"vinyls" poems
She is disinterested in small talk beyond the park benches.
She longs instead for late-night confessions,
for the quiet unraveling between sentences—
the hidden chapters you both never dared to read out loud
She has no fondness for candlelit dinners
or anniversaries dressed in silverware and manners
What she wants is the open road at dusk,
the wind like a dare,
no map, no compass—
just the delicious risk of getting lost together
She detests the pop songs blaring from car radios,
those perfect little lies that everyone sings along to
She belongs to the sound of something raw—
a forgotten folk song, an aching guitar,
a voice that cracks where it shouldn’t
Her room is lined with vinyls and dust and memory
And no—she doesn’t want drizzles or passing breezes
She wants the storm;
The hurricane that splits her open,
the tsunami that drags her under—
because only in the wreckage
does she remember what it means
to feel
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 7:24 AM UTC
The last time I loved
I knew exactly
what I wanted,
I was so sure--
it had to be
you.
It had to be
awkward laughs, soft music,
coffee brown eyes
half-asleep,
a house full of dogs,
vinyls,
chamomile tea.
I just knew,
believed,
it had to be
you and me.
I am always running,
looking for fire exits,
secret passages,
ways to escape,
always wanting
to be somewhere else--
anywhere else
but with you
I stopped running--
started wanting
wooden floorboards,
walls and a person
I could finally call
home.
Oct 27, 2017
Oct 27, 2017 at 1:48 AM UTC
She took my stash,
slapped my ***
and grabbed my vinyls,
took them for another.
She ate my kimchi,
and ate my ****
and ate my grub.
She reminded my of Morgan,
and sometimes she acted.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 8:36 AM UTC
the first time you said I love you was on Valentines day.
On the way back to my house, on a winding street lined with pine trees
You said it as a joke, and that's why I laughed
the second time you said I love you was when we were on your living room floor
vinyls upon vinyls with the wrapping all around us
this time I just ignored it and gave a tight smile
the third time you said I love you it was attached to a quick goodbye on the phone
I hung up before I could react and dropped to the floor right after
because how the **** could you ever love me and not know about the planet of skeletons I have in my closest?
you never seen my bad days or my worst days
you don't know the way I light up and the way I fade away
you don't know the voices in my head or the numbers on my arm dialing a phone home
hell, you don't even know what that means
you can't love me because you don't even know that I'm a planet
you can't love me because you don't know that I gave up being a human a long time ago
and you can never love me because you'll never understand why
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 9:02 AM UTC
It is because of you that I am fully attentive
Soundwaves that wash over me from start to end
Music, my only friend
Now, we ride the waves of wifi to get what we need
But our gaze upon an artist is lost
Once our playlists consist of only a few of their songs
Handpicked amongst others, so our entertainment isn't lost
I understand the desire of variety
But I value the intimacy of a record I can hold
Knowing that for a while, it's just me and this music alone
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
Lying in an
unfamiliar
bed I
study
each fold in
dated posters,
tacked
to
foreign
walls.
My eyes
dart
from
left
to
right.
Not
focusing
on one
obscure
decoration
for
long.
Strange clothes
strewn
across
awkward
purple carpet
begin to
ridicule
me.
Different
books
sitting
on
half
dusty
shelves.
New
vinyls in the
old
player
join.
Packed bags,
boxes
from a
comfortable
time
loom
around
corners of the floor in
big
heaps.
I try to
tuck
myself farther
in
to
hide
away.
Like a turtle
attempting
to find
solace in a
familiar
shell.
Shrouding
my eyes from an
unknown
future.
I sink
in
closer
to sound
asleep,
same, old?
you.
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 4:30 PM UTC
There's a crowd of pitch black unicorns at a Chelsea Wolfe's concert.
A crowd of pitch black unicorns moving their onyx hooves and horns
at the rhythm of drones dressed in electric guitars. An acoustic break follows.
