Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Busbar Dancer Jan 2017
There’s a menacing chill
on the air
this evening.
“Had I the wherewithal
I’d leave this place,”
I think to myself
as the first warning is issued
by that unfriendly cloud
hanging low and dark
over the mountain.
While once I thought that
the rain would fall with purpose,
I’ve come to understand
that floodwater has no manifesto
except to place the scumline as high as it can.
We can stack these sandbags tall
around our hearts
without regard for what’s on either side of the dam.
They’re only transient monuments to ineffectiveness anyway.


An assassin stands at the corner
wondering if I’ll ever leave my house
and its warmth.
I have news for him, though…
There’s nowhere to go, and
the weatherman thinks we’ll have a storm.
Hoping your gutters are clean.
Waverly Nov 2011
"Have you talked to dad,
since you've been at school?"

"Nope."

"Are you coming home
for thanksgiving?"

"I don't know."

Josephina
breathes in a crackle
over the phone.

New York,
a cacophony
in the background.

A background of cold,
and
people talking
while walking
while hailing a yellowcab with a left
and slow-rolling heads locked
onto the phones in their right.

These people enter taxis,
not knowing if they're ever
going to reach home,
or the airport,
or union square,
just going
on the promise
that they won't become
road-****.

I can't feel it in my yellow apartment.

If anything,
my yellowcab
idles.

Through the receiver

A squad car
rings nervously,
then
after a lungful
of garbage-smelling air,
it becomes a full blare.

A pause
of
noise
always ensues,
just for a second,
the entire corner
becomes a silent silo
of human beings.

"How's new york?"

"you know,
dad called me
and asked about
how to get on a diet,
can you believe that?"

Yes,
I can
dad is a fat ****,
a pink, white belly
of a man. And a few
sandbags for chins.

"That's good."

"So I'm not going to see you?"

"Probably not."

"Well, you should call dad,
talk to him,
he loves
you."

Some conversations,
acheive nothing.

The same
tired, dead things
get run over.

Road-****.

Josephina believes she is the spatula
that will bring back
pancake squirrels
and
pancake relationships.

As much as you don't know
about me and dad's relationship,
I can give you a kodak moment.

A snapshot,

of a hovering man,
pointing at his son's neck,
searching for the misplaced vertebrae,
the lack
of fear for the world
--"the right kind of fear,
the fear a man
should have
of himself"--
and a son,
hunched,
small hands in fists,
a heavy haul of muscles
pulled into a dark brow
right over black eyes.

This picture
will suffice.
there's too much to this poem. Sorry if it loses you in places.
Aa Harvey May 2018
Chernobyl.


A nuclear disaster, in a town called Chernobyl;
An odor-less killer, the invisible force.
As the radiation escapes, from the crumbling reactor,
We must cool it down, before it blows.


Evacuate Pripyat, the employee’s town,
The town of 35000; first on the list of infected people.
No warnings to the town folk, no evacuation,
The town’s men in the know, know the town is in trouble.  


People bathe in the sun’s rays, soaking up the sun,
Whilst the dizzy and sick, fall with blackened skin.
But the only burn you'll get, is a nuclear radiation,
That will **** you in the end, as it will lead to infection.


Send in the investigators,
To check the biggest nuclear explosion ever.
The rumble outside a final warning, the fire brigade are now here.
The firemen are next, to fall to radiation.
The workers wives at home, are still oblivious.
But now they see the smoke rising, over the town.
So they close all the windows, an in vein attempt to keep the radiation out.


The workers cry, as they learn how bad it is,
The horrifying sight, of a nuclear cloud.
All things infected, poisoned by the air,
DNA is mutated; the time to panic is now.


The bride and groom walk through the town,
Unknown to them, there is poison in the air.
3.6 on the scale, leaves no need to worry,
But the readout is wrong, as the gage goes no higher.


Do not wear masks, it will cause suspicion,
A press conference is called, 15 hours after the explosion.
The men in charge are scared of the truth, so do nothing,
The situation is now, worse than they think.


Faces burnt, comrade’s panic,
The nuclear core is burning, it's radio-active.
But panic is worse, than radiation,
So there will be no warning and no order for evacuation.


22 hours after explosion, think we'll leave it to burn,
But it will burn for 3 months and poison the air.
We must find a remedy, quickly and quietly,
Thousands of helicopter runs, to cool the burning hot core.
We must put sand on the reactor, to stop it burning,
Evacuating the town is nonsense;
Wait until we know what's happening.


