"crosshairs" poems
My eyes see nothing but crosshairs
My right hand does nothing but clicks
In this cyberspace with no cares
Finally, happiness sticks
My ears hear nothing but bullets
My left hand does nothing but W,A,S,D
An experience that's as good as it gets
For at least a few hours, I'm free
My feelings are nothing but joy
My thoughts are nothing but video games
A place I can dominate a boy
Without having to say any names
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 6:14 PM UTC
We marched to the words of "We Shall Overcome"
courting justice to walk at our side,
seared into memory with the heat of sun
brothers and sisters, arms linked one to one
beneath that day star's unblinking eye,
we marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome."
We swore an oath to forego the gun,
to carry only freedom's cry
beneath the impassive afternoon sun,
through bludgeon and cudgel one by one,
each truncheon summoning others to rise,
to join in the words "We Shall Overcome."
As we embraced, the marching done,
a crosshairs trained a sniper’s eye
to wrench malice from the indifferent sun
to hew a path in blood and bone,
to rend flesh
and a rasping
fatal sigh . . .
in the fading caress of the afternoon sun.
Beneath the eternal arc of the sun,
again we will muster side by side,
a sanctified chorus, whose song will be sung,
let our marching echo...
"We Shall Overcome.”
Copyright © 2018 Gary Brocks
Conceived after visiting the LORRAINE HOTEL (Memphis, Tennessee), the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thursday, 4 April 1968.
In 1991 the NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM at the LORRAINE HOTEL was opened to the public.
"We Shall Overcome”, an anthem, title and refrain, of the American Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century.
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 4:18 AM UTC
We were an explosion:
we mattered and filled the empty spaces out.
We drew constellations on our walls,
planned a future amongst those stars.
There's planets we dressed
and passionate nebulas we blessed.
But somewhere in between the crosshairs,
the distance exceeds us;
we kept adding anyway.
Time was a construct made for us to measure our existence but instead I count the seconds like decades. Your hands haven't reached for mine in eons.
Our Universe might have grown
but now we're galaxies apart.
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 9:36 AM UTC
Gloria, latex snap. Opaque lipstick.
I should press holiday stamps
over those big blue eyes of yours.
Misspelled spoken word, whole hunting
from malignant orange ,
crosshairs and et cetera.
*** on me - stellar hardwood floor ;
the last unicorn was a battered woman
with certain dysmorphic symptoms.
My boyfriend thinks it's **** when
i read the dsm v the way i eat jello shots.
Still, I don't **** him how I would the
surrealish ***** in a polyester uniform.
He knows there's been a cowboy in a parka on the corner for days
politely asking about the three legged race. I have no answers for him
or his handsome eagle co-defendant.
I really think
I'll marry my best friend for her
enameled heart and health insurance.
I took my multivitamin , tapping out
morse on old formica ,
while telling my dead dog im sorry for
letting them **** him.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
#
**Where will you be
twenty twenty
I've got news for
you aplenty**
Leave me alone let
me pilot my drone
let me fire my missiles
in a no fly zone
I don't need your permission
to release ammunition
You might as well leave if
you're looking for contrition
Rifle Rifle—wait for it wait for it
Trifle Trifle—everything's legit
Eyeful Eyeful—never can forget
Look out! I strike without warning
Splash! Try again tomorrow morning
**Liar Liar
tongues on fire
can't put out the
forest fire**
Leave me alone let
me pilot my drone
let me drop my ordnance
in a no fly zone
I don't need your permission
to release ammunition
Get in my crosshairs
You'll be headed to perdition
Rifle Rifle—wait for it wait for it
Trifle Trifle—everything's legit
Eyeful Eyeful—never can forget
Look out! I strike without warning
Splash! Try again tomorrow morning
Leave me alone let
me pilot my drone
let me fire my missiles
in a no fly zone
Here's the facts hard cold
if I may be so bold
if you really want to win
you'll have to wait till I get old
**One step forwards
two steps backwards
Once released you
can't take back words**
© 2020 Mark Toney. All rights reserved.
#
Jul 11, 2020
Jul 11, 2020 at 12:22 AM UTC
*A river flowing against its course
As if to floss
Its rare peculiar uncanny ingenuity
A notable case study of ambiguity.
An estranged lover unceremoniously
Literally butchering his offspring mercilessly
In cold blood
For having been dragged through the mud.
