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city of flips Jul 2020
the best thing you could teach two another

is how to love themselves,
so they can return the favor;
now that would be a refund!
Jun 2020 · 391
anthem for a young couple
city of flips Jun 2020
anthem

we pledge allegiance
to each other, our state
of-just-the-two-of-us,

hands on each other’s
heart, we cocoon, snuggle,
it’s always warm in our land

like Camelot, never rains,
always in agreement, every
votes never tied, for we are

a colorless world, only one,
the color of the day, is what
we feel, create, and believe

we sing only duets, our music,
only perfect pitch harmonies,
this our anthem, sung twice daily

when the sun should rise,
and when it should set, but,
since our sun never leaves

we do it for pure pleasure
some days, I love me my simple.
city of flips Jun 2020
our hips fit,
our hands entwine,
fingers unlockable,
laughing twogether,
“mighty fine”
she’s wearing the Levi’s,
I’m wearing the Strauss,
and it looks like we
been stitched together

her hand slides
easy in,
to my back pocket,
smiling
she announces,
we like, fit,
like a wedding announcement,
we fit like,
like an old country song

we see a movie
with our crew,
lights go up,
everybody loved it,
she secretly, her nose
wrinkly wrinkles,
one too long car chase,
my eyes are grinning
from corner to corner,
knowing she’s knowing
i’m all in, full in her
with agreement total

they took us to a tailor,
suits we required,
made to measure,
fit as perfect, as
perfect we be, as
perfect as we were,
matching customized,
white shirts, black tie,
shiny black shoes,
for matching caskets,
everyone saying
we just fit together,
even now,
crying ‘so long,’
for so long,
see you guys
so soon,
you two
fit,
like an old country song, one that everyone knows, all the words.
city of flips Apr 2020
~for John Prine~

she’s eye closed, playing sleepy possum,
so I stealthy stroke her cheek, she, all smiling,
then I nose tickle my sweet-love, now frowning,
till I cease and desist, go back to stroking,
then I’m her good loving man once again

tune comes in my head from out of left field,
start to tap the beat, pic my guitar strings, roaming
all over her smooth features, now she’s all aroused,
cause she knows what I’m about and this strumming,  
why that ain’t allowed, so she knocks my fingers away

later, sneak into the kitchen, she’s fussin’ - could be,
cleaning, could be cooking, but soon she ain’t moving,
cause she’s just listening to the new tune first played
earlier that morn, on her features born, a love song,
calling that song “Playing with My Love’s Face”

now she’s grabbing the biggest knife I ever seen,
waving it to and too close to fro, in my direction general,
waving it like a baton, conducting my song, singing along,
making up her own lyrics, whole stanzas, now it’s her song,
****, if that ain’t “the way the world goes round”
city of flips Feb 2020
all these I see, in realized eyes and whimsical musings,
in perfect silence, for the Sunday city morning
is worshiping the coming day in a church like silence,
where each patron fills in the empty sounds
with hymns of their own making...by moving their lips
in fervent unspokeness
city of flips Nov 2019
I’ve Got A Guilty Heart and a Texas Troubled mind*


looks as if I’ve won the losing lovers lottery twice,
had me the bonus number, now my silver buckle,
getting an overdue shine-up, my heads getting full
of regret and wondering, so my Daddy’s Stetson 6.75 size
nowadays, fit real tighter over my piled-up cowgirl braids

got excuses plenty, none worth sharing, none,
that’ll change nothing, two hearts continental drifting,
and with all the lyrics I write, got not a one about
how we let each other get away, the jukebox playing
Dixie Chicks “Cowboy Take Me Away”

think I’ll cover it in my next set, he will be sad down in Brownsville,
me, be traveling-singing in a dive bar up near Amarillo, no body
will be sad for me, no cowbodys posting no videos, no telling then,
but I’ll chance it, he will never know, cause I don’t want to
make him swollen sadder than he be already

somebody says god made country songs so sad so the world
could knowing-nod, been there, done that, in case company
might make you feel better, but it don’t till I right the wrong,
till I write the lyric that won’t explain much, but me, taking
the rightful blame, living with a guilty heart & troubled heart

me, way up north, but not so far away, still in Texas that’s for sure,
for the heart has a range finder that knows the GPS  of where he be,
and the exact distance between us...






—-

I've got a guilty heart
And a troubled mind
No matter where I go
You're never far behind
I'd like to think
That you've forgiven me
But forgiveness ain't enough
To wash my conscience clean”*

lyric from “Not Cause I Wanted To” by Al Anderson / Bonnie Bishop
city of flips Oct 2019
speckled cityscape compulsion

<>

it is 6:40am.
the ending credits roll on a Hannibal horror film
that I’ve seen many times.
but it’s just an old rerun, familiar deviltry,
slept through it thankfully

the kitchen window gives up a sunrise,
but it’s just an old rerun, familiar deviltry,
a streaking swath of burnt and bright,
so oft described, the color commentary
previously immortalized by better poets
than me, easy found elsewhere.

the speckled cityscape in this pre-awakened urbanity,
it is their moment, these red flashes, all about,
tall buildings chanting “stay away from me”
to you sleepy pilots, looking for a strip to safely land
in a tumbled jungled of obscene density.

still, they highlight against a river of deep, bright oranges,
burning surrounded by the most beauteous array of shades of blue,
compelled against my will to thankful write,
for gifts such as these cannot be so casually dismissed,
cannot be willfully ignored, to do so, denies our genetic commandments.

a hopeless, thankless task to ask of oneself.
the perhaps intrusive. Sunday, maybe the babies
will visit, macaroons, pre-halloween bags of candy bars,
at the ready, pre-opened by small, tall inner children for sensory testing.
Milk Duds, Heath Bars, Whopper malted *****, Hershey white chocolate,
checked by adults for safety and quality control.

all these I see, in realized eyes and whimsical musings,
in perfect silence, for the Sunday city morning
is worshiping the coming day in a church like silence,
where each patron fills in the empty sounds
with hymns of their own making...by moving their lips
in fervent unspokeness

the sky river reflects more modestly in the East River,
for a reflection is always a second best version.
30 minutes later the real and the apparition both,
disappeared, and a palest sheer blue, white streaked sky,
just an old rerun, familiar deviltry.

why is the sun rising
is so worshipped,
for there will never be a full day of
just sunrise colorations,
but the speckled reds still
a true color, still showing,
on perpetual guard duty,
bidding adieu to its
morning lovers,
until tomorrow,

in my city of lips.






sun. oct. 20 2019
city of flips Sep 2019
your children not to do what I have done

long has this phrase from that old song,
to wit, to which,
we all knew it complete,
that phrase

and this one too,

teach them well their father’s hell will slowly go by


any parent,
knows instantly their secret experiences
validating these pregnant phrases to
unification,
combination and definition

our looking face down
on the children unafraid,
and
our looking back
at the mistakes we ourselves made,
that no one could have warned us of in advance

can we warn them well,
dare we tell,
make our lore their history,
make them
too careful and too afraid
not to repeat our mistakes,
but be not fearful to
make their own?

doubtful.

I am a young woman, and pappy says all parents have eyes in the back of their heads, and it still don’t help much
city of flips Aug 2019
The raindrop whispered to the jasmine,
“Keep me in your heart for ever.”
The jasmine sighed, “Alas,” and dropped to the ground.*

(237 Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore.  Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, India, on May 7, 1861. He is the author of many poetry collections, including Gitanjali: Song Offerings (Macmillan, 1913), which received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on August 7, 1941.)

