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 2151° 
badwords
If you get it, you lost it.


I am here
(On this platform it is evident for your reading now)
I express myself
(Heads scratching, wondering what and how?)


I share pieces of me
(A defragmented glimpse of an experience deemed ‘worthwhile')
Callous, sensuality?
(Or a traitor in sheep cosplay?)


A dead-end hi-way?
Or this pawn from yesterday?
Here, your final say


This family we never asked
Amontillado without it's cask
Dry and cheery
Heart’s are bleary
We own this laborious task

My sins are scrollable, thumbed in haste,
Wrapped in ribbons of curated taste.
A gallery of masks, all timed just right,
My shadow dances in the ring light.
What of shame when shame gets likes?
What of thought when thought’s in spikes?
I weep in drafts, but post a grin—
The world won’t wait for the shape I’m in.
So brand the bruise, then sell the hue:
A wellness tip in sponsored blue.
This self I host in feedback’s cage—
A pet, a post, a digital page.
I bare my soul (or just its shell).
You’ll never know. I sell it well.

I logged on seeking something undefined,
A tether, maybe—some reciprocal ache.
But all I found were mirrors misaligned,
Each smile too wide, each word opaque.

The comments pile like leaves, not read.
Applause from ghosts, replies from ghosts.
I feed the feed, it feeds instead—
A hunger that consumes its hosts.

I draft a truth. I dress it twice.
Add polish. Then delete.
I write in blood, convert to nice,
Make trauma fit a beat.

No lesson left. No higher shelf.
Just one more version of myself.
 2067° 
Nat Lipstadt
I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, like your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day,
too bad your schedule
is fully booked,
but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees,
for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put,
not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand,
my resume is absent of
razors and pills,
poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths,
here are my sums


If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones,m my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command,
by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...


If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself,
parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged
the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011
hard to believe this poem will be 8 years old, soon enough; I well recall writing it and willx return to the sunroom soon for inspiration and an afternoon nap.
 515° 
Zahra Ali
Last night,
 meant to
loosen
the bulb
I wrapped
my hands
in woven
cloth, and
coaxed the
moon down
instead
It creaked,
blushed,
and fainted
slipped into
my palm,
like a lover.
don't touch me
i'm scared of what will happen
if i forget to not feel

and if you get too close
and you pull away
i'm scared that i'll finally break
i wish i didn't have to protect myself this way, but hopefully you'll understand, even if you never see this
 429° 
Nat Lipstadt
flux.
a word whose very sound connotes its meaning, a sloshing state of change

a liquid moment,
for we solids,
of bone and flesh,

though
we may be islands of stolidity,
entrenched, focused, organized,
when the surround sounds
of change are all about
you too are
fluxed

the serenity of splendid isolation
is not an impervious shell,
close eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth
these liquid times we abode,
inescapable from the roller coaster of
crashing storms of our
environment

try as I might,
cannot recede into a
white sealed envelipe,
cannot secede from
the froth of current events,
in the age of no distances,
and the rotational revolution of
but one lever,
a single beating wing
can disrupt the
the supply and communication
channels of our normative existential machinations

let me retreat unto my poetry trance,
but that choice
is currently unavailable

be wary of the calm of routine,
we live in a time of
the olympics of change,
and we cannot walk
on water,
nor tread forever

flux.

the liquidity curse of our
ever curving intersections
The year of 2025
 345° 
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
The world at peace.
Will it ever happen?
Perish the thought, you say.
Are you happy with killing?
Kisses are sweeter.
But bombs deal death instantly.
Sorry, but love lasts forever.
Why this bizarre dance?
Dizzy dances, you say?
Why not lifetimes of love,
glorious days, dreams of delight?
Why not kiss a bomb turning it
into red roses? It's not magic.
It's love everlasting.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS
 338° 
Moo
Everyone is dead, I think.
Be it morning or night, I don't sleep a wink.
In thoughts, I retire, I rebel, I transpire.
This spring holds none to miss,
This air, to me, holds no bliss.
I think of sanity now and then,
But overpowered, I run back to my den.
The sky embarks upon the fairest hue,
And I sit patiently for death to ensue.
How loyal I am to this greed —
To have my insanity freed.
 324° 
Nat Lipstadt
"everything in the cosmos was going to be drawn into the poem,
nothing must to be laughed at because it was already laughing,
nothing was too serious because it was already grieving,
the ache and the flirtation,
all this range,
this massive Spectrum ,
what a...what a thrill"

