"curbside" poems
it was on a hill of a clever neighborhood
the errant flow well guised beneath the clay
upon reach of the summit
she is all that can be held
her pull far too magnetic
her skin, akin to milk poured by Luna
her hair is the black of midnight
on the eve of the new moon
she sits facing inquiry with her injured one facing her
on a rounded copper colored chair
placed curbside
Sophia speaks then
a monotone misgiving
that pours out
as a sly pompous
indifference
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 12:47 AM UTC
Blood shot eyes and curbside appeal
dress me up to fake real,
Find me in your photograph and
i'm crying, while your laughing
I really do wish I could...
I wish I could cause I really would,
take you over, take you down
Then leave you.. southern bound.
Would it be better for us too,
to take the letter that life refused
to hold together the breaking news, I'll
do what you say so..
cause I'm a feeling that no body cares for.
Traumatized this is so unreal
laughing with the daffodils
making love where the king sat in
I'm turned on by your old fashion
I really do wish I could,
I wish I could cause I really would.
Turn you over, take you down
you ain't nothing but a blood hound
wouldn't it be better for us two,
to take the letter that life refused
to hold together the breaking news, I'll
do what you say so... cause I'm a feeling that no body cares for.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
She says she doesn’t have the strength within herself to write poetry.
Yes, her. The one who so often nourished me with song
til my soul began to learn how to hunt for itself,
whose word carried weight in leading me to pick my own instrument,
albeit one of a different tone,
as the key in keyboard became prominent for the first time
and the sound of purposeful fingers upon it could be considered,
only in the right light,
synonymous to the plucking of strings, just as rooted in emotion.
Yet she's the first to say that she herself can't do it.
Thing is, I suppose we’re politely at odds on the matter.
She favors poetry that’s sharper, with a cleaner cut,
that’s message is immediate and jarring
as a conduit running from soul through skin,
or a loose-lipped diary finally freed from lock and key.
And when she declared it, I started to consider what my poems seem to me:
Blackberry bushes (but kinder, I hope)
that snag and immerse just long enough
to make me feel I’ve had an effect.
I’ve used writing to expel my most gnarled feelings
to any passerby who’s maybe felt the same.
Like crying in a mirror:
alarming, but oddly refreshing,
and an indefinite reminder that our aches are never only our own.
Still, I'm not sure why it blows my mind
to hear that even the most glamorous hearts,
who wear confidence as a summer breeze that's always in their favor
and who inspire, from beau gestures to sleight of hand,
are included in those who find themselves pacing back, back and forth,
begging curbside at the dime store
for a scrap of the same feed that convinces a heart to pump ink.
But she says that any art that's enjoyed is worth it.
So while she seeks out words that bare the bones,
I’ll stay and make a meal of the marrow,
hollowing them so that the poetry may have a rightful place
to reverberate as hymns in a universal monastery.
But hell, like I’m any old soul.
I dress nicer than I otherwise would,
turn to the mother who told me I don’t meet her lowest standards,
and ask for a critique.
All for the moment when she greets me at the door with a legendary G#.
...Now please, could you spare a dime?
Jun 28, 2018
Jun 28, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
RIVERS MAKES ME QUIVER
Youthful mind left wandering just feeling the wetness from yards into the curbs
Ripples running curbside over toes, forming those first streams for a meandering mind
Clouds collecting power,mists collecting,forming Drop by drop rains flowing into their reserves
High mountain lakes reflecting their passion, partitioned by beavers to make their own pond
Broken into brooks flowing faster downward into streams,cool and clear their taste like sweet liqueurs
Beauty not confined to a torrent but gifted with greenery and wildlife ,flowers that make the forests more confident
Trickles forming into cascades downward making outpourings & overflows waterfalls forced through the fissures
Gravity needs spaces we watch as it heightens then widens,making it's way through the continent quickly becoming most prominent
Admire her beauty but reap her rewards,wet bounty to feed the fields, food for fishes ,generations receive her treasures
Canoeists,kayakers or legendary steamboat captains are fond of their flowing, boys wondering where she will go ,knowing our tears of joy will flow to the sea should be our greatest compliment. R.C.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 9:19 AM UTC
red lights yet, seeing
signs in the green.