<>

Alas

some words of note get overlooked,
their usage to the wayside,
this is life, forever updating its profile

Alas!

none of us, do not lie,
issue this all encompassing sigh,
this shaded heart rendering, un cri du coeur

this, to remind us:

a single warring word,
falls wounded, forgotten,
telling of impossibilities
lost love, a broken conjunction,
what was that can never be,
what never was and yet not impossible
someday

Alas! Alas!

a single word poem,
that answers so many things,
and still in its regretting
is a niche of untold hopeful perhaps

write me a word like that
your fame, if that’s all you desire,
alas,
is assured...

Alas!
city of flips Aug 2019
pretty words for pretty girls


courageous caress of a send key pressed,
after practicing  
speechless up to the assumed,
up to assured point of perfect,
flawlessness, visible in each invisible breath,
pauses full of poignant stories unspoken
but eye cleared visible for seeing the future


pretty words for pretty girls

intuition incorporates superstition,
unending, intending infatuated moon gazing,
but not pagan worshiping, no it is love worshiping

your hiding cave places are moon apertures dark spots,
impenetrable to my eye’s naked telescoping,
but heartbeats spring my unharnessed love poems to you

me and millions whisper in full certainty of our
lost but beloved presences, moon stored for us,
my darling dares the light shine upon my bay,
here to me, our path, a moonlight waving hand
provides on many nights, a clear direction to follow,
pseudo-thrills of continence that my vision uncovers,
but my body knows is but a poor substitute


pretty words for pretty girls

my disease has a diagnosis.

your body attacked,
your body reacts,
defeats the infector,
remembering the next time
that disease comes round
how it got beat prior
and how to do it again



so how come I’m falling love once more?
Jul 2019 · 2.1k
(F, 21) your salty taste
city of flips Jul 2019
for the ladies who liquid lunch

<>

the finest young women of the wild west,
(the best of course just might be in Texas)
don’t always get educated in the things best,
no private schools, so somethings sometimes,
like the upscale training of the taste buds,
must be learned on the job, training the palate,
by growing up, self+taught, thank god, yes!

<>

your salty taste
reminds me of ruffled potato chips, bugles, beef jerky
and
your very own brand of
loving tears

it’s true you know,
impossible to eat
just one, which is
why my tonguing
of your body parts,
is unceasingly seizing

I will always be found
attached unbreakably,
to your moving image,
moving inside of me

so sweet your salt,
it’s your story,
your flavored lives living on
in poems unnamed, to disguise
but the authorship of whom,
in body, in mind, so obvious,
cause in all your poems is a tangy
salty

impossible to eat just one

****
<>
p.s. you tease me mean,
cowman,

bbq and béarnaise,
sassafras and edible petals,
molasses and kosher salt,
ingredient combination
which of course
you just made up,
so I show my appreciation
biting your arm so my permanent
teeth marks,
will remind me,
and you too,
just how salty
biting Texas heifers who
can or cannot be salt cured
when
it’s their turn to write some
real good tasting
poetry

****

back for more already?

****
Jun 2019 · 298
(f, 21) turned twenty one
city of flips Jun 2019
turned twenty one,
which means that things illegal in Texas now
are really bad ones, no innocence defense available,
all the adult sinful pleasures mine all mine

and the men look at me more carefully

oh they still card me to be sure,
but what
they want really is just
my name and address

when not wearing my cutoffs,
surprisingly lean toward flouncy dresses
pretty angelic ***** interesting,
men so dumb,
they rather imagine what’s inside using a road map
they imagine, than convent convenient signs  
of a nice tight short skirt that reveals
all and suggests nothing

you may recall that shy cowboy,^
feet shuffling, getting himself in trouble,
blushing loudly, when his pretense smooth goes awry,
it’s over a year and he’ll be picking me up,
with a peck and a hey darlin’
and calling me by my pet name,
Velvet Hammer Ale,
ale, the copper color of my hair,
velvet, my love for him,
a hammer for fools and my tough as nails, stout insides

yup turned twenty one
city of flips Jun 2019
Letter to Cinderella (and her Texas Fairytales)

