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Smiles turn frail and sapphire

Grins carrying cobalt bullets

Wrestling with a pocket of change

Standing in front of a phone booth

Eight hundred miles away from truth

Love took a freight train to misery

No emergency brake on this passage

Faster than a speed of light

Lost in all of the choices and indecision

Eight hundred miles away from lies

Wearing a royal trench coat of pain

Feeling like a thousand pounds

Too frozen and solid to remove

Still standing in front of a phone booth

Eight hundred miles away from her

Debating and contemplating

Fumbling with the quarters

Should I call her from Indigo

My books are available here.

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Maria laid down some finger tapping,
cement cracking, soul jerking, blue collar working, southern catfish blues
Maria crooned a seaside melody, number one remedy, a splash of sass, with a heavenly blast,
A feel good sunshine kind of tune

Chet was blaring his shiny trombone
JJ was banging his drum with his golden sticks
Ryan was strumming his acoustic guitar
And all the neighbors rocked until dark

And she will get you to clap your hands every ten seconds
And she will get you to move your feet in rhythm
And she will take away all your pain for a while
And she will make you forget what is missing
And if you make a left on Rolling Thunder you can hear the guitar playing
And when you drive away you can feel the earth swaying…

Maria cried out “Sha la la” with a swirl, a vintage southern girl, hitting high notes with a grin, no losers here all the jesters win, music playing all day and night
Maria dancing with a glide, happiness soaring in her eyes, carrying a enigmatic glow, putting on a show, her voice shinning so bright

And she will get you to clap your hands every ten seconds
And she will get you to move your feet in rhythm
And she will take away all your pain for a while
And she will make you forget what is missing
And if you make a left on Rolling Thunder you can hear the guitar playing
And when you drive away you can feel the earth swaying…

Chet was blaring his shiny trombone
JJ was banging his drum with his golden sticks
Ryan was strumming his acoustic guitar
And all the neighbors rocked until dark

My books are available here.

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No prescription for your malady
No antidote for your cynical inflammation
No injection for your discolored points of view
No drug for your toxic disorder
No capsule for your upended character
No serum for your ill advised prejudice
No elixir for your disgusted stance
No dose for your insensitive notions
No sedative for your piles of insecurities
No remedy for your black and white beliefs

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“I opened my eyes to see the ugliness and beauty of humanity”

Braeden Michaels creates a curve in the poetic stratosphere revealing glimpses of the characters who walk amidst the life of newly-widowed Stella Walker. By exposing the flaws, scars, quirks, and the light we see in each other, this profound collection generates a fine line between friendships and acquaintances.

Within these pages, we are introduced to different shades of colorful characters in varying points of their lives. Every poem describes the hidden truths and realities of human attributes. Each perfectly imperfect person we meet is a representation of the people we run across in our individual journeys which then become stepping stones in our own growth.

Check out this book on Amazon!

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I drank rain from a malevolent cup
and I couldn’t touch the terror in the wind
I distinctly felt the extinction in the air
and the intruders inside me left fingerprints
I anticipated the rumblings, jitters, and
the despair to rest in my esophagus

I stood in the fog seven miles away from
the shadows and the vile from the hill
I swallowed ignorance with a blend of
dismay, concern and suspicion
I fell before the behemoth’s sins and
I stared at the tarnished wisdom

I inhaled the scent of darkness
and I could feel the breeze of agony
I witnessed my logic, quirks, and talking
Skeleton disappear into the clouds
I was consumed by crisis oriented faith,
misplaced psychology, and charades

I stared at the dementia with my lip
quivering and with the aftertaste of sorrow
I stood six feet apart from the quicksand
and the rattle swimming in the sea of chaos
I severed the gospel from my identity
and I muttered words of inadequacy

I stepped on the carousel of deception
and shrugged off human decency
I became one with the vile from the hill
and detested the color of my pupils
I was obsessed by the anxiety and the
venom in my stomach turned into stone

I was crushed by my weaknesses
and the stench of loneliness dispersed
I devoured the indecisions, complexity,
and the tears in my eyes evaporated
I despised the grave of my haunting past
and ignored the road to the sunrise

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She slips on theological rhetoric
She hides behind the voodoo stuck to her silent tongue
Wearing her vixen like dress
She acquired accolades and accommodations from the saliva of the burnt orange wolf
She spoke the language of love in riddles and teenage rhymes
Wearing her Madusa like pearls
She mishandled truth and washed down a liter of half bitten lies
She threw away fortunes and laughed at others misfortunes
Wearing her witchcraft perfume
She roared liked the bitch she was and ignored the crowd who carried her on a Persian rug
Wearing her battle ax over her shoulder

