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Keith Johnsen Mar 2014
Jumanji was your favorite Robin Williams movie
Mine was Dead Poets Society
You didn’t think it was too interesting
And you fell asleep on my shoulder
When we watched it on a pixilated
2” by 5” screen
Moving at 1 ½ miles per hour
On a bus
Going 5000 frames per second
Over a burnt sandwich chips
We stopped near Michigan and State
To talk about our favourite books
Yours was As I Lay Dying
Mine was The Old Man And The Sea
We talked about the relationship
Between Faulkner
And Hemmingway
And if they ever kissed
Or shared coffee
Or at least thought about it
If Faulkner liked Jumanji
And Hemmingway was partial
To Dead Poets Society
If it turned out
They were chips of a fractured whole
Did Faulkner ever take Hemmingway home?
Does the Hemmingway house still have Faulkner’s toothbrush
On a splintered wooden nightstand?
Did they ever wake up with the wrong socks on the wrong feet
And laugh it off because it was so funny
Were they ever afraid?
Were they ever happy?
Did Faulkner write to Hemmingway
About the Post office?
Did Hemmingway write to Faulkner
About fishing?
“The old man lay dying in the sea”
We wondered if they ever wrote together
Held hands
Traded coffee cups
But you fell asleep
And I kept writing
And watching Dead Poets Society
Wondering if Hemmingway ever would have
Matthew Randell May 2015
Radical as Shakespeare
Cool as Frost
Spooky as Poe
Cyclic as Lee
Rounded as Austen
Abundant as Brontë

Earnest as Hemmingway
Mimi Jan 2012
I wonder how I got here, secluded in a grimy apartment filled with smoke. We drink gin and tonics with mint like it’s the ‘20s; we sit and talk pop culture because we know. Taj has somehow become the effective authority on all of these things, paid to social network and connected to Hollywood; he’s very skilled at playing to people’s wants. My Cadillac sits intent next to me markering in a recent drawing for his newest class. He’s already famous for his graffiti, one day I’ll bet you this extra credit project will be worth money. He drew me a fox for Christmas. Valentines day is coming up. He never tells me he loves me. Jack is watching me watch him out of the corner of his eye while putting on a new remix of an old song. He leans over and asks if I like it and I nod. I feel bubbled up with *** smoke, frozen in time and vaguely uncomfortable. I’d guess this is what it’s like to be “too high.” I want Caddy to notice, but it’s Jack that’s pushing my hair back and telling me to drink more water. It’s sweet. Despite his need to be seen as a womanizer, Jack respects Caddy too much to even try with me, he looks but he doesn’t put on any faces for me. Everyone thinks so hard about how they’re seen.
Jack says his New Year’s resolution is to do less *******, even though no one asked. Everyone hears but no one reacts. I try to keep moving my toes and stop shivering. Across from me Ky and Nate are reading the encyclopedia in open-mouthed awe. In a room full of intellectual up and comers I feel like Hemmingway did when he was my age, how all the minds gravitate to each other and sit in a ***** room by the beach and let the creativity go. Like Mary Shelly and the whole gang writing Frankenstein and Dracula in the same trip.  After a while I think Taj is going to make it, Jack will be a politician and Caddy will be lost and with another woman. Ky and Nate will still be smoking and reading the encyclopedia, all the way down to ‘z’. I am like my mother: attracting the company of smart successful men who pay her selective attention.
The door burst open and the cold air stayed in my pores after it was closed. Rodger invited himself over. It would have been all right but when Rodger is wasted he forgets his manners. In his animated state he managed to kick over Caddy’s favorite smoking piece, insult Jack and look at me a little too hard. His girlfriend had immediately passed out on the couch, but she never smiled or spoke to me anyway. Her head was cradled in the lap of a girl I hadn’t noticed. Her hair was perfect and her eyes shadowed, the liner and mascara smudging its way slowly onto her high cheekbones. She stared at me but didn’t speak. I tried to smile, but didn’t want to give away the champagne sensation covering my skin, still too up to speak. She had already formed her opinion of me, some young ******* the arm of an older boy. She was once in my position, I’m sure of it, we are the same kind of beautiful and empty eyed. That doesn’t stop her from judging, in the total of 15 seconds she looked at me. Her self is tamed and mine is wild still. Unintroduced and unnoticed by the men in the room, we have an understanding and a mutual dislike of each other, only to defend ourselves.
The room takes time to settle, a bowl has been packed for an entitled Rodger, and now that everyone is calm, Cad sits back down and puts his arm around me again. I lean into him, protected and anchored, whereas I had been floating or about to puke a minute ago. I don’t know what I said but Caddy seemed annoyed when he said “Just let it happen, embrace the feeling,” and so I kept quiet for ten minutes or so. The high was infected with guilt. Next time he looked at me-- it could have been an hour—I whispered, “I can’t” and finally he heard me, and stood up.
Cad came back into my vision with a glass of water and turned on Drive, prompting Rodger, Mrs. Rodger and my pretty enemy to leave. Ky and Nate had gone long before I could focus on noticing. Taj left for trivia night down at the bar and no doubt some girl; wrapped up in a cashmere scarf and cardigan he kissed my cheek before he went. Jack also took his graceful leave with the Rodger group to woo some girl who knew exactly what she was doing to herself. He did have a straight nosed charm, Jack. I could not blame this girl, one of many (I am embarrassed for her; I have been like this ******* many occasions).  
Taj had been sent the advanced copy of Drive in blu-ray, so we snuck it from his room and watched it that way (the only way Taj would see movies now, it is the future (for now)). Kavinsky came through Cad’s new speakers the boys had spent half an hour trying to wire earlier in the night. “They’re taking about you boy/but you’re still the same” crooned Lovefoxxx as Ryan Gosling cruised down a street, ****** intense in driving gloves. Gears shifting and motors growling are very ****, I tell Cadillac so into his ear, as he pulls me into his arms and covers me up with a blanket.
The movie was perfect, maybe because it made me feel less dizzy and sickguilty (Cad knew it would) and maybe because Ryan Gosling can wear a white satin jacket. I loved it, hardly noticing when the absent roommate Travis strolled in with Taj and tacos somewhere around 2am.  Colder as Caddy got up for a burrito, left me alone on the couch for the kitchen table. Registering Taj taking his place, playing with my curls and talking Hollywood to me. I’m staring over at Cad in his chair, he makes eye contact once or twice and I blow him a kiss before Taj repositions my head toward the television and my ear back where he can speak into it.
Eventually Cadillac taps Taj on the shoulder and motions for him to get up. With Cad back I can relax and I fall into sleep just as the movie ends. Taj and Trav have gone to their own beds and Cad leans over me, picks me up and takes me to bed knocking my elbow on the doorframe along the way. He apologizes and kisses my head but I am too tired to care. He lays me down on the bed with crimson sheets and takes off my boots but then sternly says, “Mimi, you are not a child.” and so I must get up and undress myself. He wraps me in a duvet missing its cover and his arms. I trust him long enough to fall asleep.

