Best Tolbert Poems

my eyes tried to tell you

golden and round the setting sun peeks
over sloping mountaintops
while cobalt shadows inch into the rust-brown crevices
like a silent blanket smothering the light of day

the moon will be full
or so they say on the six o’clock weather report
there is no sign...

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swan song
.
you made my world bigger
then smaller
then so large 
i did not know east from west
as i stood so alone 
in the middle of desire 
and that proverbial non-place…
wantonness
.
i showed you boats on the water
and vivid red roses
while you took me to the land of...

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sylvia

***this concerns several books I once owned.
Some were written by Rod McKuen, others by
Richard Brautigan, others by others…***

i discovered that words are  
like some decadent dessert
too small to cause harm but too big 
to have a second helping

in the margins of tattered books
were scribbled...

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her eyes
.
her eyes stole me away
the look
distant
engaging
darting
but always blue
.
sometimes 
i wondered what they had seen
how such beauty could
see pain
suffering
shed tears
.
i looked
she looked
we saw the future
two glances dancing
a collision course across a table for two
while our eyes
made us one


tolbert
...

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artists brush

 
i have painted you 
with the pointed brush of an artist
creating every line and detail of your body
before finishing the colors

now
I have laid aside my paint-filled brush
realizing that i could never compliment your beauty
with pastels on canvas

i filled volumes with words
intending to tell...

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It's been twenty (20) years going on forever since I'd been bullied around. It seemed that this devastating event would never go away;  it was going to haunt me for the rest of my natural life. On that morning in September 1998 ("Raw Is...

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Dogging the Walk
         by Odin Roark

Yes
Like so many things
Humans got that wrong too
Check it out

To walk a dog
Suggests
A tether with a human first
Dog second
Like walking a kid
Or grandma
Or pouting mate

All have tethers (gender be damned)
A connection putting...

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everybody’s dying 

 everybody’s dying, everybody’s dying 
 in this world we call insane 
 and nobody knows it,  
‘cause it’s part of the game 
  
 and there is no resurrection 
 once we fall down from that cross 
 and there...

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th’ dust never really settled



th’ dust never really settled

on those backroads of virginia

yesterday past



and though times were rough

and winter brought only snow and cold

there was still a warmth

in th’ house heated only by kerosene lamps

and patchwork quilts



swirlin’ dust

can’t be found beneath th’ packed snow

and th’...

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circles of tears

she sat in her closet wrapped up like a ball
wading through old letters containing darkened secrets
reading wrinkled notes and looking through faded photographs
that were left to be forgotten

she tried to forget the haunting memories
that invaded her sleep
the familiar faces buried in her mind
that...

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she

she walked along the silken shore
crocheting thoughts and even more
morning could not unravel her
men’s lustful eyes freely traveled her

she cleaned the windows of my soul

laying together between satin sheets
she took my life and rhymed for me
those lines which had always dangled free
and in her hands...

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purple bowl in the window


 he didn’t like city buses spouting black smoke,
 park benches overtaken by pigeons,
 or towns with straight, one-way streets.
 
 he didn’t care for department stores featuring girls
 with plastic smiles
 or big-nosed politicians smoking short, fat cigars. 

 he...

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white punctuation


where did the minutes go?

we held hands and laughed at nothing
because nothing mattered
as we traveled into the safeguard of night

darkness was a friend
dressing us like a single wool blanket 
pulling us together at the shoulders 
tugging at our hearts 

there…
basking in warmth
co-mingling tears defined...

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march weeps for humanity

i drew a sketch of march
number three on my calendar
shaded orange and brown leaves
and freedom, 
walking away like a dejected soldier
me, with a tear in my eye

i never pretended to be an artist
my art was merely seen
from my eyes
looking into others
and yet...

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march’s door

 
what remains when seasonal flowers wilt
and there is no chocolate left on your lips?

it seems we have only the winter sky
void of shooting stars or falling rain

and it is cold when morning crawls out
from the dark solitude of night 

i remember when laughter...

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