"drunkards" poems
some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and ****** and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
94k
Lady, your room is lousy with flowers.
When you kick me out, that's what I'll remember,
Me, sitting here bored as a loepard
In your jungle of wine-bottle lamps,
Velvet pillows the color of blood pudding
And the white china flying fish from Italy.
I forget you, hearing the cut flowers
Sipping their liquids from assorted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down, a local constellation,
Toward their admirers in the tabletop:
Mobs of eyeballs looking up.
Are those petals of leaves you've paried with them ---
Those green-striped ovals of silver tissue?
The red geraniums I know.
Friends, friends. They stink of armpits
And the invovled maladies of autumn,
Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
My nostrils prickle with nostalgia.
Henna hags:cloth of your cloth.
They tow old water thick as fog.
The roses in the Toby jug
Gave up the ghost last night. High time.
Their yellow corsets were ready to split.
You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,
Tapping and ticking like nervous fingers.
You should have junked them before they died.
Daybreak discovered the bureau lid
Littered with Chinese hands. Now I'm stared at
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in the same
Magenta as this fubsy sofa.
In the mirror their doubles back them up.
Listen: your tenant mice
Are rattling the ******* packets. Fine flour
Muffles their bird feet: they whistle for joy.
And you doze on, nose to the wall.
This mizzle fits me like a sad jacket.
How did we make it up to your attic?
You handed me gin in a glass bud vase.
We slept like stones. Lady, what am I doing
With a lung full of dust and a tongue of wood,
Knee-deep in the cold swamped by flowers?
14.7k
William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."
there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.
ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.
it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.
11.8k
These streets
are home to countless
rodents
emerging for a moment
to feed
or breed
or just to breathe the sun
One by one line up
for the chance to
make something
out of nothing
Who are they and
where do they go
while the city refuses to
sleep
___
Doors to endless lands
line the avenue
each its own portal to the
unimagined
A family of four
with the yapping mutt
or a lonely cat lady
whose entryway wreaks of *****
a drug dealer
door slamming
every hour on the hour
or an empty snowbird's nest
On the surface
everyone pretends
they don't have a hole to
crawl back to
or walls that know
every night
But below the sewer grate
a world filled with
the stench
of what could have been a
good day
Many a barkeep can
shed some life
on these drunkards'
rat king
or at least a story of those who
made it out
Once or twice it'd be grand
to see the bottom of a martini glass
left with a sip or two
instead of the casually tipped
lipstick-clad cocktail,
drained of doubt and despair
until morning warms the
frozen dreams
of those retired to
a paradise unknown
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 1:45 PM UTC
Come, come, awaken all true drunkards!
Pour the wine that is Life itself!
O cupbearer of the Eternal Wine,
Draw it now from Eternity’s Jar!
This wine doesn’t run down the throat
But it looses torrents of words!
Cupbearer, make my soul fragrant as musk,
This noble soul of mine that knows the Invisible!
Pour out the wine for the morning drinkers!
Pour them this subtle and priceless musk!
Pass it around to everyone in the assembly
In the cups of your blazing drunken eyes!
Pass a philter from your eyes to everyone else’s
In a way the mouth knows nothing of,
For this is the way cupbearers always offer
The holy and mysterious wine to lovers.
Hurry, the eyes of every atom in Creation
Are famished for this flaming-out of splendour!
Procure for yourself this fragrance of musk
And with it split open the breast of heaven!
The waves of the fragrance of this musk
Drive all Josephs out of their minds forever!
7.5k
COME swish around, my pretty punk,
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.
Sobriety is a jewel
That I do much adore;
And therefore keep me dancing
Though drunkards lie and snore.
O mind your feet, O mind your feet,
Keep dancing like a wave,
And under every dancer
A dead man in his grave.
No ups and downs, my pretty,
A mermaid, not a punk;
A drunkard is a dead man,
And all dead men are drunk.
6.2k
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree,
Arched ceilings and Mother’s whisper Tetelestai
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Black preaching robes saying Grace is for free,
Now pass the gold plate so the Church can supply,
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Regenerated through love-on this we agree,
Shouting Hymn 22 children’s voices blend high,
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Drunkards and Deacons with Thou and with Thee,
Starched shirts and white pearls all standing by,
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Released from all of our chafe and debris,
With roars of repentance and relief we reply,
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
I am whole I am new through His ministry,
I know I can never this truth deny.
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 11:40 PM UTC
There was an ancient gully
there were skeletons,
ocotillos strewn across the sand
holy places creatures crawled out from
cactus brittle, drying, lying dead
Mirages leapt - spectrally
ghost dancers, drunkards falling down again
bloodshot eyes searching,
shipwrecks, lost waters, the sea
cool river floating past the trees, you drift
crash and wake alone
cow skulls haunt you
death's sun bleached
bones
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 10:11 AM UTC
In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.
