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Ugo Apr 2012
Dedicated to stillborn fetuses, 99 cent Malt Liquor and Existentialism
1.
Nymphomaniac tree huggers
And overweight bisexual vegetarians
Swallowing phentermine poison to stay fit.

2.
Funky fresh *******  
throwing pigs at St. Augustine’s pear tree
and frolicking abortions over Moloch’s philoprogenitiveness,

3.
While sipping barbecue sauce dipped in Lipton tea,
dancing around adhesive bonfires
reciting memories of holocaust, the Kristallnacht nights
and beautiful words suffered by ancestors lost.

4.
Inhale chicken noodle soup, with a side of Lithium,
And prance to Literacy class to combat envisionment
With free association conceptual constructions,

5.
Computerized like Prometheus’ fire burning through SmartBoards
In classrooms where the poison of heterosexual history
Is fed to boys in skirts cursed by Adam’s apple,

6.
Baptized by social norms and locked away in hopeless closets
According to the Tautology of Leviticus…
until they cut their breath by the vein of soteriology;

7.
Misunderstanding of God’s words
Covets the innocent to early graves
In biblical paratactic irony…like God betting Satan for a Job.

8.
Rub fried chicken oil on Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ skin
and soil his white pride with ***** flavor,
for revenge  On the Properties of Things

9.
and howl out in glory of victory
over totes of  lickerish piper methysticum blunts
that beg the conundrum,
'What is the origin of this world?'
'Ether,' he replied.
But it is not ether!
Nor Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
It is Dada. Dada. Dada!
  10.
For this is a record of the life stories of the greatest minds and geniuses of your generation,
written in boys and girls
who mimicked Basquiat’s genius and tagged bathroom walls with abstract philosophies like “Love is a prime number” and “ the weight of Duncan McDougall’s soul can only be found on the 15th of October”
who drank vampirish gulps of Vicodin while consoling themselves with aphorisms such as: “don’t rue the misses, you don’t need a Mrs. when you’re elevated by chemical kisses”
11.
Who stood naked in mirrors, weeping, for they were a mystery to themselves, but a great talent and soon to be legend to some.
Who lit cannabis in loneliness and waltzed naked with their ghosts, fantasizing about ****** tomatoes and Corpus Christi Mexican Jazz.
Who composed psychedelic anthems from dreams that were lost in ghettoes where virginities were lost for loaves of bread, for the hunger of bread.
12.
Who wrote suicide notes on a toilet seat, contemplating the texture of Marshall Mathers’ favorite underwear and whether the color green was an invention of **** Germany.
Who used to love their lovers in darkness and colored the streets of Manhattan with rainbows on June 24, 2011 to mark the date lady liberty finally bought a new pair of glasses.
13.
Who lost musical talents to a Wine-house and ended up in a whine-house where lobotomy was subsequently prescribed by the milligram.
Who indulged in pharmaceutical vices and when asked why replied simply, every recursively enumerable set is Diophantine.
Who diagnosed themselves with “start ****-itis” and self medicated by eating Fifinellas at the stroke of each midnight.
Who rubbed paraprosdokians on their skin and occupied Wall Street in search of a new euphemism for being American.
Who poured Alkalizer on a dead moose and kicked it while feasting on the divine question, “why does Rice play Texas?”
14.
who got bored with conventional relationships and bought the Origin of the World on street corners from vixens nicknamed “Jezebel” and climaxed atop of them screaming  “I’m in Babylon, the great Mother of ******!”
Who attempted suicides upon suicides upon suicides, in Oakland, until they were shipped away to private catholic universities in Rhode Island, where the history of Colossus was being taught.
15.
who serenaded love interests with four letter curse words at open bars where Kubla Khan was read and Tartars kings were licked all over like holy communion *****.
Who drove home with the spirits of wine and crashed on telephone poles where their obituaries were written in their prime, leaving their mothers weeping and calling congress to reconsider Prohibition.
16.
Who mixed Redbull with Propofol and drank the juxtaposition galore only to be woken up the next morning dead in their sleep.
Who tattooed rat poison packages with goodwill messages such as “****** divided by Water =6th day of creation” or “Seroquel + Brett Favre = St. Patrick”,
who went speedballing with Basquiat during autoscopy and woke up wondering the cost of Nautilus in Albuquerque.
17.
who took 33 hallelujah 1800 tequila jello shots and daydreamed about laying on Mithras’ grave, yelling, beetlejuice, beetlejuice…beetlejuice.
who found the truths of the Bible invalid by the miscalculation of Pi in 1 Kings 7, verse 3, and mailed death on anthrax letters to Reagan in protest.
18.
who sat empty bellied at breakfast tables wondering the temperature of satellites at Lagrangian points,  only to soon catch fire in their tongues and speak Labyrinth soliloquies that ended in
19.
Zion,
Where Google knows every answer.
In Zion
Where the youth, tomorrow’s future, quote a ***** named Hova better than they can quote Jehovah.
In Zion
Where *******’s art was used as weapon during the Cold war.
20.
In Zion
Where sartorial geniuses where no pants,
In Zion
Where David Kato Kisule is the secret hero of these words, for he was taken at a time
In Zion
Where we were supposed to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

21.
In Zion,
Where the youth bear the scarlet letter X for they are a problem to tradition and hold no definition for the future, for they have discovered
In Zion
That the origin of this world is in their living eyes, and not in the dictionary of their ancestors who lived
In Zion
when the epitome of the literature of life ended in Revelation of Amen and Shantih shantih shantih;
this is a record of the greatest minds and geniuses there ever was, written
in Zion
where the meaninglessness and nothingness of Dada reigns, and the trinity of life now lives in the Subject, subjective and subjectivity.
http://www.amazon.com/OLAF-Nothing-Above-Fiction-ebook/dp/B009XZ9OVY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid;=1353822133&sr;=8-1&keywords;=olaf+last+king+of+nothing
em Aug 2015
don't ever tell me that you
were never mine.

when for months on end
when you couldn't sleep
you texted me at 3:00 a.m.

i would stay awake for
you and talk you down
from whatever hell was
occurring in your mind.

some nights you wouldn't
text me. and I would
stay up anyway,

writing obituaries all
night long.
It was strange almost as strange as Thanksgiving with Justin Bieber  at his grandmother's house.
Yes I'm sure that wasn't the only thing getting stuffed that year.
Who doesn't enjoy being serenaded by their grandson as he's naked with his pick in one hand and
his **** in the other as he stands **** ball naked in the kitchen.

