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mark john junor Feb 2014
paper air planes made out
of tiny pieces of a torn up heart
they are red
but they have these streaks of black in them
it is a terrible blackness like rotting
thats unhappiness
it is poison
paper airplanes
tiny paper airplanes
he folds them quick and quiet at the stone wall
end of the driveway
at the bus stop where little old ladies dither away
long summer afternoons
tiny paper airplanes dogfight in the air
watch one go down in flames
made of the ripped up pieces of a broken heart
they are red
like fire trucks for the burning desire for her soft flesh
like alarm bells to warn off the unwary
they are red
tiny paper airplanes
one slips free
sees a cloud high up there where no paper airplane has dared
so far up in the wide open sky
none have ever even dreamed such a thing
he slips free and climbs
faster and higher
he climbs
free
Poemasabi Jun 2013
I had to run to the store today at lunchtime
we were out of paper plates
we had a party last night
and didn't want to have to do dishes again

While there and while moving quite quickly
although in the shape I am in, "quickly" is being very kind to myself

I came across a man
In a blue blazer
with yellow shorts and
knee-high yellow socks
in beige shoes

My first thought was
I need to get paper plates
my father-in-law is waiting for his lunch
he's eighty nine and flew over the Pacific
during WWII in a PBY Catalina
one of the most beautiful flying boats ever created
pulling pilots out of the water
who had come up short in a dogfight
or of fuel
I needed to get paper plates

This isn't Bermuda old chap
or a cricket match in Rhoorkee
the british invented great campaign chairs there
this is Connecticut but then

I realized that I knew the man
I had worked with him in a previous life
in a long dead company
that burst before the internet bubble did
He was a former British Sergeant Major
and as such took his colonial British very seriously
that attitude fascinates me
his office I recalled, looked like a colonial governor's office in India

So I said hi
and we talked for a bit
and wished each other well
and said good bye
as I needed to get paper plates
my father-in-law was waiting for his lunch
it's auto Jul 2015
i miss the dogfight
of our teeth squaring off
in a shiny mirror.

you could call our canines
moon kernels or portents,
but the sentiment

is sharper. the poem
tautology to a bracelet
of crescent dents.

self-portrait: light
shadow, shadow, light.
a plane reflecting

other planes, an edge
biting an edge, biting
an edge, bitten.

the bracelet tautology
to a skyline sans sky,
one wedge of evening

held in your periphery.
i press my fingers
into a warm glass throat.
Holly Salvatore Aug 2013
Under a big tent
Topped with stars and
Smelling of elephants
A couple of daredevils
Toss in their trailer
Restless in the Midwest

Their golden suits shimmer
In the Iowa half light
The cornstalks talk in
The breezes passing by
At night the daredevils whisper
About what it would be like to really fly
And not just on the trapeze
They kiss goodnight and dream of impossibilities

Times are changing
Since the war it's been mostly women
In the crowds the circus draws
They scream at the lions
Roar at the strongman
Gasp and applaud the two daredevils
Enthusiastically
Happily
Making love in the sky

Times are changing
Since his number came up
She's been lonely
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri
Her gold suit is covered in farm dust
Growing nothing much
Her husband is on a bombing raid over Nazis
He's finally flying
Helped by an airplane
B52s and bloodshot eyes
No longer dreaming of impossibilities but
Missing his safety net

Since he left she's been thinking about cannons
Popcorn, scrap metal
and hoping against solo acts
She's been dreaming of
What it's like to be shot at
Really take risks
Really feel out of breath
And her husband's been writing her letters
About white picket fences

"The daredevil life that we wanted is so much worse than we thought it would be. Let that sweet silent net catch you and lie quietly thinking of me."

