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Craig Harrison Jan 2014
Ticking and tocking
ticking and tocking
watching the clock as it's ticking and tocking.
Every second that ticks on by, my time is running out
time to repent
time to be forgiven
and time to start over

The clock is ticking and tocking like it always does
a constant reminder my time is running out
no more years or months
no more weeks or days
no more hours or minutes only seconds remain

Ticking and tocking
MY TIME IS UP
L B Aug 2016
It was the time of my Auntie Bee summers
   I was small then
   She had a parakeet that landed on my head
   and a bathtub too
   with water so deep!
   and legs and claws!
   **** thing nearly chased me down the stairs!

She lived in slumbery Windsor Locks
   where bugs hung-out in the haze
   of teenage August
   I played in the tall weeds
   with a shoeless Italian boy
   who ate tomatoes like apples
   and cucumbers right off the vine!
   He was ***** free and foreign!
   We played— reckless, abandoned
   behind the gas pump, under the tractor, in the barn   
   and through the endless fields
   I didn’t know....
   His name was Tony
   I ate pizza with him—the first time

At Auntie Bee’s I had to go to bed at eight
   but I could watch night flowers
   bloom on wallpaper
   She came in to say good night
   slippered, shadowy, night dress slightly open
   and I peeped her *******!
   like Tony’s cucumbers!
   I had never seen my mother’s wonders....

Night spread its wings from the old fan—
   a bird of tireless exhaustion
   whipped, whipped, whipped to death in its cage
   tireless exhaustion
   tic-tocking in time to a wind-up clock
   stretched out on the whine
   of the overland trucks
   Route Five through the night of an open window

In the grape arbor below—
tremulous incessant
   crickets    crickets    crickets
tremulous incessant—insides of a child
   a summer child
   not yet ready for the fall of answers

Auntie Bee had a daughter—Maureen
   I followed her everywhere I could
   I was small then--    
   do anything for a stick of Juicy Fruit
I followed Maureen through my dreams
   of being sixteen
   and woke to Peggy’s “Fever”
   while she tied her sneakers
   against the mattress by my head

I followed Maureen (in my mind)
   tanned and bandanned
   to work in the fields of shade tobacco
   with all those Puerto Rican boys!
   She knew where she was going!

I was small then
...do anything for a stick of  gum

“Mauney! Mauney! Mauney!”
   ...through the goldenrod of roadside
   through the smell of oil that damped the dust    
I followed Maureen’s white shorts
   and chestnut hair...to the corner store
I followed the way the boys smiled
   the way the screen door slammed
   on her bright behind
   the way her lips taunted and took
   the coke-bottle’s green
I followed Maureen

I swear, I tried for hours to get that right!

Must have been Peggy Lee’s “Fever”

Maureen ties her sneakers in my face
Flaunts her years above my head
She has that look—
“We kids don’t know nothin”
(Little turds” that we be)

…followin’ Maureen
through the goldenrod of roadside
tic-tockin’, beboppin’

“Fever— in the morning
Fever all through the night….”
Peggy Lee's Fever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hXyALR9vI
I was seven years old and did I ever get this!
Peggy Lee's stripped down performance is the epitome of ***.

Windsor Locks is in Connecticut.
Vallery Jul 2023
tick tock
says the clock...
tick tock
as the clock marks the passing seconds, the passing hours...
as it ticks away and the time flies by before my eyes, streaks of colors dance with the constant
tick tock
of the clock...
tick tock
sings the clock...
the clock hanging from the wall, looking over me as it ticks away the time, sneering and ticking and taunting and tocking and the constant
tick tock
tick tock
tells the clock...
as it's hands move round and round and round, passing by each number, ticking away the time...
my time is leaving me behind,
leaving me behind with the constant
tick tock
from the clock...
tick tock
tick tock
the constant
tick and tock
from that stupid clock...
ticking away my time,
tocking away my clarity,
ticking away my sanity,
tocking away my mind,
tick tock tick tock tick
goes the clock...
I look up at the stupid clock, it's tick tocking clock face mocking me
tick
tock
goes the clock...
as I slowly raise my gun to my head,
tick tock
tick tock
as I place my finger on the trigger,
tick
tock
tick
tock
click
Preston Jul 2014
That blank, white, round face
Almost filled to the brim with apathy
As I regard it from afar.

Quietly ticking and tocking
Bearing witness to us all
Almost everywhere
As if to emphasize
The impossibility of escape.

It is omniscient yet knows
Nothing
Telling us with 12 numbers
2 spinning “hands” and 44 small lines
Everything.

It aggravates me
That men thought wise in ages past
Gave power to a thing so trite and unassuming
By desiring to order the abstract.

If I were to suddenly to abandon it
I may be thought of as insane.
But how can you not be
When it is not the sun
But the beat of
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
That continually spins the world?
object poem from Creative Writing
Shannon Jeffery May 2014
It's time to enter a sleepless mind
The cogs and wheels spin and grind
I hear the whistles and the chimes

My head racing faster than a v8
Thoughts are larger than a U.S state
For my sleep I am ever so late

Clocks in my head, tick tocking
Side to side my head rocking
Chains pulling of the ship docking

Inside a war is going
Bullets and missiles a throwing
Explosions is all, lost for all knowing

Eternity lost in void of thought
Reminiscing on all I was taught
Consistent darkness you haunt

A sleepless mind is what I see
It is all I know how to be
So if don't you mind, come join me
Cunning Linguist Jun 2014
Most urgent:
First we debase this worthless currency,
To usher in impending new world order
Imprisoning the globe
Then bathed in ignorance
(
Fluoridation* retarding cognitive development)

More the merrier but I transcend borders
because my mind has no barriers
Spinning diction with volatile volition
Enchanting your brain into submission

A cheese-grater to the pineal gland
Inhibiting ability to dream,
Impassioned creativity &
inquisitiveness at an impasse,
Expertly contrasting
Inquisition with inability to produce
dimethyltriptamine
Because the pacified sheep
can't sleep away their passiveness
Mass devastation for the kids & family!

Slam it down with a gra(in/m) of (bath) salt
Better yet, sugar and McDonald's
Let Ronald wash your mind in city water
Dang, there's nothing outrageous
about meandering naked
Lusting to eating someone's face
these days, is there?
(Passed out on the asphalt)

Who bares the fault,
Who cares the most?
I know you planned it Mr. President,
take your nuclear launch codes
Atop your throne with your Zionist cohorts
Fake a breath, then flip the switch
Now you am become Death
3.  
2.  
1...
Default the planet

Where's your ******* conviction?
Digest my words and eat your fat *** to death Amerika

Mind your fate
The Devil's gates
Just a step away

So take the chip beneath skin
6 6 6
Pick up sticks,
Gather a whole bundle
& Light yourself on fire (******)

Crackpot conspiracy
How can you not see
Our country's interests inherently
sit in the pockets of Nazis?

Don't even get me started on television;
hypnotized sheep
mass-media gives me aneurysms
Is the Lord truly your shepherd
or do you always stumble so blindly?

Military-Industrial-Machine
Gobbling resources at breakneck speed
CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME
FAT CAPITALIST PIGS!!

You make me feel like vomiting.

Simply waiting for the bomb
to come bump uglies with the ***** of Babylon

NOW WATCH ME GET
~ULTRASONIC~
AS I DROP
ATOMIC ELBOWS
FROM THE TOP ROPE
TO THE THROAT
IN HOPES YOU CHOKE


Leaves a bad taste in your mouth,
did I tell a ***** joke?
(Haha-ha)
GARGLE SOAP *****,
YOUR LIFE'S HOPELESS

If you like beer & NASCAR gimme a hell yeah!*  (hell yeah!)
If you like bacon & pole-dancing gimme a hell yeah!

**** THIS REPUBLIC
DYSTOPIAN,
FLOWING WITH
NECRO-DESPOTISM
A COY ACT OF VENTRILOQUISM,
ON THE WORLD'S STAGE

Tangled like a marionette in its strings,
An insect in spiderwebs
Festering infection
Just keep using band-aids ;)

Take these cocktails
of famine, death, pestilence + plague
Questionably mixed with a little apathy
and self-delusion it's all the rage

The miasma of death
Clung and hung to their silhouettes
like cigarettes
The hands of the clock
tick-tocking away the seconds toward oblivion
In which I carry, reckless abandonment

*insert some wrath of God,
explosions of nuclear & biblical proportions,
then apportion some cataclysm
Sit back,
Listen to the wailing screams of panicking children
******* lay waste to this rock already,
this organic prison
And each and every organism
that dwells within it's ecosystems


All this to bring
A radical new utopia
not for you & me
but them, the Elite
and their heathen families


Behold a new dawn;
On the verge of 100% synthetic conversion
Mind, body, & soul as pawns
Data corrupted, perverted by total divergence
Illusion of free-will ruptured and gushing,
until microscopic then atrophied

Misanthropic singularity
Quantum computing
and nanotechnology
Existentially creating cyborg zombies
& Making gods rise from machines
Kinda deus ex machina style,
But nothing Isaac Asimov could machinate even in his wildest dreams

To me, a fitting end to humanity
The Great White Ape silently weeps
Still waiting for a Messiah
*a refined repost of an earlier draft

If this poem provokes interest I strongly recommend you research the long term effects of water fluoridation, the role it plays in calcification of the pineal gland, as well as the role it played in **** concentration camps.
The **** agenda is alive and well carried out in the 20-21st century through puppet America.
Society is the world's grandest pyramid scheme.
Open your mind, and open your eyes
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
JT Nelson Apr 2020
Sit and listen
To the clock
The ticking
The tocking

Furnace fan
Droning on
In chorus
To the percussion of

The ticking
The tocking
Snapping off a beat
And fan’s low hum

A bird outside
Throws in a solo
A robin calling
For a mate

While I lay on my couch
And start to dream
About summer and
Not being told to stay inside

The ticking
The tocking
Time passing by the whole world
As we wait for the magical day

When the curve is flattened
And we’ve made it through
The ticking
The tocking
Just my thoughts as I lay here on my couch listening to the clock during the quarantine.
Wanderer Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me

My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.

Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.

I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.

These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.

Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.*

These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Plain text BK Barnes
Italicised text Brook Ilges
nivek Jan 2015
the ticking of a Death Watch Beetle
cuts the seconds of the clock in two
halves time down to smaller segments
a faster ticking to the tocking-
a constant reminder of tolling mortality
Terry O'Leary Dec 2013
Flings and wings and rings rejected…
Cupid’s arrows fly deflected…
“It clearly is too late” she signed, “to love, adore or pay me mind”

Penciled lines drew cruel conclusions
mocking mirror’s cracked illusions…
Sometimes, in time, I hang awhile, reflected in her parting smile

Drifting wan, below unheeding
worried, wounded suns a’ bleeding…
Struck dumb by night, no way to say “Let’s sound the stars another way”

Shaking sands frame distant smokestacks,
shanty towns, forsaken oak shacks…
Pursuing dusk, collapsed and dyed, the docile dolphin deftly stride
beyond behind the ebbing tide, towards One-Way Ships of sunken pride


Gypsy dreamer in denial…
Sleep and slumber standing trial…
I never really ever slept inside the cryptic walls she kept

Martian moons provoke the oceans…
Strange enchantments stir the potions…
The mutant molten purple skies ignite subconscious fireflies

Voiceless echoes feigning laughter…
Crushing quiet screaming after…
Vague vagaries pretend to sleep, my conscience crumbles in a heap

Startled stars at dawn are slacking…
Still her tempest sail is tacking…
In fractured dreams sere silhouettes blow foghorns, trumpets, clarinets…
Discarded glowing cigarettes tinge One-Way Ships with pale regrets


Cold cathedral clocks upended…
Frozen second hands suspended…
Beneath the gauze of time I try to while away somewhere nearby

Ticking-tocking time’s a’ tolling…
Cruel eternity’s cajoling…
The future, tattered, calls bereft, with nothing but her shadows left

Brigantines skim gated grottos…
Distant divas voice vibratos…
Though eons pass, then intermix, I’m trapped ’tween time’s untallied ticks

Conquered candles flicker faintly…
Braided tresses quiver quaintly…
Demystified, untamed in time, her face is traced in puppet mime…
Amorphous tongues of jangled rhyme hail One-Way Ships that glide sublime


Bolts of lightning flash unkindly…
******, alone, I huddle blindly…
I drain another dram and bray “she’s far too far too far away”

Twisted waterwheels a’ thirsting…
Flaming flower buds a’ bursting…
Adrift, I stagger far below their unchained magic rainbow glow

White crowned wave crests break unbounded…
Shackled seashore sands lie pounded…
Unleashed, beyond the bridled world, her silver sails, cut loose, unfurled

Captive bluebirds nest in baskets…
Morning glories cover caskets…
Wee ballerinas swirl and spin while giant jokers smirk and grin
and, wasted, I withdraw within carved One-Way Ships in flasks of gin


Hungary hounds harangue the highlands,
howl at skies and desert islands…
Below, unfettered carbon crows conceal the parting path she chose

Lighthouse lamps and lanterns lolling…
Mute abandoned fleets are calling…
The shallow shadowed portholes vaunt dim traces of the past that haunt

Curved magnetic curtained faces
yearn contorted brief embraces…
Her fairy-tale like tattoo touch was serpentine but soft as such

Coffee cups and spoons corroding…
Mystic tea leaves, visions boding…
A cabaret calls, standing bare, beneath a splintered footloose stair,
vain vapors drape her vacant chair in One-Way Ships beyond repair


Splattered days are dripping dreary…
Shattered nights are wearing weary…
Without her footfall at my side I steal away within to hide

Fancies flame, persist to flaunt her…
Wanton whispers hiss I want her…
Hyenas, haggard, held at bay, still gnaw on bones of yesterday

Graveled graveyards grey and ghastly…
Apparitions pacing past me…
The answers to my whys and sighs have veiled her limpid pale blue eyes

Lurid figments storm the valleys
****** the helms of spectral galleys…
The coughing phantoms at the wheel, they make it all seem so unreal…
Rebounding cracks of thunder’s peal, shake One-Way Ships while seagulls squeal


Yesterday’s unsung, unspoken…
Bygone paths fold, draped and broken…
The weary winds of winter cling to voiceless nightingales and sting

Desert blossoms growing colder…
Drifting sand dunes pause, enfold her…
An arctic kiss and blush revealed forbidden pipe dreams flung afield

Weeping willows’ wilting snow drops
drip on tips of tiny toe tops…
Their opal fires bleed and fade while suns explode in icy jade

Jagged hours hangin’ heavy…
Footsteps pace the barren levee…
While pros and cons and kings debate, acclaim and blame and fame equate
the ruin’s remnants left to fate with One-Way Ships that fail to wait


Blazing blades of love surrender…
Memories and thoughts transcend her…
The Persian gazer’s crystal shows I’ve truly lost my ruby rose

Buried deep in evening’s embers
dust forgets what flesh remembers…
The bitter taste of farewell’s haste has laid the ****** skies to waste

Ruffled ravaged ravens ranting…
Churlish ancient churchmen chanting
resounding what she told me true “There’s nothing more that you can do”

Trial adjourned by judge and jury…
Freed, she flees, absolved of worry…
Remaining runes and relics burn to feed the ashes of the urn…
Six seers, wiser, soon discern the One-Way Ships of no return
Brandon Jul 2012
Waking up startled, to battering wind and rain.
Tide marks surging to great gasping heights.
Catching breaths stolen by the wind.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Watching idly by while pieces of you dissolve into the shadows.
I want those clouds weaving through my fingertips.
Their curious renderings like powdered ***** sugar.
Taste it and they fall heavy with gloom like **** death in the aftermath of such storm.

