"graveyards" poems
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.
there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.
nobody ever finds
the one.
the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills.
71.8k
ugly men burning their bay leaves
in pots of static gardens
underneath all this cement
your past is looking at you indecently
so change the words around you
you can shift their meaning
its all a game and no-one's winning
your tired emotions accent your poetry
umbrellas are scars that carry symphonies in their hearts
you held my hand as we welcomed god back into our skylines
her face is as familiar as the stars
we originated from
with ulcers open in quiet hurting
your youth are wordless and distrustful of angst ridden authority
in unsuspecting situations love’s vacation is ending
her wedding gown got quite *****
since she literally spent her entire honeymoon
wandering idly into banks of muddy water
humanity is worthy of justice and sweaty romance
i breathe your flesh into my bottle
and we take boundless walks upon the clouds
that straddle mountains, graveyards and cemeteries
fresh from wading in the rice fields
i peeled you a ripe banana
under pressure your sweater came off
and revealed a perfect metric for us to emulate
your eye sockets are two umbilical chords
and your voice is a curved sword that cuts through fear
like the moon slices through the sky
i have held all of this inside for far too long
and now it comes shattering forth
spilling itself over every page
every letter an escapade almost as long
as an Eskimo's pilgrimage to safety
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 11:36 PM UTC
Enrique,
Emilio,
Lorenzo,
the three of them frozen:
Enrique by the world of beds;
Emilio by the world of eyes and wounded hands;
Lorenzo by the world of roofless universities.
Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,
the three of them burned:
Lorenzo by the world of leaves and billiard *****
Emilio by the world of blood and white pins;
Enrique by the world of the dead and abandoned newspapers.
Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,
the three of them buried:
Lorenzo in one of Flora's *******
Emilio in the dead gin forgotten in the glass;
Enrique in the ant, the sea, and the empty eyes of birds.
Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,
the three in my hands were
three Chinese mountains,
three shadows of a horse,
three landscapes of snow and a cabin of white lilies
by the pigeon coops where the moon lies flat under the rooster.
One
and one
and one,
the three of them mummified,
with the flies of winter,
with the inkwells the dog ****** and the thistle despises,
with the breeze that freezes theh eart of all the mothers,
by the white ruins of Jupiter where drunks snack on death.
Three
and two
and one,
I saw them disappear, crying and singing
into a hen's egg,
into the night that showed its skeleton of tobacco,
into my sorrow full of faces and piercing bone splinters of moon,
into my happiness of whips and notched wheels,
into my breast troubled by pigeons,
into my deserted death with one mistaken wanderer.
I had killed the fifth moon
and the fans and the applause drank water from the fountains.
Hidden away, the warm milk of newborn girls,
shook the roses with a long white sorrow.
Enrique,
Emilio,
Lorenzo,
Diana is hard,
but somtimes she has ******* of clouds.
The white stone can beat in the blood of a deer
and the deer can dream through the eyes of a horse.
When the pure forms sank
under the cri cri of daisies
I understood they had murdered me.
They searched the cafés and the graveyards and churches,
they opened the wine casks and wardrobes,
they destroyed three skeletons to pull out their gold teeth.
Still they couldn't fine me.
They couldn't?
No. They couldn't.
But they learned the sixth moon fled against the torrent,
and the sea remembered, suddenly,
the names of all her drowned.
20.5k
Down in the bayou where the mangroves grow
There's talk of black voodoo, like Marie Leveau
The Swamp Witch, is legend, she has magic so black
That those who have seen her, have never come back
There;s tales of the noises that come from the dark
Of werewolves and zombies as rough as the bark
The mangroves are sentinels, to where the magic resides
Where even a longboat has no room to glide
Bodies go missing from the graveyards most nights
And there's always a fog shading the fireflies lights
The Swamp Witch is ruler and Queen of this world
Where souls are all taken and spines can be curled
They say that she came here from Canadian lands
She was a metis they say, from the Western Tar Sands
A mystic by nature, a dark witch by blood
She lives deep in the swamp, protected by gators and mud
The gators respect her, they do as she bids
They keep watch on the waters, they're her reptillian kids
She keeps zombies as gendarmes, collecting bodies to turn
Just how black is her magic, no one can discern
The Swamp Witch is legend, she is as old as all time
The air in the bayou is as thick as the slime
The cajuns say voodoo is the core of her heart
They avoid fishing where the mangrove trees start
The Swamp Witch, a legend ? or is she truly the Queen
She's the Louisiana Witch, no one survives once she's seen.....
