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On failures I rejoice
      pockmarks on the skin that is my being
Beautiful reminders of my own mortality
     A slave to the Romans spoke:
         "You are not a god"
Failures to me speak the same
          I am not a god
I am above no one
         To failures I owe humility
To failures I owe will
To failures I owe life
                    Because without them
I might be everlasting
James Amick Jul 2013
I rub my face with my hands like a blind man hugs walls with his fingertips, trying to find a comfortable position to cradle the weight of my skull in my open palm.

I think it’s heavy from exhaustion.

I scratch my head and with an exasperated “****...” I forget why else it could be heavyneverminditwasapathy.

That’s the first time I ever... ****...



That’sthefirsttime I’ve ever played with word breaks! Carson would be proud.

I wish my cheeks were made of clay. When I use my forearms as kickstands, godfuckingdamnitIneedtostoplosingmythoughts, (What the **** spell check, you tell me my word break play times are not words but “godfuckingdamnitIneedtostoplosingmythoughts” is a word?) my fists press my flesh like putty, it molds around my knuckles, but when I move them, gravity drags them back down.

Gravity’s a *****.

**** poetry.

I’m tired and I want my **** clay face so I have to put in the effort to make myself see correctly after smushing my cheek fat so far towards my forehead that my eyes look nearly shut.

I should stop doing that.

Oils from my hands and all that ya know? I don’t want any more pockmarks.

Woah spell check, it’s pockmarks?

Huh... pockmarks. I guess that does make more sense than potmarks.

Carson would probably know, she thinks in words. The last time I thought in words was for fifteen minutes a year ago last week while sitting next to Carson at a sloppily painted table with patchwork chairs.

I couldn’t write anything down though, she had my laptop.

My nose itches, but I should probably find something a bit more poetic to add to this stanza. Then again, Carson might think that this whole streamofconsciencething was cool, not my style, out there for me. So I’ll stick with it. Carson gets so proud when I start branching out.

Yayyyyyy.... branching out... I’m thinking “**** this apathy,” but I don’t care enough to do anything about it.

Not at 2:03 AM in one of the four lounge rooms on the third floor of West Fairchild, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. I should probably change the title now...




****.

I need to stop coughing. I need to get this phlegm thing figured out. I can feel the oils I’m leaving on my face...

It’s like a moist towelette just lifted away from my cheek, like a feather.

I don’t think Carson likes feathers. They seem too... ****... They seem too....

Ethereal! Yeah, ethereal. Ethereal sounds too scholarly.

It’s not worth the effort to think of something else.

Yeah, I’m not tired, it’s the apathy.

By morning it will just be exhaustion, I care too much about their...

This girl doesn’t eat, and she hates herself, so I play lifeguard and keep an eye on her as the day goes by, and I feel stupid for choosing to not respond to her text messages, and then for lying about not seeing them, but I’m too tired to care more.

Yeah, that’s it.

I’m too tired to care.

That’s not apathy right?
onlylovepoetry May 2016
wondrous words,
shades of colorations,
this pain,
artfully slow, steady stalking,
finale staking into
my hardened heart

with tireless twinges
of loss and constant regret,
painstakingly plinking away,
leaving pockmarks of bullets shot
at the concrete ring-fencing,
failing to protect me from just another,

oh god not again,
have no mo' time

for jes one mo' time

love's aftermath regret,
bitter acid wash,
that cleanses nothing,
for you are already nothing
when love loss wrenches/rents your
soul's garments with knotholes of
unfashionable distressed
distress

better not to have loved,
better, better, better,

than this battering silent hurricane
invisible thunderstorm internally,
than respects no seasonality,
for which the meteorologists
can predict neither its path or its
final cessation

painstakingly,
did I build my walled shelter,
only to fail-fall to the siege machines
of beauty and desire,
and
once conquered,
with fire and heat,
they burnt me
from the outward edges inward,
and I am not a
Phoenix


see the stooped slow white walker
more than dead, yet alive enough
existing to be witness to
his own devouring,
his hands wrapped round
the stake in his chest stuck,
painstakingly
protecting it,
lest its removal
be one more undoing of the
painstaking man
in our
besieged republic

snipers are
popping up
everywhere

taking ***
shots

ending lives
with a well placed
head shot

active shooters
star in
world premier
events

jokers
rise like
dark knights
casting large
looming shadows
on real 3D cinemax
multiplexed screens

sprinkling overpriced
buckets of popcorn
with generous
dollops of blood

others
head back to
school
still ******
about missing
recess and
excessive
sentences
to detention
halls where
bullies tortured
scrawny inmates
with wedgies
and painful
***** twisters

they’ve
come back
to even the score

leaving
bullet hole
pockmarks on
Sharpie smudged  
smart boards
declaring endless
summer vacations
for classrooms
of children
who don’t
give wedgies
and only dream
of soft *****

these
urban guerillas
are now working
to liberate airports
from the tyranny
of TSA agents
fulfilling
PATRIOT ACT
duties for
10 bucks
an hour

and
last night
the latest
active shooter
showed up at
the Garden
State Plaza,
-my hometown
mall of america-
mumbling about his
Grand Theft Auto
score, strung out
and crashing
from an unfilled
pharma addiction
script

he grew
up as a
Highwayman
in Teaneck

a former
classmate
working
at Nordstroms
said he was
a really good kid

he was,
one of the good ones,
he could have shot
some people
but the only
person he
shot in the head
was himself

legions of
police officers
surrounding the mall
stood down
grateful for overtime
milling about
in the flashing
red strobes
inhaling the heady
blue fumes
rising to commend
Bergen County
Blue Laws and
next Sunday’s
time and a half
active shooter
training day

Jimi Hendrix:
Machine Gun

Oakland
11/5/13
jbm
Samantha Sep 2013
Outcasted kid with purple hair

Albeit not the kind of violet
That made your nostrils drip
With a watery ambrosia
Sugary enough to belong to a bee

And not the kind of
heavy, royal, omnipresent
contentment plum presents as a
molten lava
perfecting the pockmarks in the pie

My tendrils were not reminiscent of
home or
anything savoury so

I tangled them in tiaras
belonging to some Duchess' daughter or
one of Henry's wives or

Maybe twined them round
Frita's pallet and
Dyed my scalp a more pleasing hue or
Anything other than purple

Because purple was what I was not
Purple was Lilacs and
Pansies and Heliotropes and Tulips and
Lavender and

That little wild flower aforementioned

whose name I can't bare say
for the sake of
a humble beauty
such as hers

'twould be a shame to make comparable
To the wet-dog-fur look
Of my purple hair

And so I learned to get lost

In a past I always felt my own
Traveling continents and
Floating through eons

While my classmates  coloured in
British Columbia and
Where is Nunavut again?

Growing, I gained companions

A faery,
Athena,
Aslan and
Frodo, Einstein, Plato,
Theodore Geisel, Mahatma Ghandi
and Louis Leakey, Jamal Dewar,
Joan of Arc and John Lennon and
it all became
more complicated

Because my world was in flux
Oh it ebbed and it flowed and it expanded
Like the molten plum but this time
It really was more like lava

Assuredly you'll understand;
See the seams in our stitching!
Our Worlds are sewn together!