Counting the miles to the storm.
Ticking, tocking, and clicking.
The clock waiting in anticipation for the next thunderous sound.
Cold shivers up my spine like a thousand Carolina insults.
Your ghost still haunts and seeps into my pores lastly at night.
I taste defeat in the way you love.
It's like weaving clouds between my fingertips
Trying to grasp and hold onto every flowing motion of you pulling away from me


My cold, cracked walls are surged.
Towered over in their crumbling decay.
I want to taste your rain.
Your lips gently sink into mine.
Crushed velvet smooth and warm waking up the army of dead hearts ready for battle.
I am no warrior but there's blood painted across my sky.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning, as I float on out into your turbulent seas.
Looking back on shore I realize that I'm finally home.

These seas roll uneasy.
Queasy.
Watching thru the mist towards our lighthouse that guided us to these depths
Trembling away like an afterthought.
The land has disappeared into the mouth of the shark.
Digested in the belly of a whale of angels.
Our sorrow holds us here, anchoring us to the tumultuous waves.
We battle our sea sickness with kisses of death lingering.
The soft pull of our exile turned oblivion.


Navigating with open wounds the silky expanse of midnight unwinding above us, within us.
Knowing us through and through.
An island of quivering vulnerability breaks the static horizon.
Lights, smog beginning to choke the sea air in my lungs.
Too long you've been left unkempt, grown comfortable.
That will change with new currents,
North winds bringing the frigid breath of winter.

Licking the sun off of the salty expanse of our sunburned red flesh.
The ****** of desperation lingers thru our moaning fingers
Feeling and pleading for our SOS call to be heard by anyone’s ears but ours.
The shores of this icy water leave my mind beneath the dredges of polar sleep.
We've grown strained, frost bitten, and distant in the few feet we are able to part.
The growling of hunger satiates our parched thirst.


I am rendered speechless adrift without you.
Hurricanes a coming.
Stand fast.
Secure the riggings.
Solaris brightens to light the way into calmer seas.
Those tepid shores of wonder and new beginnings fade into the horizon.
It's just you and me left to face the swelling tide.
Hang on.
The water is rising.
No one left to pull us saturated and insatiable from these waters of shadow and secrets.

The siren's song will bring us to our sharp shore end.
Resist the silky flow of nocturnal snakes wrapped around chilled flesh
Pulling closer to our aquatic hearts.
Hades and Persephone bond.
Glowing abysmal rage.
Holy grail veins.
Bleeding back into the orange crush dawn.
Night gives way to hollow rebirth
But once again we are inside one another.
Infinite.


These waves crash on overboard.
Trying to drag us back into the frigid depths with each ebb and flow.
With each crash of wave I can feel our resolve growing weaker.
The sensation of just letting go and giving in.
Should we let go and just give in?
Leave ourselves at the mercy of shipwrecks.
This hurricane dance we've perfected on the endless depthless ocean
Left us weak and willing to pull ourselves apart.
To taste our insides on the outsides.
How many times I've wondered have you noticed my stare.
The lustful licking of my sun blistered lips.
I want to taste the way you think and feel the warmth of your life to keep me alive.
The oceans call, I have heard, brings out the worst in sailors.
Always searching for the elusive siren to sing us a song.
A song from the depths of mythology to lullaby us away from our status adrift.


Our bodies collide in the tide once more.
Salted skin heated and torn
Latching on to something greater than just depths of starless prose.
You were a wicker man, weaved strong and whole.
I was a water girl, slipping straight through your bowl.
Wishes flow to and fro on tepid air laced with promises.
Our fingertips will never lose grip again,
the melody writhing between us like staccato heartbeats
Seeking solace on the endless seas.

*These waves rock us to shoreline.
Rock strewn and littered with the ribcages of whales
And the bows and sterns of shipwrecks long ago.
We pick up these pieces and hold them closest to our chest
Realizing the possibilities of a new home and a new start to this oceanic life we've drifted into.
We build a fire to warm our hearts and suspend our thoughts
Cradled and nestled in the crook of each others arms we leave our sea and our island
Soaring high into the clouds and the sleep we’ve begged for with our parched lips and swollen tongues.
Our dreams at night are the call of the sea begging to be drowned in our sand encrusted lungs,
To be one with us and our failures
The bequeathing cry of the seagull wakes us dully from our slumber
We peer out with sea salted eyes and realize it was all just a dream
We shout for help with all the voice we can muster
Letting in lungs full of icy ocean and dead crustaceans
Filling our bodies like bags of sand immobile
We’ve been sleeping with our anchors held closely
Down in the depths of the endless ocean rolling.
Normal text: Brook Ilges [http://hellopoetry.com/-brook-ilges]
Italicized text: B K Barnes [you're already here]
Bold text: Written by Brook, Edited by B K.
Wil Wynn Apr 2010
No One Knew His Name
when the woman called nine eleven she said
there is a guy sitting on the stoop
he's dead..
the nine eleven woman, martha, said
how do you know he
s dead we get plenty of calls like tha
t

she said, the woman, said
he
s got flies in his eyes

martha said we are gonna
be right there!

2.two condoms and a crucifix

when the coroner people cam
e he was still sitting on the stoop
still dead his breath no longer
straining the winter air
then they took pix and measured things
rigor mortis already had set in
and when they took th e pix
they showed two condoms and a crucifix
falling out of his pocket into the light of day

the woman who found him so still
she said it is strange
to see such disparate things spilling out of his pocket
he
was still dead and i believe he
s kept his state of being stubborn as he is/was
he remains forevermore stilled

we talked about those three things
two concepts really
two condoms and a crucifix
and we could not figure out which
he loved the most
because we never heard him speak of
anything but god crack *** amphetamine
trinity cooh, ya know?

3. Discovery Indeed

he came from wolf lake mn
population 31
when he left it went down to 25
ten thousand lakes
he could not imagine living there
anymore
but did he know at the end of the trail
what was he looking for?
two condoms and a xfix
my god he said
although he did not ever believe in such
extravagance
just before he went to sleep
perhaps to be still forever more
my god he said
as the soporific hit blessed
whatever was left of his short life
my god he said
although he was agnostic or so he said
my god
he could not have believed had he not heard them words
himself
as he grabbed the condoms and kissed the xfix
or maybe it was the other way around.

4. No ****
sitting on his ***** chair
he put his hands between his legs
reached for the ****
and squeezed:
yellowish stuff strained out between his fingers.

his grandma slapped him, hard

5. Things Looking Up

he lay down on the floor
to look up the neighbor's dress
he saw a pair of legs descend
from pink *******

then his grandma picked him up
slapped him, hard.