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
A yellow fever burns with anger.
Mothers fill with a sense of danger.
As towns die and graveyards grow,
A carpenter’s child waits for snow.
Many lives this fever will take.
While others say this horror is fake.
This carpenters child is the only smart one.
For this fever only strikes on a hot days sun.
When winter comes and cools the air
the fever’s anger will disappear.
In the winter it hibernates.
So, dear child please wait.
In a land they is free
Yellow Fever struck in 1793.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 11:03 AM UTC
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for husbands everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time passing?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time ago?
Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone for soldiers everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
There once was beauty beyond belief
In far north Queensland’s barrier reef
Beneath the surface of the sea
There lay a world of fantasy
Amid the shallows of the deep
Countless crustaceans crawled and creeped
A place so different from the land
Until it was touched by humans hand
Now polluted by plastic sedimentary and decay
Has our only solution been washed away
Once a wondrous landmark to behold
Gone in a heart beat, the oceans tale, told
Although there a politicians that still deny
A warming ozone will bid the coral colours goodbye
Littered white graveyards accomplished the sin
If only we had thrown our ******* in the bin
A tremendous story of ecological distress
Hopefully we can learn from this disastrous mess
/gt
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 8:18 AM UTC
*pain knocks on weathered doors
fastened ever tightly
cryptic access is denied
it camouflages in the shadows
stealthily it watches
hypervigilance enhancing
catastrophe awaiting
it strikes in latent graveyards
the gale begins to form
and unleashes its fierce torrent
the latch shattered and torn
there’s now an open entrance
creeping in it slithers
engulfing to encompass
digging up emotions
buried underground there
hovering and foggy
tho’ murky does not smother
but fleshes out the psyche
entombed and cobweb covered
it crawls along the edges
and peers in secret ledges
seeps into sequesters
like dust settled in feathers
it slides through every feeling
and when it’s at its blackest
it carves the darkness out
and let’s in sunlight’s presence
© 2016janetaylor
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 12:42 PM UTC
there comes a point in life when you feel nothing
you can smoke a pack of cigarettes in one setting and not even get sick
you can cut yourself ten times over and never feel the *****
you could walk through a thousand graveyards and not even be afraid
there comes a point in life when you feel nothing
there comes a point in life when you feel nothing
and it looks like you've given in and given up
and nobody understands this is how it goes
because when you scream and shout what you feel deep in your pitiful soul
still nobody knows
there comes a point in life when you feel nothing
to be numb is not to be weak
to be numb is not to belittle the being
to be numb is not misunderstanding
to be numb is not to abandon the self
there just comes a point in life when you feel nothing
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
Rugby town, of landlocked streets,
of wasted field and barefaced retreat;
I miss you now, in absence of a friend,
I miss you now, in the verse that I lend.
Suburb grove, of sleepy mist,
oh, battered housewife, oh blastocyst;
you will remain in place forevermore,
and forevermore, you'll become a bore.
Holding cell, of sporting fame,
you stole my dreams but gave me my name;
I think of you: a multi-storey view,
of happy faces, of which there is few.
Still, my town, in debt's nightgown,
the shop-fronts vacate, we're feeling down;
these streets are poisoned with names of the past,
each memoir to teach: nothing's built to last
Rugby town, of weary folk,
the private school is a private joke;
I miss you now, as I sleep through the day,
I miss the old walks, and all that you'd say.
Old market town, the aftermath,
of British summer, suicide bath;
of open mics and closing the shutters,
of waking graveyards, sleeping in gutters.
Hopeless climbs, of dreary times,
of childhood state and nursery rhymes;
each time that I come home, I know you less,
becoming a stranger in my redress.
Clock tower, chiming, chiming loud,
singing for history long and proud;
of Rupert Brooke and the question: “what if?”
What if I was born to some lover's tiff?
