sometimes i wonder what would happen if i stopped thinking i love you and just said it then that little voice screams in the back of my head that i would lose the small piece of you i have so i stay quiet but know i think it or we can both pretend i do […]
she waved smiled and said hello clearly the look on my face spoke volumes it was half an hour later i realized who she was i felt like an asshole i am nearly positive i wasn’t alone in that assessment as bad as i am with names i am just as bad with faces
all he saw was a crooked smile and it was all he needed to see
there is a sniper on the ridge taking pot shots as i do my evening stroll plumes of earth rise from a few feet to my side one of these days she’ll get off that lucky shot depending on the day i cannot tell which of us will be luckiest when she finally does until […]
the highway is filled with the fumes of dinosaur corpses and saturated fats every mile haunted by the ghosts of every molten memory misery is the co-pilot windshield wipers smear the entrails of the past hammer down the accelerator as the present blurs into fleeting gasps the future is a burning orb on the horizon […]
he makes all sorts of secret promises to himself in the dark he will be better he will be stronger he will not be broken not again in the light though cracks begin to appear in those softly whispered promises his resolve cracks as well he falls into the same routine the same cycle the […]
telling myself to not love her is like eating soup with a fork it is fucking stupid pointless a waste of time and energy so instead you tip the bowl to your mouth and hope to drown
hope is a trapeze but someone sawed through the bar love is a tightrope that has been electrified neither come with instructions and the audience wants you to fail because they know a secret the net is made from razor wire suspended over a tank of piranhas
she smelled of wildflowers and hellfire her head adorned with a briar crown her every word scarred upon her lips branded upon her skin it was impossible to not fall madly in love with her untamed spirit he was just the latest fool to try
i am an organ donor but i am having second thoughts they say the ones who receive the organs sometimes have flashes of the donor’s feelings and thoughts can i risk that does saving a life and inflicting pain still equal a gift take my eyes and see the image of her burnt into the […]
this isn’t where he thought he’d end up, this isn’t where he hoped to be, the fortune teller said she saw him free like the breeze but he never expected to be a macabre law ornament she read his palm, his life line lost at sea, his love line a hyphenated long since erased, he’d […]
he writes more about writing than he writes about life because he can lose himself in the words when he writes about life he just realizes all that he lost
there are times the very last place i want to be is trapped in my own skin like a character in my own shitty novel i will give the author credit he really doubles down on the sadness
there is a streak of bird shit on my windshield it looks like modern art two thoughts occur to me one the bird has talent two it may be sick either way i feel like my art is lacking
sometimes i will write poems for first thing in the morning as you read them i have already forgotten them you start your day with my final thoughts of the night before i feel like a time traveler sending missives to future you sorry for the confusion i was a different person then or now […]
my sanity left this afternoon it scribbled a note said it needed a break i have spent the rest of the day talking to the toaster but he only speaks latin
he spent so long drained the emotions he ignored crystalized inside of him and inside this cave filled with dazzling jewels a light shines only for her
writing of love and need in poetry facilitates the desperation emptiness pit within from so long without writing of love and need in fiction reminds me of why so many of these pathetic odes return to it i may sit on the outside and watch in wonder as it flits past my open chest cavity […]
there was a loud knocking on my door it woke me from a sound sleep i angrily answered a man stood there he was dressed nicely and asked if i was mike i nodded he said i have a delivery for you please sign i scrawled my signature asked who it was from he nodded […]
i imagine my soul is an after image of a murder of crows perhaps a cauldron of bats i would prefer it be a maelstrom of salamanders or pandemonium or parrots but frankly an unkindness of ravens seems more apropos instead of a tattered flag waving surrender in the morning breeze
today starting now in my time zone at least it is the day to celebrate the birth of a muse she doesn’t celebrate it herself but i do see ever since i blindly stumbled upon her tapping my cane in front of me peddling pedantic odes her words opened my eyes made me want to […]
my apologies you seem to need to have a shoulder to cry on don’t let my sobbing disturb you we can mourn this tragedy called life together
i am nearly sure i didn’t do anything wrong but my anxiety tells a different tale so i will just gnaw on the edges of my brain and fret that is normal right?
it is a brazen disregard of common sense fortunately i excel at those
his chest is an ice cave each icicle an offering to her crystalline reflections of her beauty her wit etched into the deep blue vascular longing
when i picture her lips on another man i have an overwhelming urge to scream maybe because i cannot imagine my lips on anyone but her
her smile reminds me of freshly fallen snow full of promise and unsullied as yet by the world my smile feels like a freshly dug grave full of regrets a final resting place for love now dead
when i was a kid i imagined the stars were cigarette holes in the construction paper sky i imagined once you became an adult and could do what you wanted it was always a party that love was forever whiskey tasted like apple juice and happiness was a given i got it all wrong dreams […]
no one cares this is what the voice keeps whispering deep in the bowels of my mind the acid a lurching sea of agony in my guts you deserve this i want to fight back scream tell it to shut it’s inane fucking chanting pummel it into submission just as it has done to me […]
life is a cycle not always a good one seems finding something equates to losing something else sometimes what we find is much better than what we lose sometimes the inverse is true when i stood at the cusp of losing everything i found you this is a case of it all being worth it […]
she asked me where does the sun go at night i could have said nowhere it stays in place it is us that moves this chunk of coal spins in place while spinning around her she only seems to travel across the sky when it is the sky that is moving but there is no […]
my soul is a graveyard of all the hopes dreams and loves i have had to bury regrets like wilted bouquets dot the landscape watered by the freshly fallen tears that bring no vibrancy just muddy the unfertile soil
chills race down his spine someone stepped on his grave his long dead grandmother would have said am i dead he wonders and if so why does it still feel so fucking painful she doesn’t answer of course she doesn’t she’s dead maybe they both are he really can’t tell he wonders as the chills […]
it is a fine line we tread between triumph and failure or so i keep hearing them say as the corks pop on the other side of the fence i just cover myself in leaves hope it doesn’t rain
he dreams in those dreams he flies soars he is free it isn’t until he wakes reality crushes him to the earth but he dreams still
i don’t remember the second i fell in love but i remember the moment it fell apart wish that was reversed trapa llef ti tnemom eht rebmemer i tub evol ni llef i dnoces eht rebmemer t’nod i still hurts
if you look up right now and look at the moon know somewhere i am looking at it and thinking of you
they call it the jesus nut it is the one retaining pin that holds the main rotor to the mast of a helicopter it is a source of possible catastrophic failure without it everything goes down in a fiery wreck you don’t know this but you have been that to me it’s funny because jesus […]
i’m missing in action a casualty of causality lost in this crowded empty room just me myself hatred and i alone i am an erroneously anxiety overridden apostle of apocalyptical insignificance and i am so tired so very tired
spinning a tale makes me appreciate the work spiders put into a web i wonder if they ever finish and look back in surprise at the beauty they weave or is that type of conceited reserved for humans normally once something is written i leave it as is move to the next new idea but […]
he is her’s completely in every way, beholden besotted, bewildered by her every thought and word docile yet ferocious, capable of equal amounts immense love and loyalty or savage rage and fury he is
do you ever think you shall love me i asked she smiled and said i shan’t so i moved on eventually found someone new that was when she decided she shall she asked me to give her the chance i’d offered before i didn’t smile i couldn’t i just softly whispered i can’t
i can pull a rabbit from a hat a dove from my pocket make three rings into one interlocked chain i can pull the table cloth off of the table and not disturb a dish saw a woman in half guess your card any card squeeze blood from a stone turn water into wine escape […]
the days are quiet the nights are loud afternoons are made for napping if given the choice i would gladly trade the quiet and the loud for an afternoon with you
pins and needles race down my deadened limbs anxiety acupuncture for the shattered soul massage my temples this temple unholy hell fire rains from the tolling brass bell brain stem haunted by demons named longing desire and remorse work the gordian knot out of past tense muscular dystopia hollow brittle bones echo broken hearted odes […]
thirty degrees in texas wind chill in the teens coffee and depression under a blanket steel gray soft and comfortable looking for a reason not to curl up and cry need an electoral college for will to go on because the popular vote says quit trying the electoral college was a way to balance out […]
curse you silence you contemptible harlot curse you longing you damnedable fool curses on curses on curses on and on the fool cries in silence
soon it will be morning another fitful time for dreaming to end every ending means a new beginning but i’m not ready for this time to end quite yet perhaps i fear a new beginning more than the pain of clinging to this ending the melancholy minstrel and his faintly forgotten fallacies
she crashed through my life like a lightning bolt as quickly as she came she was gone i could no more capture her essence as catch the wind in my feeble grasp then she was gone all that remained lichtenberg figures etched into my heart her signature clawed into my brain her scent burnt into […]
feeling like a tortoise curled up in my shell but surrounded by water confused with a turtle misunderstood and lost not where i belong at all
your words and creations helped shape a better world left an indelible imprint you guided the hearts and minds you touched made us see nothing was impossible now you rest and the world itself is less colorful less dynamic with your passing so many iconic characters storylines tinged with hope so much joy thank you […]
