"forgeries" poems
From the visions of sparrow vanguards
that fly insatiably onward.
From the tombs of ancient hearts draped
in flowing, moth-eaten fabric.
From the fighter jets stalling somewhere
above solitary and succinct farmlands.
From the bottom of a broken purple
sunset that lies embossed on my brain.
From the silliest half-thought left
unvoiced in the vagrant light of a damp
and desolate lamp lying in a landfill.
From several mouths at once.
From oracles cross-legged in caves.
From the gills of a catfish on a hook.
From mythical forgeries and the perjurer's tongue.
To the subdued hope resting in a
trembling hand gripped round its pen.
To satisfaction that is oneness that
seems to never arrive but is there
all along.
To the peaks of the Himalayas.
To my spidered desk light, shallow with doubt.
To my flustered and torrential page.
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 9:39 PM UTC
___________________________
*shake, cold, ****
**Make me believe these forgeries spitting off your tongue,
thinking I am someone to purely award you my love.
when you're nothing more then trash**
no, stop, crys,
**"Make me?"
make you not take the vial of my youth, you hold it,
worthless to me, but worth everything you still hold over me.**
years, passed, two,
**Make the memories go away,
of all the things from that awful day,
you hold nothing and everything over me,**
black-out, leg-spaz, cry-now,
**Make me lose control of myself,
"do you really know yourself?
what is happening to you?"**
count, tiles, breathe,
**Makes me know the length and width
of every ceiling, every floor, every wall, of every room,
I'm stuck inside of as I struggle to just breathe,**
in, and, out,
**makes me wonder why I can't do these simple things,
makes me remember all my other flaws and mistakes,
makes it even harder to breathe,**
please, help, me,
**Make me look someone down,
and beg with my eyes,
for help, for something**
giving, trust, hard,
**makes it look easy when its not,
I can say it all that I want,
but do I mean it?.**
Talk, to, me,
**Make me tell you what is wrong,
tell me what to say,
tell me its okay when its not,**
it's, not, okay,
**make me argue with you,
make me have to tell you the truth,
my past and pain,**
you're, just, helping,
**Make me help myself,
make me learn to do things I need on my own,
Make me not feel bad for getting help.**
you, did, good
**Make sure I tell myself,
"because no one else is there to tell you,
how good you did for getting through,"**
I, Make, Me
**make myself do the things I need,
I no longer rely on you or anyone for these,
I'm not a child anymore sweetie,**
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 12:16 PM UTC
Hound-dog swallowing poly-coated pills, filling up, bloated, falling off stage, and into a more permanent and lasting Graceland, to be surrounded by another’s verse.
I only enjoy what comes from my own head, a modern Samuel Johnson, no matter what happenstance brought about to be said, a cage free Bronson. Hearing false verse through a syllable count, hoisted onto adverbs easy to mount. Congratulate a lesser mind, reaching commonalities most could find. Ease in creation, opens floodgate doors, distributing specs of grace through misworded spores. Life, love, and the pursuit of vanity, leaves simplified lumps of prosperous thought riddled with anonymity. The invention of despair overwhelms those ungifted, and leaves them erecting stale forgeries they grifted.
In the wee small hours of escaping light, a crooner steadies his hands as he falsifies his originality, reading off the music from another’s sheet.
A change in topic is something to hold as worthy, though in a modern context of prosaic prose, such good fortune can be exceptionally elusive. Broken hearted symptoms shared through a hash-tag, rerouted and worded, to fit an illiterate youth’s lesser diction, reposted to approach validity, only to be called forth as an original soul, one to revere, and hold as an entitled fraction of logic.
The piano man knocks out a tune, hit in stride with vocal conduct, inspired and laid in pen by a lesser man propelled by better wording, given up for another’s career.
Market’s over-saturated with teenage sonnets, weeping over cut wrists, ended (Victorian inspired) trysts, refreshed and brought back around until sentimentality vomits. Themes used to run rampant with fresh ingenuity, made extinct, occurred in a blink; now every poem has some congruency.
The grapevine got entangled, getting involved with a troublemaker, providing the soundtrack, using another’s words.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
in yours, I find the holiest of permissions.
in mine, slips of paper.
and in that of this
oft cut
child-
the least of our forgeries.
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 11:58 AM UTC
Alright lads here it comes full truth unvarnished
lately I feel life is tarnished,
with this Patina upon my soul,
I tell you all I won't grow old.
