"landlocked" poems
I march to a different drummer
My life it is my own
I'm an explorer of experience
That is how I'm known
I've seen snow in South Dakota
I've been on the Vegas strip
Had barbeque in Kansas
My life has been a trip
I'm a gypsy of the railways
I'm a legend in my time
I move on in a boxcar
Brother... spare a dime?
I've been through all the landlocked states
Five provinces as well
I've seen Niagara Falls all frozen
I've seen it flowing fast as well
I've had margaritas in Key West
And Bourbon in Kentucky
Craft beers out in Oregon
In my life I have been lucky
I travel on my stories
Feed myself with all my tales
I'm an explorer of experience
I'm a gypsy of the rails
I never stick around too long
I don't wear my welcome out
I come and see just what I want
That's what life is all about
I've railroad friends in Texas
Some up in BC too
We've shared drinks in San Diego
And had a great Alaskan brew
I'm not one to live by your rules
I find my rules suit me fine
I'm an explorer of experience
And I'm riding on the lines
You can find me down in Georgia
Or eating spuds in Idaho
I never know just where I'll be
Until my ride begins to go
I'm a gypsy of the railways
I'm a legend in my time
I move on in a boxcar
Brother...spare a dime?
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 12:12 PM UTC
Rugby town, of landlocked streets,
of wasted field and barefaced retreat;
I miss you now, in absence of a friend,
I miss you now, in the verse that I lend.
Suburb grove, of sleepy mist,
oh, battered housewife, oh blastocyst;
you will remain in place forevermore,
and forevermore, you'll become a bore.
Holding cell, of sporting fame,
you stole my dreams but gave me my name;
I think of you: a multi-storey view,
of happy faces, of which there is few.
Still, my town, in debt's nightgown,
the shop-fronts vacate, we're feeling down;
these streets are poisoned with names of the past,
each memoir to teach: nothing's built to last
Rugby town, of weary folk,
the private school is a private joke;
I miss you now, as I sleep through the day,
I miss the old walks, and all that you'd say.
Old market town, the aftermath,
of British summer, suicide bath;
of open mics and closing the shutters,
of waking graveyards, sleeping in gutters.
Hopeless climbs, of dreary times,
of childhood state and nursery rhymes;
each time that I come home, I know you less,
becoming a stranger in my redress.
Clock tower, chiming, chiming loud,
singing for history long and proud;
of Rupert Brooke and the question: “what if?”
What if I was born to some lover's tiff?
To some large and friendless town,
to some body of land, which I drown;
to some active place of pain unknown,
to some place that I'll not gauge that I've grown,
oh Rugby dear, stay with me,
let me live on the periphery;
and although this town seems terribly dull,
it could be worse – I could live in Hull.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
You're an inspirational exciting jolt
Like an invitational lightning bolt
I'm suddenly shocked by the results
When I am blocked by your revolt
You have my beating heart in your hand
Holding me hostage where I silently stand
Staring at your ****** butcher's cleaver
That morphs me into a landlocked ******
You're a two-hander
Like a sledgehammer
Or a radar jammer
I start to stutter and stammer
When I see your weekly planner
And the lack of my presence
Because I'm incessant
You hold a pencil and an eraser
You delete when I become a tracer
And start to draw a better replacer
You hold the scales of justice
Though I claim you're unfit
You say add that to the list
From the throne where you sit
And there's no avenue for any recourse
When your other hand holds so much force
I must deal with your actions
So I can stay in your faction
For my heart's attraction
I am never right
So we never fight
And we never might
Understand each other
When we're taking cover
From exposing vulnerability
An exploding soul is filling me
Because the cold mist killing steam
Between us until you are only a dream
And my mind starts bursting at the seams
Until there's a monster barely mentally caged
But the bars shake when it is constantly enraged
When your saccharine emotions are cynically staged
My bustling brain will unfortunately always be plagued
By your neutral reactions which I'll never be able to gauge
You hold two hands behind your back
Will it be an attack?
