"clientele" poems
"Honestly? I'd just cover that up", he says
Orion's not moving. Stars don't move.
They may die, they may dim, they may traverse galaxies
Change position in the night sky with the seasons
Give me one. good. reason.
To cover up my compass home,
The one good thing, the one beautiful thing,
On this scarred and wretched body?
"We'll put Orion somewhere else, start over"
You're not my mother, ripping out a new piercing
Locking the door on a daughter and her father
Drinking and dating and thinking "start over"
My skin is just my skin, the moles and ink
And decisions are mine to live in
How dare you claim yourself an artist,
yet break down your clientele, your canvas
So Orion's not the problem, sir
It's a debauched attitude toward station
When I follow the stars tonight, I will tell them
Needles have no consideration
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
We pass laws about things we don't like.
Or don't want in our community.
But when you look through the microscope you amazed by those you see within the lenses.
Oh, we protest the strip clubs and that environment.
But pay attention to the visitors or clientele.
Always seems to be someone we know so well.
The businessman.
The police officer.
The minister.
Hosts of others
You know, those important fellas
Especially , a few elected ones.
The same ones supporting the bans on things.
People, even protest Walmart cause of the small family's store facing competition.
Oh, forget about the jobs for those unemployed.
Forget about customers to get a slow economy back on the path of recovery.
We, don't want the street walker disturbing visitors going to the store too.
After all, they have secrets to create several havocs to a happy home.
Again, when you look through the microscope or witness the news.
You shocked by their clients too!
Same, with the dealers of drugs.
Who?
When arrested we amazed that his clients might be teachers/ministers/politicians/judges/famers and the hard earn worker.
Looking through the microscope reveals the sinners controlling us.
Jul 24, 2016
Jul 24, 2016 at 9:06 PM UTC
On old mainstreet, sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Rednecks and faux-necks and used-to-be-loggers,
Crafters and rafters, and activist bloggers,
And poets and hippies and mystics and fools,
And outcasts from the secondary schools,
And gypsies too: you’ll find them here,
Drowning in local, hand-crafted beer.
At night, locals sip organic tea,
And turn up the menagerie
Of lights and mics from another age,
Pieced together to make a stage.
And there, the guitarists waste their breath
Beating the Same. Four. Chords. To. Death.
There are some new lyrics, there and here,
But all of them memories of yester-year:
A year spent in the same **** space,
With others who’ve never left this place.
They sing of their dear loves and pasts,
And how much longer the wandering lasts.
And on they wail, and on they moan,
And twang the antique, rustic tone,
But their faces show they like it here,
This breaking haunt of yester-year,
And after the set, they carouse with cheer,
And smile contentedly to their beer.
On old mainstreet sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
Oh I do like to be in the countryside
where the branches bash against the windows of the bus
where the leaves on the boughs of the trees bow so low
that I feel I have to duck.
Where people know me almost better than I know myself
I can gesture to my figure when Brigitte says
"have you eaten?"
and she will reply
"but that means nothing."
Where I can tell Tracy all about my life
and she won't judge,
will look at me with the same quiet smile,
the same laughing acceptance
as she ever has, since the day we met.
Where Cindy and Cathy sit talking about the world
and tell me of their troubles
because they know I'll understand.
Where the sea pounds gently in the distance
whipping the wind sometimes into a frenzy
and molding my hair into a salt-ridden sculpture
on my head.
I don't miss it
when I'm in the city
on the contrary, I love the beat of the sun on the concrete,
the thrash of the trains in the distance,
even the wheezing exhaust fumes
feel like they fit somehow.
But it's nice to be back sometimes
where the trees still grow on the roadsides
where the fields are green even in winter
where the pubs are cozy and quiet
like their clientele.
I went back there today
and I loved it like always
I loved it as ever
I love it still.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 11:07 AM UTC
People often say now I understand
When they hear that I'm from Paree
Not Gay Paree silly, but redneck
In the heart of Tennessee
I am the newest style of hairdressers
Here to lay out all the facts
I no longer work on the tops of heads
But straight out of the pits
It all happened when I got bored
With the every day to day
Trimming of the head left me feeling dead
That's when it hit me..."Underarm Braid"
That right there was my life saver
That right there was my turn around
If it didn't make me world famous
At least it did on this side of town
Now people come from as far as Nashville
To have their underarms done
I even gave a left and right pit Mohawk
To the Governor's daughter and son
What? Did you think I only braided?