~for EJ Love~


now lookee here, girl,
slow down pardner,
blanket love-spells need to be addressed,
especially if a return requested back to
the great state of big ole Texas

as I am loved in Texas, I’m well aware
how hard it is to find love in wide open spaces,
more trucks and cows than people,
which is NYC in reverse,
both hard places in different ways
to make angelic fairies appear,
released intact from busted soap bubbles

so here’s my idée fixe,
to the reading, less,
to the writing, more,
command thyself to march towards
the seventeenths poem, and many more
to arrive at the promised
hallelujah

take the formless visions, potions,
drifting in you, figure them into words,
shaped with passion and cunning, twitching in
a creme of teasing, a dollop of wanting,
a whimsy, sense of humor, stir with another’s pinky finger,
bigger than the ineffable lone star of lonely,
an eye tear for flavor, a salty secreted ingredient,
that needs, requires another’s hand to wipe away

and a flashing neon sign:
Texas Red Amber,  Chops, and
real good loving desired!

only good loving people,
steady on their feet,
need apply, poets favored,
but a certain kind of cowboy,
ok as well

what be my expertises in matters these,
why I am your chastened, mean no more,
sweet sister who see your spells flying by,
who writes to you with newly learned humility
Oct 2018 · 4.0k
something he knows for sure
city of flips Oct 2018
he introduces himself
saying quiet, but slipping in, firm:

“something he knows for sure,
no is no”

I, (19, f)

replying, smiling
saying louder, firmer:

“something she knows for sure,
yes is yes”

and he says

“yes, ma’am,”

returning her smile, so shyly,
while blushing, so loudly,
thinking he said something dumb,
looking down at his shuffling feet,
covered in worn out cowboy boots

I like this guy
I like this man.
Sep 2018 · 815
the LOVE bitch is dead
city of flips Sep 2018
cut it up shredded the letters
broke 'em apart

L

L   slashed it at its
mid-no-point of no return
just lying lines now
    
_
lying about dying nice and slowly

O

pierced the O
slices lying on their dead side
squeezed the juice out of me
returned the ***** my sweet favors
     (    )

V

got my vengeance
cut that loveless *****
smack in her pleasure punt point
no more pleasure for her
her wholey holes cheating me no more

\ /

E

extra special slicing n dicing
bled all over the street
after bleeding me all over me
twisted them into~ ~ twisted ****
just like it twisted me.

you want to say it plain?
pleasure.
the love ***** is dead
_
~
|    --
     ~    '

LOVE

cut that ***** love
up good

cut it out
of my body
now it's dead
just like it
done to me
city of flips Aug 2018
men and their egos (I turned twenty this summer) are
inseparable
insufferable

begrudgingly
they admit “guess you were right”
believing that will make them heroes,
by full on confessing they are *******

I turned twenty in the summer

my tan legs in cutoffs (it’s summer) drives them to madness,
accused, you are pitiless, for their dreams of you involve ransom  
still, you
search and quiet plead like Abraham, to the heated air,
while listening to Whitney Houston and Ed Sheeran,
(on your earbuds just so nobody knows your weakness)
for just that one good man in the township of
***** and Gomorrah

my mother bitter sneers good luck with that,
forgetting I am now twenty years
so old, so advanced,
that my hopes and aspirations are no longer those
the ones in my high school yearbook

my poetry fills pages,
a human urban renewal,
laying out a city of hope

recalling that ***** and Gemorrah were destroyed
city of flips Jul 2018
extra long vintage convertible car.
notice my big shoe size,
do I know what that really means?
extra little lies on top of giant whoppers.
the number of figures on their W-2,
and my measurements and cup-size, please.
please treasure
their perspicacious needs.  

what’s with the obsession with size?

won’t sleep with them on the first date,
they are shocked, just shocked,
when informed on the dotted line
that a hundred dinners won’t turn me into their
personal come-when-called *****.
at nineteen, by now,
I should know better,
do as I’m told

what’s this obsession with hurry up, immediate satisfaction?

and patting my head like i’m their favorite pet,
mansplaining me how the world works,
cause at nineteen I don’t know ****
just listen to the know-not-a-**** thing
arrogance of knowing it all impress themselves

what’s this need to be superior but a huge (size) coverup?

yeah yeah, get me a better class of men,
like my literate professors who will improve my grade
for use of the insights of my mouth on their poetic gestures.

