"drifters" poems
word travels & *** sells
/stomping gravel lest I dwell/
fires burn & hearts ache
/a dream yearned and willed awake/
a ponds ripple & a banshees scream
/it looked simple, reality is obscene/
flesh twists & seasons change
/a list of reasons to rearrange/
flowers wilt & the sun sets
/baby lullabies and cold sweats/
wood knocks & doors close
/deadbolts lock and war grows/
secrets whisper & snow falls
/dark drifters and phone calls/
chapters start & stories end
/laughter, death and grow again/
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 3:12 AM UTC
before that,
we sat pinned
and winded
on steel hands
and plated masks
near the crimson
jade pools
by the killing fields
of bordeaux
we did not look
we could not look
our eyes blinded
and seared
by the charred remains
and shallow graves
the battered birch
and caliginous path
drifters and vagabonds
and kings of kings
held witness
to the pounding
and overkill
the blades
cauldrons
and burning sweet-grass
all brought forth by healers
rammers, sages
and holy front men
glance behind
(watching them sort
through the rubble
and *****
the blood flow
spilling its warmth
throughout the
festering scene
they pulled the stops out
on this one ~
those sweated woodlands
and churned meadows
now framed
by a burned
and broken cross
autumn like winds
begin to chill
(casting spells over ground cover)
night lights flicker
beyond
the fallen trees
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 3:58 PM UTC
Moon river wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style someday
A dream maker
My heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' that way
The same, the same
Two drifters off to see the world
There's such a crazy world to see
We're all chasin' after all the same
Chasing after our rainbow's end
Moon river wider than a mile
Crossin' in style someday
My dream maker
Heartbreaker
Wherever you're going I'm going the same
Two drifters off to see the world
It's such a crazy world you'll see
What I see, who I become
We're all chasin' after our end
Chasin' after our ends
Life's just around the bend, my friend
Moon river and me
Sep 10, 2018
Sep 10, 2018 at 10:20 PM UTC
T hough I know the truth
H urt still lingers in my breath
E mptying out into the street
M other to none, sister to one, daughter to two
O nly one slight problem, I want to be alone with
N othing to bother me, no one to disrupt my
S leepless nightmares, taunting day dreams
T onight I shall not rest until I find a way to
E nd these thoughts, but I will never
R est easy, not until I learn the meaning of peace
W hat have I become anyway?
I s this liar, this thief, this ******
T he person I've always wanted to
H onor with the title of my name?
I s this black hole swirling inside my chest
N othing more than a shell of a human being?
W hy do I always end up asking the same questions?
I may never really know who I am
L ike most drifters and loners and
L osers, I may never learn to love myself
N othing is worse than not knowing
E verything there is to know about oneself, it's
V ery unsettling, earth shattering, words don't
E ven make sense, strung together in
R epetitious strings, dangling from the ceiling
S till, a part of me, a very small part
U nderstands that my life isn't really about
B ecoming who I'm meant to be
S ometimes, it's about just learning to
I dentify with the face in the mirror, ignoring the
D enial that seeps through my heart, I know that
E veryone thinks I've lost my head. Well, maybe I have..
Dec 5, 2010
Dec 5, 2010 at 3:21 PM UTC
The flash flood of euphoria,
is swallowed by the thirsty ground,
eternally unquenched.
I will smile,
and fix my eyes on the desert sun.
I will grow roots and bloom,
an endogenous cactus,
while envious drifters lick the sand,
desperate for a drop of rain.
