Never read Bukowski before bed. You'll dream of shitty apartments, empty, rattling wine bottles, and scabby hookers. Then, mid dream, you'll realize you're sweating buckets between your ass cheeks.
Between the Beats | Poetry that Sucks
I don't care if the verses
don't beat, equal in length,
rhyme or have a pattern.
What I care about is that
there's truth in them, that
you can spy my soul hidden
between
the
lines.
A Prayer for the Heart | Poems that Suck
I asked Jesus
to take the pain away
but he said
he could only
heal
corruption.
Love, no matter
how much it hurts
isn't corruption.
So,
I guess I gotta
wait this shit out.
October Maple | Poems that Suck
I never noticed before, but there's a maple tree just outside my window. I can see it as I soak in water that's so hot my skin should melt. Its blood red leaves are nearly gone, limbs bending in the breeze and I wonder what what it must feel like to be stripped bare and have the wind rip through me. I imagine it would slip through the spaces between my ribs, maybe curl its way around my age widened hips, creep in where my eyes would have been, or that space between my teeth that's always sensitive.
A Confessional. | Poems that Suck
Remember that time, about 15 years ago, when we were driving down some Texan backroad? It started with you wriggling against the seat but soon turned into a desperate scratching. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I shouted, "Fucking itching won't go away!" It took some moments, but then I remembered. Two days before, when we were in the shower, I shaved your ass-cheeks while you washed your face. 15 years later, and I'm still laughing.
Devour(ed) | Poems that Suck
I wanted to paint
a picture of your
eyes,
see.
One that captured
all the deep blue
and the light blue
fibers of your
iris.
I wanted to
paint your pupil
huge,
you know,
like a quarter,
or a moon,
or a god-damn Buick.
Swollen, like when
you would whisper
you loved me and I
thought I could tell
you weren't lying.
Engorged, so large
I could see myself
in them and I was a
different
person,
content with the mundane.
Those pupils would
swallow me,
devour me
whole;
flesh,
bones.
Everything.
And then you blinked.
Home | Poems that Suck
He smelled like home to a girl
who never felt that way about anywhere.
The deep green of the forest;
sunlit leaves,
crushed pine needles,
and damp, rotting logs.
The warm, fresh earth after it rains;
buried seeds,
their tender shoots,
and mossy crevices between stones.
And the slight spice of musk;
a loamy buck,
the creeping fox
and the parched air of owl's wings.
Sizzle | Poems that Suck
You were a dazzling neon light in a seedy dive bar and, like a moth, I was compelled by your fire. But just like every bewildered moth, I was consumed by the searing blaze in what was a sizzle of bad decisions.
Sunday A.M. | Poems that Suck
Woke up to find that
my cheek
fits perfectly in
the gentle curve
of your neck
where you smell
of Mambo
and
hot stones.
Frustration | Poems that Suck
I'm sitting here reading other poets' lines about heartbreak. I'm appalled, exasperated, frustrated. What is this need to make everything whimsical? 'Heart break is like a wilting flower, delicate in its pain.' No it's fucking not. Heartbreak is like a fucking shotgun blast to your abdomen that sprays your guts on the floor, leaving you to bleed out for days, weeks, months, years.
Poems that Suck 