I can wait, till I find a right sized human being,
in every which way,
especially
if he shows me the true love poems writ
for other girls,
then I may even trust him,
sooner
than never
city of flips Jul 2018
wants to be my friend, for I am poet-woman nineteen.

she is sweet but sad. super sad.

a good poet who wants to guide me.

but there/theirs is the odor, not faint, of wants wanting,
the pus of corruption behind the curtains,
the Wizard-ess of Oz's
special blackout curtains.

seen how easy, how her illusions,
my medium rare rejections,
morph into her delusions,

and her delusions devolve into
her conspiracy theories.

"SHE will be my mentor, poetess lover, teacher for no charge!"

my parents thinks it's great, she wants (to be) skin in my game.

my parents will find this poem accidentally, exactly,

how I do not want
to be skinned alive.

for I am poet-woman nineteen and still! now, long past
the point of being fooled, the point of no return.

and see no point,
have no intention,
of returning to either valley

no more con the my mind into letting my body
be-fused.^
  

that ain't me babe.
city of flips May 2018
for the part-time writers, who write in deeds untill indeed

the mundane Mondays till the fully fried Fridays,
the too short beginning weekends when
you celebrate your lottery winnings,
mega millions of

chores

wheeeeeee

these some,
poet poem poetry, latter-day saints
yet to be arrived-arresting,
good lord,
writing time -
a time slot that doesn’t
appear on your unscheduled
cellphone
calendar

so this what needs remembering, us,

these days are the
storage days

the professionals screen stare, self obligatory
demanding the page output,
the disciplined work ethic,
self torture this work,
that they would pay to do

these some
access accessible accessories in actual time
when
a time clock is punching them back,
time immediacy, a mistress,
needing a wife’s daily attention

the rest of us accumulators,
hoarder-recallers; off-site monthly
storage unit renters for old reusable furniture memories

until the dissembling assembly of the pieces,
with the arrival of the year of the hour of the day
is an urgency spilling
and the consumption urge
eats you alive from inside out,
your patience is rewarded

no screen slave you,
just a spigot turned twice
and over flowing winks bring/ring
the-no-longer-stowed stored eye pics,
poems for a someday

and the waiting was worth the waiting price

some people
us, juggle jiggly *****,
tend to drop them all...
till we don’t...
May  ‘18
city of flips May 2018
please be impatient with me for I am Female, Age 19   Please be impatient with me.  Three quarters woman in a body, a quartered quartet.  The crying viola, off tempo, present but unavailable.  The boys want me. The men, more, more.  The women most of all.  The American Girl dolls on the shelf dusty, witnesses to all my demander’s impatience to take, to own, possess & desire my poses all to pleasure them, wanting  many morsos (small bites).  
Then, when discarded, my body reeks of
con-f u s i o n.  A perfect conjugation,  an imperfect conjunction;  Conning my mind into letting my body be-fused.  

The dolls weep real tears in the city of my mind;  flipping out, they too, are impatient with me, and flip me off for they have no good words to express their utter chagrin.
May 2018 · 8.6k
flipping the bird
city of flips May 2018
the rude gesture when one seeks the inelegant simplicity of
no words;

no words
suffice to say,
magnitude of some offenses requires physicality;
a physicality that injures nothing but the
surrounding atmosphere of
its pride

for it’s pride
that goeth before the fall,
the pursuit of dishonor and dishonoring,
given that,
it shames the giver as much if not more so

dishonor
for words are our truest masters

I'd rather you gave a round shout out of
*******,

for as the parents say these days

use your words

rather than show me your
nail chewed runty midfielder

ah, words...I do so love them beasties
#flipping #thebird

— The End —