Sep 25, 2020
Sep 25, 2020 at 11:58 AM UTC
Upon a huge, lush garden,
on a cold autumn day...
various leaves fall, in sweet surrender...
some still rise and go with the forceful wind
floating...along with dreams, wishes and prayers
murmured in the air...uttered fervently
...from near......or faraway places
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
papers, leaves, souls, sighs, and whispers
all circulate, dance in the air...blending with nature
like drifters...and seekers, far from their homes
their habitats...their comfort zones,
suspended, in the atmosphere of every season
...yielding...to the will of the wind,
...while the wind obeys...the will of God
they swirl...land, on new destinations
face new dimensions...
friendlier seas...no more running, just waiting,
while winds of change settle down
touching new base, new grass,
hoping, for a peaceful existence,
for some....the end of life's turbulent journey
..........on safe...tranquil grounds...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
somewhere near, or far...huge gardens exist
where leaves fall, where some rise again,
where new beginnngs, new lives are offered...
havens that welcome and accommodate
...refugees...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sally
Copyright August 27, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
The drifter in the room is a stranger,
he is crazy, is Bigfoot with deer moccasins on−
monster of condominium rooms and dreams.
The drifter in this room used to be my friend.
He spoke straight sentences, they did not sound like poetry-
reverberated like a narrative, special lines good a few bad,
or stories being unwound by the tongue of a gentleman,
lip service, juggler of simple words to children.
The night is a dark believer in drifters,
they sound sober, affairs with the wind,
the 3 A.M. honking of the Metro trains.
Everything sleeps with a love, a nightmare at night.
The drifter.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 7:38 AM UTC
free-floating, untethered
like a chimney-sweep orphan
it swirls alone in space
no star nearby, no system to call it home
free, wandering, swaying to a symphony of
embracing silence
there are possibly millions
these drifters, these mavericks, rogues
sub-stellar, not mainstream
no pull on each
not your usual planet
with position, star-bound and mooned
but a maverick, free, solitary
untethered, untethered, indie planet
in no one’s sway
….a maverick, it does it all its own way….
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 5:30 AM UTC
Well it's a hell of a feeling and a sour deal.
Hangover wreaks havoc apon my gut.
Numb my thoughts to everything i feel.
She's got her reason's I got mine.
Hours between us.
Sunrise please dont find me sobber.
Or leave me busted near that florida state line.
Drinking with the devil satan give me such heck.
My life's a play.
My soul a well thought out trainwreck.
Well big hip gal wont ya warm this bed.
Cause ya know tommorows a gift.
So let's do something to remind tombstone
he isn't yet dead.
Work that back sugar dont think twice.
Little gals may be the norm.
But thoose sticks break so easy and thoose big gals
just feel so nice.
Southern are my ways New York's far from my mind.
Todays a scratch.
So thats why im leaving my wicked past behind.
Smoked and drank tonights pay.
Big gal i love ya.
But as for a drifters soul and me ya know i can never stay.
Found my troubles in mean angry eye's knocked
thoughts apon the deck.
My life's a gamble.
As in the rhymes of a full tome ****** and a
well thought trainwreck.
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2011 at 11:16 PM UTC
i fell into freedom
my last sickness bled
wounded knees
are my omen
for fearing the regret
blindness ensued
by the art of decadence
lapping my loneliness
to heal what must be forgiven
suffocate in my web
of self care
mistaken for truth
support but no input
secure yet unprotected
cut out and crystalized
****** drifters travel free
Feb 21, 2010
Feb 21, 2010 at 9:16 AM UTC
Pain in the thighs
from the endless straddles
Pin ****** in the ribs
from a poorly made white willows dress
All are things much desired by a pudgy adolescent female
A garment of ill conceived freedom
An illusion
Of frolic in utopia
It was just a small gate way to the mud caked feet
And into the auto eclipses
Of stargazing zombies
Those still relied on vintage kaleidoscopes
All Full of cracks
See in her bleeding ignorance
the shores still remained open
Turquoise schooners unleashed
The tree tops were still aching to be claimed
Reincarnated as a paradise for attractive drifters
Not even the all mouth beasts
can contain her patented enthusiasm
The straw huts break for assembly
under a tiny hand
Too bad the cracks have been secured
The air was kept to boil
and stain the linoleum
Echoes of a puritan called to action
The streams soon hardened
to form plastic shelving
And the orange flowers collapse
to form packing materials
Onto the plastic shelving is were we placed the books
The books that know that freedom
is just copy right infringement
And life is a micromanaging instruction
Designed to make workers eat their own demise
Grid-less prosperity
cremated in the corner of a starter home
Only an anthropologic mistake
Meant to ward of a mass pandemic of sudden infant death syndrome
The pudgy filled girl,
The comedic car and the overproduced dress
They will learn the value of a hot meal and a good ********
The dreamers almost stole her away
in their patchwork parachute
But we sent her away to Universidad
And the world is her worthless cluster ****
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 8:59 AM UTC
Surely these surly bits
Must be burrs caught up in my
Makeup -
Making up reasons for
Why my spit was accidental.
I done been through a
Rough patch or two -
Crawling with these
Thorns in my knees
Across funky plateaus
That poke their chests out
In their scouts
For sunnier flora.
Though,
I assume their search
Didn't go over so well.
'cause these scabbings won't heal
Like I want them to,
Buried under gobs of
Ointment
That was supposed to take care of it
(And
One more bandage
Just in case).
I'm just moseying on through,
With my feelers out,
Making sure you're someone
I have to know.
In and on my way
Somewhere
In this crazy field,
Waiting for sunflowers
To bless my prayers
While I continue to
Make room for myself to
Slip past
Without being noticed.
I'm smiling so hard
To keep the soft-hearted
At bay -
Trying to avoid being forced
Into pinpoint relations
With clueless drifters
Who refuse to stay on their side.
They only mean well -
I know this,
I do.
But, the simple has yet to escape me.
Send your
Sympathies
To the weak ones,
Roleplaying
Alongside the meek,
For these are the creed
Who,
Without giving heed,
Deliver their lives
To bliss.
Sep 7, 2011
Sep 7, 2011 at 11:02 AM UTC
Dancing
underneath city lights,
jazz bands
reverberating, breathing in
voodoo shop
musk.
Soul
pulsates beneath
cobblestone,
wide eyes
peering up at
beaded balconies on
Frenchman Street.
Freedom is
coffee and baguettes from
Cafe Du Monde at
midnight,
surrounded by strangers.
Find me under strings of
flickering bulbs,
trading trails with
travelers.
Candlelit doorways illuminate the drifters, the curious, the backpackers,the Kerouacs,
the way to the gypsies past
Bourbon.
But not home.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
After the snow,with nowhere to go,when the streets are so hard,a yard thick in ice,it's not nice,
but for those with a home and a nose for some heat,the drifters can shift,because you can't beat a bit of selfishness ,
and surely them what has less, do not deserve more,or what the hell are we working for?
Let them eat cake, courtesy of this great welfare state who give benefits for,to keep the wolves from our door.
It's all give and take at the end of the day and at the end of the day they drift slowly away to some courtyard or bridge,ridges of ice on their brow,
how sad it all seems when the Queen's got so much and the dickwads in Whitehall are so out of touch,
such is the way of the city today,we bypass and pass by,some glance and some wonder why, but most of us really don't care.
It's not us who's there,no concern of mine and no time to stop and see what they do not
it has to stop.
We are the civilised and it's time that we realised, that it's not dog eat dog,we are all just a cog in the workings of life.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 7:53 PM UTC
Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-boned, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails bit to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes --
two palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing
one unraveling the other constructing
forever,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
Lips read: founder a self.
Rusty copper
with adamantine eyes.
Steel core, unbroken by absence.
Drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.
Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endless.
A clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
You blasted into this world running free to be yourself.
You needed no sanctuary to hide away from this strange world.
Please, remember tomorrow for we will all be sad,
because you're no longer with us. You've traveled to another life.
You were like a prodigal son, but not one of the drifters.
Not another *children of the ****** invaders to this realm.
Yet life wasn't easy, it trapped you in an iron maiden,
thus you became the prisoner by the number of the beast.
