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Tupelo Aug 2016
This country is making mountains of men
and molehills of morals
So many coffins nowadays
They look like tally marks
I wish to one day know the safety to live in a place where I no longer see bodies on the news and only have to worry of the weather.
maybe that's why I hate math so much
because i have spent so much of my time
with
numbers being
drilled into
my head
and
showing on my
hips
or falling off of my
rib
s
because I know
how many calories are in each item of my fridge
better than the backs of my hands
and the lines carved into
my
thighs
like tally marks
Dracol Noir Apr 2016
Tall tales and true,
Tally **, Paraburdoo,
One tail that's Blue,
Australian dog, town Dampier,
Another Kelpie, Cattle Dog Cross,
Red Dog, the pilgrim wanderer.
Dried, barren landscapes,
Tally, Blue, Dampier Salt,
Wounds, numerous fights and scrapes.
Inspiration looks us down,
Dampier folks will look up,
Overlooking Dampier town,
All but just a memory.
Had to write a poem on the 2011 film "Red Dog" in my junior years. You'd understand it if you know what the movie was about, or even the novel (by Louis de Bernières).
Terry O'Leary Nov 2016
Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones.

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet -
the stains were wiped with no regret.

When raining blood, the teardrops spill,
enough to drown the daffodil
that withers in the mourning chill -
who was it said 'thou shalt not ****'?

The mad machine's now mechanized,
torment and torture legalized,
blind barbarism globalized
and wrath of demons sanitized.

Each rival's right (whichever side)
committing holy homicide
in names of gods diversified -
like Cain and Abel fratricide.

Above, a Drone that terrifies -
a button's pushed, a missile flies
to rip apart, to vaporize
(defending life, they fantasize).

Dismembered victims everywhere,
most, non-combatants, unaware -
a lone survivor, solitaire,
unfolding hands, too late for prayer.

Beneath the dust, a baby lies
with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes,
arrayed in death that money buys -
though warriors watch, none empathize.


The media's impervious -
in truth they're ever devious
for fear that reason's dangerous,
find every question treasonous.

Through eyes lit up like rosy sores,
embedded scribes report on wars
with tales to line the cuspidors -
the Fourth Estate? A herd of ******.

To paint the slaughter civilized,
objective news is sodomized -
when foreign streets smoke, pulverized,
the body counts are minimized.


Big Berthas boomed in days of yore
but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor
and mortar shells like raindrops pour
upon the lands of Nevermore.

The grumble of a hand grenade
is drowned in claps of cannonade -
assorted charnel chunks lie flayed
in battlefields where kids once played.

Somewhere a ******'s bullet flies,
somewhere a voiceless victim dies,
somewhere a famished orphan cries
while weapons warble lullabies.

The bunker busters burst the sides
of dwellings where mankind resides
and innocence in darkness hides -
the die is cast, but who decides?

Use cluster bombs and barrels too,
(crude critters in the wartime zoo),
to shred more souls than hitherto -
choose death en masse, avoid the queue!

The leaders lead (twelve steps behind),
enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined -
yes, powers, business (so entwined)
pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind.


The mercenaries hack and maim
(god's creatures crippled, morally lame),
do beastly things that none will name -
well-paid for such, they feel no shame.

The ****** bombs and phosphorus
and ghastly weapons gaseous
are scattered widely, bounteous -
behold the desert wilderness!

Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm,
may leave behind a blazing palm
(or better yet, a molten mom
inside a hut)  in Vietnam.

And phosphorous… its flame so white,
exploding, falling through the night,
commemorates the Sacred Rite -
and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite.

Cast chlorine, sarin or VX…
a lethal dose (or side effects
like blistered lungs) will serve to vex -
but death in war? No one objects…


Constructing A-bombs's arduous -
uranium, depleted thus,
can trash a tank with little fuss,
cause natal cankers, cancerous.

But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown),
ignited, leave the sun outshone -
beneath a mass of melted stone
lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone.

When atoms split in bombs debased,
vast cities smolder, laid to waste,
a million sinless souls erased -
perhaps, one day, all life effaced.


