A practice session

Hot night



Thick air
Sweat sheets
Breathless
Hug me
Hold me
Want me
Do me
Right now
Love me
Mean it
Me too
Quick breath
Panting
Need this
Right now
Hug me
Hold me
Want me
Do me
Right now
 
Not like you


If I wanted to be like you,
I would be like you.
I would do what you do.
I don’t do what you do.
That doesn’t make you wrong.
It does not make you right.
It does not make me wrong or right, either.
There are things that you do
that I have to do
in order to stay alive and sane.
But there are things that I do
that I have to do so that
I can be apart from you
different from you
more than you
so I can be free.
I do not expect you to understand.
I hope the concept confounds you
it doesn’t matter if it does or not.
That's none of my business
as the kids say
you do you not to fear
I have been doing me
for lo these many years.
I find that I am getting rather good at it.
Experienced, they might say.
Better at paying attention,
better at being aware,
better at noticing
the people I encounter,
and better at listening to them,
their thoughts,
their aspirations,
and what is important with them.

Mostly, I am vastly better
at realizing that
what they think of me
is absolutely
none
of
my
business.
 
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Do they? Or is that, do we? I'm not so sure. I'm done selling out.


Where Have All The Political Poets Gone​

By: A.D. Winans​

https://substack.com/@poeticoutlaws
Jun 17, 2025


https://poeticoutlaws.substack.com/p/where-have-all-the-political-poets/comments



the old political poets don't read much anymore
content to scan the pages of major
literary journals, looking for their
names in print, their books reviewed
the old poets borrow lines from
their contemporaries, but only
when suffering writers block
the old poets no longer have
mother Russia to comfort them
the old poets have no parties to join
no Red Guard to march with
no parade to goose step too
the old poets sprinkle wheat germ
on their cereal and drink only
bottled water
the old poets forsake salt with
meals and take pride in the
little known fact that an average
spill of semen contains less than
twenty-five calories
the old poets have no causes
left to die for
no motherland to call their own
the poets have turned in
their bombs and union cards
for chump change and social security
the old poets are tired
like Atlas they have learned the hard way
you can't carry the world on your shoulders
the old poets see life through
Dante's eyes
no longer able to distinguish
truth from lies
the old poets traded in
their party cards for government grants
and a shot at making GAP commercials
the old poets have sold out their dreams
realizing that suffering is overrated
the old poets have quit writing political poems
no longer carry Nietzsche inside
their head
the old poets ride the
poetry circuit pony express
grabbing for the gold ring
all too willing to sell themselves
for a lottery chance at fame
 
All my life I’ve had trouble with order, knowing it was a way to make sense out of things and yet sensing it was a way to squeeze the life out of things.

~ Charles Bowden

The above is truth about myself,
Truth I’d rather ignore.
Pretending that it isn’t so
But it is.
Sometimes, it matters, and
Generally it does not,
Except to me.

Years ago, there was shame
And rebelliousness.
 
Trees aren’t brown.



Little kids
And crayons
Draw Nature
on grainy hard paper
A brown line
And a green ball
They call it Tree
Because
We lied to them
They miss subtleties
We told them
To fill inside the lines
With Color
As if there is
only the one.

Go out,
Take your eyes,
See the rough bark
With soft small hands.
Draw what you felt.
And think what you smelled.

Our babies are sponges
And we lie to them
Constantly.
Schooling it rote
Teaches judgmentalism.
Alert living is Education,
Awarely observant.
Living
Where our feet are,
Breath at a time . . . .
 
Angry women


Three generations
Standing outside
Complaining bitterly
Unmet expectations
Promises made
That went unkept
Too many layers
Too many people
Seeming unaccountability
Reactions buried
From cursing to tears
And all points in between
My house is a mess
The landlord is cheap
Good luck getting the blame
Laid at the feet
Of those deserving
Recriminations
Threats of retaliation
More complaints
And more tears
To have seen it coming
Would’ve been truly
A miracle indeed
It was not possible
We have to remember
That life goes on
We will laugh about this stuff
When we are playing
Hall hockey
In the old folks home
However
For this evening
We are standing in a lake of shit.
 