Thanks Canada your like a ***** girlfriend who instead of giving a great ******* gave us ******  What do I expect from a country that also gave us maple syrup and call me maybe.
I know we just met and this sounds crazy but your countries music ***** so never call us okay.

I was alone in the Pub as  usual hell what do you expect from a site that has a showcase yet has no more groups from which half of the showcases are named after .
Yeah the owner has that true modern day logic like having a music channel that only shows
reality show ****** and knocked up ******* who complain about paying the bills yet are employed by the network yeah common sense it really is lost on stupid people.

I was having like half of a case when a hamster who shall remain unnamed due to she would
harm me if I spoke the name of which is not to be spoken of walked through the door.
Gonz set me up with a cold one  I really need it.
Really hamster I never pegged you as a necrophilia kind of gal but to each his own
good thing I got the paper let me just check the obituaries and make some calls
You want something fresh off the highway or you more into cold cuts?

I know I'm going to hell but honestly did you expect good taste  in reading this **** ?
Are you ******* nuts?
The agitated little hamster asked as she looked at me with anger and possible **** in her eye's.
Look I can always hope good thing I forgot my whistle.

Just give me a cold beer you pervert and that joke was tasteless really have you no respect for anything?
I looked at the hamster after handing her the beer and thought deeply and hard pulling my mental hair at the same time even though I don't have any don't ask.
Duh hamster!
It's my job  to make tasteless jokes and be a pervert what you think the time clock on the walls for?
Um employees ?
Well yeah it used to be until they whole health care **** I swear I give my workers one meal a week and provide a perfectly good basement for them now I got to give them health care duh
if I paid my bills what would I drink with ?

My customer who remains anonymous to  protect the safety of my *****.
Looked at me in disgust uh oh looks like I might be getting a spanking as well.
You really keep those poor people locked in the basement ?
Duh person I cant say your name there not real people there here illegally.
How can you say that I should call the cops on you .

The hamster was turning red and from the threat of calling in the fuzz I knew she must be
serious yet still I knew deep down she was just playing hard to get with her threats and restraining orders but enough with the foreplay hamsters.

Look I really don't see what the big deal is ?
You have people trapped in your basement like some dirt bag smuggler.
Now you hold on a minute hamster how dare you insult me I said in my grown up voice
I know I can act like a grown up shocking isn't it?

I was about to tell this hamster just what I really thought of people who take advantage of people
who just want a better life and exploit others and really preach some of that moral **** that sounds real good yet isn't what I think cause I'm truly a ruthless *******.

When I stopped and saw the clock oh **** hold that thought I almost forgot to feed the basement people.
I reached under the bar and grabbed four cartons of cigarettes and a case of wine.

What in the hell you only give those poor people ***** and cigarettes ?
Well  duh there French what else would they want?  
Just then a voice came up from the dungeon I mean basement of the pub gonzo more wine
you American swine I hate you yet still I applaud your efforts in destroying that vile
man child Selena Gomez  .

Ahh you got love the French sure that strange little man may stay drunk on a girl drink and smoke like a chimney but even he hates **** pop music as much as me.

My one and only reader slash customer slash person I enjoy annoying sat in shock.
You are so ****** up .
I looked as I took my seat behind the bar that no longer exists because some people
who shouldn't be allowed out of there cage run the site into the like button ground.

Yes hamster I'm a little ruff around the edges but when you get to know me.
You realize behind all the insults and perverted bad humor .
I'm well I'm far worse than you could ever imagine.

We sat there swapping stories the drinks flowed the French man in the basement yelled
something in that strange language  he spoke once I couldn't understand cause I
don't speak German.

It was a  true night to remember except for the part I forgot duh!
It was growing closer and closer to closing time I mixed us both a good strong drink
yet with a soft side and heart of gold like a awesome ****** or that man ****** Kim Kardashian .

Well I guess better head out Gonz.
Aren't you feeling like your going to pass out .
Um no why ?

****** its really getting bad when you cant trust a good street dealer to quality
roofies  .
The hamster was headed out the door but before she left she turned and said.
Oh yeah and you might need to grab a pillow.

And then everything went black but not like in the NBA .
No indeed I was out like Charlie sheen after a really good coke binge when he used to be cool.

I awoke upon the floor alone cold and hurting in a area far more strange than fifty one
****** man whya alien would travel across the galaxy only to corn hole rednecks and poetic madmen is beyond me but enough about what some owners of websites do in there off time.

Upon the bar sat the only cure for my troubles a double shot of good blended whiskey.
Next to it a note on a bar napkin .

Dear Gonz  next time remember to remember which drink you spiked you ******* .

I had to laugh and sit really funny the seat was a bit uncomfortable get your heads out of the gutter
children your almost as bad as me.

Until next time kids remember .
Good humor bad humor  its just ******* a joke to begin with so lighten the **** up.

