"tracer" poems
You're an inspirational exciting jolt
Like an invitational lightning bolt
I'm suddenly shocked by the results
When I am blocked by your revolt
You have my beating heart in your hand
Holding me hostage where I silently stand
Staring at your ****** butcher's cleaver
That morphs me into a landlocked ******
You're a two-hander
Like a sledgehammer
Or a radar jammer
I start to stutter and stammer
When I see your weekly planner
And the lack of my presence
Because I'm incessant
You hold a pencil and an eraser
You delete when I become a tracer
And start to draw a better replacer
You hold the scales of justice
Though I claim you're unfit
You say add that to the list
From the throne where you sit
And there's no avenue for any recourse
When your other hand holds so much force
I must deal with your actions
So I can stay in your faction
For my heart's attraction
I am never right
So we never fight
And we never might
Understand each other
When we're taking cover
From exposing vulnerability
An exploding soul is filling me
Because the cold mist killing steam
Between us until you are only a dream
And my mind starts bursting at the seams
Until there's a monster barely mentally caged
But the bars shake when it is constantly enraged
When your saccharine emotions are cynically staged
My bustling brain will unfortunately always be plagued
By your neutral reactions which I'll never be able to gauge
You hold two hands behind your back
Will it be an attack?
Our two hands should meet
Instead I'm trampled by feet
Nov 23, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 at 5:00 AM UTC
If I have a daughter
I will name her Katrina
Remind her she is beautiful
Brought forth from the passion of the sea
She is a mix of warm Atlantic winds
strong enough to devastate a nation in
just a puff of her breath
wild enough to tracer the ocean
stretch out her wings and fly
watchful enough to remember
that spinning is dangerous
but curious enough
to want to go find land
In Winter, she hibernates
waiting for warmer weather
to envelop her soul
and bring life to her feet
In Spring, she stretches out her arms
and yawns, smiling
as the sun’s rays caress her face
In Summer, she giggles and
asks to travel,
whip across the ocean
sprint across the earth
She has no idea that exploring
Surging through the sea
will bring destruction
but when I tell her
she only laughs and says
Mom, you are the eye of my storm
and I will keep you safe
So, in Autumn, I will buy her
a ticket to anywhere
and as she spins out
of my home
I brace myself
for her eye to shrink
and her storm to intensify
because I know what is coming
While she loses herself
in the ecstasy of life
I shield myself as the eye wall,
the freest of her passions,
crashes down on me
with the force of 400 tornadoes
But I smile
because I know it will
be over soon
because winter is coming
and the rains
will cease to fall
and she will settle down
into her new life
and her new home
and one day
I will get a call
“Mom, our daughter’s name is Sandy,”
And I will smile
and watch from afar
as history repeats itself
and once again
I will brace myself for
the most beautiful of hurricanes
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:31 AM UTC
if you want to find me
I am slightly left of centre
at the back, a different colour
more drab, grey even
quite unnoticeable
an extra in a street scene
there to make the numbers up
a voice in a choir drowned out
by those around me
probably mouthing the words
half remembered
a shadow on a sunlit street
where everyone is having
a good time, or on the beach
sitting staring out to sea
no small talk, not even hello
my mind is shooting
gathering experience
like tracer fire
target secured
May 29, 2023
May 29, 2023 at 8:50 AM UTC
Cyber! Neon green, pinks,
Hair like vivid spotlights
At nightclubs, darting, sharp,
Strong-willed and persistent,
Piercing through the pale skin
Laid thinly over fog.
Shock-shock! If anarchy
Is popular, what does
It mean to rebel? Rave
Lights beam through the system
Like tracer rounds! The punks
Spin like halogen bulbs.
Steel! Plenty of plastic.
Enough to rebuild the
Eccentric walls of their
Flashy nightclubs. Above,
Sophisticated chains
Spin and drag over meat;
Pointless. A simple sort
Of mechanisation.
The music, the plastic,
The hair dye; all of it
Spits to the contrary,
Such anarchists are they.
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 5:42 AM UTC
Black lagoon brain pools,
Drown me in our retrograde...
Long and tactful tentacles ...
To catch my anatomical....
Retracting my soul from your memory tubes.
Painting our moments in shades of black.
Disappearing phantom laughs...
And lucid nightmares follow me to sleep.
Ghostly appendages wrapping me tight.
Ensnared by his tragical hold,
Farewell snap shots are never enough.
Goodnight static dream tracer.
Your everywhere is no where now.
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 4:50 PM UTC
In foreign land of towering pines
And hammocks, mangrove-torn
A dark-filled night reluctantly
Bequeaths a pale dawn
Upon one battered cypress perched,
Amidst the morning haze,
Bright eyes stare out from part-cocked head
With piscicultural gaze.
Intently focussed on the brook,
That glides beneath the tree
Alive to every shadow’s sound
Yet never truly free.
For choicelessly these eyes are drawn,
As waters break below
And like a flash a head snaps back
And rippled muscles flow.
Within the slightest moment’s breath,
Two mighty wings released,
Two claws full-stretched, two legs reach out
The sinews, strained, unleashed.
The beaten air the only sound,
As time itself stands still
And, tracer-like, on charted course
The osprey meets its ****
With consummate and practiced ease
The painless end begins
The single deadly blow is dealt
As sharpened claws sink in.
Then up away into the dawn
And time resumes its course
Two final beats – then disappeared
Is this magnetic force.
The cypress perch and well-filled brook
As silent witness stay
And as they settle – calm again
The sun declares the day.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
Daddy belongs to
an exclusive club,
out beyond
the rules of atmospheric
pressure.
On our precocious little fingers
we count,
on tracer paper
Mommy checks our figures.
Being she was never clever
with math,
she consults with the slide rule.
No crystal ball needed,
we all know where Daddy's been:
at the apogee of his ride,
hanging out in zero orbit,
checking
on his own figures.
He must be
lonely up there, fishing off the dock of a satellite,
until the moment he reels one in.
He does his best philandering
once we've shuffled off to school
and Mommy's found her solace
underneath
the hairdryer.
She's stopped looking up
at night
to observe the starry heavens.
They only made her cry,
which, in turn, made us cry— for her.
One time we heard Mommy tell Daddy
she knew all about his long division
and how he misused
his slipstick.
With the cruel turn of a smile
he reminded her
her math is routinely
wrong.
"Usually...but not always,"
Mommy whispers in her sleep.
Tomorrow is lift off again
for Daddy,
hunting exponentials
from
heavenly bodies.
For us,
the ones left behind in the wake
of his rocket trail,
it's
addition by subtraction.
Dec 21, 2019
Dec 21, 2019 at 11:46 PM UTC
by
rgpage
I never cried in viet nam,
I just seemed to take it in.
The missing limbs and twisted flesh
friends one day and gone the next.
Was I too young to understand?
And need someone to take my hand?
No mother there to hold my hand
no father there to teach me ways.
To lead me through the day by days.
Just left alone, and alone I stayed
Instead I found my bottle friend
to stay my tears and hide my fears.
Back then “charley” felt they owned the night.
With blusterous thud the mortars hit,
Of saying hi it was “charley’s” way
then to be my friend by day.
From no where came the dragon ship,
and tipping his left wing
as a polite executioner saluting his victim just before unleashing hell.
W/ firery tongue lapping up the earth while mini-guns
roared, eagerly devouring all living things,
leaving “charley” w/ no where to run.
All clear, a small visit w/ my bottle friend
and back to sleep in the alcohol deep.
I was no John Wayne, I didn’t fight the war
a target yes for “charley’s” sights
when the sun gave way to night.
But no, I didn’t fight.
I never cried glossary:
Charley=VC=viet cong=enemy: by day he acted like any of the population, some were even employed around the various bases. But at sundown he would turn…
Dragonship=C-47=2 or 3 several barreled mini-guns mounted on left side of the plane capable of firing a few 1000 rounds per minute each w/ a phosphorous round placed at every 6th round a tracer. At night this made it look like a steady stream of fire coming from the plane, hence the name “dragon ship” or “puff the magic dragon.” To aim the pilot had to dip his left wing and fly in a counter clock wise fashion. Very effective weapon…
Written for a special friend A.S.