Bono
on Allen Ginsburg, Poet
<>

gotta tell ya,
every time I read this
quote,
two things happen:
get a headache and must
lie/lay down

and no. 2,

people who took a lotta drugs
write pretty good poems and songs


so where did I go wrong?
keeping good company...
 297° 
V3NUS
i've been clean for a month
because my box cutter is on the moving truck

i'm back in baltimore
but im not home
not really

everything's normal for two weeks
except it's not

i texted three friends to see if they wanted to hang out while i was back
only one responded
said she was going to be in connecticut

i wanna ask more people
but i dont wanna sound desperate

tell me i dont sound desperate
guess how the move's going!!!
 284° 
Brooklyn
Embarrassed
To speak
Shame
It makes me feel weak
Hate this feeling
I want to bury it deep
Hide in the shadows
So I’m not seen
I cringe at myself
And wish to run free
I have so much shame
It’s eating at me
Help me escape
Before the shame defeats me
 251° 
David P Carroll
Little sheep so
Soft and cuddly
Happy and free
And fluffy as can be
Eating the grass
Ever so cute and
Playing with glee.
Little sheep 🐑
 230° 
Blue Sapphire
Every tear
is a precious treasure,
each drop carrying
a moment of pain
life hands over.
 222° 
onlylovepoetry
"With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow@With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about
today until tomorrow
"

lyric, Mr Tambourine Man,
Bob Dylan
<>

Rebel troubadour, always resrless, asking the obvious,
with answers readily apparent,
yet no one knows them out loud

Here we are,
two old Jews,
crossing paths at our shared six point star,
we aware, we know, that the
questions will likely be there tomorrow,'for they
have always there come the morn,

so we do not raise our voices anymore,
indeed,
the questions grow up best when asked softly softly,
and the answers,
blowing in the wind,
are clearest, sharpest obvious when
whispered,

So,
~forget about today till tomorrow,
until tomorrow comes no more~

And is this an only love poem?
To be sure,
Be sure.

For only love os the bridge between yesterday,
Today, and Tomorrow,
No matter what!
 217° 
nova
I cradle this love like a hidden blade — gleaming, silent, and buried deep beneath my ribs… beautiful in its pain, deadly in its silence.
 216° 
Daniel Krueger
You can leave when it’s colder.
When the trees are flaming.
When the sky is overcast and dreary.
When I can come up with a eulogy.
You can leave when it’s colder.
When the rain becomes snow.
When my heart is an iceberg.
When the sun hides under a quilt.
You can leave when it’s colder.
 214° 
Neal Burns
And old is the dust that flows
Through city veins
The stampede of time like footfalls on concrete line the furrowed brow of a 45 year old man in profile in the fading light of day
 210° 
lizie
i wish people told me they were proud of me

i wish i deserved it
 183° 
CE Uptain
What does it take to keep a good man burning
What does it take to keep a good heart yearning
I want to burn like a winter’s fire deep into the night
I want to be the flame that brings you morning light
I can burn for you, you set my soul on fire
I can burn for you, you are my one desire
A winter’s fire deep into the night
A burning flame until morning light
Burn me with you fire deep into the night
Burn me with your flame until I see morning light
How a bout a hot love poem on a scorching afternoon?
 163° 
Pavel Rup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFt46Mlh-Jo&list=RDyFt46Mlh-Jo&start_radio=1


Ангел белый на Землю спустился —
Знала всё... Трепетала душа!
Глас хрустальный о камни разбился...
У иконы мерцала свеча.