Cheers and stay crazy.
When it comes to humor always be ruthless .
And remember if it offends nobody forced you to read it to begin with.
Drinks on me cheers.
Meg Apr 2018
I am alive by luck at this point.
I wonder if the gun that will eventually take me has been made.
Whose trigger will bury me.
How many bullets, like a flock of sparrows, will come carry my life to its final bed.
Today, I am alive but there is no law to thank.
If not me, then someone else.
Born into a game of chance we never asked for. Traded diplomas for obituaries. Traded graduation speeches for eulogies. Traded futures for an early grave. Forced to cash in their chips. We don’t want to play anymore.
And this too is eulogy. And this too is prayer. And this too can resurrect the coffin wood back to a tree. Can sing back alive whatever parts of you died with them. Whatever leapt in your throat at yet another headline.
Mourning until you, too, are a thing to mourn.
But we will no longer be martyrs.
We are the rude awakening to politicians who pawned out our safety, who bartered our lives for bribes.
You say “gun reform is not the answer” but all I can see is a bullet rattling like a pinball in an innocent student’s jaw.
You smell like gun smoke and
I can see the AR15 you're holding behind your back and
I guess it's easy to crack jokes about dodging bullets when you're the one firing them.
Give teachers books not bullets:
Kafka isn’t kevlar.
Bronte isn’t bulletproof.
And how sick is it that we must add school shootings to your list of proud american traditions.
Throwing opinions like punches.
How many more have to die before you decide your ego isn’t as important as you think it is?
And I, too, am buried alive
My soggy grave parting its greedy lips.
To you, my bones, when ground into gunpowder and mixed into water, taste like champagne.
My pulse, as thin as an obituary panting beneath sweaty palms, and sure
We are “just kids,”
But you are forgetting we are the next generation
And you autopsy your fists.
Call it reclamatory.
Lately, when asked “how are you?” I respond with a name no longer living.
And who knows if mine will be next
Performed this yesterday in my first poetry slam and won second place :)
whorefrost Oct 2014
I keep finding bullets stuck between my teeth
The same ones you bought the day you decided the ceiling would look better covered in blood.
Maybe that’s why everything I say
sounds like it’s is trying to **** me.
But what do you do
when you stand in front of a mirror
with a gun to your head
and your reflection smiles back at you?
What do you do
When you stand in the middle of a busy road
And every driver is a different version of yourself you’ve tried to ****.
Every version of yourself
No one could love.
My mother used to get in fist fights with the mirror and expect to win
She says I look just like her
Maybe that’s why I wake up and can’t recognize who I am.
I checked the obituaries this morning
Trying to find myself again
It’s a habit I picked up from you
But I never thought your name would end up there before mine.
Sometimes I imagine what death feels like
Sometimes I imagine kissing you instead
By now it feels like I’m imagining the same thing.
Someone once told me that begging you to come home
Isn’t the same as praying
Maybe that’s why God stopped listening
and started smashing the windows of every place I thought we could be happy in.
Your smile looked a lot like the light at the end of the tunnel
Right before the train hits you.
I used to squint my eyes when I looked at you
Like I was looking at the sun
Or a car accident I wanted to be part of
I’m sorry I ever thought you could be anything ugly to me
You were the only beautiful thing in this hideous place.
I couldn't look at you clearly,
because I knew I would see my own face staring back at me and
your eyes were the only place I never wanted to be dead inside of.
You can only break your knuckles so many times
Before you cant hold yourself together anymore.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking since you left
I don’t know how to tell them you’re not coming back.
See, I used to say I never wanted to end up like my father
Now I have to say I never want to end up like you,
Which means I can’t leave without saying goodbye
But I tried to write my eulogy last night
And realized it's hard to write about someone I never knew.
Perig3e Apr 2012
Three obituaries in a week
received from contemporary friends
reporting their parental loss,
all extraordinary lives
compressed within single column widths
and limited
to given story lengths.
Quinn Jan 2014
I was going to be sick
As this little balding man preached to us about Jesus
And politics
While Mark rotted in that box as Grammy watched and wailed
The smell of embalming fluid filled my lungs and began to suffocate me
Sickly sweet and pure chemical death
Nicotine drenched fingers
And leather were abundant in Osborne's
Where a funeral was a place to advertise
I was going to be sick
I wanted to crawl out of skin and scream
I wanted to hold her
While she grieved
I wanted nothing more then to hold her
As they shut the box on Grizz's waxy pale fingers
And she cried as a Mother should cry
Because "No mother should see her son in the obituaries
or in a box or have to burry them"
Beckon Nov 2017
The black names drip from our obituaries, sticky and thin.
You would think they would burn into our minds,
the brand of injustice against bound skin—
But a headstone is lost in unending lines.

It is horrifying.

Despicable.

How do we allow one man to **** another in cold blood?
Life spilled pours out in floods
Our men in blue drenched red
With the staggering numbers dead
And we sit back with “not all cops are the same”

Not every officer’s a killer but do you remember the names
Treyvon and Michael and Eric and Dontre and John and Ezell and Dante and Tanisha and Akai and poor little Tamir, who was still a kid,

Tell me what he did?

There is systematic opression and agression against a group skin defined
Where ****** is fine, it happens all the time, killers let off the line
Because of an oath that should bind
The oath they forget, the promise to protect, held up for all citizens except
The ones they choose to neglect

The badge not a shield but a riot ram
Against those that take a stand
And raise defiant hands
For the names lost in the clatter,

Black Lives Matter.
I have lost my mind in the violence. Or rather maybe it has stolen it from me. In any case there is an attempt at semblance, this need to make sense of the senseless. So many names are drip drowned in blood and how do centuries float?
am i ee Jan 2022
93, 94, 95

watching the obituaries
when will it come?

for the one I love?

the one who gave
birth to me?

years flow by

ups and downs
so many forgotten.

tears and fears
washed away by time.

silently we sit,
content,
now

and perhaps
for all of time.
drumhound May 2014
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******.

