Joseph Pinto, the barflypoet

'control' squeeze squeeze a little tighter, so the collar constricts and so do we without tender. what swells beneath skin, a rhythmic denial in need of appeasement and release, so what wounds deeper, the vessel or the tongue. the safe word, we are one, but are we really squeeze squeeze a little further, so the trust turns blood-eyed and so do we without splendor. what tears paper-thin, the libera...

'gasoline' the hard stuff will of course power your throat but strip your gut. you think i joke until you meet the burly irish lads with bludgeoned noses where the red rivers run through and laughter chokes the horse. pressed against momma’s teat, they surely didn’t believe life finds a way of circling back again. but it does. from swollen nipples to the neck of a leaking vice, no matter race or c...

susurrus that’s the rub, i hear nothing of you inside this cacophony head. a coward would ask where have you gone but a valiant knight would fall upon his sword. there you go eviscerating my heart before it tastes blade. somewhere in town the 6:30 train gallops without its mount but that was nineteen minutes ago. i’d have paid attention had i not been stemming the blood from my chest. i stink of c...

feast the plates have more space at the table now, the bellies more food to be fed. take the extra chair back to the basement. i filled it with air anyhow. my absence will be spoken of now until christmas but i gave the early gift of self back and the easy truth is i love me more than you. this hurt has been aging unlike the depth of wine you drink. you skimped the wallet while i nurtured the vine...

legerdemain slowly circling, slowly circling, tongue flicking out, flicking in, fringes of my cheek an old tasseled rug and syllables whistling through it like kettle steam, don’t leave, don’t leave us, air rushes from the hole through which you hooked me, i am hushed, our vision kept close to vest, blush of our promise fled your breast, what’s left, fast-fingered my heart your palm to next, i am...

iridescent before your eyes, i share nothing, hint nor glimmer, merely a manipulation, a twisted play of your own perception. believe me weak? i am weak. think me raw? i’ll soak your laces in all i spill. strike the chords your ears will hear. pluck the strings your core responds. understand i have gamed you on a lustrous level, blinded you to such point into the seat of my palm unawares. crush yo...

sewer again it is taxed by the latest deluge. this whirlpool of muck and debris and oppression has spun downhill for years. my throat iron oxide like the grill created to hold it back. hold it back, hold it back (please hold it back). it’s those sliver words and dismissive exasperations that find their way through the rungs. surely it will pass. the storm always does. still the oily residue of exp...

countertop dark surfaces don’t reveal the mess. her own words, crumbled in their staleness and left again to redirect my demeanor. i mean, can you believe her? the unfortunate answer yes. roiled within thunder, there has always been someone to rob the fork from my tongue. lashless and listless, anger withdraws and i stand like a beach with no tide. her lips churn about a better season but the seas...

luncheonette above and behind, an angel welcomes me in a cheap tinny din. am i dead, dying or somewhere between, like the sugar crusted counter before me and the residue of your sweet in my heart. my lungs sizzle with bacon fat and it’s a good thing because i’ve not much left of you to breathe in anymore. there’s a red stool and red nails carry a red-rimmed mug away and in my head i count the time...

sirenize a sea, a sea of freckles and it is between them i wish to trace your mythology through my tongue, to bring forth your sparkle the way you cast out all my dark. fingers dabbling in the wet i leave behind and if you and i have a name by then we’ll reimagine ourselves a thousand times. unhurried revolutions i will part your sphere of flesh and take you to a depth of essence you never thought...

apple what does your sleeve feel like? i imagine it must be so warm. autumn flashes her teeth and you hide your arms under layers, so when i bare my vulnerabilities why do you not take the same care? wine tasting like all couples do this time of year except i’m five fingers short of holding your hand. you’re fawning over nuances lathering your tongue and i’ve got jesus christ and blood in my mouth...

steak i take it, masticate between jaws until temples throb and consternation leaks between teeth, and still the nerve of you there, hard like rock that knows no footfall, memory woken to you but gone the way smoke from flame, chew and chew and chew while throat beseeches relief from the fire valley, and something dies in order to serve so you char the guilt and fat and all semblance of sense from...

