"lamplights" poems
Candle flicker
Keeps mosquitos away
The wind is picking up
No sound to be heard but paper crumpling rustle of aspens
A **** seagull squaks; only here
This is desert living
Desert loving
We have a porch
It kind of feels like heaven
Just the moon and lamplights
And pajamas with no undergarments
Citronella smell
Dry breeze
Skin no longer chapped
Weathered from my initiation
During the apex of summer when I read outside at midnight
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 2:21 AM UTC
It’s been four months since the sun last shown.
Since I last said goodnight.
The stars twinkle,
And the lamplights are an illusion.
Sometimes, I can pretend that it’s the same.
Sometimes, I remember that the sun is also a star.
The stars I see now are just a bit further away;
They don’t shine as bright.
I want to get on a rocket ship
And fly far far away.
I want to forget about this sun and its tragedy.
I will find a new sun
The new sun will shine brighter.
The flowers will grow taller.
The world it shines on will be more beautiful.
I will say good morning again.
Jun 7, 2021
Jun 7, 2021 at 2:21 AM UTC
Like it or not, each place holds a memory
I may not have played on these streets
But cemented beneath the building lamplights is my first real kiss--
Israeli-flavored, textured like tabouleh--
These shuttered storefront windows are not my version of Brooklyn at nighttime
But I know what it is to turn this dark corner coming home--
Tired from dancing, completely alone--
This rooftop terrace is not mine, not where I crafted a hip adolescence
But it is where I built bases for potluck communities--
Here my love of human connection was crafted, then bourne.
My current apartment is still not really mine--
Belonging, as it does, to the landlords creaking the floorboards above me, their parrot, and their cat--
But it is where boys first slept over, where first I was marked by someone
Leaving their toothbrush, their territorial imprint behind.
I guess I'm saying--
We don't choose which memories get locked in where,
Nor have we any say when they happen or why
We can choose to rage against the imperfection of their sense of timing or location-
As I so often do-
Or we step onto a street of acceptance that these are our Lives, and our experiences
Will happen at their will, where they will, when they will,
And despite their imperfections, we are along for the ride.
Aug 15, 2017
Aug 15, 2017 at 3:43 PM UTC
o, good lord of the streets
where a phantasmagoric sensurround
banishes the scream of youth –
a carburetor snarl taken
as unction of name. was it
your name that you whispered to my ear,
him dearth in the quietus.
first to go is grace,
what soon follows is bravery. a makeshift moon
of course, hanging by the earlobe of
her; I’ve been wanting to bite to break skin
her truly frightened symmetry
of a storm which is an onus of pain -
o, good lord
help me weave way later
when I’m down on my contrabass.
Scout Albano tonight’s a dark
expanse of regret
resonating a deep and hollow throb.
women on flay, cigars in mouths chucked
like busy streets on a noontime sun, the soot clambers
the billboards and their frozen, extant smiles
wring out the poison and drain:
we have no imposed god, an announcement to ear
shot into the flay of the bone that persistently
aches - like some unreal drumming of squalors.
we are ruined with echoes of many names that haunt us
with their gaping mouths
in frightful angles, but
when we’re drunk, Marc,
this will all be over.
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 1:28 AM UTC
The city knows
I'm no angel.
Please, darling,
I say to the skyscrapers,
If you don't like who I am, you'll like who I could be
I carved a map of Manhattan into my shoulder blades.
Unhinge my jaw into a smile
(oh my what big teeth you have)
The truth is I'm terrible at this.
All these
Working Class Angels, their
rabbity pulse beneath their skins
(I wonder if they taste like it too)
Cruel hungry city,
I feel your streets closing in,
your lamplights lurch forwards
waiting for a ******
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 11, 2018 at 9:55 PM UTC
The mist curled around the street,
Lamplights flickering in and out,
The birds soon were awake.
The wind had crashed, high and mighty,
But then all was still:
The mist faded slowly away;
I watched, taking each blow.
Bruises merged together pain soon forgotten.
Then from the dream; she reappeared
Stepping forward from every direction,
Thin and beautiful as before,
Your eyes brightened and head heightened,
You step quickly towards her.
The life that had left, to you returned.
She held your hand and held you tight
You smiled back, eyes squeezed tightly shut;
She pushed you away unwrapping herself.
And, once more, you were let go
As she picked out another heart,
But in you, her hook still caught
Rusted and ****** you took no notice
Her hold too strong and unyielding
But still she stood at a distance.
