will it up
grill it up
fill it up to brimming
swill to still those silly cells
drowned in what they’re swimming
press ‘em up
mess ‘em up
dress ‘em up with practice
a hoarder in its order
and thorned as any cactus
mock it up
talk it up
chalk it up to neurons
firing with mis-wiring
the receptors that they were on
hike 'em up
strike 'em up
spike 'em up your coursings
joy's in that sweet poison
tho it's life that you're divorcing
burn it up
churn it up
turn it up to 'leven
bursting drums, but first it comes
and lies to you like heaven
smoke 'em up
toke 'em up
choke 'em up a-breathing
red, the mud, as thin as blood
to leave your angels seething
tighten up
whiten up
lighten up and torch it
melt the moon into the spoon
and soon you'll swoon to scorch it
wind it down
bind it down
grind it down to fill you
you won't miss
amidst your bliss
the sweetest kiss ... to kill you …
her sweetest kiss ... will kill.
Copyright © 2023 Gregory Richard Barden
( photographic art created copyright-free by the poet with GALA AI software )
Our proximity came with my age
And I only saw your later chapters,
though I saw myself in you.
Not unlike myself with ambition,
Homely peers and shouting,
The weight you did accrue.
Your aims changed a while ago,
And I added them to my own,
I saw your smile tighten,
But I let my feelings stew.
Fancy chains of gold, white veiled capture,
And, yes, I hate your captor,
Sceptical of this new chapter,
and the baby cradle too.
As of now your hands have turned to hitting,
Smiles inclined to swearing,
Your son is only one now,
And our similarities are already true?
As I try to slumber now the stature cracks,
The bringer of tears strikes again,
And I struggle to identify who.
I’ve looked up for the longest time,
And I gaze into you now that I’ve grew.
The truth I’ve come to grips with now,
I don’t want to be you.
In dead silence, there’s a sound,
noiseless and yet profound.
Deeds provoking, not quite just,
from tainted minds that think, “we must.”
What a precious gem if caught,
the divinity of thought.
To control the human heart,
that takes something very smart.
Some may think the silence means
no one hears, or so it seems.
But there is the speechless word
in the spirit that is heard.
In the caverns of darkness stands,
an element with strict demands,
whose jaws will tighten on the lies,
and wrench the truth from its disguise
Times now test all living strength
pushing patience to end's length.
Power drives the merciless bold
to suppress the pitiful fold.
Clearly, some, will choose the wrong.
They must follow with the throng.
And stay silent ever since,
deathly fearing to speak against.
But in the silence, right prevails
In spite of suffering and travail.
Injustice cannot stand for those
who in a quiet fight - oppose.
In Heaven's silence, there's a sound,
holy and most profound,
the numbered reckoning of days,
that terminate life's foulest ways.
I butter the toast as if it were a pardon,
its crust breaking under my knife
like a sealed envelope.
The coffee is bitter ink,
a confession cooling in its cup.
I swallow it fast,
as if speed could trick the executioner.
When I buy myself flowers
I imagine them lining a witness box:
petals trembling,
each one swearing I once existed.
I take long baths,
the water climbing like hours,
the body softening, rehearsing its exit.
Every errand feels ceremonial:
the grocer weighing apples,
the cashier stamping receipts—
as if recording my presence
before the page turns blank.
I buy the trinket, the sugared cake,
because why shouldn’t the condemned
glitter a little,
lick the spoon clean?
The hours leer,
their faces blindfolded.
Any minute the rope could tighten—
a phone could ring with pardon.
So I go on feeding myself,
scraping honey from the jar,
gilding my throat
for the last song or the first acquittal,
as though I might vanish mid-bite,
or else be called back,
my name suddenly rinsed clean
from the record.
Present
Flowers
Before
My hours
Fall in
Darkness
Rightly
You watch
Idly
Come near
With songs;
Sweet drink
Calming
Lightly
Hold back
These parts
From him
Who hides
In wind—
Hunter
Seeking
Close by,
Black eyes
Tighten
My heart
Repines,
The beat
Creaking
My Bicycle of Imagination
The day and I are hand in hand,
brimming with a zippety-whippity-do.
I sit atop my saddle, my bicycle, my hill;
the morning mist is ragged like candy floss
on barbed wire, waggled fences.
Below a liquorice-tarmacked road
elbows through a mosaicked landscape;
churned fields sitting either side,
serrated into channels of earth;
suited and rooted in browned corduroy.
Then further on and along,
the sky sits sedately on the sea,
resting on a blue, rippled settee,
just out of close reach
of a mustard scarf of a beach.
Clouds rear - wild, white stallions;
they settle, then away at a gallop,
racing, chasing the prize in
the finishing line, the horizon.
Watch out, speedy swallow,
now, it’s my time to follow!!
I sense my bicycle’s stalled frustration,
so my body engine sets it free;
muscles tighten, pedals spin,
it’s time to fly, time to check in.