6. Harbinger

winter flew in harsh in minnesota,
battered houses, pine trees,
the wide landscape into submission
let the wind run whistling, whipping
subservient snow, whitewhirlwinding
down desolate fields and lanes

one day it got so cold
spit froze before it hit the ground
it made a little noise midair

7. Cold Dogs

one time he saw some fifteen dead dogs
piled by the side of a road
frozen like the rest of the landscape

even as an adult he wondered
what THAT had been about

8. *** Is Child's Play

in the first grade he fell in love with miss renee
the teacher who let him put his head down on her legs
and petted his head while he glowed glowed glowed
he learned to love school and read read read
so ms renee would say Joe, read!
and he would

one time he dreamed he had *** with miss renee
*** was tying something between her legs
a knot of love in her ******

so how did he know about such things
at five? he always wondered about that.

9. Revelation

his fishing pole was gone!
he looked and looked while spring time
raised giant mosquitos that buzzed and buzzed
about his head

he never found his fishing pole
he thought that maybe when you die
and go to heaven
god showed you in a sort of movie
what had happened so you'd nod yer head and say
yeh, i'd never would have guessed grandma

gave it away.

10. Alone At Last

say to the darkness this
emptiness covers all this
suffusing light scrapes away
some pain some excruciating i am
lucid preamble to my nevermores
in plural congruent universes
coexisting rapt in its own
say this is a dream a vertigo
a swirling metaphor for then/now/and again
can days still mean something new
today everyone left
everyone left


staring out the window at six years old
he saw woods slowly fade into the night
he thought they sank
into an oblivious fog

why didn't i go to the neighbors' house

11. Death Becomes The Fisherman

the lakes were all around
they said let's go see the drowned man
so they went to the shore
a boat with two men rowing
approached
you could see a hand and an arm sticking out
from somebody lying on the floor
someone said "hey, he
s waving"
close to the shore
the wind brought the overpowering
stink of death
that shocked him because he'
d not thought of "drowned" as "dead"

they brought the body out
to the shore
covered it waiting for the coroner to show up

mother and sister cried nearby
neither could approach the stinking corpse

he then realized that no matter what
you can't kiss a rotting corpse.

12. Rubber Match

the first time he met a ******
there was no formal intro
he just found it in his father'
s drawer
filled it with water
dumped it on the neighbor
s'
yard

later on he could hear them fight

13.Prurient Discovery

when he was 13 he made love to her
who was 16
and all he could think about
was how gross it was and wet

until he came

then his opinion suddenly
changed

for the

better

14. Death Is

his grandmother was sick
in the MN winter cold home
she coughed and coughed
so she
put kerosene on her back
and chest
he saw she got blisters
he did not want to help
clean them up
so he hid
until she was quiet for a couple of days

he went to see her she was dead
so he stayed drunk for a week or so
until he could not stand the stink no more

15. The Beginning of the End

he went to a foster home
there were 5 other teenagers there
the first night
he went to bed
someone put a pillow on his head
while hands turned him over
held him down
pulled his pjs down
5 guys ***** him then and there

the next day he ran away

16. The End of the Beginning

they brought him back 23 times
on the 24 he met one of the kids
by the lake
stuck a knife under the guys
ribcage on the right side

all the guy did was sigh
and slide slowly down

he pushed the guy into the water
somehow it took weeks to find the body
by then nobody could tell he'd been stabbed

but none of the kids ever held him down
again

17. COOH

alcohol alcohol
its sweet old name tells me all
i need to know how spinning
the world distances itself
in a warm blood red haze
and only a swollen torpor remains
alcohol alcohol
its sweet old name tells me all
i need to know
and not to know

18. Not Late, Just Timely

time 'sss a stone a sash a thunderbolt up high
a rudder a list a lisp a restless meandering
time 'sss a spire a fish still below the waves
a constraint a push a shove a deal a nothing
time 'ssss a look a lock a rail
a sunrise a fall a crack a vial
time 'sss a sock a pen a handgun
a radiant breeze a solid solid hand
two elbows and one mouth

he took his time and time took him
step by step he climbed the stairs of his cognizance
such as it was just this
no hope

i say no hope but no despair either
the world sometimes it's just the way it is
he understood that but what to make
of this breathing hearing seeing tasting feeling smelling
thinking self
he knew not
and in not knowing
he passed the time that isss not
what you think it isss
time 'sss not even a ticking tocking clock
just let it be he said to himself
time 'sss not me
yet time isss me

and he took another ****


19. Luger

his father came back to town one day
the war had been over for a few years then
they told him where he could find his father and he went
and watched his father, dressed in combat rags,
as he counted the fingers of his shooting hand

they exchanged glances and he left

got drunk and did not hear or see his father ever again.

20. Life As A Long One Night Stand

the girls are many the girls are new
every day they seems to look at you
and you melt and then you are gone
in another trip with another stranger
in your bed do not say much
cause *** is just another drug

just cheaper and easier to get
than smack

21. Epitaph

he learned a song and a little dance
at the emergency rooms where he got
the prescription pain killers man he could
lie and act and pretend so much
he knew they'
d really have to give him stuff
cause that'
s the way that things work
in big city hospitals
he re-membered a doc who smiled at him
saying man you'll be dead soon
although you think you are fooling me
the only fool in this room is you

he laughed cause he could not agree more
put that in my tombstone he said
the doc said no, you are gonna do it all by yourself

22. Lost Weekend
-.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.-
-.- -.- -.- -.-
-.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.- -.-
-.- -.- -.- -.-

23. Dashes and Spaces
---- -- -- - - --- --
-- - -- -- -- - - -- - -- -- -
--- - - - - - -- - -- - - - --- - -
-- - - -- -- -- -- ---- - - --

24. Two Condoms

at the end of the road
the road the empty road
the sinuous complex road
the road the heavy road
where lust and love entwine
who knows the end or the beginning
who knows alpha or omega
who the what who the where who even
the hidden sentient how
the nothingness the emptiness
of come and come and come
just emptiness of not becoming
he heard himself saying screaming
at the end of something like a bumpy ride
she was who knows who but she was
you know the hole the whole the mankind whole
the all embracing whole the whole hole
the destination origin
the one and all
he said here i belong elementary
i exist because of this
he pounded pounded in his anguish
of becoming one and whole
he howled his grief intermittent
as pulse wave of heart
the heat of his despair
the only drug that it's living protein
he felt his way
and then was gone from virile crisis
to distant remote self acquiring its orthodoxy of despair
because as he put it once you cannot ever **** yourself
square the circle as it were
so he accepted two trojans
at the bar when a guy in the adjacent ****** said
these are the best and yes
we gotta protect ourselves
and left the couple of rubbers
by the sink
and he would have washed his hands
had he known how
but instead put them products in his pocket
a premonition of some kind of future bliss
tugging the sleeve of his presentiment

carving already a vast innocent tomorrow
while he walked out

he truly did not care

25. Crucifix

at the end of the road the empty road, the road full of lies, deceit and a hunger so great it overwhelmed all else, at the end, the terminus, the appointed hour, at the end of the alpha, the omega, the in-between, the road sinuous road that led down the miriad steps to the steps on a stoop in the city of new york, at the end of a long concatenation of minutes, each ethereal, insubstantial, a construct, a vapid dream or nightmare indeed he sat down one last time with his burden of hours to dream one last warm oblivious cozy, embracing shroud, sweet balm to assuage the freezing claws of grief. in the seedy bar last
night he met a blonde who said, your eyes remind me of a long ago boyfriend, he said well, he musta been one hell of a guy, she said indeed, he died in iraq, suicide, ******* he said that is not right, she said we are all at war, daily intimate war, i think, who said we met the enemy and it's us? he did not know but understood, he said although denial is more than a river in egypt, ha ha, but they both got it since they both craved the same intoxication, the same zig-zag and feint, she said the first time i got drunk i was eleven, that was my first time for *** too, he said the first time i got drunk i too was eleven, the night had fallen i was alone in wisconsin among the wolves of winter howling their relentless wind outside, i found a bottle of the hard stuff, not beer like everybody drank i could not stand the taste it was too bitter, but gin, and i drank it convulsed at first by the shock, then not, just drinking a few more gulps and believed i had found the greatest gift on earth, the greatest warmest kindest confidant, she said you talk funny, but i understand what you are talking about, i know the allure but my hangovers, wow, he said no, i never got one, but. here is the but. i knew a limit, i was never blind blind drunk until much later in new york, she said we each have our cross to bear and laughed and dontcha just wanna do a line now ha ha, and it went on like that for quite a while. when she was leaving she said, you wanna see something funny, yeah he said, she brought out a crucifix and it was indeed jesus, his mouth open, imploring relief from his harsh dad, and he had a gold tooth, blue eyes and dreads, he laughed and said that's quite contemporary and she said wha? you don't think he looked like that? but really who knows what the truth was, he said or is, so they both lifted one in memory of the dear departed one who had caused so much trouble here on earth, but, she said, he did not mean it, here keep it and he did. later on he found his fix it was extra good ****, too good in fact, and who knows, when he sat there with flies in his eyes, his life a dream, invention, make believe, whether any of the episodes were true at all, sob stories to assuage the beast of craving within, get his hand in your pocket and whether, as he sank below the surface of his tortured bliss, he saw his true light at long last.
TJW Oct 2013
I’m lost in Rome,
all the roads have brought me here.
I’m searching for home,
Holding a picture of it near.
I step into the metronome,
I enter with an identity in my pockets.
I speak to the garden gnome,
He’s asking if I’d like to buy a silver locket.
At a legato tempo,
10. The metronome keeps ticking.                                                         ­       
My lips only stay chapped,
Simply because I won’t stop licking them.
“I’m looking for the Lucky Fix.
The Shaved Jaguar told me this is the place.”
The Gnome haggles me up in my face,
“Oh please, I know all the old tricks!
I now control your brain stem.
You have a long way to go! You’ve been trapped!”
At an Allegro tempo;
20. The Metronome keeps tocking.
On the stage,
The Kangaroos are still kick-boxing.
Breaking free of their cage,
The only price is to make you dance.
“I seek to barter for some potions",
They want to know, "So Why have I been cursed?”
The Hooting Owl, offers them a grand notion.
“Keeping thinking that and you might just burst.”
30.The metronome stops on the off-beat, .
“Where is the Lucky Fix?”
I began to grow impatient!
“Don’t you first need your feet?
Your priorities need to be layered bricks.
Your addiction to gratification will lead you to defeat!
You can find the matches in the Fire Station.
I know some of the tricks. That’s a good place to start.”
The Goblins are looking for the heart.
40. With a Presto Tempo
You must reset the Metronome.
TJW 2013
.
Kara Jean Jun 2016
The devil sat next to her offering Sumatra blend coffee as a peace offering
He had an intimidating persuasive grin
Her soul was shrinking
Her ******* were missing
He trapped her plotting
His key was twisting into Hells room floor
She could no longer ignore his insensitive personality  
His life style was to **** expensive
A clock tick tocking rhythm less  
She still held her head high
He never seemed surprised when she said goodbye
I'm sitting in In-School-Suspension
I flick their air with my tongue,
And I can taste the tension
And the humility
Of the acts that got my fellow **** ups here

One was in a fight,
One was selling ***,
One caught with a knife,
The other blew his snot,
On the principal

This room is as bland as bland can be
Tanned walls and tall ceilings,
That are impossible to reach
I just can't shake the feeling,
Of boredom taking over me

This poem has no real purpose,
I'm writing to pass the time,
Only five more hours to go,
Since it's half past nine

Tick, tock, tick tock,
Goes the clock,
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
There it goes again, the clock
With it's ticking,
And it's tocking
It's driving me insane,
Up the tanned walls to the high ceilings
I can't shake the feeling,
Of boredom taking over me
Poetry by MAN Jun 2013
My mind wanders often, I'm constantly asking myself questions, generating my mind's associations.
ALWAYS
move forward master your emotions, ride life's waves navigate through life's oceans.
BALANCE
most people don't seem to have it, they can't figure out how to counteract their bad habits.
CHANGE
constantly feel your soul grow, keep your heart fertile for it is the soil.
DESTINY
be weary of its path or else you will feel its pre determined wrath.
EVOLVE
my every breath is an evolution, search through the past to find the solutions.
FOCUS
cause reality smokes us, it takes away our hopes and continually chokes us.
GREATNESS
will never be achieved if we continue to run in circles and live for greed.
HAPPINESS
as a world lets feel it instead of creating conflict to **** it.
INTERACTION
our worlds collide creating a Big Bang of thought, sharing knowledge with each other should always be taught.
JOY
lets give it to the planet, our hearts are diamonds stuck in fossilized granite.
KARMA
never been a mystery, for our journeys begin in our history.
LIES
people live them everyday, leaders speak them with every other word they say.
MOMENTS
A snapshot through time that should be felt in spirit and mind.
NATURE
outside or within, an untamed rain forest or a force that is invisible like the wind.
OPPORTUNITY
comes knocking all the time but never to those who insist on closing their mind.
PATIENCE
we wait for our saviors like we wait for coffee, we rush to our deaths while the clock is tick tocking.
QUESTIONS
for me bring them on, for the answers only come to a mind that's strong.
REVOLUTION
A sibling to evolution, born from the desire to find the ultimate solution.
STABLE
not many people are able, sometimes you wanna put all your cards on the table.
TIME
A measurement of a period, tied to our existence which is myriad.
UNIVERSAL
sounds huge but isn't, puts us all together maybe we can win it.
VISION
we must gain sight to see ,the patterns of history are blatent in stalling humanity.
WEAKNESS
in everyones soul, it's when you move forward strength arrives and you pay the toll.
XENOPHOBIA
what's new is strange addition will always equal change.
YESTERDAY
has passed a new day begins, forgive yourself today for yesterday's sins.
ZOMBIES
*I see many of them everyday, walking through life with nothing good to say.
I initially left out O most likely cause I woke up at 4:30 am PST with the inspiration to finish and share this piece. :D 6-30-13 M.A.N Also after doing this piece I found these came quite natural to me and I enjoyed very much writing it, I plan on revisiting this format in the future and being more creative with overall message and theme.I think I have the final edit this piece really burnt up my mind writing it I kinda rushed it out and was too busy in RL to edit till today.7-4-13 M.A.N
Gesmontigny Oct 2012
It is docking it is tocking in the winter garden locking
over still and heavy knocking that defies the very dew.
We see storms and angels crumbling under load of dearest kindling and the fire and gases burning in the skies where clouds are churning and the snow, hail, sleet, and ices come to split the air in slices as it settles over houses, villages, shoes.
Waiting huddling drawing the blankets hot and heavy with a fear of powerful nature in the windy savory few.
Now we see and hear the howling like a wolf entangles scowling as she tries to say her fowl and angry message to the blew.
I am never quite so settled as when all around me crumbles and the anger of the desert makes the inner anger moot.
And the people seem to gather in their individual lathers but they all believe the madness that the storm will never pass.  But pass it does and finding with the dawn a calm descending, yes, a calm that is so different that it seems to crush our ears.   We are happy to look outward and even hear a skylark and to see the streaming sun rays flitter over piles of snow.
Ever angled up in heaven we almost see a dragon or a cannon that's protecting rampart walls.
And we know that we are safe here but it was such a battle that the scars are not quite healed.
Jayden Hopkins Jun 2018
Ticking and ticking
tocking tocking and tocking
looking at the clock
ticking and tocking

time is going by so fast
change is in the air
in the now, feeling fear
for what will come
this time next year...

will I be in comforts arms?
or on the streets, under stars
will I be a happy man?
will I ever understand
the game we play, every day

so complicated
are our lives
when we cross paths
worlds lines all meet
in space, and time

links and forces bound together
reality needs an observer
before the universe's time
before us all, all of time
ahead of us a spec of dust riding on a sunbeam.
in the grand scheme of things
we're grains of sand on the beach
the only beach that we know
so it is, it is so.
Krezeyyyy Sep 2014
Tick-tock-tick-tock
I'm slipping out of you
You're slipping out me
Love, we're slipping out and into somewhere new
Grab a hold of me, of us, of everything in between
Let's slip away, away into each other's again.


~~ Criss ∞
Mike Hauser Oct 2018
The trouble I find
Most often with time
Is it keeps on ticking
Tocking it's bite

Taking you out
Without much thought
Through the daily grind
And nightly bumps

All the burning hoops
Time sets on fire
Says it's okay
But we know it's a liar

Never slowing down
Where a man can catch his breath
Till you make your exit
... Stage Left

The trouble I find
Most often with time
Is it keeps on ticking
Tocking it's bite
Benjamin Davies Nov 2010
Teardrop                                                         ­       
                                                                ­  that
                                                                ­beauty
                                                          sits inside the
                                                     tears - sweat, sliding
                                                  down  your skin - slowly
                                               dripping  down  to fall where  
                                          memories lie awaiting - the smallest
                                        ripple  on  a  pond - a  wave  so  subtly
                                      starting - the  faintest  tingle  whimpering
                                  for  its life’s exasperation - wants some  simple
                                recognition, a tiny touch of reckoning - shed that  
                              drop  that  comes  to  cause­  the  wave’s  unbridled
                            movement - be  the   pin’s   undying  call  in   a   room
                          plush packed in silence - that  saline  drip on weathered
                           floors   that  saw  this  life  worth  making - gives  this
                               road   a  worthy  end,  or  bend  since  path’s  are
                                wending - ride  the  bead  that  singing  tells, the
                                    ticking,  tocking  resilienc­e - the  glistening
                                        few that beating drum - through shine,
                                                with  ligh­t,  the  spectrum.
                                              ­                - *BRD
Copyright @2010 by Ben Davies
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2014
a story, a long strange poem, and a thank-you note of a sort
~~~~~~

swords and verbs,
subjects and nouns,
participles and particles,
participants of past and futures
transitive and intransitive,
none can get pen-rooted,
sic transit gloria verborum eius
(fleetingly passes the glory of his words)

slow or swift, overhead, all unobtainable,
from the atmosphere unpluckable,
no deposit, no return, no po-ahem,
only a sad sonata denominated,
Air on the E(mpty) String continuous playing

likely something is a brewing,
clock internal clocking,
but no talking, just tic tocking,
ideas stumblebum in and out,
inebriated, fuzzy speeches,
don't reach out to touch or savor 'em,
those weird words were made for walking,
not for retrieval, sorting, storing, and
subsequent lots of
some assembly needed...
poetic conceiving...not

perhaps they are disfigured?
important but disguised?
definitely not credos and codas,
mission statements, definitions,
nah...not me, unimportant amateur passerby,
my only "laurels" come to
die at holiday time,
lariats to lasso, tether and then brownout,
a wintry green,
gone to nether garbage cans, timely and expediently,
per a calendar deadline

but an overheard conversation
on Eighth Avenue,
a ******-onto latched-onto,
undid this parlous state of
an evenhanded hypnotic flatlining,
a perilous mind,
infected with no-inspiration

"Why I do not share,  
or publish on the Internet," she said,
"what I write is so
precious to me that
the thought of it,
orphaned and drowned
amidst the unending pixels,
water-falling words
into ocean trenches,
unborn, yet ignominiously dead
just the same,
at the same instant,
an unbearable pain,
childbirth and death,
all in one, unthinkable!"


"Publish" he begged her,
"too good are you
to deny this world of this,
the world needs it proofs,
you are a proof!"


stunned by an emotive slap,
I knew kinetically,
I too must have,
proofs,
of me,
worthy of presentation,
if only,
to prove worthy of
your time and thus
prove to myself
my very own existence,
even derision decisive,
is an extant proof of sorts...
~~~~~~~

My Proofs

having come so far,
task so vast,
bedeviled and bewildered,
I am the face I have seen
in photos and mirrors,
but how can I stake my claim
to be more than just a
passing fancy virtual reality?

you cannot bite me,
though willing do I tender
my body for your impression
upon my body permanent

you cannot caress my lips,
though oft imagined it,
the multiplicity tender of that dream,
makes the would-be reality of it,
pale with a shame of insufficiency

bleed and wept poetry for the unity us,
so hard, so oft, so free,
my tablet machine
human tear-tracked and deep red scarred,
the Apple Geniuses,
when they see me coming,
whisper it's him, Poet-man,
who made an
iPad into a tissue
that cannot be repaired/replaced,
and run away and hide

have I not confessed enough my colorful sins,
but alas, all you can see is blackened dots of crimes
hosted upon a white background
of pleadings for forgiveness,
i's dotted with rejection slips,
t's crossed with painful slivers
of writings crucified by me,
therefore, for the grace of god in man,
they died unnamed and lived only briefly

perhaps if you saw a man by my name
on your television, you would say
"****, that is/was him, it cannot be denied,"
but you cannot be sure, imposter,
what must I do, to make the evening news,
and claim existence, therefore I am!

I cannot say with certainty,
am more then a running-around,
neurons and electrons colliding,
a mess of sub-atomic particles
invisible and in periodic possession of a flavor
of the god factor or Einstein's hanky

but if you come to my city,
I can give you a location,
a centralized park, a wooden fruit-box stand,
at an end corner,
(cause corners end well)
where a man stands and recites
and sorta sounds like what's his name

if you want to be sure it is that one,
look for teeth marks on his body,
reading out loud from a tablet unique,
alternating stanzas with Siri
his spiteful spitfire editor and sometime fan,
the box upon he stands transported
grapes from California, oranges from Florida,
can't be sure, the stickers rain washed away,
and if he weeping as he chants,
odds are it could be me,
I mean him...

to be sure you must place gentle a finger
or your lips across, upon his,
if electrons you sense and taste,
and yours they embrace
as naturally as if they were waiting

just for you,
you can almost be sure,
don't ask his name, unnecessary,
for he will face you with these words:


*"Thank you, Thank you!
you are my proof..."
a story, a long poem, and a thank-you note
to one who is known as
Jara Fan,
from Saskatchewan,
writ as an attempted proof of our actualized mutual existence
beyond
mere pixelation
Its that time of year
When joy and laughter fill the air
And sugar and sweets
Make quite the ambrosial treats

Pine trees and needles
Release aromas in the air.
They gleam with décor
And memories to remember.

The suns rays glimmer
Off of shiny beads of snowflakes.
Bodies of water
Become encased by an ice face.

Snowball fights and forts
Make entertainment from the porch.
Snowmen and angels
Create art in front yards galore.

Santa checks his list
For those who were naughty and nice
Then makes a round trip
Around the world in one night.

He delivers gifts
To millions and millions of kids
Consisting of things
They wish to get on their wish list.

A warm giving heart
Pitter patters with love and joy.
Presents are opened
With beaming eyes and excitement.

A warm fireplace
With a mantle full of stockings
And conversation
Is a scene treasured forever.

