Best Under My Skin Poems
Alone she sits at a table for two
In the corner bistro off Main
Cole Porter’s "I’ve Got You under My Skin"
Wafts softly throughout the room
After hours of lingering hope
She watches happy clients come and go
Bubbles of happiness fill their chatter
Laughter walks out trailing behind
Alone she sits and surveys the room
Even the wait staff now seems scarce
Time has vanished like steam in air
A waiter hints it is closing time
Table lights now give out a faint glow
Too much to bare, she decides to leave
But…O, how she loves him so! And though it's late
Still, she stalls… perhaps he will show up soon
10/'09
For Brian Strand's Contest-A haiga to Edward Hopper's "Automat"
I wonder who I am sometimes, what seems to be a universal phenomenon. As everyone remains looking to be someone other than themselves, because those who are themselves are persecuted and dreams hung on the cross by society.
But as I wonder the colorful atmosphere of those around me tend to judgingly remind me exactly who I am and what I’m capable of accomplishing.
Because they assume before they even get the chance to know me, my story, why I act, talk, or dress different, why I smell another fragrance, perceive, taste, and feel the world inversely.
Under my skin they shoot before they ask, a trigger finger itching as the deadly explosion blast piercing the body of another innocent soul. Slavery is illegal now but we still hang.
Hang pictures up of loved ones taken through an unjust act, if you listen closely you can still hear the sound of invisible shackles as I walk and fall to my death…click clack, clic clac, click…a heart beating but dead now the heart no longer beats…
Under my skin if I put my hoodie up I might as well wear a mask, to hide the sinister agenda people assume I carry. Sometimes I just want some shade to block out all the negative rain on a summer day.
And when I succeed they assume I’m cheating, because my plateau has no high point or high ground. I’m a flat line, dead to success, and they put me here.
It’s a little misleading when all your hard work just falls off the deep end, because they look at you as if you have a red hand or you’re the bandit.
And if I bought it I could never own it because under my skin without acting I’ve already sinned.
How can you win when you can’t control the end?
All I can say is never stop praying and keep grinding until the end, because God controls the future. So never let someone else control you through “You cant’s or you’ll Nevers.”
P.S. I am black lives, THIS IS JUST A POST SCRIPT.
her warmth seeping in
still I fight
what's changing me
wrapped up
in something
more
than birds singing
sun rising
fresh morning
and being free to
blast away
in a blaze of glory
yet I trickle
down her cheek
one tear drop
in an endless sea
softly slowly silently
a subtle sigh in the night
I don't want to tie down
what I don't want
tying me down
but I will
liberate what
sets me free
I know
damn, I know
I'm melting
fire is creeping in
somehow I let her
under my skin
Horsefly bites galore.
Covered in weals with red spots,
All under my skin.
Scratching the itch was no cure,
Nor was head-butting the door.
9 / 6 / 2021.
POEM " UNDER MY SKIN " by martin gedge
I can feel you breathing deep beneath my skin
tugging at the fabric of the shell that keeps me in
racing through the circuits putting pressure on each vein
trying to find the surface for the rush of blood to drain
pushing every button just to try to make me budge
pricking like a poison a disease that has a grudge
invading all my sensory to violate and serve
around the very vital just to bite on every nerve
I see as what your doing in the waiting that I break
the moment that I whither in the shiver and the shake
I will not be a victim in a system without will
but a soldier of my dying right in spite of what you fill
this life is never easy but I earned this godly birth
to give of everything I have to show my human worth
you will not take me gently in this body I defend
for I will not surrender and I will fight right to the end...
by martin gedge ©