must had to pay
~Dreamchaser~
Kyle T Oct 2020
Alex 2 breathes, stacks and unstacks papers, distantly
Alex 1, front cubicle, coughs, clicks his mouse
Eddie pulls out his drawer, pushes it back in, clicks his mouse
Alex 2, yes two Alex's, saunters up to the coffee machine
Alex 1, head down, clacking his keyboard
Mouse clicks, keyboard clicks, electricity
Monitors glow, fluorescents never flicker
Alex 1 opens a new file, two clicks of the mouse
Eddie sips his coffee, puts it down, clicks
New folder, new file, new data
Data entry, spreadsheets
Alex 1 asks did you get the email
Alex 2 has his coffee, his white shirt, under the fluorescents
Statics noise, static, mouse clicks, keyboard
Every new click, new file, new data, new folder
Data in, data out, file, click, the static electronics
Alex 2 clicks, files, new folder, new deal, new data
Eddie clears his throat, softly, the static noise, flickers,
Every new love story is a tragedy
Alex 2 opens a new folder, inputs data, spreadsheets
Numbers in, Eddie clicks his mouse twice rapidly
Stale effluvia coffee, static noise, electric light
Alex 1 sniffles, clears his throat, the clock ticks softly
Eddie opens a new file, the electric screen reflects his fixed eyes
Alex 2 sips his coffee, opens a file, clicks, keyboard clacks
Stasis, complete stasis, electricity, nodes, linear graphs
Numbers input, data, new file, file transfer
Every old tragedy is a ghost story
Alex 2 sips his coffee, breathes, clears his throat, data
Spreadsheets, monitors, electricity, static, data input, output
Every ghost story is infinite
Alex 1 gets up for a new coffee
Eddie inputs data, spreadsheet, file, new folder
Electric lights, stasis, data, file, click, file, input exp..
KG Sep 2016
We drink wine
As the weary wings of the dove
Labor over restless graves
Weaving between the carnival cruises
Drifting along the red canal

Three hundred cubits long,
Fifty wide and thirty tall
Rivers red overflow
The cypress whip cracks
Licking the ****** hide
With a serrated tongue

Ripped from gnawed *******; Raw
From the desperate lips of brothers and sisters.
Rivers red overflow
With the whimpers of last breaths
Muted by the blade of violent delight
And teeth grinding machines

We sit in our squeaking rubber boots
Cutlery clinks and clacks, saws, severs, slice.
Rivers red overflow
With an anguished unholy
Screeching sound
Deaf are our saintly ears

We drink wine
As the weary dove
Returns empty beaked
Once more to his perch
And preens his scarlet feathers
Emily Pidduck Mar 2014
The rattling door as the wind whistles
the calls of the crows amongst the fields
shuffling feet that stirs the dirt
you can't imagine the power it yields

The grunts, the sighs from every mouth
the clicks, the clacks on the keyboard
the whine of a lonely pup
I've never heard that kind of cord

When the music dips and climbs
and we feel the pounding bass
as it stalls before the drop
then, we're locked
in a quiet place

Then waves in the air
and the quivering ground
are drowned to death
by shrieking sounds

But what you hear
comes nowhere near
to the Song of Thumps
that guides my world

So don't pretend you
feel the pounding floor
the way that I do
for my partially deaf brother who can hear most of what's in front of him, and little behind. who likes to stand right beside speakers in concerts because the pounding is his favourite part
brooke Feb 2013
Once in a while when the city lights
are cotton candy and the phone poles
are licorice wires against melon skies
the chatter fades to clacks like drum
beats with the wind inside my lungs
all the cheeks are red bowled Okinawa
sunsets beneath mocha stained tips
of fingers and we are all humbly aware
of the way our feet scuff against the
pavement on our way past the 5th
Avenue Theater.
(c) Brooke Otto
JDK Nov 2012
Going through my very own time portal
Watching my life through my head
And I'm sitting wondering how I got here again

Singing a new song with clicks and clacks
Knowing it will soon get stale
Sipping on my brandy and ginger ale

You might understand a different plight
But this one is all I know
Sometimes I wish I had somewhere else to go

Remedies are all anyone can say
I know that they never help
A person's got to learn to save their own self

And all it takes is some will power
To keep myself away from this
But I can only ever stand to do
Whatever I wish

And all I have is all I've ever had before
Sprawled out on the ceiling of my own room
I think I'll spend tonight on this bathroom floor
Read to the tune of "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John
R Jul 2013
You
Too long has it been since
ink has flowed from my veins,
seeped out of my pores,
and bled from my heart.
Too long has it been since
pencils have hastily scribbled
down words on the lines of
my numerous notebooks
and fingers have raced across
key after key;
the cacophony of clacks
is like music in my ears
as I listen to each stroke
of a new letter,
a new word,
a new experience.