You close your eyes but can't ignore
that body parts and bags of gore
are bursting through golgotha's door,
and strewn beyond the ocean's roar
like rotting fish that wash ashore.

Why can't we stop and end all war…


POSTSCRIPT
Regard the dreary death Arcade
of Armaments (a fruitful trade)
and tally up the millions made
by ghouls that raise a colonnade
of miles of missiles, weapons-grade,
in Armageddon's crazed parade,
and hide behind a masquerade
of lollypops and lemonade
while planning new an escapade
for sending armies to invade
and loot far oil lands, unafraid
of misery and grief parlayed
until our final days cascade
into a hell no more delayed
by happenstance or luck outplayed
that leaves society decayed,
bombarded with a fusillade
of lies upheld and truth betrayed
by pundits in the shifting shade,
and crises of the world clichéd
as sung in solemn serenade
by journalistic hacks that preyed
on wide-eyed folk in sham charade
that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed
by tiny tears that disobeyed
to stay behind the barricade
and bathe the modern-day crusade
of war in cheers and accolade.

The bottom line? Just profits paid
for deadly sins that god forbade…
Neha D Aug 2014
When you're old, weary,
forgetful and dreary,
your grandchild will sit on your lap,
And insists you narrate your story,
before he goes for a nap.
Perch that kid atop your knee,
and tell him your delightful story.

Tell him how you studied biology,
And the science of the body,
And the wonders of economics,
And how to make accounts tally,
Bore him silly with math rules,
And crap you picked up in schools,
how algebra helped you land a job,
And physics helped you convince a mob,
On your first date,
You dined with your certificate ,
And all those sums in calculus,
Helped you during your first kiss,
How law helped you win your wife,
And grammar stopped you from taking your life,
when your spouse and you fought,
accounting rules sorted it out,
Tell him when down on your knees,
You were uplifted by degrees,
When overcome with emotions,
You narrated equations,
Tell him when nights got colder,
Geography gave you its shoulder,
Tell him medicine cures all aches
Including the vacuum of heartbreaks,
And when you're dead in your grave,
And flesh is turning to bone,
While placing flowers at your tombstone,
The Income tax laws will mourn.
Sukanya Basu Jun 2017
Today as the tomorrow sighs
sawdust on the gleam
Yester-year, goodbye carols
goodbye all your broad eyed smiles and tally **
to Mary or Agatha or Caroline with a C
i hardly remember her name!
something with a blue and fake smile
and something about her hair,
my memory is in despair!
Or to you, or to the gulls
or to the sawdust from your house
I have broken thee from the roots of the pavement
a dollar for each window
a shilling for the roadside engravings
A dime for your penny-less worries
And to cremate the red of the fire
my un-tied shoelaces are barely of importance to the world!
I don't need to buy your monday blues
or to match the sunlight to the starch
Tell Gary, Harry, or any other bloke
to put the chandelier during christmas or summer
and carry the sawdust in your heart if you are generous
for a diamond studded disintegrated cloak.
JC Aug 2015
thunder strikes
lightning flashes
the room lights up
showing what he had done
blood dripping down his wrist
just another tally

sitting in the room
he Begins to fade in to darkness
wishing to reset to an earlier time
when life was simply brighter.
Leslie Herbert Feb 2014
At the bus station
grizzled men eat Milkyways
watching
runaways squeak around
in too-tight jeans
and babies cry to Jackson Browne
while we all read the National Enquirer
and wait.

On the bus mothers shift
bags and kids around in messy piles
the empty wrappers tell stories
while Willie Nelson competes
with static to sing in rhythm
with windshield wipers
and cigarette butts
tally the miles.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
met my maker

not for the first time,
two acquaintances periodical,
two boon craftsmen, artisansals,
bs-gab-talking about who is surely
the better poet, glinting, side-splitting,
raucous laughter in our dueling self-mockery


neither takes the other too serious,
but of each other, we take endless,
never satisfied, insufficient, each needier
for the rapper inside and repartee, adoring
our jiving unique camaraderie, all-the-while,
knowing our balance unequal, but not caring


