Monday, November 20, 2023

Three Poems by Brenton Booth

A View from the Bridge

 

Sometimes loneliness is a teardrop.

Sometimes loneliness is a song.

Sometimes loneliness is a memory.

Sometimes loneliness is a bright mirror

looking straight at you.

Sometimes loneliness is a picket line.

Sometimes loneliness is an argument

at 1 a.m.

Sometimes loneliness is a worn screen

on a mobile phone.

Sometimes loneliness is a prayer.

Sometimes loneliness is a new car.

Sometimes loneliness is a barstool.

Sometimes loneliness is a punch you

should have pulled.

Sometimes loneliness is a child you

no longer see.

Sometimes loneliness is an impossible

plan.

Sometimes loneliness is a small bag of

white powder.

Sometimes loneliness is a television set.

Sometimes loneliness is a different place

that looks no different.

Sometimes loneliness is a blonde hooker

at 2 a.m.

Sometimes loneliness is hours 

contemplating the sharpest blade in 

the drawer.

Sometimes loneliness is a call that 

never comes.

Sometimes loneliness is a screaming 

empty room.

Sometimes loneliness is every overtime

shift you can get.

Sometimes loneliness is all the choices

you never made.

Sometimes loneliness is tears that just

won't stop.

Sometimes loneliness is a pain that 

always stays.

Sometimes loneliness is a topless

mountain.

Sometimes loneliness is so great, death

is the only solution.

Sometimes we learn, it isn't.  



My First Editor


When I was 15 I wrote

my first story for an

English exam. It was

about a 15 year old 

boy waiting for his 

parents to come home

on New Years Eve. 

At midnight there was

a car crash outside his

house. His parents

were in the car. They

were both dead. He

was full of feelings

he never had before:

feelings he couldn't

explain. When I wrote

I felt like I was in a

trance. The words

poured out of me. 

Everyone agreed mine 

was the best. No one

else's even came 

close. We got the 

results a few days 

later. All their stories

got "a" or "b". Mine

got "d". No one could

understand why mine

didn't get the top score.

I didn't write another

story for over 10 

years. But when I did, 

and sent it to an editor:

I quickly learned 

nothing had changed.

 

 

A Quick Note for the Heartbroken Girl

that Gave an Inscribed Copy of Charles

Bukowski's Women to Her Ex-Boyfriend

Hoping He'd Change

 

Sorry to

break

 

it to you,

but

 

no man

ever

 

became 

better,

 

reading

Chinaski.



Bio: Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia and edits The Asylum Floor. Writing of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review and Heavy Feather Review. His collection Bash the Keys Until They Scream is available from Epic Rites Press.

 

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