Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have been printed widely in journals, zines, and online publications all over the world. He is the author of twenty-seven chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “Cleaning the Gutters of Hell (Zeitgeist Press, 2023) and “The Ants Crawl in Circles” (Bone Machine, Inc., 2024).

trading rocks for pinecones

Menacing clouds mixed
with sundowning smiles,
things are not going so 
well. I try trading rocks 
for pinecones, but kicking
them just doesn’t feel the 
same. Where do you go 
when the graveyard is 
filled and no one 
picks up your 
call? 

broken floorboards become foreign

driving drunk down the boulevard 
listening to no music but the silent
symphony of fragmented thoughts 
inside this pale head. 

blessed by the miracle of arriving
at home with no cops and an ex-wife
who leaves quickly, just in time to 
read poems to my kids. 

after they’re asleep, staring into a 
dusty mirror covered in toothpaste, 
wondering where it all went wrong,
arriving at nothing. 

brown hair graying beneath artificial 
light highlights the decay of life, the 
sustained hell of past years, and some
small victories of good fortune. 

my hands laced with shadows, painted 
with self-inflicted scars, recall nothing 
at all, tremble as cold glasses of water 
are filled, as breathing spring air resumes. 

and tonight, broken floorboards become 
foreign, as if a labyrinth, while the heron
of better days gawks at my madness and 
settles for a pharaoh’s sleep. 

eyes in the dark

a town beaten by dawn
rebuilds itself at dusk…
 
how many times must 
i feed the birds before 
they recall my face?
 
how many times must 
i clean the litter box before 
the cat uses the toilet?
 
how many times must 
i drink to summon ghosts 
i’ve long buried away?
 
these poems i write  
keep me alive just 
a little bit longer
 
and in spring, when my bones 
thaw in the sun, will you wait 
while i rise from deep sleep, 
or will i awaken alone?