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
Remember when you traced over my photograph
in green paint
and it made me look like Shrek?
I hated you for that.
You're a talented tracer though;
I'll give you that.
Remember that one time you made a list of things I like
in your notebook?
I found it romantic in a tastefully subtle way.
I like that you noted my affinity for knee socks.
The song and the item of clothing.
Remember when I wrote you that poem
on Hello Poetry?
It was kind of cliche
in a charming sort of way
You never admitted to reading it,
but I know you did.
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 3:04 AM UTC
The Flak hits the wings and body of the plane
506th Easy Company
Of the 101st Airborne
The leg bag
Tore right off
They jumped lower than they should have been
Tracer bullets burning holes through the parachute
Tracers spraying around in the air
Firing in every direction
Paul "Buck" Rogers
Lands in a tree
Some worked their way down
Through a farm area
To a hedge row
Easy Company captured and destroyed
The guns at Brecourt Manor
Saving countless lives on Utah Beach
They helped to liberate the Dutch
Angels from the sky
The black and white footage is amazing
The gratitude and love the people show
To the men is wonderful
Finally free after four years
Of Occupation by the Germans
Battling from village to village
Along "Hell's Highway,"
Easy Company crossed Holland to the Rhine River
Nine men of Easy Company
Lost their lives
Battling in Holland
By the End of the Holland campaign,
Easy Company had been on the frontline
For more than 70 days
On Dec. 16, 1944
****** launched his offensive into the Ardennes
The Battle of the Bulge would become
The largest engagement
In the history
Of the U.S. Army
600,000 soldiers would fight in the battle
Easy Company was told to hold the perimeter of Bastogne
Surrounded by Germans
Branches knocked off of trees
Holes in the ground
Artillery attack
88s, mortars, rockets
They jumped into foxholes
He could see all the shells hitting from the foxhole
The wounded got relief from battle
Maybe a ticket home
If they died they were at peace
At Berchtesgaden
They uncovered artwork
In Zell Am Zee, Austria
Easy Company helped secure
The surrender of 25,000 German troops
On November 30, 1945
The 101st Airborne Division
Was inactivated
Day after Day
They fought together
Fought for each other
Knowing some would not return
This veteran said,
"I cherish the memories
Of a question my grandson asked me the other day.
'Grandpa, Were you a hero in the war?'
Grandpa said no
But I served in a company of heroes."
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 1:52 PM UTC
*A Story From Nam
We were seventeen or eighteen in Nam
we became friends forever.
No more than friends.
Soldiers get closer than wives.
We went to sleep saying
I love you man.
We switched letters
For our girlfriends.
In case… well just in case.
The bullets rained
in the clearing that night.
I can still see the tracer lights.
Guys fell down all around me.
Crying everywhere.
Air power cleared them away.
I looked for Joe he was lay there.
I held him close
like a baby as he left us.
His last words
I love you man.
I whispered to him
Not as much
as I love you Man
.
I did not notice I had been hit.
After six months I returned home.
In West Virginia his beautiful girl
Opened the door of a small trailer.
She had a baby boy in her arms.
Her blue eyes welled with tears.
I passed the unopened letter to her.
I lied and said the blood
on it was mine.
She passed the baby
to me to hold
As she read the letter.
I kissed his tiny forehead.
And said see buddy
You’re not dead at all
I love you Man.*
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 1:30 PM UTC
The White Race
&
The Black Base
In-fighting Nut-Case
Wearing kits & killing kins
Tracer bullets leave no trace!
Ak's & Ra's
Customized & hand made
Just Like Burger-king
Have it your way!
And this war is brought to you by
Your's Truly,
The infamous
NRA!
Cops shooting innocent by-standers on the block,
Innocent by-standers then copping Bump-stocks,
Dropping scores to make it count,
Odd murders 2 even out!
Sniper's posted atop rooftops,
Legislations to make him stop.
A "Mentally Challenged" Caucasian man who had gone AWOL?
