Poem-A-Day: Day 268

Remembrance of Feet

Cobblestone feet ramble on
disjointed down the road,
both long as it is wide.
The sound of passing tires
irk tired eyes open to the blindness
and pity surrounding terraformations
blissfully writing on the ground.
It doesn’t seem possible,
but the complications spelled perfectly
along the side of a passing bus
allowed such a moment to occur.
All these things seem dreamlike,
but there’s no actual evidence of sleep
aside from the passing clouds within grasp.

“Don’t give up,” I hear.
“Don’t give up.”

I’m not aware of the sounds,
or where they’ve managed to come from,
I’m only aware that something has happened,
something that is unrecognizable to faith
in man, god, beast, or child.
I give my praise to the sword,
or the pen’s closest facsimile.
I laugh about how close a pen is
to my penis, except for size and weight mostly.
Regardless, I remember the fact that I shouldn’t,
at least not give up.
If I could only remember
what I actually gave up in the first place,
but all I remember is my feet walking slowly.

Poem-A-Day: Day 267

People Talk

Stranger days have passed
Somewhere near condescension
And I rose above

Poem-A-Day: Day 266

Harlotry and Dancing

Barefoot dancing and harlotry
down where the eyes have it,
and the naysayers tell it like it was.

I saw the beast row doing a conga
and the rats had gone, flinching at movements
that were more orchestral than anything.

The coffee was warm, substandard, delicious,
and cakes were nothing more than clouds;
dreams of purple and red twists.

Chirps were masked by champagne corks
popping and locking on wooden tiles
spread haphazardly in gravel and sand.

I saw the human race, nobody ended up in first,
thirty billion laughable last place finishes,
and I got a high five out of it.

But the harlotry was fantastic,
down where the river meets the grass,
and the water is warm enough for feet.

Poem-A-Day: Day 265

Sonnet #54 (Rusty Cage)


taken from Shakespeare's Sonnets II, V, VI, and LXV

Poem-A-Day: Day 264

Could Have Been Worse

It was the apocalypse…

like sharing a hat with a stranger
or having to use an outhouse.

The rain came in waves of fire;
bodies everywhere
looking like hunks of old coal
pushed to the edges of the grill.

There were no horsemen,
no pale horses,
only the sound of sorrow on the air,
blood screaming to the skies,
and innocence betrayed
by the sense of humanity
and its ability to reason with itself
towards destruction.

The sobbing is silent
under the cacophony of death
that drains down the sewers;
scarlet and placid…

like some twisted vigil for murderers
or the theft of a tip jar.

It could have been worse.

Poem-A-Day: Day 263

What I Look Like In the Morning

Her skin looked tan
next to the white of her panties.
I sat unnoticed while she slept
and looked upon her curvature
sunken in an old mattress.
She had the covers down near her feet
because it was a terribly hot night,
and her bare back faced me.
It was a painted mountain
rising from the desert of my yellow sheets.
The mountain heaved every now and again,
but always settled,
always with a small sigh;
a gasp of warm, sweaty air.
The supple rump wrapped in cotton
appeared as an out-of-place avalanche;
a wave of snow crashing down
somewhere in the middle of the mountain,
before giving way to a slow descending slant.
I’ve never seen a mountain so smooth,
so slowly moving without disturbing anything.
And while I sat and watched the slow movements
of time passing,
of nature being created
and recreated before my eyes,
I daydreamed about how I would remember
this one moment wrapped in nothing more
than a pair of cheap cotton underwear
and a glimpse of blankets resting at the feet.
I imagine it will be quiet.
And when the mountain stirs to waking
I’ll be treated with the sweet glimpse of breasts,
and a smile that mirrors tired eyes barely open.
I will remember it over a cup of coffee
slowly sipped,
while she remembers what I look like
in the morning.

Poem-A-Day: Day 262

Pawn Shopping

I’ve saved a lot of things,
but mostly the castaways.
I look to give residence to the unwanted
because we share a common bond.
We, the destitute and hated
gather, and explore our rapture.
We find togetherness
in the strangeness of having been lost
and somehow found,
if nothing more for the purpose
of never having been lost in the first place.
We’re somewhere in unison,
sharing coffee over music and more coffee.
The strange fact is,
that our salvation seemed connected;
hundreds of arms reaching down,
plucking up the odds and ends,
but mostly the odds.
There is no feeling sorry
for the lost and the damned,
because we are a collective force
making life out of the hatred of others.