Our two hands should meet
Instead I'm trampled by feet
Nov 23, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 at 5:00 AM UTC
Darling Mars,
Untouchable through the vast of stars,
I love you so.
Your icy caps,
Your passion red,
You are not mine.
Though I want it so.
I am Earthbound,
Landlocked to reason,
Close to the ground.
I love Earth just the same,
His pastures green,
His seas cold.
He comforts me,
When I need it most.
I promised him,
Keep my feet on the ground.
But My head is in the clouds.
Darling Mars, I yearn for you so.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 9:41 PM UTC
Yahya Kemal Beyatli translations
Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) was a Turkish poet, editor, columnist and historian, as well as a politician and diplomat. Born born Ahmet Âgâh, he wrote under the pen names Agâh Kemal, Esrar, Mehmet Agâh, and Süleyman Sadi. He served as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, Portugal and Pakistan.
Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
for the refugees
The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.
Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.
But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.
We both know
you have every right to say no.
The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!
Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!
As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.
Then my mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.
Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!
Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!
Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Keywords/Tags: Beyatli, Agah, Kemal, Esrar, Turkish, translation, Turkey, silent, ship, anchor, harbor, ghosts, grief, Istanbul, moon, music, snow
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 4:28 AM UTC
i see drops of water tracing the lines of your hair--
it's like you're crying but you're happy and i swear
even a painter couldn't muster the awe to bear
the sight of you under showering rain
i see nightlights peeking behind your silhouette
and the tones of your flustered blush try not to separate
themselves from the warm comely palette
of the shot of our figures in loving embrace
i see a blanket folded into your solemn sleeping shape
with curves smiling back; in a way, i wouldn't escape
had you had me landlocked within your pretty landscapes...
hug me tight
so that i might see
just how pretty you can be
under the soft glow of a burning moment
Sep 6, 2023
Sep 6, 2023 at 10:40 AM UTC
Elusive elephant elegantly eating.
Lioness learning landlocked locales.
Limber leopard leaping lightly.
Intimidating irate iridescent iguana.
Exercising eel elongating effortlessly
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 12:52 AM UTC
There might have been a time
When I wasn’t full of fear so topped off
Like a gassy sombrero
like a burrito left in the
Sun to bake and there might have
Been a
Time
When I hadn’t yet eaten a burrito
landlocked
In New England, locked in a small state of
Fear and knowing that knowing
just isn’t
Enough.
There might have
Been
A time when luxury was a nickel
apiece paperback
Book at the Unitarian Church fall sale
to raise funds for
Their roof.
To raise their
Roof.
And there
Might
Have been a joy in my spark
Plugs,
A joy
In my canter
A Joy in
My legs that preceded my
Fears.
There might
Have
Been a time:
When I would pick one of the seven records we owned
And delicately put it on the turntable, thinking I will
Have my own money and
buy my own music.
When I idly lift the leaded paint
from the 200 year old wood
And scratch it to smell its sweet aroma.
And put my hand on the glass pane
Think hard enough and open your eyes and it will be
1838 again.
Oh where are the people?
Oh where
when there might have been a time
Did I not see who they are?
Or they did not register.
I must have watched them everyday
Observant
so keen to be seen
Is it possible to feel so much
for feeling so little?
Or did I feel gulfs of embrace
that were not there?
I wanted and I desired and I dug.
I craved and thought and speculated
and clung.
And there might have
Been
A time when I roared on my Schwinn down the long empty
Roads of my town.
Invoking our gods.
Invoking my claims.
There was a time when I stuttered with
Compassion and could
feel a touch observed
There was a time:
Across the street in a
lit house at dusk.
Their curtains are open, their lights are on.
Oh, the sun has settled down
There is that time, golden, when I
Look into your kitchen, and the wallpaper is
Blue and harvest gold with small pictures of oil lamps on
Them and your walls are mustard gold.
Your plates are unbreakable
I see them lustre in the
Overhead light, fashioned like a wagon wheel.
Guns ablazin’.
Trails awash.
There might be a time when I can slip back
Into your kitchen
lick the plates and then
Run my fingers over
the wall paper.
