"bopped" poems
A walk around the block in my parents’ neighborhood at dawn
wearing mom’s sweater and pop's sneakers with a clown hole cut out for
toe infection
I was stopped by a cop in a cruiser
this was during the Vietnam War long hair ago
he was angry at everyone I was offended by everything
he said which way are you going I said which way are you going
so he socked me in the mouth and handcuffed me
I was arraigned on disorderly conduct and resisting arrest
my good parents came down and stood beside me before the judge
I wrote to the police department internal affairs
not for retribution but to start a paper trail
in case this cop someday bopped one of my brothers
a few months later I’m back at work in NYC
two detectives come into the city to question me
one good cop one bad cop we park in the park me in the back seat
they wanna know was I mouthy to the cop who punched me in the mouth
long story short
they leave me on a bench to eat my lunch and the charges are dropped
Jan 18, 2022
Jan 18, 2022 at 6:50 AM UTC
I made some soup.
But it’s not for you.
It’s for me.
I don’t want you to change it.
It’s my soup.
Some people want to add some basil or maybe a little oregano.
But it’s my soup.
Some people think it’s too salty.
One person thought it’s too sweet.
But I told ‘em
f--k you.
I won’t change a thing.
It’s my soup.
Someone even tried to stir the ***
I grabbed the ladle
and bopped him on the head
I told him it was my soup.
Someone told me to turn up the heat
For what reason?
It’s a perfect temperature.
Someone else told me to turn down the heat.
I told him that would make it too cold.
It’s my soup.
Someone even told me I had to take some ingredients out.
But I love it the way it is.
It’s my soup.
Someone even tried to take a sip
The nerve!
It’s my soup.
Make your own.
Someone said I overcooked it.
I told her to leave me alone.
I like the smokey flavor.
To my horror, someone even tried to throw it out.
I grabbed the *** and put it back on the stove
Where it belongs.
This is my soup.
This soup…
is my life.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 10:34 PM UTC
Now I'm in the turnips and string beans of poetry:
It's like, you think you'll grow up some day
And live in a two story house with swimming pool,
And a two car garage, with a six pack driveway.
Things turn out differently, though you might think
You'd spend whole days devouring Dickinson, Keats, and Shelley,
Drinking fine wines with tidbits of exotic cheese.
Then you find out you'll live in a one car rented garage apartment,
Over a couple always yelling or making love-
There's no in-between; and you never know which it'll be
And if you're mistaken for the significant other you might get
Bopped with a lady's spiked heel or an army boot.
Then you find out that you're the couple
But you're always too busy to make love;
Love is no longer scheduled like bowling night,
It all depends on uncluttered horizontal surfaces and spare minutes-
And the wine turns into beer, when you can afford it
And the nightly budget pizza is the only dough you'll get
It's constipating; but the words still get squeezed out.
And the poets you're reading now aren't dead:
They're urbanely unkempt, and you know them personally,
All their quirky habits; writing poems at bus stops
In a voluble rush; writing words on cafe napkins,
On discarded want ads and torn paper sacks;
And none of them are well known, and none of them are rich.
But they're poets all the same, they live and breathe
The written word, and you're no different, certainly no better,
All of you shooting up words and slang nightly,
Weighing out the soul of the latest idiom,
Choking on cheap cigar smoke and wishing you'd written that,
And thinking you could have done it worse-
And suddenly some night, you look around you
You realize you're living poetry, and you don't care anymore
About rich and famous- because now it's your addiction;
None of that mattered anyway, for only poetry holds any reality now.
Everything else is imaginary, and all the poets started out this way;
Nobody knew them or gave a rat's ***
And they went on writing just the same
As if it were the most important job on earth they'd been given.
