"boardwalks" poems
On the flipcharts and billboards and boardwalks where cash talks and greed stalks the unwary and where the darkness is scary,
huddled underneath moonlight that fades into the long night and holding on tight to their bedrolls along with the soup and the bread rolls and the mission bell tolls for the end of
round one.
'On top of the world ma'
look how far we have come,
and the nanny state looks after its favourite son but as the sun sets on Wapping and the 'mint set' go shopping
for some the world's stopping.
(I want to alight)
The sun sheds some light as the night flicks away and for those who would lay in the doorways of shop fronts,who we think of as stunt men,the cut off,truncated and blunt men another day starts.
And in Whitehall they call for the tea trolley at nine.
A fine time for some and the nanny state looks after its
favourite son.
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 2:44 AM UTC
I’ve been busking about since young and fair
The atmosphere from onlookers, like skating on thin air
So unconventional, prior to the old smacking ways
That’s how I’d spend my entire waking days
Melodic riffs, dancing over bass lines
Harmonising daily, to some lonesome feeling ballads
Playing finger-style guitar, without any speeding **** hazards
Along the boardwalks of Venice Beach
In unlikely places, that you’d ever encounter or reach
A folksy blues musician, you can’t wait to hear
Independent, from a money-making machine, that’s so clear
A young black musician, singing ‘bout life’s rights and wrongs
With an aching intimacy, strings are strummed, to original songs
The overall effect is something like a blend
Of other musicians, with a depth and subtlety
More suited to the stage, than a street with a dead end
While the busking experience is fundamentally a freedom, luckily
Still taking a fading, battery-powered amp, with heaps of torque
Along with a flattop, down to the busy LA boardwalk
I think the best thing you learn from being downtown
Is how to be really optimistic, while still being on your own
Busking was like practicing with a metronome
It started pulling on a few chords, like not ever knowing a safe home
Then, thoughts of ones life coming to an end, my tick-tock time
Then, I go back to playing a song, people tossing me, a silver dime
I imagine, how it would sound, playing along with four in a band
I’ve never really been dealt, a very good poker hand
Trying to re-create myself, like an over paid, auto tuned, music star
Well, as much as I could, with just a worn out, acoustic guitar
They say, I picked up the guitar at seven
At first trying to play lap style, just keepin’ it even
Because, I couldn’t reach across my scar torn body
Early childhood lessons, gave me a foundation in blues
After that, I wasn’t taught nothin’ by nobody
I just kept playing like that, what did I have to lose
I could learn by ear, until I heard the rings at the checkout
It would take a while, but I’d figure it out, what they were all talking
about.
Nov 22, 2019
Nov 22, 2019 at 8:30 AM UTC
*my footsteps emit echoes,
they bounce off the black horizon and ricochet back to my ears.
i have long since learnt to treat them
with the same disdain i treat
the damp edges of my eyes
my own thoughts have become mockery
against me. i walk down the pier.
floorboards creak below, unable to hold the weight
of both me
and the demons
that cling onto my back.
my shadow is not one of a lone silhouette.
it is of two, me
and my ghost.
**i am not sure
which i am.**
the dust that line the boardwalks
no longer disturb me.
i have long since clothed myself
in loneliness. though it's warm,
it sinks.
it is only when i feel the rush of another's pulse
the heat off skin,
that my heart starts beating again -
flames engulfing defibrillators,
and i am suspended in a hot air balloon.
there are no winters in my life,
there is only blistering heat
and dampening warmth.
i can't say when all the coldness had seeped out of me,
for i never stopped caring
about myself.
i believe that
i care too much.
now, i find myself drawn
more to the darkness looming
from the lighthouse up ahead, invaded by
shadows after its shimmering fortress
of fireflies and candles
had been burnt down
by its own heat.
the pier reminds me of my thoughts,
discarded and clothed in dust.
leading to nothing but
a shambled shell of a building
burned to ashes by its own light,
crumbling to pieces,
dismembered fragments
lost in the ocean.*
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 5:32 AM UTC
A great and sprawling land, China.
I flew halfway 'round the globe
To find a vast conundrum:
Cities burgeoning,
Young and old
Spires of glass
Pillars of steel,
Empty or filled,
Roads new and old:
New Bentleys and Buicks,
Two cylindered trucks,
Three-wheeled taxis,
Bell ringing bicycles,
Wheelbarrows laden,
Grandmothers pushing carriages,
A million mopeds...
