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Sherri Harder Oct 2014
I was running from the cold
scared to follow my heart or dare
chase a dream.
Never wanting to be told
what they thought of me
or what things might seem.
Living in the shadows
yet trying to catch a glimpse of
light shining through a part of me.
The part that wants to let go.
Running through the meadows
with my pen out,
like wild horses so young and free.

Don't be scared to open your eyes.
Things are not always easy if you
hold back the tears.
Its ok to be careful, but in the end you'll
never know how it could've felt unless
you do what you can do and stop
living through the fears.

Letting go of the struggles that I
once thought of and being able to cry and feel.
Love for something inside that's burning
inside of me.
Learning how to let go to, rhyming with my
heart and soul so free.
like drumming to a new beat, dancing in the rain,
to my poetry.

Its in my heart, its in my soul.
I've rediscovered that I can be free to
be me!
Jane Doe Nov 2015
My mother’s hands are soft as sand. She says something about where I'm supposed to be in my life and I'm nervous she thinks I should be standing closer the closure, she knows I'm not who I thought I'd turn out to be.
My mother’s mother made her the worrier she is today, and the warrior she had to be to get by.
The day my mother’s mother passed we mourned the progression of the woman we thought of as freedom.
Family has always had a huge part of my heart.
Now it's tattered and torn apart, everyone is aging and graying.
I'm only gaining so much knowledge on the subject.
I could write for hours - there is so much rage drumming against my rib cage.
I've saved enough sanity to grapple with the thought of losing you.
Looking at her now I see that she's been on the same road as me.
The mother of my mother made her promise I'd be better.
My mother's hands are as soft as sand - her sun burnt country betrayed her and now she huddles in the frozen north.
There's nothing here but our snow stung crowd.
My mother makes me smile, suggests it as fall back if my straight face falls.
I've never been able to keep anything straight - least of all me.
My mother made me, and I'm molded by her strength branded hands.
Soft as sand.
I've wanted to write this poem for a really long time.
Ink Mar 2014
Five AM
can't sleep
my thoughts are having a rumbling party
with everything that could go wrong
and alcohol
but maybe that's all just my toxic thoughts
that won't let me rest
when I know there is a tomorrow
when I'll have to face it all again

I'm pretty sure I've been invited
to a date with Migraine
as I hear
Someone Like You
play in the stereos of my mind
and I start to remember
things and people I wish I'd forget
that I try so hard to forget
when I'm sober

Right now,
I'm drunk on sleep
and can't control the party
the toxins are getting to me
and I wish Sleep hadn't rejected me
so I could go back to its warm slumber
but it has long since kept
my cold sheets
feeling welcoming

Six AM
can't sleep
songs and people I used to know
and regrets and thoughts
still unforgiving
with the smell
of sleepy alcohol
drumming in my skull
Krison Oct 2018
The palette, that on, i draw stories.
Some of there.
Some of now.
Mostly tales of then.
Belong to all who feel and smear
there hearts upon the blank.

That, what's penned.
Is much the tell, and tale,
Of what we wish to be.
Why and now, do we write
of anger hope and love?

Is it respite from worlds of ours,
and only truth there is.

That this be this, just only this.
And that it cause us fright?

The mirror of within.

With all of this, we claim despair,
object and yet we write.


Of how we think the world should be.
Or what to change within.

Should we be the
abject hate?
Avarice and sin.


But with every line,
the rage is whittled down.
The drumming of the keyboard.
and paralleled white sound.
That on this page now does exist,

A pure and distilled soul.

So less than gray
and more than black

and
no
longer just a hole.
thank you hello and all of you that write.
Anonymouse Jane May 2015
My lips,
     chapped on my birthday.
Your skin,
     a soft and subtle reminder.
An on going melody,
these reasons,
i need you most right now.

Raise your warm palms towards my face,
     let your mind unfurl.
Don't forget  the slowly drumming fingers,
    down the spine
               then slowly up the the nape of my neck.
Fix your eyes on mine.
     challenge accepted.
Match your breath with mine,
     a synonym to my melancholic melody.
Alysia Michelle Sep 2013
Today I have decided That;
The Butterflies are welcome
To flutter in my tummy
My heart can pound as hard as it wants
As long as its still drumming
I won't hide my huge *** smile
I'll show my red face for awhile
All because you make me feel
That feeling that makes you feel REAL
You make being alive worth it
Life doesn't feel like such a death pit
Every time that you smile
It makes EVERYTHING worth while.
© Alysia Michelle
Claire Elizabeth Sep 2015
You told me you weren't ready for a relationship
I sighed and smiled
Said it was "okay, you're fine, darling."
I heard you laugh lightly, mutter something about being hurt
Expanse of silence followed by a few more sighs
A handful of whispers
A gathering of exhales
And then we moved on in conversation
You talked about drumming
And I laughed
Stared at the ceiling and thought about you
Missed you
Even though you were technically a phone line away from me
I remember speaking
But I don't remember what I said
Maybe I said you were a boy I could love
we may be, but
I feel our hearts
drumming
in rhythm
wherever I go
The rain falls hard and heavy against my window pane
A drumming beat that echoes in my mind
Each droplet is a heartbeat
Each clash of thunder, a scream
The heavens are awake and they are angry
Let the rains come
Let the flood drown this town
And sweep the corrupt from their homes
And rock the broken in their waves
Let the heavens open and the storm surge
Feel the drums, the power
We are angry
The world is angry
All power to the people.
Twas essential to see her in wintertide -
misery in order to appreciate the abundant daffodils -
of spring , the cardinal ever watchful over -
her fledgelings , the gaiety , pomp and circumstance -
of damsel flies , the mockingbird flautist and -
the peckerwood drumming
The morning laughter of Bear creek
The multicolored blades of March that -
stair step the Mill Falls
Morning dove woo their lovers , whitetails -
in repose , in the backdrop of misty , hardwood -
cover
Her poetic omnipotence in touch with my -
innermost being
Ever watchful as the cardinal
Breath exposed
Pious
Forever thankful
Copyright March 8 , 2018 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Eva Oct 2024
From a window up high
I can hear the rain
Drumming down
Grey
Sloshing through streets and
Ruining leather shoes  

