The me you see, is just a pale umbra of whom I’m supposed to be.
I’ve come to a wall and I can’t make the jump,
I try and I try and just bounce the hell off.
But what I really don’t know is that I’m just a toad in the road
and it’s just a small curb on a street.
It’s a cliff so sheer and high that it’s a trick to belie the eye.
I tell myself one more jump…kerplunk!
My little toad head hurts like hell from all the bashing
against the wall.
If I can just find that perfect crack to start me on my crawl to wind my way up.
But that would require luck…fuck!
Where the hell am I going to get any of that?
So I’m a toad.
Not a frog a princess can kiss
to relieve me of this predicament.
Sorry, no frog underneath this frog-like veneer miss.
But I will be the prince of toads one day.
Fuck the frog I say!
So I look for that crack in the wall,
no matter how small,
to eventually make my way
up and over.
To that other me
that I don’t yet see,
The Prince of Toads,
in all of his bumpy
brown glory.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Category Archives: Poetry Work
A collection of various poems I have written in relation to horror, fantasy or the supernatural
Seeing You
If I were a blind man
and had only a touch
to trace a picture of you
I would kiss you first
as I made a joke
My lips against yours
along with a feather stroke
of my hand against
a fully rounded cheek
I would be in that smile
as I breathed your
essence in.
A flock of goosebumps
springing up upon your skin.
as a fingertip slowly just ever so
traveled down a
shoulder and arm to
trembling hands
in anticipation of
wants to come.
Your body leaning in
your curves filling into
the niche of me.
A puzzle complete.
Heat transfers
Coalescing
Two minds mingling
You are a picture
complete, with other eyes
that have always
seen you.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Vintage Dreams
Time,
a funny grain
that gets stuck
like a piece of
grit between
clenched teeth.
And spitting never helps, so purse
your lips
tightly.
Dreams,
A fickle fable
held in high esteem
as you tell the story
of a wonderful what-if
while the stars loftly
laugh at you in the dark ink blot above.
Grip the grass you lay upon
as the earth tilts just ever so.
Love,
Oh love,
Where for art thou?
Romeo was a fool to seek
a party where all the players
knew their part while all the
while Juliet had cotton stuffed
in her ears like a silly Teddy bear,
seeing only your pretty little
mouth move without a
sound.
By Philip Wardlow 2017
The Rabbit Hole
A flop-eared fuck of a rabbit ran on by,
tripping over me in his haste.
Never caring a wit in his bumping.
As if the air I occupied was insubstantial
and not worthy of one of such good taste.
I hadn’t noticed the rabbit hole
But he just dove
on in.
Fuck that rabbit. I didn’t know
who he was.
Or why he wore a tweed vest
yet his little bunny ass was left to stick
out below.
I just saw a dark hole in the earth.
with nothing but a deeper darkness
within.
Fear clutched my throat
Words choked as I tried to yell
“What the hell?”, at him.
Gurgling.
Leaving me burgling for time
trying to figure out my
life.
All the whys and wherefore’s
and whozits.
While the background receded,
the foreground contracted.
Leaving me in the tight middleground
of discontent, what-if, and
disillusionment.
I hugged myself tight, but it wasn’t cold,
that was just my soul
falling to pieces
as I tried to hold my self together
while I flaked away.
Go Rabbit, go!
You have the right of it.
You know what time it is; always.
You know.
So go down that Rabbit hole
because you’re a fucking rabbit
and you know what to expect.
I wish I could go
but
I just fucking won’t fit.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Sally forth I say!
It’s a glorious morn for battle on the field of gold.
So be bold!
Attack the day lest you fall prey
to marauders at your gate.
Go forth and grind them to grizzle
pick your to teeth with their bones
while finding rapture in hearing their moans
Push! Push! Push !
through the tall grass.
Head low! Be wary but
Go! Go! Go!
For its been said, that fortunes
go to the ones who are bold.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Why I, am the boldest of the bold can’t you
see!
So where be my fortunes, where be my wench
to console my pains, and give me succor
this day?
Where indeed.
Think not too hard on your gains not gotten
lest you fall ill to them before you
meet them my friend.
Be not so arrogant! Be not so aggrieved!
For any man’s head can leave a
neck with but a peck of a well honed axe
unseen.
No man’s future is certain nor ordained
by the vicious gods who play
their crap game
in the dark corners of your fated life.
Wise words, so heed them
or only peril shall follow
all your days.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Twirling
The music in her was at first hard
to hear.
Until I stepped back and
just let her mind and body flee
from me,
Flying.
Her legs then found the floor
as her hips found the rhythm,
gyrating and winding,
the music flowed towards her before my eyes
injecting her,
setting up a syncopated resonance
within,
taking me away of what I thought
she was,
to the actual of her,
A wild whirling dervish,
a creature unbound in thought and nature,
Twirling.
A soul singing.
Fighting for a freedom
to just be.
Philip Wardlow 2017
The Dead Half of Her
I don’t need to connect with you on any level
that means anything.
Why should I?
Let’s keep it frivolous
Let’s keep it small.
But I’ll put on a smile for you
once in a while
to give
you give you a reason
to hang on.
To show you that you entertain me
just a bit.
But we both know that there is a dead half
to me, she said
And it will never come alive for you.
Sure were friends, she said.
Sure.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Do you ever (or Thoughts by Eeyore)
Do you ever
feel
just in the way,
like a curtain covering up
the sunny day.
Do you ever feel like this
place on earth was tolerating
the space you filled,
just waiting for you to finally go away.
Do you ever feel like time marches
at a molasses pace with
a half-eaten carrot dangling just
out of reach.
Do you ever feel like sounds
come into frame
but no picture forms
in the mind
because your synapses
are sick of all the bullshit that
came before so it doesn’t
care to entertain reality anymore.
Do you ever?
Because I sometimes do.
by Philip Wardlow 2016
Like a Crazy Ass Bullet
I was shot into this world like a crazy
ass bullet
Pinging and zinging off the solid metal
bulwarks
of life
Piercing and punching through
the flesh of the ones in solitude
who never knew me as I sped on,
cutting them in two, blood spilling,
entrails trailing on gleaming metal
warped by sinew and bone
for even a bullet can’t go unscathed
as it passes through you, you, and you.
Gravity is taking me, braking me
pulling me down….
The curve of the Earth is finally coming to meet
me on this hallowed muddy blue ball of a ground
where I’ll be littered in with all the rest
that never found the target of their
intent.
Piles and piles of metal collect
in a mountain too high to climb.
Shit, I wasn’t hoping for the bullseye
Just a piece, the very edge…
to clip it,
to show em all I could
fly fairly straight
even if fired from a gun
called Fate
by an unsteady hand.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
When there is…
When there is a connection
A lover is a lover
Like no other
I have seen it
I have felt it
I have been told
This
Can this connection
come and go, you
suppose?
I hope so.
For it often goes.
and goes
and goes
away.
Philip Wardlow 2017
Ain't no rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow - The real and the sensual sides to life in all its facets.. 