"standoff" poems
Tomato:
Big, juicy, red
INSANE!
Sneaks up upon unsuspecting
Unreliable
MATH TUTORS!
A terrible fight ensues!
Tomato or tutor?
Tutor or tomato?
Tomato knows no math.
Tutor has no seeds.
A standoff.
Tutor and tomato growl menacingly,
Circling one another
Like two pieces of meat
On a microwave turntable.
Suddenly, their rhythmic dance of Hate
Is broken
By the rhythmic sound of incoming
Imminent
Inescapable
Doom.
Tutor and tomato are trampled
Like a TV dinner
On the freeway.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 7:29 PM UTC
You look me in the eyes and spit,
And I kick dust on the wet spot on the ground.
This is how we are, a conversation; you never cared to call me something like my name.
I never cared to see you in any way but under my boot with blood on your teeth.
There is no moon above us, even when the sun’s gone to hide at the nearest bar.
This is not a war that can be won with pickets and strikes.
The only way to end the battle
Is that someone has to die.
A standoff only ends when one is left standing, it’s the rules,
but you never did care for rules, and breaking is easier than bending.
You never apologize and I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth.
The sun’s gone to hide at the local bar and it drinks whiskey shots like water.
It has seen us fight.
The moon doesn’t want to come out, stays tucked safe in its bed.
It has heard stories.
Only the stars act as referee, calling out which one of us died better.
It’s all an act, a ******* contest, and you sure are good at wetting the ground.
I’m better at covering up where the bloodstains were,
stain chicken feathers red as the sunset, Please, I ask you,
Let him win one last time.
The hourglass broke, the sand mixing with the red clay,
And you claim to know that his time is up.
I claim to know that you’re a lying son of a ***** who takes what isn’t his.
And you claim that I’m just a child,
but children don’t know why their knuckles are
bleeding
and children don’t get why their jaws hurt
and children only bleed when summer is restless
and children never pull real guns anyway.
You brought a knife to a gunfight,
a gun to face the firing squad, a one child firing squad,
knees stuck together with blood and chicken feathers.
Please, you ask me,
Let me win one last time.
And I learn that breaking is easier than bending;
And I learn how my name sounds on your lips.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 9:02 AM UTC
the green grove a magnet to my eye
on these sun baked plains
I enter the glade to take shade with the cicadas
and vampire mosquitos
then I see it, Eden’s villain, coiled and rattling,
red ready to strike
I raise my staff, I too programmed to survive, do to what millennia
have taught
still we are in this staring standoff—silent save its rattle, deaf
I am to the chorus of insects
neither of us moves for an eternity of seconds, until the snake lunges at my feet
where its fangs find a field mouse, and devour it while I watch, an unwitting witness to expiry other than my own
I leave the copse, whole, content another creature has, for today, taken my place in the bloodletting
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 5:37 PM UTC
For every aging boomer
there are one or two they've known:
Heroes of the battlefield
Who never made it home.
Some classmate who was butchered
in a fire fight in “Nam.
A sibling who had perished
in the standoff at Khe Sanh.
Perhaps the Tet offensive
left some friend's blood spilled and spent.
Politicians speak of glory-
It’s the grunts who pay the rent
From the walls of Hue to Can Ranh Bay
from Tonkin to Saigon.
there is a wall in Washington
with their names inscribed thereon.
The lucky ones who did come home
recall the name and face
of some heroic eighteen year old
who perished in their place.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
For every aging boomer
There are one or two they've known:
Heroes of the battlefield
Who never made it home.
Some classmate who was butchered
in a fire fight in “Nam.
A sibling who had perished
in the standoff at Khe Sanh.
Perhaps the Tet offensive
left some friend's blood spilled and spent.
Politicians speak of glory-
It’s the grunts who pay the rent
From the walls of Hue to Cam ranh Bay
from Tonkin to Saigon.
there is a wall in Washington
with their names inscribed thereon.
The lucky ones who did come home
Recall the name and face
of some heroic eighteen year old
who perished in their place.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
Patience is the deep breath you take when you just can’t take it anymore
It’s the rhythmic beating of your heart when you are around someone you adore
Patience is not settling for anything less than your goals
Patience is a standoff between your mind body and soul
Patience is that calming feeling you get when you come off the ultimate high
Patience is the warm feeling you get from staring at the clear blue sky, smelling The spring rain, listening to the birds chirp, watching them fly by
Patience is a virtue this is true
Patience is the way the person who truly loves you feels about you.
