Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Judy Ponceby Feb 2011
Hopscotch

Girlfriends running, twirling, too.
Taking turns out in the sun.
Skip and hop across the board.
Leap over the marked one.


Twister.

Red right foot,
Bodies blend.
Green left hand
Twist and bend
Blue left foot,
Over extend.
Yellow right hand
In a body pile, again.


Chess

Pawns in play,
Knights abound.
King in check,
Queens around.
Pieces falling one by one
Check and Mate is the sound.


Tag

Tag! You're It.
Running wild.
Laughing, screaming,
Swift little child.


Jumprope

Rope atwirling overhead.
Jump when its under.
Singsong chanting
Sounds like thunder.


Checkers

Red men, Black men.
Jump on a diagonal.
King me, king me
Gonna jump a handful


Kick the Can

Running down the street.
Kicking that can.
Swarm of kiddies
Chasing past the man.
Hopscotch. Twister. Chess. Tag.
Checkers. Kick the Can. Jumprope.
vircapio gale Jul 2012
phyllo dough considerations
veil the rigid silence
under quip, under smile-
covered cliche cud.
it is in essence meaningless,
this large party,
this braying urgency of guests

the house swims with life,
we mingle charismatic coughs
as talents strut; bouncing fruit
and swaying surface tension fizz
sparkles off the balcony of floating drinks

our tall pines are echoing beyond the yard
a sylvan soft allure of
living soundboard drape,
it needles aromatic carpet for a
*******, brink-of-dawn escape

allocate the living and the dead,
the borderline is begging to be tread.

an elastic belt extends the real,
a tool for party tricks, a tool for bending time--
i'm bounding off into the darkness
balling lightning in my dantien,
the world a trampoline;
running full i top the rail of gasps,
swinging through the arc
of thinning line to pull me back around,
stomach churning fiction-sick
with gravity inverted joltingly,
umbilically, aware.

then she has a turn as i,
as being me, and as i (as I)
careen away, the vaster leap
of single body, double mind-
it pulls beyond substantial thought

our uber-jumprope dangles
while we speed above the trees -- all is dark
excluding speckled stars
and the one, shrinking party-glow i lose below

the television orbits,
wobbles in a superstrings' embrace
all balance lost --
we're floating in a spin alone
unfocused universal locus..
stars diminishing reliquish cosmic depth
and nourish life in death

reeling eyes of weightless ******
squint to spacetime surgings
inward of the who i am--
plasticity-encasing glass of box
to offer all subverse companionship.
i tug the corded fabric
fronting interweaving screen
of futile marking where
i've riveted, lost, gazing
psychosoma scene
a modern mind-toy posted
to enframe another me we are,
even here with outside sight of world
vacuum up and lower heading
compass only gulping awe,
the breath is gone, a stinging heart
revalves its pacing flow
descending cosmogonic thread

allocate the living and the dead,
the borderline is begging to be tread.

i imagine trees again,
branches soft,
trunks my guideposts to the ground i've lost~
i'm mingling against my sense of real again,
packing leftovers, living social lies unknown.
a man compliments his speech
as "Bristling with business."
the jelly seeps beyond the pita's edge,
the pita slides out from under foil.
the party swivles on its axis,
the clowns play on, noble chefs
laughing in their pots
while i visit drooping psyche forms,
around and through glass doors,
crystal tables -- a furniture of ideal norms
to overturn. ah. i'm found again,
a bit less vast among a crowd
of nescient lives unlived. i'm
found undiscovered open all,
plainly lacking truth as well,
i'm me, this other presence,
this shifting sight,
flood experiential zoo,
this empty vessel holding two
a social fissure prying sense of self
from up a wild void..
Allison Rose Nov 2011
A booth Made out of Fed-Ex blocks
Tongue depressors Still lingering with the taste of fudgesicle
Diagnoses Of cat-scratch fever
Of applesauce flu
Of –itises and –idias
One end of a jumprope
Held to one ear
And the other
Tracking the thump of a human heart
When the only illnesses
Were those of a sun-spent day
And playdate fatigue
We were all doctors
We could all
Save
           Lives…
My mirror is full of soft clouds
that may surprise you
their subtle qualities cast shadows
around my heavy head and ask
what might the darkened night intend
it is surely sacred to ironic nymphs
and the moon
whose night ambassadors
glow across the winds

a tender cheek
being ill-qualified and virginal
can admit sadly that
nothing much happened
but the pale beats of a jumprope
counted out the letters so
now I know your name
and that is some comfort
at a glance the horses offer
a wilderness
my aristocracy is hardening
landed within the seasons, intermittent
the sky secured a safe space grimly
the world rose and fell
and wore the hue of heaven
No town homes in my hometown
We throw up and we throw down
Drinks pour up, tears pour down
No outlet in this port town

