"bungalows" poems
This is for the residents who remember
And for the transplants who
Have yet to be informed
But have got an inkling
Burque has gone from
Bustling to busted
And back again
Growing up in the 80’s
I learned about the
Varying degrees of “sick”
As my dad pointed out
The pekid pachucos perusing
Pharmacy isles
Attempting to purchase
Cough syrup with codeine
In the evenings
Driving home down Central
I would ceremoniously
Count hookers
My parents would
Precariously pack heat
In the trunk of our car
Or even in my mom’s special ***** pack
With the hidden compartment
For her .38 snub nose
Because you never know
Who will be in your home
When you arrive
That’s a given
When flop houses are
Interwoven with prime real estate
And barrio boundaries
Border the bourgeois’ bungalows
And Huning’s Castles
And residents rarely recognize
Or realize
That aside from the locals
The European Jews
Was the only group gutsy enough
To settle here
And create commerce
Despite risks of being raided
By Apaches
And they reaped the benefits
Off Roma and Marquette
Because the rewards
Turned out to be greater than
The risks
And up North
Where Sephardic turned Crypto
Conversions to Catholicism
Kept the Messiah’s spirit alive
But in basements
They still did Chi fives!
I was saddened in middle school
When I realized
That many of our parents
Were too ashamed of our roots
To teach us Spanish
And our
Schools ****** so severely
That most of us
Didn’t learn English either
But hey –
All you need to
Communicate while cruising
Are cat calls
And the thumping boom
Of the bass in the tubes
And the hydraulic drop
When they hit
The hot spots
From Tingley, Kit Carson and
Central to Copper
Each kid dreams that
His ride
Will be the show stopper
I could rant and rave
And rattle off for days
But bottom line –
We have the most
Curious state
With mysterious qualities
And in-depth histories
But most of us are
More concerned with
Bud Light
And Biscochitos
Con Manteca
Because it just tastes great!
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 2:39 AM UTC
i am from the west coast of california and the east coast of maharastra,
from the suburban houses of tracy and the village bungalows of jandu singha, from golden gate drive and marine drive.
i am from the united states public education system and the indian caste system. i am from the land of opportunities and the byproduct of two different american dreams.
i am from places i didn't choose and places i will never completely be able to leave. i am from the coordinates tattooed on my right arm, the hills with the prettiest sunsets in the whole world, from the love of a man with rigid principles and a woman who broke all the rules. i am from a culture that says i shouldn't but a mindset that says i will.
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 2:55 AM UTC
*Orange Loom you leave again,
conflating royal blue and red,
calm and warm like an old friend,
but you were grey once.
Your yellow lilt is surely just a show;
an ephemeral, vestigial truth.
Is that you, brooding on the horizon,
pausing for your latest audience?
Your powerful symphony flirts
with your stagnant players;
a panoply of mountains
-expounding their own soliloquies-
and trees as straw-roofed bungalows.
The ocean floods your eloquence,
like an impending harbinger speech.
Your tame light evokes an urge,
something Great, magnificent and pure,
but you will return in time again.
Some will wait but all will learn;
your author's notes, or are they burned?*
Jul 5, 2012
Jul 5, 2012 at 12:20 AM UTC
Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked, teeth
of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters
pregnant as October gourds. Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,
but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,
heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
I walked past my old house today
it had changed - new modern windows
And doors.
The garden looked the same
Although it wasn't as well kept as I remembered it.
I passed the old Co-op shop
Where I started work at fifteen.
Sadly it is now an antique shop.
I climbed Woodbank, a steep hill in the village
The landscape had changed little
Except for a motorway cutting through it.
The old canteen- where I used to deliver groceries-
Had disappeared without trace.
Also the indoor tennis courts had gone
Replaced by new bungalows.
Yes, a lot of changes have taken place
Since I left in 1957.
Keith Wilson. Windermere. UK. 2016.
,
.
