"grates" poems
Time is of the sentence, while
verbs reveal their intents
for adjective nouns (pro or no
comment) quickly in vents
meant for air, but coarseness
courses through upturned grates
shredding of courses into no ways
to go from here to home,
awaiting infinitely fine moments
caressed along necks of silken
skin within the wear of stretched out
glances left lingering still
in compassionate ponds rippling
soft warm smiles lazily by
the melting cares of the world
golden in luxuriously wrapped light
playing across the surface & through-
out into emerald encrusted irises
to cast love's shadow over
swamps of fear gurgling neuro-
toxic diatribes against plu-
perfect pasts & future
imprefects presented in a case to
Your Honor's (the jury) out of bounds
dissolved with ear ration-
al solutions mixed & stirred
thoroughly throughout,
without spilling too
much.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
I hear the carve of oars,
I see your palms enfold the wood,
as shards of stars shred
a black and glistening wave.
I hear the carve of oars,
the shore is breached,
we reach dank granite stairs, climb
a tower in moon gritty light.
I hear the carve of oars,
you speak, your turgid cheek
blue-steel-gray, your gaze grates,
my salt raged eyes summon waves and stars.
I hear the carve of oars,
waves rattle a candle's flame,
chill the bed frame, the wet stony room ––
the door closes, it scrapes.
I hear the carve of oars.
I know your lurching gate,
the clank as oar lock’s turn.
You slip the shore.
I hear the carve of oars
Copyright © 2002 Gary Brocks
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 8:47 PM UTC
Orange peel Thursdays and the Velcro shoes
Of children hordes
Who spider up Alice on toadstools in Central Park
Dusted psilocybin shoots my eyes through
With the clarity of ice and sliced mushroom
Steeping in stomach acid before finding blood
The kids are tripping like madmen or halloween candy
Like its time to release and give up to the nonsense
And let your young self congeal to a saccharine sludge
I don’t stroll in the park to keep my mind sharp
I’m here because it’s a riot
My head can throb to the jittery birds
And the blasts of carsong
It’s the right kind of rhythm to walk to
** ** **
Ketamine days and the lolling slums
To make sure the insane stay insane
And the hobos are washed with spit from the clouds
And the subway exhaust always hangs in our hair
And the old Coney Island burns again and twice more
We don’t pretend to understand what we see
In subway grates thirty feet wide
Like the earth punching out of work for a bit
Opening to you her *** belly
So you can check out the strips of metal inside
Before she slurps you down and with an esophageal squeeze
Shoots you through the turnstiles
The train squeals and grinds down our eyes
With thoughts as slow as ketamine
Makes room for schizophrenia in a conversation
We’re listening to ‘til sundown
** ** **
Years full of Brooklyn and the assorted pills
Makes offal fit for punks in name brand shoes
Squared off with police in the park
Being beaten for the fun of being beaten
Peacoat locals pass the days in supermarkets
And you grow up to the loony mumble
Of the woman who knows the boat
Moored at the end of the street
Mansion of the stray cat colony
You help her with her daily chore to feed them
Tabbies popping the pills of the homeless
And puking in tandem all over their house
Living off generous dying folk
Feb 11, 2010
Feb 11, 2010 at 4:02 PM UTC
To get from the streets to a new life
jungle high
Keeping alive
The will to survive
Months keep seeping
through grates of sub-grieving
no one said life would be easy
Moths, spiders - the size of hands
Creeping through the sands
Aching because they can
And so do I
And so do we
Together, through the darkest night of rain
Coming to the dawn of healing pain.
Come on knees crawling slow
Heaving forth the throne of gold
- Don’t need nothin’ ‘cept Love in Heaven
Thus we cross the lonely river bed
Lying side by side, head to head
- Say was that a bear growling?
Or was it just coyotes howling?