-

Standing in front of the stove it was hot, but I am easily overheated. He came up behind me and said in my ear, “you’re lovely” watching me put the last piece of French toast on the large stack, getting ready to scramble eggs. He kissed my cheek. Then my neck and then my lips, taking me away from my cooking to be pulled against him, for a sweet short minute and went back to the living room with his friends. Jack had mysteriously reappeared in the night; he said he locked himself out of his apartment after leaving to see one of his girls. Taj just sat and blasted Radiohead over the new speakers, shouting something relevant at me. I scramble the eggs and make up plates, two pieces of toast each and a nice healthy pile of eggs. It is gone very quickly and no one says thank you, except for a smile from Caddy and a kiss on the forehead. It’s usually enough for me, knowing he likes to show me off to his friends. I sit down with my cup of coffee and plate, within a few minutes Cad suggests he takes me home. I resentfully take time to finish my coffee. But we are both busy and he is right, so I say goodbye to the boys and gather my things. We drive with the “best MC on the game these days” (so I am told) over the weak speakers of the car. Cad drives with his arm around me always. Cruising into my building’s parking lot I lean over for a kiss on my forehead, nose, lips. He says go, but his hand still sits on my shoulder so I stay for a little longer. “You’ll probably have to let go of me if it’s time for me to go Cad,” I say quietly, with a tentative smile on my face. He grins back and lifts his arm. I slide out of the suicide seat and smile at him, but he’s looking at the radio dials. Then my face. His eyes give him away, softened around the edges with affection. Maybe love, but he’d never say it and I refuse to say it until he does. I try not to think about it much as he drives away to smoke up again with his friends. I wonder if this is how it will always be, but then I realize our kind of “always” is only the next few months. I turned unsteadily and walked up the stairs to my empty room—dark and overheated smelling heavily of sugar and spice candles-- with the geese outside my window for company. I haven’t slept here for days.
Every now and then
I go deep inside my mind
Just to have a little rest
And see what I can find
I don't go in there often
It dark and I must say
That sometimes I'm afraid
That I may lose my way

There's a little corner café
Where Groucho sits alone
Stan Laurel sits there writing gags
And Greta Garbo sits and moans
Sinatra sings for all of them
John Lennon talks to God
Brian Jones gives swimming lessons
There's Liz Taylor and Mike Todd

Over in the distance
At a table in the corner
Hemmingway sells movie scripts
To mogul man Jack Warner
Elvis does a hip shake
Ruth and Gherig playing catch
Bud and Lou do Who's on First
Humphrey Bogart lights a  match

Charles Dickens playing darts
A red balloon comes floating by
Andy Warhol sits with Nico
Where German pop songs go to die
Marilyn and James Dean
Sit quietly talking on the stairs
John Kennedy and his brother Bob
Just pretend that they are both not there

