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Lily Priest Aug 2020
The air always smelled like cigarettes
And burnt denim,
Ripped and frayed
sitting on sharp hips
Tipped with attitude.

Our palms, always the color of dirt
Pressed against green glass
As we tipped,
laughed throatily at
The burn in our chests.

Our smiles always shined
Glossed lips turned up
With naive knowing
Sure shoulder shrugs
To hide the blush
Of falling behind.

Our voices were always loud
Looong syllables
Sang with solemn vows
Of seeing all our promises
Through to the end
Never bending
Against the break of the world.

Our sight was always far
Squinting at the sun-soaked unseen
Flicking cigarette butts
With perfect aim,
Watching the red smoulder
Flippant with the thought
That we would be the same,
never going out.
Mark Toney Oct 2019
John Winston Ono Lennon
From Britain to Brooklyn, decked in denim
Controversial through his political and peace activism
Felled by Mark David Chapman's act of barbarism
5/22/2019 - Poetry form: Clerihew - Copyright © Mark Toney | Year Posted 2019
stopdoopy Aug 2018
Wishy Washy.

Tumbling,

Between high and low,

Hot and cold.

Am I delicate like the load of whites? do I need to refresh my color with a strong drink- bleach?

Or am I tough and resistant like denim? toss me in for an hour, shove soap down my throat, and I'll come out like new?

Maybe I'm a mixed load, balancing between the two; teeter-tottering from feeling to feeling.
The day I wrote this I had dreamt of someone who used to be very dear to me who I am having to forget, to better myself. She hurt me bad and I'd been having the same dream of us repairing our relationship for a few months now, and I've felt like a washing machine with my guts twisting and pulling with my emotions going from one end of the spectrum to the next; low in morning, high in the middle of the day, unknown at night. I've had amazing friends, Trixie, Luigi, Houk, Rin, Cait-Cait, and many others who've helped me through these past months who I can't thank enough for their continued support. Whenever I have these dreams and feel this way it feels like a step backwards and I end up feeling guilty for no reason just because I have them, and so I'm hoping that by writing this out it's a step in the right direction. Feeling like this is normal after you've spent some great times with someone you've cared about- weather it's months or years, it hurts and it's okay. I know time will heal these wounds eventually, so for now here's a Band-Aid.

Dedicated to everyone who's been hurt and felt this way or similar, and to my amazing friends;  I hope we all find what we need and can better ourselves, and be happy.
Skylar Michael Mar 2018
i hope we last like Japanese denim
selvedge threads and salvaged hearts
the wear will only make us more beautiful
and show that lasting forever is not only for old things
we'll only wear patches for sentiment
and watch the seams tear apart
how grand it will to be a couple of old things
oh, it will be grand
with our gray hair telling stories better than our words ever could
Henry Koskoff Nov 2017
my overalls don't sag
they hang a bit
they hover an inch or two over my skin
structures form in mid air from their thick denim
and their legs are rolled to expose the white underside of their flesh

you may notice how i use the pronoun they
because my overalls don't have a gender
they landed in the arms of galactic painters
from the cosmos
crafted with the purest intentions
by aliens
who decorated them with buttons and straps

now i wear them with so much dignity
and they wear me with nonchalance
Daniel Magner Oct 2017
I want a denim vest,
ripped at the sleeves,
grim patches and buttons.
So I searched through the thrift shops.
Everything was too large, or too tight,
or cut in a style thatt was not quite right.
In the isles were old ladies
who probably bought the clothes
donated by dead friends.
In a corner, marked off for books,
stood Ginsberg, bespectacled and urging,
"You are not a locomotive!"

But I chugged on by,
all steam and whistles,
neck a bristle with eerie misease
that Ginsberg is dead,
like the old ladies' friends,
and I can only find denim
with sleeves.
Daniel Magner 2017
Cindy Long Jul 2017
Shes more than just a pretty face. Shes a hurricane. Demin and lace spun around like wind and rain. A princess that has long since lost her crown- its probably at the bottom of the pacific by now; stitched together with good intentions, lightning, and leather. Held to the ground by a chest harness, gagged with cotton, and her heart made to beat to the rhythm of thunder. Voice like the pounding of the sea against bluffs; breaking down barricades with one subtle stroke. Uprooting trees like she does her long blonde curls and nothing can calm her chaos-not cuffs or rope, not diamonds or pearls. Shes just a little harder to handle then most. Oceans plunder through the floodgates of her eyes at any given moment; parading through the coast, tumbling around with all the broken and bruised cement.
Shes all the abandoned throwns left to drown or freeze without power, warmth or shelter. The promise to do better and be better next time coaxing her further into the fray by her collar and leash but its always the same unpredicted weather. Shes both beauty and the beast- complete opposites chained together by her ankles and wrists. Poetry pouring from her luscious lips in a heavy mist; a coldfront may stall her out but shes still quick to spit with the flick of a whip. Shes deeper than she appears but her foundations crumble under the rubble of her own ivory skin. Broken coral stumbling through the empty halls of her soul-it takes it tole. Shes the act of god, something so vivid and yet so insane could only be brought on by the abundance of sin. A divine cause lost in plush-sweet and also ******; a unity of odd mixtures: vinegar and sugar. Cloudcover hiding the blisfulness of the sun and she cant help but blush. Shes altogether too much and all she leaves behind is death and decay-she destroys everything in her path But its not her fault; she got broken too while sitting in the lap of a tormado; wrapped her up, held her tight, then let her go.Any attempt to get back inside only left her trapped in scar tissue, She went crazy when he called her baby so its no wonder nothing survived. She may leave you with a mild breeze and a sky of orange and pink.She'll send seashells spiraling into you until you become debris..make you wonder what its like to live without the kink.
Unedited raw poem.
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