7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.

An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.

And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.

Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.

Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.

Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
(Published in Miami Herald on May 26, 2014 Brigitte Jacobs Arnold
Obituary Guest Book View Sign ARNOLD, BRIGITTE JACOBS, 78, MIAMI. Services will be held at 7:00 pm and a viewing from 12:00 pm to 8:00pm at Maspons Funeral Home located at 3500 SW 8th Street, Miami Florida 33135 Wednesday May 28th.)


Don’t ask me why but
I went online this afternoon.
Read the Miami-Herald obituaries.
And not just the Biggies:
Maya Angelou at 86 and
A one hundred year old Herb Jeffries.
Of course we knew Maya,
Her caged bird singing
Softly in our souls,
But may not be aware of Herb Jeffries.
A former singer in the Ellington band,
Herb was known as the Bronze Buckaroo,
In a series of all-black 1930s Westerns--
His nickname evoking
His racial identity,
Quite muddled, flexible.

Although both sad passages to be sure,
It was neither Maya nor Herb
Triggering my tender tears.
But the obituary of:
ARNOLD, BRIGITTE JACOBS, 78, MIAMI,
Known as Oma, Mutti and Mama.
Well, not exactly the Brigitte obit,
My tears for her long-lived mother,
Brigitte’s mother, durable & abiding,
Still breathing at 97:
Hildegard Wolle.
Reading Brigitte’s bio—
German born, Berlin student,
Singer-fashionista &
Proud, naturalized
American citizen—
I can’t stop thinking about Hildegard.
As if the woman didn’t already
Have more than her share of trouble
On this planet nearly a century,
Having already lost her
Grandson Roland, and now,
Her daughter.
Something wacky is going on here.
Some long-distance life lesson
Being applied here.
Poor Hildegard: ungifted with Alzheimer’s,
Suffers crystal distant memories,
Some really bad karma
Stored up in past lives.
WCA Apr 2014
For she is the embodiment of pure nostalgia,
Her twists and turns are so inescapable.
For the memory of her clings to me,
And, as if a partner in crime,
Her goodbye accompanies.
I will find her, in the creases of sheets,
And the rooms that are hollow of her.
Somedays, all I can see is her,
Is her eyes.
Eyes that once held my world,

That hypnotized me with their electricity.
Yet today there is no serendipity found in the irises I once adored.
No, they only allude to the chilling numbness that has infested her blue bones.
Know that I write this as a obituary to the girl I once loved.
I write this in vengeance of the betrayals of fate.
I write this so you will understand that she was not always,

So terribly heartless.
She lies, as incorruptible evidence, that tears can live inside a gods eyes.
-

For I would have swum the ocean for her,
If only I could.
Curt A Rivard Sr Jun 2012
Writing poetry will be a lifetime challenge for me to try and conquer. With Credits in Poetry among other accomplishments I truly respect the gift I have been blessed with. A talent that involves attempts to portray a picture through a sequence of letters in there very special order.
At the tender age of 16 I learned of my first family death, Grandpa Ralph and exactly 1 week later my grandmother Mildred who my mother took in and I was chosen to make sure she got her coffee, breakfast along with her medicine and other meals all day. I had to give up a summer of going swimming and other things that a kid my age wanted to do just to keep here company but I learned something so valuable at the same time and that was, I learned how to crochet, learned about birds, and learned to respect the elderly. To this day I still carry those values even to the point of even walking into a old folks home to just talk to strangers and even if I have to pretend to be their own family member so be it because I would like for someone to do just the same for me even if I didn’t know what was going on.
It was due to a brain tumor that took my grandmother away after Christmas that year and I remember it still ever so well when I woke up to go to work at the family’s bakery and my mom told me what had happened and everything that was to follow. My grandmother was the first of many I had saw lying ever so peaceful. I even gave her a kiss and I could feel that it was a warm one that I gave her.
Death throughout the many years now have taking on a new role. A role that should I believe be more up close and personal. Calling hours I think should be done in the family’s home where the deceased can maybe feel more comfortable being among everything they ever knew and among the ones that they loved and vice versa.
I have always wanted to be remembered centuries to follow my death. It seems the only way to accomplish that is to die either famous or infamous. Like the pope in Rome I to want to be laid out in estate for all to come and pay their respect. Obituaries now on the other hand along with media coverage to me seems, only the important and wealthy get all the coverage. Movies on another note portray a different message that has no comparison to the true facts. Directors, they make you think that it is either something so morbid like Friday the 13th or make you think you have to go out in a blaze of glory like Bonnie and Clyde. Television now has so many programs that entertain people’s most inner fears that you only want it to be more gruesome and gory. Now cartoons, that’s another ball game, children see subliminal messages that, if you die you will come back to life after you’re killed when in true contrast how can that be true.
Arts and literature including paintings, writings and music have a major impact on the subject when it comes to death, The ancient Egyptians’ I think were probably the masters on the subject of embalming. There techniques still to this day can’t be compared to. I am still fascinated to this day on just that. I even wrote Poems speaking of just such procedures and how I’d want it to be done if I had my way with the preserving of myself. With all the music and there sick lyrics your found either wanting to **** or run and hide from the killer.

(CARSr. 4-21-12)
All of you.
Where do you get off
making a name for yourself
out of the mockery
in fallen heroes’ hearts?
What’s in a name;
that which we call
"a genius"
by another label
would be found on the front page
of the obituaries.

