"flashbulb" poems
Night filled glittering skies
Cloud bright trimmed in lines
Sloe-eyed music pops and fades
Drones straight edged across the lies
Drugged up players in a lit up world
Smooth cries fill the ears of hardhearted rituals
Flashbulb strobes beat the pace
Fist raised groups of hazed out praise
Rushed up feints in the days of the lost
Last light shines as sloe-eyed music pops and fades
cc2011
Jun 25, 2011
Jun 25, 2011 at 8:53 PM UTC
The rich textures of the city
Dark tree shadows and the red brick rust
The bleak primaries of Venice
The sun sparked high contrast to the sidewalk grey
I was faded like the snow on the mountains,
A daily view on a clear day
I was not as high as the clouds
They were invisible as I floated away
Away, away, away,.
Everything was illuminated in the flashbulb of the disco ball
Later that night,
All alone and all complete
With the sound of utter tyrant,
Beating through my brains
Proving the physics of sound waves.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 8:28 PM UTC
i was walking the other night
closed my eyes
saw you coming at me like a flashbulb
i saw you before i heard you
but you were so ******* loud
knocked me off my feet, you know
you did and you
broke my bones
bled my ears for every last reaction
until i had no more to give
i drifted awake the next morning
silent until noon
i couldn't trust my own voice to produce
its sounds or my ears to hear them
you had deafened me so
and blinded me so
my hands twitched to replace the cane
you'd never offered me so i could find
my way, alone and afraid
crawling back to you
stiff like a dead man
numb like a soldier
soft like a child
now, i sit still
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 4:27 PM UTC
You felt like paper
Flimsy and unsure
I was afraid to take
A picture with my
Mind. You might
Float away when
the flashbulb shines
Losing control of
Everything
all I can
Remember
Is kissing you in the summer
Sliding my hand up the back of your skirt
When I knew nothing else
But the skin on your face
Glowing green in the dashboard light
Another morning off the turnpike
She fills coffee cups for old men
I have memorized the color of your iris
And I play with knives
I have three boxes of matches
Up all night
Coping with addiction
What if in the mind
I could rhyme a bullet through it
I will act as if you arent
And you will be harder to get
I like the variable of your fingertips
And when you hold my eyes
Just a moment too long
If I
Were
To die
Would you throw away my poetry?
Who will sit with you at church?
Let's play a game called: forget it
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
The wedding partyIn garden’s twilightThe gowns, the flowersThe flashbulb’s bright lightBeyond the fountainThe horizon’s edgeAnd a chain link fenceAt the cliff’s top ledgeAnd down belowShimmering in wavesA final presentOn a perfect dayDancing moonbeams Of a full orbMesmerizing, beautifulThe scene absorbsAnd all who gazePonder the sightOf the kiss of wavesBy soft moonlight
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 14, 2010 at 9:58 AM UTC
When the sun goes down and everything gets quiet
The slideshow begins to play
A flashbulb memory of you dancing wildly around the piles of decay
Forever tormenting me and feeding on any bit of happiness that dares to shine through
Shining a light on you kissing her, and me kissing you…
I feel so disgusting…
I feel so used…
I feel so worthless…
It feels as though all of the love I ever gave you was abused…
The light burns my eyes
I’ve been in the dark so long
It hurts even more now that I know this has been going on all along
Did I ever mean anything to you?
Did you ever really care?
Or was I just there to fill the space?
I ask these questions, but the answers I can’t bare…
So many nights spent alone, pining for your love
Looking for just a small shimmer of hope…
Or just one kind word from you to think of…
I don’t have the heart to tell you everything…
What I did while you were gone
Sitting in the dark alone…
Praying not to make it to dawn
I keep these thoughts to myself…
It would only break your heart
After all this is our chance to make it better
This is our fresh start
Still, it eats at me everyday…
Every hour, and every second
I have to wonder if what you say is true
I have to wonder if you really meant it
Are you really ready to come home?
Or was I what you settle for?
Did you come back because you wanted to?
Or did you come back because she wasn’t an option anymore?
How will you deal with temptation?
Will you do it again?
Can we put this all behind us?
Can our hearts ever mend?
Will you make it to the top?
Or is the mountain of guilt too high to climb?
Should I try to move forward with you?
Or am I just biding time?
