last week’s poems X

what’s the bridge from your daydreams to everything real?

the next step for you, dear writer, is to be more you

venice boardwalk (the street of bums & billionaires)

i watched from a café

a dreadlocked relaxed surfer

sipping some maté

barefoot

smiley

talking to everyone

he props his board up

on a pillar

it slips, falls

and the fin hits, hard

a porsche, parked

everyone stops

he picks the board up

winks

and makes a stay quiet sign

everyone laughs

no damage done

except for the dent

and at the end of the day

the bums have the people’s love

on the street of bums & billionaires

why do other people know where you are stuck in life before you do?

and my daydreams were becoming just that

the real thing

there is a home for us dear

and trust me

it’s somewhere near

she was the kind of girl

that guys go full Gatsby for

stop hitting walls

the walls hitting me but i’m not hitting back

i’m going under it

or over it

or the long way round

no wall is knocking me down

or keeping me stuck

the walls are hitting me but i’m not hitting back

i’m ignoring it and making my own path

just out here writing

folk poems

for a penny a piece

a bookstore closed in pasadena and nobody blinked an eye

all my writing for the day deleted in a minute by some spotty wifi

and i didn’t even mind

i just kept writing

and feeling fine

put in another 8 hour shift

without blinking an eye

the realist never loved this way

the pragmatist never felt my pain

the blank page only hurts if you are unprepared

i need you yesterday more than today

but tomorrow i need you forever

please answer my calls

heartbreaking bonsai

he could’ve been so much

but he never got watered

not even the tiny drops he desperately needed

heartbreaking bonsai

brown little leaves falling to the ground

i would’ve called you that night

but i was smarter than myself

i deleted your number

dear writer,

let the old stories die

you’ve taken too long on them already

wasted enough time

write something new

but finish it this time

and share it

the old stories might have had some life

but any story you write now will actually be alive

it’s too neat you need to scuff up some pages

or set them on fire

insomniac with you

insomniac without you

be like the rainforest that doesn’t change temperature when it rains

i lost myself for so long

but i was walking with you

and i ended up at home

lost truly,

Leo Lawrence

fin,

for now


Back To Poetry Menu

note to self:

oh come on you skinny Brazilian man 

you can  write so much better