Wasteland sounds.
My life is-
Craters.
The bridge takes me to unfinished business.
It’s as real as spider smells.
Creaking.
Sinister.
Sap making its way through the maze.
I like rust.
And whatever comes out of gum ball machines.
It ain’t gum these days.
When I thought I needed something to chew on?
I got thumb tacks and rough toilet paper.
It’s rusty, but no tetanus.
Bristles could scrub it off.
But burrows shed more.
The concept is like shoe laces.
One shoe can be tight and the other not.
An uneven mess.
Running low on spares.
Despair would even out the pavement.
Make our travels less terrible.
But we can’t control rust.
It’s jealous old rust.
red rust
soft with grace
through old iron
unveiling what’s unseen
spirit
In the rust drain,
She sweeps memories,
Revolting white froth,
Effervescent with fast time
and alkaline bruises
too slow to catch up.
On rustic terracotta,
She walks with pricked feet,
That foam, it recurs in tides
and spreads all over
like spilt milk on spoilt food.
And she shoves her bruises,
The nostalgic nightmares
through the drain,
She’ll cleanse her rustic terracotta
But she doesn’t know,
The foam will come again.
Swerving lanes with hot beer breath,
Your foot pressed down, a dance with death.
I watch you spiral, edge in sight,
But say no word, no will to fight.
You’ll lie
I know you will,
You always do.
You’ll lie
To me,
To you.
It’s “just one,”
but one turns two,
Then two turns four
You chase it through
Each curve, each crash
While I just watch
You lose control.
Swerving still,
I stay behind,
Hands clenched tight
But never mind.
Because suddenly
I’m small again,
A child curled tight
Against the pane,
A windowsill my waiting throne,
Hoping he’ll come stumbling home.
Helpless.
Heart worn thin with rust.
Praying love could be enough
To anchor someone
Sober.
To stay.
For once.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tarnish
slow surrender~
iron weeps orange tears.
The patient bite of time unkind.
Decay.
"don't get old!,"
some old-timer
once joked,
but was it, though?
he gave examples...
silver hair,
bad knees
cloudy eyes
bones crack,
mind hunting...
for a name
says he's "rust and bone"
youth, a ghost in mirrors
damn,
he's got me worried!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This poem is a response to the above picture and assignment for an online poetry class.
At first, you are nothing~
just a whisper of damp,
a blush on the cheek of iron.
Then, the slow unmaking begins.
You are the orange psalm of neglect,
the liturgy of rain on forgotten things.
You hymn about the ribs of old ships,
the teeth of plows left in fields,
the skeleton keys to houses
that no longer exist.
You take without hands.
You kiss without lips.
You are the color of time
And when the wind combs
through the carcass of a car,
you answer in flakes~
each one a tiny, crumbling yes
to the question no one asked.
Oh, patient thief,
you will inherit the earth.
Not with fire, not with flood,
but with your quiet, relentless
rust.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rusted bicycle leans
against the crumbling fence~
sunflowers grow through its spokes
I behold the iron—
gleaming, unbent in the sunlight;
yet within, a slow fire eats its marrow.
Rust spreads like a secret plague,
and once it begins,
no hand of man can cleanse it whole.
The tale of the kingmaker whispered it to me,
the theatre of selfish rulers carved it on my mind.
I saw thieves in holy garments,
anointed in greed,
investing their crimes like merchants of sorrow.
Their hunger is endless,
their ruthlessness a sharpened blade.
Heroism is not a sin,
yet the battlefield is never safe.
Who shall raise a shield for me?
Who shall lend me a voice?
If I perish, tomorrow wears no mourning cloth.
If my name survives, it is miracle;
if forgotten, I become a nameless ghost—
a son of dust,
sailing the one-way river of the dead,
longing to greet the countless shadows
who fell as I have fallen.
Justice walks with trembling feet;
its seekers sleep with daggers at their throats.
For the heads that once taught us virtue
now feast at the banquet of decay.
They crown their tables with corruption,
they threaten the tongues of truth,
and with fear’s black whip
they make Justice herself
a prisoner in chains.
Orange peel. Scent fresh but bitter,
tangible in taste and air. A circle in fruit
that dangles and is turned, twisted from
branch. The challenge to keep the
peel whole, no break. Sink teeth into
sweet segments of dripping flesh.
Orange rust. A door, a gate. Age in crinkling
metal, steel ancient with salt and sun and
seasons beating what thought strong. Orange
rust of a family home, a flake for each child
who flies the nest. Rusted crisped wings. Upon
closer inspection the rust appears golden.
Not amber nor red,
neither start nor stop.
A forever-in-motion colour.
I am a ruined house
With a rusty fence,
So many phantoms reside resting recklessly,
A clock on the mantelpiece that won't work. It's stuck staring at me,
Tick………,
The wallpaper is crumbling and fading away like my miserable memories.
It doesn't seem real even though it is.
Dreamy, dreary , dread , dead.
But the fire is still working
Though everything is cold
And almost dead.
Somehow it is never always cold,
Flames auburn and assured.
I fall in love,
When the wind
Clatters and chatters the weary windows.
When you knocked on the tedious door,
I fell in love with you,
You seemed full of halo light,
Full of sparks
Like the 4th of July,
Your words full of life,
You could make thousands of people alive.
But I can't untarnish the fence,
Can't paint the walls crimson.
But your eyes think,
I'm beautiful,
Life is fleeting and transient,
So, I started painting the panelled wooden house crimson.
You can't paint oak crimson.
It's ruining me,
I can't fall in love.
Broad in the beam
not much of a looker
this crusty rust-bucket
of nuts screws and bolts
is a crabby old hooker
as luck would have it
dolled up trolling for supper
at any port in a storm
she still gives good service
tho' down on her uppers
now showing her years
deep in the scuppers
yet still on the game
fishing by night for a living
not to sully or bruise her good name
tho' one might unduly call her
a 'Cruiser'
this goodly vessel is truly a trawler
ideas that drip
with nostalgia
pungent like rust
Caught in the shadow of rust and steel.
I've forgotten my pain but can't seem to feel.
The ground is cold and swallows me whole.
The sun has gone away and taken my soul.
I look to the past and hunt for the light.
The wind rushes by and kills me with its bite.
The gray and sorrow are too much to take and the person I've become is too hard to fake.
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