Now you're gone, but it wasn't the killers who took you.
No murders in the rue Morgue put you in your own purgatory.
Don't think of this as an innocent exile or a total eclipse.
22 Acacia avenue awaits for his favorite client.
No need to run to the hills.
There is no twilight zone.
You lived by your true self
so hallowed be thy name.
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 2:29 PM UTC
The music's best on the dark
side of town, I heard. It seemed miles
from home, after waiting in a long traffic jam
But the lights finally changed
from glamorous shining to dull neon, covered in smoke
drifting up from drifters outside the Black Cat.
By the fluorescent green sign, a cat
was painted, its fur dark
as the alley I stood in, engulfed in smoke.
The cat perched atop Miles
Davis's trumpet. Bums hassled me for change
and a few drummed on buckets, jamming
with a harmonica player, synched as jam
and peanut butter. I stepped into the Black Cat,
and from the facade saw no change.
The lights turned low, the club dark
as the alley outside. A Miles
record hovered through the smoke.
The people chattered like bees, smoking,
waiting for the players to jam.
At last, the bass player laid down a line miles
long, the drummer chinked in, and the cats
began to groove. They chilled my bones with dark
melodies, pounding through spooky chord changes.
Soon sunbeams shone through the storm, they changed
to an upbeat swing tune. The horn smoked,
hitting riffs unheard, astounding the dark
faces gazing on in awe. They jammed
endless as the ocean. The cats
started to play a popular Miles
song. The crowd hollered in Miles'
memory as the horn steered through the changes
with the skill of the legend of the Black Cat.
The band, nearly invisible through the haze of smoke
thick in the air, strawberry jam,
soon faded to dark.
Miles Davis’s ghost flowed through the smoke,
awakened by the chord changes, grooving to the jam.
The hippest cat alive or dead, now he plays in the dark.
Dec 26, 2009
Dec 26, 2009 at 11:06 PM UTC
I've been bumming rides on Earth’s enigmatic forces
With hungry fingers,
Grasping for the wind outside of car windows,
And Escaping the laws of gravity
For brief moments
Whenever the pressure becomes displaced
Just enough for my hand to float
Purposelessly…
I don’t need the hand of a craftsman,
Or a banker.
Hammering nails,
Writing big checks.
I’ll float on the wind like a gull.
Eating crumbs,
******** on strangers.
Maybe I’ll even be lucky enough for you come float with me,
Drifter I may be,
But drifters only really drift in search of company.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 9:35 AM UTC
Drifters, sick with Now,
Swell and crowd the Elm Streets.
We, the self-anointed secretaries of culture war,
Parallel-parked car poets trapped in suburbia,
We claw our generation forward.
We seep from shifting city to evergreen forest, to
Seek answers from the grave-stone gods before us,
Learn of what they knew of man--
His vacuous constructions and his ash fortunes,
How to be martyrs and what makes us worth it.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM UTC
In the high sky
Where the air is weak
And full of strangers
Nothing lives for long
Only gypsy-footed drifters
Come here on their way
To who knows where
And this place can only be reached
Without anchor or rudder
Nor even a moral compass
Riding on clouds of smoke
And it's such a long way down
Through falling-about laughter
And blood in the gutter
To the hungry crushing ground
By Phil Roberts
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 9:15 AM UTC
A composer
of the stars,
& astronaut
of dreams,
the unsung
swan of the
night, who
draws the
paintings
of her
thoughts,
the clouds
of dandelions
fields forever
in reverie,
her sigh settles
the seas of
lilac dreams,
as music
plays, she
enjoys the
indigo hues
of a bohemian
way of life,
and every
person
on this
earth is,
in their own
way, an
eccentric
of their
own hue,
upon the
painting of
life in the
microcosmos
to the lights
beyond, one
possesses
the traveler
in the chest,
a seeker of
the secret,
unrevealed
revelations,
a hidden
lover of
truth,
a flower
always
in perpetual
rebirth,
the secret
dancer
of the
night,
musing
upon the
wisdom
of how
every
human
holds the
aubade
within the
intricacy
of their
silver
scales,
in the
deeper
tides
of eyes
meeting
to become
one in the
balladry
of being
within each
other’s gaze,
for eyes reveal
the drifters,
who sail in
the ocean
of words
and catch
her star-dew,
where she
hears the
hidden,
secluded
symphonies,
they reveal
the lights
of their
own as
time, the
mysterious
one, flows
her fabric
and they
grow closer
to one, she
watches
upon them
unfolding,
as she
opens
her wings,
they close
their eyes,
when two
had once
seeked
to be other
than the
truth of self,
from their
chests are
opening
butterflies,
they awaken
in their
cocoon,
awaiting
the voyage
to the
moon,
the poet
sits by his
window,
and softly
sung “all of
what the
eyes see
in bloom
is poetry”
Aug 26, 2019
Aug 26, 2019 at 9:24 AM UTC
The blue-green ocean
spreads out like a fan
before us
our dry, sand imbedded
feet approach
we are timid birds -
uncaged
fearful of the gait
of our shadow
but sand is forgiving
and we step
inch by inch towards
the water
we are so close
that I can taste
the salt
brown seaweed
sticking to my
naked soles
what did we come
here for?
I wanted to see the sun
reflected on a liquid
mirror
I wanted to forage
and find
treasure
but we are stolen
by the waves
carried out across
the shore
we are made
of yesterday's
passion
our bare skin
wrinkling
with age
we have found
nothing but
ourselves
hopeless drifters, now
unclothed, unhinged
and tethered to
the tide
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 4:10 PM UTC
*The thing about love is that
It is strategically tragic,
Built to last, made to make you feel,
Feel good and alive, to feel enough,
Gracefully and sudden
Like a gentle kiss, the spreading
Of wings of the soul, the fall
Of listless stars, but
Just as lasting.
I do not know what else to feel
Upon seeing this ocean, except
To remember you with the same
Natural feeling, inexplicable,
Like the color blue catches on
With the bleach of white,
Aiming to accentuate, searching
For the old burn of red
In vain.
And beauty is felt more
Than it is seen. Eyes have
Seen more than they have rested,
And they have seen things best,
While they are closed.
More than sorrow, pain and suffering,
More than sure looped-goodbyes,
It is the serendipitous affection
That rules over all, overthrowing
The flowing madness of passing worlds,
Passing all the lovers by, mad enough,
And mad still, yet the fight
Is worth loving for.
Love is worth fighting with.
Life is worth it. Love
Is priceless, yet, I love you
A little less
Than love itself.
Love never grew, it just stays beside,
Just beside, them, us, blown
By the havoc of life, fate and time,
Drifting amongst the drifters
Surrounding us, dizzied,
Ever-tested, enduring all.*
© 2015 J.S.P.
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
By: David W. Clare
Hollywood town has seen all kind of characters from infamous to bums!
The hippest of all, exclusive dive bar that's been there forever; will outlast us all...
Not your typical cowboy-trough or rag-joint hole-in-the-wall...
No dancing allowed as silent drifters, hipsters and ****** **** on olives then ask for more...
Dress-code strictly enforced; some meet there to get married, while others get divorced...
You'll be sure to meet up with Humphrey Bogart and Cecil B. Demille, young **** chicks and a fat-director over the hill...
Be sure and tell the bartender you'll be back, he will surely remember your tie, coat and hat...
Welcome to the Frolic Room...
(C) In perpetuity all rights reserved
(P) FilmNoirWorks
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
W e s t a r t e d f a r a w a y f r o m e a c h o t h er now wehavenowhereelsetogobutruntogether but no o n e r e a l i s e d t h a t w e s h a l l a l w a y s b e d r i f t e r s r u n n i n g t o w a r d w h a t l o ve nextoffers.
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 11:55 AM UTC