To some large and friendless town,
to some body of land, which I drown;
to some active place of pain unknown,
to some place that I'll not gauge that I've grown,
oh Rugby dear, stay with me,
let me live on the periphery;
and although this town seems terribly dull,
it could be worse – I could live in Hull.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
Oh they pleaded,
women, men
young and old,
'let us pass through that sea'
to a place where we could start all over',
yet their voices fall into deaf ears
of their brothers and sisters
from another mother land,
hopeless they remain drifted
in the treacherous sea
feeling unwanted, unloved
forever rejected,
by the policies of the modern
migration...
the unworthy sea-going boat,
becomes their coffin
and the sea and the seafloor become
their graveyards,
the common fate of boat people - the asylum seekers.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 1:44 AM UTC
We just drove through a small town
It was fascinating
Fascinatingly morbid
Morbidly surreal
There were probably 10+ plots that were haphazardly converted into graveyards
'Ratchet' as my generation would think but not say because that would be 'disrespectful to the dead'
In each of the graveyard were hundreds of graves
And it was strange
Strange how such 'ratchet, disrespected and haphazard' graveYARDS
Contained such Beautiful and ornate gravestones
As if to say that nothing could lessen the glory of their death
They would leave behind an impression of beauty
Even in death
(Even though they never chose their gravestones. But don't say that because it would be 'disrespectful to the dead' in their blissful abyss)
It makes one think
That in a town of less than 1000
There was easily more than 2000 gravestones
It shows how life goes on
How, even in a small town, we are insignificant
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
They say lots of things about love,
They make it seem it is the ultimate desire,
Wanton and wilder than the known universe,
An cataclysmic explosion of two personalities,
Born separate, reborn together,
And yet...
I have loved worse men,
And lost better women than I deserve,
And now my convex chest is as vast and devastated as abbey ruins,
sanctuary,
sacred,
crooked,
ruined,
beautiful,
still here,
After hundreds of years.
Maybe I will live on in my memories,
For there are graveyards in my bones,
Eulogies imprinted on my arteries,
Long lost love letters scarred on my very marrow
For those that I drowned,
And those I saved.
My faith is a moorland hillside war memorial,
An obelisk to reach the very gods,
Your love is but a squall,
My hope is a trickle, a stream, a reservoir, in the deepest steepest canyon and Valley,
Your love is but a rain drop,
My clarity is at the bottom of a whiskey bottle,
Your love is but an ice cube.
Do not ask me brazenly to die for you,
When ******* me is your finest hour,
And I am but a pleasure boat ride for your masculinity to take a trip in,
We are not divine here;
My expectations are as low as your esteem:
A water you paddle in, a toe dipped perhaps,
but you wouldn't swim through, dare to at least,
And yet,
I am a rushing beautiful rainbow of a waterfall on a sunburn induced day,
The haze in the corner of your eye,
When you begin to question,
"is this too good to be true?".
Yes.
We are all but fallacies.
Dip your fingers and cross yourself,
As you wish for clemency.
But still,
Be still,
And know,
That,
I am,
God.
Am I?
Or am I just divine on your tongue?
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC
After a great while the paper elephants march
In their sparse herd they lumber along
One by one, their thick legs slam into the earth
Like pennies on a timpani
Leaving slight imprints in the dust
No one is quite sure where they come from
All we know is they just are there
Some raise their children before witnessing the elephants
A lucky few will even see them a second time at the end of their lives
It is not uncommon for generations to pass without the paper elephants
Sometime the periods between their journeys are so long the elephants are dissolved into folktale
The paper elephants are bestowed an almost supernatural quality
The stories are birthed in secrecy between the lights of candles
In the ears of the men in the corner
From the hushed lips whispered in acquiescence.
Every story is different
Every story has the same ending
Every story has the same moral
You do not touch the paper elephants
Perhaps the stories have some truth
If anyone knows the validity they have been dead for quite some time
No matter, man’s superstitious nature will see to the protection of the elephants
The paper elephants are called “paper elephants” because it describes them quite nicely
From a distance they look just like normal elephants
Lumbering over from side to side
But their skin is like paper
Their essence is like paper
They travel together
Even the old and young
When it rains the young hide under the larger elephants
Lest they get wet and melt into the earth
It is not uncommon to find the soaked remains of an elder elephant
Crumpled by a sad consequence
It always serves as a reminder
The old exist to protect the young
Most likely the elephants can be found roaming through our graveyards
Here their pace noticeably slows down
Often enough, they can be found sitting next to a tombstone
Resting their trunks over the epitaphs
Strange things happen when the elephants are in the graveyards
Sometimes laughter can be heard
Sometimes sobbing
As the elephants rest the blue mist rises from the graves
The blue is the most reassuring shade
The misty fog rises and fills the entire yard
Until it is absorbed by the paper elephants
With a long sigh the elephants continue their journey
After many such stops
The elephants arrive at the tree
Gnarled and ancient, it welcomes the elephants with silence
As it has for years and years past
It is here the elephants have yearned to arrive
Under the knobs and strikes of its branches
They bend the knee
The young watch to learn
The adults look up to the sky
And release all that they carry
The hopes, dream, and memories of those long gone
Ascend to the heavens
The paper elephants collapse exhausted but content
And look upon their children one last time
They weep before leaving this world
Not for their children’s sorrow
But because there are no paper elephants to carry them to the next world
Jan 16, 2012
Jan 16, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
Is she still your reflection?
Because I look in the mirror and only see decay
I see her dancing in your eyes
I know her figure is projected onto your eyelids while you sleep
An hourglass full of grains of 'yesterdays'
That you shatter just to fall asleep
Changing behind screens as to not expose your secrets
By tomorrow I will be nothing but an outline in the sand
Left by children too young to know better or understand
Too naïve to have seen the storm clouds rolling their way
I might have been looking for a needle in a stack of hay
And like a magpie you found it and hid it in your back pocket
Taking my hand, distracting it from what it yearned for
Using the other to pull my heart out
Only now am I starting to mind the bleeding
I frantically smear my insides on to my chest
In the hope that I have a chance of saving myself
You can try your hardest to forget me
But I wont let you do so
Easily
I'll plague you when I finally fall in love again
I'll haunt you when you stay round her house, my friend
Your soup will taste like my mouth
And I swear it will defeat you like poison
Your skin eaten away like cotton by a moth
You'll find me hidden in graveyards
A twisted reminder of what we once had
I am not quite driftwood yet but when I am
I hope to float your way
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 8:38 AM UTC
They are silent and beautiful,
gorgeous in in the white halo,
cemented in a beautiful terrazzo,
baring the names of fallen soldiers,
the European soldiers that fell in Wars;
second and first and the heinous silent wars,
i hope this is why they have a proverb; white sepulchre,
only baring the white dead, only chiefs but no dead Indian.
Common wealth graveyards are all over in Africa,
in India , panama , Latin America and europe,
the active fronts in which the allies fought ******
they are beautifully placed in silently posh areas,
in langata when in Nairobi, in Mbaraki when in Mombasa,
in Matisi when in Kenya, In Namusungui when in Lodwar,
They bear horizontal silence with white names engraved
on their beautiful face shouting the glory of European empires,
which provoked the evil sense in the heart of the king's horseman
in Kenya, in the city of Nairobi, to steal the graveyard lands,
he made them his urban home with an uppish courtyard,
for him the dead white neighbours are better than in-corruption.
I walk around the commonwealth graveyards,
in the all quarters of erstwhile British empire,
looking for the names of African soldiers ,
who died in thousands fighting for the queen
the royal bloodied woman of England;Elizabeth,
Looking for the sons of Ethiopia who stood with
the second duce Benito son of Mussolini,
fighting for Hitler,for Shintos in the European war,
i have seen no name of any African,
I have not seen Wandabwa wa masibo,
who was conscripted into the first world war,
Along with his father Biket wa Khayongo,
Biket back after seven years in 1918,
carrying Wandabwa's Belt,
Wandabwa died in the field,
Where was he buried, he is nowhere
Not anywhere among the soldiers in cemeteries,
I have not seen Nasong'o wa Khayongo,
who was conscripted in 1940,
to fight against ******
he was conscripted on his nuptial evening,
even before he had had the first ***
with his new wife, he went away crying,
he never came back, his name is nowhere in the graves
the commonwealth graves that bare names of the fallen,
Fallen soldiers, but they all bare white names in the black world.
