Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
James Daniel Nov 2017
Fly Jailbird Fly
Because my wings are broken
And my sight is weak

Fly thru the skies
And over the tides

Out of my hands
And out of my control

Give me dreams
Make them bigger than they seem

Everybody’s after you
Everybody wants you

Fly Jailbird Fly
Nathaniel Nov 2011
Round the path these wraiths walk
paced to keep the gears turning
save for a few this is Lady Justice
her arms holding even the smallest souls
sounds of buzzing and locks clanking
dominate above the incessant chatter
backyard handshakes hidden from prying eyes
dogged deals shaping these shatter lives
and the word of the day is always "waiting"
taking one last look at the hands of time
before that dreaded voice bellows through
then its the cold slap of flash on cement
these veal on twenty three hour lockdown
spinning their tales these jailbird tailors
lying to each other for stolen smiles
each in a different stage of the same life
bathing in the omnipresent light of fireflys
dreaming of a wisp of smoke or a hand stroke
whichever waits for them on the outside
they'd believe in the patience of the buddha
if religion were on their tapered tongues
as it is there's always faces against the glass
eyes peeled to savor the brief passing drama
apathetic to the other prison dog's plight
drooling for the next passing hour
as they count them like sheep herding sleep
cleansing their conscience in the communal rainshower
everyone praying for the wings of freedom
to fly them from these sullen gates
the others still suspended in solitude
letting one man tell them when to eat and wake
their voices becoming mere whispers of wind
poets robbed of their rhymes and words
grown accustomed to breathing processed air
measuring their time in months, weeks, and years
locked away with the shadow of their fears
So i really don't like how this poem ends i'll probably be changing it in the future just wanted to put it out there for the moment
HTR Stevens Dec 2017
They tell me that I am no good;
They lock me up in jail.
They give me all the sloppy food
They tell me I have failed.

They take away my self-respect;
They tell me no one cares,
They tell me you will soon forget
I’m part of your nightmares.

They say they’ll throw away the key;
My cell is dark and cold.
By and by you will forget me
As I grow weak and old.

The days grow short, the nights grow long;
My time is running out
Like the end of a dreary song
I have no breath to shout.

A jailbird has no wings to fly,
Not like your feathered friends;
A jailbird can just wait to die;
His way to make amends.
I met Neal Cassady last night in a waking dream sitting across from me with his back turned to the noise; the bar was loud. He repeatedly leaned forward and asking if I wanted a smoke.
        He looked just like Neal, talked like him. I hated and admired him just like I would the real Neal Cassady. His mind was incredible; beyond the worries of mortality, no thoughts or pains of hubris. He had the candor that I lacked only because I hadn't the nerve to jump first. When I asked him if he truly was the great Cassady, he stared at me from across the table with a wry smile; patted his breast pocket down, leaned back and said as he turned with precision out of his chair,
        "Let's go for a smoke".
        Such practiced determination, he was already outside before I had put on my coat. Of course I had no cigarettes of my own, he had expected me to bring one for the both of us. But I for one expected him to procure an entire carton by the time I was outside; one bent cigarette from every Saintly being at the bar.
        And what a bar! Great young gone gals; dressed in short skirts and long autumn coats; wool scarves around their necks and under chins beneath cold steel eyes. Ahh, forever young the white dresses and mistresses of the college bar.
        By the time I had opened the door and exhaled my first breath of the crisp night air, Neal was playing the part of locomotive engine with a German couple who were smoking and pretending to be Parisian. The three of them were standing in formation of a triangle on the edge of a stone staircase with a railing leading down into a steep lawn with Neal’s back facing the moon. It was all arranged in a perfect geometric mandala of overlapping Platonic solids.
        As I approached the cloud, Neal was recounting the tale of a nurse he had lain in the backseat of her father's station wagon in Nebraska in the heat of the afternoon sun. The German man was stocky and ill-dressed for the weather. He told me later that his name was Heinrich, but I did not believe him even though I knew he had nothing to hide. The woman whom I believed to be only his girlfriend told me, with a thick German accent, that her name was Deline. I believed her. She was well-dressed for the weather and smoking heavily; style is everything.
        "They've graciously offered to roll us a dozen", Neal expelled between great gusts of smoke, a boyish grin smeared on his face by the thousand red lips and wet ***** of passed consequence. Even in the light of a single lamppost coming through the haze that billowed forth from the three talking chimneys, I could still see a sheen in Neal's eye. The sort of sheen that implied hooliganisms. The sort of sheen you see before a person flies off the handle. The exact sheen you see before you wake up tomorrow in the late light of the afternoon, wondering who the Hell took your hand last night and jumped into total darkness with you. That is, if there was somebody around to take your hand.
        I liked Neal.
                He had a style about him that reminded me of a dark velvet curtain. Once you had passed through that curtain in your business casual attire, you witnessed the burgundy coloured stain of truth. There was no backpedaling after that; your chains would knot up and you would fall off the ride if you tried.
        The German couple looked around at their surroundings and the both of us with a degree of boredom. I had seen them earlier in the bar, they looked bored then too. Neither had spoken to the other once and I was beginning to feel like we were exasperating them.
        “Who cares? They offered to roll us a dozen” I thought. What did it matter how Neal got them to do it, they've offered twelve cigarettes and now they belong to us.
        Deline handed Neal and I six cigarettes each; they were magnificently rolled.
        “Goodbye, then! Thank you for your business”, Neal said and slid down the railing to the lawn below, lighting his cigarette mid-slide. I had just lit mine and started after him down the staircase. I turned around and spoke clumsily with a cigarette bobbing at the corner of my mouth,                      
        “Yes… thanks”, and left without another word.

        Neal walked with sporadic intensity; arms often stabbing out into the blanket of night; legs that would walk straight and stiff but then bent and fast with sudden changes as if he was preparing to spring off into the evening of speckled lampposts and smoke. His head bobbed West to East, North to South, and all Axis’ between X, Y and Z. The more I stared at this character whom I called Neal the more I thought of him as an illusion of my own delusions. When I had finished that thought, Neal had spun around and laughed a good hearty and honest laugh; he seemed to have read my mind and proceeded to flick the space between by eyebrows with his thumb and *******. The pain was real enough. This Neal must be real, unless I had gone full mad with lunacy. We blasted off down the avenue which connected the college bar to the dormitories and the library after that.
        Beyond the avenue laid the cozy valley of goodnight downtown with all it’s lights of sodium pearls below and us upon the hill top looking down with eager intensity. Neal gave another rounded laugh and stared with mad eyes above my head and pointed straight up into the sky at Sirius.
        “Tonight, yes yes, we go out. Not just out, my dear friend, but up. Yes yes, to the great up-and-over. Beyond the next stop we absolutely must climb.”

         I don’t know what mad beast had possessed me that evening but I followed this ghost; this great memory of romantic America into the heart of the infinite night.
        “Good gal Deline”, said Neal

        “Who?” I replied
        “Nimble fingers, strong hands for the German working class” he said, “Great gone gal. Good gal. Fine gal by all standards of beauty and sleek german ingenuity”
        “Hmm”, I responded inhaling my cigarette deeply. The Germans were just fine at rolling, but the tobacco was all American. It was harder and harder for me to physically keep up with Neal. He kept speeding off sporadically twenty feet in front of me, sometimes stopping and spouting at young folks asking for cigarettes. 

        “But you’ve already got one” They would say

        “Yes yes, but it’s for when I’m not smoking one is why I want one”, Neal would answer as he trailed off further and further down the road. They thought he was mad, but they all smiled nonetheless.

