"reno" poems
She left Reno
in a satin slip
the color of hot coins
pouring from slots,
wearing chewed-up tennis shoes,
mirrors multiplying her,
the marquee burning out
letter by letter,
a hush pressed between her teeth
as if saving the last note.
I followed,
a gangly shadow,
mother’s voice in my ear:
"life is not a freeway exit."
But she was the exit.
She drove west
through a glittering throat.
In Tonopah she was a waitress,
red stains on her wrists,
sleeves tugged low,
coffee pouring thin as blood.
In Barstow she was a sun-bleached Madonna,
halo blistered, mouth lit in stained glass.
At a gas station in Needles
shimmering into a coyote’s shadow
and slipped behind the pumps.
Then movement along the fence,
low, quick—
gone again.
Casinos blinked like electric relics.
Truckers called her sugar,
greedy hands counting her ribs
as if she was the paycheck
sweating in their fist,
but she slipped away each time,
her silhouette already moulting-
a serpent skin, a smoke-trail,
a saint’s shadow burning off the wall.
By Malibu, the night
had softened to velvet.
The pier at Zuma
leaned into the Pacific
like a broken bridge.
She sang to me—
low, cracked—
then let the slip fall.
Her body cut into the dark tide,
no disguise.
I waded in after her,
ankles bruised by rock.
Water lit with jellyfish,
each pulse a warning.
I stopped where it deepened,
felt the pull take hold.
No exit left,
just the Pacific’s mouth
closing around her.
Sep 1, 2025
Sep 1, 2025 at 8:08 PM UTC
Rhythm of life
Nails tapping on table tops
Beating of our hearts
spin the world right off its axis.
Momma shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die.
Atlas shrugged
And we all tripped as we walked
The pace of our mile,
off by 3.6 seconds.
Trust in our stated axioms
Disillusioned Americans in Paris
Judged by the color of our skins
and the shoes on our feet
No one stops to see how blue it is up there today.
Hurrying through the rain
Our cities never sleep.
Going down South
It’s slower down here.
Sunday’s best and
“God Loves You” stickers when you get your oil changed.
Night train whistle blows
Factory steam pipes squeal
Mississippi riverboats tug and chug
Dictionary.com definitions let us down.
Greatest disasters in history
are when thing we take perfectly for granted
stop working.
Mad cow, mad hatter, mad world
Bad boys, bad wine, bad date
Ellipses, dot dot dots, dramatic pause, passing of time passing of time passing of….
……..
………….
…………………….
Time.
Tw—
Twi—
Twitch. (tick tick tick)
I believe in the abnormal
And the impossible
And I refuse to believe that fictional characters aren’t real
Animals completely understand me
When I talk to them.
Baby missiles fire
From all parts of the globe
End of the world party
Let’s go down in glorious drunkenness
As the beating of our hearts
Spins the world right off its axis.
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:34 AM UTC
Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball--
Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...
persons of tender years...immature
judgement...pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam
Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years' negotiations--
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe--
having a baby, a man--
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon's sidewalks--
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served--Eyes up to the Image--
What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
June 19, 1968
4.5k
Wimbledon’s playing on the TV in the living room. Dad and I are watching on the sofa.
In the kitchen, Mom cuts carrots and cucumbers with a long blade. She slices the vegetables one by one. Orange pieces. Green pieces.
I glance over Mom chops up the carrots and cucumbers without a cutting board, taking each long carrot and cucumber and slices it with precision, as though she’s a professional like the film with Natalie Portman and Jean Reno.
But she’s not a little girl and she’s not a Frenchman. She’s like a mix-in-between, like the asphalt in our driveway and the grass sprouting in between the cracks.
Dad is a computer engineer. He used to be an artist. Used to study technical drawing in a university in Saigon.
He met mom when he was working on a play. She was the lead actress. Shakespeare had said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
He’s right, but right now I can’t tell what act I’m in. Dad focuses on the TV. Watches Federer and Djokovic, his eyes, darting from left to right like the mood of a young boy that crosses back and forth from light to dark, and back again.
Blade in hand, Mom makes longer and deeper cuts across the cucumber, cutting away the skin, leaving deep cuts in the vegetable. Dad turns his head towards her, his neck cracking like the forehand swung by Federer.
