"floodlight" poems
Maybe,
It’s not about finding
The light at the end of the tunnel,
Maybe,
The tunnel doesn’t even
End, and the light isn’t
The warm glow of a
Sun so high above,
But the dim illumination
From a floodlight, dusty,
And draped with cobwebs,
And maybe,
The floodlight isn’t there,
It’s shattered and its pieces
Bury into the skin of your
Bare feet as you step on them,
And continue to trek forward in
Darkness, towards the next light.
Maybe,
That’s a good thing.
You’re in a tunnel after all,
You can’t drown in blackness as
Easily as you can the sea.
Maybe,
The extra darkness
Makes the next floodlight
Brighter, and you’ll
Stop, and bathe in it a
While as your aching lings
Finally rest.
Maybe,
If you’re brave,
You’ll think you can
Live under the light,
Unaware that you’ll
Lose your knowledge
Of the darkness,
And when your light
Finally coughs,
And shudders
And dies,
You’ll get lost in the dark again,
Turned around,
Heading away from the new lights ahead.
Or maybe,
You prefer the shadows,
Carry a bat,
Or a golf club,
Or whatever blunt weapon
Catches your fancy,
And you smash each light
You pass,
Cutting the feet of all those
Behind.
Maybe,
There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel,
Just an endless string of floodlights,
Bright,
Shattered,
And lost.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
sitting hungry in the halls
reading holocaust novels with a morbid fascination
two identical scarves knitted by two identical souls;
both hungry for self-love, god-love and the night
one is rewarded by he who weaves the long, black tapestry of his own destruction; the other destined to sit lonely & forgotten
standing idly, lost in the dance of delusion
& moving wildly intoxicated
seeking love, seeking chase
giving flight to the demons of the age
the technological drug-fix of instantaneous communication
the lobotomy of both mental hemispheres
the horse collar choking struggle to escape clinging home and mother's spinning round & round
turning wheels and daisies
kicked up in the dust of the twilit road
retched from the stomachs of a thousand children lulled to sleep
by the sickly glow of orange floodlight
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 12:37 PM UTC
Most days self-doubt laps at my ankles
in pools that I hardly feel, with ripple effects
so small I don't even sift the footprints
in the sand. Other times it comes in waves,
striking me behind the knees. I wobble,
skim the water's surface with a grasping hand
that's never held on to anything except for broken
secrets, but I don't fall. The salt stings my eyes
but instead of closing them I resolutely
gaze at the sunset in the hopes that I could find
some written metaphor in the pink and orange clouds
about something like "starting over" or
"self-forgiveness". And then there are rare days
when there's an eclipse and I can't blind myself
with sunbeams or use an ultraviolet floodlight in my brain
to scare off all the lurking thoughts I can't pin-point
but know are there... that's when the self-doubt
comes in tsunami waves, and I don't fall but
sink like a wayward torpedo, farther than
any reaching hand could pull me
to shore, to normal rock bottom,
and I realize, as the oxygen slowly leaves my lungs,
as my vision darkens into obscurity,
that I've visited this abyss before.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
An introvert, I am not
I am just alone
Unattached from iniquity
Peace is all I seek
Reflections from adversities
I evaluate with a hardened stance
Nonspecific abandonments
I negotiate with my floodlight
In mental conflict with my soul
I split atoms and debate
Intuition overwhelms me
yet I accept all things out of my control
Like Wonder’s vision and spiritual being
I remain passionate while on my throne
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 7:03 PM UTC
Tarmac under foot
Bootprint in gum stain
Pigeon among thorns, warble from ghost
Wind between railings, xylophone of souls
Altar for vagrants, drunks and rovers
Graveyard for worms of steel
Footstep footstep footstep
Echo, silence, echo, silence
The Wait.
