Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
LDuler Mar 2013
The leeching color from my eyes
My parched mouth puckered
My joints are stiff, stubborn and brittle
Creaking like exhausted floorboards
Wringing my fists, white ands shriveled
Twisting my hands, skinned and raw
I'm ill with desperate thriving
Too weak to carry on, don't have the choice
Veins laden with liqueur, thinning hopes and regret
Pulsing pulsing pulsing
Bones fluttering with birds of bad omen
Scalp rid of hair to make place for the thorny crown of vanquishment
Blood diluted with bitter disappointment,
Sloshing, smearing through my mucked-up system
Aching from the deadly drone of existence
From small victories, large defeats
I'm the mortar, they're the pestle
Clobbering into my hollowed life.

The hammer of that thing
Routine so dull and tedious
Pounding and pounding and pounding
When you can't even scream or weep
Thud thud thud
My temples scream with dank submission
My brain is reeling, hurling from the vertigo of it all.

Morning, noon & night
The dead avenues, the empty buzzing
Beats hammers in my brain
Throb throb throb
I'm quivering with numbness.

I'm mature now, I'm ripe
So ripened and rotten
Adult things, adult preoccupations pulsing around me
It seems like person really only has two choices
Get in on the aimless hustle or be forsaken
I've taken it all up
Rent, coffee, wine, cigarettes and newspaper
Forgotten pills
Unpaid bills
Thump thump thump
Anguish, pain, woe and misery
Turbulence and stress, the banging hammer.

I'm a drunkard, a wanderer
With a beaten, battered suitcase
Days like these, weeks like these, when all the weapons are pointed at me
I'm a ***, an outcast
A pigeon in the pummeling rain
Dribble dribble splash
The ache is a relentless thing.

My job, my rent, my house
My walls limp with memories stuck with rotting glue
Wallpaper torn, curling at the edges
The cold hard floor radiates and screams
The couch, cold & hollow
Incrusted with bits of filthy grime
The dead radiator hisses like an angry snake
The shades down, no sunlight
No life seeping through the venetian blinds
And my clothing sits in the chairs
Like the dead emptied out
The blankets are thin, frayed and tattered
As hope is
The moths, on the other hand, are alive and well
They weave webs of moribund rot
Interlacing me into their strands of decay.

Surrounded by the coldhearted, they snarl
And their laughs abash, dishearten the pure
Bruising me relentlessly
They are so tired, mutilated
either by love or no love
All their bleak and sunken eyes
All their weak and drunken souls
All their meek and shrunken hearts
Vultures with neckties
Weasels in frocks
Collared beasts, that's all they are.

The mournful poet with the shrapnel wound
Was so wrong
I guess he wanted to be lyrical, but his words led astray
Time is not water
It does not flow easy, smooth and transparent
It drags you into dark alleys and batters the hell out of you
Punches you in the ribs, rips your skin,
Jerks you by your hair, stabs you, disfigures you
Leaves you crippled and broken, gasping for air.

Sweating in a rocker
Lanky skeleton hands clasped, praying- for what?
I'm not living, or dying
I'm simply crawling backward
Or no, I'm not crawling, I'm being dragged,
Through nights of lonely perfidy, breathing the beaten dusty air
The dark wind wailing, ebbing through the frail curtains
Laying in bed, too wretched to move
When memories, of heaven and hell,
Droop like broken shades
Across the window of my mind
And ****, I can feel my soul slowly dropping down through the mattress
My stomach is heaving, my teeth clenched and gritted
But not with fear, no, it's too late for dread
And it *****, because we realize we were all so caught up in a life in which we can find no meaning...we end up wrong and graceless and sick
We're born shriveled and alone, we die shriveled and alone
No matter what.
The Hammer by Geneviève Pardoe Macchiarella is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2016
i like reading about urban living, primarily by accounts of Frank O'Hara -
no one else, to be honest - where i'm placed i can vocalise
both the vulgarity and the serenity of a Wordsworth -
better had i an art gallery to run,
but my heart is too stony to accept the
chanced frivolous - it's anything beside that,
chanced, basked in, celebration of life -
perhaps i am outdated, and i know i am,
succumb to Kantian idealism, and no strand
of realism - after going to a brothel and learning
a few things, i was told i was a good man -
never did ****, too eager to watch the ******* -
****** tied - and then silencing my ****** -
i guess that's how quasi-country-folk live
these days... i simply prefer the solitude,
not from self-love: but as a way of assurance -
and later assembling - but i learn of the lives
in urban areas, of their little pests and phobias,
of places where people congregate -
and i feel no inclination to do likewise -
i don't even know why i'm travelling to
say something at the Cheltenham festival -
i've got nothing to say...
                               i can create usurpers of older
men, and blind-spot the youth,
        and be incriminated for both actions...
because i can...
                              but there's still O'Hara to mind...
and "all that love he could give in **** pursuit" -
apologies if i don't share that,
  my mentor Spinoza learned as much
in other circumstances -
                         hence the twilight of the man
of contempt and great love -
   as said, paradoxically, frankincense is
a scent appropriated as possessing anti-depressant
properties... yet we speak of: the man of sorrows.
but about my pet peeve, linguistic, obviously:
    the french for hotel - hôtel -
mind you, not trilling the r with mutually respective
   examples of English and French, but nonetheless
harking the r and amputee h in French,
     hôtel - or h'ôtel or h)ôtel - the diacritic mark
above the o is like a bracket, or < (less than) what's
expected in tongue kitted to say:
                                               h'otel - or simply o(h) tel -
        so too garçon - with ç extending into s
   and said: garçon / garson -
                           or with grave markings on a vowel:
that eats all other letters after it: cut-off grave e (è) -
    thus too the circumflex abuses invisible in
Cockney slang, and the eaten up h - via 'appening -
   'n 'appens only ounce -
                                            indeed the fighting took
places above as well as below the 26 symbols -
  in the diacritical realm of stresses and other punctuation
deficiencies - colon over the u for the umlaut,
there the fighting took place -
                      in an urban environment, would i ever
have spotted this? among fast food outlets, neon
and art galleries? probably not -
so akin said: lawlessness above and below the alphabet,
the warring fusion - but so they should have said,
in Mandarin - beyond vowels and consonants,
there are Surd variations of both -
              for aesthetic reasons -
our natural borders -                          and there are also
                    diacritical / exemplified stresses of
both sexes of letters -   some are silenced, some are
pronounced... they never told us that...
               they simply bragged about how naked
English was, and how certain people picked up
all the major eccentric intricacies -
                       to create a bourgeoisie levelling of
what's content with being a noun: intelligence.
there are rules beyond the five vowels and 21 consonants,
in that there's a trans-linguistic appropriation -
some become surds, some become pronounced -
   third limbs, six fingers, or Siamese twins -
                     given the book of revelation, and the phrase:
given power over all tongues - apart from ideogram
languages - and Arabic sidewinders on sand dunes -
you could, technically, incorporate all the particular stresses
onto the English language from all the Latin alphabet
languages... you could, in effect, paint onto all the
English particulars, all the brimful expressions of
diacritical marks being missing: English eccentricities -
you could, in effect, paint, once you have mastered
all the punctuation of pronunciation above the letters,
and below, not unlike (that that) what's already
deemed appropriate between words: i mean actual
letters - attach one diacritical mark to Finnegans' Wake,
and the whole work crumbles... you could effectively paint...
once you mastered the many particular instances of
atypical English deviation - making English, a language
less offensive in a sense that it already is:
for English is offensive in that its universal,
a franca lingua of commerce - and since that is the case:
there must be a status quo lingua - in this case:
English with diacritical marks - expressing all the
obvious deviations - this process, i am gleeful in stating:
will take as much effort as mapping out man's d.n.a.,
that's not pompous, that's actually hopeful,
hopeful in the sense that i spotted this, and someone
will take over in 50 years time, to incorporate
all the public uses of diacritical marks in other Latinißed
languages a pompous: congregation -
nesting on the bare rocks - after all that 16th and 17th century
******* in England and tongue and Empire: doth do, etc.
modernity says? Irvine Welsh's trainspotting Scootish
dialect excess - aye wee and e -
only when all the diacritical propositions are congregated
in the English Eden will we sing hallelujah -
this is a challenge, after all, English with its
Welsh and Scottish, Berkshire and Cornish, Cockney
and Richmond fluffy accents can be feed
this invasion of nuances already expressed:
thus in abstract:                      ABSTRACT

