"sandbags" poems
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.
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 3:49 PM UTC
"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-kill.
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-kill.
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.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 4:59 PM UTC
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.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
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
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC
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
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
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
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 1:12 PM UTC
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.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 9:23 AM UTC
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.
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 3:23 PM UTC
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
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 12:19 AM UTC
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.
Jun 4, 2012
Jun 4, 2012 at 10:45 AM UTC
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.
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 2:04 AM UTC
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.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 4:46 AM UTC
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
Feb 11, 2020
Feb 11, 2020 at 12:49 AM UTC
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
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
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.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 11:39 PM UTC
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.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
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.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 6:38 PM UTC
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
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 4:44 PM UTC
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.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 6:28 AM UTC
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.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 9:34 PM UTC
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."
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 4:18 PM UTC
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
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 2:19 PM UTC
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.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 7:30 PM UTC
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
Jun 2, 2017
Jun 2, 2017 at 12:31 PM UTC