“All we Do” Song by OH Wonder
Tag Archives: struggle
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”
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
My appetite
She comes home
and does what she wants.
Does what? We don’t know.
She wont say.
But it’s not much,
because she’s cut off and closed away.
Far and in-between the what-if
of her.
She is a melancholy angry mess
I can’t put my thumb on her
and she’d break it if I tried.
But I do, because I can, and she lets me pry;
however reluctantly,
because that’s all I have ever done.
I speak the truth, because lies are boring vicious things.
Even though the truth is often painful
as a motherfucker,
it’s freeing,
casual and a sweetness
rolled into a ball and
swallowed down
that speaks to my
appetite.
Which always
hungers.
By Philip Wardlow 2016
First Day to Last
The hand moves on the clock
as the little girl skips down the block.
Sun up to sun down.
She laughs. and laughs, and laughs,
and sings in her heart.
Until one day the ground comes to meet
her head on.
Now, her trust in gravity is suddenly gone.
Yet, she still skips, but ever so hesitantly.
Just ever so, knowing the cost in her
lack of caution.
Her heart still sings
as she joins in a game
of Double Dutch.
The rope flies as her feet take flight.
But the other girls in their turning
are not nice,
as they
slow the speed of the spin
throwing off the girls rhythm
So once again, gravity brings
blood on a sidewalk and
scraped raw knees,
and a small wall.
On and on her days come and go,
the clock continually ticking
with the gravity of the Universe
never relenting.
Always there; spinning,
as this little girl still
continues to skip
and jump rope.
With that same song
deep within her heart
humming ever so slowly,
just ever so.
by Philip Wardlow 2016
Tenacity
Mirage in You
What shall I say of the mirage in you.
Bright eyes, delicate soul,
with tenacious heart
beating,
Blood running, spilling.
(or was it alligator tears)
It wasn’t until I slipped, did I finally
read the sign, “Be careful, wet floor.”
You think too much of yourself
and not nearly enough
All IN or ALL OUT.
Absolutes seem to be your trademark.
You are perfection.
You are lovely.
You are alone.
And you like it like that. ( no you don’t)
Mirages are only real to the person
observing, not the mirage itself.
It knows its not real.
Then you
suddenly
disappeared.
by Philip Wardlow 2016
They hide it well – A Poem
People,
they hide it well,
their fears and sorrows
as they lie there in the dark
thinking constantly of them
like a rain of dying leaves,
yet the tree never goes dormant,
leaves always falling
endlessly.
The shower cries a little more with
them in it…
The tissues strewn across the floor
like bombs gone off in a mind field.
The tension in the eyes, tight
like a highwire act…
Balancing, every balancing.
Survival.
It’s in them..
for the alternative cannot
be looked at.
Life.
It’s a wonderful state of mind
when you truly let it in.
That allowance for the little things
That smile,
That laugh,
A tender moment.
They only come once.
Don’t hide that as
well.
by Philip Wardlow 2015
Ain't no rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow - The real and the sensual sides to life in all its facets.. 