for as equals we meet, to revel and reflect,
revealing things of each other that only we
know, meant not for sharing ever, for these
webbed strands binding, at same time, release,
permitting a tough honesty tally, truth not a concept,
unnecessary, for how could we ever hide our love mutuel


we sitting bestride and beside, in ye old, weather-beat-down
chairs Adirondack, having come hewn from trees centuries old,
now overlooking the Bay, we eyeing a solitary fisherman whom,
we both knowingly aware, metaphor for that day that will come
to collect me away to a new locale, where we will yet still needle
each other, with mercy unforgiving, not for our misdeeds, for never


is forgivenessasked for or given, not taboo, but
holy unnecessary for such is the way the between the
designer and the artifact, the poet and the poem, the craft
and the object, gardener and her fruits, a cellular understanding
that comprehends the interlocking necessity of our natures, that our
shared endings, are a duelity, both finale and gateway to our next poem!





https://hellopoetry.com/poem/462537/how-i-observed-the-day-of-atonement/
10:57 AM THU JUN 29
@you-know-where

the bay has an Algonquin name, and Adirondack  is derived from an Iroquois word meaning “eater of tree bark,” a derisive term bestowed by them upon a neighboring Algonquin tribe.
Savannah Grace Sep 2013
See, when I talk to you, I want to look you right in the eyes.
But I can’t.
The weirdest compliment I ever got from a mutual friend:
“Listen, I really wanna hang but I just smoked a ****-ton and your eyes are really tripping me out. So I’m gonna go”
Ex-boyfriend, first date:
“Every time you look at me I feel like I’m saying something inadequate. You always have this intense look on your face. I feel like I’m not meeting your standard”
The first boy who really broke my heart told me the only reason he stayed at that party was because of my eyes. We were on the roof and he leaned over and made a gesture with his ******* pointed to my face, “Those right there” I reached out and grabbed his hand  “reason why I stayed”
So forgive me, if I don’t look you in the face when we speak. I love too hard and feel too much and, Heaven help, you feel inadequate.
I want to hold your hand and lean forward when you talk. I want to comprehend and not just listen. I want to take your words and translate them into my language so when you say that you want to be a teacher when you grow older, I understand that it means someone helped you when you needed it most as a child. But empathy is frowned upon now. Tuck your hands into your pockets, scowl at the sky and ignore the openness of the strangers on the street.
I’ve learned to pocket my trust because wearing it splayed on my chest is akin to a scarlet letter.  It’s a modern-day sin to care too much.
“You put so much of yourself into people who don’t deserve it”
I said “I love too hard”
He said “I think you can be forgiven for that”
No, see I don’t want to be pardoned as if I have a flaw. I want to be embraced like the sand embraces the salt water every time it crashes down, and draws away.
I want to bare my wrists to someone and be able to say “I loved this world even when it didn’t love me”  
I want someone to have the audacity to know that my scars are not signs of weakness, but tally marks from when I was counting down until the day I was free again.
Maybe I’ll never learn.  
But I’ve decided that I’ll keep reaching out until someone starts reaching back.
Jeremy Betts Jan 2024
A life with no safety net
Do I make it or will this be yet another instance where I don't hit the ground running, instead I splat flat on the pavement
Place your bet, I'll take that bet
Another tally mark added to my list of regret
I'm my own biggest threat and relentless as it can get
I feel preset to replay every horrible event
A looped cassette
Bad precedent after bad precedent set
Where is this button labeled reset?
When will I find the bottom of this decent?
If you tell me I'll try to keep the secret
I forget now if I've ever even seen it
I know I never see it coming, but there's no question I've felt it
Going dark and cold like a long forgotten briquette
Stagnant and never lit
Like a burning cigarette this hell is a slow burn with evil intent
I'm spent like a tax return, sanity gone before I even got to know it
Out of my mind cause I could no longer afford the rent
My twisted twist on Russian roulette is the full chamber aspect
So you can surely predict past it
My downfalls bound to hit a record high percent
The first click shoulda/woulda/coulda ended it all in an instant
With steel to flesh, I find myself desperate to create an outlet
To finally get the torment to ease up a bit
But it jams every time and I must admit
Dumb luck and the law of odds get the credit

©2024
T R Wingfield Dec 2019
The music that lingers
in my mind when I awaken
is the rhythm of a life
of which I dream to live.

