"busker" poems
Busker singing in the park
living each day from hand to mouth
sleeping rough when it gets dark
dreaming her dreams of heading south
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 6:35 AM UTC
‘A festive song for thy ears’,
Sang the jovial busker;
Brimming with gratitude,
With pennies of silver
Or the coppers from well-worked hands,
The heavy gold of the rich;
Once weighed down pockets
Generously giving.
‘A festive song for thy hearts’,
Sang the jovial busker;
Playing with precision,
With clarity and care
Or the subtlety of pristine art,
The blending sound of the voice
Soothingly warming.
Feb 5, 2022
Feb 5, 2022 at 12:50 PM UTC
Summer's almost over,
It's threadbare
As your towel;
The summer sands
Are shifting,
The beach is headed south.
The initialed picnic tables
Are stored for other outings;
The concession windows
Flapped now,
The busker's shouting quelled.
Sails are dropped
Like maple leafs,
The moon's rising
Too soon;
The night lights blaze
Over pitch and field,
Where sunshine
Shone in June.
Geese are wedging daily
To escape the wintery gloom;
I'll reacquaint
With the hinter sounds
Of lake winds
And banshee loons.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
chapped lips
sticky and sweet
the popsicle melts
and stains my crisp white dress
a seagull steals the french fry out of a little boy’s hands,
he begins to cry
the busker’s sing songs
of love and loss,
whiskey and wine
the boardwalk creaks
and i dream
of a cold beer on the beach,
the melody of waves reuniting with sand
like long lost friends
the soothing slap of sandals on pavement
freckles and homemade jam
midnight adventures to the park
skinny-dipping in a strangers pool
hopscotch and chalk
freshly painted toenails
the sun gifting us with golden skin and golden hair
adirondack chairs and campfires
fishing in lady evelyn and portaging in temagami
braving the falls at muskegoe
and counting the stars while lying on the bridge
catching frogs in the pond
while drinking coolers in paddle boats
sweaty palms and first kisses,
nervous anticipation
red skies mark the beginning of endless nights
i dip my toes in the fresh water
and the ripples skew my reflection
the man in the moon is happy
and so am i
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 3:26 AM UTC
Hello old friend,
With your tall sweeping evergreens
Towering almost endlessly
Into a blue clear sky
The endless swell of traffic
Cars peeling down the street
The smell of roasted coffee beans
From some hole-in-the-wall cafe
The obvious transplant donning an umbrella in the Autumnal warm rain
The light sprinkling of water enough
To nurture the verdant green
Hello old friend,
Mt. Rainier, she greets me,
Looming ever majestically
Over expanses of tree and road
Her white peaks cresting over
Fields of blossoming flowers
The tulip fields scattered across the sloping
Skagit Valley, her vineyards spanning for miles and miles
Hello old friend,
Seattle's grungy nature
Masked by her streets of trendy
Cafes and farm-to-table restaurants
Her mom and pop cafes
Her canvas gray dress marred by graffiti
And street tags
The busker on the street corner panhandling for change
The homeless sheltering under a cardboard blanket outside of a Starbuck's
The transplant with the umbrella stopping down to drop change in their jar
The crumpled dollar
The locals who pointedly ignore him on their way to work, to school, back home, to somewhere...anywhere...
The constant dazed bustle
The stench and pungent odor of ****
Curling around every seedy corner and
Affluent street crossing
Hello old friend,
It's been a while
Let me nestle into your newness
A new coast greets me across the horizon
Replaced by homespun everything
Pastoral fields where the bovine and equine reside
Hello old friend,
I suppose you're home now
I suppose you're home...
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
His voice of crackling static
is known from round the corner.
It's raw from shouting news reports and
the music of an empty pocket
to a world, only half listening.
A toiling madness of chord and thread -
frayed, plucked fabric, strings
hanging from cuffs. This plaid ragdoll and
his bird **** stained guitar case are
collecting change like a magpie
His incompetent lips are their own shower
flecking the pavement. What music gathers
in the whited joins of his mouth is urban
desperation, but their grubbiness suggests
you could still plant potatoes in his fingernails.