        My curiosity was brimming. Who was this mad man? Who was this loon impersonator of the American night? I could not stand by my idle silence and unquestioning.
        “What’s the plan tonight?”, I asked

        “What plan? No good plan. Only great plan and great plain rising higher and higher and we will be up all night but on top of the world for we must climb up and up forever until we can climb no more, and then after we can climb no more then we must climb a little further for life itself is nothing more than an infinite climb ever higher and why not get there faster than all the rest?”

        I had stopped walking and Neal’s voice echoed and vibrated the walls of the stairs between the library and the meal hall. His voice was like that of mountain that had slid beneath the ground reborn into an endless peak above.
“Jailbird Cassidy. Great bellowing Cassidy all energy and no direction, but getting there in no time just the same Cassidy”, I thought to myself.
“I trust you Neal”, I had said out loud.
“Not yet! First great big night time breakfast for you and me, for one can not climb without a good energy and good rounded stomach digested of food and stories.”
igriegazeta Apr 2010
Cheers from inside the catacombs of just-alive vagabonds & miscreant self-delusions of sagacious sabotage & pyrrhic moonscapes, brandishing our eternal return

a tabula rasa for respect & character - bottoms up, too. Mona Lisa
Shroud of Turin, ******* on a trunk. Gamble 66
for trays, dealing steam carrots.

Gag reflex to polite televangelists giving viewers auspicious immunity.

Habits cede to Power, acquiesce to Power, love power.
Peculiarity can recognize & organize to displace.
Something suspicious may run amok , antithetical to the divide & conquer trite.
Defeating paragons, i , Plumed Serpent of release & capture beats, borrowing color from a skylark in forever-flight, conjure remedial winds
Guide inimical bows subsumed in a cosmo-prole dew against the fasces of a few.
Ava N Mar 2015
With clipped wings,          
It flies,
Almost.

On broken limbs,
It stands,
Almost.

It is a jailbird,
And i,
Almost.
Francie Lynch Dec 2018
Tolstoy was a boy,
Ibsen was Henrik's son
Hardy had a father,
And see how well they've done.

Byron was a grandson,
And Wordsworth had a wet nurse,
Thoreau had a 2 to go,
Shakespeare a bad marriage,
Austen was a loner,
Poor Sylvia was a goner,
And see how well they've done.

Joyce had a ***** mind,
Fitzgerald liked to drink,
Richler liked to smoke,
And Wolfe enjoyed a ****,
And see how well they've done.

Fielding was a misogynist,
Wilde was a jailbird;
Virginia a misandrist,
And Kerouac a simple ****.
Yet see how well they've done.

Still with all their drawbacks,
Look how well they've done;
Like our old friend John,
We surely come un-done.
John Donne
Bruce Mackintosh Jul 2013
Welcome
Initiate
to the
Big Room
of the Summit
County Jail.
Specialists
will handle
the theft
of your blanket
while you're
watching TV
The game of Hearts
shall be played
each morning
after the pancake
with cold coffee
and the
entertainment
features your
inaugural public
performance
on the alfresco
commode
Chimera melons Mar 2010
Huddled flocks pecking around
seasick seasick seasick
Stor-it-all ransacked for tax reforms
jupiter pinetrees form less pyramids a month plus shipping
Monoatomic white gold texas teatree oil of bullfight storefronts
coronas eject breast milk of magnessium sulphate under the table
dealers lower deck slips tips into his cup o soup for 99 cents
landsick landsick rot cod rot cod
dot dash doctor ankh eyes windup toys half price
sentences complete fusion conagra foods lose stock market value
Judgement night of the living end time shared ethical treatments
and other plastic surgeries
hydra lost all the fifties movie stars heads and robots grew back so quickly to take their places everyone pay it forward
ships mast ripping into the ocean spray on tans
compass spun bankrupt Say Jack E onasis
chaste chasis mer ka bah light bringer fire eater
danse macabre four pillars swatch at Sacs on fifth avenue
avec mon couer le chat screams cheshire teeth porcupine all over my new
dress shirt,  that stain is not going to come out
and playground beef factory farmed like high school mindgames
seasick seasick see it see
i see

She really was real in reality where I was too real in your past


It past us by with no pillowfights , mutual loss of trustfunds
we never had
, purposefully failed attempts to make little beastly humans grow in her stomach and burst out like aliens happen in her car on long trips.

lost art of making art artfully with out chiclet teeth blank eyes and jumping breaking stuffand hitchhiker guy twisting wills
by throwing green boxes into the dark on bike trails

or inviting things to watch ***** fountains ,
endlessly cutting out pictures
, orange ice cream menthol cigarettes and choco pyramids ,
fake friends find you when you run away from yourself
so don't play hide and go seek or you might be gone forever until the devil finds you and takes you to jailbird

jacobs ladder rung 9  times and I answered my phone
"Hello ?"  
It was the silence of God on the line.
The cosmic vibration of pure being.
I didn't listen for long enough and ran out of minutes.
All right copyrighted in glorious technicolor
This is my breakout:
The jailbird has lost her chains
She will not stay in her cage
For one more day.

This is our breakout:
The lady's not in the lake
She's fighting blade to blade
To make her own way.

I wish I could say this will be easy
I wish I didn't have to talk
I wish I could say things will get better
But they won't be 'til rights are rights for all.
NL Feb 2012
2.9.12
Memory oppression.
It never works for me.
They always come back eventually.
It hits me like a wave,
crashing around me and drowning me
in an ocean of regret and self-loathing.
I feel so ****** up.

The easiest defense,
is to feel numb.
Smoke until my lungs hurt.
Drink until I cannot feel anything
anymore.
Because the pain of my present actions,
sure as hell beats the agony i feel when
I think of all that I've done.

I am told I'm a good person.
I try to believe it.
But I can't let go of
the things I've done.
The people I've destroyed.

Montauges of the past
are like snapshots of
the truth of who I really am.

Relying on strangers for the necissities of every day life.
"Stay with me, love. Sleep in my bed. You will be safe."
"Snort this, dear. It will be okay."
Why did I listen?
Everything goes black then.
I awaken,
naked,
covered in sweat.
"What happened?"
No answer,
he just showed me the door.
It's strange,
I cannot even remember his name.
I will never forget his face though.

Snapshot.
Drinking a liquid drug.
Flashes of insanity.
Laying on the bathroom floor,
questioning where I was.
Who I was.
Slamming my fists into the wall.
Trying to make the pounding in my head stop.
Make the voices stop.
Make the people in my head stop asking me all their
******* questions.

"Would you like to try something new?"
This strange man was offering me ****..
"Of course." I reply.
"I'll try anything."
Carefully lighting the pipe.
"Careful now, light it for too long and it will explode."
Exhale.
How did I fit so much smoke in my mouth?
Give it a second.
Feel the rush.

The tight pinch of the rubber around my arm,
I enjoyed the rush of nervousness as she said,
"This will only hurt a little."
The bite of the needle.
The image of my blood,
tainted black.

Greg.
I thought he was so attractive.
I hooked up with his brother though,
while he shot up adderall in the bathroom.
He had a shortage of ****** at the time.

So many men told me they loved me in Utah.
They held me in their arms and stroked my hair.
They kissed my lips in a way that made me believe them.
None lasted more than a week.
Either I would not have *** with them when they wanted.
Or they realized how ****** up I really am.
Either way,
I was left empty and starving for love.
On to the next one.

Nothing compares,
to my ******.
I still remember
the sweet yet bitter taste of it.
I remember when I was a child,
I said I would never smoke a cigarette.
Who have I become?