Out of the moonlight, floodlight
Bone of back against wall
Tentacle of mist, droplets on window
Thunder of wheels through the emptiness
Deafness, echo, silence
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 4:16 PM UTC
take rain from sky
take the way tall men straighten your stance
take the students of dance
see the little ballerina stretch her toes
see her mother warm with the floodlight
take your plea to the judiciary
take your eye to the statue of David
smear on the dust of Somalia
rub raw the frost of Croatia
refresh your aim in the heights of Angola
but do not stop only at this
breathe every impediment
trust every promise of clemency
stumble if you will
fall under cease-fire
take it all
take the watchmaker
bent over time
with fine tools
clasp each second
take the sculptor who
chisels and scalpels for the grandiose
later in your armchair
fold creases in your newspaper with care
be with every nourishment
be with the cloth of your nakedness
make sail for your harbour of origin
remember the milk of your mother
warm or cold or sweet if it is so
appease hunger
with the ambidextrous mouth
of a soldier
fed with death in his jungle
be the bystander, be the bi-partisan,
the ******* the timeless,
the dancer
be it all
breathe each increment
do it now
measure the infinite
the possible
MChallis © 2015
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
With all their long toes,
the trees stand in the floodlight --
of the poppy field.
Jul 24, 2023
Jul 24, 2023 at 4:24 AM UTC
Time an temperature...bottom right of
tele-visioning screen.
And now...torrent crystallized vertically, horizontally.
Fixity of the epochal grope--aegis to the
refining floodlight.
Reflected back to virtual reality, Jacob Boehme's
pewter dish.
Numbing, the iced pillow of cold illogic...slid
the presented head...melting.
Warming up and up to harmony and chaos--
reintegrated by and by Now.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 12:31 PM UTC
It is a sad situation, nobody could deny
could it be the hand painted tear
designed with one reason only - to terrify
to lay tracks, to spread a fear.
A clown is supposed to be funny - his profile
Bright, over-sized clothes to complete the plan
do not be fooled by the hand painted smile
portraying he is not that type of funny man.
Years ago it was a different story in the *** of white
you automatically smiled at his expression
held to the moment by the false floodlight
leading him down the path to depression.
His world, this craziness, leaves him alone
His false tears, his smile turning upside down
The expression now has turned to stone
and he lives in his own little ghost town.
This was not supposed to happen this quick
his life is taking on a tricky path ahead
Gone are the days of the laughter from slap-stick
leaving now misery from the big boots, bad tread.
He is growing old, failing to make an impression
he has ran out of smiles, empty of his own fuel
running out of money after each session
leaving him with debts and ridicule.
He does his best, seeking new times, new hope
but it is like everything else,the sign of the times
in a nut shell he can just about cope
the more you scream with laughter, the harder he climbs.
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 11:09 PM UTC
I went down the the gas station
for no particular reason,
heard the screams from the high school
it's football season.
empty lot the station faces,
will probably be there forever.
I climbed over the four foot fence,
I was trying to sever the tether.
moon in the sky, cold as a stone
spend each night in your arms,
Always wake up alone.
I lay down in the weeds, it was a real cold night.
I was happy until the overnight attendant switched on the floodlight.
walking home I was talking to you under my breath,
saying things I would never say directly.
I heard a siren on the road highway ahead.
kinda wish they'd come and get me
frost on the sidewalk, white as a bone
tried to get close to you again,
always wake up alone.
and as i was crossing our doorstep,
i hesitated just a moment there.
remembered the day we moved into our small house
'til the vision got too vivid to bear.
you were almost asleep, halfway undressed
i lay right down next to you
held your head against my chest.
and a guy with any kind of courage
would maybe stop to think the matter through
maybe hold you still and raise the question,
instead of blindly holding on to you.
but we crank up the heat
and you giggle and moan,
spend all night in the company of ghosts,
always wake up alone
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
Morning arrives without invitation
Crisp light pierce's the gap in the curtain
Blinding like a floodlight, targeting and harsh.
Songs of birds filter through sickeningly sweet
It is to pure, the day has yet to be tainted
With unnatural urgency and false anxiety's.
They remain unaware of this bliss, sleeping
As I should be, awake with uncertainty's quiz
I bare witness to this blank page, untouched.
Waiting patiently for today's inscription.
Jul 22, 2011
Jul 22, 2011 at 9:07 PM UTC
Stood lonesome beneath the old floodlight
Sweetest embrace, the Gods shone down
Forging great dramas in steel slabs
and returning home with a picture of Hollywood
I, sad-eyed fool, asked after you, and heard nothing
Though, in Benzedrine dreams I was gifted your scent
and awoke to the stench of ********** ***** and the powder dissolved
Ah, I have heard your voice
Yet you ignore mine
The great whale twisted in the alley, with biceps bulging
and tussling with hoodlums we were sent packing,
Awaiting us were the sterile walls of some grande hospital
Lined with officers, their pads and pens at the ready
Beds spinning, squinting under neon, docile
and confused
Bars and bars, from one t' other, flicking roaches into the gutter as we went
and howling at the harlots stood 'neath street lights, flickering
Poisoned in body, poisoned in mind, the spirit on it's way
Brick lanes and paddy wagons, urchins and knock-a-door run
The unshaven dealers, passing poor product to the children
and they, still in uniform, bleary eyed, satchels and sandwiches
We, tied, cuffed, stranded and free
Flags! The flags were a sight, satirical and stupefying
Patriotism always made me chuckle, it being so absurd
Yet her majesty still reigns supreme, have we no shame?
Oh justifiable mockery, tainted our streets, the names we know
How can one free one's country if one is but one person,
and how could one simultaneous be one million?
But even here in this mournful cell that layeth ten feet below, I am free, I may not know it yet, but I am...
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 6:37 PM UTC
In the last darkness
before dawn, after the party
I wander through the city
my familiar city
The sky is clear
I have no idea
what I would want
The river glides by
Empty quays, no traffic
silence around the monuments
and everything neatly swept
Naked people made
of marble and paint
live in the museum palaces
The princesses play cards
in the basement of the servants
and my steps resound
in the floodlight of time
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 3:06 AM UTC
wisps
of
smoke
blown
into
the
wind
tattoo
piercing
pushing
a rock
over
a hill
a candle
a torch
a floodlight
a flamethrower
imaging
projecting
thinking
breathing
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 1:47 AM UTC
A fox sweeps through the pool of light cast from the kitchen window
A soft woosh following the empty air
The trees are telling the sleeping birds secrets that the birds will never keep
The floodlight on the neighbors garage flickers nonchalantly
Wayward branches waking it
A car drives up the street, motor mumbling complaints about the cold
The driver holding a cigarette between two fingers
The streetlamp shivers in the stiff breeze
Light swaying over the ice-tarnished pavement
A stray cat tumbles across the driveway, swift feet tripping sensors
The floodlight comes on
And the house is sleeping
Groaning and shifting and snoring and sighing
The floodlight flickers then clicks off
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 11:56 PM UTC
Cave Painting
Prof. Jeanine Kowalski, PhD, Anthropology:
“I write until very late in my parents’ farmhouse, in my old bedroom.
I am visiting at Thanksgiving, writing my research.
I love my parents, to be here, my work.
“When I was seventeen, here, in my childhood bedroom,
Threatened with boredom, which my parents implied was the Prince of Darkness,
And to be fair I believed it myself, independently,
I did not honour the life and love commitment I made to a seventeen year old boy.
I gave up, temporarily, the love-courage of girls.
“The combine harvester working by floodlight in the field outside this room, is harvesting soybeans while I write.
The man who was that boy is driving the combine harvester at night, harvesting his parents’ crop, helping his parents.
He is driving back and forth by tractor floodlight and headlights and the headlights of the trucks aimed up the rows.
“I do not have to live without love or happiness or beloved children.
I am pretty, too. I got most of the gifts.
He has a wife and children and a life of his own.
If I was treacherous, I am, I am sure, forgiven, but still,
After even the fullest and truest justification, you must look at the thing itself,
Just the thing itself ….
“And to do that I would need the kind of love poetry which is hardest to find, the love poetry which is all we have left
Of the great art of cave painting, poetry not drawing its power from melancholy, but shining with wanting, with excitement and awe.
