Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
246 · May 2022
Abortion
Dodged a bullet called life
so beautiful yet shattered
fine crystal bloodied hands
we all act as if it mattered.
We protest in graveyards cry
blood tears for tiny abortion
boy or girl we never know now
just another ignored correction.
246 · Apr 2021
Roller Coaster
I used to look to the future,
        the only thing left is a past.
        There's an emptiness I can't fill.
        I've always been troubled fun.
        It's a steep price for a ticket
        to a ride that lasts a minute.
        The line is long but moves fast.
        Afterwards you change your name.
        We never drown in the shallows.
        We always preferred the deep.
Kathy became KC. Betsy became Liz. Terry became Tara. Lynette became Libby.
245 · Aug 2023
Merritt Paul Dawson
It's always a casual see you later,
  then somehow you leave forever.
  I see your obit on google and wish
  I'd reached out when I still could.
  Here's to our shared misery and joy
  sharing secrets and keeping them.
  Here's to ******* pants laughter
  and a broke piece you left in me.
245 · Feb 2023
Where is My America?
Who fumbled the ball?
I think it was us,
the spoiled rotten
Baby Boomers.
Misinformed we
sold our souls to
Wall Street and her
golden treasures.
When everything
has a price on it
there is no value.
We sold our America.
245 · Dec 2021
Death by Christmas Tree
They had to have a live tree
instead of a fake ironically.
The thing ended up killing me.
It's not big enough can't you see?
It was monstrous as it could be
but kept them quiet and happy.
I tried to lift it, was on a knee.
Help! They ignored my plea.
Coroner delivered me for free.
Moving the tree cost a hefty fee.
244 · Jun 2021
Gramps
I'm 7. I want to be like God.
He makes my mom laugh out loud.
I want to be Him when I grow up.
I smoke the butts in His ashtray and
drain His beer too warm to finish.
He's the God that I wish God was.
243 · Jun 2022
I Don't Know Your Name
You can't read my mind.
You've no idea what it's
like being close to you.
I'm stunned by your beauty.
Your laugh infects me.
Your wild hair brings me
to my knees in adoration.
I cower in fear of my love.
I'm quiet. I'm distant. I dream
of you that night. I write this.
242 · May 2022
Circus 1944
I was 9. The circus was coming that summer.
  It promised to bring life to the cornfields.
  4th of July. Circus matinee and evening
  fireworks!Daddy had it all planned out.
  Mama smelled pretty. Papa looked fancy.
  I wore my favorite white church dress.

  We were in the biggest tent I ever saw
  with people everywhere. Louder than
  anything I ever heard. I never felt like
  this. So much energy in so much space
  and my skin was electric, my eyes wide
  with the wonder of it all. Magical.

  It really was the Greatest Show on Earth!
  Girls swinging on trapeze and men balanced
  100 feet above us on a wire. Elephants huge
  powerful beasts tame as puppies on the farm.
  Clowns silly and mute and lovely made us laugh.
  It was heaven. We were suspended in a moment.

