"basketballs" poems
strawberry frenchfries dipped in chocolate fondue.
cry me an 8 oz cup of water when i step on you with my giant blue shoe.
dance through the forest with gnomes stapled to your shoulders.
hide your foil gum wrappers in manila folders.
left and right. front to back,
oxygen in the atmosphere may lack.
pluto and jupiter intertwine when night falls.
orange and green leather sewn to your ragdoll.
licking the excess frito crumbs from under your fingernails,
eyes pealed to the scenery of wacky inmates in jail.
selfish yellow and blue fish yelling at dr. seuss,
reading books in sunrooms drinking orange juice.
camera flashes and ripped dollar bills,
making chocolate pancakes on top of cherry hills.
hazy eyes drowning into a dream,
winter nights as cold as ben&jerrys; ice cream.
red hand chasing numbers on a clock,
movement of legs turns muscles into rock.
acid drops from black heart clouds falling onto driveways.
little kids on scooters munching on happy meals while saddened by the loss of sunrays.
23 degrees celsius and shine forcing itself through.
ice cream trucks and roadraged humans trying to get through.
bumble bee roads with lines and street signs,
teens boredum, smoking dope, drinking ***** getting fines.
police on the prowl everyday, every night, seeing through lies,
keeping their sight wide-open like a mouth in surprise.
fettuchini alfredo at fancy restaurants.
ice cold water knocked over on a ladys lap.
words missing letters, conversations missing sound.
apples and basketballs losing shape and sense of round.
flat chested skinny ******* slipping through cracks in wooden floors,
obese transexuals getting stuck in between doors.
puzzle pieces glued to the top of a bald head,
veins appear blue but blood is red.
blowing kisses, blowing out candles
cats,dogs,birds wearing sandals.
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 19, 2011 at 5:27 PM UTC
Spent my day out sitting beneath the sun
Drinking gin and tonics and Tom Collins
Reading a novel I wish would never end
But want to end
So that I may move onto and into another book waiting patiently on my shelf
Thinking about the past and the future
But living in the present with only the cold drink and book on my mind
Listening to the neighborhood kids
Grow up faster than we did
But never reach the age of maturity
They play in the streets
Dribble their basketballs
And rob houses when they need some cash
Listening to the insects make their noises
And if you listen closely
You can hear the spiders lying in wait
Setting their traps
Hoping to catch their next meal
The clouds roll across the sky
The sun hides and comes out again
I squint my eyes in the light and relax them in the shade
A slow strobe light of natures intent
The wind blows and howls periodically
Freezing the sweat on my chest
And cools me down on the parts my drink doesn't touch
There's work tomorrow but that is a decade away
And even further from my mind
Today I sit out in the sun
Drinking gin and tonics and Tom Collins
Reading a novel
That never ends
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
They had thin arms and basketballs
Jokes and jackstones
I only had my lunch box
They were eating together
I was alone
Across me
A riff of tables and chairs
There were my classmates
Exchanging butterscotch
Their laughter rang
In the white sound, I could not even speak because
Love never needed to talk
It just needed to create sense in my mouth
My mouth was full. Stuffed with the tanginess of gravy
This is why lonely is my bliss
Grow
Fat but I belong
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 10:08 AM UTC
In the caste of what the fir trees denoted what should be or what should not be,
I clasped the fig twigs and watched them split as if to say that all must come to an end.
And in the end, who can the charred leaves blame if there should be tire rods and hubcaps strewn
across the forest's floor?
After totaling the costs of what should not be,
the last mast of yesterday's trade boat could skiff along the shore,
with flag flailing like the playground children's hands.
Irrationality piquing: birds dip and dive like a boxer's fists made of shadow
from one powerline to the next.
Training for the changing, biting winds, watching the unconscious cars staring.
And the skiff oozing through the unmentionables littered in the creek : what will
become of him?
Lodged in stale, fossil bones -- floundered between the swingset and the droning, dusty traffic at 3 a.m.
Metamorphic scarabs stolen from the gusts and pants of too much play.
Basketballs stained with carrion, precarious gusto in the wake of money suckling and ripping alongside
the skiff.
Cross here with two pennies.
Goaded by the solitary abandonment of the 1930's, the used condom's mouth gaping open like hungry carp, dusty trails of light from the past lamplight hanging in the air
Birds measured up along the powerlines, moving mindlessly along with the flock
Bird drones, feathery spines
Birds perched along the playground.
Bird play so far as to say
does this not look familiar?
Bobbing, weaving, slathered in cadence and involuntary muscle jerks.
First we were here
Then we were not.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
Funny, how sometimes butterflies
skip over your skin without ever landing,
how basketballs spin
around the rim without swishing,
or how things never seem to work out.
I’ve been wishing
for moments of high tide, gravitational
moons that would draw me to you,
in the middle of May on Coney Island.
I want you to pull my pigtails like it’s preschool.
I want to bleed neon, shout pop tunes
to accompany my words that sound like
a poem we all had to learn
to recite from memory.
Funny, how we store meat behind our popsicles
in the freezer, how we tear up things
before we throw them away,
or how defeated we feel when we wake up
to zero new messages.
I’ve been reaching
for the plug in the drain,
sipping champagne,
hearing your name,
when all I really want is lunchboxes,
the kind your mom leaves notes in.
I want to beat you in four square,
color on my Converse, catch crayfish
in the creek behind your house.
Funny, how we tone down our souls
to fit the mold, or interview each other
based on pieces of paper when we are
alive, and breathing, and it’s funny
how we save money for next time,
plan for tomorrow before we’re done with today,
count our accomplishments before our scars.
Funny, how all we ever wanted
was to finally be exactly where we are.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 3:32 PM UTC
How hard it is to breath when streetlights flicker across the faces of brick houses
and how lucky you must be to sleep below the stars, a new patch every eve
To the girl with high heels clacking on paving slabs, remorseful ears hear all
and with a shimmering bow in your hair the birds do sing in distant trees
- a song of you
What sort of feelings are these, when hedgerow heroics are ignored
and the tin can roofs in some shanty town are rusted, with babies sleeping below
The man with lackadaisical swinging arms is singing to the fruit bats, nighttime solitude
and disabled on his scooter, the obese man sells basketballs at cut prices to teens in tracksuits
- a deal for two
When hydrogen gambling men in suits blow holes in the world and sit back laughing
and when brown eyed rebels sing Allah hu akbar in mountainside dole drum, cavernous bedsits
The seas of some eternal land will rise with cleansing attributes to wash away the ******
and intoxicating blues men sing ballads of the end, with delectable imperatives, scorned by it all
- I will think of you
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 10:42 AM UTC
Her son was asleep
She was relaxed now
As she stepped out the shower
Her dripping body
Her brown skin
Naked, she looked as beautiful as a flower
Sweet as brown sugar
They called her
She thought that was so corny
She moisturized her long legs
Which made men oh so *****
When she thought about it
As she moved up her body
Her son stirred
Her hands were on her *******
She softly cursed
Her ******* were like soft ebony basketballs
She admired them
No wonder she got so many catcalls
And those buns
Those buns
Those sweet firm cinnamon buns
They speak for themselves
They’re the perfect balance
She looked in the bathroom mirror
And looked back at it
And touched it
In silence
Soon that silence was no more
Her son wasn’t asleep anymore
She had to cut short her body admiration
Due to her dedication
To her son
They called her Brown Sugar
She knows why
Now all her Brown Sugar is devoted...
For her son.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 5:46 PM UTC
dirt after rain
sunscreen
bug spray
cigarettes
grass
laundry
sweat
mud
algae-filled water
burning wood
marshmallows
the cologne Pa wears
the smell of their house
old New Orleans buildings
airports
hotel rooms
basketballs
woodburning
the lodge at camp
bridge cabin
the rez in the morning
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
Listening
Living in between seperate
Dimensions of being
We used to swim In public
Pools and used to gaze at the
Spray-painted underground
Nakedness rampant under
The bridges of our city
We used to coo in creeks and
Make invitations to every
Kid in class to our birthday
Parties
We played with basketballs
Hula-hoops and Gameboy
But somewhere down this
Beaten road through adolescence
Somewhere beyond the socks
For presents on
Christmas
We became taller and hairier.
Shaped crystals from diamond
Mines
And life gave us something to
Unwind
A music box for a wandering mind
To speak our truth
To speak you're soul
Disguised as a bruised indifference
Or an overt lunacy somedays
(Seems plausible on sleepless
Nights, insomniac-like In
Cemented rooms that turn so cold
In Autumn.)
