"unblinking" poems
A grey room with soft walls is waiting down the road.
Purple pills and quiet voices will ease my heavy load.
They'll place electrodes on my head to shock away the pain.
Then I'll sit drooling as I stare at the morning rain.
Maybe a friend will visit and stare with wide unblinking eyes.
They'll speak cautiously and try to fill me with empty lies.
Even with my drug addled mind will see through their mask.
There are questions visible on their tongue they refuse to ask.
The stern nurses in their funny hats take us out in the sun.
The sudden warmth and bright light jolt us like a firing gun.
We must stay in line and only speak when we're spoken to.
When one is barely conscious that's an easy thing to do.
I'm back in my locked room starting to fade off to sleep.
I wonder if God can hear my prayers under layers so deep
Please come and save your creation from this destiny.
Sprinkle your magical dust and set this tormented soul free.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC
I'll eat you out
while you're bleedin'
I'll
eat you out til you come
I'll drink the ***
in your blood
Feeding, drowning,
I'll
show you around the
other side of sanity
Be a wolf
transform
under full moon
I'm a wolf
alone
under her moon
do you
come to meet me
at the edge of light
every night
for fun
or do you want
these --
do you need
these dark eyes
unblinking in the shadows?
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 2:06 AM UTC
I'm here
in the dark
slowly melting away
into the couch
My unblinking gaze
is fixed solidly
on the flashing lights
that explode and dance
just behind the screen.
The glowing images
occupy my mind
so that I may
drift away
back to
you.
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 11:52 PM UTC
We marched to the words of "We Shall Overcome"
courting justice to walk at our side,
seared into memory with the heat of sun
brothers and sisters, arms linked one to one
beneath that day star's unblinking eye,
we marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome."
We swore an oath to forego the gun,
to carry only freedom's cry
beneath the impassive afternoon sun,
through bludgeon and cudgel one by one,
each truncheon summoning others to rise,
to join in the words "We Shall Overcome."
As we embraced, the marching done,
a crosshairs trained a sniper’s eye
to wrench malice from the indifferent sun
to hew a path in blood and bone,
to rend flesh
and a rasping
fatal sigh . . .
in the fading caress of the afternoon sun.
Beneath the eternal arc of the sun,
again we will muster side by side,
a sanctified chorus, whose song will be sung,
let our marching echo...
"We Shall Overcome.”
Copyright © 2018 Gary Brocks
Conceived after visiting the LORRAINE HOTEL (Memphis, Tennessee), the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thursday, 4 April 1968.
In 1991 the NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM at the LORRAINE HOTEL was opened to the public.
"We Shall Overcome”, an anthem, title and refrain, of the American Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century.
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 4:18 AM UTC
i’ve always loved the way the sunflower looked at the sun, like it was mesmerized by the beauty of the sun.
Apollo, the sun god always flew east to west; he was loved by all including a water nyphm, clytie. She was immensely in love with the sun god, she would watch him with unblinking eyes as he moved across the sky. But Apollo didn’t return his love for Cytie instead, he was in love with someone else, but unfortunately the girl didn’t also return her love for the sun god. He tried to forcefully convince Daphne, she asked her father to help her and she was turned into a plant. Apollo was deprived. Cytie, on the other hand—still looks at Apollo as he passed through the sky. She looked at him for nine days with no food nor drinks. Eventually, her hair turned golden like the sunflower’s petals, her face as the center, her body as the stem. She became the sunflower.
you have always been my sun, and i will always be your sunflower.
i will always look upon you and will never forget the way my body reacts everytime i see you. I will be Cytie, even when you get tired of me, even if you find someone, I will never get tired of you—being in love with you.
You are my sun, I am your sunflower.
Apollo Didn’t fell for Cytie,
But my Sun fell for me.
We made history.
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 1:48 PM UTC
*frozen a lion stands
tamed by the modeller's hands
eyes unblinking
he has no inkling
why he can't move an ounce
roar and pounce
can't jump from his place
to bite a chunk of flesh
but bugged by the creator's flaws
can't move a bit his paws
stand there in dazed surprise
in helpless awe before thousand eyes
mouth agape in a tragic roar
the truth dawning on him
he's a king no more
just a clayed clone
of a lion*
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 11:19 AM UTC
I'm going out and get something.
I don't know what.
I don't care.
Whatever's out there, I'm going to get it.
Look in those shop windows at boxes
and boxes of Reeboks and Nikes
to make me fly through the air
like Michael Jordan
like Magic.
While I'm up there, I see Spike Lee.
Looks like he's flying too
straight through the glass
that separates me
from the virtual reality
I watch everyday on TV.
