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Best Poems Written by Timothy Barry

Below are the all-time best Timothy Barry poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Jagged Water

I live upon a shard of glass
deeply set in a morass
once a year the sun does shine
and I reflect what isn't mine

Then you come and touch my face
and tell me there’s a different place
you promise me it’s really there
and actually, it’s not that rare
and from the surface of my glass
sprouts an awkward piece of grass

I protest stay my ancient place
dictator I and mighty safe
and don't forget my yearly shine 
reflecting things that aren't mine

You boast of beauty cloud and lake
people pair for floatings sake
people floating I do sigh?
quiet now, and wait to die

I do cling to my morass
my family of reflective glass
but as they fall they chip me sore
eventually I’ll be no more

All at once I see the water
there without a sign of slaughter
a person floating on a cloud
speaking loud and looking proud
then a tidal wave appears
I’m suddenly all eyes and ears
I clench my jagged glass with might
but only see an awesome sight
the clouds unite with little fright
I only dream of lakes that night

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Algae Bloom

The dance commences, I retreat a step
Shattered from archaic engulfing patterns

You cha cha your storm forward in
Swirls of ancient abandonment and as

I skip back another, gasping for sufficient safety from suffocation,
You unfurl your blitz clawing the lioness’ leash

You decipher my terror and it emboldens your raging compulsion
Which suspends our inner children in connected cocoons and yet somehow

We cant reach each other as we intermingle desperately
It makes us stoic, empty and musically atrophied but

At a closer distance, oxygen less and congruently alone
And it sits frog like, stale and poisonous between us and still

The spire flattens and petrifies our reflections powered by a 
Stalemate which devours our fragile humanity with a timid jocularity

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Space

Infinity enters a child’s mind
beyond the wall, the next, the next
inky blackness of godless isolation
vastness extinguishing limping breathe
untethered in time and space
lost in eternal moments of neglect 
unlimited eternity crushing tiny molecules
fight, flight, soothe, sleep…earthly vehicles
attacking, accelerating, anxious Starlight  
paralyzed in  a solitary blankey 
that protects no more

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

My Red Wagon

Christmas, me in my red wagon
Slogging in tears, later you forget
Am I a full person?

Blown black pepper stings your eyes
You strike me, the ambivalence aches
Covered mouth laugh-sharing from now on

Reattached you escape childish dreams
I offer to banish parts of me
Warriors on the horizon, plump and ascending

You appear similar, soul less, smaller
I scurry, looking for your parts
I miss them

At your escape hatch I make room
I hide in your obscurity
Broken in all endeavors

Waiting in luxurious swamps
Emeshment preventing loneliness
I wanted to hurt you too

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

The Flying Circus

Spark forgotten birthday candles
Brittle kindling of bike less handles
Kiss less shins that need a splint
Graduation's a lonely stint 
Cover up, cover up, skin is showing
Guilt you’re here, big and glowing

Heartfelt softness never seen
All adults are really mean 
Solo outings, deplete dimension
Counselors pondering intervention
Cover up, cover up, skin is showing
Swallow shame, and keep on going 

The silver cup it left you dry 
Needs long owed they make you cry
Fantasies turned abysmal tears
Deep deep down are only fears
Cover up, cover up, skin is showing
Hopeless now is done bestowing

A steely decade begets rejection
Unchanged bandages near infection
Breeze, her walk it sears your cheek
I need you-repel you. I am freak!
Cover up, cover up, skin is showing
Idle now and long stopped growing

Sleeping to the evening news
Existing far beyond the blues
And then awake a puppy nuzzle 
In it’s sacredness a puzzle
Cover up, cover up, skin is showing
And just like that 
you are unknowing

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Debt

And why this curse was placed on me
base of hallow lands
and why it fell with so much glee
from lace of someone's hands

to follow me from crib to grave
to gut me once and yet to taunt
to covet me into a slave
a ghost appears but not to haunt

to tell a tale this apparition
to show me pain without regret
to settle me, not the rendition
of a man that no one's met

for like the tree I'm in the forest
but unlike them, I can't be heard
and for my lot I should be sorest
because I've lived in the absurd

I scramble now from fear to sadness
looking for my days gone bye
and once they swore that I was the badness
as they told me not to cry

And in myself I still believe him
perched upon his safety net
but I have given more than one limb
I have paid his endless debt

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Our House

Sitting in a circle square
resolute to share our pain
life as kiddies was not fair
each salute did slice a vain

Dark denial was our training
both true and false fell deep
as the blows they came a raining
none of us did peep

The memories they start to heat 
like some old lava lake
as a gaggle we retreat
cause all we knew was fate

So now we have no room to land
no space to call our own
none of it was even planned
no place was ever home

See a plot of land just there
all emerald well defined
grant it lord and well be square
just like you were so kind

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Scapegoat

I'm hiding here amongst your brood
slowly hush communication
poison I inject the mood
begging for some segregation

Sacrifice one, I implore you please
and load him with your dark emotion
when he's brought down to his knees
allow him access to my potion

Downhill drink and sniff and shoot
twirl him and just step away
most will grind him with their boot
afraid their souls his poor display

The neighbors they will Fedex pity
bind with them so feed them thus
tell them he is in the city
then throw him weak beneath a bus

He'll cobble there in frail despair
rotting in and out
no longer can he ever care
converging with the undevout

Now clear retire hacienda
grand and drama free
you'll have completed an agenda
many infants drowned at sea

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

Army Boots

Warm beams through cool branches
absorbed by a red checked picnic blanket

You fresh from a shower
your summer dress cotton and optimistic 
thick clouds castle on the horizon

Fully you today
propagating warmth and humor
being, you see me clearly
embers ablaze

Your perception moves into me
I too am the rapture you are beaming
it makes me expand
safe enough to stretch at an increasing rate
Into the miraculous world
I taste it, without thought

If I knew I would only live on that day
I would have grappled for every breathe
battled for every drop
but instead I was destined to
chase it like a dragon 
throughout the cosmos 
fixing, flailing,and 
inevitably failing
unconscious to the tale

No day satisfies
depression weighs my soggy spirit
others remind me of what I missed
Your frivolous obliteration
of the life that laid before me

You had no right to hold me up to the world 
hands tied, defenselessly naked
to be pummeled degraded and used
until the end of my unfinished days
I am not redemption’s son

Details | Timothy Barry Poem

River Styx

Alone on the river Styx
untouchable by experience
in reach of warm safety 
a reward constantly carroting
the current icy morrow
my solo journey
exciting lack
grey and without embrace
without redemption
without nature
away from god