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 6:49 AM UTC
she leans into my words
and with a deft motion
scatters the playful children of her amused thought
that are trying to distract her
she liberates the pen and paper constructions
that i built with yesterdays words
and places them with a lovers care
on the table before us
as if to bring to attention their needy faces
but not to conversation their actual words
like photographs of passing of couples whispering
the intent but not content
she leans into my words and pulls them apart
showering my souls breach with new light
disrobing the layers of spanish thread
deeper intents to mislead and withdraw
before the mute face can speak
she tosses her hair to one side
i evaporated on her smile
it was just too **** sweet hot
it just set my city afire
so she stood up and walked to the streets edge
to show the ***** dawn a true light
to show the sleeping a new way to dream
to show the new goddess to her waiting world
while she makes sunday morning breakfast
of dollar cakes and crayon drawings
landscapes in polluted purples
coffee strong and the child cries in the crib
she lingers by the table playing
with a lock of my hair
while we spoke soft of the day
to the rainswept beach to hunt for shells
paste them in the scrapbook of my soul
long as shes here with me
sunday afternoon rain
laying in the bungalows shady porch watching
the rain roll in singing softly
long as shes here with me
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 10:26 PM UTC
Is this emptiness
or cosmic space
a love for dark or consummate
absence?
You lay there
and I, here
in the same
tangential uniformity.
we are but together
splintered, then separate,
making no difference.
you, in your place
and I, in mine
like some unattended baggage
dragged mechanically
by a tireless conveyor,
a hound in pursuit
of its own tail in intense circles,
left to my own silence brought
to the brink of all the noise.
*
The morning with its peripatetic
crush of garlic and spry birds.
In an unassuming distance
strip to void, teased to rogue,
the light does not arrive with
its usual taciturn warmth;
your mother gives you a pear
to pare and ******
my mother, the same in giving,
yet another thing worth grazing
say, the old skeleton of an empty
wine bottle,
a cold stride past womb-tender
bungalows and sleep-shaped mailboxes.
the feel of its bone , gutted out of flesh.
a compelling strike of silence
permeates more silence – like a prayer thumbed
down to its last throng.
there will be no dialogue.
this is the same quietude
in miles that assume our places.
maybe once you knew this domicile
like the curve of your bow-leg,
or the glint of your inner thigh.
the word “love” falls flat on the surface,
taking its station amongst the masses,
flying with the birds soon dead in their tracks.
the word “love” slits,
cuts open, unloosening a wound,
your mother in the kitchen paring
the flesh from the bone,
and you hear it,
as we look out of separate windows,
the hush churning sound,
spreading on all fours once in this room.
the morning lays out its hairbreadth
wire of memory
in some place unknown to us,
to size the measure our own,
still yet not ours, you in your home,
and I, somewhere outside the world
fathoming shadows their own things not ours.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 8:45 AM UTC
The sprinkler twirls.
The summer wanes.
The pavement wears
Popsicle stains.
The playground grass
Is worn to dust.
The weary swings
Creak, creak with rust.
The trees are bored
Whith being green.
Some people leave
The local scene
And go to seaside
Bungalows
And take off nearly
All their clothes.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:30 PM UTC
Once mingled,
free-floating piano tunes
and
sun-harshed highway
could be a match.
The Light Rail
took its time on the causeway,
I am a passenger,
safely guarded from the
unapologetic summerness
like tourists from the safari park.
I am a outrageous punk,
perching onto handrails
lost in his romantic dream of an
impossible summer. Romeo and Juliet in my hand.
Vehicle garages rusting
along palm trees lined
railway.
This is Yuen Long. This is the outskirts
with gated dogs with feral barks,
this is a compromise between bungalows and nature.
Piano symphonies morphed into
eighties tunes
in the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack album,
and the eighties synths
draws the archived mystics,
out from avenues
that leads to villas similar to those I have sojourned.
And the world as I see it, it is beautiful.
Dec 8, 2018
Dec 8, 2018 at 1:14 PM UTC
I feel forsaken
like a rolled newspaper in the rain.
Is that You? in the window box?
Is that You? magnificent in a woken engine?
