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t-34

cellar door
slate roof
homemade bombs
and mythic truths

the shadow
of a mountian home
where roads snake
goat path swerve
and borne tunnels
tin funnels
torn shirts
and sheets
for flag flown
ideal sown

tractor petrol
four cyclinder logic
vodka tonic

and the cold twilight
supremacy
of a God
the ghosts lain
the years slain
rising like the springtime
meadowflowers

like the cold moon
between the pass
and glacial rivers
moving swift
removing time
far down the land
like water
under arched bridges
and turrets
rusting
from the fires
once burning..

freedom is love
like a concerto
pure like starfire
white stucco
anemia
cobblestones
damp with
the tears of rain

home hearths

love is pain...

Editing stage: 

Comments

Have you ever seen the movie Donnie Darko? The movie talks briefly about how "cellar door" is often considered one of the most beautiful nouns in the English language. So I wondered if your first line was inspired by that.

My favorite lines are your fourth stanza. I imagine that "cold twilight supremacy" implies a god whose power is fading; much like people die (ghosts lain) and flowers wilt (meadowflowers), religions come and go no matter how prevalent and permanent they may seem while they're at the height of their popularity.

The only part of this poem that I think could use some attention is the last line. I don't see how "love is pain" fits the rest of the poem. I don't know how helpful that is to you (and I can't think of a specific suggestion), but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Critique, don't comment.

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"donnie darko" i remember the video..or discs now..
2005 or there abouts....portions of life remembered like
winters now...spring a hopeful but brief respite..
been escalating up and down....fragments of memory
arriving like sound clip restarts...fragrances...echos
and lighting....the usual moments of life full of a new
focus now....back on meds and sleeping more...
my mind churning slowly and underway on some route
some plan..some destination that is in a plan far in the
depths of action....running through my routines...every
day a new view..an old pattern....nearing fifty..

Old gods and new myths....our media and bookstore
full of shoppers today....dressed in what is my best
searching faces...structure..lighting with sunshine warm
and rare of late through the skylights....cigarette breaks
borrowing fire as i left mine at home...humbling to ask
for help...but polite and forward...what some take for
granted in exchange is difficult to initiate for me...
but a challenging and rewarding day..

im not unlike everyone else but think outside the box
delving in complex ways of looking at its perspectives
life that is like poetry....

in the spring the trails cutting across the rock and empty
fields now that once was bare field..thin glacial soils turned
empty for farm use..is a quiet break from traffic....there is
always an abundance of small trees and tall grasses
indeginous species of plants and the detrius of debris that
is interesting to see..what humans discard tells me much..

the moments i get to watch television...when others are asleep
no errands...i watch history....the modern crave of vampires
witchs..vikings and the darkness....magic occultic myth
of the alphas....their difficult struggle in the personas portrayed
and the ordinary of the ordinary day..all construed by writers
gleaned from what we have kept in oral traditions passed down
rituals and rites...worship and beliefs

everyone has something...reward systems for their studious
efforts and social mixtures...and the underlying drives that
are suffused and held in check or let wild and fed to grow
strong...a ravenous flight...and cycles to affect and effect
all and everything

love is pain..an afterthought...the anti titles that i once threw
up here to disrupt google search engines....or so i thought
love from apathy...idleness awash in subjegation of passion
the ideal of hero...villan...indifference the blind mass...
all of it a balance....

half my life here is dedicated to errands for the fam..the group
the pack..the tribe..the clan..i knew or know some who live
frugal and alone without mates..partners..true lone wolves
not anti social just keeping what little or much they acquire

think of the masks..personas crafted how my own has changed
over and over depending on mood...it was so important..there
were so many rules and a cadre of flexible freedom my parents
rural and comfortable..how lucky i see it now....jumping from
island to island to bear the complexity of each word i sat in with
or joined onto...were they the verb and i the noun?

i work for many because i love....esteem was and is an issue
easier to assume either a dominant routine or a subservient
observer running right up alongside the fierce...

