Category: POETRY

this is not one of them

the old boy
wakes up three hours ahead of
the world that lives in concrete buildings
and one hour ahead of the
competition
and emerges from his damp tent

looks around the park
looks at the sky

Overcast

He stretches a bit and scratches his
head
and walks over to the fountain
and has a drink

collects some mint leaves
chews on them
spits
and rinses his mouth

The work clothes are already on him
Boots
two pairs of socks
cotton and wool
faded jeans
a shirt
a sweater
and coat over them
mittens
and a cap that covers his ears as well

It's now time to set about
collecting tin cans around the neighborhood
to make just enough for
a meal and a half
and maybe a few cigarettes sold
individually

It's been
enough years for all this to become
routine
When you don't know of any better you
don't expect any better

And now he only did this to have just enough
energy and life force to
visit the public library and
read heart warming poems
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22

to melt the shackle

it wasn’t morning yet
but he woke up
to the sounds of cheering
and applause 

He looked around
and saw 
shadowy figures with
elongated faces
and bright, white eyes
staring at him

“Congratulations, they said. You
have awakened.” 

“What in the hell?” he 
said, looking around 
startled. “Who are you?” 

“The messengers,” replied 
the shadows. “We are very pleased
to announce that you 
may collect your prize 
whenever you are ready. You’ve 
earned it.” 

“What? What did 
I do?” 

“You awakened. In a world of 
sleepers
you woke up
and are therefore eligible for
ascension. You might follow
us through the hole 
in the ceiling whenever you
are ready. All that’s left
to do here is
to melt the shackle.” 

“What?” he said

Then one of the shadows
have him a small 
bottle that smelled strongly
of gasoline 
and a box of matches 

The other shadows
pointed to 
his desk, to all the papers
stacked on it
and under it 
and all around it

“Those are my poems,” he said

“Indeed. They represent 
everything that keeps you 
tied to this world. Your shackle.
Burn your shackle and melt it
away so you can ascend
and take flight. The time 
has come.” 

“I worked all my life
to write those 
poems,” he said

“Yes, you did. But now that you
are awake you see that
they’re all in vain. For 
nothing is real
on this plane. It’s all 
a dream, of course. You have 
designed it pretty nice. A simple
dream spent entirely in
the confines of a narrow room
with low ceiling. Drinking
and smoking and 
writing all day long 
and late into the night. It’s 
a beautiful dream. No family,
no friends, no communication with the 
outside world, and no desire
for any. You’ve thus taken 
a shortcut to awakening, but it’s by
no means illegal. You’re still
eligible for ascension. So,
whenever you’re ready, we are.” 

He watched the shadows

The shadows watched him

He reached out for the 
gasoline and matches, looked over
to the desk and the stacks
of paper

Looked for a long
time

Closed his eyes
and went back to sleep 

The shadows were gone
by the morning
but they left the gasoline and
matches 
behind

He got out of bed
went to the desk 
by the window
opened the blinds
and started writing
another poem
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110

I am birds

the other night she went to
sleep 
listening to 
subliminal audios

and woke up in the morning
saying, “I am birds. Many, many
birds trapped together in
a bag of silk. This thing
that the world looks
at and calls my body is but 
a bag of silk
that traps birds inside. I am not
the bag. A bag isn’t alive. I 
am the birds inside the bag. And
I must get out!” 

She ran into 
the bathroom

Her father shrugged. “Fuckin’ shit,”
he said, shaking his head. 
“To think that she could’ve
been a doctor, or a lawyer, or
an engineer. She could’ve
been anything. But she 
chose to study
creative writing in college. Now
she’s a poetess... 
and we are no more than
characters lost
in her verses.”
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84

town of forgotten poets

there he was 
arriving on main street
carrying a backpack
and a suitcase 

both stuffed with
papers

“WELCOME TO THE TOWN
OF FORGOTTEN POETS.”
said the shadows that
watched from the 
windows
of nearby buildings

He didn’t like the 
sound of their
voices

but he sighed 
and dragged his
tired feet along 

they were almost as
tired as his soul
and just as hurt

He'll have to live on the
streets,
for the town
was overpopulated
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62

hunger is the secret ingredient

like a baby left for
hours
and hours in a hot car
he
woke up
with a sweaty forehead
and a buzz
in his temples

no room to stretch

he got out
of the
car

in his underwear

shook his legs
and hands
rubbed the pain away from
his knees
and back of the neck

There was a bottle of water
he got from
the park fountain
among the litter in the back seat

he opened it

hot

took a sip and swirled it
around his mouth
spat
took another sip
swirled
spat

that’s for dental hygiene

He put on pants and a shirt
locked the car
and walked 50 paces
to the nearest public restroom
where he removed his shirt and
washed his hairy armpits

He studied the violet circles under
his eyes in the mirror
checked his teeth
his tongue
felt for wax in his ears

put on a professional smile

went to the public
library
and the desk by the window was free
His smile grew brighter
as he sat down
and opened the notebook

Chapter 86 would
be next in the manuscript

He looked out the
window
This writer life was precisely as
romantic as he thought it’ll be

no more
no less
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63

cheat code activated

Well no wonder he kept dying
or the police
would catch up to him
in the first minute after hitting someone
or stealing a car. The game
was for big kids. It said so on the box. He
got bored despite all the things
he could do and put
the controller down.

He looked around the living room
went into the kitchen
She was nowhere

He went upstairs
opened the door to the bedroom
and, well, she was there
sprawled on the bed
naked
filming herself with her phone
while continually stabbing
herself
between the legs with... a lightsaber? It
seemed painful too. She was gasping.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

And her response was a scream
She pulled the
lightsaber thingy out
and threw it under the bed
and turned off the phone. "Hey, what did I tell
you about entering without
knocking?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Well... Just... Just don't tell
anyone about it, okay? And why did you come
upstairs anyway?

"I'm sorry. Look, I keep dying at
the game."

She came downstairs with him
grabbed the controller
unpaused the game
"Watch this."
Circle, Right, Circle, Right, Left, Square, Triangle, Up
She passed the controller to him
"Okay, now go kill somebody."

he crossed the street and punched an
old lady to death
and then stomped on her body

everyone saw that

no police showed up
no yellow stars. Nothing.

"Whaaaaat? I don't believe it."
He wandered into the street, stopped
a car
opened the driver's door
pulled the driver out
beat him to death and stole the
car.

No police

"How did you do it?"

"A boyfriend taught me. Along with
many, many other things. You can
even get a device that lets you fly."

"I don't believe it!"

"Believe it. Infinite health too. I can
do that for you. If, of course..."

"Yes, yes! I'll keep the secret. I swear! And I
swear to God you're
the best, best babysitter I've ever
had. This! This is what I'm gonna
tell dad when
he gets home. I swear!"

"Don't bother. He knows."
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24

cartoonist

Dad was fat all his life
Obese
He couldn’t do a lot of things.
Walk without special help
Bathe
Climb stairs
Sit in a normal chair
Drive a normal car
Sleep in a normal bed
And say “I love you, son.”

To draw those words out
of his dad he became a cartoonist,
but that also failed.

And now that his father
was dead,
collapsed face down
on the kitchen floor,
blood seeping out of a head wound,
he struggled to turn him over
on his back
and dipped his finger in the blood
and drew a speech bubble
next to his father’s head
and wrote in it the famous words.

Finally.
“I love you too, dad.”
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the thing before the thing before the thing

because it’s nice to be young
because it’s nice to be in your
early to mid twenties
and it’s nice to do the thing
after you’ve done the thing

the thing that comes after you’ve
done the
thing is always
the same
but the thing that leads to the thing is
often different

this night it was white powder
they shared it neatly
between each other
and then climbed into bed

“Christ,” he said. “I still can’t believe you
sucked dick for this shit. And
a carload of it. What was it, like
four, five guys?”

“Oh, shut your hole, you pauper-ass.
If you had a job like a decent motherfucker
I wouldn’t have to do that shit, you know?”

“Shit, baby, don’t make this
trip worse than it is.”

“You started it.”

“Whatever, let’s just get to the next thing
already.”

“I haven’t even bathed. You know,
after taking on that carload…”

But it was too late to think.
the first thing kicked in
hard
and it lead to the other
and a brain wasn’t needed for any of them

and the cold wind blew
through the broken
window
and dried their sweat
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17

think about his future

They had the poor girl lie
on the cold tile floor
and then they all pissed on her
and you could hear them tell her to open her
mouth wide and stick her tongue
out
It was one of the
poorest videos on the site
but the women watching it 
recognized the girl
She went
to the same high school as them 
back in the day

So
trashy porn is what she turned to

Not exceptionally unusual, but
one of the kids
running in the park before them was her child
Just eight or nine

"You know," said one of them. "Like it or not
it's just a matter
of time until our sons catch wind of
this and then..."

"Oh my..."

"Goodness!"

"The sins of the parents are visited upon
the children. It's not fair. Imagine
the life her poor kid's gonna
have."

"Yeah, our own kids might
very well be the bullies, we'll never know. Like I said,
it's a matter of time..."

"Well, goodness, what can we do
about it?"

"Flag the video?"

"You know it won't work..."

"Oh, I got an idea. What if... you know, what if
we all uploaded sexy vids of us. Um, not
necessarily as trashy as this one
but just pornographic enough. The boys
won't be able
to gang up and bully one if all their mothers
did it... Right? C'mon, let's do it
for that poor kid. Think about his future..."

The other mothers
looked at her

and they kept looking

mute

until one of them pulled out her
smartphone
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42

The Muse’s Bad Touch – New poetry collection by Bogdan Dragos

Here it is. 
THE MUSE'S BAD TOUCH


A collection of dark poems highlighting the toxic and deadly relationship between poet and muse.


DISCLAIMER: suitable only for a mature audience.


D' you like the cover? I designed it myself  ∩(・ω・)∩ 


Check out the free sample poems (and maybe leave a review). Thanks! 


I don't wanna say that the poems contained in this book are dark. It would sound pretentious right off the bat. But, yeah, between dark and light, you know already where they stand.
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58

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