And as much as we would like
to cling to our
individualism

at some point we all must
accept that there is
but one

Intrinsic as our innards
Are our atoms and
Electrons and
mine are yours and
yours are hers and
ours together are all of the stars and
it really is
beautiful

At some point the twisting shroud
The squeezing and contracting -
of the world inside my head and
the world inside my eyes and
the world I was walking around in
and the world that I saw above me -
it tensed then halted
and became very dense
then melted

What a glorious
Ubiquitous, secure and everlasting amalgamation!
I opened my eyes
To find Van Goghs Scissors
All bloodied still and so
I cleaved my purple hair

But to find Hieronymus' oils and
watercolours so
I made my skin a hellish canvas
Painted all in yellows and blues
Without a hint of purple

Now from shoulders to forearm to wrist
from breast to navel to hip
from thigh to calf to foot
legible as anything are
lines that lilt and gleam
sighing songs of
devils and cherubs alike
and of sparrows and snakes

So after heaven is hell
and after hell is Nirvana
And Manna is as good as dirt
if Ambrosia is but
the spit of a bee

It all always works out
Because at the end comes
Death and after that
We don't know
But I do know that
I don't know
Much at all to begin with

Except for four things, almost assuredly:
1. Energy is all
2. I will never cease to find shouting at people from my bedroom or a car window amusing
3. My mother loves me more than anyone
4. Nothing is certain, except for uncertainty
I feel relieved of some burden wowza! Time to clean my room. Have a good day dearest readers and content skimmers.
softcomponent Jun 2014
Up as early as the dawn, clouds sifting leftward westward shimmer and drip-- half like empty crystal void, half like deep-ocean Mariana's Trench with happy-little-pockmarks all up-in-between.

What in the Heroes am I doing up so early on a Thursday morning? Not sleeping. Downloading new video games via Pirate Bay. Watching old-analog-rendition documentaries from History Channel circa early 2000's-- one doc in particular about U.S. government tests on unwilling (and largely unknowing) civilian populations. I as the orifice and experiencier of the world at large, all at ONCE THRU THE EYEZ and at TWICE THRU THE BRAINIAL CRANIAL and out thru the thoughts and words and cramped headspace full of starships, *******, eloquent and twisting sunrise dimensionals...

The Internet? It'll make you the universe as-if you weren't the universe already!
Straight through the blood and sweat and 'it's-too-earlies-for-this.' You wanted a bit of laughter, and that's exactly what you got.

Though it time-lapses across my faulty-flick'ring eyelids, I can tell past the Buddha-Bottle-Buddha-Themed-Beer sitting empty on the windowsill amidst a wild collection of coffee cups and power converters that the Sun sees the Capital Letters that were written out line-for-line in Times New Roman across my RNA-DNA slow-Saganite Cosmic Poetry by God the Author.

Eyelids are heavy and yet inverted and living-- real and concerned with loving the affair of life rather than the marriage! Life as an unofficial longevity-but-not-forever kinda thing.. like young love, old love, marriage, too, when you really get down to it.. just confused little souls feeling pulled to one another in the proverbial Dark Under the Sunlight and Illuminated by Aurora Borealis Forever-Daytime-Forever-Nighttime-Forever.. Syrian rebels waking up on a Monday morning to the sound of gunfire and ALLAHU AKBAR's in distance.. creeps, yea, a television Evangelist preaching God is Love and God Treats His Children Like Children (discipline the soul, yes? discipline the soul!) (**** the widow and ask her why you did it)

All the preaching homelessers who think they've found God in the same dark alleyway they found their snot-drenched headaches every casted winter night-- neglected by the Government, always remembered by the God-- Lucifer (Government, Passivity, Watchful Indifference), and God (A Few Dollars Here and There, A Shamanic Vision at Franciscan Ascetic Extremity) aaaahhhh all bungled-up and waiting for a Savior when the Savior is themselves or the debt they owe to Royal Life Ltd. and we wait like the rest of them, they angry over my no-dollars-to-spare ("look, I make rent, I grab groceries, I pay debt. In all likelihood, you have more money than I do right now. I'd love to help you out if our poverty's weren't so close to kissing") all such rudeness in one respect and yet delinquently honest.. how I can admire the travelling Hippie Bands reckless abandon and yet never forget to fear Abandon..

and all the preaching Home-Leasers.. the strangeness' clad in glass and patchwork straight-black perm-pressed leadership stench and pastel markers smeared across the sidewalk.. ".. if you take away your consideration of the company's weak future bond equity, there are three different ways we could tackle this project.." busy-ness-man.. snarky and corrected with a Job To Do. But Who Am I?

A Job To Do. A Job To Do Do Do Do.

NOT so much A Job Well Done (Never Quite A Job Well Done) (serendipity has a crease-and-fold collective opinion of our concrete jungles and military juntas.. "'I can't even watch the game tonight.. Brasilia is the capital of Brazil?' 'Sao Paulo, you drunk buffoon.''No, Brasilia!' 'Sao Paulo!'")
stupors, collect-calls, drag-queens, militant armies and school shooters in bullet-proof vests all the best, all the best.. what I wanted was a reason to crease my forehead all adult-like and say to the kid, "I really think you'd do a lot better in computer networking.. check the job statistics! international openings are through the ROOF.." and she sighs at the weight of every crush-ed dream coalescing into filmy-slime-froth at top of inadequately-heated Cream of Mushroom Soup.. what silty salty ****.. all the parochial worldviews of the 20th century being swallowed in the Liberal Boom and Bust, Boom and Bust, Boom and Big ***** ***** ***** Bloated ***** (click the link and see your fantasies pass Disney's red-light and hit **** ******* with a vintage glass bottle of ol' Coca Cola Noir)..

After a sleepless neverend night, I stayed up and bored on the black leather couch with my roommates cat waltzing in-an-out-an-in-an-out still confused at his relatively recent move to our war-zone clone of a home.. poor ******* of a cat, names Tonic.. has a bred sister named Gin.. drink a cup of joseph trying to finish illegal-pirate of newest Splinter Cell (sadly o'sad it demands too much on the vide-ah card and lags all creative and bleepy) all the steam from my ****-preground coffee in'ah French press doves upward to the window and the clouds sifting leftward westward shimmer and drip.. I contemplate concerta to stay perked-out and take a shower, pop just that, XL release concerta.. not sleeping makes it strangest experience, uncomfortable at first.. pressures in lower jaw, electric tightness at tips of front teeth as I talk myself down on the 6 to Royal Oak Exchange via Downtown all freaky-vibed anxieties about my blurring vision and perhaps eternal cross-eyes I avoid looking at reflections *** they father me out of my bedroom, warm sanity.. warm seance dance-arounds-a'naked-and-praise.. I feel okay now, though. Better than okay, I feel elated and awake as if I slept a solid 9-some hours and Alex to left writing stories of horse-drawn labor with Petter on Skype telling tales of his not-so-gladness to be home in Norway for another 3-weeks.

