Tag Archives: poetry

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

THREE Poems from my younger years – by Philip Wardlow

Leave a comment

Marathon

AT THE MARATHON (GAS STATION)

 AT  THE MARATHON .

CHEWING BUBBLE GUM

MY FORTUNE SAYS I’LL BE ENVIED

BY EVERYONE.

AT THE MARATHON

CHEWING BUBBLEGUM

SITTING AT THE MARATHON

WAITING FOR A FRIEND TO COME

AT THE MARATHON.

WHO’D ENVY ME?

THE ONE WHO OWNS A BROKEN CAR.

AT THE MARATHON

WHO’D ENVY ME

THE ONE WITH A BROKEN HEART

AT THE MARATHON

THE NIGHT IS GETTING COLDER

AS THE CARS DRIVE BY.

AS I CHEW MY BUBBLEGUM.

WHO’D ENVY ME?

AT THE MARATHON.

By Philip Wardlow 1989

(PS.  And yes I sadly had just broken up with long term girlfriend at the time n my teenage years)

************************************************************************

chained-feet

A Brother Far Away

Stomp Clomp Stomp Clomp

Marched the Family of elephants

As they trod the dusty distance

To the watering hole.

A brother far away

Hears the tink chink tink chink of steel  against steel

to announce the arrival of the Big Top to town

A tenderly nudge of a mother’s

Trunk gently directs her curious baby back on

Course.

Brother feels the pokes and prods of the steel

Tipped hook as it lashes out at him when he makes a

Misstep.

The chuckling of the hyenas and the

roaring of the lions nearby incite

The lead elephant to bellow a warning

to keep away.

Brother hears the hoots and hollers of the crowd

Behind the dark circus tent as the lion’s cage  lumbers by

with the great beast still asleep inside.

A west wind blows pushing through the plains , flowing over

The feather dusted clouds encasing the moon which hangs like a

Fluorescent white pearl over the watering hole.

Brother dips his trunk into the bucket and

Comes up with the last drink to be offered that night as he

Strains at the shackles to get a glimpse at the moon.

By Philip Wardlow 1995

something

Nothing & Something?

Nothing

That’s what I feel like sometimes

Nothing

Nothing, nowhere, no how.

When I see sunsets casting purple hues and

pinkish wisps set in a bowl of vibrant golden orange,

It always reminds me that I’m nothing

And something

A nighttime sky, filled to bursting with a voluminous moon

And a menagerie of stars and planets spinning and coalescing in a

Constant rhythm we can’t begin to see. That’s when I feel like

Nothing

And something

A single stolen kiss in the dark with a girl who didn’t know I existed until

today,  soft yet firm, gentle yet wanting. Nothing exists, not even

me.

And yet something…

Clues and misdirection, blind alleys and thorough fares, leads me by a

Leash to nowhere

Yet somewhere will be the end when the journey’s through

I am humbled at times but at others

I am petulant.

I am tired of feeling like nothing

Something sounds good

By Philip Wardlow 1996

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Haiku Collection I – by Philip Wardlow

1 Comment

Haiku Collection 1

Love-Eyes-Crying

Drive By

 Her car sped by mine

My pleasant day fell apart

Tears in her eyes hurt.

marilyne-monroe

Little Blonde Girl

 Little blonde girl laughs.

Jumps, smiles, eyes wide with wonder

Innocence still found.

Dark-Red-Sunset

Dark Sun

Dark sun goes down fast

Warmth never there, fades away

Into the night glow.

DoorSlam

You never know

 Holes punched in the wall,

Door slams, tires screech away.

You never know pain.

spin-the-bottle3

The Bottle Spins

I place the bottle.

It spins as her eyes grow wide.

Fortune favors me.

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Pulled – A poem

Leave a comment

Pulledlittlegirl

A little girl stands with arms open wide.

How must it feel to be the rope in a

game of tug-o-war?

Win or lose, it’s all the same,

the pain of strained muscles

and sinew running down to the core;

almost ripping.

Braided rope is much stronger than a little’s

girl mind or her soul that must hold to a

reality that slowly unwinds.

Her psyche is soft and pliable and will

if pulled, stretched, and thinned out

to nary a whisper of herself,  will

harden in the cold stale air and become

brittle and slowly break away in pieces for

all her days to come.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Bloody Party – A Poem

Leave a comment

Bloody PartyVampireBite1

Your metallic sweet taste

drips from my mouth,

down your neck,

between your breasts,

and over your hips

to pool around

naked feet.

 

My bite, an aphrodisiac,

as you moan in my embrace

while my teeth sink deep

into veins drawing

life into my own.

 

Your river of red flows, it travels

pulsates, it beats, a rhythm

keeping time to a force where

I now control its course.

 

Slower, fainter, weaker.

 

You gasp in ecstasy at your

perfect  death.

 

I lay you aside,

and move on to the next,

after all this is my party

and I must attend to all

my guests.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

This poem was originally published in the online magazine called The Carnage Conservatory in 2012.

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Just in Form – A Poem

2 Comments

Just in FormLines

My eyes linger a little too long,

as they dilate to drink her in.

Would I cut them out,

I would still remember her perfectly,

every line, every curve, every niche,

the photons press against her flesh

to bounce off to land upon my own.

But I am not her demon,

I am not her love,

I am nothing.

I will be forgotten

once my tribute passes from me

to her.

Why do I care then if my presence makes

an impression?

Why do I care that I see a false front behind

a hope that is slowly slipping away.

Perhaps I care too much

about everyone.

Even her,

who didn’t ask me to,

to see her sad eyes,

where a smile truly never

crept in.

The sensitive child of desolation

lends me my third eye

into her soul.

I need to learn to ignore it

for it never does anyone

any good.

More damages to be had

If my heart should linger

So I will only think of her in form,

as lines, and curves in space, to admire

and to put the order of

the world in its rightful place.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Fool – A Poem and aren’t we all at one time or another.

2 Comments

 

TheFool

The Fool

I left my only picture
of you back on the moon.

I guess I’m screwed at ever
thinking I’ll be getting back
there anytime soon.

I could ask you for another,
but your narcoleptic and
you always fall asleep at
the exact moment my
lips form the question,

as if you’re a priest who
doesn’t wish to hear my
confession.

So sorry Mr. Man in Black
with that trace of white at
the neck that always looks just
a little too tight.

My truths are real.
My passions are true,
And my love, ah… well my love
turned me into fortune’s fool
for you.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

My Nature – A poem (but not really my nature…really)

Leave a comment

black-hole

My Nature

Like a cosmic sandwich in my hand

I folded space and time

and slipped through to you,

To when you were younger,

innocent, happier, and  ignorant

of your fate cascading towards

you like a deadly comet careening through

a vacuum straight for your heart.

I knew the path you would take around the sun,

a planet on a collision course

that never had a chance to live but

you were so beautiful as you hung there

in the sky…a celestial angel.

Barely out of its primordial soup

from a single celled organism you

were flung to extinction as my

foot first felt the earth.

I am a black hole you see,

for I let nothing escape

when it reaches my event

horizon.

I consume, I devour…

as I did you under that

ancient fall night sky…an eon ago,

with the bright eyes of  a thousand

stars as my witness to

your cataclysmic destructive end.

It is my nature, my make-up and you were

the unlucky one to have

crossed my path.

By Philip Wardlow 2012

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Mr. Pancake – A Poem an Ode to People who annoy the hello out of you

7 Comments

mrpancake

Mr. Pancake

You are a walking pancake in my way!

A brainless angry flapjack in my otherwise

glorious day.

My eyes roll up,

as you talk your stupid pancake talk.

Stop!

…Talking!

Mr.Pancake…Just stop!

I know you think you have something

important to say.

But I don’t live inside your thin

bulbous blueberry head.

Sooooo…

Go…

Away…

and I will put my fork down.

by Philip Wardlow

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – A Poem (inspired by a novel of the same name)

Leave a comment

Sleeping Beauty

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I am but a dark silhouette back-lit

by your imaginings of what I must be.

My frame of reference is not yours,

nor is your own mine to see.

I cannot hope to know the true depth

of the strangeness that lurks behind those eyes;

the sadness, the desperation, and the longing

cannot be accurately defined as simply measured

by a ruler or thrown upon a scale like a piece

of meat.

Think me misguided, corrupt, or lost?

Think me a friend, lover, or a hero?

You would be wrong on all accounts.

I am simply a solitary soul cast adrift,

striving to find a good home to lift

me up from this cold stone floor and prop

me up next to a nice warm fire and hold

me tight.

by Philip Wardlow 2013

Inquiring Minds, Poetry Work

Stuck in the In-Between – A Poem

4 Comments

inbetween

Stuck in the In-Between

 

 You are trapped in the

world of what-not, what-ifs,

and wannabes.

 

Top at the time may be the bottom

tomorrow, a smile a slap in the face.

 

Your core is courageous, wrapped in a

layer of boundless denial not looked

at too closely.

 

The hot sun beats down as the rain

falls in a deluge to sink deep and cold

into your bones.

 

Reason cannot be reasoned with on a

night when the day won’t go away.

 

A borderlander without a home, a foot in

the door to life, dusk and dawn

juxtaposed.

 

But still you fight, you push and rail

against the unseen that seeks to hold

you in this dark realm of broken dreams.

 

Soon…Soon… you say they will see,

as you continue to climb, run, and claw

your way out of the in-between.

 

By Philip Wardlow 2013