(originally herioglyphs)
        heliographic                     (v. the ideogram -
                                                      or no pyramid to ditto)
        and thus the heliocentric theory -
countered with this, or these the 26 fractions
      of the geocentric notion, England: bellybutton
of the world - as such... helioglyphic - glitches
  or graphics or glyph-on-glyph in that x = y combined with
   x squared and the parabolic curvature and foundation |)
                geographic - geoglyphic -
when then the Greenwich meridian turn into
the Greenwich universal accenting?      English
is fertile ground to apply the many stresses,
                                   sure, make it the universal tongue,
the globalisation vehicle, but dress yourself for that purpose,
accept all the invaders to your schemes invoking the 24/7 global
community... **** up! don't tartan up! **** up!
            with the wigs and the perfumes, and the bowler hats
and the neckties - you did it once... do it again!
                English is fertile ground for incorporating all
the linguistic "anomalies" - sure, little would look ugly if
written litle - soon to the invocation of lyre - or saccharolytic -
    dog's tongue lapping and a thousand slurs later:
                     cha cha cha and kappa and cholesterol
     and cheap and chasing foxes with bloodhounds -
                         and cappuccino - and chisel - chromosome:
                                          cistern (alter. çistern) -
    if something akin to this doesn't happen...
          we're all be playing the Mongolian harmonica,
by default of the 24 hours that are stressed to
be as important as an entire year of patience in waiting
for autumnal grapes and the wine pressed.
Stephan Cotton May 2017
Another shift, another day, Another buck to spend or save
A million riders, maybe more, delivered to their office door
Or maybe warehouse maybe store.
Or church or shul or city school, right on time as a rule.

Clickety, clackety, clickety, clee,
I am New York, the City’s me
Come let me ride you on my knee
From Coney Isle to Pelham Bay
From Bronx to Queens eight times a day.

Ride my trains, New Yorkers do
And you’ll learn a thing or two
About the City up above, the one some hate, the one some love.
On the street they work like elves
Down below they’re just themselves.

Through summer’s heat they still submerge,
Tempers held (though always on the verge),
They push, they shove – just like above –
The crowds will jostle, then finally merge.

Downtown to work and then back to sleep
They travel just like farm-herded sheep.
In through this gate and out the other,
Give up a seat to a child and mother,
Just don’t sit too close to that unruly creep!

With these crowds huddled near
Just ride my trains with open ear,
There’s lots of tales for you to hear.


Dis stop is 86th Street, change for da numbah 4 and 5 trains.  Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.   77th Street is next.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     I’m Doctor Z, Doctor Z are me
     I’ll fix your face or the visit’s free.
     Plastic surgery, nips and tucks
     You’ll be looking like a million bucks.

     Looka those pitchas, ain’t they hot?
     You’ll look good, too, like as not!
     Just call my numbah, free of toll
     Why should you look like an ugly troll?

     You’ll be lookin good like a rapster
     Folks start stealing your tunes on Napster
     Guys’ll love ya, dig your face
     Why keep lookin like sucha disgrace?

     Call me up, you’re glad you did
     Ugly skin you’ll soon be rid.
     Amex, Visa, Mastercard,
     Payment plans that ain’t so hard.

     So don’t forget, pick up that phone
     Soon’s you get yourself back home.
     I’ll have you looking good, one, two three
     Or else my name ain’t Doctor Z.


Dis stop is 77th Street, 68th Street Huntah College is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     It was a limo, now it’s the train;
     Tomorrow’s sunshine, but now it’s rain.
     The market’s mine, for taking and giving
     It’s the way I earn my living.

     Today’s losses, last week’s gain.
     A day of pleasure, months of pain.
     We sold the puts and bought the calls;
     We loaded up on each and all.

     I’ve seen it all, from Fear to Greed,
     Good motivators, they are, both.
     The fundamentals I try to heed
     Run your gains and avoid big loss.

     Rates are down, I bought the banks
     For easy credit, they should give thanks.
     Goldman, Citi, even Chase
     Why are they still in their malaise?

     “The techs are drek,” I heard him say
     But bought more of them, anyway.
     I rode the bull, I’ll tame the bear
     I’ll scream and curse and pull my hair.

     So why continue though I’m such a ****?
     I’ll cut my loss if I find honest work.



Dis is 68th Street Huntah College, 59th Street is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     He rides the train from near to far,
     In and out of every car.
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”
     Some folks buy them, most do not,
     Are they stolen, are they hot?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”

     Who would by them, even a buck?
     What’re the odds they’re dead as a duck?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”
     Why not the Lotto, try your luck,
     Or are you gonna be this guy’s schmuck?
     “Batchries, batchries, tres por un dolar!”


Dis is 59th Street, change for de 4 and 5 Express and for de N and de R, use yer Metrocard at sixty toid street for da F train.  51st Street is next. Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     “Dat guy kips ****** wit me, Wass he
     tink, I got time for dat ****?  Man, I
     got my wuk to do, I ain gona put
     up with him
     no more.”

          “I don’t know what to tell this dude. Like,
          I really dig him but
          ***?  No way.  And
          He’s getting all too smoochie face.”

     “Right on, bro, slap dat fool up
     side his head, he leave you lone.”

          “Whoa, send him my way.  When’s the last
          time I got laid?  I’m way ready.”

          “Oh, Suzie,..”


Dis is fifty foist Street, 42nd Street Grand Central is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin doors.



     Abogados es su amigos, do you believe the sign?
     Are they really a friend of mine?
     Find your lawyer on the train
     He’ll sue if the docs ***** up your brain.