A group of hearty-look hardly-look investors in stock business pajamas march past in strange rabble on way, perhaps, to next coffee joint down road. The unfamiliar block next to window I sit near seems as mysterious in existence as Diagon Alley.. where in the fuckssakes is it, exactly? I once ventured to find out and came across library courtyard I tagged as future-reading locale. The hungry sun above was at snowblind potential and eating away at my lack of protected retinas. I've stopped worrying about protection as it all dis-integrates equally careful.

And it's our covert motives that give us reason to shame-- unrealistic to be ashamed, but ashamed you'll be anyway for disliking the guy or avoiding the girl and slithering into a fetal position to deflect the ***-flack from Moral Mike. You escape yourself successfully, and douse the city in gasoline machines for another 15 years 'til our fossil fuels shivvy dribble flop fade into literal thin air.. bubye.. the sun is getting brighter with every passing minute, it's all summery out and I'm inside typelocking myself to a circumferenced earth at the tip of my bleeding fingers. I'm just waiting for apostrophe, and realize that, some day, I will be a fuel source too (you're welcome, Succeeding Race).

and all races are inevitably lost. This is not the cynics drawl.

it is optimism.
Pedro Tejada Nov 2014
If you ever get close
to the fork in a path,
wander through the tectonics
that diverged the road
in the first place.

Every pixel of your being
is animated. Even the unlit
trap doors leaving pockmarks
on your mind's landscape
possess colors with no name.

Who knew electronic and acoustic
were just estranged family all along?
GENRE is a manmade affectation--
music appreciation for Jingoists.

If they feed you a raindrop,
swallow the entire ocean.
For Bjork <3
Bob Horton Apr 2014
Like a patterned rug
Beaten to be rid of dust and
Flopped over a balcony railing, a leopard
Hangs her hefty hands beneath a bough.
Head lolling lazily, she awakens.

Fingers like silent meteorites dig
Craters in the loose, dry earth.
From the grasses emerge many warm black eyes, unseen
And vicious: floral pockmarks on
Her carpeted exterior: cruel camouflage.

Deftly lugging her **** back
Into the branches to feed on its flesh:
Patterned rug stained.

Ears ***** and whiskers twitch
As boughs creak and twigtips reach
For the ground: the impala’s weight
Has weakened her arboreal home.

She panics not.

She slinks softly back into
The grasses: better to sidle away unscathed
From immediate danger.
Pride and body intact, she will **** again
Elsewhere.
This was meant to mean something, but then it didn't in the end. Maybe the correct eyes will read and perhaps acknowledge their status as the once intended recipients.
William A Poppen Nov 2012
There are walls waiting,

crumbling

as pockmarks of decay

beside sidewalks

along motor cities’ streets.

There are terminal

and forsaken structures

colonized

with ungrateful squirrels

that abandon

attics for creaking kitchens

with corroded sinks.

Un-shoveled snow melts

slow on walkways

unfamiliar with worn heels

or rubber soles.

There are forlorn relics

patient and waiting

for us to join them.
Hands Nov 2012
The fog began to roll in,
twirling and twisting into the darkly shaded night.
The air smelled of young adulthood and
the lovehot and wild bucks and does
rolling and romping around in their
thick clouds of pheromones.
We ventured into this haze,
arms locked together and
hands intertwined.
Your warmth radiated off and
filled me with heat and
tingle-loveliness and sweet,
sweet music.
It scared me,
these new and bizarre things
that I had never felt, before.
I felt myself begin to swell up,
a bright red balloon in the dark, black night,
filled with the lighter-than-air molecules
of my newfound feelings.
Please, body,
don't you float away.

We walked in tandem--
already did we walk as one being,
one body.
It was 4 AM and
we were sauntering uptown,
stuck together like
the feathers on a bird
that had never before denied
its instinct to fly away.
I stared intently at your face,
trying to wish you away.
What about
my freedom,
my wild and untamed
boyish libido,
those future nights of painless,
faceless encounters to be blurred into
the fog of my young and wild buck-crazy
life?
Your thumb rubbed the back of my hand,
rubbed my mind and
rubbed my heart.
Your thumb rubbed
my very existence,
rubbed away the dirt and grime and
rubbed me to my very core.
I felt the ice of 47 different men
begin to melt away,
as the thing that I had sought to keep hidden
above all else
was being exposed.
That weak and
pulsing *****,
beating like a drum;
a tiny,
fragile,
little drum.
At any moment it could stop,
the tempo could change,
our arms would unlock and
our fingers drift apart.
At any moment this warmth could fade away,
could roll and sew itself into
the cold, harsh night
or lose itself in the
lonely company of the thick curtain of fog.
I looked up at the sky,
saw the light of stars I had never before noticed.
In that moment I realized,
The temporary is more beautiful
than the everlasting and the infinite.

In that moment I realized
that even though I was afraid of pain,
pain is natural,
it is inevitable.
Pain is like
the squeezing of my hand
inside the grip of another
or the heavy breathing on my neck
of a head resting on my shoulder.
It is a sign,
a message;
it says,
I am here,
I am alive.

In that moment I realized,
even if it has an end
at least it had a beginning.
Time does not exist;
the present is the only
real reality.
And really,
in that moment I realized
that taking a temporary risk
paid off,
as we never really forget someone
after we feel their hands,
their fingerprints,
after we have engrained their body heat
into our very body chemistry.
The fragility of it all,
the temporary glasshouse that
shielded these exchanges from
the harsh glares and gusts of
a world too large for itself,
made me want to cry;
the lightweight feelings and the
tippytoed carefulness
as we walked up the stairs and
into his house.
Three bears were asleep
and so we kept on walking,
laying ourselves down and
stringing our limbs together,
breathing our fallen-for-you and
forget-me-not breath
into the face of the other--
a young and inflated mirror image;
a doppelganger infatuation.
I turn my head above
and look around your room,
trying to fin the stars that
you have hidden away.
Your walls are covered in the
places you want to see,
your dreams filling up
each and every one of those
pieces of flimsy paper.
The world doesn't matter.
The roads and the streets,
the unknown and unseen locales,
they have all been mapped out by you,
seen by your heart's eye.
As we lay together,
lips interlocking and
tongues twisting together,
I present to you another place
to map out just as well.
It is a newly discovered land
full of hopes and dreams and loves and losses,
covered in pockmarks and scars and
a pale and fragile pallor.
I present it to you as a gift
and as a message,
I am here,
I am alive.

You accept it graciously,
gulp down my heart and
all of my feelings with it.