I don't mean to be sullen,
a crushed flower with a brave yellow bloom--
I'm a vine growing in through the window
of your abandoned holy room.
Oh honey. My fingers flat upon
your smooth chest made of smoke,
I am rain falling ever further from her cloud.
Call me back---use your voice of spade-shaped leaves.
I will come, across the lawns and waters
to kneel at your feet
and sing.
Jul 21, 2025
Jul 21, 2025 at 6:40 PM UTC
"Praise the meek
Praise the timid
Praise the unwanted!"
He knows toils,
the street hymns,
secret bungalows
of the tattered,
the terrors
of being invisible.
The sidewalk cracks
under ***** boots
and yields to the weight
of his woes.
A floppy hat crowns
the colored face,
yellow eyes and teeth,
that suffer climates.
Stains scar a gray sweatshirt.
If only they had mouths.
What gospels they would sing!
"This is when I became lost.
This is when I hungered.
When I shivered,
when I bathed in moonlight!"
Tiny radio shrieks
cheap jazz from
worn speakers,
shouting horns and piano.
He is blues
and knows what it's
like to be broken
with nothing but hobo dreams
that few will hear.
He struts,
limps,
shrugs,
SURVIVES!
Faint music and a yellow backpack
fades around the corner
and he looks like a
champion songbird for the forgotten.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 6:16 PM UTC
Happiness is sharing and caring,
Happiness is trust and honesty,
Happiness is giving loyalty,
Happiness is peace of mind,
Happiness is laughing together.
You have a fleet of cars,
A luxurions yacht,
A hefty bank balance,
Several beautiful bungalows,
Some holiday villas
You are never thrifty.
You shower me with gifts,
Never your time,
Adorn me with gems and jewelleries,
Never show your true self.
I am not your priority,
I am just an option,
Only a line in your life's busy page.
So ,adios!
I detach myself from you,
You are not my Happiness.
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 4:46 PM UTC
Shifting through the bungalows,
Moonlight shivers amongst the abode.
The wooden planks easing into the sigh,
Of the wind wallowing its lullaby.
Tree leaves escalade,
Up, up, up, onto the roof, like a parade.
Then drip, drip, dripping,
The rain drops over the beam's lipping.
Two feet come suddenly into place,
Pacing amongst the rain's lace.
Shadows are glancing,
Over the lawn's new glaze.
The two feet begin quivering
From those shadows' new face.
A snap.
A creak.
A groan.
Fright has leapt up and won,
Quickly, cautiously
The feet run back towards home,
He is succumbed to panting,
From the terror within ranting.
Finally; he is alone,
And the haze of all that came to pass,
Has up and left him just as fast.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 4:28 PM UTC
Musa stands for banana
But his name sake was Furhana
His headwear folded like samosa
Not to be confused with mimosa
Yet the fold was like Koya's head towel
Even the fantastic Ayamu's downwell.
That said: Koya heckled with his sickle knife
Never failed in the field to sit and file
The blade to trim out the hedge's tendrils rife
Closed one eye to see the fence's profile
The cutting-hedge technology of fence
Continued without denouncing offense
Rarely reaching any end, the dense
Fence talk gains again as every day commence.
Beauty creation was his faint inclination
At the entrance of the tea plantation
Stationed near to the police station
Part of his task unasked in the division
Was standing and talking to the man on the bike
Talks like, the strike, the Labour wages hike,
How to dodge a strife for a fair bounty
With words coated with 'chondy-chandy sugar candy.
For its said, he can wear any colour, I-uhml-green or P-yellows
To send jaundice or dainties to the Poor-fellows.
The talk prolong as the baron mellows
Till the madam's call comes from the bungalows.
Back to Musa, sorry for the interruption, he was left behind the lines...
For names of Mayan, Maanu and Jaanu make a beeline
Like Beebi and Kaybee, maybe the guy too, sounding Shanghai,
All are bonanza, for a due stanza.
Musa chirped with chops of English
And fizzed out the name of fish and dish
Proud that he worked even with some British.
Once he mumbled the name mom and mummy
To call out his humble wife to introduce
The visiting chummy colleagues, over there.