O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.
Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.
This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 5:14 AM UTC
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.
Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.
What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.
They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.
4.6k
I thought Van Gogh had it figured out
he fell in love
and cut off his ear
he died july 29 1890 from a self inflicted gun shot wound
He painted
He painted the sky
He painted men women bedrooms flowers shoes street corners chairs boats and fields
I thought Basquiat had it figured out
******
NYC
He painted memories in the present
August 12 1988
NYC apartment ****** overdose
I thought Picasso
I thought Warhol
I thought Stalin
******
Buddha
Had it figured out
but sand fills our shoes in dry texan sun
and the dog howls
howls for its mother
howls for its brother
howls for its sister
I thought the dog had it figured out
eating insects
smelling my hands
eating the ham on the floor
I thought Hemingway had it figured out
Late at night
reading Old Man and The Sea
Suicide July 2 1961
12-gauge English shotgun
I thought Fitzgerald had it figured out
I thought Ginsberg
I thought Kerouac did too
drinking across the neck and back bone and gutter lips of America and back
I thought Bukowski had it figured out
the cigarettes
the wine
the women
the type writer
the sad nights accompanied by cockroaches and a city that is indigestible
I thought Phillip Glass had it figured out
Beethoven
going Def
Mozart lost in his grave
writing symphonies for Death and his cruel tripled eyed angels
I thought
The drunkards were lost
The Junkies were ankle-less
The Mothers were done for
The Fathers had given in
The Young
True
The Elderly
gazing through the bifocals of heaven and hell
The Prisoners cemented in Time
I thought the Dead
were the ones who published our Dreams
I thought the painter
had it figured out
So I painted
I thought the pianist
had it figured out
So I played the Piano
and listened to the bilingual codes of the keys
I thought the Ballet dancer
had it figured out
So I watched her
I studied the movements
and the bruised toes
looking for a design of an answer
I thought the Poet
had it figured out
So I wrote a poem
and I saw the world.
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 12:13 AM UTC
A Poem in 3 Parts by Sara L Russell, 4/6/15; 00:51am
I
There is a grey area between
this world and the next.
People can be foolish; they dabble in ouija, in
dowsing, in automatic writing;
and - wittingly or unwittingly,
they may open a portal
to the other side.
That is how they enter.
Beware of inviting them in.
Shadow people are there
where needle pierces skin; where the ******
sits, glassy-eyed, on the precipice of oblivion;
they lurk in unholy places where godless
politicians declare themselves to be
speaking for God;
they haunt the dreams of drunkards,
schizophrenics, junkies
and the paranoid.
But they are not spun out of dreams,
they are real.
Shadow people were there
when the ancient pharaohs of Egypt
were interred, with all their gold;
they took them to Hades
for also burying their wives
and servants, alive.
They were there
in **** concentration camps,
sitting on the left shoulders
of those who blindly carried out
orders of death and torture.
They subsist in underworlds of catacombs,
they lurk in the spaces between
our conscious and unconscious minds;
In blackened mirrors they seek out a vortex,
My friends, be the light that
keeps out the darkness,
Do not seek to question the dear and foregone,
No matter how much they are missed;
for there are others lurking in the shadows.
Be not the portal inviting them in.
II
Did I see you in Bohemian Grove,
smiling at the Cremation of the Care?
Were you there,
and did you have more than one shadow?
Did I see you in that Great Hall
with chequered floors,
where the Eye of Horus
watched over a pyramid of gold?
Did you lift a cup of
the good red wine,
did blood brothers drink each other's health,
gazing through a glass darkly?
Did we toast the Cremation of the Care,
and how many others were there?
III
Sometimes we visit Hell in our dreams,
though we may fervently pray before sleep.
There is no shame in sleeping with the light on.
Wear a cross, if you think that it will help.
Sometimes the citizens of Hell visit us,
in that stasis between sleep and wakefulnes;
they are only ever seen at the outer periphery of our vision.
It's never a good idea to look at them directly.
Sometimes they venture a little closer than the rules allow.
Sometimes the line between their domain and ours is blurred.
Occasionally, the breeze seems to whisper your name -
only, it's not the breeze.
Be vigilant.
Always try to see them first.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
I come from sunshine.
Sunshine thick enough to form a blanket over tanned skin
And African insects that bite to live,
Empty stomachs and full hearts
And dancing in the sand before the sunset.
I come from winter.
Where the drunkards freeze in streetways
And there is hot stew for dinner
And my grandmother is a young girl who loves the way the sky turns dark so early,
And sugar sandwiches.
I come from rain.
