Joseph Pinto, the barflypoet

this job will kill you…   ‘i drank till 2am’   11pm and i have no business drinking this fifth scotch   but it is business.   strictly business. * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pinto *...

i may have shared this before, but either way it’s from 2016. when bar writing i often engage in what i call ‘machine-gun fire,’ meaning i write snippets of thoughts one after the other without pause. the irony is even though they’re thoughts they really aren’t in that i never really gave them thought in the first sense. i know, i know, i’m a complicated man…   ‘puppy dog’   you leave; i linger. *...

‘my cost’   a misfortune has occurred an inconclusive blooming flower a strange illusion for the ghost who feeds on more than pretty words i’m more heinous than my faults and if expression is merely speaking tell me then is it worth more than my cost?   i’m not sorry for who i am taciturn in my suspension a suffering outlet in the art and i am everything who i am a temperamental superstition all i...

the struggle is real…   ‘dependency’   i hurt so deeply then that first splash of scotch kisses my lips and dear fuck i come alive   until morning.  * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pint...

this poem is from 2017: playing on the beach with my daughter when she decided coating me in sand was far better than any fun a shovel and pail could provide. an eventual dust-off later and i went scrambling for my phone to type the following down.   have you ever been hit by words that come hell or high water you had to pull from your brain before they disappeared? much like my ‘observations from...

ouija not necessary…   ‘i see them’   lost souls do not go undiscoverable to me. * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pinto * https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto  * subscribe to the ‘Josep...

bar tales…   ‘he told good stories so i bought a round’   we sit listening  to the beatles and he reminisces about the time he once drove the autobahn  with the windows rolled down tunes turned up and  by the time hey jude slicks the speakers i swear i felt the winds of germany whip my bald head.   * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,'...

don’t singe your fingertips.   ‘choose your purpose’   some long to be the candle; some the wick. * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pinto * https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto  * subscr...

a typical poetry writing session for me lasts between 3-5 hours. whatever comes to mind is written, the page flipped and on to the next. no poem is given a second thought or remembered until months or even years later when it’s finally typed from my notebook to computer and given a quick edit for possible punctuation, spelling and structure. some pieces stick with me while others i deem ‘throwaway...

once you feed it, it never goes away…   ‘squirrel’   a blue collar gets a pass with nail beds chock-full of dirt but mine go unscrubbed and i’m labeled a slob. come near me enough and you’ll smell the endless mounds of earth i’ve dug. old storms and expired seasons stain my pores. the irony how history both tears and heals the wounds. i’ve ancient footfall echoing tips of each finger yet without t...

observatory poetry:   ‘please, no more’   her laugh split the ears of all at the bar and drove us to drink. * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pinto * https://www.etsy.com/shop/JosephPinto...

table for one, please... ‘slow sips’   they toast over margaritas oblivious that a table away a life comes apart over beer. * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections available in paperback and ebook on Amazon. * instagram at joseph_a_pinto * https://www.etsy.com/...

this is my trauma process. i stare at it. i drink with it. i allow it to consume me. then i vomit it from every pore and lap it up again. everyone leaves. in silence their song.    ‘in my head’   i still lack the suitabilities of physical science my eyes of opal fire, conversations rich in distant ink abyss. i pity the child this small boy within, who as phenomenons go has yet vanished; for him ev...

here’s a poem from my ‘bar observations’ pile. yes, it really happened. yes, the dude shred air like nobody’s business. and yes, i got all kinds of f***ed up that night.        ‘front row’   he played the meanest air guitar i ever did see.   scotch after scotch i drank and when he paid his tab i begged for a curtain call.  * ‘DEAD BIRD’ ON SALE AT AMAZON!  * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. P...

it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?   ‘end of the trek’   all i want is for one person to recognize the amount of pain i endure on a daily basis and to hear the words how are you before i quit.  * ‘DEAD BIRD’ ON SALE AT AMAZON!  * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * Poetry served raw and unedited from the moment crafted. The large majority of my poetry handcrafted from inside bars. * &...

i want to rip her open… i want to be back inside her skin… ‘edacious’   a year since we’ve truly spoken. tack another half just to twist my guts. rationality wipes scores from the wall but fingers persist the death spiral down. a hole to another universe swallowed the sheetrock and it’s just as good cause it hides the cavity my fist punched through. i miss you. and if you come back to my world aga...

what is love to you? is it about doing the little things? or is it simply about one thing few know little of – showing up.     ‘close but no cigar’   you did everything but love me. * ‘DEAD BIRD’ ON SALE AT AMAZON!  * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * Poetry served raw and unedited from the moment crafted. The large majority of my poetry handcrafted from inside bars. * 'dead bird,&...

i call these my ‘throwaway pieces’ or my ‘fillers.’ snippets of something that come to mind while i’m in-between poems or actually in the middle of writing one. when that happens, i’ll stop the poem on a dime, quickly jot down the words i see in my head, then resume. i’ve shared a lot of them & don’t give them a second thought. to be honest, sometimes i don’t think they’re very good. but they...

‘what buries’   (from dead bird)     keep bones in palms anything other you are a liar silence is violence too dirt for the flower shelter for its seed   aren’t we all in love with someone else faked until time comes due   and what flees from breast we cannot cage despite the sorrow and all the aching   what buries does not keep dirt what buries does not keep dirt.  * ‘DEAD BIRD’ ON SALE AT AMAZON...

‘set me straight’   my urging maddened a long master steeped bitter death thirst under diseased and heedless skies so very strange the senses, and her placed finger upon lips— “everything perishes,”  she roils her brightness a ruby gone undiscovered who could question or spin from her gravity; perhaps her pale hands will harness something other than a passing one day. i wait shivering under the  s...

‘thumbs’   your lips inclined for summer i filled your lacking chest   with unpublished form and desire as a great artist would but so much more confessional   and like idle draperies, you hung autumn conversations before nights grew long,   or familiar   or hastened, and dark,   without evidence  of the complete picture i believed you would be.  * ‘DEAD BIRD’ NOW ON SALE AT AMAZON!  * #barflypoet...

go to the local bar. not a party bar. a dim gritty local bar. sit. order a drink. settle yourself in. listen closely. feel the energy. read the faces. allow the stories into your pores…   ‘r.i.p. social media’   funeral services will be held today for all the martyrs that write of their inconsequential woes while down at the local bar tears fill the beers of the woebegone and forgotten. * ‘DEAD BI...

when love was actually at the bar…   ‘romance is dead’   they hold hands on their way out of the bar.   stares, the stares eyes boring into their backs. * ‘DEAD BIRD’ NOW ON SALE AT AMAZON!  * #barflypoet #josephapinto © Joseph A. Pinto * Poetry served raw and unedited from the moment crafted. The large majority of my poetry handcrafted from inside bars. * 'dead bird,' 'From My Front S...

old poem here, but i still remember this moment, still remember the tullamore dews being passed over my notebook and thinking to myself ‘i hope no one spills their shots.’ of course,  i  was the one to spill his shot on my notebook then furiously dabbed at the puddle atop the page. this poem serves as a lesson that sometimes the ‘you’ i write about is actually self-reflective.   ‘it never dries’  ...

‘she’s here’   simplicity what passion should be the great white canvas brushed no explanation a gaze that shines in the vacuum.   illusion stitched behind the lids, i have longed to perceive, to know tactile existence, conditioned for a height i’ll fall living;   and then she slipped  like christmas into my mouth, a gift, and left my tongue of cloves,   and the tearing sound of sight beautiful an...