You waited there. Until she called
It hurt you that she was gone,
Your heart left torn and raw,
The iron hooks pulling taught.
In and out of your vision she danced,
Around you she twirled,
Growing dizzy you knelt on the ground.
Down, I reached, and picked you up
Still, she kept on dancing,
She left whispering—she
She so righteous must not let go,
But managed to fall to temptation.
Her desire to please yet another
And yet, the vain hook still attached,
If only low confidence would grow
And dreams that lie would quickly fade,
But fast reminders coat the minefield.
You want the dream that is her love:
She held the key to you, hers the power.
Of course she never completely left
She stood tall but wanted you there
She needed you; she would not give
It hurt to see, to know it wrong
There came time when there was nothing,
Then you fell, you became hers, hers always,
Terrible, real and dead: I watched
And saw and heard all that passed
With one small hand she moved
And stuck inside you
Hook upon hook. The pull you felt
You felt it, with longing passion.
You looked and saw with eyes of a child,
Knowing the lie but pretending to believe:
I gag and retch in disgusted sadness,
I set down and gather my breath
Your hands caress; you cling to her
Hers is a hand you will never let go:
You let her lean when she needed,
Only, now you exhausted her care
Her life many times you saved:
And she stood tall again and smiling,
But when yours was a life worth saving,
Where was she, if not by your side
You she scorned, but perhaps for good reason
I stepped over, and I reached down
By each hand I pulled you up
Your care for her, was all to see
I cared for you, as you did me
But our friendship did not last
Because it will always be she
Who carries the hooks in her hands
That will claim your priority.
And that is how it will always be.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 10:58 PM UTC
One air-conditioned summer evening,
When the waking lamplights
Buzzed and sighed to life and
Yellowed the cooling stones
In the street beside our home,
You asked me a foolish question.
"Do we have a lasting relationship?"
No.
No, my love, we have nothing
Of the sort. No roses or chocolates
Or love-letters have ever outlasted
The final rasping, dusty cull that must
All mortal, fleeting things befall.
No whispered words, like golden
Birds on the morning wires can
Ever aspire to live beyond their
Breath. Each serenade fades with
Death. So shall our love,
When we go to worms, be gone.
But do not cry, my whispered love,
For though I cannot hold you past
The expiration of my arms,
You, too, will be the dullest dust:
Insensitive to my absent charms.
Sep 5, 2010
Sep 5, 2010 at 3:18 PM UTC
I met her in an alley
behind an alley
a sub-alley if you will
down the street from my apartment on Westwood
and 6th street. Unusually cool for spring, asphalt glowing green
beneath lamplights.
She was digging through piles of broken bottles,
discarded kitchenware, and palm fronds.
Her attention shifted suddenly, as if I were the prize.
Grasped my hand
her skin drawn taut exposing raw bone beneath
“Why? Why is it so far away?
truck drivers, the bed where I watched my father die
report cards, Here. why?”
“Sometimes things just aren’t as beautiful as they should be.”
We sat down on the curb,
amongst the grasshoppers
and did not speak for quite some time.
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 6:45 AM UTC
~ A Nursery Rhyme ~
By night the lamplights bloom in blue,
and Squinty Bat comes lurking through.
A flicker, a whisper,
a crooked spin,
she twirls in the hush where dreams begin.
She nibbles moths that orbit the glow,
grim as the gossip graveyards know.
Around the lamp
she loops and slides,
a velvet ribbon on moonlit tides.
At morning sun - dreadful, bright! -
Miss Clara Parrot claims the light.
She squawks and scolds,
so green, so loud,
a herald of day to the mortal crowd.
She tattles from trees with her feathered choir,
spilling the secrets that night conspired.
Their laughter clatters
like shattered glass,
naming each sin the shadows let pass.
Neighbors groan and pull their sheets
as Clara reigns over waking streets.
While Squinty swings
in her secret nook,
dangling like crime in a dusty book.
By day, it’s Clara, gossip and glare,
by night, it’s Squinty, a ghost in the air.
And before you ask:
Which one is blessed?
the sun and the moon will refuse that test.
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 30, 2025 at 7:49 PM UTC
I am not sure how to save you this time, scared chickadee,
running away from home at the first sign of an angry mother or the
inherent need for some fresh air.
now, the path back escapes you and all the lamplights are beginning to turn on.
is this the freedom they speak of?
you hope not, but it seems like it is.
