Best Bestseller Poems
At the crowded book store
People are lining up
Eying an autographed copy
Of a newly released bestseller.
Enthusing front of the line
Are the scholarly readers,
Critics, and the like:
Aspiring headline makers.
Some have read the reviews,
Some know author's bio.
Staging erudite conversations
Are members of book clubs.
Showing off signed copies
Are those of a special class.
They've just the spot
On their antique book cases--
Reserved for appearances.
February 1, 2019
Placed first in early February 2019 contest by Brian Strand
It’s easy for them not to try
when their love shines as bright as the Northern Star.
I’m thinking about you and I can’t stop
wishing you were right next to me all the time.
But you’re just too blind to see the story
we make when we’re together. I hate
that I sometimes think that you hate
the idea of us being together. There’s no use to try
to ask for something more. Your eyes tell a story
when you smile. You could be the star
in the movie called “My Life”. Maybe over time
you’ll change your mind and stop
denying what I feel for you. I have to stop
being scared that you might start to hate
everything I do. We’re not like that. Time
can only prove how eternal we are. Try
to see me as more than just a star
in your night sky. I can be your moon and our story
doesn’t have to end. We don’t have to be a short story
a seventh grader wrote. Our clocks don’t have to stop
ticking. We can last forever just like a star
does in the sky. Even though it died years ago, we don’t hate
it because it still illuminates the cold nights. Can you try
to imagine us together? I’m not wasting my time
no matter how much you say I am. One time,
I remember, you said you were writing your first story
and I asked you if you were going to try
to include me in it. You begged me to stop
and to go away. You screamed, “I hate
you, you freak.” and I felt like a star
falling from the sky. People think a star
can solve all of their problems. But the time
you got the restraining order proved that you hate
letting other forces solve your problems. And the story
you tell about me is just lies now. I won’t stop
loving everything you do even if you don’t try.
I try to love the fact that you’re now a star.
But I can’t stop thinking about you all the time,
and that maybe your story, “The Stalker”, is based on hate.
Is she the one my heart belongs to
Is she one I can sing this song to
Is she the one that makes it worth it again.
To love again
How scary the thought of losing
Control again.
Is she the one that you can cry to when the world kills another dream.
Please don't be a dream.
Please be the one I need
I have to believe I won't grow old and lonely
Don't want the grays to fill my head before you spill in my bed.
Damn you're so beautiful. Say it again. Baby what's my name.
Say it again.
I really need to know are we still just friends?
Because we just made love over and over again.
Until the the moon turns yellow let's
repeat steps A-Z; I hope you can Handle Z-A.
Let's go back to basics
Making sounds barely making sense
Why would you want to turn the faucet off?
Creating a spectrum of lights
As your butterfly cocoons
I see mt. everest in our future
Reaching peaks unknown
The story is untold.
As we click our heels together
I am home
caught up in the tornado of love
up and away
look around, this room is a mess
Disarray, will this ringing leave my ears
Disoriented, my eyes are low like an oriental
call the press let them know my heart has been written on
she is hiding a heart press
tell the story!
impressive the way she exceeds all spectators expectations
don't crash your automobile
even Howard Hughes would agree she is flawless
maybelline and cosmos not needed
she was born that way
she reordered the structure of the universe
scuplture artisty based on you
blessed the two artists that came together
and created you.
Is she the one?
Is yet to be seen
There is a new best seller book you really ought to try:
“10 Steps to Living Endlessly” by Ida Wanda Dye.
Deals in a bookstore are the steals
I hoard on bookshelves—dull old stories
I borrow from a boring book.
Look at my life—an open book
That begs for life support and steals
Each day, each night as hum-drum stories.
I worry that my forty stories—
The high-rise building of my book—
Are just as cheap as all my steals.
My life steals stories from a book.