And now,
what?
Where do you go from
the top,
looking down on those you
trampled on the way
with some false sense of humility?
How we perceive you now
is like that of a crime lord;
envious,
never aspirational.

Might as well
call it a day
and take note of the
fallacy
that is fame and fortune.
chichee Jan 2019
If you're a writer your main trade is hating yourself and
finding ways to be clever about it.
Smoke cigar and coffee-stained typewriters,
bachelor in the sixties, suicide in the seventies.
I'm just a cliché, raining cats and dogs, beating dead horses and singing
a little song about death
a little song about love
there is nothing new under the sun.
Dylan doesn't understand what you do is better than
accounting, your trade is people
like stock markets-
string them up and watch them fall
I play with hearts, you say like
a girl showing off her somersaults in the backyard.
But no one is listening.




So you burn your eyes out with hot wax in the living room
and swear
your name is Icarus
throw your diploma into the laundry and watch it turn into tissue paper,
taking moonlight walks down the beach and
straight into the bottom
of the ocean.

(you thought she would hit you
when you told her you wanted to write
but she only laughed...
and you were surprised
how much
it hurt.)

Your father's pride, a phone full of contacts,
seeing straight in the ******* morning and the heart
of a girl that was once foolish
enough to love nitroglycerine,
sold for
a bottle of ink and a scrap of paper
and your name in the
obituaries.
...
...
...

Tell yourself it was worth it.
Sometimes I think writers like me might be why no one reads anymore.
sun stars moons Oct 2013
I
just
want to
know that
if I died tonight
who would cry tomorrow
who would stand in the cold and
listen to the minister speak on my behalf
who would write letters to my parents, apologizing
who would leave bouquets of pretty flowers at my tombstone
who would stand tall, sturdy as stone and suffer in silence
who would morn for a day then go about their lives
who would see it in the obituaries and shrug
who would only notice after a month
or three or twelve or seventeen
how many strangers
wouldn't care?
I wonder.
© Jasmine Peteran 2013
Don Bouchard Mar 2012
Observations succinctly made
Bespeak fresh graves of newly
Interred friends or strangers
Turn on unexpected
Awarenesses of lives now spent.
Right or wrong,
Inexplicably we are torn
In two as part of us makes quick
Exits to fields of forgetfulness, and yet
Some part of us clips these memories to hold.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
rarely do i have a title before a poem,
but sometimes it feels like i've abstained
from ******* for a month and i write one down;
i'm surprised i didn't take the bait,
i was a blind man that was give sight years later,
every gold-digger's wet-dream some might add,
but what post-Marxism has revealed is that
that bourgeoisie like to belittle those of menial-task
labour rather than the upper-tier socialites,
it's just that they don't possess insignia of power,
they exercise their power on the lowest kind,
men who'd gladly spend a hot summer's day toiling
the fields in full happiness of physical splendour
than spend it pampered in a Versailles parlour kin -
they think books are their macaroons...
i should have not minded my self-worth so much
and settled for the prize of easy-living,
it was more like a self-obsession but made kinder
with the word solipsism... whatever it was,
i spent a month in St. Petersburg like Al Paccino in
Alaska insomniac witnessing the white nights...
i could write a honorary poem with rhyme and
perfect punctuation... but life isn't like that...
it was a night to remember, a great **** on a bed
with a tortoise green headboard and a line of mirrors
where the concept of ******* was made clear:
Narcissus watching himself ******* with nymph
after nymph until Echo's turn came; it was no longer about
the face or beauty, but the insect-like banality,
Narcissus inventing fiction, ******* in-front of a mirror,
discharged and opened a Pandora's box for himself,
pronoun usage... strange how all monotheists contest
the existence of one among no other, like polytheists
contests the existence of one among many... like now...
if they be gods, their names do not necessarily denote
a chance encounter and formal airs or grievances mastered
for a brief conversation; very much resides in their poetic
investment being banked, that Narcissus, less noun
and more imagery is best understood -
for i claim that poetic techniques are equally needed in
the lessons of grammar: such that metaphor,
onomatopoeia, imagery, pun are equal with noun, verb,
adjective... etc.

rude words? crude words? well, i guess
you're fine with the carnage of images,
you abstract someone in alternative versions
of dimension and say a £-D person doesn't matter...
when did Luis XIV ever bow before a *******?
so she calls you up, this rich, pampered,
self-righteous Cinderella hopeful from
St. Petersburg with a flat about 10 minutes
shy from the the Hermitage...
she's walking on glass, i can hear her from
a mile away like a shark sniffing a droplet
of blood from a mile, the salt, the salt
agitates it's senses, god be merciful,
but god wasn't with missing eyelids on
aquatic creatures and serpents, i'm guessing
the Darwin in me swoons to say:
eyelids breed dreams, mammalian blood,
no eyelids, no dreams,
amazing how a rainbow can penetrate a
cave of darkness, don't give me the meaning
of dreams, Freud, give me how it happens,
your why is perfect for the rich,
a second coming of communism -
those neo-**** punks don't know what
they're defending, they think is glam-rock
style obituaries, it's degenerate culture
right on the pitch of saying... it's a fork.
no, i don't have any respect...
why did you leave Edinburgh, she asked.
i don't know, he replied.
now comes the abstracting of rigid
fiction systems due to the psychology of
being attracted to ancient pronouns,
after all psychology was always attracted to
ancient pronoun uses,
we have the scholarly etymology from ego
as the up-keeping of Greek -
fair enough, keep the alphabet, but forget about
the ideas behind it... but wait, you kept both!
and the urban etymology from self
as the insertion of slang & slur and what
other nonsense you'd come up with for applause...
so she calls you up after you asked her:
those anti-contraceptive pills working?
yes.
you asked me to not use a ******.
yes.
can we keep it casual?
yes.
am i looking at torture instruments in a museum?
yes.
**** me, i better get drunk every night and hope
for an early death... 'cos that's what i'm doing right now!
i don't want to live more than i had wished to live...
every ******* time i open *harold norse'