Млечный путь бесконечной дорогой —
Звёзд таинственный, бархатный свет.
Побыла ты в гостях — ненадолго!
Взор печальный дает нам ответ.

Сквозь стихи свои всё рассказала.
Под гитару молилась душа...
Улетала ты —
Звёзды позвали.
Так печальна, красива, нежна.

Лучших рано уводит дорога —
Ненадолго откроется дверь.
Светлый ангел стоит у порога,
Где-то рядом молчит люцифер...

—Пусть меня унесут белы лебеди
Далеко, далеко в край неведомый
Высоко, высоко в небо светлое... —
Как пророка слова — откровение.

«Позови меня с собой»
* —
Тридцать лет прошло мгновеньем.
Время стало откровеньем —
Белый ангел над землёй!


* — Татьяна Снежина
«Позови меня с собой» — песня исполненная впервые самой Татьяной и ставшая популярной
     после исполнения Аллой Пугачёвой.

Татьяна Снежина автор более чем 200 песен и стихов.
Погибла 21 августа 1995 году в возрасте 23 лет.
 149° 
Robbie
I write about everything but I don’t even know what I wrote.
I sleep too much that I don’t even know what is reality.
I put too much sugar that I don’t even know if it’s still a coffee.
I put too much love that I don’t even know if it’s real or just an ecstasy.

I smile at everything — I don’t even know what I like.
I notice everything that I don’t even know where I’m at.
I have so much to show that I don’t even know what to display.
I have so much in my mind that I’m afraid I have nothing to say.
 132° 
Laura Claes
My love
If you don’t want
love and respect me
then let me go
I have no energy anymore
to argue
cry
fight
in the morning
evening
and at night.

L.C.
 129° 
Rose Yet To Bloom
A fuel that drives me:
fear —

That a decades-long novel,
etched into the riverbeds of my veins,
might be erased by
a single chapter's
acid rains.
This is just a chapter :)
 114° 
Oceara Miedema
She’s ready for a new chapter.
But is the new chapter ready for her?
She’s punk again as expected.
The cuts are holes for light to shine, from the lightning and thunder inside.

The plasters are lovers covering the wounds.
The Avocado for comfort and health.
The only way in which she takes care.
The rest is filled with beer and pain au chocolat.

For the pain, the discomfort, uncertainties.
The chains.
The chains remain.
The brain and tying ends together, pressure.
She’s getting ready.
Always getting ready.
But is she ever?

At least for the new chapter, the moment, she tries.
But it doesn’t feel right.
A little better after getting it together, over and over.
She’s never done.
30-06-25
 112° 
Selena
Under the shimmering sun,
fingers intertwined,
We looked at kids with water guns,
running in the blind.

dancing in endless laughter,
Our eyes were drowned;
Yet I can’t  see the color
that paints you around.

Alas, I found myself in bed
mourning for the hands;
The ones that were in my head
turned into the sands.
 97° 
Joshua
The Jazz specialist
A rhymer of great languish
A great polished soul
Dulce Jesús de mi vida,
¡qué dije!, espera, no os vais:
que no es bien que vos seáis
de una vida tan perdida.

Pero si no sois de mí,
yo, mi Jesús, soy de vos,
porque quiero hallar en Dios
esto que sin Dios perdí.

Mas ya vuelvo a suplicaros
que de mi vida seáis:
que si vos no me la dais,
no tendré vida que daros.

Deseo daros mi vida,
y sin vos no es daros nada,
porque con vos va ganada,
cuanto sin vos va perdida.

Muérome de puro amor
por llamaros vida mía:
que la que sin vos perdía,
ya no la tengo, Señor.

Pues vuestra piedad me adiestra
como a oveja reducida,
quiero llamaros mi vida,
aunque he sido muerte vuestra.

Vida mía, en este día
me habréis de hacer un favor;
¡oh, qué bien me va, Señor,
con llamaros vida mía!

Luego que vida os llamé,
a pediros me atreví,
porque el regalo sentí
que en vuestro brazos hallé.