Off we go…wind pushing at my heels,
sunlight splashing off the wheels
down I swoop, a dance of balance;
the bike glides, the road slides.
Watch me come, watch me go
connecting, perfecting with nature’s flow;
sky, land and sea…………WEEEEEEEEEEE!
I tighten your tie, tighten in your lies, shine your shoes so I can see the real you and hold your eyes to mine in the big blue sky.
So I can see inside the hollowness that is you.
My demons know me, they know where to hurt. They quietly tighten their grip on the soul of the man under my shirt. They think that this evil is something I fear. They think that it’s easy to create and control my tears.
But age makes a difference between a boy and a man. Age creates walls that protect and can never fall down. So I say to the demons trying to sway the small good and belief in my heart.
Find easier prey to turn against the beauty of light. Find easier fools to turn to the cravings of the dark night. Find easier game to play to win from the start. Because I promise when I come over I’ll find you and tear you apart.
She might have painted the sea—
or a golden field of wheat
beneath a hazy summer sky—
but he took her brushes,
left the bristles splayed,
the paints dried out,
and the turpentine cloudy.
And though she said nothing,
her easel disappeared one day
like a wispy cloud no one missed.
After that,
she painted nothing but dinner.
They had imagined themselves
sharing a studio but
he needed all the mirrors,
so she became one—
reflecting his genius,
and tilting her angles
to catch his best light—
sitting quiet in the corners,
while her palette faded slowly
beneath his brilliance.
She never called it giving up—
just life, unfolding.
Maybe she took comfort
in recipes, in the hush
of rising dough,
in setting the table just so.
But I wonder if sometimes,
she’d pass the studio
and something nameless would
tighten in her throat—
not quite regret,
not quite peace.
Perhaps both.
WAITING IN LIMBO
Sitting on the muddy banks
Of faded realities,
Lingering in the spaces of time,
Lost souls struggle:
Seeking another Dreamer.
Powering pawn brokers,
Tighten their mogering grasp
Beyond the setting sun;
Leaving frailed victories festering
And waning in winds of change:-
White opiates coagulate,
Flowing black dreams
Of mesmerized minds;
Oblivious to fading freedoms
Chained and rotting away:-
As time and life sag on,
Let’s not be as a drooping bosom
Sagging due to incised-bleeding;
Rather, let’s be as pregnant wombs
Breaking waters of liberating justice:-
Indeed, let’s scream renewed life,
Nourished keloid-ancestral-navels,
Waxed and hardened by sarcasm
Against the trumping-musky rhetoric
Streaming against democratic equity:-
Of then,
Smoke of a squandered summer morn
The barrel of a summer afternoon
And the spittle of the soundless shots of the stars within a summer eve
Homeless homage, tainted talent awaits to watch and berate
Wilting wonders to wound a heart the size of a horse
Hoarse to mourn the drowning drought of the mellow monnow
To drown the blessed sapphires of summer fever
With fevor and bloodied weather
And sleep on a velvet throw
Turn these demons and paralysis upon the stars
And stitch and tie and tighten
And wear aware of the consequence
And ensnare the stars aware of the darkness
Pay the fare to the ferry
And pretend not to hear the merry walks and dreary ends of life
Pretend not to tighten without the enticement of and ending life
Pretend not to sleep
Away and away and away
Further than the astral splurges of this
Life
Sleep with the intent of death
So death may bless the creaseless crown of my forehead
And sleep with his singular kiss forevermore
2//5//2025
When the poem became tears
As the ink drips,
I have become an emotional basket case.
My keyboard squeals, as the businessman's anxiety climbs
At the sound of the opening bells,
Tariff wars targeting the poor,
Evil Eyes merges with the Texas Tycoons
What is the poor trader's offense?
Going once, going twice,
To be poor is to be honest,
How can honesty be the best policy
Knowingly, a poor man can never win a war with a rich man
Going once, going twice no deal
Tariff wars targeting the poor:
“They fought with them, we feel the pain
Forget the old saying, you scratch my back
I scratch yours, what are the poor man's justifications
Tighten your podiums, ring your bells
And remember the words,
“They charge us, we charge them,
Why is the world upset?
Aggression, depression, and the will to survive
Inferior and permanent: listen to
Bob Marley's “War song we will always be in war”
A cello moans through cedar fog,
low notes trembling between her teeth.
Amber bowstrings tighten, vibrating against ribs—
wood groans beneath the weight of sound.
Resin clings to fingertips,
drawn taut over hollow curves.
Each bow stroke sharpens the air,
Splitting migraines into cascading cacophony
The final note—
held breath, a whispering overtone,
unraveled into stillness.
We sense the noose of fear tighten,
stifling joy, soul seeks to brighten
but relinquishing ownership,
staid silence, mark of our worship,
as an observer poised in bliss,
we recognise we are not this,
meaning we’re spirit, not this form,
so we have no cause to conform
to ebb and flow of shifting tides,
since we know God resides inside.
That which is ill-begot will love you not,
but pull the strings of a heavy heart.
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