Tracing the outline of the oil
lamps imprinted.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 7:19 AM UTC
Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites
of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal
pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark
on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.
~~~
Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of
mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows
splash, re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at
gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?
~~~
Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer
cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless
flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.
On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble
over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze
over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole
song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -
coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined
existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.
Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 8:13 AM UTC
a mysterious lady told me i am a landlocked mermaid:emerged from the ocean with legs and a shine i can't lessen even though others might try to make me.
i now give much heed to mysterious ladies.
girls i grew up playing Nintendo with are having babies and starring in their own personal generic happily ever Mormon afters
and the guys are being shipped off straight from high school to preach a gospel they neither understand nor care about,
two years of being ***** and righteous and shrink-wrapped in guilt.
i think they are the landlocked ones
i am getting out of this ocean-less place with a tactic that goes a little something like
throwing a dart and chasing it with my eager feet wherever it may go.
Jun 29, 2011
Jun 29, 2011 at 10:46 AM UTC
no mean feat to reestablish,
palpitating those few seconds
when arms-in-motion wave frantic,
in desperation,
in fall-prevention mode,
comical and tragical,
a salty suite,
and the semi-familiar
taste of fall/failing
the freshest fear,
jalapeño hot on the tongue
some months ago,
the thinnest tightrope,
not an obstacle feared,
what I lacked for,
I could not say or now recall
the kindness of calm prevailed
now tension lines drawn,
under the feet,
around the neck,
high voltage wires that
no artist-survivor-breadwinner
can walk without trepidation
though you don't see my arms flailing,
there are faint marks on my soles,
parallelograms on my throat,
where fear has tested
the prowess of its equipment
my life retrospected,
have miracles
made and gained,
given and taken
nine lives used up so many times,
thought my allotment was
nine X nine to the power of nine,
stupid-stopped looking over my shoulder
the poems came so easy,
every phrase overheard was a
story explicated, and the insights slid
from throat to paper so fast
I did not count myself blessed,
just merely fortunate
well fortunes veer,
turn left bad right,
no direction home,
and what was easy,
now impossible
how the story final beds,
will keep you posted,
right now all I can predict
with 100% surety,
the fall is surely coming
for the summer-man
the sun cannot burn off
the fog that paralyzes his
ship to shore,
invisible the safety of port,
the horn sound more of a croak,
his voice, ashamed of failing,
has this man both
landlocked
and lost at sea
Aug 10, 2014
Aug 10, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC
The Siren song
Sung by the Sea
Sounded so much
Sweeter
Before the boy
Was born.
Truth be told,
I was born that day as well.
We shared our first breaths.
Delicate and enduring atmosphere.
Sweetest, most overlooked element:
OXYGEN
Awoken our lungs
And spread life out
Through our
Fingers,
Toes,
Tears.
(His were louder,
Mine were longer)
We shared more than
rarefied air that day;
Excitement.
Confusion.
Love.
Fear.
Before I knew it
My Scorched sailor’s skin
Sought sanctuary
In
Landlocked love.
You see
The inconvenient, unfortunate, and unavoidable
Fact of humans is,
They like to eat.
And warmth is also nice.
Diapers.
And Kathy next door just got this great icebox and she says she doesn't know how she lived
without it and that in the long run it will actually save her money, what with buying in bulk and not
going to the store so often and leftovers.
So there’s that too.
So I work
Willingly, willfully
With wetness
On Back,
But not behind ears.
And my captain is a good captain,
A true captain.
Our pay is always waiting when and where promised.
Pennies are not pinched when providing rations.
He gave me this job out of the goodness of neighborhood.
But he has no child.
No wife.
Little reason to head to port,
And less to linger long.
I see my boy’s chestnut eyes in my dreams
And they act like the cruelest potion,
Which, when sipped
Leaves the drinker with only more thirst.
But there are dollars here,
And, what other skills do I have?
And, bellies are full.
I try not to complain.
Tonight,
I want the fireplace,
Roaring.