Her numb eyes goggled out of a slimy shawl to reduce
Her head to a crummy Kameez that beleaguered on her.
Not knowing what his trendy husband is telling,
And why he is calling her before them, Asia instead of Aisha!
His friends knew her trouble and told her its alright
And that made her feel she is the same Ayichumma on her own right.
Once Musa stumbled on the name 'chips' at a shop in the city;
Ordered the same along with other civil society
While seeing it packed, he grumbled for his stupidity
And burst out, "O, just the Koya fried banana, that's aplenty in our vicinity".
The shopkeeper gave a laugh,
And there, Musa left in a huff!
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 11:25 AM UTC
The dangerously glamorous life of Chateau Marmont, where everybody is racing at an incredible speed. Velvet nights fraught with promise and mystery under large canyon moons. Skinny dipping in the heated saltwater pool, bodies dripping wet, in the privacy of palm trees, old Hollywood charm in swaying leaves fanned across the indigo sky, as we dangled over the city. Parties in the hidden bungalows, punctuated by pinot grigio and mescal mules, in and out of bedrooms and beds and clothes. ******* on hands, car keys forgotten, I tore your silk shirt as you threw it off the bed.
Feb 1, 2018
Feb 1, 2018 at 2:11 PM UTC
Daylight breaks
And shadows over flow
Cars move backwards
And I run forward
Flee to the sea
Oh please flea to the sea
I want to bleed with the ocean and overflow my throat with the burning rage of your waves
Collapse below me and we will hide in bungalows and eat peaches on a hammock
Rush into me
Flow over me
Breath with me
And the waves rain blue daisies and I trip over your eyes oh how I trip over your eyes
Swim to the shore where we lay unaware of tomorrow
Dont you see it?
I see it too
You and me were uncontrollably letting go of all the ****** up dark **** in the world and the only anger was the sound of our bed oh baby please never let go of the rage that stems inside our heads
Crash the car and walk on the ocean side with me
Break the plates and smoke a joint because atleast with us the world has some color splattered on the canvas
But tv screens, news stations scream back at me and I am scared of what our babies will see
So run forward with me…
Hush the world and live in peace with me
Because daylight broke and shadows over flowed
And I ran forward and you skipped beside me
We fled where the seed grew into a bee
And the waves turned into tornados and in the middle of the storm you said be with me
Never leave
The moment was hopelessly running away from us
So we skipped into the next moment and the next
We are insanity
And blue daisies dance beside us with glee
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 12:57 PM UTC
I take the night bus
From the inner city,
Where nightlife spills
On icy sidewalks
And aliveness soaks brutalist concrete.
I do it all,
I do it all for you.
I ride the lonely mastodon
Out of the new self.
A teal finback slicing
The sea of blinding halos
Who only come in pairs.
I do it all,
I do it all for you.
I cross the Rubicon
To the frostbitten lands,
Where the sun set at four.
The bungalows leer at me;
I am a stranger to your world.
I do it all,
I do it all for you.
Jan 25, 2021
Jan 25, 2021 at 10:16 PM UTC
A murder/suicide my sister tells me.
She always knows things first.
I'm six, she's eight.
I look across the street where the
Bungalows sit. Huddled. Secretive.
Police and emergency vehicles swarm.
One vehicle has the word CORONER.
I don't know what that means.
My earliest memory of the existence
of Death is when I was crossing a
vacant lot...
(don't go near the Rosenthal's... their
son is mentally unstable and
he might hurt you...)
... I found a dog skeleton. It's bones
scattered and bleached by the sun.
A green bier of grass had grown
up around it. A small dog, its
ribs look like chicken bones...
It frightened me so badly I had
nightmares for weeks.
I started to become afraid of death.
My father laughed. He assured
me I had a long time to go
On ol' planet earth...
This knowledge didn't seem to help.
Drama on the news that night.
Jealous boyfriend kills girlfriend/self.
My parents wouldn't let us watch, but
we already knew...