I want to write about you.

The way you can talk
for hours on end
about your passions
and your fears
and all else in between.
I want to write about
the way your eyebrows raise
in the middle of a sentence
and I don't even think
you realize it.
Or the way your hands move
as you gesture around you
for emphasis and intensity
and you look like you could
be standing on stage
presenting a speech for
millions of people.
But oh god,
I wish I could tell you how
******* cute you look
when you speak.

I don't know what you see
when you look into my
murky brown eyes
but I can tell you that
I could stare at your face
forever without feeling bored
because you are the pearl
trapped inside of an oyster.
You're the luminous moon
and the burning sun
and the stars and the
diamonds and the
treasures you find
under your mattress.

I want to write about
your smile and your laugh
and your bony kneecaps,
and I know I'm only sixteen
but is it really that
ludicrous of me to say
that I want love?
I want to love your
complicatedness,
your deep thoughts
and your V-neck shirts.
I want to love the way
you look at me as if
I'm more than just a
scared little girl
and the way you
laugh at me sometimes
for no justifiable reason
but it's okay because
I'd do something
ridiculous everyday
just to see you look
so happy.

I want to love you.

But how can you leave so easily?
I know that it causes you
no pain to just walk away
when all I ever want
is for you to stay;
to forget about sleeping and
everything else in the world
except you and me.
But I know that good things
come in small doses
so I'll pick up the notebook
beside my bed,
and I'll write about you
instead.
chitragupta Mar 2019
Furnished rooms, refined cooling
An angry Sun, a helpless ozone layer
Lavish resorts, palatial homes
The Ents are silent in their prayers
Roaring turbines, whirring motors
****** waters, crying to be set free
Clicks and clacks, a touch and a swipe
Birds fall to the alien magnetic field
Travel the world, not fast enough
Dig and mine, crashing harbour wave
Fossils spent, air wears the smoke
Dinner is served on the tectonic plates

Every day the water becomes a little fuller to the brim
Every day the air becomes a little less thin
Every day the world becomes a little too big
Every day the land becomes a little less green
My second favourite colour next to blue.
But you've guessed what this is about haven't you?
Alone at home
The house is a symphony of day-sounds,
And wants me gone.
Scattered toys express sullen resentment at my pyjama'd presence,
The cats just stare.
I force my working self upon this world,
With keyboard clacks,
The kettle,
And boiling pasta.
I try a hum, then Spotify,
But it all feels alien, too forced.
The house wants the others;
Shrieking, laughing, conversation,
Clashing plates,
A Disney movie
The warmth of family.
This house
wants to be a home.
Hello Sayer Mar 2012
Words were never spoken or exchanged.
"The GO Train is here."
The only five words anyone there ever thought they needed to hear
besides
they weren't words
they were mentality
the briefcases
purses
newspapers
click-a-clacks of heels
rustling of zippers and keys
scrapings of sandals
rollings of bags
sharp noses
blank eyes
all pointed at their exact target
click clack
click clack
a steady stream
of everyone and anyone
men with full black business suits
girls in Gouci and jeans
ladies in Reitmans
men in checkered shirts and khaki shorts
like ants they piled into the
green and white
snake
dreading the fatal announcement
"last call!  Last call!"
they accelerated
full grown men and women
whipping and thudding and click-a-clacking
the wind pushed them back to their cars
the ground screamed "Stop!"
but they didn't listen
a woman
all in blue
who could raise the dead
with her clacking
daintily ran as fast as she could
"DOORS SHUT!" the conductor's voice was muffled
and he followed through
in a spurt of perseverance
soundlessly
the doors closed
At least the adults knew one thing
no amount of noise could open them
so they didn't try
the blue-clad woman slowed to a stop
the GO train had gone
she slumped in the middle of the station
the wind urged her
but suddenly
the train came again
always there
always gone
CLICK CLACK
the heels revived
click clack
click
clack
clack
About the GO-Train to Toronto. I've always felt bad for the people that have to commute that way, because unlike a bus that can stop for the people running to catch it, it is unforgiving and will not stop or open its doors. Also I think if you are in the way of the door when it's closing, it won't move back, so it could easily cut people's limbs off. Scary stuff. The GO-Train is fun to ride, but also kind of evil.
Heather Butler Jun 2010
in the twilight of dawn
I can already hear the shower.
quietly I wonder where the
time went.
I turn over and face the
peeling paint on the wall,
trying to grasp those
vestiges of a dream which
faded to air motes and half-light.

okay, I'll make breakfast today,
and I hope you like oranges.
no, I never bothered to memorize
which fruits you like
in the morning. I know
it's been years, but
I'm not superman and
you knew that when you said
I do.

don't tell me not to
grumble quietly to myself;
I need this bubble of
relative sanity
if I am to survive
5 am showers for
nobody.
you are fresh and clean,
an angel,
and your blowdried hair
frizzes out like a halo.
not a hint of gray.
must be a new color
you're using.

all right, fine,
I won't light a cigarette,
but I also won't
change my shirt.
I like the sweat stains.
they make my profession seem
like work and not
like poetry.

I retreat to
the backroom
where my typewriter sits
upon its unholy altar.
the radio beside it
stands presently silent
amidst the ashes
and crumpled pages.
I would sigh as
I sat down on my sagging chair,
but I am not
a sighing man.

instead, I groan slightly
as my joints protest
in their groggy morning voices
and rest my ***
upon the threadbare cusion
of my favorite
wooden chair.
I find a station on the radio;
something Haydn composed is
floating through,
and I talk to
my secretary.

her voice clicks and clacks
and rings when she breathes.
she's speaking in stanzas
and only I
can silence her.

but this ***** ain't done
confessing just yet.
Heather Butler; 2010
cleann98 Jan 2022
cold autumn waters
rushing its way
underneath my feet
weaving through
             toe to toe
     slicing
          hacking its way
                   through the legs of my seat--
so naturally shining
the reflected beams
of sunlight
          knew how to pick
                which stream
        of which inch
                      of which hairline
               of the river
                            to show oh so clearly
            straight into my eyes--
this was exactly how
                                    i remembered
    the words flowing
                singing and dancing
         all so merrily in my mind.
                      and yet
                    --silence--
   i sit and stew
              in the comfort of my room--
          the fan spews nonesense
       whispering frigid sweet nothings
                      it distracts me
                  so i turn it off.
                      the light shone too brightly
                showing me far far too much
         it annoys me
                         so i turned it down.
                   the natural sounds
               the allure of the wild
                        the little chirps and peeps
                      and the babble of the brooks
i remember none of them
sounding like the clicks and clacks
        that i hear with every press of my finger
                             and every character i delete
                it discomforts me
                        i took a deep breath.
             and another.
                             closing my eyes
       i still saw a faint red through it's thin lid
                   i tried to picture
    the same magical world
                             i used to write in
               back when i was a bard
                     and everything
         the light touches
                                       would be my kingdom
                            my muse.
               and i smiled...
                     all my vivid recollections
       the people and worlds i breathed life to
                  the words that used to be so so alive
             it all felt empty
                    so i opened my eyes
    and tried to write again--
and it turned out... subpar •.• sorry, it's heen two years! i promise my writing senses will thaw out eventually °^°
sam common Jan 2010
MY SPITTLE DRIZZLES
ON YOUR FACE IN MY DREAMS
(yes I dream it)
BECAUSE I TALK FAST,
BECAUSE I AM NOT PASSIVE
(in my dream i sweetly note it)
AND BECAUSE I AM IN-FRIENDED.

Call: Placed. From across the wall
so as to get myself around your brain
more than your(self) is by me(mine).




call call.. ahead or something.

Down the line (street)
I heard your rhymes and chimes
while I happened to be smoking dimes
up way  up in A town ..
And yes it sounds.

pounds my ears, up;
through my head and into my
head's bedroom.
(Such a room
admittedly clakkity clacks
when vibrated
by a rhyme
that at one time
you chimed)



but kind,
fickle times
poison my mind
with wrinkled wrinkled:  fine.
Polby Saves May 2011
The mind does not reel
It Clacks
At or near the frontal lobe
A temple eroding, I suppose
Destroying by the speed of the whir
A millisecond vertigo
Terrorizes for seemingly endless minutes
Wrought iron right neck muscle
Climaxing in a hypnagogic spasm
That levitates the body for an instant

