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Busbar Dancer May 2018
People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.
ln Apr 2015
F for the fistfights I was asked to sit out of, because I was born with a different set of genitals
E for the equal rights I've been begging for, only to be let down time and over again
M for all the military applications that weren't even reviewed, because I seemed unfit for not having a pair of nuts
I for the inferno that you made me feel, fighting so hard to be a pilot that was obviously only ' a man's job '
N for the number of convictions the guy who ***** his girlfriend didn't have to face, because the way she dressed up showed that she "wanted"it
I for all the immoral stares that I couldn't counter back for the fear of your lawyers defending you saying it was a friendly one, for the fear of you blaming the shorts and crop top that I picked out for that lovely Sunday
S for all the standards that women themselves set for themselves, ***** standards; I'll do what I want and say what I want, I'll eat what and I want and dress the way that I feel like I need to, I'll wear bikinis that probably doesn't flatter my body and height but you know what? I don't give two flying f**ks
M for the mortals   that made it necessary for feminism to even exist
Hey, one kick to your nuts and you'd never see daylight again

sit down.
Evan Stephens Nov 2017
Silver-sided rattle,
a humble streak climbing
the hill in small doses.
Blue teardrop seats,
steel and yellow poles,
broad-eyed windows that offer
the view of things that the subway
will never give.

I've seen fistfights,
a baby born, overdoses,
old women falling asleep,
old men screaming wordlessly,
junkies scrambling for pills
dropped underfoot,
tourists grappling with the geometry
of this unknown language,
all of it.

Vibrating with a menacing stumble,
it attracts everyone. It promises
a view and a destination.
It's better to go through the world
than to sink below it.
Mariel Ramirez Sep 2013
It's hard to be good at life, even if we try. Sometimes, the ladder you're standing on falls, and sometimes, you're not only fallen but broken. When you scream in pain and find you're alone. Life does that. Even if we try.

Too often people whose eyes and hearts and souls are vacant try to empty us likewise.

We look out the window to find we missed the sunset. And instead, gray skies unfold sadly, sad but screaming of coming rain.

When screaming causes you pain yet still the volume is turned up. Your shoulders keep getting bumped. When you're in a slump, you get kicks instead of a lift. And fall down Alice's rabbithole. Or not. Where you land is no wonderland.

See. Even if we try, and the only bad we do is cry, the only harm we cause is to ourselves, it seems there are more lessons for us to learn, more ways we can get burned. It seems, we haven't been thoroughly hurt.

I'm still looking for reasons; though in me is all the evidence, that the world has a grudge against humans. What is so wrong about us...?

That girl who smiles, taking the hand of the old lady beside her, they are both dying -- she, of cancer. A man with a woman with cheekbones and crudely cut hair, towing three laughing kids in a wheeled wooden cart. The young lady who only wanted to go after her dreams -- who was full of potential, is now just full of unshed tears and broken pieces, the faded light that was hope; who should have been a star, prays to burn in hell or whatever's waiting.

But I know that she is beautiful. I know that his heart is as big as the world. I know that she cares, that she dares, that she's brave.

I used to think we were made of the galaxy, but it is cold, unrelenting, and, we couldn't be farther from that. We are suffering. But our tears are diamonds, our sweat – liquid gold, our blood - something greater than the universe. And our hearts our hearts our hearts! It is the mother of everything for which there are no words.

And while I question practically everything (the beauty of life, the wisdom of kings), I have never doubted the pure wonder of the human soul. While I don't know that it gets better, I know that we deserve better. Let's make it so that prayers work again, that there are such things as friends. No more backbites or fistfights, no more rejection, insecurity, glossy eyes that hold back waterfalls. May the rainbows be hope instead of lies. And when you're down, a helping hand instead of a kick to the side. Let's do what we can, so that no one might ever again so truthfully wish their life to end. Care. Help. Love. You shouldn't wait to enter heaven if you haven't tried to bring it down to earth.
Coop Lee Oct 2014
rotting horse carcass.
green glowing filament by moonlight ******
& mistrust us.
radioactive drums of waste &/or dreams.
boys swimming.