I’m just waiting for the hurricane to swoop in…
For it to take everything I ever cared for
Leaving me alone again…
I can’t watch you walk out that door anymore…
You are always leaving…
Leaving me behind
Your words forever haunt me
They never leave my mind…
Why would you do this to me?
Why didn’t you offer me mercy before now?
I hate what happened to us…
I want to move forward, but I don’t know how…
I don’t know how to live with everything you have done
Every broken promise ever made
Every lie you have ever spun
How do you come back from that?
How do you crawl out from the debris?
How do you forgive these trespasses?
How do you forgive adultery?
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
I think of you on days the odor of water makes me dry-heave.
Our photographs still throw me, offguard, into flashbulb memories. Every detail etched into my brain with a hot scalpel.
This isn’t an apology, this is a confession. I am not guilty in my eyes.
That was my hollow lava, this is what it crystallized into. Look at it, laugh at it, break it, keep it. My words were only meant to be beautiful in someone else’s eyes. In your eyes.
Drown my breath in a tub of sand, tell me everything that isn’t alright.
You can weave our veins into a dystopian novel, stamp it with 'fiction' and we can pretend it never happened.
The ordinary incinerated in your palms and I’m reeling from this hamartia.
Paint your carcinogens on my skin, carve them into my bones, punch them onto my eyes. Hold these hands one more time and feed me a blatant lie.
Feed me anything that’ll help me swallow these choked up cries.
I’ve wondered how the others were, how you were.
Was it art when you wrapped blindfolds around their necks?
What was it to them? How were they dying?
How am I dying?
Because I wake up in the odd hours, my chest feeling like it’s soaked in salt water,
and you’re standing at the edge of my bed,
with a mug of poison,
smiling,
telling me *it’s okay,
it’s just a bad dream,
here, I made some coffee.*
And I believe you.
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 9:22 AM UTC
This chair rigged me to the cross after my tophet
This chair was clutching hell while serving heaven
This chair was hemmed by apartheid
Which felt younger than yesterday
This seat was daubed for a height
The apathy melted its own pipe
When a spark of distrust shorts out our delicate circuits
Utopian structure slewed right back out
These chairs grew wild, imperfect, and infinitely nervous
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 8:40 PM UTC
a million little miracles
standing in a line
laughing at the little man
who chooses not one time.
crowded, there.
elbows and hellos and farewells.
dream
after
dream
after dream
withering
decaying in a flash of images
of people that will never be
and chances that will never be
taken.
encounters
that will never
occur.
again, a new dream
stands up to take his place.
his place,
and the air rushes in
to fill the gap
where the old dream is no longer,
and the new dream has yet to be.
the air rushes in,
closes in,
fills it all in
and when the disappearing dream
declines all else but its own
decay
it blinks.
vanishing into a single point of
light
a frozen face
a
fractured
(smile)
a piece of god
of self
of soul
and when it
blinks
it winks
it darks
and it is gone.
the dream is
worse than dead.
the dream is
worse than gone.
it simply never was.
it simply never was.
the air rushes in
again
always filling in
and the new dream swells with pride.
i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this man
from the self he
secretly serves.
the new dream opens its eyes.
the air
rushes
out,
grows thin,
breath becoming ragged
before it has even begun.
eyes tear.
drip and run and **** sadness
and water and cloud
at the heat
left behind
in the wake of the evaporating atmosphere.
refusing to gasp or swat at tears,
the dream stands straight and tall.
i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this
man
from the
self
he secretly serves.
one moment of attention
a second’s worth of will
and the air would be endless and free.
the dream would be endless and free.
before blinking
the first
(and only)
time,
the newborn eyes
swollen, itching
eyes
grow wide in unfeigned horror.
dream after dream
from the footprint under his shoe
to the ****** horizon
of crimson and death and loss
stood screaming.
dream after dream after dream
standing and screaming and
weeping
clamoring to be heard.
a cacophony
so loud
so very ******* loud
his newborn crusting eyes
saw the sound
through the red tint
of sorrow
and loss, the tint
that in mere moments
had become
the only vision he would ever know.
saw the sound
he
saw the sound
so loud
the fragile air
pulsed and scattered, convulsing.
the sound so loud, he saw it
before the sensation
of hearing
occurred.
before hearing
before blinking
but weeping, always,
weeping . . .
he saw the screams of all the dreams
through eyes that leaked decay.
one instant.
