#towns
Our planet earth is round, covered with cities & small towns,
Every few months a new season comes around, we should all be happy,
Floating in space, where ever were bound. We cannot jump off, gravity,
Will keep us on the ground, Listen, for a real true reason, be still, answers,
Come in words of sound, With respect to others, search for your inner self,
It is there to be found, morals, true feelings, surviving together, more,
Honor and pleasure, then wearing a gold crown. Evil always tries,
To destroy the good, they never rise up the ladder, their thought always down,
Explore your true thoughts, and feelings, look alone, changes make us grow,
Experience, walk a different path, try, humans were not made to be pot-bound.
Your personal home, inside and out, a reflection, of you, your castle, keep peace,
On your street, eliminate neighborhood battle grounds. Life is too short,
There is enough, to share, the way we think creates our attitude, keep positive,
Achievable, goals, with time and effort, life turns around. Many challenges,
Possibilities, appear in life, some were put there for a reason, a precise moment,
Of our journey, We, decide to accept move forward, or turn around, we are each,
To, change our chapters in this life many times, If, you were to experience,
It will be back around life can be a merry-go round.
The Original: Tom Maxwell © 4/18/2022 AD
Sep 29, 2025
Sep 29, 2025 at 4:01 AM UTC
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!—
Two tweakers, a rat, and a Jellicle cat
Have all built their nests in my beard."
There was an Old Man of Connecticut,
Who possessed an innate sense of etiquette;
He'd lay down the fork to the left of the spork,
That mannerly man of Connecticut.
There was an Old Man from Earth's center,
Who left it and couldn't reënter;
He crawled out a hole like a man who's a mole,
And lost his way back to the center.
There was an Old Person of Skye,
Who spent his days wondering, "Why?"
When they asked, "What's the word?" he replied, "Haven't heard,"
That discouraged Old Person of Skye.
There was an Old Man of Seattle,
Who had an attraction to cattle;
Considering bovine anatomy _so_ fine,
He prodded the cows of Seattle.
There once was from Thessaloniki
A man who was geeky and greeky;
An avid fanatic of things democratic,
He voted in Thessaloniki.
There was an Old Person of Perth,
Who buried his gold in the Earth
And then plum forgot whereat was the spot,
That forgetful Old Person of Perth.
There was a Young Man of the South,
Who mouthwashed with whiskey his mouth;
He spoke with a drawl, saying yes'm and y'all,
That drawling Young Man of the South.
There was a Young Person of Boston,
Who wandered around and got lost in
The Chinatown section with a raging ********
That poked out an eyeball in Boston.
There was an Old Person named Lear,
Who surely was scroobious and queer;
He sat rather fat, and Old Foss was his cat,
And he couldn't abide ginger beer.
Mar 24, 2025
Mar 24, 2025 at 5:00 PM UTC
We watch it ache and screech,
Tortured for some mercy in its misery,
We’re not allowed to wring its neck
All because the law can love a crow
Every time I mention its pain,
I get scolded. Chastised. Reminded.
This is farming country: and no one loves a crow
They eat the eyes of helpless, newborn lambs
All because farming country loves a lamb
Especially one they can eat themselves
The call on the phone goes nowhere,
Just like that now flightless, punished bird,
Concerns dismissed by automated machines,
No one bothers to come after the tone,
All because no one loves a crow.
Oct 30, 2022
Oct 30, 2022 at 2:17 AM UTC
The lure of gold brought Fifty-Niner’s in droves
to the Kansas-Nebraska territory
laden with packs, picks, pans and shovels -
hell-bound for adventure and facile wealth.
Placer miners squatted beside frigid streams,
dipping their pans and filling their sacks
with nuggets bound for the assayer's verdict.
Mine towns sprang up where the veins were strong.
In ******* Creek, Leadville, Independence and Central City,
the valleys rang with the strident cacaphony of
drills and explosives - burrowing shafts deep
into the ore-rich valleys and mountain slopes.
Headlamps lit and shadowed mazes of timbered tunnels
where men piled rock high into mine cars
headed for the mammoth crushers at Idaho Springs.
Whiskey freely flowed in saloons and hotels
where raucous miners let off steam with
every mode and cast of ***** talk pleasures
In time, the veins were spent and profits dwindled.
When the drama ended and the curtain fell,
the miners vanished - leaving only ghost towns behind
and a new state named for its reddish river – Colorado.