He clears his throat, softly, soft as gas leaking out from a stovetop from a studio apartment, like the scene in Fight Club, a match about to be struck.
Mom sets the blade down on the table, and bites her lip. Her nostrils flare. I press down on the couch arm, and stand up, my head bent, my eyes wandering to the doorway.
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
The smoking and drinking and snorting and fighting and drinking and crashes and drinking were not good for him.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One summer, when he was 16, everyday he would take a bottle of wine from his mother's liquor cabinet, buy a pack of cigarettes at the corner store, meet up with his friend Mario, who also stole a bottle of wine, and together they would ride down to the river and smoke and drink and swim. Everyday, for a full 1970's summer they did this.
And now he tells me, that at the time they were having fun and they were not worried about money or addictions or the future.
They were just having fun.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One day, in the dead of fall 1981, he and his friends Mario, Mark, ****** and John all got together at Mark's apartment on the corner of 51st and Diablo boulevard. They hit the town, drank, snuck into movie theatres, harassed girls and had a good time. They returned to Mark's apartment at 2 am and thought it a good idea to steal Mark's mom's new car. They decided to go to Reno.
Driving, as my dad put it, well above the speed limit on Highway 49, they collided head on with a big rig. There were no fatalities but my dad broke his shoulder and suffered a minor concussion. Mark's mom chose to not press charges nor did the driver of the big rig. The next day my father was back at work, refusing to adhere to the doctor's orders of taking it easy and wearing a soft cast, entrapping his left arm against his chest, climbing under cars, changing oil, and repairing engines.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One cold winter's day, in December of '82, my father's ever faithful companion, Mario, picked my father and his dog, Wimpy, up and they drove over to a small burger joint named Big A's. My father ordered two bacon cheeseburgers and a large rootbeer. Mario got the same, only with a single bacon cheeseburger. My father father gave his second bacon cheeseburger to his pitbull Wimpy.
My father was better to his dog than he was to his own body.
Now, my father coughs himself to sleep every night, and has chronic bronchitis. His liver and kidneys are shot and he plans to not live passed sixty. He will be turning fifty in two weeks.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
Midnight on I 80
passing by Truckee
heading East
towards the lights of old Reno.
The snow starts blowing
around Floristan,
Sierra Nevada
winter
following me
all the way down.
I'm looking for a big truck
to
get behind.
Riding on the crying road
every
Sunday night.
Wondering
if I am creating
gratitude or regrets
for
my future self's past.
What am I doing?
I left you on a January night
chasing love
in a blue moon light.
Stuck between desire
and
staying home.
I don't know what's true
what's true with me
what's true with you.
I'm stuck behind this wheel
snowy anxiety
ringing on through,
what am I doing?
what are you doing?
Creating
gratitude or regrets
for
your future self.
Will the adjustment bureau
come on through?
Or
will
I like you
make it all up as I go along
with the window steaming up,
Art Bell on the radio
Coast to Coast
the sounds of ghosts.
Will I hate myself
for
being my self
or
look back with eyes
sparkling with gratitude
and
the wonder of who I was
I doubt it,
don't you?
Now as I write this poem
with my life
together and asunder
will I look
back with gratitude
or regret?
As I hit Fourth Street
the clouds have parted
stars are shining through,
I'm no longer crying
the crying road is done.
I still do not know what I have begun.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 3:03 PM UTC
Reno, if a troll messeth with thee, forgiveth them
Their bound not free.
Reno, when the clown's maketh bad choices
Silence them with silence, not voices.
Reno, thou art a dear friend to me, so I thank thou
For always caring, and sharing what tis I believe.
Reno, thou art a being with class, and hopes art high,
Be thyself girl, let the poetry like bullet's fly.
Reno, we've been through this same type of hell,
Yet we don't quit do we? We're not trapped in some cell.
Reno, child of the lighter side,
Open thy mind, continue to expand, taketh that freak poet ride.
Reno, west coast poetic, like medicine thy word's art alphabetic
To soothe a person's bad day, into happiness in cool shade.
Reno, I shalt continue to back thine wonderful work's
And even whilst its us others do hurt, showeth them love always!
Reno,
What a blessing to all of us thou art
Reno,
Poetess by birth
Californian muse heart.....
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Reno dedication/friendship dedication
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 9:43 PM UTC
Traveling Business Man Blues
(Tune of Folsom Prison Blues)
I hear the whistle blowing as I see the train go around the bend. It has been so long since I have been home I don’t even remember when. I’m stuck in my man made prison working every day, while my lady and my kids play. My wife likes to drive her BMW while my kids have all the latest high-tech- gear. I saw the pictures on Facebook because I have not seen my family in well over a year. My father always said son be a good provider while mother pleaded me not to forget to be a good family man. The airport lost my luggage again it got stuck in Reno while I am here in LA. At night, I get so lonely while in my motel room I sit alone and silently cry. Maybe this is normal for the life I’ve chosen of being a traveling business man. Yet every time I hear the whistle blowing I have thoughts of home.
I get to thinking do my wife and children miss me as they eat their meals? The times passes so quickly, I fear my youngest will be full grown by the next time I return home. I have an inner struggle between work and family and it tortures me inside. I wish to be free from this prison, it was too easily to get ****** in. In this lonely life, I am living it is hard not to get the blues. I would trade a thousand dollars just to be the one to tuck my youngest daughter into bed and kiss her cheek and tell her good night in person. I am stuck working yet again to close yet another big deal. Instead, of another high priced meal with a client. I would trade it in for a home cooked meal with my family even just once more. The money was nice at first but each day it is costing me so much more. I seem to be drifting farther away from my family with each passing day. I wonder does my family still love me now that they barely see me or just love the money I’ve sent home. I hear the whistle blowing and I wonder if I would die tomorrow how would my epitaph read? Here lies a family man, or more accurately here lies an absent father imprisoned by greed.
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
Almost yesterday, those gentle ladies stole
to their baths in Atlantic Cuty, for the lost
rites of the first sea of the first salt
running from a faucet. I have heard they sat
for hours in briny tubs, patting hotel towels
sweetly over shivered skin, smelling the stale
harbor of a lost ocean, praying at last
for impossible loves, or new skin, or still
another child. And since this was the style,
I don't suppose they knew what they had lost.
Almost yesterday, pushing West, I lost
ten Utah driving minutes, stopped to steal
past postcard vendors, crossed the hot slit
of macadam to touch the marvelous loosed
bobbing of The Salt Lake, to honor and assault
it in its proof, to wash away some slight
need for Maine's coast. Later the funny salt
itched in my pores and stung like bees or sleet.
I rinsed it off on Reno and hurried to steal
a better proof at tables where I always lost.
Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal
toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost
ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust
would keep us calm and prove us whole at last.
1.9k
Maybe
it's just the first time doing *******
in order to expand my horizons; gain perspective
in great company and knowing full well
the moreish nature, as it has been purported,
of such a vice;
but, you know what they say:
"When in Rome..."
but lest ye forget;
"Do or do not, there is no try"
all the while
still maintaining moderation,
partially by habit and partially by force,
for there is said to be
no such thing as quality
in that regard
from whence I come.
and thus, as if by providence,
"When in Rome.."
So,
'twixt that personally groundbreaking experience
plus lots of Caffeine and Alcohol
in some haphazard alchemical combination
helped Reno to be a good-ass time
on Halloween
after playing a sweet-ass Rock Bar
with some sweet-ass bands.
And, to boot,
having not slept,
this morning was a rude non-awakening,
as well as an ominous first day of November,
what with the LAX shooting;
our roadie and I watched it as it unfolded
with repetitive loops of footage
and dodgy claims with more qualifiers
than actual substantial language;
but the Media is just doing it's job as usual;
play on sensationalism
especially for ratings;
okay if profitable.
Needless to ******* say,
it's been a crazy ******* day.
Needless to ******* say,
it may be a crazy ******* month.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 11:08 PM UTC
When you asked me to prove if you're safe with me:
You're asking me to be the airplane and the parachute, as well as your jump partner
You're asking me to dive down and explore your depths while I'm covered in waste and hoping I don't mess up the place
You're asking me to drive through lightning storms to Reno and be assured neither of us will lose on the poker table waiting at the end of the overpass
You're asking me to hold you so close the pressure cauterizes open wounds where our hearts keep falling out, and hoping I won't stain your clothes
You're asking a controlled fire not to burn too hot for fear of hurting your eyes
You're asking for poison and antidote to mix without either being diluted.
