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Terry Collett Mar 2015
And Helens mother says as Helen climbs down the stairs of the building mind the road and dont talk to people you dont know and make sure you get the right change from Baldys you know what hes like Helen holds the stair rail and takes one step at a time as they are quite steep and she doesnt want to fall down in her small palm she holds the coins for the shopping and they are becoming damp as she holds them so tight and in her other hand she holds a bag to put the shopping in and thinking over in her mind how much change she ought to have if her sums are right and she thinks she has got it right although Baldy will get it right no doubt but she must try and get it right or her  mum will tell her off she reaches the lowest stair and stands there looking back up the stairs and waits to hear if her mother has stopped talking and its all quiet and so she moves out into the street and the sky looks grey and rainy looking and that man is on the corner in his black coat buttoned up to his neck and the black trilby hat and he looks at her as she passes and she looks away her mother had said dont talk to people you dont know and she doesnt know him but her dad said the mans a bookies runner although shes not seen him run anywhere as yet although he may run when shes not looking and she wonders as she passes him what a bookies runner is and why he stares at her so he doesn't look friendly in fact he looks like a criminal as far as she knows what a criminal looks like the man turns away and gazes up Rockingham Street and she walks quickly to Baldys shop and climbs over the steep step that leads into the shop and it is quite full and so she waits her turn behind Mrs Knight who is a tall thin lady from upstairs who has cats and she smells of cats and when she looks out of her door when at home she looks like a cat too Helen sniffs yes cat smell she thinks and looks at Mrs knights coat and sees cats hairs and she holds a purse in her thin hand and a shopping bag in the other Helen being only eight years old cant see beyond Mrs Knight but at the side she can see other people at the counter and Baldy is busy and his assistant is rushing about quite madly Helen thinks she ought to have gone to the loo before she came out shopping because now she feels like she needs to *** but she doesnt want to go back home again so she tries to think of something else to take her mind off of the *** wanting feeling then someone taps on her shoulder and as she turns she sees its Benny the boy from school who lives up the road and whom she likes and who doesnt call her four-eyes or take the mickey out of her hello Helen says looking at Benny what you doing here? shopping for Mum he says holding up a brown shopping bag got a list or ill forget I always forget he says he moves close to her and shows her the coins wrapped in a paper list in the palm of his hand you shopping too? he asks yes she says looking shy and gazing at him got to get some things I can remember what Mum says and what change I have to get afterwards he studies her as she stands there her hair in plaits with a center parting and the wire framed glasses which make her eyes look large and cow like and the faded red flower dress and green cardigan with two buttons missing what you doing after? he asks dont know she replies why where are you going? going to the herbalist he says get some liquorice sticks and a glass of sarsaparilla could I come too? she says if Mum lets me and Ive done all that she wants? sure you can he says meet me by the Duke of Wellington if you can go about ten or so if youre not there by ten past ten Ill go without you he says she nods her head and hopes she can go and looks at him standing there his brown hair and hazel eyes and a cowboy hat at the back of his head and the six shooter in the belt of his blue jeans and she feels happy for the first time since shed got up and she says can Battered Betty go too? sure he says and she smiles and senses her heart go quickly in her chest thump thump thump thump yes Helen what can I do for you? Baldy asks her as she is next in line to be served so she recites what her mother had told her so much sugar in a blue package and a certain amount of cheese and a pound of broken biscuits and a loaf of bread and o yes a dozen eggs she says offering him an empty egg box and he goes off to fulfil the recited list and Benny is served by the assistant and he hands the man the list and the man reads it and goes off to put together the items on Benny list and suddenly Helen feels the need to *** again and hopes Baldy wont be long getting the stuff she asked for and o yes Benny says my old man says hes taking me to the pictures on Sunday did you want to come? he wont mind its a U film so kids can go too she pushes her knees together hoping Baldy will hurry up Ill ask Mum Helen says feeling the sweaty coins in her palm and having to pass the bookies runner and hope she wont do her any harm.
A 8 YEAR OLD ******* A SHOPPING ERRAND IN LONDON IN 1955.
Terry Collett Sep 2013
Across the road
from the underground station
next to the Christian tabernacle
you sat with Helen

on the standing wall
of a bombed out house
she clutched her doll
Battered Betty

looking around her
I've never been
on this bomb site before
she said

the people who lived here
must have been really scared
if they heard the siren in time
they may have got out

but some didn't of course
you said
trying to imagine
what the houses looked like

before the bombing
how the gardens
may have been well kept
may have had vegetables

and flowers growing
in the small beds
at the back of the house
a lady my mum knew

got blown up
and all they found
was her hand
with her wedding ring

still there
Helen said
******* up her nose
making her thick lens glasses

move on her nose
my mum said
she and her stepfather
used to hide

under the large oak table
in the kitchen
if they got caught out
by the bombing

you said
and Mum said her stepfather's bottom
was sticking out
at one end of the table