Lonely nights pretending to smile
Medicine only helps a little while
I’m sorry I fall into black holes often
It’s just hard to stand long, once you’ve fallen
I envy your stance, though
I can’t tell if you’re real
Maybe you’re an image of my mind
Created to keep me in line
Either case, you failed me
It’s alright
Life goes on
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 10:05 AM UTC
***** feet
***** of them ache
they're dry
all dried out, moisture to face and digestive tract make little difference
but comfort a little sort of; maybe
subdue to replenishing
skip the pain with a drink fucken, fucken drink fucken
dust lingers in the brain, it swirls
a cloud of ground envelops the shape of u
u become covered
u have a layer,
salty,
and dry
and 'organic'
(surely bio (though im not sure what is or why are))
full city boy, suburban boy, not particularly gritty boy
along side hippies
and volunteers all tripppy
and unwashed, and un plastic
yet forcefully hemped
drunk of micro beer
and burnt brown and blotchy red
and wire-y
and dry
and matted
as if nothing really matters except for principles
misguided and randomly enforced
feel like a husk; peanut shell
insides swallowed by the mouth of the party embodied
a monsterous sweaty man tanned and thickly bearded
and beered
fat dreads fall around and surround u; a forest of hair
a circle encroaching of fuzzy pillars in fibres
entrapped inside them; feel their lingering time matted hold
a wealth of effort to become unkempt; they are bars
they are walls
and the FACE!
……………………… ………………………………… oh
looming down, wafts of armpit vapour cloud; a looming puft that surrounds
engorged by the scent as it circles u, the mouth that lowered onto u
chews u and spills bits of u
chomp chomp
protein for vegetarians; u; ur rigour ur vigour ur guts
eaten in a flurry of chomps and slurps and it crunches
and it grates
like the rocks on the ***** of ur feet it grates
u are digested
and reused
as they would like
but for them; for a collective u dived into
for fun
2 days to peddle ur wares
to progress ( admittedly through some days of regression…)
for all humans, and Humans; for fun
on monday we will repent
for the damages waged on the inside of the body
and the outsides too
for some gain
i guess on this which we settle
for always for display for fun
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 2:10 AM UTC
Candy-sweet ballads
****** heartache arias
Undying
soulmate
anthems
Everywhere I go
The soundtrack never changes
But no one else
seems
to notice
Red-rose shades of white noise
Heart-shaped confetti stuck in my ears
Jangling
omnipresent
sound waves
The song everyone is singing
Grates against my inner drum
It's not
the kind
I'm looking for
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 1:38 AM UTC
Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.
Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Gmail, and Instagram.
Shampoo, soap bar, toothbrush,
toothpaste, temperature, and time.
Shaving cream, razor, running water,
advertisements, sensitivity, precision, and cuts.
Burned tongue, empty stomach, loose tie,
missing shirt buttons, beating the clock,
wallet, briefcase, and car keys.
Ballpoint pens, scented trees, fast food wrappers,
loose change, lighters, citations, ***** clothes,
CDs, and napkins.
Red lights, pedestrians, homeless people,
newspapers, billboards, pets on leashes, sewer
grates, crosswalks, skyscrapers, and garbage.
Faxes, printers, memorandums, break room,
prestige, cubicles, customer service, paperweights,
filing cabinets, stocks, and corporate.
Wipers, streetlights, rain coats, dive bars,
and home.
Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
Seldom doth man stop and stare
At the caste iron manhole cover there,
Seldom doth he analyze
The majesty, which beneath it lies.
The pipe work systems vast and long
Dark catacombs so precise and strong,
Buried deep beneath our feet
Extending forth from street to street,
Out across the breadth of town
Those secret fluids trickle down.
Laser levels carve the pathway
Through the walls of solid stone,
Shovels scrape and dig with effort
Forging hard trajectories home.
Digging, digging metal mountains
Sweat cascades upon the brow,
We lay the pipes in straight formation
Precision's satisfaction now.
An Artisan's great work is hidden
Lost beneath the earth's grey stone,
Appreciation camouflaged in that,
The cast iron manhole stands alone.
Magnificence unrealized
For deep beneath your feet,
A subterranean Michelangelo's
Sisteen Chapel, lays discreet.
Unsuspected rivers
Flowing darkly to the sea
In caverns of unwanted waste
Quite unbeknown to thee.
Vaulting brickwork chambers
Which are ancient works of art,
Carry oceans of excretement
Far from where their journey's start.
With thunder's crash and lightning flash
And torrents of cold rain,
The road's awash and gutters flow
Through roadside grates to drain.
Gushing torrents cascade down
In waves of flowing might
To the storm water system
Which promptly swallows it from sight.
Magic, you say ?
Nay, nay I say unto you
That the drain layers artistry
Is unappreciated, that's true !
That the Herculean effort wrought
In winning his great fights
Is largely lost to all and sundry
Who avoid construction sites.
They miss the planning and the layout
And meticulousness too
And the rubber seals which stop the leaks
Which really bother you.
The massive holes and danger
Of being buried in collapse
And the wondrous satisfaction
Of achieving downhill flows... Perhaps!