But our truth is our sanity
Which must be uttered In
Amazement
Even as some hookah caterpillar
Is blowing smoke
Trying to convince you you're
Crazy
Maybe the caterpillar is only lazy
And trying to be a marmot.
Oct 16, 2015
Oct 16, 2015 at 8:09 AM UTC
rainbow grocery,
a couple bait shops,
novelty trap parlors,
all dotted south fork.
everything was made in
old-timey, wooden cabin
fashion,
and the town knew no symmetry.
we pulled into the grocery store parking lot.
the store’s awning welcomed customers by
sagging without mercy.
we crossed the threshold,
entered into another time, space, culture.
the first sense to be stung was smell.
it smelled like cancer.
the kind that eats our grandparents
everyday in their stale, locked homes.
the woman at the register was ancient.
too old for retail.
she was clearly bitter, but
well polished in rustic hospitality.
and if i wasn’t already uncomfortable enough,
there were basketballs above the jellies on
aisle 8.
who does that?
Jun 1, 2010
Jun 1, 2010 at 10:12 AM UTC
I can always hear it when it's recording me
Men's in the streets see me at my best
Out the window they reap and fall for me
They speak of me
Out there on that street
The man reap for me
The men fall for me
The bounce the basketballs for me
In the rain they still stand
While the dream of their holy land of me
In my ******* listening the beat
In my mind
All the time
Where's the score when your always writing more?
More than what's being seen
Making **** up to worn and own me
This is the real we
Together we battle
The Gemini
So denied about
The girl in the streets
The girl that always weaps
The men that I fall for
Bitter but so sweet
Lost and turned repeat
Music speaks to me
Your love
Ooh ee oo ah ah ah
Love that beat
The rains
Falling for me.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 8:15 PM UTC
in recess, children walking 'bout the yard,
are playing, chatting, sitting round in groups,
declaring statements, all without regard
to hands on basketballs and hula hoops,
their promises to one another, found
expressed in ways most dear to their own care,
the boys do carve their words into the ground,
the girls do whisper them into the air,
in twenty years when all, then grown, return,
recalling promises so far gone made,
how will they recollect, will they discern
the choices memory has wiped to fade?
the boys will find their fossils waiting there,
the girls will find a silence in the air
(C)2011, Christos Rigakos
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 12:07 AM UTC
Driveways long and wide meant for cars,
Driving up and down and back and forth
To and from.
Driveways cold and hard meant for basketballs,
Dribble dribble, hook shot, jump.
Driveways with him, soft and warm,
watching thick cigar smoke roll out his mouth; the lonely stars as our company.
My hair rich with the consuming linger of grey puffs my tongue licking slowing up his strong neck.
His heartbeat in my ear.
My hand behind his head.
Driveways meant for moments, meant to provide a path only to stand still.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 12:36 AM UTC
I love my mother
like the prodigal son,
she introduced me
to activism,
and where I'm at now
I can't release it,
even as we went
to the Lincoln Homes and Estates
to set up computers,
to give people that look like me
a chance.
I remember the older
dudes would tell me
to keep my head up
even when I was down.
There is a heart
in
"da hood"
as the white people
around me put it.
There are fathers
pushing strollers.
There are mothers
making it
against all odds.
There are families
decreasing,
but
increasing.
There are computers
full with words
and poetry
and novellas.
There are black children
picking up books
more than guns.
Picking up basketballs
more than guns,
and why should they be
labeled
as less intelligent?
****
they just want to get
out
and achieve
and it's wrong
that you say that's the wrong way.
I hate going to funerals
for faces
with cheekbones still heavy
with baby fat.
And don't love me
for telling you this,
don't love me
for being that "black guy
that talks about problems
in the ghetto,
da hood!"
Change it,
go there,
help people,
hand out books
to children.
There is nothing scarier
than ignorance.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 7:47 PM UTC
I am afraid
I could exhaust myself.
But then
little tiny dots
of rain dribble
basketballs
on my cheek.
And the sport
begins
with a buzzer
and a knock
on my door.
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM UTC
We were chefs
(Monkey Soup a la Mode
*1 ***** flower ***
4 small fistfuls of grass
1 hose for broth
Add clumps of dirt to taste)
We were teachers.
(and by we I mean she)
We were trapped in the tree house.
(but we were still able to order pizza
from the disconnected land-line phone)
We were parents.
(even though the girl we received from the Eskimo village
always insisted on being a dog, and I'm not sure if she
ever ceased to)
We were children of Disney.
(Peter Pan easily would've had me at the first mention of
a mermaid lagoon)
We were in love.
(with life, with the sun, with VCRs,
with the fact that we had spaghetti, bath time and Nickelodeon for inside
and bare feet, bikes and basketballs for outside)
We were heartbroken.
(when we had to leave adventure out in the wind,
or when one drew better than the other could,
when doors were slammed in faces,
when mothers wouldn't allow playing "Slime Time Live"
until the first of May)
We were who we chose to be.
(and the only thing that stopped us
was found in the sky
the giant star
replaced by billions of smaller ones,
the man on the moon
waving one last hand
with his son
the boy on the moon
who wanted to marry me)
(or so she said)
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 12:25 PM UTC
we sit over tree trunks
and bury ourselves six feet
under the layers of shadows in our heads.
the lightbulbs in our pupils
once shined so bright
that they've blackened,
but we've had them ******* into our minds
for so long that we're scared
to replace them.
i'm swirling the galaxies in my ***** mug of tea
while i'm watching you wish you could become
as small as the morning pills
that the nurse dropped into your hand.
you're counting the calories of hunger
while i'm sticking fingers down my throat,
and we're wishing we could become so thin
that we could slip into the cracks
of the asphalt beneath our feet.
we're sitting in adjacent beds of flowers
in the middle of the road
and i'm laughing at the way
geraniums form on your tongue
as you savor the accompanying taste
of the honey-covered apples you kept in your pockets.
we sit under mushrooms with calligraphy pens,
ink freckles adorning our knees
and our hair wet with tears from old lovers
who left clouds hanging above our heads.
if you and i can look past the differences
between brownies and spiders,
we can look past the thoughts
of button pins and stomach acid.
together, we will make our own rainbows
out of rose water mist
and the light bulbs we finally replaced.
we will sew stars and heart-shaped leaves
onto bow ties and blankets and basketballs
for the day we play four-square with our little sisters.
are you ready?
May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 1:09 PM UTC
I think of you when I savor the taste of strawberry ice cream in the summer time.
When I'm driving down town and i stop at a red light, I remember the late night drives we always had and how we never stopped, we just kept driving.
When I see a couple walking down the street laughing, I remember the nights you held my hand and whispered to me, "you're mine."
I still have those tickets from one of our first dates when we played in the arcade shooting those stupid basketballs.
I remember how serious you were to beat your old score, that competitive demeanor you always have had.
I remember how protective you were of me, how much I thought you loved me.
Why did you walk away? The part that hurts me the most is that maybe you fell in love with your feelings instead of actually the person before you. The little girl who so longed to be pursued and loved. I guarded my heart so well against yours, perhaps it was the guard of my heart that finally pushed you away testing to see if you loved me enough to break through.
And right when you were about to,
You left.
I left.
I guess the funny part is that I had no idea how much I ended up loving you, until it was too late.
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC
The Desk
by Michael R. Burch
for Jeremy Michael Burch
There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.
I wonder how
he learned at all . . .
He saw T-Rexes down the hall
and dreamed of trains and cars and wrecks.
He dribbled phantom basketballs,
shot spitwads at his schoolmates’ necks.
He played with pasty Elmer’s glue
(and sometimes got the glue on you!).
He earned the nickname—“teacher’s PEST.”
His mother had to come to school
because he broke the golden rule.
He dreaded each and every test.
But something happened in the fall—
he grew up big and straight and tall,
and now his desk is far too small;
so you can have it.
One thing, though—
one swirling autumn, one bright snow,
one gooey tube of Elmer’s glue . . .
and you’ll outgrow this old desk, too.
Published by: TALESetc, A Bouquet of Poems (for children of all ages), Better Than Starbucks. Keywords/Tags: desk, school, spitwads, glue, teacher’s, pest, broke, golden rule, failed, test
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 5, 2020 at 5:55 AM UTC
I take the remnants of my
childhood OCD,
and I put it to
hard work at my
custodial arts job.
Janitor to be PC.
All the initials make
my BP rise.
And the pounding
of the basketballs attack
my eardrums in
a mad staccato
beat.
The blue toilets, and
the chemicals assuage
my nasal cavity.
Leggings and tight shorts
get my Nabokov mind calling
****** come, let me
touch your pink flower.
I'm wet now at
the head; can they see
it through my pants?
How many times did
I touch the light switch?
Do I need to blink
my eyes two more times?
Ah, if I could only
swim to heaven in
the blueness of the sterile
chlorine in
that big cerulean pool...
wash this
wretched disease
off, once and for all.
Jan 19, 2022
Jan 19, 2022 at 11:53 PM UTC
I-81 North towards Hazleton.
Exit to Hazleton.
Merge left away from Mahanoy
City exit.
Luzerne County crossing.
I always thought the spheres on telephone wires were kids' basketballs that got stuck in the sky.
Three New York plates in half a mile.
151 A or B?
Kelly Clarkson tells me through static that I don't know a thing about her.
Water beads on plastic cup lids by the "diet" indent, but never goes in.
Americans are water.
Lemonade clots the cuts
on my lips.
The car's a few years old but still carries its dealership scent.
Adjacent drivers keep their
lazy eyes on their phones.
Prismatic flashes through tinted windows from a woman changing CDs.
Oaks in the distance overtake
stores and church steeples.
The earth is theirs.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 12:19 PM UTC
Season end
Baseball bats will soon be quiet.
As football season takes a kick
Golf ball will be put away so a president can go to work.
Hockey sticks will soon hit the puck
And basketballs will go in the net.
The summer season is scheduled to end.
Hello winter let it begin.
Aug 16, 2014
Aug 16, 2014 at 3:07 PM UTC
From where I sit
It sounds like
Basketballs
Dribbled unevenly
Across the field
The big brick building
Rises ominously
With tall fences and towers
I hope that I am mistaken
And those distant thuds
Are something other than
Bullets blazing
I do not step outside
I do not pull the binoculars
To my tired eyes
Because I am too afraid to know
Blue shirts brown shirts
Orange jumpsuits
What I imagine
Is not a pretty
People packed in
Like lengthy Legos
Getting stack on
Top of one another
Aggression breeds aggression
My objections are silent
Because I am afraid
That they might come for me
It sounds like thunder
Repeating
Am I better off not seeing
What horrors lay beyond the field
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 10:32 AM UTC
Water man splashes across the counter,
And leaps across spaces and follows my mind,
He morphs into colors and turns into droplets,
and sparkels like raindrops and intricate lines,
He glitters and rises and shapes into fire,
above all the dishes he shows me a sign,
He draws a geometry making a pyramid,
Red lazer structure of historical times,
Down to the basement a firey sphere,
Drops to the floor and beneath me is clear,
A red firey army of lava men march,
upon idle spectrum,
Existing a hearth,
The fires of childhood,
The embers of love,
Beliefs about god and a heaven above,
Alone in my bedroom imagined the world,
Only found hatred destruction and girls.
FIgurines, Magazines, Books, and My toys,
Basketballs, bikes, remote control noise,
Yelling and fighting and screaming and swears,
Pajamas and light and my eyelashes stares,
The fruits of desire and something I liked,
The things that I wanted, the things that I might,
Begin to see clearer as falacious lies,
The imposter goals, and the plans, and the skies.
Alone in my room is where everythings real,
The realest me and the realest steel,
Nose in the vent breathing cold air alas,
The world was rock and I was a glass.
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 11:27 PM UTC
beginning:
playing football
in the communal
playground
pitched between
mountains of concrete
brown brick office blocks
blockaded high street shops
council housing kingdoms.
memory;
taking potshots at metal
goalposts slicked with
the rain and scabbed spray paint
till the olders kick us aside
basketballs in hand
for freethrows from the poverty line.
unlearning;
to think
love like marble
too cold and rich to touch
in fear that it’d turn out to be *****
like two boys
looking at each other for too long
can leave stains no amount of febreze can air out.
end;
i still can’t sleep in your arms
but you never stop searching for me
in yours
all there is left to do
is let
myself be found.
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020 at 8:17 PM UTC