"cabbies" poems
she had an uncle who spent
twenty years in the ring,
landing solid blows until
he landed
in a downtown Oakland hotel,
older than he, wrecking ball got it
in the dawn of the cyber age
but for ten droning years,
it was his cage
he never had a title shot
but he kept his belly full
and had cash for the women, the drink
never drove a car, cabbies knew him
and knew the smell of gin meant
“keep the change”
when his legs got weak
and his left eye went to blur
the money stopped rolling in
but he still thirsted for the gym, the gin
he got himself a gig at Big G’s
just enough hours to clean out the showers,
to keep the johns from smelling of ****
and a few greenbacks comin’ his way
he would end each day
alone in his room, inhaling the gloom
that seeped over the transom
like smoke from a smoldering fire
but there was no fire left in the ancient hotel
or Parrot’s burned up belly
only fading memories
of a wounded warrior
who taunted his opponents
by mimicking every word they said
in the ring, where he earned a bird’s name
but never its sweet song, before time
took its tattered toll
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
Scrapers will no longer scrape.
Fighters soon to lose the short fight.
Pilots are forced to surrender control.
Snakes on a plane will bank into a roll,
a scene that really no longer is scenic.
Leaders still read while getting a scare.
Huge landmarks that I swear were once there,
bridges in shortage are counting the tolls.
Dust that eventually will never be settled,
liquid support that used to be metal,
big bad crude that never was good—
things impossible suddenly could.
Answers quickly try to be drummed.
Future conflicts guaranteed to be won,
particles blocking our UV death sun,
days become decades and turkey is done.
Brave individuals are no longer bold.
Families’ histories are quite often told,
a baby’s bottle empty with no one to hold.
Government figures tilted but somehow sold
parades in protest with a circus in town.
A tiger got out, but why can’t he growl?
Seems that the cat’s got somebody’s tongue.
Another channel covers son after son,
numbers mounting, but not the right ones.
Cabbies still nose their thumb after thumb,
training centers destroyed one after one.
We should’ve just played “Drop the **** bomb!”
Fear is good, and of course good is feared;
it’s the only thing that drives us way over here.
Just like the Bible, it’s mostly made up.
The supersonic jet has just hit a rut.
The dirtiest of bombs versus our Smith and Wesson.
“Come on gang, why would you even question?”
Like death and taxes—there’s none that’s more sure,
but then there’s the free upcoming history lesson.
“Ain’t gonna do it” acting just like his pop.
This rancher really means it when tossing the slop.
“Still can’t find him—he’s with boys in Brazil.”
What’ve they done lately to lighten the till?
It’s time for the Allies to storm up this hill.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
An off duty cop
Walks into this
Bar
He has no badge
No uniform
He is no cop now
He's friends
With a young
Paramedic
Who drinks the
Guilt away
They stay till
Last call
And ask for some shots
To share with
The bartender
The cop wants to say
A few
Words
'To another life wasted
To another one shot
To another one dead
To another shot'
Then the paramedic
'To two good men gone
To blood on my hands
To the lawyers health
To another day gone'
The bartender had
A few words to say
'To tomorrow night
To the many cabbies
To the few how choose safe
To another shot'
When they've drunk
Their fill
The two friends left
In the cab
Waiting out front
That got hit by
A drunk driver
Who they spent
Last call with
To another drink
To another phone call
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
Times Square was once a ****** place;
You wouldn’t go alone there.
When darkness fell, you held on or
You’d lose all that you owned there.
Today, though, it’s like Disney World,
With tourists, loud and surging.
There’s not an inch of space unfilled
Since everyone’s converging:
The families from Idaho,
The hawkers giving passes,
The Elmos and the messengers,
The bused-in high school classes…
The lunch-break workers, homeless dudes,
The theater geeks and shoppers,
The food carts, cabbies and the cops
And all the teenyboppers.
I love New York; don’t get me wrong
But oftentimes I wonder
If gentrifying Broadway
Might have been a whopping blunder.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 5:59 PM UTC
Strange. The beginning of this city
is the same;
the personality
of your smell
is my flat
it grows out
across my sheets
back in
and i pay
with the few minutes i’ll need to
when I’m late
later
the sun likes my blinds
and your sleeping back
as i wake
easier
for work
looking up, I blink
and count the scabs I see in the sky
and the shouts from annoyed cabbies
and the cuts in my chin
from shaving
smile,
they leak open
and drip down
into the basin
each one pulls down the time
i’m late
but dress casually
all the same
it’s worth while
this
disorder
this
mixing
as I choose
as I fold my tie
watching you sleep
as i dress
and experience
a new laughing
a.m.