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There’s a blue ball in the gutter
The willows weep amidst the oaks
Drunk street sweepers spreading trash in the air
Abandoned porch swings on hundred year old houses
Blackstrap molasses dripping from that window seal

The Post office is flooded with lost letters of love
The PTA is full of divorced housewives giving the acronym new meaning
The cathedral on 2nd street has been empty
for a decade
The minister can only preach on Sunday’s playing poker sipping on whiskey

Faded hopscotch in rundown school yards
Old man Beetle dressed to the nines for a walk to the donut shop
Laughing girls in pigtails tossing a coin in the fountain
That woman there sneaking a smoke behind the doctors office
What is that strange smell in the air

The asphalt has pot holes screaming murder
Stop signs blushing like lovers on the beach
57’ Chevy is chasing the rabid dog around the square
Rhinestone glasses waitress wins lottery goes broke in sixty seconds
And the pond on Summersby Lane has fish crooning Dean Martin

A police chase down Main st
Same story same time last week
Dirty little secrets of hit it and quit it
Who’s that the preachers wife driving on the wrong side of the street
It’s poison from the power plant on the edge of town

The crab apple tree has leaked mystique
On the bottom of Lake Plateau lives six dead men
And Butchers Field has dancing scarecrows
And the Barber Shop on 3rd Street has chatter that never ends

Peculiar feeling here
The sign at the homeless shelter has been blinking less for years
That house on the corner a double murder suicide
Swept under the rug in the police chiefs house
Don’t mind me I’m just the messenger

Crime rates doubled downtown
Not a dime or a fade penny on the streets
Too many ex lovers chugging medicine at Stella’s Bar
Not enough landscapes or rivers on this side of town
No one here sits on a porch gazing at the stars
Too many staring at the end of a bottle

Braeden – Italics

Stella – Non Italics

This was a fun collaboration with Stella! Check out her blog if you haven’t!

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Somewhere east along Highway 37
A neon sign flashes intermittently vacancy
The Scarecrow Hotel remains alone
Stained threadbare carpets muffle TVs
And tearful phone conversations
Sixteen parking spaces yet only four filled
Warm shower and a sagging bed for the night

The ancient bricks lure the demented and sick
Vultures eying through the windows
Black and blue clouds crying endlessly
Wooden floors feeling troubled feet
Surrounded by ravens and blackbirds
Five miles east of the bloodhound river

She threw her suitcase on the queen
Predictably it flew wide open
The latches never held right, just like her heart
Two changes of clothing to cover her bruises
He’ll never touch her again but
Wrinkled clothing and a wad of cash
Don’t heal scarred faces

The letter “E” is barely visible in the sign
Voices humming a overture in the cellar
Last names engraved on walls by spirits
Doorknobs hanging by three threaded bolts
Driveway gravel is black as night
Welcome mat covered in red ants

He stares into the chipped mirror
Five o’clock shadow daily dulls razor blades
Just like the rings that dull his once bright eyes
The phone bill shows her increasing texts
Every time he travels to pay for her wants
More hours, more money, more fancy things
Less of him with less of her, he looks away

Dark stories unfolding in the rooms
Sheets covered in lies and betrayal
Cigarette smoke stirring up shadows
Tiny cracks in every bathroom’s mirror
Brown mustard dripping from faucets
Stained tears found in the corners of closets

She hears voices not her own
Listens every day upon a rented bed
One weekend she opened her eyes
Bloody hands and a very dull knife beside her
Finally a quiet clean house
Ever since then she lives with a smile
Mama taught her little girl don’t take no shit

Storytellers, dreamers, and howlers visit
Intending to sleep but fall in the depths
Replaying memories of the past
Cynics and liars raise a toast at the bar
Tipping the bartender bullets instead of dollars
Quarrels served at the table tops

He loosens a tie used as a tourniquet
Money well spent on the tricks of a whore
Last Friday he played two gigs stacked
Brain damage found in riding a white horse
Picks up his guitar and hums a few chords
Remembers the eyes of a lover
It’s another night, another hotel, another road

A neon sign flashes vacancy nonstop
Full of headaches, screams, and lost souls
Built on a cemetery of the Crowe family
Generations of terror between 6am and midnight
Sleep is just a word inside these haunted walls
Stories never die…

Braeden – non italic

Tara – Italics

This was a fun collaboration! I enjoyed it. Check out her blog if you haven’t.