philocaly i know november by the way wet leaves fill my ribs and how a sinking sun takes more than it gives and when that dark funnel of crows goes churning i dream i’m their last center spark of bright before sweep of day flees. eyes set shallower in my head than before and while there’s no shame admitting my door slowly shuts i prefer to think i’m transitioning. the cynic points out the false sh...

trauma when i didn’t like it, i’d cross it out, when it didn’t go my way i’d scribble it a hundred times until self tore and the pen fell through, smeared smiles and rehearsed lines and i’d be alright cause mom said i’d grow out of it, well now i’m up and out and fallen into something else, they all believe i’m alright as evidenced by the ascending notches along my height chart, i pleaded until co...

serotinal the warmth flees above my head on two wings and an itinerary i’m left to question. was hope held steady-handed or burst breathlessly through the gate secure in the knowledge i’d not be boarding. stuck up my nose the stench of fresh cut grass but no one seems to grieve these corpses. oh, they’ll come back, so the blade makes it painless and easy to wait on what has been taken to fill back...

boardwalk slowly i say goodbye to summer, to the sheen of sun slipping down limbs and to hopeful magenta brushstrokes across september sky, whimsical reminders we can find our way back. so it begs to be asked back to what, the sparkle and glimmer of your mind, the lazy low tide of your thoughts or the shoals that keep secrets begging to be gathered before the fickle moon employs its pull. if you w...

grievous steady hands but the keener eye spots the tremble straight off. there’s no shame in a spot of liquid courage. the fallacy is that it keeps muscles from reverberating. truth is it rids the shit from the stench of giving less than anything that was ever returned. to some degree i love you all but you’ve given me nothing worth collecting save for painful life lessons and a bitter aftertaste...

excerpt from my book 'FROM MY FRONT STEPS' 'if i’m okay' she’s having her first sleepover i can feel her glow from down the block she’s found a friend who accepts her as she is it’s all i could ever ask for a lesson i pray she learns without my constant reminding it’s hard being a father trading football jersey for dolls a stern tongue for princess voices and i’d be a liar if i said i wasn’t a bit...

excerpt from my book 'FROM MY FRONT STEPS'  'thunder' when i was a little boy my mother told me thunder was only the sound of angels bowling overhead so when i hear it now i laugh with the thought we’re all on one big alley wearing miscolored shoes.  #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com  © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedit...

'the forgotten phase' the country closed tight though like an old whore some parts insist on parting open accepting the dime but not the dollar common sense priceless and drying in jars moonshine gone the way of lemonade and the sober guzzle it while the drunks measure the fingers clinging inside the glass laughing cause they get it— the hard stuff lends the buzz but reality is what’ll get ya— wit...

elopement so this is it the guests have gone the way unattended no one to witness your first dance did you sweep away your lack of rsvps along with your growing return of regrets they were released, you know doves to sky, or rice so cliché the old italian man grips the broom and in my accent your love has been like wahter always running. we shared the same vision once billowing white draperies gho...

'self-analysis' figure yourself the fuck out. i can’t do it for you. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com  © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collections availa...

'you knew shit until me' so accustomed you were to the frill, the grandeur so accustomed to sparkle the hollow repetition of delicacies; you never saw me coming; you never knew i existed at all; truths long denied now stain you; gentle love atop your bed traded for a hard fuck against the wall. #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com  © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. *...

'thunder' it’s thunderously quiet in this dark. the truth is that no matter how much i tell myself i am better off without you i’m not.  #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com  © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Step...

'right mix' you and me nothing but bone to provide space flesh to bind.  #barflypoet #josephapinto www.josephpinto.com  © Copyright Joseph A. Pinto. All Rights Reserved. * Poetry served to you raw and unedited from the moment crafted; all poetry is older work and chosen at random unless otherwise noted. * 'From My Front Steps,' 'Scotch and Scars' and 'A Distilled Spirit' poetry collectio...