Suddenly reappears like an Automatic *****
Posted @ the Hotel
Planning to **** wholesale
To get the maximum reward
Also to get closer to God,
Bodies 4 trophies
& Their Head's as his awards!
In the midst of all this
Another white supremacist
With absolutely no
Motor-skills
To run us over
& Cause massive kills
At Town Halls
Movie theaters and even at the Shopping mall
A Muslim nut-job
Planning ********
A darker American
A lighter Puerto Rican,
Or even a white broad,
Always someone@ur service
To start a brawl,
To ***** some skin
& Make it crawl,
To raise u up
Then Watch you fall.
Wild fires burning bodies bare
Of All colors,
From well done to medium rare,
White House to Gitmo
Water boarding & a bit more,
Laid back extreme sports!
**** 4 tats here,
Cliques & Gangs here
Bricks in the bag here
Clipped to the back rear,
**** yes No *** hair,
Shotguns no cab fare,
Tariffs on imports
Nuns & Nymphos
Hoes before bro's
Turning friend's into foes.
Deserted mill workers,
Over dosing on pill sherbets
Gettin' high 2 get by
Laugh hard then start to cry,
Suicides to feel Alive,
Straight up living
Just to curl up & die,
What a way to go
Get buried to touch the sKy!
Dec 18, 2018
Dec 18, 2018 at 3:41 PM UTC
I'm
Amused
Take your clothes off
Boot lace tracer
It's hard to face her
With her sole pressed to my chest
Homemade tattoo
Made you blue
Lemonade shade
Jaundiced and thin
The gods shine on you
And your polished black blue
Pressing on my throat
And your dagger presssed between my rib
Blood begins to drip
So fast
It could have been a shotgun blast
As you tore my mast
Spit on my sails
Wails
A clean ****
Black leather
Whether or not
Your gonna do
What you've been born to do
Betrayed with a kiss
Your miss
Thirty pieces of silver
And bread with no butter
They say shes a cutter
But she just wants the blood
Pulsing with *******
A torrential downpour of pain
As you cross that concrete bridge
To sin
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 8:47 AM UTC
At twentythirtyfour
On the eleventhofseptember
a neuropathological tracer
Jumped from the box,
Lost poem; a title over rain
men waving tins at a tractor,
And the later sleeping wihout
Rest; rooms full of waves,
the ineluctable modality of water.
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 11:18 AM UTC
Truth is the trigger, and it's scent of the pure gun powder.
Guns hired, shots fired, crossed fired, everything hey wired.
Rippling of bullets, Trail of ****** rounds, Tracer rounds, all rebounds.
Faltering skies, Blistering eyes, all those lies, bullets fly!
Like sharp blade, taking turns to trade, those bullets raid.
Smoke in the barrel, those sweet gun carol, music of bangs vector zero.
reigning bullets, covered in red, shots on the head.
Spinning around, dazed and confused, all but train wrecks.
Street lights blur, speaking in slur, losing mind without a cure.
Love with the gun, all came close to none, and ready for the fun.
Squeeze to aim true, and everything blew, all those bullets flew.
Purity in those bullets, truth in the trigger, faith in the gun.
Those bullets in the dark, lighten by the spark, stray bullets embark.
Dripping of red, streaks of red, all those people dead.
Judge not the bullet, not the gun, but the man pulling the trigger!
