by alcoholicpoet.com

"All is lost. Hope is dead." 
- Ronnie James Dio

we slouch toward our inevitable end. 

lost in our persistent paradox. perfect thieves with nothing left to steal. 

always wanting what doesn't exist. 

running through empty rivers. daring the water to return and drown us. 

dreaming in soiled beds. refusing to wake up. 

the winter makes its way slowly across our skin. in shallow cuts and lingering bruises. 

the truth slips between our thighs. and easily penetrates.

there are no names in the places where we meet. only strangers that taste like ash. 

we don't need to ask permission. 

when there's nothing left to take. 


Filed under: November 2024 Poetry

created by alcoholicpoet.com

 small transitions evaporate from now to then. seldom surrenders in the acute angles between choke and breath. tender predators chew on their wounds. with murky tears and bloody grins.

the numbers lay their traps. surreptitiously counting the missing voices. a gasping inferno abruptly confounded by a gentle breeze.

we wear their eyes. as if to see. we taste their lips. as if to speak.

crippled narrators of a story trapped within impenetrable walls. limping authors dressed in dangerous smiles.

our faces always pressed tightly against that ubiquitous glass.

hopelessly convinced we can find a way inside. 


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

alcoholicpoet.com

this bit of poetry is all wandering molecules and angry atoms. 


touch falters. a soldier in a long series of silent wars.

words hold their breath. as time's floods prevail.

we are only paper and sand. bits and pieces of a puzzle we can never hope to solve.

the end would come easily. if only we would let it.

their names make us weak. their faces pull on our zippers.

we grow smaller as truth colors in those empty spaces.

fingers dance over quivering skin. a dare to look over the edge.

strays gnaw on their leashes.

choice is a tunnel. once we enter, the other side is the only exit.

gretel emerges from the forest.

the seldom tears that fall on plastic cheeks abruptly become authentic.

but by then, it's too late. 


Filed under: October 2024 Sad Poems

alcoholicpoet.com

sometimes it's prudent to let the reader decide what a poem  means. 


soft puzzles negotiate the edge. time is a stray dog. scratching at the backdoor of our minds.

wilted fangs. scarred flesh. the leash is shortest when in it's in someone else's hands.

spare the remainder. release the colors. the callous arithmetic of hungry flesh.

small words hold their breath. life gambles with their meanings.

intersections quietly approach us. all empty tuxedos. and songs we can barely remember.

we find our gods in the deepening cracks. stiffened by the prospect that the fissure is the sum.

tangled puppets. devoted to the lies that make them dance.


Filed under: October 2024 Poetry

created by alcoholicpoet.com

this sad poem is about the paradox that exists between thought and emotion. 


narrow voices chase the silence. the ambivalent economy of barren choices.

the world is a ghost. we are its skeleton.

wild animals tamed by their own expectations.

the colors rage. vengeful auditors of time's tepid calculations. 

numbers laugh like swollen monsters. selling their stories with a grin and roar.

her skin is weighted. her eyes are stones.

memory is a prison made of all windows and no doors.


Filed under: October 2024 Sad Poetry

alcoholicpoet.com

this poem is a about the frailty of humanity's power. 


the world gives us different names. empty identities that betray our faces.

the world purchases our voices. dirty pennies in the fists of strangers.

touch is an architect. building everything from nothing.

we are curious carpenters. dressed in crumbling walls.

spent quickly. by both the wolves and the lambs.

the truth is a disease for which only grief is the cure.

we are inadequate gods. in a dilapidated utopia.

stubborn engineers. chasing the remnants of tomorrow.


Filed under: October 2024 Sad Poetry