     Pick a lawyer from this ad
     (I’m sure that you’ll be really glad)
     You’ll get a lawyer for your suit,
     Mean and nasty, not so cute.

     Call to live in this great nation
     1-800-IMMIGRATION.
     Or if your bills got you in a rut
     1-800-BANK-RUPT.

     We’re just three guys from Flatbush, Queens
     Who’ll sue that ******* out of his jeans.
     Mama’s proud when she rides this train
     To see my sign making so much rain.

     No SEC no corporations
     We can’t find the United Nations.
     Just give us torts and auto wrecks
     And clients with braces on their necks.

     Hurting when you do your chores?
     There’s money in that back of yours.
     Let us be your friend in courts
     Call 1-800-SUE 4 TORTS.


Dis is 42nd Street, Grand Central, change for the 4, 5 and 7 trains. Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Toity toid is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


They say there’s sev’ral million a day
From out in the ‘burbs, they pass this way.
Most come to work, some for to play
They all want to talk, with little to say.

Bumping and shoving, knocking folks down
A million people running around.
The hustle, the bustle the noise that’s so loud
Get me far from this madding crowd.

“We can be shopping instead of just stopping
And onto the next outbound train we go hopping.
Hey, it’s a feel that that guy’s a-copping!”

They want gourmet food, from steaks down to greens
Or neckties and suits, or casual jeans,
It’s not simply newspapers and magazines
For old people, young people, even for teens.


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Thoidy toid Street, twenty eight is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     “So what’s the backup plan if
     He doesn’t get into Trevor Day?
     I know your
     heart’s set on it, but we’ve only
     got so many strings we
     can pull, and we can’t donate a
     ******* building.”

           “Hooda believed me if I tolja the Mets
          would sail tru and the Yanks get dere
          by da skinna dere nuts?
          I doan believe it myself.  Allya
          Gotta do is keep O’Neil playin hoit
          And keep Jeter off his game an
          We’ll killum.

               “My sistah tell me she be yo *****.  I tellya I cut you up if you
                ****** wid her, I be yo ***** and donchu fuggedit.”

     “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.
     And we can just **** good and
     Well find some more strings to pull!”

          “Big fuggin chance.  Wadder ya’ smokin?”

               “Yo sitah she ain my *****, you be my *****.  I doan be ******
                wid yo sistah.  You tell her she doan be goin round tellin folks
                dat ****.”


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Twenty eight Street, twenty toid is next.  Watch out da closin dowahs.


     Do you speak Russian, French or Greek,
     We’ll assimilate you in a week.
     If Chinese is your native tongue
     You’ll speak good English from day one.

     Morning, noon, evening classes
     Part or full time, lads and lasses.
     You’ll be sounding like the masses
     With word and phrase that won’t abash us.

     Language is our stock in trade
     For us it’s how our living’s made.
     We’ll put you in a class tonight
     Soon your English’ll be out of sight.

     If you’re from Japan or Spain
     Basque or Polish, even Dane,
     Our courses put you in the main
     Stream without any need for pain.

     We’ll teach you all the latest idioms
     You’ll be speaking with perfidium.
     We’ll give you lots of proper grammar
     Traded for that sickle and hammer.

     Are you Italian, Deutsch or Swiss?
     With our classes you can’t miss
     The homogeneous amalgamation
     Of this sanitized Starbucks nation.


Dis is Twenty toid Street, 14th Street Union Square is next. Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Watch out da closin doors.


     “Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to bother you
     But things are bleak of late.
     I had a job and housing, too
     Before my little quirk of fate.”

     “There came a day, not long ago,
     When to my job I came.
     They handed me a pink slip, though,
     And ev’n misspelled my name.”

     “We’ve got three kids, my wife and me.
     We’re bringing them up right.
     They’re still in school from eight to three
     With homework every night.”

     “I won’t let them see me begging here,
     They think I go to work.
     Still to that job I held so dear
     Until fate’s awful quirk.”

     “So help us now, a little, please
     A quarter, dime (or dollar still better),
     It’ll go so far to help to ease
     The chill of this cold winter weather.”

     “I’ll walk the car now, hat in hand
     I do so hope you understand
     I’m really a proud, hard working man
     Whose life just slipped out of its plan.”

     “I thank you, you’ve all been oh so grand.”


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is 14th Street, Union Square, change for da 4 and 5 Express, the N and the R.   Astor Place is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     The hours are long, the pay’s no good
     I’m far from home and neighborhood.
     All day I work at Astor Place
     With sunshine never on my face.
     Candy bar a dollar, a soda more
     A magazine’s a decent score.
     Selling papers was the game
     But at two bits the Post’s to blame
     For adding hours to my long day.
     All the more work to save
     Tuition for that son of mine: that tall,
     Strong, handsome, American son


Dis is a Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Yer at Astah Place, Bleekah Street is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     Summer subway’s always hot, AC’s busted, like as not
     Tracks are bumpy, springs are shot ‘tween the cars they’re smoking
     ***.

     To catch the car you gotta run they squeeze you in with everyone
     Just hope no body’s got a gun 'cause getting there is half the fun.

     Packed in this car we’re awful tight seems this way both day and
     night.
     And then some guys will start a fight.  Subway ride’s a real delight.

     Danger! Keep out! Rodenticide! I read while waiting for a ride.
     This is a warning I have to chide:  
     I’m very likely to walk downtown, but I’d never do it Underground.

     Took the Downtown by mistake.  Please, conductor, hit the brake!
     Got an uptown date to make, God only knows how long I’ll take.


Yer ona Brooklyn Bridge bound Numbah 6 Train.  Dis is Bleekah Street, Spring Street is next.  Watch out da closin doors.


     The trains come through the station here,
     The racket’s music to my ear.
  &nbs
Images, overheard (and imagined) conversations.  @2003
doing either one and
we dream of $8 haircuts
and no plans of anything
but watching the routine
of life unfold in front of
prying eyes through
venetian blinds
as singles mothers
prep their child for the
education of death
as dogs walk their masters
as fathers choke on neckties
and stress in traffic
as the mailman makes
his rounds
and someone is being born
and someone is dying
and someone is dead
and worst of all someone
is dead before they die and
money is made and money is spent
and someone is lubing themselves
with comfort and convenience to
make getting ****** by the world
a little more tolerable
and a little less raw
and I am here
eating walnuts and
drinking Spotted Cow
and listening to Sonic Youth
on this delving day
while the rest are scouring
through another day of
intolerable hell but we never
stop and think for a moment
to ask ourselves who we are,
we just enable them to run our
lives and tell us who we should be
because when they got you at
childhood
they
got
you
f
o
r
e
v
e
r
I heard you cry dear brother.

I heard you cry and wanted to drink your tears and let the pain into my body.

I wanted your anguish to rush through my veins like the French mob never letting the wealthy sleep well, like lions around the prancing gazelles

I just wish I could never get a good night's sleep because dreams don't belong where brothers are unwell

I don't ask for much brother,

- just a smile and  your tears in a jar.



