[x]

Heading HomeBitter-boned, I break and crumble to dust
My pockets full of keys to places that no longer exist
An oystershell ashtray full of butts and ashes beside me
Testify to dreams of green hedges and white picket fences

A tapping on the door, a rapping on the wall
Ghosts always like this hour just before dawn
A bird screeches and I wake again to the stinging day
And shufflestep towards home from a thousand worlds away

DinnerTin cup rattle, see how the stars align tonight?
Wooden table thunk, look, they're smiling!
Scrape of chair on wooden floor, one just winked at me
Meager meal by candlelight, but so happy, so happy

These are the days of wonder and love, the little days
The bright spots stitched in between work and boredom
Between births and deaths and catastrophes, these are the days
that sing

Leave the dishes for the kitchen elves, come to bed, she says
And the stars really do wink and smile

:No: ExitForty-seven teeth of steel
are clamping down
on the day.
Pins and needles pierce.
Hot wax drips down
without end

on this day

Where is the green-haired doll?
Discarded by the woman who has no ears.
The day stretches, but doesn't break.
Pulled and pushed and thrown around
disoriented
it remains.

There is no highway for escape
only a lonesome, dark, old country road
Neon
signs at the starting point
pointing in all directions.
This Way That Way No Way
Forty-five angels hide in terror
They do not speak.
The day yearns to break
but night will not release it's bone-tight grip
Somewhere there's a door

All things end, eventuall

Two CrowsIts dark again this morning; eight o'clock, and the sun refuses to shine
Night recedes, dawn stays, mimicking twilight
Windblown, grey, it can only be called "day" because of the hour.

I think about the fading murals of Jim Morrison at Venice Beach
I think about the friends I've never seen who live in my computer
I think about how harsh my cigarette is, how bitter the coffee

(I think that I spend too much time thinking and not enough living)

But the grey life isn't living, it's waiting for the sun, and who knows when
The sun will come?
I put on my coat and go outside for a smoke, hoping to touch something
Not bleeding grey

There ar

EastMy window faces east, I sit at my desk and stare
at the headlights crawling west past the backlit buildings
Sometimes I watch from the roof, looking west
just to get a different view, but it's all the same
Days come and go, nights come and go, but I stay

There's a place by the ocean I dream about, early morning mist
grey water, grey skies becoming blue, solitude, stillness
I keep a key in my pocket with "love" written on it, and wonder
what it might unlock; maybe trade the city dust for ocean spray
Someday, one day, but not today, it's never today

I close the blinds against the rising of the sun and go back to work
But the key in m

Code BlueConcrete and asphalt, brick and steel, flesh and bone
Tall buildings with window-eyes, watching traffic lights
flashing blue

Walk through the wind to the end of the street with me
Somewhere up ahead the streetlights dim, the power lines
fade into nothing

Don't worry; the blue bus, the black chariot, the white trucks
are all lined up there to take us to our destination
Rest and let the driver take over

We've walked far, been scarred, but filled with joy as well
The windows close their sleepy eyes, goodbye
Here we go

A siren's two-tone wail coordinates with the flashing blue lights behind
Unnoticed, the lights go out and the siren

LionA lion paces beneath my window,
occasionally looking up.
Should I let him in?

The day is bright and mellow,
he looks harmless enough in this light
What do you think?

Oh. He's eating the postman.
Nevermind.

Absent Without LeaveAvailability leads to worthlessness
LSD shine, headlights bounce in twilight
Snow covered rooftops, plastic signs
Brick buildings with the outline of each brick
amplified

Sturdiness leads to worthiness
LED flicker, tailights blurred in darkness
Sardine can people shout, laugh, wave in waves
Dreams flow in and out of reality's realm
undignified

Anticipation is it's own reward
Soul-carrying crows know the values of three
Stars flicker on and swirl like pinwheels
The captain has called to abandon ship
next week

Everythings crushed, changed, destroyed
Warped, born again in the neon moon
that hangs over the halfway-house where people
in tatte

Stick-MenStick-men with blazing matchheads march across the table, single file, towards a glass of water. Latin incantations are said by a sole stick man by the water. It's a mass suicide. One by one they scramble up the slippery glass and jump in, their flames extinguished. This is the way of the world. Someone has placed lilacs on the table. I don't know why. This is the way of the world. I am their god, yet I only observe. It is not for me to determine their end, only to watch, and keep from getting splinters in my fingers. The lilacs smell good over the smoke. It smells like rain outside.

