"heartland" poems
The girl behind the mask wasnt who she seemed
She made everyone fall and come to believe
That even the saddest people could be happy
Just for a while until things became sappy
The girl behind the mask tend to laugh alot
At jokes she found were funny, or maybe not
She showed everyone how lovely she could be
But in reality all she wanted was to go and leave
The girl behind the mask was bullied all day
Very few times would the kids let her play
But as the years past, this just proceded
And made her think that death should be succeeded
The girl behind the mask was soon no more
She discovered the ropes would make her soar
Through the clouds in heaven that would go so high
Now she was finally happy to really be alive
The girl behind the mask was living the dream
While everyone on earth soon began to greave
Even though she thought no one cared for her
Life without her quickly became a huge blur
The girl behind the mask looked down one night
To see that her sister had goined the flight
She came up to her and asked why she was here
And she answered this is suicidal girls only good fear
The girl behind the mask did not understand
Why her sister had goined this holy heartland
Then she realized that because of her choice
Her sister decided to leave earth to hear her voice
The girl behind the mask began to cry
She ended her sister's life so that she could come to fly
She discovered that maybe instead of having to say goodbye
She could've gotten someone to help her stay alive
The girl behind the mask soon did find
That maybe suicide doesnt help fix the bind
She went down to earth and gave it her charity
And said im sorry to all including her family
The girl behind the mask looked as she saw her mother
Clutching to the robe of her suicidal daughter
The girl had finally saw what she had done
So dont make the same mistake and dont grab the gun
(k.b)
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 12:44 AM UTC
The Dutch brought art, mud and dirt of the Kathmandu heartland,
With cigarette smoke clouding the air, and pizzas in the oven.
Not overcooked, no medium rare, slight rounded, man-made
The ambiance was now of Rembrandt and Van Gogh,
Yellow with the hint of light.
Perhaps coffee, perhaps tea.
And delight in a conversation of philosophy.
Maybe you'll pay, maybe me.
The open doors swallow in the air of the monsoon,
with the enigma of ever binding books who stuck to the wall
Like wall flowers, some folded papers like petals of an unbloomed bud.
They all had smells better inhaled with tobacco smoke.
The music played, and people dance within the security of their thoughts,
The shelter for their thoughts, the flaws of their speech.
Memories,pure and bright radiated from the lamps above the bar,
Lights which come to us only in fallen stars, but wishful thinking
is dangerous.
Hence forget it like Dutch forgot the wars.
Memories are made here, where the humidity is heavy from the perfume of heavy smiles, or folded chins and forheads from a chess game.
Not hidden, no worries, around the corner.
But yet again man made.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 8:32 AM UTC
I'm leaving / my home
Without a word of goodbye
I'm sorry / if I hurt you
I've gotta find a new way of life
I'm sorry / if I'm dumber
Than my age says I should be
But I'm tired / of losing
To the way things should be
I promise / to remember
All you've given me
If you promise / to surrender
To the fact that I had to leave
Wherever I go, I'll keep you in my heart
If I'm a thousand miles away or down the road
Everyone needs a few brand new starts
Everyone needs some time alone
I'm riding / through the heartland
Waiting for peace to come
I'm hiding / in the mountains
Singing to the morning sun
I'm riding / through the valley
Breathing in mountain air
I'm smiling / I am happy
I feel like I belong somewhere
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC
~
*solstice = sun stopped; in the case of winter solstice,
the moment when the sun ceases its journey northward
from the earth’s equator and turns southward toward
longer days; much like the journey our sun takes,
love solstice then is that moment of
arrest and redirect for one’s direction of travel
in life... and in this, the moment
a Sagittarian and Capricornian
separated on two sides of the solstice,
turn, collide and coalesce.*
~
hers,
the waning side,
winter's reprise,
calls to the night,
at height of eventide.
his,
on ebbing turn,
the sun's reverse,
together rise to step
as one at winter's ball.
their dance across the sky
'neath moonlit nights.
two in love,
in lockstep of
the stars above,
collide and coalesce,
their waltz amidst
the delicate pearls of
a Milky Way stage!
no more his lonely
path among the stars;
his heart she's swept,
to never dance alone;
her arrow sent with bow,
piercing to the marrow,
holds his life,
his very soul.
bold and daring,
her voice of caring,
soothes his troubled heart.
he, her promise, calls
to her adven’trous heart,
two stepping toward
a rising warming sun,
in birth that spans
the space and time between,
forever now as one;
this their solstice of love!
~
post script.
*she (late Sagittarian) is the setting-sun-kissed, rain-misted huntress,
he (early Capricornian) is the rising sun's icicled traveler.
mere days separating their arrival, though theirs could not be
more varied. their births under different signs; his in the wintry
heartland, hers in the sun-kissed southwest; individually they are fire
and ice, huntress and wanderer who together have captured,
captivated each the other’s heart. you’re not likely to see them
separately, but when you do, it’s only briefly when resupplying
their home, their hearth, their hearts. two making a most unlikely one,
but oh so surprisingly, so beautifully passionate!*
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 2:19 AM UTC
shirtless screaming through
the heartland and I used
to smoke cigarettes
too.
she never wanted
to stay: the youth
she had
left demanded it.
now, I'll wager
she's somewhere
in an apartment with
some dandy that
wears sweater vests
to Thanksgiving dinner.
maybe she thinks
about me and my little
twisted heart every
now and again:
like when she's away
from the sweater vest
on the toilet
behind a locked door,
"be right out, babe!"
or toting groceries
through a parking lot
to her car,
or signaling a
left turn before
changing her mind
and deciding to
go straight instead.
and
maybe I need to
stop thinking
about her
especially after
three years
incommunicado
but what can I say?
I've never slept on
a bed of nails
I couldn't
dream on.
Feb 27, 2021
Feb 27, 2021 at 9:34 AM UTC
Somewhere deep in the skies of Montana
a lonely street corner flickers
casting coded light
upon the distant albino hillside
It was once a great lake
of snow and ice and melt and
unseen by life
It drained and died
and its beautiful lakebed sands
became the hillside
again
to tumble and fall
into valley and time
again
there we built an impermanent road
we pave and pave
maintain
with trucks and slabs of dirt and grain
roaming those Roman roads
again
Somewhere deep in that heartland
the strings that pumped the musculature
of a dying nation
slowly giving way to a violent attack
from within
oxidize and pool
into great tides
to one day see the coast
I am in California
but I see it clearly as a dream
where the great plains meet the mountain face
and the Cheyenne carved their heels into the dirt
for a bit
spirit
eroded into the winds
today the miners spit
at a coffee-town bar
into copper cans
licker than split
Owning the land that shakes
and shifts
redrawing god's lines
with a paper pad and a pen
for a bit
And the dresses the ladies wear shine
lacquered wood and the horses cry
and beside the interstate
the trucks steam and chuff
and their drivers gaze starry-eyed
onward, beyond into the night
beyond those flanking hillsides
to the flat ocean land sponged anew
that left the oil fields in Texas and the tar sands in
Athabasca
set ablaze in the fervor
of a death rattle
American heart
pumping to feed these hillsides
again
for tomorrow we begin.
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 2:18 PM UTC
This meadow once a graceful place
Pathways to untold peace
Narrow corridors into the heartland of tranquility
Weaving in, out, around trees
Like perfectly formed webs
That glisten with morning dew
Even as the sun sets through the branches
Cascading this meadow with darkness
New Moon blanketing the meadow
With the hope of new light
The voices begin to play
Lullaby whispers dancing on leaves
Shaking tree limbs to the eerie silence
The nonexistent breeze
Carrying the meadow into ballrooms of vampiric flames
Thirsty for the life each tree branch holds
Silent meadow voices
Truly are silent
When meadows burn to the sound
Of crackling horror-stricken leaves
Curling under the immense heat
Fossilized in ashes
Making this once tranquil meadow
An ashen wasteland for silent meadow voices
Refusing to even open their tongues
To welcome the morning sun
Bringing new light
To the horror of silent meadow voices...silenced
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 1:47 AM UTC
Union and Grand
I moved into this house less than a year ago
and already three gun related murders have occurred
within a three block radius; two of them involving children.
I'm not making this **** up.
Those numbers wouldn't be anything exciting for a population
hitting upwards of the millions,
but this is not a big city.
This is the heartland.
-
The city paid for a series of strategically placed dead ends,
forced turns, and surveillance equipment to be installed
in the area of about a mile surrounding my house.
No wonder they call this place "The Trap".
They keep changing the maze,
and studying us like rats.
-
They had a make-do memorial for the little girl who got shot.
They attached her stuffed animals, cards, and photos to a utility pole
on the corner of Union and Grand. The city had it taken down.
Some kind of city ordinance
from some dusty tome at the town hall.
Kids killing kids, and the shots keep firing.
-
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not what'd you call an activist.
But when bloodshed occurs within eye shot of where you sleep,
you start to get a little irked.
These kids have as much potential as me, and twice as much grit.
Their teachers barely even know their names,
let alone what it's like to be deprived of privilege.
-
I'll stomp this concrete until my feet break.
This labyrinth is my constant reminder and reality check.
I am here, and you are there.
This connection is suspended on silver threads and I am your puppet.
Mold me into your angst driven dreamboat.
Because tomorrow, I'm just going to wake up here. Tyler.
-
This soul has been folded seven times
and I grow tired of this reality.
There was a time when I could scream loud enough to wake the dead.
I guess I'm showing the symptoms
of an accidental child
with a tongue that only tastes art as bitter protest.
-
I'd tear my face off
to know if this is really getting through to you.
The face in the photo is that of the goat; the false idol and deceiver.
A Knight of Pentacles, selling you gold plated garbage.
Odin-kin.
You always feel like I have a secret to keep; my fist is in the air.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 3:05 AM UTC
living a charmed existence in the
shade of the seaward palm tree
but a telltale whisperer in hearts depth
sends doubters and scaremongers
like skulking figure's into the late day shadows
something darkly this way comes
some nameless faceless thing stalks this heartland of light
few pondered the night
few thought about what lay out there in the deep
brazen the lighthouse keeper
stokes the fires and keeps the lamps burning
no rumor of night will lay darkness at this door
no faint echo of footfall shall haunt this hour
again and again the lighthouse keeper
treads the midnight cold path of stones
along the seawall checking that all is well
raising his lantern and peering with old eyes
at the crazed cracks in the ancient wall
but none gave sign of weakness
none gave sign of peril
far out in the deep of the wider world
for the love of money and the greed of gasoline
something set in motion
some terrible beast of steel
and just as the moon set
in the final hour before dawn it came
heaving and rattling with such horrendous sounds
with bone rattling force laid its terrible hand on the seawall
and smashed the stones like it was no more than sand castle
this terrible thing so darkly come
unforgiven of wretched creature misguided soul
come to harvest the land of light
breathed with heavy burnt oil
breathed with mechanical labors
pulling its weight onto the shore
toppled the lighthouse extinguishing its light
darkness fell upon the scene
and with dreadful night returned once again to this shore
the seaward palm tree wither and die
no charmed place safe
from savage of dark
morning light never to return
in the shade of metal and oil fires night
the savage of darkness
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 9:10 PM UTC
The coffee cups are *****
But it’s the cleanest way
To drink whiskey here.
The barman lost half his right fingers
To a wood chipper in his early 20’s
And spent the rest of his adult life
Flipping the world off.
He got it down to a fine art
By the time I showed up.
He didn’t smile when I ordered my drink.
He didn’t smile at all.
The jukebox hasn’t changed
For two stagnant decades
And most everyone but the regulars
Are too scared to use it.
It’s the same rotation
Of Elvis,
Muddy Waters,
BB King,
John Coltrane,
And early Bruce Springsteen.
Not a woman in sight
But every song is about them
And we are all here
Because of them.
Certain patches of carpet
Have not seen a crack of light
Since the Berlin Wall fell.
Nothing changes here but the customers-
And that change is incremental at best.
The same filthy etchings over
The same filthy cubicle doors.
The same Cherokee Indian
Smoking a Cuban Cigar
In the heartland of America.
I can’t find myself here
But there is no feeling of loss.
There is no profundity in anything here.
Just squalor
And enjoying one’s squalor.
I think that is what it means
To be truly happy.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 5:24 AM UTC
a thirsty soul suspended over the
waters of this heartland like some kind of
symbolic sacrifice to the lesser demigods
she is wearing a hippy skirt and a fashionable hat
a swift sunrise gives her aspects of divinity
she tells me she came here to go shopping
but in the turbulent space between our hearts
something has changed
she tells me cloudy days make her sad
i tell her rain is a companion to no man
but the flowers love it just the same
she knows she loves it too
i pick up her thought and bounce it like a rubber ball
cause it keeps comin back to me'
just like that mysterious smile that
lingered on her face
long on my mind
i cant seem to shed the thought
that it all means something someplace
always somebody thirsty somewhere
the clock stopped at a quarter to four
and a shameful woman sits there fixing her face
with the wrenches and hammers of fashionable practice
seek to be the same as everybody else
someday your bound to get there
just to find yourself questioning why you
bothered once your there
her and the shameful woman put a
heated argument in the pocket of hunger
and giggling like schoolgirls walk away
to go find a mirror to get lost in
swap makeup and spit in some bathroom selfies
girls night out
i'm standing out here in the open air parking lot
watching the heartland of fiveashes sink slowly into the sea
walk on the puddles reflections of clouds
as they break apart to bring us a brand new day
rain is a companion to no man
but the flowers like it anyway
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.
It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made to enter you
as you have entered me
and to cut the daylight into you
and let out your buried heartland,
to let out the spoon you have fed me with,
to let out the bird that said **** you,
to carve him onto a sculpture until he is white
and I could put him on a shelf,
an object unthinking as a stone,
but with all the vibrations
of a crucifix.
1.7k
Standing on my beached heartland,
a few hundred thousand bleached granules of sand
trickle through thick slits in my hourglass hands.
The dry-stream sands my fingers to periosteum as
my head walks the neural gallows,
last lines on the tip of the tongue.
He was a runaway circus animal,
the theme I hunted in vain.
He was my solar eclipse, my waning moon, the coastline;
he was a garden, a sculptor, an elaborate stone trellis;
he was frightened, he was in love, a philosopher without a cause;
he was Michelangelo, Camus, Akhmatova, Kant, Blake and Crane;
he’s the executioner, the brief reflection of a solitary grain
sliding down the boney hourglass
as the blindfold does the same.
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 7:59 AM UTC
Judy Judy Kansas cutie / it starts in the heartland / Tornado = social change through manipulated crisis / Toto the only free agent / Dorothy struck on her head by the closing window of virtual possibility / She realizes that hope'n'change have reached the prairie / Alice in Wonderland Hollywood / Kansas as futurist narrative / Star Wars pre-dated / It's a Wonderful Mythic Life / Miss Gulch as Henry Potter / Witchery in bitchery: Hillary 2016 / Scarecrow as Celtic bog-sacrifice victim / Tinman as ****** therapy client / Did that hurt? No - it felt wonderful ! / Bible-belt Pentecostal subtexts: "the anointing" / obsolete leonine monarchies / Louis Quatorze the Sun King / enlightenment through concussion / the tyrant must be resisted from the heartland / populist progressives plot stealthily to justify their rule through the wizardry of science / the tyrant utilizes tech to manipulate the credulous / green state fascism / journey out of ontic inevitability into the futurist nightmare / eco-mammon bailouts / infantile mental midgets ruled by witch-tyrants = One World Munchkinland / Dorothy as redeemer-Messiah / Dorothy as Mary Poppins / America exports populist prophecy to the greater world / Glinda the Matriarch-Goddess / Glinda as transcendent Wisdom / the Anti-witch antidote / Patriarchy creates "special effects" subterfuge / flying monkeys: shock-troops of the witch / simian social justice warriors / Obama as Witch of West AND Wizard simultaneously / flying monkeys: brown-shirt armies of new multi-culti order / George W. Bush was the the witch the house ("Hope & Change') fell on / Over the Rainbow: somewhere beyond ****** identity grievance-mongering / There's no place like the Restoration of All Things
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 5:49 PM UTC
The air, superheated, cocoons us
and we drive,
northwards into the heartland
of the desert.
You, black shirted,
your smooth denims
an intrinsic part
of the landscape.
You were born into dust.
I, crisp and white,
a polarised pair
of mirrors for my eyes.
Your hands on the wheel
guide us into the belly of time.
Intent upon a road with no end.
Sunlight hits chrome,
bleeding flashes of forever
into the gaze of any who glance upon us.
The roof pulled down,
my hat is given up
to a vortex of spinning air,
whipping tiny tornadoes
of grit and long-dead weeds
into a dancing frenzy of celebration.
We have no gold on our fingers.
Our teeth shall not itch
with the sugar of a wedding cake.
And we’ll never look back.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 6:16 AM UTC
A simple love life
Opportune love
Presence everywhere
One chooses to be aware
Awake and aware of truth personified
Happy with nothing left to lose
Beauty follows grace
Everything changes
How depends on
Face to face
Whisper
Love will not be contained
To hell with the moon
We glow
Before or after transforms
Here now in paradise
Create universes
Of infinite passions place
Each-others
Infinite
Embrace
Simultaneously
Synchronizing-hearts to beat as one
Divine straight true pure
Cuts bleeding
Right
Through
America's
Heartland ironic eh
Fear our matchless glory
Please perhaps maybe space to love
Lovers thinking about moving
Gratefully happy to reflect now
Believing cute twists of hope hot sultry silly
Buttery-silky-soft sticky kisses for real
Checks hearts pulsating limitless too late
Love is ready in all ways here today
Be relieved late again
Coy shy dreadful
Sweats
Joy why
So few
Regrets
Joy has found
A simple love
Buttery silky soft
Coy inky **** you & me
Crafting love-life-peace
Show is over go home to simple love
More love over love under again repeatedly unscripted
Coming back for more shocked *** dripping & jaw dropping
Focused and riveted rocketing peculiar passions with pure presence
Terrestrial love **** beautiful eyes style points grace
Throne of blushing stallion champion of abundance giving patience to naughty time to play savor Every mentionable edible
Enjoying fine fresh refined tempered real touched up and down love move it all around for real Even still hear
Sacred silence
Convert no one will ever know
Vegas style passion love over flowing
Powerfully connected heart wrenching censor ships to shore
Love confidently drooling dreaming imagining magical wet mystical
dripping warm sea foam breezes Touch intent
Lips tongues mesh definitely overdue done
Multiple heart-beats resonate as more than one
Mushy in your face grace
Presenting happiness fun presence
Sexy-very-sexy fate is alive
One chooses 2 to awake to 3 awareness
Awake and aware of freedom truth
Love love love is within the eyes of the wise
To amuse a muse loose
To a simple love life.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
He kinetically arrived
with 1973.
Night is the longest day,
here come the warm jets,
served on a cold plate.
Play it back at half-speed
and you've got auditory wallpaper,
it must be as ignorable
as it is interesting.
His own world spins within a device:
cacophony of sound
mixed in a blender
and xeroxed;
a little snake guitar,
a little Leslie piano
— music to resign you
to the possibility of death.
Then came 1983
and beyond just him.
Tamper tantrum hotline,
amplifiers on the balcony,
secretly taping Edge
and Adam Clayton
on a 4th of July.
The numbered streets
and desert rain
add soul to this heartland,
it's the gospel truth
he wiped the deck clean.
(sort of and maybe).
His device spins within its own world:
manageable hums,
danceable drones,
welded into night;
daytime variations
held together
no better (and no worse)
than a cloud.
Then there's sfumato:
music without lines or borders,
in the manner of smoke
— theatrical fog
— a different kind of blue.
Densely layered,
so impossible to track,
this being lost in
the magnetic hush
of airports and
other strange kiosks,
it all falls into a creative lull.
Guess it's time for
Oblique Strategies...
Jul 9, 2022
Jul 9, 2022 at 1:43 PM UTC
fireworks sparkle
the darkened sky of my memory,
sparkling through my soul in a pleasant wave,
uncovering a walk in the jungle of my heartland
and a guava tree.
I’m in my kitchen, filling my nose
with the delicate scent of ripening guavas from Mexico,
palmed in the chalice of my hands,
feeling my way to that jungle walk with my family when I was three
or maybe two, in Hawai’i
and the guava tree.
as I bite through the fragile skin of the yellow globe,
the seeds, like BBs, take me further into my remembrance,
my family around me sharing
the excitement and joy I felt when I saw and climbed
the guava tree.
after we moved back to the Mainland
to a desert paradise I also loved,
each Spring I came down with what I called my Island Virus:
a deep yearning and homesickness
for my heartland
and the guava tree.
c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Oct 7, 2017
Oct 7, 2017 at 3:42 PM UTC
please
forgive me,
this chest scar,
is a crack in the heartland,
deep rupture,
grime and shadow seeping in.
landscape,
an infinite black lake.
I can see
my reflection clear in it;
it is
broken glass, fragmented and
reassembled again,
again,
monstrous, twisted as a
swan dipped in oil, drowned twice, feathers
lathered so thickly, so
irrecoverably.
oil, oil, it drips so
slowly and sickly and
sweetly.
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 11:45 PM UTC
As the crow flies south from capital city
With soaring moonshine he coasts into synchronicity
Highways below dissolve into forgotten whispers
Like a rear view mirror sees only memories in its disappearing
Visual ****** initiates and fills this polychromatic cruise
Starting with a quiet historic ruse
Contesting over which of the two
echo shadows for optical repeal
the many leaves of kaleidoscope hues
That keep a running legacy since time before our time
and / or
Buried horizon from endless layers of skyward hills
Hills that have been storing a primitive foundation for the growing of substructure foliage in order to be able to drop its petals and leaves
Resolve is left with the one true and unbiased impartial decider...
the wind
to form a fair measure of mediation
From the human view
All are merely a preview for the impromptu quest
In an attempt to catalyze foreshadow and paint memory for the drive out west
To approach from afar
The destination appears to be a resting
shape of an antiquated location
splashed with opaque aromas,
sensory weaving visuals,
and
Melodic tones of nostalgic definition
Emitting vibrations of soothing tremolo that quiver throughout the body
this multi-strip string of singular select shops
Is the alignment initiative in the countryside
forecasting a manifest
for the hazy occasion
Anointing inspiration over the heartland’s artland
That nearly only hope,
could create
Invisible snows sprinkle over roads like a magic red carpet of threaded tranquility in its coat
Enticing, Welcoming, and Lighting up this neck of the west
And opening into the
Woodland Hills of Little Nashville
———-—————————————-——————————
Oct 3, 2019
Oct 3, 2019 at 6:10 PM UTC
Westerly flows on
a northbound
express..
Trembling wasteland
in the dreams of
her dress...
Southerly tides
in East Michigan’s
winter...
cascading skies
under a buried
splinter...
Destiny’s heartland
in the middle of
nowhere...
condoms and fish gear
on a diet of
Lite Beer...
Aug 23, 2010
Aug 23, 2010 at 6:15 AM UTC
only two things on the menu
at the A & O Café, sitting somewhere
in the heartland, between the school
and church, bathed in fickle light
pocked by hail and weathered by the storms
though all still go there, and
few think to complain
about the spare fare
some ask for theirs sunny side up
with the gold yolk promise of tomorrow
shining at them, like a hopeful new sun
others choose over easy, perhaps past hope
and ready for more solid times, still
a few can have them no way but scrambled
fast fried and slaughtered into yowling yellow
heaped on their plaintive plates
few ask for the bacon, since it comes
with every meal, the fat hog long ago
butchered, and part of the A&O; deal
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 11:50 AM UTC