First thing in the morning, we must evacuate only a day late,
The people must view pictures of their family
And kiss them goodbye.
The biggest nuclear explosion, the earth had ever known,
The town will become a wasteland, everyone will be gone


17000 kids, infected by the air,
Another 116000, people are evacuated.
The nuclear explosion in Russia, will radiate into Kiev
And Northern Ukraine will be uninhabitable,
For anything up to a century later.
And the towns people,
Could take the radiation with them into a new place,
So send them to Kiev with the poisoned nurses;
Infected by radiation, it burns their face.


Leave the pets behind, to become wild animals,
The army shoot the pets, because they can't live anymore.
All the people wear masks, to help themselves,
As they leave on the bus, their former lives are no more.


The skin folds down and falls from their bodies;
The men in the control room, at last begin to die.
The people are collapsing, all over the place,
The tears turn to burns, as the women begin to cry.


Drop sandbags into the reactor,
From helicopters whilst being infected,
We must cool it down and stop the fires burning.
We’re heading for meltdown, truly scared of the apocalypse,
'Count lives', means how many can we sacrifice.
Finding how many lives, it will cost to get the job done,
Unquestioned sacrifice and they were willing to go.


2 volunteers needed,
To swim under the reactor and open the valves by hand,
Swimming through poisoned water, this could **** you man.
If the water was cleared from inside,
There is no immediate threat of thermal explosion,
A million lives saved, said Gorbachev the president.


The A.Z. button was pressed, to lower the rods into the reactor,
But just the tips landed inside and shut it down.
A thermal explosion is on the way, to level 200 square kilometers
And wipe out Pripyat, Kyiv and 3 million citizens.


By day 3 they thought it must be a design fault,
By day 7 the radiations gone up and it’s getting hotter.
14 explosions in the past, were covered up,
This could take us years to clear up and make better.


60 days after the explosion, Moscow are told to shift the blame,
Chernobyl’s bosses had known, flaws in the design were classified.
Sat before the world in Vienna,
They blamed the men in the control room,
Even though they were ignorant, as to what would happen.
Not prepared enough, for a job so important,
A million lives in their hands; in the hands of the thoughtless.
Faulty design, in something so dangerous,
Will lead to our end, as were infected by rays, so radiant.


2 years after the accident, the inspector speaks out,
But his voice is covered up and his findings are not written down.
Valery Legasov, the inspector.  The man who made the reports.
The men in charge of the reactor, were sentenced to ten years.
The incidents of tumors rise to more than in Britain all together.
This will last for about a 100000 years,
The radiation will be there for almost forever.


(C)2013 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Kafka Joint Apr 2021
I throw my sandbags
Into your ocean,
Unexpectedly, it works.
Eric the Red Aug 2018
I recognized your storm
Even before your clouds
Began to form...

Now left with
Empty Sandbags
Cleaning up your flood
And tidal wave
This aftermath
Of you...
Thomas Newlove Jun 2012
It approaches swiftly.
A monsoon of rain readily setting off
Naive natives and their tiresome routines.
Shutters shroud the windows with irrational security,
Sandbags too are placed; it must be a big one!
Clouds roll and tumble into position.
A sunset evaporates quickly,
Yellow to orange to red and BANG,
As quick as a flash of lightning it blackens.
Pure darkness, but for humanity’s scars.
Another scar takes their places
As a deafening crash collapses the eardrums,
Seconds after its divine light pierces the sky,
The soul and that artificial light.
Darkness now, but for lightning,
Blinding flashlights and candles.

Dewy droplets descend into view,
Dripping hopelessly through a silver fork.
Frightened faces too are seen,
Made more frightening by flashlight.
Rain, lightning and thunder
Can’t silence children’s cries
But can still awaken the waves –
Serfs turned warriors in an instant,
Harassing the horrified sandbags,
Overpowered and silenced.
The satanic storm battles on
Callously battering a weary world.
The sickening sun shines into the eye
And a torn green turtle begins to cry.
About a bad thunder and lightning storm that pre-empted a hurricane. The Turtle in question refers to the turtle on the flag of the Cayman Islands.
Stephanie Turner Apr 2015
I don't love my body.
I don't love the curls on my head,
the way they become frizzy at the drop of a hat.
The way they get in the way when I do my dishes.
The way that they have a mind of their own in the morning.
You call me 'curly sue'.
You pull on my brown ringlets and smile when they bounce back into place.
You like the way my curls smell when I get out of the shower.

I don't love my body.
My *******.
The way the hang from my chest like sandbags.
The way they restrict me from buying the clothes I like.
You named them.
Alessa and Alexis.
The way a little girl names the dolls that she loves so much.
Desire flashes in your eyes when I take off my shirt.

I don't love my body.
The first time you saw me naked
I wrapped my arms around my tummy
so that you couldn't see my belly.
You grabbed my arms and put them by my side,
and smirked
and said "beautiful".
I never hid myself from you again.

I don't love my body.
I hate the way my sides roll when I move.
You came home from practice,
bruised and bloodied.
You told me that your friend
tackled you to the ground
and you saw your life flash before your eyes;
you said
that my **** body
was the last thing you saw
before you momentarily blacked out.

I don't love my body.
I hate it.
I look in the mirror and see the most pathetic pile of
flesh, fat, muscle, bone and hair
that ever lived on this earth.
I waited so long to share it with another,
because I thought that this body,
this vessel,
was not worthy of appreciation.

You look at me the way a starving child looks at a five course meal.
You touch me like a homeless man sleeping on Egyptian cotton sheets
for the first time.

I don't love my body.
But the way you love my body,
the way you love my lumps and bumps and scars and flesh,
gives me hope that some day soon
I could grow to love it as well.

You make me feel things that I never thought I deserved to feel.
Breanna evans Jan 2019
a year of training and I'm still unable

to lift these sandbags from my eye curtains
at 6', 179 lbs (19% body fat) I can hold my own, but I still find myself losing the battle against fatigue, especially on mornings when I decide to fast.
bones Jun 2016
Carrickfergus (1937) - poem by Louis Macneice.


I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn mill called it's funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.

I was the rectors son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long;

A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge
Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront;
Marching at ease and singing 'Who Killed **** Robin?'
The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.

The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England-
Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;
I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar
be always rationed and that never again

Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags
And my governess not make bandages from moss
And people not have maps above the fireplace
With flags on pins moving across and across-

Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,
Flares across the night,
Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,
A cage across their sight.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines
And the soldiers with their guns.




Louis Macneice
I looked for Louis MacNeice on HP but couldn't find him, so have posted some of his poetry in case someone else comes looking too..
r Apr 2014
Somedays, the tide only laughs
at the sandbags we put up.
When the ocean of emotion
breaks with waves above our hearts,
we swim or drown.

The swell of current overrides
and riptides pull us down.
Move parallel to shore against the tide
till firmer ground is found.
Swim.

r ~ 4/6/14
Brandon Barnett Apr 2012
prepared for any kind of fight; rifle, helmet, knife, even glaring teeth
she comes at me like I'm a hive of bees
but who can blame her, after all, who's really adequately prepared to handle me

she only cuts shallow and jabs, never stabs for the heart
unlike me, she won't ****, unsuited to play that part
she's a survivor, she heals, I'm a comet in it's one bright radiance before breaking apart

anxiety makes you shudder like a dump truck coming down a bumpy street
depression dictates who you call, when you work, what you eat
if you're not bipolar then i'm afraid the three of us will probably never meet

punching clinched fists through doors is a cheap circus trick
but taking out the anger is dangerous without something to hit
because it pours it up, tries to drink itself down, and drowns everything around it

my remorse stiffens me in bed next to her sleepless I wear the darkness, rigamortis and black suit
I feel my poison wilt her, bend her stems, dull her colors, shrink her roots
i have burned all the wood in her pile just getting started a fire the size of my selfish pursuits

carrying sandbags roped onto me one parent and sibling at a time
dragging the chains of days barely survived still hooked into my skin like the other memories of their kind
I stall her pace, hold her back, make her trudge uphill, I make her climb
but her undaunting patience somehow persists in her, in me: still, calm waters sublime

She comes at me like I'm a hive of bees prepared for any king of fight
only wanting to save me, to heal me, to give sleep back to my nights
bread for it, I show teeth and cut for blood and she continues to be the definition of grace in my life
courting the sun
  after a cool June
  in my vintner's garden
close to the southern border

carefully sipping
  his latest selection
    a good year
    you can taste it

looking out from the hill
  across the river valley
  I listen to his children
  proudly telling how
only yesterday
  they filled 50 sandbags
just in case

the deafening roar
  of an interceptor jet
  splits the air
    just for seconds
    leaves my wine glass
    trembling
  
three helicopters
  slash their way south
  and come back later

over the winding road
  on the next hill
  the last tank of the column
   disappears

we can hear
  not far away
      over there
  sounds like explosions

we enjoy the sun

Helmut opens another one
  of his treasured bottles
  and tells me
  what he will do
  if They come across
  
   he is a good hunter
and an excellent shot

I sip the clear wine
  watch how the sunlight
  lends its brilliance
  to the half-filled glass  

I feel a little bit
  like Humphrey Bogart
  in the wrong movie.
Near the Slovene border in southern Austria at the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia, 1992.
Alan McClure Jan 2012
On a lip-crack Wednesday morning
with a mind as dry as ice
my cold Mojave fingers
make it difficult to write
and the radio is laying
sentimental sediment
on a limestone lack of lustre
that's as solid as cement
and a sad Sahara sunrise
bakes a barren riverbed
where the trickled inspiration
once went gushing through my head
and I point a brittle finger
at the unrelenting sky
and I ask it why?

Then you
dawn
upon
my memory and

My heart becomes a waterfall
cascading through my very soul
refresh the butterflies that fly
in coloured clouds below
And if you'll take me, I will grow
I will grow

I recall a conversation
from a few years down the line
one voice isn't shouting
but the other one is mine
laying words like sandbags
against the battlements
making promises which, made,
cannot be made again
I was sure of something
but my certainty was wrong
now I'm sure of something else
I can't tell for how long
I point that brittle finger
at the unrelenting sky
and ask it why?

Then you
dawn
upon
my memory and

My heart becomes a waterfall
cascading through my very soul
refresh the butterflies that fly
in coloured clouds below
and if you'll take me I will grow
If you'll take me I will grow
If you'll take me I will grow
I will grow.
This is a few years old now but it just came back to me and I rather like it!  Nice tune, too...
Olivia Oct 2015
Sandbags
weigh down the young lovers
they bloom every summer
like the magnolias

My compass
and your North Star
undiscovered
we plant our seeds
in the rich soil of kindness
in hopes it blooms for others
like the magnolias

The summer heat
only bearable
when you’re the mosquito
biting my veins
so they pump blood rapidly
when our green eyes meet
Every summer
my love blooms for you
like the magnolias
Sarina Jul 2013
In 2010, I mostly thought about *** on the beach.
Someone falling into me
when waves crash a whip into their back –
I, on mine, my heart filled with the weight of sandbags
packed for a Miami hurricane. When I was that
young, I believed I could show up
at a grown man’s house and hide the evidence in my
****. He would listen to music with a lot of
rhythm, it would influence the way the ocean breathed
and came salt beads on my skin.
The conversation was. The ******* was never –
I went to a smaller beach four hundred miles from his
anxiety and songs without guitar riffs. I
vomited every made up memory,
did not ******* for three weeks because I realized
the gulf could not break my ***** alone.
Broken-hearted. The end. We were so good and
my touch so smooth he thought it was just seashells.
MKF Jan 2015
The curse of complacency
Is all in my mouth,
I'm choking
On its bittersweet taste.
I want to cut the ties
To the sandbags holding me down.
I want to float away
Across the seas,
Drink up countries
To quench my wanderlust.
I want to discover the mysteries
Each continent has to hold.
To relish
In uncertainty,
But complacency
Is just so comforting.
Patrick Ensslin Oct 2013
He drinks it up, he drinks the
       **** like it’s water.
There are faces, and files
       and they change with the seasons.
The parking lot has never been this dim, but
        who forgot to turn on the lights?
The friends who gave him trouble
        now just give him help.
The scarred people seem little more than
        pawns in a game, and he must play them, but
        it’s not his choice.

The mirror’s like a caricature,
        it provides more distance than closeness.
I wished he could’ve seen his son
        being born, but.
Somebody slams the table, ****
        something’s going on
We got him, men
we got him, we got him.
Oh wait, oh wait, egg on our face,
we got played, we got tricked
this man is just black.

“I want to prevail,” he says,
“I’m no loser,” he says.
He’s no quitter, but
he sure ****** it up.
The faces get twisted, now the
eyes look the same.
This won’t be the first time
and it won’t be the last.
He blames a lot on others,
but he knows that persistence
is infallible, like the pope.

Nobody really trusts him now, he’s a bit of
everything and everywhere.
Heart’s in the right place, but
where’s your heart?
He keeps downing the brown ****
keeps downing the liquids.
“One day I’ll get him,” he says.
“one day I’ll get the *******.”
At this point, he speaks for himself,
for himself. Nobody, no
one, nobody else.

At dinnertime, he says,
“sing me a song.”
Relax is defeat,
rest is charity, rest is
A deep moral compromise.
a loser needs a bed
A winner needs a mug.
he downs the ****
He downs the ****
god, he downs the ****
like it’s water.

OOGABOOGABOOGA
i’ve got him in my sights
He won’t see it coming
he’ll be shocked as the rest
A **** like that? no
he wouldn’t see a barn.
He didn’t say, didn’t see
his own mother, his mother
When he came out the womb.
didn’t see ****, I say,
didn’t see ****.