Helen laughed
you liked it when she laughed
it made dimples in her cheeks
and her eyes lit up

behind her glasses
best not tell Mum
I've been on the bomb site
Helen said

she said they're dangerous places
they are
you said
but hell what would life be

without a bit of danger?
what does your dad say
when you tell him
you've been on the bomb sites?

she asked
rocking Battered Betty
in her arms
nothing much

except not to wear
my best clothes on there
is that all?
she said

yes pretty much
you said
what about your mum?
you looked at her

her hair tied in two pigtails
her eyes large
beyond the lens
she says be careful

not to climb
you said
but you do
Helen said

you did it just now
to get up here
yes I know that
and you know that

but my mum needn't
you said
banging the back
of your shoes

on the wall gently
don't you tell
your mum everything
you do?

she asked
I do
you frowned
I try not to worry her

you said
doesn't she asked
what you've done or been?
yes but I needn't

tell her everything
you said
she has enough worries
without me adding to them

I think it best
I imagine other places
or things done
to keep her

from worrying
Helen shook her head
you have a strange
sense of truth

she said
holding Betty tight
to her chest
her chin resting

on the doll's head
how about an ice cream
at Baldy's​​​?
you said

Baldy's?
she said
where is Baldy's​?
the grocer shop

before you get
to the railway bridge
down Rockingham Street
you said

the owner is as bald as a coot
she laughed
ok
she said

and so you both
climbed down
from the wall
and walked down

and along
to the subway
and on to the shop
to get ice creams

she smiling
with her battered doll
you with your cowboy
shooting dreams.
Matt  Sep 2014
Mt. Baldy Hike
Matt Sep 2014
I start at 6,000 feet
I'm glad I have gloves today
After three miles I stopped to eat
Orange, banana, and drink vitamin water

I move down a bit into the canyon
To wash my hands
The water is so clear and cold

As I got to the top of the ridge
A Korean couple makes their way down

He asks me what time?
I asked again what he said
He asked what time I started
I said about 1:15

He said with his accent, "You are very strong, very strong."
I said, "Oh no, you are very fit."

He asked how old he was
He and his wife were seventy-seven

I asked him if he had been to the summit many times
He said, "Yes, many times."

He was born in the year 1935
And still had the strength to reach 10,000 feet

I hiked for about another thirty minutes
And sat on a rock
I meditated on saw the mist come and leave

It floats through in front of the pine I am staring at

I kept the mind free of thoughts
Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form

Maybe I am strong like the Korean man said
After all
I feel like I live in the wrong body
I have an akward body
I am always alone and jobless

At least I have technology
I don't have many friends
And I'm losing at life

At least there is Mt. Baldy
I hope to spend more time there
Frank Nov 2011
I think I might be a pervert.

I mean, a mere bite of her lip,
stroke of the hair
or flick of
her hip
sends fire around my body
criminalises my mind
and throws me outside,
to look pressed
nose against
the glass,
breath blurring up
the window,
and my view of her ***.

Yep,
I think I might be a pervert.

Aren't you?
I mean when it's hot,
don't you get thirsty
from
sitting beside
the fountain?
Course you do,
we're all perverts,
even those baldy
monks up on some
breast-like mountain.
Tyler C Nelson May 2018
a misty start
   with worlds to go
a walk through forest,
   desert, snow
with altitude
   and dizzy joy
a challenge which
   my strength employs
a peaceful summit
   waiting warm
where thought and poetry
   find form
from near the sun
   our minds turn
to worlds below
   we will return


-TylerN @ 10,040 feet, 2018.05.12
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
i never understood why poetry books were and are so expensive, there's Darwin lounging smoking a cigarette listening to some Victorian erich segal, e. l. james, diana gabaldon or a loretta chase - while imaging, well, you know, why the the Bayeux tapestry represents the Normans invasion with humanoids, hence the pressure on artists to follow-up with self-portraits, otherwise it ended up with two monkeys ******* in his head... but such writers are equivalent to manual labourers, they don't care if their books aren't finished, they are equivalent of bricklayers, ploughing the fields of blanks unearthing potatoes and more potatoes (words)... some Chinese poet-drunkard trying to escape Tibetan meditation writes a haiku... and that's about it, he says laughing at the moon: 'this is bothersome! for one thing our ancestors chose a ****** difficult phonetic encoding, maybe this was xenophobia in disguise, but the Ming dynasty project is nothing compared to how we write she and shin, no amount of labour will be as effective as our pictographs, some say this is a defence against invaders, and i believe them, they got as far as ***** trading with us, now we have cheap steel and Russian allies... forget the great wall, the real defence against invaders and accusations of xenophobia is in the encoding, which also means we can **** the mathematical encoding like an elephant ******* a chicken, with its trunk, blowing air into it so the chicken ends up flying, along with the ostrich'.