I'm going to need your help.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC
Green goomba backpacks,
Extended busses,
The kids only ride one stop,
Folk music in my headphones,
Playing with the hopeful heat,
Of rainy day rides.
Where are we going?
On the one driving the bus knows,
And even they have their stop.
Societal soliloqal differences,
But here we are,
Cultural clashes melt away,
With,
"You can have my seat."
Falling into souls with just sideways glances,
Cases of, "what did you want to be when you grow up?"
****
What did I want to be?
A longing nostalgia of places in memories that never existed,
Luckily,
The bus has no rearview mirrors.
Phoenix is grey,
So is Reno too,
Hawaii had it's days,
All have their riders,
And their drivers,
The stop is requested,
But I don't need to get off.
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019 at 6:35 PM UTC
I remember creeping reverently past
The yawning maw
Snarling braches, overgrown foliage
Sad eye sockets
The defeated roof
Listing drunkenly to the left
The black spirals on the ground
Where the fire had scored earth bare
Crouched from the sanctity of the sidewalk
Damp palm snaking back to
Clasp tight
My best friend’s hand
Fear skittering up our spines
We skirted past poisonous green weeds
That swayed in the yard
Unkempt and our eyes
Darted, seeking, feral
For movement in that open doorway
Her shadow
The witch
Years pass
Looking out into suburbia
Manicured green boxes
And cookie-cutter plans
From my own cracked window
My newly acquired reno,
I spot a flash of moving colour
From beyond the overgrown hyacinths
A tousled flash of curls between the green
Puzzlement ripples as
Three lanky preadolescent forms
Snake from the protection of my shaggy firs
Thin chests taking a breath before
Their whippy arms point accusing
And I barely see a flash before
The clutched rock leaves the
Stupid-looking red headed one’s hand
Crashing through my upstairs master
And I hear it
Witch, witch, where’s the witch?
And I feel it.
My eyes beadily narrow
Peering over my bulbous nose
Shoulders hunching
Toes curl
And I reach for
The broom leaning next
The painter’s cloth
Grabbing on with knobbly fingers
Hurling myself
Out
Of
The door
Their eyes widened
Disbelieving
As they spot me
And thumbs clutched between index fingers
They run
Leaving me cackling
Breathless
While my familiar
Looks up from
Sunning her black self
On the step.
Sep 2, 2009
Sep 2, 2009 at 7:49 PM UTC
"I really wish I could love you."
"Don't cry. I'll be okay."
Her cold hands blanketed my cheeks, as warm tears repelled from finger to finger.
I looked at her, as her eyes changed from blue to green to blue again. "I don't want you to die, Reno."
"Dying can't **** me, Josh. I thought you knew better." Her eyes were green again, as her iris exploded into a wave of grey. She blinked and they were blue again, changing the room to an eggshell white. We sat on a naked mattress, in the middle of an empty room, my face resting on her soft shoulder. Only orange, dancing pill bottles kept us company. They'd tip their caps, like a hat, at the end of each song.
We swam in a teal sea, inside of four brick walls. Our mouths didn't move, but our voices travelled through air bubbles.
Doing an underwater backflip, the bubbles broke, "When did you first fall in love?"
Kicking off the floor, towards her, "I was twenty."
"How'd you know?"
"She gave me a cupcake and was trying to light the candle, but couldn't. She kept trying and trying. At that moment, I knew I loved her."
She swam towards me, her legs like ribbons waving at the surface.
"His name was Lee," she cooed as she started to drown, "I was seventeen and he open hand slapped me. I thought that was love. Then, eventually, he started to close his hand and then I knew that it wasn't. It didn't stop me from loving him with everything I had, though."
I reached for her as her legs were being pulled up to the surface. She opened her mouth, "You'll be okay. I promise."
My pillow was soaked by sweat as I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The other side of the bed was empty. I turned my head to see the bathroom light peeking behind an indecisive door. Getting up, I walked around the foot of the bed and over the blanket dying on the floor. As I grew closer to the bathroom, the sound of retching clawed at my eardrums.
My hand pushed the door until the bronze **** kissed the wall. An alabaster body was on the floor. Reno's face appeared as she wiped her mouth. She flushed the toilet. I walked towards her, kneeled beside her, and hugged her as the sound of suction and spinning water drowned the air.