This is untrue my friend. I do wish for much.

I want the whole world at my fingertips the

Great Wall of China under my feet

starched collars and

Coach neckties I want everything I can squeeze out of Mother Nature before she collapses into a cloud of pink bubbles with nothing inside.



But you dear brother, you do not want the Great Wall beneath you but merely not around you. You just want to be able to keep your door open without fearing someone might see you wipe your cheekbones clean. And I, I apologize for not being there every time it closes to burst through with all my wishes compiled into one but I'm not that strong.

I'm not man enough to understand that wishes for gold mean nothing that no matter if I piled them together would they make one for your health

        -    I can't even see that I love my good night's sleep more than I love your smile



Forgive me.



This is why I write to you brother. I might not be strong enough to sip your pain away, but I want you to keep a jar in case I come to my senses before you find me hanging from my neckties.



If I do I'll drink them with a funny face.

Maybe then I could hear you laugh.
To my little brother.
Juliana Jun 2013
Tighten your braces with yellows,
UV lights in police cars,
your high socks and new crewnecks,
steep all your worries in the cellar air.
The kitchen crew necks you,
steps over your extra vertebrae on the floor.
Exchange Red Sox caps and collaged cards for
iron oxides and spare joints,
an apology gift for the knees of a Titan.

Gilt neckties and stockings
hard hits over first base,
infrared silhouettes waving goodbye
slip on the steep porch stairs.
Your personal marching bands
sleep in shopping carts.
Your postcards lost in the Andes
written in purple pen --
everything’s smells like guilt.

Harts stagger behind
stags that hope to tiptoe around your toes,
scouting the suites in South America.
Back roads hastily swept under dining room chairs.
Necklaces of burned out light bulbs,
players sock the suited callers.
My bird house is empty.
Your world map is crumpled,
stuffed into the left ventricle of my heart.

Knaps of your wrist bones
fill the endnotes of my biography.
Bottlenecked bus loops and
windsocks left deflated in broom closets.
Your left hand in my kitchen sink,
catches my pressed shirts,
your clothesline melts into the sidewalk like lightning.
Bracelets on marble sculptures.
After you, I need a nap.

Littoral instructions spelled out in sand dollars.
Purple sunflower seeds caught in my turtleneck,
ghosts of eyelashes begin
to whisper wishes,
sockets for wrenches and ankles.
Blue hair braces for the midnight smiles,
the low tide of flowers,
the daily newspaper full of ocean currents,
your lips were too literal.

Lumbar dimples and goose bumps,
the rubbernecking waiter waited for the lights
rubbing his eyes.
Your playful dialogue
makes my plate shake.
Your safety is never on,
eyebrows marking my fifth disappointment.
I usually hate piano solos,
your voice is unstable, charred lumber.

Mince the pages of the dictionary
to make kindling for your irises.
Necklines defined as jade stamps
at the bottoms of the Chinese paintings
above last year’s birthday card.
Connect the dots to see the ruins of Rome,
your arms after the final battle,
crude stitches on undone sweaters.
Your pockets still full of dinner mints.

Canvass the imprint on the inside of
your leg from where the stitching folds over,
your jeans, unwashed in my laundry hamper.
Still overflows from knee socks and potted plants.
Microwaves compressed into my glass of water
the high tide seashells in your pantry facing
your ego in mason jars on shelves.
You’re tired of white board marker promises,
your skin a poorly cleaned canvas.
Homonyms everywhere. First and last word of each stanza. Enjoy :)
Madison Y Sep 2015
Do you remember my wool sweater:
How the fibers used to catch on your wristwatch
And tangle themselves in the buttons on your checkered shirt?
Those loose threads said what I was too afraid to—
Don't let go;
Stay just a little longer.
Fiber after fiber, they unraveled,
Until that old wool sweater was tattered and frayed and scattered—
Softly curled strings on shirt edges and neckties,
A memory begging not to be forgotten.
Even after all this time,
I'd bet you still find specks of red on your pillowcases
Or on your jacket as you ride the bus to work.
I hope you do.
Third Eye Candy Oct 2012
edge of the World; the lip of a spoonfull
of neptune breath and jewels
where elephants room for the night. full
of blue doom; a bed and a pool
the edge [ was a world you slip through ]  youthful
no pontoons. next to a mule
with an Angel. cruel neckties, spiteful
apples, atoms
and you

the Spaulding gray   and blue Danube
diffused.
T Sep 2013
I was never good at tying knots
Until you came along
And taught me every way to tie
A necktie, a bow tie, a scarf
And then we would untie them;
I like that you wear scarves;
You quickly taught me how
To tangle sheets in the thick of darkness
And we then learned how to untangle
Arms, legs, fingers and toes
While the sun rose
And baked us in possibility;
When neckties and sheets
Were no longer a challenge
We tackled tying heartstrings
And very quickly those knots were made
Fastening your heart to mine
A beautiful mass of present and past
And a little of what could be;
We practiced our little knots
Of fabric flesh and feelings,
All day, everyday
Eight months of days
We had them perfected
As perfect as we needed them to be
There's no way they'd come undone
And now as you're leaving
And I don't know if you can feel it
But those strings are tight
They're holding good,
But I'm feeling a little ripping,
Right there in my chest;
Maybe you should untie them
Because you always tied best.
Ty was always tying ties...
WAGON WHEEL GAP is a place I never saw
And Red Horse Gulch and the chutes of ******* Creek.

Red-shirted miners picking in the sluices,
Gamblers with red neckties in the night streets,
The fly-by-night towns of Bull Frog and Skiddoo,
The night-cool limestone white of Death Valley,
The straight drop of eight hundred feet
From a shelf road in the Hasiampa Valley:
Men and places they are I never saw.

I have seen three White Horse taverns,
One in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania,
One in a timber-hid road of Wisconsin.

I bought cheese and crackers
Between sun showers in a place called White Pigeon
Nestling with a blacksmith shop, a post-office,
And a berry-crate factory, where four roads cross.

On the Pecatonica River near Freeport
I have seen boys run barefoot in the leaves
Throwing clubs at the walnut trees
In the yellow-and-gold of autumn,
And there was a brown mash dry on the inside of their hands.
On the Cedar Fork Creek of Knox County
I know how the fingers of late October
Loosen the hazel nuts.
I know the brown eyes of half-open hulls.
I know boys named Lindquist, Swanson, Hildebrand.
I remember their cries when the nuts were ripe.
And some are in machine shops; some are in the navy;
And some are not on payrolls anywhere.
Their mothers are through waiting for them to come home.
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
---- 2023 youtube I wonder if, and lo': The Planets
A grand background orchestra, mental direct
there, you hav it, too, listen, a few times,
just in the mood, to listen
maybe as you get, that it starts at Mars,
begin as we
think we
Read this at your pace the writer advised,
and I did, a couple of times,
like long stuck records…
To Holst, an offered libation,
to all the minds whose words
are music as big as any mind
limited by my unknowing,
only
using, the truth, music, leading after words,
through ever away,
silent for a now,
or so,
from the Sun, past the fragment,
the single lump at the core,
of the process,
Ash as
Icarus, and Hermes, speedy messenger,
such as see thee, hold the knowledge holy,

watch, see, the wandering planets Holst,
might have seen today,
looking through my eyes,
wordless, right on, so far, as we

agree, there
is power in the mind that writes and reads
music,
power alloted some in blind feel,
power exuding from an ever in times past,

lasting ever tones thinning, spreading, patterning
perfected harmonies unexpected
yet
taken as granted, felt, in passion y sympassion,
same sound,

my once known wind, my bass oboe player,
acquaintance, who called me by name,
accusing me, subtly of not knowing,
there is a forest of low stature,
and there are missions there,
where if you pray,
they feed you twinkies… I recall, between
Venus and busy laughing Earth,