Chico  plays piano and
Harpo  with his  harp
Bad jokes float around the room
being told by silent stars
Phil Everly and Phil Ramone
They're new here so they're woozy
Sit talking of the songs they'll miss
Rick Nelson sings of Susie

You see it is a mad mad place
in my head when I may wander
I don't go in too deep
And I've  met Henry Fonda
There's images, and icons
Family, and  friends
on a little street inside my head
That's a circle with no ends
Terry Collett May 2012
Hemmingway's here now
leaning over my shoulder
reading this poem.
Rhea Sheilah Jun 2015
I can make anybody pretty
I can make you believe any lie
I can make you pick a fight
With somebody twice your size

I been known to cause a few break ups
I been known to cause a few births
I can make you new friends
Or get you fired from Work


And since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynchburg and Bordeaux France
Been making the bars lots of big money
And helping white people dance
I got you in trouble in high school
But college, now that was a ball
You had some of the best times
You'll never remember with me
Alcohol
Alcohol

I got blamed at your wedding reception
For your best man's embarrassing speech
And also for those
Naked pictures of you at the beach

I've influenced kings and world leaders
I helped Hemmingway write like he did
And I'll bet you a drink or two that I can make you
Put that lampshade on your head


'Cause since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynchburg and Bordeaux France
Been making a fool out of folks just like you
And helping white people dance
I'm medicine and I am poison
I can help you up or make you fall
You had some of the best times
You'll never remember with me
Alcohol
Alcohol
this is a song by Brad Paisley
Sam Hawkins Apr 2013
In the early dark of the morning,
dark inside the crypt of my bedroom--
you sparrows came to me there.

I had only said in mind these words:
a forgiveness of sparrows

And there you were, feathers
all fluffed out, and I
searching inside myself.

I think now to tell the better truth -- to say
that mixed in with my need for calling you
was Brueghel, his painted picture with the crushing board,
trip-cord, and feed for bird killing

and my imagining snapshot young Hemmingway
capturing pigeons in Paris to eat them

and feeling the presence of
the one small bird I'd shot as a boy
out of the apple tree
falling falling falling

Sparrows, forgiveness flies all around me!
The world cries out, everywhere!

A police car slides down my street,
as I hear your first chirp in the morning.
david badgerow Nov 2011
i smoke cigarettees too **** much.
this is how you know nothing original will be said in this poem.

i use cigarettes as a social crutch.

i don't know about you
but when i'm in the mood to be honest
i'll tell you
i smoke cigarettes because
i want to be 'cool'.

because let's be honest:
i can't think of
a poet
a musician
an actor
an olympic swimmer
a hockey player
a president
a priest
a ****
a serial killer
or a psychiatrist
that's worth mentioning
that did not smoke

yes, i know you can
and go ahead,
but let me first
make a point instead

let me be honest,
if i can smoke a cigarette
and maybe be alone for
5.75 minutes
then maybe
a thought will occur to me
something outside this ******* world
and it will be good enough to write down,
just maybe.

let me be honest
i don't need you
with your judgemental eyes
and your cursory glances
walk away from me
at a party
i don't miss you
i am with her.

i garauntee if you asked
Whitman
Hemmingway
Freud
Phelps
Obama
about their actual relationship with smoking tobacco
they would have similiar descriptions.

but go ahead, tell me
about the hazardous effects of cigarettes
let's talk about the cancer
and the tar
and the disgusting phlem
that i will constantly have to eject
from my throat-hole
when i'm fifty.

go ahead, tell me about
******* people over
and ripping their minds out
and the sickness
and the disease
and how it's all so wrong.
it's as amusing to me as it is to you.
Mcdonald's will **** you.
Pall Mall will **** me.
I hope Dave doesn't mind, but I am used to her holding my hands now, the certainty of death has a curious way of removing barriers of uncertain modesty.

Today she has come in with a basket of my favourite books because unlike the sombre woman in white overalls, she knows I need my  Hemmingway more than I need the dripping blood of another man. After all, it was she who started that stupid ritual of calling me Old Man, after she saw me reading Hemmingway at 16 - the stain of the spilled medical cocktail on her white shirt still makes me wonder whether it was all a mistake.

She has stopped crying these days, the tears make me uncomfortable like they always do - Her 2nd year analysis on patriarchal oppression of men might have helped her understand my plight, but it can't stop her from wiping off the occasional tear when she thinks i am asleep.
Today she can't stop kissing my clean shaven head - i wonder if it feels different from the days when she used to play with my outgrown tufts. The kisses make me a bit more naked than the dressing gown they make me wear, but it's the kind of nakedness that makes you feel feel more thoughtful on winter nights.
As she strokes my face, the edges of her engagement ring are gently rubbing across my cheeks, and reminding me that he will arrive any moment.

She has to leave a bit early today- Dave is meeting her parents, so she apologies as if I will die the next day - what *******, I am gonna stick around for no less than 2 weeks the doctors have said.

As i see her leave, I take out the half torn tissue on which i had been secretly scribbling - old habits die hard. The poem was almost done - almost, apart from the last lines. You see, when you are dying, you tend to become obsessed with endings.

"And so although Its been twenty years since you said I would be your last,
You still look beautiful when you wear your past"

I hope Dave doesn't mind.
Amour de Monet May 2014
"It is really beautiful up here" she whispered.

Her skin brightened in the glow of the fading masterpiece of crimsons, yellows, and golds the sun had brushed across the turquoise sky "This is it, this is what heaven is like."

I couldn't hear her, but I could read her soft spoken lips and study her face—which I always imagined as less of the cover to a book and more every word inside. There was not a greatness or a sadness that ceased to mask her portrait. She was all heart and soul, every bit of her.

I watched as her bright eyes changed to become more glass than eyes. As if, for the first time, she was seeing life, love, and something more. Something so deep and beautiful that not even Hemmingway or Fitzgerald could even begin to put the prefix of it into thought.

Among the dusting of the clouds and transparent sunset, I felt her heartbeat could silence and the lungs of which gave her the life I so cherished could empty turning her flesh a pale blue—and she would fade peacefully into the scene before me.

This very thought frightened me. Too soon would her feet touch the ground—and nothing I was humanly capable of, or possibly godly capable of, would ever captivate and hold her so perfectly or turn her eyes as vivid—and there was nothing more I wanted.
When I asked a friend if he liked skydiving he told me it scares him.. and I decided to let him see it's beauty by writing this...
JC Lucas Oct 2013
I’ve been going to this boxing gym and training every week.
And everyone there is fighting something
You can see in their
Eyes
They’re punching their dad
Or they’re punching
Whoever their wife is sleeping with
Or they're punching
Their kids who ignore them
Or they’re punching
Themselves.
Their boss
Their job
Their alcohol problem
Their poverty
And every week we get to fight our problems together
And we’re exploding inside.
What?
You can’t fight your problems?
It’s not only that I can.
I will.
And do.
Because crying alone isn’t good enough
Because all that fire you build up inside you has to go somewhere
Or it’ll burn you alive.
So you throw it into the heavy bag
Or into the guy you’re sparring
Or into the ground you run on.


We’re all fighting something
So what about you?
What are you fighting that’s so ******* important?
No, don’t tell me.
Tell that heavy bag.
He listens.
He listens when your wife doesn’t give a ****
He listens when it doesn’t even matter
Tell these padded mitts.
That one-two punch says more than a twenty-four volume encyclopedia
And speaks more concisely than Churchill or Hemmingway or Ghandi ever did.
Don’t tell me how it feels.
Don’t even try.
Let that punching bag know.
Because you know he’s listening.
And he doesn’t have anything else more important to do.
Dorothy A Nov 2012
That could describe you
That could describe me
Those of us of obscurity
Who do not have a name to back us up

Not an Ernest Hemmingway
Not a James Joyce
Not a Maya Angelou
Just a continual scribbler of some thoughts

Only are we considered underrated
Because we're not well-known
But that doesn't mean
We can't give the best of them a run for their money
Overwhelmed Apr 2011
unsure of living
I have discovered
the waiting room
of the nearly dead

there are pictures
of the famous ones
hung upon the wall

******, Hemmingway,
Hammurabi, Harrison

in their different times
they all sat in these chairs
reading magazines and
quaint biographies while
they waited for their name
to be called

the most unsettling thing
is not knowing if you truly
belong here

so sitting in death’s waiting room
I flip through greasy, old pages
wondering if I’m brave enough
to walk out the door and see if
anybody notices
Hal Loyd Denton May 2012
Just One Question