We slay ourselves
For our past errors
We beat ourselves
To bloody pulp
No one can hurt us
like we can
And we do
Nor would we
Allow them to
To be kinder to the person
Whom we know the best
And often love the least
Seems to be an act
Which is beyond us
Yet less sentient beasts
Seem quite capable
We begged the diety
To forgive us
Knowing not what we asked
Nor knowing how
To forgive ourselves
We do not want it enough
Yet we need it most of all
 
You suffer from the delusion that every word
Springing from your pussy-soft fingertips
Has . . . to . . . be . . . perfect!!!
What is perfection, a well worn line springs to mind; never look at the mantle piece when you stoke the fire.
 
Entertained to Death



Some guy said,
A long time ago,
To be as a little child,
Yeah, I know who,
So don't tell me.
Motherfucker.
If you don’t know,
Then you need to look it up.
I hope to remain
Like that little child.
I go out most mornings
Interested in seeing
What the day looks like.
I try to look
For all the things
That might surprise me.
Like seeing a hot rod
Or some old car
Or piece of machinery
Sometimes even people
Although people can be
Difficult with their load
Of very selfish crap,
And their tiny egos,
But mostly their raging
Inconsideration of anyone
Or anything around them.
Driving out in early morning,
The clouds are fascinating
Decorations for the sky.
Light, shadows, dark spots,
All that poetic bullshit.
Do it sometime.
Go out and look, and
Have your own experience.
When I started doing that,
Life got more interesting,
And therefore more entertaining.
May it continue to entertain me
Until my last morning
Facing Southwest.
You’re in your groove here. This poem deserves love. Thanks for sharing the moment.
 



It's not original. I stole it from a guy that was some Alphabet Agency who was undercover with a MC in AZ, I think. Thing was, motorcycles terrified him. He'd psyche himself up by saying "Jesus hates a pussy" before going out to ride with the gang.
 
Told ya


I done told you
I done told you more than I want to think about
I’m sick of thinking about
How much I done told you
I know you’re not deaf
I know you’re not stupid
I know it’s annoying as fuck
About how much I done told you
And you fucking ask me again
The same fucking shit
Over
And over
And over again
Jesus fucking Christ
Are you not paying attention?
Are you lazy minded?
Do you just not give a fuck?
All I know is
Don’t get mad at me
For getting mad at you
Because you can’t remember
What we talked about
Not even an hour ago
Write it down
Pay attention
Do whatever you have to do
Because I done told you . . . .
 
https://caroline-writes.medium.com/...ing-routine-here-s-what-happened-b7aae5578f1d


I Tried Stephen King’s Writing Routine — Here’s What Happened​

https://caroline-writes.medium.com/...578f1d---------------------------------------
~ Caroline Mitchell



You’ve heard the legend. Stephen King.

80+ books. 200+ short stories. Thousands of nightmares. And the man still writes every. single. day. So, as a full-time author with a full-time life…I tried his routine for 14 days. Here’s what happened. And more importantly, here’s what you need to know.

A Book in Three Months

Some authors take years to write one book. Others, like King, can write a book in 3 months. He’s been titled a prolific author, and he’s not the only one. I’ve published 2 to 3 books a year for the last ten years. I’m curious to see our similarities. So how do people write so fast? Most writers are told it should take longer to write a book. That “real novels” take years. That “slow and steady” is the only way. But let’s be honest — how many writers are dragging it out… because they think they’re supposed to?

“If you don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale… you lose your hold on the story.”

Stephen King

Here’s the truth: writing fast doesn’t mean writing sloppy. It means staying connected. Focused. Obsessed — in the best way. Before 1954, nobody thought the four-minute mile was humanly possible. Then Roger Bannister did it. And once he did? It became the new normal. Hundreds of runners have broken that barrier since. So if you think a book has to take a year to write… Ask yourself: Is that true? Or can you write like Stephen King too? Let’s get started.



And so on . . . .
 
Words


You confound me yet again
You refuse to jump from my brain
Onto the page
In perfect order
Brilliantly expressing the
Perfect Take
On Man’s Great Dilemma
On what ails the world
Or Life’s Little Annoyances
Why things are difficult
Why work is necessary
Save that we eat routinely
Why Other People sometimes
Suck out loud
Annoying as fuck
In an otherwise
Perfect World
Oh wait . . . .
 
You



You left me
I left you no choice
Left
Leaving
Gone
Alone
There had been good
But it left
Not sure how
But it did
There had been kindness
It had left, too
And caring
And love
And closeness
And sharing
It all left
Then came apartness
And distance
And then came the cold
The arguments
The accusations
In time
They, too, all left
The need to be right
Was all that remained
There was nothing right
 
Rain . . . .


Taking my own advice,
I have no idea what to write today.
But I’m going to write
Because Jesus hates a pussy,
And I, Dear Reader, ain’t no pussy.

I don’t know about you
(and I probably don’t want to),
But the best days of all,
The ones with the bestest weather,
The pretty ones,
Are the days right after
The ginormous hurricane blows out of town.

The air is a special kind of fresh.
Usually, the humidity is low and there is a breeze blowing.
You know, zephyrs.
A bit of wafting without the stench.
In fact, no stench at all.
The air has been flushed.
Disinfected without chemicals.

There is destruction that comes with it.
It flushes Man’s mind.
Rids him of the delusion that we are in charge of anything.
Or it should.
Years ago a guest speaker at a thing, extolled the virtues of free writing everyday. They had a technique that worked for them. It didn’t work for me.

Feeling creatively flat, I decided to reread this poem. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a muse thing. It’s a thinking too hard kind of thing, looking at the tools in my tool box. Instead of using them. In rereading this poem I can see, flat moments can be vital.

Rain is a good example of how writing through flat moments generates raw material to craft a poem. I like the imaginative invitations, scent, sight, a deeper philosophical post hurricane purpose.
 
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Years ago a guest speaker at a thing, extolled the virtues of free writing everyday. They had a technique that worked for them. It didn’t work for me.

Feeling creatively flat, I decided to reread this poem. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a muse thing. It’s a thinking too hard kind of thing, looking at the tools in my tool box. Instead of using them. In rereading this poem I can see, flat moments can be vital.

Rain is a good example of how writing through flat moments generates raw material to craft a poem. I like the imaginative invitations, scent, sight, a deeper philosophical post hurricane purpose.



Nice to hear from you. Like always. It's funny you quoted this. I just reread it while scanning through some "works" looking for something to post, and here we are. My reaction was simply that I'm still not sure about this piece, but I really like the hurricane thing. It was the 19th of September of 2003. Everything was fucked, but the air was fabulous, and of course, there wasn't a cloud in sight.


And we delude ourselves about "being in charge" . . . .
 
Straight Eight



Old engine sitting there,
I call you anvil
For that’s the era of technology
That you left behind
Barely
As you evolved
Over-engineered in every way
Except the course that Evolution took
Cro-Magnon killing off Neanderthals
Overbuilt, which is why you’re still here
Depression-era relic
A survivor from
The dim and musty past.
From when my grandfather
Was a young man
You two, virile at the same time
And very relevant.
The world was yours.
Your makers powered machines
Of the last Great War
And he went to subdue the enemies
Of Civilization.
He’s gone, and you’re here.
Having sat idle for 50 years
Stashed in a barn
A part of a project
A dream of a younger man
Now grown too old to pursue it
Past Dream Stage.
The seller floated
A Trial Balloon
To gauge interest.
Will some have you, or are
You fated to be junked?
Hell, I have several of these things
Projects for when Life slows a bit.
I’ll come to get you.
Salvage? Maybe Rescue
Yeah, that’s more like it.
Preservation . . . .
You were to have been
A Street Machine power plant.
I won’t make you that promise
But I will keep you from the scrap metal man
If only to delay
Your conversion into
Half a dozen electric “cars.”
 
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