"someplace" poems
This desolate road seems forever long
And my worn feet will carry me through the ruin
All alone, but if you had heard my song
You might just understand why I’m doing
Maybe I’m the strongest person of us all
Maybe you’re used to me being alone
But that doesn’t mean that when I take a fall
I can survive, live on my own
Noticing someone else’s suffering is hard
Wrapped up in your troubles, with an aching heart
But if you open your eyes, you’ll see a man apart
If you can call me a man, I guess
Walking round with an unchanged expression
Ducking and keeping away from the deed
You might think it’s all to get attention
And you’re right, but that’s what I need
I knew a group of people whom my heart held dear
I loved them, and I love them still
But they weren’t there for me in my time of fear
Now I’m not gonna bend my will
How many days of quiet can I keep?
How hard will the blade into my mind seep?
How long can I hide away and weep?
Before you realise I’m not at best
So it’s time to say fare thee well
Don’t know where I’m strolling in my daze to
Just gonna follow my path down the well
See if it’s someplace new
So I’ve thought it through and through again
No pleading will make me change my head
Maybe, before, if I had a friend
But now, it’s too late to hear what I’ve said
The love I have for you will always burn
But my back’s to you, and I’ll always turn
If you haven’t figured it out, you’ll never learn
I want a hug, but I’m drowning in my sleepiness
Apr 2, 2018
Apr 2, 2018 at 3:11 AM UTC
We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows
cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here
with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation
seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march
downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,
We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking
and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders
under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 7:27 PM UTC
There's monsters in my closet,
They came to say hello
They want to take me someplace
But I don't want to go.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
De-winged and flightless
is the dragonfly
that tried to slip by
in my slipstream,
It found instead the pickup
traversing the alleyways
of my convoluted imagination.
I don’t know why I’m driving,
ever driving someplace
unrealized and unexplored.
I feel so disconnected,
I feel so disrespected by the world
sometimes
But that’s not fair
it has been good to me.
I feel so disconnected
sometimes
and yet it comes in times
when I’m most consumed
most surrounded.
Maybe I’m just tired
and the walls around me quiver only
from the struggles of my waking eyes,
Maybe I’m just bitter
that I can’t have the perfect life
and feel as if nothing could be better,
Maybe I’m affected
by this liquid life I’m draining from my cup
in hopes of finding a different day
at the bottom.
Is it jealousy that lingers in my mind
or mere longing tinged with a heavy
dose of confusion?
I am confused.
And yet I’m still alive
unlike my dragonfly
and so I stumble onward.
-BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 4:03 PM UTC
“I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.”
John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States
<>
a bad weakness, mine, mess with the perfect of others,
unsure what to add that will addictive illuminate further,
but as homage, a tribute, a salute
got to
got too,
no middle class delayed gratification for me, none, whatsoever,
read the words and my own hands choke me
as if to pull out, to free
the upsurging words in my chest-forming,
to uplift me up, from the floor where I am roiling in
wonderful wonderment at a prophecy come true
my recent family history,
about 400 years worth, got it written down someplace,
escapees from a Spanish Inquisition,
a Roman one before that,
meandering Jews who found a respite, a small welcome
in a small village in Germany
(the irony does not go unnoticed)
from villager to merchant, from tiny town to big city folk,
we went, warriors if any, kept secret, best unheard,
attract no attention, but do what survival doesn’t
always politely request
here I am child of the proverbial wandering jew,
fancy me a poet with, at best, a very small p,
one of three children, historians, book writers, scholars and even
poet~traders,
and so a President’s words, hammer my cells
upon an anvil for human skins,
the future shape of me foreseen
and I think to myself,
alone and out loud:
This, This!
is what makes America great,
welcoming the stranger,
even predicting their
possible pathway to a peaceful existence,
giving their descendant’s generations liberty,
liberty to become poets,
free, who can stand upright*
Jun 25, 2019
Jun 25, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
when I saw the eyes
of my first child
I knew that when I
die, someday
sometime, someplace
I knew then that I will die
staring right into his eyes
if I might be
so lucky
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 3:16 AM UTC
in the pleasure of discovering
words rhymes rhythms
i'm a gluttonous poet.
day and night
bite of my growing appetite
makes me sink low
i don't notice
broken pieces
shattered peaces
around me
i breathe in writing
eat and drink
poetry
crazed obsessed stressed
my poetry
like any other debauchery
is an escape ride
someplace to hide
i'm a poet
subservient
to the pleasures of words rhymes rhythms.
Jan 3, 2015
Jan 3, 2015 at 8:09 AM UTC
The right winter
for dope and ice
for walks along the river route
home
The right winter
for arctic pin-prick wind
holes in boots
turquoise dress coat
far too thin
for walks along the river
But The Merrimack couldn’t find her way
when fabric moguls migrated south
Fascinated by nylon nasties
they traded their silks and cottons
for those petro-polyesterdays
While she—
could no more manufacture life
than mint their money
So, they blamed her
Pronounced her—“Dead”
Decried her *****
Now—
She wanders sadly under bridges
stopping to eddy in an overhang of birches
In dank canals, I found her sleeping
angered only at the falls
Poor outcast!
with current edge she splinters light
from cities sadder still
retching her oily stench
past Plum Island
into the sea— into me
What’re a few warm tears
falling from someplace on a bridge
to the icy waters of the Merrimack?
Rivers get lost in the ocean don’t they?
Let them find each other there
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 12:49 AM UTC
Moments like these racing through me:
Looking out the bus window,
stacks of lights
in square, blinded blocks of cement.
Golden trees
turning brown and barren.
But moments like these,
I'm miles away, I'm someplace else.
Moments like these passing me by:
As I wonder through streets,
alleyways wafting in dark sewerage;
Seafood bistros glaring at me.
My hips sway, my feet sink
into exotic sand, sunshine warm.
Floating effortlessly along the dead concrete,
opening my tiny door; this nutshell abode.
And I can’t breathe here
without moments like these.
They are the broken pieces
of my longing heart.
Slowly keeping me together
in these moments’ reality.
Moments like these, slipping, speeding away:
Like endless traffic in angry madness,
in cities that awaken in darkening hours.
The tranquil silence in my heart
guides me to your faces.
One by one I dream for each;
For all the things we want, the good things we need;
For happiness, love, success.
Each thought embedded, embroidered
into moments like these:
Sitting on a bed, millions of miles away,
a cold, rainy day –
A heart beating for moments not these.
(c) Mel D. Ltd. 2010
Nov 12, 2010
Nov 12, 2010 at 9:46 PM UTC
adj. wandering alone
She felt the wind rustle her hair
As the falling leaves caught her eye
*He allowed the drizzle to graze his skin
As umbrellas popped up on his sides*
The grass was soft between her toes
As the pebbles were firm beneath his heel
She absorbed the vastness of the land
And he wandered around his city of steel
Leaning back into the tree’s embrace
Her gaze landed on a flower of white and gold
*He listened to the drone of an airplane above them
As he stopped for a while on the side of the road*
She closed her eyes
And allowed the quiet calm her
*Basking in the rush of the metro
His nerves bubbled with adventure*
While she inhaled, she thought of a boy
Whose eyes lit up like street lamps
With a smile that would make it through
The rain that had his clothes soaked and his hair damp
And she wondered if he would
Think of a girl
With flowers in her hair
If he’d take her hand
Look her in the eye and say
Let’s go someplace, anywhere
They’d hike up a mountain
Or weave through the subway
*Maybe visit a museum
Or huddle under a tree on a windy day*
But today she was here and was comfortable
In her field by herself
*And he was calm and content
On the sidewalk with everyone else*
A companion would come one day or another
Right now she was happy to be alone
*As he was thrilled to be among hundreds
Yet still be on his own.*
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 9:30 AM UTC
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
See them. Men are always
Going somewhere.
They knew I was there. Fifteen
Years old and starving for them.
Under my window, they would pause,
Their shoulders high like the
******* of a young girl,
Jacket tails slapping over
Those behinds,
Men.
One day they hold you in the
Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you
Were the last raw egg in the world. Then
They tighten up. Just a little. The
First squeeze is nice. A quick hug.
Soft into your defenselessness. A little
More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a
Smile that slides around the fear. When the
Air disappears,
Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly,
Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered.
It is your juice
That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes.
When the earth rights itself again,
And taste tries to return to the tongue,
Your body has slammed shut. Forever.
No keys exist.
Then the window draws full upon
Your mind. There, just beyond
The sway of curtains, men walk.
Knowing something.
Going someplace.
But this time, I will simply
Stand and watch.
Maybe.
6.2k
*There are always new places
For our feet, always
Another,
Wearing out the shoes,
The veins, and soles.
I learned to love the world
From your waist down.
There is no end for travel.
We travel and travel more.
The buses fill, the jeepneys,
And the planes. The trains fill,
Terribly fill. Boracay fills.
And what a tedious postcard
This is,
When the whole point
Of the matter is this: that
We are bound, headed, destined
To someplace else,
Boundless, vast
And everlasting--
A non-lifetime--
Which pretty much answers
Why love does not return.
I think that love could,
But must not return.
And I will carry you on,
You,
On my back,
Just to prove it.*
© 2014 J.S.P.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 9:25 AM UTC
I plunged into what I thought was someplace beautiful, but I can no longer pretend. I only want to set this world on fire.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 9:31 PM UTC
Life is black and white
One moment you are full of feels
Another you are nothing but an empty vase
Tell me which is worse
Tell me which is better
The feeling of being accepted
The feeling of being appreciated for lil’ things
The feeling of belonging to someone and someplace
The feeling of chasing dreams with hope
The feeling of inspiration brewing within you
The feeling of loving life while watching the sun set
The feeling of the sipping on the warm coffee
The feeling of cold water running down your body
The feeling of waking up to a sunny morning
The feeling of overcoming your fear of dogs
The feeling of achievement after finishing a 3000-word essay
The feeling of being
Or
The peaceful feeling of being lost in your own dimension
The peaceful feeling of not talking to anyone
The peaceful feeling of not having to trust a soul
The peaceful feeling of laying hopelessly
The peaceful feeling of the 3am routine
The peaceful feeling of the bitter sensation of liquor
The peaceful feeling of hot water running in the dark space
The peaceful feeling of not leaving your bed
The peaceful feeling of gazing at the ceiling
The peaceful feeling of just being
Tell me which is worse
Tell me which is better
May 4, 2020
May 4, 2020 at 12:27 AM UTC
the wine has worn off
but my heart and head
keep ticking away the hours
like some sad and absurd energizer bunny
trapped in an eternal loop
could have
should have
would have
even as a young goddess
posts a few selfies
showing her enrapturing smile
and delicious form
but she is far away
and has a boyfriend no doubt
this motel room is too quiet
i can hear myself think
and i don't want to think anymore tonight
i just want
that energizer bunny to fall off a cliff someplace
just want to go to sleep
not think theres something else i could do
to fix this
to fix me
fix her
them
it
something
somewhere someday
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 9:55 AM UTC
I scream so that I know i can still speak.
I weep so i know i still feel.
I break down so i can be rebuilt.
I run to make it someplace.
I hate so i must destroy.
I die so i must live.
I try so all i have must be destroyed.
I hope so i must have dreams.
I dream so I must never achieve.
The sands of time fall the same for all of us, we all must at some point drown in those sands.
Does the earth pray that we all melt away faster for we have defiled her.
Do the waves of the see do the shore a favor by destroying it faster, did at one time the land plea with the sea to take it away? Did the sea not have the strength to let its friend go?
Were the hands of man made to love and hold or destroy and throw away?
Is there really more after we die, do we really deserve that gift?
When will a poor mans hope make the world into a better place?
Oct 5, 2011
Oct 5, 2011 at 2:27 AM UTC
Color me in black and white
Hide me away from the night
Keep me in your arms, your arms like towers
Bury me in a bed of a million flowers.
Help me run away to someplace safe
To escape all these tears and fears away
Bury me in a bed of a million flowers
Take me to a place where we can call ours.
ns
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
the trouble with poetry
(and this poetry site) is its
facilitation
awoke in a strange bed, my own,
in a different city, with my old eyes
renewed with, by loving amazement
at the beauty of so many souls experimenting
with edged, loving, dangerous compo-notions,
that make me older than King David, who loved the
love of life and this world, for here I am, falling too
for the life & love potions
of words of my fellow humans across
vast oceans
and I stoke their and stroke their
heated words, pretending that
the cool warmth of my tablet
is both their gorgeous skin and
alluring verbal twists that arouse
my innermost, and break my already
broken heart, and heals it at the very
same time...
all too, so easily
this communication is at levels that
descend, transcend,
grips me with passion and consternation
at my own desires, my open body & mind
stirred, chilled, shaken, stirred and soothed
by the busting out contradictions of us, me,
so well hidden, so well revealed in the marvy
ability of so many to share their essences,
their own scents, just by words upon a page,
and here I pause...
to consider the duality of the word
f a c i l e
for poetry shared facilitates this burning,
" " " " " tumult,
and yet comes to me so facile, that I worry,
that the words themselves are facile, cheap
& easy, but then I am reassured by the very
real drops of my body's fluids upon my cheeks,
that confirm, that poetry is too so real, so living,
and I guess you know me by my real name,
my real face, and my realized words here,
and wonder if I need cease to wonder why
wonderful is...
a thing
my poetry is written by silent night, or early morn,
so very differing, and laugh out loud at myself,
for I am a differing man, at differing times,
of a potpourri of contagious contradictory
conceptions, that I traverse so easy, this facility
is my blessing, and poetry my well worn skill
at...facilitating this absurd admixture of
human~you-man~a man~amen.
and here I leave you...
for I have left
the sunroom too...
@
3:26 am
Thu Sep 4
someplace else
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 3:35 AM UTC
i just want to go some place nice,
somewhere the sky is pretty- like you.
i want to be like you.
you know, i have a lot to give to the world i just-
don’t know what it is yet.
but i’ll get there. i promise i’ll get there.
until then my heart will be in that pretty place
there, the trees will be tall,
and it will always feel like autumn. warm,
but cool. and the leaves
will always be in those orange-red hues,
the water will stay so clear and blue, that
you will see little minnows when
you dip your toes into the creek.
i’m not used to living on the edge, i’m just living
and that’s alright with me,
because i don’t want to be someone
i am not.
i am careful.
i am not reckless.
in that pretty place, the sweet little people
will be in their sweet little homes.
although, some of them will not be home they
will just be in a house.
a house they wish was a home,
but it can’t be because
home is where the heart is and as pretty as that
little place is,
their hearts are not there.
their hearts, like mine, are elsewhere.
perhaps with the stars and their blinking lights,
or at the bottom of the sea,
where the pebbles are rough beneath your toes,
and you try to hold your breath forever
because you are no longer
in the shallows.
you are somewhere deeper.
i want to go some place the water is deeper,
and the people think clearly
through all of the fog
and it’s all pretty
like you.
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 1:18 PM UTC
You close your eyes and see my face
smiling, laughing, loving
A time when nothing is out of place
and all your fears are temporarily displaced
Envision the fantasy...
My touch of oblivion, of space
singing, ringing, tingling
As the moon rises across your lace
across your senses shooting stars race
Reaching you across an endless sea
Your tongue dances around your lips with grace
dreaming, thirsting, yearning
Hoping that I suddenly fill this space
to put my skin around your quivering embrace
To end this hungry misery
But when you wake, by a pillow I am replaced
plain, sane, vain
Lonely fear begins to creep from someplace
One phone call and I'll come running to embrace
Enlace my fingers around your heart, Lovely
Aug 2, 2011
Aug 2, 2011 at 3:28 PM UTC
She's a little runaway.
never had much to say but-
one thing's for sure,
she's gonna make it somewhere, someday.
She's a little runaway.
never spoke up about his evil ways but-
one thing's for sure.
she's gonna make him pay, somehow, some way.
She's a little runaway.
never stopped dreaming about a better him but-
one thing's for sure,
she's gonna get a real man of her own,
and he's out there waiting, someplace.
She's a little runaway,
she's off the path, she's gone astray.
her original plans have all fallen away.
because of a new face, but
one thing's for sure,
they don't matter to her anymore anyways-
plans are for those who stay.
and she can't stand anymore pain.
So she starts to run away like always,
from the past, from all those tear-filled days-
when a new someone,
a new face,
grabs her wrist and asks her,
to stay.
But she's a little runaway.
he can't tame the spirit who refuses to be tamed.
so together,
they run away.
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 9:20 PM UTC
I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible.
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 10:01 AM UTC
It started with my imagination,
of me standing in a bus
quite different from this one.
With longer hair,
and better clothes,
and nicer shoes, perhaps.
Carrying a bag
loads lighter,
eyes taking in the sights of someplace
new.
I guess,
when the time is right, I'll leave.
To be the same stranger you'll find
in a hundred different places.
'Someone not known
who knows everything'.
I like the sound of that.
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
There we were
In the midst of an oriental expose
More like a permanent museum display
The history of our foundation here in the West
Build on the backs of the yellow and black
Only I prefer to keep clear of the festering beast that is Oakland at high noon
No
This was someplace stranger
Chinatown, San Francisco
A soy canker in the greasy mouth of America
In some circles this was the closest thing to an escape
Or the closest thing to internment
It’s all about perception
A pompous soccer mom/beast attempting culture meanders through the local chaos
Green beans or shallots tonight?
A psychedelic mess with an unwarranted response
Could she handle the absurdity?
I care not, choose the latter sweetheart
“Shallots”
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 12:42 PM UTC