are you friend or fiend?
may we both come in peace?
crop circles get dusted off.
all curfews must dissolve.
if our virtue is up to par,
please let us be.
upheld laws
will get disregarded.
cops caught off guard
by gargoyles gawking
at dawn's sweet offspring,
this broad's in a stand still.
villains chill alleys
these foes just can't ****
as the girl cops an anvil
ready to drop her mans
onto a large canvas
full of hurt,
red paint and tequila
as her quills dry up does she
still see city lights as freedom?
curbside dances in the moonlight
earning keeps for a teen son.
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 1:27 AM UTC
Leashed by loves lynch till I’m dropped by my lack of respect for the beauty’s presence
Thank god she wasn’t curbside taking tips with perked lips for a stranger’s ****** fix,
But I needed to feel the evidence that the pieces fit,
That’s why this is about me and a barstool princess
Getting close enough to taste the moans of vodka’s venom
Get close enough so I can know my needs can be fulfilled
Like a lunar eclipse this species keeps grinding its teeth when teased
Time and time again we’ve been taunted by,
The mistress our ancestors once described as the serpent of Eve,
When procreation was preached as an STD
Yet we’ve been perpetually pivoting,
To defy the chastity of a species
Grandfathered misconceptions relating to why you and I exist
As wickedness warms in the covers of the lustfully parallel
So let’s drown in this bliss,
From head to toe, eye caught, grazes at the nose,
From the bar stool to a lonely man’s home,
From one dollar tips for two *** and cokes
To the bedroom of this writing,
The nights like this, that remind me I am alone
But this isn’t about me loathing the fact that I won’t hear her whispering for more body warmth,
Nor am I looking for you to pity me because I’ll be sleeping solo
Enough is enough since we are humans seeking ****** catacombs
I’ll try to be an adult about how the human molds but it started me at childhood,
When those that conceptualized love gave me this world,
And now I no longer have to listen to what I’ve been told
This is about how to perceive something we can never truly control,
Lucky enough to avoid a contraceptive despite unable to remember the doctor’s pull,
Its night’s like this I get to question,
When will my sheets meet the perfect fit?
When will this be more than just a humanizing fix?
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 12:41 AM UTC
Plot a course through downtown doors
then drift along the concrete shores
of asphalt oceans navigated
under stars
imitating
broken curbside glass--
over crunching gravel miles
measured in half-hours
and meted out in heavy, fogging breaths
and squinting, midnight eyes...
Counted out the blocks, counted steps
and concrete squares by metered
three-four thoughts dancing across
reflected skylines, just behind the eyes.
Each step's a held breath,
each footfall a prayer on crumpled paper,
each set of shoulders, a hanger for...
coats are homes
for hands
rolling up in pockets
fishing for some solid anchor,
sinking into years of walks and silent words like these.
*** * ***
Listing hard, adrift for years
water-logged and pocked--
no anchor--
shredded sails and leaning masts
tell stories
of deck fires:
leaping rats,
and charred strakes
Clear deck,
empty hold,
abandoned helm.
this coat's Atlantic fog.
Frayed rigging like cobwebs stretch
down and across
like lines on faces aged by the frost
on midnight walks.
Strike the colors, mate...
Admit you're lost.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 12:41 PM UTC
Tell me, Gentlemen:
while you soared higher than your fears and dreams could ever reach, into the blue crystal infinity,
did you hear the voices of angels echoing off the wings of geese migrating south for the winter?
how did it feel,
fighting for a nation that measured your worth in disheveled water fountains, mop buckets, dust rags, and potato peelings,
defending stars and stripes stained with the same molten white abhorrence smeared on ******** bombers?
did it hit you like a G force?
when you climbed into that cockpit, audaciously red, the blood rushing to your head, was it bitter hand fulls of cherries sweet?
when you returned home through back doors and alleyways to face an Uncle Sam with burning crosses in his eyes,
when you stood curbside at your own homecoming parade feeling confetti and streamers tickle the bridges of your noses,
tell me how it felt, Gentlemen.
will my brothers and sisters who fight only for tennis shoe wealth, understand the worth of those medals on your scarlet blazers?
if I listen hard enough to those jets breaking the sound barrier will I hear your story?
tell me, Gentlemen,
what was it like to fly?
infinite respects,
Curlie Fries Mcgee
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 8:06 AM UTC
There is this idea, this feeling you say:
A revelation of profound compassion
Riddled with crippling paramount tribulation
Dribbling with drops of pontification.
Thoughtfully and yet aimlessly kicking
Unctuously vacuous presumptions. Promising,
Eventually, to unveil brick by brick
This facade someday and assure me
The imprisoning edifice, with which you keep
Under lock and key, will be effaced
And naked, soon, someday in front of me.
Yet, here another day passes.
From curbside to manhole, up sidewalks and across gravel grit.
Then a squib toward onlookers window shopping
Glaring down at me as both they and you listen
To my dissonant and hollow caterwaul.
CLING, CLANG, BANG! Look at me I'm just a can!
Crumpled and malleable, a thin sheet of five cent aluminum;
Recyclable, reusable, just a means to a mans end.
Ah! But I am not what you think I am:
Within, a bountiful boisterous bloom, unravels
The arid breath of lies and procrastination you exhume.
Your insipid words fall vapidly in my mind like corroded rust
Gently drifting onto a lapping lake.
They are an erroneous ear infection boring my wits
And dulling my thoughts, a waste of time.
All of it bottled, canned, and manufactured
From within your ******** emporium.
Keep your bricks and mortar, think they retain your unctuous pride
While this time, for once, I kick the can curbside.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 9:27 AM UTC
Bang, bang, bang, baaannggg
I dreamed I was dying and goin’ to hiphop heaven
Wow, what a dope sight it was to have seen.
Last night I was shot and arrived at hiphop heaven.
And you know who met me at the big bling gates?
The original kings of da hood themselves, Run DMC.
They said to me, they said, “Bro, the Big Dude of the
hood up here, has told us to show you around the crib.
So come with us.
Now standing on da corner is some of your favourite homies.
**** I was glad to see them, The Notorious B.I.G. and the maestro of rap Tupac Shakur.
I dreamed I was dead in hiphop heaven
Wow, what a dope sight it was to have seen.
They introduced me to Snoop Dog, and they showed me the Ghetto of Fame with all the gold chains and number one hits up upon da wall.
Then they said, “Bro, walk this way, there are a few more hiphop stars, that I know you’re dying to meet, they’re hangin’ for you.
“There they were chillin’ by the curbside and staring down at me - Eminem and AKA MCA.
Bang, bang, bang, baaannggg
I met all my heroes right from the get go
**** what a privilege to have finally met
Then I asked them, who else do you think will join y’all, uh, say twenty five years from now?
They handed me a book of sheet music covered with graffiti.
They named it the Hood 4 Life Book.
In it, were many names and some were already highlighted in black texta.
I began to scan the pages and saw names such as, Dolla,
Pop Smoke, Juice WRLD, Nipsey Hussle, Easy-E, Lisa Lopes, Nate Dogg, Lil Peep, Jam Master Jay, J Dilla, Proof, Soulja Slim, Big Hawk, Prodigy, Camoflauge, Natina Reed, Charizma, Bloodshed, Big Bank Hank and Dav E Crockett.
***
Dav E Crockett?
Oh, well, that's when I woke up, and I'm sorry I did, because
I always dream I’d end up in hiphop heaven
Wow, what a dope sight it would be, y’all be knowin’ what I mean?
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 at 10:46 AM UTC
The absorbent two-ply quilted southern sky
was soaking up the pre-dawn rays
as we were pushing our broken green four-wheeled machine
southbound on Bruce B. Downs
taking up the curbside lane
Our shirts were becoming stained with humid profanities
despite the fan blade traffic throwing a slight breeze
We were slurping brackish blacktop steam from the air
plodding like the Hillsborough toward our destination
My mind was already sauntering back toward a broken green futon
sitting in the section-eight, eviction evaded, apartment
Out the window cross-bred ducks were lording over
scrawny, pseudo-feral worm host cats
for which the knockabout neighbors kept a litter box outside
Jan 20, 2011
Jan 20, 2011 at 6:45 AM UTC
See,
None of cottony optics,
Skimming soft tissues,
For pollutants on swimming eyes.
Dissuade,
To leaving sleeping innocence,
As a silhouette,
Lavished by the curtains down.
Outside,
A whirring static,
Underwater sounds.
Who will gather the pieces,
For a sweetheart.
Filtered through amber bottles,
Of honey-speckled moonbeams.
Curled fetus style,
In puddles of obsidian.
It can't be me,
I was left curbside of a floating castle.
Hunted with gabbling bullets,
With their own tongues.
And biting at lobes,
As they barked past.
If you see,
With no obstructions,
By flowery oriental screens,
My staggering paper doll,
Pass on:
The feverish spoon,
Was stirring,
An impossible raspberry leaf.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 4:05 AM UTC
Sunday newspapers continue to gather fragile New England snow on the curbside,
a stomping ground for purgatory, the home for these roller-coaster thoughts.
i'm not much for small talk.
my clothes are always inside out and i'm raging losing battles with my steel-toed tear ducts-
steel, as
grunting is a masculine expression,
and so i'll lift weights,
but gain no strength, just aches of all of the intimacy that I've never allowed myself to emit or absorb.
a soggy sponge,
a rotten oak stump,
fallen leaves-
a childhood meal coming back up over the fists and the heaves.
counter-intuition,
the alcohol binds the seams;
tear ducts are dams
and everyone needs a method of additional reinforcement.
numbness and empty-mindedness aside, I'm
still a make-shift dumpster lover,
hardwired, disassociated hinge-sucker.
too sensitive to open the window blinds or morning newspaper,
there is still no muscle definition, only
liver damage.
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 1:08 PM UTC
Fiery free moments
Are coming for me
They took us to London
Then New York City
As clear as the gel pens
You had while you lived in the sticks
Along with Slip'n'Slide
All the boys you played with
Always paid for your tricks
When the bizarre ill-willing troche
Trap men in their snares, and everywhere
it seems everyone's begin to stare.
Into my eyes (As a tug boat and its bride)
My dad's corduroy ties (In the closet upstairs in the basement)
You wouldn't dare, would you? You wouldn't dare
I embraced the tide that took away our guts
our stuff
when enoughs enough
enoughs enough
So carry around your game in handwritten pamphlets
While you delve into the reasons you didn't want them laminated
When I spoke to Commander Owens ("Let's say the town didn't go wild")
But rather you and I I
Left too long perhaps another time
Remember, Remember
Recital time's at noon
The pianists' laminate cut off the last bar and he's starting in 2(2)
The priest asked Justin if he'd come in earlier too
Venomously he cast aside the bride and groom
So we played Slip'n'Slide for the wedding party in our living room
Dancers start on the left then double-back with the left inside
Turn their bodies, dip their hips, restart and double-back to the right
But before the wedding party, she proposed to him with his favorite song
In the San Francisco Airport arrivals, when he turned the stereo on
Parked at curbside pickup laid down and started Slip and Sliding.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 6:26 AM UTC
the craftsman bought
his piece of clay to life
but ye mold was one that
would bring much strife
the clay just didn't behave
in the appropriate way
always it acted like
a grotesque monstrous play
on discovering the clay's
fault ridden side
the creator flung it down
hard on a curbside
never again did he use
that model of mold
as its unsound traits weren't
ones he'd behold
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 5:12 PM UTC
They took everything from her.
They.
Whatever those things are don't deserve names.
Not for what they did.
Just pretend you're somewhere else
You never realize what's happened
until after he's done.
You put a pillow over your own face because you're embarrassed the first time,
but you get used to it.
He's charming and always has the right thing to say.
It's fun dancing out in the night,
breaking the rules and not caring about anything.
The window opens and closes.
Heavy breaths in the middle of the night.
Just hoping your parents don't walk in.
What? You'll like it.
His friend thinks it'd be good to get back at him.
Yeah it'll be fun.
Curbside fun.
No cars drive by.
God please someone drive by.
I'm not done yet keep going.
He thought it was such a big joke.
Wow what a sweet car.
Meaningless texts,
turning into meaningless drives.
It's okay, no one will see.
I know a place we can go.
This doesn't feel right.
It happens again,
and again.
*You're such a **** I know what you did.*
How could you do this?
So you like theatre huh?
Wow that was such a good monologue.
He's like Romeo, and I Juliet.
Turn your face away from the garish light of day
Oh he's so romantic.
How'd I get to this place.
I can do this, I can handle myself.
Caressing and kissing.
God please don't leave me with him
I think I'm going to be sick.
It keeps on going,
does this ever stop?
It's so dark, I don't want to see his face.
Are you sure you want to do this?
No.
NO.
I don't want to do this get off me!
Yeah I'm kind of a big deal.
Wow he's cuter in person.
Why don't we hang out?
Oh my god yes.
The window opens and closes.
Not in my bed,
please no.
Of course.
No not you again.
He's still charming
He is drunk this time.
He always is now.
God I hate the smell of smoke.
Am I the only sober person here?
Frost, you know I love you right?
No.
No you don't.
You don't know a **** thing about me.
And you never will.
Country boy country wide.
Get in that big ole truck girl.
Riding in the moonlight.
Wow there's a lot more space back here than it looks.
You did what?!
Yeah I put in notches for every girl I bring back here
I am not just a notch.
I am a person
I am sick of being touched and grabbed.
Somebody just listen to me.
MONTHS LATER
No I don't want to go out,
I don't feel like it.
But I love Braums.
Standing impatiently in line waiting.
Waiting,
wait.
Who is he?
I can't look away.
I feel the magnetic pull towards him.
God he's perfect.
Hey can you give him my number?
11:00pm
Purple Hat.
Starbucks?
Oh I don't know.
What if he's like them
No, he's different.
Yeah sure I'll meet you there.
Four hours later.
A familiar warm embrace.
Well it was nice meeting you
Yeah you too.
I think you're my knight in shining armor
I'm saved.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
give me back the days
when you’d press me like a flower
against the wall
and whisper little nothings
so cinnabon sweet
they’d swirl around
my head all day.
when we’d walk
spring streets coated
in magnolia leaves
you, mr. chivalry
curbside, protecting
every milky bone in
my body.
i crave
one more afternoon
tangled in sheets
with you,
fingers tracing
places i want
discovered by you
only.
another beeswax flavored
kiss, to get me through
the solstice
not yet gone,
already missing you.
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 4:51 PM UTC
They say you never know what you have until it’s gone, and baby when you left that hit me in the face like the fallen rain from a car passing by as I stand on the curbside of life.
You left me with nothing, nothing but everything. Everything I wish I had said or shown.
I look at the pictures and think of the memories of how the ocean smelled and the way your cheeks brightened. We were Romeo and Juliet and we forgot our lines, but this show must go on.
Do you ever think about me? I want you so badly. Weren’t we the ones that were meant to be? Do I sound crazy? Maybe it’s because I love the way the sun shines on your face and the way you embrace.
Kiss me under the moonlight, twirl me onto the dancefloor, hold me in the ocean. I cant control these emotions, I beg, I plead.
Why don’t you love me?
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 12:20 AM UTC
It came around again
for we are at the center
of our everything.
And the center never
moves.
From between jagged
ancient mountain tops
it's appearance came to be.
Made its way
across a deadly
California desert.
Over a mysterious,
***** blondes bare
freckled shoulder.
Through the track homes
and the cheap motels.
Between a beautiful ******
open legs and runny nylons.
Past the clerk asleep in the hotel lobby.
Past the stolen car
outside.
Across the cluttered
room and
across a dark alley way
Up the main street
of some nowhere type of town.
Across the freeway and the blood stain.
Past the curbside motive candles.
Above the glass like surface
of the morning dead calm sea.
Through the fisherman's hopeful heart.
And the starlets dying flame.
Over the pages of my
favorite book,
my favorite line.
"Run to me, Come to me'
Through my
half empty ***** bottle
then bounced its way off the cracked
goodluck mirror and caught
me straight in
the eye.
Another day had arrived
and with it
the blinding ray.
The first sign
that you've made it
to waste another beautiful
Southern California
day.
Nov 18, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
I hear you pull into the drive and the free spirit
I've exercised all day abruptly folds into itself.
I greet you at the door with a pasted smile,
asking how your day was, expecting no reply yet,
feeling the sting when I get none.
Supper is served and you take yours into the
living room, plopping yourself on the couch,
balancing the plate and the remote with the finesse
of a curbside juggler.
I remain at the table, staring at you, staring at the TV,
while a childhood rhyme plays in my head,
*Nobody loves me, everybody hates me.
Guess I'll go eat worms!*
Nov 12, 2011
Nov 12, 2011 at 7:59 PM UTC
I.
There is a sadness that I know,
a deep, crippling sadness that makes me freeze
in my tracks, as though the devil, smiling, were before me.
There is a girl that I know,
who I definitely don't deserve,
but I think about her every day of my life.
Once upon a time, she was mine,
and I was hers, and life was full of love.
That desperate kind of love.
That beautifully desperate kind of love.
Maybe it was because I was too young to die
and too scared to live. Maybe I was afraid that at the end
of the drive I was going to be kicked curbside,
abandoned at the corner of "How could you?" and "I still love you,"
just like the last time my life was full of love.
So maybe I did it before she could do it to me.
Maybe I felt the distance growing palpably between us.
The letters filled with X's and O's and clever sign-off's had stopped.
The small tokens of love which I had never been kind enough to return,
had stopped.
Maybe I was afraid that we had suddenly skipped fifty years,
with nothing to talk about but the fact
that I had grown tiresome, boring,
and had become someone that was just tolerable.
I left her. Anger in my heart, tears in my eyes,
I left her. I don't think that I wholeheartedly wanted to, but I did it.
I sat on the ******* winning lotto ticket, and I threw it to the streets.
II.
To this day, I want to kick the **** out of that scared little ****
who sat there, watching her weep and make the sounds that still
curdle my blood when I think about them.
And I do remember them, so vividly.
Because how could anyone forget the day that they crushed someone's soul?
When I went back to find that winning ticket I had
so carelessly thrown away, the numbers had faded.
The ink had run from all the raindrops, all those heavenly tears,
that had fallen on it.
Irredeemable.
An ocean of my grief would not be enough to express how sorry I am.
She's gone now.
Thousands and thousands of miles away.
Now all I can think about are things that poison my blood,
that make me ******* fall to my knees in pain.
Who might be kissing her.
Who might be sharing her bed.
Who might wake up next to her in the morning.
Who might treat her like the beautiful angel that she is.
Who might love her like she is magic,
because I know,
I ******* know that she is.
III.
All that I'm left with now is a sickening, maddening hope that
when she returns, we might try to light the fire again.
I love her too much to let go.
When she graces me with her smile, I feel as though I might
weep out of joy.
My soul dances to the rhythm of her laugh.
Though her eyes are the color of the sea in the middle of a storm,
there is so much warmth behind them.
I would lay myself down in front of the fire of our love forevermore,
if she would only let me.
Lord knows I don't deserve her,
Lord knows that I am irredeemable,
but I just don't think I can last much longer without her.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 4:10 PM UTC