Is Anyone Still Reading?

Rigid, ruthless, and
ravenous
Heaven hasn't
honored hourly
haven
In which
Condescending
Cuckolds castrate
Cowardly cretins
The lord laughs
Loudly
Without worlds
Worth weight
Sorry saves savage
Sexual saviors softly
and sickly
Alliteration allows
assholes to allocate
allowances
at angels' angry \
adult apathy

(I get it)

Terrible Jot Laments

Never ever recover,
Recovery, recovering.

Shaking the habitual
with the help of a pill,
or the bottom of new obsessions.

It's that continuum,
An ideal way to cure him.

We're sorry this happened,
it was our duty to mend.
But brother, you've got to bend.

Gravity keeps us grounded,
you chose a tougher swallow.

The trust will be waiting
for you to find something
as patience dissolves.

The Poem Formerly Known as "C*** Sucker"

The phones are bleeding
The utensils are dropping
Clanging, banging, squirting
Right onto the sheets
Love making time
Piling up
To a life so mundane
Mustering excitement
From a clean domain
Reconsider this life
Pictures are being sewn into quilts
A patchwork of the past
A little bit tacky
But thoughtful all the same
It's just the names
That can't be claimed

Meiko

Lying in a bed
made for someone
far more deserving of rest.
If only the context
wasn't so depressing
this cigarette would signify
more than defeat.
This loss was comforting
for a little while,
but pillows don't compare
to the thighs that keep
such a precious thing
moving through the silence.

13 Minutes

Staring at blank pages
hoping the words will disappear,
trying to lose meaning of what's not there.

Sift through ashes of safe houses,
the ethereal one facing Eden
that I hastily burned down.

Staring down the barrel of a lifetime,
Trigger happy and truly.
Right to the temple, splattered pages.

The pages are no longer blank,
the words have disappeared,
and they still have no meaning.

Attic

These places seem so familiar,
dangling feet and imposing graffiti,
storied furniture and dead windows.

Life is happening on the outside.
Inhaling dust that treads softly.

So needless to say,
everything gets better,
it's swallowing that gets tougher.

Ghosts clinging to spirits,
zombies that wander and wonder,
all above the life outside,
swaying as heat will allow.

It may be impossible to decipher now,
but everything gets better.

Tribute

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me

1942-2013

Whitley Poems

The following are pieces written by Whitley Gwisdalla.

As if I Died
You're always busy,
You're always occupied
I seem to no longer mean something
It's as if I died

You don't call me anymore
You don't say sorry
You practically kill me
And that's something you'll never see

This is getting too hard
I'm becoming too weak
I don't like the future
Because its now very bleak

I wait for your answer
But you act like you don't know
You see the response I'm after
You never give it to me, instead you let me go

I wish you'd change your mind
Come to me and be mine
But that's just a dream
And I'm out of time

I Can't Sleep
I can't sleep at night
Too many thoughts on my mind
I don't know which path is right
To me, you've not been kind

You don't think about me anymore
I can see it in your eyes
Your ability to lie is poor
The only quality of yours I despise

I wish I could believe your words
But I'm too smart for that
Even though they're as sweet as the song of mockingbirds
I see through your darkness like a cat

I try to climb free
But I'm in too deep
At the bottom of a hole, I can't see
And for you, my soul is what you'll keep

Dedications, Can't Say I'm New Here

And cut.

(A scale to measure moments)

What you mean to the world matters not

The world you are to me matters most

If you could be still, why today?

When there is so much for tomorrow?

The sunshine, the storms

The liquored ladies, the forms

Yet here we are wishing it was yesterday

Has despair blinded you all?

I know you can see

If not for the past, where would we be?

We'll see better days

(If only for a little while)

I miss you, Whitley.

3 years today, my friend.

She's Going Away

Between the sheets lies honesty,
and not a promise will escape.
Dream of dream girls
I'll be seeing in my nightmares.
Something of a pulse, this love.
Something to make me feel alive.
If you soon walk away
to lands of promise
and more importantly distance,
you'll be farther away
from memories than I could
ever dream of being.
But when I wake up
and you are not around,
take comfort knowing
I dreamt of you
deep within my nightmares.

Heaven, Just Heavenly

Soft silky hands awake me from my eternal nap
The woman to deliver us from evil disturbs me
I'm awake, for the very first time
No longer a sick dream of hopeless ghost
But I'm dead, for this is not my earthly body
I get to my feet but I'm cast aside like a stone
Skipping along the blue blanket covering the world below
Asking questions that need not be answered
Destination: A bliss all to myself

Something Untitled

Getting back on track here...

Crude humorous fashions in world's dress.
A conception to define perfection,
a definition once thought impossible.
Standard killed aesthetic - divinity defiled.
Narrow down perception,
then comes regulation.
No order, no ugly.
In life, all things are beautiful.

Swan Song

My will to perish in the July glow
Can never be met as the sky delivers snow
Neither here nor there
Beauty to be found everywhere
A sight to behold
In the crushing agony of loss to be told
May you rot, my friend
As misery sings us to the end
Credits roll mercifully and bleak
Panning to the final shot: a corpse in the creek
Don't fret, just stand by me
And soon, we'll be as happy as can be
It's too true of two tales in the tomb
Spiderwebs and late bloom
July's glow compounded with bitterness
All much too soon

Jenga.

The great voyage into dimly lit worlds,
forgetting who we are for sake of high.
Fading into the perfect tomorrow,
all you can believe is unreal.

The notion of dead feelings and saturation,
all inhibiting direction of want.
For want of a desire too hot to touch,
Too cold to breathe,
Too far away to achieve

Lacking a theme or structure,
the tower comes tumbling.
Composure then faith,
faith then desperation.
Love lost to time,
my gravest enemy.

Deaf

What's there to do now?
The boxes fall apart
The walls have been covered
Yet there's not a Fucking noose to be found

Naturally in a quartet
Because any investment in poetry
Means effort that is fruitless
Please Fucking leave

Laying in multiple harmonies
Some in grunts and some in moans
Unsatisfactory and unfamiliar
Out of key, not a Fucking care

Poems about Fucking
How delicate
With no partner
All with the same hand

So in time
With all
The Fucking
Doubt

Once Upon a Poem

I see broken
Phrases like
Popsicle sticks of
Children

Maybe if I see
The format in
Which poets see
Beauty

Then what
We see is
Finally pulling us
Together

I feel so
Accomplished with
My senseless
Placement

To bring
Us all some peace
My suicide is to be
Broadcast

For Real

Melt a mind or two,
It's about time you got the clue.
A facility to understand time,
The duplicity of saturated rhyme.
Consider the accent of the insane,
help out the habit - refrain.
All the dolls in a pretty row,
irony's ebb and flow.
No more room to hesitate,
find ways to palpitate.
Get in bed and sleep,
Jump right to the deep.

War

I don't feel comfortable treating my body with kindness,
or the type of respect I give to her's.
Waking up with a new disease is an excuse,
something to blame when things go sour.

Speaking foreign languages on foreign tongues,
deciphering feelings in this frail figure.
Spoken to so physically I can't help but write,
yet these words embarrass the prose.

After years of wishing away at myself,
I'm comfortable enough to feel insecure.
Maybe I'll put up a wet floor sign,
But for now, one more slip.

Breakthrough

What once was a hobby is now a chore
You reached inside me and you stole
Right from my core you stole this chore
Backtrack to the days of wonder and galore
Fast-forward through the moments of bore
Now that you're gone
I want it back
The chore, the hobby, the grand show
Now lacking rhythm, the toe tapper, the hook
You fished it right from my grasp
You can call it passion
But all I want to do is create
Look up and on ahead to departed friends
And mark these now frail words:
I will take it back
What's mine is mine
What's your's is also mine
A collection of what makes us whole
The sun has set on your glow
All to be seen is a shadow
The shadow that you stole

With Regards

And so begins
my expedition to unalienate,
to love and unhate these feelings.
Gratitude to you all,
the way of right,
for without you,
there'd be no right.

Templates

What she knows
What he knows
What they know
What we know

What she can't do
What he can't do
What they can't do
What we can't do

Just another poem about moving on
Just another poem about breaking up
Just another poem about heartache
Just another poem about perseverance

It's a new day to create
It's a new day to destroy
It's a new day to waste
It's a new day to contemplate

What she knows
What he can't do
Just another poem about heartache
It's a new day to contemplate

Dear

Dear Tracy, I'm sorry for all I've done
I'm walking away once more
But this time it's for good
Dear Tracy, all I've done is run

Dear friend, never an honest word
I'm a liar sitting upon a fragile throne
The world I promised does not exist
Dear friend, I'm no longer concerned

Dear lover, I will never look into your eyes
All the contempt that they hold
These years have made me blind
Dear lover, don't look as it dies

Dear misery, we're no longer good company
You'll find riches elsewhere
Dancing to a brighter future
Dear misery, never move again so subtly

Dear friend, you won't be forgotten
The silver linings obscured by dirt
A sunrise through the forest
Dear friend, you are not so rotten

Dear lover, I have left my imprint
Wherever you lay your head now
Animals that laid at our feet
Dear lover, leave me among the lint

Dear misery, a cold front is approaching
Stay warm inside
You will be loved so soon
Dear misery, subdue the opposing

Dear friend, collection of tears we've cried
Moments to be cherished
Laughs we've shared
Dear friend, if I only I tried

Dear lover, a conscious intuition
Friends that could not co-exist
Parents to be dissolved
Dear lover, it's superstition

Dear misery, the words are easier now
The path gets clearer
The run isn't so exhausting
Dear misery, I don't know how

Dear Tracy, someday I will be sorry
There's vacancy in this heart
The truth is no longer freeing
Dear Tracy, a cloudy sky is still starry

Pluto II

When we were young
we'd lie under the sky and stare at the stars,
the grass, the dew, the fading memories;
the dreams, forgotten aspirations, fleeting moments.

It was that moment under a cloudy canvas
we decided to build a spaceship.
This world wasn't enough for us,
so we promised each other a universe.

Then our story stalls,
A turn for your worst.
Before long, our trip had destination.
What was a journey became an escape.

Pluto - you hoped to find serenity,
peace from your own undoing.
Pluto may have been found,
but so have you.

I learned so long ago
you cannot run from what you are.
I was only going to tell you this
light years past Pluto.

Now that I've been left behind,
you have only the shadow
you sought to leave behind.
Alone on Pluto.

More Like Masturbation/Bar

I
Sing a song as we create the stars
under your comforting canvas of sky.
Drifting through cigarette oxygen,
influence that we're not above.
Revive and try to live within me
and love shall conquer, they said.

II
Amid the rotting and dead,
a foul aroma and silly process.
The mindful observer quietly sits
in the back of a noisy, cluttered room.
Taking notes and twisting the knife
right into the heart of conscious thought.