Copyright © 2009
Isaac Feb 2011
Not a good beginning.
Though the ending is good.
Specks of energy ending life.
Zooming into the waterfall.
Is not isn't it?
Can the worst still come?
Misinterpretations and bird calls.
The fever is the cure.
Grand overused.
Over underused.
Seeing the released steam,
You make a new turn
To replace your last one.
The path is worn out
So you slip a new one in place.
The time is up for your inspiration;
The monks are ending their chant.
Look to your new direction,
And find a new dimention.
While writing chalk on chalk,
You find an intrest.
You hear the screams of made up animals,
and steam engines.
The clicks and clacks of spinning.
The ticks of a new idea.
But you dismiss it.
It's all in your head, right?
It's not like anybody else can hear it.
You write it down to save a note,
But words are left in limbo;
But the words are cut short.
All rights reserved by the Author.
Kelly Lutz Jan 2011
A cigarette hangs from her chapped lips
Nails painted **** yellow, now chipping as she clacks them on the table
Her wrist watch is broken so she has to count in her head
One onethousand
Two onethousand
Forget it
It's been about an hour now
She pretends to read a book but instead she stares at one word on the page
Patience
Her lips pucker over the cigarette and she takes a deep drag
With a disgusted sigh she exhales smoke like a dragon forfeiting a battle
One onethousand
Two onethousand
"**** patience,"
She gets up, throws the book in the trash, and leaves
mike Dec 2012
noone has eyes left in this room. i mustve walked in through the wall. tiptoed around the piled-up death, im *****, and marched my smile right into the madness. ill **** any corpse clever enough to not be a corpse...but any corpse will do... with that glazed look from your face filled with dumbness, i wonder what it is youre imagining; to deduce, one must wonder: did ye hast eyes from the birthening??..... cold grey child, id have gone wild on your skin. but now, with fear etched in your brow, youre stretched too thin for it to be sin. with my hooves and my claws i applaud your rotting body torn and clawed. i tare your form from form. and from existence; the never born. enjoying the rhythm of clacking teeth to the tone of your lungs collapsing. im dancing and laughing. prancing and clapping like the little dead girl that im wearing, every stitch is miss-matching.. and yes, your being im crushing, and youre no audience, but still, im blushing; i look smashing. not much of a musician, but ill try to make nice sounds. tips and taps and hums and dee-dee-dee's. clicks and clacks from my tongue.HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AAAAHHHHHHHH... its so FRIGHTENING!!!! ISNT IT?!! and you like it. it excites you.. it makes nice sounds. so much so your orgasming or convulsing. and your eyes would be rolling in the back of your head if you didnt have gaping holes there instead. that i **** and i fill as your soul escapes and spills out onto the floor; like a snake to its skin: you poor thing, youve shed. the puddle of you left mumbles some useless question with your definite last breath: why? - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! WHY??! ..for i am the cataract in satans left eye while i swiftly sew his right eye shut. to see nothing but the haze of souls to fry every time he decides to look up.... and thus you bubble some sputter and spew with your mouth gaping wide as my tongue laps your hyde. HHHHHH... i steal that last breath from you from inside of your chest as i give you your death. fear freedom you spawnless *****. as i drop a very large stone onto your chest cavity. i give you your death but in death, again and again... you look ravishing. i am the Maddening.
First: a soft statement
tolled out to a vacant page
ringing, and rebounding at the edges
as a quiet ripple set
to subtly amplify the light
of imagination.
The stone was dropped by --
what?
A hand that is as old as, or is older
than God.
It pushes through the water like a fish
without fins, it invisibly reshelves
the fluid memories from below
to above, below
to above until at last the rock,
the stone that is a soft statement at the top
of a once-vacant page,
clacks into place on the darker underside.

And then the poetry continues:
Crumpled Lightning;
A hailstorm of Words; Visions; Lines: Sparks;
all angled to mirror the space occupied by you,
even as it speaks of something else entirely,
even plummeting from every direction
to the point they blur - left to right, top to bottom -
the poem is a sheet of water,
a prism of distorted imagination showing you there,
you, clear as day, sharp as life
something, some piece of a thing, is made so clear
to you, a facet of life, a law of reality, or the inner clockwork
of a mind; you see just that much more of yourself
and that space you occupy in air, it is
that, though it may be masked by its magnitude, or its detail,
that is the quality what has wrapped your mind in a net.

