[x]

GoodnightThis darkest of darks is said to come always before the dawn
But who guarantees the coming of light?
This night has lasted too long, almost longer
Than my soul can bear.

Light brings life, but it has been gone too long
Streetlights and neon hold no comfort
Solace seems to be wrapped in a blanket of darkness
Forget the light, and sleep forever.

At least in sleep, one may dream.

Goodnight.

NestleBirds and fish and
Birds and fish with human faces
Singing fragile lullabies from
The Otherside
Steeped in a peasoup day
Or is it night?
I can't be sure.

.

Little pearly babyteeth
Lipsmile, dead-eyed, dangerous
Minds sharp as razors
They cut.

.

I will not mention
Cracked bones, ashes, or crows
I will not.
Underwater, too deep for the light to reach,
They do not exist.

.

Fade now.
Everything has sunk
To the bottom.
Rest.

Black Dreamscape 1Travel down that same old road
That you've walked a thousand times before
Darkness sweeps in like a loaded brush
To paint the scene funeral black

Past burnt-out factr'ys and rusted wire fence
Lit by pinhole stars in the night
Twisted trees, tall grass, empty lots
Through junkyards with old tires stacked

Over and over again you walk this
Scarred route through darkest dreams
Not-quite-remembered but all too familiar
Headache/ heartache/ bones that crack

Fields of scarecrows in the corn rows
Rats running making shaky waves
Rain drops sizzle on electrified wire
Boots squish wet earth then sidewalk clack

Somewhere there's sun and c

RiverBleeding words from shellshocked brain
A mantra: Clocks, crows, plastic flowers,
Dust, dirt.
Dreams, pale winged,
Flicker like an old-time movie.

Mannequins. Barberpoles. August days.
Running freely down
and through
and again.

A sieve.
A stone.
A bleached bone.
A river.

It always ends in the river.

BitterBitter-sharp and angled
The stake through my heart
The brightest sun cannot penetrate
The cold seizures as I die
and die
and die, everyday;
but still somehow remain.

You only had to die once.
I've died a thousand times
since you left.

Dying is no way to live.

Late June DayShoes walking slip-slap flip-flap click-clack swish-swash
Mouths talking mumble-jumble shout-out murmur-whisper
Incoherent
Life happening all around the good the bad the ugly the
Walking dead
Talking heads
Hands clasped
Fingers pointed

Colored clothes and colored hair teeth clenched teeth bared
Opening doors closing minds slapping insects sun hot
On necks
Smoking drinking laughing walking in and out and away
Shaking hands
Crying tears
Hugging shoulders
Giving flowers

Life happening all around the fevered brains the waiting trains
The yellow taxi army city buses the single black funeral limo
Sad music
Scattered ashes soft g

GnawboneDoors open and bang shut
Long corridors, footsteps echo
Slam, growl, howl
It's only me.

Beer bottles crash against plaster
And bounce off the TV screen
Scream, blabber, whisper
Bare my teeth.

Fists punch, knuckles break
Mirror shatters, pipes leak
Dismantle all that exists
Strip my soul clean.

Taverngraves in the pale sunlit afternoon
fields speckled with flowers
lost loves flying on the soft breeze
shadows grow long

the tavern is dark and filled with the smoke of unrealized dreams
stale beer, stale lives, stale music from a machine
we were young once, with futures
now we pass the time away waiting for death

how could it all have happened so fast?
i remember summer days that lasted forever...
but now i'm here, waiting with the others in silence
no need to speak, we all know.
we could tell again the beautiful tales of yesterday, but what would be the point?
we all know, we've all heard, we all understand.

slatted light squea

Four AM Musings .

Four AM, something calls me from my bed
Coffee and cigarettes in the Quiet Time
Before the world awakes and begins its manic noise
Time to think, and feel, and dream
But you, you're always the first thing on my mind.

Scattered dreams still cling like cobwebs
Fading but not yet gone, mingling with the
Lights-on reality of the dark morning and its silence
While you were here I'd have simply thrown
An arm around you, and gone back to sleep.

The world changes, people leave
Never understanding what they

Tilesi.
tiled walls and floors, white but stained
why'd they make them white they should have
been green

green tiles would fit better, in this place,
in here

white bedlinens, white metal carts, white uniforms
starched and pressed and neat
but stained

spattered and smeared with whatever humans
are able to excrete, scrubbed but still there
everywhere

ii.
out damned spot, she said, laughing, pushing
the needle in

iii.
you can smoke here, but they keep your cigarettes
behind the desk, and watch you when they let you smoke
outside in the void

there's nothing outside but milky white, the smoke
blends in and disappears but the white

First Snowit's snowing
the wind blows it across the parking lot
like salt
throw an extra blanket on the bed
i miss autumn
already
.
.
.

still
even knowing that it's only the first
of many
i watch, transfixed, as the world
becomes white
like magic

CoughThis world tastes to my soul like
Rotten meat
Fever, death and disease
Crumbling ash and bile
Snuffed light

This world tastes of dust-covered
Dimmed dreams
Sick, ugly formless things
A moonless midnight vile
Black stars

This is the world without you
Mad howling
Bitter, cold lipped screams
An endless godless while
Alone

This world tastes to my soul like
Damned eternity
Cancerous, swollen-heart grief
Fouled water in a sluggish stream
Black blood

I want out.

Winter SunriseI love the Winter sunrise
Not like the angry sun of Summer, suddenly
popping it's head over the horizon

In Winter, the sun rises slowly, gently
A slow fade from black to violet, then
a rosy glow cast over the world

Hold that picture for a while, it's too beautiful
to let suddenly go...

Finally gives in to a clear bright cerulean
casting long shadows over the snow

As satisfying as my first cup of coffee.

WHITE TRUCKSa line of white, unmarked trucks passes
a man in a scratchy wool coat stands and watches
leaves rustle and branches start to move
clouds sweep across yellow violet sky roofs

and the

trucks keep moving, man keeps watching
shadows, sun, clouds, birds diesel screeching
vibrations, tremblings, earth moving, lurching
someone whispers "Is this all there is?"

still

white trucks moving, coat man watching
strangely calm in the midst of the moshing
dreamer keeps dreaming, birds keep screaming
Someone whispers "Is this the end, then?"

but

it all keeps going on and on endless line
white trucks wool coat birds trees wind sky
reels of w

Checklist

Dead roses in a rusty can
On a rough-hewn table pushed
Against a peeling wall

Bare bulb

Ashes and a lock of hair
Dirty dishes and beer cans
Sketches of loss

Old coins

A faded photograph, a ribbon
Taped to the refrigerator door
Curtained windows closed

Thick dust

Talismans and charms and
Broken dreams in a dirty jar
Check. It's all here

Dripping faucet

Sharp as bone fragments
Fragile as moth wings
Miserable as dying slow

Pill bottles

Check. Check. Check.
It's all here. In all this
Nothing

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SunSun rises in quiet anger, blazing, sharp-splintered
Moving through the autumn trees, setting them afire
I awake to a shorter day than last week, and know well
why the sun is so angry
So am I.

An uncashed check lies on the table near my coffee
The cars on the street below pass with unneeded headlights
The autumn wreathes she made catch the light on the walls
Time is short, they testify
So well I know.

Blaze on, you son-of-a-bitch, you never get enough
You'll burn long after I'm gone and that's fine with me
I'll be on the moon in the quiet starlight drinking beer
Holding her close to me
Still and free.

Plum Fedora 2A plum fedora worn out into the vanilla world
A black bicycle on the horizon
A tumor growing larger than life
A pie that's all shell and no substance

This is where I live
This is where I live
This is where I live
This is where I die

Carnival music in the twilight sounds empty
The neon sign that read 'Hope' now reads 'Dope'
No one crosses the border anymore anyway
Flying is banned, even for birds

Plum FedoraI wear my plum fedora out into the vanilla world
A world so boring and tedious that I wish for lightning to strike
The pale sun shines on, no storms seem to be in the cards
I slink back into my apartment and hang my fedora by the door

I need a jolt of life, something to energize my brain
Ease my pain, kill some time, rewind the clock to better times
A drink, some medication, maybe warm arms around me
Something to make me want to wear my plum fedora out

Sick and slow and cold as snow, my tumor grows and grows and grows
Blacklung badheart too damned young to be too damned old
A black bicycle pedals across the horizon and I wish it we

HeartI left my face in the parking lot, and flies carried it away. Standing faceless in my bedroom, I tried to think about sweet things besides you. I dusted off my glasses and looked hard into my heart, but it was as empty as the cobwebbed cupboard. Fry me up some feeling, let me drink some emotion; I'm dry as the proverbial bone, and looking for salvation. I never gave you a ring. The narrow path is closed now, and I've no other way through. Give me something that I cannot get for myself. Give me enlightenment, or at least hope. Stanly came knocking on the door, as faceless as I. We couldn't speak, but garbled to each other for a bit about shoes

Soft ParadeDown the darkened four AM streets
Morrison leads the Soft Parade
I've had enough beer for it to be all wavy
like watching a movie underwater

Bridges burn behind them
hearses falling off into the river
The string of bad luck and trouble is almost over
gone quietly in the early morning hours

Not with a bang or a whimper
only an extended sigh and the shake of a rattlesnake's tail
I watch as always from my window
feeling the dawn aching to come

RammsteinThe skies were grey and cloudy, filled with squawking birds of all manner. I opened the door to the refrigerator I was living in and climbed out to greet the evening. Lightning struck here and there, and the wind made noises like a soldier dying from a stomach wound. I searched for Honeypot among the junkyard debris, and finally found her lying covered by a large piece of tin roof.
"How are you this lovely evening, my Pumpkin?" I asked.
"Peachy as a pickled pepper in a jar, my Bug-a-loo".
"Well, let us take advantage of this fine night and take out the old Rammstein and bounce around a bit."

And we did.

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Submitted: January 23, 2011
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Damned Clocks, Damned Crows

by =Bark, Jan 23, 2011, 4:08:47 PM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

Roselight sky, white snow tainted blue with shadows
The end of another beautiful drearyday's solemnity
Waiting for nightfall and a chance to fly away
From the binds that tie my soul down with consciousness

Damned clocks, damned crows, damned hospital rooms
Haunt my waking moments like needful succubi
Feeding on my life/ my mind/ my spirit/ my will
Upon everything that makes me human and alive

She looks angrily over my shoulder when I try to write words to another
Jealous even in death, she calls for me to join her
Tell me how a man's supposed to live like this
Even beneath the roselight sky in winter?

Tell me, dreaded crow, if i follow where do we go?
Past the world of ticking clocks and dripping IVs
Over dark open water through the damp and freezing sky
What is it you so anxiously wish me to see on the other side?

Damned Clocks, Damned Crowsby =Bark

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

...

*LancelotPrice Feb 8, 2011

Another day another poem
Another day another song
Another day another tasty morsel of another life. And so I go and so I find and so I live and so I joy
I know that's what they wanted for me and that's what I want too and I have it now because of that desire

These true platitudes brought to you by Platitudinous Notatallanonymous. Related to but not very similar to the platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Hm... ornithology is the study of birds. I wouldn't have thought that platypi were related to birds. Would you?

=Bark Feb 8, 2011 Writer

never woodathunkit.

*TheMadMulatto Feb 7, 2011

Stinging and still beautiful in sentiment.

`FuzzyHoser Jan 28, 2011 Hobbyist Writer

I hate to re-state what others are saying... But chilling is a fantastic word for this piece. It feels cold, craving warmth.

Lovely work.

=Bark Jan 28, 2011 Writer

Thank you.

`FuzzyHoser Jan 28, 2011 Hobbyist Writer

You're very welcome! (:

=CatchingFear Jan 28, 2011 Student General Artist

Oohh, this gave me chiils --especially the last line! I ruddy love it

=Bark Jan 28, 2011 Writer

Thanks very much!

=CatchingFear Jan 28, 2011 Student General Artist

Welcome!

!OnyxSnowfall Jan 27, 2011

Wow... intense. Raw.

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Damned Clocks, Damned Crows

Damned Clocks, Damned Crowsby =Bark

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