There's so much more that I can do
Just ask the Punk Rock Chick's that wait in line
To have their armpits colored blue
My older clientele have let there hair grow out
Since it is they learned
I'm now specializing in for both women and men
Their favorite sets and perms
So feel the freedom of the pits
That hippie chicks have long since known
Here at Michael's Salon Of Pits
We'll do something special with that growth
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 8:42 AM UTC
It has often been said to expand
But with the theory in being your plan
Now you might have multi-talents and only concentrating on one
Even though it is one that is not your finale in being done
It is the fact, you were probably doing one talent, and then later discover you were also doing another talent and didn’t realize you had another talent
Everyone has more than one craft
It may seem unimportant to you, but think of yourself as value
There is value in everything that we do with a purpose
One must connect the talent with an opportunity
Let’s say talent being an alphabetic letter, but when you add other alphabetic letters, the letters become a word
The same principle applies to multi-talented as you add one skill and inquiring with more
Think of multi-talented being numerous sentences
So multi-talented have many avenues and offer many opportunities
Think of it, you have acquired talents beyond measure
The value being a treasure
Expand your talent in being the show and tell
Market your talent in being a sell
Before you know it, you will have a clientele that will pass the word and continuing in your talent tell
Opportunities that will be just swell.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 3:26 PM UTC
these faces on the wall that have no eyes,
the young children with blood escaping from their hands
as they pick up a mound of the Earth and throw at genuflected roses.
these battered men in parks searching for light
and my woman is no longer with me.
it’s all vaudeville: this obnoxious working of continuance,
these redundant flutings, these unprecedented fluctuations.
opening the yellow gates to death
as the automobile churns the last of its exhausted snarl.
we are children peering through glass cases
as death laughs at his hopeless clientele,
sad, desolate progenies in working-classes,
in parks, in factories, somewhere along Mendiola,
or just treading the waist-high hellish froths of Dapitan,
there’s always death in the nooks of the quiet
and from where birds stir in sidereal circles, death
with his hands resting on the cage, chases us back to our homes.
death the changing of the gatekeeper.
death the telling machine.
death the dentist.
death my next door neighbor.
death, this boorish broken-winged Maya twitching in front
of my dog’s shadow shot out of the Sun’s shameful recoil.
death, my loud and loutish muse,
death the truant,
death, the copious fog somewhere in Kennon Rd.
death, in my hands through darkness and light,
death through troves of enigma,
death through undisputed clearings,
death the long line of red beads in EDSA,
death the gates of Plaridel,
it’s the moon following you, trailing your measure,
i hold my woman’s used shirt, pick up her photographs
and there’s no tender movement left but the still-seeking lion
prowling the jungles of my heart, seared by lovelorn undoing.
through the bottom of the sky and the unchanging roof-beam,
the weathervane ceases to a sojourn and the wind is trapped
in a place where we cannot utter any word between the gnashing
of our teeth – through the wasted years, through the sleeping in and out
of homes filled with beatings, to cathedrals swollen with tribulations,
and to the vineyards wrung out of wine, my lover, walking through fire,
sound silence.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 9:20 PM UTC
For those among us who lived by the rules,
Lived frugal lives of pubis-scratching desperation;
For those who sustained a zombie-like state for 30 or 40 years,
For these few, our lucky few—
We bequeath an interactive Life-Alert emergency dogtag,
Or a dog, a colossal beast of a pet,
A humongus Harlequin Dane dog to feed,
For that matter, why not buy a few new cars before you die?
Your home mortgage is dead and buried.
We gave you senior-citizen rates for water, gas & electricity—
“The Big 3,” as they are known in certain Gasoline Alley-retro
Neighborhoods among us,
Our parishes.
Our boroughs.
All this and more, had you lived small,
Had you played by the rules for Smurfs & Serfs.
We leave you the chance to treat your grandkids
Like Santa’s A-List clientele,
“Good ‘ol Grampa,” they’ll recollect fondly,
“Sweet Grammy Strunzo,” they will sigh.
