Sy Roth's Poetry Collection

Sy Roth’s Poetry Collection~
Bio: Sy Roth
Sy Roth is a retired school administrator and has finally found the sounds of silence and the time to think whole thoughts. This has led him to find words and the ability to shape them. He has published in Visceral Uterus, Amulet, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, Barefoot Review, Haggard and Halloo, Misfits Miscellany, Mad Swirl, Larks Fiction Magazine, Danse Macabre, Bitchin’ Kitch, Bong is Bard, Humber Pie, Poetry Super Highway, Penwood Review, Masque Publications, Foliate Oak, Miller’s Pond Poetry and The Eloquent Atheist.
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Sy Roth

Red and Blue Cowboy Boots~
Red and Blue Cowboy Boots by Sy Roth A neighbor passed today on his way to non-being. A casual traveler basking once in the silky sun of existence. Cells once nourished became his bete noir. Read More...Door’s Loom~
Door’s Loom Dreamer’s eyes peer into hollow rooms of empty chairs arrayed haphazardly in an echololic world, welcome mat to a terminus of somber expectations; spent caller in a midnight pool of clinging sweat awakens to a somnolent dream of anxious openings and closings creakings and doors bouncing noisily on their frames, doors crossing thresholds Read MoreThe Treblinka Miners 1946~
The Treblinka Miners 1946So we think we’re dead And they couldn’t possibly take more from us But there they are Miners in trenches we excavated for our deaths They disturbing our rest Pulling up our bones Haphazardly tossing our skulls about In those skulls resides nothing sentient Our hollow eyes only gazing sadly up Read MorePersephone’s Finger By Sy Roth
It wormed its way to the surface. Pointy finger tested the air, Wriggled in a sensuous Fatima dance Etch-a-Sketching the crepuscular sky above, Shaming the heavens for what lies below, Marking its inky darkness While the tinny tambours played Among the pansies. The veiled earth held the other fingers hostage Like a bundled faggot, Read MoreDavid and The Old Believers by Sy Roth
When they came They came furtively with their beautiful eyes– Their beautiful, gaseous blue eyes– Behind them they dragged their black sacks Stuffing it full Indifferently, I, Their long mark, I thought, An exclamation point! Perhaps an infinitesimally transitory Period. They stepped right up to the door. Neither a harrumph Nor a bark of recognition Read MoreHoly Curiosity, Batman~
Holy Curiosity, Batman Nothingness wrapped in a ball of neurons, A metastatic cancer, Resides in the center of a fiery brain. Electric arcs dance round it Lathered in sun block—SPF 80— Penning it in, Carrier blissfully unaware Of the superheated magma Hidden in its bathetic folds. Insignificant insects wriggles from dendrite to axon Before the Read MoreLiars and Politicians~
Liars and Politicians dissemblers toy with ghastly secrets and cabals those Captain Queegs roll their mystical metal balls between their fingers they bury the imponderables in the mud of the great flood feign answers to questions that sit like dust on their tongues, and like antediluvian arks leave a trail of bits and traces to Read MoreUnrecovered~ by Sy Roth
Unrecovered Pablo, have you heard? Your head’s missing. Out there in the ether it floats now only a pixilated memory. Did you have some need for that misshapen Quasimodo? You painted him with that squirrely uni-brow, an earthy worm resting above those shattered eyes– one with a look of shock as if he’d seen his Read MoreSmoke by Sy Roth
thurible mesmerizes while it dances chorus-line of swinging wide arcs kicks at the kneeling brood amorphous, spiritual wraiths spook them the peristaltic smoke a bulging stream blankets them in the icy chill metal senser follows its own swinging cadence beats out morbid rhythms of coffin bongo-chords that reverberate raise goosebumps on the suspended son guitarist’s Read MoreDamn Fingers~
Damn Fingers Damn fingers want to make music… too old, too tentative, too set in their lumbering, clumsy ways to find the strings to make the chords hum instead of buzz. Damn fingers Want to find the way into the music Without learning the root causes for the sounds That make rhythms, Pleasant dancing rhythms. Read MoreThey Find Salvation~
They Find Salvation Below the stadium, where bestial games begin, They link the beasts – bears, bulls and slaves. Above the crowd yawps desires their bloodlust songs sung in basso profundo waves inky contralto voices mixed in like a tinkling avalanche of razor-sharp crystals to the sand below. Their fetid air, a renegade wagon Read MoreA Russian Name~ by Sy Roth
A Russian Nameskin, blue-green on the pier of her dewy morning dit-datting hope as a train slips away in the graying mist. tattered clothing barely clings to her withered frame, waxen arms clinging to a squirming, mewling bundle. green lanterns eyes praying to it in her sodden world. she barely keeps pace with the Read MorePeregrine Winds~
