i miss
the kiss
of the sun
on my thumb
on hot winters day
march comes and goes away
without letting me say goodbye.
Publish your poetry
i miss
the kiss
of the sun
on my thumb
on hot winters day
march comes and goes away
without letting me say goodbye.
liquid oppression
define a suggestion
that brightens up the day
or night
you come without a single fight
reminding me of what time it is tonight
and might never be again
droopy suppression
causing infection
on the forefront of my brain
the pain
keeps me grasping at the insane
telling me to look into the darkness
whenever i need a mirror
what if i twisted further
for you, than anybody else ever had
and what if i replied faster,
for you, when you talked to me feeling sad
what if i smiled and laughed
for you, did all the things to draw you in
and gave you what i said was love
when it was really just pain and sin.
green
is a color
of money and luck
of gambling and rambling
but saying all the wrong stuff
green is the color
of life’s unripe fruit
and what covers the world
after the flowers have bloomed
but green’s also the color
of envy and greed
of terrible torture
infections unseen
green is the color
we can’t live without
but the color that many
wish to be without.
love
is a fight against every humans sin nature
to do right for someone
at it’s core
it is proof
that humans
feel
pain.
young, deliberately sticking out my
tongue, at the creatures sitting by my window who’ve
sung, their last song because all
along, the crash was
wrong, the fears were
right, and now
tonight, we take up the
fight, against the
one, who knows all
and will always leave us behind.
love not love (lonely)
lust not lust (lonely)
pride not pride (lonely)
make every teenager’s phony heart cry
black not black (gray)
white not white (gray)
here not there (gray)
remember when colors didn’t feel so far away?
lonely gray horse
stands by the very edge of the fields
and reels in pain
against the fence posts trying to contain its brain
in shame
it crumbles, like the cookie
you’d think it was a rookie but
its seen this charade in far too many parades
so it stands there some more, a slave
to the lonely gray
that prays
to the silence
that surrounds it.
Through disaster she stops her pining
There may just be a silver lining
Her lifeblood no longer quickly drains
From her old and deep and weary veins
No longer does it hurt to breathe
No smoggy air to make her wheeze
Regaining sight and through the tears
She hadn’t seen the stars for years
Skin once wrinkled begins to heal
And younger she begins to feel
For a while, she thinks, it will be easier
As Mother Nature sits and takes a breather…
THAT NIGHT
That night
I was lumbering like
a tired leaf
fear mounting in my breasts.
You came in with a smile
like a hunter
carrying the biggest game.
Drums broke into the room
and voices waiting
for the crimson stain
on the woolly fabric.
I am the river
you the swimmer
diving deep into my root.
I flushed as you pound
lost between pleasure and pain
till you arrived safely inside of me.
My heart pound with a terrible quake
as you searched in vain
for the crimson stain on the woolly fabric.
Always have been looking for
Running about tirelessly
My messy feet
Disturbed many people
My immature enthusiasm
Blown up by hot dust
Hanging from the treetops
In front of passers-by
This fire of youth
Burning with the utmost sincerity
And with a great bang
Looks a little reckless
(And at the same time
A bit shabby
So can’t reach the moon and flowers)
The end is nothing more than
Into a silent smoke
This flag of youth
Now at the end of the road
After many setbacks
It has become ragged
I’m looking interested in finding out whether #covid19 is reshaping your poetry and if so how and most of all share your most recent #lockdownpoems
Swooping on sticks, string, grass and leaves
making a nest high in a tree
laying eggs – one, two, three
away from predators
camouflaged by leaves
I had written the poem about the loss of a friendship, then one day I was composing on my guitar and the music just seemed to fit.
-Leon
Our latest free poetry contest is open for entries now. Submit a poem here using the following prompt:
The Nest
You can choose any form or style and we will award the winner one month’s free Poetry Cooperative Gold Membership.
The submission deadline is 15 March 2020. The Winner will receive an email.
