The Official ATS Poetry Thread

Shall we stay with what we know
Pushed on by the incomplete summer
scratching for the right words
I begin in blue, knowing what
is cool.

I cannot think of your name
New Mexico, Vermont
Boston. Am I losing my mind
I have been over that abyss before
I have always seen my life as drama.

I spend the days alone
walking from one end of the house
to the other.
The memories are silkscreened
on cheap Chinese cotton
There would be no one
to talk to even if I could
think of something to say.

I know, I know
you tell me as I
pack away my Fender.
The ritual begins again.
A Sunrise for you,
and a Mt. Dew for me.
You think I'm famous
I'll drive....

I open your door
What's next? You
say, take off your
jacket and stand
in the mist of my
whispers....

I remember excitable boy
Walking some lonely beach
while I play the Cuban room
In Miami Beach where
everything is fake and
smells like powder from a
lonely old woman.

So what name will we
give it?
This golden knowledge of
our sweet Tathagata or Maitreya.
This lesson was taught
long ago, systems are
awake but empty.
Brothers and Sisters,
this is not the song
of modern men, just
a strange moment in
passing.

a reply to: olaru12

there we go again
promises broken before
we make them
traces of the apocalypse
rot, wires and chains
men and women
of the Nation
pass but listen only
to the sleepwalkers
from desolation row
hanging postcards on
our wet faces, reading
words of silence and
pain.

Don't be ashamed,
I want to thank you
for the warning in this
gathering madness.

I'm two different people
God in the morning
with my medicinal waltz
and new metaphors.

And as punishment
reformation every minute
of the day.
there is no silence
there is danger in the air.

In my head..

Your still in my head
after all these years
The crying the fighting and holding off tears
You would think I would be stronger
And you would be wrong

Help me help me save myself
I don't know what I'm doing
I'm losing control now
Fish tailing and sliding
On this path we call life

The dreams I remember are dreams of you
The dreams I hate to dream include you too
The blackness and empty void of my head a preferred collusion to all we said

(Chorus)

Why did we have to meet? Fall in love?
Some one should have warned me you were death from above
Its funny how your still trapped in my head after all these years
No communication to speak of just my dreams of hope and fear

(Chorus)

(Break down)

Your still inside my head
Makes me sick and wish I was dead
A perfect life that I live
But your still here in spirit haunting me like my first sin
I want you out now I've had enough
I'm sick of this feeling and I can no longer stay tough

(Chorus)

(Outro)

Maybe you could stay the night locked in my head despite all this love and all this hate your part of me isn't that great
I'm sick of feeling this way again feeling dead inside without a friend maybe we should just stay the night in this haunted delusion I've brought to life.


Meh Crim

Someone once told me
that school books are
like bubbles in a madhouse.
The gateway to Moloch
and his demon industries,
factories cloaked in fog.
I'll stay here on Earth,
maybe El Paso where
the naked pretty girls
tell me of their outrageous
misfortunes.

I stare back into their
faces, seeking an answer
to the question that has
not been asked.

I'm waiting for the machine
in my eyes as I grow old
patiently waiting, I have
all the time in the world.

Soft machines
King analogue
Image Queen

listen, wrap your
inner voice in secret
protection of your old
green jacket and begin
your chant.

Albuquerque, Texas
Rocky flats, Pantex
Spell our destiny
in Amarillo.

The approaching anniversary of your death
Is like the black storm clouds from the west
And in this time my mood becomes still
And emotions buried and covered by will

This day always bleak though the sun shines strong
The birds have all left now and taken their songs
The flowers wilt beneath my touch
Shrinking from my distress, they sense as much

My skin tingles and crawls with anger and despair
There is no escape, no escape, do I even care?
When if ever will the wounds begin to heal?
My heart died with you and I miss you still

I go to the woods to hear you speak
It is purpose and guidance from you that I seek
Desperate to find some solace within this place
Perhaps catching a glimpse in the still water, of your face

I want to be lost forever within the peace that I find there
This time is ours alone, connected and I cannot share
But the chains that bind me are cinched tight
Keeping me grounded forever, unable to take flight

Dragging me back to this desolate reality
Where you are not and I must be

I’ll try to be strong, try to make you proud
But you’ve left me alone and the emptiness is loud
Oh how I wish you could’ve waited for me
I would’ve been along shortly couldn’t you see?

They call him
"Della Street"
I met him on a
lonely beach on
South Padre.
He wrote Coke
commercials, I'd
like to buy the
World a Coke
and teach the
world to sing
in perfect
Harmony.
His skin was green
latex, and they told
him to stay away
from the 7/11 they
didn't want his money!!
Those cats from Sri Lanka
aren't impressed by anything
except when shadows float across
the moon or maybe a pregnant lady
in stock footage shown on the back wall
of the beer and wine bar some where in
Corpus Christi.

What a wonderful thing
When a message flows with a poetic ring
No mere song or story thrown together
A revealing of Truth to stay forever
Such a thing as a poem created
Doesn't just happen
Randomly notated


It's clear to see
A well springs forth from you to me
Riding on words of rhyme and reason
This thing that we wrought
We decide with a thought
An overall message we have for ourselves
In the transcribing beauty is found
Riding the flow
The tide of directed creation
Guided along to a grand summation
Of beauty, truth, and magic, too
All possible, of course
By the all known as me and you

So what do you do
When a poem strikes?
To follow the call
Directly to your soul
Poured out like electric fire?
You write,
Or you sing,
Sometimes with a ring;
Of your hearts hidden bling
Treasures in droves
Worth untold
But nothing you can hold in your hands.


A poem is a simple thing
Or at least it seems to me;
That the only way that we can sing
Is with each other for company.
Voices lifted
In jouyeous cry
Invented on the fly
Or carefully measured
With tape and rhyme
To place yourself
Line after line
Takes a certain knack
That can be hard to refine
Like tracing the flight of a bee
Or naming the flight of the soul

Once out of nature
we wear the mask,
not to return, to the King
The King of Ice Creme.

This is the place, we dive
into the memories of Siagon
With the Hillbilly and Bob.
Shady night eyes and blind mouths
as the little actor cons another part.
With the Pope and his holies.

The Rio Grande still
flows
The rain smells good
I can now play a halfassed
jazz piano in see the bucket's a little bit
lighter.

Next up
Sailing a dingy
Surfing Sayulita

and one more
dance to
stumble from the sorrow
and one more kiss.

A bird takes flight from a branch above
And through tear stained eyes I see a dove
A mourning dove crying her woeful song
We weep together for the life now gone

Dark clouds swirling and turning, they swallow me whole
Producing an empty shell, extracting my soul
You were as much part of me as I was a part of you
All is lost now, where do I go and what shall I do?

There was no justice for you, no letting of blood
Explorations and battles that did no good
But, through all of the injuries being hurled down on you
You continued to fight and your heart remained true

It’s illogical, I know, for me to pine away
Desperately needing to feel something, anything today
Dismal gray skies and darkness all surround
Decaying leaves falling and spinning on the ground

No hope no light no future bright
No flowers or rainbows, no dancing in the night
It’s truly been somber since I’ve become able to see,
that without you there is no more me

Some imagine that time will heal most wounds
Since you’ve left I don’t believe those words are true
I think some must become numb to the pain
from the damage and anger felt every day

Just trudging along professing everything is fine
It’s my penance to bear, the agony I host is mine
Some believe we will see each other one day
Who knows the truth? Who is able to say?

Surely, I must have been human once, long ago
before the deriding universe dealt its fatal blow
and before the unwell core began to swell
Committing me to a permanent sentence in hell

It is left to the living to go on without you
I’m dead as well, so there’s nothing to do
The empty world without you every day
And to wander it alone is the price I will pay

No more nobility
Driven by forces pulling
invisible strings
America you boil
over.

We are at war
with the wind,
brush aside the jewels
walk into the street and
kiss the saints
we have lost our pride,
Time to pass among the strangers
My grandmother said
"Look at all those people,
why the hoods and torches,
to light the way"

I see you when I’m passing by
Out of the corner of my eye
I see you when I step outside
I see you when I try to hide
I see you more each and every day
I see you when I’m walking away
I see you when the night is cold
I see you as I’m growing old
Your image burns inside my head
More so now that you are dead
I caught a glimpse just this morning time
As the sun rises weakly to shine
Your reflection in the mirror true
The reflection in the mirror of you
Was me

Time to let it
all go, It's a Disney
world of mice and men.
Perhaps a scream will visit
polluted air, danger
Gods despair, he is weeping
The Gray skies of America
Are you grateful for the
darker joys?
In silence we tear ourselves
apart.

Night crystals shining in
your hands

The old images
give you a shiver
the merry go Round
is spinning faster
Listen to Coltrane
Giant steps
on the pyramid.

a reply to: olaru12

cont....


mama kneels
for my salvation
but my soul is
frozen

mama tells her
friends, I'm the
prodigal son
home for the holidays.
She leans over and
whispers. "I surrender"

But I'm down from
the open shell, Where
the keepers are washed

in dreams...

Loneliness













The End