and the new even more intellectual concept...pain..
physical....emotional i see i was tested but not really
living it.....i still was fed love....some were not..

music of late and intense studied published poetry
greatly focuses my usual static and chatter to keep
my wall up....and yet i was paying attention
i was alive inside...
only now drawing on al this experience

ive come a long way through a lot of work
and a lot of butt kicking by people who care
try to fathom me out of wherever this is

i go mad sitting alone.....afford beautiful things
with no contact....neo has taught me much about
poetry...other writers..other poets

love is pain because its frustrating....its much
more complex and simple then i thought
im just now working at the do part of life

donnie darko was a fantastic movie i thought
lana del ray of late...david lynch...fritz lane
the media and news portrayed
of the world.....

it would be easy to lock out the world
the contacts and run through a day
but ultimately it arrives
buried it with much and lately slowly
turning this inertia..this density about

i know what i want in life or would like
to have....a strange loyalty and love of
familiar.....controlling factors i have no
rule in...God the ultimate;player not me..
but im free....im waiting for the flowers
the sunshine....its arriving
the contacts are growing..
the poetry is becoming more enlarged
as i work at it...put less time in trying
to escape....and feel this ordinary pain
of what it is to belong and work for a
group....society...and using a mythic
approach to a persona that is working
then become a lost figure like so many
other creative people and ordinary souls
....

far from easy...
pain in the ass sometimes
but someones gotta do it

thanks for asking about the poetry
slowly waking up from a long long
sleep in much of life

poetry is my love
being a poet is more then i ever
could have imagined it being also..
its another world
where communication
is more pure
and full of symbolism
conveyance
and teachings
etc..

thank you!

author comment

Parallel...divergent...convergent
doesn't matter
to and fro
running
out of breath...second wind...
doesn't matter
love is the only pain
they teach us as children...to feel
to love thy mother and father...brothers...sisters
honor gods and fairies...tales bold...beautiful...timeless
everything that we are not
one goes...then another...then another...too many to count...too many to remember
they are ghosts now...an oven set at 450F...baking my head to stop the haunting
only new haunts arise...never expected...never leaving...I can't remember a time without fear...fear that love would shoot across the skies into eternity...
and it has...and it does...and it will...
I see her...love...in her many forms...stalking...impatient
missing them...her advances taunt...whispers raging like wind...wind so hard color flees the trees...searching for life...in the ground...where love buried it...

mothers, fathers...brothers, sisters...lovers...all near and far and lifeless...tick away as memories build...beating, cutting, slashing...

gardens of roses and lilacs and lilies...dandelions and thistle...beauty as intended...withering in the sun...the rays that feed them...a cultivation of pain...

for without...

we would just breathe...just breathe.....just breathe........

Scott

rushes in
fast across the great lakes
doppler weather from Britt Environment Canada
shows me what my city can expect...
but i've been watching the wind
the flags..the clouds for years
and years and years...

things come and things go.
my favourite trees either thrive
or wither
love steady sedation calm
or jarred and quivering

and breathing....
watching a sunset
a girl getting her hair done
the start of learned stillness
always on the move before
add ocd bi polar addiction

i saw no need to become unwild
swerving eyes
like a patrol
on point
alone or walking
with a few

now the mind moves
the games on xbox
making me translate
my reality from the
world of game

making me realize my
world does exist

my two leather jackets
for each persona

i remember how writers
ghost wrote
i wonder now if there are
twins who write..

there must be

soul mates..

but my soul like a ruin
moving from house to house
watching my world
through the scope

breathing is very important to
focus...
its critical

thank you..

author comment

the historians tell us
was here

tomorrow
the prophets boast
will come

today was tomorrow
today will be yesterday
today...
nothing happened
today

but yesterday...
...wait until tomorrow
the truth...
...the wisdom
no one told me about-
today

lying there
as leaves wrinkle against the horizon
I realize
why I forgot to breath....