Aug 5, 2020
Aug 5, 2020 at 12:41 AM UTC
You cannot find it
on the most recent maps.
Once you could.
A tiny dot in small print.
But not any longer.
It is too small.
In the middle of nowhere,
a confluence of four farms,
two roads,
an ancient Methodist church
and a country store turned museum.
If you happen to be there,
there is a sign.
Just one,
To announce your arrival and departure,
all in a blink. The sort of place
we make fun of,
or worse,
miss altogether.
And yet, people live here.
No fewer than they did in the day
when they rated a dot on the map in four-point type.
They are born here,
Grow up and age here.
Die here.
There is drama. Love is discovered
and lost.
Faith is found and lost.
They suffer, no fewer and no more
than a generation ago.
Your grandfather lived
on one of the four corner farms.
Your father was born here
and lay in the small oak crib
that now lives in your upstairs bedroom.
Your house, in fact, is a museum of sorts,
artifacts of generations scattered about,
proof that this place exists
not just in geography
but in soul.
Feb 4, 2020
Feb 4, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
I want to live in a big house
In the middle of a big town
And in my big house
In the middle of a big town
I want to bake biscuits in my big kitchen
And feed them to my friends
Who come to visit my big house
In the middle of a big town
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 12:30 AM UTC
These people are small town stereotypes
Their great-grandparents were in nursery school together
They can recount who went to prom together for generations back
And divulge every intimate detail about every individual for miles around.
I’m an eighteen-year-old whose biggest accomplishment is “server of the month”
And no family except for a four year old son no one knows about
With no history save for backup vocals in a garage band from the Bronx.
I have to turn this town into my home; do I ever get to swear off the word “impossible”?
I turned it into a swear word the day after my son was born- the one his mamma died.
Oh, god, don’t ask about his mamma. Lorraine. My angel. Born, raised, buried in the Bronx.
There’s a reason she kept the baby. Me. The rough hand I was dealt as a kid. My desire for kids.
But, as every bump on the road will reassure you, every gift comes with a cost.
And that kid- my new whole world- cost me everything. Lorraine, for one.
But now I live in a small town. I have two names: “waiter” and “daddy”.
I don’t do drugs but I do drink; once a month I get wasted. I don’t smoke, steal, cheat, or lie.
But, lord almighty, do I drink sometimes. Like I said, once a month.
I don’t know if it comes from self-loathing or mental state, but there’s no escaping it.
It’s like a rumor whispered in the window of a small town church.
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 7:55 AM UTC
Vast the landscape I watch that rolls out, ragged,
Before my eyes, hurt words describing, haggard.
Moby soothes me but a little as I watch still fractured sights
Of what was and is in Chernobyl.
Marshlands filled with death and mutation,
Homely houses putrid with abandonment and radiation.
Broken tokens of people’s former lives and loves –
Where are they now?
Their hairless dolls, sitting in the middle of rooms,
Bathtubs, broken and oblique, empty.
Soap washes memory and nothing else away.
The sky has spoken; it is broken.
Push the poison out to sea. To see
They hadn’t time to leave a memory,
But ran, already dead while living,
Not allowed to gather souvenirs.
There’s nothing left for them here.
But did they die?
Nobody told us where they went,
Or why
This happened.
They are gone now, dispersed in Eurasia I suppose,
Like ash in the wind, like their future or past ghosts.
They haunt the places, the buildings and the waters,
Engulfing fish, and drying fungus on the northern trees,
Watching wolves still move through winter freeze,
Still beautiful in the taiga sun.
Tainted yet rife with energy not destroyed,
Trying to paint its passion on the sides of walls,
To venerate the people here and their lives,
Their animals, their clothing only frozen.
Sep 9, 2017
Sep 9, 2017 at 11:35 AM UTC
Thirty seven thousand feet,
in the air.
Scattered towns
look like tiny galaxies in the night sky.
I could write a thousand poems.
But all I can think of is
the magic in your eyes.
