Joseph Pinto, the barflypoet

By Joseph Pinto

poetry written from the inside of bars served raw and unedited from the moment crafted.

...drinkin' proofs and writin' truths...

Listen on SpotifySend voice message

Available on

proof

Joseph Pinto, the barflypoetMar 21, 2023

00:00

00:50

abditive

‘abditive’

part of the sham is participating in it. so pour the masquerade like a cold one into glass. drink it slow or fast. doesn’t matter because the bloat will follow you home. all they say heads your way but never is it meant for you. like bubbles children try to snatch from july sky, it floats just close enough to delight then gone. every one of those conversations a soap slick residue atop your skin. nothing short of an unnatural phenomenon. so stick it out with that glassy smile of yours. no one dangles anything close enough that might crack it.

'abditive'

having the quality of hiding

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jul 19, 202300:41

and i know

‘and i know’

and i know

that you don't want

what i want

anymore.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jul 06, 202300:09

approaching

‘approaching’

the moon approaching

the transformation begins

this beast now a wilder thing.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jul 03, 202300:12

can't stop me

it’s nearly summer vacation so now what’s your excuse??

‘can’t stop me’

when i get the call

that my daughter’s school

is closing due to inclement weather

i stay up late

and drink like it’s the first day

of summer vacation.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jun 20, 202300:12

piggies

‘piggies’

and just like that

she makes her feet

home in my lap

says boy rub my piggies

i came a long way for your palms

well i never

had no market

now i’m stocking shelves

i wanna keep her fed and

i love her tongue in my mouth

so she tastes me inside out

and knows she no longer walks alone

and if my baby wants me

i’ll carry my baby home

i am home, i am home

for my baby

i am home, i am home

for my baby

and just like that

she steals my heart

away in her eyes

says boy always blind me

tired of moon now i need your sun

well i never

had no market

now i’m stocking shelves

i wanna keep her fed and

i love her tongue in my mouth

so she tastes me inside out

and knows she no longer walks alone

and if my baby wants me

i’ll carry my baby home

i am home, i am home

for my baby

i am home, i am home

for my baby

it’s time to lose my boots

the way she lost her shoes

i am home, i am home

for my baby

i am home, i am home

for my baby

and she is home, she is home

that’s my baby

she is home, she is home

that’s my baby

this is home, this is home

for us baby.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jun 14, 202301:47

at 2am

the bottles, the empty bottles…

‘at 2am’

i'll put this as succinctly as i can:

you treat me like shit.

disguise your shortcomings if you must

(and you must)

preach the honor of your duty

(i no longer listen)

the only role i have ever asked

is that you actually see me

instead you have left me wayward

twisting in restless sleep

drowning in bottles;

i am not above saying

i have failed.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jun 09, 202300:34

filipendulous

someone teach me the reasons and not the lesson…

‘filipendulous’

tired. spell it. two vowels and thirty-three bowed vertebrae like overpacked luggage from my spine. i’m good keeping possessions but what i own ain’t mine. a chest with a hole and no room to fit in. one more scotch or bourbon don’t ask for reasons i wouldn’t know where to start and if i did you wouldn’t listen. a shadow scabbed over shouldn’t be picked. so what to do when the lies itch? hard work pays off in the end, my father once said, then i laid with his stiff cold corpse and the times told tomorrow as a boy no longer applied. so now a man i am lost holding an iou with no bank to deposit or account to withdraw. my smile often keeps the corners but i’ve no face to back it up.

'filipendulous'

hanging by a thread

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jun 07, 202300:58

she's just angry

and this is why i love writing from bars.

i think i need to go on tour…

‘she’s just angry’

cries:

he used me

he took all the best

i was.

she sucks angry on her cigarette

the way she sucked angry

on his dick.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

Jun 01, 202300:14

avoidance

moments are few but here is my one…

‘avoidance’

mother and father took the tines to my eyes but never time to soothe my tongue and so much of my embryo goes unanswered like why did i grow into who i am and why do i see now what i’ve been blind to before and who the fuck nourished me when most obviously my bloodlines ran thin? i am not yours and clearly i am so wayward how could i ever put forth a signal to be heard? generations ensuing my cells will never know the pliancy of my flesh but my daughter keeps the consistency of who i am and for that reason alone i stay present in all my moments no matter how they crush me.