you come to Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malagasy,Egypt,
whatever the geographies of Africa, and you keep keen,
you hear someone is called Mr. Keya, or Madam Keya,
or you come to Bungoma county of Kenya,
you meet a man that is of the circumcision age group,
Known as Bakikwameti Keya, Bakinyikewi Musolini,
Keya is subverted sound for Kings african rivals; KAR
the African sound for KAR is Keya,
in reference to mass conscription of Africans
into the KAR, to fight ******
A child born during that time is Keya,
A man circumcised during the time
is in the age group of Keya,
A simple lesson in regard to our people,
taken away to fight the colonial power
and left to died and rot away in the bush
with a simple courtesy for ceremonial burial,
that come along with the death of soldiers,
who passed away in the battle field.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
Went to the grave
this past Memorial Day
and saw it was covered
with mud.
With but a dish rag,
maintenance
didn't exactly leave a shine
behind them, walking
away as they massaged
their own aching backs.
Otherwise they could,
I don't know,
massage the backs that
are already broken.
"Don't graveyards have
maintenance-people for that?"
They are humble.
They like not to be known.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
Sitting in a bar.
A beer with perspiration.
Its raining outside.
Hear the shuffleboard shuffle.
Intoxicated poetics.
Sober state of mind.
Stools shrouded in mystery.
Double doors leading in.
Bartender’s creations. (chemical concoctions)
Saloon of slumlords and hipsters
Open mic night.
Hippie Howls.
Don’t worry we got this under control.
Malboro reds, cowboy killers.
Don’t spend you life wishing,
Spend it living.
Better yet, spend it drinking.
Liquid courage. (men becoming beasts)
Awkward rages.
The best is coming.
Shielding secret shame in this scene.
Hidden in a pint of pilsner.
Free thinkers in a haze of hops.
Lets get drunk.
Make shift graveyards on the walls.
Honoring the dead.
Rest in peace.
Nothing less, nothing more.
Old Heidelberg.
Before my time.
The stalls scrawled with graffiti.
For a good time call.
Scratched onto the stall.
“Spread love like butter on a hot bun”
Sherlock and Watson.
Bromance.
This is a bar of friends.
What is this bar?
Drunk off this atmosphere.
Window panes with neon signs.
Disillusioned.
Concealed.
Unfinished.
The moves fast and goes right by.
Springing forward without a shadow of a doubt.
Members of the Great Unwashed.
The signs of our time.
I think we’re going to split.
Can I get another drink?
One for the road.
Don’t cut me off quite yet.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 1:26 PM UTC
Tell me all the things I want to hear,
Lie to me so I may rest easy.
I'll tell you you're the only one,
Than laugh about you when you're gone.
I push away your adoration and affection
Just to feel some power over my fickle heart.
Colorful creature, show me how to move
My envy drips from fingertips
When I watch you dance
It makes me laugh.
And you got such a pretty face,
The kind that could make angels cry.
Your eyes keep me up at night,
Thinking about how lovely it would be
If I was the one dancing behind them.
Baby do you think of me as much as I think of you?
The night captures my attention
When the sun forgets to shine.
We must learn to dance in graveyards,
To spin and twirl to the music of our madness.
Insanity so beautiful and easy,
So listen to your voices
And expel all your demons
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
He lives his life holding a superstitious breath
And his mania is of other people’s or his death
If ever he encounters a funeral any day
He dives over a wall till it’s passed by his way.
He’ll wander round graveyards and look at the stones
And tell you the nature of the owner of the bones
For if flowers were growing he’ll tell you for free
The bones of a good person lay down underneath.
But if weeds there are growing they’d died in disgrace
For flowers could never take root in this place
He saw a white moth once fly into his home
So straight-away he said that to him death would come
And he totally refuses to call at his best friend’s flat
For he’s driven me crackers and I've bought a black cat!
©Joe Wilson – His weird mania 2014
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 7:08 PM UTC
The little kids we used to be,
still play like the kids we were,
but now it’s graveyards instead of a playground.
Instead of dress-up costumes,
it’s makeup lathered to our faces,
we must be like those perfect pictures in magazines.
We play boyfriends and girlfriends instead of hopscotch,
anorexia instead of basketball.
Instead of storybooks, it’s facebook posts telling us
we don’t deserve to live.
We used to wear those colorful sillybandz,
and trade them with each other,
but now it’s scars from a razor
we wish we could take off.
It was always begging for seconds of ice cream,
but now it’s sneaking away to throw up the
little amount of food they make you eat.
Instead of staring at a summer campfire
waiting to roast marshmallows,
we stare at the fire waiting to burn ourselves.
Instead of angry first graders getting into a fistfight,
the anger now directs the punch to ourselves.
We used to sneak Halloween candy,
trying to stuff ourselves,
but now you sneak pills,
trying to overdose and hoping for death.
We used to play so freely,
we thought it’d always be like that.
But now we run among graveyards,
the bones of the ones we left behind
clutter the passages.
And we’re still children playing games
with the worlds, but the stakes are higher,
we wonder if we’ll make it.
It’s just a roll of the dice on this graveyard
playground.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
The glistening sun sets,
leaving a silhouette of hanging trees,
a decoration on pink faded walls.
Humming cicadas and chirping crickets,
play in a symphony of the night.
Bike rides and park games in darkness,
softball games in the bright field lights.
Each crack of the ball and bat create a chaos of teammate screams.
Lost every game, but won each time.
A refreshing water runs on slippery rocks,
swimming among fish and ducks,
Soaking bodies run home,
Baggy shirts, gym shorts,
Adults and children mix in a weekly party,
Beer bottle caps and soda cans clink to the ground.
Love and laughter surrounds a crackling open fire,
Warming bodies and hearts.
Little feet race to where the sidewalk ends,
the grass grows thick.
It is here where teams are picked and knees are scarred.
12am games are played,
cans are kicked, ghosts roam graveyards, and flags are captured.
Waiting to go home, hours and hours of waiting
Hours of talking of all different ages,
Country music and guitar melodies play throughout the street,
a lullaby of our childhood.
Television reruns at 2am entertain tired minds,
Couch and floor beds of blanket forts,
Carried up to bed to sleep in comfort at 4am, the chirping birds, already wishing a good morning to most, but goodnight to this home.
The raccoons rattle and the woodpeckers poke in a serenade to sleep,
In a neighborhood of blaring nights and silent mornings.
Each week, the time flew by.
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 9:19 PM UTC
I build my new life over graveyards swollen,
each journey stolen on paths walked before;
the oak church door, the adolescent postures,
first breath of **** first taste of flight
amongst grounded freedom, amongst polluted nights.
I trade eyes with women over numbered tables,
contriving fables from coffee cups, loose-tongued gospels
for manufactured apostles, remnants of mistreated advice;
last pocket of **** last drink of the night,
I have learned when to swallow, I have learned when to fight.
I found myself in the ground-zero wreckage,
last vestige of meaning and useful obsession,
those drunk-dial confessions, aftermath of silence;
first smoke of the day, last image of starlight,
I have forgiven my failings, I have kept them in sight.
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 10:44 AM UTC
I don't recall the moment responsibility grew arms hugging
with gnarled fingers, while burdened skies wrap like a promise,
with its soft tenor of lies and seduction.
Disowned, I remember the drunk old lady who hung
over my shoulders puking responsibility, as if to discharge
toxic waste on a pre-mature baby struggling in labor, while death
chokes the innocent, lost in love's knowledge.
She could have warned me, even better, ridiculed me rather
than put my head on a bludgeoned block allowing me to become
a scapegoat for all the past, present and future mistakes:
Some, of which was manufactured in threads of innuendo
by off-loaders.
These bones of mine are exposed in the twilight of their naked
prejudice, and 'I swear I could hear clouds' curse my name, chanting
wrath, creating chaos through veins of pride, before darkness
fell feasting off my flames.
There is nothing like hollow skeletons of the dead rustling
around in graveyards alone. I stopped to think despite efforts
of going solo; how I miss the stony silence of that skull, bent
with anger seeking solace from my venomous touch.
It would be a blessing to retreat into silent reveries
where I am alone, I am alive, the dead are no more, to wrestle
ghosts with words spoken into the heavens asking,
"is there enough forgiveness left for me?"
I don't want to remember her dead face, how it looked
when her neck snapped while life drained from her stiffened eyes.
I want the abstracts of my life to fit.
So, I howl upon her bitter pill - release me...
7/11/2012
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC