'clothespin' they’d dangle like tragic tightrope walkers, splintery legs hooked onto the line, random breeze adding decadence to the danger before my eyes. would they drop and fall, these solitaire risk-takers, for what else destined would be their way? with knobby knuckles grandma added to the heart-stopping spectacle, digging deep into a stained cloth pouch, adding in number the precarious daredevils. held always captive their show mesmerized, though it meant the small wooden graveyard scatter...
Mar 22, 2022•58 sec
'control' squeeze squeeze a little tighter, so the collar constricts and so do we without tender. what swells beneath skin, a rhythmic denial in need of appeasement and release, so what wounds deeper, the vessel or the tongue. the safe word, we are one, but are we really squeeze squeeze a little further, so the trust turns blood-eyed and so do we without splendor. what tears paper-thin, the liberation from judgment and dark alleyed enclosure, so what exhausts quicker, the carousel or the collaps...
Mar 15, 2022•46 sec
'gasoline' the hard stuff will of course power your throat but strip your gut. you think i joke until you meet the burly irish lads with bludgeoned noses where the red rivers run through and laughter chokes the horse. pressed against momma’s teat, they surely didn’t believe life finds a way of circling back again. but it does. from swollen nipples to the neck of a leaking vice, no matter race or creed, what you draw between lips manifests to source and so chased thereafter. don’t judge the hilar...
Mar 09, 2022•43 sec
susurrus that’s the rub, i hear nothing of you inside this cacophony head. a coward would ask where have you gone but a valiant knight would fall upon his sword. there you go eviscerating my heart before it tastes blade. somewhere in town the 6:30 train gallops without its mount but that was nineteen minutes ago. i’d have paid attention had i not been stemming the blood from my chest. i stink of charred sausage from a nearby grill while licking the remnants of a healthier diet from my fingertips...
Feb 23, 2022•1 min
feast the plates have more space at the table now, the bellies more food to be fed. take the extra chair back to the basement. i filled it with air anyhow. my absence will be spoken of now until christmas but i gave the early gift of self back and the easy truth is i love me more than you. this hurt has been aging unlike the depth of wine you drink. you skimped the wallet while i nurtured the vine and now that i’ve grown to season i’ll never allow you to take my vintage away. you’ve the cushion ...
Feb 16, 2022•1 min
legerdemain slowly circling, slowly circling, tongue flicking out, flicking in, fringes of my cheek an old tasseled rug and syllables whistling through it like kettle steam, don’t leave, don’t leave us, air rushes from the hole through which you hooked me, i am hushed, our vision kept close to vest, blush of our promise fled your breast, what’s left, fast-fingered my heart your palm to next, i am left guessing an illusionary conjuring before my eyes while faith gathers necessary branches to with...
Feb 14, 2022•41 sec
iridescent before your eyes, i share nothing, hint nor glimmer, merely a manipulation, a twisted play of your own perception. believe me weak? i am weak. think me raw? i’ll soak your laces in all i spill. strike the chords your ears will hear. pluck the strings your core responds. understand i have gamed you on a lustrous level, blinded you to such point into the seat of my palm unawares. crush you? such as i choose. cup your own luminous? surely, if only i’d not evolved in darkness. #barflypoet...
Feb 01, 2022•45 sec
sewer again it is taxed by the latest deluge. this whirlpool of muck and debris and oppression has spun downhill for years. my throat iron oxide like the grill created to hold it back. hold it back, hold it back (please hold it back). it’s those sliver words and dismissive exasperations that find their way through the rungs. surely it will pass. the storm always does. still the oily residue of expiratory pledges grows fiercer to scrub from the nubs. full of flippancy you let fall from your finge...
Jan 28, 2022•1 min
countertop dark surfaces don’t reveal the mess. her own words, crumbled in their staleness and left again to redirect my demeanor. i mean, can you believe her? the unfortunate answer yes. roiled within thunder, there has always been someone to rob the fork from my tongue. lashless and listless, anger withdraws and i stand like a beach with no tide. her lips churn about a better season but the seashell to my head echoes lie. so take the spray and wipe it. and i do with clear eyes hiding a dirty h...
Jan 26, 2022•43 sec
luncheonette above and behind, an angel welcomes me in a cheap tinny din. am i dead, dying or somewhere between, like the sugar crusted counter before me and the residue of your sweet in my heart. my lungs sizzle with bacon fat and it’s a good thing because i’ve not much left of you to breathe in anymore. there’s a red stool and red nails carry a red-rimmed mug away and in my head i count the times the ghost of those lips grimaced when cooling the lie. who am i and where have you gone and why ar...
Jan 19, 2022•2 min
sirenize a sea, a sea of freckles and it is between them i wish to trace your mythology through my tongue, to bring forth your sparkle the way you cast out all my dark. fingers dabbling in the wet i leave behind and if you and i have a name by then we’ll reimagine ourselves a thousand times. unhurried revolutions i will part your sphere of flesh and take you to a depth of essence you never thought you’d find. be mine. i want to gaze upon you nightly and know something in this great expanse makes...
Jan 11, 2022•40 sec
apple what does your sleeve feel like? i imagine it must be so warm. autumn flashes her teeth and you hide your arms under layers, so when i bare my vulnerabilities why do you not take the same care? wine tasting like all couples do this time of year except i’m five fingers short of holding your hand. you’re fawning over nuances lathering your tongue and i’ve got jesus christ and blood in my mouth and neither blesses me save the sunglasses secreting my eyes and a checklist of varietals into whic...
Dec 09, 2021•1 min
steak i take it, masticate between jaws until temples throb and consternation leaks between teeth, and still the nerve of you there, hard like rock that knows no footfall, memory woken to you but gone the way smoke from flame, chew and chew and chew while throat beseeches relief from the fire valley, and something dies in order to serve so you char the guilt and fat and all semblance of sense from the rebuttals resting on the block, and my mouth should water but my eyes cry over excessive vowels...
Dec 01, 2021•48 sec
philocaly i know november by the way wet leaves fill my ribs and how a sinking sun takes more than it gives and when that dark funnel of crows goes churning i dream i’m their last center spark of bright before sweep of day flees. eyes set shallower in my head than before and while there’s no shame admitting my door slowly shuts i prefer to think i’m transitioning. the cynic points out the false show at my feet and sure all has collapsed but where else has the end seemed so sublime. it’s like my ...
Nov 24, 2021•58 sec
trauma when i didn’t like it, i’d cross it out, when it didn’t go my way i’d scribble it a hundred times until self tore and the pen fell through, smeared smiles and rehearsed lines and i’d be alright cause mom said i’d grow out of it, well now i’m up and out and fallen into something else, they all believe i’m alright as evidenced by the ascending notches along my height chart, i pleaded until coke turned to sprite, why worry my parents with carcinogenics stalking the gums when i could pass sil...
Nov 17, 2021•58 sec
serotinal the warmth flees above my head on two wings and an itinerary i’m left to question. was hope held steady-handed or burst breathlessly through the gate secure in the knowledge i’d not be boarding. stuck up my nose the stench of fresh cut grass but no one seems to grieve these corpses. oh, they’ll come back, so the blade makes it painless and easy to wait on what has been taken to fill back in. days expire quicker now, this turn of my heart more prickled than before. but i’ve long sleeves...
Nov 10, 2021•1 min
boardwalk slowly i say goodbye to summer, to the sheen of sun slipping down limbs and to hopeful magenta brushstrokes across september sky, whimsical reminders we can find our way back. so it begs to be asked back to what, the sparkle and glimmer of your mind, the lazy low tide of your thoughts or the shoals that keep secrets begging to be gathered before the fickle moon employs its pull. if you were a shell i’d hold you to my ear and wait until you collapsed into my name like you used to do. bu...