So then the poetry concludes
with what?
Some three pillared, immovable declaration?
One scarcely held breath in the wind?
A clot of sky? A vein of iron?
You never fully expect it, no matter how often you are told.
Somehow, very likely inexplicably,
you recall some quality about beginnings,
drawing your eye to the top of the page
that started it all. The
First: a soft statement
an echo freshly familiar, despite
its elder weight; it was there all along
an echo, but an anchor of a stone
built for tethering all that poetry
to the underside of your mind.
Dante Rocío Jan 2021
A cardiac flush paints just respiratory
via ivory of ribs name to launch, bear, ovulate,
an explicit painter your mother would never count acceptable like
a feather's charcoal flight
a whitened bow of silk for your neck to gush with,
in a mess adorn,
Pueyo's nomad or form turned poem I take
greater than any body's gifted *******,
but enamel of guitar's caramel my bonfire took for granted chips.

Let's imagine we identify
****** for David's curls on doe eyes for a woman in return.
Let's imagine we identify
peach marble ways of men tinting what as agender stars in ashes lie.
Let's imagine we identify
*** at last as nameless liberty for home.
Wounds, impeccable fire platter, a night holds.

Once in her time a nightingale nurse held lone for corridors light,
might my clacks and nervous chirps on a lantern in a tea for someone
rushed my fingers bless just like her alone...

An empty gaze. A late clock.

And I and Christ perched with a washing bowl at someone's feet,
we meek but at praise, unattainable,
And I a statue with silk black at my end of curves' robe.

I might wish to serve one of those corridor nights
without a cover tugging at my edges
yet a hopefully audacious male David gaze in intent,
for a wayfaring soul on my couch,
for glorious shame their touch would put on my ways
of the acrylic of ***,
for brightening bland stars agender into honey,
and my work for bare choices
errands
picked.

Gasp.
Renovation of mixed approaches of my agenderness, transmasculinity, chilly nights of blazing guitar plays outside, becoming your family's silent night saviour even though you're ready to depart from clothes or Mind like Florence Nithingale with her loyal lamp and just how much I wish for my special someone to be born into that space where I'm all naked, not ascribed to femininity, and burning holes in their soul with my eyes of devotion just like Christ washed our feet grandly yet humbly, with no one maybe seeing him acting
David Zavala Apr 2014
A martyr the matrix:
***** roses inside the hoot owls owls hoot of an hour glass    

Anything changes

Nothing does

That is, more nurses and cries, yes undefinable cries, in the room next door.

Such that I have mail, I have a lot of mail, shaped like figures of 8 and want it off me,

What’s dressed in black clinks and clacks?

You don’t care anymore and I do not care.

Wear whatever you want, I was trying to be creative.  

If you love: willingly believe that it’s affirmative, a YES, yes after you mention that it is affirmative such that like a yes.

The sun send something you in a bird that flies across interested and past my neck but does, in fact, land, yo land.

Shadows will follow and your fence is alone or is basically alone and it is the best part and nothing changes and it’s not poetic it just doesn’t really matter like that not. Are you hot? Sorry, are you hawt?

The settled scratch:

     Air atom particles are now reconditioned second it second it second it make it something good yes gewd.

Okay: I still like Allen Ginsberg and like the taste of ginseng like in a soup. I am talking to someone I will never meet that makes me happy.

Finishing: at 4:03 pm on Monday afternoon I notice it is Spring. Sure, yes, sure the birds are chirping.

- Shutters begin --

?
Piano keys are dreams that illude me.
The sounds are so sensual, clacks that mock the gentle twinge of a note.
Like guitar strings plucked just so, sound as the weeping of stars.
Light that seems to melt away from its whole leaving a void.
I feel as though the world has become so much easier to hear.
The silence from indoors is a perpetual energy that feeds us.
Keeps us safe.
Yet the ecstasy of light on a dark night seems to call to us.
The blur of a grey black in the night sky that meshes so well with street lights.

The winter calls clarity to our eyes,
and the world seems to stand still while snowflakes move past our frozen bodies.
And each flake catches the bouncing particulates of a glimmer, making the air crisp.
Like the sound of ivory tickling the soft ridges of oxygen in our ears.
Commingling with the illusion of light behind our eyes.

And the foot prints in the snow,
foot prints searching for the morning glances of a sunrise from dew drops that are months away. They seem so lost.

As lost as unwritten notes to a beautiful mind.

As lost as a concerto performed in an empty hall.
-P.S.
Polby Saves May 2010
DT
The mind does not reel
It Clacks
At or near the frontal lobe
A temple eroding, I suppose
Destroying by the speed of the whir
A millisecond vertigo
Terrorizes for seemingly endless minutes
Wrought iron right neck muscle
Climaxing in a hypnagogic spasm
That levitates the body for an instant
A moment?
Copyright © 1996-Present- From The Crawlspace in the Cranium

— The End —