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
The lion dog’s muscles ripple
as he descends the stairs
toward the source of food
guarded by another creature
smaller but just as wild.
The standoff happens in the kitchen -
a 110-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback
a pet who wants his kibbles
and the housecat
who thinks she owns the place.
The hound approaches
slow and deliberate
his huge head depending
from a neck
thick like a phone pole.
The cat sits alert but unconcerned
until their noses touch -
then the cat flashes surprising claws
ripping the hound’s nose
and he runs yelping into the living room
to hide behind the couch
to fall asleep
dreaming of the hunt
the rush of his tawny brothers
across dusty savannahs
toward great African lions
with paws like dinner plates
and sabertooth mouths.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:51 PM UTC
******
Animal
Savage
Dead man walking, right?
You going to fuckin' score ******
You going to fuckin' score?
You're ******* right I am
I'm gonna hit the lights and let my veins glow electric
I'm gonna turn my blood black and spray it all over the walls
I'm gonna sleep tonight in the abyss, baby
******
Are you hearing me are you feeling me am I getting through to you do I ******* stutter?
Are you ready to get out of my way or die ************
I'm going to tear the ******* roof off this place I'm gonna skin you all alive
Till it's just me and the messiah complex dealer with the keys to the holy city
If this is a standoff then let's have at it if you wanna play cowboy I'll show you cowboy
If we were made in any image at all it'd have to be the rats, right?
Well I'm the big bad wolf now and I'm done ******* around
******
Deadbeat
Family man
Feel cool with that gun in your hand?
Feel cool with that hole in your neck?
You're ******* right I do
I'm going out in style tonight
I'm going to find the rawest nerve and plug it into an amplifier
I wanna hear God cry
******
Is this happening are you seeing this are you ******* kidding me?
Is there anybody even on the receiving end?
Is this a sick ******* joke I'm choking on ***** and hate and I have enough rage to bury everything
I don't want to rest until I watch everything suffer
Am I sick? Am I losing it have I lost it already?
What do I have left to lose?
What manner of beast is this now?
******
Wretch
Vermin
Is that it, huh?
Is that all there is?
Don't ******* patronize me
That's gonna be it, alright
I'm gonna finish it the way it began
Dim lit basement, flood of chemical angels
Beauty in the most high
And death will show me sympathy
Because junkies die alone
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 12:43 AM UTC
Little Sheriff walks around these parts after school,
shooting invisible birds or bandits
with twin finger guns and magic bullets.
Little Sheriff talks like an old Western in his pre-pubescent voice,
even up in these here northern parts,
and tells passersby to stick their hands way up in the sky.
Little Sheriff wastes his enemies with four even shots to the chest
to restart their hearts and make them his friends.
Until Real man walked by one day,
caught off guard and alarmed by cheek exploding gunfire,
and sunk one real slug into the Sheriff’s brain.
S.Kelly Woz '12
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 10:07 PM UTC
S is the 19th letter of the alphabet.
I had to count twice on my fingers to be sure of that.
It glues together many, many words.
It fixes people to the walls.
It shrivels fruit in the bowl.
It sticks us all in the same soup ****
Let's swim.
You have 19 reasons to die,
written out like manuscripts in manila folders
populating a small cubicle containing your confidence
pasted to the walls, and neatly nested on the next door desk
at least you told someone.
The logic of your feeling breathing life into the spreadsheet,
The simple clicks of order covering up the shame of dead weeks
Day in Day out working toward a little more
Waiting for the future where the ability to break out is yours.
Cage around each arm. Suffering in small doses.
Never overwhelming the epicenter.
I have 19 reasons to die.
Scrawled in sidewalk chalk on 17th street.
Ringing in the ears of all my close relatives and their next of kin.
They say, "Hurry up and usher in the next generation so we can stop worrying about fixing yours."
The crumpled cover letters in my compactor spell pure love, and the reasons it's never noticed.
Simplicity in disarray, a life of static colors. Repugnant sorrow odors.
I am the only town crier left in this town.
Always complete but never fulfilled.
The sad sequel to a Mexican standoff with a self-referential story.
Narcissism and narcotics.
Nihilism and Mnemonics.
Space and the stuff of the stars.
Love and the war of the heart.
S is the 19th letter of PSEUDOPSEUDOHYPOPARATHYROIDISM
No it's not but what a great word.
No it's not but aren't you glad you tried to count?
No it's not but aren't you satisfied with yourself for trying to decipher?
No it isn't and wasn't it worth it to try to speak the sounds?
No it is not and wasn't it the sibilance in your mouth worth every second?
No it is not thank you come again have you had your fill when we're only 19/26?
Reasons to live:
Seemingly unneeded. We're here aren't we? Doing what we could only be meant to do.
R is the real 19th letter.
One more would have been S.
But you'd never know if you didn't count.
So let's count.
Ready?
3...2...1...
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 4:08 AM UTC
Table,
My father and I sat
In our timeless silence
That brewed away beneath the lights
Like a sweat that never breaks.
Sister and the Stranger
Sat flanked by pillars,
With two full glasses of
Blood-lit wine
Simmering warmly like
Lamb's hearts
Dropped into bowls.
Never do I love my sister more
That when she wears that little fishhook
Of a smile,
A grim refusal of her lips to flicker down,
Making mincemeat of photographers,
Men in bad jumpers,
And garrulous psychopaths.
It was crueler than any frown.
Far more efficient.
The Stranger buttered her bread-roll all at once,
(A damning thing to do this afternoon)
And dinner turned to coffee
Without a hitch.
I noticed that the whole evening was
Done in a deliberately cut-glass way -
Two siblings painting themselves
Into the people they never wanted to be,
To make a bloody-minded point.
*She’s not one of us.
She’s nothing like us.
She’s nothing like mother -
Absolutely nothing like mother!*
And as we stood waiting for the car
My sister turned to me and said –
“I thought my expectations of daddy were low.”
She swiped at her flapper-girl haircut,
“Turns out my expectations
Have a basement.”
We only notice class
When we need to shut someone
Out.
We only notice class
When it's all we've got.
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 6:31 PM UTC
Stuck in my ways things can never change,
I should have more but the days turn strange,
I'm hittin a low spending hard earned dough to roll with satisfaction,
To hand it off making stupid transactions,
It's a standoff against myself
I have great potential that is in a developmental stage
it could lead to wealth
It's hard for me to believe in self
I have many guides but no one to truly follow
I'm losing my head Sleepyhollow
Of course I'll make the choice to have cottonmouth which makes life so hard to swallow
I need my drink of water to wash away everything I did
I'm glad I'm not a father I'm not ready for any kids
**** I haven't found my left rib I know hurt more than anything
I guess pain is the coolest
Time ***** as a Band-Aid
I need a doctor cause I'm wounded
I rather have stitches
than hang around ignorant *******
I need to find a lamp with a genie to grant all of my wishes
**** I took it back to Aladdin but you know what that's not gonna happen
Look my eyes call them red either I'm high or either from the tears I shed
It could be both but there is one I do the most
Not really trying to brag not really trying to boast
Things seem easy cause my reality is on coast
I'm trying to learn the ropes before it all gets tangled
I hate this climb to the top only cuz of the angle
There is a long journey ahead I'll pack light and try to save bread
Cuz a ***** got to eat or a ***** will end up dead.
-V.v.V. Ds
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 12:24 AM UTC
I woke up late this morning
It took me awhile to get out of bed
And when I did
I contortioned my body at odd angles
To squeeze all the sleep out of my bones
I looked out on the backyard as I peed
And saw two cardinals hopping around
Bright splotches of red in the overgrown grass
They stood facing each other chirping loudly
I couldn't tell for what until I saw
The female, brown and plain, standing by
On the banister of the deck
Watching the standoff
One of the red males fluttered up next to her
And she took off, not satisfied
The one still in the grass took off madly after her
The one on the banister galloped its length before taking off
Like a rolling lit firecracker
Its fuse too long
They both flew towards the house
Out of view
I scurried down stairs
Mildly overweight, hair sticking up at odd angles
Like a ball of broken glass
Thundering down the steps
The most ungraceful of all creation
Lumbering and over excited
When I got the back window
All three of the cardinals were in a wet clump
Of purple flowers that had opened themselves
To the scant sunlight of an overcast day
The female jumping and chirping excitedly
The two males weaving and bobbing in and out
Of the flowering bush, a pair of dueling sowing needles
Trying to knit the song of success
And then they saw me
My shirt an unnaturally bright electric blue
My face pressed stupidly to the glass
My grin unnatural and dreamy
As I watched this common display
That is still dazzling to me as I think about it
And they all flew off at once
To settle their matters elsewhere
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 10:25 AM UTC
Catastrophic end in sight,
light bends, her eyes contrite;
a shaking phantasmagoric dispute
making both husband and lover mute;
revelation upon revelation,
hatred in each exhalation;
exasperated rivals stand apart,
one soul exultant, one twisted heart.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 9:40 PM UTC
Americans live with fear.
Fear of being found out for what they are….an incredibly insecure people populating the most powerful nation on earth.
The power of Wall St. feeds their fear in the belief that the nation’s leaders and political machine have been bought and sold by big money.
In fact the only candidates registering positively in the current Primary elections are those who feed the fear. Trump feeds the fear every time he opens his big mouth.
Hillary engenders fear because she is a WOMAN who can, most probably, win the votes which will give her the Presidency in November next.
Americans fear the resurgence of Asia in China’s burgeoning thermonuclear militarist stance, the utter unpredictability of the simmering, India, Pakistan standoff
And the instability of the plump, demonic, demagogue armed with the atomic weaponry in the bleak wasteland that is North Korea.
Islam’s mobilisation scares Americans witless. The savagery of the Isis personifies all that is promised by an expanding worldwide Islamic threat.
And then there is Putin's Russia.
The encapsulation of American fear though, is painted graphically, starkly, by the nation’s absurd fascination, obsession, with the hand gun.
Everyone has a hand gun, in the car, in the office, in the mall, in the bedroom…..some even strap a hand gun on the hip to go to church.
Americans, first and foremost, fear each other.
Fear of the fear exacerbated by more fear.
Americans live with fear.
M.
Auckland NZ
13 February 2016
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 7:36 PM UTC
Finishing a job I had started by sitting down
I had to do the paper work before I left town.
So I took what I had thought was an adequate supply
And wrapped it 'round my left hand to keep it clean and dry.
Reaching beneath gingerly and taking extra care
My mission was to use it to clean my derrier.
Then without any warning and much to my chagrin
A finger broke through the paper and charged right in.
This I had not planned for nor could I predict.
That into my poopy **** a finger I would stick.
This was not the worse thing to happen to me my friend.
There was much worse ahead on this trail before the end.
My very first reflex was to pull my finger out.
An automatic, involuntary reaction no doubt.
But my hand ****** back too quicly, and this is no joke.
The toilet paper and my hand the water now did soak.
Now I had real problems, this was a frikin mess!
There with my hand under my **** wrapped in poopy, wet paper no less!
I tried to drop the paper, but did't have any luck.
'Cause the poopy, wet paper, to my hand was now stuck.
I couldn't shake it off and with nothing with which to scrape.
I started getting desperate, it seemed there was no escape.
Suddenly it occurerd to me, there was a ray of hope.
So I stuck my hand in the water, where the poopy paper would soak.
I slowly pulled back my hand, and much to my delight,
The paper lost it's sticky grip and sank slowly out of sight.
I let the water drip completely from my soaked left hand.
I then pulled it out slowly and held it over a waste can.
I got more paper and completely wiped my hand off.
Then finished what I had started before this messy standoff.
The lesson that I learned, since this adventure did begin.
Is that paper work ain't easy, if the paper's too thin!
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 5:02 PM UTC
An illuminated room.
Twinkling lights strung up carefully
like the constellations outside the window.
Around the two of them the essence of frailty and incense hung in the electric air.
The low hum tension sizzles.
So close, every breath shared back and forth.
Finally the silent standoff is obliterated and the outpouring of words run over a thousand times bursts forth.
"What do you think I want?
You think you have me figured out, huh?
Use that keen mind of yours and tell me what it is, you think I want from you.
A pledge of forever?
All of your attention every day?
You think I want to have you give up all of your time to me, be at my beck and call?
I want this.
I want what has been between us since we first met.
I know you're probably nervous and unsure what's going on.
I am too.
But I trust my gut.
And tomorrow might not save me.
When you know, you know, right?
This is why it seems so hard.
Undeniable.
So I'm telling you what I want.
I want you.
Simple.
I want this moment.
With you.
I want this moment and if I'm lucky I could be given another and another after this.
And maybe,
if the universe allows,
we can take those moments and string them together and something more,
something bigger can come of it.
But for now I will be grateful for this moment, here with you.
Because you mean something to me.
I care deeply about you.
You're my friend.
I love you.
And I will never regret a day of knowing you if this moment is the only one we'll ever have together.
Because that's what it is.
That's love.
And even if it scares you, you deserve to hear it.
This is my truth.
I'm not asking you to handle my feelings.
I'm not ashamed of them.
There's no need to be rash.
I'm here.
I've always been here.
For a time I've been waiting and trying to understand myself.
But it's never gone away for me.
This connection.
The chemistry swirling between us.
So now that I've given more breath with all that, when I'd rather be holding it in to kiss you until my lips went numb.
You have a choice.
You can either clam up and push me away.
Or you can pull me in...
And kiss me..."
©NDHK
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 3:48 AM UTC
I met Helen on tinder, and we kinda just had a standoff with words for a day. Then we followed each other on Tumblr and found our mutual love of 90's anime.
So tonight she's coming over to use my bathtub for a bath bomb, since she doesn't have her own, and in turn I'm getting two tickets to the Cleveland Orchestra.
Last night my room mate threw up drunk and I passed out after drinking a whole bottle of Irish Cream while cleaning the bathroom and trying to do the first verse of "Encore" over any song I could find.
She came home and just gasped at all the hair and dust moved out from the room.
Now she's smoking in it. ****
I'm numb in the fingers and hands and just trying to not throw up. I'm having bouts of depression and anxiety and this ***** Caitlyn Sessor, Cessor, I don't even know, won't show me any mercy, or give me a break at work. She wants my god **** head.
I just want to sleep for two weeks straight and have money again.
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 9:19 AM UTC
Balanced at this point of time,
Fractious as the case may be
Cautioned as to why we men
Most unctiously, cross women flee.
Brought to heel by subtle stare
Insinuation lingering there,
Caught out short by razored phrase
Abruptly severing…outrage,
Castigated without word
Rendering rebuff absurd.
Yet born to kiss and stroke the brow
But ultimately lost, somehow,
That give and take,(with **** smile)
Demolished slow in time’s worn guile,
Angelic then, in evening light
Extinguished now with tension tight.
Standoff in the cold of dawn
Sees all affection now withdrawn.
Balanced at this point in time
An utter need to kick the dog
Retreat to haven’s dark tool shed
To mutter hurt and swallow grog.
M.
Composed, (with tongue in cheek), for a poor weak ****** who quickly saw his Heaven on Earth become Hell.
23 February 2017
HAMILTON NZ
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 11:31 PM UTC
We froze over.
It grew colder and colder.
Exhaling crystals that we'd choke on.
The log cabin was in the distance.
The Great-Horned Owl was perched and waiting.
Never did he anticipate we wouldn't show.
The storm was supposed to be a reflection of character.
Not an abstract piece of art with no clarity.
So here's to the cold hearted, the arctic, the iceberg.
The tongue forever stuck to the flagpole.
Where the warmth won't reach.
Where the feet become rooted to an easier survival.
A standoff between the tree and the axe.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
The band
Of
Runaways
Ran
To new land
New clan
The Rebels
Sought refuge
Grew
Fought
A standoff
Against power
Whose
Afraid
Of a grenade
From a renegade
With nothing
To lose?
An outnumbered
Underdog
Already abused
Walks
Into the pit
Locked in
Pitted
Against a pit
With a lockjaw
That bit
And held
With the grip
Of the law
The loser
Still wins
Though
A life lost
The price costs
Hope
Spreads
Like the words
Of a martyr
Read in red
Here’s a toast
To the living dead
Anyone
That gave their life
In a fight
That couldn’t be won
Stood
Against the giants
And tyrants
Of the era
Erased terror
With blood shed
And a carved
Signature
That signifies
The nature
Of a man
With true power
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 12:33 AM UTC
A Mexican standoff is a confrontation among two or more parties in which no participant can proceed or retreat without being exposed to danger. As a result, all participants need to maintain the strategic tension, which remains unresolved until some outside event makes it possible to resolve
Now I don't know what
You are waiting for
But all you need to do
In my book
Is speak the words.
There's no need to mend things
God knows that if it wasn't
For Karmic responsability
I would've spoken those words
A long long time ago.
I don't need anything from you
Just wish you'd come clean
Your foal mood has been going on
Since last Thursday
And for all I care
You can just say it
give him time
Says a whisper of compassion
Yes, even now, there is compassion
he needs time to mend himself
take this seriously
everything else has checked out
You learn your lessons in high speed
But I certainly wish
It wasn't just because
You're waiting for me to pay the bills
I'd pay them either way
Have I ever been anything less
Than fair?
C'mon. Spit it out.
Feb 4, 2016
Feb 4, 2016 at 11:48 AM UTC
Time ticks on
Second by second
Ego too thick to cave
Wanting it
Wanting more
Not willing to surrender
Not willing to lose
Match met
Standoff
Jan 24, 2014
Jan 24, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC