a dark poem about the foibles of humanity.


arrogant monkeys discard their collars.
convinced their leashes are also gone.

they worship their temporary gods.
unaware of their participation in time's lengthy comedy.

the world tilts against the weight of averages.
the brilliance of the few collectively stolen.

they gather at the well. all desirous of the water.
they drink their fill. never working to replenish what they've taken.

the monkeys give themselves names.
to demonstrate that they matter.

the monkeys gather their stones.
to throw at each other.

the world swells with the prevalence of the mediocre.
an insidious infection.

the monkeys bang their rocks.
beseeching their imagined saviors.

the monkeys put on their tuxedos. 
to prove that the party isn't over. 

time attempts to answer their questions.
but they won't like what it says.

what the monkeys don't know
is that the end of the world has already started. 


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poetry

alcoholicpoet.com

a poem about the nature of weakness. 


wear the wind.

the smothering contradictions

that put their faces in our blood. 

rebuff the tired poverty of flesh. 

let all their hideous stories grow stale. 

be born in the choke of death. 

alive because we must. 

nourished on simple lies. 

wild animals tamed by the claws of emptiness. 


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

alcoholicpoet.com

a sad poem about inevitable decisions. 


the canopy of time. all festering knots and shivering resentment. a stilted assembly of changes never to be realized.

the end has its own voice. the quiet disciples of why. they peel away our skin looking for the monsters underneath.

evolution is weak. like gravity.

we fall not because, but in spite of it.

we polish our crowns while the wind chews up our paper wings.

the economy of choice is such that the balance is always negative.

the truth is loud enough, but we choose not to hear.

the doors to our cages are unlocked, but still we don't leave.


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

alcoholicpoet.com

a sad poem about human evolution. 


 the window is painted shut. no reflections dare taste its glass.

the building is made of sour candy. its walls are rotten.

the oven inside it is hungry for strays. the villains bait their traps.

the wolves outside dare not breathe. for fear that the pigs inside might escape.

the door is heavy. the lock is rusted. 

the rooms inside are all empty. 


the story is older than all of us. it  never changes.

we are lost.


not because we don't know where we are.

but because we don't remember where we've been. 



Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

alcoholicpoet.com

when we were new and gentle the world would let us run. we had no need for promises.

everything was small. and the things that we wanted were irrevocably ours. 

but time must draw its nooses. and nooses will always find their necks.

now we are worn and aggressive. animals chafing against a stiffening leash.

every breath thick with the places that we've been. strays dropping breadcrumbs on a one way street.

we look in the windows. but all we see is our own reflection.

we knock on the doors. but inside, no one answers. 

skin is paper. touch is ink. words are the poison that wears our faces. 

it's a fever of choices. dominoes tumbling in an endless cascade of why.

inside an abattoir of questions. 

as we chew on the fingertips of time. 


Filed under: Sad Poetry November 2024

alcoholicpoet.com

a dark poem about how those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed. 


corners stir. like blood smiling through punctures.

the numbers are manipulated. the math is corrupt.

the walls quiver. the doors are shut.

the war is cold. the soldiers are all corpses.

the corners whisper. like heavy rain breaking glass.

the truth is diseased. the lies have become us.

the end grins. its smile all polished fangs and cracked lips.

everyone devours the rotten meat.

too hungry to notice. 


Filed under: November 2024 Poetry

alcoholicpoet.com

A dark poem about how the end comes for us all.


the empty amenities of skin parse our choices.

the colors of time dance on our lips.

there are lies to be told.

we choke on the maps they draw.

those places leave us too easily.

bits of bone in the jaws of conceit.

we continue searching for them.

memory clenches its fists. still there's nothing left to hold.

the world stumbles over the carcasses of what we have done.

but there's no need for graves.

when everything is dead.


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

by alcoholicpoet.com

a dark poem for the vagabond within us all. 


the horizon stumbles over gravity.

more perspective than condition.

fragile sticks in the fists of change.

its eternal equation still solving for what we are to become.

lost is not a place. nor is found.

we assemble our destinations from what remains of ourselves after we arrive.

falling is a map that boils under our skin. full of all the little lies that infect us.


we are nomads. wandering inside ourselves.

searching for an exit.



Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems

It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. 
- REM 


 wear your lies like armor and capes.

history will bear its own assessment. 

we're free. that is the promise.

repeat those convictions. while you stomp out their flames. 

we're free. that is the promise. 

but freedom plays favorites. 

spin your stories. shepherd your ignorant sheep.  

we're free. that's the most dangerous lie. 

that anyone can believe. 


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poetry

by alcoholicpoet.com

"All is lost. Hope is dead." 
- Ronnie James Dio

we slouch toward our inevitable end. 

lost in our persistent paradox. perfect thieves with nothing left to steal. 

always wanting what doesn't exist. 

running through empty rivers. daring the water to return and drown us. 

dreaming in soiled beds. refusing to wake up. 

the winter makes its way slowly across our skin. in shallow cuts and lingering bruises. 

the truth slips between our thighs. and easily penetrates.

there are no names in the places where we meet. only strangers that taste like ash. 

we don't need to ask permission. 

when there's nothing left to take. 


Filed under: November 2024 Poetry

created by alcoholicpoet.com

 small transitions evaporate from now to then. seldom surrenders in the acute angles between choke and breath. tender predators chew on their wounds. with murky tears and bloody grins.

the numbers lay their traps. surreptitiously counting the missing voices. a gasping inferno abruptly confounded by a gentle breeze.

we wear their eyes. as if to see. we taste their lips. as if to speak.

crippled narrators of a story trapped within impenetrable walls. limping authors dressed in dangerous smiles.

our faces always pressed tightly against that ubiquitous glass.

hopelessly convinced we can find a way inside. 


Filed under: November 2024 Sad Poems