I looked for you in all the alleyways and down every dumpster,
we just found the skin you shed throughout instead.
if you were my lizard, I would leash you,
but alas, you belong to the sewers now, the earth floor and that big lake.
and I could never put you back together, Humpty Dumpty,
though I will never stop trying,
collecting every piece hoping to recreate anything that would remotely resemble you.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 8:07 AM UTC
Curbside with a loose screw,
Can't spot any itch, I brought my list,
Bloodshot eyes belong to the illicit,
And this ****** knows his ****
Inject, snort or light,
Whatever takes to make the climb,
More of myth than vagrant,
I had an appetite but was far from fried,
Of plight and the antichrist
Judith's accomplice,
I’ve bartered martyrs for fixes,
Never a thief, money always came to me,
Never dropped to my knees to please,
That doesn’t mean I am decent being,
A ****** on the rise,
In infancy I opened my eyes,
In my youth I chose to ride in fictitious skies,
****** not fried,
A mind abused when a thirst thrived,
Curbside with the socially derived,
Deviants dwelling under lamplights,
The bloodshot eyes of paranoia’s plight,
To escape I'd die, but miss the high,
Beelzebub's waiting for me to arrive,
My toxic mentally,
Has this bloodshot belligerent,
Absent of Providence,
Lusting at the fingertips,
Indulging beneath hips,
Not fried but ****** prime,
Extorting my existence,
Curbside strolls,
To tighten a ***** I loosened.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 10:15 PM UTC
Lying in my bed, my mind begins to stir
Glowing lamplights of reminiscence
I can still remember all the moments
In my life
That defined me
Shaped my being
I still can picture them
And I treasure them
Bright jewels in the dust
Not all good, still none bad
I can still see the lights shining, thoughts rushing
Through my head
I wish you were with me
I'm falling apart
I love you, even after what you did.
(theinkthatspeaks.blogspot.com)
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 7:32 PM UTC
_Beyond the shanty town of Midtendrift, where the moneylenders ply their trade among the aimless and avaristic, lie the ice prairies of Ensomfelt. The region is a barren wasteland whose boundaries are flanked to the west by the bottomless crevasse of Issorg and to the east by Lake Hjertestorm.
Those who come to wander this no-man’s-land may find that they disappear from the earth for a time - from themselves, and from the memory of others. Relying only on intuition to guide them, they pass this way unseen, their weary feet making shallow graves in the freshly fallen snow.
The rocky outcrop at Engeldrøm marks the gateway to the in-countries. Nestled beneath the foothills of Mount Håp, this is the place to which souls lost to the world of ego and ambition return to take up their torch and remember.
During the long northern winter, the sky above Håp is an expanse of indigo ocean punctuated with an infinity of lamplights. Among these lanterns which float free of the earth, the North Star shines the brightest. It is here that you will find your journey’s end and a treasure trove of truth, forged in fire and sealed in ice._
May 25, 2019
May 25, 2019 at 8:13 PM UTC
Life is no place for fools like me
Because there are no other fools like me
Cloudy nights wearing purple and grey cumulous
Softly comforting in their silent beauty
Puffy explosions of midnight joy
Quiet ponds reflecting the quiet night
There is safety in the solitude
Wonder in the shifting clouds
I choose this over the hustling daytime
I love this over the breakneck bar scene
Dimly lit lamplights breaking through the dark sky
Giving me just enough glow to read by
And when the evening gives up its sounds
The singing crickets and other chirping things
It’s like a beautiful painting, breathtaking
I choose this over the mangled masses
The mauling throng of throbbing crowds
Rushing and rushing pushing and shoving
Just to get to the next spot
A competition for the best jobs
Keep what you can and leave me the night
I am not a competitor in your gladiatorial bouts
Leave me the silence and I will take it as a gift
Leave me the night and see how my spirit is uplifted
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 9:07 PM UTC
It is the soul of the night that devours me. Hours spent in silence frightens, enlightens, and bores me. Nature spins in all her soft cool glory. Little pools of water lit by lamplights. Cold fences swing in and out in time to the shifting masses of shift workers. Trucks come and go at random intervals. I am tired, so deep in the fatigue that I require crippling amounts of caffeine. I am a stimulant fiend. Barely functioning as me, more like a specter of me. I watch the world from my comfy shack, letting it spin me back. Dipping in the solace of solitude, I search the universe for truth. Eyes cast everywhere, mind running wild, I ask the night for answers. Its silence says, find it yourself.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 7:39 PM UTC
*Nocturnal , cool June ravishing in the flickers of gas lamplights
Quiet country lanes with familiar friends , Southern engines
tumble over the tracks bound for New Orleans
Barn Owls sing to Apricot horizons , the audible strain of methodic hardwood Rockers
Cicadas , Field Crickets and Katydids stir romantic hearts
Piedmont , Fall line hamlets lie at rest till morning* ....