Children scream in delight
And scatter
Running with their school bags or jackets
Up over their heads
Some not even bothering
No umbrellas
Revelling in their drenched clothes
Water dripping down their noses

And I think about how
It happens one day -
You start to step over puddles
Instead of jumping in them
Dan Hull Jun 2015
Summer dusk idles in like old
Caterpillars on back roads
and the maples at the foot of my hill
roll about in background rubies,
drumming bottomless emerald heads
at the riverbed stones
and the chain-link walks in the gravel,
downhill with sandals stuck to my toes
and all the hay and last watered roses
christening diamonds
while crows chortle steam from their noses.

Though dark is quick to cover
all I lack in any light,
first is only one seen:
a lantern pupiled of sun,
and much too low this night
at the flat of my hill.
Though dusk has yet left, she would
dangle such lightbulbs on fishing lines and
they are now many a lure of chartreuse hanging
whilst river birds sing Cajun banjos,
whistling amber-ed humidity
to none other but my hill and me.
In the moment, a beginning, when opened,
              cage is body. A city, prison. I am blood
              in the sinew of labyrinths restored. How it began,
   I was gradually introduced. This empire of the city
   and I. Careful enough to fit in the chamber of a car,
       held hostage by drumming sounds. Body shaken
by multitude music, well-guarded in this secret.
In the moment, a beginning, when pried open,
indicative of story. Body is novel. Moments
punctuate. I am a line that pursues the center.

How it began,

I was quick to expect the finality. This city before
meant nothing to me. Now that I have arrived, I breathe
through stations filled with hibernal faces waiting the train
   to commiserate. Questions form a body to converse with.
                                     Answers a momentous day, forthcoming
   of something, tremendous with the hubris of forecast:
   Today the sun is as shameful as shameful can be,
      force-opened the windows for air to bloom. This is intention
      of the season. Watching salt slowly descend, I know how to dance
   with my sweat. I ******* skin to prove it.    What must I be
   in the moment, a beginning, when opened? Whose body I long to
      cage? With what magnitude do I try to surprise?
   What well-guarded perdition I try to relinquish?
Emily Jones Feb 2016
I am an animal caged by ideals of many
Pacing my walled prison
Limited by what Im told is right
Painting on the mask of content
Cracked smile pulled high
Drunk on the opiatic releases given from a job well done
Always on stage this lions mane looks ragged

For animals are meant to be free
To prowl, pounce and dance that primal song
Drumming up the legs
Shaking the elated ryhtmic exhalations of true freedom
That sweet release euphoric on the running beat of blood
Swaying against the limitations of man
The beast longs to be free.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2022
title: copepod
body:
blister-whale:
somewhat: 2. 502 bad gateway give-away