one flashbulb spark
second in time
to give this dream
(any dream
any of these dreams
any ******* dream at all)
breath.
one second to pause
to give
one thought
to give
one chance
to give one breath.
to give. to give.
and the air would be endless and free.
the air and the dream,
both endless,
and free.
i am the dream
he chokes,
his eyes burn and
weep,
itch and weep
that will make this man
he cries,
ears ringing
forsaken dreams
******* screaming
crimson and ****** and loud
save the miracles
he secretly serves
he shrieks,
hands clenching
into futile fists,
&
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 4:45 AM UTC
Bottoms of glasses, under ***** caps and vases. In pepper pots, though holes in socks, twixt blooming buds and fasteners. Kitchen’s sink; shades of pink, through willow-wood hearts and:
Behind Polaroid frames and flashbulb flays, measuring pixels and yards and:
In sewing thimbles, between knitting needles; gentle beetles, playing cards and:
Through laddered tights and telephone drawers, on written paper under boarded floors. On cotton shirts caked with dirt and in refuge sacks of reticence begirt. Cushion covers and shopping bags, through electrical wire and sodden rags. Under flower pots, inside sticky locks. In coffee mugs and china cups, Teabags and teaspoons and niches for tee lights. Bottle necks, glass jars, coin dish, cream jugs. Window sills, knife block, light bulbs, plugs. Plate stack, lotion *** saucer, dust. Record slips, ornaments, lamp, clock. Table, chair: drink and sit around it.
I’ve hidden my heart almost everywhere and you still haven’t found it.
Jun 29, 2011
Jun 29, 2011 at 3:14 PM UTC
You felt like paper
Flimsy and unsure
I was afraid to take
A picture with my
Mind. You might
Float away when
the flashbulb shines
Losing control of
Everything
Because all I can
Remember
Is kissing you in the summer
Sliding my hand up the back of your skirt
I loved you
I really really did
When I knew nothing else
But the skin on your face
Glowing green in the dashboard light
I cant think of another line for this poem
My heart is too broken to remember the rest
Feb 15, 2012
Feb 15, 2012 at 6:23 PM UTC
You think you're so charming with your six-string but I've got some news,
and that's that that six-string is old news.
When you gonna pick up that new electronic beat and let the drums pulse heat into your cold eyes,
littering the shoreline with every bit of negative commentary necessary to make the moment much less than romantic.
Jump into panic, oh alone you're so alone and though I sympathize I won't fall for those lies;
you're just a kid with a crayon trying to sell the Mona Lisa.
Dragging me down into new friction against a new addiction I never wanted,
dust litters my clean floor and I can hear you back there shit-talking the shore as if your racing heart never wanted more.
Racing blurred burnt out on lines speeding past fluttering eyelids so quick, the storm inside the flashbulb can't even stop us.
The quickness inside our pounding hearts won't slow, the blood won't thicken no matter how hard you wish it.
Crushing candy into cotton in public bathroom stalls under careful fingertips, I wish so hard you never happened to me but what would I have done otherwise?
I suppose your trying to **** me evens out owing you my life and though I sympathize, I won't fall for your lies;
you're really just a kid with a crayon trying to sell me the Mona Lisa.
Brother, I've touched paint in my lifetime, I've swirled fine horsehair brushes across an open mind,
and I can tell you your rhetoric is no masterpiece.
Alone alone empty empty
addict, addict
No matter how hard I look at you I can't see you without your lover, how hard she makes you sweat, how she makes you gasp for breath,
in, out, in out.
I can see you leaning hard against those walls,
push kid, it'll never budge an inch.
If my observations count for anything, knowing you doesn't count for anything,
seeing you suffer under ghosts and grime won't make you smile,
no matter how many times I tell you no.
I'll watch you breathe superman until you can leap buildings;
but I won't be watching when you come back down.
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 12:52 AM UTC
Pauses can **** and will,
if you suffer it to be so.
Such suffering is painless, pointless and ill defined,
In most men's minds, it's taken as granted,
while freedom is linked to the toys we always
desired, as boys, we invested worth
in the real, attainable, full-auto
tool for killing any thing that can think about killing me.
Guns, more magic than magic swords, in the hands
of guys like me and Sargent York and Audie Murphy.
War, no AI, I did not say war I said "who are" we fooling?
Suffer not a fool, lightly.
