Submissions by Grae (Bryan Gray)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Poetry is my therapy.
road to los feliz
i can hear the roll-up door at the back of the truck
bouncing up and down
people are honking
i forgot to latch it shut again
i don't care
i hate this job
i'm wondering
if a .380 against my temple would kill me
or just hurt like hell
there's a homeless guy on the corner
beating a lamppost with a tent pole
and with an expression
somewhere between mental illness
and happiness
maybe it's both
could i be that happy?
i deal with my loneliness
by stalking a lady on the...
bouncing up and down
people are honking
i forgot to latch it shut again
i don't care
i hate this job
i'm wondering
if a .380 against my temple would kill me
or just hurt like hell
there's a homeless guy on the corner
beating a lamppost with a tent pole
and with an expression
somewhere between mental illness
and happiness
maybe it's both
could i be that happy?
i deal with my loneliness
by stalking a lady on the...
#depression
31 reads
4 Comments
forever ghost
unsung world bathed in accelerant
unsaid eyes there
unworlds
forever ghost
drabbed in hospital room glow
and starless sky
a tiny war inside
give a magnesium spark
in a dream
there was a bustling coffee house
oval grey promise
where you looked like everyone
you tasted like everything
unsaid eyes there
unworlds
forever ghost
drabbed in hospital room glow
and starless sky
a tiny war inside
give a magnesium spark
in a dream
there was a bustling coffee house
oval grey promise
where you looked like everyone
you tasted like everything
#love
#obsession
121 reads
2 Comments
it was made to be deleted
the image on my phone screen is her smiling
hardly real though
more a part of the internet
than a woman messaging me 'good morning'
she doesn't know it
but she doesnt want me
i'm a listless remainder
feeling an inability to connect
a longing like a dull pain in the pit of my belly
she doesn't know
that i never planned to meet anyone here
or that the one profile i'd hope to catch a ghost glimpse of
doesn't exist
i don't...
hardly real though
more a part of the internet
than a woman messaging me 'good morning'
she doesn't know it
but she doesnt want me
i'm a listless remainder
feeling an inability to connect
a longing like a dull pain in the pit of my belly
she doesn't know
that i never planned to meet anyone here
or that the one profile i'd hope to catch a ghost glimpse of
doesn't exist
i don't...
#love
#dating
185 reads
9 Comments
immortality
maybe in another life
we might have lived forever
some infinity gene
having mutated inside us
stunting the aging process
no degradation
forever young
i think of all the ambulances that have wailed
up and down the main street
with their ear piercing regularity
tolling someone's distress
someone's expiration maybe
a lifetime
just isn't enough
it is a strange thing now
to hear the sirens sounding from the avenue
knowing they are for you
we might have lived forever
some infinity gene
having mutated inside us
stunting the aging process
no degradation
forever young
i think of all the ambulances that have wailed
up and down the main street
with their ear piercing regularity
tolling someone's distress
someone's expiration maybe
a lifetime
just isn't enough
it is a strange thing now
to hear the sirens sounding from the avenue
knowing they are for you
#aging
253 reads
5 Comments
rubicon gone
i daydream about you
it's all that i do now
always some serendipitous scene
you're in distress
and i always come to your aid
we always fall in love
there was a moment when i knew you
when we looked at each other
that i might have said more
i might have smiled
but i did nothing
i could not cross that boundary
i couldn't tell you how i felt
and now you're gone
living your life somewhere in this city
and i live right here
...
it's all that i do now
always some serendipitous scene
you're in distress
and i always come to your aid
we always fall in love
there was a moment when i knew you
when we looked at each other
that i might have said more
i might have smiled
but i did nothing
i could not cross that boundary
i couldn't tell you how i felt
and now you're gone
living your life somewhere in this city
and i live right here
...
#sadness
#love
#regret
293 reads
8 Comments
false you
you had eyes like a homecoming
that i find myself
living in the wake of
i never got to know you really
so my brain filled in the gaps
untruth sutures
a fiction mixed with snippets of you
i know what your favorite color is
what your friends are like
how you take your coffee
but i know none of these things
and i know that i am wrong
to find comfort in you
my real world swaying listlessly
to a nocturn in crescendo
you don't exist
i find...
that i find myself
living in the wake of
i never got to know you really
so my brain filled in the gaps
untruth sutures
a fiction mixed with snippets of you
i know what your favorite color is
what your friends are like
how you take your coffee
but i know none of these things
and i know that i am wrong
to find comfort in you
my real world swaying listlessly
to a nocturn in crescendo
you don't exist
i find...
#dreams
262 reads
9 Comments
bender
she had a gaze
like a love letter to the dead
funeral throat vespers in a sodium blur
wishing she could walk down the stairs,
for an iota of control
like the wayward calf subdued by hyenas,
you are still very much alive
when the liquor
tears your life apart
like a love letter to the dead
funeral throat vespers in a sodium blur
wishing she could walk down the stairs,
for an iota of control
like the wayward calf subdued by hyenas,
you are still very much alive
when the liquor
tears your life apart
#alcohol
#addiction
331 reads
7 Comments
south grand
it's fitting
that i should want to die right now
feeling entombed
within the concrete of this place
sublevel byway
a living grave
machine roar resounding
off the dull grey everything
cigarettes in the work truck
a couple drags would be nice
the keys nestled in the cup holder
right there with them
locked in
irritatingly,
annoyingly,
dumb-as-fuckingly
that i should want to die right now
feeling entombed
within the concrete of this place
sublevel byway
a living grave
machine roar resounding
off the dull grey everything
cigarettes in the work truck
a couple drags would be nice
the keys nestled in the cup holder
right there with them
locked in
irritatingly,
annoyingly,
dumb-as-fuckingly
#LifeStruggles
#funny
213 reads
2 Comments
hillhurst
ad speckled telephone pole like découpage
and a note posted there
and all i can see are dead satellites anymore
i see the world in a white chalk outline
your alcove up the way
i can think of amputations
of 4th degree burns
suicides from skyscrapers
angels in razor wire
and eyes of volcanic glass ...
and a note posted there
and all i can see are dead satellites anymore
i see the world in a white chalk outline
your alcove up the way
i can think of amputations
of 4th degree burns
suicides from skyscrapers
angels in razor wire
and eyes of volcanic glass ...
#sadness
266 reads
2 Comments
angel of rancor
a murder crawl
inching along the light festooned edifices
like tombstones wrapped in string lights
they say angels live here
but i'm not so sure they know what angels are
i could use a cigarette break
maybe the sweet release of death
either will do honestly
an inch of road per soul reduction
that's how this works
erosion at a glacial crawl
saties 'lent et douloureux' on a loop inside me
the angels must be rancorous things
inching along the light festooned edifices
like tombstones wrapped in string lights
they say angels live here
but i'm not so sure they know what angels are
i could use a cigarette break
maybe the sweet release of death
either will do honestly
an inch of road per soul reduction
that's how this works
erosion at a glacial crawl
saties 'lent et douloureux' on a loop inside me
the angels must be rancorous things
#city
218 reads
2 Comments
carbide
a blur of teeth and gullet
carves the fissure
taste of tissue, skin
and blood
yet it does not hate
doesn't hunger
and thick droplets
speckling a thin wake of pollock
trailing from the beast
though it does not thirst
no rancor
it was the scream of conifer
my poor judgement
and a lack of the proper tool
carves the fissure
taste of tissue, skin
and blood
yet it does not hate
doesn't hunger
and thick droplets
speckling a thin wake of pollock
trailing from the beast
though it does not thirst
no rancor
it was the scream of conifer
my poor judgement
and a lack of the proper tool
#learning
#art
310 reads
8 Comments
untitled 8/12/22
collapsed moon
like lung convulsing
a stitched maw transition
swimming shallow brine eye
fucked hard exodus head
gaping raw
and red
turnstile dream egress
floral vein drained
wordly gone everythings
gore dancer lulls a pulse
all sleeper skin angel bone dead
lay still
gaping raw
and red
like lung convulsing
a stitched maw transition
swimming shallow brine eye
fucked hard exodus head
gaping raw
and red
turnstile dream egress
floral vein drained
wordly gone everythings
gore dancer lulls a pulse
all sleeper skin angel bone dead
lay still
gaping raw
and red
#death
205 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Grae (Bryan Gray)