He had, of all the gifts, character.”
Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC
the blinds are shut,
the shutters closed,
nobody appears to be home,
but here we have a glow
from deep inside,
perhaps a glimmer of lost pride,
the light shone through the shutters,
a floodlight on the grass,
they were at home
oh at last!
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 12:50 PM UTC
There’s a certain blurry gentleness to denial
A Tylenol bottle cotton plug of protection
Muting the inevitable rattling,
A scratchy puff, a cloud,
Shoving it down into the bottle
Until it’s wedged Somewhere Else
now just a half a whisper you can almost hear
On a tv with no subtitles
I like it here.
Swaddled against such unpleasantness
Nestled and unfocused.
That’s the key.
Focus your attention on anything for too long and you’re *******
The spell will be broken
That little whisper
Now a shard of glass
Now unforgiving and sharp edged on your naked awareness
Now, it insists
Now
Hear me NOW
NO, ****
So many wishes spill out when you lose,
The blood of your unreason stinging your eyes like black pepper
Like a floodlight in a dark room
Pluck it out or shove it down
It will find a way to find you
Outside or inside you
In front of or behind you
You can’t escape this time
Or can you?
If you sink to the bottom you can hide awhile
With the anchor on your ankle
And the waves on every side caressing, pressing oh so gently
Like a kiss, like a smile.
Bliss endless and tidal
Like denial.
Dec 6, 2021
Dec 6, 2021 at 6:10 AM UTC
oh hello old friend
did you honestly think this was how it was supposed to end
with a **** and a touch
a kiss goodbye
left glimmering in the floodlight
a sense of fear
and a *** of gold
trusting for you to not let me go
but you let the bottle slip and fall
and you let me leave to another show
you let the blankets fall back into place
and you lead your heart the other way
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Walking on a lonely Street,
The shimmer of a Floodlight,
Marching to my Heartbeat,
Did I send you an Invite ?
An intriguing Character,
A leader one Moment,
Racing like a Competitor,
Underneath a loyal Servant.
Metamorphosis is your Forte,
A Giant bloating my Ego,
Or a worthless tiny Prey,
Teach me the art of Incognito.
At the break of Dawn,
An awareness Emerged,
A Shadow revealing a Truth Withdrawn,
Enlightenment is Light & Darkness, Merged.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 9:35 PM UTC
A life seen in wide-angle
is a floodlight
chewing away the collective cataracts
of ignorance
only to spit them back out
and make a stew
with the sloppy remains.
(please,
just promise you won't eat me
'til I'm dead.)
Apr 28, 2018
Apr 28, 2018 at 4:57 PM UTC
A painful unsilence
Every whisper sounds a cannon
Screams and shouts
Only heard from within
Soft cotton
Turns to velcro on my skin
The floodlight from the sky
Washed colour off my face
And I still wonder
Why my heart begins to race
Feb 12, 2025
Feb 12, 2025 at 7:30 PM UTC
After the floodlight had poured me into the rain and the sound of the neighbours who were at it again
diminished,
I finished fishing around for the dog ends I'd dropped
and in the abscess of needs where the postulate reads on her own
I lit up a smoke and as the air curled about me
I knew that
not one would doubt me, no one would shout out and call me the traitor.
Was it fair wind or fate that had blown me?
too late for me now,
but once I stood proud at the prow of my ship,
the Master
who all would obey.
The story's an old one
and too often an old often told one,
one to frighten the children and
will them to sleep.
My heart isn't in it no more
I set my eyes to the tide
switch on the lamp at my side and
begin a new chapter.
Feb 16, 2016
Feb 16, 2016 at 4:09 AM UTC
Words carry me and coerce me
Drive me further away and on
They ever emplore me
Never employ me
Help to diversify me
And occasionally to yawn
Not just the at but with the person
I am impersonating myself
A staggering man
A sentenceless soul
A distant floodlight casting clouds
No word were ever a cry for help
Jan 4, 2021
Jan 4, 2021 at 3:33 PM UTC