Feb 16, 2010
Feb 16, 2010 at 2:02 PM UTC
With Google Maps
Of subway tracks
I walked into the world
To kicks and claps
Of Spotify tracks
I walked and bopped and whirled
Off to see my Meetup friends
To the show from Last.fm
It's sad I couldn't be Foursquare mayor
But at I least I got some XM
They wouldn't get me YouTube likes
But I managed to get some Snaps
My Facebook mood was kinda rude
So I posted on YikYak
Waiting, I swiped right on Tinder
Emojis, and flirting ensued
She sent me her Tumblr, I reblogged her gifs
I asked her to Kik me a ****
Waiting, I browsed around Etsy
Posted the cool stuff to /r/pics
Got x-posted to karmaconspiracy
Was all “NAH MY GF MADE THIS"
Back IRL, ran into coworkers
They asked if I’d go down east side
I mulled it over briefly and then
I simply replied
I'll do it for the Instagram
I do it for the Vine
My phones got charge
My credits got charge
Lets go and leave it behind
I'll see it for the Periscope
I'll think it for the Tweet
And as soon as I get my Watch
Maybe I'll have a heartbeat
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 4:43 PM UTC
Karma finds you eventually,
Sometimes while drinking a fine Chablis.
George Zimmerman is back in the news,
with sour grapes that left a bruise.
His girlfriend wouldn’t kneel to play
so he bopped her with un Beaujolais!
His poor girlfriend, clad in a slip,
He christened like a navy ship.
Aggrieved assault is the charge he’ll face
since cops were called out to his place.
He can’t resort to “Stand your Ground”
His prints were on the bottle found.
Off to jail, George, where, they say,
You’ll meet your true love every day.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 1:02 PM UTC
Way on back in 19,4,0
A dancin machine named tommy galico
He twisted his hips and pointed his toes to each beat that was dropped
And thrusted his harms to women to each note the drum bopped
So smoothly he fuzzed moves
Made women go confused
A wicked slick dude
Think he made the word groove
His fashion was obscure
With his shirt to his knees
His hat made of fur
Sweat all night
And cleared the dance floor
Making guys jelous right out through door
Stealing their date
And all their kisses too
A highly set pace
He would hop till his face turned blue
And still to this day when my grandparents speak of this man
With textbook moves
And Italian tan
The last to stay
They would always say
He was the last to go
That dancin machine, named Tommy Galico
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
I used to love rocking
with him in the gaudy
nightclubs, sea-green eyes
drifting into dance jams,
drunk rhythms, spinning
inside burning Mars, his
feet moonwalking through
the crowd, waiting for the
blazed beat to sound off,
as he bopped his head
to the hypnotic music,
flashy shoulders moving
in the breeze, embracing
the iridescent chemistry.
And as I hopped onto the
dance floor by his side,
electrified rhymes rumbling
through my muscles, so raw
and pounding, a bursting bomb
of atomic funk, I grooved inside his
galaxy, hips twisting and turning
into intensifying dynasties,
funky legs breaking down
to the ground, whipping it
around and around, going
downtown, spine-igniting highs,
cool consonants skyrocketing
towards Mount Olympus.
Our bodies spun, the nightlife
shining within our souls,
faces floating in extreme fever,
knees rising in paradise,
crowned, intoxicating,
hands wild-waving,
lost in this amazing
enchantment.
Jun 13, 2019
Jun 13, 2019 at 8:49 AM UTC
Victoria-
- Alpine garden fishbowl
the sea
Briny-
-Sounds sway in foreground of
snowcap cascades
ferocious Majesty-
(the stuff Kerouac bopped about!)
-Copper sage Canadian alcazar
of marble stairway
flooring-
- Pattern cymbidium orchid
flowing thru bengal lounge of
Empress Hotel-
-Twenty-Nine Degrees
humidity late June
sauna in the Temperate
island
where Autumn
rolls past the
Northern horizon.
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 1:02 PM UTC
My poetry is seniority
Same rappers I'm noticing of the majority of these rappers potency
Its ironic that's these platonic solid rap comics
Got good wordplay cuz I was hooked on Phonix
I'm sonic with these knuckles built by Dr robotic
Grab Ya by Ya tail an get socked n bopped in
Cuz these punchlines goin make you feel like we boxing
Go super sonic Ya shadow would be trying to dodge em
Its going to.be like a comic when.the sound of the hit is.comment
Trained by the league of shadows so fighting against the shadow is common
I'm Batman without Robin an got Magic minus the Johnson
You could never be this astonishing
So stop it cause my flow too toxic
It'll cook.you ostrich into.omelets
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 11:37 AM UTC
“Hey. I heard about this country we could visit.
Would you go, if it was with me?
Well what if I told you it was a bird country, and everything was made of feathers.
Yeah, ocean and desert colours, soft and sleek and it glimmers like a dream.
Songs? Yeah, it’s full of ‘em. In all resonances and all keys, some of them mimic but most of them are original pieces.
So, would you go with me?
Why?
Oh, I’m just bored I guess, just feeling stale I guess, just feeling like there’s something out there I want to see.
(I don’t say that I want to see it with you).
Oh, you mean, why with you.
Well
When we were in the park the other week you stopped to talk to that guy with a sulphur crested cockatoo on his shoulder and you smiled when it bopped its head when you said its name – Larry, wasn’t it?
And you laughed for the longest time after we invented an adventure history for him and the bird.
That he was a pirate sailing the oceans to gather the gold and jewels to win the hand of his beloved.
The bird sniffed the air and pointed towards islands of treasure and scratched maps onto the deck of the ship.
He was only in Sydney – we saw this by the harbour, didn't we? - Because his ship needed to restock.
It would be one of those old school wooden ones and it’d look real quaint and beautiful next to the metal ferries swooping in and out of Circular Quay, next to the titan cruise ships that take up half the harbour.
Remember that?
(If I thought it would work, I’d sail ships and become a jewel thief for you)
Oh, no, no baggage limit – bring all the poetry you want. They give paper for free on the plane, even.
We can buy seeds at the duty free. No, Not sure about pens. I’m bringing my ink set anyway.
Haha, yeah, I still calligraphy faces for people who’ve lost theirs.
(I could draw a book of you, though you don’t need it)
It’s a week round about trip.
Just us two, and animals that fly to and from our hands.
We can take bicycles and skate around the island and climb the dead volcano where gigantic nests hold eggs in warm rocking slumber.
(Perhaps we can be each other’s volcanoes and warm each other)
Oh, it’s casual, don’t bring your moleskines, just your two dollar notebooks. Weather will be light, so not more than a hundred pages.
So, does this mean you’ll come with me?
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 2:26 AM UTC
Back then, when it was
just you and me cruising
the streets on a summer
escape, the radio blasting
Biggie Smalls song, Juicy,
while we bopped our heads
to the beat, hypnotic hands
waving in the air, sunlit skies
smiling in sight, upbeat vibes
surrounding the landscape,
as I breathed in the afternoon
breeze, beautiful melodies
dancing in stardust dominions.
I gazed over at your gleaming
depiction, almond bronze skin,
a magnificent mural beyond
my emerald heart, sweet rosy
cheeks a world of many desires,
ocean eyes a midnight wave of
poetry in sheer perfection.
How was I to know that you were
the bright beginning in my existence
that would unchain the flames inside
my frame, the one shining star that
saw beyond a fading shadow,
a blossoming beauty waiting to
rise out of the ashes.
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 3:46 PM UTC
Ageing
Ageing is the strangest ****** phenomenon.
It’s sneaky, going ‘long
With universe’s basic law of change.
We hate it cause we cannot change the change
With choice, with voice in matters
Dealing with each atom looming over time.
You watch a documentary of a famous person you once loved.
What you see is change or interchange.
Voice now gravely, hairs now straggly,
Mind not gaga (maybe),
But the teeth, fat, skin itself deranged.
It’s all so strange.
Invisible the first half century,
(If you’ve been so lucky)
Then they come: the boom of bombs begun in womb.
The stealthy hum of failing health a-zooming in,
The forms of everything you took for granted
Changed from light to odium
Enchanted idioms of youth now faint or quaint.
And the damnedest twist of all
Besides what’s going on outside,
Visible and tactile,
Is that life has lied.
You thought it stretched ahead forever,
That it never stopped
And then you’re bopped on your old head:
You’re dead.
One’s left to speculate and ponder
Where does life go on from here?
Where and if…
Ageing 9.11.2018 Birth, Death & In Between III; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Nover Corwin
I’m often asked by readers whose native language is not English. Here are a few words of which they might like to know the meaning:
odium; general or widespread hatred or disgust incurred by someone as a result of their actions:
tactile; of or connected with the sense of touch: vocal and visual signals
bop; verb (bops, bopping, bopped) [with object] hit or punch quickly: Rex bopped him on the head
Sep 11, 2018
Sep 11, 2018 at 6:38 AM UTC