There’s no better time
To forget animosity
Remember the good
And live giving to those who need.

For this is the time
To let grace become the clocks face
Ticking and tocking
Non-stop to show peace still exists.

You become second
To those who deserve to be first
For it’s the season
Where giving gives life a reason.
My December poem. Hope you like it!
Terry Collett Oct 2013
Matilda listens to make sure they’ve gone out knowing Mr Doozie the cat is licking his milk the slurping sound fills the now silent room but she has to be sure her aunt and uncle have gone she can’t allow Moses to come in by the backdoor until they’re long gone and in the town buying and selling their wares she places her hands on her head and closes her eyes to focus her listening to close out Mr Doozie’s sounds the saucer of milk being pushed across the floor the purring but she cannot hear them now cannot hear their voices can’t hear Auntie’s whines and Uncle’s bellows can’t smell Uncle’s pipe or the aroma of his farts or Auntie’s sour body odour and sniffs the air and puts one leg up on the chair and lets the skirt fall back revealing her fine thigh and underwear something for Moses to see and get excited about not that he needs any encouragement  especially after the last time he came around when her aunt and uncle had gone off for the day to market on the old bus and Moses had sneaked in the back door his eyes peering around the door and she saying They’ve gone out you can come in and he did and while Mr Doozie sat on the end of the bed watching disinterestedly Moses had kissed her all over her body and after games of foreplay he’d entered her with subtleness and moved in a slow motion so that the bed only moved and rattled slightly and did not disturbed Mr Doozie and they had only just dressed and was letting Moses out the back door when Auntie came in the front door followed by Uncle with his arms laden with shopping and moaning about the prices and the shop girls and how there is no manners anymore and she feeling Moses’ ***** easing down her thigh and stood there with her innocent stare but this time Moses would need to be quicker as they had only gone to town and wouldn’t be long and if they returned earlier and caught her and Moses undressed and ******* with Mr Doozie sitting watching she doesn’t know what they’d say or do although knowing Uncle he’d chase off Moses with his walking stick and tan her hide until she cried and cried but Moses hasn’t come and she listens out hushing Mr Doozie with a shush shush and scratches her thigh and strains her ears was that him? She sighs opening her eyes sitting up looking towards the door waiting anticipating feeling the body’s urge the body’s need wanting Moses to come through the door and hurry with her up the stairs followed no doubt by Mr Doozie and quickly ******* and into her bed and setting aside the kissing and messing get on with the ******* but the door remains closed the room is almost silent apart from Mr Doozie’s licking and purring and the soft tick tocking of the grandfather clock and her heart thumping boom boom boom boom like a small drum all around the room and inside her head and she disappointed frustrated with no *** with Moses just a small empty bed.
PROSE POEM. COMPOSED A FEW YEARS AGO.
Ben DuBois Feb 2012
Your clock’s ticking
Tocking as your reign nears its end
Telling you to give it up for a positive existence
Or is this act in your nature?
Living your life in solitary solitude
Because you can’t go out in public

Is your megalomaniacal lifestyle that appealing,
That alluring to you?
Will you ever give it up
And end your shadowy existence?
Because your shadow is luminous
In the dark alley, luminating.

Tomorrow will be your end
I’m sick and tired of searching
For your sorry ***.

I hope when you’re in solitude
Within those prison walls
You do nothing but curl up
Just like a sleeping cat
For hours on end.

The countdown on your clock
Your watch
Your life
Has hit zero…
Do you feel accomplished?

**February 21, 2012
I challenged myself to have a stranger give me 10 words and I would write a poem containing all of them. The words were as follows: solitary, alluring, megalomaniac, luminous, clocks, tomorrow, tired, existence, nature, and cat. This is what was produced as a result.
Taylor Rothanzl Sep 2014
Amongst head spin circumstance,
meets the line of whim-less romantic turmoil.
Plentiful expansion of miraculous nothing.

Like peeled back sickness,
inside the droopy eyed valiance,
travels in seizes to engulf the second chance of prudence.

Life fleeting from metal to vein,
tick tocking time till pressure releases.
Sustained by little on course in hopes of none to come,
the captain with no route homeward.

Vacant luminous street corners
bustle of the land that never ends.
An isolating attempt to repel the frost away from bone.
To fall amongst the boundless sea of filth.
The ticking the tockin
How the clock is never stopping
Stifled in a par time
My pumped up kicks are stomping
Looking around in a kolidascope
The emotion in the heart never fails
It only croaks
Time is of the essence
Pleasant yet indifferent
Different in what is and what isn't
Oh how the clock never stops
And time will never fail
Time only tocks
Time
john oconnell Jul 2010
Home sweet home -
pendulum clock
ticking and tocking
quietly on;
while the ulcer
and heart attack
haste
of impending businesses
sets forth.
Inn-Sum-Knee-Ah (“Insomnia”)



I throw words at the ceiling fan

to break them apart over

the bleeding sheep on the carpet.


One. Two. Three. Four.


Pepper it over the bodies

while the fur is still waving

to the wind of the artificial air.


Five Six Seven Eight


My back cracks more than the

tocking insanity of the creak-squeak-squawk

crocked blame of the spinning blades above me.

I still can’t breathe.


Nine ten eleven twelve


The purple spot on the wall wanders between the bitter

clouds and the rocking streetlamps that wink,

as if to welcome me with “We are not sleeping either.”

But we will watch.


Thirteenfourteen.


That might be a good thing if I didn’t have my eyes closed,

burning from the inside out.


Fifteen. Sixtheen. Seventh

Sleep.


...

Viktor Aurelius read four of my poems on Whispers in the Dark Radio, a horror poetry show.
Jaya Gumatay May 2013
It feels as if I’m drowning,
Waiting for someone to come and aid me,
But time keeps tick-tick-tocking away
As if it’s in a race.

I wonder if my soul is racing against other souls
To see who could outrun the other
Or who could swim more
Than the person next to them.

I wonder if my soul is determining
Whether or not
This fishbowl is worth
All the fight and struggle.

Because I like to think my brain and my heart
Are battling each other for dominance.
Battling each other to see who could outsmart the other,
To see which ***** is needed more.

They say there’s plenty of fish in the sea,
But who’s to say
That there aren’t beasts and sharks
In the tank either?

A hundred miles below the horizon
Lie creatures that haven’t been discovered.
Different,
Yet so similar to our minds.

The grey matter that nurse our ideas
And cultivate them
They hide our innermost thoughts
And dreams lay hidden under them,
Waiting for the right moment to spring up.

My feet are straddling the edge of the cliff.
My heart’s racing,
And my mind is telling me to jump,
But I’m afraid of the unknown
And I don’t know what to expect
Once I dive in.
life
Lilly Tran Sep 2012
I feel your absence in my sleep,
the two by six abyss where your body should be.
Crime scene lines in my mind stand out starkly on the sheets;
those lines of snow and desperate hoes stealing you away from me.
It's been weeks now where
rolled-up bills, razorblades, railroad tracks have become your new significant other.

The minutes tic-tocking by in my dreams,
without you they slink by so slow from my fitful doze.
I wander and wade in nightmares after smoking sheep and counting green,
the Sandman is stalking me, mocking me and I'm praying you were near.
I put the ghost of your body in this pillow
but a stuffed bag is no soldier, so with nothing to protect me, I lie awake with no lover.

5 AM: caked-up ***** cutting lines for you.
Do you feel like a rock star now?
Rocks of blow, star of skanks, putting the King in ******* pathetic.
Dictator of my days but just a distant memory at night;
did I imagine you in the sun? Did you actually sleep next to me once?