FuneralI could've gone all day without seeing that
Green door, green door, green door, green door
Red door
I could've gone all day
White truck, white truck, white truck, white truck
Black limo
Headlights
Greyday
Funeral
March
I could've been gone all day
Wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind
Rain
I could've ridden in back with the flowers
I could've gone home
I could've gone all day without seeing that

Days Before ChristmasBleak are the days before Christmas, wet, grey, lonely
For a man sitting in an apartment alone, re-reading Steppenwolf
Colorless days, nights spent alone at the computer
Or in front of the television
Life isn't supposed to be this way
He wants to go home, but has none
Save this square inside many squares, with a parking lot
For a view

She brought the life and color, and now she's gone
And even though nothing will ever be the same, it's
These days before Christmas that seem harshest
And hardest to live with
He hears the cawing crows, only two
Stubbornly staying with each other
For their own reasons, they've decided to stay here

The Wind-DownI'm tired, a clock winding down in an abandoned sickroom
You're vibrant, a sunspot, a splash of color, a dream
That I dream when I'm fevered and sawboned

I'm a ghost already, a shadow that crossed your path
You sing your pain, and heal your space in the world
Bringing light, laughter, dizzying falls from great heights

We sing our pain together, sometimes, and I almost live
But the clock is ticking, the sirens call, and you
Cannot bring your brightness into the dark places

I'm tired, and the crows gather in anticipation
Perhaps they'll carry me to your beautiful world
And release me with the Christmas snow

Cheese After all that cheese, there was nothing to be done but walk backwards the two miles to my green hotel room, shouting "Queso! Queso!" A lumberjack lumbered after me, he'd been to the event and had as much as I had, but he refused to walk backwards, only to speak backwards. "Oseuq! Oseuq!"
Do you remember that night we drank the whole five hundred TV stations and fast-forwarded into the twenty-second century, naked and screeching like crows? I don't either, but it was an unforgettable night. The pizza is incredible in the future.

Sunday (Summer)Another summer Sunday, hot, close, quiet
But with a restlessness beneath
Mad to be free

I can't stop thinking of wind, and lullabies,
and fever

Identical houses in rows, sidewalks, fences
Straining not to explode with
suppressed passion

I can't stop thinking of barking dogs, and sirens
and freedom

WhiteoutSunlight, sight-stealing,
winds crash against waves
of nothingness.
Birds furiously winging,
everything goes away.
Even the boulders of pain,
sorrow, regret
will eventually erode.

Snowman Jack said it would be this way,
may his fat ass rest in peace.

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Black SandwichBlackstone, bleaksky, faint laughter from inside
I know that it's warm in there
light, merry...
I don't belong anymore,
An Outside Dweller now
Viewing life through thick glass and dust.

Blacks, browns and greys color threadbare days
But the yellowlight of warm kitchens
and tiled floors...
Persist in memory and haunt as I shiver,
raw, mute
Hot coffee would be nice, whiskey better.

A mind is a prison, memories cruel jailers' torture
Sweet void take me in, let me forget
let me rest...
Where there is no light to taunt
And blackness
smooth as satin sheets, covers me.

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

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Thursday

by =Bark, Jan 4, 2013, 2:15:38 AM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

Rumors of tumors, chatty neighbors, the grateful dead
A broken swing on a deserted playground
And bones; oh, the bones that pile up, more everyday
Thursday I had nothing to say

A weak and pale moon glares down at the snow, impotent
Stars in motion whisper my star-name, calling
Tiny spiders build homes in my beer-soaked brain
Thursday I had nothing to say

Pizza or Chinese for dinner? I can't hold a thought
Craftsmanship went out on a three-hour cruise
Through the swamplands of South Carolina in the rain
Thursday I had nothing to say

A brass-toothed journeyer shines a light in dark corners
Nudges and pokes at the beasts sleeping there
Scraps of re-arranged words piled with the bones rot away
Thursday I had nothing to say

Thursdayby =Bark

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

Thanks to

[link] for the inspiration to get this damned thing written. Maybe I don't have anything to say, but I can't shut up.

1/13/13

love 1 1

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~~neutral 0 0~~

*xlntwtch Feb 28, 2013 Writer

Featured [link] Thank you!

=Bark Feb 28, 2013 Writer

Thank you very much!!

*bloodawni Jan 24, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

This is lovely, but I wish I had more context on the meaning behind/beneath it.

=Bark Jan 26, 2013 Writer

Thank you. I'd have to go line-by-line to explain it, though, and I feel that when one knows something intimately it loses something... like a song that becomes too familiar.

*bloodawni Jan 26, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Fair enough.

~winterkate Jan 18, 2013 Student Writer

Wow. Your rhythm is absolutely amazing. I love your description and imagery too - so vivid!

=Bark Jan 19, 2013 Writer

Thank you very much!

~winterkate Jan 19, 2013 Student Writer

You're really welcome

*BeyondJen Jan 13, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Your repetition and talk of bones makes me happy for all those things about which you had nothing to say. I'm at least glad you had something to write.

Congrats on the DLD. Well deserved, I'd say.

=Bark Jan 14, 2013 Writer

Thank you very much!

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