i have to admit, i took a hiatus from listening to
Marilyn Manson... by chance i came across
a review of... either Born Villain or the Pale Emperor...
clearly: i wasn't paying attention...
ever since i missed the chance to go to a concert
when he was touring the Holywood album...
that same year Mudvayne were touring with L.D. 50...
i switched off after their debut...
i switched off from the music of my youth in general...
went down several rabbit holes...
notably medieval music - blues - jazz -
                      some extra-curriculum classical....
but the artist ages... well... so does his audience...
i don't even remember when i started writing:
let alone posting dotty-doodles on this platform:
i had only one focus... for all the ills that the internet
enhanced... revealed when it comes to the interaction
of people: sure... the older generations found it
convenient to shop... to do banking... to book plane
tickets... but for us younger folk... the ones born
into the years prior to the inception of the internet...
this was our time to build up an underground
of communication... for me? what better way to bypass
the gatekeepers, the publishers...
having amassed some readership... 44 thousand on just
one poem? hmm... let me spell it out: 44,000...
if i were to write it out in matchsticks, i.e. |||||||||| = 10...
what is 44,000 of those pretty stacks of arithmetic?
let me see what 100 looks like...
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what about a thousand?
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                                                  = 1000...
now... i know what 44 thousand looks like... roughly...
how many spectators were there at Wembley...
for the woman's F.A. cup final?
                                        let's say... 41K...
now multiply that space of matchsticks by... 44...
but this is only one poem... i have... thousands of poems...
some are still stashed on my facebook page:
or rather lost on my timeline...
           mind you: i haven't performed any of them...
why? they don't rhyme: for starters...
i like listening to people sing Aud Lang Syne
on new year's eve... and even Shakespeare can't
beat that... Shakespeare's words were never put
to music... and they won't be...
sure... great meter blah blah... but you can't sing
Shakespeare... so there goes the baby...
with the bathtub and the water out of yer
******* window...
                            i'm more a composer than a performer...
i'm more a composer than a performer
therefore not an entertainer...
i gave myself this: jinx... the moment i start
performing... is the moment i stop composing...
i'll just be regurgitating the very few poems
that might be left in my repertoire like...
Ginsberg... having to recite Howl ad nauseam...
me? i'm sort of in the mindset: plough along...
let's not beat around the bush...
   for all the ills of the internet... there's one good...
the possibility to bypass gatekeepers...
publishers... no one would touch my ****...
and yet: they are printing tabloid spew...
           sorry... tabloid *****...
                they are printing propaganda left right
and centre... my work would be... obscure...
revealed: ha ha... perhaps after my death...
let the people judge for themselves...
                     i'm not saying it's Shakespeare...
god forbid writing that stuffy ****...
                             it's contemporary... i don't even think
i'd allow myself to belong to a movement
akin to post-modernism...
   hell: if **** comes naturally... it comes...
if it doesn't... well... i usually need to do something...
ha ha: "cope"... do some cooking, do some cleaning,
do some gardening... so some ironing of the shirts...
go to my part-time job... wait a year until i'll ask
for references and then apply for a job as a teacher...
or take the current route and become a security guard...
which route would allow me to write, more?
probably the latter... then again... experience
as a security guard... could come in handy...
on a curriculum vitae... when it comes to crowd control...
in a classroom of kids...
    but i really don't want to teach chemistry...
i'd love to teach English...
                   - but don't get me wrong.... some artists /
bands got the mix right... they understood
that there needed to be a prominence of the BASS guitar...
Metallica sure as **** didn't catch up...
pretty much all those kinds of bands didn't...
barely audible... well... with the exception of
the intro on Devil's Dance... but then the bass disappears
into inaudibility...
it's like a post-jazz hybrid... in rock music...
the rhythm guitar and all that is considered "melody"
can sort of *******... let's just leave in the screetching
accents of the guitar... keep the vocals...
but... but... let the bass guitar exfoliate...
   and... let the drums compliment it...
    no no... the drums are no longer the building block...
the bass guitar comes first...
  it's a bit like borrowing from opera...
    bass is the baritone... rhythm / solo guitar the soprano...
yada-yada-blah-blah some minutes later...
songs like the Gardener from Born Villain and
Third Day of a Seven Day Binge from the Pale Emperor...
if you listen to them... you can truly... truly: groove...
you can't stop nodding, can't stop swaying...
you start thinking: how is it that pigeons don't
get headaches? i guess they must be listening to cosmic
music only pigeons can hear... like those dog whistle
scenarios... humans can't hear it...
but since... all birds descended from dinosaurs...
they strut... nodding... head-banging... some ancient
music of the cosmos: ergo? no head-ache...
hmm... and this writing coming from a guy who
drinks like a pirate... and is waiting to do psychedelic
drugs if... he might enter the confines of dementia...
oh yeah: i'm keeping that option open...
should i start to slip up... on my pedantic spelling
and punctuation... i'm ******* off to Amsterdam
to a brothel and some magic mushrooms... ****...
i'll need to get a bus out of Amsterdam and find some
forest... something scenic... mind you:
the Netherlands are not that scenic... flat... upon flat...
upon flat... although... that's the jist of things you see
from the motorway when going through...
i'm sure i could find some beautiful spots to trip...
  should the worst come...
but the artists i was fond of listening to in my youth
have finally caught up with what i was thinking:
where, the ****, is, the BASS?
       ****** music jerking off the solo guitar...
no, please... and all that rhythm guitar...
   challenge the drum & bass crowd...
that sputnik crowd of... turning African drumming
into... a stampede of hyenas on amphetamines...
    boomboomboomboomboomboomboom...
mind-blowing load of headache....
the bass guitar can do two things...
it can set the rhythm... it can set the beat...
but it can also can create an undercurrent of a melody...
oh ****... that's three things...
   early Marilyn Manson did respect the bass playing
of Twiggy Ramirez... but... there was still the guitar-maker
melody overload...
the mature artist... given songs like: the Gardener
and Third Day of a Seven Day Binge...
respects the bass guitar... it comes so gloriously to the fore...
something a band like Metallica can never
accomplish... or Led Zeppelin... all those 1970s greats...
those bands had the bass guitar pop up...
in a segment of a song... NIB? by black sabbath?
and then... disappear... don't undermine the Leviathan...
this rock fusion with post-jazz...
oh of course... there's no section in this music...
whereby each instrument takes a chance to solo...
there's no need... everything is just ******* dandy
as it stands...
             - and where would i be... the internet is evil!
ooh: boogie-woogie! sure... people are acting
like ****-storm brainiac... brainiack... brainiak...
   brainiaq...      just four of the possible aesthetic questions
regarding the spelling of: Otto Binder...
not that i'm a massive comic book fan...
well... if you get a chance to meet Declan Tan...
Declan... yeah... for my birthday he gave me a copy
of... Batman vs. Alien... no wait... it was Batman/Aliens...
published in 1997... i think Declan liked me...
i sort of think i liked Declan...
                      the first time i tasted chicken soup that
wasn't Slavic born... with sweetcorn...
(ISBN 1-56971-305-7)...
sure... it's evil... people ghosting each other...
dark-web ******* inner circles etc., the silk road...
hmm... ghosting... poor Jeminah...
how many times did i play roulette... cycling down
Mawney Road in the past... 3 weeks?
not that often... i tried at least once a week...
not that i'm stalking... but it's a decent route...
it's all downhill... and chances of cycling onto sharpnel
is limited... mind you... never... ever...
cycle into the London borrough of Barking & Dagenham...
chances of getting a flat tire... esp. if you're cycling
on 23cm wide tires of a road bicycle?
no brainer...
   before pulling into Mawney Road... i was...
blinded by a sunset... idiot me forgot to wear his sunglasses...
but i stared at the ***** with eyes wide open
waiting for white phosphorus to start pouring
from under my eyelids...
   oh... i'll be looking at you... until the point
where i see you for what you really are:
but you're never really that when you're at sunset...
or sunrise... it's only at your zenith when...
staring long enough at you... exposes you as this
pulverising... vibrating mirror of fluorescence...
sort of silver... sort of white... but not when you're
coming down from your zenith... you're still blinding...
  - only a day prior i thought i saw Frankie...
Friendrich... her son... getting on the bus...
from a 5-a-side football centre off Eastern Avenue...
turned out it wasn't him:
no, it couldn't be him... over-protective mother
would never allow her son to take the bus on his own...
plus... the kid is supposed to be an actor...
she's milking him... "apparently"... he's into bedroom fun
on a games console... you couldn't find him
climbing trees or playing sports... a *****... basically...
the only sport he might have heard of...
is... boxing... to defend him mother from abusive
boyfriends... where: he'd always lose...
- i was waiting for this moment...
the sun blinded me gloriously...
   as i cycled down Mawney Road...
that's the thing about meeting Jeminah... her dog...
i had these self--inflicted knuckle wounds
from putting out cigarette butts on them...
her dog... oh man... her dog loved me...
he really quickened the healing process...
he licked and licked and licked... and licked...
the scabs off... to the point where i started bleeding again...
looking at my knuckles...
nothing prettier in the world... no tattoo could
compensate them...
so as i was cycling down Mawney Road...
who do i see? the over-existed dog... barking... chewing air...
i see the dog first... the dog sees me first...
i later make out that... glorious colour of her hair...
that darkened ginger that's mingling with oak-cask
auburn... i put on my most impressive frown...
i don't look her in the face... mind you:
everything's ******* fluorescent before me
having been blinded by the sun just minutes prior...
i'm not stalking... she was the one that invited me
back to her home twice... yeah... i know where she lives...
that's when i had that mad moment
of leaving her flowers on the porch...
and a Valentine's card through her letter-box...
o.k.: fair enough... that's borderline creepy...
what isn't... with modern woman and feminism?
          a simple boy can't offer up simple love...
i learned from my supervisor...
the daughter of my neighbour that she's no longer
working for the company...
SLANDER... in H'america you can go to court
for that sort of ****... false-accusation, no?
that's what happens...
when a devil tries to outsmart a devil...
the latter devil pushes on... with gifts... with niceties...
the former devil has no option but to retreat...
to its own, former: hellhole... bog...
imagining someone i wanted to love...
stomach pains... mistaking them for butterflies...
single mum, dating much younger men...
or dating men who were big on *******...
former ex-boyfriend women beaters who ran her
into bad credit rating... with... debt...
i know of the mistakes i've made...
   two... in my early twenties... that's why the rest of
my twenties are a blur... that's why only now
i've reemerged as this extroverted silent type...
in my mid-30s... having plans...
   i wouldn't call it: ******* away my youth...
i'd call it... sorry... what? no, sorry... i was sort of absent...
probably alone in the forest... probably at night...
problem being... she can block me on whatsapp...
she block me on the internet...
       hmm... small world... a very small world...
she'll have to move... or commando the minutes she takes
her dog for a walk... the ******* dog licked my scabs / wounds
clean... he has my blood in his veins...
if he sees me... he's going to bark in my direction...
ghost me, *****? in the good old days...
the claustrophobia of a little city where i was born...
my parents lived... let's say... 600 metres apart...
but it took... being jointly invited to a wedding of fellow friends
that brought them together...
Jeminah can't ghost me... like she could forget about
all those guys she flicked left on
when we worked together on a shift on Tinder...
you can't shake off locality...
i'm practically her neighbour... in terms of of how
globalism comes across... what? i'm not allowed to cycle
down this street? she's not even living on the street i'm cycling
down... she's living on the cul de sac...
but i'm not paying for... the debt her ex...
whatever he was racked up in retaliation...
what a pretty face... what pretty hair: hair that i'd give
up drinking whiskey for... it's almost the same colour...
just keeping to the foundation
of routine... i like that street... cycling down it...
if she has any complaints... she better take out
the scab tissue of my DNA from her dog's gob...
but dogs don't simply: forget who they endear...
with affection... the internet distance conundrum
is not going to work on me... the only way she's going
to ghost me... proper... is moving somewhere else...
small world... small town... in the vicinity of Collier Row...
obviously i'm not going to bother her...
god forbid... i have Khedra to mind...
the ******* that gets all the *** that no man
rarely does... and has to text me: come over...
i need you... yeah... that type...
i cycled past with a frown... i just spotted the dog...
ooh... right... well... i know who's behind that dog...
yep... a flicker of dark ginger: disguised brunette...
yeah... that's Jeminah...
but this is counter to how the internet works...
no? in a cosmopolitan setting?
she can't exactly ghost me...
  sure... she can block me... on whatsapp...
   from a ****-show she herself orchestrated... why?
because she didn't have the confidence to compliment
me, directly... she had to: slander me...
she became one of those... idiotic... sappers...
she self-sabotaged herself... notably? after i pushed forward...
with... wine, cake and flowers...
she became a self-saboteur...
   like i said to one of the other girls: lies don't walk on
stilts... lies have short legs...
just wait... see... i've been alone long enough to know...
certain little, ******... analogies?! behavioural patterns
of blah-b'ah black sheep...
             now... i'm waiting for the crescendo...
there's no denying it... i do drink...
   but... allowing women this "sixth sense" of sniffing out
alcohol on... a person you just met...
accusing them of drinking on the job?
i know the territory... my grandmother had the same
sixth sense... when she turned my grandfather into
an alcoholic... he finally broke down and threw her
through a glass door...
        me? ******* prostitutes?! i'm trying to escape that
headache... keeping it sorted behind a... paywall...
   first comes the payment...
i'm not landing on something that's... ahem... "free"...
- it is a big deal! you slander someone
and in H'america you can be taken to court!
i do drink, heavily... but when i'm working...
i half my intake if not third it...
      i wash, i pamper myself... i end up sober on the shift...
at the London Stadium people either take
selfies with me or give me sweets...
i'm a sucker for pop music and... gelatine infused sweets...
i can't refuse them... chocolate can simply not
exist... but... give me a bag of Haribo...
esp. those sour-sweet types... i can't help myself...
i just have to eat them...
- but, this is... a 2nd Jeminah Revelation...
she... she can't swipe left on me... on Tinder...
i'm not on Tinder: never have...
    i'm almost her neighbour if i take out the bicycle...
i can be round her house in a matter of minutes...
London, even Greater London... has... shrunk... for her...
she can block me on an APP-lication...
but she can't... block me... cycling down a road
she takes her dog for a walk...
               i wonder how this dynamic will work out...
on her mind... i was waiting for this moment...
you can't just... ghost me... when i'm living: locally...
sure... you can... "ghost" me... but... that implies:
you have to move... i'm not moving...
i'm rooted... i haven't been this rooted in a long time...
funny how that works...
whatever it is that works... bicycle breaks...
the wheels... the moon and the tides...
that sure as **** works...
the sun and photosynthesis... that also works...
but... the interaction between women
and men, these days?
sure as ****: it's not working...
  which is, rather... a crying shame...
do we really have to go into interracial territory
for it to work?
personally? i don't feel like it...
    no, not really...
                  whoever takes over...
oh... i'm pretty sure the current white overlords
are planning an ultra-coup-uprising of
being the chosen typos...
               whatever...
                i have lost interest in this world...
from about... 2 years ago?
yeah... the world is sort of automated for me...
i lost interest in it...
the whole matter of the "pandemic"... sort of desensitized
toward any sort of attitude toward Ukraine...
i sort... hmm... ahem... don't care...
Ukrainians celebrated the invasion of Poland
by the Nazis during World War II...
if i'm not directly involved: invoked...
i'm going to play the "solipsist" / pacifist card...
the Pontius Pilate poker...
               i'm out... i was already out...
i just don't want to be involved...
                         is that somehow a Buddhist monk
"sentimentality"?
             to hell with Buddhism...
                         1960s cultural appropriate import...
i'm yet to be rid of the **** Christianity that
turned European barbarism into European
secularism.
Ben Jul 2016
Good morning
And there you are
Obtrusive
Well I'd rather
Have you and not need you
Than need you and not have you

Time to ***
But the house is buzzing
With activity
Coffee being made
Keyboards click-click-clicking
The dogs doing laps around
The living room furniture

We can do this
Out the door
And we are ambushed
I turn towards the bookshelf
Awkwardly perusing the collection
While drumming you
Against the spines of
Hemmingway
Bukowski
Lovecraft
Murakami
Like a stick on
A white picket fence

Then the threat has passed

We scramble down the hall
Is he in the computer room?
Oh god, he is
And you just stared him square
In the face
"Good morning"
The silent nod
Says it all

I craddle you in my hand
Through my boxers
And do my best to conceal you
Finally
We are behind
The relative safety
Of a locked door

Peeing proves difficult
Advanced calculations
Yields ***** on the seat

Back into bed
I'm sure I'll see you again
Very soon
Bryce Jan 2018
There the three mates below the simultaneous dirt
in foggy hour,
Sunday stir

Bird chirp beyond the leafless limbs
Burnt paper masks around the leaflet scene
Awash the winter weighted storm, a propeller-sound

rumbles the bumbled air

a hum-drum conundrum drumming engine from the cloud

a hum in the back pocket



at once I am looking up
unfamiliar craft
"who is it?"
knocks at the pod bay door

a small shape, splasmatic
falls beyond hillcrest into grey

f la sh

all is gone
Jay M Mar 2019
Fluttering wings,
Bubbling within,
Rising rains,
Pattering, drumming,
On the trees above,
On your head,
Feet at a steady pace,
Just at the time of the rain,
Drumming with purpose,
But, oh wanderer,
What purpose does your pace have?

Bubbling, fizzing,
All unseen,
The hunger,
The drive,
To hunt,
But you hold it in,
Tame it,
Bend it to your will,
Heal the damage,
Break the vengeance,
The internal fire.

Fluttering wings,
Flying fast,
Coming at you,
Unseen, unheard,
Unexpected, yet expected,
You can’t help but give in,
To the pain,
To the misery,
The void inside.

Your steps have purpose,
Paces planned,
But motions uncertain,
Destination controlled,
Route un-mapped,
But I am here to guide you;
Help you regain control.
Through all of the days of wonder,
Thoughts asunder, scattered about,
Written, flung, separate from one another,
Senseless, but not meaningless,
Each one burdened with purpose,
Waiting to be decrypted,
Brought into a new light,
Kept away from the consuming flame,
The drive of your feet,
May they ever be well again,
To the place you once knew,
The peace to your war,
The home of the soul,
The lair of the internal fire.

- Jay M
October 9th, 2018
neth jones Jan 2019
All this having spanned
since a borning
is the activity of Sleeper Agent

This Agent has grown Impy
of this lively drumming of clingings

It is recognised and marked as ;
distraction
an entertainment
an irreverent viewing

A clearer work must commence
an underlying detached being

Operations within the drama life
are now operations in a training ground

All these efforts are toward Project Awake
and projected life is now secondary
though useful.
Beauty is in the hand of the suitor?

Groom to the wondrous world.

Coupled with harm and guilt,

This man, sheds no tear when blood is spilt,

But what can eyes do, without tears?

What path must he choose in the twilight.



If there be no ground for him to tread,

How should he conquer his foe?

Or rather, how was it done on such notice,

As he is at the cusp of his opportunity,

He has no bounds to break free,

For he sought no greater challenge to overcome.



Drumming his fingers on the scalp of The Impossible;

Scribbling the name on the skull of his last nemesis,

He bows to no sun and he howls to no moon,

Soon he will realize that he is to bow to no man.

He is neither beast nor god, neither is he spirit.



He can never realize what he is, for he loves a woman.

She keeps him tethered to this world.

She cries for all the blood that he has spilt.

She nurses his conquered, and she holds his soul.

It is the pain that he never feels, that she bears,

Which spurns her to love him and him to love her.



He has found mercy in his realm of bloodshed,

Under the loving embrace of mercy,

He realizes he is a man, for he has hope.

He could not find mercy if he were not a man,

For it is the nature of man to find mercy.

That is to say, he that does not find mercy;

Is no man.



In that moment, weakness is perceived.

Enemies conspire and in their unrest,

Tirelessly proceed to assume control of his might.

They steal her away and spill her blood in lust.

Disemboweling all in the world that he loves.

For power twists the mind; inflames the soul.



However they know not what they have done.

When they killed the woman they killed mercy,

Attempting to injure the man,

But he was no man, and when they killed mercy,

The monster no longer felt concern for the innocent.

No more were mercy's tears present to quell his rage.



The palace crumbles in a shower of glittering red.

Blood, jewels and fire careening forth across the land.

His wrath unopposable, and his defiance of life absolute.

Nothing of worth remained in the wake of his destruction.

He wouldn't stop at nothing until nothing remained.



Concurrently upon the last day,

Under the last sunrise,

Before the last rays of light,

In the last seconds leading up to the last moment,

One question remained giving him enough pause,

To cause the inevitability of existence persistence,

For no man is greater than the inevitable

And no man hath the power enough to end the world,

By any measure of his importance or abandon.

He faced the only question he could never answer.

"What am I?"
Another ruby from my vault of treasures.

I need to build up the momentum that I had gained before I wrote this.
In other words, something stopped me along the way to now. I won't explain, what, but pray it never happens to you.

Regardless, being in a much better place, I feel capable of writing poems like this once again. It will take some time, maybe years, but I'll reach that point where the "effortless" grasp on my skill will be as if one wields a sword with one's tongue and a shield with one's breath.

Time will only tell if I can surpass my old bounds, but I believe it's more than possible.

I probably won't even notice when it happens, because I'll be too busy writing until my fingers disintegrate on my keyboard like a worn out eraser with my fingers flashing like spider legs (lovely imagery there, haha!).

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did when rediscovering it.

Take care :)
Zizaloom Sep 2018
Let us bloom under the moonlight
Like withered flowers waiting patiently for their roots to grow back
For the night is the only time of the day
Or the day is the only time of the night
When life stretches itself and memories become vulnerable to the light
The eyes roll and turn
They strike face to face with the brain
In front of a thousand whispers
A thousand cries
Rotten kisses and gullible lies
Stroke a shell on the searing sand
Every little grain shivers against its neighbor
And the whole beach arouses to the perturbation
A stranger yet so inoffensive
But even microscopic acarines
Whirl in the wind of a sneeze
So before starting to snap your tongue on the roof of your mouth
Catch your words in your throath
And taste them
Guzzle
Do not forget their savor
Catch them fast
If you are not as swift as a tender breeze
You will swallow your own thick tongue
You will become your words
And these words will reflect you
A big satisfying outcome
How solemn would it be
To dance to the rhythm
Of your baked coal heart
Drumming on its cage
Sam Temple Sep 2015
Sterling Jay props an acorn into the crotch of an Elm
Rhythmic drumming follows
Two-thirds the life of a fly passes
Yet the Sterling remains both diligent and determined
From the porch I hear the crack
Followed by the triumphant high-pitched squawk
Sterling Jay has secured a delightful evening meal --
James Floss Apr 2017
Tears, blood, *****, sweat;

These are the waters of a man.

Muscle and sinew, **** and bone;

These are the solid earth of a man.


Seeing, hearing, touching, thinking;

(thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking…)

These are the shifting winds of a man.

But wither spirit? Where is fire?


Lost in the hum of electrical ether?

Warped and worn on the grindstone of work?

Slipping through films of ****** desire?

Fading in a fog of drunken forgetfulness?

Sunk deep into cold unfeeling depths?

Shrunk to the size of a tiny, selfish, wrinkled pea?


All of these.

All of these.



But quick, look to your left—

See it; seize it.

Name it. Claim it.

Invite it back into the circle.

It’s yours, it’s here; it’s never left.

Stand with your brothers and call it back.

Drumming, chanting, singing, laughing.

Gather it around you and don it proudly.

Button it up like a brand new suit—

Looking good, man!


Feeling… better.


Tears, blood, *****, sweat

Muscle and sinew, **** and bone

These are merely the parts of a man.

Dignity, Clarity, Integrity and Strength

These are truly the marks of a man.

Empathy, Respect, Pride and Love

(And Love!)

These reside in the heart of a man

A conscious man

The spirit of a true man.
Lucanna Jul 2014
My body takes me places I do not know
Skin swims under your drumming veins
and twists around gripped clothing
My arms wrap around foreign limbs
Mind confusing them as familiar

Blonde tresses pulled and tangled
by numb fingers
Nose bitten by hollow teeth
lips ****** up of all their color
the red shoved in your bottomless pocket

Nape nestled and licked up
My head now rests on my shoulders
Those shoulders carved, pits of letters revealing your name
Poked collar bones distorted under your weight
Flattened under hungry bones

My body takes me places I do not know
Rib cage cracked by demanding palms
Heart removed, and poured into your thirsty inlet
******* swim into your hook, you feed off of them for days.
Eyes lost at sea

Ankles and feet shoved down to the foot of your bed
Boredom hits, and they are stuffed below
My knees sit between tongue and cheek
And that voice I had, caught in your canal
Inflection hanging in the orbit of your planet

My calves wander and brushed up
Painted against your gnarled spine
Thighs travel around your tortured torso
Asking for directions from navel
Lead stray

My body takes me places I do not know
Mind finally arrives
Body's tour ignored.
avoidance.
Micheal Wolf Mar 2016
Transatlantic feeling frantic on route to Milan to see a man
To listen to sages and the academic elite talk of wormholes and conciousness beliefs
Presentations and conversations by those at the top of their game
But concentrate as she might long into the stary night the rhythm was always there..
Off again and on a plane over the North Sea
Stronger and stronger the beat would wander into her dreams
Touching land there he was his face as shocked as hers
For both had been listening to nothing more than the music of their hearts
Two years have past and governments and continents could no longer divide them
So if you look in Atlanta Decatur you are now sure to find them
Just ask anyone where is bongo Pete or just close your eyes at night
Then follow the sound of the distant drumming, you will surely find them
When you reach a blues joint look inside and there for all to see
Now husband and Wife, and playing all night
Mr and Mrs Lornie
Kurt Kanawa Apr 2014
my heart sleeps on a bed of fur
on bodies that snuggle up and purr
the warmth of your leg touching mine
i'm not drunk but i'm blushing wine

and i can hear the red parade
that marching drummer brigade
their warm beat showers and soars
drumming from my chest to yours

and i close my eyes
and see
              a million fireflies
like a million twinkling stars
like a million blinking cars
   little lanterns that decorate the air
like christmas morning

i lay there with you
and enjoy the view in front of us
and i smile
when you tell me
that you see them too
I feel the drumming of my heart
Sometimes that's enough
Peyton L Aug 2019
There's a dull drumming
a music to all things
and sometimes it seems like I'm the only one who
can hear the rhythm.
Like how the lights radiate vibrato violins
and the lawnmower outside
sings opera.
Or how the crickets at night,
with their apparent music
chirp a lullaby for the Wild Things.

The Wild Things
aren't strictly monsters
made of hoof and horn,
but sometimes they are children
with the soul of a wild horse
or a mountain lion.
Sometimes they are women
who dreams have never been
stuck in twilight.
Sometimes they are men
who wish for something more.

Sometimes they are creatures
with no body. Just a soul incarnated as a central being.
Sometimes the Wild Things aren't really things at all,
but songs and stories told to babes
who wander too far from their mothers
sometimes they are just animals
ones we can't see nor hear nor smell.
Ones we can only imagine in our wildest,
most fruitful dreams.

The Wild Things,
they don't have one place where they all go,
like the stories foretold.
Instead, they have many safe places
lairs and hideaways and crypts and haunts
all around us. Sometimes,
those places
are within us.

The music of the Wild Things.
Not everyone can hear.
Only other Wild Things can listen to it.
And as such,
I have forgotten my duties as a young woman
on an earth full of human pests
and resumed my life as a Wild Thing
with my hideaway as
underneath the clothes in my closet.
I could build a tunnel down through the ground
and connect my crypt
with those of the other Wild Things
so that we may dance and sing our songs together
in a cave beneath the world.
Esther Apr 2015
I’ve seen too many empty words
On papers covered with text
Like rows of parallel lines and
I’m painfully waiting for them to converge.
And I wonder how you can speak with all your might
And still not be heard,
Am I simply not choosing the right words?
Maybe this rhyme wasn’t timed
Just right
For your head to ignite
With all the fury that spins inside of me
Like tornadoes of dirt in an open space
Where there is so much potential
But no one is there to observe
How I can sometimes form images
Out of reckless stanzas of
Sounds that bounce just right
In the pits of my mind.
I still twirl around in circles sometimes
Collecting debris of those
Who have been misheard and
Misinterpreted as
Deadly villains in stereotypical stories
Where their side of the story
Is simplified into scenes of disturbance.
I’ve seen too many bland sentences
In essays that we’re told to embrace,
When these chunks of information cannot hold themselves up
Without a spine of meaning and supporting points
Of relevance
And you always sit there wondering
What the hell counts as relevant?
When there are thousands of combinations
Making up thousands of words that have yet
To grace our impatience.
I am still waiting,
Knees bouncing and hands drumming
In silent lectures about everything
And sometimes I think it might amount to nothing
If I can’t make it interesting
Interesting enough for me to want to weave it into
My natural disaster of a technique
And call it a piece of myself;
A work of poetry.
Starlight Jul 2018
We have all the time in the world
She coos to herself
Trying to pull herself out
From the pit she has buried herself in.

We have all the time in the world
We have forever
With such a cursed double-edged sword as life
Giving us freedom and pain.

She claws her way with
Dirtied fingernails
Chapped lips
A crinkled smile like a chip packet
Out of the dark hole.

The sun is too bright
And she cries out like the
Monster
She has become.

'I have everything'
She says, because it is true
She holds love like a dying bird
Smothering its freedom in a hope to keep it with her
She strangles knowledge with
A dark mind
Which thinks of nothing but broken records and the
Repeat of
'I hate myself'.

Life is beautiful
She muses as she spreads her darkness with her
Tainting all those she speaks to
Even with a glance they become ruined.

Why do you love me
She swears like it is a
Foul curse
As her mother stares at her
With too old dark eyes
That speak of ignorance
And biting knowledge.

The wind howls
'I hate you'
As if it were consoling her
Maybe it was.

It sweeps her off her feet
And carries her out to somewhere else
She had been standing too long
Almost looking living
And now needed to die for a week or so
Bury herself again
And wallow
As if her world were imperfect.

She walks to school
Always tugging at her sleeve
Always wondering if they see it
But don't care
If they see her
But don't care
If they whisper about her
But don't care.

She wonders if they care.

'Look away'
She lies
She wants a hug
But she also wants a slap
And a shout
And for someone to say
'Snap out of it, you're not a child.'

She is a child
Even if she is not
Even when she is
Her eyes are old
Yet she has seen no war
Or violence
No one hates her
No one that matters
But yet her eyes seem to absorb the elderly
As she looks around her
Stealing life from others.

'I curse my empathy'
Even when someone sneers she wonders why
She pities them
She wishes to understand their hate
She doesn't heal her bruises
She longs to heal other's bruises.

Yet she is still innumerably selfish.

The cow.

She looks behind her
Someone is there
Always there
Paranoia, hypersensitivity
She sees people who aren't there
Always about to tap her on the shoulder
And she spins around
Heart racing
Breath catching
The anxiety throb in her leg pulsing again like clockwork...

No one is there.

What do they want
She thinks loudly
Hoping they can hear her
And she won't have to say it out loud.

Truly she is selfish
Even if they asked her
She would deny them
For she hates them
All of them
For they are happy
And she is not.

Why am I angry
She whispers mournfully
She should be grateful
Look at her house
Dog
Friends
Parents
Cuts
She is so lucky
She should feel happy
Doesn't she have it all.

It is not a question
She bangs out nonsensically
Drumming away
Her fingers tapping in anxiety
And fear
And maybe sadness
And maybe cryptic malevolent amusement.

She climbs back down into her pit of despair.
Its warm.

How oddly comforting.

— The End —