Posts Tagged ‘poem’
30/30, atx, Jim Trainer, national poetry month, poem, Poet, Poetry, thirty for thirty challenge, writer, writing, writing about writing
In Uncategorized on April 16, 2018 at 7:16 pm
most of adventure is doleful
you sink within
until you’re in the good place
hold on to what you’ve got
and go with that
don’t get sold on promise and prize,
or a dream of the future
the day that never arrives
this isn’t to say it’s simple
or easy or black and white
the truth is, another day is victory
and how you spend it is on you
I’ve worked for them enough, though
choked whole days off, for their profit
at their worry—it’s a troublesome lot
to be beyond small minds but
still under the thumb of the masters
ain’t it though
I always found my work deserting theirs
made this language safe-cracking
and white-hot, ran past the guard
into the sky
and the world and all it knew
fell away like loose change
till I was drunk on the high air
broken, spinning, terribly free.
Please visit jimtrainer.net for 1 of 4 full length collections of poetry and prose.
heartbreak, justin currie, love, poem, san francisco
In loss, Love, mourning, poem, Poetry on December 7, 2017 at 5:19 am
guess it’s only fair, in Fall
I’ll take to gumshoeing through
the puter fog
I’ll mark a year in amber
I’ll still beat the streets
of San Francisco, searching
what of her wide, red bed
and the laughter spilling out
Mission windows in the paling
Fall sun?
and of all the things
I
put away, marked in spite
and striated
in anger and blue woe?
the key will always fit the door
a fun time mirror
will always distend the heart
into a grotesque growth and shape
simply-
you’ll always be what I don’t want
but available
20 planes they leave the runway every day
there’s always a wide swinging door to a cage
my poetry’s become jagged
jangling and dislocate
and this one will be
no exception
September’s always black&bad
too many cigarettes and
sorry old armor
my smile is full of pain
beneath the streetlights
waiting
for her Boxter, my fling-
we’ll ride on down below
the poverty line
open the bar and sit in the cool dark
spiking Topo Chico with cheap bourbon
unconvincing laughter in the afternoon
is getting over you.
(c)2014
Jim Trainer, poem, Poetry
In mid life, middle age, poem, Poetry, Uncategorized on May 31, 2016 at 11:13 pm
shook out’s about the best
I can do for myself now
there’s no harking back
or reclaiming,
when the sun sets it’s gone
and rises with less momentum
these creaking mornings
but my disappointment
stops shy of my pride
I never asked for solace
never paid in, made no deal
and shook out I’ll face it
but who is this stranger giving rise
and rent through in blue twilight?
what are these dreams, this love
that seem to flow like a banner
down the night skies
and distill these jangling
numbered daybreaks
into a keen and raring loneliness?
flar, Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, fredericksburg virginia, Jim Trainer, poem, Poetry, virginia
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, poem, Poetry, poetry reading, Submitting, submitting poetry, travel, travel writing, Writing, writing about writing, WRITING PROCESS on May 9, 2016 at 10:03 pm
Good Reader-
I couldn’t be happier about all your subscriptions, views and likes down here at Going For The Throat. I’d like to offer you a couple poems today, brought to you by the wonderful Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review. I’ve felt on board with them as soon as I submitted. I heard from their editor the very next day and she has even linked up Going For The Throat on their Facebook page.
These two were written together on one of the first days of the year. They’re about travel, as allot of my stuff is these days.
I’m booking Houston, Philadelphia, NYC and Boston. And I’m reading and performing right here in Austin 4 times next week. September will get a second pressing as soon as I get a few kinks out. Hope to see you this summer.
Please enjoy two of my poems today, “passage” and “oxbloods ‘neath the cuff“, featured on page 146 of this Spring’s FLAR. Dig around. There’s allot of power and talent in this issue.
Yours,
Jim Trainer
jimtrainer.net
Austin TX
being a writer, Jim Trainer, national poetry month, poem, Poet, Poetry, thirty for thirty challenge, THIRTY POEMS FOR THIRTY DAYS, THIRTY THIRTY, writing, writing about writing
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE, Writing, writing about writing on April 18, 2016 at 10:23 pm
panhandling the muse
slipshod
black ribbon blues.
up with the machine
editing
on a computer screen.
laying down at night
time fucking me better
than you ever could.
charlie o'hay, poem, Poet, Poetry, sobriety
In alcoholism, Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, Charlie O'Hay, getting sober, Jim Trainer, poem, Poetry, recovery, sober, sobriety, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on August 6, 2015 at 3:56 pm
for Jim Trainer
In the near perfection of a dark house
the refrigerator
that by day once said
“I’m keeping your beer cold”
now says
“I’m humming so you’ll know I’m right
where you left me
and not standing over your bed
about to smash your skull
with frozen peas.”
It is the small assurances
that get one through
night’s long tunnel.
But on the road an orphaned light
in the distance like a stone
through a black mirror may mean
anything
from an omelet to a shallow grave
and half of America between.
So best be packing.
Charles O’Hay is the recipient of a 1995 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 literary publications including Gargoyle, South Carolina Review, Brooklyn Review, West Branch, Mudfish, and New York Quarterly.
The author lives with his wife and daughter in eastern Pennsylvania. Far From Luck and Smoking In Elevators, O’Hay’s full-length collections of poetry are out now through Lucky Bat Books.
Jim Trainer, loss, poem, Poetry
In loss, poem, Poetry on July 28, 2015 at 3:49 pm
and we threw our butts in the fire
picked peach yellow lilies from the wildgrass
cast the hot water over, from the corn
even ol’ Ave’, spilled over, in the lake.
“we’re made of all we lost”
but what is loss but a thin black line
perforating us from her starry cloth
that they lay smothered in, watching us
watching
laughter rent the heart loose in its cage of bone
watching
as we fill ourselves on food and wine and pie
all we brought’s what we carried
and something carried us
our lives theirs to covet and admire.
alcoholism, poem, Poetry, sober, writing
In alcoholism, Being A Writer, poem, Poetry, recovery, sober, Writing on June 1, 2015 at 2:55 pm
I’ve got a new pain
it’s just behind the shoulder blade
it could be worse but it makes writing even harder
I haven’t had a hangover in 70 days
and most days I make it past noon without a cigarette
I have breakfast now, I juice, before coffee
I go on break from the shift, from noon-3 everyday
and just before break I make the preparations
for a writing session like a kamikaze pilot
earplugs in, black shades on, curtains drawn
I fire up the coffee, dick around with my nicotine vaporizers
I ring the bell on my altar and say my silent prayers
then I take a toke of black hash, sit down
and get to it.
life is good, it’s easy and that’s so very hard to deal with
and there are certainly worse problems to have
I’ve got some hangups, some character defects
but nothing dire, the result of living like a drunk poet
for 20 years
and living under the heavy certainty that something heavy
is always waiting, and will come crashing
it’s hard not to consider those years as silly
and so regretfully wasteful
but what can you do but keep at it? so I do,
I keep at it, the clacking of keys into the afternoon
with a pain under my left shoulder blade
the worst most certainly behind me
savage in memory only
poetry was with me in the dire and air raid days
may as well bring it with me into this new age
days of typing quietly, with nothing being wrong
no real problems to speak of
except for one and he’ll be dead by dawn.
national poetry month, poem, thirty for thirty challenge, THIRTY POEMS FOR THIRTY DAYS, THIRTY THIRTY
In Jim Trainer, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE on April 30, 2015 at 6:16 pm
there’s been a break
between that old battling life
and this one
I can’t begin to describe
the anguish I was in for years
but it looks like I won’t have to
it’s from here, in this
sublime and ordinary life
that I can see
all my brothers and sisters are not free
it is from here, high up
on this peak
that I can see
the range
Jim Trainer, national poetry month, poem, Poetry, ROSES, thirty for thirty challenge, THIRTY POEMS FOR THIRTY DAYS, THIRTY THIRTY
In Jim Trainer, National Poetry Month, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE on April 30, 2015 at 6:07 pm
IT’S A WRAP
I sent her roses once
and she asked me if I sent them
I asked her who else would’ve,
we were in a monogamous relationship
and it was a simple question
but it angered her
“OH SO IT WAS A TRAP AND YOU’RE TRYING TO CATCH
ME IN A LIE. YOU CAN’T EVEN SEND ROSES RIGHT!”
I hadn’t even considered that someone else might send her roses,
let alone try and catch her in a lie.
Sitting here this morning,
way past when I should be thinking about her,
I realize
it was a lie,
a lie of deflection and projection,
blaming me for not sending roses right-
a big ruse.
She was deflecting the question
and put the focus on blaming me somehow,
which sums up our whole relationship.
We saw each other for another 2 months after that
but I never sent her roses again.
Going for the Throat 