Marshalg
Apprentice drain layer
MHX Beachcroft site and Eastport
19 September 2009
Jan 22, 2010
Jan 22, 2010 at 3:08 PM UTC
A leaf spirals downward,
Over covered heads and uncovered cars,
Children sleeping in grass
Drool dripping from their gums,
A football field seeing practice
Where someone's leg
Was recently snapped in half,
Overflowing sewer grates,
Dilapidated septic tanks,
Wastewater disposal facilities
With a runoff into
A river filled with needles and rocks
And bodies,
And it hits the ground with a silent explosion,
Until the wind sends it off and sets it somewhere out of sight.
Like when a glass bottle
Shatters on a bar top and
Sends shards soaring
Into the eyes
Of onlookers,
Everybody knows what's next.
Did you hear?
Fall is here.
The boy who starves so that he may be warm
And the girl who freezes so she may not starve
Have a chance encounter
And bask in mutual despondency.
They share their warmth,
And they share their food,
And neither has enough of either.
But even at their demise,
The sun still goes up and down
On the horizon,
Painting a scene of ignorance
Or apathy,
And lying.
The heat will dissipate soon,
What with Winter coming,
But it does not matter:
Everything is already frozen.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 6:49 PM UTC
A warm embrace from city grates
combats the colder breeze
How then should I continue?
A further stroll might treasure hold
But of this, none assures me.
Then why should I continue?
I might have stayed and soothed my pain
My legs had faltered for the thought
Why then should I not stop?
In short, I kept on in my walk,
But often now I think of how
I could be different now
If only I had stopped.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 5:32 PM UTC
when you left
you took the color with you,
and now the world
is like an old television set,
with muffled sound
that grates the ears,
and a picture
that cuts in and out,
filled with static,
in brilliant black and white,
that's made more of shades of gray.
did your world get more vibrant,
when you de-saturated mine?
or did the color
disappear entirely;
slipping out of your fingers
to be consumed
by the void
where my heart
once lived
Contributed by @the.poetic.gatsby
On Instagram, Threads and TikTok
Feb 1, 2025
Feb 1, 2025 at 9:13 AM UTC
Razor-mouthed maw
lurks in the shadows
receptacle of grim devouring
Watching and waiting
for foolish flesh
fresh meat
We all have to eat
Real monsters follow ALL of their appetites
Prissy poodles get dragged screaming
through sewer grates
Crumpled little pink permed bodies
Bones crunch like tortilla chips
Lifesblood imbibed
No rest for the wicked
No escape from the wicked
Crocodile smiles
sheds fake tears
for poor little creatures
Too stupid to avoid his bite
Too weak to fight back
Too closeminded to enjoy it
Crocodile grins temporarily satisfied
Scarecrow watches all from the shadows
Scythe sways in silence
waiting to witness
the next sacrifice.
Jun 15, 2012
Jun 15, 2012 at 8:07 AM UTC
Honeyed icing-sugar
sun melts the snow caps
on the mountains
hair and grates the tough
green, soft
In Caramel pastures,
In sunken hills,
Under the seaweed,
Cowslips grow,
With rubied spotted
Ladies crawling up blades,
And the bumbles rumbled
buzz, a continuous growl,
Sways the floating gold.
The dark spider darts
Spearing crumpled
Flies in its silken steel
Thread. Thread which sparkles
amid the Bronze knives
which spear it too.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 6:48 AM UTC
Gwuts on gwanilliagax
Ready hot gwip
Trill on the vibrant note gabeeboh
What a thril it is to be in nice gazeebo
What a punk that doused on the free zobe
What punctillious panagax that frigged all the wets out
And when the trip to the sausage make didnt pull down alaz
Alaz, I am the wet tug.
Alaz, the sprig of wheat ***** taint.
Didn't you say you loved me?
Well, the bruts on the wagon sauce now
Didn't me have a big one, tug one, sauce one?