Peregrine Winds by Sy Roth In morning mist eaten by an indolent sun, she strode in the west arms robot dancing to the plucked strings of her shamisen. Discordant vowels, followed by non-rhyming verses wrapped in her circling ambulation followed along the path of her. Round the court, porcelain figure, her getas wore tracks scraping Read MoreJoin Hermes in a Sad Song~
Join Hermes in a Sad Song Like a busy street– cars dash by unaffected by you, a blur, walking shade trapped in a moment a captured malaise, snapshot–a nose pressed to a window Bill Haley and the Comets in the background taking them to a non-place and you to underworld palaces where creeping darkness lurks Read MoreLimon sans Merci 2015~
Limon sans Merci 2015 Back-lotted those beings In a director’s cut– Eaten conversely by the darkness, Slogging shadows in a Bethlehem march, Above those inversely slaloming knee-deep in detritus And stagnant waters Green ooze swirling around their bare ankles Swollen bellies burgeoning Fireworks of the new breed. Their beings coifed behind the façade. Silent Read MoreThe Prowler’s Reflection by Sy Roth
The Prowler’s Reflection By Sy Roth The mirror ate him gobbled him whole swallowed him in noisy gurgling, burping chances enormous bytes, and transformed him into ragged-jagged edges into a mere reflection of some former self he has imagined. There among Macy’s racks, he disappeared awash in their spring clothing line. He skirts the florals Read MoreA Bowl of Fruit Still Life by Sy Roth
A Bowl of Fruit Still Life by Sy Roth They watched without segue. Longing to understand the idleness, continuous gazing at a waxen bowl of fruit tantalizing, they clung to it like lichen on the underside side of an ancient oak, like barnacles on the underbelly of a ship awaiting a keel hauling. I dared Read MoreThe Performer By Sy Roth
He brought his own band, poor troubadour, speakers and amps, two twin-tower ornaments for the back wall spilling platonic sounds in a burbling, aphonic stream filling in the gaps in the background noise of entrance while the performer, weighed in heavily in the front row fly casting about for his audience. No grand entrances, the Read MoreThe Trolleyologist’s Dilemma by Sy Roth
The Trolleyologist’s Dilemma by Sy Roth No embellishments, let’s just jump into it, just the facts wrapped in a sinister conundrum– The problem, first scene. The Conductor’s Question The tracks, straight, narrow gauge the trolley wheels tattoo a distinctive sound Morse code be-bop in time to the screams of a melody of desire to live Read MoreA Gethsemane Idyll by Sy Roth
Street still-life by Robert Sundheimer What a tangled, jumbled mass of wood– splinters of wood, we gathered from the trash– its discards and from the old factories that lined New Lots Avenue. The piles we carried so lovingly, bundled faggots that we mounded in opposite corners of the courtyard that were to be our forts– Read MoreDer Zug and the Waiting Room: A Tragedy in Three Short Acts by Sy Roth
Der Zug and the Waiting Room: A Tragedy in Three Short Acts by Sy Roth Act 1-The Waiting Game Fire and hunger had a terminus as all evil does, but for her interminable war. She remembered– Sitting stiffly on the bench, the smells of a humanity running hither and yon she waits with trepidation Read MoreWorms Who Abide in their Own Darkness by Sy Roth
The soil speaks in riddles, a labial romantic dissertation of sorts conjoined with a frigid sun. It begs forgiveness for its unyielding grey—- scowling lips sings a minor dirge to the moribund who glide fixedly past the barren, arms-outstretched remnants candelabra that once contained promises of fulsome creatures spouting a glut of promises in their Read MoreWhen Words Collide by Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer Grandson’s Trope Write me a poem that takes the veldt like a gazelle. Put the orange ribbons on the fence. Seek peace– He insisted. Do better than Ogden. Grandfather’s Antipode I thought I did. But the ribbons hung limp Unlike Kodiak bears ripping through a verdant forest. It did not Read MoreI, Too, Sing the Body Electric Bellevue Blues By Sy Roth
Photograph by Robert Sundheimer I smell them Their contrail of ambergris and lilac essence Whips along behind them And I glide into my own port, Vagrant nonentity, Servile clot on their streets, An imagining, A boogeyman in servitude to their unsoiled world An affront to their weltanschauung. I sing their disdain Scratching my oleaginous head Read MoreThe Selma March Circa 1965 by Sy Roth