Inside life
We fry our bones in the sun
And feed them to the howling storms
We do not fear to she’s our enamels
When we have no mouth to swallow our poor deities
Inside life
We lost our blood every festive day
And cry an ocean to drench our nativity
Tomorrow never stops to gift us goose bumps
But today we must bury our thin sweats Continue reading “Inside Life”
Squeezing through this conceited darkness
Over tired auricles and some sacred places
Wretched demons flapping their nonsense wings
chanting incantations and their idiot songs,
Callous prongs of a thousand raucous rogues
Unleashing torments like a gang of thieves
Twirling and cussing on my crabby couch
The cruel night sneers at my skimpy slumber
I hear these conversations trending everywhere
I hear it deep down in my confused reverie
Said my dear blood is as sweet as nectars
So they came with their greedy temperaments
Impertinent strangers seeking wars and mouthfuls
Protruding proboscis piercing painfully through
Sucking hurriedly, like impenitent leeches
For these ambassadors of misery,
Purveyors of some ninety-nine plagues
I have beaten myself in honour of them
Burning incense of unwanted sacrifice
but they’ll pity me not, their obstinate souls
So I am out for you, O night hunters
I am out to crush your wretched bones
And strike you down till you leave my home
What shall I do with you little rascals?
When my children cannot play with you
people always ask if she means me
but she is what I want to be
she is she who speaks to me
the person I am in my dreams who
it’d seem doesn’t quite have life figured out but
she tries her hardest and speaks her mind and finds the words that want to rhyme
she is me when I’m awake
she is me when I’m not fake and
away from the thoughts of society and culture as it swoops down on me like a deadly vulture and I
find myself different than she wants me to be
Sometimes I’m still unsure
Do I really feel what i see?
Or have i gotten so good at hiding that i don’t even
Know what’s still actually me
Sometimes I’m still uncertain
Am i hiding behind a curtain?
A melody of words and phrases
Devised to make you think I’m going places when
In reality I’m just sitting at home
Maybe doing work, maybe on my phone
maybe doing everything and nothing at the same time
By pretending that along the way i learned how to rhyme when
In reality i had to stop myself
Put the words back on their shelf
Or else they’ll manage to find their way out and
That would be disaster, without a doubt.
Sometimes i still wonder
Who will look between
Look between the words and see
That in reality
I’m really just me.
speaking speeches softly so
you’ll find you don’t quite hear me
because I’ll hide in a place that you can’t really see me
I’ll hide in your darkest memories
that you tried so hard to keep from the world
behind all your deepest secrets
everything that makes you cold
and icy, and bitter, and cruel
around this world I’ll rule with
am iron fist as you smile softly so I
softly tighten my grip on the soft innocence of your heart because
God knows what’ll happen if
I break it apart
so that makes two, me and you
except you don’t know anything apart
from what is blue and what’s not true
pain’s your only friend
so take a step and catch your breath
before they catch a clue.
I don’t trust myself
With speaking my mind
I’d rather close all the doors
Leave my lies locked inside
I’ll staple my tongue
To keep paragraphs out
So I can smile and laugh
Without having a doubt
But the tips of my fingers
They’re starting to bleed
With words that the world
Was never meant to see
And as I grabbed a sheet of paper
To mop them all up
All the stanzas and verses
Decide to interrupt
They begin to organize themselves on the page
Probably just playing
But I’m screaming in pain
Trying to stop their saying
Because now I have nowhere left to hide
Except for this insane brain of mine.
She opened her book
Slowly at first
Didn’t really like how it looked
But she gave it a verse
And inside her brain
Next to the secrets she’d hid
Was a place they say sane
Could never comfortably live
Driven out by the notions, implications of joy
When asked where it went, it only stood there annoyed
But back to the story
Her mind was in awe
Trapped in a web
Full of character flaws
But halfway through the book
It all screeched to a halt
The words stung and they burned
Like a wound full of salt
The pages all laughed
As paragraphs cut like knives
And she wanted to stop
But control had long left her mind
So she read until the final page was wet
Dripping with all her sorrows and regret
And she’d vowed to never make a mistake quite the same
But to be truly in love, sometimes mistakes must be made.