'avoidance'

an action of emptying,

vacating or clearing away

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 31, 202300:42

monachopsis

perfectly whole yet not quite together…

‘monachopsis’

a thousand interlocking pieces yet none hold the smooth to slip me in. a shape with projection i seem to push the mass away. even if we lock would i ever want to conform to your spatial monotony? i hear what you’re saying but it’s falling on deaf ears. you want me here but a path leads from the sash i’ve left open. inch turned to gap. the draft never turned your head to notice so neither will the guilt when i move on. it’s a pretty picture when all comes together. there’s a hole in the middle rendering it obsolete.

'monachopsis'

the subtle yet persistent

feeling of being out of place

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 24, 202300:43

death no matter

‘death no matter’

these people

they think i die to drink

no, no friends

i drink to die.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 23, 202300:12

playbill

do you stay well after the curtain drops…?

‘playbill’

fifth act. we find our protagonist once fool now hanged man center stage and all unfolding behind eyes does so unaware of severed cords to facial expression and while heart trembles worrisomely to outcomes beyond measure he’ll suspend expectation and keep forever his surrender

waiting.

'playbill'

a poster announcing a theatrical performance

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 18, 202300:27

beacon

where are the fresh voices and deliveries?

why is so much presented for the eyes

and not crafted from the heart?

‘beacon’

we live in a world

of posers and followers

desperate for the

free and brave

to liberate us

from all the shit.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 16, 202300:10

band-aid, she always uses a band-aid

he’s interesting—

he’s well-traveled

he’s a musician on weekends

he’s single

but he’s not my type.

i listen to her words

and shake my head sadly

knowing she’ll find a reason

to take him up on a night out.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 12, 202300:26

assassin

looking thru the glass. and seeing nothing…

‘assassin’

something’s swimming in my snifter that shouldn’t be. maybe part of a bug or yet another piece of myself i’ve been forced to swallow and now repeats in untimely fashion like when i want to forget the knife holes in my back. usually i ignore all leaking down my spine but it’s hard when all i want to really say goes whistling through. i’m sure if i had you alone you’d see i’ve crossed your name off from my list. a concise unshaking line that speaks of cold-blooded laces knotted to shoes walking on. the rich irony to be mocked as boy who conjures things he can’t see when quite clearly here you are holding conversation with a ghost. when next i greet you, and you, and you, i’ll glide untethered and true in the knowing a single shot took me out and into peace. until then i’ll knock back this booze and ignore the defineless particles which once i may have been but surely now no more.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 10, 202301:11

yes isn't always the answer

you figure things out the hard way…

‘yes isn’t always the answer’

yes isn't always the answer

i couldn't figure out

what he meant

but it became clearer

after several shots of irish whiskey

look, sometimes you have to grow balls

and stick up for yourself

be a man and not some compliant pussy

that rolls over to your woman.

he suddenly got a text from his wife

and hurried home.

i poured whiskey down my throat

stumbled in at 4am

walked into walls

pissed in the sink

and caught holy hell.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto

May 04, 202300:39

gallimaufry

and here hanging is a wardrobe of uncertainty…

‘gallimaufry’

here, there, you left your face and if only i knew which expression belonged. eyes constantly turning, mouth always churning and one nail is not enough to raise you up and into light. there’s a plastic to your condition that doesn’t agree under the ridges of my fingertips. i can’t collect you any longer. i can’t listen to the fabrication of your syllables mimicking the drop of my lids. i can’t take that drawl of a head nod pretending you understand each turn of a day brings about another how did it go wrong. i’d brush you a thousand different ways if i had the color. i’d hide you a million more with cover. so tell me how to navigate hours when i can’t steer minutes thru storms. drywall prepared with neat holes of precision and the decision of which facade to pull down is a tortuous one.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

May 02, 202300:60

change of scenery

'change of scenery'

shoulders slumped

he left his house

there his posture straightened

along with his optimism.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Apr 27, 202300:10

muffin

'muffin'

it’s the kind of wind that runs through your house like an intolerable child bored from their mind, the kind of wind that brings about pause and makes you question all the warmth you’ve allowed to escape from your life. the kind of wind that pairs best with chili because like you it comes together in a mess. i love you, she says, and you know it’s only because she’s devoted to separating your thoughts from your head. outside the boughs frown like the curvature of your body, bagged atop the mattress like a baker’s dozen, growing day by day stale.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

muffin:

a small soft cake baked in a cup shaped container

Apr 26, 202300:38

trampoline

‘trampoline’

clear sky thins the smoke from the eyes but exasperation dries the slick out from the tongue. no piecing together of clever words can ever detract from the lines you hurl and cool cheeks betray bleats of a mourning heart. higher and higher you’re always at it say you’ll stop just like an addict keep me down as long as you rise up. on and on you’re so dramatic flip the script it’s your bad habit here’s the blame you’ll only pass the buck. and you go up. and i go gone gone and you go up. and i go gone gone and you go up. and i go gone gone gone.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

trampoline:

a resilient sheet or web (as of nylon)

supported by springs in a metal frame

and used as a springboard in tumbling

Apr 19, 202300:46

words like ghosts

‘words like ghosts’

'go live your life,

she told him.

but he didn’t know how

without her.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Apr 18, 202300:11

tiger

but who ever listens..?

'tiger'

caution! do not put fingers or hands into the cage! yet you fail to heed the warning time and time again. it cannot help if you now lack the necessary digits to pound your discriminatory reports under its eyes or the common sense to keep from worming back into its head. incessant you ignored the cue from its rollbacked ears and still you brandish the nerve to curse the beast when it is only wont to do beast things.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Apr 04, 202300:31

proof

just leave the bottle…

‘proof’

weakness from an old injury. the broke breaks deeper than the disobedience of soul to bone. i’ve oft tried to mend myself with white cocktail napkins and while catching the spill they could never wipe the mess. there’s not much left but a photograph of us along michigan avenue. who knows if heaven exists but something beyond our capacity to reason raised our lips skyward that day and if you think i don’t still feel the phantom of your hands when pleasuring myself then what of life have i left? in this worn-out bar silhouettes throw back with punch line violence and here i am still sipping the cadence of your shoes. you’ll always be in my vision but i order one more just to spite my face.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Mar 21, 202300:50

obvious metaphor

‘obvious metaphor’

though pretty

the dandelions

choke and

kill the

lawn.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Mar 17, 202300:09

appreciation

‘appreciation’

a devil’s deal

for love

heart freely ripped

gnarled vines replacing

fruitless

eyes rust weeping

emaciated clouds

sun refuge

shovel,

he handed

break soil,

he spoke,

only now can you appreciate drought.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Mar 09, 202300:29

lorn

'lorn'

good god almighty, you widen my eyes with clandestine grandeur, salve my tongue as vessel to your unknowable ways…only to rob me lost of true fervor, my faith upon my knees before eternal night, pregnant above my ashen countenance in bedeviling possibilities?

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Mar 07, 202300:21

lacuna

'lacuna'

still waiting here, a blue without horizon, an awful gale without wind to blow. your name about the corners in reflective manifestations, none the direction from where we came. keeping the posture when the rain falls teeming down, the realization tread water means one has since drowned. and when the sun dries the sodden mess it leaves me feeling worse. at best. no more skipping puddles or reimagined clouds with a picket fence. hands fill the pockets but nothing overflows my heart the way your hip once anointed seamlessly along mine. the passerby give no note to the stoic man with westward eyes, homeward.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Feb 22, 202300:49

euthanasia

'euthanasia'

recognition, spoken through your eyes. i heard you and maybe someday someone will hear me too. years spent like seconds. i woke before ready. a long walk before i tied my shoes. spirit moves along without care to pack and even slipping you filled my arms with more than they could hold. i want you back i want you back i want you back. there’s no rushing from the house early mornings anymore. no burst of light greeting me through the door.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jan 31, 202300:40

whelve

'whelve'

my father kept many tools i never knew how to use. little boy hands still feel little boy in adult bones. remarkably he transferred his sins into the soil of all my pores but to this day i can’t fix a thing. when he moved on i took his toolbox heavy as all the burdens he never spoke a word of and just as cool. in a side room off from my basement he waits to be mended but i’ve closed him to the dark. i can smell his curses mushrooming like smoke from diesel stacks and his words linger longer than summer did when i was six. loose screws require the perfect twist but all falls apart when stripped. he’d call me useless in those bursts of deflection and dutifully my eyes fell to the dirt under my nails. i’m sorely scrubbed now and the irony is i no longer feel under my fingertips. the apple falls no farther from the tree nor does a bent angle lean from its foundation. i pound with fury all that no longer fits foregoing his wrenches. round holes don’t accept five knuckles but i’ve the flayed skin to prove that’s not fucking true at all.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jan 18, 202301:23

pernoctation

‘pernoctation’

another then another more. so much time elapsed yet you’re home in all my minutes spent. there’s no keeping glass from lips the way i can’t alter your cells from my bones. another dark eve of legs’ serenade and what can i say i’m rubbed the wrong way by my angel’s promise of our dissolution of silence. i’ll wear this floor thin, your voice and the songs i loop for you commanding my head. the house nor the crickets rearrange their patterning to my noise and that’s when i suffer in plain sight and no one knows. how can i sleep hoping this night might be the one, how can i collapse within myself when i have never stopped collapsing into you. my phone a tombstone yet i believe the dead can rise again. another then another more. these pours measure the distance between reality and a lie. i suppose that’s why so much of what i drink lingers under my tongue. upon death it is said we repeat into which we expended our energy most. so i am destined an eternity of blurred vision and vesper’s chafing across skin, uneven footing dragging the chains of devotion. fear the haunting ghost but most disregard the damned cupping a flame with conceptionless hands.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jan 11, 202301:27

pneumatophany

'pneumatophany'

there are five stages to grief and i’ve got two hands, ten fingers. wiggle them fast enough and it’s goodbye. i told my mother i had died. she said that’s nice and went about vacuuming the living from the room. from that point i didn’t trouble her to share the news. you have all scraped the value from my existence like burnt edges from toast anyway. pass something through flame and it’s either transformed or destroyed. why then do you pity the ashes while the new chassis denied? i didn’t ask for this deliverance into the light i was thrust any more than i’d begged to be heard over her old electrolux. decades later and those floors are no cleaner. now here we are. mother won’t answer my call from the other side so on the rare instance i visit i am mindful to keep my charred appearance as not to scare her.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Dec 13, 202201:06

sciamachy

'sciamachy'

and will we be? and will we be? and will we be? and what will we be, aside the nothing we are. round and round slaughtering the sheep and perhaps i’d sleep had not blood steeped this bed. sliver of moon about the only thing cutting this head open to rationale. settle in, and down, and dream, guides say from beyond the veil and i would had they left instruction. instead crickets rub their legs with a scratch above more than i can bear and punches thrown across the wall go ducked. i want you cast from head to heart and wondering when will we be us leaves me fucked beyond recognition. i never asked to meet you but you came thundering in and like lightning flashed out. so how do i go on when every step illuminates another path you’re not found? why the weight worn when my soul holds your love in a state of buoyancy? punch the bully first and don’t stop i was taught and yet have i kept my brain from spinning. constellations perforate ruminations and for a slow moment something so far away falls down across my fingertips.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Nov 29, 202201:25

corps

'corps'

it’s never been about the good you have said but the supportive you haven’t. frayed on the inside, the diligence of tying ribbons round ribs like souls lost to war and never coming home. you wouldn’t know a thing of my patriotism in the teeth of your heavy fire. pockmarked soul the price of incoming shells and i’ll no longer be the outgoing saint i’d been. somewhere in those fields the mewl for momma while dulled surgeons and scissors fumble to cut the cord. you have failed me in such epic proportions future generations will hold my limbs and say here, the ancient man turned to slug. i drag this sack of meat before you desperate you’ll smell the rot but i am recipient only of that karmic reducing perfume of yours. ignorance never took such a fragrant path to my nose. so come holidays we’ll speak of imaginary storm fronts that threaten you worse than the notion your child wanders the front line geared in little more than dulled eyes. leave no man behind but quite obviously you forgot the boy.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Nov 17, 202201:14

thermal

'thermal'

between nest and sky you caught me at my weakest. advantageous you kept a suggestive mouth. cunning i filled it where the living no longer walk or speak and i despised the taste of myself whenever we kissed. you nourished my irresoluteness until fragility took to your words. i harbored resentment even as i worshipped your breasts. you never understood the rational that migratory and delusionary patterning would take me away. entertaining your flawed notion that all raised remains home, i sucked down your toting love and spat it back your way. never was i your baby boy. never i the sparkle in your eye. i flew the coop and you couldn’t cope. no longer one with your air, this chick you thought now a hawk. i circle and circle above while you believe me prey to the currents. i’ve a way to lull with outstretched wings as the blue sky disguises my intentions.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Nov 10, 202201:14

ya'aburnee

'ya’ aburnee'

over and over, forced into me. be. just be. know no hour. no day. slip moments over your head like a well-worn sweater. i stand with no comfort. passing seconds make me feel no better. so dug soil percolates through my nose and here i know i will rest. eventually. your face shimmers in a glass in a palm in a mouth and all i cannot speak repeats from my gut through my heart out my soul again. i am dying without you witness to my withering. i suppose it’s all well off. animals expire alone. bones married back to earth. maybe i’m speeding the process but if you’re not coming back what’s left to wait. i’ll forgo the streamers and banners should the almighty grade my papers before yours. only an open hand bringing you home should you be so inclined. a table for two made in unassuming fashion, origami as centerpiece and my whiskey glass replaced by a bowl of milk for your cat.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Nov 03, 202201:18

ma'goa

'ma’goa'

morning carries an inching mustiness from the eve before like a secreted child. hand in hand, i walk you to school. the cool dew has slicked the leaves and i’ve care where to step. merrily you chatter on and on, the waking blue jay only more resolute than you to be heard. a glaring bright the moon slipping from full and it seems so misplaced but your knowing palm becomes my sun. we cross the street together cause you’re so small the cars so fast and what needs slowing fled me when you were born. you’ve grown thinking you need assistance when it’s been the other way around. kiss and you’re gone, string bean legs the way of stalk and i pray the kingdom you find will stay yours forever. veins and complexions under foot and though strong of heart i fear my seasons near expiration. i turn so quickly. short walk to the door but i can move on. and on. eventually i’ll become a lunar ray and when you seek mysteries i’ll be the answer. illuminating your autumn with gentle notions.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Oct 26, 202201:16

drumsticks

'drumsticks'

clear-eyed from the distance but obviously you’ve not looked quite close enough. machine gun rat-a-tat-tat marring my whites like crows stealing ahead of october night. your words still catch my lungs and not even the waking wisps from neighbors’ chimneys can clear them out. slow or fast, my feet keep the rhythm of your pounding, a redundancy without regard to the resistance of massage from fingertips to sole once shoes kick away. and there they lay on the floor, my favorite pair and my bones, all untied and sideways and waiting for something more than space to fill them. my soles are tired from wandering and my soul aches from a redundancy without regard to the nuances of triage etiquettecies. hung like damocles your insistence you’ve known me all along. it’s not your song the same but the two beat you play. for now we keep windows wide before what warmth remains the chill takes. somewhere someone burns the foliage and that makes the score marks along my ribs hurt just a little bit more.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Oct 20, 202201:11

cortisone

'cortisone'

reflected in the glint, your face especially longer than the expanse of which i am used. hold still, big pinch coming and if ever in the history of understatements was there such a grander lie then i am at a loss. once upon another lifetime ago, my parents bought me a dog until mother decided she could not handle eyes imploring for care and so stage right exit left went dog and up across my face a new space for tragedy and cheap plastic acceptance. luckily i hid eyes imploring answers behind cheap plastic acceptance cause i was a good kid and did good kid things like keeping the big kid’s conscious clean. hold still, big pinch coming but the fib is muffled under cloth the way the fast one was cast across my vision. problem is i am keen to tricksters now. and in a silvery flash the breadth of your ignorance drives through my joint. i am told this will cease the release of molecules that cause inflammation but when i plead for a stake through the skull the doctor pushes a shaking voice before retreating legs and declares my mental health might do good with a pet.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Oct 11, 202201:16

helicopter

'helicopter'

i must have lift. i must have a force moving me upward. but i’ve lacked it all, and all my life, the reminder of it a steady beat within my chest. whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp i imagine a parade, a marching band, endless columns of feet with gum-stained soles and taut lips that should be smiling. i should be smiling, had i ever been taken to a parade, had my soles ever been allowed the mileage to step in gum. it rakes my ribs now, a prisoner with a tin cup and no matter the pleas for leniency or a sip to quench the fire, i am sentenced to life for the oversight of others. whoomp whoomp whoomp whoomp and all i’ve ever fancied, all i’ve ever tricked myself into believing could be mine suspended right there above my heart, breaths away from severing attachments if only the cuts could be so neat. a fascination so many believe my shit is together when the truth is it stinks. every morsel ever force fed has yet passed through me and god help everyone once it does. staring into and through the glass until then, i sometimes allow my mind to drift to the rat-a-tat-tat of drums and how my keds would’ve tapped if i’d only heard them.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Oct 04, 202201:25

mirror

i've been reflecting on a good many things lately. so although i wrote this a year ago, this is as good a place to pick up where i left off as any...

'mirror'

lately you’re the only one i turn to for truth. it’s not as often as i’m sure you’d like but it’s something and something counts. so many things get in my way and yeah you’ll say i’ll make excuses for hours. funny i know what’s coming spat from your throat and that makes it harder. but you’ve a way of waving your pungi and all the snakes i’ve got coiled inside start to rise. i’ll sink my fangs into you if i’ve the chance and i know you know that too. healer in your heart while from my mouth destroyer. it’s no trick of light. no matter how we turn we turn and lose each other. i need the best from you the way you need the worst of me. the one relationship i can show up in all my glory and still you’ve not walked. yet you’ve the reasons. how can you bear to stand there and watch me mask my gut-eating demons? i mean, i know you know i drank those fiends down all weekend (and beyond). you’re the only one i turn to but it gets sadder every time. grey has turned to snow and the grimace you cast somehow colder. i blinked one day and then my friend still you were there but older. eyes a darker shade of grave. i may have buried you once or thrice before but only one of us has realized the ticket has been punched.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Sep 27, 202201:32

ghostcore

'ghostcore'

it’s you and me and all left never said expired between us. it’s the drinks reanimating the fringe of lips and the abnegation that makes me drink them down. it’s the cool side of your cheek and the smart flash through mine. once i could raise the past without it haunting us. now it seems shadows stick where no wind blows. you persist spring buds from your tongue while the periwinkle signals my stay of sentence. destitute of vision i cry smoke, smoke but when have you ever stood close enough to feel my fire? what moves me most? i cast the spade more times than i could bear and even then you cheapened my toil with plastic flowers. pay the bill as if considerate but it’s only meant to keep your debt from growing. another martini never hurt me none while it only assures the erasure of your memory.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Aug 03, 202200:60

billiards

'billiards'

first error, believing my guise of patience to be a coat of acceptance. there’s a rack hung in my closet smelling of cover’s mistakenly judged and bargain buys. hey if it fits you wear it and i wear it worn without posture. from corners i see you circling like a shark. i might be bleeding but i’ve yet bled out. call me twisted but i’m head over heels with the notion you believe you call the shots. oh babe you carry the big stick and that’s well and fine because the words i set up perfectly will never reach you anyway. collision of wills a sharp crack much like the tearing of my meniscus, an awful sort of reverberation through the flesh signaling that all is definitely not alright. and so we careen and to the lazy eye we are spheres, plummeting, burning up but i prefer to think we probe signals like lost satellites. your loops tighten the table and i know you’re searching an angle to put me away for good. so like you to overlook my sense of fashion for while you think you’ve dressed me down i’ve pulled the wool over your eyes and as i go screaming into darkness you can bet sure as shit i’m taking you with me.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jul 26, 202201:16

anslutning

'anslutning'

chitter chatter i’ve no part of and a mainstream bearing no inclusivity to my name. there where the paint hides flaws i find solace, side-skipping the shallower crevices into which my eyes won’t get lost. appearances are a thing so it makes sense now why certain fabrics scratched my skin. i hated layers but hated even more the peeling of self. downward glances and shut out all that other stuff like you’ll grow up and out of it one day. what if you don’t grow up and out of it one day? what if you find yourself at a table without inquiry or care of your latest digressions and the smile carried is like freight lost of its port. valuable riches never delivered. sometimes one must question if one will ever be a want. wall upon countless wall has been left wet with my dripping expression and for once i wish there’d be a handprint left in the paint.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jul 14, 202201:07

closet

'closet'