Having *** for the first time in three years in a homeless shelter.
A twenty-two year old jailbird.
I will never forget
the swatstika on his chest.
Or the way he left the second after.
The sheets felt so cold that night.
And I felt so empty.

The man I thought I loved.
I knew him for all of a month,
when he was arrested before my eyes.
And it was all my fault.
I never saw him again.
His last words were,
"I love you. I'm so sorry."
I cried for two weeks straight.
We would smoke ****.
Have *** and never tire.
I thought I loved him.
I realize now,
I cannot fully recall a memory.
Or any feeling of affection towards him.
I hope he is okay.

Another,
his name was Tyler.
He housed me.
He took care of me.
I lead him on,
so I could have a roof over my head.
And I broke his heart.
And felt nothing.

***** Vegas drug runs.
With four men,
late 20's.
****** addicts.
I remember
leaving the parking lot,
looking to either side of me.
That day I saw true addicts.
Blood streaming from their drug infested veins.
I guess that's what happens when you
re-open old wounds.
I asked if I could have some,
after all,
I did find them a ride.
They said no to shooting it up.
But graciously let me smoke some.
The result?
Throwing up in the Vegas parking lot for an hour.
It's okay.
We went back to one of their place and did more.
Along with *******.
One week later they were raided.
10-20 years in prison.

One man I lived with for a month.
He was 31 years old.
Two younger daughters.
He always had a group of teenagers at his house
smoking ****.
Drinking.
The **** his daughters saw..
He kicked me out for not having *** for him.
It was my "payment" and I just couldn't do it.
It didn't feel right.
One month later his house was raided.
In front of his daughters he was handcuffed.
10 years in prison.

Wyatt called me a couple times.
Each time I burst out in tears.
How could he still love me?
I left him.
But I still loved him more than anything.
He was the only one who loved me unconditionally.

I remember Leavitt.
I have never met a nastier man.
He tried to turn me into a ******* numerous times.
He knew how badly I needed ******.
Why did I put up with him?
Yes,
he had a car.
But,
he molested me on more than one occasion..
Most likely because I could never remember it the next day.
He always promised me ****** if I stayed around.
Empty promises.
I tried to leave,
he stole my phone.
Called my parents and told them everything.
******* *******.
I did not want them to see who their daughter was now.

Brent tried to be there for me.
I used him.
And he knew it.
But he is a good person.
And he loved me.
So he sacrificed.

I had a friend named Tayler.
She was 15.
Dating a 27 year old drug dealer.
She was street smart.
Stole his **** almost everyday.
He was too drugged up to realize it was his own girlfriend.

My parents sent me money once.
Two hundred dollars.
It was spent on ****.
And what wasn't spent on ****,
my friends stole.
And I always forgave,
because they were all I had.

I am extremely grateful,
that many more memories have not come back.
I know some are terrible.
And I'm not ready to face them quite yet.

I have no idea how
I could associate myself with these people.
Let alone let myself become one.

Everything was so *****.
Every one was so *****.
I repress any dark side I have,
that I used to show.
Because I'm afraid to become that again.

I never want to be that person again.
I never want to live that life again.
When will I get closure?
When will I forgive myself?
When will I let myself be happy?
I think some people are just meant to be unhappy.

I don't think happiness is possible for me.
Poverty

This ailment clips my bare soul
My malady hides my ample sight
Penury loads my cognition. Watery hole
Shift not far my destination, yet too blight

It is corral, harvesting my living carcass
I don't egender chaff in the shining sun
this coop is an enclosure of my idleness
Like a jailbird my to be is limited and shun

*One day. My wandring ship will wheel
My fervor will ease and I'll scope my haven
My wounds and lesions will then heal
I will grab my revenue as in Heaven
madeline may Jul 2014
I hate the way I refer to him and "you" and you as "him"
I hate the way the passage of a year means nothing to my aching heart and
I hate the way the thought of her lips that are too thin and her eyes that are too dark and her hair that is too long is what he's chosen for three hundred and sixty seven days because I hate the way she told you you didn't love me the day you called me to tell me they told you what love was and I hate the way that I will always fall back into you and the jail cell that traps me between your ribs

but I love the taste of the glue from this envelope that lingers on my lips I love the way you wrap your arms around my waist I love the way you look at me as you **** me until I can't breathe
I love the way the blue of the skies I see when I wake up in the morning and the seas that lull me to sleep at night pales in comparison to the blue of your eyes and I love the way I miss you when I stop at stop lights and you aren't there to unclench my hands from the wheel
and I love the way we look at these stars together from this distance but ******* christ I hate the way the specks of light in this god forsaken sky are so far away - just like you from me tonight
I just hope they find a way to tell you that I love you with their whispering voices in the dawn cause baby now it's just you and me
love letters from your 1910 belle
you him you him you you you
I love you and ******, I'm free
Sayzar Nov 2012
I have woken up too often

to the prodding of a phone number

I refuse to remember.

I have collected these mornings

along side your letters,

words I refuse to discard.
THE ALLAN FAMILY STORY PART 4




YA SEE, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A LITTLE COOL KID TO THE FAMILY

IN MY MUM AND DADS EYES, AND I USED TO PLAY SHOWS LIKE THE COOPERS

FAMILY, WHICH IS ABOUT RON AND SALLY’S QUEST TO OPEN A FAMILY BUSINESS

IN A HOSPITAL, WHERE THEY HAD A SON, DAVID, AND HE MARRIED RAELEEN

AND THEY HAD A BOY NAMED DON COOPER, AND THEY HAD A DAUGHTER NAMED

SUE COOPER WHO MARRIED BIKIE JOHN PRENDTH, AND HAD A LITTLE BOY NAMED

FRANK PRENDTH, AND I WAS GETTING INSPIRATION FROM MAGAZINES AND TV

ON HOW TO BRING MORE CHARACTERS, LIKE JACK RUNNING THE BAR, JEAN AS THE COOK

AND MARTIN TATE, AS THE AMBULANCE DRIVER, WHO WAS A BIT OF AN ALCOHOLIC

WHO WAS IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH MENTAL HEALTH NURSE, MICHELLE TATE, AND THE

THEME SONG WAS, AIN’T SHE SWEET, SEE HER COMING DOWN THE STREET

I ASK HER VERY CONFIDENTIALLY, AIN’T SHE SWEET, AIN’T SHE NICE

LOOK HER OVER ONCE OR TWICE, I ASK YOU VERY CONFIDENTIALLY AIN’T SHE NICE

JUST CAST AN EYE, IN HER DIRECTION, OH ME OH MY, AIN’T THAT PERFECTION

I REPEAT, I THINK THAT’S KIND OF NEAT, I ASK YOU VERY CONFIDENIALLY AIN’T SHE NICE

AND I PLAYED BEWITCHED, AND MY BROTHER SAID, DO YOU PLAY IT, THAT IS SO STUPID

BUT IF I WANNA PLAY A SHOW, I WILL PLAY A SHOW, I DO WHAT I WANNA DO, IT’S LIKE THIS

WRITING, AND I ENJOYED TWITCHING MY NOSE TRYING TO ZAP MYSELF 1 MILLION DOLLARS

OR TO A REMOTE RESTAURANT IN THE HEART OF TOWN,

MY NEXT SHOW, I PLAYED WAS LIVE STOCK, ABOUT A VET NAMED MARK SARGENT, COMING TO

START A PRACTICE IN CLAXTON HILL, AND EACH EPISODE HE WENT ABOUT HIS ROUNDS AT ALL

THE FARMS IN THE DISTRICT, AND ROBBO’S PUB, WHERE MARK OFTEN WENT FOR FRIDAY AND

SATURDAY NIGHT DRINKS, AND A LOT OF THE KIDS OF CLAXTON HILL, WERE OFTEN GETTING INTO

PROBLEMS, I GOT THIS IDEA, FROM A MIXTURE OF ALL THE SOAPS IN THE 80S AND ALSO THE VET

SHOW, CALLED, ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, EVERY NEW YEARS EVE, I WILL PLAY A NEW YEARS SHOW

FEATURING THE NEW YEAR TIGER, AND THE CAST OF ALL MY FAKE TELEVISION SHOW CHARACTERS

AND ONCE AT MY GRANDMAS HOUSE, I PLAYED A CHRISTMAS SHOW IN HER BACKYARD AND I WAS A LOUD WILD DUDE

I SANG WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR, AND SOME KIDS CAME TO ME, AND SAID, CAN YOU SHUT UP, WE WANT YOU TO SHUT UP

