The Walking Dead

Can this be hell?
What can I tell?
False perceptions
Frozen stroll—
Distorting what one
Thinks too…
No

Sense expansion among possible side effects
Light severs eyes with flooding lens
Ghosts trod hunchbacked in marching bend
Warning sign an angry red
Tears may shed without regret
It’s not about what others get

Fugue state alters how some stand
Caught amid processional blend
As fear surreal, can’t comprehend
What we perceive may be pretend

And it is your dream…
That needed to amend
While higher consciousness attends

No outlet taped to concrete block
Transit rumbling after shock
Their streaking frames in motion caught—
Silent nightmare scene
Rose-tinted land
Watch us go by
The walking dead

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Want to listen to The Walking Dead?
Next Sunday will be my last post for
One Stop Poetry.

I’d like to thank all of you who have supported my work and encouraged me to write my best.  And special thanks to Chris G. for turning One Shoot Sunday into something great.  We’re sorry to see it end. Thank you for your understanding and for sharing your amazing work with us on Sunday.

*photo by outstanding photographer Neil Alexander

Can’t Wait

Tongue bit, clamped
Could taste it bleed
Mixed with saliva
Stifling cries of, “Please
Baby, don’t leave!”

Enter time’s return rush
Knowing regressions
From cross words
Puzzlement, smell salts
Warped log cabin of make believe
Where cathedral ceilings brace—
Maple syrup drawn from intimacy
Guess I never expressed—
What she had once meant to me

Sh…
Hermit crab lurches
Like an old man with crooked legs
Hubble, hobble, watch ’em wobble
Through scopes of spray mist…
Over canvas beach
Pebbles smooth, tide swell
Scuttle into eternity

Sounds from perplexed hearts
Crests sharp—over barbs and bark
Trapper claw snaps down
Spits out entrails
As the earth spins side projections
Giving to new life…

Finding spirit on skewed point
Dissecting mind
Without reach
Emptiness cradles stars
In the wake of shedding duck trails
Shimmering waters, ululations glisten
Dovetails, and billowed sails
Shy eyes hid behind hair sway
Sky climb to a golden age
Those autumn harvest days
When life sighs, breath held
Chest tight, on deck over water main
We rage against dying light
Run out of what we mean
Pour one for me
Red wax drips lethargic
Myopic, uptight
Revealing myself
Wounds close as I write
“Can’t wait until love
Will finally feel right.”

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Care for a reading of Can’t Wait?

One Shot Wednesday (Week 51)
@ One Stop Poetry
It’s my turn to host!

A Life That Works

I’d like to share a happy song
Figure out what does go wrong
Itching scalp from burning sun
Seldom let myself have fun…

Want it real?
Sushi raw?
Lacerations from a jaded saw?
I’d like to tell you how I feel
Man up from clown
Stand ground, appeal

Layers of an onion shed
Nightmare turns away pretend
The ceiling shows time’s twisted flow
Adjusting eyes tune street lamp glow

These walls are bare
As will, heartbeats
Jugular, nose
Breathe, repose
This is what a writer chose
As muffled echos ocean close
Interstate drone
Time alone
Everything I wrote and own
Spells drip catching studio skylight—
Wings melt into a candle vigil and
A life that works
Perceived self-worth
To walk this earth
Past pain, main, rebirth
Limbs coated with sweat
My pride, hair, and dirt

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Care for a reading of A Life That Works?

One Shot Wednesday (Week 49)
@ One Stop Poetry
Host: this week the honor goes to
poet & friend, Mr. Brian Miller