Hollow

"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, image source

 A hollow man

With hollow eyes

No one hears

His hollow cries

Though it still beats

His heart is dead

His hollow veins

Have all been bled

His hollow chest

 Just cannot hold

The warmth for love

He’s vacant, cold

His hollow mind

Tries to erase

That he has nothing

To embrace

His hollow fists

Clutch empty air

But he can’t really

Seem to care

His hollow head

Holds just one thought

His hollow life

Has come to naught

And as he takes

A hollow breath

Alone he dies

A hollow death.

submitted for Poetry Pantry, 140, at Poets United

Form and Function

It Must Be Time For Lunch Now, 1979, by Francesca Woodman

Forks, spoons, knives

These are just tools,

Forms to accomplish some

Function,

Such as the delivery of food to

The body.

Chopsticks, fingers

Would also suit

The purpose.

The beauty 
of the form lies 
in its ability to perform

The task.

Does the fork’s metal catch the light

To bake the perfect print?

Do the chopsticks hold the hair

In a delicious bun atop the head?

Is the finger the correct length and diameter

For a dependable and silent purge?

Is the knife sharp enough to slice away the pain

Without killing the host?

submitted for The Mag, Mag 137 

and Poetry Jam, Love and Hate

Sometimes You Drive

Never Easy by untaintedsoul

Sometimes you drive the road
Sometimes the road drives you
When you don't know the difference
Every place is the bad part of town

Sometimes the road drives you
Makes you do things you don't want to
Every place is the bad part of town
And all the strangers know your name

You do things you don't want to
When you give up the wheel
All the strangers know your name
But you don't remember why you came

When you give up the wheel
And you're just along for the ride
You don't remember why you came
Don't care if you make it home again

You're just along for the ride
You gotta keep up the drive
Don't care if you make it home again
You let the road decide

You gotta keep up the drive
Though you can't say if you'll arrive
You let the road decide
Between dead and alive

Though you can't say if you'll arrive
When you don't know the difference
Between dead and alive
Sometimes you drive the road.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Kerry's Wednesday Challenge, On the Road
and Poetic Bloomings, In Form Poet, Pantoum

Just Drive

How can you be so close
yet seem so far away?
When did you stop listening to
the things I try to say?
You say that you still love me and
I want to think it's true
But do you know me any more
and do I know you?

The longer silence lingers
harder to utter the words
But why say anything
when you're not heard?
And so another night
with words unspoken, thoughts unsaid
Starting to get numb now
to the hurt

How is it two people
who'd complete each other's thoughts
Now can't look each other in the eyes?
And why is it that even though
you say that I was right
I end up being the one who
always cries?

Where did we veer off the road?
Why didn't we see the curve?
Stupid thinking that we had arrived
Now we're stumbing
in the dark
Trying to find our way
Are we just too broken now
to drive?

for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday

Ribbons

                                                    RIBBONS

                                    too         many

                           ribbons            and no

                               damn           cures

                               friends        die

                                     and     we

                                         wear

                                            R

                                          I   I

                                        B      B

                                       B        B

                                      O         O

                                     N           N

                                     S            S

Tell Me

image source

He's a little bit sheepish

but he always says thanks

I don't know what I'd do without you all

It's hell getting old

and I hate being stuck here

but I don't get around much since my fall

She says sorry for the house

I hate that it's a mess

but it's getting hard for me to keep it clean

Before my husband died

we used to take such pride

and had parties here like you have never seen

Did I tell you?

Did I tell you?

Go ahead, tell me again

I've got a couple minutes I can spare

I remember

I remember

when I used to be someone

but the someone that I used to be's not there

She opens up her door

but it takes her quite a while

She doesn't hear the bell ring anymore

The robe she wears is stained

her hair could use a wash

and I notice that some pills spilled on the floor

She says she isn't hungry

she's just a little tired

she wonders why she's always so damn cold

She promises she'll eat

if I'll turn up her heat

She tells me that it's hell when you get old

Did I tell you?

Did I tell you?

Go ahead, tell me again

I've got a couple minutes 'fore I roam

I remember

I remember

when I used to be someone

Now I'm ready

for the Lord to call me home.

for Open Link Night, Week 11, at dVerse Poets Pub

The Bright Side

Sometimes, my love, there is no silver lining

When one door closes

they all slam shut

You are a Mormon on a street of

atheists

Sometimes, my love, gray skies are gray

for such a long time you forget

what light is; it burns your eyes

And if you keep looking up

you get a stiff neck and

bird shit in your face

submitted for Poetry Jam, Always Looking Up

Tree

image source

I once tried to climb my family tree

I didn't get very far

The bottom branches were sturdy enough

(although I'm not sure that I'd entrust a treehouse to them)

Then I looked outward

and upward

I noticed a

lack

To the left 

branches were scrawny, frail

mere twigs really

To the right

brittle, leafless, budless

pale with melancholy

As I climbed higher, they

thinned even more

Sun rushed in through scant leaves

no hiding place here

Above me

gaps

I could climb no further so I climbed

down

Later

as I sat by the fireplace watching

the logs burn

I thought about trees and

gaps

lacks

my family

and the trains that

took them away.

written for Theme Thursday, Tree