fistfights at night
by headlight & tooth crackle. (spit) then bonfire pallets
lit & danced upon.
plumes
of gas-can outcries.

the days & abuelitas
& ghosts
pinched cheek - pinched cooler - grandaddy
on the grill.
his gasping yellow dogs.

judy is in the underbrush with a walkie-talkie
& a p.b.j.
desmond leaps from high rocks; he
descends into another world by way of molecular-mishap.
dove deep.
riding the portal boar.

wasps hover above spilt wine
& declare war upon brothers with b.b. guns
& firecrackers
& spf 50+. the saturday/sunday sagas
between beams of heat laughter breakdowns
to knees, to bees,
honey.

homecoming queen dead & wrapped
in plastic.
body found with
turtle bites.
fungi.
the slabs of granite.
old iron tractors bent & held by tree wives.
toast.
jam hewn hwedges of crisped bread.
previously published in Deluge Magazine by Radioactive Moat Press
http://www.radioactivemoat.com/deluge-issue-three.html
Jonny Angel Dec 2013
This shady-bar
gave you more ***** than mixer,
cheap spirits & rot gut elixirs flowed,
some did lines of flake on the teak.
By eight, most dates were sloppy drunk,
buzzed, frazzled to the gills,
schmoozing the feline-walk,
talking ****, listening to
Floyd or Skynyrd.
It was a circus of sorts.

Back in those days
we called the cops 'fuzz',
they'd make their rounds
every couple of hours,
it made it look like they were
using tax-dollars wisely,
but we students knew better,
******* establishment.

The parking lot was a mix
of racetrack & boxing ring.
Cars jammed, roared,
cruised, honked
their way
through the fistfights.

Once, I saw two sweet-babes,
real rough-cats scratch and claw
themselves to near death.
The flowered-blouse
on one was ripped clean off,
one of her ***** hung out,
it looked bruised.
Blood streamed down
both of their faces,
ruining their mascara.

When I look back,
it's quite amazing
any of us survived
that freaking place.
Now come to think of it,
the last time
I saw my buddy Marcus
was outside that
nasty-drinking-establishment.
He was ******* amongst
the drunks & excrement.
I really wonder how he survived,
if he made it out of that city
in one piece,
alive.
Lost Left Shoe Jan 2014
My heart was pieced together like a patchwork
Just like the rest of me
Made from parts of ticking time-bombs
Stitched and stapled together in a mass of voracious viscosity
Violently vilifying the way
The thread streams me seamlessly
from one person to the next
Each feeling they will be the center-ring circus master
Until they realize
The sewing needle is simply passing through their square

The seamstress ran out of string with me
Resulting in relapse burlap fistfights along the edges
Left me searching for salvation each time
The bells chimed to open the day
Left me in the company of
Misshapen shadows hidden along broken back hallways
Back-and-forth handshakes to make sure
The other was still there

Night after night, staring at your creation in the window
But not during the day because monsters like the dark
It’s not that it’s easier to sneak and scare
I just know the faces of disgust and terror
And I don’t need that right now
When that’s the same face I want to rip from the mirror

That night should have been stormy
For all the things that I did
To your masterpiece
Pulling at strands like they were nooses around my neck
Each time like removing an iron bar from my cage
Until the burlap sack flew apart flapping like vultures
Leaving nothing but the sheep in scarecrow’s clothing
Unraveling my sense of time until the clock struck
3 times an echo

Once for the creation of your abhorrent abomination
Twice for your meticulous sense of the grotesque
And three times for putting a soul you saw unhappy
Into a prison so much worse


When I was on your bench
My words came choppily and broken
Because I couldn't finish a sentence
Without second guessing everything
Waiting for a punishment after every word
So I wouldn't interrupt
The beginning of your sentence
With the middle of mine