making my work day
an agile song
just,
a man
smiling at a streets raven
through a kitchen window
making breakfast
fixed
with
linking steps
that were loose
as we danced home
last night
i learn to do such things
at my desk
preferring to think
of our feet
twelve hours before
yours – in those shoes i love
mine – clumsy
up the stairs
screaming about something i cannit
remember
back to
flat number seven
seven ***** machine guns
seven
taps
on 'enter' now
sending this email
making me laugh
the peach lifts up through the city
and the power
to tell one person
that i’ll see you soon
is more
than enough gas
to find my keys
just enough
to crawl up my blocks stairs
and relax on my back with you
welcoming
disorder
forgetting my boss
watching
the rest of the morning rise up
from the landscape
whilst you sleep in
i laugh under my breathe
keeping it to myself
letting the rest of the day
rise up
beginning
itself.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 3:51 AM UTC
High on the I-40
Been up since six no *** and
Fighting
****** in trucker motels, facing west.
cabbies lit, white plate gifts
for the barefoot women
the wet haired
siamese, their black soles
From room to room
I could be a deity
I could be a ghost
and stay
to watch the sky
to relish the exit music
I wouldn’t be jealous
I am the traveling type –
an ambassador, a fog
the ledge of an open mouth, snug
fingers under doors
there is one for whom I was made
and another by name by
line by go on, goodnight
I could take all the showers
and still be alright -
I would take all of them, and still be alright.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
Chicago
city of working men
of bustling factories
and billowing smoke-stacks
tattooed with graffiti
filled with hearty, loud people
who are constantly going,
building, moving upwards
it is unlike Atlanta, my home,
because she is a conflicted soul,
subsisting for so long in tradition
and now she sits on the brink
of modernity, and cannot decide
to jump in
this city knows who he is
and though I might not know
who that is, I feel its confidence
in the noisy cabbies honking horns,
in the rickety trains on their tracks,
in the million different faces I’ve seen
already, I can see a bold identity
something I cannot claim,
and I will wander on without
forever
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
A roses desire with a street cars name.
It doesn't matter the direction
Cause we're all the same.
Knock three times, to get inside.
Darlings of the night and shady cabbies are your ride.
A streetwise junkies philosophy sounds good while your high.
Wisdom of truth, while smoked in a lie.
Sometimes coming down isn't the hardest part.
Sometimes it's reaching the end, for another start.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 2:41 PM UTC
civil lights against the black earth
sleepy eyes and silent faces of the
people around me
so many moving so fast without so
much as a flinch when we begin to
go
it is 7:04 and I think of the train ride home
a man jumped in front of a train
the cookies we bought were good
yet cold
it was fun for me but a stress I’m
sure for my grandma and her friend
it is 7:07 and I think of the time before the train
we lost my mom and grandma
the tube stop told us where the
real train station was
young cabbies always seem to
be the quietest and least helpful
of the bunch
it is 7:08 and I think of even before then
there was an itlaian woman on the train,
asking her husband for a baby
castles do not amuse me much, I’m not
one for old things or christianity
it’s cold and dark here but nobody seems
to mind
it is the evening of novemeber 26th
Nov 26, 2010
Nov 26, 2010 at 9:12 AM UTC
Land of minds that mine for fool's gold
A false wish waves on a tattered scorched flag
So serious yet so seriously not
Monotone notes of after thought calculations
Make me breathe light due to speculation
We are not alone
We are not together
We are the milling and seething masses of this Earth
We have turned over a new leaf and forgotten about the millions of trees
Before it
History books will burn as the buildings will topple
The steeples with winged whining horses will bend for their final kneel
Tea hot or cold spills onto the once white napkin so it can no longer be used
Cabbies explode due to too much nitro
We are not alone
We are not together
We are the floating fantasies the God's dream up while they sleep and slumber
**** and party
We are the play things baby monsters nick away time which does not weigh them down
We are a fantasy and a reality
Tonight as the stars shine through a broken dead black ink *** sky
And I'm out and about watching love die
Watching sewers overflow with a majesty that even the Queen would be jealous of
And the hanging grey clouds hover nakedly over a city that was never mine
Look for the hour glasses which tilt neither left nor right but are crying
They are the bearers of good and bad luck
They carry the key to the wisdom of this doomed son
Jul 9, 2011
Jul 9, 2011 at 3:11 PM UTC
Concrete jungles
Paper towns
Paper people
With real-life frowns
Paper smiles
Plastic stars
Ignored taxi cabbies
In yellow paper cars
Paper couples
Singles too
Real life me
Paper you.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 4:31 PM UTC
Now there are none left, none who commanded the stage.
Kennedy, Khrushchev and Fidel; history has turned the page.
Revolution ran hot in his blood, and for that his countrymen paid.
Cuba was once a prosperous land, rich earth and a favorable clime.
The mob was entrenched in Havana hotels and singers performed for their dime.
Resentment and envy in the hearts of the poor convinced young Fidel it was time.
In Cuba today their cars all can do sixty, years I mean, not MPG.
Physicians and nurses all earn less than cabbies, what use is a college degree?
