There’s something in our entrails knows this dread.
You hear it scratching – that’s alarm enough.
That snorting half-suppressed, that flagstone scuffed,
a passing shadow of a massive head,
and we scent darkness, dark beyond the dead.
It hovers like Unreason. Does it know?
Canals of self-containment overflow,
like wits’ weak walls, at that approaching tread.
Our fingers, feeling for that flimsy thread,
Seem senseless, unresponsive: can’t perform
the simplest act. No order now, no norm.
The Void insists. The Hunger will be fed.
With locusts of the Labyrinth in swarm,
the mitochondria of Panic sprout and spread.
I found them tucked beneath a cracked mirror,
brown leather dull with the dust of old grief,
heels worn down from turning away—
a shape molded by silence, not comfort.
I wear them when the air grows sharp with voices,
when praise feels like a trap,
and critique, a stone under my tongue.
I walk away before I bruise.
These shoes make me taller.
Sometimes, I lift my chin like a blade,
cutting the room before it cuts me,
every step echoing with defensiveness.
I find my kind in shadowed corners,
cliques of scuffed pride and spiteful glances,
laughing through locked doors,
afraid of what opening it might undo.
We call it discernment.
But, it’s merely our fortress with no windows,
where every wall is lined with our cracked mirrors…
reflecting only what we wish to see.
And still, I cinch them tighter.
These shoes, my ritual, my retreat,
though they don’t fit like they used to,
I don’t know how to walk without them.
They’re mine, but not only mine.
Anyone can slip them on in moments of retreat.
They wait by my door like old habits do,
ready for anyone who'd rather feel safe than heard.
12/27/24
His dog stops often to sniff
the scuffed turf
of this recreation park.
It smells last Sunday's soccer game,
by tracing the sweaty play, the spots
where the spinning ball
slid crazily,
through layers of musky mud.
The man of course smells little of this,
he only smells the ethereal
trace of her memory,
her arms clasped around him,
when on this very field
they had to part.
Yet even here
in this rucked and rutted earth
like a dog he follows a certain scent
one that the dog never will.
My days are void of color
It seems I cannot speak your name
My consciousness lives within my memories
Holding only myself to blame.
The bleakness of reality
My soul, it perseveres
It lives far outside these bricks
I'm left alone with just my fears:
I am one broken half
To a whole I long to be
I am the shards of shattered glass
Of the crystal rose you once made me.
I am sharp cruel edges
Broken thorns, scuffed out shine
I am every tear shed in secrecy
Every single dishonest "I'm fine."
I am drops of paint beneath tables
Hidden corners, lacking grout
I am every hope and wish and promise
That everyone forgot about.
Two skinny legs dangle from hand-me-down frocks.
Elastic bands holding up her socks.
Scuffed shoes on her feet so small they barley fit.
Water leaks through the crack where the sole had split.
Wheat coloured hair pulled away from her face.
Tied back in a pony tail with a crimson lace.
Blush Full lips hide a row of crooked teeth.
Always on show when she opens her mouth to speak.
Deep blue eyes and pale white skin.
Her frame is petite and she is painfully thin.
Her existence is humble but she is rich beyond compare.
For she lives in a home with love in it, a bond that they all share.
Many years have passed, a woman is she, respectful, beautiful and kind.
Now re living fond memories of the happy child hood she left behind.
With a SPLASH of color
a chance for cooler weather
falls BUZZ is heard
the CHATTER of talking leaves
DROP to the ground
a CRUNCH under foot
broken into a MUMBLE
barely heard
trees become naked
and CLAP with a wind
summer's heat HICCUPS into fall
begging for a DROP of rain that never comes
the CLATTER of mini blinds
BANG against scuffed kissed windows
as the floor fan CLANKS with broken blade
leaving fall to settle the score
with summer's heat
sneakers twisted over hydro wires
co-joined
dangling from tied laces
tracks to an unhappy ending
a runner's castoff
erasing the scourge of a race lost?
an overhead tale of something snapped
when expectations erode
forlorn scuffed shoes
undone by some soul
weary of ownership
fused to the wrangle of wind
where secrets shake
heavenward
till summoned back to ground
this unburdened rejection
on a current for altering it
an indifferent toss losing its grip
when laces fray
gnarled by friction
an ending
like depleted affection
with nothing neatly laced up
Summer soil melded
between bloodied feet.
There is gravel stuck
between bone and soul
in their arch. A curve,
a signature that belongs
to an individual, it is
yours and only yours.
It leaves a mark on that cliff
where children beat the heat
to feel gravity’s sobering pull.
Water is the safety net,
some simply wish to go from
Sixty to one hundred percent.
Maybe then there is freedom.
I think I know how it felt
when he left scuffed marks
and solemn remarks.
There was only shoeprints and
concrete. But there was also a
cracking of a shell,
and water flowing from its dam.
Who am I to blame a man
that wished to feel
freefall forever.
Aging man your shoes do not shine
upon jagged century’s wooden floor
scuffed, swollen leathers, buckles
not laces, bereft of brush that buffed
they tap your time, just time for you
where ghosts still walk and gather
to hear, in a back room on folk night
plucking on your jaw harp, your empty
pint stoic, but full to you, as is the room
and crackling fire your applause, for off
eyes closed, you journey with the flames
forever the beat of your own story
at peace, long after closing time, play.
I will wear white pants all year long
with shoes scuffed from a sandy night;
Discolored waves that won't come out
those seaside moments haunt my eyes;
Capture the season keep it strong
hold those scandalous fashions tight;
Laid back vibe lingers all about,
when you're free it seems time flies;
Land of a thousand summers song,
one note I'm back in paradise.
where is that little bear, Burt? Everyone asked.
finding him was deemed to be a cousins’ task
we knew he was in the sunflower field probably taking a nap
that’s when some of us got in trouble for saying “oh, crap!”
the adults can swear, it seems all right when it is them
But it better not be the kids in the family said Uncle Jim.
the sunflowers are prickly almost like thorns and they hurt.
We were all scuffed up and bleeding by the time we found Burt.
The Mountains of the Dead
I’ve seen the mountains of the dead,
the worn-down hobnailed boots,
a child’s pathetic pair of shoes,
those ladies’ heels in red and blue,
and stared at each macabre caress;
scuffed patent leather,
canvas twisted rubber soles,
threadbare laces noose tied,
forsaken footwear’s silent echoes
of ghettoes quickly cleared.
A million steps that led to death.
In moving epitaph to abandoned hope,
a pile of battered suitcases
bare the hasty scrawls of human beings
I’ll never know:
Klara Goldstein,
Peter Eisler,
Olga Kornfeld.
A lost property office
for the Lost.
Reaching out, ten thousand spectacles
watch me through a window,
peer deep into my soul, tug heartstrings
to my conscience,
these twisted frames,
the ultimate victims
of a twisted ideology.
One thousand lives
Extinguished
Every
Single
Day
She has worn out her welcome, that,
Like an old, scuffed-up welcome mat
So much poorly written verse,
It could not possibly get any worse
I suspect she probably knows it, too,
That she is wearing thin as an old shoe
So, it is time that she put it to rest
Like any most unappreciated guest,
And take up another hobby of sort
For at poetry, she is coming up short.
Written August 31, 2021
There's brownstone rap and broadcloth soul,
Velcro pop and punk black coal,
But I prefer a sweeter choice,
The music of my lover's voice.
There's hardwood country's knotty feel,
Cast iron gospel, reggae steel,
But I prefer to revel in
The texture of my lover's skin.
I'm craving something more
Than just symbolic nomenclature.
Let's make our own symphonic love
In harmony with nature.
There's smooth, cool jazz and rough-edged blues,
The rock that scuffed Tchaikovsky's shoes,
But I prefer a finer art,
The rhythm of my lover's heart.
They're masterpieces
woven from miracle and stardust...
a couple of decades to raise them up
just to send 'm down goblins' road...
a locket of prayers-their silky shields
facing an iron fanged society
brimming with rabid muzzled souls.
You were once trapped
in those same fiery holes
that they're blindly approaching..
and half way down the devil's throat
you've tossed them a God gilded rope..
They've crawled their way back home
a bit less stardust in the lungs
a bit more grit in the bones..
A scuffed up masterpiece
needing sable hearted refurbishing.
You're the stoic greying captain
still stout in the fist of their storms
replenishing their parched soul ponds
with unconditional love and understanding
and the swirling colors of faith divine.
Now they don shields
made of titanium scars-experience
you offer them your sextant heart
as they feed themselves
to the godless world again.
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