autobiography: memoirs of a ******* angel i'm nagging,
i read the **** thing, too much premature **** in it -
or.. swearing... a healthy approach to a vault of vocabulary -
it's not a version of bankruptcy, it's just economics babe,
say it blunt, use a sharp knife... better that than
saying it sharp, and having to use a blunt knife,
believe me, you'll be taking oaths on a guillotine by then...
but you'll find it easier buying a harold norse memoir
than one book of his poetry...
it's antiques we're dealing with, this ain't
alan ginsberg's howl, it's the fringe, a scotland of
the roman empire, antiques!
i do wish i never said: get an abortion...
but the dialectical dichotomy in me that some would
say less eloquently as being schizophrenia now wishes
i didn't... but... what's that argument for feminism?
i forget taking contraceptive pills he ***** me on my period
or he ***** me on my period and i get impregnated,
so this is some miraculous ****-up situation by chance?
she said the exact words: i think i'm pregnant.
the Cartesian in me says: i think... so i'm guessing
she doubts she is.
better still... i don't know!
so she is, she isn't... my truthful reply would be...
i, don't, have, any, money... she's the one with
a spare apartment roughly 10 minutes from the *******
Hermitage and i'm stuck in limbo to her game plan of
having parents and never growing up...
well of course poetry doesn't sell, we don't have
patronages from popes, and if only english teachers
and aristocrats write in this medium...
then you're all about to pack your bags for
Disneyland...
still the first page from that autobiography ****** me off,
i don't know why, there's so much pompous pie
in it... given social stratification the outcasts feel
empowerment by rebelling against social norms and
expectations, while the social in-casts have to feel
shame... and this is an existential shame, a sense of
purpose without a sense of continuum -
that's what's bothering me, it's that shady grey area
of ratios 2 : 1 in China, 2 : 3.4 in England or...
1 : 2 (single mother, two children)... if i really did a runner
would i write for zilch? if i did a runner i'd run blind
completely, i wouldn't expose myself to some minor
event in my life... i'll repeat...
approximately 10 minutes... from the Hermitage...
i can see the Shard of London as a toothpick from where
i'm sitting on the odd day in the park...
my position isn't exactly one of power, but more of gob.
Sarah Wilson Mar 2011
i looked at that hole in the ground
and i thought of you.
i thought of the holes in your smile,
and the emptiness of your eyes.
i thought of late nights,
and never wanting to see the sun.
i thought of wandering hands,
and stolen naps.

i thought of feeling whole again,
and feeling loved as i loved.
i thought of waiting for you,
and how i will wait for you.
i thought of padiddle and popeye's,
and funny games and friends.
i thought of the beach at night in march,
and i thought of your porch in june.

i thought of how my heart would stop,
just watching you walk to me.
i thought of how i couldn't breathe,
just listening to you breathe beside me.

and now, three and a half months later,
i look at this empty space in my life.
i think of how easily you could fill it.
and i think of how easily i'd welcome you.

but i'm thinking, now, of you.
of how easily you walk away.
of how easily you break my heart,
steal my breath, cause my tears.
of how easily i blame myself,
when it's all your fault.

but you're leaving this summer,
and i don't care anymore.
i'll carry this broken heart.
i'll carry it until there's no hurt left.
but it won't be yours again.
have a brilliant ******* life.
tuesday, march 15, 2011.
Aaron Reisinger Jul 2013
Is it so early,
That you can't utter hello?
No more aspirations,
Of Heaven above, Or Hell below?

Too much time has passed,
Since we last spoke.
Your voice was my melody,
Your words, the song we wrote.

I suppose you couldn't listen,
To my dying benediction.
You're the needle in my arm,
The ****** to my addiction.

But ****, I can't sleep with you gone,
Something akin to a clear head.
And I hate every second,
When it's 3 a.m. and I'm lying in bed.

****, I guess it's over,
We're all said and done.
And I feel like I've lost,
While you say that you won.
Chinar Mehta Jun 2013
I have been licking the cream off
The nothing I was forced to cook from the book I bought.
I am Charles Bukowski waiting to rupture,
And tumble into forces of uncontrolled madness.
I dinge into fleeting, changing rooms
And become pages of yellowing, worm-books.
I write my own obituaries, each for a different
Person I have lived.
I make love twice every week,
And keep a count of how many times
He calls out someone else’s name.
I caution into keeping everything beautiful to myself.
I cup my hands and keep passion in my hidden chest,
And lock my doors with the only key there is.
I dine alone, I read in hushed whispers over single-serving thoughts.
And sleep where no one can put an arm around my waist,
And undulate the black-flavoured dreams I so carefully reared.
There is only one victory,
There is only one woman in the world.
It is I. It is I. It is I.
Dreams of Sepia Aug 2015
The lights on the Welsh coastline shine
Her whiskey days are full of ink
& broken milk bottles, a grief so hidden
it’s barely there to be read as her plight
The Army took her boys & never
gave them back but she only ever
cries when she’s chopping onions at night
& reading the obituaries in the newspapers
at night she prays to Angels up on high
but never goes to Church on Sundays
not since the Vicar told her it was
all for the best & they had done their bit
the country should be proud of them
-she finds no comfort in such things
Carlo C Gomez Jun 2020
She's in parties
& knees-up
She's half-seas over
& in the king's cup