What more could you want in retirement?
You’ve enabled another generation of deadbeat grandparents,
And now you’re next in line for the ice floe,
To be taken away while still alive,
Still hunched over and wheezing,
On a midnight sleigh ride,
Your son, pulling the proverbial Eskimo sled,
Down to some random Arctic shore,
Placing you gently on the ice floe.
Your son; your boy--
A true chip off the igloo, so to speak.
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 10:22 AM UTC
capricious
arabesque
undulate
clientele
juxtaposition
visceral
illuminati
illustrious
canticle
piecewise
chantry
tealeaves
evensong
quixotic
Oct 20, 2011
Oct 20, 2011 at 12:46 AM UTC
__B__usy as much; busy as a bee
serving sweet remarks to a Queen
The hours are long, and we’re always
swarming with activity
__E__veryday business is always so sweet, and
even given a pet named— the retirement
package for it though, kind of stings
__E__very colleague of mine seems to know
what’s the buzz; and our clientele do carry a
good scent- _something like flowers_
…just another day for the life of a bee
Aug 17, 2024
Aug 17, 2024 at 4:05 AM UTC
There are so many dentists
that the market's getting tight.
One must differentiate
to draw trade to one's site.
Being new kid on the block
especially was scary
Until, in a flash of brilliance,
he called his:"The Tooth Fairy"
With gloves and masks
and dental dams
He served his clientele-
leaving their other cavities
to those who knew them well.
His clientele were handsome
and all exercised a bit.
Some were macho, some were fey
it mattered not a whit.
What mattered were the smiles he saved,
that gave him satisfaction,
and he earned a decent living.
from the fine are of extraction.
So if you, too, seek success
it pays to find your niche.
Serve the Sado- masochists
and make them all your b*tch.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 6:50 PM UTC
with bodies relaxed,
but eyes observant,
they sell
five dollar bags of
***** weedy poetry
mixed clientele,
there is no age or gender or ****** preference
discrimination,
certainly none requiring critical taste,
in the buying and selling of
***** weedy poetry
commercial savants,
organized by topic,
available for purchase
love, depressing, rants and whines,
discounts for pre-owned
anti boyfriend rhymes
in his day, they say,
Whitman partook,
ferried up from his Brooklyn nook,
William Carlos Williams too,
from New Jersey came,
better to understand
the most common patois
they'll do custom stuff,
the suppliers,
mix and blend all
kinds of ****
their database exponential,
give them the
requisite hashtags,
and within it,
in it,
thirty minutes,
no more,
they'll requisition,
providing an acquisition -
you'll get your
name-your-own-hash,
Freedom
to entitle your own
***** weedy poetry
or you could grow you own
on the window sill
in the earth of your discarded
despair
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 10:24 AM UTC
~
She draws water from the well, an old drink for new clientele. She "loves" living next to airports, big shiny airports, named after gruesome visionaries and drunk, womanizing actor sorts. She "loves" wearing a Chinese dress and sitting in a Chinese chair, posing for pictures she can never share.
~
Dec 14, 2023
Dec 14, 2023 at 2:51 PM UTC
It rained all day that Tuesday
When Link McCoo hit town.
He checked into a rooming house
And began to look around.
He found the most run-down dive
And pulled himself a chair.
He took one look around to see
Who else was drinking there.
Nobody much noticed him
Except for Esther Masterson,
And she walked right over to him.
She knew she’d found herself a good one.
She asked him to buy her a drink
And he shook his head slowly no.
He said he wasn’t in the renting mood
So she might just as well go.
Esther like the way he looked
That he wasn’t to be a pushover.
She moved her chair next to him
And slyly told him, “Move over.”
She said, “I’m not a working girl
I own this stink-hole of a place.
So, being seen with the likes of me
Is not some kind of a disgrace.
That started them as something hot
Flame hot enough to set fire.
Nobody looking at the two of them
Could miss the heat of that desire.
Then, about a month later on,
Johnny Wacklin came back to stay
He and Esther were once a thing
And he was here to have his way.
But Esther had moved on by then
And told Johnny right up front.