I whispered in her ear. She picked up head, out of my arms, and smiled, blue eyes and all.
Dec 18, 2014
Dec 18, 2014 at 1:51 PM UTC
playing outside
in the frozen air
we didn't know
what we were
doing
didn't know
where we were
going
You grew so
beautiful
I beheld you
there
saw your face from a
far
You had forgotten
I was alive
just a wild poet
you had written off
a playmate, from your childhood days
as you
moved on your way
through your rich and seedy
days
your mind
your look
your talents
moved you through
to what you thought
you knew
you wanted.
We were both still
so free
I had fallen deep
into the blues
I spent far too much
time far too confused
while you walked
on water according
to the news.
You were playing Reno
on a cold winter's
night,
much later
at a backwaters bar
called "Night Times
Delight"
I walked in
you walked in
childhood grins
over Hendricks
gin
hands touched once
lips touched twice
we danced out there
on that
night
we were just
children there
playing outside
in the frozen
air,
Body heat
creating steam.
Maybe it was
just the gin
fingers touched
you went
your way
fingers touched
we went our ways
childhood answers
on a winter's day
It's hard every once
in a while not to
see your name
the only place I
come your way
is in your deepest
dreams of childhoods
refrain
laughing outside
in the frozen winds
two melting snow
angels are all
that remains.
For you I'll always
be there
For me I'll be
someone who cared
we'll be an aging memory
in this bond
across our time
in the ether
we'll play our lines
and in our dreams
it'll always be
and in our dreams
we will always see
a childhoods
winter sky
alive.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 9:59 AM UTC
Do you remember what’s her name?
From the Little Mermaid?
She was 50% octopus
30% Janet Reno
And 20% Elton John
Well, she used to be my choir teacher
Only I never really learned how to sing
Because I would spend each class period
Trying to avoid her tentacles
“LOUDER!
You sound like you’re underwater!”
Oh, I thought you already knew?
I hope you don’t think
I was trying to insult Elton
By comparing him to a monster
Because
For a witch
For a monster
She did have a great set of pipes
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 12:44 AM UTC
The business has closed.
Your with out a job.
Yep the city is empty.
Darkness surrounds the building
Like a shadow at five o clock.
Yep your empty as well.
The end has come
Oh why did you have to close?
My hometown Reno slowly
Turning into emptyness.
Nov 1, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 at 11:36 AM UTC
~
*How did a dead man in Reno
come to be a field of ink
in the Martian salt flats-?
It only took a whisper
An addicted civilian
driving the metaphor machine
the last man to voluntarily fly
asleep and well hidden
writing about his life
without survival techniques
Autopsy report says
he slipped at the hand rail
blemishing his planet
in riding time's escalator
a longing to see the stars up close
and give them new names
it's the future grim repasts
of cullen shores
from a cancelled earth
That silently floating figure
was a human all along*
~
Aug 4, 2024
Aug 4, 2024 at 4:48 PM UTC
His keyboard destroyed the sidewalk,
Left ideological lines of chalk,
Deciding to discover the one true song,
That makes every soul smile,
He travels from east to west,
Talking with the worst,
And the best,
Doing ******* with drummers,
That are due on stage,
Asking them what song is a miracle?
Then writing them on beer stained pages,
The sumo while singing did that,
He bought the beer,
And they only talked in song,
(they didn't know what they had said till the morning)
He searched through the gutters,
And every disco he was there,
Asking freaks and cutters,
Never finding the one song,
It's been a while since he was home,
How long?
The haze of yesterday's drugs and memories that don't belong to him,
But the search continues,
He ends up learning it all, folk, techno, and blues,
It was in Reno when he said the wrong words,
And a man shot him,
Just to watch him die,
He got to see,
That his dream will never be,
It's not exactly the end,
As time began to bend,
A door that opens to,
Millions of record players,
In layers,
by the billions,
A familiar tune begins to play,
The best song.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 3:03 PM UTC
I see the grey over Reno, From my window on top of my mind, The greycast feels over this town, Like fingers of gold feeling a head, As the down is placed down, Its fall and winter intertwined, And its on everybody's mind, We all here for reasons we don't want to say, So we all stay, Looking at the lights, and the vacation, We look at them like a ****** looks at ************ Full of wonder and hope, Yet outside our grey place we wouldn't beable to cope, "its raining in Reno and it won't ever stop", Said the ***** to the cop, As the sun began to rise, A poet writes, A knowitall admits it lost it's love during the fall, A singer and business man on a teenager lookout fumble nervously with buttons and zippers, While a Cinderella wonders how hell find her without loosing her slipper, A lover looks at her lust through the oversized windows on the bus, An awkward kid stays awake, wondering if he could be smooth, A girl with beautiful eyes, walks down the street with headphones playing jazz, A honest man question his lies, And an old woman and a young actor are singing a tune long dead, But they can't get each other out their head, All looking at the grey, Almost to say, Its always going to be this way
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 4:00 PM UTC
He was a beautiful enigma.
A bonified butcher knife
whispering against my throat
on a wooden dorm room desk.
His hands drummed
to beats my heart missed.
My lungs forgot the in and out,
we’d been perfecting
all these years.
He brought me closer to divinity
Than I had ever come before
I can see him now, eyes ignited
to match my joint.
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 2:37 PM UTC
Helicopter seeds descending from tree houses
and
resting in ponds shadowed by shaken needles;
—I awoke from a dream this morning—
Forests in fiery oranges plagued by pine beetles
and
a man fishing in the dusk, a sole fish he arouses.
—such a dreamin' I had me—
How about them men in the mountains, hermit'd, high, isolated,
and
pensive with pens in ink, draftin' a'lookin' after their suicide notes:
—it was nonsensical, such nonsense—
I can feel my bones aching,
my finger bones aching.
Don't you apologize, fish, for biting bait
lest the others hear that I commiserate
amongst the fishes in the lake water:
"She could have a mother; she could be a daughter!"
I feel that boom; I know that boom:
That's Thunder's yellow rumble a'stumblin'
'cross the oak-wood floors of my room–
That's naked, **** clothes strip'd.
A pile and a bundle,
my bones are aching.
That's a candle left burning,
that's saints speaking in tongues,
that's men hung like curtains on rungs–
This world is getting old, times are a'turning.
That's a taxi cab afterlife, a mail-order wife,
that's pills on the floor of a Motel 6 in Reno,
that's forty-four hundred lost playing keno.
We can't always be lucky, who calls that a life?
My joints are a'sprainin' aching
with the preempt of a storm.
That's writer's block and cramped hands, cramped hearts,
that's a hovel heated by an oven, heads found in hot ovens,
that's the hillside and the glens past where the track bends but
just before the dens of monsters that I swear I left behind that night.
—dreamin' a'dazin' and days in always let my demons out—
That night I hid another razor in the rafters thinking,
"My thoughts I'll bury."
I ran away to sell maps of the human heart en Algérie.
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 12:50 AM UTC
I see you at the drive through with that silly bow tie & I don't get tongue tied because I don't know you and I told everyone I think you're interestingly cute not on a **** you're so hot shallow way but unique. I don't know you & I'm not infatuated with you I just find you interesting.
It's cold outside I can tell winter is sadly making it's way in this desert town and I have to warm my car up in the morning... What a drag.
I'm lost right now I just want to spill my guts out to some random person about my life and I hope they can make sense of how completely confused I am... I think this Is a journal entry rather than a poem.
My best friend and I aren't speaking & I got so drunk I texted the boy I'm madly in love with twice in the most pathetic fashion and woke up with a hangover and some shame and drove over to Starbucks walked inside to see the guy with that silly bowtie.
I have to get out of Reno.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
I see this city for what it is, Hung over from a drunk night of love and thizz, The scores of underaged mental ****** This city has its dope game sores, The blinking lights of dreams that may never be, And the burnt out saints singing of their misery, The deaf musicians holding for glory days, And quiet actors lips singing future unknown plays, And all the intellects and jocks are buying memories from the street on 4th, As we all look up with longing in the shadow of mount in north Painters obnoxiously using pastels made of broken hearts and deep cuts, While boozed up geniuses look with hope at their pile of cigarette butts, As we all hope for something more, We fail to smile at the witty and ugly ***** The failed nights of that fall cold, And the shyest writers with pros of mindsets that have forever danced away the feeling of bold, We all look up with longing in the shadow of the mount in the north, As we all put down our hands,
And fold.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC