Tag: poem

End Times

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

when I reach

one hundred poems

will I stop?

burn them

on a stony beach

in midnight solitude

or shall I carve them in my skin

to walk through the streets

bleeding my truth?

one hundred thoughts too strong

for conversation

we hide in poetry

its sense of song

protecting us from our uncertainties

our unformed faith

eulogies for our forgotten hope

we let these words convince us

that we have done all we can do

this line

these lines

the limit

of belief

——-

My sixth post of the year and might be my last ever on this blog. I don’t have the time, motivation, or audience to make it worth keeping up, and an abandoned blog seems worse than one that ceases to exist. This won’t be the first site I’ve deleted. This is my content and I don’t want it laying around, training AI without me granting permission.

WordPress is a very good backbone for websites and not much of a vibe otherwise. The whole Meta suite is an exhausting grind (even Threads, which I loved for six months.) X is a toxic wasteland, the other platforms (Bluesky, Mastodon) too convoluted. Social media in general is not the paradise we deserve.

Maybe I’ll open a MySpace account…

Head Canon

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

they wait

these captive shadows pendulous with

the weight of expectation

your every keystroke a tiny death

calcifying that fervid dream that once roused you

in the apocalyptic night

you stand corrected

tearing at the charioteer’s bit

pursued by a mechanism of your own making

shambolic monsters of inconsequential thought

brought from the chthonic darkness

to sprawl helplessly eviscerated on the page

as you learn to eat your young to survive

(2024)

Breath

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

today is yesterday’s tomorrow 

said the gold foil letters

looping

across her t shirt

but it’s true

everything you longed for

yesterday

every aching want

each breath you took

despite it all

this is the prize

this day

this hour

now

the answer to your prayers

one more breath

then another

(2023)

2023

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Eris threw a golden apple

inscribed with the words

‘to the ugliest’

onto the floor

of the New York stock exchange

police have sealed off the building

to contain the damage

but they haven’t shut off the cameras

so we can watch money eat itself

(2024)

Last Call at the All Hearts Cabaret

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I want to be yours

I want to belong

I want you to know by the time that I finish this song

that this is as close to forever

as anyone gets

I want all those years

that I’ve counted in tears

to be worth what it cost me in ruined ambition and fears

I want to let go of whatever

is holding me down

These are heavy chains to wear around my heart

these calculated measures that are taking me apart

these broken frames

these stolen names

this work of art

Landscapes of the body, artistry made flesh

where the sex is second guessing and the hell is always fresh

where hell is other people’s eyes consuming you in slices

But you smile and wave and carry on pursuing your own vices

These broken frames

these stolen names

this work of stealing everybody’s heart

I wanted you to know before we end this dazzling show

that this is as close to forever

as you can get

[exeunt, pursued by Time]

(2023)

Four poems about fire: #4

A young man is celebrating, his white shirt decorated with pinned-on money.
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

In May of this year I wrote four poems. I forgot to post this one, which is both typical and interesting. It stands in juxtaposition to ‘Dirty Money,’ one of my earlier poems, which was quite popular but now feels too naïve.

It matters what kind of energy (scientists, did you just laugh) you choose to circulate. Bad mojo shouldn’t be passed on. It should be burned at a crossroads at midnight then buried under a sycamore.

Poem #4

(Dirty Money: A Retraction)

What is money?

is it food

is it hope

is it will

is it desire

is it disgust

is it denial

is it worth it

is it someone else’s problem

is it death

is it real

is it you

(2023)

Saudade

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

there is a recording

of the last Kaua’i ‘ō ‘ō bird

calling to another bird

who no longer exists

born to crave another

made to want that unity

dying with a song on your tongue

because you are alone

no face to find in a fleeting crowd

no future

I think too of how it must have felt

to record that

to capture the sound of infinite longing

of wanting what cannot ever be

and then to catalog it

as a thing we destroyed

did the cataloger weep

like I do now

as they labeled the recording

understanding how much

we have yet to

lose?

(July 2023)

If you really want to exercise your tearducts, here’s the same story but in Brazilian funk-tinged EDM.  No, seriously.

A sort of prayer

the sun rises from the pink horizon into the clear blue sky behind a lattice of the branches of spiny desert plants
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Our Lady who art Chaos

Give us a fucking break

Thy Queendom comes

Whether we want it to or not

Give us no more than we can survive

At least for now

Because I got a lot of shit to do

Deliver my packages on time

And protect me from porch thieves

For this is the life we each have

Use it or lose it

We don’t have forever

Amen (or whatever)

(June 2023)

What to Wear: Pride 2023 edition

~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I want to dress in sackcloth

drag noir

all black

a shroud

to mourn the death of

liberty and justice

the murder of fair decency

the silent suffocation some would subject us to

or shall we remain resplendent

arising prism hued

aligned with our true purpose

yet wearing one black armband

for those whose footsteps

are now only echoes

(June 12, 2023)

I’m so tired of fighting for the right to exist in my own body. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that stop me.

This body is a battleground.

No surrender.

Four poems about fire: #1

the night sky lit yellow and orange by a forest fire. in the foreground, smoke rises from a blue valley.
~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

the sky is full of Alberta

that stalwart cloak of green

that DEW line shielding the eastern provinces from the

aerial assault of off-gassed methane

igniting in one long curving line and taking with it our

hopes for a safe and happy summer

as the sweetgrass dreams of grassy inland oceans

are buried by the silty ruins of the last great extinction