They’re built from the ashes
Of a world far away
We beg and we plead
They still refuse to stay
You can’t call them people, or pictures, or sounds
Not even the feeling
When the soul runs unbound
They’re not made of words
The human head hears
But rather compiled of the whispers
The human heart holds dear
And the words that you’ll find
They both equally fear.
Every day exactly the same
Nothing different
Simple and plain
Monotony seems to be the key
Living for all of eternity
But what is life without the chance?
Living in fear, stuck in a trance.
But in walks wonder
And she doesn’t like what she sees
Showing me colors, finally free.
I dance in the wind
My cares all behind me
But what I can’t see is consequence, creeping up behind me.
She was the dark during midnight
And the light before dawn
The deep breath before a secret
And the sigh after it’s gone
She was crashing ocean waves
As they came and breached the shore
And a tiny little river
Knowing it could be much more.
She was the smell of rain in the spring
And the ashes in the air
She was laughter at midnight
And the sound of deep despair
She was howling winds by the coast
As they swept throughout the beach
And a breath in winter weather
As you search for what you seek.
Her hair was made for windy days
Walking by the coast
As you sit and watch the summer waves
Play and breach and boast.
Her smile made the stars all stare
Shining extra bright
Wishing that they could keep it there
Even come the light.
Her eyes shimmered like dark stardust
Chocolate in the night
Such deep and brown and thoughtful depth
Ever full of delight.
We see the stars up in space
Marvel at their fate
And it seems we tend to forget
Our own endless chase.
It’s easy to forget, looking up at the night sky
The people who’ve wronged you, those who made you cry
And it’s easy to remember
How those you love are so close by.
But if you find yourself too often
Looking up above
Remember by the time their light reaches you
Already darkness they’ve become.
A fall of your breath, an ache in your chest
A desire to run, to jump, maybe jest
Hope abounds in you today
Gone are the troubles, the fear of yesterday
It watches you close
Keeps you near
But then, suddenly, enter the fear!
Will you quell the river? Or will it quell you?
They offer you a choice, but what can you do?
For even if you fell the river, you lose what is true
And gone will be those you considered close to you
But if you take the fall, is it not better for them all?
No worries for them, but misery for you.
Tell me please, what is there to do?
Nothing can be done, you and pain are now one
Watching through a broken lens
Aching inside, but happy friends
The world is good, the grass is green
The water’s clear, the air is clean
But the sun burns your skin
It hurts your eyes
The water heals your skin, but it breaks you inside.
The grass cuts your feet, every breath pains your lungs
And try as you might, they hurt too much to run
Then, you faintly hear them laugh, the occasional cheer
The blind can see! The deaf can hear!
But you cannot, perhaps the lighting is just bad here?
Every trouble of the world,
It all comes upon you,
The hate, the hurt,
It all slowly binds you
You fall from your beautiful place in the sky,
But no, no, they will not see you cry
And still they come, you turn away
And watch from the dark, far, far away
Trying to live in the past, and you miss the today.
Was it worth it?
They are happy, yes, it’s true
But was it worth the expense of you?
To know the joy, we must feel the sorrow
Break to the point where there’s no light from tomorrow
And then, slowly, a candle is clued.
Do you light it, or not?
It’s all up to you.
What do I want, what do I need?
What are these voices fighting inside of me?
Why can’t I just agree with myself,
Not torn between two sides,
The elf on the shelf.
Sometimes I wonder what it’s like not to be so stubborn
Both sides of my brain constantly bothering the other.
“But what about this?”
“What about that?”
Over and over till I’m about to snap
Going round and round in your head
Whispering as you go to bed
Then it’s yelling in your ear
Keep it down, please, there are people here
An entrancing melody as you fall asleep
Sometimes I even hear it weep
The only silence I’ve ever had
Is when I’m good and truly glad
And that’s when it retreats inside its cage
Waiting for my feelings to inevitably cave.
They stole her little pieces
The ones they thought she wouldn’t mind
Like her joy in the morning
When the sun came to shine
They took tiny things
Like how she’d look at the stars
Forever with wonder
Trying to pick out mars
They grabbed little moments
Like how she’d laugh until she’d cry
And how her voice rose
When she was telling a lie
They stripped her of these things
They thought she’d no longer need
What they didn’t know
Was they planted a seed
She now took for granted
Every time the sun would rise
And she’d only turn away
Annoyed, avert her eyes
She no longer found wonder
Searching through the stars
She was too old for such nonsense
Who cared about seeing mars?
She couldn’t remember how to laugh
It only wastes time
Life was moving too fast
For her to be caught in a crime
She’d made a mistake
Opening her doors
Now her pieces were scattered
All over the floor
And though she longed to collect them
She was simply too bored
Why is it all so silent?
from the time she was little she
longed to speak her minds in a way that speaking could never achieve,
why she signed up for choir, though her voice would always break
her mother was a poet, instilled in her a love for words
and she’d pour over the letters and trace them with her finger
though she didn’t know what they meant
the language barrier played with her ambition, but the words called to her all the same
and one day she picked up a pen and paper and
began to write her name as she also
began the difficult path of writing
the pain, she said, that writing gives me
makes me lie in bed
million thoughts in my head
as I cry, or smile, doesn’t matter I just lay there a while
and think about the words I said and spilled on the page
barring my soul to the unknown crowd of achievers and cheaters and all in-between
but it’s better than the silence of casting it aside, making me so sick I just lay down and my soul dies as
I can’t even find the energy to cry, or smile, or think about the world
I am selfish, insecure, and alone.
the art of procrastinating is also one I have mastered
in fact, you’ll never meet someone who can procrastinate faster
or harder, or better, or quicker than me
I have to be the best at everything I do, see you haven’t done work in days well
me in months and you haven’t been sleeping well lately well I can’t remember the last day that I did
be good at doing what you are or don’t do it all that’s what I tell myself as 3 am flashes on my clock because my
phone is on military time and it’s easier to just glance over then to
add and subtract and do math outside of school.
letting yourself go
is an art I have mastered
you stay in bed in the mornings with no will to get up or to
drink the dregs that remain in your cup and
every morning and night you wear the same thing as
you listen to the beautiful people sing
so clear, so pretty, they smile and you melt
as your souls berates itself for not being better than that because even though you’ve let go
you can’t ever forgive yourself for it so it’s a struggle
of messy rooms and
messy lives and
chaos all around you as
they all talk
and you listen
talk
and you listen
but it’s all meaningless in the end
you’re helping others when you should look inside your own head
there was a point where I was so good at lying, so good at crying and pleading my case and my
parents didn’t know but I was kinda a disgrace as I moaned and groaned about the headaches I had because my friends at school wouldn’t
pay attention otherwise and I wanted the attention that I couldn’t find anywhere else
so I changed the way I talked
and I changed the way I dressed and each day I
was less and less and less to the point I didn’t even know what I would do
it sounds very sad and guess what, it’s true or
is it just what I choose to tell you?
it’s funny how you can go from
nothing to ten in one day as you scribble the thoughts you don’t think you can say because the keyboard feels like it’s your real home and you wish you could just sink
into the words that your fingertips now roam and
the touch of your screen calms you more than chamomile on a cold crushing day and
alliteration is the equivalent of brightening up the way as imagery floods your view and
you’re not quite sure where you are even though you haven’t moved any other muscle in an hour of just constant writing, broken only by the occasional getting up but then the
words overtake you again and you’re forced to sit back down, a slave to the very thing that makes you truly happy.
she looked into the mirror
confused by what she saw
the darkness in her eyes
that made her look so raw
had left beside a sweet chocolate
nothing there to fear and she
stood there for a moment unsure what to think
scared to even blink as she remembered the days
she’d argue with her mom about the color that she saw and
she’d say they were black and her mother would saw naw and they’d go back and forth for hours staring into both her eyes that were
filling up with tears because
she just wanted to be different.
now that the whining was over
the true writing could begin
and she thought back to the time that’d she’d
first learned how to swim now
her friends said that it was hard but as they
dunked themselves into the pool she’d never felt more at home and she’d
beg to go to the ocean so she could say hello to what she loved and
nothing on earth could compare to when the sea gave her a hug as she ruled from her fathers shoulders, walking deeper into the waters.