SPIRAL espionage ELEGY sang
now or never or ever again.
RAINTIME odysseys
left im babbling rancid
The ragtime freaks giving him looks
from the left of the sandbags,
The night, the night,
too long, too long,
The night’s a *****.
i can’t stay, i can’t stay
to night’s a *****
i can’t stay with this *****
this *****, no
take these ropes off
this *****
***** take these chains off
i will, i will
i, no
you are you
people
you are *******
you are stupid *******
these are chains
i am chained
who
why
god
Mikaila May 2014
There are ways
To be ready for a death of the soul.
The way you'd write a will
Or take medication to ease the pain.
People to say goodbye to,
Loose ends to tie...
Granted,
It's a little trickier when you know your body will still go on
After you die.
When you know you'll have to leave it and then
Slam back inside
And handle all the damage done in your absence.
But
There are ways.
Silently I tie back my hair.
Pour myself a frosty glass of milk.
I hate milk.
Always have.
I drink the whole thing.
Milk makes it less painful when you get sick.
Whatever I hear from you tonight,
I know I have been terrified long enough,
And there is just no way
I'm gonna keep this food.
Too bad,
I muse,
Rinsing out my glass.
I did love my dinner.
I had hoped we wouldn't meet again.
In the mirror a girl with my face
Raises a debonair eyebrow.
I wish I was as good at brushing this off
As she is.
I remove my earrings.
I put on some comfortable clothes.
It is rather like hearing the warning on the radio
That a hurricane or tsunami is headed your way
And there's not enough time to leave,
Only to prepare.
I am piling sandbags.
I am sealing my windows and doors,
Retreating to the cellar of my soul.
I am
Mechanically,
Numbly
Doing everything I can to minimize the damage,
And prepare to pick up the pieces.
I wonder
What will be salvageable
This time
From the ruins.
I hope the advance notice
Has made a difference
Because the tension of
Waiting for the storm to hit
Just might stop my heart.
Sarina Apr 2013
Beds moaning in a give and take
some sort of car crash outside, morning’s roadkill
people choking on their breath during sleep.
I exhale words I do not mean to say then swallow them up again
          just battered croaking –

all these sounds spattered like a Victorian print.
I feel the air of another person whistling on my backside:
he will climb vines to get in my bed and eat me.

I hear night-noises, and that is what I think,
there are cannibals at the sill
big green tree-looking men who fit me whole in their stomach.
                My bedroom, like a cupboard
                         and me the same, we open without a key.

Across the street
there has to be a factory of some sort

where women are put into jars for jam and their skin’s the toast –
they get pregnant by ear. One hundred decibels
given by my father’s snoring moustache
and fifty for an ****** that causes leopard print sheets.

               Then, I am in a dream in which
   someone large holds me
closer than a criminal, but we just ballroom dance.

Then, I open those eyes again
                 and dogs bark in southern accents
                 and my house sweats from a nightmare
                 and the hour hands me sandbags
                 and wives finally get to pawn the rifle for thousands
                               but not before I hear a shot.
Amanda Kay Burke Feb 2020
I am the dreamer still naive enough to believe in "happy-ever-after"

Known for many years that happy endings are unlikely and that even the best relationships/friendships  come to an end eventually
I am wise enough to realize the difficulty of finding Prince Charming in today's cruel society

Instead of  fairytale romance I grew up with we face a world strewn with sexting, online dating, and a myriad of other technology-polluted dating norms

**** pics are plentiful and chivalry scarce

Hungering for lustful acts of pleasure while I simply thirst for meaningful connection

Gaining not one while those around me ravage conquest after ****** conquest

Rather live a stoic empty life than one full of temporary careless moments forgotten before they are even completed

So I wait to meet my knight
In the barren fields of a loveless plane

Carrying antique values like heavy sandbags
A challenge to bear
But providing necessary balance
You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one
-John Lennon
JoJo Nguyen Jun 2015
It's raining-- her
favorite short lived
season of Los Angeles.

Waves propagate.

It's all a messy
interference pattern
on our pool's surface
disturbed with memories,
tiny droplets, tears
from Savior's sky.

Perhaps it feels similar
to old emerald
Vietnam ponds, except
here the rain
doesn't go on for too long,
unless it's a Hemingway rain.

It makes me wonder
if it's not Monsoon
season yet. Our tiny pool
built for Valley deluge,
would flood faster
than any sandbags
could delude.

She never asked
how long to fight
just kept on walking
cooking and loving
until her heart grew
too weary.

In the end, three loops
around the swimming
pool in the rain is enough.
It's the same as walking
5K while doing dialysis.