Well elemayo gwit gwits gwit gwits gwit gwit.....gwit
Embryo collecting on the branch of a saggy
My baggy be ripped, dripped all the can out
Me step on a puddle, the wet one, the biggy
My pets on the leg, rub, all on it sticky, how ******
He chugs out a wet belch and creams on the gricky
How quaint is his fat bristle comb, of his **** I am assured
This great honkulous tank sub that brits on my dimbo,in limbo my ship
It greats on the grates treat me to a sub snack ship ***** ***** factory get e
Tag me on your webpage, then **** me silly
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 11:01 PM UTC
Writers can be so snotty sometimes
They think they're so clever with their rhymes
They employ obscure words
the way armies deploy a specialized force
pedantic, pretentious, affected on some insufferable plagiarized course
Their wit a mired ploy to be perceived as bright
not so much to share knowledge
but to be the one that's right
vaingloriousness cripples the honesty in script
and another puzzled reader
reads between the lines of a message adrift
people twist things to their advantage
skew the facts to fit the page
shrug it off as a necessity of the modern age
most do it, few will notice
if they do they'll say it's a mistake
deadlines howl, time grates like a rake
truth is incidental when words are fake
another American madman goes berserk with a gun on a spree
perfect timing for the rollout of Grand Theft Auto 3
Don't worry little directors of death and mayhem
You've no culpability in the land of the free
causality is just some unprovable notion
you're safe and sound from any legal motion
exculpatory mitigation is your right as an 'artist'
'till the sorry day you eat the gun
the eventual price you'll pay for your sick wicked fun
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 12:27 AM UTC
The skies are blue and the clouds look fluffy.
The air is crisp and the water is chilling.
The mountains appear to touch the sky
and the leaves are rich shades of green, red, and orange.
I walked along out of service train tracks that cut through this mountain. Literally, through it.
The tunnels started on the West Shore of Donner Lake and followed the ridge of the mountain all the way to Truckee. I hiked a half a mile from the highway up to an opening in the tunnel. For a few hundred yards the tunnel was riddled with broken bottles and worthless graffiti. As I walked further in, the garbage began to disappear and the graffiti became thoughtful, artful. It became darker and darker until I could only see the circle illuminated by my pin flashlight. On one spot of the wall someone had written the entire first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. Someone had drawn a white line. Just a white line and I was so intrigued by it. People wrote stories of the lives. "Im kevin, my gf broke up w me now im gay" or "Im pat. i got dmt and then i got aids" and "im kaylene. thats it."
Someone sprayed a **** pipe on the wall of the tunnel and it was green. They paid very good attention to the crystals in the bowl and the smoke rising from it. A young girl with black hair had her lips on the pipe and she was breathing in. Written under it was "Remember, remember, the 5th of November."
Some one else had sprayed a cowboy. One half of him was black outlined with white and gray detail and the other half was white outlined with gray and black detail. Next to it was written "Childe Roland to the dark tower come."
Some one else had sprayed a devil. He was red with pure black eyes. It was signed "Self Portrait."
Halfway through there was a drain and creepily enough a faint light was shining from underneath the thick grates. Above it some one wrote "I stashed my **** here for three years."
Under that someone had wrote "Gateway to hell."
The rocks jutted out in straight lines.
Some were smooth and others rough.
The mountains cleansed me.
They wiped away some of the grime
this small city has polluted me with.
The crisp air exfolliated some of the
smoke from my lungs and the water
pulled the dirt from my skin
and the hike massaged my sore
feet and the graffiti swept through
one eyeball and took all the garbage
in my brain out through the other
eyeball. The mountains saved me.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:00 AM UTC
1. There was too much life in that man for him to...
2. It is possible to associate sadness with your name.
3. Strength now walks without a counterpart. She is tired.
4. Your un-presence billows louder than your renditions of "O Sole Mio" ever did throughout this home - throughout this heart
5. There will be no more music. Only everlasting echo
6. The sound of shuffling slippers was my favourite song
7. This house is now a museum. I am 5 years old, flashlight in hand, creeping creaky corridors. I stare as each of his artifacts slowly disappears before my very eyes.
8. We share the same shoe size
9. Now, when I remember him, I think of his hands - sturdy as he grates orange peel, fennel, Parmigiano-Reggiano, smooth as he stirs his shaving cream - Forever moving
10. This hospital is now a museum. I am 21 years old, sister's hand in hand. We all stare as he (yes, you) slowly disappears before our very eyes
11. There was too much life in that man for him to be ever silenced by un-music box
12. There was too much life in that man for anyone to be able to fill his shoes
13. There was too much life in that man for him to disappear with artifact body
14. Now, this man, he is somewhere untouched - the smell of orange and fennel fill his pockets (saved for rainy days). He lives inside and out of The Music, with soles(souls) bouncing.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 4:24 PM UTC
I looked upon the greats, and found nothing they didnt take from the pre-existing grates, that drained our goals into slates, degraded our souls into fakes, and mistook our traits as hate, before we faded into an abatement for safetly, safely enslaving our notions as nations, from the oceans, they saved me ... made me ... who I am.
But nothing is sacred anymore
Only deplorable horror
To numb the chores
Of that other lord
That the imaginitive ignore
Pretending to abhore
The things they cant feel anymore
But what for
There might be more to a coin flip than explored.
Intent and decent Vs stoical form
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 2:08 AM UTC
busy verbalizing my merchandise
a display of teeth reefed behind my smile
because merchandise is what i am after
and The Revels watch over me
and laughter drains down through sewer grates
i am watched over
my potential client walks away
but returns again with queries
on this hot day
a smell like burnt hair raises from the gutters
and these are the streets that radiate
on this hot day
an honest clash and not some some touchy bout
and here we are
the costly coil of pushing business together ;
a lively thrive
thrifty **** you"s and a dressing down
circling the other and striking their buttons
interlaced within is a genuine pressing
toward each other goals
this partnership
swiftly made
has an extreme edge and chaotic balance
the both of us must master or abandon our productivity
shall we be served by this union
or sever fighting ?
unfit
it swerves and suffers a pity
let's keep this one brief
we manage business
handshakes
and scowl away with our wares
each of us feeling equally scammed
(we've made useful enemies at best)
i break out laughing all the same-how
and howl because i feel
that feeling that this could go on forever
and business has roots in all my moods
i crouch at the curb
the curb is abrasive
i sit
i look at the dry heat radiating off the tarmac
the slight greasy lime taste of the air passing
the roof of my mouth
the electric wires running hum into the buildings
the storm drains at the edges of the roads
where laughter siphons down to the magma of Hades
it is waning off now
and i feel vague
i stand and i scan for more players
i spot a vivid orange one
one that i may barter their aura of vigour
traded for my sketchy wares
Mar 12, 2022
Mar 12, 2022 at 9:55 AM UTC
Slowly all the questions
Turn into lingering reflections ;
And all the petty and the worthless
Have become the most precious .
and , "This we do in remembrance ,"
"Lest we forget ,"
"Takes place in eternity ,"
are but not as dramatic :
. . . . . . . . . only greater . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .The acorn than the tree . . . . . .
Accept these seconds for what they are ,
(Sunlight filtering through the
grates of life deep into the soul's eye)
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 9:47 PM UTC
before I knew he had.
His flight trailed off into a Utah
sunrise. He left behind a little strand
of thought, and, in a cramped, amber room that saw
long talks of topics that soon thinned grey,
a set of dog-eared books has been put down.
Books that brought nearer to my thought his own,
while somewhere Interstate-5 grates ‘cross the ground.
I sleep there still, although I left for good.
That house to this day asks me where he was.
Their smiles, the little comfort that they could
give, were emptier than their words. Often
I feel the vague pulse of their ragged stares –
torn, threadbare they unravel in the air
to mask their faces: that inner decree
which shades the truth. Where and how’d they ever grow wrong?
He must have, as the plane touched the runway,
felt the dawn’s shudder fracture his young bones,
his thoughts turning to those dog-earing days.
The seemingly endless months full of groans,
as they should have been, being spent alone.
And that set of books, at least it would seem,
ignited the wick on which our passions gleam –
slate-grey regards.
These six years past since they took him away
held minutes like a needle in plied dust.
There’s something in the spring that brings decay
here. The outward beauty of the world just
clouds the mind’s loss within the spinning gust
that all the blooming flowers usher in.
Then the rain comes –
in spitters and spats it spins the spire.
When gone the white-wick’s still on fire.
As the 5’s scratch cracks up the drying earth,
I recall Nietzsche, Guevara, Burgess.
Famed men who’d not anticipated births
inside my brother and I like cypress
trees, evergreen and coniferous we
drop seeds year-round. The setting Utah sun,
barely audible, gasps in the copse.
He’s with me now. What’s done is done.