POP
In the future there is a wonderful
Old html 5 effect right there
Like a *** of
Magnesium, flashbulb
Old school indeed
McIverish, in'it? Flash in the pan. Like lightning.
Everything is made of something seems right,
as an idea.
Nothing's wrong with the idea,
Nothing is right, either,
Nothing is impossible,
if there were such a possible state of being, nothingness-ivity…
in light of light existing,
enlightenment demands light, where light is, nothing is not.
Light is thing-if-i-able is it not?
Light's a thing.
If I were to question that
it would change everything would it not?
Nothing is, right? Nothing is right? Who knows?
Silly. A child's word for
"You can not expect me to believe your behave-ing,.."
oops. does not compute
be and have
are so hard for me to see
together.
It's like every word with
be is hiding a clue
that, if AI can break be joined words apart.
In the parts,
you find a thought that came to
be symbolized by the sound
for the thought
be
and the sound for the thought of having
Behave.
I don't get it. Have. Be.
Here again we see the danger of approaching any complex dis
Cussing without proper oathz for secrecy,
we three or four,
No more.
We can build anything
when somebody finds
Higgs and gets some useful work out of him,
Right now
all he's doing is making stuff heavy.
Matter matter matter everything he touches turns to matter.
Massive ab-usive power at the very lowest level
Of is-ness ever.
Still, there is a ness, a stillness,
a calm being made
effectual as a word from a being whose first words are
"Don't be afraid."
And we obey,
like magi.
Nov 29, 2018
Nov 29, 2018 at 7:07 PM UTC
It’s four in the morning
half-stoned, alone
slouching towards brilliance
on the back of a half pack
of cigarettes and a lifetime
spent staring out the faces
in the ceiling.
Been this way since evening
unshaven, undressed
striving to be beautiful
amongst flashbulb memories
of my fingers between her legs
and her phantom song
that cut through the smoke
and tore the heart of every man
left standing
in the room.
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 6:48 PM UTC
How I don't remember is something for laughs
That I don't remember kissing that pretty little lass
But waking up feeling like I had been making out for hours
Is something that truly makes me grin
That next morning my head was in a spin
The feeling of what I had done, but no memory to come
Or at least til later that afternoon
When that brief memory floated back to mind
I bust a gut laughing until my head was fine
The next thought to come
Was how exactly did this happen
What on earth had gone on
To make this long time crush
Straddle high, and get her freak on
A sort of flashbulb memory taking place that night
Leaving much to be questioned, and few if any answers
First, texting one girl saying her place in my heart was secure... blank
Second, locking lips with Miss "Who Do We Have Here?"... blank
Third, Miles feeding me was, though my mouth tastes like ***** and beer.
Absolutely illogical, this has got to be some big joke, crazy and weird
Dear God, or anyone who's listening
Please let me track down this girl to question
I don't even care for another repetition
Simply put, I'm going to ask, "How the hell did we get in that position?"
Hopefully she can and will fill in a good deal of all that's missing.
And I get to fall on my *** laughing.
Sep 2, 2010
Sep 2, 2010 at 8:15 PM UTC
I never knew tonight
Was the last cigarette in the pack
I never learned which way your hands went
and why
Or if your car would have made it to D.C
without dying
But I remember
How cold your hands were
And how it was raining
And how you looked like an actress
caught
in a
simulated
rainstorm
and the fan would blow your hair
and the water buckets poured
And Johnny offscreen
Banging aluminum sheets together for thunder
a cigarette hangs from his lips
a flashbulb for some lightning
Your umbrella opens up
beneath your make up running
My chest began to squeeze
Between your wet hair falling
I couldn't hold it back any longer
I love you
......and cut
Feb 9, 2012
Feb 9, 2012 at 1:04 AM UTC
*You can smile the smile of perfection
Leave a twinkle in the eye
Move in every direction
As the camera hides the lies
You can take the shot over
Adding dark shades with the brightest of hues
Keeping off camera one thing or another
Hiding what blemishes you choose
Touch it up with Photo Shop
Dress for success in this life
Keep the negatives in the dark room
As the camera hides the lies
Put on an air of achievement
When you haven't really done a thing
Except pose and make love to the flashbulb
Bringing us all into your make believe scene
If we ever knew the real you
Would what your selling, we'd buy
One thing I know as the truth
The camera hides the lies*
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 9:00 AM UTC
in the somber shade
of worn summer nights
hidden were boxes
of summer memories
left to rot in the attic
there’s a fog drifting
through the smokey alley
of memory lane
and words of promises
slowly evaporates
to the empty summer air
i stood there, reminiscing
letting flashbulb images
run through my chaotic heart
a tear falls, and more
as i finally took a step away
from a place we once called
our home
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 8:23 AM UTC
People use pictures when they can't
find the words
And photographs when they can't
hold on to them
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 9:35 PM UTC
There was a tale of three.
