Home » Poems » Best » Gordon Lustig » Best Gordon Lustig Poems

Best Poems Written by Gordon Lustig

Below are the all-time best Gordon Lustig poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Pay Phone

Hanging around 
street corners, pay phones, and junky motels,
I stare into the passing faces
Some look away in disgust, some just look away,
not wanting to know, never asking why?
Who would want to believe, it might have been, or could be them,
looking dirty, paranoid, free
Some want to help, want to save us from our
self imposed misery,
as if theirs ( misery ) is some how better than ours. Ha!
Even if they could help (and they can’t)
We would not take it
It is not we who are sick
It is not we, who are prisoners 
Raised on the beautiful lies that mommy and daddy feed,
Fueled by a corrupt system and the false history they teach
We did not sale you your disappointment
your counterfeit dreams, or “ LIVE AT ELEVEN LIVES” 
I see the hypocrite shaking his finger at me, 
hiding in his big mortgage,
                             big car
                             and lovely whoring wife…
He wants to know why I’m smiling, in my holey jeans,
Long hair, and bad teeth                [Soulless]
He wonders what this hot little girl on my arm sees in me?
In her to short shorts,
too short shirt,
and sad expressions.                     [ broken]

He turns away, but questions remain
What does it mean to let go?
to slip away in the night
to live where wavy walls meet dirty floors,
and broken windows look out onto fading streets.
Where smiles and laughter are bought one at a time,
and are as temporary as the sadness in-between
Here in this world where no one wants to be,
and no one can leave
Where the dragon holds the key, 
and just one fix will set you free
The broken whores 
old thieves, dopers, and creeps
The ones left in the cracks to disease
And still the questions remain
Why?
why you or why not me 
and what does it mean,
to be looking
dirty, paranoid, free…

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Leave It

You can have everything, 
but leave the pain
It’s the only thing 
we’ve ever really earned.

It’s no mystery where you’ve been,
 your tracks read just like a map,
And you wear your scars
so proud, like an army man
with another kill, 
and just as blind.

You say no ones going to 
pull your strings, hiding
under your sheets, sweating 
shadows on the wall, drowning 
 in tears no one sees.

All the lies have been told now,
 Water turned to stone 
to fortify your demise. 

Cut the connection 
to the phone. Its 
just you now, you
 and your soul.

And now that it’s ending,
You can’t help but wonder?
“ If just maybe, 
if you just might 
have been...
wrong..”

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Impassioned Pathetic

You’d been drinking and I disgusted you.
I knew it was the end.
The tears I shed were real – even if chemically enhanced.
You were so bitter; the look on your face told the story.
There was not even pity left.
Each tear falling in vain from my gaunt and empty eyes. 
A tear for each: pride, dignity and self control. 
                                                     My final humiliation.
You couldn’t know, and couldn’t afford to care,
                                                                Not any more.
I was already gone, everyone knew but me.
I had sold my soul for mortar in my walls.
My words had become distorted and lost so long ago.
My feelings had become diluted lies,
fed by the sickness I called friend.
In the midst of my degradation you said stay.
I told you if I did I’d never go ( another lie. ) 
I was searching your face for a deeper truth,
something other than cool repulsion.
Looking back you knew, you knew even more than I.
The addiction would have all of me-
would have everything.
Even love couldn’t hold it off, of course I’d go ( I always go.)
    “ This was thee end of my reverence”
The prelude to my final descent into inadequacy-
the testament of a fool. 
This wouldn’t be the last time I embarrassed myself,
but it would be the last time I cared. 

 I would see you again, of course I would,
there was just too much left to dissipate.
I would carve an image deep inside - “ a memory ”
The golden light In your hair as you sat,
guitar in your lap, half hearted smiles,
attempts too believe ,
attempts to give me back a piece of myself,
pieces that no longer fit.”
Not even your love, our love,
could save me now.
As much as I wanted not to be what I was,
there was nothing that could set me free.
My fate had been sealed long before you.
The years to come would bring the suffering I’d always wanted
and the memory of you would be the sharpest knife of all.
The one to haunt my dreams.
The one to drive my days,
in my inane such for deeper meaning, 
something to  tell me I hadn’t been mistaken my whole life, some relief from my bitter truth.
So this was the end. 
I surrendered to my failure.
I walked out, I left.
And nothing has ever been the same,
I’ve never been the same.
And I never forgot…

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

A Grain of Sand

I’m just staring in the cold,
A dark room behind clear eyes.
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
Watching the days pass bye,
The years fall away,
As my life slips through the glass.
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
I stopped asking the questions long ago,
you know, the ones like-
“How did I get in here?”
“Why am I alone?”
“Why is it no one else can see?”
“Why am I alone?”
“How do I get out?”
“Why am I alone?”
Tick Tock
I sang songs to the stars
sang  so high the moon cried
as soft  tears melted the sun.
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
I smile at the way this dementia makes
its way through the canyons of my mind,
swallowing the images you sent to keep me sane,
devouring the illusions you use to keep me blind.
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
The stones are old in here.
The tears I shed whet the mortar,
but *never  weaken the wall.
Tick Tock
I write stories in the sand,
and bleed for the things I’ve done
I bide my time for just one chance to…?
[ make them all pay ]
Tick Tock
A clock on the wall
tells me it’s time.
Tick Tock
A grain of sand
falls through time
Tick….

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Lead and Ink

It starts with a thought or word 
some distant sound or something 
you’ve heard, saw, felt or smelled.

Maybe it’s something you fear or love,
or maybe its just an idea or ideal,
becoming the story, song, poem or verse.

And once it starts it just keeps going,
becoming emotions feelings and words.

Maybe it’s a memory or a dream, could be 
running water in a stream twisting
 and toiling, or a sunrise purple and pink
for my perception and imagination to set free.
Becoming the destination
of the scribbled lines you read.

Some are born to paint or sing 
play or dream, but I get mine from 
Lead & Ink.

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Running Through

Just when you thought 
you couldn’t go any deeper
you ran a little further. 

Chills that run up and down my spine.
I saw something beautiful today, 
melting in mind was… clarity.


A passing thought,
“ Maybe I didn’t give god enough credit?”

Now that you’re truly alone
I’m finely whole.
I taste a memory 
Sweet on my lips.
A dream I never thought 
I’d live again.

You give so freely of this suffering 
You paid so dearly for,
This pain and an empty place
 to call your own,
a home with out walls, windows or doors.
A ceiling like? A black hole.
A black hole through a mind,
Distort invisible lines,
Crisscross dimensions,
   Flowers and machineguns,
And the lessons that were misunderstood.

And so it goes just as it always has.
Dreaming with eyes open.
Hearts broken.
And so beautiful.

Details | Gordon Lustig Poem

Hypnotized

The things I’ve forgotten 
are watering the garden.

I can tell by the way she’s 
walking he’s been talking to her.
just like in a dream, 
where everything’s beautiful, 
And moving too slow. 

All the songs are sad,
and the look in the eye 
says the minds are gone.

In there brilliant disguises
the people roll bye,
painted faces in the hallway,
and the children sparkle like stars..

The struggles are all the same,
and so is the pain.

The clowns play on tightropes,
and the lion tamer gambles with his life.
The lions, elephants, and monkeys go insane.
The freaks are laughing, the crowd is clapping,
                          but they don’t know why?
painted faces in the hallway.

The coward is caged
 in fear  and beautiful.
The soldier is hypnotized,
he does not know he is the coward.

The bombs don’t care,
 they only want to kill.
“ who will they tax,
when there’s no one 
left to kill?

And the look in the eye 
says the minds are gone.

Hypnotized!