A week later and
I watch as the routes have been placed,
the forests uncovered and
the ruins and ghost towns brought
back from the haze of
historic obscurity.
did he know how he had killed me from the start
Tommy Johnson Sep 2014
Fish heads for dessert
Confetti-saltwater taffy for lunch
Canned laughter for snack
And peptide bonds for a well balanced breakfast
"But whats for dinner?" says The Windbag
"But whats for dinner?!" screeches The Mimick
Hmm, well we have a choice between the sociocultural criteria and a toxic relationship
"Can't we have popsicles with answer-less riddles on the sticks?" asked the Windbag
"Can't we have popsicles with answer-less riddles on the sticks?!" copied The Mimick
"Leeme alone!" cried the Windbag
"Leeme alone!!" yelled The Mimick
In the end the decided to eat the pockmarks of bird feeding cohorts
They picked their teeth with proven points
Then watched The Windbag play the glockenspiel
Followed by The Mimick on the xylophone
As I put the leftover scraps in Tupperware, making sure to burp it before I put it away
       -Tommy Johnson
where shall I send my poems?**

to my eyelashes,
for they beat irregularly
unconcealed and unconscious
like my poems

to my fingertips,
where they are released fluidly
they grasp, strained and staining, tapping breaths
like my poems

to my smile,
fleeting and happy weeping fortuitously
a lifetime of a whisper, glimpsed and gone
like my poems

to my brain,
where they are symmetrically born only to die ceremonially
a fireworks duration evaporating into a rich velvet
like my poems

like my poems,
none will survive me,
blemishes, pockmarks, beauty marks, residues,
in a flash bang born, in a flash bang consumed

3:08am dec. 9 2019
Sarah Kunz Aug 2016
divot discoloration blemished imperfection.
The storybook of my flesh is peppered with these pockmarks of life.
A secret connect the dots maze on my body binding the story pages together.
I grin as I examine my body and all it's protruding oddities, how beautiful  it is as I crash course through this crazy ocean my breath still ebbs and flows in synchronization.
I love the nooks of me no one else could possibly understand.
my peculiarly chipped tooth buried in my gums as a reminder of juvenile fun.
I tuck myself into a bed of comfort cradling these imperfections, a grand testament of life.
The girl with the electric smile and lazy eye.
Samantha Sep 2013
The esoteric emotion,
hidden in the back
of the cupboard,
pressed neatly
'gainst the wall,
peeling back the
paper, musty beige with
pale pea pockmarks.
The raunchiness
was a given;
anything will rot,
become rancid,
when locked away
with the light
vacuumed tight from
dusk to day,
with none but
a forlorn face
to think on.
Poetoftheway Jan 2018
this one, this one poem,
this old birth, renascent,
is not in the file

the file place where the
half started, nearly done,
but never truly satisfactory
fester, marinate, awaiting confrontation,
some kind of contentment of a sort,
final solution of annihation or completion

many a bare-***** title,
that the lords of hosts of
itinerant peddlers seeded,
notions await coating, stroking,
full flesh embodiment,
awaiting perhaps peepholes
for a someday poem

but not this one

this one I possessed,
better said, better reflected,
it possessed me,
rooted so deep, thick limbed,  
it, larger than my life,
though of my life,
cut, diced, sliced amd muddled

no confession of the cheapside here,
this, more a rescission, breaking of a contract,
annulment of a reputation in ten thousand words earned,
now comes, the longest day apology

why now,why ever?
there was a trigger that flipped the lock,
to open and accursed,
keys that filled the keyholes,
opened them peepholes,
that prior asked to kindly be
left let to rust in peace

this one composed itself,
asking no permission,
in the sense that I am more
recorder of the disorder,
than author

don't beg to differ, do not countenance opposition to
what here exposed, as the only witness,
I yam the guilty poet party, the jury, the prosecutor,
the fool client, all one and the same
who must perforce defend himself,
for no counsel needed for one
who guilty pleads
to charges of high crimes and misdemeanors, that
he himself created, so numerous,
no ear could tolerate the hear,
the alphabet of sins committed against
man and God*

of course you want details,
you wish enablement, the *** of the
simple syrup of satisfaction of the
titillation of the knowing

pick a letter any letter
and I will supply the action, or worse,
the inaction


for the greatest pockmarks that Cain marked this man,
were the failure to be brave,
be there when needed,
the shaming of thinking
instead of instinct reacting,
tiny inconsequential fears
that work word whisper
why you? not you?  somebody else?
when so clearly you
were the anointed one,
but stayed behind as
the one who disappointed

each grass blade censures,
each water sun sparkle accuses,
our prior direct line connection,
now ******
the winds voice shocked unto summer stultifying stillness
and you, still here, still reading?


cheated lied even murdered,

told to crank away the cranky somber,
unmistakeable,
but this shaming don't know no quitting time,
having surfaced, it is
my burnishment, the polished gloss
of rubbing off the now vanished varnish


who knew truths so foul could gleam,
my side listing, so angular lengthy,
that I walk unrighted,
signed below as,
this is the poet of the way, the who l am
June 6, 2017
Ignatius Hosiana Jun 2023
Gently she raised her dress, revealing where the axe struck the tree,
"Here, a forest once thrived," she whispered solemnly,
Then came the scars, pathways for plastics to reach the sea,
Regret's sewage flowing through springs, an unwanted decree.

Landmines left pockmarks on her face, remnants of war's blight,
Awaiting the innocent, seeking to maim and to ignite,
Deep incisions from perilous landslides, a haunting sight,
A testament to the struggles endured day and night.

She revealed the melting snow, beckoning an avalanche of change,
Witnessing a road where an unsightly swamp once held its range,
Broken ships and skeletons, remnants left estranged,
Abandoned in the depths, hidden in ocean's grange.

Finally, she pointed to the scorching sun with teary eyes, "It didn't burn so fiercely until this heart carried its demise."
He's wearing my favorite shirt. 
And he speaks in tones of peppered loss and rageless loss. 
The claws click against the veranda's shade. 

His pockmarks glow in the reflected dew. 
So quietly announcing the sun's stretches and it's yawn. 

They arrive, my fast continues. 

Beneath the grounded carpet,
The ***** brings me towards the river. 
The color green surrounds me, my reflection quite to speak. 
I stop to look above and see the black clip of flight. 

I look to the paper and begin to finish. 
The ink runs out as I enroll in the water's treatment.
Tragedy
Ryan Unger Jun 2015
I was hungry, so I went to the deli to eat,
And it wasn’t a far walk, just right down the street.
My stomach was excited, as I threw open the door,
But immediately I thought, “This decision was poor.”

Behind the counter stood a man who looked like a freak,
With pockmarks and moles that made my knees weak.
His mouth was a mess and his teeth, long and mangled,
It’s a mystery that they fit, with the way they were angled.

I was uneasy at first, but decided I’d try,
And maybe It’d turn out he wasn’t a bad guy.
I told him I wanted a BLT:
Bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo -- really easy.

Well, this guy turned out to be about as smart as a rock,
He proceeded to ruin my sandwich while I stared in shock.
First he grabs the roll, and cuts it in two,
And the two halves were uneven! What’s wrong with you!?

Then he picks up the mayo knife and starts to slather,
And I realize that this guy didn’t even gather
The fact that there’s ketchup all over the knife that he’s using!
I feel like this guy is starting to find this amusing.

Next for the veggies -- the L and T --
Should be simple, but this guy really worried me.
He slaps on the lettuce which is slimy and brown,
This was now a competitor for “Worst Sandwich in Town.”

Time for tomatoes, and I’m feeling scared…
He takes the nasty white end pieces, and throws them on like, “Who cares?”
Then he wraps up the sandwich that he thinks he’s done makin’,
And he hands it to me even though there’s No Bacon!!

So I looked at him straight, and I spoke him these words,
“You can have that back, since it looks as appealing as turds!”