Twitching and lined, his visage isn't as old as his art.
The jarring strum and lacquered voice
serve to remind us, that the tongue
is the only muscle in the human body
stronger than the heart.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 8:07 PM UTC
When I get here, don't ever ask me to leave.
I'm not saying I won't ever leave just that I can make up my own mind
and I've been a long time coming
and you can pack my bags for me if that's what you want,
I was never one for folding,
for folding,
for folding creases,
for creasing folds down the middle like I was waiting to be split in two,
I am waiting for you to split me in two,
split me in two,
split me in two,
cut me in half and all you will find are mirrors.
Your face staring back at you. Jagged edges so I could feel you from the inside out,
feel you,
feel you,
finally feel you.
I've been knocking at your door,
staring through your windows every time I had your door shut in my face,
knocking on your walls,
knocking,
knocking down your walls,
cracking your safe so that you know
when the sky seems like the most solid thing around you,
that you are always a porch light.
You are a struck match, a roaring flame and I am orange, fully open,
I can always be your accident.
You are the oldest thing in the universe made new for me,
a lens,
my left hand,
my right hand,
my arms, clutching hold of my wrists
so I can feel your heartbeat in my fingers,
your pulse a busker, singing only for me when the clocks have stopped and the lights turned out
and we've been waiting at this door for too long.
And I'm just stuck at my boarding gate,
halfway across the world and you're still dragging behind
like it's all too fast
and all I can tell myself is that I would always drown in you.
I will always choke on your words so I can taste them in my mouth,
taste you in my mouth, like a warzone,
taste everything you've ever said, ever been.
I will make up my own mind. I will keep you in mind.
Keep me in your mind like a cemetery.
I'm a long time coming.
Aug 19, 2013
Aug 19, 2013 at 10:55 AM UTC
when people ask me 'what type of poetry do you like?'
i tell them that i like real poetry
not fake meaningless poetry with technical words that i don't even know.
i tell them poetry has to have EMOTION
and it doesn't have to make sense.
it doesn't have to rhyme, either.
poetry should be raw. it should be written when you don't think you have anything to write about
like that time you were lying in bed and thought of a single word planted onto paper to create a whole stanza, and then five stanzas.
find poetry in music. in the low guitar riffs and the drum beat. find it in the lyrics and the vocals. find words in trees. in lights. in a bottle of nail polish. in your first love and your last laugh.
find poetry when you fall and a stranger helps you up. find it in a busker at the train station. find it when you give that busker some money and find it when you see that the busker appreciates you. find poetry in poetry.
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 10:37 PM UTC
Dark shadows swirl their way into Cabrini Boulevard,
The pigeons rise to scatter as they slowly pass along,
The pretzel seller finds his eyes are misted, caught off-guard.
A subway busker starts to play a doleful Elvis song.
East-Eighty-Third is humming with a thousand urban dreams,
Cold fantasies unfold within the petals of the night;
September ghosts are set adrift on ectoplasmic streams,
With hosts of angels following, in garlands of white light.
Sleep soundly now, New York, let bitterness be washed away,
let sleep's dark poppies dissipate all agonies of mind.
Sentinel wings will guide your mourning dreams towards the day
when sanity will reign over the ways of humankind.
Sep 11, 2011
Sep 11, 2011 at 5:55 PM UTC
A penny for a beauty!
I'll sing it hither thee:
I'll sing alive a beauty
And sing it ever be:
And a penny and this beauty
And my voice in mind them:
Now sing this ready evening
so prithee listen then:
Leave two pennies by the boulder
And a penny you shall earn,
Drop a penny by his shoulder
And a penny he returns.
Give a penny to your pleasure,
Let the pleasure spread like seeds:
But a penny my endeavor,
A penny ask of me!
Feb 13, 2021
Feb 13, 2021 at 7:25 PM UTC
just a ****** busker wishing he was a **** buster
he swam lack-lustre,
a salmon unable to muster
the will to cut the custard,
and flutter upstream to meet a lover
stuck in the gutter singing covers
a crushed sucker, tasteless kfc crusher
ominous as a dawn-less dusk and
useless as a ham sandwich with no mustard
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 7:28 AM UTC
I heard the choir sing in the cathedral,
I watched the black busker smoke in the rain.
The words she writes are calm and cerebral,
her keyboard maps out our commonplace pain.
You can listen to the flutes in the leaves,
the percussive crack of ice in your drink.
I listen as your heart sounds a mantra,
persisting to live even as it grieves.
We can balance upon the ocean's brink,
a mineral spray, our unspoken Tantra.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 10:14 AM UTC
The policeman strides the concrete,
some poisoned daffodil
in his stage boots of tread and leather
and fear of authority.
Troll-like he emerges over the sound
of the head-dressed busker,
her simple song, her trio of chords
singing under the shops,
who despise her art.
And I, against the tide of footfalls
and ‘aww’s’ at the latest range
of lipsticks and daily distractions,
I stop to watch as her will falls limp.
Her squeezebox is strangled of sound,
and the music dies at the order
of an order, the noise pollution
of the High Street’s mating call.
Chair folded, she evacuates through
the traffic fumes, ‘cross the road,
and with hope, with fingers crossed
and eyes wet, I hope this is a retreat
and not a surrender.
Once more he strides the concrete,
his fluorescent jaundice coat
a warning, a reminder, and I see
his eyes mouth the words:
‘Your license please,’ he says to her,
‘your paper proof of your right to play.
What profit plan do you have in place
and who approved your name?’
‘You can’t call yourself a busker’, he says,
‘much less an artist or work of art,
which talent show do you hope to enter,
to validate your part?’
‘Your part in this wholesome land,’ he says,
‘how you do your bit, your profits large,
because our economy is going asunder,
and so we have no time for art.’
‘So it’s with no due regret,’ he says,
‘that I’ll send you on your way.
And if with you goes the death of music,
well that’s just progress made.’
And so I walked away from this scene of
deflowered and purpled hope,
my stomach wrought with injustice
and no nicotine in tow.
And it is to this table I am sat,
with just one vocation upon my mind;
to reclaim her song, now sung in silence,
and steel her memory in time.
And it is to this table I am sat,
with everything on my mind,
to tell of what I’ve seen,
to indulge another rhyme:
Sing to me your sorrow,
sing unto the skies,
play to me your pleasantries
and please purge me of my lies.
Pay us with your sorry tune,
pay us with your life,
all your forsaken childhood dreams,
your faded hopes and strife.
And please,
bathe me in this sunlight,
and bathe me in time,
scour me with city streets
and allow me what is mine.
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 8:55 AM UTC
If it were up to me,
I'd be more than a composer..
I'd be a musical conductor,
The night stars would be an orchestra
To us all.
If it were up to me,
I'd be less of a coward,
I'd be someone you'd be proud of,
I'd write a poem so beautiful that the world might just change...
But it's hard to feel this hope all alone..
It's hard to turn the waves from our home
its hard to turn my thoughts, into poems
And it's hard to be in love, on my own
Would you let me give you all the flowers I have grown?
Could I show you all the magic I've been shown?
If it were up to me,
I'd be on my way now
I'd be a busker by the bay now
I'd be a writer, still falling hard
If it were up to me,
I'd be less of a student, and more a teacher..
I'd be a doer, not a dreamer
I'd be iconic without needing a broken heart...
Oh it's hard to hear stories, from those around
It's hard to hear that everyone's, been knocked down..
It's hard to promise that things, could still look up..
See it's hard to give up,
When all I want is to be a Giver...
A giver of hope, songs and love.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 4:20 PM UTC
Call yourself Morgan.
Do not hesitate.
You were born on summer solstice.
Like the sun, you’re distant from others.
Move to Seattle and leave no forwarding address.
Busker for a break and warm your bones with charity work.
Pretend poetry is the only thing you’re good at,
And be good at it.