today i am not quite sure what to wear so i will slip indifference over my head. it’s ill-fitting, yet another reminder i’ve put off discarding things i’ve so overgrown. all goes black as it crosses my eyes and if there’s anything the years have taught me it’s that it still squeezes around the neck. how i love to flash it before you, so garish, so proud. sadly it’s one of the few feats afforded that brings about the instant sterilization of my space. you’re so outdated, you are wont to say, forgetting all the things that santa brings are clearly not my style. from the gallows dead limbs hang hollow of intention, tags still dangling, testament through no fault of their own that fervent hearts require touch and more than just a swathing.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jul 07, 202200:55

understanding

'understanding'

what you do with it is on you, i don’t give a fuck either way, i can’t polish the platter any brighter or embed it into your dna because your bones lack my matter. and why should it factor it comes delivered lacking white gloves when a bourboned tongue does just fine. true, i’ve won no points for style but i’ve always been one for neat palms and dirty knuckles. my father left his backhand imprinted upon my youth and so i aged fearing nothing. though as god is my witness i prayed for the buckle instead. i’m sorry you’re deciphering now all i never said but the bloody trail leading down the hall surely should have tipped you off that a wounded animal stalked this house and when cornered it would bare its teeth.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jun 28, 202200:49

appeal

'appeal'

snap your eyes shut. open. keep me in that briefest of moments between peace and mottled dark. a luminous lulling that all is okay when it is not. my fingers full now until the winds empty the lot to which i’ve clutched. free picking for crows once bones lose their shelter, the clicking you hear my joints pointing the way. to where as lights descending, to where as distance grows. snap my eyes shut. open. i lose skin like seasons and raked as fast. demeanor a bridge between turn of notions and colors slash. my prometheus raging and all is okay as it burns smokeless and lucid.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Jun 07, 202200:46

asomatous

'asomatous'

beset by shapes of smoke i drift through, above, beyond. twisted such as rope my hands, knots. all i touch, drifts, drifting. inside out i, open, spills, spilling backward to self. secrets like dogs e’er faithful waiting for walk, and walked, ne’er collared. sshh, angels talk, where, where trumpets blare in quiescent hearts of which no such beats ears know. grand void beckons, beckoning while apparitions of sham turn heads

oh, was he ne’er e’er there?

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

May 17, 202201:10

dishwasher

'dishwasher'

some things require a sponge, some elbow grease and a good scrubbing. some things just find a way to pile up. take the dishes in this sink, for example. crusted over by food i never tasted. isn’t it a shame you took all that time to prepare a meal but not the care to season? presentation like a pageant queen but a poison pill upon the table. sure the meat is the perfect temperature but my flesh is still raw. you deny wrongdoing yet the well laid track of my shoes out the door says otherwise. and that’s the kicker. cheap food i buy on the run tastes like a temple’s bounty while what you cook from the heart eviscerates mine. we share trivialities before the hanging god into whom i place devout attention. reward for my conviction the napkins into which i wipe clean our discord. i suppose it’s not so bad. i’ve a roof over my head, calories in my stomach and a knife i’ve been sharpening. understand, mind you, i dutifully say thank you for dinner but require the honed blade to scrape the bullshit from the surface. i know i chew every morsel like it’s my last but i push the essence of you to the side. ninety-eight cents short of a happy meal, i force a smile and say that’s delicious as the basin overflows with chipped disks ready to topple.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

May 10, 202201:29

abscond

'abscond'

before your eyes, a snifter, a bottle, long draw from the neck, disparaging swallows so the expenditure of your vowels won’t dry your throat as bad, i’ve beat you to the punch, turned my insides inside out, you’ve nothing to invade but the invasion of self and know that violent clash within the recycling bin won’t carry my resonance, shatter like that of halloween bones and tricked twice as bad but the mask deflects the shards and yet leaves a sliver slit for further ingestion.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Apr 26, 202200:33

golgotha

'golgotha'

i knew you came to slay me. my tarot spoke such. across my altar i fanned your volatile air but my guides would not yet snuff our death. there, across our timeline, i finally recognized my flogging, the crown of dissolution upon my brow. stripped of all sincerity i once bestowed you, we marched parade to illusive golgotha. you hung me there between your present and past chimeras, denied me grief wetting wine. broke not legs but my chest. callous to nails, i endured only the betrayment of the reed. your final spear of silence did not matter then. already had i awoken. risen with blood eyes. and now you gaze sideways not to notice but i am there.

when your lids blink in seismic misconjecture.

#barflypoet

#josephapinto

www.josephpinto.com

'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Apr 14, 202201:04