Jun 11, 2016
Jun 11, 2016 at 4:16 PM UTC
Hey you over there, yes you,
The one that turned your head at my opening line,
You’re the cause of it all,
As you look back to what you were doing before,
I must’ve said the wrong thing,
To cause you to look away,
Ignoring my plea,
Changing the subject from my insanity,
I know it is rude that I’m not looking at you,
Looking away,
But I am, yes I am, speaking to you,
You’re the most expansively fragile thing,
The reason I call out and howl,
Making all of us in here to toil under lamplights,
Searching and making buffoons out of ourselves,
Just for the chance to let you know,
We’re real and you’re listening.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:34 PM UTC
1:28am and fingernails gripping deep enough to draw blood
I take a breath and make my choice
Clothes, shoes, keys
I leave myself at the door,
and step into the pause
The standstill blanket of cold deep dark
And its fresh and chilling embrace
My private escape
My eyes adjust to the night as I walk along the ritual path
The sounds of my shoes are all that fills the gaping maw of silent sky
Un-perceived, I disappear
The sidewalk bends and curves with the ever-moving moon
Around corners
Through neighborhoods
The shifting trees make curious shapes at the edge of my eye
2:12am and my wandering begins to take its toll
My legs ache and tire and ask for rest,
yet my mind still buzzes and stirs with painful contemplation
It isn’t yet time to turn back
3:01am and all at once I feel the gentle tug of sleep as I begin to circle back
Finally finding familiar streets and cul de sacs that seem like strangers in the flickering florescent lamplights
Left, right, and left again
I return to the door, and I dread what lies behind it
But want as I might to stay, it is time once more for me to shoulder myself
3:20am and calm again, my questions quelled
I wrap myself in the reminder of the silent chill of un-being
And as I breathe the first slow breaths of peace,
The sweetness of slumber meets me in between
Jan 13, 2022
Jan 13, 2022 at 12:15 PM UTC
She sits on the streetside
dimly lit lamplights
cold nights and foggy skies
cars pass quickly
sudden others slow
drawn upon her fishnets
offers her a smoke
"looking for a good time?"
she doesn't wanna be here
she needs the cash
her baby
her addiction
never had a mother
she wouldn't want
her child
to be the same
baby with no father
her mother is to blame
opened the door
foot to the floor
nearest motel
get the keys
and Korbel
fifty dollars
fifty shades
of bruises
"wanna fly?"
she shouldn't
but it'll
make the night
go by
needles
hurt
like her heart
her body
said bye
back on
the streets again
same thing each night
then back to her baby
long sleeve shirts
hides her pain
hides her addiction
hides her profession
rent is late again
preschool money due
gotta pay up front
whats more important
beau
Feb 17, 2017
Feb 17, 2017 at 9:36 PM UTC
We haunted the boulevard in silence,
lamplights dull in the night of June,
eyes wide like walking disasters
our lights died inside of us too soon.
Our bones they ached with every footstep,
somber skeletons stained with broken flesh
monuments to the scar tissue,
that’s all that we had left.
You cried then started laughing,
but I could hear the pain inside your chest
as you couldn’t remember the last time that you had slept,
slept in your own bed.
And you said “I miss home, wherever that is.”
I wish I could’ve told you it was inside your heart,
we were a long way from there now,
but at least we could’ve had a place to start.
But where do you start when picking up the pieces?
When there’s oh so many shards?
And oh the shards they no longer fit together,
worn away by what they are. And what they are,
are just phantoms of who they used to be, our fathers, our idols,
they threw our lives across the lawns of the houses
we’ve lived in since the day that we were born.
The same hands that raised us couldn’t tame us,
I’m sorry we weren’t born to be like them
they’re our fathers, not by circumstance,
but just like everybody else,
even our parents leave us in the end.
But without them we wouldn’t be here,
I wouldn’t get to hear you laugh,
I wouldn’t get to see the warmth in your tragic eyes
or even hold you in my arms.
And I would trade a thousand lives
just to spend this moment with you,
dying on the boulevard in the dull lamplights
of this night in June.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 2:51 AM UTC
The lamplights
That keep cities safe at night
Are the same
To invert
The skies viewed from above.
Each city a constellation,
A sign,
Seen from afar, inert,
Seen close up, alive,
But there is no gradual transition:
One has to choose how to see it.
When we learned to fly
We saw the world shrink, far away,
Deform,
And these lights,
Small, lost points
Like islands surrounded by darkness
To remind us
We are made of vacuum
More than of matter.
These islands,
Where everything happens
Are our reflex:
Packs on the surface,
We only go deep
Where there is richness,
We shine to those who see us from above
At the same proportion we are invisible.
We are cities,
We are light,
We are vacuum.
A the same time.
Indiscernible,
Inseparable.
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 5:50 PM UTC
Sometimes the nights up here sink into my bones.
There was no quiet in Cali, not really. Even as the apartments and small homes slept, there were the haggard and homeless on the streets. The lamplights never went off, and security made rounds around the gates and shopping center. All rounded off neatly with the late-night patrons of the 24hr Walgreen's.
I was one of them.
No, there's a peace to the PNW. The fog that blankets everything, keeping the night sweet, secluded. Somewhat lonely.
(I would hate to not have a friend up here)
There's a way the stillness of the hours after midnight sink into me.
Surrounded by trees, grass, dirt. Bugs and owls and coyotes.
The earth breathes here, the night is a living entity.
It breathes me in, and though I may be at odds with the nights up here
Sometimes
Sometimes, we are at peace. A peaceful understanding.
As I sit, and let it wash away who I was and who I am.
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 5:52 AM UTC
I sit, I wish
for the glistening moon pools
to sprinkle down my way.
Dreamy starry sky,
and the soft combing breeze
sings sweet lullabies
to the indigo trees.
Sing the same to me,
and I'll go where you go;
river so wide,
wider's my window!
Now dance as you've done
so many times before;
embrace the morning sun's
broad rays on your shore.
Far banks shall appear
with the coming of April,
and strike out I will
through the dusty rock passes
through mountains of yellow
and bridges of gold -- until
I gain the city of friends,
lamplights and streetlights
and buslights and doors
will be closed.
Gone, then, are the wishes
and wonders and wants,
the things that I hoped for
a long time ago.
The trill of the strings
(my only respite
from keen madness
or a tantō
to wish me goodnight)
rises on palm-tops,
floats in cool grasses,
gives purpose my soul.
So much peace I find
in warm charming moonlight....
Tomorrow, concern may put your course
on a laxed and lumberous way,
great river of the dying day,
but as long as my will goes on,
and the wonderful will of the Maker,
those fleet-footed brigands
won't catch me, for I am
faster than they are.
...Calming storm,
you stirrer and squeezer,
present most of the time that I need you:
Set my mind,
for all its vain attempts;
make me relent,
and I won't deceive you.
Till then, I'll be leaving you soon,
but know my April blush
is the same color as in June,
and the fabric of all that I hope for
is the cloth of the comforting moon.
Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 11:01 PM UTC
The night is as empty as always.
The moon is hiding behind the clouds,
The stars are showing such a hideous smile
And the lamplights were turned on, illuminating this boring road.
Many people are crossing the street, enjoying the night walk.
Their faces are painted with a bright smile,
As if they were trying to hide their sadness.
They would laugh and make a joke,
In order to not to show just how empty and lonely they are.
Their scars are very visible.
One does not have to take off their clothes to show them.
Just take a close look at their eyes.
Empty, sad, and lonely.
Those are the best words,
To describe a broken person.
Apr 28, 2017
Apr 28, 2017 at 11:23 AM UTC
This bipolar late winter weather
is so confusing that the birds
return as quickly as the flowers
that try to bloom early.
The sun merges with the horizon.
Until, orange rays give way
to light blue.
Then that hue
gives into a darker view.
At night the lamplights
wear rainbow halos
that signify
the function of
my tired eyes.
While all other trees
are bereft of leaves
the conifers confer
their prickly beauty upon me;
Scratching my skin
only as fiercely
as I press in
to their personal space.
Always moving forward
and off at an awkward angle
I pursue the white light
half of the moon
that makes a Cheshire grin.
The high school windows
across the street
reflect strange distortions
back at me
as I walk the parking lot
watching the darker shade
within my shadow.
I slink up onto
the sidewalk
that is a gray portrait
of its pock marked past.
At last, I come in from the outside
losing what’s left of the bright night
and nature’s musical life.
I walk the sterile colorless corridors
that cut and cross to nowhere,
while my spirit yearns
to return to
the outside world I was
just describing for you.
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 8:03 AM UTC