Our boy smiling, laughing
His cheeks having played chameleon
With the scarlet of our flag.
His mother;
Her eyes,
Outshining her hair,
Outshining the sun,
Scroll between our boy and the page,
As she reads his favorite book of tales.
He doesn't understand a word,
But I do.
We share an unnumbered smile.
He likes the pictures.
My mouth has tasted of salt for
64
Long
Days.
The ocean gives,
And the ocean takes away.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
Untamed!
Its landlocked audacity!
My arrogant city
Needs a sea.
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 11:42 AM UTC
My sweetheart once told me
about the passing of the moon,
how it takes an age to burn so bright,
then gone away too soon.
My father once told me
about the whisper of the wind,
how ghosts are soldiers left to die,
in brutal war's rescind.
My shaman once told me
about collective memory loss,
how it takes an age to build a kingdom,
which swiftly turns to moss.
My teacher once told me
about coincidental beauty,
how love is found in patient bliss
and custodial duty.
My pen-pal once told me
about how all of life is work,
how you must toil, toil, toil the fields,
only to end up hurt.
My mother once told me
about the truth found on the coast,
how in landlocked state, she buried thought
and missed my father the most.
My blackout friend once told me
how he re-invented sin,
how truth is but an echo of thought
and great delusion's twin.
The news anchor once told me
about the falling of the towers,
how brothers fell under the mythic spell
of dehumanising powers.
My electrician once told me
about the sounds of abandonment,
how a million memories within the halls,
are now but histories spent.
My garden gnome once told me
about God within the weather,
how we traded in moonlit ponds
for car seats made of leather.
My psychologist once told me
about living with depression,
how it takes an age to face the day
and a second for night's oppression.
My failed love agreed with this
as she turned to walk away,
and for all the words I'd written down,
I had nothing left to say.
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
suffice it to say
I feel unseasonably
confined
tomorrow the sun
will rise
& the ships will
dance on the
ever-shifting horizon
but I will not see them
you will wake in
your world
& not have a single thought
of me
I am too far from the sea
& I wonder if it
bothers him
too
that I might one day
set sail on the wheels of
my '97 Ford Taurus
& never return
anchored upon land
is what I am
but the horizon
draws near
as you sleep in your world
& wake in my harbor
won't you please
think of me?
Mar 23, 2012
Mar 23, 2012 at 1:30 AM UTC
**The sun grew dark, the sky grew black,
I looked away; when I looked back
The rain was falling in sheets, so fine,
I thought I'd finally come back.
The air was heavy like before
I felt that longing even more
I tasted sea salt on my face
Standing on my landlocked shore.
It all came back to me, right there
Spray in my eyes, wind in my hair
It all returned to tantalize
As if those rain clouds didn't care.**
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 6:34 PM UTC
No towering, flowering, landlocked tree
Will weep for the waning life of thee
Forgive them, friend, they never saw you smile
Forgive them, friend, they never saw you grin
To mistress maritime you were married
For her you lived, so with her be buried
Below the surface of sorrowful sin
Where above breathe hateful and hollow men
Solar shadows spin and empty seas flow
Though they are bereft your supernal glow
Forgive me, father, I can't seem to smile
Since you died, father, I can't seem to grin
(And from the waves we are ******
(And unto the waves we are ******
Jun 9, 2010
Jun 9, 2010 at 9:14 PM UTC
Bathtub music and drums played on the surface
of Davy Jones's mirror: the ceramic holds
the sea, the sea, and all within it: ***** me.
Scrubbed you off my skin again for
the umpteenth night in a row. Row
row row our boat away from the constant,
constant rows. Stormy arguments and
weathered mistrust. You'll break me,
won't you? I'll break you, won't I? Won't you
come drown with me Ariel? Won't you
come up with me to the kitchen and lock up
the door then lock up the oven then lock up
ourselves in carbon-monoxide poetry?
But then how does cooking gas end up as sass
in a library? How did sustenance turn into
asphyxiation? Why are our hands on
each other's throats instead of being binded
by the absoluteness, the certainty, the assuredness
of palms within palms and fingers interlocked
and question marks dispelled.
Splash! as way in and over my head
is the bathtub music
and my absorbent curls are
drinking, drinking, drinking, thinking
about the why you only call me when
you're drinking, drinking, drinking; thinking
about the way I cannot suppress you when
the cellphone has long gone quiet and
your Hughes of blue are still loud but
your red is dead.
Ariel, Ariel,
I want to be your dark-haired prince.
Ariel, Ariel,
my country is landlocked but I still see you in the sink.
Ariel, Ariel,
gurgling away as the bathtub music fades
into ugly brown rings around the ceramic
pause button
that shows no hope of continuation
Ariel, Ariel, you are the final splash!
as the false sea drifts away, the final splash!
that scatters bathtub music past the drain
and into the air. Ariel, Ariel,
you are the false rain
that my landlocked country never prayed for.
Ariel, Ariel, toneless, begotten and forgotten
Ariel, Ariel. I cannot sing for you. I cannot.
You will not sing for me. You will not.
The final splash! past the drain and into the air
is you Ariel. The false rain.
The rain song of our endless games.
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 10:02 AM UTC
I only see you
in the dreams I fall asleep in:
the daydreams in my nightmares,
right before the darkness creeps in.
Behind a pane I cannot break,
I watch as if I'm wide-awake:
the flashback as I sink
into the deep end.
We meet behind the words
inside our stories.
You lie to me and me to you,
the whole thing is annoying.
"Never so alive!"
will be the vehicle we drive
as we go diving from the cliff
into the quarry.
I thought gravity, for granted,
was to ground me
'til it pulled the seven shores in
all around me.
It was a slight tectonic shift
that pushed my sanity out drifting
into nonsense:
time is tasted, spaces sound.
I am landlocked,
but convinced that I have drowned.
I had a flashback (or a dream)
that when we kissed, I heard your secrets
and they tasted so, so sweet
inside my mouth.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 7:58 PM UTC
***Always with the separate rooms, same separate landlocked pontoons. Another follow up, billow of rank stank air, stale like the calming still of shell shocked monsoons, into the deep dark abyss I stare-
Heightens my senses, that still begotten presence of quarantined ill begotten dimensions, left stark and in the dark with nothing but the whistling of our declining pensions-
Repentance ask it of yourself, there's always an extra bottle on the tippy top shelf, reach high, you don't have to lie now, go ahead and lay that lye down-
Corrosion never felt so **** good...***
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 12:29 PM UTC
A marinate was played
Full of granite and fine rings
A bathtub of nosebleeds Danny and a bathtub of kings
All the cards that were dealt all the hands that we played pulled the curtain bell
Of my sleeve up to delay what I'd say and
All the cards we swept under the rug Danny all the music we screamed
From my sore throat and broken hands came the sound of suffering on a silent note in an empty room a bell jar and a piano and a single key being pressed in time to the sound of my weeping Danny
My friends ignored my cries
But here we are now with a new drum set and two sets of sticks for hands and we break everything we try to touch Danny thinking it can be played like the single key in that lonely room
Listen there are vultures in my throat in all my baby teeth and landlocked blues
I know that's the name of the song but I wanted to play it for you
Just in case you forgot I could sing out my suffering
And it doesn't sound so horrible now does it Danny
Because you don't know the story it tells
The blood diamond behind the curtain
Well it glimmers just as well
And I'm sure we can find a way to forgive ourselves for everything that was done
But I'm in a two step programme
Where everything gets reversed
And no I haven't slept in weeks Danny you're right I know I look like ****
I just haven't had time to think about what I'm putting in me
When I try to scream and I come up on a single static piano key
Listen there are ways we broke each-other and I'm sorry I tried
But the sound of my suffering
Doesn't mean waving goodbye
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 4:20 PM UTC
a message to every person who's name still echos in my mind and makes me shiver.
1. you were the first to give me a purpose. my body was small and your hands fit me almost as tight as your sheets. you were lost, and found home in the curve of my neck and the touch of my tongue and every story I dreaded to tell. you were a headache that throbbed in my teeth and crept down my throat. but I had a taste for a different type of pain.
