Wherever
Tag Archives: life
Floating
Her world is a private
dream
a myriad complex thing
juxtaposed within
pains that run deep
like a slice with
a wicked knife
into the fruit
of a well worn life
that drips it juices
onto the floor
where others tread
its sticky mess.
Yet she floats.
Always she floats,
above and apart
she floats.
Wrapped in a delightful
viscous vicious
violent delicate
sustaining way.
She floats.
And I, can simply only
wonder when, she will
ask me to join her.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
Down at the Crossroads
I’m down at the Crossroads, but the Devil is late…
He must be on another date.
Think I’ll sit a spell.
He’ll come along, oh he’ll come along
I’m too good a treat.
Just you wait
He’ll come along.
Time is a crawl,
the sun dropping like cold molasses
down a stuccoed wall.
I spy a crow staring at me
from across the road
he sits in shadowed tree.
He knows.
This crow has seen many a men such as I.
Whether from the East, out of well worn dreams
the West, where disillusion abounds,
the South, where love was lost a hundred times.
or the North where the hidden want to be found.
All I know
is that I’m boned tired.
As raw as a bone can be
One, any dog would love to gnaw.
So I sit, for there is still
somethin’ deep within
residing, abiding the day.
And all I need is for him
to set it free.
A thousand times a thousand
A million sunsets,
A million souls
bartered and bought
I’ll just be another on his roll.
My ears never hear an approach
As my back feels his grin
licking
I turn to him
as the sun drops away
into hell I suppose
to keep the fires burning
below.
Nary a foot separates
as he sits
legs folded delicately
as if he’s always been
He looks left
He looks right
He looks behind
Then ahead at me
and smiles
so confidently
like a fisherman
with his catch
flopping on the deck of his boat.
In that moment, I see,
he needs me.
No matter the grin
or the dark eyes.
He is afraid
This creature
is Lost.
He can do nothing
I could not.
So I jump up from that spot
Give him a grin of my own
and turn with a tip of my
hat to the crow.
Who only caws at me with
a laugh,
as I walk the road that
faces me.
by Philip Wardlow 2017
“All we Do” Song by OH Wonder
The Me you See
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
Quote of the Day – What we do
“What we do in life… echoes in eternity”
quote from the movie “The Gladiator”
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
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
Ain't no rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow - The real and the sensual sides to life in all its facets.. 