We won't be sharing drinks and dandling grandkids boys,
this world is grey, I'm null and void,
underappreciated hated unemployed,
a jaded unappreciative oul ****
yeah I deserve that-I can't front
no more lies but bitter truths,
lets rip these forgeries out by roots,
lets force this Gall and Hemlock down,
a deadly cocktail but I've found,
once choked down I'm Numb...comfort cold,
to you I'll leave behind I know,
believe me please...just let me go
Chorus/Sample 2
"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"
all right lads "order! down in front"!
a lot to take in all at once?
I know I know my lying smile
has fooled you all but it's been awhile
I'm sorry Bro I really am,
I tried my best to face the flames
but now I'm falling, no more games
no more lies Procrastination,
no more ******** obfuscation,
took the Beck Depression inventory...scored 100%!
been through a few too many ****** up life events,
more just round the corner-the Reaper awaits,
but It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
"So if you love me let me go
And run away before I know
My heart is just too dark to care
I can't destroy what isn't there
I only wish you weren't my friends
Then I could hurt you in the end
my own was banished long ago
It took the death of hope to let you go"
The End?
May 17, 2019
May 17, 2019 at 7:05 AM UTC
Dear girl on the groyne,
Forgive the forgeries upon my memory.
Forgive the feebleness of my firsthand.
Forgive the feeding of my frenzy.
Forgive the freneticism of my prose.
Take truth from the diction of my lens.
I trust you will grant me a fair hearing,
And offer me the clemency of purpose—
To once more capture or conquer
The presence of Iris herself in your greens.
Grant me a jury of judicious witness,
The pounding of the gavel as grace
For the crime of picturing the presence.
I bid the remainder of my fruitless fall.
Dear girl on the groyne,
Has your blacksmith forgotten you?
Left to entice waves at shutter speed,
Forged in flame,
Chiselled and tamed on Vulcan high.
Through his neglect has the time arrived
To render and share for all or none—
As Pandora, of beauty, of curiosity,
Doomed to open the box
For me and my eye.
Dear the man on the beach,
Do you have any sense of shame?
As if the still frame holds the truest face
The gods of our minds do not claim to fame,
But cower and quiver with a shout of shrill.
I beam bounty in the rays of the sun,
Watching the groyne creak and stutter
As the waves breach and mutter—
A voice of too great dread to utter.
I sense your presence, your song,
The siren’s call to prayer.
The screech of the zoom and focus,
Lulling and drawing a sailor of despair.
But it cannot be enough
To return the green to my grey.
It is but a mirror of Death,
For the true beauty lies beneath the skin.
As the waves crash,
And the wind howls,
And the flash—
Our moment in time, you and I—
A fleeting visit in a luminal light,
Between silence and soul,
Of a tune forgotten in the sands of us.
Yet for the sea, a distant whisper
Of a moment—
The opening of a story.
Was it a moment of theft?
A moment of true witness?
Good enough to frame?
Was I truly seen?
Or just a clutch for transcendence?
And still,
The tide remakes the shore.
The groyne groans.
The flash fades.
You carry the image.
I carry the knowing.
We both were framed.
We both were fire.
Apr 6, 2025
Apr 6, 2025 at 6:12 AM UTC
I am new to this site and when I saw your work I was excited! You wrote in one of your poems
"I try to remember you,
Through the cold memories.
I try to forgive you,
Of all the forgeries."
This line is exactly how I felt about someone but could never really find the perfect words to describe it and there it is! Keep up the good work :)
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
As the days pass me by like rush hour traffic,
I remain standing still,
Watching people come and go,
Seeing from afar there smiles and tears,
As I stand here, I wonder if somewhere, someone is watching me stand here?