I never sleep on your vacant side.
Even while tossing and turning in the tiny hours of the night,
I can still feel the divide
from that thin white line.
Ally Oct 2015
I lost track of time when you left
Spent too many nights tearing myself apart
And taking shots to forget about us
A girl I met at a party told me she had been feeling like this for three years now
So I went out and bought a watch
It dangles on my wrist and I spend more time with my mom and I took up therapy
I won't be another victim
But every time I check the time I think of you
Ramonez Ramirez Feb 2011
It’s the hour before traffic,
around that time when the paperboys
sniff, all of them rubbing their noses on sleeves.

The smog is fowl,
a stray dog howls
orange explosions of bitter pain
through which the sun battles to make a comeback.

Amber lights
flash
right of way
for
whoever’s driving home from the pub,
whoever’s daft enough to face the day
that way.

The last ******* packs her bag,
stubs out her ***
and zips her **** shut,
‘A fat cow like me can only wait for so long.’

Soon the sky is Usual Blue,
discoloured by security swipes,
fake handshakes,
and Columbia’s finest

coffee-stained
coffee shop waiters
who sell the finest sugar cube coke
to those hardworking folk
who keep our nation ticking,

and tocking –
the digital clock,
my rooster with the fraudulent eyes,
tells me it’s time to let the snooze button go.
Perdue Poems Apr 2019
Ticking Tocking never stopping
Beeping Booping always bopping
Never stopping, always going
Ticking Tocking Beeping Booping

Sliding Slipping never ending
Scratching Scrawling always working
Never ending always weeping
Sliding Slipping Scratching Scrawling

Clicking Clacking never ceasing
Flipping Flashing always blending
Never ceasing always numbing
Clicking Clacking Flipping Flashing

Pulling Praying never halting
Wanting Wishing always failing
Never halting always craving
Ticking Sliding Clicking Pulling
Anthony Moore Jan 2014
As soon as you heard the rain,
you came in like a hurricane.

                                             Destroyed everything

and claimed I was to blame.

Then didn't even try to clean up what's left,
just moved the mess from one room to the next.

We're oh so close in our hearts and souls
but
our minds are so distant
might as well be antiscians.
Even though I see you in my nightly visions,
and you cross all my thoughts with capital Ts,
and I dot all your eyes with kisses from butterflies.
I know your disguise is comprised completely of lies
like both of your faces are living 2 separate lives.

In the darkness I scream
but
I don't speak.
In the darkness I dream
but
I don't sleep.
All I hear is the clock

tick-tocking
and it's
sick mocking.

I think it is laughing at me, for being half as happy
as I claim that I am.
You can only place so much blame on a man
before you find him laying in the sand,
thinking he should stayed when he ran.
So now I'm feeling dim
but
not quite dull.
Which means my mind is sharp
but
something is wrong with my *soul.
Cara Grace Nov 2013
Hipsters with hats to hide their ordinary minds
Young men in button-down shirts spouting political prophecies to prove a point
Too cut and dry to see there’s more to it all than a dot at the end of a line.
Because lines are endless and so is time
But they wouldn’t know because their grand silver watches pull their puppet strings
So they run just to hide from their tick-tocking pride
A pocket of bombs to blow up their lies
And just as they’re reaching their cubicle crate
White Rabbit runs by them to tell them they’re late
Shitty Girls Dec 2016
The clocks keep tick-tocking
And i still can't stop thinking
For someone i've been missing
But he's go fading
rsc Mar 2015
I want to see you sleeping after
tick-tocking like a wind-up clock all day,
falling like a taut of rope to the bottom of
a canyon to thud down into a pensive pile,
spreading your energy out as a silent spirit
across the dry river bed, the wind of you
whipping up sediments in the vast valleys beneath.

I want to bear witness to you catching my eye
from across the room cautiously,
covering the communion in cadmium lemonade tape,
tasty and afraid of being caught at the crime scene.
I'll throw you a line and you can come up gasping,
glorious and shining in the adolescent sun,
pulling in air where water should come.

I want to watch you write that paper you're working on.

I want to spot you screaming into oblivion,
washing over wonder with waxy fingers,
grabbing at the truth like five year olds ****** fireflies
out of a fleshy, dusk-dipped night
with mothers calling out "Come inside!" in loving, eager fright.

I want your eyes to glimmer something back at me,
meeting me in the cosmos to make the moon,
Mercury slinging stardust over his shoulder,
flirting with Venus and fighting her smolder,
meteorites crashing into each other,
creating solar systems in their wake.

I want to contemplate you on a flat plane,
feeling a frenzy of agitated hands
and fluctuating heart rate,
fault lines moving crazy,
crashing through geologic time
to make earthquakes feel human.

I want to stare at you saying things
that would color me crimson in broad daylight
as we breathe out heavy to the ancient incantations
of an early umber evening.

I want to see you
without a pocket mirror attached to my wrist,
cutting into my skin,
blood purple like lavender iced tea in the summer
and veins an undulating blue.
L B Jul 2018
It was the time of my Auntie Bee summers
   I was small then
   She had a parakeet that landed on my head
   and a bathtub too
   with water so deep!
   and legs and claws!
   **** thing nearly chased me down the stairs!

She lived in slumbery Windsor Locks
   where bugs hung-out in the haze
   of teenage August
   I played in the tall weeds
   with a shoeless Italian boy
   who ate tomatoes like apples
   and cucumbers right off the vine!
   He was ***** free and foreign!
   We played— reckless, abandoned
   behind the gas pump, under the tractor, in the barn  
   and through the endless fields
   I didn’t know....
   His name was Tony
   I ate pizza with him—the first time

At Auntie Bee’s I had to go to bed at eight
   but I could watch night flowers
   bloom on wallpaper
   She came in to say good night
   slippered, shadowy, night dress slightly open
   and I peeped her *******!
   like Tony’s cucumbers!
   I had never seen my mother’s wonders....

Night spread its wings from the old fan—
   a bird of tireless exhaustion
   whipped, whipped, whipped to death in its cage
   tireless exhaustion
   tic-tocking in time to a wind-up clock
   stretched out on the whine
   of the overland trucks
   Route Five through the night of an open window

In the grape arbor below—
tremulous incessant
   crickets    crickets    crickets
tremulous incessant—insides of a child
   a summer child
   not yet ready for the fall of answers

Auntie Bee had a daughter—Maureen
   I followed her everywhere I could
   I was small then--    
   do anything for a stick of Juicy Fruit
I followed Maureen through my dreams
   of being sixteen
   and woke to Peggy Lee’s “Fever”
   while she tied her sneakers
   against the mattress by my head

I followed Maureen (in my mind)
   tanned and bandanned
   to work in the fields of shade tobacco
   with all those Puerto Rican boys!
   She knew where she was going!

I was small then
...do anything for a stick of  gum

“Mauney! Mauney! Mauney!”
   ...through the goldenrod of roadside
   through the smell of oil that damped the dust    
I followed Maureen’s white shorts
   and chestnut hair...to the corner store
I followed the way the boys smiled
   the way the screen door slammed
   on her bright behind
   the way her lips taunted and took
   the coke-bottle’s green
I followed Maureen

I swear, I tried for hours to get that right!

Must have been Peggy Lee’s “Fever”

Maureen ties her sneakers in my face
Flaunts her years above my head
She has that look—
“We kids don’t know nothin”
(Little turds” that we be)

…followin’ Maureen
through the goldenrod of roadside
tic-tockin’, be-boppin’

“Fever— in the morning
Fever all through the night….”
_


Peggy Lee's Fever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hXyALR9vI
I was seven years old, but I somehow got this.

— The End —