  I smelled smoke. I saw smoke and fire and panic.
  8000 people wanted out now. I wanted to see the
  fireworks in the dark. So many died. Animals died.
  Mama and Daddy died. They smelled like cooked meat.
  I died from smoke. I was found perfect in my dress.
  I'm unknown. I'm called body #1565. I love the circus.
The sky's so clear
  in the atmosphere
  stars perch on a tree
  caged birds set free
  my mind takes flight
  into the cold night
  when I just can't feel
  what's dream or real
  my dogs walk me home
and I write this poem.
241 · Jun 2021
A Drug Called Normal
I've used substances to balance my tilt.
     Smokes, beer, wine, vallium and xanax.
     They've helped me to stay in the lines.
     I chose to ignore the rules and live on
     a pinball machine with frenetic energy.
     All I want is a drug to bring me down
     to this earth where I began the journey.
     Please take these cravings from my mind.
     The Chemists come up with carnival rides.
     Up and down and everywhere in between,
     Coney Island madness in their tiny pills.
     Bring me back from this life on Mars.
240 · Apr 2022
Dear Theo
Autumn turns nature more intense.
     Peasants harvest Burnt sienna and
     other shades of red while black crows
     crawl across the French blue sky.
     Leaves catch fire briefly before
     ending in winters Payne grey grave.
     I clutch hope in my lonely winter.
     Please visit soon, Lad. Love, Vincent.
239 · Aug 2021
All I Want My Lovers to Be
Just be my breath and heartbeat for a start.
   Be stories that tore beautiful through my heart.
   Every lust that ever brought me to an end,
   the absolute to my doubt, straight to my bend.
   Be my broken vows and promises forgiven.
   Be my gentle ending when I'm done livin'.
239 · Sep 2023
Scars of Eden
I have scars of life
mostly self inflicted
bad judgement of youth
just accidental addicted
to a crack ******* pipe
and Satan's debauchery
Eden's fruit now ripe
Eve gives me her cherry.
I take it as a treasure
covet as I do her heart
the fiercest pleasure
will tear us both apart.
237 · Jul 2021
Bent Harp
Strings bent left and right
that touch me never touched.
Baptize me one last time as I
should have been before I
lost my way and found you
in a bar we found paradise.
236 · Feb 2021
Don't
Don't break me like a toy
or a long forgotten boy
yesterday's mistake
tomorrow's deadly snake
a heart drowned from tears
spilled over many years.
236 · Jan 6
6 Alcott Lane
I'm a worn out old man.
I want to go back to Alcott
where our world was in a jar
we were collected bugs in the
woods. We knew the creeks and
lake and swung on vines Tarzan
like and ran home to supper and
homework and TV and slumber.
Dad off to work at 5am hacking
in the bushes and off he went in
a flesh colored rocket ship bare
as birth his '57 Chevrolet Bel Air.
God always delivers justice.
We might not believe in it.
Fear it as you feared the
whippings of your youth
or wronged lovers later
never happy with it all.
Truth is absolute and
time gets away from us.
235 · Jan 2021
Wine as Savior
The ice rattles in my glass as my
hands tremble needing another sip.
I'm calm and forget the terrible times.
We're all beat, spat upon, sentenced.
I drink too much of Christ's blood.
I'm fraught with devotion, nail myself
to your cross, losing my mind. I pray.
I don't think I can wait that long.
234 · Nov 2024
Curbstone Valentino
I sit on the curb at the liquor store
until 9 am when it finally serves,
wait for desperate beauty queen.
I talk smooth settle her nerves.
We share a bottle and queen bed
*** was just a lost cause at best.
I sit on the curb at the liquor store
until 9 am when it finally serves.
234 · Jul 2024
Fighting Irish
We've been beat near to death.
  Irish mules pull English plows
  rocks and clay our last breath.
  You steal our milk, eat our cows.

  Steal our island as you might.
  Ireland is Our emerald sacred
  We keep our dignity and fight.
  Pubs crawl with pure hatred.
232 · Apr 2024
Kevin
My brother who let me climb
upon his back to save myself.
It's a debt I can never repay.
If you needed a liver I'd give
you mine but you'd not want it
knowing I needed yours anyway.
232 · Sep 2022
Just a Vision
I saw you on the subway
  lost you in the crowd
  love you like yesterday
  alone in the party cloud
  backstairs naked chance
  touch hearts and parts
  we make our music dance
  I drink to love's starts.
231 · Apr 2021
Thief
I steal what I need.
    The sun and moon and
    your heart and stars
    time and beauty and
    God's grandiose plans.
    I'll build a universe.
    We'll be the King and
    Queen. We steal dreams.
231 · Sep 2021
Lightening
Furious flash of His anger
puts the fear of God in us.
We hope magic beads and chants
will save us from the ignorance.
Science will explain it all away.
The planets spin madly around
our sun and we eat dinner and the
wine doesn't spill in ocean waves?
We are frozen in our life frame to
frame while everything around
us is complete chaos in dreams
that we can never understand.
231 · Apr 2021
Reggie
He's dying in his bed above his bar.
    The jukebox plays soundtracks
    of life and people live out loud
    drinking and laughing in fierce
    lives below. Life on fire!
Sharks circle his lifetime
where the sun don't shine.
He dies smiling above it all.
My uncle owned The Highway Stop in Reading in Cincinnati.
231 · Sep 2024
Bar Fight
Is apathy
ever free
civil war
in the bar
drunks fight
for the right
take a stand
**** the band
bury the hate
never too late
bury our dead
drink instead.
230 · Sep 2022
What am I?
Am I bulbous?
Am I purple?
Am I throbbing?
Might I *******?
Will I disappoint?
too soon too late?
228 · Jun 2024
Youth Disdains Age
Youth's ignorance neglects
grey old men and kissing
women nursed their parents
1930 yearbook is missing.
Listen as they whisper a
warning to live for today
for tomorrow we all die.
Class pictures on display.
227 · Feb 25
Winds of Change
Winds of change
always blowing
breathing strange
never knowing
what tomorrow
will finally bring
joy or sorrow
songbirds sing!
226 · Aug 2024
Poet's Vision
I have a poet's vision
rhyme your flaws
with laser precision.
Many poets have claws.
Suckle poem's milk
it means everything.
Just wear your **** silk,
careful what you bring.
226 · Jul 2021
Son
Son
I just wish you knew me
before I lost humanity
before I lost my sanity
before war changed me.
You are me at that age.
Violence births rage.
Wash pain away with
tears I sob. I'm sorry.
226 · Sep 2021
Bonnie and Clyde
We're ratted out
bullet holes our
tame acquiescence
we're finished now
posed unflattering
on all front pages
225 · Aug 2022
Death's Door
Blood from a barely beating heart
drips down the neck to the fingers
in the dirt back to the finite start
dying sees life while it lingers
behind blind eyes as a spirit soars.
The living water graves with tears
not knowing God's sacred open doors
when their time is due in the years.
225 · Feb 23
Legacy
What kind of dust
will my remains be?
What worms taste
in my funeral waste.
Humorous and kind
angry and cruel blind.
Hedonist pleasure
my ultimate treasure.
225 · Aug 2021
Street Walker
I work the streets at night
dressed for business in cars.
I do my best to look pretty.
Makeup hides my scars.
They always pay in cash.
They hate perfume's scent.
We never kiss goodnight.
It's what I do for rent.
225 · Jul 2021
I Shower with Scorpions
In the Mojave in a sandstorm
monsters are back in town
slow burn alcohol stove
keeps its water boiling
ready to blow this place
to hell any minute now.
I've been drinking
with kind strangers.
You're my mute ghost.
Please, answer me.
Who must we **** on
your cruel altar?
225 · Mar 2023
The Edmund Fitzgerald
We all died that night.
November storm's fright.
Pray in the water's ****
for deliverance escape.
225 · May 2022
Gloucester, MA
Seagulls argue over who knows what
   riding ocean breezes we'd all die for.
   We fight drunk in our room, a prelude
   to ******* on the sheets with anchors.
   I hear the 9th symphony when we mend.
   We lie as one and hear the seagulls laugh.
224 · Sep 2022
Dirt Poor
Do you know these people
  dirt poor with joyful eyes?
  No tears or pity asked they
  work hell's cloudless fields
  every meal fatback and beans  
  sharecropper hands of stone.
  Sunday overalls starched go
  to Church praise Jesus, atone.
  Saturday nights there's music
  and moonshine and slow dance
  they give up the ghost midnight
  still clutching in fierce romance.
223 · Jun 2024
Nobody Cries at My Funeral
I see wires naked
all machines dancing.
Sociopaths are prancing
I turn my hand around and
all the lines on my palms
are full of ***** traffic.
Even when our lives are sleeping
our souls are slaughtering friends.
Dress in black to pretend sorrow
for their inevitable ends.
I stay in the car an extra moment
and don't turn the key.
in a sepia of symphonies.
my loneliness is your sea.
this morning,
there was a mother walking
her little girl to school
hand in hand,
and they swung their arms
in seconds and hours.
this afternoon,
a woman threw the ball
and her dog ran and chased
dropped it by her feet,
and there was love in them
and she kissed his face
and let him lick her nose
like wet snow does.
Tonight the clouds bloomed
black blood and the graffiti
on the walls of factories had run,
the bins were overflowing,
The train rattled and hummed on the
El tracks, slowly crawled to its knees
delivering me to the busy emergency
shot in my vein and shot in my back.
I don't know
our place in all of this.
city of big shoulders.
hog butcher and this
paradise purgatory.
this waiting room
of fate and throwbacks
this sick bed,
this snow covered meadow
of a blank page.
this black mirror.
I was lost in mutation years ago,
pulling out the wires,
scratching off the barcodes,
turning tricks,
counting licks,
walking backwards
through the
wreath of my own ribs.
holding back something,
maybe complete collapse.
I don't know
if the universe
is fair if you pray
or just persist.
a single raindrop dancing  ballet
   on the windshield after falling,
streaking, blooming in a rivulet
of the God awful calling.
take a breath
and go inside
to my funeral
minister speaking
soothing lies
as they say
their goodbyes
nobody cries.
223 · Jun 2020
Death Has Dominion
Death is ill timed, never expected
  and awkward for those left behind.
  Funerals are Death's surreal plays.
  Tears won't always come on cue.

