Tom Waiting: Poems

After John Prine: “There's flies in the kitchen...

Tom Waiting Jul 2020

After John Prine: “There's flies in the kitchen...

After John Prine:
“There's flies in the kitchen,
I can hear 'em there buzzing,
And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today”

Mr. John Prine

<£>

There's flies in the kitchen,
all around my eyes and head,
they’re just gossiping bout me,
why most mornings
I’m still laying in bed
at almost near
noon-time, why too, them
angels and their a-fluttering wings,
a-flapping, still hanging around,
when they’re so far from home

truth be told, I kinda like new combinations,
the musical vibes, magic incantations,
boogie woogie, fuzzy buzzy eyelash sounds,
bluesy background harmonies against the
harps them angel wings are playing,
I’m getting every note writ down so,

I can play it well on the morrow, on my
following them higher up, all the ways up
on that glowing shining stairway to heaven,
guarantee-****-teeing entrance through the
pearly gates for the flies and a lazy, no-account
worthless S.O.B. like me

#tom #waiting #36 #prine #flies #kitchen #stairway #heaven #boogie #woogie

After Tom Waits: uptown train

Tom Waiting Jun 2020

After Tom Waits: uptown train

uptown train

a rare sighting, a shiny dime,,
in a city where clothesworn-grime,
an unshed waning gray, a skin coloring,
stony faces always chewing, enduring

in tunnels neath rivers of streets,
there is no moon, so little hope,
nightly somebody’s thinking,
somebody’s baby,
I’ll be, tonight,
someday, maybe

who will see them
as they are,
willI I, will I,
before they’ve gone too far,
roadies, touring to nowhere, disciples,
nose-led by a vision,
daring, but archetypal

there are no gardens,
but plenty secrets,
all planted,
that will never planet bloom,
seeds raised to die,
in watered sorrows drown,
embryos stillborn,
passed to daughters down

the trains go uptown
to shiny places,
to uptown people,
washed, shiny faces,
bedecked with futures,
hope, their jewel,
but not for them,
the downtime people

five pm, afternoon dying
into night bleeding,
the subway noises,
the perfumed stink, all,
goes unnoticed by senses dulled, unfulfilled,
day goes down,
another, and another,

colored pained refrain, why do we bother?

inspired by:

Outside another yellow moon
Has punched a hole in the nighttime, yes
I climb through the window and down the street
I'm shining like a new dime
The downtown trains are full
With all those Brooklyn girls
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds
Well, you wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that will ever capture your heart
They're just thorns without the rose
Be careful of them in the dark
Oh if I was the one
You chose to be your only one
Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now?
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it's just the same
You leave me lonely, now
I know your window and I know it's late
I know your stairs and your doorway
I walk down your street and past your gate
I stand by the light at the four-way
You watch them as the fall
Oh baby, they all have heart attacks
They stay at the carnival
But they'll never win you back
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night it's just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Oh, baby, on a downtown train
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
Every night, every night it's just the same
Oh, baby
Will I see you tonight
On a downtown train?
All of my dreams just fall like rain
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
Well, on a downtown train
On a downtown train
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Tom Waits

#tw36 #tom #waiting #uptown #train

my hereafter starts now (my name, my curse!)

Tom Waiting Jun 2020

my hereafter starts now (my name, my curse!)

decided why waiting, my name, my curse, my retrocognition,
last week, was sore-spent, from abusing discontinuation, retribution,
lovers who took more, too much, left contentedly, not looking back
over their shoulder, at the wasted wake left behind, nothing to them

just was their “been here, now, just a hereafter” remainder reminder

can’t believe I’m writing, in these blues lyrics electrified,
my ribs, plucked like guitar strings for “pic”ing demand wailing,
my own hereafter starts now, past days eradicated, freshened up,
these aren’t the days of reminiscing, these are the days of no más!

of my hereafter, now I understand, did not know how, clarity arrived

but now will love only in equality, no worshiping, no portraits
to be admired hanging on hallway walls, got rollers and pan,
repainting walls crazy whites, starting again, coming out today,
the hiding separated, put in trash bags on the street, for takeaway

in crazy notions, commencing my hereafter, is inviting you,
join me, improve my cadence, my rhymes, finish my sentences,
with periods of laughter, commas of words of perfect additions,
waiting no more, from here after and ever more so, my name

hereafter, is now my retrofitted futures, no longer waiting...

#tomwaiting #36 #hereafter #curse #tw36

sad eyed lady of the highlands

Tom Waiting Aug 2020

sad eyed lady of the highlands

wish i knew you
way back then
but again then
you wouldn’t have
glanced at me once,
let alone twice

but them ole aphorisms
have their uses,
useful when dreaming
in colorful surrealisms

better later,
than not at all,
my sad eyed lady
of the highlands,
better for having
met you,
than not
at all...

did you know my mother was born in Toronto?

#sad #eyed #lady #highlands #tom #waiting

scrounging your next poem (now you don’t seem so proud)

Tom Waiting Jun 2020

scrounging your next poem (now you don’t seem so proud)

<>

reversed a verse from “Like a Rolling Stone;
~complements to Mr. B. Dylan, a Nobel man~

you, me, hear what you’re hearing, feeling it,
you, me, hear what you’re thinking, feeling that,
regenerating, excising, pinching a single word of Bobby’s
lyricizing, knowing, you’ve just handbag-snatched a poem full.

the rolling stone sings of next meal scrounging,
he’s talking to you, knowing you, you customizing
his lyrics modifying-jiggering, for your purposeful brain,
emotional crazed notions, your monsanto seed of needs and strains.

nah, I’m fibbing, polite-ly lying,
like clover waves springing up
overnight after a night’s soaking,
raining, picking up hints, misdirections, clues,
***, poem titles dripping from my glassy eyes!

des idées for the next poem, the one, in the garden hereafter,
now called thereafter, all arriving in tranches, backyard bunches,
just to write down the titles fast enough, sometimes, trouble,
oft easy, sometimes rough, but always a fast rush jiggling job.

yeah, I’m liking that word, scrounging,
got character, internal noises aclashing,

so I’m scrounging
while lounging , it’s so ******* easy,

it’s getting borrowed till you! steal
it out from under me,
like an ill reputed
good poet should...

P.S. don’t keep me waiting!
let the scrounging commencin’

tw36

#tom #waiting #tw36 #scrounging #poem #dylan #rolling #stone

she’ll know (for the lady of the heath)

Tom Waiting Jul 2020

she’ll know (for the lady of the heath)

the bookies of High Street North will give you odds,
1000 to 1, our paths will never cross, a simple notion,
we’ll never meet, it’s a sucker’s bet they’re happy to take,
despite, shhhhh, not that hard, truth be told, airplane,
Terminal5, Heathrow Express, Paddington Bear Station

and yet, there are oceans to fly over, viruses in
every nook and cranny, and the biggest risk, those
what ifs...and the worries viral multiply as imagining
grows more spectacular than wild flowers on the
heath, bogs conjuring up Holmesian fluorescent hounds

she’ll know for whom this poem tolls, but
will never understand that my envision of her world,
through her eyes, unfamiliar words mellifluous,
for me, they, a nectar, the special Ritz teatime,
but don’t be mistaking me for an Anglophile

no, this Yank plainly loves her garden of nature,
and her own nature, beloved as well, floral blooming,
how it grasps his heart with her two hand’s nouns,
seizing and ceasing its beating, nicks it, his rhythm for
poetic composition, so little more to add, other than
writing this made both a young boy glad, an old man sad...

postscript

someday she’ll crook her finger, like the crook
of her hair, and this Tom, will no longer be waiting