You put my heart together piece by piece
Cross-stitching over the years of my childhood
Connecting a pair of glasses with a two-tone sense of humor
Building a bridge between arms wide open and a shotgun blast
But now the words flow fluidly
Because now my thoughts are seamless
Put together skillfully like a seamstress’s caress
No more anticipating the end before the beginning
Now that I've come full circle
Max Neumann Aug 2020
I scratched lyrics into the walls of this dump they call joint
finally became a tree with branches, wrote new raps every night
working out like crazy, punched my hands into walls
just like oldboy, then i became steel, endlessly tough

as my lucky number, this eight
tizzops became more popular, but never an other
sticking out my chest, ******* away all stress
albanians against serbs, greeks against turks

everything broken, everything in shards
but then comes Marissa, and she's calming me
i'm getting calm, getting calm, become
the old tizzop again, a ******* and thief

but everybody likes me, I remain --
tizzops, spreading fistfights like the Klitschko's
and I'm the most faithful, when I really feel love
not just talking about females, all my brothers

get nuttin but respect, their souls are wit me
most peeps live rushing lives, in our rushing times
they talk briefly, cause they don't know their inner
i'm not ridiculing them, cause they simply lack the words

they are lost and questions are flowing out of their ears
since they have no brothers or sisters to lean on
lifestyle like a frantic slalom, but I'm not wit 'em
putting stickers on the franchise, just to get by

I dominate every day; like the magic of the night
my raps are mania for me, me, and for me
cause I love and I have *** with my lyrics
forever being a chaser: where is Jason, baby?

without him, I won't make it through the night
life is infinity like eight, I feed you a knuckle sandwich
can you hear my c**k whistling? dem are *******-songz
straight out of my *****, suddenly millions of fanz
See this poem being rapped:

instagram.com: tizzops tizzight

facebook.com/tizzop.tizzight
oni Jun 2015
we are covered
in scars
from internal
fistfights
that bled through
to the outside
Got Guanxi Jul 2015
I used to climb Trees

Out in broad daylight,
where we used to ride bikes,
My home time was defined by streetlights,
fistfights and first times.  

I used to play kick stone.
outside on the roads of my home. 
Scared of the dark when I was home alone. 
A sombre tone in those days. 

My cul-de-sac was a continent,
you couldn’t count the times 
we jumped hedges and jumped the brooks,
wider berths as we grew and beamed with confidence.

He grew up on the other side of the brook to me!

Exploration into dilapidated buildings,
to seek out lost felines for the £10 reward. 
One guy got stung by a bee nine times, 
he lived to tell the tale of course.

Thinking back sometimes, 
It was us who had nine lives,
playing on the tramlines and and swimming in high tides.
colliding with live wires and life lessons,

We built sandcastles and burnt them down,
in spaces of seconds.
Lost in imagination.
I stayed in the sea until my fingers wrinkled, 
but this happened more often in the bath if i’m honest.

It seemed so simple, 
within the borders of our town, in those days.
The good old days,
or so they say - 
but i don’t disagree with the sentiment of it all, if i’m honest. 

It’s a ghost town now,
Treehouse's and broken fences,
Sweet shops and trips to the dentist.
A playground apprentice,
like Dennis the menace,

Ernie and Bertie,
maybe.

The bell rang more times than I care to remember.

It symbolised the beginning of the next class rather than the end.
To some at least, i’m not quite sure precisely who.
But it always started in September. 

Those were the days, 
Kiss chase and roller skates 
missed chances and romances.
First dances and your first falls.

The sycamore tree got smaller,
but remains the exact same size.
The boys got a little bit taller,
some of us guys even became wise.

Life is full of surprises. 

We flew apart. 
The sun went down and we grew up.