She's in missionary
She's in backwards
She's on backseats
& dashboards

She's in fast lanes
& intersections
She's in full throttle
& Hail Marys

She's in obituaries
& cemeteries
Sam Conrad Dec 2013
Sometimes I pray
I pray that you will understand someday that I always loved you
And not for a day did my love for you falter
Regardless of the horrible horrible **** I did to you

Sometimes I pray
You understand I never meant to hurt you but I didn't know myself
I was a mirror image of that ***** that killed me
That I never got to explain that whole story to you

Sometimes I pray
That you will forgive me for the horrible things I said
But that you would recognize the good too
Because I know I told you a thousand times that you were good enough

Sometimes I sit and cry
I don't ******* believe in the god I pray to
I just have to do it so I don't grab the knife
The knife looks so tempting sometimes and it's hard to defer death

Sometimes I wonder
Why you didn't understand that I thought you were perfect from the start
But that I was a ticking time bomb
That last person planted something in me that you couldn't see

I'm so ******* sorry
For every ******* thing I did
I said horrible things I didn't mean.
I ******* swear I didn't mean them

The heat of the moment caught me off guard
I became the horrible stew of my father, my mother,
That awful ***** who kept me trapped for almost 2 years
I ******* hate her now just like you ******* hate me

But she doesn't have a heart
If she does you'd need a ******* microscope to see it
She was never there for me
She always catered to herself

Sometimes, I ******* hate myself
I might commit suicide if I keep thinking about things
All I can do is try to pretend you'll forgive me
Because if you don't

You might see my obituary in the paper someday
Hal Loyd Denton Jul 2013
Before I start I’m going to stand before you bare and open like in front of a looking glass that’s what
Their called in James town up in gold country they have the old hotels that were there a
Hundred Years ago they just have seven to eight rooms no phones or televisions rustic and
Original that will play into this write but for me personally I come to my computer with burning
Tears flowing down my face with my heart broken this also will bleed into this write I’m
Celebrating people that we have lost and a country teetering on disaster in the case of the
People I can’t let go and as my country dies I die with it and lately I feel the sooner the better
This feeling is a new ripple in my life maybe it prophetic I had a dream that the first girl I loved
And lost died it troubled me a great deal in the dream there was a coffin and I saw her standing
There what was the worst I lost contact over the thirty years in California I found out where she
Was when later I checked her home town obituaries it wasn’t her the dream was about it was
Her mother she died of cancer on my birthday I sent Linda a book without saying who it was
From the book’s title is Oma it is about the life of a one God Pentecostal pioneer preacher from
Our faith it spells out the true salvation message and the hardships she endured to give it to the
Needy of her day I can do no more I gave her the greatest gift I could ever give this is my
Conviction and it stands true for me buffeted by doubts of others because if you truly say you
Love them it stands true for all time or you were insincere in the first place that can be a pitfall
Of youth I told about how I fell in love at six with Eileen you wouldn’t understand the depth of
Pain and the tears that came from my convulsing tiny body when through her window I heard
She was getting married years have come and gone in sizable number I still love her I wasn’t
Just saying something the small scars on my heart are practically invisible because my heart has
Gotten bigger and adult scars hide the smaller ones Linda, Judy from ***** wine country I left
Town with a dead soul and much pain I held up in a hotel in Monterey twenty five hundred
Miles from home let’s just say Napa wine means a lot more to me than most people it has a
Beautiful girl attached with it and lost because at that time I wouldn’t promise to stay in
California I have just got out of the service the timber land of home was calling and I had to
Answer she turned out to be the luckiest of all God gave me a promise the night after I slept in  
A Cow pasture with my duffel bag as a pillow and a number of cows at a short distance the next
Day at the camp meeting the main speaker told these words someone here has a drunkard for a
Father and a harlot for a mother but God is going to use you in a great way this was spoken
Again a month later at a youth camp I stood outside on the edge of the crowd the preacher
Said the same thing not about the parents but What God was going to do but he added this
Killer stipulation he said you can change the hands on the clock but you can’t change the time I
Entered into marriage with a southern girl from outside of Nashville I’m still waiting many
Snows of winter has come and gone they are less numerous than my wife’s tears but factor in
The pain and its even you see to reach others you must feel the blast of many contrary winds
Live a life where you can’t be and give what you promised I guess this belongs in a private
Journal not openly public but I want you to know what and how I write is genuine and the day is
Still coming that from great suffering I will be able to bless and give not hot air but real and true
Help that will heal your spirit
Joni Renee Aug 2012
three of four funerals
gun collection, gun
long narrow boxes in the trunk of my first car

Dad’s dad, Bergen-Belsen, babbling
Dad’s mom, floorboards
Mom’s dad, collectibles
Mom’s mom, alcoholic

obituaries, guns, boxes, garages
adults, guns, St. Peter, Joni

Dad’s dad, lessons, dreams
Dad’s mom, cabbage recipe
Mom’s dad, extra hugs
Mom’s mom, low blows

memories, value, months
A pawn shop good rate
moral boundaries:
kids on the street, no parents
TheTeacher Oct 2012
Let the tears flow and let the guns go.
  
If men start crying, we'll stop dying
and the killings in the hood would cease.
The prisons would be empty of angry men.....because they've finally found a release.

If men start crying we'll stop dying
and take our rightful place as the head.  No more negative views, news or obituaries to be read.

If men start crying we'll stop dying
and now I'm on my knees.....praying for my life, but not from a gang of thieves.

If men start crying, we'll stop dying
because we're no longer afraid......about the misconceptions about men that have been made.

If men start crying, we'll stop dying
and hiding behind this wall of pride......so much hurt inside .....I need a life preserver to prepare me for this ride.

If men start crying, we'll stop dying
A canoe full of emotions traveling to and fro, but I've held them in so long that I'm about to blow.

If men start crying, we'll stop dying
Do you know what I've been through?  It wasn't a pleasant ride...but God knew what to do.
Jesus loved the world and he cried for it too.  The Perfect one showing me exactly what to do.

If men start crying, we'll stop dying
and become the leaders that God has called us to be.  We'll be the voice of reason instead of the negative images often displayed on TV.

IF MEN START CRYING,  WE'LL STOP DYING.


John 11:35 Jesus wept.
r Apr 2017
Last night
I lifted my head
to the sky
seemingly
not so far away
like my dog on the porch
listening
to the songs of the frogs
singing up a storm
I asked her, sweet mutt
of mine to interpret
their words
and she looked at me
as if to say
just listen my friend
they sing of the wind
and the pines
the ocean
that great saltwater dish
where we were born
and the coming
of a great tide
and how we should be
more kind
to our Mother
the Earth tomorrow
on her Birthday
they sing instructions
and warnings
of obituaries heard
in a thunderous warming
then she sighed
and closed her eyes
thumping her tail
in time with the chorous
as the moon
raised his great blind eye
up over the forest.
Earth Day 2017.
r Jun 2014
Shiny black spit-shined shoes
on the walk
in the Memorial Gardens
hurt my feet
to look at their stiffness
and his swollen ankles
in them.
His worn and creased pants
too short, belt buckle aligned
dress-right-dress
with the button fold of his shirt.
He wore
an old faded USMC campaign hat
pulled down
almost to his white eyebrows.
Almost comically.
I pitied him
in the way we sometimes do
the old who mumble,
never knowing
just who they are talking to.
I heard Inchon mentioned,
and Chosin a time or two,
and every time he said Puller knew,
yeah, Chesty knew
.
I quit taking my lunch
with a book in the Garden
when he stopped coming around
and after I saw his picture
in the obituaries
with a description of how he won
his Silver Star and two Purple Hearts;
wishing now I had listened closer.
More’s the pity
I never spoke to him.

r ~ 6/27/14
brandon nagley Aug 2015
Doth thou knoweth what's awakening to thine being as a whole?
Whenever opening up, the second new's section;
Reading all of the obituaries
Seeing all the hundred's of departed soul's.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Joey Zimmerman Dec 2010
In a certain sense, you’re right
I led you on
I pulled the strings that guided your actions
Upon movie dates and way too many dinners
I could feel your feelings flail at me every time I drove you home
You were happy you found me…
Then the conversations slowly stopped
I stopped seeing you
I stopped answering calls
I stopped responding to texts
I stopped existing in your life
I stopped becoming a name in your daily sentences
You were sold on the idea that once I had *** with you multiple times
That my quest was over. My Journey was complete
Now I can fall down this empty pit
And be open to all the slurs and hatred you flail at me like used-to-be feelings
This is how you feel

This is how I am..
I stopped the war in our relationship
So I could focus on the Genocide that was constantly raging in my brain every time I was with you felt your heart beat and noticed it wasn’t in rhythm with mine
Like hers used to be…

Once upon an October I lost love
Regained it
Then was murdered by it in the summer
Although my name wasn’t in the obituaries
If there was a news paper for body parts
That’s where you’d find my heart

When she left I took her face
Like a serial killer
I ripped it off and tried to mask it over
All the girls that wanted to show me love on the weekends

They couldn’t fit her dress

They couldn’t fit her shoes

They couldn’t fit her smile

They couldn’t fit her body
You beautiful girls mean nothing to me

In the end
Yeah, I left you
Because I’m not a kid
I can’t keep playing pretend

You cried, yelled and slapped me
Yeah, I wanted to hit you back
For not understanding

So,
This goes to all of you
When you see me out about swept up in the nightlife that this town brings
Focus on the different girls that are at my side
And crop them out
Take a copy from my past and paste it on my present

Call me a man *****
Sometimes I can’t take it
I try and find  lost love in pointless ***
Call me a ****
That’s what you think I am
I haven't told anyone how haunted my brain is because of her
Call me an *******
Because I left when you needed me the most
Which I guess is worse than being connected to a lie detector
And asked the question, “Do you love her?”
Do you want proof on paper
Made from scratches about how much I don’t love you
Call me insane
Because I can’t let go of the past and everything
In my brain is pulsing because I still picture her in dreams

Or you can call me a child
Because I still like to play pretend
Eric Hormuth Mar 2014
The greatest thing about the Internet
Is that we’re all writing our own obituaries
So selfie posters, pose on
Blog enthusiasts, report and indulge
Instafoodie, snap before consumption
Because these are the things that will mark our lives
After we decay
Media has longevity
Circuits survive
anthony Brady May 2019
I was alarmed as nobody
paid attention to me:
if there was a Plan B -
it was to die - dramatically.

A hangman’s halter I took to  swing
snapped and failed my neck to wring.
Then I drank of hemlock deep:
all it did was make me sleep.

Wide awake I’d somehow made it back
I laid me down  on a railway  track
Alas! never once was I alerted
all trains had been diverted.

It seemed a good idea to me
to drown myself in the Dead Sea:
buoyant in such drink, I did not think
no swimmer  there is known to sink

From a high rise parapet I dropped over
and landed in a cushioned bed of clover.
I tried to cut my jugulars  but By Heck!
the blade was blunt and just grazed my neck.

A contract killer - hired off the shelf -
took the money then shot himself
after stating though he’s willing
I was not worth the killing.

By now getting frantic
on the internet I met a tantric
guru whose advised me tarry
“All I needed was to marry…

…It is a kind of death, all  near
and dear pity you - but it’s clear
you get everybody’s attention
and in obituaries never a mention”.
.
Tobias

— The End —