I stormed out the deli feeling nothing but disgust,
And decided that that was the last time I trust
A deli worker who had teeth that didn’t fit his jaw,
And a face that looked like he kissed a bansaw.
TC Apr 2013
The best way to fall in love, they say, is by moonlight:
it illuminates the beautiful, masks scars and pockmarks.
As I quickly discovered, dimly lit four-hour bus rides
have a similar effect.
We didn’t fall in love, of course,
but I couldn’t swallow the chalky pill
of recent heartbreak
and you coaxed it down my throat
with your tongue, which to me is close enough.
You were 23, and whether you thought
I was 18 as is true or 20 as I claimed didn’t seem to matter.

You were beautiful, an inescapable mountain
to climb, the other passengers vibrating,
shadow-coated foothills.
We had the ethereal intimacy of two strangers who know
they will never see each other again. I kissed you.

It was to forget the taste of empty mouth,
frothing memory foam,
the way smoke whistles through toothgaps:
a caustic taste, one that I’d had no luck scraping away
like so much tongue plaque.  


What does a year of love smell like?
Sweat, mostly.

Frozen central park ramble, attic and basement musk,
my sweaters turned her perfumed pajamas
turned peace pipe turned dusty relic. Whiskey,
and shattered glass windshield,
the St. Marks hotel because it was cheap
and took cash. All colored by one perfect summer
that I can no longer remember anything
but the specifics of. All this you did not smell like,
but it was dim and you felt cozy
nuzzled into my shoulder.

I held you the way I held her,
so maybe we did fall in love
for two hours on that bus ride to Boston;
call it love by proxy. We burrowed
into one another because we had found
some eternal twilight, a midsummer night
on a Peter Pan bus in the dead of winter.
I gripping your thigh as if I only held tightly enough,
I wouldn’t be ripped back into reality
when the bus stopped. In the bright
fluorescent lights of South Station
we brushed lips awkwardly, exchanged
numbers, I grabbed my bags,
and you were gone forever.

You’d invited me to a bar,
and then your friend’s couch,
but ******* you would have made it much too real.
You and her would be differentiated,
writhing bodies are undeniably unique.
The ripped gut-wrench feeling I felt
the next day would have been unbearable.
Because intimacy informs loss, and
love by proxy only ever serves as a distraction
from the fading marble of plasticine light hovering,
indifferently, just out of frame. But it was love.
You were beautiful, and we’d found a moment
of viscous life. You numbed my pain for a while,
reminded me why I hadn’t swallowed those pills.
In that eternal twilight, it was all I needed.
Pits and pockmarks
flit and dart
across an infinite ceiling.
Random synchronicity
plays patter song
stupor and languidity
The orchestra conducting
purple and yellow
to a sparkling, a
crushing crescendo
falls like a wave on tastebuds, tempting.

She lingers like
fog on a pane of glass
A sharp signature
impaled on a pile
of dreaming dust.

Like a rushed column
updraft through a house
of leaves blank and staring.

A mark from the
back of your palms up.
Your fingers stuck signing
a language sang by the blind.

How did she stay so long
A force hidden in neuron canyons.
A Gypsy camp lodged
between cortexes
spinning silk into a
muffled gasp, a conspiratory shuffle.

She lingers like spines of glass
in nailbeds, planted sweetly,
with the best of care.

Laughter in an asylum
electroshock dreams soaked in sweat.

Grabbed my brain like a chemical symphony.
Painted pictures of pivotal seconds,
wrapped up and romanticized.
Dreamt about.

Your lilting language planted
little honeypots deep in my palms.
Sparked fire from entropy
lighting a city in my chest.

But now these buildings tower
like Goliath in David’s dreams.
I need to escape
I need to slide out of
this sleep you’ve monopolized.

******* dreams
like smokering fingerprints
left on the cleft of my conscience.

The old taqueria on Victory.
The Bourgeois Pig.
The bitter spice of winter
painted over the cracks
crumbling the walls.

These waking hallucinations
haunt my habits.
Still frequent the holeinthewall
dives in my heart.
the Terror Dec 2015
every pretty metaphor has been used,
so instead of telling you,

"your eyes are like stars",

or,

"your skin is like glass",

or,

"your teeth are like porcelain",

I'll tell you the truth.

your eyes are brown,
brown like the color of blood,
when it's dried into my cotton sleeves.
with little dark flecks that look like footsteps in desert sand.

your skin is a landscape map.
it's got bumps and pockmarks and divets
and hills and valleys and wrinkled canyons
and forests where you don't shave because you don't care (I like that).

your teeth are tombstones.
a little jagged. not quite diamond white.
you smile too big for your cheeks, and
you had all your wisdom teeth cut out before we met
(you wish you had asked the dentist to keep them, but you were on drugs and forgot).

by now you're probably thinking,
"is this an insult?"

and I want to clarify that, no, it's not.
I think your eyes and your skin and your teeth are so ******* beautiful
I've looked at you and wanted to cry.
Yea of course writing ideas unstoppably
burst asunder at the most inconvenient
opportunities such as driving Miss Daisy,
taking a shower, or using the bathroom.
Accursed ambition becoming a prolific
scrivener (case in point Stephen King)

Woolworth ridding, oddly lumbering
lackadaisically shoehorning out this
being from a self made gully. The jury
yet to decree if attempting to extricate
muss elf from tangled web of decades
old setbacks via literary output successful.

Every morning, noon and night, this chap
blunders, flounder, (like a phish out of water),
yet plod his shipshape reclusive quiet-natured
person along the boulevard of broken dreams.

Oft times, huff hind aye muss elf entering The
Dead Zone (bordering a Pet Sematary). Earlier,
a previous saunter found me surmounting
The Green Mile. Attendant in regard to these
Bag Of Bones, and Desperation to acquire

telephone contact with Cell phone quickens
pace despite Insomnia. No matter unexpected
Sleeping Beauties warrant kisses, my determination,
motivation, and slight trepidation occasionally breeds
(The Dark Half), doomsday facet heftily jackknifing lust.

Occasionally, a feeble goading simply under minds
any corporeal aim to restore endeavor to experience
Joyland. IT (creative juices within spur meeting Rose
Red and her restorative powers. Onward atheistic
soldier goes this chap. No matter tipping point (vis
a vis hungry fatigued body clamors for Needful Things.

Revival (for food and sleep) frequently appears grim.
Downcast state of body, mind and spirit reinforced
by mirage. The Dark Tower looms ahead! Adjacent
to ominous evil looking structure silhouette casted
of a Black House. The initial ambition to ward off
abysmal results summon forth creative literary juices.

Simultaneously a migraine headache pounding pitted LIX.
They hammer horrifically, ferociously, and diabolically.
Shades of shad rock Under The Dome. Ma noggin
aches like The Tommyknockers! Every attempt to locate
a royal crowning coeval counterpart jinxed with laborious
ill luck. Hell in a hand basket plight usually generates
nostalgia for destiny to Carrie be back to Ole Virginny.

Sage advice from Christine, Delores Claiborne, or The
Colorado Kid, yours truly blithely heeded. As a result
(The Outsider within this paperback writer wannabe)
sports defeat written all over face. Concomitant figurative
futility gussies and kickstarts leaving invisible pockmarks.