The different personalities of the sky
Whether Big Ben is spitting on you or weeping for you
And the grey matches the bags under our eyes,
Where everyone is always moving.
Everyone has a place to go to.
I come from love.
Declarations too many years ago, and
The way a story sets my stomach alight
And holding a loved one in your arms
Holding a pet in your arms
And listening for the one verse where one phrase puts the planets back in orbit.
I come from anger.
Thrown against my own kind,
Born for another,
And internal screams that writhe beneath skin,
And the injustice of the person that didn't win
And a history blacker than the same skin it burned with no remorse,
Righteous anger that was never right
And a growing frustration at the living.
I come from destruction.
The sound that trees make when they break under the caress of steel teeth
And the way that houses grow where forests died
The pictures of animals that used to breathe
And a pollution so thick it has turned my blood to sludge.
I come from an hourglass
And clocks,
A repetitive countdown,
A marathon or sponsored run
And the last stretch.
I come from blue.
And green.
And the black that means nothing,
Space
And a planet revolving
Repeating.
Revolving.
Repeating.
Revolve.
Repeat.
Then end.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
“cold winter sky—
where will this wandering beggar
grow old?”
— Issa
I. Stories
A ranch north of Spain,
his woman, their child... a dream
painted over, gone.
His... (unrequited)
...own tragedy for himself—
young death in Paris.
Quiet night at nine,
inside a café... gunshots—
being... nothingness...
II. Histories
A cold monochrome,
the winter hue of darkness:
umbra of despair.
Portraits of torment:
beggars, drunkards, prostitutes,
1901—
Lapis lazuli
thinned, turpentined—bleu de France—
ennui of sorrow.
III. Images
Melancholia
—the impotence of the will—
in Barcelona.
Barefoot on the street
corner, sitting on the ground,
he leaned on nothing.
A half-stringed guitar......
Germaine’s ******* distracted him..
he laid his revenge.
IV. Meanings
No can a beggar...
no steel strings a guitarist...
—a friend’s eulogy.
The cadaverous
curves of the bones torqued the flesh—
tedium of old age.
An allegory:
artists, poets, mendicants...
****** or broke oglers?
V. The Painting
His evocation:
the grave of Casagemas—
a guilt exorcised.
A mute’s discontent,
a blind man’s desolation,
an oil masterpiece!
An old guitarist,
blind, begging for an audience—
a blue Picasso.
Jul 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017 at 7:22 AM UTC
Sick dreadlock disease
I am not much different
warmed by your baggage
The most elusive
you can’t love me with no heart
but the seeds still sprout
Up against the wall
charred and naked, you remain
hung like awkward Christ.
Met you at Metro
you told me you could love me
nerdy hipster ***
Blackened ***** thoughts
I ******* killed Nikki Sixx
just to lick your boots
Harangued by drunkards
don’t want a **** up my ***
but thank you kindly
Sit on ***** and spin
lustful carousel, how cute
rinse off daddy’s frown
Aug 8, 2011
Aug 8, 2011 at 2:28 AM UTC
Disaster is my master
I've seen chaos in mediocre valleys
Murdered by my feet in the dark alleys,
I am a hazard
Cringing by the needles of the ****** addicts
Chicago is my town
With concrete giants towering
And city people behind dark windows cowering
But, stop right there
What is this disaster? I am speaking of
Down hard and fallen
The windy city government failure is only a small token
A token of no appreciations, comprehension, solitary explosions, or time stamp expirations.
So come to this city and see the real masters of deviation and drive by cancellations
You will see these people distant passed the time and places
With empty shoes, empty futures and empty faces
Please talk to the drunkards begging for another shot of gin with all together no more chances
This disaster is in front of you
Simple, solemn, messed up and confused
I beg you, don't walk past them and forget, you could be there too
I just don't want to see you downplayed, hungry or depraved.
Restrained, contained or in constant pain.
And Lord knows this revelation of what you want to be is only left outside under the constant rain
Jan 8, 2018
Jan 8, 2018 at 3:26 PM UTC
..
You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;
Blind force with accomplished shape.
Here is a valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city;
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.
What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.
They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.
Warsaw, 1945
- by Czeslaw Milosz
st, 13 dec 13
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 4:46 AM UTC
By the run of wine, by Champagne's flow,
Swine did dine and watch the show,
'tween Squelch and Squeal, they Screamed, "Bravo!"
As merry went, did jolly go,
They drink their drinks, they oinked along,
To cabarets enchanting song,
So hypnotized, it won't be long,
'til Something goes horribly wrong....
For how were the jolly hogs to know
That butchers sat in the fifth row?
As blades grew sharp, their haste did grow,
Impatient to get on the go,
The sows were deafened by the tune,
The boars blinded by drunkards view,
But tact is what the butchers do,
But time at hand is profit due...