Sandoval
Aug 4, 2017
Aug 4, 2017 at 3:59 AM UTC
You failed to understand my feelings thru and thru
My sweetheart from the very beginning I love you
On petals of love your beauty comes like drop of dew
You are new in love pursuit so let me take it to pursue
My beloved life is just full of so many ups and downs
Lovers at times are beggars and at another wear crowns
lovers at times like clowns at another heroes in towns
They are the ones who pave there way from shutdowns
My beloved please take me in arms I am totally broken
Rivals laugh at me and take all this as a pun and a fun
Only you are my beloved in this burning desert with Sun
There is none but only you are my real love my passion
Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 11:09 AM UTC
True Reflection
I saw him walking down the uneven concrete
He had a beat to his step, every move on count
Avoided slanted ladders and black cats on corners
Steel noose hung from his neck that resembled a cross
It dangled like an unsteady decoration
He had a long stride and I was on par with pace
Walked close but there was a wide gap in our bridge
Chicago wind pushed through us with cold shoulders
It carried harsh fumes of a forest cremation
Evergreen trees torched, leaves fall to the ground mourning
He enjoyed the smoke’s company, didn’t wave her off
But she left as he heard chords of American horns
He bobbed his head to the sermons preached by beggars
Ran from synchronized fireworks between gangs
Glared at visual art of red and blue strobe lights
Treaded his fingers on chipped pale skin of town houses
And tasted the sweet sourness of a girl’s rain-check
His expression was content like the heart of a book
His smile fell in sequenced with the collapse of eyelids
I became aware that something was weighing his walk
Opaque bottles barely stood straight in his coat pockets
Staggered after each other like rows of dominos
Bottles fractured causing the cement to catch ripples
He couldn’t brake over broken glass he drove into me
Nose to Nose we touched as we were about to crash
I carved into the core of his eye and saw myself
Lying on the pavement with a blanket of fragments
And I realized I couldn’t remove the stained glass
Because what was there belonged from the beginning
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 2:16 PM UTC
getting lost in towns
i regularly find
myself in.
looking.
for the way the earth stands still
when i am with the people i love.
looking.
for myself in old library books
about the government and God. "Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier." I am forever searching.
I am forever looking.
i am the vanished frontier.
these are regular routines
of an irregular human
with ambitions
who can barely get on their tippie toes
to touch them.
there is love in me
and it is in forms
you all can barely fathom.
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
I live in a small town with nice people.
Nice community theater people.
Nice non-swearing churchgoing people.
Nice people who keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.
Nice people who live in ticky tacky houses and sweep their front porches.
Nice people with children who send text messages and drive to nowhere in the middle of the night.
Nice high school teaching, comfortably living people.
Nice mothers-and-fathers people with bright voices and dark eyes.
Nice bored people.
I live in a small town with nice people.
But occasionally they all go momentarily mad.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 2:04 AM UTC
Through nostalgic forest I wonder yet again..
The feeling is quite warm and it makes me smile so.
I think of the music I would listen to and the way the sun would light up your face.
I think of traveling with you in the near future to small towns and museums..
To see the countryside only and avoid the cities all together.
My mind has been asking my soul to do this for so long.
Ill take you to a bed and breakfast in a small town where no one knows us.
We will wake up to the sun and drive one through the evening.
Just so we could remember it all.
Looking for new sounds, new colors, and new feelings altogether.
In doing so we will find the beginning of us yet again.
A beginning with no end.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 3:07 PM UTC
The albatross once filled the skies
Cormorants watched silent, from the shore
These are echoes of times long ago
There's nothing here for them any more
The coastline littered with sunken ships
Villages full of ghosts
Empty buildings and empty lives
Where just the sea gulls act as hosts
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free
The cod stocks have dwindled
There was no need to stay
There's no catch of the day, son
From here to Gaspe'
The canneries shuttered
The landscape has changed
I may be a sailor
But, my life's rearranged
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free
The Grand Banks are empty
Our boats are in hock
There's nothing that grows here
Except depression and rock
While others moved onward
I'll stay 'till I'm dead
Now, I feed off the tourists
I work the casinos instead
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out past the breakers and out to the sea
Oceans away lads, Oceans away
Out on the Ocean, where my soul is set free
The salt air still calls me
The wind in my sails
The sound of the rigging
Heading off to Kinsale
The coastline is empty
Where Ghost towns now stand
It used to be vibrant
But now just sea grass and sand
Oceans Away Lads, Oceans Away
On out past the breakers, and out to the see
Oceans away lads, Oceans Away
I still am a sailor, and I always will be
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 11:29 PM UTC
This town has depleted my soul
nearing the point of no return
The single remedy to redeem my spirit
is to escape what I've known for so long;
the people
the places
the persistent memories-
I'm reminded of every breath this town takes from me
Existence is monochromatic here
and I'm ready to see the spectrum,
to look through the kaleidoscope
and see what life is really like
in the new light my eyes will never forget
that this town tried to hide from me
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 1:34 PM UTC
I am not my demons
They are made entirely of me.
They are the cruelties I've suffered,
Presenting themselves like tornados through small towns.
Towns that don't seem like much at a passing glance,
But who's residents never doubt
The beauty and potential it holds
If only you stay long enough to notice it.
But how can anyone see the beauty in towns
That are forever being brought to ruins.
At the mercy of something as destructive
And unpredictable
As a **** tornado?
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 11:15 AM UTC
Small towns
pass through my vision
like slowly growing
scattered pieces of life
thrown into
a fast-paced world
of people everywhere
all the time.
these towns
I know nothing of
were almost a part
of a life of mine
I dared to nearly live
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 6:06 PM UTC
The sleet is drawing boxes 'round
our mud-and-snow sashed towns.
We'll check 'em off
with crunching footsteps,
slash our gallows grins through static
weather. Nervous laughter fights off winter
while somnambulist nights
hold the anthill days at bay.
And each repeated conversation
coats a thrumming undercurrent
echoed by the groaning rivers
in their arthritic fatigue.
where the ice piles up
like car wrecks.
And, out of those disastrous angles,
jumps up and trips back down.
Blinking eyelids, right then left.
Sunrises. Sunsets.
Dusks and dawns in places familiar
wading through liminal space.
Circles darkened. Footprints filled in.
The heat just circles lazily.
Our flushed and clammy brows
will **** askance
and sweat while footsteps
melt our swaying way through boiling
sidewalks. Nervous laughter dulls the impact
of seared, rapid fire nights.
"Ha." "Ha." Shrug off another.
And all repeated reminiscence
does is hamstring overthinking
of the closing jaws of traps
in these rusting western towns.
where winds breathe dust
by mouthfuls
So, into our familiar mishaps,
***** up and falls back down
melting into neighborhoods
dress down, upbraid us.
'Til our feet do not walk circles
'round these wilting Western towns.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 6:09 PM UTC
9:13 p.m. on Wednesday
sitting, bolted to this bar,
next to tired tropes and worn out jokes
I've met a million times or more.
And the drinks all swirl together
and they start to taste the same
going down
or coming up.
It really doesn't matter much.
If the streets looked any different,
they'd still bear familiar names:
trees and states and Presidents--
Left turn, snowfall, sitting fences,
walking home
and getting old. These towns all
look alike, with weeks spent walking
in the cold.
And the salt on the sidewalks
might season your footsteps--
sure--
a steady, frigid cadence
carried through like a threat:
shallow and petty, from downtown to home.
Alone on the sidewalk,
it's 7 below.
And I don't know
what that is in Celsius,
but I know there's no home
for at least
another block or 2.
I came clean in muddy puddles,
***** slush and snowbound streets,
in towns that looked alike.
Tonight, I'm headed for clean sheets.
So close the doors, unbolt the patrons
Thursday morning, 2 a.m.
And it never feels like half an answer
when I push my front door
shut again.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
from this distance, the town looked like paper shaped
into origami buildings. you could tell that everything
has it's own hue of smoke and mirrors, even though
all of us are made out of the same material.
the buildings were built to fall apart eventually,
like a tooth pick and marshmellow tower, and
it's all because the fragility of these things we
don't notice. we do not notice the frailness
of these things because we are desensitied
to the idea of things lasting forever.
you could see how fake everything has became
like a fog enveloping the town from this distance.
nobody notices the big picture because the small
things are always more difficult to ignore.
everything was made of plastic and paper, and the
only thing that wasn't fake were the memories
behind this town. people don't strain their necks
when looking back at this flash frame town.
they don't feel the need to.
- kra
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 11:33 AM UTC
Oh John Green!
Why must you see me this way?
You make me weep
and wish they would live another day.
You are so witty
but you do lack certain skills
Killing the main character is so unfriendly
But chocolate will solve the problem anyway
You make me think a lot of things
but they don't have a lasting effect
I know you throw a lot of paper in the bin
But in all due honesty
I feel like setting you ablaze.
Much love,
J
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 9:32 AM UTC