Glass crumbs and shards
elephant-skinned sidewalks smeared with tomato paste
the streets remember
potato-tipped death machines
starchy falsetto bullets
the cracking
window
skull
smushy hamburger meat brain
meet bullet—meet steering wheel—meet
                                ster
e
                     ­                                                 o

my little brother stays in a shelter
on American and California
where babies
sit themselves
change
is a dollar short
and DST
stands for daylight shootings time

Grandfather time
please stroke your shredded wheat goatee just a little longer
postpone apocalyptic
soon the children will hop skotch on chalked body silhouettes
and jumprope with bungie cord intestines

But not him
my little commando
he will find a way out
depart from home plate
three strikes carved on a flaming chariot
soaring through the sky like barbasol jet streams
the great
                                                           ­          escape
You know what I hate?
Backstabbers and Liars and users all threee
They take you, and play you, and **** you,
A spree,
I've had my fair share and here I've had another,
Come, take me now, as I have nothing left to lose,
But beware to all those freaks out there
Who do this and find it amusing
The next time I jumprope
It'll be your intestines I'm using...
One of my pet peeves
I promise You
I'm going to
Live
By who You are today,
Paint
With the colors of Your promises,
Jump rope
To the music of purpose in my heartbeat,
And weigh
The value of Your steadfast love.

Steady

Is the last thing I want to be
For You.
I can carry my paint,
My jumprope,
And my scale to
Every
Wretched
Corner
Of this world
Just to prove
To every living soul
That You're more than just
A hero in a storybook.
RJ Days Feb 2017
No milquetoast kids dare summit jungle gyms
nor dream from monkey bars suspended
o’er perilous mulches, heads filled by the sanguine
rush of juvenile enthusiasm for garden hoses
bruised knees and peanut butter sandwiches;

Only august lad or lass may escape those sandboxes
to tumble into the cavernous ball pit of emancipation,
last dino bones dug up and whirling whispers
lost soon as spoken across merry-go-round envisioning
fantastic autumn nights that promised monsters

Forsaken mud pies dry and crack, no more edible
with juice box than without, hopscotching into
sportsball cartoon boom box jumprope Sunday songs
of Jesus midwest bedtime prayers, sincerest supplication
application for wellness heaven and bully protection

We seesaw through scraps of nostalgia, frolic
into slip-sliding wet hot summer drops to mask
messy tears, swimming defiantly away from repentance
but begging a little help from God to keep the rusty
swing set chains from breaking now as we push higher

Sure, it takes some work to build a playground right,
and what sign do we have it's safely been constructed?
for Sean
alice Jun 2014
I take comfort in the familiarity
of it all.
The constant madness;
ringing bells and sounding alarms.

I've seen a lot of things.
I know a lot of things.

I'm a different type of person
than I used to be.

I've seen a woman steal my heart;
watched her love:
F L E E T I N G
She loves you today,
him tomorrow.

The melody strikes the match
and the fire rages on.
Unbeknownst.
Without awares.

I've heard the words:
"Is this too intense for you,
it's okay if it is."
and I've answered:
"...it is,
do it anyway."

The 15 year old girl
on the couch
is high
on her dad's methadone.
I'm withdrawling
and hating her;
insane with abandon.

I've felt a needle puncture
the skin;
watched the snake
appear
and
disappear
into myself.

I am another yourself.
We are
One.

You and Me
we are the same,
different eyes
different lungs
but we share a
soul.

I've learned how to make a fist
and pump it
with a jumprope tied
round my arm.

These things are not useful.
They will not bring you
great fortune.
They are the wasted
thoughts
ideas
and journeys
of my youth.

I've been given another chance.
Not a second one,
just another one.
After being purple;
lifeless;
was the greatest hit
of all.

Sick and sad inside
she slumps against the
hallway
wall.
Feeling nothing
after crying for hours
she finds resolve
in the insults
inside her head.

I take comfort in the familiarity of it all
writing like stories
have no end
as if all the pieces
fit together.

The reality is
they don't.

Hope begets Grace
and Grace is what leads
us through this battle;
Life.

I've seen a lot of things.
I know a lot of things.
They are not useful
but

they are mine.
my mind will at times unexpectedly bubble and spill over without warning or explanation. this is an example of one such time.
Gigi Tiji  Oct 2014
Goodnight
Gigi Tiji Oct 2014
I'll see you
on the other side
of the event horizon
of conscious perception,

where we can float around
as bubbles through
solar systems
like astral projections,

and draw the line
between love
and perfection,

so we can use it
as a hop skip and a jumprope,
and we'll do it 1, 2, 3, but
what are we counting four?

Where does the rotation
begin, anyway? Don't ask me!
Let's just go for a spin!

Right from the start
and left from the fin,

any day, any night,
love, yan and yin,
I'll see you!
Sweet dreams!
Sleep bright!
Don't let the demons fight!

— The End —