You can’t just write ****** words into
An exhausted leather journal, no.
Incorporate stanza into every conversation.
Drip intensity and rapture like morphine
Into the veins of anyone who will actually love you.
Speak as if you were never human and you’re still learning to exist.
Metaphors and run-on’s are your best friends-
Run-on sentences.
Run-on arguments.
Run-on relationships.
Run-on recovery.
Develop a reliance on caffeine so potent that
you've become the 7:30am medium black coffee
at the cafe down the street.
Leave no traces.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
The busker stands upon a busy street.
With a guitar case laid out in front.
As the busker sings, while playing on guitar and heart strings.
Not asking just hoping passers-by will stay for a while. And maybe even place some change in the case.
And yet standing there while dreams and time drift by.
The busker still waiting to be discovered.
Is yet happy just to be doing what that person enjoys the most.
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
At 10:20pm on a Tuesday night
The number 14 bus is full
Bright, glistening, and fevered
These tired commuters expend vast energies
on wishing they lived here—so they’d be home by now.
Transients—the unhoused—talk in believable lies
About Portland’s oldest bridges
And salmon runs in the Willamette
And every time the bell signals a stop requested
Those of us remaining heave another sigh of delay.
At SE Cesar Chavez, which was 39th when I was growing up,
More people get off than on—
A man in a brutal cavity t-shirt,
A 30-something in a grey hoodie –
Both transferring, probably, to the line 75.
I get off around 47th,
Pass the long-closed and over-priced vintage furniture shop,
Cross the street at the fading crosswalk,
Pass a bar, a home cooking joint with and early bird special of $2.95,
Another bar, and a lonely busker playing guitar and singing Weezer.
In my building, on my floor, the hallway always smells like chicken
I’ve yet to cook, to even finish unpacking
But all of this already feels familiar
My first night’s commute home
And I am as practiced and nonchalant as a New Yorker in the City…
At least as much as a Portlander can be in Portland.
I’ll have wine, or tea,
Put on my lounging clothes
And settle into an evening alone
As if I’ve been doing this forever
As if we never were.
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 2:42 PM UTC
Rolling with my thunderstorms,
violet shifts to black
and you run ashore.
Capsized outside a theatre,
I wrench you out
from the starfish glob of mess
I made, blow the grit
off your forehead,
scrabble for a candle
we can re-light together.
One time, mud snatched
at your ankles.
You screamed but I was seeing
drains and reflections
twisted in puddles
like fuzzy lines on the old TV.
A migraine came;
I threw it up into the sink
and slept.
Lost count of the times
you've tossed me out
in the snow, garbage among
banana skins, frozen earlobes,
but who chucks a duvet
over my frost-flecked skin
but you,
with a clumsy smile
and mascara raining
down cheeks.
Every time.
Tonight I find you
in the evening fog
after searching
every subway station
my legs would allow.
My shins cry for rest.
The busker plays
Bob Dylan out of tune
but can’t blame a guy for trying.
You discover my eyes,
put your face to my coat,
mumble words like you have
a mouthful of ice.
Lookin’ for a friend?
The 11.04 towards
Borough Hall.
We get on, I catch your breath,
count the hundreds
and thousands of steps
to home.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC
“I’M THE GUILDFORD GUILDHALL CLOCK I AM!”
Oh I’ve been knocking out time now since…eh….let’s see 1683
Minutes and decades flow through me
The everlasting skies above me.
I’m iconic I am
dressed in my black and gold.
I ( if I may be so bold )
AM GUILDFORD.
The pride of Surrey.
I watch the High Street
as it runs down to that
young whippersnapper statue
THE SCHOLAR or whatever.
People congregate about the chap
eat sandwiches….listen to a busker
busk opera.
Only in Guildford!
But it’s me they look up to!
And is it time for tea?
Why so it is and. . .
citizens clatter over the cobbles.
I’m the Guildford Guildhall clock I am!
Tip! top!
Ticktock!Ticktock! Tiptop!Tip top!
TIP!!!!!!!!!!