when i write crude i know i'm exhausting a poem,
or at least the introduction, to a poem,
but such are crude comparisons, they tell you when
to stop the flux of the unintended direction -
but i agree with him, western powers abuse
the haiku mechanism, back in the east the haiku
appears from blank, partly due to that Tibetan
baldy blubber in later age in India -
in the west we have the crown of myrrh, and due
to the overload of sensual stimulation with that,
and the lashing prior to the crucifixion,
an over-exited state of sensuality, meaning more
cognitive outpourings, hence not one haiku
in a year about some freckled salmon jumping
over the moon with a momentary diamond of snow
on its tail... but a whole list of them...
without any verbal tradition to remember either...
take the Tibetan lounging and the Hebrai hanging,
why did we ever take the latter up?
well, question answered, the west is quietly shunning
the church's influence, all you need is a Buddha
head in your living room and it's primo aprilis -
well, not it's Prima Aprilis, *Prima dies Aprilis
,
it's a jokers day in Poland, i experienced one myself,
you run around the town drenching each other in water,
or as i call it, baptising each other, for jokes,
buckets of water... in the west it's just a toys 'r' us
advert owning a water-gun, but you hardly see
children in western society, esp. in England,
they're exposed to overt-sexuality prematurely,
they're stiff on the monkey bars, stiff on bicycles,
stiff playing football, stiff climbing trees (if ever),
stiff or coffin like only ready to play the one game they
know best: bullying and make-up, and short-skirts,
and karaoke dreaming all the leaves are brown,
and the sky is grey, i've been for a walk, on a winter's day,
i'd be safe from walking, if i wasn't in L.A., california
dreaming, on such a winter's day
, it's only
outdoors if there's a prize involved, not the smell of grass
or cow ****... strap me up Scott'e, i'm about to venture
into the grand world wearing a ******... anyway,
you never write more than one haiku a year...
but before i do a Robert Frost as cited by Jack Spicer
"any ****** fool can get into a poem but it takes
a poet to get out of one"
, citation? helen: a revision
part of the San Francisco Renaissance mini movement.
but today's panorama show, about the exit vote,
Hilarious **** being investigated by the F.B.I., Trump
turned into a T-Rex in a children's book - tiny hands,
big quiff - and in a global community where slavery
is frowned at, piracy is not really, the vain hopes
of former glories, listening to old farts reminiscent of
the empire esp. in the north is like listening to a fake ******,
my grandparents could say the same ******* in Poland,
the loss of the steel industry, much due to the extinction
of communism in Europe, feminism and the soft-industry
jobs of primarily advertisements, the manly jobs?
they're all Chinese... why blame eastern europeans?
you like your ******* chicken chow mein you little *****?
well i'm certainly liking my korma chicken curry, eat it!
an economy that prizes only profit and not continuity
exporting everything to King Kong Mao will look for
scapegoats anywhere, i'm surprised it's not the Jews this
time, and it's so funny, i mean, born & prop'ah bred
Anglo, imported from Pakistan, oh yeah, "prop'ah",
now they're the best mates, once master and the slave,
now two masters, hand in hand, should be a joke
poster like the socialist fraternal kiss (the capitalist
fraternal kiss is - you guessed it! mouth kissing an ****!),
so you have to really trim the curtains of the ethnic
dress of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to get
a selfie with Tony Blair and Bush Jr. getting stuck in -
at a time when no Londoner feels safe outside
of England, esp. in the north, perhaps in Scoot-land
(three years up there, i built up an affinity with
them against Jacky Uno and the flag,
right now i'm burning it in my head, ah, for scrap jokes);
and then they box in the idea that whoever earns money
can't do what the hell he wants with it... listen...
after not being given the Marshall Plan option, and instead
given an ideal like communism i think it's best some
of the money heads east to fund the post-Gorbachev plan
(why was Sweden included in the plan? Sweden
was neutral! they were the myth-machine generators
of ******'s late discovery of the ability to bleach your hair!),
and why would i spend my money in Southend anyway?
or Blackpool on candyfloss? community?
you want a community? how the hell is community going
to work... this ain't a village, this a globalised world...
plus, why associate yourself with vermin?
and all this is going around while the rats from
respective parties jump the boat and leave the public
to blame themselves... but that's how it is, in this
schizoid metaphor, bilingualism is extreme as much as
mono-lingual psychology, but less rooted and historic
and continuity biased... happy those who know only
one tongue or three and more... with bilingualism
you become a psychological mongrel, while others are mongrels
of the flesh, soul-mongrel breeding is harsh,
you're neither here, nor there, and your idea of heaven
becomes something like: wake me up again speaking
Norwegian, because at least i can identify in that region
something that isn't here or there - but being first
generation and remembering to speak the mother,
i wasn't going to do the solo ethnic cleansing and speak
only one tongue... if i did... you think i'd be speaking with
my father and his broken English? ha! *nie!
Mutt  May 2014
LET ME SLEEP!
Mutt May 2014
Let.... me... sleep...
Please.
PLEASE! let me sleep!