The Selma March Circa 1965 by Sy Roth we are all linked– even the trees observing each other in a surveillance of the crenelated march stepping toward the something wary of warning weary of wanting waylaid by the impediments they put before us until a blank wall an Ahab moment pushes back and we Read MoreMoloch Rests on One Shoulder, the Other Waits by Sy Roth
Mixed-media photo montage by Robert Sundheimer We hear nothing with our ears expect that nothing — something– will speak back. One angel silently slithers like a coiled Slinky, slinks away across grassy, undulating plains meets the boundless steppes finally, resting, energy-less in a kinetic ending handcuffed in entropyless chains. The other shouts inanities in a Read MoreDeafening Silence By Sy Roth
Photo by Robert Sundheimer Are they going to die like that Buried under the silt of time with it all unresolved? Are they a ribonucleic disaster, a broken string of DNA Deposited in a weary, weeping womb? The sceptered ones planted it in their mission to procreate. Who asked them permission? When did the disruption Read MoreWe Bleed Out By Sy Roth
Original Photography by Robert Sundheimer Unbroken string of invective– The world deserves it. It blurs our memories. No need to sing its praises When it undoes us, Unties the laces that bind us And drops us off at a station Where work make us free Without a ticket. SSN and its variables cling to us Read MoreThere’s a Map Behind My Eyelids By Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer There’s a map behind my eyelids. I keep them open for as long as I can Don’t want to see the map and Where I’ve been, And fear where it will take me. It’s a prognosticator, Projectionist’s nightmare Where the darkness hides In the deep, dark balls of space Where Read MoreSelf Ease by Sy Roth
Self Ease By Sy Roth A calm’s settled in. A field of cloud clover like a soft-green blanket for us long-distance runners to peer at. It wraps itself around an old soul shivering When the clock has taken his time from him. The world looked at with jaundiced eyes stealing what he had anticipated. Where Read MoreBallyhoo by Sy Roth
What’s all the ballyhoo? Just another day of Bali Hai refrains So carefully taught. Leaves the drumrolls chattering in a tingling barrage Calumny against a darkening sky, A tintinnabulation of caroling bells Rending a torn sky with its somber cries. Why mump? Why pine for the interminable Goosestepping mob that beats a hasty retreat After Read MoreThe Kitchen Table By Sy Roth
Words once slipped lovingly from their tongues Words beyond the newspaper and the sweetened cornflakes Wrapped in Smartphones Where butterflied inches once fluttered lazily across the kitchen table, Where dreams, cottony soft sno’ cones, Lay blissfully in the soft glow of the kitchen chandelier Where the expectation of conversation was met at a Read MoreThe Last Train by Sy Roth
The Last Train. Original photography by Robert Sundheimer with his permission The train does its bidding Chugging along the tracks At its best speed Bound inexorably to arrive somewhere With its bounty, A gobbled bunch of recruits to nowhere– Packed them in like silken underwear in a women’s boudoir Standard gauge track Iron bound, unveven, Read MoreSchadenfreude or Why Banana Peels Are So Funny By Sy Roth
On the silent screen, the inglorious pratfall seemed so funny The kinescope focused on a man eating a banana Which he cavalierly tosses into the road. An unsuspecting man ambles onto the screen And finds himself flipping to the sidewalk quarry of a convoluted world When the sidewalk greets his buttocks, we erupt in Read MoreThey Hanged Him by Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer They hanged him to get his attention And it worked. His brain, air-starved-ravenous, Sought honor. In his unwhetted dream, He learned – They wanted to teach him And the State, it seemed, had won again. Determined not to fall victim, He fell victim to their god of purging, and like Read MoreScars by Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer Damn thing’s always there. Mound of deformed flesh A cicatrix that never healed completely, Raised blemish surrounded by distinct laughter of the others, Laughter directed at me. Horselaughs that echo from a calcified hollow Find a temporary resting place in the canyons of my stomach Where they circumnavigate Hummed at Read MoreMaking Entre Nous By Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer I want to cotton to the idea that I am sometimes a writer And somewhere in the mish-mash of the words I wrangle Lies the secret sharer, A mystical, maleficent purveyor of dreams A catcher of the scent of truth Lying dormant Planting markers along a terminus of eternities of Read MoreThe Balloon By Sy Roth