Ordinary Dreamcatcher fate invariably finds aptly named
Writer Errs Block. Need to back track arises (figuratively)
along vista. The roads have no name. They command
stubborn respect. Near impossible mission manifested
to transcend mental hindrance. This more difficult than
playing Gerald's Game. Hence sigh embrace The Shining

opportunity to avoid Misery. Doctor Sleep would undoubtedly
encourage braving, challenging self confronting The Eyes
Of The Dragon. Such a risky pursuit could force facing pitbull
Cujo. No matter gamble foisted prospect fraught frightfully
being burned at the stake by a Firestarter. Voluntary action

brings small hairs to tingle. Hunchback, sans severely curved
spine straightens. This (The Stand) ding pose offered supreme
vision as promised by The Talisman. Tidbits by me alias
Mr. Mercedes reddit carefully Just in case The Girl Who Loved
Tom Gordon chanced to stumble upon this redoubt versus
her hours spent staring at a blinking cursor. Metaphorical
po' wet ick feet took me where they would.
armon Aug 2014
pockmarks bomb the oblivious cavalcade wet dripping nuisance cataracts Holy stove to the tracks Grow missile candide fenesin shovel living space
loved back the feeding Farsight
nowhere near the ending candy torpid glasses
foul just situation beat down the what eyelash grasp of following feathers
mine jaundiced knuckles
stream of consciousness
Creep Mar 2016
Hello,
dear.

It's been awhile since I've last saw your scarred face,
those pockmarks etched across your skin
as you leered at me with those
hungry, greedy eyes.

It's been awhile since your words have affected me,
how they used to whisper in my ears
about all those little imperfections that scatter across my body like rainclouds on a sunny day-

But not everyone seems to hate rain.
C: glad he locked away this little monster of mine

Sur ma route
by black m
Sofia Kioroglou Jan 2016
Love is like the measles.
Once you catch it,
it starts spreading like wildfire.

First, the itch,
then the ugly zits
and finally the scars.

Those nasty pockmarks
reminding you that getting bitten by the love bug
can cause serious damage to the patient.
Lauren R Jun 2016
If you're so broken, why don't you find the bottle opener, cupcake?
Why don't you lick the frosting off the bottom of the bowl, stoner?
When you say you're just pitiful, I see rain puddles drooling from the pockmarks of your cheeks.
I wish you'd realize that the sun isn't just shining out of my broken skin knuckles.
Clutching at straws for purchase, I dive in every direction.
Leaping off faith like churches, I bend to the will of the wind.
Searching for scraps of focus, my heart beats the way as it sings.
Thanking the world as it teaches,
I exalt what the future may bring.

The drive lights in my head as sparks, forced from my mind pray they fly.
The weight of “what if" pockmarks, eager sow seeds ‘til one catches.
Doubts thrown at me from my darks, each explosion paint ******* my way.
A way out not promised yet trying,
Is the only thing worth ‘til I die.

Fear lords over me as a despot, chance spirals before me like time.
Crawling from lazy this cesspit, resistance the bane of us all.
My goal simple as respite, shed stress I know vestigial
Find me my path steady carving.
Eroding at life ‘til I'm fine.
Wk kortas Dec 2016
They sit in the humblest of frames,
Faux wood-grained plastic grotesqueries
Purchased long ago from some doomed Grants or Bradlees,
Though one or two enjoy something nicer,
Left behind by some long-timer taking a buyout
Or a sympathetic youngster denied tenure
(She has, for the better part of three decades,
Cleaned up the detritus of middle-school children,
A bit stooped from the work,
Not to mention the burden
Of any number of she’s just  or she’s only
Tossed like so much bric-a-brac in her direction.)
The approximations of old masters equally eclectic in origin:
One or two gallery-quality reproductions
Blithely abandoned by some haughty faculty matron
Mentoring children through noblesse oblige,
The odd promotional piece from a scholastic publisher,
Mostly things she has cut from magazines or discarded texts.
She studiously avoids pieces tending to the dark or muted,
No Stuart portraiture or pensive Vermeers;
She has a strong predilection for bold, boisterous Gaugins,
Mad cubist Picassos, lush Cezanne still-lifes,
Even the odd blocky *******.
If you pressed her to explain her fetish
For the brightest of the great masters,
She would likely be at a loss to explain,
Having no academic bent for such things
(Though she has been known to curse the shortcomings
Of lithographers and pressmen under her breath)
And, as she freely admits, I’m not much good with words.
There would be the uncharitable suggestion
That their purpose is to mask cracks and pockmarks in her walls
(She has, to be sure, lived in a long series of such places)
But she has never, consciously or otherwise,
Used them for such pedestrian and utilitarian purposes;
They are, to her anyway, beautiful, and that is all they need be.
i'msorryit'snotbetter
born two days
after ole Punxsutawney i.e. the Doctor Phil -
of woodchucks Latin Name = Marmota Monax
nest resembled Rastafarian hair weave,
which creature rattled with ire and peeveishness,

when rudely roused from his abode February fourth
two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine
just two days after said groundhog got prodded to predict,
what surprises old man winter would deliver
from his snowy white sleeve
then juiced when he tried tug *** cozy once again,
an ear piercing cry rent quiet  
his pseudo Redmond Proficiency Academy den.

Wails via this tearful papa surpassed
decibel deemed tolerated,
hence entire webbed threshold did reverb
and rebound and he could not
muffle ears to block out sound,
nor would said creature trust
his beady eyes, how metamorphosis
doth confoundingly, blindingly, and astoundingly
transformed alien (perfect E.T. Stand in) appearing
gangly infant into a stunning - materiel
sans as fashionably attired
home coming queen crowned soon
to be freshly minted high school senior,
and perhaps college bound.

Seventeen plus years ago (soon be nineteen years -
she skipped to my lou eighteen), elapsed in a flash,
as a newborn mandated to exit
womb er full world uterine she
did plash ordained by Mother Nature
decreed must wriggle and leave placental stash
without (of course) leaving a mass of trash.
Thus, exit from birth canal complemented
second and last daughter to the Harris mix
whereby, she communicated
via clucks just for kicks
starting to gabble sounds vocalizing -
sounds of cow bell licks
influenced by Donald Duck
and Leif Erics son, also enlisting
literary feedback from Barack Obama,
and his lovely brood of Dixie chic chicks
attired in his wall den uniform bespeaking
his pointed skill teaching pre-presidential days
within ivied bricks primal utterances she acquired
(courtesy of Alice Cooper)
Retained like toys in attics.

Like any buck minister fully taken aback
this mister mom did fuss and fawn
from one jimmy crack corn to the next rhyme,
which captive infant audience gave no flack,
precious heir from ***** papa did help spawn -

an everyday ******* Jack of all trades
whereat n'er tiring as child rearing
more challenging than untying Gordian knot
without lack king and how, The Idler Wheel
Is Wiser than the Driver of the *****

and Whipping Cords Will Serve You
More than Ropes Will Ever Do to pack
a Judy ish us punch, though thee Punim
born with adroit skill to quack
mimicking gripped banshees,
denizens frenziedly shrieking
out the box of Pandora - as if one felt a whack
and a wallop, nonetheless infant younger daughter

a boon against strife
wool worth effort and propensity
to revel qua biological miracle re: said offspring
did inadvertently teach me lessons of life

to cherish and savor each giggle, laughter and smile
amidst cramped apartment plus feeling
discombobulated frustration bubbling rife
introducing yours truly
to tha hen pecked moody blue wife.

pockmarks can vouchsafe this un beak able trait
from spouse, who need not be lambasted
on account of increased weight.