The vibrations of the music and dancing cause purple flowers to grow,
purple flowers weaned on blood and sticky black tar. There's a crowd of
unicorns dancing at a Chelsea Wolfe's concert feeding on ladybirds crisps
and dragonflies sticks, that once home will play vinyls on mystic turntables of fire.
The purple flowers grow into vines and try to smother the unicorns
to prevent them from listening to bloodred-dyed vinyls on mystic turntables of fire.
Meanwhile in the corner of a museum S. Teresa of Avila's statue animates by itself, walks
to the window and throwing itself crumbles into a thousand of pieces of marble.
The seventh seal has not been opened yet but the ninth the eleventh and the seventeenth
exploded already, cracked their own wax and started spreading tongues of flames
and water to decimate humanity. A woman dressed in a fifteenth century scarlet outfit
leads the pitch black unicorns to salvation creating a safe haven for them
in Manchester and another one in California. They have in the meantime gone bonkers
and started feeding on each other. Equine teeth suddenly grow carnivorous jaws.
Nothing is left in the two oasis apart from a puddle of blood and a pavement of corpses.
It's 7 a.m. Chelsea has not yet finished her concert and her music blossoms around
played by the mystic turntables of fire. That which remaineth is pitch black light
and the breath of aeons lingering here and beyond and nowhere.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 8:33 PM UTC
Tied up, words constricting
Woke up, wrong place to live in
Now I find myself hustling
But I can't keep from tossing in
My bed at night
Don't want to breathe and I've got to fight
With all my might crack the walls
And shed some light
On the wrong side of the long night persisting
Inspite of our Hollywood vinyls
And pop star idols
'cause at midnight they bite us
And drink our love.
Imagine work paid off
And you're never laid off, rough appearance
Won't make them scoff
What if tough heights didn't last long
Or burn so strong, didn't scar your tongue,
And good fun wasn't modest
Like Bollywood's hottest
We'd live the lives loudest
That we could be proudest of.
We forget it all, they've set it small
Well we're all not tall, we just bend down
Let them move your limbs in any given position
Because life's only
A luxurious possession after all.
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 11:11 PM UTC
I wake in this city
This city that didn't bear me
This city that didn't raise me
And yet it's this city that i seek to find something of me
Not in the pubs or the clubs or the karaoke bars
Where revelers conspire to dream and drink to the stars
Nor the cafes where poets and artists in a foreign language create.
Pass the market stalls where secondhand books and vinyls are stacked like freight
It is to the quietened streets of the old town I go
Where i long for the walls to speak once more
To reveal their hidden histories
To help fashion some sense of a man
One unknownst to me, my fathers father whose name I share
A fine skilled seamster, thus a tailor by trade
Not arriving to this city for work on fabrics of nylon and silk
But to stitch and sew the flesh of limbs in a paramedic corps
Another pawn of the Great War under King George's command
Driven only by economic necessity from a penal homeland
Not of conscription, politics or some moral conviction at play
For the price of neutrality is one that poverty simply refuses to pay
Returning home to an Ireland of hostility or silence at best
Medals now lying deep in pockets not proudly pinned to chests
Irish heroes don't fight in a British war for a King's crown
No such stories from father to son shall ever pass down
And now, a grainy photograph, three medals for a sons son to take
A dog tag that bears my name, a number and RC to depict a faith
From a man exiled in his home as a forgotten prisoner of war
To honour a legacy i find myself in this city afar
Asking the same questions of him as to me
Is this city the last place he truly felt free?