Y es que jamás permitáis
que otra vida sin vos tenga:
que no es bien que a vivir venga
vida donde vos no estáis.

¡Ay Jesús! ¿Cómo viví
sólo un momento sin vos?
Porque si la vida es Dios,
¿qué vida quedaba en mí?

¡Qué cosas tuve por vida
tan miserables y tristes!
¿Es posible que pudistes
sufrir cosa tan perdida?

Pero sospecho, mi Dios,
que fue permitirlo así,
para que viesen en mí
qué sufrimiento hay en vos.

Pero no lo habéis perdido,
¡oh soberana piedad!,
pues conozco mi maldad
por lo que me habéis sufrido.

Porque sé de aquel vivir,
como si Dios no tuviera:
que quien menos que Dios fuera
no me pudiera sufrir.

¡Qué de veces os negué
por confesar mi locura
a la fingida hermosura,
donde no hay verdad ni fe!

Si la vuestra en la cruz viera,
¡ay Dios y cuánto os amara!
¡Qué de lágrimas llorara,
qué de amores os dijera!

No sé, mi bien, qué os tenéis,
que todo me enamoráis,
o es que, como abierto estáis,
mostráis lo que me queréis.

Amenazado de vos,
parece que no os temí,
y lleno de sangre sí;
decid, ¿qué es esto, mi Dios?

¡Oh qué divinos colores
os hace esa sangre fría!
¡Oh cómo estáis, vida mía,
para deciros amores!
 82° 
M Groen
It is in the depths of loneliness that I found he who stuck by always.
Now, thou art be fury.
 80° 
ADoolE
It’s no surprise
that kindness feels so sweet
when you’ve been starving ,
even crumbs are a treat.

It’s easy to miss,
but the truth is this:
a little kindness
can feel like bliss
 76° 
Xander Holden
I would say that I'm just treading water
But i enjoy swimming and this
Is so much worse
 76° 
Mariah
Risk flirts with defeat
Beaten doesn't mean you're beat
Some plans trust retreat
My hope includes the worst case scenario.
 75° 
Donall Dempsey
FIRST LOVE

I am new to
this

"love thing"
read about it in manuals

of course
but this is

the real thing.

Ok..ok so
she is just a dust bin.

I love her
rusty dents

she so very very tin!

Oh the metal of her.

The way she wears
her lid.

Her name is Tin(Sn) &

she has 10...10
stable isotopes!

I know the humans will
never understand.

A robot never forgets his
first love.

*

Broken toy robot sticking out of a rusty tin bin....I wrote them their love story.
 75° 
Moo
When the moon soars abloom,
The God rests the doom,
Like a hand that guides a spoon,
Moon that nests alone fresh and unborn,
Slithers its way,
The purest ache of yearning's sway,
As the cloud take heed and veil it away.
No one would notice
Even if they tried to focus

Everyday I would put on a smile
But in reality, I’d be in my room crying for quite a while

No one could even tell
I guess I masked it so well

I never really enjoyed my life
All I ever wanted was someone to call my wife

But I knew that day would never come
It left my heart feeling ever so numb

All was feeling the same one day
My heart and mind left stray

That was until I saw you
The very moment I knew love was true
This goes out to the love of my life, I love you so much.
 71° 
Sophie Chen
Your haunting, haunting visage
akin to smoke
a remnant
mourning for light- any form of respite.
Spiralling and writhing languorously
to the sun.

In my mind's bleary eye
The dust in the air is
kicked up by your
Departing steps
which
leaves behind this scattered bouquet of
my broken heart?
Someone help give this a name?
 70° 
bob fonia
that is it man this is it i am now officially the most creative  person on this planet
 65° 
William A Gibson
At lunch I bought a pear,
its shape: a quiet joke.
I cut it clean and slowly,
the blade, the slice, the poke.

It tasted like a breather,
not sweet, just real and right.
Like silence in the stairwell
or breezes late at night.

The afternoon unknotted,
each task a gentler climb.
I fed the cat. I folded shirts.
You’re not here and I’m fine.
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