So nice the price of pork these days,
And chops and ribs are all the craze,
A roast in beer with honey glaze...
Makes fortunes for the butchers blades.
Had the swine been wise, for moments thought,
To greed they are cash to caught,
They could have run, they could have fought
And not been swine to the onslaught,
But they danced and sang, stupid and heavy
As butchers killed the swine of many,
That now sit in pieces, at a deli,
Their wage in wallet, meat in belly.
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 7:36 AM UTC
The slot machines remove my cash
with Dyson like precision
The operation's painless
There isn't even an incision
It's gone as soon as I sit down
For that is just their mission
I lose as soon as I sit down
I made a bad decision
The table games are even worse
Distractions everywhere
Table dancers walk and dance
But most folks do not care
In shorty shorts and thigh high boots
They flick and fling their hair
And we sit losing wads of cash
As though we do not care
The strip itself is free to walk
It's a breaking even quest
Unless you take the monorail
Then you get put to the test
Long walks between casinos
Through the homeless where they nest
Once you walk to where you're going
You need to sit down for a rest
The walkways littered with lost souls
Our society's open sores
selling water for a dollar
blocking all the hotel doors
tourists cueing up to see
shell and ball games by the score
We walk by glancing down on them
For we are Vegas ******
A city based on excess
Where the winner is not you
There are some that leave with money
But, in truth....there's very few
The derelict and drunkards
beg for change the whole day through
and their dogs beg from the beggars
It never changes....nothing's new.
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 2:08 PM UTC
He hates daylight with sense of a mole,
He has curtains all over his chambers, to preserve
His heart nocturnal, where he derives joy
As he does glory from his night shift
As a mortician at the city morgue,
Where I was deadly drunk one night,
And fallaciously declared dead by a nurse
And got dumped into this domain of the AG
Fellow drunkards who became sober to cry
For help out of the morgue, the AG clubbed
Them lethally to final death, forget of drunkardness
Another sick person un-convulsed back to life
He thrashed his skull with a menacing club,
Only two strong hits sent the misfortunate man
Back a really rigor mortis, finally dead,
I chose not to breathes loudly till dawn
When the dayshift mortician came on duty
I pleaded for his favour and sympathy,
He culled me out of death, I went home
Running swearing to myself never to drink again!
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 7:44 AM UTC
Player:
"Where the hell am I?"
DM:
"Precisely!"
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 5:27 PM UTC
Dulled senses, aching
Haunted by last night’s fumes
Dark eyes darker, despite
Shades reflecting daylight
Red eyes in the morning
Drunkards warning to a
Dawn tinged with regret
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 4:31 PM UTC
There's gonna be a gunfight
Out there in the street
All the stores closed early
To see who would be beat
The gunfighters got ready
Neither would back down
Each one gave the other
24 hours to leave town
Bifocal bill was ready
He said " That drunkards gonna pay !"
Then stood there shouting " Draw ya punk "
Facing the wrong way !!
The Whisky Kid stepped into sight
And staggered about the place
He looked bill up and down a while
Then fell down on his face !!
The crowd stood waiting eagerly
And as they booed and hissed
Bill squeezed off the first shot
To no surprise .. he missed !
The whisky kid then stood up.. swore
Cursed .. some foul abuse
Then called to bill " i need a drink !
" howz about we call a truce ?
Bill fired his gun repeatedly
Bullets spun off left and right
The whisky kid fell on the ground
The crowd went silent at this sight
The whisky kid just lay there
With a bottle in his hand
Bill grinned and said " The kid is dead !
But he was just too drunk to stand
The sheriff said " i guess that's that "
And as they turned to go
Bill's gun slipped from it's holster
And blew off his big toe !!.
Sep 6, 2010
Sep 6, 2010 at 12:56 PM UTC
My absolute destiny is to skull **** the **** out of life
To blast open the empty cleavage
To shatter all the deceptive phonographs
Those that you now consider “convenient modes of transportation”
Every dawn I will howl into your vibrating monotones
Your Dutch rambling will be reduced to ashes
Alone in a ***** hostel
You will be shocked by the sight of a desecrated ******
The fish scales still burning
Left in their natural preservatives
The lowest of all the adorned creatures
Is he who succumbs to mediocrity
An ordinary existence is worse then a wasted *** receptacle
If they cant see the truce in a setting sunlight
It is a sin to deteriorate comfortably
Making circles with the tracks of your laymen’s truck
of waking up happy with your plastic name tags
carved to resemble an ignorant life scrap
This **** disgusts me
It is the skull ******* that define a generation
Grab your sword a
and plunge deep into the night
A laudable combination of weapons of mass destruction
and drunkards
This is one less moment you spend being ordinary
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 11:40 AM UTC