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 7:53 AM UTC
it’s inevitable
we are two waves crashing upon one another from diverse directions
6 feet overpowering a near five
an abundance of sand collected in her toes, painted sunset in season
salt in the crevices of his cracked lips
he hasn’t drank since March
wildflowers on her dress and holes in his shoes
it’s faulty
we are racing towards riverbanks: barefoot, unsteady, and homely
this doesn’t feel like home
he’s a moonlit tower, prewar stairwells, and a bright white nail bed
she secretes meteors in her pockets and a jackknife
slopes and curves and hills to stumble
words and doorknobs and photographs to wonder
it’s vexed
we headline in bold faced Georgia
friends concerned themselves with each petty fight
oh, boy did we
fight until her tongue wore out
his palms scratched to be healed by hers
her mother was on board, she guessed; his mother said yes
it’s bereft
we’re naked on the South lawn
a rose brush picked, prodded, called to question
her hazel eyes lack the ability to cry and cry and cry
his voice, stripped of rage
politics behind the scene
a young widow’s desperation for peace
it’s mass-produced
we’re political maps facing the chalkboard
colored crayons and heel-high socks
pepperoni’s dot her pizza the way she dots her i’s
as she writes lyrics of you
he raids the kitchen for her, prying the fridge for her
glinting sparkles in artificial light
it's submitted
we’re chipped steel bracelets
her straw bends forward at a crease
they didn’t realize what factors meant
his version too close to candor
yielded, the missing L on a paper sign
a stranded guitar pick balancing atop city grates and a below ground maze
it’s whatever it may be
and may be whatever it’s
but she and he and I and you
we perch on seven lines of fact
like birds we wallow, and trees we droop
‘til the ending sunrise
where you figure the truth
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
Meditations Over the George Washington Bridge
For Tyler Clementi
1.
I could hear the faintest of notes crying in the wind,
As if your fingers were still nimbly holding the bow,
Striking chords on your violin,
As my car rolled over the George Washington Bridge.
I think about how beautiful this is,
This feeling of suspension, how life is held
So taut on these wires, how simple it is to find
Weightlessness over all this water. My mind questions,
Did you second guess yourself? Did you know you
Were worthy of being held, cradled in more
Than just cool air and metal grates and wetness.
But I guess some higher being knew you better,
Than anyone did or could. Knew how those fingers could string
Harps and violins and heart strings, and you,
You were more than all of this, this wasteland
Where desires and kisses are taken for mockery,
And your love can be twisted against you
To make you feel light enough to float away into sleep.
2.
You flew that night. I could tell. Spread your arms like wings
Like a firebird descending into waves, looking to extinguish
Itself, and to take the world with it, to burn out the innate
Inhumanity of human beings. What they found floating
On those waves was a mere carcass, the shelling of your being,
You shed the unholiness of your skin off to alight yourself,
And blaze us with our ignorance.
They were too blind to see you flew that night, let yourself
Unravel into the sky, ripping through the darkness like a seraph,
Like some holy being, some light meant for a higher calling,
But I know what you did, I could see the shadow of you in the night
Gracefully floating. You, you are a testament to language spoken
And silenced, to the words stuck on tongues prying themselves
Through gritted teeth, you birthed meaning to the need for some sort of justice.
3.
You served your time well,
You messenger,
You,
You young,
Holy creature of God,
And I wonder as I pass over
Your take off spot,
How long you will string
Your notes over us
And how you would have fit
Into the Philharmonic
And looked walking up
For your degree
And how long your memory
Will haunt me
And how long your memory
Will stay a lesson learned
For us all.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 5:31 PM UTC
Can I just forget this year
That started off so fine
I just hope that by next year
I'll have a better time
With all the fighting on the news
In Damascan streets
Makes me wonder how we can
Reject the survivors we meet
Between Brexit and the election
We keep on splitting apart
And all of the hateful ones
Feel free to threaten our hearts
Zika rode in behind ebola
Two crisies on end
All of the panic caused by it
Hardly helps people make amends
The Olympics were pretty great
But still pretty spotty
With bacterial bays, alge filled pools
And the antics of Ryan Lochtie
The globe's heat keeps rising on
Wreaking havoc on our climate
With polar ice melting, it grates
That people don't get science
My favorite sci fi heroes died
Those people who inspired
Those who gave us so much hope
Just suddenly expired
The local subway's been a mess:
It keeps catching on fire
After three times, it just seems
That we can't fix a wire
My brain seems to be getting worse
At being normal or sane
Somedays I just want to run
And dissolve into the rain
I ended my relationship
Of over a year
And lost touch with some friends
Whom I once held so dear
School just keeps getting harder
(Not too shocking to find)
But my Girl Scout and school projects
Might just fry my mind
My mom and I are getting to
A rough patch in our ways
And hiding my intrests from my 'rents
Takes so much of my days
My social circle only gets
Harder and harder to track
And my family's stories sound like soaps
Even though we have each other's backs
So can I just forget this year
Make it all fade away
Can I just go back to sleep
And face '16 another day
So can I just forget this year
Just please make it all end
And maybe in 2017
I'll be able to start again
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC