"dungarees" poems
I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees,
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelled of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind the little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.
The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the **** out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the ******* can.
One was a little office clerk
Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old quean;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish.
The Maori Jesus said, 'Man,
From now on the sun will shine.'
He did no miracles;
He played the guitar sitting on the ground.
The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a ***** the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the Asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
'I am the Light in the Void;
I am who I am.'
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half.
On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It did not rise the day after.
God was neither alive nor dead.
The darkness of the Void,
Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then till now.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
Calm breathes in the prairie,
Sunburned in dungarees,
The grasses bow at its presence.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 4:01 PM UTC
Today, I saw a person in front of me, their eyes on something else
and I took a moment to inspect them,
and then I realised it was myself.
There they were, wearing the clothes I had put on in the morning,
wearing the face I recognise in pictures
and standing exactly where I was standing.
But, they were not me – in that moment, they were not.
How could I be that girl, that women standing there in that shop?
The body inside is not that one I saw in the mirror,
the one who was looking a different way.
Inside, I’m more, I’m smaller, I’m darker, I’m paler and
I dress for them each morning, choosing from the clothes
not bought for them exactly,
but forced to match them, to meet halfway.
I knew it then, with a glance at the mirror person, nothing pretty would be bought today.
And it wasn’t.
Some days, it’s dungarees.
Other days, it’s dresses.
Some days, it’s shorts and leggings.
It all depends on who I’m playing as and
I’m sure that’s all okay, but then they say describe yourself in three words.
How can I describe myself, this person I do not know?
So I go for the easy option and choose them from a list:
Quiet
Creative
Studious
And I suppose, that’s one way of putting myself into three words;
one way of putting myself into an easy to understand formula.
But it doesn’t cover it.
Three words don’t cover it.
Because really, I think I’m just an observer inside my own imagination,
an observer inside my own life and all these other lives inside my head.
I’m just the implied narrator of this person in the mirror
and all these others, who come and go in different places.
But then the girl in the mirror reminds me that tomorrow is my birthday,
a day to celebrate the fact I exist outside of my head
and then she touches a shirt, made of itchy fabric
and there’s life outside the overwhelming inside,
a life where I need to describe myself in three words
and fit into those three words and into that one person,
looking at something else, not in the mirror.
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC
Fashionable entourage
people dance in step
to the beat of hidden
native rituals
Hidden here and there
seeing a pair clad up to the hilt
with colored shades
cool as mountain glades
that never
shakes or simmers
on fire
a real deep desirous searching soul
Rapping about nothing
even though
face to face
words bounce off expressions
as cool as mountain glades
that soon melt-fade
into the distance
Rap, tap, clap
never nap
the cannibus-filled room
embellished by flashing lights
on nights
that take spatial flights
into another world that enters upon
lounging everywhere
people lost in space,
in time,
in androgynous acts
In vogue, you speak to me
about fashions
that dazzle, frazzel, razzle,
and lip curl
and eye twinkle
me to you,
in real
but unreal
cannibus-sweet-dusky-dreamy-rooms
MTV blotched, bleached
Sergio Valente dungarees,
then a real feeling child cries
in the background
and is soon hustled off to bed
And never a hurt we laugh
and smile
and smile
A frozen smile grin;
take it on the chin sport
Keep up the good front
Keep up the grinning fort sport
A sported fort fortified Disneyland
and life's forever
carousel ride
and sweep the dirt under the carpet
A speak about profits
And speak about"ME" yuppie things;
about golden rings
that wrap around ears, around wrists, and cattle noses
Seek time entwined
to search geometrically
the advertisements
that lead you
and nobody but you to you
A love ballad between
one and no one but you
You and you
and you
and you
Being good you
you being good to you,
Being good to nar-sa-see-you
you being good to only you,
to yoou
to yoou
to yoooooooooou
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
Sheesh!
I'm wetter than Lobster's sweater
Damp as Dolphin's socks
Dripping like Killer-whale's bikini bottoms
That she left to dry on some rocks.
I'm soggy as Otter's pockets
And soaked as Sea-lion's dungarees
Moist as the Trout's lipglossed pout
Saturated like an Eel's Levi jeans
;-p
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
I’m hanging up my dungarees,
And doing so for good,
The video game cover art doesn’t
Acknowledge me like it should,
My brother gets his name in lights,
While I do half the work,
All the sibling rivalry,
Is driving me berserk,
I can beat the Koopa Troopas
And stomp on Bowser too,
But I only see the light of day
If there’s a player two,
And they’re rarely ever any good,
I never reach the bosses,
It’s always game over screens
And endless 1-up losses,
So I’m hanging up my dungarees,
For the final time,
I won’t go saving Peach tomorrow,
I’ll start towing my own line,
There’s no Goombas and Koopas,
Out there that I’m needed to startle
And for some reason, it’s always your princess,
Not mine, who’s in another castle.
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 12:22 AM UTC
enthroned above the kingdom of desire
hardly born... a chestnut of wane fire
stealing metronomes from garden gnomes
shunning the gimme
of asking for nothing.
your breaks mend
iris slivers sleep in dungarees
of dross and stale glass
sick lemurs. dancing in the Cherokee of sublime Dementia
dueling rhapsodies of function
utterly bereft
of form ....
unformed.
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 11:44 PM UTC
Joe Mole, Marnhull Danny
1974
His eyes were luminous steel blue, alive
with twinkling shards of mischievous fun.
His face, a weathered map of his long life:
brown and crumpled, carved by clean air and sun.
A grubby khaki flat-cap, jauntily askew,
bedraggled grey-green ancient jacket
secured with hairy binder-twine (calves too),
brown dungarees, muddy boots and thumb-stick.
His gruesome work was in grazing meadows
under attack from an invasion beneath
of unwelcome little furry fellows
destined to perish between steel-sprung teeth.
Tiny corpses hung in a row (job done)
on barbed wire like Joe met at Verdun.
A Danny was the name given to any man from the village of Marnhull in Dorset. The word was in common use locally during the 1970’s but is now rarely heard.
14 lines
(FBRSO)
Copywrite: Craig Andrew White,Author, July 2011.
Jul 12, 2011
Jul 12, 2011 at 2:41 PM UTC
Hi there,
I say to the ocean,
dropping my shoes
for the sandy pilgrimage
to shore,
A lone figure wanders
into a Delft seascape,
Blues and whites
of Dutch perfection engulf
my field of vision,
Water and sky reflecting
back infinite shades,
the blue of stiff dungarees
at the horizon,
clouds in shaving cream white,
the heron blue gray of the shallows,
I could name twenty shades
on a good day, like today
when the beach is all mine,
I step into the cool ooze,
jolted into a sudden jig,
I hop, a riot of ah's and elbows,
Waves rush at me
like a legion of puppies,
frothy and excited,
I laugh at their sloppy greeting,
Overwhelmed by their welcome,
unconditional and salty,
Spray lapping my face
as I find my footing.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
“Don’t forget me. Okay? I want to be remembered. Just not this way. I will remember you as a dancer who could weave patterns through the rain. And you remember me in a sailors cap and dungarees.”
“The smell of this never seems to go away. I won’t forget you, though I may over look us sometimes, just the same. I meant it when I said it. But if you wouldn’t mind. Do your best to forget me if you please..”
Sep 17, 2012
Sep 17, 2012 at 4:21 AM UTC
Dog days fly dust to dust over a hick
pit sardined between corona bikinis that house
the unmistakable stench of lukewarm apple
sauce in the c-cup padding and toothless
******** sitting indian style. Graveled friction
fading the back pockets of their overall
dungarees. Amongst them a settler on their native
turf accepting a Jim Beam peace pipe while above
the influence commercials march in protest claiming fried
egg consequences from engaging in the act. The culture
shock is worth the weekly once-in-a-lifetime chance
to sip the tabasco-glazed opening of my chemistry
teacher’s flask while he schools me in perfecting
the cotton eyed joe. A muffler spontaneously
combusts, melting the raybans off the face of a tragically
hip spectator taunted with “that’s why dad named you Joe Dirt.”
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 11:44 PM UTC
She was a vegetarian
Cigarette-smoking drunk
Who fell in love easily
With any handsome hunk.
She was a bible-quoting
Daily Zodiac-addicted muse
In dungarees, leather chaps
And covered with tattoos.
Like a character from Monty Python
She always had pentagram earrings on.
And she loudly wondered constantly
Why nobody ever took her seriously.
She looked like a biker mama,
But she never owned a bike.
A personality like barbed wire
She was so very hard to like.
She growled like a take-off
Out of Cape Canaveral.
Why she wasn’t popular she
Could never understand at all.
She had the strangest body parts
Tattooed or heavily pierced
She looked unlike a human being
And she thought that was fierce.
She walked like The Thing
From the Fantastic Four
And I was never sure she knew
What shower was created for.
Her entire vocabulary was
Based on waste matter and ***
I really do believe she was
The product of an ancient hex.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 9:40 PM UTC
I started this year in heavy furs,
linens and velvet draped over burlap
dungarees, the sleeves and hems
heavily embroidered with salt and earth,
the egg white bones of small regrets
strung through yards of damaged hair
split at the ends, chipped china molars and
incisors, thorn and rue and columbine
dragging down around my heels, so
I could only stand and resign my torso
to the soft, dark peat and the lavender sky
consuming my silhouette, swallowing my body
in the slow thorough hunger of a snake.
Then I was somewhere else entirely,
planets turning sparks of endless light
in a cat's eye, the scar under my mouth going warm,
shedding my layers away to a cotton shift
and the sharp incision of your gaze.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 10:41 AM UTC
Panting again I rest
Only now I think of the day
Innocent gossip in D Block
Adventures of zip-up jackets
Covering a costume gold pendant
Looking at friends through my hair
A fringe that dominates and annoys
Stray eyebrows that linger between deep eyes
Mermaid kicks spray me
Keeping me company when I think
If I could go back I would
Somewhere away from damp air
Like Switzerland or Dalmatian Coasts
Away from denim dungarees on muddy hills
No more ground sheets in his rucksack
Just friends, my cold hands and uneven locks
Closed roads trap me, Typical council
Often fond of stationary cups and dusty hoovers
Just run, be proud to be there up and on
Along D.S Alley throwing my trainers into the boots bay
Avoiding the tainted Dene and his bravado remarks
Those too familiar faces you adapt to loathe
Not listening to banter just a shower and my herbal tea
Off to do revision is my excuse to wonder why I
Accept it and go on tomorrow's dawn is bright
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
*It's 3 P.M, Sitting, staring at the reruns of Jeopardy and Seinfield
a microwave steak and some potatoes
sit gingerly on the tray, crunchy and frozen....
It's 5 P.M., a bottle of room temperature beer
cuddles itself around my hands
some potato chips spread across my lap.....
the television remote and I sit inches apart
yet, the separation feels like miles
It's 7 P.M., cold, rusty water pelts my naked flesh
the bath towels feel like steel wool
every little fiber, scratching and tearing at my skin
the soap is as tough as rubber......
It's 9 P.M, bed bugs have swarmed my mattress
scratching and biting, I smash one and a million more follow
some are flat and dry and some explode with leaking blood....
It's 11 P.M. I slip into my dungarees, there's a ***** spot
in the middle of the seams.... my shovel is rusty....
the van leaks exhaust and it bleeds gasoline
It's 1 A.M., I gaze at the tombstones and they gaze back
a foggy midst looms from the hills, it's raining....
a flash of lighting strikes, bright as the sun itself
thunder rumbles the earth.....
It's 3 A.M., strolling by the red light district
a back alley ******* no condoms....
ten dollars for one hour, twenty for two
I only have five.....
It's 5 A.M. the sun begins to rise
beer bottles pilled at my door
saliva, drying at the seams of my mouth....
back into my bug infested abode.....*
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
Meadow of dancing dandelions
Waving, olive shreds of grass
I lay beneath ocean skies of blue
sun embrace, like a painted scarf
Tree spirits and faeries whisper
the birds are singing to the bees
In the warmth of summer sun
flow secrets on a gentle breeze
I lay beneath the apple tree
dungarees, straw hat and smile
I could lay here for my lifetime
But instead I'll stay a while
Aug 17, 2011
Aug 17, 2011 at 5:58 PM UTC
Along a dusky road, tail lights glare ahead—
Glowing, beastly eyes of some ****** origin.
There is no going
To be done. The heart and hum of motion has died
And drifted far along the blistering wind.
Pungent smells of death plume
With night-blackened smoke,
The foul breath of burning tires and gasoline sludge.
The air is acrid with it all.
Yellow men in hats and heavy dungarees
Wheel in their stock of the river
And let the blaze drink it dry
With unquenchable thirst.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 12:28 PM UTC
He sat in faded dungarees
Old slouch hat on balding head
Said "write the words for me boy
There's words that must be said"
I did my time and paid the price
For a drug filled violent youth
I thought I was the main man
And had a role to keep
You know what I mean
Anyway son I pulled a gun and shot him in the head
Then laughed at his crying wife and kids
As he took his last dying breath
I walked away without a second glance
After all he should have shown respect
Respect! Yeah I was the main man on the street
Anyway for thirty years I pondered what I'd done
Eventually came to realize
Only notoriety comes from the barrel of a gun
Inside I was nothing
All ill gained fame was gone
Now just a number wearing leg irons
Cutting weeds beneath the sun
Tell them for me boy
That it just ain't worth the cost
Write the words I tell you
Get the message out there
Before more young boys are lost
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 6:48 AM UTC
Black as hell against this white canyon.
She’s waiting for me.
Still there.
In amongst soap and shampoo
Still.
Armed with traps and tangles;
I shall not succumb.
I shall set her free.
It is she who’s trapped not me and she doesn’t even know it.
I can take her from this barren abyss. Her attempts are futile.
Richness awaits her,
more than just the dripping tap.
So
I stand naked.
My belly brushes against harsh coldness,
a glass and photograph in hand and I shiver from the open window.
I am bending forward.
My skin pricked tight,
I am not a coward,
I have her. She put up no fight.
Covering all my family.
So close to her black belly we’re smiling in summer heat,
wearing baseball caps and dungarees.
I tilt the glass, I caught her leg.
Lingering we stare at each other.
Her hairy black, my fleshy pink;
like a sweet.
I could have killed her.
Out of the window she falls.
It’s dark. I’m sure she’s fine.
All that’s left behind
is the fine web.
Hung from shower head to plug.
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 6:21 PM UTC
There was this cat-
before I was exclusively a dog person.
He lived in the house next to my Nan’s,
and she said he only ever came into her garden
when I was there-
he sensed me.
I used an old hairbrush
to caress his fur and I
pushed him up and down the warm
concrete in my purple pram.
‘August 1994’ is written on the
back of the clearest photograph of us.
My dungarees are bold
and brazen roses-
his patterns are tangible through
my chubby little hands
both of us have pride on our small faces.
I wish I remembered him.
Apr 25, 2022
Apr 25, 2022 at 5:32 AM UTC
I mean what I say/
I say what I mean/
A pro with these nouns
My verbs so keen/
A word Smith at your service
A shop Steward Indeed/
My adjectives are objective
Some would say Im a thief/
The way I pocketed these words
I guess it's in my Genes/
Down ***** verbally
a factory
Like a sub machine/
Magazine Illustrated with
Pragmatics and morphemes/
Soiled the seed cultivated
To rise like submarines/
Over-Alls
That fabric
is tailored made
Its all me/
No cut
the whole cloth
Endless from seem to seem/
Seem less
One of the toughest dungarees!
Sep 12, 2016
Sep 12, 2016 at 11:01 AM UTC
The day you called me ****** lover
was the afternoon of my dissent
from the back alley boys club
and rolled dungaree territories
marked off down where the long
lines of chain link bend right
where the churchyard intervenes
between us and the snowball stand.
You might think you whipped me tight
but my decision to include a new friend
that dipped jars in the crick for tadpoles
behind the brick young family roads
was mine to make and that black eye
and ****** nose to this very day
this very night remains.
Don't be knocking on techno's door
for a shot of stale whiskey and fond golden
shots of what we were when we weren't
and will never be. Yea, you posted
that pic of the back alley boys
shirtless, hairless, rolled dungarees
all smiling like jack rabbits on the run,
But it was Michael, Michael that showed
me how a tadpole becomes a frog.
It was Michael that rode the Comet
at Hershey with me, alone, because
we couldn't or wouldn't run
with the back alley boys who still
don't know what they've done.
Aug 1, 2019
Aug 1, 2019 at 6:56 PM UTC
How to tell a joke
-Advice given to a Lady-
PREAMBLE-
Know your audience Know your subject
PREPARATION: WRITE out your joke in full,
read it aloud many times.
REMOVE all diversions, inconsequential and trivial.
CHECK for confused references
ENSURE you have a command of the required terminology.
DO Laugh at other people's jokes before attempting your own (this is called 'seeding')
Get the round in before attempting your joke.
. Try not to get out of your depth
AVOID sporting, scientific or technical references-
limit your choice to *** and fashion.
Political issues may only result in your being confused.
DO Laugh at other people's jokes before attempting your own (this is called 'seeding')
Get another round in before telling your joke.
DO not sweat.
Practice brevity
Remove 25% of what's left
Remain calm
Remember to blink
EVENT- Style is everything:
delivery is more so
-
PRACTICE eye contact
AVOID staring continually at the same person
DO not wear checked shirts, dungarees or men's boots
DO not mumble
DO not rush delivery
LEARN to lower your vocal pitch
REMEMBER to breathe
DO not show signs of fear
Practice brevity
Remove 25% of what's left
Remain calm
Ask a chap about posture
Ask a chap for advice
Ask a chap for his approval
Try to relax
AVOID tearing-up beer-mats
DO not fidget
DO not under ANY circumstances cough - burp - stammer, pass wind,
or giggle hysterically during the performance.
Turn OFF your mobile 'phone.
Try NOT to look nervous.
POST SHOW- Do not apologize for your effort
Do not cry
Do not attempt an encore
re-edit
words Tommy Carroll
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 4:16 PM UTC
Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 2
Would You Like a Downgrade?
I.
“Everything I own I’m carrying on my back,”
A shipmate said wonderingly that last day
In the recruit barracks. And it was so:
Two sets of dungarees, one pair of shoes,
Two sets of Undress Blue and then one set
Of Dress Blue B, one pair of sneaks, one pair
Of this, more sets of that, a ditty bag
Of Personal Hygiene Articles,
Officially and carefully approved,
All in a new seabag.
It was enough.
How much does a man need in order to die?
II.
And now we carry mortgages, jobs, books,
Televisions, cars, hunting rifles, clocks,
Lawnmowers, bills, Sunday suits, Monday shoes,
Plastic boxes that light up and make noise,
Fences that need repair, cats to the vet,
Air conditioners, chainsaws, queen-sized beds,
Closets that need sorting out, chests of drawers
Of things we never needed anyway,
Cameras, clawhammers, pens, reading lamps,
Scissors, and writing paper.
It is too much.
How much does a man need in order to live?
Nov 4, 2017
Nov 4, 2017 at 3:28 PM UTC