Johnny paid no attention, said
“It don’t matter what you want.”
He grabbed her hand and dragged
Nearly taking her off her feet.
Link came in right about then
Knocked Johnny into his seat.
Link tucked Esther behind himself
And he warned Johnny not to try
Or he would be leaving there
With no time to say goodbye.
Johnny was always long on mean
But pretty much short on bright.
He figured he could whip Link
In a short but brutal fight.
So, they squared off and circled
And scowled for a few feet.
Link punched Johnny in the throat
And knocked him back into his seat.
Choking Johnny still attacked
So link kicked him in the knee.
He said “I don’t play slap and cry.
I don’t fool with those who attack me.”
Link and Esther have stayed there
As two knitted into just the one.
The bar has cleaned up clientele
And is a place for having fun.
Johnny Wacklin went away and
Spent some time in a clinic.
I can say he deserved what he got
Without being branded a cynic.
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 1:08 AM UTC
You know, it's not bad
I thought I would be messed up mentally
but instead I'm succeeding - they call it reality
I can't lie and say I don't long for
the outdated admiration, insincere adulation
from your clientele - embarrassed millionaires
Wasting what's left of their fortunes
to stash and squeeze
While I was caring what you would think,
they crafted a creation out of me
I like to
think about
the curve of my words
compared to the small of your back;
the dot over i
to the ones on your skin
the lines crossing t's
like those that run beneath your vision
Were
you any letter,
you would take the form
of a hook and a swoop in another direction;
a question never ending
That's
always
asking
"Why?"
I drink ***** as I write poetry
Focus on my handwriting to keep myself from
Wondering what you're doing
or what you'd think of me
Sipping my way out of my head,
Jack Daniels for breakfast
freedom from the distillery
Dec 16, 2011
Dec 16, 2011 at 1:06 PM UTC
Alkaline eyes
As if pierced by some awl,
As if hallowed by some blunt axe,
As if to juxtapose
Bee stung lips.
Cabaret music,
Dead souls,
Dancing corpses.
Ella Enchanted:
Swinging, Swirling, Swaying, Swabbing
Sick, Suffering, yet
Sauntering;
Sweaty Socage with
Scummy Suede-heads,
Stocking
Satan’s Sweet Sibling.
Swollen Skeleton,
Skin Shunned and Shivering,
Shadowed, her face;
Shock-less eye Sockets
Tired grow her limbs,
Unction bottled in her heart.
Unaware, her clientele,
Zeal in their eyes.
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 10:14 PM UTC
She strode the stage in swathes of silk
That swished in synchronicity
To the drum beat,
As in the heat
Her voice oozed electricity.
It coursed the room
With her perfume
In concert with those sultry tones,
Deep in the groove,
So velvet smooth
Like chocolate o'er the microphone.
All eyes were fixed
Upon that mix
Of swinging hips
And painted lips,
Her clientele a lust fuelled fire,
All whetted mouths and dark desire.
Yet in the midst of all those cheers,
The wolf whistles and sexist jeers,
She played her set of old school jazz
With elegance and pure pizzazz.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC
I was twenty-four when I first started working at the bar and it was suppose to be a temporary gig. A way to put a couple bucks in my pocket while I searched for a "real job". I never could decide whether I choose the bar or the bar choose me but something about the place felt like home. A belief that would drive my ex up a wall and eventually out the door. She didn't understand my infatuation with the bar, my obsession with its clientele. I came to love its unique aroma of confused souls who wandered in, looking for the missing parts of their whole like they could find it at the bottom of a bottle. The liquor never lied unlike their boss who promised that raise, their spouse who promised to be faithful or the television who told them they weren't important. The ***** promised intoxication and she never failed to deliver on that promise. Maybe, thats why they kept coming. They were looking for the truth they couldn't find in people.
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy? What
Kind of question
Is that?
Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy? Enough
To know whose eyes
See mine as prey.
I won't ask for much else
In the way of health.
Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy?
Enough to avoid death in the short term.
***** you have a problem with that?
It's ten feet, maybe less, to the door --
Remember when I sent that request ?
***** you weren't invited inside.
I decide the clientele. You're denied.
I decide the clientele, for my health.
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 10:40 PM UTC
the empty theater!
the actors
"crowd upon the stage"
but the writer has fled
(afraid of the censors)
the set designer
is working on
setting up a scene
of mass slaughter
and war
replacing pixar imagry
with real bodies
as ordered to
by the WAR MACHINE
people having *** with either ***
indiscriminatingly
and JUSTICE is for sale openly
in the court rooms
and the legislature
the actors cannot play human beings
because they have never
been one or
seen one
the writers have fled sanity
and the censors
the theater is empty now
only the graveyards
have ""clientele"
mother earth is dying
only lovers
like myself
are feeling well
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 2:51 PM UTC
I've seen them come
I've seen them go
I've seen the needle
Take another soul
I've seen the vacuum
I've seen the hole
I've seen things
I'd rather not know
I've seen them beg
I've seen them cry
I've seen them lose
I've seen them die
I've seen broken mothers
Wonder why
I've seen it all
Through tear-filled eyes
I've seen the needle
I've seen the cost
I've seen it all
Through thickened walls
I've seen men when
They take the fall
Get up again
Then do more
I've seen them do
Without a doubt
I've seen them cut
Their clientele
Treat them worse
Then they would a dog
Send them to hell
With Fentanyl
I've seen them come
I've seen them go
I've seen them beg
For another dose
And when there's nothing
Left to own
I've seen them die
All alone
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 10:03 AM UTC
our local hotel
is a great gathering place
it is a fine place
for the boozers to congregate
after a schooner or
an eighteen gallon keg
all of the patrons
are smashed
out of their heads
many are unable
to walk a straight line
and some flake out
on the foot path
to sleep overnight
the beers is made
of the best hops and yeast
that's why the drinkers
partake of a goodly amount
our local publican
has happy hour on Friday nights
and the customers
gorge themselves
with plenty of free *****
usually by half past ten
all the drinkers
are hanging over the bar
they can hardly stand up
after consuming so much ale
it is always
dry weather
at a bush hotel
that is why
there is such
a thirsty clientele
the local watering hole
has heaps of liquid amber
on tap
so if you are in or around
our parts
drop in and have
a pint with us
as we wouldn't want
you to die
for lack of refreshment
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 8:38 AM UTC
Primetime TV is asinine;
Intellectual cyanide.
Empty like a home in Palestine,
And corrosive like an alkaline:
It's the software for the poor.
Subliminally shutting your doors
Of perception,
While they pump the town full of more --
More liquor stores
And two cent ******
Deadbolted doors
Adorned with gang graffiti
Where the government ignores.
So how can I sleep
When all these kids never eat?
And where's the sweeps
For the bodies in the streets?
They'll just pour more concrete
Over our homes.
Gentrified zones,
Minorities in tow.
High interest loans.
Money's dried up,
Foreclosure and drones
Dropping tear gas on the protesters;
Arresting anyone not in their homes
Please tell me, how can I atone
For the sins of a system
That riddles the world with victims?
This is the modern vista
The ghetto is everywhere
The aftermath of an affair
Between the elite
And their federal clientele.
Predatory lending,
Bailouts, drop outs,
A culture without.
Humanitarian drought.
Where's the empathy?
The love?
The care and clemency?
A solution for this endemic peasantry?
Man, I wish I knew.
I wish the numbers weren't true,
And I wish the sunrise brought a nice view,
Instead of billboards and condemned buildings,
Abandoned homes, potholes, **** and trash:
The ashes of a golden age long past.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 6:24 AM UTC
the empty theater!
the actors
"crowd upon the stage"
but the writer has fled
(afraid of the censors)
the set designer
is working on
setting up a scene
of mass slaughter
and war
replacing pixar imagry
with real bodies
as ordered to
by the WAR MACHINE
people having *** with either ***
indiscriminatingly
and JUSTICE is for sale openly
in the court rooms
and the legislature
the actors cannot play human beings
because they have never
been one or
seen one
the writers have fled sanity
and the censors
the theater is empty now
only the graveyards
have ""clientele"
mother earth is dying
only lovers
like myself
are feeling well
Jul 30, 2010
Jul 30, 2010 at 2:58 PM UTC