You keep me awake with your toxic kisses
Wrapping yourself around me,
Soothing me in a false comfort,

My eyes are heavy,
My head is weary,
So please, PLEASE!
Let me sleep.

It was fun in the beginning,
You gave me more time in the night,
You keep me up,
So I could study,
You keep me up,
So I could keep in touch with myself,

My mind was free to wonder with this extra time,
Just to have you confirm,
That I'm who I say I am,

The nights were fine,
But my days became ****,
Not having the energy or patience for others,
Greeting my teeth in frustration,
As people wonder where I went,

I am right here!,
But Im really not...,
I'm trapped in my mind,
Which is screaming!,

Screaming at me,
To scrap any couple of minutes of shut eye that I can,
Looking for any break in my day,
To just get away,
Away from the noise...,
The people...,
My friends...,

Any energy I have is used just
To keep moving,
To keep standing,
To keep awake,
Throughout the day,

Any chair becomes a temperpedic mattress,
Finding comfort with ease,
In the most random places,

Which makes sleep easy,
But the cricks I'm my neck are not worth it,

Teachers lectures become slurred mumbles,
Like the adults in charley brown,
But much more melodic,

Just to be shaken out of my daze,
By the sound of back packs zipping,
And Chairs shuffling,
At the end of class,

Socializing is not revitalizing,
Being around my high energy friends,
Just fries my system,
It does not jump start it,

My friends wonder where their energetic friend went,
I just tell them I haven't been sleeping well...,
Excluding you and what you do to me,

**** IT! LET ME SLEEP!,
I no longer want to be a creature of the night!
You topsided my life schedule like a row boat in a tsunami!,
Only to feel your furry in the middle of the day,

Now I am afraid to see you at night,
Knowing you will ruin my life,

As if like clock work,
your there in my bed,
As soon as I'm comfortable and cozy,
Echoing my thoughts...,
Letting my mind travel...,

Traveling to no where!,
You take me on journeys that last a life time!,

Nudging me...,
Egging me on..,
To go on night drives,
My poem book is filled to the brim,
Full of all these ideas you give me,
While my tank is on empty...,

But what is a full mind,
With a weak body?,
What would I be,
Without you?

I'd be free,
I'd be alive,
Free to run!,
Jump!,
Climb!,
Do whatever I wanted!,
Not be held down by your ball and chain...,

Actually hold a conversation with a cute girl,
Without giving up,
Or not even attempting,
Because of you and my lack of energy,

The sun,
Will once again feel,
Like rays of love and warmth,
Rather than a monster constantly,
Trying to sizzle my eyes to a crisp,

Have time and energy to go on a hike with friends,
Instead of fearing I'll pass out,
And fall off the top of mount baldy,

I don't know...,
Maybe view coffee as... just a drink,
Rather than a gift from god,
Sent to help me survive another day In hell!,

I wish these where exaggerations...,
But they are far from it,
Sleep is important to me,

Sigh I just think we should go our separate ways,
We are just no good for each other...,
I got my life to live,
Sleep to catch up on,
So please insomnia.....let me sleep.
Glasgow Girl G1 Mar 2014
He’s not how I remembered him
All charming, tall and handsome
He’s podgy, dull and boring
His cockiness has left him

I nearly started snoring
When he told a story
He’s also going baldy
He’s lost his crowning glory.

I’m not saying he’s not charming
He’s sort of…in a way
But not the man I dreamt of
He’s definitely away!

He’s jaded, tired and bitter
There was no spark or flutter
He asked me if we’d meet again?
“Not sure?” I think I muttered.

— The End —