If I could get these symphonies
unlocked from the rooms
in which they reverberate and boom,
I would finally be who I know I should be,
but the rhythm's undone when I do come too;
I'm only ever left with the conclusion
that made my psyche break through-
A conclusion without the question,
a harmony without a melody,
a melody without rhythm,
a break without a build,
a crescendo undeserved.

I carry with me back to consciousness
no evidence of the brilliance observed;
no tally or tale or the things seen and heard.
But I know that I saw them;
I know what I heard.
I feel the rhythm inside me
and I hear the words.
I remember the beats
and the lost melodies.
Never-the-less...
they are incomplete...

just like me.

A clip of a phrase left to rattle around.
An earworm set to unheard sound.

"Dont be afraid
to get too wild"


These dreams are the compositions of some other soul
The music and musings of minds not my own
but I wonder in the early morning grey,

Do the people that I dream to be also dream of being me?

I awoke from a dream slowly
Sweet docile tones reverberating in my ears;
and as I came too with a rhythm and the words that broke through. I tried to hold onto them as long as I could do, but never can I keep them for more than a moment, maybe two.
It’s infuriating and frustrating,
because there is no way to capture the song that I heard: just the shadow of some snippet sneaking out the back door with the rest of the gang that got away already before getting caught in the midst of their thievery, when the man whom they are robbing walks in the front door

And there never has been.

I am no musical genius, but I know a good song when I hear one,
And I’ve heard such wondrous things
cascading through my dreams
Less now than before,
but I still find myself hallucinating wild bebop jazz
with muted trumpets and silky strings,
big band ballad piano swings,
deep-trance and euro-house dance floor thumpers, chaotic digital jungle themes,
indigenous rain-dance chants against primal drumming, Searing thrash metal with string burning sweeps of perfect improvisational leads, Merengue and Samba and Flamenco beats, with lyrics in languages I do not speak.

In my dreams they are full compositions, with layers and evolution and meaning; I just can't recall all the words and have not enough talent and knowledge of things to transcribe the notes in corporeal means.
Most importantly, the music of a mind’s eye or ear is not the music of the world, so I have no way to recreate the rhythms or melodies.

Mostly because I don't know where to begin.
Because the inception of the song,
in reality or dream,
is always a fugue of some other innocuous thing;
some music or rhythm that broke away from the meaning it has in the world
and echoed until it became a song I heard.


But I swear god once promised me,
In a vision unseen
that when I die, if I get to heaven,
The songbooks are waiting,
fully annotated, with lyric transcriptions printed up nice and neat, and not only can I see the compositions of these, but there are recordings of all of it. Everything!
That's the only heaven I want there to be:
The one with the words I lost in my sleep,
And the music of my hallucinations and dreams.

The soundtrack to my subconscious is something to be heard.
It’s too bad the world will never know of these things,
the mind music mingling amongst the mist of my dreams.
Such beauty deserves to be heard
By those here among us who love, live, and suffer,
who dance, cry, and sing.
But alas it is only a fantasy for me.
But it will be tremendous to finally free
the muses best work
when I inevitably meet
the maker of the muses and the music and me;
But until then the world will just have me to trust.

I promise.

It will be…

My Magnum Opus
ally Sep 21
I carve another tally into the walls of this prison
As my heart sits beating against the bars of my rib cage
I slice at the cell that is my skin
Craving the strength to dig an escape
Through the tunnels of my veins.
Rivers flow over the hills of my eyes and thighs,
Some saltwater, some blood.
I wish I could terraform,
Or just blast it all,
So my prison is gone, the ruins left for next of kin.
Geno Cattouse Feb 2013
Feet firmly planted.
Eyes peering into ciy lights . My old friends had waited patiently.
The merry go round would stop.  The hurdy gurdy would stop with
Deafening silence. As if what.