the place she never wanted to leave but of course
plans change and things change and she found herself stranded
having to be content with tiny beaches where she’d look
wistfully at the horizon and her family would scoff and
call her a drama queen and
give the teenager her space but if they knew that every time she
looked out across the water at the sunset
she was so happy that she was sad
perhaps they’d just leave her alone and let her cry for reasons that she
didn’t quite know why
but the beach was the place that she learned to be happy as she
watched her brothers and their squeaky voices get scared of the waves and her
mother from the towel would laugh and tell stories and she’d
make sand castles with her dad who was smiling and now
life had come for them and was trying it’s hardest to
destroy her fondest memories with pain but she’d
never let it have the memories of the same thing that she’d let go by herself
a long time ago
to keep it safe
to keep it safe from the world and perhaps most importantly
safe from herself.
her secret ambition
that she’d never bared to a soul
could be summed up in one word: ballet.
almost more than she wanted to sing, though you couldn’t really compare the types of dream, she wanted to be a ballerina
of course when after so many years and she
still couldn’t do the splits or learn
how to move her hips she
gave up and
devoted her life to the sedentary pursuit of writing but
every so often when
she hears a piece from the nutcracker
her eyes go somewhere far away and she rises onto her toes and the one pose she remembers from her teacher Celeste
and she’d dream of the white tutus and the girls on the stage who’d fly about like they had wings while she
found ways to trip over the smallest of things
because I guess in life you want what you can’t have
even if at the moment you’re perfectly glad there’s still something
that you wish was different and it’s
sad but that’s human nature I guess.
quiet moontime madness
stealing sleep since o1
you left me silent in the sadness
my thoughts have nowhere left to run
but the gentle embrace of the light
it’s fragile, half-hearted smile
the darkness gives me a fright
but light tucks me away in a file
out of mind, out of sight
backwards sings the opposition
as I sit back in my chair
waiting to hear it’s proposition.
You saw me standing sideways
But wouldn’t help me up
Instead told me pretty stories
That didn’t help my luck
Sung me little lullabies
About what life was like up there
And when I wanted you to stop
Still you wouldn’t share
You stayed until you left
Got bored and said goodbye
You left and packed your bags
Hoping behind you I would cry
I just looked straight ahead
My own unique view on things
And finally decided
Not everything dialed should ring
You saw me standing sideways
But wouldn’t help me up
Instead used my own bad fortune
To further your good luck
And now you’re basking in betrayal
Behind the secrets you snuck
As I sit there in the sadness
Knowing I’ll never be enough
I’m no longer standing sideways
I can now breathe in the fresh air
And even though I feel so happy
Still you call from down there
There’s always something better
Something greater to achieve
So instead of standing sideways
Learn how to take a seat.
she told me about her nightmares, and daydreams, things that made her scared to close her eyes, made her want to weep.
but oh my child, what’s it like to still be able to sleep?
what’s it like to close your eyes and know you’ll wake up to the light and not
to just another fright in which you can move but you don’t because
the world around you is dark so you
hide your fingers
hide your toes
hide your face
protect your nose from
the lack of light that’s watching you
from all the way across the room and you
know its not real still you can’t help but feel that
you’ll never make it to tomorrow.
there are a million galaxies
tucked away in the skies
and as i sit here and write
i find i can’t describe
or find the words to do them justice
their face is etched into my brain
dear lord i can’t contain the pain
of being so close
yet feeling so far
the world plays with our feelings
like a guitar
humming and singing and plucking the string
letting themselves let their lies in
as i wait at the gate of the life i want to have
but still for some reason
first there’s pain to be had.
why are you silent when all is well
because you see, I’m afraid to be happy
and it’s not for reasons that seem so snappy it’s just
whenever you’re sad, people give you hugs
and when they’re hugging you, you can just feel the pity
oozing
and bruising you, but not on the skin where they can see no,
bruises deep inside of me
and then the hug’s over and some of them stay
but most of the time they just walk away and I’m left there all alone because now they’ve done their part and
all that’s left is for me to be happy
and I try and I smile and they say is that better and I go yeah, thank you, and it makes them happy to know that they made me happy and I’ve helped their day along
a moment of positivity in a world that’s so negative
but the truth is, if I told them what I was still feeling they’d internally die and feel inadequate and not enough
and then my sadness has spread to someone else
and all that’s left is for us to be happy
Then sometimes, when you confide in someone who you think is so strong, they look you in the eyes and say, “me too.”
and for a second you sit there, sharing your sadness because all along you’ve known it’s been true
and all that’s left is for you to be happy.