THIS WAS BECAUSE, I RAN AWAY FROM TEASERS AS A KID, CAUSE I WAS A TAD SCARED, MY BROTHER WASN’T THOUGH, HE STAYED

WITH THEM, AND THE KIDS SAID WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

CAUSE WE’RE TEASING YOU, YA SEE I THOUGHT I WAS A REAL MANS KID, YA SEE I THOUGHT JUST BECAUSE I WAS A SPORTS WATCHER

IT MEANS I GET LEFT ALONE, IT DOESN’T SILENCE ME, IF I WANT TO PL;AY SHOWS, I WILL DO IT IN MY ROOM, AND ALL THE ADULTS

WERE WORRIED, CAUSE THEIR PERFECT AURA WAS RUINED, AND TO THESE KIDS, I WAS A REAL SHY PERSON, BUT I USED

TO TEASE AT SCHOOL, I NEVER WAGGED UNLESS IT WAS THE LAST DAY AT SCHOOL, BECAUSE, I LIKED MY MATES AT SCHOOL

THEY WERE ALL SO NICE TO ME, I JUST ENJOYED THESE POOR LITTLE KIDDIES, IN THE BACKYARD OF MY GRANNY’S HOUSE

AND I PLAYED AUSSIE RULES IN THE FRONT YARD, YA SEE, I PLAYED MY WEEKLY MAFL TOURNAMENT, AND MY BROTHER PLAYED HIS COMP

YA SEE, WHEN MY BROTHER WAS AT A MATES HOUSE, I DID MY MAFL TOURNAMENT, AND DAD CAME OUT AND SAID, YOU HAVE TO

LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD, BRIAN, CAUSE, THIS ISN’T A FOOTY GROUND, IT’S A FRONT YARD WITH A GARDEN, AND MUMMY WANTS

TO GROW FLOWERS, SO I WILL TAKE YOUR FOOTBALL AND BAN IT FROM YOU, I KNOW YOU ARE A KID, BUT, MUMMY WANTS

TO START A GARDEN, AND I USED TO GET TEASED, BY PEOPLE WALKING PAST, SAYING, I ACT LIKE AN IDIOT OUTSIDE, AND I

SAID, I AM NOT SHY, I LIKE PLAYING FOOTY WITH MY BROTHER OUTSIDE, I PLAYED JAILBIRD AT MY SCHOOL, WHICH IS ABOUT

TWO BIRDS, JAIL BIRD FLIES AROUND THE JAIL CHECKING ON EACH INMATES WELL BEING, AND FREE BIRD, CAPTURES THE

CRIMINALS TO BRING THEM TO JAILBIRD TO BE LOCKED AWAY, AND MY SCHOOL LOOKED AT IT AS ME TALKING TO THE TREES

ME AND MY BROTHER, USED TO PLAY FRONT YARD AND BACKYARD CRICKET, MY COUNTRY WAS MYTH WITH PLAYERS LIKE
DEAN MASSEY, ASHLEY MONDEY, AND MYSELF, MY BROTHERS COUNTRY

WAS ETHIOPIA, WITH PLAYERS LIKE TRINNEN, BOTANY, LAITLAT, AND MANY MORE, AND THE STREET USED TO COME IN AND

PLAY YARD CRICKET WITH US, I ENJOYED THIS, MY MATE LYLE WAS A REALLY WILD BOWLER, I CAN HARDLY HIT ANY OF HIS BOWLS

THEY ARE SO **** FAST, I START TO THINK THAT LYLE WAS A VERY FAST BOWLER IN HIS PREVIOUS LIFE, I ALSO PLAYED

WATER CRICKET IN THE SWIMMING POOL, AND THIS WAS EVER SO FUN, BUT ON A HOT DAY, AND THE BALL WAS HIT OUT

OF THE WATER, IT WAS HARD FOR EACH OF US TO GET OUT OF THE NICE COOL WATER TO FETCH THE BALL,

I PLAYED SPORTS SHOWS WITH MY BROTHER, AND WE GOT IN MANY FIGHTS, LIKE NORMAL KIDS DO, AND

DAD SAT THERE WATCHING TV, SAYING ME AND MUMMY DIDN’T REALISE HAVING KIDS WILL BE THIS HARD

LIKE HE CRAWLED UNDER A ROCK OR SOMETHING, I WATCHED FAMOUS FIVE AND SECRET VALLEY AND

I WATCHED SKIPPY, WHERE KIDS WERE GETTING ******* ALL THE TIME, AND I WATCHED YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TV

AND SAW KIDS IN A DUNGEON, YEAH HYPED ME OUT, I BOUGHT MAGAZINES, AND PUT TEXTA GAGS ON KIDS MOUTHS

AND TEXTA DRAW ROPE AROUND THOSE KIDS, MY BROTHER SAID TO MELINDA, WE SHOULDN’T TELL OUR PARENTS EVERYTHING

I DANCED TO POISON AND EVERY SATURDAY MORNING I WATCHED THE RAGE TOP 50 ON ABC TV, AND EACH WEEK

I WROTE THE CHART DOWN, LIKE I HAD AUTISM OR SOMETHING, AND AFTER THAT, I WENT TO BOWLING

AND I WATCHED THE CHART WITH MY BROTHER, WHEN HE GOT OUT OF BED, AND WE PARTIED TO THE CHART SHOW EVERY SATURDAY MORNING

THEY STOPPED DOING THAT IN 2008, BUT I LOST INTEREST IN DOING THAT, WHEN I FOUND OUT ALL MY PROBLEMS ARE A RESULT

OF SCHITZOPHRENIA, AND I PRETENDED I WAS A BIG TV MANAGER, GOING FROM PUB TO PUB, WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRONG WITH THAT

BUT I WAS PRETENDING TOO MUCH, 1 2 3 4 DO THE SCHITZOPHRENIC FROM MY FIRST DIAGNOSIS TO MY CURRENT SITUATION

I AM ON MEDICATION, NOW I AM REFORMED, CAUSE THIS SHOWS THAT I AM A FAMILY PERSON.
Barton D Smock Aug 2013
the boy on the stairs won’t be around much longer.  three days time he’ll choke on a paddle ball.  a detail will be passed around how a passerby tried to save the boy twice by pulling the paddle only to have it slip and snap the boy on the nose.  sadness over it seems impossible.  

not yet, but a tunnel under me as I carry my adult daughter from jailbird to jailbird collapses and I lose her to walking.

before my mother’s eyes were terrible things
she believed evolution would inform her next move.
Trevor Blevins Dec 2015
I.

My blood was glistening meteor glows after
        the modern jazz I spent all night trying
        to carve into genius.

Hanging on the the blue notes of
        saxophones like a madman hooked to
        his syringe, and then you petrified me...

But I began to shake.

The spirit of all my ballads has returned to
        me at last.

Dug yourself out of my past, into the
        bedroom thought fractures — I call
        them modern art — but plugged into
        your Dada spirit, the abstract turns into
        star clusters,

And I'm burning for that cosmic wishing well.

Just hoping for your radiation to spread over
         our lightyear gap, that gap that always
         made coexistence so impossible.

When Calliope calls,
     I'd advise anyone answer...
      But you're twice as golden
       And thrice as red
         As Calliope has ever been.

Torn in your sandstorm.
Blinded by this vision of your second  
        coming.

Back in one piece, one whole, one complete
        consciousness, and all after I tried my
        damnedest to rip you apart, poetically.

Only in reflection and confrontation did I see
        how wrong it all felt.

That is not poetry
There was no peace.
That does not spawn Justice,
And you did not warrant my contempt.

I idolize you for you are what I am not.
I am mesmerized as we are exactly the
        same.

II.

The things you do not know.

I must have started typing you fifty times,
        never hitting send since my dark
        Crispin's Night.
I never hit send.
Not once.
I built imaginary worlds where you were my
        abuser, with my loneliness a
        pawn, but a crucial one.
Those thoughts that latched on to the back
        corners of my insecurity, and reassured
        me I was void of worth most every
        night...
I turned those thoughts into you—
Spilled those ******* thoughts into reality,
        and it took your shot of venom to place
        it all back into perspective.

If you're wondering what I've been up to
        since you left, my calendar hasn't
        hasn't moved a single page.

III.

The mythos never told me that Erato could
        address me back—
Muse that I pray on.
Muse that I mull over with Whitman.

I take this chance to lift you up, as you've
        been floating me over this rural skyline
        for months now.
Let me see the city.
I only wish to live.
I see governments toppled in the tint of your
        face, with the lights low, the air quite
        heavy for me.
You had to feel like a Goddess,
Even your distant screams had your mark of
        perfection.

IV.

You're the one I envy.

Dozing off under the anger of conservative
         politicians talking about life...
Erato, darling, what do these guys know
         about life anyway?
To lie as profession
Lie for the masses
Lie for the wealth of corporations
Lie for self-justification
Lie for the war effort
Lie for the public spectacle that can be
        reduced to little more than fetus magic.

I'd rather be haunted by anything else.

Emigration sounds so lucrative.

V.

It's time to cut open the system.

I wish society, when cut open and guts
        hanging, strung up in a gallery, looked
        like the spirit of a Scrabble screaming
        match, less like estimations of
        "necessary" civilian casualties.

It's time to piece in your abstraction.

Let's flip the script from faith-lit sketchbook
        into reality.
Let's show the world the graces of speaking
        in comedy, the asset we lost when we fell dark under our lack of communication.

Blessed to reestablish what we cannot take for granted.

Iris bonfire to highlight your drive,
But it's only determination,
Your gift of beatitude.

You can move through mazes with such precision and grace.

I should have never let my admiration pull me under a tide of greed.

As much as I value the ability
        to cut away at masses of abstraction,
Still covered in their vague seal of illusion
        you don't condone,
I'd submit to trade for even a bit of your  
        structure,
And let you have the absinthe that coats my
        soul.

VI.

Drink on how we are in harmony.

I'm already drunk on your hesitance.

Everything about your being is skewing my world.

I feel the changes, while the cold sets in,  
        across their javelin flight path.

These aren't the kind of thoughts you can't
        damp down with epilepsy medication.

I'm nearing clarity.
I'm inching in on human purpose.

VII.

I locked you away on my nightstand,

Next to Jailbird, in great irony.

I never let you argue your rights.

I wasn't just being inhumane, it was
        borderline unconstitutional.

Anger from hate, as always.
Coping in flawed fashion, yet smiling at your
        likeness.
Condemning you at public displays of
        Satantic litany,
Fell broken when you were in attendance.

Never again will I carry that false prophecy.

I couldn't escape your sway if I tried.
Madeleine Mar 2018
My life is like a keyboard in
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
I try and Esc those who are poison to my life
where I just need to Tab and skip ahead a week
or maybe a month
that doesn't always work so I try and find an Alt way
if all fails
push through to the End
Shift to the new chapter
and delete them from your life
phone
social media and all
I like to enter into a long dream
so I can wake up and start over
some days feel like I am on caps lock and everything is drastic
or way too exciting I just need to scroll down a bit to save some energy for the rest of the day
Some days I need not be alone
but to insert myself into healthy groups
full of positive vibes and energy
if I stay with healthy relationships
my f8 should be well off
but don't quote me on that
if I ever get to crazy
feel free to tell me to backspace
and just chill
I don't want my life to be just okay & full of JK's
but rather full of spontaneous adventures
while trying not to be a jailbird one day
I know we belong together
for that is why W and E are next to each other
like U and I
but don't #perfect us for we are like many others
so if you could let me clear my mind
and focus that would be great
for I am @ a point
where I shouldn't be worried about $$
and the % I make
to help do things for you and I
because it isn't about
money but taking
one letter one word at a time
"ALTHOUGH I'd lie lapped up in linen
A deal I'd sweat and little earn
If I should live as live the neighbours,'
Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;
"Stretch bones till the daylight come
On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'
Upon a grey old battered tombstone
In Glendalough beside the stream
Where the O'Byrnes and Byrnes are buried,
He stretched his bones and fell in a dream
Of sun and moon that a good hour
Bellowed and pranced in the round tower;
Of golden king and Silver lady,
Bellowing up and bellowing round,
Till toes mastered a sweet measure,
Mouth mastered a sweet sound,
Prancing round and prancing up
Until they pranced upon the top.
That golden king and that wild lady
Sang till stars began to fade,
Hands gripped in hands, toes close together,
Hair spread on the wind they made;
That lady and that golden king
Could like a brace of blackbirds sing.
"It's certain that my luck is broken,'
That rambling jailbird Billy said;
"Before nightfall I'll pick a pocket
And snug it in a feather bed.
I cannot find the peace of home
On great-grandfather's battered tomb.'
Alysia Michelle Jul 2010
In the cargo its cramped and small
People range from short to tall
the smell of death evades the air
Nazis loading people with seeming-less care

Separation,Deprivation
Wheels turning, stomachs churning
the taste of fear,sweat and tears
What I have lived for through countless time.

Mortifying sights to see
family memories
ringing in my bleeding ears
Triggering my deepest fears

Sun rays shining through barbed wires
too much time spent in death cars
when will i escape this hell
captivating feelings held

Trapped and caged like a jailbird
Loaded and treated worse than a cattle heard
intense heat keeps us beat
disease and death among me creeps

Bodies close
too close for comfort
but that is least of my worries

Where is this place they are taking me
will I survive or will they break me
emaciated,hunger kills
I'm still alive 'cause my strong will

Sweat dripping down my cheek
the thirst and hunger turn me weak
dust and dirt caked upon us all
the horrendous taste of death still  crawls.
© Alysia Michelle
Andy Felix Jul 2018
I don't play by the rules and she played me for a fool
If she knew I was broke then i'd bet
That she wouldn't even let me light her cigarette
She thought I was her lucky strike
She was staking out a claim when pay was right
She meant the world to me
A world on fire, she was gasoline
With a busted lip this jailbird flys
Some say i'm no good.. But they lie
Nobody ever wants to hear my side
She wanted me for my money
But i'm poor
Taken for a ride
Robin Carretti May 2018
You are clawed at him like a

Red hot
Las Vegas Jack-***
Lobster
"Persuasive Mentor"
Sling-shot
Underlie Supervisor
Skin softer He's Mr.
Softee

He molded me
to build me
Not to love me
So planned to
Deceive me
Fish desires
Mermaids
Flirt their tails
underwater
emails

Like the Greek word

"Synecdoche" we call

French hot bread
Brioche
His mustache
Underlie
Attache case

You're over his
Head

"Now" face to face

Fly••• First- Love- Yourself

Why? W- wait like H 4 hell
Y- Yell!!