As if the token was never paid.
As if the effort was never made.
As if the book ran out of pages with no happy ending.

Optional. Washed away.  History told by the one eyed griot
Who had long since gone deaf.long ago lost a marble. But could not
Do the tally.

As if nothing matters but the most recent revision.
As if trutth was a street walker working for her next fix.
As if the distortion was a virtue.

Years in the salt mines. Drudgery and dillusion paassing for
Infinite hope.  The yolk bit deep the lash was a given annointed
as saviour.

As if the piper played for gratis.
As if the contract was written in wine.
As if one side payed while the other played.

Blood is thicker than *****
Like minds meld in commonality.
The twig lays close to the branch



As if that is the last word.
As if all is wellin mudvill.
As if Casey put it over the fence.
As if.
Ciera Nicole Oct 2013
How can a girl turn around and change the past?
How can she show you that maybe her emotions can last?
It's hard to depict a gorgeous picture, when all one has are the pieces.

I'm a failure.
A freak.
That one person that seems to make everything worse.
Can it be changed? Can it be altered?
If I had magic I would show you the world.
I could make the most of everything.

But you.
You tie my tongue and make me laugh.
You hold me dear and I can last.
I want to be close, but I feel so wrong.
I can't do that all alone.
You may never see the other side.
You may never reach inside.
But you are a special person.

But I've messed up.
Now the past is the past.
Consider you avoided.
I'll hop off my walls and hide.
Never to be found.
All because one drunken night,
sent you into a mood.
I'll never visit again.

For that, is one more mark.
One more to the tally board.
One last spark.
Tied to a tearing cord.
David Hilburn Aug 2024
Talking tea
With a summoned friend
More than a shadow of due, we...
Know the skirting of justice, to end

Tea with a risen moment
To verify the calm, of seem in a worldly cast
Of duty before youth, a travail to know and lament?
The tally of sore senses, ready to accept here for ask

Somber news, inevitably the voice of regiment
And reason, are you all in life, a rational yet
Come by beauty, of sincerity and just terror to relent
A having dance of minds loved by the appetite we whet

See the misery we appoint, to another
Cause and effect, with a bidding lip of real
Enough totals of shared more, the need of an open bother
To come forward for the soul, if not a spirit of courtesy to feel

Into the void of common questions and answers
To the fate of hours we destined to hope
In the name of couth, and its most frightening tear
With the place and tale of nearness, with a choice beyond cope

Tear the chide of need from your face...
Sent with the love of us, might we sake a new rainbow
You drunk like a passion of demand and the order of says
The chastity of heed we all know could, an eye of heaven to owe
a perfect egg balanced upside down says its time to be seasoned, with the right side up...
Kyle Kulseth Jan 2013
Thaw out frozen thoughts
shoulders hunched against the sleet
stride crunching on the downbeats
familiar haunts are blurring
Hurried northward daydreams don't
trickle south through Douglas Firs
But remember how our paths crossed?
Stargazers both--I balked first

4 blocks down, I'm held accountable
for crusade hypocrisies
I keep tucked in my back pockets
and rolled up in uprolled sleeves

The sun returns, or so I'm told
but it's been evening for awhile.
And, if they're wrong, where are we then?

Left knowing we're left under miles
                         of mounting snow?
Left knowing we've got to stop--
                   but not one clue how to cope
Wondering where hours, weeks and years went
counting calendars we've peeled off walls
Counting marks on records
               marks on faces
Counting calendars
Tally scars--stubborn reminders
     of how we got where we are.

