Poetry by Danny Joe Stites

A Madman’s Dream
By Danny Joe Stites

I view concrete landscapes
Through chain-linked screens
Under barbed-wire blankets
And coats of Constantine
In a madhouse circus
With a maddening scene
It’s a mad worlds answer
To a madman’s dream
All clattering clinks
And long-lost places
As life’s light sinks
Into cold stone faces
There’s rapist and murderers
With conmen and thieves
And false prophets preaching
To the weak on their knees
In this madhouse circus
Such a maddening scene
What’s this mad world’s purpose
For this Madman’s Dream?

Ghost

By Danny Joe Stites

If nobody hears me, then nobody cares, ’cause if nobody sees me, then there’s nobody there. I’m like a Ghost from their past, a mistake that they made, a sin that still shames them, one never forgave.

I’m a prisoner at heart, a slave in my soul, dead and decayed, awaiting a hole. I no longer exist, I’m nothing that’s real, since they only believe, in the things they can feel.

They say shades have no feelings, we can never be hurt, well just look again, at the tears on my shirt. Moaning and groaning, no floating around, I do all of my haunting, right here on the ground!

And as sad as it is, I’m still not alone, they keep these crypts filled, with new bags of bone. The world has forgot us, except for the worst, and thanks to them, I’m bestowed a new curse.

I’m haggard and hollow, like a dying old tree, brittle – bare branches, with no colors to see. Casting thin shadows, on old slabs of stone, just waiting to fall, to finally go home.

The cold winds they sigh, and kicking up leaves, begin taking away, the last signs of me. They rattle and swirl, they go skirling around, chasing my soul, to places abound. Hell.

But nobody hears them, because nobody cares, since nobody sees them, then there’s been nobody there! What ghost from the past? What mistake that was made? If they don’t see my sins, then why be forgave?

My heart is in prison, and my body grows old, but I no longer exist, I’m a ghostly slaves soul.

Home

By Danny Joe Stites

Drip…drip…tink. Drip. Tang… Muffled voices, shuffling footsteps, hollow slamming echoes,”BOOM, Boom, boom”, drip…drip…
Stuck in this box, cold and alone, day after day, in this Hell of my own. Four walls and a ceiling, with a floor made of stone, its my whole world, this cell I call home.
I have scars on my ankles, and stabs in my back, a face full of wrinkles, and a heart that’s turned black. You see prison is more than, just fences or walls, its the chains on my love, whenever night falls. The real torture begins, whenever my eyes close, that’s when you creep in, with memory’s ghosts.
Whistling winds, soft whispered words, the images go flashing, and my world turns to hurt. The sweet smell of grass, of warm supple fields, where once our time passed, when our defenses had yield. Young summer scents, and the way that you felt, your trembling body, in these arms you were held.
No one around us, no distance between, two lovers together, a perfect love scene. Sunny blue skies, crickets and birds, expressing our love, never once using words. Your hot sultry looks, by a trickling stream, like an ancient love book, then I awake to a scream!!!
Drip…drip…tink. Drip. Tang. I awake in a box, cold and alone, its a new day, in this Hell of my own. Staring at walls and a ceiling, made of white stone, this is my world, this cell I call HOME…