#shell #know #tom #waiting #paddington #terminal5

the day blinks, sliding into the zone of indeterminacy

Tom Waiting Jun 2020

the day blinks, sliding into the zone of indeterminacy

the day blinks,
the sunset stinks,
the rhyming is de-fining,
is this how low you’ll go?
to get their blood hot, earn
their likes and hearts, a lot?

your personal side slides,
means you don’t need to
repent, nyet, been sentenced-sent
to the zone of indeterminacy

the day blinks, somewhere
tween day dying time and
maybe nighttime resurrection

unless you been there,
you missed it when,
the day blinks, then all them
souls, sinners and saints,

(oh yeah, the **** poets too!)

sneaky snuck out, went forced marching

into the zone of indeterminacy

#tomwaiting #indeterminacy #day #blinks #tw36 #waiting

To Destroy, First Build (The Construction of Human Dissolution)

Tom Waiting Aug 2020

To Destroy, First Build (The Construction of Human Dissolution)

To Destroy, First Build  (The Construction of Human Dissolution)

steely Ironies begin as the end nears, leather torn by fabric,
when humans begin the separation protocol, when first
we intend to dissolve, we need construct, *****., barriers

so true, good fences make good neighbors...no. great enemies.
the invisible ones, freight train tracks running down the middle
of the bed, new lands of “his side, her side,” shut your light off!

he makes a joke, she don’t turn her head, maybe she, offers instead
a secret grimace, thinking inside too little late, bothering/thinking
go write your breakup poetry, that’ll keep you truly invested and

ocupado, lock door’d, why is my toothbrush in a moving van, that I didn’t hire, no destination home, notes passed via refrigerator door, what was  that “have children chatter?” months+words recent, huh?

just months ago, not confused, don’t touch his diet drink! man-o-man,
thank god we didn’t do a vaca drive up the West Coast, hanging with relatives in SF, LA not your town, you hate tinsel and pretense. BS.

arguing when we need to add gas, a wonderful double entendre, when was the end of detente, we abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, another place we won’t ever get to go-gether, that just makes me sadly happier, and

I think; now I understand why he always booked us seats on airplanes separated  by the aisle, no head upon his shoulder, in my lap, holding hands needs disinfectant, social distancing solves many problems now,

need now, no asking how, to conceive destroy, imagine concrete:

first you must build, it’s how one does it, human dissolution requires work, malice aforethought, we both master builders, see yeah,  that’s a joke, a good one too...let’s laugh not together at us, our edifice crumbles

#tomwaiting #destroy #build #construction #of #human #dissolution #waiting

what’s the difference tween MASTURBATING and writing poetry?

Tom Waiting Jun 2020

what’s the difference tween ******* and writing poetry?

what’s the difference tween ******* & writing poetry?

let us cut to the chase, cause I know how much-you
hate to be kept waiting, lest your addled, added,
impatient attention grow as big as the U.S. budget
deficit.

answer: not much

in fact, can’t come up with a single signal differentiation.

1. both require tissues when done
2. both give you short and sweet satisfaction, that is a renewable resource
3. serotonin levels up, up and away - yay!
4. long term impact for both is wrist pain
5. inevitably, makes you late for tedious life chores
6. doesn’t burn much calories, though you record it on your activity-tracker as “aerobic exercise”
7. one tends to exclaim “Oh ****” when completed.
8. both master bait you (pun. get it?) who’s the master, who’s the bait?
9. are you bored already? Go forth and do either activity, (I know you’re getting hot)
10. both leave you satisfied but the urge to purge returns very quickly
11. tendency to lock the bathroom door for both, when “composing”
12. filed on your computer as introspection and mindfulness (that cracks me up)
13. gonna stop right here so you take your ADD meds
14. you love them both in no particular order
15. you cannot get coronavirus from either (sincerely hope not!)
16. your denials deserve a retort: so ***** you too!

#difference #******* #writing #poetry #master #baiting #tw36 #tom #waiting

— The End —