The poor are still poor; they just have a new master. Only now they are even less free.
Fidel was a man with a secular faith; in fact was a prophet of gloom.
We plotted to **** him with exploding cigars but the dammed things failed to go “boom”
I still can remember tense days one October and the sense of impending doom.
Socialism is great- until the money runs out, as old Maggie Thatcher opined.
When Russia collapsed, Cuba imploded, and Che has been dead a long time.
Today Fidel burns, perhaps some will mourn; others will think it Divine.
Nov 26, 2016
Nov 26, 2016 at 8:32 AM UTC
What Love commands the train fulfills,
The six thirty bounds to Coney Island
Where the green Ubers awaits the passengers
Morning greetings, (Urdu) of few words, were the
Pakistan, rules Mermaid Street with the neon green
Were too mama? where too, two dollars:
A repeat routine for most of us,
Whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, we all start our day at some point. And we all seem to start it differently. (Kevan Lee)
Five forty showers, get dress out the door before six a.m.
Grab the garbage, and walk three to the subway,
where love commands the train fulfills, which lessened
My morning depression until midday, (who control whom)
Why was I born, why am even here, what is my personal worth?
Timeless question, who would remember me, when I am gone?
The train, the cabbies, would the streets miss my dragging feet?
Self-observation, is it worth a Newyork minute of whom will miss us. (really)
Void, void, void, void, void, void, void, and more void,
Just allowed the few that might to do some adjustments
For the sake of remembering me, for the sake of losing my car fare,
For the sake of not receiving, my monthly fees, and T-Mobile
you definitely would, release me from my grandfather plans:
Today, I sit in silence, away from all sounds, only the sounds
Of a keyboard, and my heartbeat, as the mouse goes click, click
For the sake of remembering is that a poet is only good at recollecting, reflecting, and making his audience believes in his words:
Oct 27, 2021
Oct 27, 2021 at 8:42 AM UTC
I. These phrases may be used interchangeably.
In the case of this patient, we expected nothing less. As a marginally dissociative fellow, this comes as no surprise, it happens all the time. Everyone from the white coats to the volunteers and cabbies are in on it, or should I say, they were in on it. They snickered. They laughed. They blew cigarette smoke into his eyes. They ashed in his trashcan. With a patient like this, when they see the finish line, they go for it.
II. Not a single person cares.
Business is business and routines are routines. The world keeps turning. The coffee keeps brewing and sitting lukewarm in large paper cups. All the flowers are dead and so is he.
III. You will not be remembered.
Well, at least not kindly. You see, patients like him were an obligation; more of a liability than a person. One of those. Pretty run of the mill, but this guy was different. He carved his name into his forehead with a letter opener. He wanted an open casket for some ******* reason I guess.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC
I was Black yesterday. Blackity, Black, Black, Black…
On my way to work, with my ***** hair stenciled to my Crown.
I was Breathing like Air was a Birthright
And my shoes slapped the concrete
Like a *****
Because the Rainbow isn’t Suicide Anymore
I tread where my eagles congregate in perpetual sky-
Above the Ghetto of my familiar rivals...
Soaring in the Raiment
Of a Particular Sun that never casts a Shadow
Where my Brown Eyes kneel.
I see the Light… and unleashed, I strut like a phantom-
Your equal in all things…
However suspect,
When bombs go off
at point blank
range
Invisible to Cabbies.
Jan 10, 2021
Jan 10, 2021 at 9:31 PM UTC
when in st. petersburg the strangest thing
occurred -
well, it wasn't so much strange
as a telling of russian hospitality -
well, it wasn't exactly a case of hospitality -
just your everyday authenticity of
the people...
russians actually had an uber "app."
before the anglosphere took to monitising
in on it...
you can always catch an improptu
taxi ride from a stranger,
you just ask whether they're going
in the same direction...
you can't even begin to imagine
the loss of inhibition with strangers that
actually aren't a: ted bundy...
uber impromptu - no app. -
just a hand outstretched in the city -
it's urban hitchhiking -
but you pay, out of courtesy -
no app. no dispute between cabbies or
these internet conglomerates -
mind you, i did wake up early today,
drank some milk, ate some yogurt -
slumbered for a while,
was immersed in glee anticipating scotland
beating australia at rugby...
the first red card, send off for an aussie
jaw-breaking tackle of the shoulder slammed
against the face...
still...
russian uber...
who would have thought that some people
actually have an ****** tendency to help
unassuming strangers, and require
no technological extension that demodifies
them from **** deus to **** techno -
far beyond the incarnate sapiens -
it seems that in st. petersburg everyone is
a part-time taxi driver,
on the spot,
out of the blue, immediately, un-repentant -
no contract other than the unspoken
social norm; nice to see people so
meshed up, immersed in each other -
people talking to each other,
rather than in twitter-twatter sphere of
talking, yes, but rather talking
at each other.
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 11:25 AM UTC