Poetry Blog by Tom

Cutting to the heart of all this longing
is it the vicious tongue you wag at me
or the perpetual mystery hanging from your actions
the contradictions of your possible state of mind

I see the hurt, I feel the pain you carry
and sense the urge to be desired by men
the flirt of all you do rings loudly before you
and against my better judgement
I can’t help but come swimming back to your sho...

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Writing in circles again
I'm chasing your tail
self-referential 
to edge of pointlessness

The nihilistic streak in me
vibrates at the thought of you
It's like I take my pulse
while getting your name tattooed

You've got your phantom hook in me
just deep enough to tear
welcome back
o, welcome back...

The most concise statement I ever etched
the most desperately impassioned verse s...

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Parking the car
out by the cooling towers
breathe the quiet in
lit by the moon
not going anywhere

Thinking on
all those sad miles behind me...

Remember when we were nineteen
kissing in the back seat
tucked into the kerb
lit by our lust
not going anywhere

Thinking on
all those mad miles behind me...

When we were nineteen
everything was a fire
everything was flame
but everyt...

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I don't write them like I used to
now they're not carved out of my bones
like they used to be

I don't bleed all over the carpets 
in some mouldy rented bathroom
like I used to

They used to say it was the angst that drove me
some mild flair for painting what had pained me
but you have to make peace eventually
and I don't know what is driving this anymore

At the end of the line ...

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Senses softened in the dark afternoon
This year is charring in the fire grate
So I pour out into the haunted fields
Looking for loneliness, for lines, for clues
To get a handle on all that’s happened
To make predictions on where I am headed

All around my body, the world’s covered by a sheet
Life’s decorator is preparing to paint the new year
This land spills on for snowy miles
My past reels out somewhere b...

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They dwell in strange rooms
the murky recesses of affordability
barely buildings, bedrooms with sinks
chair pushed up against the door
flakes of lives flung everywhere
A curtain, a quilt - who can really say?

A bare bulb hangs in an open window
no shade inside from day or night
Still lives go on; the rudimentary,
ramshackle, clutching at homeliness
the need for shelter unites us all
A hotel, a shed - who ca...

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So then, stick by stick
tonight we tear off strip after strip
the newest feathers first
then the older twigs and vines
with each one
my heart drops
until there's nothing left
and nowhere lower
just empty branches
where our sweet home once was

Inch by inch
we pack and divide the moss
all the soft things we've collected
years of careful, loving selection
pecking them away, each and e...

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I lit a fire on the beach
Just as you were feeling beaten by the wind
We can't hear anything in this weather
But the waves and the crackling wood
You don't speak anyway
We have nothing we care to say

Our human silences amid nature's screams
Fill me with a loss so unforgettable
Our human silences amid nature's screams
Fill me with a void so inescapable

The sky goes dark and the sea slides...

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