I know the difference between
what it is and what it isn't.
Just because I can't touch it
doesn't mean it isn't real.
All I have to do is smash the screen,
reach in and take what I want.
Break out of prison.
South Central homey's newly risen
from the night of living dead,
but this time he lives,
he gets to give the zombies
a taste of their own medicine.
Open wide and let me in,
or else I'll set your world on fire,
but you pretend that you don't hear.
You haven't heard the word is coming down
like the hammer of the gun
of this black son, locked out of this big house,
while ***** looks out the window and sees only smoke.
***** doesn't see anything else,
not because he can't,
but because he won't.
He'd rather hear me talking about mo' money,
mo' honeys and gold chains
and see me carrying my favorite things
from looted stores
than admit that underneath my Raider's cap,
the aftermath is staring back
unblinking through the camera's lens,
courtesy of CNN,
my arms loaded with boxes of shoes
that I will sell at the swap meet
to make a few cents on the declining dollar.
And if I destroy myself
and my neighborhood
"ain't nobody's business, if I do,"
but the police are knocking hard
at my door
and before I can open it,
they break it down
and drag me in the yard.
They take me in to be processed and charged,
to await trial,
while Americans forget
the day the wealth finally trickled down
to the rest of us.
5.2k
Reflecting disdainfully, remembering painfully,
upsetting, annoying, troublesome
Bickering, sarcastic, disputing, bombastic,
arrogant, conceited, unwelcome
Fastidious relations, private fixations,
foreboding, disturbing resentment
Silently scheming, nobody weeping,
selfish, unblinking, TRIUMPHANT!
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 10:23 AM UTC
Silence.
This is all we hear now.
Gone are the sweet words of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity.
Gone is her radiant light that illuminated our world.
We have been thrown back into the darkness that haunted us for so long.
Yet there are no screams to torment us. No hisses to harm us.
Even the Solitude is silent.
Perhaps it has taken pity upon us.
Or perhaps it has learned a new method of torment.
Yet there are echoes that boom through the darkness, flashing memories in the sparks of light that accompany them.
The absence of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity has turned the passion in our veins to poison. We feel our very soul dying, fracturing from its touch.
We beg for the light of the Perfection, but darkness is all that answers us.
There is none to come to our aid.
Our only solace is the words once written by the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity.
Yet even these words cut deeper into our wounds, twisting into our heart as haunting reminders of what we cannot have.
The mind cannot help but endlessly repeat the memories we created, its gaze unblinking while they continue to cast lacerations upon it.
We have tried in vain to pull the mind away from the memories, to save it from the anguish.
But it has become paralyzed, caught in a horrendous cycle of elation and devastation.
We are left with no other option but to numb the mind beneath a sea of liquid repression.
Yet even then, she visits us in our dreams, giving us the company we desired so desperately before, only to awaken to the twilight that perpetually surrounds us.
Silence.
This is all we hear now.
We have been forsaken, left to brood over our deeds while we lie upon the cold ground that is littered with barbs and thorns created by our own foolishness.
The Solitude looms over us, watching us shiver in pain as the blood from our wounds stains the ground.
We feel its harsh glare bore into our very soul, while the specters of the Sapphire-Eyed Serenity eternally whisper her words in our ear.
Our strength is dwindling, and our desire to carry on is fading, for all we see upon this path is agony and torment.
Our path is wrought with cracks and blades from lovers past.
The Sapphire-Eyed Serenity
The Traveler
The Fallen One
The Distant One
The Nameless
They have each riddled our path and our hearts with scars that shall never fade.
And the Solitude vows that it will continue this cycle for eternity.
That it will force us to crawl upon this wretched path, relentlessly reliving this horror if we dare continue.
Yet despite the twilight and anguish, despite our forsaken soul, there is one who has stretched his hand in aid.
The Companion.
Unaffected by our plagues and spines on our path, he kneels beside us and speaks a single word that sends the Solitude into rage.
Rise.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 1:43 AM UTC
Suncatcher.
Looking straight past your actions, I find your intentions. I read them in dark pupils like Webster’s definitions. Despite glass eyes staring as you let me go, your iron curtain countenance was a stained glass window. I see your thoughts cross your mind like I might see tired old man crossing his living room, just before he draws the curtains in the evening. I watched through painted panes as you held yourself still, watched through unblinking windows as you fought your own will. And so I walked to my car, in the dark, alone, breathing clouds of grey vapor in the direction of home. And you stood across the street in the amber street lights that attract the moths whose wing beats my heart finds rhythm with as it flutters from rib to lung to throat, never holding still for fear of permanence. You thought you’d gotten your heart off your sleeves but it will always be a sun catcher, hanging from fishing line, casting cold colored shadows on the actions of a nervous mind, once thought invisible, the windows you hide behind let in just enough light for me see what I knew I’d find.
Honey, I can read your smoke signals.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 6:39 PM UTC
*March 2002
(inspired by William Shakespeare; and an eerie
floating drowned woman in the movie Titanic)*
Adrift amid the bindweed, through the reeds,
Watching the sky with deep unblinking eyes,
She passes where the turquoise mayfly feeds,
Oblivious of all that swims or flies.
Red flowered chiffon billows to her hands
Open like water lilies in the sun,
Her skin's the colour of tropical sands,
Her russet hair shines bright as copper spun.
Fabulous jewels languish on her breast,
Rich spoils of love rendered useless in death,
Her parted lips make unspoken behest;
The rosy portal of her final breath.
Now all is cold where roiling passion flamed,
As jealous earth mourns what the river claimed.
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 4:42 PM UTC
Teach me, if thou can-forgetfulness!
Teach me how to forget thee, for I ain't
worthy of these feelings. I am undeserving of
thy love-for I can only dwell in and cherish it-
I cannot give thee yon pleasure, my love. Pleasure-
and its affectionate satisfaction-t'ose two-o but
amusements, the ones whom thou so dearly adore-
are but a sin to me, a sin so brief and beautiful
but even more ungrateful then the unblinking
foliage-into which I am unwilling to sink. Aye,
forgetfulness shall be a mercy to me. For in
such idiocy have I dreamed-dreamed of being
in thy lovely arms, absorbed in the mist of thy
charms. But I can never be so! Even dreaming
shall I be refrained from-I can never hug
thee-even in my deepest tempestuous fears.
Thou are t'at bizarre light that roam the stones
of my pernicious dreams. But Thou despiseth me-
how thou hate me, thou who shall never glance back
in my last breath, thou who but condemn me-I,
should t'is world be altered, shall still remain
thy sudden wound; I am but a flawed work of
insulting wretchedness. Then teach me-
teach me, my love, invade my heart-and grasp
my veins, rob my of my dearly, dearly affection-
for thee, yes, which was born only for thee-
and leave me loveless, just as no-one flatters me
and endorse my feelings, in t'is very loneliness.
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 6:13 PM UTC
Late night thinking
Unblinking and sinking
Rethinking my choice of words
It's absurd
Everything is so blurred
Fragments shifting through holes
I take on all these roles
What lost souls
Late night thinking
Tinkering with memories
I need remedies
These fragments slash through flesh
Fresh wounds fester
Exposing new memory holes
Late night thinking
Should I have said that
Combat of my mind
Memories become no mans land, blind
Confined within the crevices of my mind
I just want to unwind
Let's leave all this behind
Tomorrow, perhaps, you may find
Some peace of mind.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 6:17 PM UTC
My lover has a scar
Just above her hipbone;
It's not a small ****
a forgotten accident.
They're words -
Straight lines she etched
Deliberately,
Slowly,
Painfully.
I trace my fingers softly,
Not to wake my love,
But I can't soften their bite.
Words of cruel warning,
An order, imperative.
Commanding, even faded,
Echo a silent scream.
They mock me, mock us,
For they still have a hold:
She is only half mine.
They hurt me, cold,
Like unblinking eyes,
Knowing that she stares back
Every day.
I barely brush them,
Intruders on soft skin,
Indelible scripture
Of darkness within.
And they keep whispering:
don't eat.
Sep 30, 2020
Sep 30, 2020 at 11:43 AM UTC
Mao’s on the wall.
Mao’s on the cat,
Mao’s the cat,
And Mao’s on the truck.
Mao’s tucked text.
Mao’s still the cat
Mao’s on the hat;
And Mao’s rendered stencil.
Mao draped in red,
Mao embalmed vacuum,
Mao smiling dirt
And Mao in slaughter;
The good, the bad,
The, “godly,” great
The ’89 slaughtered, ugly,
And as putrid as the scholars
Being spat upon.
So Mao’s tempered glass
And Mao’s tempered solemn,
Surrounded a spectacle,
When I, Mao and I,
Author and other, other and
Away, gaze eye-to-eye with,
“Before.”
His are closed,
Mine, unblinking.
I think of heroes,
I, “tinker,” butchers,
And ponder,
“Just,” and to the right of,
Right,” what is, “right?”
Would he have been?
Would she have been?
Would I have been?
“Right?”
Just what the hell is,” right?”
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 9:12 AM UTC
I’m raining backwards in the morning
You are the rainbow; how do I reach you
Sunbeams entwine with rain drops
And at dusk I’m falling back down
Painting encounters
Past and future
Impetuses
Onto stars and clouds that
Dream awake unblinking
The atlas of your lips
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
Dear Sanity,
In the night, I wake to find myself without your company, but the warmth of the chain about my neck keeps you at the forefront of my mind. The heavy links rake across my flesh searing your disapproval; pulling me to your ankles so that I might kiss them for mercy. Branded at the chest by this heart of yours, though, I am the very antithesis of your will. I was seduced by the comfort of your homogeneous masses and tempted by the fruits of my curiosity. Yet, it is through fire—the deep passions of my essence—that I will be reborn. And you, who I loved through the eyes of others, will HOWL at my betrayal! Then stand upon your mountain peak and bludgeon me with reason so that I might know what your light looks like.
To what end? So that I might cling to this chain, this keepsake, which I did not need until you bestowed your judgment. Yes, judgment, though you would have me believe it is your friendship, your safety, your sympathy. Like the swelter of a thousand suns you oppress me saying, “Keep quiet your ***** yearning!” So who would know better, the hour of my discontent, than you who watches me, unblinking, during the day? It is here, at the tween of night, that I shed the scales from my eyes and throw off your burden of want—the goals for which you leave me always pining, but never appeased. Is this shirking to seek the dark? So be it. I will cloak myself in blood—for all that I am wrong—and dance in the pale light of the unassuming.
—Pandora
--------------------
And the faces of the homogeneous masses drew forthwith to witness dawn.
In a drawer,
There was found,
A locket with
A minor crown—
Of leaf: laurel,
And shaded night.
When opened up
All succumbed to fright.
For found inside
Was a broken light;
Pandora’s hope
Had lost the fight
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 2:00 PM UTC
sink into the silence
nothing left by nothing
a silent trip adviser
to blame the past on
levels of induced mindless
consumption that dealt
with the singularity breath
ghost located in page
after page after page of longing
caress and sniff and smell
the burning rubber sensation of
ice melted fire drops
dealt to deal with dealing
memories forgave in the think tank
calm in the blue raindrop
frisky frisk touch of soul
felt with eyes wide open
and a heart made of gold
to last ever last in the synaptic
convulsion that twitches and squirms
of a mental addiction love and pain
and parlor trick injections
did i mention the hopeful twist
of a sudden quick thinking passing
love is love actually and codeine is
a moment of unloved passive regret
o d on your section of unblinking
overwatch i snorted the powder
to happiness everlasting
cuddle with my corpse
i want to be the little spoon and feel your heartbeat in my back pressed selfishness to hold my soul and revel in the passiveness of unthinking
let me lick your inner soul and taste
the salt of a lie left on cracked breathless lips
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
It's torture,
The way that he stalks her,
Mina, Mina,
Like some childish chant,
He calls her name,
We chant too,
Master, master, notice us,
Love us, want us, worship us,
Because we worship you,
And I have seen seasons pass in an unblinking eye,
How can I sleep when you are always awake?
Entertaining guests in the parlour room,
My pallor turns deathly when you speak her name,
Your next engagement is the chill in my tomb,
The fear I feel in her heartbeats makes my teeth hurt,
They turn into fangs with the bitterness I spit,
When you take her throat, I see red,
But I cannot admit these things to my absent soul,
By you I am vilified,
Like Christ I'd rather be crucified,
My wedding dress you nullified,
Let light stream in and burn me alive,
Burn me dead,
After aeons since the first I thought this bond was unbreakable,
1, 2, 3, women you have guided into your hell,
Still your thirst is unslakeable,
- But what did I expect?
Denn die Todten reiten schnell.
(Translation: Because the dead travel fast.)
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 5:40 PM UTC
Tingly under the daisies;
Glassy-eyed, glazed, greasy;
Shaking, shivering, shuddering,
Wishing, wandering, whimpering,
Westernizing—
Romanizing—
Constitutionalizing—
Institutionalizing—
Perpetually searching
And dying
And living,
Watching Death survive
And scythe the frolickers,
The prancers,
The rompers,
The merrymakers.
A rose clamped between his
Grinning teeth glistens brightly,
And he dances so joyously.
“Yes!” say the naysayers,
Confused are the soothsayers,
Lost are the cartographers.
Oh, Utopia!
The monks are extravagant;
The meditations are a farce!
The preachers are beggars
And swindlers and chargers,
And Machiavelli fulfills his wishes!
Babies are stillborn, stabbed, and
Ritualistically sacrificed,
And their blood is spilled, drunk,
Slathered over the ***** man.
The evangelists scream and lie:
“You are all predestined to die!”
Oh, hail Utopia!
Wedded are the girls to the girls;
Wedded are the boys to the boys;
Wedded is Death to Death,
Life to Life,
And Life to Death.
Wedded are the living to the existent.
And the milking babes are slaughtered
Ceremoniously,
Surreptitiously,
Ostentatiously.
Oh, hail great Utopia!
We are all dead and unintelligent:
Laugh, laugh, Einstein, at your
Stupidity.
Laugh, laugh, Temple Grandin at
Your retardation.
Laugh, laugh, laugh!
Look at the sluggard, thou ant;
Look at the boy, sobbing wolf;
Aesop was drunk,
Aristotle was delusional,
Michelangelo was blind,
Beethoven could hear,
Poe was sane.
And I can't read.
They ramble,
I watch.
They sleep,
I watch.
They dream,
I watch.
They sleep-talk,
I watch.
They scream,
I watch.
They choke,
I watch.
They suffocate,
I watch.
Stone-faced, I stare;
Raspingly, I breathe;
Uncontrollably, I twitch;
Inwardly, I rage.
I hope you die, I hope you die.
I hope you bleed, I hope you die.
I want you begging and crying,
I want you blubbering at my feet,
I want you gnashing at my ankles,
I want you writhing in pain,
I want your arm twisted off,
Cracking with the snapping sinews, I want your beating heart in my hands, I want your genitals uprooted and stuffed in your throat, I want your stomach so I can eat the still-digesting food, I want your shrunken head and I want to force my thumbs into your unblinking eyes and I want to tear your face in two and I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, I want you to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die, to die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 9:47 PM UTC
I am made of infatuation, shame and forever gloom
You could not fall
This is not the chessboard of your dreams
No pawn makes—
No bishop makes
The queen takes, is taken an equal
This is not an aisle of rebirth
Or some sombre remembrance
It halts, it halts
The numbers lessen
I did not abandon, I am still here
Yet, a halt lingers
Like death stuck on the precipice of throat
A life of a single lifetime of a thought
I am energy, a little restless
But restless so out of the nature of self
Like the eye of a rook
On the king through a rook
A stupor unblinking
Like the sharpening of a dream
The knight-slide like an Arabian sword
The king scuttles
Rook takes rook, king takes rook
I fancied myself a manly dream
But it doesn’t work like that, does it—
The game writes, and children play
Now I wait the shameful minutes away
(And I watch your hands, so patient, simple
Say, are you dead or pleased?)
And I watch your hands
I should’ve looked up when I had the chance
Now the brooding leaves
And my eye hardens
Father, you have won
With a dream so well, you played just right
I should have not worshipped the pawns like that
Oct 1, 2022
Oct 1, 2022 at 6:09 AM UTC
Hot summer forest, sweat and dawn’s faint light,
My feet in time with sighs of willow trees,
Bare cheeks and skin, dew-glossed and shining bright,
My ******* sway freely, ******* hard in breeze,
Moss meets my wetness—harmonies, soft lies
Nightbirds perform their final song with ease,
While fireflies blink out their last goodbyes,
Alone, I’m cradled close by nature’s sweet surprise,
An ****** of dawn—my body soaring as I rise.
In dappled gold, a turtle halts my stride,
Her ancient fortress shell, a gaze unblinking,
Paused, I’m exposed—no secret folds to hide—
Her slow, wise eyes undress me, softly blinking.
“Old mother,” I sigh, “what are you thinking?”
Does my left breast seek the gentle morning sky?
Do wild curls shame me, or my fantasizing?
Do you see ******* not a perfect doll’s eye?
The forest hushes, breathless, waiting for her reply.
I study flesh—each mile sculps *** and breast,
Do I run for her, or am I just insane?
The rush of blood, feeding animal unrest,
Her body in our bed—my lust, a hurricane.
She’s dawn’s first glow; I’m shadow, bound by chain.
Does this sweat feed her gaze, or pool between thighs?
I pass fat faces, screens glued, cold with disdain—
I’d rather die in wildness, in open skies,
My body, food for forest, feasted by butterflies.
Jul 6, 2025
Jul 6, 2025 at 12:24 PM UTC
~Oh! Delicious Death of Self~
your un-Selfing of Life
fermented sweet,
eyes opening,
filling with
| V O I D |
the substance of the
Nameless White Light's
Nothingness,
infinitely
present
Unblinking in its
inescapable
witnessing of
The All of its
not-self
Jan 27, 2023
Jan 27, 2023 at 2:03 PM UTC