She sits next to me
on our outdoor swing
chair, and smiles,
rested.
Mrz Sketch Nov 2012
So much **** in my head/ this exact feelin' i dread/ if it ain't one thing it's another/ can you hear the faint sounds of thunder/ betta run fo' cover/ cuz when it rains it pours/ so betta be prepared for more/ stack up your sandbags, reinforce your levy's/ cuz all the payn, can get so heavy/ don't let the water, rush ya/ it has the strength 2 crush ya/ i know you feel the pressure/ don't let it stress ya/ if the water starts 2 rize/ don't be surprised/ just be aware, the current might take waves/ don't be fooled by the size/ it's the force beneath/ that can pull you off your feet/ and take you 2 see all life in the sea/ if you lose your balance don't panic/ relax and treed water if you can manage/ try 2 stay afloat/ hopefully you'll see a boat/ and you can climb aboard/ it may be over now, but stay prepared for more/ there may be a leak in the floor/ and once again, fightin' the force/ bail out the water and find a plug 2 stop the faucet, thats pourin'/ try 2 see what caused it, though it may not matta/ it might help save you from diasta'/ then in your last moment of dispair/ you look and land is near/ try 2 make it there/ jump ship or try 2 make a repair/ paddles or not/ sometimes the boat you must rock/ pull up your anchor, don't jus sit in the same spot/ once you've reached shore/ your not done, be prepared for more/ different obstacles are awaiting'/ don't spend so much time debating/ make a decision, either way consequences are waitin'/ which way 2 go/ we don't always know/ look 2 the stars/ yeah their far/ but they can help show, which way 2 go/ North, South, East, West, i truly don't know who knows best/ Storms will come and go, and some will be harder then the rest, but just remember always live your best.
Ingrid Nov 2012
Sweet wind that brings me desert dust and ashes
Or salty mist as blood on burning lips
Sweet wind that carries smells of roads and mountains
And rocks, and sands, and rusty wires, and tires,
And bullet-pierced sandbags, mines, and empty tins
And holy thorns that grow through them
And hot, bleak sky high over them
And dry, cracked clay embracing them
Sweet wind that brings me memories of war
Wind softly stroking dusty oleanders
And rushing all along the endless road
Wind –
Now tell me, when the land so lolls in sleepy peace –
Kids playing, women chatting, lovers dreaming,
Men building houses, furnishing, arranging –
All more fragile than cobweb lace
That busy housewives sweep away on sleepless daybreak
Sweet wind, tell me why I
I try to fill my mind with buzz and humdrum
Of knowledge – words, and thoughts, and numbers,
-- to stifle the voice, the shadow haunting me –
The voice that whispers softly, sweetly killing
To wake me up – to find myself again –
To send me far away where is my home:
To prison, madhouse, hospital, dodjo,
Wet dugout, earthquake rubble, secret lab
Where I belong, where all like me are going –
But still in vain,
For happiness, my prison guard and mate
Me torturing,
And happiness, the evil sheikh of nightmares,
His long, thin legs me strangling, hanging down
My shoulders,
His mud-brown hands me stopping ears, and eyes, and mouth –
And me
Who wanders through my days as empty rooms  
And endless corridors of giant fallout shelters
Where lonely steps reverberate in hollow hallways
And ruthless light
In which the shadow of my shadow
Me follows – counselor, and silent friend,
Unhurt by splinters of that broken magic mirror
That **** in air; may some benumb my heart
And let me play the game of words and numbers
That spells ETERNITY;
And let the sweet hashish of words and numbers
Make me forget;
Make me forgive, and live, and lie
That I believe the world of war will never come.
Ma Cherie Jul 2016
I'm getting ready
for a Poetic War
all this time
been keeping Score
building a Poetic Army
is a good idea

though we are the Elite
our seat
is with
the Highest Command
in the World
comprised of Genius Ninja's
cloaked in love
sent from above
teaching Mindfulness
praying hands

prepare your Sandbags
the ones under your eyes
are nothing
compared
to the sleep
in counting sheep
you made me lose
and choose
a side

I pick me
you see
like Joan of Arc
I have a mission
to see to the end
my Unpoetic Friend
and Foe

Slay
with what I say
my words
you do not stand
a chance
regardless
of your dance
I am coming
in my anger
in this
I am ******
into Justice
my pen
unsheathed
for battle
my ink...is what I trust.


Cherie Nolan © 2016
All decisions have consequences not good to make enemies with the wrong people :)
I heard don't choose to get even choose to get angry....
Liam Kleinberg Feb 2015
I take a storm and make myself swallow a hurricane
It gets stuck on the way down and rips me apart
No one ever told me not to take on too much
MORE MORE MORE
Take in more
I can handle it
Swallow it down
There is no need for breaths of air in between
I can take it
My back is cracking evenly down my spine
Eyes all over as I start to bend
Straighten up
I will take it
They pile on me like bricks and sandbags, thrown off your shoulder and onto mine
As you tell me you don't want to burden me
You untie the weights on your ankles and strap them to my wrists
MORE MORE MORE
My arms are open and bleeding
Pins hold my lips to the corners of my eyes
I am being crushed under the weight
I have to take it
Hooks connected to strings nestle into the exposed skin on my hands, holding me up as my knees snap and bend
Give me your weight
I'll take it down with me as it drives me into the hard soil
I can handle it
I can take it
I will take it
I have to take it
Ellis Brown Feb 2013
I stop
as my thoughts spill out
onto the ground.
My halfway thoughts
are nails to step on
while the whole thoughts slip
and slide to the sky-
thought clouds
sitting on fireworks of blue.
I am half-full of half thoughts
and half-empty of hot air
and broken Barbie dolls.
I am halfway to becoming
a bestselling book,
an Egyptian goddess.
I stop
at a fork in the road
and go straight forward,
or sideways,
or diagonally.
My half thoughts are half-bricks
not enough to be a wall,
but enough to be sandbags
on a hot air balloon-
also known as me, or myself,
or I.
Myself does not agree with Me
while Me endorses I
and I hates me and Myself both
for they are altogether
too self-centered.
I stop to collect my nails
at the side of a broken road,
though my hammers
are thought clouds,
my sideways, half-filled air balloon
is filled with bricks,
and Me, Myself, and I
are fighting to the death.
It’s a wonder
I’m still halfway there.
Mesmed Jausa May 2015
gby
Desert air
dry and lonely, but not
without a desperation,
blows down tired throats
with kisses, which come
rushing in,
the heat of universal grasping.

It isn’t strange
given common speeches
on hearts eaten
and hearts desired,
recounted with a coldness
born of the same places
as the heat.


But it is strange
the inability to swallow the chafing devils
making sandbags out lungs.
These will not choke the fools
who walk upon them,
even as the one eyed hermit,
whose sand scorched feet
belie his travels, cackles
“Well, at least for now."
Spinning in circles that have square corners
I'm the new Broadway sensation

The moon is wearing  surprise pink gel
And the wind is rosining it's bow

The Marquee is lighted by roman candles
That change colors as you observe

My name is carved into pumpkins
Lit from inside by gold sparklers

The Phantom Toll Booth is housing Will Call
And the ushers are all wearing drag

The Animal Rights folks are picketing
The unkind treatment of frogs

The clearing of throats often hurts them
And we're all a long way from the pond

My costume is still at the cleaners
So I'm dressed as somebody else

The fourth wall is now made of plaster
And my double is lost in the wings

I look but I can't see the footlights
Through the fog machine's oily haze

The prompter's asleep in the Green Room
And the Concert Master is ******

The Conductor is wearing a trainman's hat
But the Midnight Special won't be stopping here

Like me, it's gone off the rails once again
And there's nobody home in the Roundhouse

The outside decided to come on back inside
But all the seats now are taken

I need to stop twirling - I'm dizzy
I overlooked taking a point

There's somebody up in the flies
I think I see sandbags beginning to swing

I can't hear the music;  the air is too loud
And too many people are breathing

That isn't applause after all - it's thunder
And my key light has faded to three

My funniest line drew no laughter
And I've got to exit stage left

The curtain call was a barrel house polka
And no one presented me flowers

The stage door is painted an angry red
and it needs to be painted coal black

I'm back outside where I've always belonged
And no one is waiting to greet me

With autograph book and stub of a pen
Guess I might just as well walk on home
                     LJM
Pug Rollins Sep 2014
There are small galaxies in salt grains
And sandbags in superclusters.
An arm extends from the minor and one punches from the major.
In a light state of being both little and big,
one hand tells me I'm major
Another tells others they're minor.
Both hands nontheless hit hard.
One much like a thron bush
The other like a lotus flower.
Neither major, both minor.
Mel Harcum May 2015
Midnight falls in sandbags on my chest,
piano covers of old favorites reverberating
past the old grandfather clock as it chimes:

Open your eyes.

I am sleepless on the living room carpet,
knees held against ribs once broken, healed
wrong--bones bent too close around a heart
prevented from growing the way dandelions
spring again and again from beneath mower
blades spinning, cutting the lawn once a week,

sunshine blooms stubborn as my stifling ribs.
And my persisting heart. Emily Dickinson once
claimed: “hope is the thing with feathers,” yet
my chest aches with the weight of it’s elephant
existence bearing down as the moon travels
slow across an expanse of flickering stars