And now I don't climb Trees anymore.
my best friend
Jon Tobias Apr 2011
I never meant to look like a ***** floor

I bend the laws of physics when I ask mirrors to change my own reflection

Have this ugly soul

pushin’ all my ugly buttons

Doubled  back on my last straw so many times

I’m pullin’ splintered strands of yellow

From my backstab wounds

Got prickly bits of blonde  

Sticking out from the places I missed

They healed there

Got shards of my own teeth in my tongue

Puncture holes in my lungs

Makes it hard to breathe sometimes

‘cause I am still healing

Don’t call me good

Or handsome

Or patient

I do everything I can to sabotage the love you give

Not that I don’t want it

I am just not ready

One time you told me I should love as often as I breathe

So I starting breathing as often as I love

And I almost die in the intervals between our phone calls

Grace is you lightening the pressure on my drowning head

Patience is me staying under when you do

God is a child with a finger pointed at my heart and laughing

And you are an angel when you turn out the bathroom light

So that I stop hating my own reflection

Remind me that we are defined by more than the choices we make

That I might still have all the scars from the cancer

And the fistfights

And that one time I tried to end it all too early

But this heart beats more than just a war drum

It beats a ******* army

Can hear it like giant rumble footsteps

Can hear it finally change directions

Away from all the chaos

Shattering mirrors below my heart feet

So much glass glittering

Looks like a river

Too many pieces to reflect anything but the sky

Reminds me

I am not done healing
Liz Carlson Dec 2021
these same negative thoughts are on an endless loop in my head,
not constant, but nearly,
any hint of sarcasm or negative comments about me begin the whole process of self-destruction and hatred in my head.
when i get out of the loop, i just feel tired and numb,
like i just got done with a fist fight and came away with a few bruises and cuts on my face and fists.
i believe in a God who heals, but its hard to hold on to hope and to see the good in myself when I feel like a constant burden due to these fistfights in my mind.
any positive affirmation feels like a bandaid put on my deep cuts and bruises, somewhat helpful but they can't fix the damage already done.
Austin Heath Apr 2014
If I was a drinker, I’d be dry on the rocks;
if I was an addict, I’d be dead.
I’m not proud enough to call myself a writer
and I barely scrape by with the title “poet”.
It’s not all the same, except it kind of is,
and if it’s all the same to you,
I’d rather be a maniac, or pure ****, with good definitions,
than another ignorant sack of **** with lazy reasoning
and a demeanor leaning towards believing
"I’m above it" really means you are truly above it.
If I was a gambler I’d go all in on my debt,
and wind up missing fingers and half my life
to say you truly believe in the things you say.
If I was a violent man, I’d start more fistfights,
and if I was more of an *******, I’d call you stupid.
However, I’m not the boxer taking the dive,
or the druggie nodding off on the transit,
or the gambler with his mortgage on a pair of jacks,
or the ******* that oppresses someone and plays the victim.
I’m not the writer that made it somewhere big enough
to ever be a has been, or a wash up. I’m a never-was.
To say this is a sad song implies it’s not comfortable.
I’m the *** of my own visions and dreams,
and all my streets and alleys are only seedy
because I wrote them that way.
At least I’m not pretending I’m above it,
while actively participating. Although, **** it,
I guess nobody can tell from a distance.
MV Blake Feb 2015
A badge without condition bought cheap, from a thrift store
Lies with brass medals and plastic ribbon, from uncaring hands.

A paid add on the paper floor, claps on the back from glad-hands,
Claps for marrying poor, she’s worth it, all her rotten core.

You walk with conceit, when the army stamped it’s boot,
A doctor’s note, before the sarge could break your seat.

Readies from your parent’s purse, a hand-out on the brew.
You queue for ****** on the roads in a pimped-out hearse.

Slurred words drawl from the dark, blood spit on the street,
Fistfights punctuate grammar like an exclamation mark.

You clone another you, spat from the womb cold;
A mother’s love wrapped in smoke of cozened blue.

There is no end to your ambition.
JM May 2014
Moldy coffee and ***** socks
fight for space among graying memories of memories as the dirge
in my head plays on.

It's like a hearing test that lasts every waking moment, this ******* ringing in my ears.

It's 3am again and death is in the air,
so close to home I feel the ancient heat
of leathery wings on my tired shoulders.

So tired

This tired body of mine,
I've really put it
through the ringer.
I've gotten some good miles
out of it.
The *******,
The car wrecks,
The *******,
The fistfights,
The beatings,
The *******,
The drugs
and the *****
and all that *****.
The mosh pits
and the miles walked
and all of those crazy
dangerous risks
all in the name of fun.

I should have died so many times

I didn't though.
I'm here.
I'm alive.
I'm still giving it
right back
to the *******
and getting all
the *** I can,
while I can.

Your God wants me to be happy

So I took the drugs
and the punches.
I walked for miles
and sat on the beaches
and woke up in holding cells
and found out what it
means to truly love
and felt what it's
like to die from
the inside out.

I've been at one with every
molecule in the universe
that ever has been
and will be.
I've seen the spirits lights
while the first ones
sang and drummed as I
wept in the dark.

I've felt shame
and fear
and loss of hope;
hunger pangs
mingled with glorious
hallucinations.

Life is but a dream

Really though,
dearest,
none of that matters
when I'm alone
at 3 am.
I stole the title from Raygan Keller
Kris Fireheart Dec 2019
I've felt the cold,
Of winter midnights.
The things you see,
Upon the streets.

I've lived through guns,
So many fistfights,
And all the things
They did to me...

It ain't the same,
Every morning...
Somebody new
Wakes up as me...

And I don't know,
Just where I'm going...
All I know,
Is that I'm free!

There are no chains!
Upon me!
There are no chains!
Upon me!

Well, I can see,
The stars now,
And I know what lies
Beyond...

Cause only glory
Waits for me there,
And all the things,
Of which I'm fond...

Another glass you
Raise to me!
For when I'm dead,
And when I'm gone...

But you remember
What I say,  now!
Cause we'll be friends
Long when we're gone...

And I can see it...
That gray day.
And I can smell it!
That horrible rain!
But I don't feel it...
There's no more pain.

And nothing,
Will ever be the same...
A bluesy freestyle I recorded  the other night.
JB Claywell Aug 2016
Somewhere along the way
we forgot to tell you that
this isn’t always fun,
that writing, like Hemingway
said, is akin to bleeding.

Apparently we forgot to mention
that, like Selby says, it doesn’t
take much to do this; it only takes
everything you have.

I know for me, more often
than I would care to admit,
I’m still writing out my horrible
fears, feelings of inadequacy,
intense depressions, memories
of fistfights in boy’s rooms of
elementary schools, middle schools
and high schools all over this city.

That **** doesn’t just go away, you know.
But, writing about it helps.
Hell, writing about anything helps,
but it’s not always fun.

Sometimes it feels like drowning in a barrel of tar.

I will never forget watching my daughters be born dead,
I will never forget seeing my wife’s puffy, tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes,
I will never forget what I did to deal with what I saw, with how helpless
it all made me feel, how inadequate I was as a husband, as a parent, as
a partner.

I couldn’t fix any of it. I couldn’t take any of it away, but there was one thing…

I could write.
I could bleed ink.
And, I did.

I bled decibels too.
I took these notebooks full of bile,
of misery, of near insanity, to a bookshop
with a PA and a live microphone.

I used that microphone to spread my disease
as far as the soundwaves would carry it.
I wanted infection, secretion;
I wanted a ******* pandemic.

What I learned was that doing this;
writing it out, spitting it out, throwing it out
in small rooms full of people with their own stories
made my stories tangible, alive to an audience of my peers.

Going further back in time, I can recall a pretty clumsy
****** experience.

That girl, in her father’s Winnebago,
she told me that she wanted to do it just to
see if I could, and I could.
She was done with me before whatever sweat
we’d sweated had even dried.

She made me wait at the end of her driveway
for my father to pick me up.

So, when that older poet writes about
lost loves, or lovers long gone, I get it.

Because, maybe he’s writing about how sweet
and supple they were so long ago, so that he might
better be able to get a handle on the recollection of
the biting crush of loneliness that their departure brought about,
and might still live in the memory of his heart.

We write what we write.
Some of us call it poetry,
we may even reach higher
than we perhaps should,
and call it art.

But, I, and I would gather, we
know that it’s not always
a happy or enjoyable task.

It is a task of upheaval
and ultimately of survival.

It is not cute
but it is culture,
not always art,
but artful payment
to that which is painful,
pure.

*
-JBClaywell

©P&ZPublications; 2016
If you get it, you get it. If you don't... I can't help you.
ME Aug 2013
Do you recall?
The last drop of alcohol
Was it satisfying at all?
A brawl descends from the fistfights in the bar
It will never last, cause in the end
One brawl replaces, copies and pretends
Show it all again

The fruit of desire
The wine of fire
With a drop of blood
Sacrifice enough
And see the green pale mist
Under the moonlight
Ceremonial twist from the ignorantly blessed
Close your legs they all want your ***
First place in a shallow contest

Drink the water of purity
As clear as it has ever been
Watch the ****** up world we’re livin’ in
Earth is the dominion of man
Man is a prison of satan
Soldiers walk from land to land
Death takes soldiers - walk hand in hand
No light till you get through the gate
Earth will never confine your soul
Nevermore Jun 2014
Poetry is a healthier alternative
To picking fistfights with strangers
(OI. THE ******* STARIN' AT?)
Or stalking your gigs
While groping the knife
Tucked into my waistband

Because convalescing in silence
Is still better
Than having quack doctors and faith healers
Crowd over your body
Touch, rub, probe, poke
With their grubby fingers
Write you illegible prescriptions
Charging you a king's ransom
For 'professional advice'.

You just need to get out more.
Fresh ***** is the answer!
Pray. Have faith.
Geez, you're not over it yet?


It would've been better
If I just kept my **** mouth shut
And kept up the facade
A walking picture of health.

I don't need your ******* platitudes
Your uncomprehending stares
The drivel you proudly spew
Like how you so lovingly ladle out swill to the homeless
Assured of another mansion in heaven.

*******.
This is not a soup kitchen
And I don't need your pity.
(And condescension does not save you.)

Convalescing in silence
Is still more logical
Than rallying people
To eradicate sickness from earth
By arresting viruses
Putting them on trial.

A virus does what it does.
It is in its nature,
Like how stray dogs bite
And how ****** ****.

Poetry is the best choice.
It's active non-action.
Reflecting
While the seasons change,
The fullness of time comes,
And news of your impending demise arrives
Of when your moral destitution
Finally catches up to you.

And by the time it comes around,
My youthful ignorance will have bled out a bit,
And I will receive the news
With a smile, a cigarette, and a new poem.
Waverly Feb 2016
Backyard brawls
and sunflower gardens.

Bezzled nights,
twinkling jeweled fireflies,
musky, humid air,
the tickle of rain on your cheeks.

Washed away,
down
the
drain,
youth,
gone and can't be recaptured.

Fistfights
in high school hallways,
tumbling in stairwells
with the beasts of our fear,
and the rolling thunder
of adulthood smashing
against our minds
like tropical waves against
arctic icebergs.

Youth, again;
mother's warm body
cuddling together
in the morning replenishment
on a spring mattress
that is continually sinking down abyssally
where boy and mother
cope with the aftermath
of the brokenness
shrouding their home.

**** drifting up to the ceiling
as we drank our full
of Everclear,
bought by fathers
who's lives had been beaten
down to a depressed mattress
in the corner
of
a garage
speckled by oil slicks
and draped by fiberglass
falling in curtains from the ceiling.

The absent smell of crack in the air.

Sunday breakfasts,
grandma in the kitchen,
mom in the basement,
kids farting around in their rooms.

Mom's curdling yells ripping the house to shreds,
as she sought peace,
in a quiet, and moldy sarcogophous.

There is a place where bombs
and mortars fly,
where a smile is as hard to find
as a mosquito in a desert,
and self-hatred is easy to come by
when regret blankets your mind
with every sand-choked breath.
And in this place, time crawls
by only springing to life when happiness
blooms, and idling when emotions
are sautered, and the search for feeling
is like waiting to get bitten.

But in this place,
there is a garden,
where youth and adulthood
collide, where the sunflowers bloom
once more, and the blood spilt
before the war began, gives life
to the seedlings,
and the soil is not so rotten
as it has grown older and tired.

The mind, finally centered
among the chaos, finding
its concrete horizon in the oasis
of a centered self,
centered finally,
in the midst of this brutal
and beautiful disaster.
JB Claywell Aug 2014
where did it go?
left in some boxed toys in a garage sale?
nah, it was left on school buses and playgrounds
trampled in the grime and dirt of too many fistfights.
tossed aside for the brave face that kept me alive for
another surgery…and recovery.
I tried to find it a few times
but too much time had passed
and little else had gotten better
I had moved on…unwittingly…unwillingly
moved into the territory of the adult
able to hold my own in a conversation
that should have been over my head
but was not.
I had discovered a different kind of toy
one that smelled like wild cherry bubble gum when first opened
one that was magnetic as it’s sounds unwound across my tape machine.
I tried to talk to people my age about my discoveries
They were too busy discovering their own wonders
like a pretty solid fastball...or even second base.
Years and youth gone
I lived alone
with notebooks, headphones, and cassette decks
content to leave their world for my own
a combination of riffs and words
that inspired me to use my own voice
to produce as good or better than the gods that lived
in my backpack.
I make my way…
and the old gods still ride along.

breeding frenzied jawboning
nastiness, rock'm sock'm vermin
zealously, dizzying hordes kickstart
outrageous trampling, xMen busting

displays, heralding luminary
pastoral times, Xing Bethlehem
figurine Jesus observes sacrilegious
wackiness anarchy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
  
Ah, nothing beats the fistfights,
   bloodied noses,
   knocked unconscious bruising
   bad *** blimp

   at absolute gall
bladder kicking, eye poking,
   neck choking, up pall
ling, et cetera brutality at this,
   that, or s'mother mall

far from madding crowd portentous squall,
but at a safe distance
   removed along a deserted hall
witnessing flying seer sucker-punches,

   et cetera all
encompassing pandemonium
   solely about one small
pinterest ting live mutant

   ninja vudu doll, a mere couple inches tall,
sporting ability to transform
   into an antagonistic tournament
   cavalier two pronged horn spurning beast,
   which former attribute
   manufacturer didst install
with constituent parts shipped from Blue Ball

poker red hot furious loosed bull
   eyeing a glitter bauble
   half cocked pissant, with an alien drawl
dressed in bulletproof coverall

shoving people
   just another brick against a wall
angrily erupt volcano like,
   provoking  lava lee flowing mayhem,
   when a security detail
   prior to temporary cease fire didst recall

merely axes whatsapp with y'all
thence, bing kicked in groin
   and reduced to crawl,
   thus in no mood to sing jingall
bells, where stood,

   yet another beefy watchman
   aghast at squall
lid human wrecking machine
   analogously offensive as off fall
spreading riotous wildfire conflagration

   analogous to absent referee,
   when sure betted best
   team mate of foot ball  
   lost Superbowl game
   by a tackle merely postal
stamp size distance to win game,

   thus anonymous observer
   made an urgent call
   to Donald Trump, whose reaction begot
an uncontrollable nuclear fusion reaction

   jerryrigged, hair-pulling,
   fisticuff dueling brawl,
spreading bedlam, sparking
   avast capitalone, groupon,
   flickr ring plenti tinder
   triggering military police to go awol.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
a quick thinking whippersnapper
   holds up a baseball bat
as a make shift microphone,
   donning reversed hat
feigns to be an announcer
   live from pseudo faux palestra and spat
out nonsensical *** for tat.
John F McCullagh Nov 2017
I woke up before dawn with my eye whites ****** red.
The fierce pounding in my skull made me wish that I were dead.
My lips are cracked, my throat is parched, my mouth is desert dry.
I can't remember much about last night, no matter how I try.


I had misplaced my childhood faith that I had gained through my baptism.
As a teen I seized on alcohol as my replacement ism.
There the spirit was available to all who had the price
With services held daily as habit turned to vice.

I have slept at times in gutters when the weather wasn’t cold.
I have ****** on strangers lawns near taverns where my drug is sold.
I have gotten into fistfights, the kind that no one wins.
My family doesn’t want a son who drinks and reeks of gin.

Tonight I took a seat in a church basement for a change.
I’ll spill out all my secrets.   A sponsorship will be arranged.
I know I’ve hit rock bottom and that will be my foundation
I hope my new  friend  Bill W. will lead me to salvation.
a troubled homeless teen attends his first meeting of alcoholics Anonymous
jeffrey conyers Apr 2021
Fistfights.
The tools used as a child.
Didn't matter the gender?

Now, youth with guns weak, stupid and dumb.

Just shooting anyone.
They looked at me wrong.
They disrespected me.
Well, this is a tough one.

It's not all about having a dad in the house.
Because some youth have no mom.

They are just weak, stupid, and dumb.

If all you can do is reflect back on those you shot or killed?

Then your life should end in prison or jail.
You alone placed yourself there.

If killing anyone over the color you wear?
Then, like I stated you are weak, you are stupid, you are dumb.

Because life has more important things to do.

Forget following orders of the leader of your crew?
Wilhelm Feb 2019
I am from grey skies and blue clouds,
I am from a hundred different houses and not a single home,
I am from a drunken smile plastered over loss of future and hope,
I am from a fake smile hiding a cruel smirk,
I am from Fire and Brimstone turned to cowardice and weakness,
I’m from the cross turned to the hammer, Prayer into an angry chant to forgotten Gods,
I’m from a dozen dead memories of a dozen dead people,
I’m from a pickup truck covered in beer stains,
From packs of young men angry at the world lead by old men that are sad at the world,
I am from fistfights fought to the sound of marching songs,
From young men singing the anthems to countries and kings long gone,
I’m from the kicks to the ribs and harsh words telling me to get moving,
From boys dreaming about knights in shining armour as we shave our heads,
I am from angry curses in a handful of different languages,
From blue collars, ACU’s, leather jackets and stomping boots,
From old Russian grandmas giving half a dozen boys lunches as if we were her own grandsons,
I am from Jackboots and broken teeth and a bitten curb,
I'm from coffee and old bookshops,
I am from a home that doesn't remember me anymore.
jeffrey conyers Oct 2018
Remember them days?
Remember the good old days.
When fistfights were the thing of the day.

No one shot by a gun.
No one forever left to avoid apologies.
For if you had a firm good parent.

You learn to return to solve that conflict.
For when the two combative got before one another with parents of common sense.

They mainly ended up as friends.

Then came the kids having kids.
And many never had good guidance.
Like back in the day when most grandparents taught you to be a young parent.

Now we got kids having kids and lost and alone.
Thinking they are grown.
Boy, are they wrong?

Yes, remember the day.
When being gang related was far from the brain.

Your leader of the GANG if you were connected.
Was your mom and dad.

****, how things have changed.
jeffrey conyers Nov 2020
Remember, back in the day.
When belts held pants up?
Do you remember?
When you wore them to look presentable?

What happened?
Guys, wearing belts just to pull the pants down showing their underwear.

Looking more stupid wearing it.
What happened?

Remember when saying the B-word just wasn't heard?
Now many saying it like it's a common term.
Especially ladies stating to a friend or two.

Remember, when fistfights came and went.
Now, you got boys thinking they tough with guns.
Under this impression that they are men.
Least, they think they are.

Things, so uncommon.

— The End —