I can’t even cry
As I hear you weep
Buried under all
The secrets you keep
The voice in your head
That says you should be dead
Spilling out of you
At every seam
And as I put my arm around you
I hear its presumed peace persuade
Working in your brain saying
“All you do in life is fade
Fade away from crowds, away from sounds
Fade away from silence
As they’re buying out your violence
Humans were never made to be happy
So just give up now, please make it snappy as I
Burden your brain with images of pain that protrude out of modern society”
As it turns you into a proprietary
Owned by the choice
Death for a voice
As you sulk there in the sadness
That follows up the madness
That makes the rhyme rejoice.
A poem I wrote after seeing so many news stories of people uprooted from their homes.
If (The Refugee)
If I stay home
I will starve
If I remain where I grew up
I will be poor
If I linger where my roots are
violence will take me
If I refuse to leave
I will be forced to do
dreadful things
If I knock on your door
It’s not because I want to
It’s because
I want to live
I'm not inclined to do your work today would rather sip some wine and plan how I could go outside, trick dwarfs and steal away not toil and wash and clean and sing on high but walk through woods alone amazed by bloom would dance to tunes so sweet and talk to birds on how the world with all its doom and gloom still shines so bright in shades beyond my words Not eat the apple Eve once dared to take not lay in wait for prince to kiss and wed but run and jump for joy that I could make my way in thunder, hail and snow, not dead but fierce and strong, stomp forth in boots without a thought or care for knight or chutes.
He knew how to love but not how be loved or how to draw it down into his toes, down the bottom of his stomach or how to suck into the back of his mind or have his bones or brains drink it.
An accident, he’d been, that’s what his mother had said, over and over, whenever he was bold or brazen, like that time when he gulped a sup of his father’s gin, aged 7, fell over and vomited on her shoes.
You are disgusting, go to your room, wait till your father comes home, he’ll put some manners on you and whip you into shape, this evening when he comes home, you won’t get away with it, she screamed in his ear.
Deaf it was, from all the yelling, but the words cut through anyhow, and he forgot what love felt like. On his knees, he’d plead with God to teach him again and he learned how to love but not how to be loved.
He became a loving husband and doting father, tender-handed, rock-solid, he’d painted over his cracks, ignored his fractures, capitulated to the enduring frost inside, the exclusion zone no one could enter
not even his devoted wife or gorgeous kids who’d tried so hard to make him see, to make him feel, to make him grasp just how much but couldn’t melt the ice inside, enter the exclusion zone, penetrate area 51.
To his dying days, he was a shouldn’t have been, an accident, a mistake, knew how to love but not how to be loved, his roots extending way down into area 51 imprisoned there by his mother who hadn’t wanted him.
No one ever taught him how to want himself, how to eat or drink love. Make sure you learn how to let salty tears melt the ice inside, break into area 51 and how to eat bread and drink water.
Months of flying gave way to claws thawing
a greening branch, pushing leaves. We were
trailing the sun’s arms, her fingers pointing to
tepid soil, the earth laboring lightly,
and all we had to do is fall into the rays
for a long pause until the twigs came
to meet us. When deep within the trunk
still, they were already choosing
a velvet robe. They knew we’d be featherlight,
draped in plums and downs, our bodies
more weightless than the winds we’d sailed.
We were arctic tern, godwits
bar-tailed and not,
we were cranes and Candian geese,
we were curlews turning up
on featureless, tidal mudflats. We’ve ebbed
the breadth between the mud and the moon,
and now our beaks kiss crustaceans one day
and worms the next
until the sun’s limbs bare flyways,
and we’re bound over.