too endless for small minds to comprehend--
and it’s all so much and so present that I can’t
help biting my nails at the importance of hopes,
wondering how they’d fare on a scale,
countered against infinity itself.
to speak of valour is no great mistake
when each of us confronts the howling gale
those who are ready when the sandbags fail
know what is meant when city turns to lake
each of them is that moment wide awake
while in their corners all the cowards quail
left with no benefit save their own stale      
as even stoutest bodies bend and shake
words that are spoken in the autumn sun
lose all their purchase during winter's turn
but are the currency of many schools
repenting of their choices no one's done
before they see their youthful wishes burn
and know themselves for ordinary fools
Dare Aug 2016
Break open the top of that razor you bought for your legs to reveal the four little blades you will soon use as weapons against your wrist. Take one, two, three more sleeping pills than recommended. Take that lighter that once was used to light the candles in your room and place it on your skin leaving burns behind. Use those hands you hugged your mother with to punch black and blue marks onto your knees. Go to the store with the money you were supposed to spend on lunch that day and spend it on as many cigarettes as your lungs will allow and then some. Crack open that money jar and go buy the strongest alcohol you can afford and even if it stings drink it down to the last drop. Take your body away from helping fill the sandbags and throw it into the current. Take the space in your emergency suitcase full of clothes and pictures and force in letters from her in their place. It doesn't matter if you write words into your skin with that blade or if you love someone that doesn't love you, they're all the same. Self harm.
You're my blade and I can't put you down. How sick is it that I still need you? That I packed your shirt before mine knowing it wouldn't fit me, but it still smells like you so how could I let it drown along with my house in this flood?
Tedson Daniels Jun 2015
Couldn't find her in the States
US or those I was in
From Maine up to Mania
From Hypo down to Sin

I scoured the Vol State
She wasn't even there
Remember the one I spoke of
I was choking on her hair

So I tramped out to Texas
Sandbags were all I found
Drove up to Collyrado
Crusted Butte, Drunk Unsound

The wrong color Orange caught me
Where the Gators turn blue
Didn't make No ****** sense
So I left abused without truth

Up to recovery
From the Damage that I've done
I lost my fears in Knoxville
Even though I still have some

Couldn't find her in the Ivy League
Nor at Oxford, UK
Caught my Baby down in Nashville
She has the Stones to Swing away

Pyreneaic granite told me
That French was the Langue
Even though I speak Spanish and Italian
I think I've found the true Romantic tongue

**** what a woman
What a spirit indeed
I'm gonna shed my last coat
Forever cause she's my Queen

I found my higher power
Linguistics it used to be
I might drop off this continent
Because Saving's what I need

Chirping like a som'*****
Is that Aviary Queen
of my globe/world/universe
My Archaeoloverix, Baby

Kisses Hugs Baby Bird
i can hear her coo at me
I'm gonna quit my scribbling
And call her heart to me
Chris Thomas Apr 2016
Cumbersome, this game of cat and mouse
You are a kind of wonder I know nil about
My audition is odd and barely audible
Drowning in tears of all my previous tragedies

Careful, you could hear a pin drop
As loud as sandbags falling upon the stage
Somewhere in the orchestra, a lonesome bow
Drags itself across cello strings tethered to my heart

The cherub with the harp is silent
But her echoes scale the room with glory undefined
Shameless, I am down to my final act
For the heart of the heroine, is an encore away
Luna Dec 2012
I am a groggy, vacant drone.
I am red, spluttered words down the phone.
My eyelids are sandbags.
My heartbeat, it lags.
usandthem42 Dec 2014
Blocks of letters are placed carefully, one adjacent to the other,
To construct a word like one does on a scrabble board.
No, you don’t stop there.
You hop on, emptying sandbags, converting them to blank-spaces Moving along to the next word,
Starting from scratch
Only with the additional constraints
The previous word’s meaning, tense and grammar.
This recursive process goes on,
And you rectify every teeny tiny error
That may be buried somewhere.
You do this in a jiffy and you reach that point in the game
Where you show something you’ve conjured out of nowhere,
To the person standing next to you.
But no, you can’t do that as new walls emerge out of nowhere Squeezing your lips tighter than ever, severing every limb,
******* the life out of what you just created.
Some words slither their way out
Trying to stretch your lips, roll your tongue
But they were born seconds ago
You’ve asked too much from them already.
Soon, the only remains are chopped words and mutilated letters
And most of the times even worse- nothing.
They become your sheepish grins, shivering hands, angry expletives, Fervent nods and deadpan ****** expressions.
Sentences die, and the words go unspoken.
Words which are spoken, are in the sounds of silence.
Those unspoken words are powerful.
They construct ***** with an infinite capacity
That never lets your tears out of your eyes,
Your fears out of the brain, and
Your sears out of the heart.
They mean nothing to the audience, and they mean everything to you. The things you could say, the things you would love to say, and yet, what did you actually say? More precisely, what didn’t you say?

— The End —