TOP!!!!!!!!!
***
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 3:41 AM UTC
My country is in chaos.
Seats of power are exchanged,
Unelected come-down
And steep fog of uncertainty.
The poor are painting their signs,
Others lock their doors.
Tear gas spills in streets
Far from suburbia,
On the shoulder of Europe.
I struggle to sleep.
Not for tragedy
But missed calls
And lack of shelter.
For you and your
Darkened corner,
Bleak winters-
The last time
I saw you in the sun.
Petroleum fills
The lung of the sea.
Swarms gather in luscious greed,
Footfalls over concrete:
The peace sign
White poppies
And paper cranes,
Stubborn **** in the rock,
The busker with fingerless gloves;
The nightclub spilling over
Into violence.
I strain my eyes,
Not in tears
But in chemicals
And lack of vitality.
For you and your
Elusive path through life,
Over-complicated strides.
Simple, temporary medicine
That is the comfort
And not the cure.
The stars blot out,
One by one.
Each neon skylight
Fractures the night
In pink clouds.
Flowers die over the railings
Where they could not
Save his life.
I contain my breath,
Not in calm
But poisoned blood
And lack of air.
I can barely breathe
Without you here.
My country is in chaos.
Earth spins in a slow disease.
Still all I can think of is you-
Whether you are thinking of me.
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 8:19 PM UTC
Let me see you frown
Let me see you smile
A light has drawn across
Beating down on your restless head
There is nothing left
Of that dream we had.
I count how many times
I have nearly died
Keeping you tight to my chest
Fighting with bloodied fists
And drenched in regret
I'm not your saviour
I'm just your clown.
I see a twinkle in your eye
Glistening like frosty stars
That gives me chills
And some will to survive
The onslaught of demons
That cry in my head of lies.
I seek response
From the busker on the street
He sings a sweet sweet song
But doesn't acknowledge me
He's my son.
My heart is a natural disaster
Waiting to explode and to make
The wall blacker
I keep it in just to keep myself alive.
I'm a joker
But tonight I feel afraid
That I might disown her
This poetic verse full of bleakness.
That sweet sweet song!
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 1:24 PM UTC
When I picture my own funeral,
I see a young person in a box.
She is never old.
And though I am sure my family is there,
I forget to paint them in.
I see other young people
Sad, but mostly occupied
By whispering of my newly exposed secrets.
And the people I truly care about,
The only ones with nice things to say--
Simeon the ice cream man,
Ronny the busker,
Adam the hobo,
Maria the dream and Maria the ghost,
Hoodie Man the hero,
And Chris the ****** addict,
Are nowhere to be found,
For how could they have heard the news?
And a few years later,
When they realize I have not made an appearance
In quite some time
They will wonder what happened
To that girl they called solitude
And smile because they can only assume
That most likely I finally left the country
To follow my dream
And try to be happy.
And they will live the rest of their lives
Completely unaware
That my grave longs to be pressed on
By their feet
And my flowers watered
By their tears.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 2:55 PM UTC
I look at the man on the street
the bottle has drained his face of color
the cigarette burns a hole through his fingers,
still dimly lit and smoldering
we are different, aren't we?
I'd like to think so.
We are different....
or are we?
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 11:14 AM UTC
In early evening darkness, an endless entourage of engines sails streets exactly as Doppler predicted.
His trolley case traverses cracked concrete until her heels slow, halting to heed a busker's beat.
Polite soles approach the pair, sidestepping into loose layers of leaves - compacting gold and brown with a crunch.
Well-travelled tongues whisper foreign fears and wishes in a fog of white noise, fading to null as four eyes silently share three special words.
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 5:33 PM UTC
My local songwriter
the blackbird
is up on his pole
again.
Most evenings
when the sun is downing
to the west
he comes and gives us
a concert,
he has no score
just opens his beak
and trills.
There is repetition
with variance
and pause.
Sometimes he is so eloquent
that people in the street
stop and listen
and smile at each other
content for a moment
to listen to a genius
granting us solace
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 8:36 AM UTC