  It's bad luck to talk about death.
  We speak kind of the dead. We don't
  talk of their human frailties.
  We deny our own sins and theirs.

  We forgive the world for our sins.
  If we never lived in your creation
  with temptations forbidden we'd
  never suffer birth and death.
223 · Jun 2021
Bellevue
There must be someway out of here
   said the patient to the shrink.
   I can write a script for ******
   that might help you think.
   Give me your magic I said
   maybe I'll find another door.
   Don't be in such a hurry
   just be grateful for the floor.
   I'll need to see you often
   you're in a fragile mind.
   I'll write your script forever
   as long as you stay blind.
222 · Jan 2022
1939 Hoochie Dancers
The hearts we set aflutter as we
     danced inside the canvas tents.
     Towns on the edge of the dust bowl who
     still had pennies and loved our scents.

     Times were hard and we moved to catch
     the next town with a sawbuck to steal
     with our games of chance and ladies
     teasing what we'd give after a deal.
222 · Jan 2022
In the Tock of the Tick
In the tock of the tick
we live our brief life
broken sacraments
vows die by a knife.
Run faster stay alive
another moment
long enough for
another torment.
I promise there
really is an end
time evades but
it refuses to bend.
220 · Dec 2020
Hello Poetry
Hello Poetry
    Front Page
    Titles:


   basketball
   figs
   her hair
   son of golden soil
   dull
   8:41pm
   futureproof
   sudden death
   make yourself
   the slide
   consume your soul
   crush
   sleepless
   french
   twilight
   she believed
   complexity
Let's meet in a church basement on Sunday night with coffee and stale donuts and stories of lost souls writing our hearts out and pray to a higher power for one of us to be discovered on Public Radio
220 · Nov 2021
God is Love
Eric Fromm said it in a book.
I see you in a bar and you steal
my breath I know God's not Love
you are Love and we create God's
tiny sparks of life in fierce beds.
first comes love then comes marriage
220 · May 2024
Hey, Jesus
Hey die on the cross Jesus
did you think to please us?
Being nailed to heavy wood,
were you just misunderstood?
Bring us to the eternal light
of the darkness of our night.
219 · Dec 2023
Treason in DC
Screen door screams in summer heat
  just calling crows to come and meet
  and gather for a final time to end
  your family and your best friend.
  We die in broke war running away
  from treason in DC nothing to say.
  Mikie sold worthless soul for gold
  to a government of filthy mold.
219 · Jan 2022
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
     Pulse Concert 1994

   The drummers insane
   so glad that I came
   light extraordinaire
   alive in the atmosphere
   Pink Floyd troubadours
   cleanse us in abattoirs.
Strip our skin from within
and feed the devil our sin.
219 · Aug 2022
Baltimore Wedding
We siblings gathered for a last minute
  living on borrowed time. The eight originals
  in various stages of health in a grand hotel.
  In the harbor of Baltimore where seagulls
  keep looking for the ocean and the affluent
  fear the poor. We don't carry cash anymore.
  Patty. Jeanie. BJ. Kevin. Eileen. Terry.
  Bridget. Noreen. I write this as a love letter
  to my siblings as our sun's going down and
  we pass the living on to the next generation.
  We share war stories and our afflictions.
  We laugh at our past and wonder at tomorrows.
  We set aside our spats and hold dear our love.
Next page