You will have to forgive me for this one I’m going to be selfish pointed unreasonable contrary right down
Hateful if you want to put it that way least it’s going to be short I appreciate as well as anyone else the
Accomplishments of great people in our world and history Hemmingway won a Pulitzer for Old Man and
The Sea and many others in all fields of endeavor and in your lives you achieve happiness and joy from
Many areas but my one question backed by the one who has all authority to make this statement what
Will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and then loses his eternal soul that is my question
are you doing
What is required to make it through the Pearly gates I don’t mean to be smart on this point but I’m not
Asking for your wishful thinking you know all the questions in life that we answer some willingly and
Some grudgingly but this one above all else needs to be asked and it needs to be given the gravest
Thought the bible says there is a way that seems right into man but the end is destruction maybe Christ
Said what will a man give for his soul any way the truth is there is the biggest scrabble game known to
Man and it is the very fact whatever you do don’t think on eternal verities you know the scene when
Someone is flipping out and a helpful person slaps their face let this be that but do it to yourself you will
Be getting the attention of all of our worst enemies this Godless heathen outer life that gyrates to every
Hell bound action is making a bill that the soul will have to pay forever I said it before the pain and
Suffering we will accept as deserving but to not to be loved that will be the greatest hell that we will
Suffer today we don’t realize that it his love that makes life worth living we know so much about God
Generally speaking but the intimate real God we barely know His hell is listening for the distinct and only
Voice that matters and that is you as lost sheep He waits as an earthy parent who let his child go on an
Outing that was known to be dangerous but freedom demanded no less and for a great many love won’t
Be enough as already is shown by the Christ less graves that are strewn across the landscape I know
Because my sister is one of them I begged her the last time I was home and then she died I endured
Her truthfulness at her funeral they played only worldly songs of defiance my only comfort she wasn’t a
Hypocrite she wouldn’t live for him but died having to bear the burden of sin and it punishments her self
I told the story in Night Thoughts how I stood by a young nineteen year old mother’s desk she had a
Fifteen month old little boy it was two in the morning by eleven the next morning he would be
Motherless I being human knew nothing of this unfolding tragedy but the Christ within caused me to sob
Uncontrollably for forty five minutes or so I was getting the blowback of his undying love and her voice
Was dying away as it was carried to the beyond of the lost it’s happened more than once to me don’t
Let my tears be for you when your greatest love waits in vain for you to say please rescue me
Terry Collett Jun 2013
Benedict turned the page
of the Dostoyevsky novel.

His brother puked in the bidet,
too much cheap wine,
Benedict thought,
but he’ll be fine.

He immersed himself deeper
into the Russian world
of ****** and fear
and dark corners.

Crime and Punishment
was one good tale all right.
Even the book cover held
the attention, he thought,
turning it briefly over.

His brother’s moans
interrupted the puking.
Benedict asked an
are you all right?
There was a groan
of response.

Benedict recalled the time
he had been in that condition
in Yugoslavia the year before,
same cause: too much
cheap wine.
And that beautiful guide
came to his room
to see how he was
and sat on his bed
and all he could think of
was when would
the puking end.

No thought at all
of her presence there,
her body so close,
her perfume making him
more nauseous.

She was Croatian,
he thought, pausing at the page
of the Dostoyevskian novel.

And that waitress
he and his brother had liked
in the restaurant
at the Yugoslavian hotel.

*****. Yes, that was the name.
Got no where though.
Just the luck of the draw.

His brother returned
from the bathroom
and flopped on the bed.

The puking over maybe,
Benedict thought
and his brother hoped,
pale of complexion,
perspiration on brow.

Outside the window
the Parisian streets
echoed with life:
Cars, coaches, buses,
people, natives, tourists,
males and females.

Tomorrow they’d be out
on the streets again.
Sit in restaurants where
the famous once sat
over coffee or beer:
Hemmingway, Sartre,
Picasso, Henry Miller
and the others.

Art thrived here.
Ideas born
from philosophic minds.

Benedict book marked
the page and closed
the book and put it aside.

Some one laughed outside
in the street, another sang,
voices of ghostly singers
of the past, breathed
from the walls.

His brother returned
to the bathroom,
more puking.
Benedict thought:
poor brother.
Of course, he mused,
gazing at the Parisian
night sky, they’d never
tell their mother.
AP Staunton Jan 2016
My books are piled in the Hallway,
The Girlfriend wants me out,
She can keep all the household cargo
the insecurities and doubt.

I don't care much for chrome Toasters
Just give me my Damon Runyon,
Brendan Behan, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway,
Jack Kerouac and Jack London.

Albert Camus, Seamus Heaney, Patrick Kavanagh
Mayakovsky and Roger McGough,
the Steamer, bread -maker, Asparagus- spearer
Are all yours, I'm ******* off.

Just give me a dozen or so boxes,
Not those ***** looks,
Your welcome to the giant fridge-freezer,
All I want, are my books
TERRY REEVES Mar 2016
TEQUILA SLIPPED DOWN EASILY, A MYSTERY
WHO THE NEW MAN WAS BECAUSE HE CARRIED
AN AURA WITH HIM WHICH EVEN HEMMINGWAY
MIGHT HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN; THIS HEAT WAS
EVEN TOO MUCH FOR CAMPESINOS BUT NO
BEAD OF SWEAT APPEARED ON HIS FACE,
AS HE FIXED HIS GAZE ON ME MYSTICALLY,
HE SAID THAT, 'YOU WON'T SEE ME AGAIN
BUT WHEN YOU GO OUTSIDE IN THE DUST,
YOU'LL CARRY ME WITH YOU AND I WILL
GUIDE WHAT YOU DO,' AMAZINGLY, I BELIEVED
HIM, FINISHED MY DRINK AND DON'T CARE WHAT
YOU THINK, IT WAS TRUE - NEW ENERGY
GRIPPED ME AND NOW WHERE I WANTED TO BE.
It was  at the crack of the afternoon always  when like some old circus bear i staggred to life.
Coffee surged through my veins with a touch of turkey to embrace the day to day troubles
with a sense of reason in the insanity.

The whispers were heavy like gunshot's that filled a early morning duck hunt.
Where half drunk men shared bottles and stories of conquest's some false others just straight *******.
He's losing it ya know?

They had read my scrbblings and saw the flaws yet dared never to speak the words to
the devil in the flesh.
But much like a villan or a dam good ****** with a std i was just waitting to
run yet again.

The Gonzo of old died hard and a writer of insanity
seldom was at a loss for words or  far from a intersection of trouble.
The road called.
And I her slave seldom ignored her for any woman worth her salt
was a cruel ***** at heart and thats what made them  so dam aluering.


I was the president of debauchrey the chairman of the boy's club
a locker room jester who seldom showed his flaws.
But time scars us all and I was no diffrent.

I had slowed yet went past that edge like a child who tears into a gift seldom
looking at the paper let alone who its from.
Still that gleam in the eye did exist and the danger was all but to real.

I was ready to claim it back although none could take it from me.
The bike was older yet still had a howl like a devils hound on a sunsets promise.
the drugs the ***** the women all where but part of the drive and freedom
of a perk.

Much like the whiskey that burns in my veins id never
water down my word's
Cold wether was pointing me south  the Key's were calling
in a tragic Hemmingway sense the old man's sea was but a bitter pill
and a islands stream of erased thought.

On a road that never grew old as I.
  Soon i was off.
And God only knows what would lead to this tour of destruction.
But all i can say is gentlemen start your engines.

For the chaos has just begun.

                                               Welcome  To The Boy's Club
                                                             Part One
I am a writer at heart and poet by nature and a force of insanity by the grace of
God or maybe a padded hand ina devils poker game.
But either way my words always hold there own.
Terry Collett Jun 2012
That year
in Paris

you took
Dostoyevsky’s novel

Crime and Punishment
to read when

you weren’t touring
the sites

and you became
so immersed in the book

that you became
Raskolnikov

and killed
the old woman

and her half sister
and looked about the streets

you looked for the detective
Porfiry whom you suspected

was following you about
and as you sat

in the Champs-Elysées
or stood by

the Arc de Triomphe
you thought of all

the famous
who had stayed here

in this fine city
Henry Miller

Ezra Pound
Hemmingway

Debussy
Van Gogh

and that fanatical
conqueror ******

with his sick smile
under that

silly moustache
and that evening

your brother
in the hotel room

puked in the bidet
after sour wine

or too rich food
as you looked out

the window on
the Parisian street

to see if Porfiry
was out there

waiting for you
to charge you

with the murderous crime
you didn’t do.
When the saints...go marching in
Oh when the saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Of all the saints, I want to know
The ones who write, I'd love to meet
Oh how I'd love to meet all the authors
When the saints go down the street

E.A. Poe...even Thoreau
Hemmingway would be ok
Mailer and Andrew Taylor
I'd learn to drink like a sailor
when these saints come strolling in

The Writers Guild...I'd be fulfilled
Meeting writers long since dead
Just think of what I'm learning
All that knowledge in their heads

I'd love to know, I'd love to know
Is Bill Shakespeare who we think?
Christie, Austen and Dickens
This is where the whole plot thickens
When the saints go marching in

Is it the best, of all the books
Is the bible just a tale
Can you think of someone better
When Melville speaks about a whale

Capote sits, while Chaucer reads
Bronte knits while Stoker bleeds
Oh how I want to be in that number
When these saints go marching in

The list goes on, oh on and on
There's just so many who've passed on
It's a list that leads by example
When these saints go marching in

Oh when the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
How I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
got the idea from watching the great Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong sing Saints with musicians in the verse. It's weak, but, hell....I had some fun with it....I'm sure others can do more with other dead writers....I'd love to see your versions.
mk Jul 2015
i like my mouth when its with yours
the way my lips seem so soft and alive
& how i smile when your mouth presses against mine

i like my hands when they're with yours
intertwined as if they belong there
& how my stubby fingers don't seem all that stubby when they're locked with yours

i like my legs when they're with yours
when we're lying in bed, i can drape mine over yours
& not for a second feel as if they're too heavy or too large

i like my freckles when they're with yours
when our faces are pressed together, they match
& its like a map which leads from my cheeks to yours

i like my nose when its with yours
the way our noses bump ever so lightly
making me smile everytime they do

i like my toes when they're with yours
the way i have to get on my tiptoes to reach you
& the struggle to reach your lips makes them all the more desirable

i like my voice when its with yours
its a sweet melody, the two of us laughing together
makes me wish we'd never stop talking

i like who i am
when i'm with you
because you make me feel
as if i am loved
as if i belong
as if i am cared for
as if i am significant
you make me feel
as if i am someone
in this world
where everyone feels
like a no one

hemmingway was right to say:
*"i like my body when it is with your body"
// i miss you. i miss us. & the perfection it created when we were interwined. //
Tim Knight Feb 2013
Dear warmth,

May you rub your back against my shoulder
‘til the windows mist with condensation,
and we fall back into youth, hiding
away from the older.

May your temperature, rising to the point
of red cheek puncture, provide an oasis
under the sand of duvet’s cover.

May your hair whip around like every
flame I’ve ever seen, no agenda or judgement,
just sheer ecstasy and  excitement.

May you conjure up that lone shower feeling,
that one where for a brief slot in time everything
you know and have become floats away through
that extractor fan, out into the air- climbing higher.

May you provide that gasp of heat that
hits the cook in the face, after opening the oven’s
gate in hunger and haste.

May you be that holiday sun I always seek.

May you be the metal womb of  a car when
outside in the myriad hospital world
where it’s cold.

May you be humorous and humid and
totally lovely to be with.

May you be a heated conversation and argument
and disagreement, that torment of words
I need to hear.

May you be my laugh that bubbles up
from the volcano underneath.

May you be the heat caused by key
and lock, that one that stops
others from coming in and making
for ruin.

May you be that first sip of  ‘the
most civilised thing in the world’, as
Hemmingway put it, and let it ignite
a dance below.

May you not judge the mixture
of my grape and grain, and my love
for walking in the rain and my waiting for
ex-girlfriends every time they call.

May you always let me bed down
in that manger in the snug, though
Steve doesn’t know I borrowed his
blanket rug.

May you forever toast that bread
at midnight, just before bed.

Yours faithfully,
The Cold.
from www.coffeeshoppoems.com > ALWAYS LOOKING FOR SUBMISSIONS
Sean Andersson Jun 2010
Like a Hemmingway
I wish to shoot myself in the head
In the hopes that what comes out
Will fall on the page in just the right way
That she is left in awe
Of my scattered (splattered) thoughts

As though I were Van Gogh
I slash and sever my body
And offer it up to passersby
Who only offer indifferent glances
While I slowly bleed to death
Atop another blank canvas

And just like the great wordslingers
Luminaries who build empires from pen strokes
I will take the stage with my magnum opus
Only to crumble to dust in the light
These words are mine and mine alone.
John Hosack Mar 2010
What does it take for a poem to be great?
A riddle, A rhyme, without any mistakes?
Does it need words, those that are fancy?
Or simply bold words, not of a nancy.
Should it have humor or wisdom?
Written on rest or excessive ***?
For Hemmingway said “make sure to write drunk,”
Or to make it scary, get locked in a trunk.
I heard about some guy, who wrote on his head,
While rappers turn poems into righteous street cred.
It’s rumored that some poems were writ on a trip,
But not the kind with a map and travel tips.
Other great poets flirted with death
or were simply in love with their friend named beth;
some great poems came from hate and abuse
or about women whose pants were too loose.
Some poems inspired by breaking the law
or by an unforgettable ménage trios.
So many things could derive a great write,
But these extreme measures just don’t seem right.
Maybe all that is needed is a little emotion
So that one can avoid all that commotion,
and maybe what’s great is all a perspective,
And that it’s better to read without an objective.
weinburglar Oct 2014
Vonnegut was easy to admire. He gave you the sense that he'd seen people die, that war was something he lived - like an oracle saying, "Hey, this is what war is, it ***** *****. So it goes," you know? Then there's trenches, and Hemmingway.


But what happens if more people actually split an atom?

I'm a writer. I have no idea.

I did watch a guy get beheaded today - on Youtube. Almost. 30 seconds in and I couldn't do it. I've never lived war, but I watched an English aid worker, at the mouth of death say, "My name is David Cawthorne Haines. Following a trend amongst our British prime ministers who can’t find the courage to say no to the Americans, it is we, the British public that, in the end, will pay the price for our Parliament’s selfish decisions.."

Then a faceless man starts to rip an aid worker's head off.

So it goes. Writers go to war. I never had to. But I watched from home, between a Friday and Monday, and do my best to warn my children about the end.

Mother Do You Think They'll Drop The Bomb?

For most my childhood, I was lucky enough to ask, "Mother do you think they CAN drop the bomb?"

If you know Floyd, as far as breaking my ***** goes, done. I finally get that, pops. ***** will always be broken. But the bomb? That's not too different than the ***** is it? There's always someone. The hippie's now, I feel, just hope a little less, and pray a **** ton more.
Overwhelmed Feb 2011
I clip my finger-
nails
listen to
pointless music
and try
to write a decent
poem

when will I
be able to call
myself a
“poet”

I refuse to
do it now
for fear of being
shot down
by the vultures
that constantly
circle over-
head

and in truth,
I don’t believe
it

I’m not like Hemmingway,
or Whitman, or Dickinson,
or Buk

I’m not wise,
I haven’t seen
the world,
I don’t know
anything about
anything
and most of all

I’m a kid

they’re all grown,
old or dead by the
time they garnered
any fame


and I’m sixteen,
a neophyte in a
generation of
lazy degeneration

but I am not part of
my generation, I am
privy to its problems
but stoic to its culture

I stand aside while
standing atop

I clip the final
finger, the pinky
of my left hand,
and the music
churns to a halt

I count all the poems
I’ve written

over five-hundred,
I chuckle

suppose I’m a poet
even if I’m a tad

untraditional
J J Aug 2019
I don't leave my house much
and I keep to myself, dysthymia at my peak
    These days.
Blood in the sink after brushing my teeth for the first time in weeks
  and feeling all the more disgusted for it,although
I know it a mini victory in itself,enough of a sign for hope--
better than any ******* self-help book could suggest--
The laughing jittering chitchat all-being lovely paranoia stage has passed
And now i feel the hangover.
Luckily,the eureka's glued on too
And the reflection is easier to inspect now--
you know that Hemmingway quote:
Write drunk,edit sober? Like that,but over the coarse of a lifetime.
And how boring sober life is after the highest peak,but on the same note,
I've flushed the drugs to deter temptation,to better myself--
When i was bad they made me okay,
When i was great they made me even better,the world even closer...
But they're a ruining process. I've learnt to love the blossoming passion flower of my mind,
Although i want so to hate it currently.
I know i am,i know the universe is,and if you're reading this then you too are;
And that's all that needs to matter sometimes.

Through silence,through recluse,through art,through pen,through therapy,through time,through honesty,through dream,through woe,through laughter,through scream, through power,through weakness embraced,through fire,through love,
Through a madness unhinged but always aware
Of self and all surrounding;
You do what you can to get by,but most importantly,you do what you can to better yourself.

You don't have to be perfect everyday,
you dont have to be perfect most days,
But if you're trying for anything at all,you're braver than you could be,and not yet as strong as you should be
And that is a  very   very    good inspiration
I'm not doing the best at the moment but writing is one of the things keeping me going strong. I thought I'd rant and rave about the process of finding inspiration when you least want it. First line borrowed...well,full on nicked, from Soko.
Hayley Neininger Mar 2014
There is a sort of romance one can find at a bar
A mysterious sense of love
Removed from everyday life
From work or phone calls home
If you close your eyes you can hear it
The clacking of ice-cube
The clacking of glass
The slow pour of a beer
The faster swish of it being
Slid down to your hand
Bumping once or twice on the uneven wooden surface
The slightly cold drip running down the side of your glass
These sounds are romantic
Hemmingway wrote at a bar
Odds are your parents feel in love in one
First kisses and embraces with friends you’ve missed
They happen at a bar
If you close your ears you can see it
A dingy light from over head
A spotlight for a pretty girl’s smile
The colors that the last sip of whisky
After they’re watered down with ice
The swooshing hues of red and white
Inside wine glasses from a couple a few seats down
The hand of the bartender covering yours
As you hand them their tip
And in that same second lock eyes
Before quickly looking down
A love in a life before this one maybe.
One can find romance in a bar
In the littlest of things
When paid attention to
They hold a sense of mystery.
eh.
stéphane noir Mar 2018
is it weird that i feel like i never have any ideas?
i mean, could the idea fairy just speak up a bit?
is that too much to ask of my own personal imaginary genius?
just turn up the volume a little bit. ok, now the other ****.
everybody ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
great, aannnnd i still can't hear a ****** thing he's saying.

they tell me that the whole world is speaking to me...
that there is an intimate meaning in everything that happens
and that it somehow pertains to my personal life:
the light turns red, but you drive thru anyway, and
BAM you get sideswiped and you're ******* dead.
they tell me there's meaning in that to learn from.
yea like maybe don't go out into the intersection
when you know **** well the light's red?

but that's not the kind of meaning they're talking about.
the kind they're talking about whispers like a willow tree,
like a real-life "colors of the wind" remake is just going on,
swirling around your head and through your *****
all the **** time... and it's actually telling you something.
see, there's a message in that ***** damage you just received.
(or did it pass right through like some Slimer type of creature?)
["a fireplace just kind of appears and he goes through it like this"]

yeah well pick up the t shirt gun, Egon, and launch a few into the stands
because there's a widespread panic down at the community park...
photographers lined up wall to wall just to catch the tiniest glimpse of
the yetti who's writing a hemmingway-esque classic from cover to cover!
tell me who tf ever wrote a book by sitting down at the computer,
looking at the blank screen, and just starting off in a clear direction like,
"well, this 400 page novel is going to be about this, that, and the other,
here's 15 events that will help us get to a coherent ending, now type!"
[i swear some dude reading this is gonna be like, "um.. i can do that."
yeah? well you can shut up for now friend, cuz nobody's listening.]

[sigh.]

that was the idea fairy, wasn't it?
i've offended him now.

— The End —