no one told me about
today

Scott

comotose time
daze dream
rust trimmed

waking up
flickering in and out
doubts like
icu quiet talk

my smartphone
that i own
because someone
gave it to me
it has a belonging to it
because belonging fell away
long ago

shows me time
calendars
moments
where i can belong
yesterday
on a note
and tomorrow

music like a transistor
sweet on the headphones
or ear buds
while today our haunted
empires falter
or rise in great clamor

music and the voice of
newsbeat
maybe a scanner link app
from the underground techies
to hear all the ordinary chatter

i was alwAys afriad of today
relax..let go..guard down
and the uknown random
blows me out of the water
collapses me
the links line up
save one...the magic
combination
and i think im coming
undone
hold that breath

the engine starts
the wing holds

the minute detonates
into action seconds
when i move from
the crosshairs

i know exactly what
it is you write about
poem
how poem is
i dont forget
yesterdays sky
and sounds blaze in
my head

the weight of things
i held once
objects
textures
inertia of a lover
drawing in
beneath the canopy
of an overhang
caught out in a sudden
storm
the weight and warmth
of a hip
and an arm slung
about

and tomrrows visions
in dreams
an awareness in an
image a word
a glimpse
like a desert seed
a tropic awakening
in heat or humidity
the precipitation

as simple as a raindrop
sometimes

we are today
anyone left in the evening
and in the morning

and the roll
in between

today is about poem
and how it is poem
is relevant

poem breathes

thank you....

author comment

pacing like animals
in a cage
minutes to decades
lifetimes come and gone
behind bars
eyes sullen with no will

then freedom
sight and breath and sound and touch
hearing the jazz drum lift my feet
ta-ta-chee, ta-ta-chee, ta-ta-bop-boom-bop, --- bop-bop-ta-boom, ta-bop-ta-chee
swirling skirts
rolling like fans
cooling the hot dance
heals click, click, clicking with the time
while
beads of sweat rolled off the horn
bumping hearts full of the vagrant night
made rich with sound
and sweet, sweet lips
pasting red notes on cheeks

as moonshine hung coats on the stars
peeked through the door
with the eyes of young age
gone crazy with the whim
that he would dance and bop and sing like the greats

the beat changed
like the weather
sunny and stormy and windy and the rain
caressing the window
sliding down with the grace
of notes that speak
but
never the same
always foretelling
always restoring
always fresh as the dew
on the tops of my shoes
innocent as the blades of grass along for the daily walk
drying as feet begin to tap again
a new dawn
a new beat
a new freshness
that is easily remiss

and we as fools
banter about
never taking the time to put our smart phones down
never taking the moment
to hear the beat
the daily beat
the sounds of hearts and minds and souls
clicking away at their keyboards
or silently dreamed away on the bus to school
or work
or rehearsal
the slow swirl of ink
sliding around the snare, a gentle tap on the cymbal
like a kiss on her neck
so warm and soft and vibrant
vivid
a heart pausing in time
for love
for music
for poetry

I thank you, sir, for helping me breath every now and again. How to see and hear and write and talk. Many days are dark with the past. I cannot escape that cage. Not as of yet. Its iron is strong and my will is weary from pain and hunger. Trust is a history that lost the war and taints my love. In words, I do not find hope or solace or peace or sanity. I find a blanket that for a brief moment wraps me in a world where I am not the me they push down the street in the shopping cart - adding bits and pieces at their whim. Instead, I am warm with moments of innocence - the prior just before life wrapped a belt around my friend and choked him away, closed the door on my cell and held darkness around me. Taking friends and family as reminders of how I should have done this or shouldn't have done that. It took away my day and left me with only pre and morrow. I miss having todays, but at least I had this day and these words.

Scott

ticket offices and platforms
porters
and steam heat

drum kits in knocked about cases
when applique meant something
when life was cheaper but
silver was more then a horses
name and the ring of change

had to become like everyone else
with the phone
hip when i was not cool

even now an old cat
it was easier to skulk
and yet the dean moriarity
arrived....the good girls
held me beneath the
night maples

the softness
the warmth
the shampoo
and cedar closets
in their clothes
the rich tobacco
alluring topography
beyond the rivers
of hair beyond the
truck car carriage

(body by Fisher)

im old enough to remember
most of what i thought i
would forget and forgo

time out somewhere in my
collection of cds
chet baker a click away

billie holiday lana del rey
lykke li

pushing......but of the magnetic
pull....how the creative genius
draws that crowd..

a magnet draws metal in a scrapyard
how does a persona
switch that current

love..

morrison
patti smith

draw water from a well
draw power to a phone
refreshed

enlivened
like wheels each
bearing giving a different
voice
like moods

energy
smells
in line ups
counter
an intimacy
like words
poem
like codec

inside i pushed
at that wall
for years
and
someone just
drew it open
said
heres some tunes

have a listen..

no birds here

blues...
and today i was
drumming riffs
with my fingertips
on a stovetop
the fry pans
like a good chain strap
singing some rap
dropping my
foot
feeling the bop

yah tday was
today...

the beat...

author comment

in love with the drink
night after night
dancing with himself
the life he wanted
not the one he had
something other than us
Paul and Art blaring on the 8 track,
the Sound Of Silence was never quieter
louder than the pillow squeezing against my ears
The Boxer in his anger and his shame
smelling parsley and sage and rosemary
and thyme
Mommas and Pappas put their children to bed
as he swayed into the night
on the waves of Brian Wilson
it was my first jazz scene
my first open door

flung wide

to let in Ludwig, Wolfgang, and Sergei
to share headphones with college radio
AM static
Chili Peppers, Butthole Surfers, Dead Kennedys
pogo-ing their way past JIm Carroll
as he comforted with me the People That Died

The Call and the late Michael Been
drug me deep Into The Woods
while Mr. Smith asked
Why Can't I Be You?
Like Waylon, Willie, Loretta and Johnny

eclectic
electric
acoustic
racing towards the end of the end
while taking time to smell the roses
regretting only that I could not smell each in their own

music
calming the savage beast
keeping that blade from my wrist
if only momentarily
long enough for me to pick up a pen
and try to become something
other than another pile of feed
for the dirt

the beat drove me to jump
that fence
and dance to whatever rhythm they would play
however loud they would play it
pulling her close
forming myself
against her

Dean I was not
nor was I Jack or Ernest or Robert
or any of them
"The Man" told me I couldn't write
that I did not understand the rhyme of the time
poets were beyond me
I should chart missiles for the Cold War

ensure women and children
that I never met, never will meet
they would die if one man decided they should

I walked the other way
all the while that beat still going
still crashing, booming, bopping and jumpin'
ta-ta-chee, ta-ta-chee

seeking adventure
living with a modern day Dean
pretending to be Jack
losing myself in words
just so the air could enter my lungs
lead me further away
from wherever I was

and still they said
my words didn't mean anything
yet, I wrote in the night
in the morning
at the bar
in the restaurant
in the park
looking deep into the grass for meaning
scrolling after clouds that rained on me
gave my ink a different face

for the words are the beat
the communication
the message
even when they sound like
drums and guitars and horns and banjos
or spoons and claps and feet on the wash tub
sticks on a bucket
playing for a single meal
that hunger not being a pain
but a pang of life
surging into the streets
with harmony
moving feet to dance
in their own way
my own way

their words about my words
are politer these days
still not words they care to share
and yet the sting
strums another chord
and pens another line

I remember the loudness of winter snow
drowning all noises near and far
into a quiet calm
a white light against the night
as street lamps chased tiny shadows
in hope of a glimpse of perfection
I recall the scent of winter
that lathery soap embossing my sweater
standing in line outside of the club
the distance faint with the kick of the bass
inviting as the door opens with a wail of that fender
-- wait your turn --- and I would
for she was worth it
that green tattoo of a dragon
just above her ankle
brought out by the blessing of the sun
her legs long and lean
blonde hair attempting to hide the scars beyond her eyes
already given away by her trembling lips
painted black as a gift to the Prince of Darkness

we were damaged
both of us broken
looking for a cure, a mending, another chord or scale
to finish that song
before the lyrics faded away
and left us alone
to ourselves
tapping out a new beat against our thigh
while words lay hiding
deep inside
fermenting

and still I write
not for them, no, not for them
for me to feel
or forget to feel
however I feel
it's mine and mine alone
if I choose to share
you'll have to bring your own beat

but I don't mind the company
as long as you're here for the music
for the rhyme
for the words
yours or mine doesn't matter
just want to breathe

Scott

survived
hurricane
KATRINA
lucky two

loved

200 showed up....love her song "common disaster"
and the one about the blue eyed angel...
she was pissed...
its a small venue our city....big rockers ..names come
here and like the homegrown bands that play for small
crowds...if you dont like your own music then your not
in it for the love of it....
those two hundred were there..they showed up..
doors band came here with the frontman from the cure..
meatloaf and many others...

hurricanes.....storms will blow after a long sizzling
week of heat....ciccadas and that mist in the waves
of traffic...resltless nights and blazing days..
beachs filled with kids playing and teens stetched out
the couples older in the water...everyone enjoying the
coolness the sunshine and segulls..motorboats headiing
from the marina...cars bikes trucks rolling slow on the
long low wharf....the willows offering shade and sometimes
local bands rocking at the lions pavillion .

i looked for but never had the intimacy....one must live
take risks be daring...i was crushed....savage..and
eyes cruel...yet a look a word could cut me....no coarse
hide then..mingling with the others to taste their world
smile in passing and dream......

music one can be daring.....alone with the speakers
or alone losing them..leaving them behind...falling
furthger into deepness with the drugs the booze
exhaustion and mania depression pyschotic wild
lands...

dream of someone but would i get close..no
build a wall..meet at the little counter like hat
checks and waitresses..bartenders and
social workers....professional and business
flirting...short breadcrumb existance
...dance in public..never..smile..what for free?

dream of record jacket covers and fancy movies
of tragic love.....laying against another while the
world slowly crashes...instead hunkered over
bills....laying in a room with music afraid to go
outside except save the moon
see the moon..
why did i write save...

intimacy made my skin crawl
my mother would hug and then laugh
and sink her long red nails into our ribs
it was never long...never tender..always
humor; but she loved us

instead i lived in triangles
cheaper....more intense rushes
or saving the lost
it was their eyes i loved
the anger and rage and hurt
and tears on the phone

come to me when i was wasted
tired...blitzed to go to my lah lah
lands.....aha they would say..
oh ho..so you are here??
with so much to do...dishes to
wash...bills to pay...work to
be working....
they couldnt see how i gave
them all or most for their escape
their refuge
....

far far out there...
no one wants to come to this
beach...watch me save this moon
put a head on their lap
let them hold me
or me hold them

save you said some
how wonderful to smell
them...admire them
at work..
rest...half moments
brushing in passing
little gifts

while their lives more
easily spent with others
as i was not salvageable
i didnt want to be at ease
with what they offered
gave....others pining for
it....give their worlds
for the drug like qaulity
their voice..their worlds
would give

music i throw up like a battle
hearing the ferocity behind the
tender concertos
the passion
the hurt the loss
that pain
in musicians

i cant play a note

i dont know what im going to do
delete all accounts and start over
somewhere else
always an option to bail
out..
but always a more grinning
challenge to keep it going

who else is going to do this
was my motto and still is..

and the muses love me
keep bringing me smokes
an offering twenties
in passing

i can see it in their eyes
the spot me all over the city
everywhere
mall...walking across feilds
and backstreets just for
a different view

i like coming in by the fire and
curling up
nw and then

write my poems
move on...
the brief muses
were passion
intensity
tears
...
that ache
there is nothing like a wound\
healing a bone mending
to make one feel alive
..

starving on poverty
the clarity in visions
dropping weight like
crazy
...

pushing it
why not..

and yah
everyones gotta breathe..

author comment
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