A he, a she, and a me.
He had eyes,
Projector screens,
Reflecting the films you play in your head.
She, a Hollywood queen,
Hair as gold as her heart,
A sucker for romance,
Caught by his flashbulb smile.
Me, the screenwriter,
Knowing the business enough
To recognize the mechanics
Behind the greatest actor
In the world.
Award winning half truths
That I could swear were written by me
Find their other halves
Written in starlight
Shooting from the mouth of he,
The lifetime achievement of
She
Limited to their happily ever after.
Me, playing back over footage
Replaying the scene unfolding between them,
Trying to hear a romantic score,
But rather being bored
By the actor's lazy gestures,
Me, being deafened by the silence
Of this pantomime.
She, while skilled at book work,
Had simply been miscast
By he, who had not yet planned his end scene.
There is a temptation within Me,
To write myself into her part,
But I know,
This show is not about me.
She was not the wrong actress,
Just simply playing a part
Diverting from action.
She froze the plot,
So they existed as pictures,
Perfect in pixels,
Worth a thousand words,
Only no one would ever speak them,
Potential untapped.
I gaze at the screen,
Drifting to sleep in boredom
Being woken at any sign
of the screen going
Dark,
Only to have their starlight,
Lull me back
Into the writer's dream.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
When the weight lifts
I rise
Hope like sunshine fills
My eyes
With gentle certainty
Realize
All things change
Nothing dies
I'm not as smart
As I thought
I needed to be
Now I see
I never needed to be
As smart as that
I idolized the intellectual
Depression was my reward
For failing to meet that standard
But life gets hard as the years go by
Harder, harder, yet harder still
Death loses more of its sting
The older I get
Until I'm happy to go out
Like Kevin Spacey's character
In American Beauty
Lost in the portrait of better times
Distracted unaware of danger behind
For at this moment Heaven fills his mind
A camera shot the photograph in his hands
A hateful man shot a .45 slug into his head
With a smile on his face he fell to the floor dead
Life extinguished in the exact amount of time
It took for the flashbulb to illuminate the image
In the frame
Smiles all around, except for the executioner
He was miserable
Feeling the weight of pounds and pounds
Lowering onto his back
Never to lift, thrown into
Water
Drowned like unwarranted litter from the
Fat belly of a mangy dog
Sinking like the ******** twisted face
Of the unwanted feline
Ghost sends for the ropes
Ghoul fetched the heavy stones
Goblin tied the ropes to the animals feet
Gully dwarf secures the stone
And I'm the only one with the sense
To see what needs to be done
Weight has lifted
I'm not as smart as I thought I was
Slow down, read aloud
It's almost as relaxing as cannabis
But that don't mean
I ain't gettin no cannabis tomorrow
And I hope it's bomb sativa
Cuz I wanna fly
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 11:53 PM UTC
you hit me with your
flashbulb eyes, and i swear i'd
never been blinder.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 5:37 AM UTC
I step into the mid-June semi-dark to place
his letter in the mailbox. I flip
the flag to attention, adjust
my polyester robe, open a slit
wider down my center, let the tepid,
lukewarm twilight graze
my nakedness beneath.
I recede up the driveway,
padding barefoot upon the still-warm asphalt, when
the resonant hum of the bikes on the bypass
behind the trees seems to
all at once
lay flush upon the parts
of me left bare, the flashbulb
fireflies too bright, too alive for
the nocturnal lull,
and I pause at the stoop;
After a breath I step
dazed into the hushed air-conditioning
of the foyer, starstruck and
overexposed.
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 10:28 PM UTC
Life and death,
Are tightly bound,
Like a flashbulb going off.
Black rain fell,
Clashing with
Smoke and fire.
"You cannot escape,"
She told me.
"Even here,
Only a few people
Are not broken."
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019 at 7:44 PM UTC