Just like we knew Santa wasn't real,
'cause I snuck down the hall on Xmas eve
and surprised my parents putting presents
under the tree...
... hollow 'clink' of a
bulb rolling across the floor...
S~S
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 4:35 PM UTC
Just bland insipid opaque walling
uninspiring without toned definitions
soft spongy frothy carrying anemic lustre
layers easily bruised and prone to blemishes and sagging
glassed visors in various hues incisively ablaze with wants
and inside its not much different from external
furnishings spare and mostly structurally unsound
temperamental ambiance cold-cool yet warm to touch
craving notoriety and attention, loudly challenging in compensation
as foundations are inherently weak yet stands in malleable grandiosity
adverse to too much heat yet resplendent in enough sunshine
vacuous and airy with amplified audio and echoing facilities
though content and range always lacking in real truth substance
Bungalows short of a brick, built on mud, foundation not strong
Readily prone to quakes, husky, hollow, flaky, generally unsound
homogenized, common, unsubstantiated and extremely deceiving
Never good investments, these properties will rob you and ruin you
Oct 26, 2019
Oct 26, 2019 at 11:07 AM UTC
Lowestoft was that small town the window crisis hit
Smudgy smears always appeared mixed with grubby grit
Filthy stains on dingy pains and ***** birdie ****
Cob webs spread like Spider-Man an attic window pit
The anguish of the people, through all their daily strains
Townsfolk getting upset with not seeing through the pains
Because of ***** windows and because of all the stains
Glass windows needed washing to remove the gritty grains
Many a small window and so many sheets of glass
Simple and posh leaded, no matter what the class
Awkward windows out of sight, you'd really rather pass
Reaching them is such a stretch, a real pain in the ****
They will be all shiny just like newly polished brass
When we stick our ladders down on your drive or grass
If you want your windows cleaned then just give us a call
Every smeared, smudged surface, we're equip to clean them all
Two savvy ladies on the case, arriving with a run not crawl
So if your in a ***** crises then don't you ever stall
We'll investigate your sheets of glass inserted in your wall
Giving them a good rub down before your windows fall
Even in a stately home, manor or great hall
Nothing is to high or low neither short or tall
All residential areas houses in your neighbourhood
Bungalows to tower blocks, we polish pretty good
Conservatories and porches, plastic through to wood
Industrial estates and caravans, cleaned the way they should
Wherever they are situated and wherever they are stood
Shops and local businesses, we'll turn up in a flood
If your windows are not clean and you've reached your tether
We'll grab all of our equipment and get everything together
Buckets, blades and applicators we're always window clever
Getting there before your despair and in any kind of weather
As long as we can make you smile with our cleaning endeavour
Make sure you call the best the girls of " All Weather Leather"
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 1:56 AM UTC
Prove me wrong
I need to know
If all along I've come to grow
Into my own Bushido code
Of conduct guiding me to show
How good intentions paved this road
With my abode's most humble tone
To build a hearth of stone for those
To melt their souls adorned in gold
And sleep in spirit's selfless home
Or just to fill this house alone
With all the seeds we humans sowed
As bombs explode and we foreclose
On bungalows and debts we've owed
To others' woes and sin atones
Colossusses of ancient Rhodes
The person that to be you chose
To roam this earth, renounce the thrones
For all this power shall erode
To nothing more than buried bones
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 2:37 AM UTC
Holding a placard in his hands,
Depicting 'Where is my family?',
Waiting for years to be espied,
An orphan to be classified.
Skyscrapers and bungalows across, Bigwigs with their footing and gloss,
Eluded the paparazzi, no clicking please!!
And they went on behind them for a glimpse.
"O dear! pa..pa...paparazzi!!
Come to me and click me.
Don't waste your time."
Pleaded ...The Orphan.
Paparazzi seldom are indulgent-
To know the bourgeois and indigent.
Under their ken,they follow the fame,
Lights and ramps are their only aim.
What if so called showbizzy,
Paparazzi or any other crazy,
Cared about this frenzy,
To give the '#Orpharazzi'.
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 12:55 PM UTC