Times are changing
And so is he
Times are changing
And she feels like world shaking
She can hear the wolves blowing it down

But she keeps up her stunts
And keeps up her spirits
Till one day the bearded lady is screaming
Her name from the floor of the tent
Up on that tightrope she pauses
A second
There's two grim faced servicemen
Her daredevil husband is dead
Flying a mission over Dresden
Just another casualty of a world at war
Another daredevil in a dogfight and
Now one less mouth for the circus to feed

Suddenly she's high up in the stratosphere
Breathing fumes
And from the tightrope she faints
I've given him my heart, given him my onliness
She rests in her gold suit
Cradled by the safety net he warned her to hang on to
And in her dreams she can't help thinking
Maybe she dodged a suburban bullet

Times have changed
And since the war's end
The leftover men
Have gotten married
And she's been doing nothing
But lying awake in her bed
Thinking
Picturing cannons mauling
White picket fences
Her body in a gold suit
Broken on the green grass
She needs distance and airtime
To cull this restlessness
Get out of the Midwest
**** his conspicuous missingness
And come up with a solo act
To keep her fed

In the morning she finds the ringmaster
Hungover in the hay of the elephant stalls
In the morning she's made a decision
To fly like a cannonball
Through a dreamland
Times are changing
And since she woke up
She's dressed in her gold suit
Setting fire to the average
Dreaming of impossibilities
This started out being about Reba and then it turned into a short story and then it turned into a poem and I guess it's a character study now.
neth jones Feb 2023
two barks don't make a bite
but
it takes two dogs
to make a dogfight
jude rigor Mar 2022
i used to lay on the snowed-in flowerbeds
of nan's backyard. once it snowed enough,
you couldn't tell that a ****** of perrenials
slept peacefully there: all crushed
and crooked beneath
dirt and ice.

some days she'd come and join me
if the ground was soft enough:
we'd stargaze up into the cosmos
of pine trees overhead and listen
for the stillness of winter - the hush
of silence that lingered in the air.

ivy and henbit writhed
gingerly underfoot:
a quiet dogfight
of frozen earth
that begged a
sluggish spring
to come out of
hiding.
i wrote this an hour or two ago for a contest on allpoetry! the prompt was a video covering the spring snow storm that occurred in the northeast recently. it had to be less than 100 words and i'm pretty proud of it. cheers. (if you're interested, my username on there is @opheliaswam).
Nigdaw Aug 2021
we went out to the desert
my young daughter and I
looking for the pilots
crash site shot down in a dogfight
over this strange landscape

we found the memorial
to their sadly shortened lives
and my daughter who had
collected shells from the beach
to take home
placed them as offerings

tears welled in my eyes
and I thanked them for their
sacrifice and this precious
moment in my life
Dungeness is the UK's only desert. Thank you Boguslaw Mierzwa and  Mieczyskaw Waskiewicz.
Paul Kuntz Jun 2013
Sipping cider on the Saturday porch
while the bubbles and dust moats dogfight among the leaves.
      Paradise,
                   with a breeze.
Catching zees while the sounds of traffic and children,
water gun arsenals at the ready,
**** up and down the street;
the sing song sounds of birds as the flit to meet
on the cables and branches high above.
      Paradise,
                  the only way to ease
into the languid living
of a hot weekend.
David Ehrgott Dec 2015
I was out, looking all night
In a time that it felt right
Could have stayed in and slept tight
Couldn't go on with it, this life
  
Now I know in the twilight
Gorgeous blondes, Yeah, they looked tight
But, their plans had me fist fight
That idea in a dogfight
  
Stoli made with fruits and berries
Gave me thoughts of that girl, Liz Cherry
So close to connect, burr
Got the chills, then just left
  
Waiting to find someone young, like you
Finding the wait for young, someone like you
Can't buy the bait no more;  Don't need a clue
Waiting to find her young, someone like you
TRILOBYTE Nov 2016
Convergence
Two lines drawn
Non-linear episodes flowing
jet streams of ink
What matters in this dogfight
Matter vs. anti-matter
Longitude and latitude
There is us
Page upon page we desire sequence
A door forced shut
Shutters blow open
Life arrives unleashed
We have ourselves a dogfight, in

Elysium.

Where the daylight shoots rays like lazers against the darkness.

Until all is covered in light.

The snow is tears, the winter goes cold, and freezes over.

The mirror reflects endless eyes shone.

It is the infinite overture, that humanity imitates.

It is like your bodies the wooden bars, and your minds the inmates…

https://cascadialegends.wordpress.com/category/poems/
Barton D Smock Sep 2014
I’m here, now, if you want to put a bug in your dad’s ear about pouring coffee.  in the war the thing I felt crawling up his spine became his spine.  in the war I called it abandoned and he said not while we’re in it.  he scratched the worst looking dog into the side of it so we’d know it was a church.  I shared more than once how I’d be stupid as that dog to guard a dogfight and less than once how jesus would’ve been a suicide bomber had the crowd been clueless.  we cried about women and children and by our crying they were found.
Faizel Farzee Nov 2019
It's that time again
Time for you look at this hated world
Ask it to get in the ring

This is a caged dogfight
We are tearing to win

The bell rings

Out the corner we come
Rough and ready
We feel like steel, just hot and sweaty
Eyes like daggers
Punches equivalent to a sharpened machete

Life swing, you sway
It's a miss
You jump forward with speed of a cheetah
Connection made
It's an anvil fist

Lights out, life has given up the fight
You returning the favor
This is how it made you feel
During those miserable nights

Just remember
We all tough as nails
We march forward, no matter how hard it hails
we have fight
We will never go silently into the night

Our common goal
To defeat life at life.
We all have those upheaval days
Whether it's caught in your mind
Or in your heart, maybe yours we will find
Bare in mind
Life is grind, so let's not give up
Until the happiness we find.
Puberty set off affright
seeding decades long
     terrestrial space flight
freighted existential blight,
wherefore from that
attempt to live airtight
many scores yesternight
ago, I barely (except

     on par with grateful
     dead), zero excite
ment minimally functioned,
     cuz high felt spite
fully lost (in the forest)
     rooted with shaky tree mens,
     (viz dose zen sips
     quaffed by same drink

     Rip Van Winkle drank)
     to evade adolescent phase highlight
ten en bold den lack
     luster vim, though erudite
bereft excel lent outlook
     in access hubble, sans vehemently
     opposed to living
     social at the height

of teenage torturous travails up
     to present day nearly downright
everyday challenge on par
     with metaphorical bullfight,
a mailer daemon
     beastie boy foo fist fight,
ting non grata poker faced
     aware with hindsight

(born that way
     inside me noggin)
     darker than midnight
impossible to take flight
against shell fish ogre egging to
     take a deadly bite
compromising psychological
     terra incognita mental landscape

     also likened to
     pitched - bat tilled him of thee
     republic where searchlight
revealed reviled cat and/or dogfight,
yet actually e'en preceding
     boy to man transformation
     dire wrecked bombsight,
(noah doubt ******

     social and physical height)
when adolescent basic instinct of mine
     lacked sixth sense reading
     expressed ****** features of people
     lacking instinctive searchlight,
aye absent keen insight
by this self dubbed emotional Anchorite
     ill equipped mein ways disallowing

     me every twelfth night
to differentiate discern,
     and divine subtle
     nonverbal, yet critical cues,
     which figuratively wheel
     lee "spoke" volumes
     oft times more might
tee than words uttered

     by sword shaped tongue
     pronouncing syllables light
immediately wrought seize yore,
     (analogous to stony glare
emanating from an invisible Gorgon)
or harshly, yet mine skintight
     suppressed oral communication
     if exercised probably fended

     coulda more satisfactorily
     quickly, and obviously
     thwarted doggone socially quite
scared state, inducing preflight
adrenaline kick
      starter activation, rushing

     within myself, a sorry sight
for sore eyes,
     which found yours truly
     to became immediately
     flush with utter embarrassment.
Pow War Full Pointed Outlook

As I ponder what to write
today august thirtieth
      two thousand eighteen,
     thy ploy doth in vite
a gamut of spontaneous thoughts,
     that loosely cluster
     before becoming tight
lee bound toward

     quasi definitive agreeable, amenable,  
     and attainable in sight
with no deliberate intent
     to suppress perspective
     couched asper left of political right,
though mine embedded
     liberal democratic ideology
     automatically shifts, gingerly

     escorts, inherently focuses,
     and understandably dodges quite
unconsciously, naturally, and expressly
     viz zit ting orientation trained mindset
     spiked railroad ties to follow
     a NON "FAKE" conservative track,
     cuz existential plight
of this run of the

     NON mill (let) airy night
owl hoot trumpets,
     thru his pen chant
     pedantic laden poetic might
(albeit gently modest)
     with artful badinage,
     garbage, and persiflage light
nsync with his (my) being,

     an aspiring good (rook key) knight
calculating, formulating, intuiting,
     where to shine
     his (mine) figurative jacklight
asper shying away
     NOT to antagonize
     predicated on me
     humble extrasensory insight

drawing, distancing, and detaching
     metaphorical grip,
     sans innate bias height
end from lifetime
     steeped within progressive
     (forward thinking atheistc) paradigm,
     hence impossible to adopt
     a totally tubularly neutral

     point of view presents avowed challenge
     to present opinions of yours truly
     without instigating a verbal
     and/or virtual gunfight
boot hoop fully friendship,
     asper attempting tubby forthright,
and apologizing for

     any stinging backlash
     if accidental affront,
     thus encouraging healthy
     discourse without excite
ting vitriolic, toxic,
     and/or dramatic dogfight
with this cat tug gar rick cull
     poet hood dont bite!
Faizel Farzee Nov 2023
standing in a full moonlight
understanding life a crashlanding
multiplied
even if we were supermen we
walking on kryptonite every breath
is a fight
a path lit by candlelight
demanding we ranting while
withstanding a stamping till you hit bottom
a spanking
superman doesn't die start standing time to stand in
for the things I stand for not for standing
when I impact I'm a meteorite
for my kids, I'll get crucified

while singing them
a lullaby, against life I can't lay down and die
I'm a dog with fight to life I'm a dogfight
They keep missing my understanding leading to misunderstandings all I am is standing outside
calling to be outstanding
running this rat race
while straddling my kid's hands praying they don't let go and watch me fall

from grace my failure realized
Would I be surprised,  these thought suicide
denied I'm Brutus when I pop eyes
while my syllables break decibels amplified
a gun in a knife fight there is only one side
my past I rewrite midnight when its dark outside
silence my solace while I reach for the finish line
while my sound byte outright in your head resides
A few lines off my next track - Artist name Written Alphabetically
Norbert Tasev Apr 2020
With Seherezade desires, cherished human-centered fairy tales, we believed and deceived ourselves: We instilled the instincts of our senses, our internal biology, and our brains clung to us as oat-executing, executioner sympathies and protections.

It was easy to catch the inquisition of examinees: The daily temptation of suicides. To imagine the misery of knowledge, imaginative promotion and our brains, devouring madness, and to imagine ourselves as some redeeming, Dalmatian, crusader! - My friend, how are we today? - We exist as a sticky, slimy, sticky syrup,

clinging to our bodies with sponge stubbornness, lost morality hangs from our shoulders like an old law: There is no responsible, forward-looking role model, a personality for whom you would give up your life as a pawn - and if you speak responsibly and still have humanity, you dare to persevere, persevere, The strings are on you. And almost every nerve has exploded: they are not threatening - this is not their style! Only

they **** and oblige. Are you a no-man's eye? She's in a dogfight! ” “And yet our intact and rotating fortune lies at the waist of coffins in one fell swoop. How long can the washing pace of your washing machine heart, the pigeon sermons of modern tyrants, endure the murderous pace tired of working twelve hours?

And is there still an honest and uncompromising deceiver with immortal conviction? - Here too, an “omniscient” Jani scientific janissary to the news - they all roar one-wheeled truths in people’s ears, - they think they like it in the images of conscious saviors because they weren’t sluggish and made Spanish wax a commodity. It is in my interest to greedy for power here with greed: And with murderous insatiability he loosely shatters all future refuge. This is how our enemy became our most direct friend and neighbor -

and our destiny to serve the Adonis Monkey Choirs! Or in the depths of our souls, free moral will can still show new paths, and our ******* is rocked only in the lap of our love: for new prophetic words, immersed in the pleasures of sure redemption. And I don't care what the bigger smart people say.
between incontinence and constipation

Irritable bowel syndrome i.e.
the former excretory bout I address
the above (polite way to phrase diarrhea)
and avoid moon efficient cheekiness,
yours truly doth buttress,
a literal warranted pain in ***,
diametrically up poses,
and disinvites loving caress,
nevertheless yours truly
experienced gastrointestinal distress

countless times experienced ****** duress,
when anticipatory anxiety triggered excess
indomitable heavenly gorgeous fortress
mandating visits to the porcelain goddess
else.. heavily soiled underwear
necessitating by George thoroughly good
scouring utilizing heavy duty gloves
nsync accessing generations
old washboard and handpress.

Nowadays more often than not,
I suffer incapacity to whoop
and holler at healthy excretory
system (of the down), but troop
hunkered over (think
Hunchback of Notre Dame)
at ground zero smack dab dagnabbit,
where birds of prey swoop

doubled over in agonizing pain
believe me you, this fickle fella
experiences excruciating difficulty to ****
mein life passes before third eye blind
and joie de vivre to exclaim L'Chaim
takes kamikaze nosedive and ability
to savor existence significantly doth droop.

Nevertheless alleviation when at long last affright
dying upon commode,
when colorectal **** orifice obstruction airtight
cursing posterior dire straits regarding
(you bet your bottom dollar)
occasions behind stricken with blight
worse fate than losing cocked cat fight
malfunctioning ****** scenario analogous

loosing life versus death dogfight
plummeting at warp speed
within psychedelic atmospheric Earthlight
recognizing demise (mine)
on par jeopardizing ability,
cuz jammed alimentary canal
disallows lightening payload Humpty dump
(Thoreau Lee walled din)
and doomed as endangered bumblebee's flight
and snuffed out as quaint sputtering gaslight
era when commercial gas became available in

early 19th century in Europe and America...
see - https://www.thespruce.com/
the-gaslight-era-2175011
to glean at least one more highlight
though gaining such spruced insight
contributes no more or less than jacklight
neither rhyme nor reason why
wily prevaricating good knight
informs ye to understand might

of Matthew Scott Harris this night
(April 27, 2020) no longer fraught
regarding his sorely overtaxed sphincter
he heromin vouchsafed and wooly vowed
to accept unconditional surrender
of body dysmorphia (mine) plight
resolved swallowing bleach
(a purgative he trumpets)
to eternally lived in peace quite.

Time and again liquified human waste
i.e. loose stools (mine)
flushing bowels unchased
down toilet shunted off to treatment plant
thick sludge consistency of (crust) toothpaste
repurposed for commercial
and individual use posthaste,

especially every resident of
Lake Woebegone Poker Flat outcaste,
who as token scapegoats
(no kidding) suffer tsoris
bullies unrelenting lambaste
harbor loathing, albeit strong distaste
towards those persons deemed
undeserving comprise untouchable caste.
John F McCullagh Jan 2020
The great man was in great pain,
beyond the purely physical.
The old lion sat and watched the waves
feeling bereft and miserable.
His mind kept imagining, over and over,
His son, Quentin, in a second rate plane,
turning to dogfight with a squadron of Folkers:
an act gallant and brave, but in vain.
His son’s Nieuport went down behind enemy lines;
The body retrieved from the flames.
He was buried with honors by his erstwhile foes
Who well knew the young pilot's last name.
His aged father wept for the loss of this son
He repeatedly whispered his name.
They say that the father’s spirit died with the news
Afterward he was never the same.
Quentin Roosevelt died in aerial combat on 07/14/1918.Roosevelt field on long Island was so named in his honor.   His father, Theodore Roosevelt, the former President , stayed for a time with family at Dark Harbor suffering physical infirmities and mental anguish.  The Father, the old lion, died of a pulmonary Embolism on 01/06/1919
Payton Hayes Feb 2021
Love doesn’t come easy
It is a dogfight through and through

But once you find it,
you will remain changed always.
This poem was written in 2018.
Vyiirt'aan Nov 2017
Tonight the sky
Is overcast with a smile
At least for a while
Until the sun breaks through

And the leaves dance
And birds awaken
To see them float in full glory
After the dogfight with the wind

— The End —