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 12:16 AM UTC
It is with great sadness that
I write to inform you
*this is madness
the smoke is so thick
stitched through with tracer fire
I can feel it burning the back of my throat,
stinging my eyes*
That your son has been
killed in action
*my rifle is bucking in my hands
recoiling from the slaughter
before me,
as I too recoil
nothing makes sense anymore*
Words can not express
the sorrow
*everything is slowing down
blood kisses the air before me
it's-
oh god
it's my blood
I'm falling*
You must be feeling
at this time
*it's so quiet
I can't move
oh god
it's so quiet,
why can I still hear the screams?*
Know that he did his duty
and died for his country
*it's so quiet
so cold
I-*
Nov 8, 2010
Nov 8, 2010 at 4:49 PM UTC
Your skin becoming pastel finger prints
Gently riveting the drift
Letting blood like the month of July
Favorite blessings, dragging the stone closing the tomb
Assumed the tracer swiped my eye before the void space let it compost
Kirill committed arson, viddied a sin never seductive as this particular perp made it
Feeling all the goodness coming out through lipid ducts
And taking to the ground at my feet
Attached partners washing with mercury sulfide nitrocellulose, cosmetic choices
And rather letting in slow death chemicals
Ever like the beastly aroma of your saliva and salty tears
--------------------
Cut to the scene of horrors
I'm distant, some reason I felt for you
Some reason I dealt your feelings with you
Is it the glow
Face for face
That I was empathy, for you
That I want close to you
**** the poison out in hopes of loving your and the rest
Large screen projecting the best as it gets
Dark and when you turn
I thought I saw near skin erase and uncover bare bones to taste
All that I must **** out the poison from
This film was sad and glum
This film shown me the gun
Eventually that I was to orchestrate the ending from
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 8:18 PM UTC
I'm sorry I called you a pompous conservative,
and I'm sorry I'm not.
I'm sorry my focus is not on your intellectually cultured
examples of real life moments -
your 1988 Mercury Tracer taking its last gulp
of oxygen,
how nothing pans out to be,
your narrow expectations of others.
I'm sorry I don't fit in that canister.
I'm sorry that others do not gravitate to
your beck and call.
your call is imperious.
I'm sorry my integrity flows in me,
rather than outwards.
I've never been one to exhibit my prizes.
(I'll just write about your buzzing blurbs
and your pick up sticks that amount to
your arrogance and pride.)
I'm sorry I'm a target
and my voice box turns into knots
when I turn the volume up.
I'm sorry that when I find nerves and pulses,
my body wants to notify you that you are
a *****
I am sorry that I didn't.
Mar 10, 2012
Mar 10, 2012 at 7:12 AM UTC
On the night the last star fell from the sky
We took your grandmother's quilt to the trampoline in my backyard
Tangled beneath it
You shaved that day
I did not
I felt rude
You wrapped our legs together anyway
We watched them shoot across space like tracer bullets in a star war
Like a silent firework show in August
And sometime after the bats went back to bed and before the owl woke up to stretch his neck the last star fell
The night was so dark that there is no way you could've seen me staring at you
You blushed anyway
You always used to say you hated holding hands
I always assume you just didn't want to touch a sinner the way you touch yourself to thank God
You grabbed my hand that night and never let go
We spent what was left of yesterday trying to remember the shapes of constellations
Tracing them with quivering finger tips on each other's chest
Trying to guess its name from the feel of it
You were pretty good at this
I just kept guessing Orion's Belt until you felt bad for me
Inevitably speaking a star landed on earth that night
It was in the brown grass where the pool used to be
You must have kissed it while I wasn't looking
Your lips tasted of heaven
I thought you an angel
But you were still alive
I know this
I could feel your heart beat in my shoulder
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 12:43 PM UTC
*We were seventeen or eighteen in Nam
we became friends forever.
No more than friends.
Soldiers get closer than wives.
We went to sleep saying
I love you man.
We switched letters
For our girlfriends.
In case… well just in case.
The bullets rained
in the clearing that night.
I can still see the tracer lights.
Guys fell down all around me.
Crying everywhere.
Airpower cleared them away.
I looked for Joe he was lay there.
I held him close
like a baby as he left us.
His last words
I love you man.
I whispered to him
Not as much
as I love you Man
.
I did not notice I had been hit.
After six months I returned home.
In West Virginia his beautiful girl
Opened the door of a small trailer.
She had a baby in her arms.
Her blue eyes welled with tears.
I passed the unopened letter to her.
I lied and said the blood
on it was mine.
She passed the baby
to me to hold
As she read the letter.
I kissed his tiny forehead.
And said see buddy
You’re not dead at all
I love you Man.*
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 12:15 AM UTC
Once I was a preserver
a wayfarer
a maker
but later
you turned me into a useless stargazer
by losing the will of being your tracer
I ceded my kismet on becoming an engraver
I grew to be nothing but a moveless eraser
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 3:40 PM UTC
*The day the music died.
We were all seventeen or eighteen.
The jungles of Nam were waiting
like dark visions in nightmare.
You get to be close as soldiers
more than brothers
more than wives.
The clearing was pretty
the feeling of an opening
in the dark trees
of the jungle was a relief.
Then the light faded
eaten by some monster.
The flowers of our youth ended
in only a few minutes.
The tracer bullets lined
all the way to thier targets.
The petals of our childhood
fell like snow.
The imprints
of the carnage were
indelible tattoos
on our memories.
Out ofsixty boys
only five of us got out.
the dreams of my life
we're tainted red
from that day.
I visited the clearing
a few years ago.
wartime enemies
turn into just people
when the blood is dried
and flowers grow on
old battlefields.
I knelt down and
said a prayer.
Not to an uncaring God
but to my friends
who lost their youth
and futures in this jungle.
For whom weeping tears
was just not enough.*
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 4:25 PM UTC
9-11 POEM:
Dreadlocks of a Scream
_________________
Fever too high
Doze
hallucinate
doze...
...into the blue sky
and watch the tracer upward
tip
hesitate
and turn toward earth
Split apart
in the widening dreadlocks of a scream
One that took the whole world down with it
A woman is standing on an edge
hundreds of feet up in the open air--
Just standing....
“You-- who have mounted to the sky
will be cast down
with great violence
You, the golden cup”
set down
I am burning up at 103
Toss in the arid sheets
Chafed flushed cheeks
against this living desert pillow
Desert
Hallucinate
Can't get a GPS on where I am
or what's the time
But most of all – what just happened?
I toss and wake to slivered light
coming from another room
Hear the whispers
See their vacant faces
Must have walked into the den
Feel their shivers hush
My questions
Between the aisles of candlelight
and murmured prayers
I'm walking
Still in my right mind
“It's on the screen”
for all to see
without electricity
I have a fever of 103
--and the main question???
Why everyone's transfixed
Everyone
_______________________
1-28-86-- Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, killing crew.
9-11-01-- World Trade Center
_______________________
“...Now so that your heart does not grow faint,
And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land—
For the report will come one year,
And after that another report in another year,
And violence will be in the land
With ruler against ruler”— Jer 50:46
Where Did the Towers Go-- by Doctor Judy Wood
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 8:26 PM UTC
I don't really exist; she doesn't want to exist.
I watched the ocean move the sand across the ceiling floor.
Stranded on an island made of blankets.
I'm eating hallucinations. I'm feeling color.
She doesn't want to exist because I don't want her to.
My mind can't fathom visuals so intense as a living person.
Adventuring down into a spiral void I was born with. I'm not scared. I'm not uneasy. I'm an Adventurer.
I started this journey with three others but now it's just me and her.
But I don't exist; she doesn't exist; this world doesn't exist.
I'm only here for a moment and then it's back to the **** of my mind. Back to shaking hands with reality.
But I don't exist.
I'm merely an Adventurer.
Never here, never gone.
Only a tracer of light .
Always vanishing but never truly dissipated.
I'm like space and time. Stuck in a black hole.
I don't exist.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC
Whatya waiting for?
let's go to war
it's written in the stars
and was foretold both by Jupiter and Mars
that men would die in furtherance of their own greed.
So
feed the fires
light up the skies with tracer shell
we'll build another hell right here on earth giving birth to untold grief.
Belief?
what belief is it that turns and knocks the whole world flat
and with its tongue that flicks the switches on a gun would run to break
the men that would attempt to take a minute out
to survey just what is being done
in the name of God or someone's son.
It's all as one
and as one we all die
So let the rockets fly.
But there is this
some will profit from the death
and with hot breath and hotter hands will arm those bands
that would seek out those less meek and waste them
yes
some men become the unseen ****** killing as they please and if it pleases them then the men who profiteer
cheer
'hurray
more money in the bank',
they say.
It's just another day for some underneath the threat of the burping gun
and they run
how they run
can't beat the bullet from the gun
too fast
too fast
I pray it doesn't last
but my God appears to have gone for lunch
which is not a bunch
of roses for anyone.
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 3:04 AM UTC