Oct 29, 2021•1 min
grievous steady hands but the keener eye spots the tremble straight off. there’s no shame in a spot of liquid courage. the fallacy is that it keeps muscles from reverberating. truth is it rids the shit from the stench of giving less than anything that was ever returned. to some degree i love you all but you’ve given me nothing worth collecting save for painful life lessons and a bitter aftertaste from the karma leaked down from my head. i won’t miss any of you. there’s crumpled photographs and e...
Oct 25, 2021•2 min
excerpt from my book 'FROM MY FRONT STEPS' 'if i’m okay' she’s having her first sleepover i can feel her glow from down the block she’s found a friend who accepts her as she is it’s all i could ever ask for a lesson i pray she learns without my constant reminding it’s hard being a father trading football jersey for dolls a stern tongue for princess voices and i’d be a liar if i said i wasn’t a bit sad and i’d be a liar if i said i won’t consult the stuffed animals lining her bed tonight hoping t...
Aug 06, 2021•39 sec
excerpt from my book 'FROM MY FRONT STEPS' 'thunder' when i was a little boy my mother told me thunder was only the sound of angels bowling overhead so when i hear it now i laugh with the thought we’re all on one big alley wearing miscolored shoes. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Ste...
Aug 05, 2021•16 sec
'the forgotten phase' the country closed tight though like an old whore some parts insist on parting open accepting the dime but not the dollar common sense priceless and drying in jars moonshine gone the way of lemonade and the sober guzzle it while the drunks measure the fingers clinging inside the glass laughing cause they get it— the hard stuff lends the buzz but reality is what’ll get ya— with swimming heads they toast the drowning knowing thru abandoned hearts they trained for the marathon...
Aug 03, 2021•35 sec
elopement so this is it the guests have gone the way unattended no one to witness your first dance did you sweep away your lack of rsvps along with your growing return of regrets they were released, you know doves to sky, or rice so cliché the old italian man grips the broom and in my accent your love has been like wahter always running. we shared the same vision once billowing white draperies ghosts to air in our beach villa and i’ve clutched your spirit since and you’ve fled our vision like wa...
Aug 02, 2021•54 sec
'self-analysis' figure yourself the fuck out. i can’t do it for you. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon....
Jul 12, 2021•6 sec
'you knew shit until me' so accustomed you were to the frill, the grandeur so accustomed to sparkle the hollow repetition of delicacies; you never saw me coming; you never knew i existed at all; truths long denied now stain you; gentle love atop your bed traded for a hard fuck against the wall. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at rand...
Jul 02, 2021•26 sec
'thunder' it’s thunderously quiet in this dark. the truth is that no matter how much i tell myself i am better off without you i’m not. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon....
Jul 01, 2021•13 sec
'right mix' you and me nothing but bone to provide space flesh to bind. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon....
Jun 29, 2021•8 sec
'day after day' the cruelest of all the lonelies is waiting on a phone that refuses to ring. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon....
Jun 25, 2021•9 sec
'murderers' i drank scotch i drank scotch drank another scotch and took a piss and noticed the snot on the walls a graveyard of snot dead by smearing and dead by premature picking hanging a sacred place above the urinal. i scrubbed my hands did not touch the bar but threw down a good tip and got away from all the disgusting unclean murdering motherfuckers that could have been sitting next to me. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poe...
Jun 23, 2021•42 sec
'a different route' i really should be sitting atop the cool dew mat of your grave but i've chosen a different route today— uncomfortable stool beneath me a jagged tear on the one beside sipping on a scotch watching as what remains of this afternoon bleeds away. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'Fro...
Jun 20, 2021•18 sec
'monstrosities' come don your spider silk trousseau, indulge me a jig— funeral hymn and devil's perfume— blackened, our matrimony miasma, our vows ever faithful i'll be to rust-mouthed promises while you cherish my slack cock against your thigh. in honey light our shadows creep as we fuck in this church van spawn a slit-eyed bastard meant to rule gravy train slugs then leave it steaming— glistening under dashboard's light— saw-toothed smile crooked and pure while we murder cherubs with our rubbe...
Jun 17, 2021•41 sec