And everyone busy.
Ships at Qingdao,
Lovers on the boardwalks,
Blue-green glass touching the sky,
Reflecting the ocean.
Sidewalk musicians
Strum Chinese songs
'Neath kite-filled skies
Beside the spiraled Winds of Change.
Beijing, capitol and dragon-city,
Towers beside the ancient Wall,
Hosts the world,
Puts on her civil face,
Bows greetings to the fawning planet,
Eager to earn industrial favors.
She shrouds herself in smog,
Hides her slithering tail
Snaking world-ward over distant mountains.
---------------------------
Uneven is the change;
Wealth beyond imagination
Fuels the work of towering cranes
Pivoting above a poorer crowd's starvation...
A jet set crowd whose growing never wanes...
Economic challenge of the oldest of all nations.
Published today 14.12
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
You're always passing churches
pacing before kitchen islands and
under coffee spoons.
Village churches offer
onion justices.
City churches
hipsters
ask forgiveness on music blogs.
Childish ripples in pews,
half shouts ;
you're always passing churches.
You're always on beaches
walking on un-boardwalks and
even on catamarans.
Tropical beaches go white
go white laugh red.
Fresh-water beaches
hunters
stalk sand between follicles of arm hair.
Elephant footprints on waves,
milked hills;
you're always on beaches.
You're always in zoos
floating faceless around oceans and
onto broken hotels.
Provincial zoos make
west west west west exotic.
Metropolitan zoos
brothers
fight for diamond vodkas.
Flames burst over birds,
furrowed monkeys;
you're always in zoos.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
Homeless in paradise, it's never that clean
Home free, since I was a middle-aged teen
Purple haze trees, as my life's infrastructure
Smelling the scent, of my bohemian subculture
Playing along the boardwalks of Venice Beach
Passersby, all the time just begging to screech
Their rude undertones, as they sip on their latte
Surely, I was a given, for a dope smokin' runaway
I must admit, I am a drunk
I will admit, I did love punk
I won't admit, I'm not a hot *****
Have to admit, at skool I did flunk
I'll **** it up, to make a quick buck
But, will you admit, you're a flaming schmuck?
Living in paradise, was forever my scene
Hassle-free start to my touring routine
Purple haze shades, my life now has structure
You see the success, of my worldwide pop culture
Gracing stages of past fame, always to a beat
Fanatical fans always be wanting to meet
Sifting my bin, for stuff I've worn, this be stalking
I'm the greatest musical queen, I've heard them talking
I must admit, I am a drunk
I will admit, I did love punk
I won't admit, I'm not a hot *****
Have to admit, at skool I did flunk
I'll **** it up, to make a quick buck
But, will you admit, you're a flaming schmuck?
Hurting in paradise, for wherever I'm seen
Hitting trees, I ditched my last limousine
Injecting purple haze into my veins, now I’ve suffered
On Youtube, my once famous sculpture is buffered
Fooling around, the ***** strips, never that discreet
With my purple haze shades, I was fast on my feet
Families, not mourning, nor crying, putting me 6 feet under
Atlantic contracts, royalties accrued, now easy to plunder
In departing my last scene, I'd become fatally unstuck
Because of how I'd been living, as a dim-witted, schmuck.
Oct 22, 2019
Oct 22, 2019 at 8:42 PM UTC
If guilt and mistakes are at stake
And you're stuck in a rut that's deep with door closed shut
I urge you to break open windows and take, take what you know
And put it in a skill
Use your strength and your will
For only you, this soil, can till
I want you to walk boardwalks and talk to crowds
Convey your heart and speak out loud
To draw and write the things you feel
For though it is not original, or perhaps good enough to show others
You've given yourself something that is real
If the past clings to your ankles and you can't shake it's shackles
Take the rings of iron bound to your feet and break the bindings
The past will not last in your mind anyhow and how you know that you're free
Is when you are able to stand and accept life's steep, and harsh fee
And move and go and know and live and be happy, regardless of it's toll
And if you can do this than you have done more than all the rest who feel best
And you have beaten the ultimate test
For happiness comes sparingly in short bursts
And if you're simply warily comparing the outcomes of actions
Then you are not alive, and the beauty will pass you by
and the chance for happiness will digress and leave you alone
If you can hear then you listen to songs, and words
the footsteps the heartbeats, the wind in the tree's and it's birds
If you can see then you look at the art on the walls that apart from yourself
Can still bring to you some beauty in heart
You look at the bridges in Vermont that in the orange flush fall
Paint the world their colors as they fall from tree's that stand tall
And you like that tree should stand in the wind and not bend to the fate
For when you move with the wind you'll find that happiness does not wait
So as you stare from the window in the stone house you have built
As the flowers you brought from outside are gone, or start to wilt
And you see the sunshine line the paths that you know you should walk
And the people who stand in bands with whom you know you should talk
I hope that the cold of the stone which for years you have known
Serves reminder to find the courage to walk through the door which you abhor
And find the life and light and peace that I know the world for you, has in store.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 12:54 AM UTC
I went down to the river to try and find Maria,
but Maria wasn't there, I walked the bank for a while,
skipping stones I searched for miles, but you know, Maria was nowhere
Oh, Maria where did you go
Maria where did you go
Where did you go
Maria where have you gone
I went into the city, to try and find Maria, but in the city I only found despair,
skyscrapers streets and boardwalks, the empty sound of my feet on the sidewalk,
stares and glares were all I found there
so I walked down to the ocean, to try and find Maria,
and I found her, yes I found her there,
her soul was the waves in their crashing,
her voice was the breeze in her laughing,
and her tears were the mist softly floating in the salty air
Oh, Maria, I miss you so
Maria I miss you so
I miss you so
Maria I miss you so
(c)2011 CJM
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM UTC
You'd better run boys,the fires will come boys and burn you out,girls who would flaunt regulations to haunt you will burn along with you,the night's turning blue and the fire's burning black.
Jack who was Tom's mate unaware of his own fate booked a passage to Paris with Maryss, his wife.
It was Hogarth who painted the ****** and the tainted in the liberty of gardens,men hiding their hard ons,paragons of chastity and chasing the mollies to ****** their follies,how jolly it seemed to the Queen of the boardwalks who listened to wild talks and ate turkey and ham,
Shakespeare was saddened,Marlowe quite maddened by the fayre and the stew houses where blouses were shed and doxies were led like little lambs to the slaughter,and the daughters of Satan who were dressed in fine satin,sat in the background watching this fairground.
Then the curse of the cutpurse was cast all about them,men scurried away quickly to the ferries for Putney and Pepys wrote in his diary,
'hahaha the fire didn't get me'
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 8:41 PM UTC
Oh, there is light in such places:
The galleries of Soho, the catwalks of Milan,
The boardwalks of Blackpool,
But it exists to flatter, to obfuscate, to tell alluring lies,
A trompe l’oeil of a family picnic
Etched on the wall of an abandoned orphanage,
The siren song crooned by a spider
To the enraptured and wholly credulous fly.
Ah, but the illumination here!
The sun reflecting off the roofs
On those Bob Evans and Shoney’s you would shun,
The starlight backed by a host of owls, a symphony of crickets,
All serving to peel away the layers of artifice and cunning,
To be shucked away like so many cornhusks,
Allowing the secrets of the universe to be whispered to you,
Faintly yet unmistakably, and once moved by these epiphanies
What is to stop you from running along the narrow, unlined streets
And green open spaces in mad, unfashionable celebration,
Exempt from the clucking of the chic and the congnoscenti?
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 10:34 AM UTC
There are nights,
When you cant seem to sleep.
And at this time,
Nothing, nobody, not a peep,
Occupies the streets.
The street light,
Highlights this emptiness.
Your thoughts,
Embrace this moment.
This night.
These dark corners,
And dim boardwalks,
They all remind you of the contrast in your life.
The things that you have, things you see.
And the things that are lost, things you wish would be.
Like the girl,
Whom you remember from high school,
Or the friends that fled to secure jobs.
You will remember,
You will squint trying to remember her face,
Her name,
Her laugh.
There are nights,
Nights that are full of wishing,
Dark nights.
This night.
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM UTC
The media swings information into the air
Innocently as a child spreads a lie
In charge of their own idea of reality and knowledge
Casting glimpses and burning holes in the stories and bombs
Does anyone care?
Care
Enough to read between the periods and well rehearsed tears
Law binding, right breaking polices of how and when
Single file lines and caged boardwalks
A foot away from bar codes and eye authorization
Slowly morphing into a well oiled death toll
I could be helpless, you could be heroic
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 3:07 AM UTC
And, then the gray of vessels vast
cruised stealthily amongst daybreak calm,
wistful winds, aridly
asleep, blue, stolid
waters holding salty thirst
for the mermaids, and sip yellow hazes, with
the smells of dead fish.
Or boiled legs, weary, seemed
on boardwalks brown,
splintered, to never sting the sting
of sun baked grit, nor harbor a signal sheltered
or captain heresies light religions
weathered boil itch,
unfeathered, tethered here and now.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 6:37 AM UTC
Sitting in a large hotel room
Thinking of the competition coming soon
One person in my left has a binder out
The kids across the hall are trying not to shout
Fixing up the gadgets at the last minute
While some play board games in the mindset to win it
It's 11:30 at night, I'm eating cold Chinese
Win or lose, fail or fly, I do as I please
We all cheer when the fourth comes back with ice
This moment is my paradise
Sitting on a mountain the temperature of snow
I eye the massive valley below
The farms and forests make a patchwork quilt
The streets and towns are embroidery of silk
The sun rises, setting the treetops on fire
My campmates wake up slow with some ire
Out here, I'm awed by mother earth's ways
As my friends and I decide how to navigate our days
I don hiking clothes under the day's new light
This moment is my paradise
Summer in full swing, the crickets cry
As twilight yeilds stars in the sky
We wander the camp, the ocean roars in the distance
Masters of our fate, we don't need assistance
Whether at the beachfront, ziplining, or boardwalks
We run like a fox pack, not caring who gawks
As we think of the adventures of the world ahead
There's nowhere I'd like to be instead
As our flip flops crack on the ground the camp comprised
This right here is my paradise
We're running around another big city
So much to see, and I have my group with me
We just got out of our musical clinic
Now it's time to explore the town, see the magic in it
We'll meet up at five, for a dinner at seven
We'll go on a boat and get back at eleven
Right here, right now, we can make our own way
Free from routine, we get to have a say
We're a bit confused, a little underdressed
We still need chaperones, and we're way underslept
Even with all of that, this will more than suffice
This right here is my paradise
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 10:39 PM UTC
Dance upon
the broken shores
of Great Carcosa,
where Silence
plagues the
calloused ghosts
who wither,
whispering
along the wharf.
They dance
for Him,
our Yellow King,
whose misery
creeps
over brittle fields
and rotting crops
stinking in an
amber sun.
Boardwalks crumble
‘round rusted nails
hammered down
by the last to be
forgotten.
Here the
dying wolf
has sharper
teeth,
even as the
stinging wind
rips the fur
from its flesh.
Dance upon
their crackling
bones
in salted air
to the roar of
the mad
and the crashing
of the lost.
His Eye will
see
and You shall
hear
His song
upon Your
lips.
Jul 25, 2019
Jul 25, 2019 at 1:55 PM UTC
Aching chambers
Sullen froths
The raven angers
As hope is lost
Consumed oh hallowed mind
As the feeble and broken, cried
Beneath empty boardwalks
Townsmen bleeded across
Still I find myself in gawk
As the dawn of man drew close
Reality found me encased
In an existence duly erased
"Im the only one here right?"
Says a feminine voice
It was of a lost lover
To whom I never knew.
In a plane of consciousness
Submerged in repose
I sat there, cornered, enthralled
A living dream I am in
A dream I never arose.
Jan 9, 2021
Jan 9, 2021 at 6:33 AM UTC
Can I borrow your pen from chap stick moist lips. There is chalk on your hands, some on her cheek. It washes off pretty easily.
Her polka dot dress sways with the wind, it’s in your favour. Holding hands down lit up boardwalks. Letting lazy breezes dance her hair to the sky. A picture worth a frame, but you’ll have to clear a space.
Short walks home turn to long conversation on coloured pavement. Jumping on the numbers you’ll slide into her pocket. Cracks make everything so beautiful.
You don’t count them on your way home anymore.
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 1:57 AM UTC
Meow
HEHO HEHO
Huoh-Huoh
Listen to them
My dad would name them as they scooped found out of the unknowing hands of people on boardwalks
Flying over the blues and waves of the beach and the shore
How much can we learn from them?
Sometimes I am envious of their lives
They touch the blues of the skies and the light
To be that Seagull flying high
C@Rainbowchaser2023
Apr 20, 2023
Apr 20, 2023 at 8:46 PM UTC