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 7:37 AM UTC
On times like this
He was the one
Who used to hold
Your hand amid
The busy streets
He was the one
Who touched you like
A cup of tea
Pressed on your skin
When times got rough
He cuddled with you
As the rain dropped
On your window pane
While you listened to vinyls
On repeat
He used to write you poems
On benches at parks
As he stared at your eyes
And watched people come and go
Someday, he said
I can’t love you anymore
You thought he was joking
But the bitter truth
Was that- he was not
You fell for him more
As the day passed
You soon realized
That you loved him
More than ever
On nights that felt
Like no one is awake
You let your souls out
While dancing along
Silly pop songs
He used to carry your bags
So you can shop
And bought you roses
When you overthink
A lot
He would come over
For he was used to
Being awake at 3am
To listen to all
That bothers you
14th of February
He took you out on a
Fun fair and made you
Laugh as if he
Had already stole your heart
He was sweet
You were quirky
In that sudden moment
Everything was
So beautiful
It was until you lost him
You never learned
How sad
It is walking
Down the road
All alone
You never learned
How it is to keep
All your problems
To yourself
With no one to listen
You’d bring out
The poems he
Had written you
Realizing how much he
Has loved you
As you sit beside his grave
Like any other Saturday
Talking to him
As if he was still alive
Where nights like this
You would like to
Sleep in his arms
Listening to the beat
Of his heart
But the pain is still there
Knowing that even if he
Knew he was dying
He still kept
On loving you
Because you'd rather
Watch sunsets
With him
Than mourning
For his death
-j.t
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 9:51 PM UTC
Shoot at the Blue white,
Moon sprouting Nevada dry desert,
An eyelash of God on a Train falls,
Pedal to Pedal,
Sand dust to Beach love making,
God is on a Train,
Crossing Afghanistan's oil fields,
Backpacking thru rubble russian poverty streets,
God,
The red pigeon,
Perched as a stone city Gargoyle,
Watches from,
Dilated pupils,
As April's blooming flowers,
Catch a winter cold,
God,
Came by himself,
A jean'd pocket of melodic junk,
Hiding in Apartment whiskey bottles,
in broom stick cupboards,
in Vinyls,
That only play backwards,
And the boxelder is,
removed from my,
Iron rust tongue,
To fly,
or.
What it ever chooses to do.
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
The guitar that you play every day
Is dusty like the lies you leave
Scattered on the floor like your vintage vinyls
Cigarettes you hate to smoke
Burning the lips of the girl
Whose bleached blonde hair you die to dye
Your empty wallet
Your empty hands
Your searching eyes
Mar 6, 2010
Mar 6, 2010 at 8:22 PM UTC
i could say you were brown eyes and coffee,
that you were both oceans of happiness and tsunamis of pain
i could say that you had the best taste in music
and the worst taste in people;
but then I would only be telling the novel-like trauma
that comes with loving you
so instead i will paint the image of dark sunsets
and black and white vinyls onto paper;
i will take photographs of unopened cigarette boxes
and spilled coffee tables, i will record the sound of roaring
laughter and terribly loud sobs
and then i will put it all together so that i can
accurately describe you
you with the boyish smile and the terrible
french accents, you with the curly hair and the
bad impersonations, you with the most beautiful mind
and my heart
it's ironic actually, how i use you as my safety net
like my grandma does her rosary;
although i doubt her rosary is killing her
like you are killing me
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 7:07 PM UTC
There’s a 55 gallon drum
in my yard beside the deck
half full of empty bottles
black ashes from burned poems
worthless words, regrets, bad
checks, the busted up scorched
bridge of Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E
half finished lyrics, melted Nirvana
vinyls, suicide notes charred and scared
every-bit as sincere as when written.
May 1, 2019
May 1, 2019 at 1:01 AM UTC
when i am numb
i remember the poem
you wrote me on my birthday
i'd never felt like anyone cared enough
to write sonnets in my name
poetry from their veins
anyone but you
everyone but you
cried the night i died
sang at the service
buried memories with ashes
from the cigarettes lit
with the same fire
that used to light my soul
now i lay in the dark
and i listen to wind
whisper fragments of
what i think was your name
i still remember
the day you told me
you were leaving
i didn't listen
to the name you called me
only the way you spoke it
like the only way
to get rid of me
was to spit poison
into my mouth
yet somehow
the burn in my throat was better
than the one you left in my chest
it was like coughing up dirt
from the seeds you planted
but forgot to water
forgot to think about
do you think about me
when you're alone
when you can't sleep
when you listen to
your favorite song
i often wonder
if i was one of your vinyls
did you spin me until
the scratches and pops
were too much to bare
until i became
another broken record
i often wonder
if you even remember
as you searched for a fire
to cover the smoke
from the last cigarette
you flicked ashes from
to burry the memory
of not my name
but the way you spoke it
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 10:09 PM UTC
Alone.
