Author | Lightnews

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · 27d

When the wind whispers through open windows
lace curtains become ghosts on the run.
And as a stream of light passes through the glass
It turns specs of dust into stars
Never meant to last.

#poetry

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · 27d

I can see you
But I can’t hear you;
You’re the silent film star of my world.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · 27d

She doesn’t think about you
The way the wind doesn’t think about the trees;
The way rain never considers the lakes.

She doesn’t need you
The way the world doesn’t need us;
The way space doesn’t need the stars.
But it’s still so much prettier
The way things are.

#poetry

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · 27d

My heart can sense the sinking of a ship.
But I’ve remained on shore,
far away from it.
It’s not that I’m afraid to sail
Or of the sea itself.
It’s that I’m afraid I won’t be invited aboard
To experience the beauty
of the raging storm.

#poetry

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · 27d

I feel guilty knowing her name,
Feel guilty she knows mine,
Because we will never meet,
So long as the sea has its tide
And the sun and moon have their light.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

Through an August haze
A red eye rose in pain
Over a slanted skyline and rotting roads of gray.
Across a broken bridge
Through cracked and crooked woods
At the shore of a lonely lake
Is where I had stood.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

With tangled telephone poles
Impersonating trees.
With western buildings
Where woods once were.
The roads here make no sense,
Nothing is near, yet nothing is far,
Everything is marked by signs I can’t comprehend.
And it’s a lifetime away
from the closest friend.

#poetry

2

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

Is this where it ends?
On this lonely road
With miles of ghosts
And not a single home.

Where the trees reach down
And the sky is always gray.
Where darkness holds the pulse
Of the heartache and the pain.
All for me.
All for me.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

I'm surrounded by
a hundred shattered mirrors;
And all I see
Is what I am
what I could’ve been
And what I’ll never get the chance to be.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

Well the years haven’t been too good to me.
I thought I mistreated them
But realized too late
That it wasn't really my fault.
Bad days and bad luck
Are all I’ve had.
Only been happy
when I’m feeling sad.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

I saw a rusted steel silo
And knew it held secrets of mine.
If the sunlight hits it just right,
They will be revealed
And run wild through the fields.
But for now it’s settled in the shadows,
And I’ll watch it turn to rust,
Become nothing more than rubble
Covered in a ghostly layer of dust.

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

Why is it that guys like I
Often find ourselves
on the wrong side of life?
Why is it that to women like you
We are just ghosts
That you can choose to see
or choose to see through?

#poetry

2

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

Need to get all out
Without saying it too loud?
Well I’ve got the ears and mouth
To affirm your thoughts.
Need something moved from here to there
And back again?
Well I’ve got the hands.
I’ll be your temporary friend
And you can let me go
when you feel better again.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

No one likes being alone
with their thoughts
But some nights for most
And most nights for some,
It’s all you’ve got.

#poetry

3

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 28

I’m too lonely
for you to love me.
It wouldn’t be fair
To let you take a hold,
And feel what I have felt.
All that darkness,
With little light
and nothing else.
All my ghosts and I
Are in no position
To let love inside.
So goodbye
goodbye...

#poetry

3

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 28

I’m tired
Of being tired.
I’ve exhausted my exhaustion.
I could sleep all day
yet still be in need of more.

Each hour has become
a lifetime sentence
That I must endure.
And reaching the end of each day
Is only a temporary
kind of cure.

#poetry

2

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 28

The Governor’s son
is going to prom
With the Realtor’s daughter.

The aging athlete
is drunk again,
Telling stories
Of his days of glory.

The college kids
Pass below my window,
reeking of arrogance
and feeling indestructible...

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 14

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 14

She wept for women
she did not know.
She wept for the state of the world.
She wept for every boy
and every girl.
But one thing she never did,
was weep
for herself.

#poetry

1

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

It’s a shame my life
came to this–
A good impression
of myself;
a weak imitation
of someone else.
Lost who I was
Before I had the chance to find him
Before I really gave a damn
About what it all
really meant.

#poetry

2

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

You never saw her standing there
In the shadows of despair.
At the edge of a rusted city,
That rejected her at every turn.
She hasn’t a single friend
And too far from where she’s gone and been
for it to make much of a difference...

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

Hope and Misery
Misery and Hope
Hopelessly miserable
Miserably hopeless.
You become one of them
Or none
Or both.
Or so you hope.

#poetry

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Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

Sometimes I look for love
On a lonely walk.
Other times I look for loneliness
On a lovely walk.

#poetry

3

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

I must admit
I’m not doing very well.
It’s these Midwest blues
keeping me down.
How can there be so many people
and still so much loneliness to go around.
How can there be so much medicine
And still so much pain.
Is there something they ain’t telling us?

#poetry

1

Phantom Flotsam @phantomflotsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

Each path has been the same
I swear someone switched the signs on me
Because I always end up
Back from where I came.
And somehow everyone else is moving on
Using a different lane.
I used to believe I’d catch up
But now I’ve come to see
There's a certain life
not meant for me.

#poetry

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