Who's going to tell

I was head clicked
heels
Watered down
my shrimp

Enjoy your now
"Big Gulp'
Help wanted

He got me under

his skin
Pulp Fiction
The rain in Spain
stays
manly
in the lie diction

Wha?ever he got to me

So erotically smooth skin

The next of kin

Aromantic overly
romantic
Like the
Interstellar

It felt like
Marlon Brando
Ditto
Hello!

A= hot brandy with

Stella
waterfront

Being upfront skin kissed

The espresso I got you intense
dark under the mood weather
Cold-Hot-Mood swings she got

what life can bring better
Menopause or Men on pause

Am I hooked?
Another eye
full look
The more
four more

I got to you I see
It comes in three's to
die for the need
I say more

That part of you
bare-mitten
So smitten

The skin chilled fire fit


Moms scent and you felt her

touching you her mind
and yours

Cut out hearts
Red Riding hood
Grandmas out of bed
What was said
Tough skin what
big brown eyes
Looking mad
That's what U got blowing
in the wind
on her skin to begone
Girl is gone
One call Jailbird


Our eyes leave the world
blind but speak more words

you opened up the blinds

Hot desired I got you, babe,

How in a spiritual sense

Was this in your character

by the quintessence


Or always a coincidence

You were being raised

Why is life so much to crave

Like your the side order
and he she and fee fi fun


The main entrance
Starfish dish the
Goddess sun
Undertaste
The dinner mint
gave her refreshing
rush

Fifty times being burned

Over just a bite on my neck

of French fries

Not so overly touched by your lies

But you do have amazing eyes

Traveling through a skin-tight

maze the light fixture retracing

How tough skinned you are

I got to give you some credit

This is not the website

How you read into me

Like "Reddit"
I got it

So many time you have

done it lies

I never planned to get

you under my skin
Who wants to die

*** rebound always
Goodbye

Those fifties those dames

hot club smoking and
jamming

But feeling the tightrope
Fishnet
hooked
Supernatural spooked

I don't see you smiling

I couldn't breathe I felt

like choking

The devil own scripture

Our eyes perceive as the spies of

Boom explosion the hunger gets

intense face to face

Like we are the
TV on a binge

You cannot tune us but the
hot flame

can never tame us

Embedded by what we see

And touch-Oh! Me
U-C who would want to
go through this
2 B Me
Waiting for something
Like the Freebird I am
the Robin

How the earth confines us

Who is the one who

got something on us

Somes deep feelings

The Cole Porter

I got you under my skin

Someone on the pull
arouses

But he knows your
pleasure but where is the
promises
On the premises
He stacked her roses

One smell he got
The words spelled on U

He said with an
Under__line

" My Rose"
  Underlie
  My skin
  Smells brilliantly
  Like the eye of an
  Apple pie
I got someone maybe not U. That underlies big piece of the pie tough skin regardless if its a little lie
Manila    is  fray

Tough enough to die,
    Brave enough to see ****** against
        the billboards

   ***** on the marketplace
   ***** men haggling for prices
   the corners are squalid -- rats with ambitions   of men take  their places    in
    the esteros

   a car-horn blares, wanes old moon music.
      I sing songs of malversation. Trains all graffiti.

     My heart like a jailbird freed somewhere
         in the big sur; love assuages nothing,
    comes with a cheap price
          a freak December night in Roxas blvd.
     i sit on marble benches and dream
        of artilleries, garlands on *****-nosed
            barrels, nuns   grieving  dust
     in    the ground.    communal bathrooms
         drunk in foolish caricatures,
   the tabloids     displaying  flowerheads --
        the democracy in the streets a ****
    for      kings,  no    love to   lull
        me    to infantile    sleep

         tortured are   the   bulls 
   matadors    hiding  behind    faces red   like
       faces    of    statesmen   flushed with
          the   spirit   of   bourbon
   whereas we are    here   river-facing
       northern tip of its  undying source
  like    wives    on  balustrades   waiting
      to catch   the fragrance   of   inamoratas,
   light  reenters
          interstice   of   chary webs of  dull heads   hemmed in like   canopies   in the throat      of     overthrown ponds,   scraps
     of metal    sold    for a  night's  worth
        of    gin   and   Sinatra,

  Deep within   the   grave, the dead   laughing
       at the dead living. Atop   waters,
   yachts peering   into   drowning  fish,
       in   the middle, a   jam   of buses
         belching    lassitudes that    strangle
    the console,    the man    in all  of us
       the same,   cursing behind   the wheel
   and everybody    else    different
              dancing    at   the   top   of our   heads.
Hell.
avalon Nov 2019
sugar
here, there
addiction is rare and
everywhere
holding your hand is
as much a need
as desire,
caffeine stings my
veins like
fire

cliche. here,
take two sips of
chamomile and be
at ease, sense the wariness
and illusion of pleasure
you force yourself to drink.
an un-addiction. is this
conviction?
someone told me beliefs are
things you hold and
convictions hold you. is
that true?

my anxiety holds me.
am i a convict
behind the bars
in my mind? i talk so
frequently
of the sentence i'm serving
i forgot jail was a place
inside me.
my reflection is my only visitor.
will you be visiting?
quite drunk in this evening tender with rue – there is a gentle hand
that whirls against the bougainvillea.

things remain to be constantly in the tranquil as I am not
yet shaken in my fragile frame –

the leaves rustle in the 19 degree cold moon,
the beer bottles emptied, stacked beside the receptacles.
she and I could be dead, and it took me 3 years to know this:

there is a photograph of her thrown somewhere
behind scraps of metal, caged there, like a jailbird
in a jailhouse, screaming blue against redness.

I had love, and love died.
you neither flinch nor move at the very slight of me,
passing over the porch of your reading.
the thing that once moved now festers
with stillness, and so many vibrant explosions begin in the sky
and there is nothing discernible in her abject eyes.

I remember driving past your home in front of
a little, quaint house and I swore that the even your voice
speaks to me in evenings full with the thought
of never knowing you again.

you are so real like the horse that grazes the field
underneath umbilicus of power-lines,
yet so fake and feigned like the truth that tries
to assess itself , crawling mazy back into my drunken arms
like a child startled speaking a thousand things
I have already no use for.


sometimes the sun is like a house on fire.
sometimes the simmer of onion smells like ******.
most of the time, the look on my face, half-drunk and half-believing,
looks like a night distilled and fractured by voices.

I will never ask for your hands to touch,
I will never ask for you body to make heat,
I will never ask for your footsteps to chime in grave music:

I have my own defeats to keep me
that way: toppled and scrounging for light.

let me be.
I have seen many warfares and not a single shot of a rifle
has broken me into the man that I once was.

I drive back to you and it is never the same:
it is banal to say that you have yourself
and I have my own, deep in study.

let us drive back to roads whetted with kisses
and from there, start to disentangle
like leaves from boughs
deep in December.
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
I was circling seeing the symbol at
the square like great ***** of fire
Making his move the checkmate
The overcrowded City all sharked Inn
Persian cats  the parade of top hats
The women with her furry-coat
She has some woofing bark
The time to be happy but sulking

Dark, what? (Dr. Seuss Square Hats)
what happens when no one listens

Eyes far away masquerade to glisten
Holy water so purified  this earthly planet
A give or take got terrified all flatten
linked face and body invasion of the body
snatchers those crazy cats like a
A boy to the crunch snicker
were squeaking someone saw
something squealing card dealing

What the (Bobcats) cat napping
Stray cats ***** pack City rats
Were stinking up the alleyway
The whole nightclub was a square
the Disco ball have it your way
What time is it anyway 
 his hangover jerky

  Eggs Benedict Times Square the
formula of love project what did I do
for the next subject

What I did_ go daddy so diddy I was his lady
And he was so
___
square toast Arnold
So  dorm dorky was a big ball Porky
Pig glob New York Times all I read was What I did
The girl has to have ***** but the Victorian doll face
Christmas red glitter ***** came to be a disgrace

He's such firecracker handball the soccer ball he wasn't
showing up and what I did I met the Canadian Cups
I met someone else named  Rob what a dip drip dribble

He was fixated on the TV square rabbit ear antennas
Feeling like a round bubble brain chit chat yentas
In his RV square cell phone apps laying their sedated
Twins overlapped taking naps

Archer Ball hotel Archie what a "Bunkbed"
  outside in the lobby 'Talking heads' group,
they could see you talking in your sleep
that sleepytime tea Vampy crime
with his beat-up square chair
the doorknob speckled all dotted polka dot 
 Magnifying glass ball someone will fall

Itzy ritzy French bikini he fantasized
Into her curves, he needed
better ***** going firm up
The New Year was germ cup
To many Apple computers like
Jumping Jack more apple phones
it's the New Year you hear
So many serial murderers here's
(Jumping Jack)
he got trashed
Such a comic Jughead so bushed
He was outdated so Square he didn't
have one square in his head I was in the mood
making  round's
With celebration drinks ball twister looking
inside my crystal ball

New light counting 1-2-3-4 waiting without a
care 5-6-7-8 my head is pounding for the
New Year, everything is a number
People are like lemons
square cakes
All we do is have a fight to
the nearest rounding
A perfect round stone
Diamond why exchange silly name
Diamond Exchange
You know what I did for
Times Square right?
Don't go back tumbling in the past
Tumblr no one has time to check
your pictures all science and physics

Why does everyone want your birth number
Getting dimmer adding right dress
The ball did go up or what I did put a lid on it
  Holy hot tamales stick to the
new year priorities
Did I have a kiss or another year to miss?

The ball going down I need him to get up
Basket-Ball Hoop Snoop Dog
The concert felt like Ms. Betty Boop
New York necklace of fruit loops
  Please allow me to introduce
myself symphony
of the devil
I am a man I will do anything for my lover
When our time is right I will just leave her
Foreign Cat tongue milking let's be personal
Times Square New York New York
The Billboards and mural "Marilyn Monroe"
names of Doe look at her new legs
Her white dress flew away
with her money
gold bonds
She's the love talker he's savvy
(New Yorker)
New day, every hour, every time
Times Square
Jailbird meeting the blue square tie bird boss
He was the show wicked crime light cross
Is it really such a waste of time?
College teens of frats scholars

No one cared to have principles
What will I do for twin double
Eyes coupled
What I saw multiple personalities
what will be the resolution?

Singing in the New Year
he takes a New Year ***** Diva
her one of a kind glass
Someone threw it in the grass
Hum, Hum, Hum singing
He's downtown going forty-second street
Are you kidding me this is
Times Square
Do you have square curved
into your bone body
Go home and get some sleep
on your *****
This squares it up no extra rounds
That's what I did 4 Times Square
No love circles just being
you Square
Married diamonds square
shape worth it.
Kiss the whole earth lit
Time is many things we hold a moment and we watch the ball celebration or see all the killings we live in warfare no one, unfortunately, cares let us be the change and rearrange our hearts leave them close to our family and loved ones
Saint Jonah Jude Mar 2013
Look, all I’m saying is
I’m the cracks in the sidewalk
That they warn you not to step on
Or you’ll cause chain reactions that
Cause you to question whether or not
Blood is thicker than water. Because maybe,
You want her dead. Not in the long run
But in an instant where she drags you
Across the room by your hair, and
You break the ******* mirror
Because it shows you who
You’re not. All I’m saying
Is stand up and seep up the
Remnants of how much your daddy
Loved you, once upon a time, crumble
His cards and flowers made of prison cigarette
Packs and he said “I always thought of you,”
Meaning you’re a jailbird tattoo artist’s
Well-meaning card that he swapped
Cafeteria lunch cards for. And yes,
You were hurt, but the teacher
Tells you hold your tongue
And your bladder, even
Your first ever girlfriend says
That it’s not as bad as you make it,
When you realize you can’t love her,
You can’t love anyone you run so fast
Your legs squeak, you never want to run
Back to a house where they killed your dog
And your dreams and strung them up like laundry
On hot days. Eventually someone uses the “A”
Word, the “V” word, “victim” of “abuse” and it
Only hurts because deep in your swollen,
****** up core you know that it is true.
Taylor Webb Jul 2014
listen--
         it's two-thirty in the morning.
         there is a song playing, and it doesn't remind me of you,
         but i thought you should know
         because this next part is important.

the singer is Elliott Smith,
         and he's kissing his darling between jailbird bars
         just like that time--remember?--when we kissed
         through the gap in the barbed wire,
         and our hearts danced like the strobe of police lights.

                      (we were trespassing)

i'm not thinking of you,
        because while i'm out here smoking,
        and i wet my lips so the paper doesn't stick to them like heartbreak,
        i don't imagine your cherry Chapstick or the way it left
        mellow pink stains on your cigarette filters.

these are the facts:
        i've nearly forgotten you;
        i'm not still hung up on the smell of lavender handsoap;
        i haven't rifled through a single Facebook album;
        i don't know the name, address, and telephone number

                    (not to mention, i haven't memorized a single
                               stupid, snarky tweet)

of your new boyfriend
       with the pretentious French last name.
       anyway, i don't know why i decided to call,
       i guess it was just to let you know
       how i'm doing just fine without you.
wyatt rabbit Jul 2014
My Jailbird Brother
you are both selfish and foolish
and i'm not sure which is worse
or which i envy more
less than five hours you were home
less than t h r e e  h u n d r e d minutes
a careless release, really
but you wasted no time finding your way into trouble
the same kind of trouble that got you taken away
kept under lock and key
when you should have been here growing up with me
this wasn't how it was supposed to happen
i envisioned hugs and tears and rambling stories
instead i found drugs and fears and repressed memories
i thought that when you came back it would be like you never left
..it was exactly like that
in the worst way
like you really never went away
you'd been here the whole time
making messes and breaking hearts
among so many other things
making mom cry
because look at you
you're not the same
you came back worse than when you'd left
maybe they got it wrong
maybe they sent back someone else
you adapted to survive
but there's a point where stoic turns cold
and resilient becomes defensive
and you're hiding your feelings to the point
where you can't even even find them
i never saw you as a criminal
but now that's all you know how to be.


*smndi
Anksy Jan 2020
Crimes and misdemeanours, I’m no boy scout
Every law of the land, I have tried to flout
There’s not a line I haven’t crossed
No rule book I haven’t tossed

Every trial and every tribulation
Enemy number one of the nation
If the evidence is to be believed
There’s no honour among thieves

Standing in the box, swearing on the book
Lawyers trying to get me off the hook
The judge, jury, executioner too
Prosecutors trying to sue

Lock em up and hang em high
Leave them to rot and out to dry
Serving my sentence, doing my time
Paying the price for committing the crime

In my cell, behind bars
Solitary moments, battle scars
Ball and chain, within these walls,
Inmates, jailbirds, guards and brawls

The clinking of the keys as lights go out
Screams of “I’m innocent”, without a shadow of a doubt
The morning breaks and still in my cell
This is living, but a living hell

No remorse, only time will tell
Spending the nights in a Punishment hotel
Seeing out my time, seeking some peace
Longing for day of my release
Jago Lantz Aug 2013
They wound me up and left me to play
So, there I sat, day after day
Playing songs for fortune's fools
In the room they filled with tools

But, my songs grew weary as time did tick
And not much later I began to feel sick
My melodies faltered, clashed, and fell
With every toll of the midnight bell

Then one day my tunes did fade
So, I cowered in a lonely shade
My heart had been forever broken
Darkness was my only token

Then one day I heard a creak
And in the room a boy did sneak
He approached me with such nimble steps
And in my soul raised a long-forgotten pep

Boy, you wound me up and left me to play
So, there I sat day after day
Playing songs for jailbird fools
In the room still filled with tools

But, my songs grew morbid as time did tick
And not much later did the feeling stick
So, when I heard that eerie knell
I continued to play, bound by a spell

Songs were things that had been forbade
But I continued to play from the place that I laid
Never a word had a useless tool spoken
Until the day that my spell had been broken

For, in the room did a young man peek
And whispered softly for me to speak
My lack of answer caused him to fret
So, further in he swiftly crept

Man, you wound me up and left me to play
So, there I sat day after day
Playing songs for bones and ghouls
In the room without the tools
life the grandest stage.
     life, gelid waters – I, the pompous admiral.
life, thorns withholding enigmas,
     clenching the true blood of flowers.
  life, the flimsiest avant-garde.

  our measures
  conceal all our knowledge,
    our fondness of exactitudes
bludgeons us to back to our smallness.

  the heart, like a riot,
  will always scream blood.
  the soul, like a jailbird,
will always carve a song.
  the mind, like a grave,
will turn soundless filled with bones.

  some will beat back to the same old music,
  assaulting the others with a concealed knife
gutting all of us as we lay still – the rest shaking around us.

  when I was young, I was unsure of myself
  and now that I have aged, it is all but the same:

I am a horde of drunkards.
I am the incessant pendulum.
I am the night-watch
and sometimes I am being watched by the night itself.
I am the loutish vandal on the wall.
I am hot, steaming music I am an earful of ***
I am a handful of hollow I am the dandelion whittling away
in the garden of full women seething with woes
I am the catapult of air from the sling of trees I am a somber god
I am an ungodly god I walk over toppled waters past genuflected hills
like maddened horses screaming victory
I am a limbless beast crawling back home
I am young I am old
my blood ravages the sinews of my body – I am a binaural cinematheque
   of slow minutes I am a mausoleum of chiaroscuros
I am all pleasure pleasure pleasure
I am just as ****** as everyone I am sour mash stirred in a wide-mouthed
      glass clinking together with this heavy slither of attendance around me
  somewhere in Pasay
I am love I love I am hate and I hate
I am forever the lion that roars at what life has done to us
    and they will cage me soon when the roses shy away from the deliberate daylight
and when all of this is through
               I have only just     begun.
Passius Ashe Jun 2015
headlines read,

'pope calls for "action now"
to save planet,
stem warming,
help poor'

article goes on to say

'his call has already won him the wrath of conservatives,
including several U.S. Republican presidential candidates
who have scolded Francis for delving into science and politics..'

though i'm not catholic,
nor am I even christian,
on behalf of the pope, this jailbird
needs to chide the politicians
for delving into organized crime
while neglecting the needs of life.
©  Passius Ashe   2015
Dibakar Ghosh Jun 2020
Life of millennials are so juvenile
A day they walk down the stars
A night they run through a beaconof light
Encircled by a drape concealing darkness
To baffle those minds with no clue left aside
With no hope to survive
Either to curb those filthy signs
Or to get chucked in broad daylight
Is this how those spotless minds
Keep their body & soul together
With lies and iniquity all together .

Life's so miserable and impolitic
All we do around is so hasty
With a bunch of ethics to live by
All we do to turn Equality upside-down
With a flock of literates heading through
Under the norms of monestry
All we do to be a cannibal out of misery
Is this how we dream of a paradise,
Where there's no humane ilk left in human minds.

What if a girl wants to live her life
And breathe the air under no ties
What if a lassie wants to be a bit sassy,
To fulfill every yearnings that come by
And to be around those masses
Who makes her feel devine.
What if a wife wants to outlive that happiness
Which she craves round-the-clock
Even after she pampers indubitably
Every requisite her spouse endures.
No matter what she contemplates,
Alas! Those desires land to oblivion.

This generation never fails to stagger
Even if she suffers and serves
Every needs of a man that deserves
And ease his pique even if he resents.
But a man never blunders to let her guard down
Frowns like a ruffian who got on the loose
Hit & slap her as if she's the lost cause
All he does to take control
Over his priceless possession
As if he enslaved a jailbird in his mudhole.

This mankind never rue
Slapping someone without a clue
Even if there's no rationale to go through.
Such a despisal is hard to ponder
Even if a girl neither hold out against
Nor cross swords against those odds
Till there's nothing left to lose.

Maybe it's high time,
One should stand audacious to those crimes
To stand tall against the ferocity
That beholds million lives
Maybe it's time,
To let go of those henious folks
That make their life miserably unknown
And oppose against those slaps
That make them devour,
As everyone's one and the same
In the eyes of the impartial law.
Hope this poem directs each & everyone towards impartial justice and seek out for a better tomorrow.
Jean Rojas Apr 2015
the day is passing like a riot
a cloud of people
chant the jailbird's song
a string of placards
encircled the throng
a meteoric rise in the atmosphere
has reigned in the souls of many a fist....

the heart of a crowd
is listening wildly
to speeches and voices
emphasizing a point
and views that each and
everybody shares
a unity that binds the masses

there is one man
that head the arms and bodies
of this throng
and he comes on strong
to those who have done
the nation wrong
a slim and simple being
seeing, seeking and wanting
some changes
some soothing replacement
to this scourging arrangement

the sun shines through him
and although wounded with scars
knowing one cell to the other,
he keeps the challenge
in his soul
and tried to reach a porch
in the sun
for his people, for his children
and for all that will come,
after him.....
For: Leandro Alejandro
(Leandro Alejandro, or Lean as he was known to street parliamentarians, was an activist, a student leader and a nationalist. He was a student of the University of the Philippines, described by contemporaries as an intellectual rebel. He was killed allegedly by rightists on September 19, 1987 at the age of 27.)
The Jolteon Nov 2019
My heart is aching and breaking
Twisting and shaking
I feel it pulsing
Like the ground is quaking
I'll rip out my eyes
So that I can't see
I'll cut off my fingers
So that I can't feel
I'll blow out my ears
So that I can't hear
I'll cut out my tongue
So that there's no taste
The only thing I'm left with
Is an abandoned state
Hopeless and helpless
I sit here and wait
The pain of my mind
Jailbird and bait

— The End —