By September until who knows when, that is how I will start and end my days.
Calm mornings will no longer begin with the sound of your chatter.
Dead silence will fill the air as I eat my dinner all alone.
Every empty chair will be a reminder that you are not home.
From spending almost every waking hour together, we will only exchange brief messages each day.
Growing up has led us to this—one of you in Manila and the other one in Tokyo.
I’ll feel stuck in the four corners of my little room while you’re both someplace else.
Just the thought of not having both of you around makes me feel like a deer caught in the headlights.
Kisses, embraces, and affectionate teasing only older sisters could ever give will become less frequent…
Loneliness is something I have never known.
Mom and Dad will still be here, but they will be busy too, and I would not want to bother them.
Nothing will fill in the spaces of the house the way they’re occupied while you’re here—
One of you painting in watercolor by the windowsill, the other one listening to music until the wee hours of the morning.
Please always tell me about your day while you’re away, no matter how ordinary or great it may be.
Q¬uiet the noises that will shout in the head of a younger sister who is all alone.
Rise and live the way you have always wanted, but don’t forget about me.
Shine to the world the way you shine in my eyes.
Think of me as I think of you.
Ultimately, all I will do will come down to waiting for you to come back home.
Vinyls we share will rarely spin, the books we borrow from one another will be left to dust on the shelves.
What was once a house filled to the brim with voices and love only sisters could have will feel spacious and empty.
Xylophone clanging and the strumming of the guitar from the childhood we shared will seem so distant, but I will do all I can to make it feel like you are not far away—
Your favorite song will come up on the radio on some nights and I will sing along as we would sing together:
“Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly, and the spiders from Mars….”
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
She takes the heart of Men
barley brave
slightly handsome and solemnly gay
the world is bare like the shaven private parts of **** stars
of
young women
young men
I am not the average white male
Kansas
Kansas
Chanting ridiculous church hymns
pray preach till we are dull
till the snow
till the rain
till the tornado is nothing
till the insects on the bathroom floor
are neither welcomed
or shouted at
but rather
acknowledged in a monk-like-state of unforgiving in-ability to think
The insects and the dishes and the plastic wrappers and the condoms and the heart beats that climb through broken television shop windows scratching their scalps with glass and tiny tear drop like rain drops from a cloud trickle like wet make up down faces
Folklore Folklore
Heavenly father
****** Texas Heat Indian Skin Father
oh Holy Father
Teaching the hairy poet the wooden antique poet the stolen gift from an Oklahoman fuel station poet
Oh How You Taught the poet
How to steal
How to envision the future
To trust the gut
To trust women too much
To wear nice clothes
To Drink cold night beer walking down a lightless road in a strange blue memory flash of either texas or Mars
Holy Father
Teacher
Monk
Addict
You had it right
You Coulda' been a great singer
or a poet or a dancer or a play writer or a guitar player or a piano builder
You had the self destruction well completed
You have me beat
Now I sit around listening to the scratched up Vinyls warping and turning like fine black women swing dancing
their dresses in a symmetrical spin
Now I sit around
Reading Rimbaud
analyzing the snow
digging up Deer bones and skulls
Now I sit around my pores ingesting the sounds of birds pianos and fast heart beats.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 5:43 PM UTC
heart beat hammers as i
appear to study holy
horoscopes over green tea
and grand gestures
i'm sure you've come to
tell me where your
hack sawed heart still
lies, barely beating,
instead i learn of your
new found freedom as
we take our buckets
full of ***** bad habits,
abusive fathers, brazen
moms and bare it all
on the table between
sabre's shots in the
laundromat as i fold
every ******* item of
clothing that i own
i begin to dread the
departure and the
growing space that looms
between us so i ****
you in with the promise
of a six pack and vinyls
satiated for only so long
you find my fresh buzz
and the blank lines between
us vanish, hands on my
head and lips on my neck,
i'm holding on tight, but
it's only a matter of time
until reality escapes me
quick trip down the
slopes and i'm over flowing
with what defines me,
our tempos are timed by
the too fast kits that
hammer in sync in our chests
sun's coming up and
luna's got more than just
moons in her eyes, she
sees me and then looks
beyond me into past lives
i'm reminded what it is
to actually feel something
and the passion is exhilerating
and terrifying as my
numbness is washed away,
wave after wave, in
comfortable silence
******* cigarettes and
slipping through
song after song
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 1:19 AM UTC
I'm bored
Dead silence wife and kids
Are out visiting cousins
A sudden knock on the door
Ecolocated like bats do
The invasion was welcomed
With ***** and beer
Poker and aces
The joy on familiar faces
Memorials fantastic places
Nostalgia backtracked
Vinyls out crispy tunes
From high noon
To high moon
Friends run a cheery way
The magnificent seven
Lived to see another day
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
you are waiting
waiting
waiting
suited up in your spirit of self-loathing,
eating a full helping of anxiety every day for lunch
mucking your ears with the wax of negative self-voice
making it hard to hear the whisper in stillness
as for me, I will live
live
live
even on those days when you can’t come along
I won’t wait for spring and every dream I’ve ever had
to happen before my heart can be light
before I can sing and exude sunshine
and if my warmth can open your tightly
closed bud, I will shine until we bring forth color
this exact moment will never happen again
our closets could be filled with maps
books and autographed vinyls
but if you put a picture in a ziplock bag
remember
the life in that bag already ran out of air
whether waiting for tomorrow or wishing for to-day
the only heart that’s beating strong is right now
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 11:26 AM UTC
Dear Michael,
I honestly have a lot to say. I'm not even sure where to start. I guess I'll go with something I've been thinking about lately. I've been meaning to say thank you. I'm not sure if I have ever told you this, but I mean it. I am thankful that you cared enough to listen to me. I am thankful that you cared about me even when I believed nobody did. I am so thankful for you.
I keep trying to think of what it must've been like to hear what was going on with me. I, personally, thought you could care less. Even though you showed me you cared by bringing me to the counselors office and staying after to talk to me, I didn't understand. I was so completely immersed in my thoughts that I didn't realize that it must've been hard for you. I'm sure they questioned you, asked you what I said when you told them what happened. And I do not blame you for telling them, it's your job. But, you didn't just tell them because you're obligated too, right You care, I know you do. And if you wouldn't have cared, i believe I wouldn't be here writing this, listening to vinyls and studying for my 9th grade exams. Let that sink in for a second. Just because you cared, I am here. I am alive. Yes, other things an people contributed, but in the end you were the only person who I believed actually cared if I was alive or dead. It's scary, feeling so alone. It wasn't even a feeling anymore. It was real.
Anyways, I believe you showed me light. I believe that I owe you so much. I owe you my life, the things I accomplish and the love I give. You can tell me I don't, but I know I do. Thank you for letting me live and breathe and smile and cry and laugh and learn and see the stars. Thank you so so so much.
Love Always and Forever,
Rach
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
I used to listen to Winehouse in the greenhouse and the windows cried in pain.
I had Gillespie in the conservatory and Kitt in the kitchen, but I saved Brenda Lee for the bedroom see 'cause she was the queen.
I had them all running recordings in my head, Dave Dee, Fats Domino, Bono, Callas for a touch of class, Des and Bygraves, slaves to the sound spinning around in my mind and now I can't find a song that's familiar, can't make out the words, don't know the artists, missed out along the tracks, no vinyls, no needles, no tables just racks of CD's
oh please tell me it isn't so
this can't be the way to go,
where's Slim and Kim and Marty gonna go now that the party is over?
In the greenhouse where I listened to Winehouse and watched the pickup pick up the beat,
I take a back seat and eat a tomato while nothing else is going on.
Dec 11, 2015
Dec 11, 2015 at 6:21 PM UTC
High and dry it’s all deserts and tumbleweeds with you.
But I’m a cat that likes to travel and move.
So I go the opposite way. Because stagnant dreams at high altitudes don’t suit me.
I’m a flat line realist with big aspirations, but I need to understand the game board.
So I hope there’s gas in the tank. Not for terrorist motives
Although I wouldn’t mind wide scale destruction
And my friends and I
We try to live like pirates.
We wish we could steal
But my mazda’s not a ship
And I’m not boarding port side.
Although to be perfectly honest
I feel that introspective ramblings
Aren’t going to save me.
When I ‘m fine with my self
It’s the flannel wearing 30 somethings
Raised trucks
Medium beer
Hats
Bro’s with community college degrees
The death of California
So My friends and I
Should drown in tar
Like dinosaurs .
Hypothesize our end
Our demise was overdue .
A few years ago I was cutting edge tongue flapping
Now I’m electrodes to spit older quips for lack luster
Gents.
I know the kinds h & m uniform, scarves in California heat, military grade boots.
This one’s name is Jeff and he slings dehydrated lines about charity like it will save his life of mediocrity and empty,empty,empty pockets
For the things he needs to do
To make people like him
Some where
Maybe india
Yes india
We’re friends that are just a 7 dollar donation away.
So leave me high and dry with your corner out eyes
Save yourself from the breakdown’s the x, y, z’s
Of predictable lines and same old stories
It’s the same thing with ***’ of varying size
So if I quench my thirst from leaky pipe dreams
Or water plants with the excess, it’s all the same.
Because a silver tongue and debatable morals is the selling point but we’re not vinyls
Value is measure in age.
And wisdom wasn’t the call your made.
I’m sick of cut throats in Sunday dresses
And thief’s in cheap yellow sunglasses
Life’s not a slope of a flat line or a mountain to be ascended or descended
-Kevin T.
Apr 5, 2011
Apr 5, 2011 at 5:02 PM UTC
You showed me your line of vinyls. You know, I always liked the ones that dug their lives into music.
The way you'd add your experiences in tunes, your voice much therapeutic.
You played me like the violin, stroking your brown soft fingers through my strings.
Your blues flowing through my ears,
I could feel the skin crawling chilling feelings near & near.
Remember when we'd lose ourselves to dance in the middle of your bedroom floor.
The way we'd flow our bodies into the rhythm of the beat helped me adore you much more.
The spiritual tunes of Michael Jackson,
Oh, you rock my world.
The sensual touch of your body is like the equivalence of jazz blues.
You always had ways with your words, my operator real smooth.
My mind ran deep with your influential words, especially when you'd make me feel as though I was your one & only girl.
Blind to anyone else, I felt as if I belonged in your inner world.
But all that came between us was fast women, and herbs.
All that I have of you are memories in music.
The words you gave me, no longer sounds acoustic.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 3:44 PM UTC
it was raining heavily that day.
we met at an old record store.
the sky turned a peaceful grey,
bells tinkled as i opened the door
and i was hit with the smell
of dusty vinyls that were waiting
to be gently touched and held
by dreamers, lovers of messy
thoughts and burning secrets.
our fates were entwined at the start,
and i do not think i had any regrets
when the music took our hearts.
Feb 12, 2019
Feb 12, 2019 at 9:23 PM UTC