The undercurrents of change overriding
Entrenched seemingly myopic tendencies which aren’t binding
Causing irrevocably reversible state of affairs
Care not to be caught in the crosshairs.
A hopelessly optimistic romantic
Head over heel in love with the mystique
Aura of eccentricity effortlessly effused by
Her, she indeed worth a try.
Myriad circumstantial conundrums
That is cause of the inevitable humdrum
So characteristic of life
Answers a trifle few and the lackluster enthusiasm rife.*
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 2:21 AM UTC
I.
I thought you were the one.
I imagined us flying to Manila, meeting the entire family,
you proposing on the pristine sands of Boracay or
in the small village where you used to play with spiders.
I thought of possible baby names pronounced beautifully
in both of our families' native tongues.
II.
We grew together, abandoned defenses until you were my only confidant.
I still haven’t recovered from the way you used that against me:
Sealing my confessions into bullets in a magazine and making sure
I was centered in the crosshairs of the scope,
a different kind of target practice.
III.
You were my special kind of poison, the kind that slipped through my veins
unnoticed until it corrupted my cardiac muscle and collapsed my lungs.
I ate away at myself until I was small enough not to threaten you,
and even that wasn’t enough.
I finally got the courage to leave you, but I formed a thick cocoon
around my chrysalis of secrets to protect myself from you
and the next.
IV.
It’s been two years and I still have you, your mother,
and every Carlsbad or Mira Mesa area code blocked.
You realized you could invade my voicemail so you rang in 2019,
screaming whiskey-soaked wishes for a better year for us both.
I honestly believe you want that, in your own way.
I wish you the best too, but
I have outgrown you.
Jan 19, 2019
Jan 19, 2019 at 3:58 AM UTC
jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
like tumbling autumn leaves
ever and always
on the steps of a country house.
always and ever
just outside the aix-les-bains dance hall.
his blousy new bride
and her old lover
aware of his sympathies and
the danger he presents to them.
jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
ever and always
on a deserted alpine road.
always and ever
one trail of blood,
remnant of the preyed upon.
she screams against the glass,
quiet devil in the backseat
haunted by the disorder
of his own mind.
eyes opened to
his own mutability.
alienation is immanent,
bred in the bone.
a desperate need for gravitas,
built upon vaporous credulity.
and she is pursued through the woods
ever and always,
through iridescent fields
always and ever,
until finally in his crosshairs
she falls.
those like him have not suddenly
vanished from the earth, but
are merely lying in wait.
Mar 25, 2022
Mar 25, 2022 at 3:22 PM UTC
Reconnecting broken ties,
mending the misleading lies I spoke.
I awoke to the harsh reality.
My reckless mentality carved out the space you use to hold.
It was my addiction to control, I wanted you.
I had you in my view, my crosshairs closed in on your heartstrings,
I could feel the rhythm of your being pressed against my isolation.
Here in desolation I dream of what we were,
a loving transfer of thought patterns and soft skin.
To begin again. Another position in time and space.
Mentally I trace the contours of your face with blinded intentions.
I'll always wait for you long after I push away.
Moonlight come bend me and twist me once more.
I miss your entirety.
You need to leave.
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 8:55 AM UTC
.
Hello **archangel,
fallen goddess behind my morgue.
Whose complexion equaled the moon,
craters and abysses,
cascading like salt on
an empty**
wound.
**With the crosshairs of nicotine
a mirage on her cracked lips;**
“Leave me,
lowly poet,
Your pity is unbecoming.
I am the 13th fallen sister,
so linger here
no longer.”
“Death is an old friend,
I fear not his company,
nor his demise.”
**I’ve never seen such eyes;
glass-stained,
divine & unpredictable.**
“I’ll **** you.”
“Darling, I’m already dead.”
**Her monologues could summon the dead,
she preached of the lovers
who bore no fruit
and the heartless
that lay eternal
in the eyes of
her dalliance.
I’d often find myself
yearning at the pebbles at her gravestone,
impatient, to be graced by her
ink soul and** rhapsodic presence.
“Are you my friend,
poet?”
“No,
I am much more.”
**And for centuries
of cracked dawns and
folded nights,
shallow moons &
crippled suns,
we’d meet---
poet to god,
at her morgue.**
“Poet,
why must the most beautiful
people die?”
**She once asked me.
Alured, I answered:**
“When you’re in a garden,
which flowers do you pick?”