Like a human bobbing sponge youngest progeny
absorbed auditory/ visual multitude
within each axon and neuron of that infantile sensory
“sir” kit board aware at a tender young age
how she struggled to string words together
to convey a mood
predilection with language impediment
possibly passed thru umbilical rip cord.
No idea thru combination of genetics and biology
that burnished beautiful lass oof an offspring
wrought a smart girl, an apple of the eye
per this father who never thought
thru attempts at conception sought

supremely melded genes, he thought
loves labors last, t’would come
to naught delivered us an artistic,
intrinsic, linguistic lass
who for no price can be bought
though someday, a young lad will take a fancy

(as ought to be the path of biology)
and hoop fully brings ye happiness
for your remaining lifetime
with a numeral
(following a number from one to nine)
with many an aught!

TOO LOVE YOU MY DEAR SHANA -
MORE THAN THIS SHABBY POEM
CAN CONVEY, WHICH...
UPON ATTEMPTING TO UNDERSTAND -
ABOVE GIBBERISH JA PROBABLY
WILL PROBABLY RAISE ARMS UP
IN DESPAIR UTTERING OYE VAY!
Carl Velasco May 2019
after Ansel Elkins

Carabao **** isn't permafrost,
temperature, disdain — climates
stirring into a tornado soup
of force, melting, seclusion.
In the heartbeat of gulls,
the waves gargled froth and
spat on charred limestone.
Then the grass beneath our
wet feet writhed in the
slice of wind atop the hills
of Hiyop, in Catanduanes
where roads go unmoored from
their skiffs like violin
strings curling under sharp
slide. You can invent a new
word to describe transformations,
but these will never catch it
in the act — the moment
vibration somersaults into
howl, when swinging grass
is louder than jetplanes
then suddenly quieter than
prayer. I like to dig my thumb
into the soft marsh, dirt
occupying the folds, creases;
labyrinthine pathways of skin
blanketed with Earth.
At this point the mountain
knows me;
and I dare to know the
mountain but come short, reaching
only its narrow berms,
pockmarks,
and ****-ridden sheath of
dry flowers cooking the
words to a song of its
people.
November 2018
Cronedrome Sep 2018
To be bitter
To be justified
To set grip cells
On nuance of despise refined
Clear as a bell in chapter one
But still
This old hat robe
Of one trick
Same old song
The big mistakes we all pretend to make
You know I know you know I know
Lets look this up
Hallowed ***** patsy
Of the only book
We ever reed We never read
Oh god these Rhythmic word sounds sway our head
Don’t analyse forbidden trees
Ye even me
With my vitriol against all this
How could I resist
You know I’m feeling it
The moral thread of what we chose
Man I worship naked flesh
But still Id die for clothes
And ****
This ****** birth ******* cuts me to the bone
Excuses
All 200.000 first cast stones
Yet glimmer folk tail of the trees
Progeny of blood and spiel
Xenophiliac
We crave unknown.
Diversity
And paradise was not
For we subvert, mutate, make art
Pain a small price
For a heart that drinks
In the textures of the voice
A Moan that never really changes much
From first outrage to last exchange
Pockmarks of agro-culture on my skin
The weight of centuries of blunder
Before I make this my own sin
Guns, germs and all that you can steal
And yes I'v contemplated ******
Now I can’t tear my gaze from your mouth slick with grease
Of more dead flesh
Pretty girls with big wet eyes. Break my heart and make me
Cross your legs and swear to die
Pretty boys who love my rage. Resent my kindness. Crave my cage
Everybody wants to cry
DNA thats drenched in irony
Catastrophe
Atrocity
Fatal mistakes
And yet
Our hands still shake
The blood still sings
Dancing
In the future that we bring
Suzanne S Apr 2018
We were one man
Or woman
Or something -
Whatever it was?
We were one of those-
Small pockets of dust and skin and old receipts that linger behind the bookcase
All the pockmarks on the face of the teenage universe
Still learning how to drive
with shaky hands
A face breaking through the taut plastic shield of the lake surface
to gulp down air
An old house creaking in the wind
Singing its occupants to sleep
We were all of them
One man
Or woman
Or something else entirely
We were us and more
Matt Martin-Hall Oct 2020
Americana is a saggy *** ***** that leaves pockmarks in the sheets and sludge underneath the handles in the bathroom. 


The staff either don't or can't clean it. 


Lazy or honest. 

What a legacy. 


Her steel sheds and high hanging water towers peppered with rust stains, harken to the diseases that claimed this body long ago. 


Waylaid by a bygone era of chauvinism and supremacy.

***** by billionaire promises and suffocated
by his Bible's belt. 
 


Autoeroticism is a blood red state gasping for hot wet air in its own existential twilight.

Never to rise again. 


Your labyrinthine streets shaded by overgrowth and cracked freeways. 
 


Your dirtbrown waters and fenced in dogs.

They bark at the sky, screaming of the same stir crazy psychosis that's infected everything else within your borders. 


Beneath your clothes. 


I can see your long drooping *******, caked with the inky milk from long gone reserves. 


Black gold drained. 
 

Powdered milk of a different sort. 
 

Victim to the greed you've coveted and ****** on. 


Hard. 
 


*****. 
 


Fast. 
 


Loud. 
 


Your tragedy is vaguely romantic, 

in its slumped and defeated stature. 


Vericosed stilts stuck in the sewage and mud of your ideologies. 


No, we cannot go to bed together. 


I'm afraid of what the blood test would come back with in the dull diesel smoked grey morning. 


Something I've come to know you for. 


The sun sets red as the corners of your eyes. 


Who ever said an apocalypse had to happen suddenly? 


Your broken bones and hip strapped cattle calls. 


An auctioneer in the distance. 


The proud cliche of a lie laid Western Lore. 


The hot irons of pride in your sockets. 


You can't even see how hard we're all laughing. 


Only a few of these tears are for you.
I wrote this while driving through Huston for work. Suffice it to say, I was not a fan.
Jamilah Price Jun 2020
I wonder how you'd look -
on a mangy summer evening in June
when the party's over
and the midnight revelers are forced to retreat, sweating and reeking of regret and fireball, to raggamuffin sparkly cushions beneath Marley cut outs and pasted pastel hair,
bathed in moonlight, you,
standing beneath the light of the grimy fluorescent apartment sky
and dust-laden shadows, stumbling over empty yogurt cans bearing the markings of koolaid stains and milk curdles
towards me
would you
put your hand on my face, between my *******,
or the ridges of my fading tattoos,
or the bulbous bubbling of my old wounds?
me,
standing alone in the corner of a forgotten high rise
housing degenerates punks fiends trapped in an ***** daze or good boys just wanting to go back home to the verizon of heaven or sacramento.
Would you be soft
and tell me
that your poetry came from the heart?
soft, and swallow me  in coked out irises
silver or black or blue would you
hold my hand and ask for consent
because you're a romantic and poet and everything is what it meant?
or would
you
tear into me, tooth and claw?
would you abandon courtship law
and drive my body into the edge of the bookshelf that your mother gave you
(because she hated you)
until it
broke?
I wonder,
lights out empty room
empty bodies, static minds,
would you mind
me, bracing for a foothold in reality and, finding none, speaking in tongues until daylight drove us away with its decadent array of pockmarks and ***** perfume and baggy eyes and spit
would you say sorry and gather my things
or, in bed and eye to eye, tease the promise of more flings?
i wonder
I wonder, would you have been a friend or just a ******?
I wonder about your 3 am stubble
your eyes fluttering when you sleep
I wonder at the size of your fingers between my thighs,
chasing scars and counting out sheep
I wonder, if I had met you,
at the secrets we would keep.
I wonder, if I had met you,
could our treachery have run deep?
More play with free form and sharp visuals. Dedicated to beat poets and paths never traveled.
which I can prov-olone huck curd
(within Trump con feta ration) – as cheesy poem!

Yea of course writing ideas unstoppably
burst asunder at the most inconvenient
opportunities such as driving Miss Daisy,
taking a shower, or using the bathroom.
Accursed ambition becoming a prolific
wordsmith (case in point Stephen King)
Woolworth riding, oddly lumbering
lackadaisical shoehorning out this
being from a self made gully. The jury
yet to decree if attempting to extricate

muss elf from tangled web of decades
old setbacks via literary output successful.
Every morning, noon and night, this chap
blunders, flounders, (like a phish out of water),
yet plod his shipshape reclusive quiet-natured
person along the boulevard of broken dreams.
Oft times, huff hind aye muss elf entering The
Dead Zone (bordering a Pet Sematary). Earlier,
a previous saunter found me surmounting
The Green Mile. Attendant in regard to these

Bag Of Bones, and Desperation to acquire
telephone contact with Cell phone quickens
pace despite Insomnia. No matter unexpected
Sleeping Beauties warrant kisses, my determination,
motivation, and slight trepidation occasionally breeds
(The Dark Half), doomsday facet deftly jackknifing lust.
Occasionally, a feeble goading simply under minds
any corporeal aim to restore endeavor to experience
Joyland. IT (creative juices within) spur meeting Rose
Red and her restorative powers. Onward atheistic

soldier goes this chap. No matter tipping point (vis
a vis hungry fatigued body clamors for Needful Things.
Revival (for food and sleep) frequently appears grim.
Downcast state of body, mind and spirit reinforced
by mirage. The Dark Tower looms ahead! Adjacent
to ominous evil looking structure silhouette casted
of a Black House. The initial ambition to ward off
abysmal results summon forth creative literary juices.
Simultaneously a migraine headache pounding pitted LIX.
They hammer horrifically, ferociously, and diabolically.

Shades of shad rock Under The Dome. Ma noggin
Aches like The Tommyknockers! Every attempt to locate
a royal crowning coeval counterpart jinxed with laborious
ill luck. Hell in a handbasket plight usually generates
nostalgia for destiny to Carrie be back to Old Virginny.
Sage advice from Christine, Delores Claiborne, or The
Colorado Kid, yours truly blithely heeded. As a result
(The Outsider within this paperback writer wannabe)
sports defeat written all over face. Concomitant figurative
futility gussies and kickstarts leaving invisible pockmarks.

Ordinary Dreamcatcher fate invariably finds aptly named
Writer Errs Block. Need to back track arises (figuratively)
along vista. The roads have no name. They command
stubborn respect. Near impossible mission manifested
To transcend mental hindrance. This more difficult than
playing Gerald's Game. Hence sigh embrace The Shining
opportunity to avoid Misery. Doctor Sleep would undoubtedly
encourage braving, challenging self confronting The Eyes
Of The Dragon. Such a risky pursuit could force facing pitbull
Cujo. No matter gamble foisted prospect fraught frightfully

being burned at the stake by a Firestarter. Voluntary action
brings small hairs to tingle. Hunchback, sans severely curved
spine straightens. This (The Stand) ding pose offered supreme
vision as promised by The Talisman. Tidbits by me alias
Mr. Mercedes carefully just in case The Girl Who Loved
Tom Gordon chanced to stumble upon this redoubt versus
her hours spent staring at a blinking cursor. Metaphorical
po' wet tick feet took me where they would into the Shining
and happy place called Willoughby located within the outer
limits of the twilight zone.
Ron Gavalik Nov 2017
A black man in his fifties
with pockmarks all over his face
shuffled in my direction on the sidewalk.
He carried a plastic shopping bag
that appeared to contain a sweatshirt.
His pants were torn near the knee
and he wore old fashioned leather shoes
that had probably seen more miles and time
than any pair of shoes, or feet
should ever have to endure.

‘Excuse me,’ I said as we approached.
‘I'm wondering if you're Christ.’
The man grinned, revealing yellow, decayed teeth.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Yeah, pretty much.’
‘Fine. Just don't tell anyone else.’
The man then continued on his way.
I headed home
to make a sandwich.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
out of hibernation,
sans mancave, I will climb
specifically at 5:59 Post Meridiem

eastern standard time,
when calendrical, celestial,
and chronological prime
airy factors mark

onset of temperate clime
mitt, also coincides with
'super worm equinox moon,'
to this Earthling, would appear
no larger than a dime

though ironically enough,
said satellite of Earth
closest to this oblate spheroid
whatever esoteric tidbit may be worth,
yet unwittingly inviting once in a
blue cheese moon opportunity
to espy with naked eye lunar dearth

of life, nor feasible conditions
warrant sear ching colonizing ahoy
by an adventurous space cowboy,
but perhaps convenient

launch pad to employ
entrepreneurial minded profiteers,
whether Jewish or goy
establishing other worldly
getaway to enjoy

reprieve, asper burgeoning
hardy madding crowd
populating nearly every square inch,
sans third rock from the sun, a proud

arrogant, defiant, haughty,
et cetera species predominantly cloud
ding, glomming, mucking, et cetera
exploiting courtesy manifest destiny

bajillion year old planet as if endowed
by divine creator to trumpet "FAKE"
supremacy, tis not white in my mind
declaring might equals right unbowed

credo selfishly amassing untold wealth
ideally at expense and health
of every others by fiat, force and stealth
consigning subjects to slavery
in an effort to rule global commonwealth,

which self centered
aggrandizement that ball
(pockmarks most visible hall
of the moon tin king)
did not return my call

and thoroughly explains
without rhyme and reason
why what appears as face on lunar surface
actually migrants of Stonehenge vestial wall.
sandra wyllie Aug 2019
has had me up these past few nights
tossing like a beanbag thrown into the numbered holes
putting on the lights, wetting my face
with a cold washcloth, scratching my hives
making pockmarks
as the liquor wears off
worrying and excited about seeing you
frightful as when I look in the mirror
after this dreaded night is through
having nightmares of black creatures and
the old homestead up in flames again
restless as a meatball that can’t stay on the plate
cooked up short and half-baked

— The End —