It wanted to rise Dance blithely along the rim of nimbus clouds Soar above the birds scattered in the sky. Fly overhead away from the heated ground. He hugged it to him Fearful of its escape And failure of its duty. The immense mylar beauty In thrall of the sirocco winds Sated with sips of Read MoreZombie Slide Dance At Shoprite by Sy Roth
Original photograph by Robert Sundheimer Glassy-eyed Rubber eeking Disobedient cart A red-river Slide to the condiment Aisle. Eyesdivergent To the tattood Ladies’ Birds-flying- On gelatinous Skin overlapping Above her latex pants Too tight. His leg askew March of zombies Hand fighting The cart Steering it In a last remnant Of sanity. Bird stops midflight– He Read MoreHomo-Erectus or the Man and His Crooked House By Sy Roth
Center of gravity lies somewhere between my head and the earth Dragging my shoulders inexorably inward Shoulders like an antediluvian bridge, Twin spans of an armless mannequin holding back a spawning river Belly billowing outward from the middle Aping a six-month pregnant woman. Completing the picture, a sad-sack expression Sits atop a swanlike neck pushed Read MoreHer Riant Eyes By Sy Roth
Original photography by Robert Sundheimer with his permission Bedeviled by the finger pointers She stood slouched against the red-brick ruins. They saw a blankness But her riant eyes spoke of other things. Her eyes marshalled their energy As they passed her by. In their ambling to nowhere, she saw their decrepitude And the swollen egos, Read MoreBarroco By Sy Roth
Barroco There’s a weakness behind the awkward smiles. There’s a trembling in their sere hands. Run maddeningly away. They promised you’d be perfect in gestation. They crossed their fingers and prayed for your sameness. Ultra-sound weeping heard behind their closed doors. You appeared in unpredictable form, Misshapen Quasimodo, your arms twisted in elaborate Plies like Read MoreLike a Silence by Sy Roth
Simple Simon had a voice Time silenced. It lay on the ground Moldering, Hissing against the taut earth And the tromps of the foot soldiers Trampling the message. Goose-stepping hordes Fill the air with tempestuous noise Time-stopping ormolu clocks In their march to the wasteland Boxers without matches Belts hung round inelastic waists And Read MorePanegyric To Our Own Self-Destruction by Sy Roth
Our own words Or discomforting lack of them Slices like Ice-Age cold; Makes short shrift of our intent. We watch the black blood drip inexorably from our broken veins Hitting the ground with a thunderous clap. These words are just a burp in that time Obeisance paid before Har Megiddo Where the ort of lives Read MoreTwo Dogs at the Gateway by Sy Roth
They slurped their saliva, huge globs, big, barking mouthfuls dripping from their jowls like milky icicles Teeth-bared lips, They guarded the gateway. Pleased by their vacated spittle, their noses now sniffed the air, and like a marching band of electric ants they ogled the nearing invader. Anew, the soppy, conglomeration of spittle wells at their Read MoreSonata for a Somnambulist By Sy Roth
Looking for a name. Nomenclature can be so difficult. A somnambulist’s dream Buried beneath a cairn Without monument Dropped into the darkness. Rested elbows on a somnambulist’s chifforobe Laden with the stuff of life– Mismatched tchochtkes– And tightened eyelids Waiting to see what might lie there beyond. Red blood cells became visible with the sunset Read MoreA Stolen Memory A Mirthful Chorus By Sy Roth
We surrounded him Asked to let go. She stared at the misshapen face, Unshaven sandpapery skin Eyelids a tabula rasa Fluttery sere skin And we could see the humor blossoming in his ending. He would enjoy her singing. Bent over him, her breath a morning gust of air Drifted across his face. She sang him Read MoreAnother Eve by Sy Roth
So, the clock ticks Its ormulu hands Sweeping clean the face. A dial awaits nexus Suspended in the dark void of space Where the temporary inhabitants Hopeful, wait for change In an unalterable universe, Wear newfangled raiment, Where volcanic explosions rend the night sky, followed by quiet anticipation when the truth lies there beneath the Read MoreThe Rabbi and Her Flying Machine by Sy Roth
Her sermon—partings– A whirling dervish gyring around an unplugged drain— Played with those who listened, Those who tried to hear. “What,” he asked, did one say when they knew That a parting could the last one?” What would those words be? A challenge posed to those who considered only nows– Felt the tremblers of recognition, Read MoreHobos REM #10 Dream by Sy Roth
Lennon’s wish, bagged in a green-briar patch facepalm of giggling vagabonds rattling surroundings with their tinny songs lost in a fitful dream— They wrap themselves in downy comforters against a brumal night choking off the light feeling gusty, somnambulist’s air roaming a frigid bedroom They dream of longing– dreams preserved in bindle stiffs crafted in Read More