Ground my skyward thoughts
in the grid of frozen streets
I'll sink deep in the hoarfrost
coats the ground, turns steps to beats
I'll keep time, now, walking westward
hands in pockets, eyes on feet.
I'll remember how your breath looked
off of Brooks Street walking east.
Ashleigh Kelco Nov 2013
It's been almost a year
and I haven't touched a blade,
haven't even thought about it really.
An entire year without the
instant rush of adrenaline,
the bite of the metal
sinking into my skin.
12 months without the blood
soaking through my crisp cotton sheets.
I've been good,
but the temptress calls me back again.
It's so easy to slice the pain away.
Whenever I **** up,
why not carve another tally?
I mean, who's keeping track anyway?
Why is it so hard to move forward,
when it's so easy to slip and fall?
I'm surrounded by people who want me safe,
but somehow I feel so alone.
The glint of silver is calling my name,
it's so impossible to say no.
Emily Coon Oct 2010
Banter flies around the room,
Name calling & shrieks sing their own tune.
Shuffle, shuffle, along we go,
Anxious, unsure, "Oh you ***."
Smack, smack, smack, fighting for that spot.
What a mess, organizantionless.
Only one will declare they have won,
Pounce! and the game is done.
Curses thrown all around.
Shuffle, shuffle, snap, snap, snap.
Final tally and that is that.
alex Nov 2014
There are countless tally marks engraved into this
pit of hurt and sorrow. I have been down
here lying flat on my belly trying not to
grind my teeth. Your name keeps
circling my head making me
dizzier and dizzier by the
minute. When I finally
realize I am being su-
rrounded by water,
it's too late.I look
all around for an
escape but your
name just dan-
ces in front of
my eyes. Eve-
ry hole on my
face starts to
fill up. I beg
myself  to st-
op crying, but
I    can't hear.
The water wa-
nts   to take
me too, but
the weight
tied around
my ankles m-
akes it impos-
sible. When
I look up thr-
ough the tra-
nquil water I
swear the
last thing
I see is
your
sm
il
e.
antony glaser Nov 2012
It was always from the same breath
you were called both ***** and hen.
The cue from on the hoof words jarring.
They wanted to curtail your pride
to wrestle ambition,
chide even your Soliloquy.

By the soak of the covert
all she wanted to was wash
the dust from her feet,
proceeding to use a pumice
she recognised the endless toil.

Submitting to the widening  silence,
her cochlea impressed -
the whisper of what it was to hear a stream,  
the disciple's quest - now her inner strength :
wading courage, sharpened focus
the weathered course, she longed to know.
Tally Crane ,Oak and bream
the amble of time proceeded
mindful her shawl swept
towards a larger cycle .
Gold shed upon suckling gold,
The time of the bole blackens,
Of the dark mounted through dapple,
While in the sealed apple
The seed cradled toward cold.
A gold on gold spent,
Put by from an elm in its years
Now its gilded of days,
Over turf’s dishevelment;
Where all which is green sickens,
All the fresh shall be sere.
All which is green sickens,
And it is but for a time
Those embered veinings blaze
A year’s delirium;
Or neared of other space,
Unportioned azure shall close
One of more, and which is,
One which goes.
Let the little pupils that will,
Of vision, gaze for salt
To whet their gazing, wit
In one weather is high
From burrow and lair, by
Nether providences’ default
An all’s accrued.
And apposite, beyond
Such primer beholdings, has
Its long accounting known


The beetle’s morsel thus
Was rich, and the slug’s bed on
The oak’s generations, deep
Over the lark’s bones.
In slough of Edens fast
Wit in one weather shall stand,
While millennia nibble at
The sensual apple
Toppled it net,
Plenty in the palm of the hand,
And the fallen not fallen, not lost
From out its certitude—
For our unbeggaring
Has been gross. Few and late
To cherish an immoderate
Wish, hope’s calculus,
Love’s hope; few to miss,
From natural tally ******,
In the lime-girdled space
Of choice, where alone
Man can abandon what
Is only his own;
And in cold and tarrying
Their rearisers sleep:


While to the granite cheek
Light’s purples bring
Infinite their ministering,
And past our finial
And ragged crests, to keep
Time’s ambient stood,
Propose horizons from
Their shadowy quarries; while,
In an unwandered wood,
Or under the indifferent foot,
Is let fall, let fall a fruit,
Through eternal leisures down,
For but time’s unravelling.
I'm sorry for when I called
you an *******.
Even though it was my fault
and I was having a 'bad day'.                                        

I'm sorry I never responded to                                    5
that text.
When you said I was a
good kisser, but I think you too.

I'm sorry I'm short
because of hereditary.                                                 10
Because it means you have
to stoop, I to lean, for us to kiss.

I'm sorry I'm not taller to see
your green-hazel eyes.
The eyes are the window to                                         15
the soul, but I don't have one.

I'm sorry for playing guitar
so badly.
But no one has ever told me to
stop, so I never did.                                                     20

I'm sorry for not keeping tally
on the McD vs. KFC fight.
For the amounts of hits and
misses, each response had back.

I'm sorry for never saying upfront;                          25
I love you.
But you don't love me, because
Who could? Not an angel like you.

I'm sorry for not liking punk music
all that much.                                                            30
I want to understand, but 'Sixteen
Candles' doesn't appeal.

I'm sorry for not crying
at TFIOS.
Augustus was beautiful, Hazel too,                        35
But cancer doesn't scare me.

I'm sorry for not talking about
your personal crisis.
When all I feel I do is
Talk about 'The Other' with you.                            40

I'm sorry for being a
narcissist.
For being me. ME. ME! All the time,
When you are so much more interesting.

I'm sorry for being a                                                 45
*****.
For what I didn't mean to say,
That might have made you cry.

I'm sorry for being a
misogynist.                                                                50
And for hating men too. And
for all I've ever said against the human race.

I'm sorry for sighing
so much.
It's just I'm tired of                                                    55
Everything I do. I'm done.

I'm sorry for talking to you when you wanted
to talk to friends.
But being the gentleman you are,
Didn't tell me to go away.                                        60

I'm sorry for wasting your
time.
When you could have being speaking,
playing, dreaming, sleeping, living.

I'm sorry for you knowing                                      65
me.
And talking to me at all. Because I'm a spider,
Slowly ******* the life out of you.

I'm sorry for existing
here.                                                                         70
Or just existing at
all.

I'm sorry for being
sorry.
Because I know you hate it when I                       75
apologize for the things I say.

I'm sorry for living
at all.
Because all I do is drain your optimism,
And replace it with cynical thoughts.                  80

I'm sorry for breathing.
I'm sorry for writing this poem.
I'm sorry that you know me.
I'm sorry for it all.
L 31-32: I'm fifteen now. So sixteen candles, while the shortened title of a fall out boy song, is also about how I don't want to get to my sixteenth birthday.
L 34: The fault in our stars.
L 40: The sobriquet I have for my depression.
bucky Nov 2014
'bury me,' i say, 'god,
stop choking, ******* bury me,'
lay me to rest with the other dead things in the garden
i spit in the ground to make it special
i want you to eat me
i want a lot of things
(i want you to eat me,
among other things
like the dead bodies sewn into my ribs,
and the carcass at your feet--i
want you to eat me, and enjoy it)
i taste like royalty
are you satisfied?
are you satisfied?
are you satisfied?
im still awake after all this time,holy and undead
(or just unholy and dead;but
what i meant to say was,
'i still love you')
today i will tear my stockings
i don't want a dead lover i just want to be dead
this time tomorrow i will have forgotten, i swear, or i promise, or something
god you're beautiful
and other sentiments
(are you satisfied?
are you satisfied?
are you satisfied?
why the **** are you here
you're not special
its ok, i scratched out my own eyes years ago)
god you're beautiful when you're dead
and other sentiments
im not a corpse im a cufflink
another one for the tally mark sweethearts
and the milk carton crying downstairs
i tell you i feel fine but im still drooling
it doesn't change anything
i say, 'i wanna bleed out'
and you say, 'i love you too,' and you stab me in the jugular
KEEP THE ***** YOULL NEED IT FOR LATER
Anderson Ritchie Dec 2012
Tally-**, Tally-**!
On our way we shall go!
Merrily, merrily we shall hunt!
Pursuing the fox with hound and mount!

Over brush, under felled tree,
dashing and bolting the fox eludes us.
Round the hills, still running free,
this amber devil can make sudden disappearance.
Brian Bigley Mar 2013
I count myself
in coffee-moons
and pretty ladies kissed

I've never kept a tally
but I know the ones I've missed

Lying awake
for withering
and living
a life 
without 

my cat
among the porcelain
as careful as I should have been
at the teetering knickknacks of your love 


I know that I'll be changing soon-
I feel my memory
disappearing
I'll mail a slender letter 
of hope to find you reveling 
in dragoncloud
sunflower weather
with a man who needs your doting 
while I count the coffee-moons and miss
the lips I once loved kissing
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Wind swept

Wild places the grass it puts on a veritable orchestra of movement as it undulates to the power of the breeze that passes
Mountain meadows splashed with a profusion of flowers they jiggle as if there tickled about something or other
The crest of the hill bordered with trees sloping down the hill children are running reminiscent of Jack and Jill
This utopia of nature sets aside the hurly burly the curvature of the hills still the wind hold the sun just right you it invites

Cross these pasture lands the feeding ground of many cattle and sheep the pride of the farmer who keeps
Inexorably bound by breed and creed for centuries this way of life flourishes among these native grasses
Tender shoots these roots give of their riches the sun and rain gives them a time to reign with joy all reaps
Pleasure in the walk letting fingers glide over the heads of tall grasses the silent telling of harmony filled poise

Future generations will be brought to these shadowed grounds they too will by their lives express and know contentment
Hourly they hold in sod that has known the breath of time as it has passed time and time again it enlivens breaks fourth
Sturdy and resplendent it shows all its dependability the same respect settlers knew is found the builders of this continent
Long shadows grow upon earths shoulders she knows the good and the bad but through resilience remains unconquered

The distant mountain stands eternal guard, it affects rainfall, mutes the winds force guarantying a peaceful valley
Perpetuity is taught in this land tomorrows unfold from days gone by with regularity they build and keep the way open
Stewardship the blessed hope working in harmony with all that surrounds at days end this will be the final sum and tally
The herdsman knows the time he invests it well always with broad vision does he act in this wisdom all will be victorious
Elijah Bowen Apr 2019
Here in America,
we improvise morgues
as needed.
in the cafeterias
or by the lockers,
near the ticket booths,
and at the altars.
We divvy up the dead.
Tally them
and report the number
like an answer.
13, 20, 49, 58, 6
Every death count
a timely national shock.
Almost as if  
our well-televised  
monthly tragedy
was ever anything less
than a game of roulette.
anything less than a matter of time
and time and time again.
Covering them each
with our bed sheets,
we try and stifle it.
Do our best to
staunch the the sights,
the noises,
(“just like chairs falling”)
the names
that keep bleeding out
onto our thoughts  
and tongues,
Far too much and
too often
not to choke on.

Here in America,
we’ve learned that  
horror is level-headed.
It is debatable.  
It is pangless.
It seeps, deep to the core,
perverting with a silent smile.
the steady, feverish dread
weaving itself into the mundane.
the “god help us”  
annulled by the
“respectfully disagreed”
the nightmare that lies  
always just underneath,
and just out of mind,
Until it insinuates itself
Again and again...

Here, in America
We line the bodies,
death slumped, and  
bled out on the pavement.
We arrange them-
Side by side.
Most are missing things-
a hat, a piece of face.
one shoe, a dulled pencil
(fill in C)
phones
buzzing on the ground
lit up with unread messages
(“Please call me”)
They are missing-
an upcoming  
7th birthday party,
(Star Wars themed)
They are missing-
their vacations.
their first dates.
their college applications.
job interviews.
kids.
fiancées.
Lined up lifeless,  
they are missing
far too many things  
to gather.
grace Sep 2015
dried blood bonds your jeans
to your skin
bright red gashes
where scar tissue had been
ripping fabric away
for beads of blood to bloom
head in your hands
on the floor of your bathroom
0 days clean
the relapse into madness
knowing you're ******
from the first tally
stinging showers
and red bathwater
drowning yourself in
symptoms of your disorder
red becomes a drug
pain becomes a solace
stuck in a cycle
of destruction to calmness

0 days clean

is an end

of a beginning
poem about what it's like to relapse

— The End —