I remember Mars is next,
I am ready, I went into the dark kitchen,
back of the Mission on Fourth Street,
across from an Electra Records Billboard…

ifery approaches, Holst has not gotten me to Mars,
I am pulling in an experience, from a mission,
on Fourth Street, in a mindtimespace shared,

as of yet, by a few, who will know the place,
the ******* Mission, the one
with the Joker who used rats,
to get a startle response,

and at exactly the wrong place, for men with
certain
kinds of sure thing reactions, to diabolic attacks.

2023, approaching Mars with Lou Holtz, I thum thum
thummin wearin' my Razorback hat,
Inter Planatary Hwy 71, to Joplin,
ur in my realm.

Bass every thing slow creep slow, seep as sludge,
to the edge, and look beyond,
this is it, this is the Earth,
we shall survive!

We slay the unbelievers and fake it til we make it,
right, kids?

---------- longhair music, epicyc-lical as neckties,
to male tipped stacking schema for *****,
or stones,
or crystaline tones accompanying the heating up
of life's core cargo cult's last load,

Holst, bass trombones,
here, is the dance of little devils with a mind to make
a difference
in the depths of ever after,
up to now,
I had forgotten the piccolo parts, and the French horns,
and the joy of the big parade,
marching off
to war explore the unknown
for exploitations as per the underling theme,
go forth
subdue the Earth, and conquer all who refuse, to say
this is the way,
this is the good old way,

war
glory and honor, earn the urim'nthummin'n'human
inhumainity, we, the chosen warrior beings,
messengers of differing mocking gods of ****** mud
beyond the final river,
every slogger knows, forever, there remains
one more
river to cross, a final thread to tie to you, listener,

Holtz, still in the background, a journey, what price
each player plays in this, orchestration shared,
as I read, I wrote, as I hoped, I did,

and I remain, giddily glad… my side won the war
I lost.

Peace came, unbidden, apparently,
a deep breath, and harp strings,

this is the future from any ever before, now
to know
this is common, not so rare, as even the idea,
not so long ago,
first radio mono performance,
what child lay in the crib and heard this,
through the grand horn of Gram's Gramma phone.
Y''ello,
toldja, ai ain't no Injunsaint. Pretend, then,
right, ai and mai-y grandma

can piece together some occassional lessons, given us,
she in her time telling me in mine,sssince ever about
I was forty-nine, or so, she told me she was an orphan,
and had no family knowledge, past begins
at the last common thread,
to a native american epic,

when the old deluder, Satan, act, attached
to law and order and rectangular resettlement
of wilderness liberated from savages and beasts…
pawn, both steps, dare… help the Macedonians
and take Uncle Tom wit'cha, whicha oughtn't had
never the less, young wombed men, did tend
to become aspirational, after becoming
inspired read-up young wombed men, hot
to seek adventure, teachin' young'n's, out west.

indistanct depth Holst at the kettle drumms softerafter
- the silent version has a different light show
--- circa 1880's, not historically long ago, most places.
This character,
qwerty guy's friend, has kin as close as my Uncle Cebe'n'me,
who died at Wounded Knee, where my liege republic,
honored some two dozen rapid fire cannon supported
avengers of The Seventh Cav!
And in their hearts,
if not their lips,
was the march in time to Garry Owen. Their families
must be proud.

And that's a shame. We were taught to grant worth
to a medal signifying honor brought to the liege, in victory.

Peace passes that, music makes bubbles, we revisit,
replay the gramma phone version,
some scratchy
real realizing strings singing chimes and harps
of ages past
unveiling, hiding nothing knowing freedom is a sense,
you know
you do not own it,
you do not make it up, it is free. The idea

I had, approached as
hunter
in pursuit, steady as she blows,

leave us hap as may be at a triumph of joyous
curious
dancing twinkle noise amusing being a muse used,
enter tained, and voiced by bass
then tinkles
thin thin thin then Zildjian  K-bang!

____
Yes. Loaded. RIP
Serenus Raymone Oct 2012
Cannibalistic animals

Feeding off of each
others pain

Blood ******* leaches

Reaching for their
own personal gain



Civilized savages

Educated fools

Empire of vampires

Rearranging the rules



Disguised in neckties

Briefcases and
smiling faces

Cloaked in lies

Spiritual wickedness
in high places



Coagulated rivers

Calculated killers

Cryptic crimes

Comprised by

Gifted minds



Concrete jungle

Play the game "or be
the game

The weak who stumble

Are hunted down and
maimed



If you can’t beat ‘em
-join ‘em

It’s the only way to
survive

Stepping on the heads
of others

Just to stay alive



Its dog eat dog

And every dog has its
day

Today is mines- so be
smart

When you hear the bark

Stay the hell out of my
way
Sean Critchfield Sep 2011
I am learning the art of forgetting.
I am learning the art of letting go.

I am rising. I smash at you like high tide. Reminiscing about our tidal waves and yard arms, wrapped around our throats like business suit neckties. You see, I got lost, one more time, in our complicated little world and remembered that womb is not synonymous with ****. But rather with mother. And we played house together awhile. While the moon peeled off half it's dress. And I laughed at your 3rd grade poetry. And we regretted nothing, like Edith Piaf, on your couch, in the dark, entering worlds we'd torn apart.

It is worth mentioning that you were the first to ask me to your bed, rather than taken to mine, which proved prophecy wrong and wrong and wrong.

I was waiting for the kiss, like crimson stains, to ask me to say. But we muted them with burgundy.

I was willing to pay.
I was willing to show you.

But instead, we let wine separate us and bottle us up in action we didn't take, corking something perfect now, with the lie that it will be better in time. And I bought it.

Like hands raised in prayer.

And kissed oceans off of your cheeks, one.. salty.. drop.. at a time.

That was our crime.

And you. You came back, figuring you could pollute my stream. A virus set about my heart, freezing me like cold wet days when the wind cuts like goodbye. Come to sound yourself like a siren. But I can't hear your song. It no longer plays on my ears. I have forced it back into the foam that crests the waves and have drown myself in flesh and flesh.

So go ahead. Go ahead.

And we. We would have our night and it would drive you to an assumptive dissidence. Our harmony corrupted. Now an awkward, fumbling minor chord. Bleating like a lamb to slaughter.

I never wanted your soul.

I just wanted you not to leave right after we'd arrived.

Which is becoming less and less true as I run out the lines on my face and hands.

I wanted one, just one, to be there in the morning and then gone.

But I am folly.

And Gods teeth shake like parishioners in a collapsing church as I find my way back to the ******* poet I've become.

Consider these words like mercury, temperature rising.

And how I have made mistakes.

In darkened deserts. In hands on small of backs. In rain littered parking lots. Fireside. Ringside. In cold, cold water. In cleverness. In repeated attempts. In repeated attempts. Inrepeatedattempts.

I have made mistakes.

But take me in spite of my faults, Love.

Just until dawn. But be careful. Dawn breaks so easily. So lay quiet with me.

When the sun fills this echo chamber it will translate all this rich to ruin. My staggering meter to a retched stumble. And how should I finish? With a dying fall as my mentor would have me? Ragged claws and turpentine? No.

You see, I am more now than I was before.

And yet, I have never been what I could be.

Don't.

Don't let go.

Lest I forget.
Brandon Aug 2012
Is this really the life we must force ourselves to live everyday 
this blue collared white collared no collar state of affairs 
where we strangle ourselves daily with the grind of odd jobs poor paychecks an broken homes 
scattered like insects catching fire under the magnified heat of the sun 
our fingers ******* and our minds fall in line to what they tell us 
like obedient children we don't raise our hands to ask why 
no we just bite our tongues and call this a living 
Waiting for our death to come and liberate ourselves from this drudgery 
this mundane system of complications we've entangled ourselves into 
feeling like vines growing on the side of a nuclear bomb waitin to drop off the edge of this planet 
cascading into the imagination of nothingness we know we feel deep inside 
but we've buried it in a rush and sometimes you can hear it grumbling 
crying out to be set free 
this imagination has got us into trouble before 
thinking we can change the system we've built with our own hands and words we've cut from rapists murders and molesters 
Kings queens and holy saints 
we see what we are but do little in time to repair the perceptions we've become 
only tightening our nooses everyday like corporate wear neckties begging for a little more breath 
and a little more time so we can amass the collection the tv tells us we need 
so we wash out our morals And give in to the notion of supply and demand 
but never actually demanding the change so many of us crave and need 
we pull splinters from our teeth and sell them as souvenirs 
hoping someone else will choke on them and loosen these ropes 
binding ourselves to the hanging effect of effigies burning brilliantly in midnight shades of *** bottomed out with whiskey hangovers 
so far it's got to be the only way out of this but the exit we always miss 
when we're traveling two hundred ten miles forward without the gift of sight or intellect 
on baking asphalt looking for a wall to end it all 
looking for someone to call to end it all...

But I've packed my bags and I'm hitchhiking the rest of the way 
keeping my thumb inside my jacket because it's better to walk alone 
than get picked up by a car heading for the fall
Jodie LindaMae Nov 2014
I used to date a guy
Who ****** a lot of people out of a lot of things,
Who pretended to be an alcoholic
Just because he was lonely
And the AA people
Had voices that spoke to him,
Voices that weren't in his head.

In Alcoholics Anonymous,
They have a saying that
"Fear" only stands for
"**** Everything And Run."
This is a saying
I wish that I knew
When all those tacky neckties were holding me back.

So it's needless to say
That I didn't have the wise words
Of AA on my mind
As I studied the Big Book on my own.
Instead I marched into his mind
And flushed his month's "sobriety" token
Down his mental *******.

Because sobriety doesn't mean  
Stealing a bottle of wine from Jewel
And finishing it off yourself.

And I was used to getting lied to,
But I felt bad for those poor AA guys,
Listening to his ramblings on a girl
Who loved him
And wanted him to change
When in reality
She just wanted the lies to stop.

They should have given that sobriety token
To a man who earned it.

Give your tokens
To those who deserve them.
Do not put your pennies in a piggy bank
That only siphons down a gutter
In the end.
Doug Potter Sep 2016
I made a film last night about a man
who hates  neckties—silk, cotton,
and bow.  It is a documentary
of sorts,  that reveals  his
drawbacks, peccadillos,
discrepancies, lies,
and misdeeds.

I am the only character, me,
you can not watch it.
Never.   It is mine
to slowly edit,
and wallow
as I view.
Wk kortas Jan 2017
The song played-- muffled, hesitant,
As if the tabletop jukebox
Seemed unsure of the tune’s suitability,
As out of place and time as ourselves,
It being Wednesday morning three A.M.
At the all-night diner on the Klondike Road
(The mills, going full-bore down the road in Montmorenci Falls
Making such a place viable, indeed necessary),
But we laughed loudly and nonchalantly
Between bites of nearly adequate cheeseburger,
Ostensibly unaware of all those inevitabilities
Which were tangible but unspoken, indeed unspeakable,
This being the last of the last summer not careworn,
Textbooks to be exchanged for neckties,
Plastic sandals swapped for sensible flats,
Other lives to take flight in other places,
A mere handful of evenings remaining
Before the clumsy process of untying
All that which had been loose ends from the beginning.

Would I go back?  In a sense, it does not matter.
There was always a laundry list of reasons
That it could not be, cannot be, will not be:
Irreparably meshed gears of relocations and reconciliations,
Gordian knots of logic and desire.
Still, in my dreams, I often run like a madman,
Chest burning as my sneakers slap the pavement in the darkness,
Back toward the diner, but it has been razed to the ground
(Likely the case, for all I know,
What with the mills silent and padlocked all these years)
And I paw madly, feverishly through the rubble
In search of some remains of those vinyl chanteuses of love songs,
Those epitaphs of our failures,
Those three-minute odes
To our compromised and conditional successes.
Kittridge James Oct 2012
An unfortuate soul

blue lips and

glassy green eyes

Ashen skin and

a still heartbeat

A tightly bound noose

of dad's neckties

A pretty little body

limp and lifeless

The one she loved

cries at her feet

This is where

the tragedy sets in
I have learned it in school that soldiers seldom die.
I have learned it in school to remain a bit both silent and shy.
The teachers in my school had huge degrees and dark sarcasm,
With which they often used to rule,
For they used to say-
“Don’t yell or shout or stoop or cry! For,
A “WHATEVER” might just come in the way....”

I have learned it in school that sharing is not fun,
I have learned it in school that to re-exist superficially you gotta run!

I have learned it in school that there’s a good and a bad,
I have learned it in school that “writing poetry makes you mad.”

I have learned it in school to finish papers “within” time,
I have learned it in school that if you’re a bit poor, well that’s a very sober crime!

I have learned it in school about much history and “NECKTIES.”
I have learned it in school about wearing short skirts and not eating rice!

I have learned it in school about chicken nuggets and low waist jeans!
I have learned “this” in school about fancy twilight books, ice creams, and suspicious inklings!
I have learned it in school, about a classroom- “A FISHY MARKET.”
I have learned it in school about high esteemed mediocrity and about so many things.

The fat bottomed teacher did teach us about science,
I have learned it in school that “IMAGINATION MAKES YOU BLIND!”

I have learned it in school that you need to have a shave every day!
I have learned it in school not to yell or to shout,
For,
A “WHATEVER” might just come in the way...

I have learned it in school that the president is nice.
I have learned it in school about both virtue and vice!

I have learned it in school to keep myself calm and to proceed...............
I have learned it in school to love myself more, “MORE” than “I” should “Thi(M)nk.”

I have learned it in school about both “BOYS” and “GIRLS”,
I have learned it in school about both shame and fear!
And, I have learned it in school about both heaven and earth.
I have learned it in school that only with a good grade, comes a joyful mirth.

I have learned this in school and about so many things!
The teacher did teach, they did teach well!!!!
I have learned it in school never to shout or to yell
I have learned it in school that I have nothing else to tell!

I have learned it in school to manufacture myself as a product,
As to Something which I Can sell.

Pretty Well.

I have learned it in school about such a fairy tale,
For,
A “WHATEVER” might just come in the way...
Lael Kafsky Feb 2013
Each day I give little pieces of myself
Handing it out like city street corner flyers
Free samples
Library books
I'm your library
You check out my facilities
And your books are always overdue
I know you read my facebook statuses like tarot cards
You analyze them
Like a bank tellers cash drawer
I know you hardly think of me
But when you do you can't sleep
There is no medicine for counting sheep
And Sometimes I can't sleep
My words play around in my head
Like darts
Ducking and weaving
as they wiz through each cortex
Bouncing on a vertebrae
They reach my spine
My words are what keep me standing
What keep me breathing
The oxygen to my personal ozone
And I don't need food now
My words fill me up
They hold me like a newborns cradle
They shelter me from the ongoing storm
They wash away the hate,
the fear,
the loneliness
And leave me standing bare
Standing bare
For you to judge me
And I hope you do
Because I don't need you now
I've got sentences
Stanzas
Punctuation
And God willing articulation
And when they come in with their tiny clip boards
Red pens and
Neckties
I'll look to my words for salvation
Because they are me
They open me
They dress me up in emotion
They place a thorny crown of justice on my head
And this isn't a relationship
This is love
A challenge of the witted
And I'm committed
And sometimes my words and I argue
I want a comma there
They feel comfort in the runon
But we've never been closer
Closer then we are right now
Because I seek solitude and joy
In the speaking of words
I seek awareness and hope in each little letter
And When you think of me
Think of my way with words.
spysgrandson Jun 2014
I dreamed
of your funeral
someone told me
to remove my hat,
in such scared space
with all those amputated flowers,
***** pipe moans, and
necromancing neckties

you spoke; you assured me
I did not have to expose
my naked head, or any other secrets
for you knew them all, as did those
among whom you now "walked"

others yet stared at me
with chastising eyes
admonishing me to uncover my head
for I was still among them they said…

they could not hear you or feel your breath
making the hairs stand on the back of my neck,
if they could, they would have let me be

they would have known
you did not demand truth
it was all around you, and even stripped of my hat
and forced to endure the sun's glaring revelations  
we woeful walkers would yet be in darkness,
in this waking dream, imagining light
from a place that had none  
I dreamed of your funeral…
**REM is rapid eye movement, the stage of sleep in which our most vivid dreams occur. Written on my phone during my recent travels--the only words I wrote or read in a dozen days. Perhaps I will wake up soon. A dream is just a dream.
Francie Lynch May 2015
The boys ran
After the ball exploded
The bedroom window.
Shattered glass shards
In indiscriminate flight.

The ants re-grouped
To build after
The red-cherry erupted
The hill like Pompei,
Scattering serendipitously.

Grimmacing quarter moon
Pumpkins lay in hodge-podge
Pieces on All Saints Day.

Suitcases, clothes and neckties
Stewn on a runway
Like a kid's bedroom.

We move from order to chaos,
Like the third light
On a match.

I was lead to believe
Displacement Laws,
Science, and regular
Bowels could explain
Explosions,
So we can lift the stones
On Salisbury and Newgrange,
Or re-arrange grains of sand
With projected order.
We only have a beginning
And an end, while living
Through the explosions.
danny Sep 2016
broken mirrors neckties garter belts thigh highs *** drunk in love soft shirts tye dyed sheets polaroids constellations philadelphia uber dinosaur statues keurigs red lights short skirts twitter parking spaces tattoos ***  trains train stations train tracks grey hair modern baseball coffee mugs mason jars museums
Kristin M Sep 2011
You will be my heart's greatest disappointment.

You will leave me
   When I think I'm ready--
But never escape me.
You will know me enough
   To never forget me--
But not enough to resent me.
And perhaps that will be our greatest mistake.

This will be my life's great affair,
Cut short by time and circumstance
And, maybe, a fear of ruining something good.

Years later, in the arms of another man,
I will remember the feel of your hand in my hair;
And perhaps, wherever you are
You will remember how it felt
To comfort me late at night,
Knowing nothing but us two.

It will not always be so sad--
In a sense it will be like always having Paris,
Not quite as grandiose,
But just as passionate, as urgent
And filled with tenderness, or even love--
The unspoken kind,
Felt only in the softness of your touch,
The intensity of your gaze:
For to speak it out loud would be more painful
Than to let it lie silent and uncertain on our lips.

You will leave me with a tiny void in my heart,
A scar that heals in time--
But still aches every so often
On a rainy day, or a lonely night,
Sore from the memories we never made--
   The songs we never danced to,
   The neckties I never straightened,
Or perhaps simply the hundreds of kisses
   I will feel owed.

Years from now our story will be bittersweet--
   Hard and heavy, yet terribly romantic.
But first, there will be the unbearable pain
   Of losing you.
Marshall Gass Apr 2014
The silence was sinister, as if, sound had lost its vocal chords,
the days arrived and sunsets painted the sky in crimson
and gold leaf ensembles of artists dreams.

While they sat around a table, document drivers ran around
pushing agendas, translating armageddon scenarios
if the other side raised a finger or pulled a trigger.
So the sulky diplomats sat like doormats where
the national feet were wiped upon and trust was invested
in their stupidity. Harvard education, pin-striped suits
with loud aggressive neckties announced their status
to TV crews and intrepid journalists, hanging on every word
like guillotines, to ravage the leading newspaper stories.
Headlines were deadlines. Diplomats drummed
up side angles for photographic faces  to appear firm
and responsible to the taxman's money.

Here they gathered
with their policy whisperers awaiting for a signal
to open their loaded dialogues of positions and
policy shifts. Yet no one said a word.

The silence, for once, kept all the mouths shut
( one wished permanently!)
no one said a word for 3 long hours,
but they sipped chilled water, took notes of nothing
glared at each others sides and took notes
again of what was not said.

At the stoke of two, when the clock belted
a twang and the echo bounced through
many empty heads, the diplomats rose
to call it another day of negotiations.

The cold war had just had its 9th meeting.

Author Notes
The Revolution says little, but the war take sides. Diplomats are busy 'discussing' how to end the war, and find a solution. Their policy positions are so entrenched, that little happens. The silence is as loud as could be. Meanwhile, the guns boomed and little childrens playgrounds were pock-marked with cluster bombs. Lines of refugees, walked up the mountains seeking shelter in neighbouring towns. The cold war complemented the heat war that was raging on the battlefields of doom. Please stay indoors.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Kyle Kulseth Jun 2020
The last rays of sunlight were purple
on the day the last fat cat died.
     From the street corners
     we saw them chasing
               their tails,
                        bailing water
          that was rising high.

                    It could never
                      last forever,
               whatever they said--
        --Could we ever have prepared
                     for that Fall?
                Call the Springtime.
          No Rewind of Our Discontent.
                  Meant to seize this
          while their machines stalled.

Look alive. Stay with me...

I wanna be there
          when the missiles drop.
Wanna be there when the pavement cracks
and scoop up the last embers of this city
          while you hold my hand.
I wanna be there
          when illusions fail.
Wanna be there when their smirks turn sour.
When the last of all the fat cats starves.
When they see the passing of their hour.

Look alive. Stay with me...

The last rays of sunlight were splitting
off Their glass towers' cracking panes.
     From the bus stops we
     saw them--their faces
               went grey,
                        flailing Dollars
          could not pad their pains.

                     It could never
                      hold forever,
               this Center they bought.
             But they never did prepare
                        for the end.
                Call the Springtime.
          No Rewind of Our Discontent.
                  Meant to shout it
               but the message sent.

Look alive. Stay with me...

I wanna be there
          when the pavement cracks.
Wanna be there when logistics fail.
And two-step on the cinders of this **** heap
           while the masters wail.
I wanna be there
           when their money burns.
Wanna be there when their neckties squeeze.
When the last of all their bonds will merge
When the fat cats die upon their knees.

Wanna be there when the missiles drop
And scoop up the last embers of this city
               while you hold my hand.

                         Look alive...
Not TOO bad, I don't think for a first piece in a LONG ol' time.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2017
A Necktie for Fathers' Day

Roaming around lost in the 1970s
Dull advertising writers still forbid
The purchase of neckties for Fathers’ Day –
As if  DNA ever wears a tie

It’s all knee-pants and advertising now
On cartoon tees and baseball caps and sneaks
Admiring his tattoos in his MePhone
And cadging guy-support from his live-in

While watching his collection of action films:
“I’ll look for a job tomorrow, babe, okay?”
asg Mar 2014
The world is missing, nah loosing, it's main supplier
Young kids scheming on ways just to get higher
Forgetting that what we need to be doing is making fire
Burning out what y'all old folks have laid, crucifier
Young kids killing off themselves, donning Columbian neckties
Cause no one told them that eventually they will get by
Watching out for our youth, it ain't in the old folks heart to try
Given up on us, not even worth it for us to cry
Over spilled milk, because honestly we did it to ourselves
We're buying all the crap the industry likes to sell
Like if we don't think a certain way we're all surely going to hell
Young kids taking all of this in like a chorus of angry bells
When the choir started to sing and we all felt uplifted
Old preachers telling us that all His children are gifted
Yet when I turn on a TV it seems that mindset has shifted
No one tells us about other religions without getting frigid
Young kids thinking they're crazy because our mindscrap are different
If I didn't know better I'd say you adults were all in ya feelings
It's just layers upon layers of ignorance, but I'll keep on peeling
Until this world opens it's eyes onto this new millineum
Young kids holding their tongues, we need to stop fearing
We need to start growing and shearing
Away these layers of skin that don't mean a thing, become domineering
We don't need their permission to take charge, start clearing
Cause it takes a village to raise one child, major solution
A child I'd like to call revolution
So I want to start writing lyrics, and the closet thing to home for me is hip-hop. I like conscious rap, and this is my first go at it. With poetry I feel like we're speaking, but in a way that only reaches people who understand and think the same way. Lyrics are different in the way that everyone who hears them can understand and relate to them and that's what I think rap lyrics should strive to do. Educate through words. Educate through music. We need to start a need revolution.
Sam Hammond Sep 2018
I’ve constructed my own heaven,
One that I deserve.
Where the glitter’s broken glass
And all the angels; pervs.
Where euphoria is sold
For money by the gram.
Find me no more there on Earth
For this is where I am.

I’ve constructed my own heaven,
Wish that you could see
How much better this is than
The hell they made for me.
Where the demons hang by neckties
Grimacing in mirth.
Where the price of happiness
Is more than what it’s worth.

I’ve constructed my own heaven
With its golden gates,
Where a hedonistic ****
Of the senses waits.
Where the smokey clouds are dense
With fumes that stick to clothes.
I’ve constructed my own heaven
Of sorts, I suppose.
A poem on addiction.
lives are always under the dark clouds.
little kids who just wants to play outside,
in the sun,
in the rain,
away from the busy streets
of
the city
where childhood
meets
the end of the road.
further and further away,
it’s an endless road.

lives after lives after lives after lives...

no one looks
at the sky anymore
just like the way we did
when we were young.

we’re all in the same picture.
desperate lives,
kids who doesn’t want to grow up,
kids who realized too late,
old living room superheroes with capes
now wearing business suits and neckties,
bachelors employed in to something
they’ve been lied to,
hundreds of the kindest, smartest,
educated beings now demands
order through activism,
current bums in the streets still the heirs
of former bums in the past
the same with
current politicians,
heirs of former politicians.
countries, big ones
racing and paddling tirelessly
with people that serves as their
coal. . . .

it’s all happening and you know it.
it’s all happening but they keep you
distracted every two weeks in a month.
it’s all happening while you’re on your
knees with your eyes closed as you believe
in something you’ve been lied to
which costed millions of lives
through history before
it became what it is today.
it’s all happening;
one proof is that writers from
hidden parts of the world
and of history came to feel its
presence and has written it
as a reminder. . .

and

the one sitting on the dark throne
nullifies their stand
by keeping us occupied. . .

you got hired?
you got a raise?
you got promoted?
your boss recommends you?
your boss sends you gifts?
you got your own piece of the land?
you worked hard for it didn’t you?
for what?
to prepare the ones your worked for
just to suffer the same fate?
what?
i’m crazy?

oh you got admirers?
you just posted the smartest
useless thought that caught a lot
attention?
you feel secured because it won’t
come in your time
and
i’m just crazy?

yes,
like a mad dog under a
restraining order.
wolflet Apr 2018
Flashes of people
random people
I do not know them
A top hat
A tight bun
A woman in red
Neckties surrounding me
People get on carriages
as people get off
A crowded road
And one person watching
With nowhere to go
As the top hats rush to work
the tight bun stays firmly in place
as the owner moves quickly to her destination
The woman in red talks to a man and waits
People get on the carriages
as people get off
And I stand and watch
Not fitting in
Not standing out
Just existing
Place Clichy is the title of the painting this is inspired by

— The End —