2. you were nights without sleep for fear of the dark. you were the monsters in the closet and the dust along my bookshelf. you were The Calm Before The Storm that made me wish I was landlocked. you were venom in my veins and rope burns glowing along my throat. I've never believed in God but I pray for your victims when I watch you play life like a vicious game, and I still hope for your salvation.
3. you were a test I knew all the answers to but still proceeded to fail. you taught me to crave everything that was wrong. adrenaline has become the new form of oxygen. you are speed and I am the streets and everything inside of us aches to be free of the roles we are still forced to play. the lines in your palms are more familiar to me than my own, but you never let me hold your hand.
4. you were red in a world of black and white. I watched you fall like waves at my feet and I felt you pull back over time. you were the tides, you were the new moon covering me with shallow darkness, silent as I stumbled in the sand. you were the whistling wind pushing my hair over my eyes just so you could have the chance to pull it back behind my ears. you were salty kisses and warm skin, but you were too hot to touch.
5. you were a fairytale I so desperately needed. you gave me purpose like 1, sleepless nights like 2, had the same name as 3, and held thoughts as loud as 4 but a mouth just as silent. you were a thunderstorm in a four year drought, a fire in my mind, a force I could feel and never see. you held flashing lights and warning signs but I only squeezed my eyes closed even tighter. you are the scars along my wrists that show me I am so, so fragile. you are the suicide note waiting so patiently to be read, a reminder that I am not the only one who doesn't want to breathe anymore. but I would die for you.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 10:05 PM UTC
Well, here we are:
stuck in the ambivalent winds
of our landlocked state.
Warm mornings
without warning
curse us with cold
before the clock tower strikes four times.
The landlocked people dressed for warmth
then scurried for shelter as the chill
seeped into their bones.
Fearing cold they hide their brains
safe from love, safe from pain.
It's like they don't even know
to just wait five minutes.
It'll all be different in five minutes.
In five minutes there will be time
Time for
floods and droughts
ice and flash fires
infinite wrath, infinite despair.
Trust in Oklahoma means
to stand on a faulty bridge
and fain stability.
Looking West in Oklahoma means absolutely nothing
There is flat in all directions.
And so, here we are:
landlocked lovers
amid a complacent population.
Let us not trust weather,
it can not make up its mind.
Let us not trust the wilted Mistletoe
the only flowers I need are in your eyes.
Let us not fear the cold or the heat
in five minutes there will still be time
to blanket ourselves in warmth
or strip ourselves bare
in the devious Sun.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 1:09 PM UTC
Trying to reach the stars,
Rising rising and yet,
I am stopped by invisible bars.
Landlocked alone,
Clouds like curtains cut me off,
Chained to my home.
I see you and all of your grace,
Floating above the clouds,
Somewhere far out in space.
I fly forward with all my might,
Trying my best to get to,
This amazing sight.
But then the air stops me,
Holds me back from,
That which I need.
I push forward and forward till I begin to bleed.
Can't break the barrier,
So I fall to the Earth as a seed.
Know what I want,
I want what I need,
But something blocks me from that which I see.
Apr 2, 2012
Apr 2, 2012 at 9:04 PM UTC
The billionaires tend to their garden
at the expense of the forest,
whilst landlocked towns
invest in pine trees and surfboards
to sell a notion of escape
against the cell of a poorer tomorrow.
Religion lost its claim to G-d
once the churches locked their doors.
The homeless started a choir
on the park bench by the chapel
once they grew tired of food;
fame now the nutrition of the masses.
The baby boomers are a dying breed
set for containment and greed
and rapacious war;
the dreadful threat of a next door neighbour-
their extinction amongst
a millennial wantonness.
Heiresses brush their hair in vanity,
as does the poet to his white-noise
crowd of lunatics and alcoholics.
He crushes diazepam into his whiskey sour,
then lifts a shaking hand
to find the power he is preaching against.
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC