"euros" poems
The gin and juice on my lips
What could be better than this?
Going around the cities like a homeless
Meeting some strangers, smokers, players
(Do you have a cigarette?
Yeah, of course, you naughty girl)
It's so easy to be wrong and bad
If I'm wrong I don't wanna be right
Could you make me high and dope?
I'm too drunk to walk
So let's have a ride in nightly cities
And the gin I had wasn't that bad, so I had one more
He gave me 50 euros, so we gotta get drunk
What a badass
It's time to leave my daddies
And forgot my shameless past
Maybe it's time to get drunk
What about gin and juice?
It's so easy to be wrong and bad
If I'm wrong I don't wanna be right
Could you make me high and dope?
I'm too drunk to walk
So let's have a ride in nightly cities
Don't wake me up
I don't want to cry myself to sleep
I just want to say goodbye to Flora's era
It's so easy to be wrong and bad
If I'm wrong I don't wanna be right
Could you make me high and dope?
I'm too drunk to walk
So let's have a ride in nightly cities
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC
This is the very first of my "Barry Hodges' Memories" poems.
People think that Amsterdam is an exciting city,
Full of life, full of fun, full of cheap beer and drugs
And easy to buy thrilling ******** **** films galore.
But there is another side to this Dutch metropolis
Believe me, I know, I have been there, squire,
And I have seen it in all its drug-filled horror.
I was there one balmy eve, just off the Leidseplein,
With my older brother, a kind and gentle man
(although physically not very pretty),
When a gang of Surinamese youths,
Sky-high on crack ******* or whatever filth,
Attacked us, mugged us, use what words you wish,
It doesn't matter, the result was the same.
And they left him lying there in the gutter,
His skull cracked and seriously brain-damaged,
And for what, I hear a myriad voices query,
Well only a few hundred lousy over-valued Euros.
He dragged out a miserable half-alive existence,
For a few Hellish months in the city hospital;
Dear God, I shall not be going to Amsterdam again
(with or without a Dutch cap, may I add tentatively).
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
31 | 31 Poems for August 2017
There’s something exquisite about your smile, your brown eyes have got me hypnotised, and your heart is a gold mine.
I’m addicted to everything you say and do, so be my poet and I’ll be your muse.
We’ll figure out everything else once we’ve found something to do between our sporadic bursts of laughter.
Let me comfort you with soulful conversations accompanied by several bottles of red wine.
We could vibe out and listen to James Blake, and you could tell me about the days when you couldn’t see the colour in anything.
I’m no stranger to the waves of the ocean, so I eventually want to get lost in the depths of you.
You are a picturesque South African city worth exploring even when tourists no longer come to visit.
Their dollars, euros, pounds, nairas and rupees may run dry but my love for you will keep overflowing.
I could write poetry and love letters on your skin but my handwriting is not as beautiful as my words are.
I’ll be your poet in a world that’s still acquainting itself with all the writers of exquisite African literature.
In the Supreme Court of your love, people have told you untruths while under oath – I think the law calls it perjury.
We could vibe out and listen to James Blake, and you could teach me how you see the colour in everything.
I want to get lost in an endless field of sunflowers while basking in the warmth of your presence.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 2:49 PM UTC
Bonn Prostitutes working the streets
now pay twice for displaying their treats.
Not content with the tax they extort,
for plying the world's oldest profession.
Now Politicians, ****** of a sort,
want more money despite the recession.
Now to make the sin tax yield sweeter
Certain streets now have ********** meters.
Six Euros a night is the rate
for these girls who have more than one “date”
So if your “dame des abends” says “Antreiben! ”
as the clocks ticking down on the evening.
She has a legitimate worry
in telling her"boyfriend" to hurry.
In Bonn, the meter is running
and only the meter maid’s coming!
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 4:51 PM UTC
The tour guide was usually a taxi-driver,
But for a few extra Euros, he was my guide.
Jobs are scarce.
For two hours we toured Yeats Country,
Me, sitting beside this man of letters, and for once,
Enjoying the drive and not the anxiety
On Irish roads.
They're narrow and winding to Ben Bulben,
With stops at neolithic stone circles, burial mounds,
Passageways and, A Fairy's Fort.
The culmination was Drumcliff Churchyard
Where I was to prove his existence.
He has an unassuming stone,
One usually doesn't linger long,
But my Guide stood beside me,
And suddenly recited,
The Fiddler of Dooney.
I was sure it was Yeats' accent,
This unassuming poet.
I did as bid,
I
Cast a cold eye,
And stood glad that
I
Wasn't him,
As I stopped,
Before passing by.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
When I was 18 I learned a lesson in jewelry:
A pocketwatch that taught about loss
that was never mine to lose.
I borrowed the euros I paid for it.
Most loss is something felt by ranchers
and bankers
and stock brokers.
Because they own the things they have.
You are not mine and so I cannot lose you.
That's free sadness
and free happiness, too.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 8:12 PM UTC
1 Iron-bodied, you stand giant;
a thousand feet into the air, rigid
metal swaying in the wind.
2 Neck-breaking,
3 Sears Tower -- world-reflecting, glass-paned --
eclipses you, yet pales in your shadow.
4 Your ironwork: murky, camouflage brown
in the daylight, beautiful only by the twinkling dusk.
5 Prostrated, the multitudes hope to ascend,
flashes melding with the hourly light show --
6 Capture the splendor across the city!
7 L'Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysee, Notre Dame, ...
8 Euros squandered in trite gift shops,
9 -- Attention les pickpockets! --
10 Key chains, pens, 4 by 6 postcards...
Miss you loads. Wish you were here.
11 I climbed you. And now? 12 I watch
from Trocadero; fountains alive, illusions in place
but observed from afar, removed; 13 Apart
from the greedy, flocking masses.
14 One day, you will fall, and with you
the congregations that kneel before you
to wait in the line of impatient,
shoving, babbling, 15 Hallelujah tourists.
16 And when your feral echoes
fade to rubble on the crucified pelouse,
17 We at the grand marble square
will blink and miss it and wonder:
18 Were you ever there at all?
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 12:04 PM UTC
Everything had a place,
neatly tied up, zipped in the case.
The handle extended ready for
the station;
a one way train to a working vacation.
She stole the tickets before he’d gone, hid them away to deceive and prolong.
Over there where street names are art
and the coffee barista, 24-hour-bars
sit brimming like every star or
burning ember,
found within iron clad, raw splendour;
is where he wants to sit and reside,
to write about the commuter tide.
Books will live on reclaimed shelves,
stacked high like Tokyo, midnight hotels,
ordered by tears shed
and poetically written lines,
not alphabetically
or in genre kinds.
There, for 900 Euros a month,
with a deposit to be paid up front and all at once,
windows look out onto windows-
tenants do the same; but
this time smiling, mid-browse,
mid-game.
She stole everything he wanted to regain,
so parried her move
and took off in the rain,
to the nearest station
to the first train.
No ticket was held in his left wet hand,
just a Howl for the planned
and one for the descent, to the
north-of-the-river
Three Brothers apartment.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 1:46 PM UTC
In Ireland we had built a truly independent nation,
standing proud after years of strife and deprivation
But we yearned to join Europe, enticed by her charms,
and she was happy to welcome us, with open arms
Once we used to have pounds, shillings and pence,
when we joined Europe we adopted euros and cents,
We bought in to a single European currency,
and got loads of money, for everything a subsidy
Yes Europe proved to be extraordinarily generous,
the goose that kept laying golden eggs for us
Our government went mental with the money Europe kept sending,
it appeared this generosity was never ending
And our banks joined in with unprecedented lending,
we the people were happy, ah the money we were spending
We threw caution to the wind, it was pure insanity,
we paid ridiculous prices for even the smallest property
Mortgages and loans were given out like sweets,
credit cards with no limit for those occasional treats
Yes the borrowing and spending went on unabated,
sure why wouldn’t it, it was completely unregulated.
There was so much money, loans were so easy to get,
each one of us accumulated a serious amount of debt
Most of us were living way beyond our means,
had we sold our souls for a handful of beans?
Such was our success, other nations did applaud,
we bought new houses and cars and apartments abroad
Credit cards and loans bought so much other stuff,
one could be forgiven for thinking we could never have enough
We changed as a people, became quite materialistic,
we wanted so many things that were beyond realistic
we forgot what was important, which was really quite sad,
judging each other it seemed now by how much each had
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 9:26 AM UTC
I puzzle you as I try to avoid stepping on the cracks of the
cobble stone streets of Paris and raise my camera to my eye to
frame a picture of the Pont de l’Archevêché and catch
lovers eating each other’s faces out in the left third of my shot.
-
Can you say “très dégoûtant”?
-
I harass my family for days about how we need to purchase a lock
from the vendors of Paris and eternally inscribe our family love onto it
with a black Sharpie from America, that would mean the world to me
and they shook their heads, not understanding why I was so enthralled with this
notion of love.
-
They didn’t know I was falling out of love in the city of love and locking my
nineteen-year-old heart’s impressions onto a bridge, but with our family name on it like a mask to cover up the unreturned love that burned in my chest each day
for two months while I wrote poems to forget him.
-
It is not until my parents leave my brother and I to wander about the Musée d’Orsay
on our own tick tock desire and dollar, where we take in the sun set and clock frame
I can recognize from a black and white photograph my mother took when she came
and I almost trip over the rope that protects a Monet—
-
“Excusez-moi!” I almost scream—
-
that I instigate a scheme to leave my mark upon Paris.
By the second to last day of our trip here, I find myself
finally sure that lover’s pain is all too real but
family blood is the only thing that escapes that scrape.
I want our name on the locks of this city, where people write
the dates that they have placed their love on the bridge
and occasionally admit a second date onto the lock
when they come back with their continued lovers.
And it is the most wonderful, lovely secret ever shared with me,
I think, as I peruse the sea of locks on either side of me, later that night,
my brother and I take the lock and key purchased for three Euros and write
our names and date on one side, leaving room for my mother and father and
other brother to find themselves and their love and put it on the lock too one day.
-
Then, we threw our key into the River Seine and I walked away
with my mark left on Paris.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
Are you?
Propounding Pounds
Dealing in Dollars
Eulogizing Euros
Dwelling in Dinars
Rolling in Rupees
Enlisting Yens
Whose exchange value is nil
In honey combed heaven
Or horrendous hell
What so ever, whom so ever
Be it an empowered emperor
Or any contemptuous contemporary
Only valid currency in heaven
Is pure Conduct and Character
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 9:07 AM UTC
Hier soir près de l'Opéra une jeune femme m'accoste et me demande si je n'ai pas cinquante centimes d'euros. Nous nous regardons. Je réponds: "non, désolée". Elle dit : "que Dieu vous bénisse". La jeune femme repart. Ses cheveux, sa voix, sa démarche. Cette jeune femme je la connais. Je n'ai pas pris le temps de le lui dire.
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 11:57 AM UTC
We're living in a world like the matrix. All we can do is try to make sense of one another's actions and be patient. Reality truly is only what you make it to be. Everything you see is energy, neither created, or destroyed. When we deployed our troops overseas did we ever see the underlying reason. Too many of us are more concerned with the shifting of seasons (The news.) Sometimes I believe it's the eye in the pyramid, then I remember that evil is what you make it, that's why I became a Mason. Its ironic that Saddam was going to sell the oil for Euros. Then Bush came into power and the federal bureau blew up the towers only hours later, we as a nation received confirmation that Iraq was our target for invasion. But how can we blame them as we fuel our cars with the blood soaked tar sands from this foreign land that none of us care to know. Why should we show compassion for fallen soldiers that gave their lives so we would have automobiles that drive. It seems that our demise was prophesied way back in biblical times. I don't find it likely that we'll open our eyes to the lies fed to us from birth. This is my home, this is planet, Earth.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 4:28 AM UTC
we could have the summers in italy
the peaches in paradise
the dawns and the dusks and our toes in the sand
but we're doing the vtc and ecstasy
listening to scratched disks and taking shots of drain water
dreamers only think in French you tell me
so i chant the words
je veux tout in my head
i want the nutmeg stuck on the walls in my nose
and your moans in my ear till 4 after midnight
i want the silk sheets wrapped around my neck
the tongues in my mouth
i want to get familiarized with the richness
when a balenciaga shoe hits me and the euros are in my bloodstream
i want to be used to it
the velvet carpets and red lingerie
the colosseum and vatican city
busboys with scruffy berets
expensive wine in busted hotels
chocolate fondue and burnt pasta at the cartels
michelangelo's david and authentic fur coats
tramps and 2 dollar bills down your throat
throwing ash trays at the sistine chapel
gifts of china tea cups and diamond rings to forget the scandals
fat cigars and the bonnie and clyde lifestyle
i want it all in italy baby
je veux tout
je veux tout
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC
He met her at a bar
in San Pellegrino
Yeah, like the water
but there was more wine
than water there
She was flicking a guitar
that she called "Bambino"
Her papa taught her
but she wasn't the kind
so easy to share
They slept inside his car
outside an old casino
The nights were hotter
than he'd ever find
anywhere
He said she'd be a star
but what the hell did he know?
**** gypsy daughter
broke into his mind
then left him there
She could only go so far
on his euros incognito
The polizia caught her
the guitar left behind
she'd tied him to a chair
She'd emptied out his jar
and his last good cigarillo
Shouldn't a brought her
she's serving time
Bambino in his care
He met her in a bar
in San Pellegrino
He said she'd be a star
what the hell did he know?
Aug 12, 2010
Aug 12, 2010 at 11:42 PM UTC
Are you?
Propounding Pounds
Dealing in Dollars
Eulogizing Euros
Dwelling in Dinars
Rolling in Rupees
Enlisting Yens
Whose exchange value is nil
In honey combed heaven
Or horrendous hell
What so ever, whom so ever
Be it an empowered emperor
Or any contemptuous contemporary
Only valid currency in heaven
Is pure Conduct and Character
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 9:53 AM UTC
I wanted to end it all,
To finish what had begun
But the cost of living,
Has sky rocketed up
Bullet
Knife
Rope
Aren't as cheap as they
Once were,
The Cost of taking a life
Dollars,
Pounds,
Euros,
Where ever you are
The cost got to
"Much"
Who ever said that death was
"Cheap,"
Has got to much to live for to give a
****
I wanted a bullet,
To end this joke,
I wanted one, they said
Lead has gone up,
Two
For
One,
Life's cruel joke,
Is it wasn't funny enough,
I may as well live
Through the
Good,
&
Bad,
Because suicide
Just got too expensive,
Its a rich guys playing field now..
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 4:56 PM UTC
Are you?
Propounding Pounds
Dealing in Dollars
Eulogizing Euros
Dwelling in Dinars
Rolling in Rupees
Enlisting Yens
Whose exchange value is nil
In honey combed heaven
Or horrendous hell
What so ever, whom so ever
Be it an empowered emperor
Or any contemptuous contemporary
Only valid currency in heaven
Is pure Conduct and Character
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
It’s over, all over.
Our dreams have faded away.
Blackest January sadness blights July.
England beaten by Croatia
In The World Cup.
We reached the semi final
For the first time since 1990
Only to lose in extra-time:
Failing to see the danger
With our very youthful eyes.
So much to be proud of.
So much better than before.
We should have scored a hat-full,
But see the final score:
(One – two).
I really do hate losing
Whatever I watch or play.
It really will be ages
Before this pain fades away.
My defeats I long remember,
It’s from these things I learn.
Seeking to be a winner,
My inner passions burn.
We’re building to the Euros,
On in two year’s time.
Well ahead of schedule,
So losing’s not a crime.
The World Cup stays way out there,
Hopefully just on loan,
For in the hearts of England
Football has come home.
Paul Butters
© PB 12\7\2018.
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 7:02 AM UTC
Boys you missed this time
And the last penalty took you out
But next year is the world cup
There years time we can take a shot
At the Euros again
Good luck
Good night
Jul 11, 2021
Jul 11, 2021 at 6:28 PM UTC
Without fail, I receive plenty of coupons in the mail
Everyday whether it's rain, snow, or hail they're delivered and received like wind to a sail
These discounts add up to savings of tremendous amounts
Of dollars, euros, or pounds
If I was a vampire on Sesame Street, I still couldn't count
What they say out loud never explains the fine print
Cause the pay won't make you proud and the left over pain charges rent
A trip to a dream world only ghosts imagine
The script seams curled and only boasts something tragic
You were promised a trip to heaven
And heaven is where you end up right after your murdered in front of 7-11
But before your ascension to the pearly gates
A pit stop in hell is what your contract states...
The neglect of human life is what you didn't expect, but despair shows no regret
Don't forget... before you accept
Your ticket to heaven promises a pit stop in hell
-J.A.M
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 2:40 AM UTC
Find a plastic love somewhere in the Savannah
Dont find a metal love,
those rust
I'm moving countries if I ever go anywhere with what I'm doing
Maybe go from hotel to hotel, city to city when I'm in my prime of years
Dollars to Euro
Euros to Rupees
Rupees to Pesos
Inhale the air of every continent
My mom told me I'm the brightest out of my brother and sister
I laughed in disbelief
Girl to girl isn't so much fun, I learned
I love new faces, I just don't like getting used to seeing them
I love yours
Permanent hickeys on your pale skin would be scary, your chest would be covered in them by now
I'll answer truthfully to anything now, used to lie a lot
I got over it
Water is water, but people drink Fiji like if it made life a lot better
Sometimes when I'm at home and have nowhere to go I look at my friends snapchat stories, I write about what kind of vibe the place has
A few sentences doesn't make it justice
Nothing really gives any justice, I dont know if its supposed to be that way or maybe I don't know the right words to describe it
One day I'll meet Schoolboy Q and we'll cruise to his old stuff, atleast they'll be old then
Then again music never gets old
"The Purge" always gets me in the mood to do something illegal, I don't really do anything about it
The mood is cool though
I feel so Friday after a long week of school
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
I keep writing the spaces between heartbeats,
I keep touching the things that aren't real,
I keep saying how I'm going to change into something,
I keep erasing the lines that I've written before,
and when will I write for myself.
it takes skyscrapers filled with polaroids
it takes little white lies and telegraphs
it takes reflective puddles of gasoline
it takes armfuls of daisies and paisley print napkins
it takes princes and paupers and slurpees and silver
plated bracelets and philosophical books and memories
of people sitting on cracked green-brown bus seats
it takes things I knew and throws them away; it takes crispy hot nights
when cheekbones are sweating and boys who know nothing
of what they want filling their hearts up with and euros in pennies and sitting
on six clouds of old medications and basements with just too much dust.
it's a matter of time,
it's matter of perspective,
it's a snapshot hold-back parallel circle of constant irrevocable dimensions of porch swings
and merry go rounds undeniably irritatingly provokingly making me sick.
swish swish go cassette tapes I keep within reach
I can pull out their insides and stretch out the tape to reach to the moon
past the treetops and over the sun and into my head while I sleep.
someday I'll tinker with those that dream nothing,
and someday I'll write for myself.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 6:32 AM UTC
1.) Our US based Clients have recently begun negotiating/implementing changes to the terms of our Purchasing Agreements that will allow them the ability to pay in currencies other than the US Dollar. Usually, the most requested forms of payment are now in either RMB/Yuan, Euros, Rubles, or Dinars.
2.) Tied to this, we have also noticed that our US based Clients are relocating their payment centers out of the US, usually from New York. Instead, we are now being told that we will need to be invoicing our US Clients through their new payment offices, located in such places as Dubai, Singapore or more times than not; Hong Kong. Also, those same individuals/Department VPs, usually based out of New York, we are now finding, have also suddenly relocated to these various countries in order to set up their new payment centers.
The companies involved are household names.
So if they are starting to diversify their payment centers away from using US Dollars, we (meaning I and my Chinese partner), can only assume that they know something is coming and that being tied to a US Dollar based transaction could place them at a competitive disadvantage.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 2:06 PM UTC