“...The most beautiful ones.”
**I’d spend my seconds ‘neath the gallows,
among the bones
of her brethren,
all had fallen before her,
from the house of god.
I bargained my soul with Ursula,
my sins with Lupus,
I ignored their tempertantrums
& discord.
That very evening I stitched a universe,
upon her shoulder-blades.**
“What are these?”
“Wings.”
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
While i was learning to savour the new taste of cashew and walnut in the autumn of that year
you were learning to eat the bones of your neighbours' dog as you fled from an earth gone moist
the leaves of war were torn from the jungle as a cavalry of shrapnel burnt away the air
you were learning to hold your breath while i was doing the same in a suburban swimming pool
when the dust of your family filled the lids of your eyes
being left to see for yourself held quite a different meaning
while your skin seared from the heat of warfire
i was feeling the warmth of a shopping centre in winter
when you went without feet, a landmine exploding your underneath world underneath
i sprained an ankle at basketball
the words of an american god spat forth from an automatic weapon
and you saw the tongues of the lamb inviting you to feast in a foreign language
and while i drew in crayon on the kindergarten wall
you were drawn in the crosshairs just before the smell of cordite
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 8:06 AM UTC
You’re such a tease you ease between nonchalant and fervour • I favour the latter the scattershot words of intent • you invent new ways to torture me oh fortunate me to be the subject of such cruelty • what is a man to do that’s caught in the crosshairs of a shrew • to reciprocate with such hapless abandon or offer up random excuses why he must refuse this attention • my heart tried to stage an intervention but the other members rejected the motion • it's already had some wear and tear so please can you just handle with care.
Jun 29, 2021
Jun 29, 2021 at 4:47 PM UTC
I dream of living to see the next revolution,
And of the men who will not live through that revolution,
Of the air humming electric static heat in anticipation of the inevitable riot,
Of the holy barricades standing in defiance of Heaven,
Of the enlightened kicking down the doors with guns and masks, asking;
"ARE YOU GONNA BE A PART OF THE PROBLEM OR ARE YOU GONNA BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION?"
Of gallows for the dogs of war,
Of guillotines for the capitalist pigs,
Of a firing squad for every reactionary content to oppose the wheel of history even as it crushes their bones down to nothing,
Of the end which justifies the blood staining the cities red as the hammer and sickle cells that divide and multiply fevered in the streets,
Of the ghosts of iron men long dead still insisting that we take not one step back,
Because men get arrested, animals get put down
And God,
God made them as stubble to our swords, boys
And with blades clenched between their teeth so climb the dregs of the Earth to the surface to taste the apples they shook from the trees,
In 24 hour news cycles the slogans repeat to infinity:
"NOT RESISTING ARREST"
"NOT COMMITTING A CRIME"
"I WAS NOT A THREAT, WHY DID YOU TRY TO **** ME"
You can only force people to paint the smallest target possible on their own backs for so long before you end up in the crosshairs
I have seen the faces of my saints painted on the walls of eternity -
Of Trotsky, million headed proletariat staring daggers through the hearts of the tsars,
Of Cromwell, crusader for the ungovernable force of will,
Of Robespierre, headsman of divine terror riding on the wings of the Angel of Death,
I have seen the end and the means played out in countless dramas across millennia,
And the only question that remains unanswered is this:
Are you gonna be a part of the problem or are you gonna be a part of the solution?
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 12:30 AM UTC
Tell the ******* truth, Gwen Stefani, bleach blonde vamp.
Questions stack up in the recesses of my mind,
A renovation’s trash pile of drywall dust.
You changed me, but there are things to clean up.
Did you just take a break to remake your image
For swarms of chubby white suburban pre-teens
Swarming in packs at the middle school dance?
Are those the only bees you could catch in your hive?
How did you meld and mold the Harajuku girls
To fit in the camera’s crosshairs or to walk
the thin line of a New York fashion week runway?
I must admit I still have my bottle of L.A.M.B.
Was the woman who screeched she was Just a Girl
Just floundering for fame? Does this happen to
Every mid-level artist? Will my inkwell turn
To the blood of an easy fan base too?
I wanted you to be my mother, but you picked
my platinum model sister as your favorite.
But will I still become you, even though I know
You’re false? Your press coverage can’t reveal the future.
Black tar lies spew from US magazine covers
Eyes dark, I gobble them up in violent shudders.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 10:49 PM UTC
Pain's accretion--black snaked with royal purple--
therewith and more of, in cold case of less--
pain inexorable.
Fear's favorite pet spoilt with handling.
Pain's redemptive quality is repulsed by plain
sight, it must mobilize malignancy, purloin the
jury, condemn, palm hope to hopelessness.
Fixity--its host must remain in firm attendance.
Enough is ready...a ripened type of monologue...
the crosshairs of silence.
To grow demented from overstimulation,
breaking the same news to what needs dying.
Fetal position suffices...warm, a spinning vinyl
record scratching toward dawn.
The woodwork calls a name--as a woman hoarse...
with labor pain...rebirth.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 2:02 PM UTC
Almost a year since the presence was known, gave me time to roam,
she was busy gardening an idea that couldn't be grown.
Times change. The mind got rearranged. If I stepped in untimely then I'll burn too quick in the fame.
My past is in the past and she's not one to be passed. But I'm not sitting in crosshairs because I've already got my own aim.
I can't start something that has no substance, or at least a hint of,
But a constant trajectory to the revolving door is what I could easily get sick of.
I have my own value, sad & true. If there's no space to place it then I guess I'm just passing through.
For now, I'm giving it time to see what the ride might brew.
I'm all in. Take every inch, every thought, every sin.
I don't trust a soul because there tends to be bite behind every grin.
If you want all of me there's a simple recipe:
Be true to yourself and then I'll bring the mess of me. Restlessly.
I can sense the powerful energy.
Life is what you make it. I've grown with every ache and confronted anything I've been faced with.
When you concoct your potion hope it's not poison it's laced with.
If you mean every word, bird, we'll paint the sky with our symphonies.
Make rainbows jealous with our palette of memories,
Sitting tight, sipping fine wine as you bring out the best of me,
Turn the atmosphere on it's head while we chill in our new heavenly mezzanine.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 11:52 AM UTC
How quickly he forgets
Lashing out in revenge
Just to watch helplessly as God turns his outrage into righteous uproar
He lit a flame in hope of chaos
Only to see the word of God spread like wildfire
He took his shot, crosshairs centered on war
Only to learn we fight on our knees
Some don't long for light until there is none
And he showed the world how dark it really is
Leaving the name of Jesus shining brighter than ever
Foolish angry man..
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 3:29 PM UTC
A battle between
crosshairs,
we fall
and
rebound
back; we crack;
ricochet.
The bullet grazed,
and kept at bay.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 11:51 PM UTC
You like to blend in
It's safer, not being identified in a line up
Not being noticed by the school Bully
I couldn't bear that life.
Always needed spotlight
Crosshairs
Skyscrapers.
Let people come into my building for it's big neon signs
When they leave maybe they've learned how to use pen. Bought or sold stories.
Taken something with them.
You are in the ocean
One of the many holding hands
dropletts blending together
Boats motor by, dump their waste
People dip their toes in,
******* before they leave
Scream over you about their tragedies.
Never hear you.
Except one girl
She sits by the ocean
Listens to the waves and the crashing
Watches the men hurl lobster traps
wants to be a scooba diver.
takes lessons
Gets a degree in marine biology
visits your rocky bottom
Lost in the sea of other droplettes
Illuminated Neon Coral houses
Tiny white specks to chase
lights dangling from
big teethed fish
She stays there
Loves how beautiful it is
Her name is Poetry
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 11:02 AM UTC
Pushin my baby on the swing each one way,
Bullets passing the wind not punching
me and my baby. But the fools be running
like they could outrun fate.
They can't escape the crosshairs of
ill-prepared revenge.
Cadavers hit the floor blood outlines
that turn white after they felled.
I kept pushing my youth, hoping
she'd grow to an age where she
could push her own.
But every day I playing Russian
roulette with her swinging,
me pushing her further so that
she's higher than the gunshots
as they always hitting lower.
Today I was pushing her, she in her nikes,
swinging her higher than death could
catch her tight grip...
But my neighbor she hanging low, catching
two unfollowed friend requests flying through
the air, one in the thigh, one between the thoughts,
I kept pushing as her shadow swallowed by her
folding on the floor, her baby swinging slower
but still alive.
Blue took her to her daddy, hope they
find out who they are as she had more than
one by another man...
I m still here pushing my baby on a silent playground.
No one comes here, that's good for me.
pushing her low as there isn't a problem
of drive-bye byes... No more ******** no one to ****
There is just me and my baby pushing..
Come on baby its time to go home,
the road is white, and we aren't
going to our usual place...
R.I.P to those who never didn't do nothing.
Another drive-by, grills smiling as flashes
greeting shaded window frames,
hanging low.
Oct 10, 2020
Oct 10, 2020 at 5:38 PM UTC
When I want to write
And the words are churlish and
Sluggishly slow in coming -
And even when they come
They linger at the door-frame
And rub their soft cheeks
Against the painted grain -
I read in a special voice.
Sometimes it's the voice
Of my English teacher from
Junior class. We didn't get along,
But not a word passed her
Lips that wasn't as gilded and
Mellifluous as edible gold-leaf
On a chocolate-chili sundae.
Or the voice belongs to
Rives, who plucks meaning
Out of words like candy
Out of an Easter egg.
He savors every syllable
Like it's an annual treat
And lines them up neatly
In his throat like some kind
Of spoken-word songbird,
But the things I write are
Least likely to be read aloud
By Rives and my English teacher.
(And reading in their voices
Seems too proud.) So I pen
The last of the stragglers down
And clear the alien voices out
Of my own (often sore) throat.
I enjoy my words, wallow in
Phrases, and praise lines of
Alliteration about as often as
A soldier runs past shelter
Helter-skelter and takes his
Chances with unfriendly crosshairs.
My voice quavers, quivers, shakes,
And shivers when I read my work.
I find every letter and line
And nuance absurd, but
I keep myself in check. Editing is
A controlled demolition of
Punctuation and capitalization;
Sometimes the "submit"
Button is hard to hit after
Splaying one more page of
Myself into crisp computer print.
But I breathe and repeat
The words that are lodged
Under my ribcage like a
Stray bullet: "You are not
Superlative; you are not
Fantastic; you will not be
Famous; you will not be
Any better for a long time
And even then you may be
Terrible, unbearable, and
Infinitesimal,
But everyone is."
click
Dec 28, 2010
Dec 28, 2010 at 10:04 PM UTC
How can we reconcile the evil that men do in
These times.
They say that after awhile the human spirit left to it's
Devices will find the path of right and good. That we are
Inherently good.
Maybe. I think .maybe.
Evil is alive and well,
has broken his bonds and lives among us
Turning a would be heaven to a burning hell.
A society is ultimatly juged by the way the very young and old are
Handled in the comings and goings
The ones that have known and the
Just now knowing.that evil is alive and well ensconced.
Babies like your baby and babies like mine
Angels like yours and angels like mine.have
Suffered at the hands of societies ills.
Please when you tuck your children in
Please say a prayer for all.
We are in evils crosshairs each and every one .
Pray for the children the parents and all
And thank our blessings each and every day.
Evil is alive and well . He walks and talks. He smiles and stalks.
Tomorows are not guaranteed.
Evil is alive and well, determined to succeed.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 1:25 AM UTC
You remind me what it is like to smile again,
to pick up a pen that sends a positive message,
you salvage the wreckage that is my life
my light seems to flicker on and off
but I scoff at those who say I'm living in darkness.
I fall apart often trying not to get lost in
the crosshairs of two shooters crossing pistols,
I fall apart often believing in false prophets
that gives me warning and false cautions.
But I have you to pick me up every time
every line I write is a appreciation of you
of how you made the blue in my life vanish
and banished the negative emotions
that drizzles into an ocean drowning everything.
You are the sun when there is darkness,
you are the mountains and the harness
that keeps me safe and happy.
You are everything beautiful in my life
remind me one more time that tonight-
you still love me.
My heart beats for you, the familiar door knock
it's not chained up or locked so enter at your will,
come live inside my heart for free, it is always open
for a golden sunshine like you.
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 5:07 PM UTC
For regrets i have
And times i missed
I never thought
I could be so ******
War against any who approach
No method or trials
This is nothing that can be coached
Rage
Fallen friends ill avenge this yet
You thought i wouldnt **** wanna bet?
Youve taken all i knew
I now turn the crosshairs on you
Fueled by love
Compelled by hate
No man could reach a power this great
You try and try but will never overcome
I have the world under my thumb
I saw your hope crush
Felt your strikes
To me, but plush
Im calling you out
Here i am
Any resistance is futile by man
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 3:58 AM UTC