05-06-2014, 12:33 AM
(I expanded this poem, and then allowed it to fester for a week. I made some changes, settled on a closing stanza, and now I here present this meagre filth to be scrutinized. The biggest flaw I see is the lack of constant meter, this is free verse.)
On Break
It's been a mere twenty minutes on this slow and painful day
while the clock unwinds torture, ticks that fail to fade away;
Merely twenty minutes more are allotted to me.
Surrounded by food, but not in the mood—
my pocket's starving too, you see.
Until I learn a skilled trade,
Exchanging blood for gasoline.
I look up and through,
through the shelves
through thoughts so blue
that they drag me to the present
through and through.
Some cheap candy, (cheap happiness),
it's temporal, just like everything else.
Odds and ends and that and this
it's pointless, so I just look through those shelves.
I see the items, but they don't click,
my thoughts so far removed from it:
where is my next meal coming from
what if I don't have enough gas to get home
am I too weak for the blood bank this week
Speaking of banks, I ought to check...
No, what's the point, I know how little I have.
At home, the computer screen glares;
it flickers at my command and there
on the dimmed screen I write my prayer:
hope for the future, where I most want to be
though diminished and torn, still reality.
Yet, these goals can't be abided in.
It's too important to focus on the present
even without my basic needs present.
The bottle eludes me, and so, I take my meds
and think of the reasons I don't want to be dead
and think of the reasons I should live instead.
My luxury car has a “woof” license plate,
family, friends, and dogs roam on my estate
food and shelter aren't worries, life is great
then I wake up and the dream dissipates.
I make the buzzing alarm shut the fuck up.
Bitter coffee in the light of hopeless sunrise
as I think of the new manager who I deeply despise.
The lady yells at us for every last mess up.
Settling in a sputtering truck, gears shuddering to drive,
as I think of the new manager who I deeply despise.
Spite grasps the steering wheel, and my feet turn to lead;
in my shaking rearview mirror, I see a blue and red.
A crumpled piece of hundred dollar paper in the glove box
next to a concealed switchblade in the cigarette box.
My first concern should've been the leaky fuse box.
Guardrails are so much flimsier than they first appear.
We take headlights for granted, until they disappear.
The road would have been sunlit, save for twenty minutes mere,
and if only the road hadn't held such deer.
Dear life! It flashed before me, the only thing I knew
Blood dribbled from my broken nose
and I thought my days were through.
I looked down at my broken hand
and observed the grisly view:
The deer refused to die
it quivered and it writhed
leaving only I
alone to take its life.
I kicked down the battered door
which fell right off its hinges.
As the glass shattered more
I watched the deer in its cringes.
I took out my rusty knife
and looked down at the blade;
with a quick stabbing slice,
I took my life away.
On Break
It's been a mere twenty minutes on this slow and painful day
while the clock unwinds torture, ticks that fail to fade away;
Merely twenty minutes more are allotted to me.
Surrounded by food, but not in the mood—
my pocket's starving too, you see.
Until I learn a skilled trade,
Exchanging blood for gasoline.
I look up and through,
through the shelves
through thoughts so blue
that they drag me to the present
through and through.
Some cheap candy, (cheap happiness),
it's temporal, just like everything else.
Odds and ends and that and this
it's pointless, so I just look through those shelves.
I see the items, but they don't click,
my thoughts so far removed from it:
where is my next meal coming from
what if I don't have enough gas to get home
am I too weak for the blood bank this week
Speaking of banks, I ought to check...
No, what's the point, I know how little I have.
At home, the computer screen glares;
it flickers at my command and there
on the dimmed screen I write my prayer:
hope for the future, where I most want to be
though diminished and torn, still reality.
Yet, these goals can't be abided in.
It's too important to focus on the present
even without my basic needs present.
The bottle eludes me, and so, I take my meds
and think of the reasons I don't want to be dead
and think of the reasons I should live instead.
My luxury car has a “woof” license plate,
family, friends, and dogs roam on my estate
food and shelter aren't worries, life is great
then I wake up and the dream dissipates.
I make the buzzing alarm shut the fuck up.
Bitter coffee in the light of hopeless sunrise
as I think of the new manager who I deeply despise.
The lady yells at us for every last mess up.
Settling in a sputtering truck, gears shuddering to drive,
as I think of the new manager who I deeply despise.
Spite grasps the steering wheel, and my feet turn to lead;
in my shaking rearview mirror, I see a blue and red.
A crumpled piece of hundred dollar paper in the glove box
next to a concealed switchblade in the cigarette box.
My first concern should've been the leaky fuse box.
Guardrails are so much flimsier than they first appear.
We take headlights for granted, until they disappear.
The road would have been sunlit, save for twenty minutes mere,
and if only the road hadn't held such deer.
Dear life! It flashed before me, the only thing I knew
Blood dribbled from my broken nose
and I thought my days were through.
I looked down at my broken hand
and observed the grisly view:
The deer refused to die
it quivered and it writhed
leaving only I
alone to take its life.
I kicked down the battered door
which fell right off its hinges.
As the glass shattered more
I watched the deer in its cringes.
I took out my rusty knife
and looked down at the blade;
with a quick stabbing slice,
I took my life away.
*Warning: blatant tomfoolery above this line