he is tangibly intangible in contrast to viable constructs in an illusionary world radiantly irradiated by the solar rays that refract through ozone and bounce off of satellite hearts he is
i like fairy tales because against all facts to the contrary in the real world they have happy endings evil is vanquished true love prevails everyone lives happily ever after life is nothing like that though evil tends to triumph the valiant knight gets cancer the princess tends to run away with the bad guy […]
they argue the glass is half empty the glass is half full my glass lays broken on the floor shards pierce my knees as i scramble to clean the mess they could just pour their glasses together and be full
as the world crumbles down around my head and so few positives exist i cling to a dream coming true an actual book i wrote is getting published i could have self published nearly did but that wasn’t my dream my dream was a publisher recognizing my works and they did a real publishing house […]
my phone got turned off yet it rings just as much it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad
take anything i say with a grain of salt as my words seem tasteless in my mouth my tongue is coated with coffee my mind with dull ache i shouldn’t operate heavy machinery or a quill when in this state but if the pen is mightier than the sword cannot think of a more fitting […]
i read it isn’t about weathering the storm it is learning to dance in the rain so i strapped on my best rusty suit of armor let the lightning strike as it is wont to do stripped down to my boxers frolicked in the blizzard chased tornados with nothing but the best intentions i stared […]
your teeth gnaw gnash your tongue laps at the fluids hunger consumes you my heart is a waterfall streaming pastel colours in an ever slowing stream feast upon my jagged wound before it turns to rot then you shall know feast from famine as my blood turns to honeyed wine on your greedy little tongue […]
she sought to exorcise my demons unaware that the evil is deeper than sin it goes into my bones it has been finger painted across my soul she wept tears of blood as the fires of purity flashed back in her face it singed her wings left her grounded due to my blackened love she […]
somber like a funeral home beautiful like death haunted like a cemetery every thought of you a sickness
tired but the brain won’t quit exhausted head still thrumming at full speed visions of you like sugar plum fairies dancing whispering screaming even in near passing out conditions you keep me awake if i could hear you say those magic words all would be right instead i will hear them in my head as […]
the wind howls your name and all i can do is stare outside and feel it’s need as well
what we see is colored by perspective what we hear is tainted by opinion he sat on the bench watching the world, while seeing none of it, his mind was far away from where his eyes stared, lost in the sands of yesterday the first time she walked past him his heart skipped a beat, […]
have i grown jaded everything reeking of familiarity longing for a first time again the first time i kissed a girl the world exploded into fireworks racing down my spine the first time i experienced death holding his hand as the last breath rattled out of his chest gaunt and weak the first time i […]
she stared into my eyes and smiled it was a smile that all smiles strive to attain it was a sliver of sunshine it curved like the pommel of a throwing axe it curved in a way that fit perfectly into the gaps of me it curved with a promise of blue skies of forever […]
it is all going to be okay, he whispers though he knows he lies he doesn’t have to believe he just has to keep going
i will never make truly beautiful art women won’t sigh their hearts won’t skip a beat their breath catch in their throats at my words i’ll never be matisse rembrandt whitman braugtigan neruda or bukowski my name will never be uttered in hushed tones but still i write destined to be forgotten van gogh’s other […]
it is the spaces between the distance between the nucleus to the electron orbits the gap defines the beauty within and with out the imperfections define perfection it is the space between the stars that makes the night sky so gorgeous the river carves through the rock and makes the scenic valley the distance between […]
if you dig through the ashes sift ever deeper into the embers of who i used to be it is less than you would hope or imagine mix my blood my sweat my remaining tears into the ash paint a masterpiece to remember me by then let the ash blow into the wind i was […]
come to me rest your weary head upon my shoulder let your tears soak into me infuse me i shall take all of your pain your sorrow fold it into the fabric of my being allow you to fly once more you are not meant for this it is why i am here so you […]
horseshoe hung over the door four leaf clover in my pocket pinch of salt over the left shoulder thirteen branded on my leg they say a rabbit’s foot brings you luck but they never talk about the poor bunny who lost a paw aimlessly hopping under ladders accidentally breaking mirrors she was my lucky rabbit’s […]
how many pints of blood can one shed before realization comes i am no good for you and by you i mean everyone happiness is the feeling of flight of soaring reality is the bug zapper that appears as the light at the end of the tunnel
he is awkwardly pantomiming the motions of day to day existence with no comprehension of living and existing tap-dancing on landmines in a foolhardy attempt to feel anything even if it is just pain he is
it isn’t the lies we tell others that damn us it’s the ones we tell ourselves that lead to ruin
these hands belong to a different person these scars from another life but these thoughts this self hatred these doubts they remain mine smoke hangs heavy on the breeze, red and white lights flash as home burns, my home, my things just ash on the breeze, my memories faulty, my dreams in flame the drink […]