A innocent bystander to this cruel world,
Watching it inflict it’s pain on these tortured souls,
As I stand watching this world go by,
I see the tears in her eyes,
I see the flowers in his hands,
I see old age catching up with the elderly,
And I see the youth self destructing,
I’m watching this world go by me,
And I bare witness to what these people are going through,
The glazed eyes of the women who keeps her eyes set on her destination,
Trying to avoid any suspicious looks from strangers like myself,
I see the young man who is dressed smartly, yet keeps fixing his attire, showing all the insecurities his clothes can’t hide,
In the corner, I watch two children playing with one another, the optimum of innocence,
The closest thing to purity on this world,but for how long will it remain,
I look to my left and see a broken man, without a home or food in his mouth or money in his pocket, only a suspicious looking bottle,
Little does he know, he’s not any different from the women with the glazed eyes,
he may be drowning his sorrows, she may be hiding them,
It does not change the fact that what they are feeling is the same,
This world holds so much emotion, but we all try to stop and analyse it,
We all walking this disbelief that their pain is more important than yours,
They are mistaken, for it is what we feel that makes us remotely human,
It’s what makes all the lies, all the hurtful actions and all the wrong decisions normal,
We are all representations of our own failures,
Understanding that the stranger next to you in the bus, train, ATM line or restaurant are struggling with there very own existence,
We are all but finely painted fakes of our original paintings. Trying to hide the flaws and present a pretty picture of perfection which does not exist.
May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010 at 8:14 AM UTC
I'm feeling pretty broken down
This morning.
I woke with the Sun
But my bones aren't working.
I've fallen in love
With the smokey feeling
So what can I do now
But stare at the ceiling?
Now I'm slowly walking home
And I can't see in the light.
Should wash this out of my hair
No sleep for me tonight.
That's just the truth of it
Forgive my forgeries
Please bring the rain
To come and purge me
I hid my lies
Within my honesty
This air is poison
The poison that will cure me.
I was silent as I walked
Silent as I lay
Some disease of my mind
Though I don't know the name
Her head down below
Heat between my legs.
But all that I lust for
Are the fumes
That rot my brain.
She left alone
As I lay there asleep
I didn't want her back
Not for anything
She was a lie
And she always will be
I can't go back there
Back to the edge of the city
It left me stranded
But I don't I care now.
All I want is the smoke
And the water
To drag me back down.
Nov 30, 2011
Nov 30, 2011 at 9:17 PM UTC
The classic metal artist.
The man of sharpened tongue.
With each lick a picture,
He paints upon your canvas.
The rarely appreciated work of a little understood poet.
Painting poetry.
Though many would seek to emulate what one stroke of his brush may convey,
Only few possess the means to reproduce the sheer purity of emotion in every sweep, line and dot.
Many forgeries gain more applause,
Yet the painter allows them spotlight.
The man who paints in the shadows is rarely seen hanging in public halls.
Seeking not fame, fortune or acknowledgement.
He paints only for purpose.
Love the painter, love the poet.
Though the man himself is flawed.
He will not cry for anyone, nor pray nor care nor wonder.
He does not put his brush away, after all.
Blood does paint the prettiest pictures.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 9:59 PM UTC
permanence is upon us.
one who paces.
predator
that I never took
for god.
-
on the inside
the predator
I attacked
personally
became the world
where the window
into the world
of hazing
opened.
-
in infancy
I possessed
a belonging.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 3:35 PM UTC
-
Posit
—
_a forging of youths
into un—potential works
of future creativity
so they may
negatively contribute
to_ human _foundations
for generations to come
-
outsourced
to become forgeries
of their parents
by allowing them to be
~programmed~
by-way-of
software updates
from developers with
foreign interests_
?
you should know
by now how these things
will usually end up—
having watched enough
television to recognize
the ancient ruins of
tomorrow...
.
Jul 13, 2021
Jul 13, 2021 at 6:21 AM UTC
I switched off my android self
It wasn't akin to cutting a cord
It took only a few seconds to sever the link
And there's perhaps people I shall never hear of again.
but in my madness I reduced them to lines of script and a resumé,
coupled with a profile photo
forgeries of self, convoluted creations
Am I more than binary code?
© Copyright David Bosworth March 2013
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 2:20 AM UTC
I live in a world where saying something is preferred. After selecting poems from my previous fourteen full length collections and placing them in my recent The Women You Take From Your Brother, there was bound to be some wreckage. My newest collection, Choice Echo, is that wreckage. I’m behind it, and bound for aftermath. Self published, 141 pages.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/choice-echo/paperback/product-21852599.html
sample poems, from:
forgeries
permanence is upon us.
one who paces.
predator
that I never took
for god.
-
on the inside
the predator
I attacked
personally
became the world
where the window
into the world
of hazing
opened.
-
in infancy
I possessed
a belonging.
humanitarian pause
not as common
is the dream
stuck
in the man.
not all wounds
report back.
I’d look for my father
if I knew where
to begin.
with my mother
it’s like my mother never happened.
I am the man whose missing woman
was bedridden
first.
I depend on my safety.
I worship a sleep that worships.
my brother feels no pain. a characteristic
he blames
on my sister’s
begging
to be interrogated.
not on speaking terms with a former self,
the dream is god.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 3:02 PM UTC
No need for a glass of port,
I’ll do my best to keep this short.
Since no one is of the state of mind
Required in uttering a phrase socially unaligned.
You beg for a trace of hope.
While gazing down from your knotted rope.
Pleading desperately for a swift tomorrow
Where you’ll find the trending, sorrow. (#)
Speaking in broken prose
Through the depression found in a coke filled nose.
Believing, somehow, that your nonsense is lyrically inclined
Making up for a personality forcefully resigned.
You pat each other on your weightless backs,
Recognizing the talent your breed equally lacks.
Believing you possess the artist’s form
Sheltered inside of a cultural norm.
Acting only as others want
Altruistic beliefs quick to flaunt
Borrowed Teflon from rusted pots
Gambled away in, well reviewed, slots
Placate those with tales come and gone,
Running a gambit fit for a con.
“My heart weeps tears of reflected gold.”
Nonsense repeated until bought and sold.
Frost and Blake would have turned over in their graves
As Whitman’s ruined by a collective of ****** knaves.
A block paragraph without a rhyme in sight,
Climbing on backs of the old to a worrisome height.
Those blind will cough and scowl,
Finding this truth to be quite foul.
Just look at the forgeries they produce,
And soon the odour will become quite profuse
It’s not poetry because you say it is
Such a leap of faith would make it intrinsically His.
You use the magic of empty speech.
To strive for dreams you don’t work to actually reach.
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 6:59 PM UTC
the penters brutal militia
now marches
scopic
through a portal truncated
pass...
In unailing sleep
i taunt the spheres
and demand the negatives
scream out elements
strike runted ire
at the worlds great forgeries
dream #1
an ancient cottage is clouted to the ground
paff !
borned
a charred magician trick
rapid sporing
inflating to a build
then pressure cooked
packed with smoke
compounded by fire
in a quenched **** of energy
a construction
beams and rocks
a hearth is hearted
a mantle mounted
feasted together
and clenched in a furious shrine
i emaciate in the quiet storm of collected electric
i must test this unruin
i put an assertive foot over the threshold and...
i am pulled to the lovers
an attention away from here
downed on the bedroom floor
ridiculous pillow strapped to my ridiculous head
i stand
stammer frustrations
and running on an internal gut of turbulence
i slam home back through bed
dream #2
my burnt match form
all fours on a beach
my spiny digits plugged under the baking sand
straining the salt and murky charity
darkening the sand with impurities
and forgiving the sea
a pure revealing clarity
the formal sun
now casts without interruption
(just a little refractive kink)
water cleared
blinding the blind of the ocean floor
all Eves and Adams startled by
their **** branded world
shamed traffic
of disorientated prehistoric sealife
batting about in the garish aftermath
i resolve to the lovers
face down
******* huffs against the mattress
i flip over and zip back in
hands clamped
dream #3
simple streets and the bedside knife
i greet and greet
the first is a nop
the second a lancing wound
the wound takes a lacing
a bled string
and they are gratefully hauled
with grace to the sky
as though plucked by weather balloon
i am busy
in distribution of the lovers
dishonestly forecast to a haven in grave
i'll wake
work satifified
but both revved and worn
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 12:40 AM UTC
It's getting dark early again. The
street lamps are on by dinner.
Soon the memory of piles of
leaves, the smell of Fall and
the call to jump in the whispering
auburn heaps of my youth
would jolt me.
I am old now and fat. The
ritual of Autumn's call to
the dark evenings that were
an invitation to the holidays,
is a calling cocktail.
The rains drained the ashes
into the sidewalk gutters. The
hopscotch grid fades as day
light melts and I lose the
game.
Games are like drifts of scents
across the light post's shadow.
They are the ephemeral
recipes of my New York
youth. I walk to the edges
of the grass reading the
folded paper fortunes that
told me I would marry Jack
someday. I didn't. I threw
the lined prediction in the
leaves, scuffed my brown
shoes on the sidewalk
never dreaming that real
life would crinkle like the
ruled paper forgeries.
Caroline Shank
Aug 12, 2022
Aug 12, 2022 at 8:46 PM UTC