i shall not be moved my roots extend too deeply the tides shall not sweep me away but i shall not be moved my love for you shifts the soil beneath leaves my footing unsure but i shall not be moved you’ll have to come to me my insides have grown hooks and barbs blackened […]
was it a dream this acrimonious excuse tantrums in tandem i am the eye of the storm no more shall feeble hands grasp at sullen whispers i am daybreak these haunting glimpses into eternity’s dead eyed stare come hither and taste the blood from thine own copious lies for i am your end for i […]
she swirls in a long black dress through the rain sending droplets in her wake her bare feet glide upon the water ripples spread out a web of waves pulling me in her every step a masterpiece her body saying the words no lip nor tongue could ever utter spellbound drawn ever deeper into her […]
i never imagined that it would end up like this if you had asked me ten years ago what the end would be like i would have said raining blood polar ice caps melting flooding everywhere nuclear war plague of locusts mole men from the center of the hollow world it just seemed like a […]
lately everything has been (un)titled (un)able to string more than a few words toget(her) my center was (mis)taken equilibrium (mis)taken for granted everything not nailed down (mis)taken for scrap my he(art) the part of me tarnished and drained (un)able to force out love’s standard refrain my soul the p(art) of me put up for sell […]
i feel less like a person when i consider putting myself back out into the world looking for love and more like an ad for a used automobile good work vehicle still has most of the original parts local use only high mileage somewhat dependable not the best looking some minor damage but gets the […]
he is wandering in a perpetual state of confusion, hearing voices whispering all the things he has failed flying to the peaks of mania with a million ideas and falling to the depths of depression while abandoning them he is
i ran for miles to tell her that i love her she ran for miles in desperation to avoid it in the end her heart was healthier mine on the other hand never quite recovered cupid’s arrow pierced my aorta as she took cover i lay bleeding internally and she kept running
the sun is down the sky has rolled out the blanket of velvety black yet here i sit immune unseeing the clouds sit thick air is heavy with potential storms my mind is locked on you what i would do wouldn’t give to sit and laugh with you but i am tongue tied bound and […]
https://wolffpoetry.com/bumps-poem-by-mike-ennenbach/ A big thank you to the wonderful Linda J Wolff at Wolff Poetry for sharing my poem, Bumps, with the world. She is a tremendous talent herself and I am honored she chose one of my pieces. Do yourself a favor and check her work out.
i have good memories of the us that used to live but there are enough bad ones to make them taste sour so i keep the good ones locked away who needs them tainting the day
she sizzles like bacon in a cast iron pan she sputters and spits be careful not to get burnt mostly she doesn’t mean it sometimes the words escape on their own you will know when she does instead of spattering little drops that sting tiny annoyances she will freeze your world solid chattering teeth the […]
her smile was like moonlight glinting off of a razor’s edge her fingers like a hangman’s noose around his throat her kisses felt like a sucking chest wound on a winter’s morning she was death he loved her
have you ever stared into your reflection and only seen madness the face that faces out at you a concoction misshapen snarling caricature and you try put in the effort to smile but the simple act has lost all meaning the muscles twitch spasm writhe like a mass of electric eels or tentacles just beneath […]
learning how to be alone was one lesson in it’s own selfish hell to teach oneself learning to accept it as the new normal was an entirely different hell all together it’s funny in the saddest sobbing laugh because it eases the ache way hell is a decidedly human conceit one dabbed behind the ears […]
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he is lost in a forest of disillusionment where every fallen leaf is a dream still born at his feet searching for the her that exists in his heart and mind not knowing she is poisoned by the places she inhabits he is
it all comes crashing down eventually we build our foundations on sandy soil it only takes one good storm then the walls shift any change inclement patterns develop next thing you know you are on your hands and knees sifting through the remanants wondering where it all went wrong it’s raining here
in the mirror when i woke up this morning i looked twice but my reflection didn’t come into the room luckily i know what i look like so i knew i wasn’t missing much later as i drank coffee i saw him again i liked it better when he was missing
i wrote this poem while sitting in the shadow your absence casts upon the ground if it lacks substance that’s okay the world does too without you in it
he is the brown flowers on an unmarked grave as the first snows fall heavily a lone albatross floating over the ocean in search of a home he has long since forgotten he is
my skin is a road map through pain marked by scars that slowly trace their way through a lifetime of lessons forgotten my blood is kerosene rendered inert under pressure every breath a catalyst designed and intended to ignite my soul an oil spattered stain glass portrait of stained shards pointedly turned within grating with […]
need me a dusty trail the stars above guide me to a new tomorrow far from home out on this plain away from pain and sorrow all alone is where i’ll roam to find my heart’s desire at night i’ll sit rest a bit beside the cozy fire the wind she sings that gentle breeze […]
i miss it some days more than others the crackle like electrictiy sparking to life a neon tube the thrum of power intangible yet making the hairs on your arm stand it isn’t just because i am alone that i miss it hell i’ve been in the death throes of loves last days and been […]
