"graceland" poems
Hare Krishna's
In their Pickups
Depressed Comics
Down on their Luck
Teenage Girls
Screaming Meme's
****** Pinko's*
Leftward Leaning
Vincent Price
Flo and Eddie
Rodger Rabbit
Priscilla Presley
Nuns in Habits
Dwarf's in Ponchos
Deadbeat Dads
Munching Nachos
Right-Wing Nut Jobs
Trading Slogans
A few Hero's
Including Hogan
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Buddhist Monks
With Electric Banjos
Holding Signs Up
Of Marlon Brando
Taxi Cabs
Blaring Show Tunes
Pregnant Women
Down-loading Soon
Derby Jockeys
Flying Monkeys
Kool-Aidholics
Skittle Junkies
Bozo The Clown
Bumper Stickers
Psychedelic
Crazed Toad Lickers
Rhinestone Cowboys
In their Skivvies
Gothic Girls
Heebie Jeebies
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Blue Haired Granny's
In pink Moo Moos
Ballerina's In
Tattered Tutus
Mathematician's
Number Crunchers
Even have Some
Out to Lunchers
Model 50's
*Do *** Daddies*
One More Round Of
Flo and Eddie
People Sneaking
Across the Border
Lonely Fry Cooks
Taking Orders
A Few Wannabes
Not Saying Much
Will The Real Elvis
Please Stand Up
Are just a few of the sights that you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Thank you...Thank you very Much
Ladies and Gentlemen
Elvis...Has Left The Building
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
You’re like the sweetest heart
You’re like my miracle
You’re the only one I want
You’re like the World Series
You’re like the saints ,won
You’re like the eagles versus
You’re like frog legs in Paris
You’re like my always pads
You’re like every ticket I’ve ever had
You’re like my air bag I never want to use you
You’re like my little angel’s eyes
You are second hand smoke
You are on my way to my God
you are my music high way
And every Mexican blanket
You are a field of hay and a single strike of lightning
You are every unfinished piece
I know I’m saving for our children
I have seen them in make shifts so we can definitely make time for everyone
Keep me on your next list
You are all the self help books that I read for my own mend
You are prevention magazine
And you’re mom is all the wax I accidentally spill out of candles
I think you’re my insecure side that’s scared to love you in front of the neighbors
You’re all the days I showed up late to school for Chuck Norris jokes in detention
You’re all the lonely drives I take and really enjoy the scenery
You are Oreos and Sonic Ice
You are better than any view
You are every sing
le time someone
took me to the zoo
You are the pink palace
You are mismatched socks
You are solid rock
You are for twenty in the morning on the dot
You are every time that I cannot forget dingus
Or every time we drive I sing to you
Or when we got locked inside of the parking lot on signal mountain and the park ranger came to help us so soon
You are my best friend coming to see me when I got to college
You are the patience I gain when I
Stop wondering who the one is
Maybe you are every time I run away
You are all the times I cry so hard that it starts to rain
You are the doe that always comes near and is never afraid of what will happen next
You are the day you told me I was the girl you dreamed about
You are the day we sat in the back of my car
You are there for me when I have gone too far
You meet me further than any arrest or charger cord
And Graceland too
You’re my wonderful morning
You’re my answered prayers for sunshine
You’re every single word I type in black and white
Messy cars aren’t so bad too meme my love for this love is the only art form I choose
Loves eliminating my clouded culture
I’m ready for the day when eagles fly over
Thank you god for everything
Dec 22, 2018
Dec 22, 2018 at 3:48 AM UTC
It ain’t too bad to be from there
Just ask my family and friends
But it’s too flat, ain’t no way out
The roads are all dead ends.
Sometime soon I’ll find a place
Where the music I’ll enjoy
But for now I keep on tryin’
To escape from Illinois!
There’s a river on the border west
That moves a lot of dirt
Mighty Muddy Mississipp
Drowns the pain and covers hurt
Yeah, I’m movin’ south to New Orleans
Maybe I can find employ
In a blues bar down on Bourbon Street
Escape from Illinois!
Well I stopped a week along the way
When I saw the Gateway Arch.
But the folks out by the airport
Were stagin’ up a march.
Seems a white cop fired a shot that killed
An unarmed teenage boy
Oh yeah, the teenage boy was black,
Escape from Illinois.
Kept walkin’ to the Landing
(Named for Pierre Laclede)
It has most every thing you want
But nothing that you need
Some travelin’ folk told me some news
That made me jump for joy
Memphis maybe had some work
Escape from Illinois!
Found the haunted house called Graceland
And the grave where Elvis lay
Where half a million go each year
(Fifteen thousand every day)
They all want to pay respects
To the rockin’ – rollin’ boy
Put their finger in the bullet holes
Escape from Illinois.
Went downtown, knocked on some doors
Once or twice I went inside
But Beale Street was broken
The travelin’ folks had lied.
‘Cuz there ain’t no jobs in Memphis,
Or maybe I’m too coy
So I hitched a ride to Nashville
Escape from Illinois.
Nashville’s a big old meltin’ ***
Lots of great ones started here
But most end up as tourists
Getting’ ****** and drinkin’ beer
So money’s at a premium
And fame’s a fake decoy
End up workin’ in a record store
Escape from Illinois?
From Asheville to Atlanta
From Austin to LA
From Biloxi back to Baton Rouge
Need a place where I can play
I’ll follow all the buskers,
Form a musical convoy
Livin’ day by day and town by town
Escape from Illinois!
I’m a minstrel, like a rubber band
I keep on snappin’ back
I’m gonna make it somewhere
Singing somewhere, that’s a fact
Got my guitar and my music
Gotta do what I enjoy
Find a place to sing my songs for you,
Hell, it may be Illinois!
Phil Lindsey 6/4/15
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
Tomb of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
For upkeep and flowers
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
The merchant prince gone to dust
Commanded in his written will
Over the signed name of his last testament
Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
Around his last long home.
(A hundred cash girls want nickels to go to the movies to-night.
In the back stalls of a hundred saloons, women are at tables
Drinking with men or waiting for men jingling loose
silver dollars in their pockets.
In a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or
dress goods or leather stuff for six dollars a week wages
And when she pulls on her stockings in the morning she
is reckless about God and the newspapers and the
police, the talk of her home town or the name
people call her.)
2.6k
Oh my word, I remember
every little part of that weekend,
right down to the three-piece outfit
I had purchased at Bloomingdale's
the evening previous.
You know, ya hear stories
left and right about people
winning tickets to this n' that,
but ya never imagine actually
being the nineteenth caller!
When I revealed the occasion
this baby blue ensemble would
be worn in, the cute little saleslady
paused, looked up, and said,
"Why bother seeing him anymore?"
And I tell ya, there's plenty
other, less Christian yearly
Graceland attendants who woulda
flipped their lids had they heard
such malarkey!
Still, I just couldn't deny it.
She had a bit of a point.
This was mid-70s Elvis,
mid-50s Elvis' drunk uncle.
He had gone from Rolling Stone
to National Enquirer in nothing
flat, it seemed.
So all I could muster was
an understanding smile, because
she couldn't help but join the
bandwagon, especially when his
gut got larger and the rumors
became more outrageous.
Still, their loss!
I say that to this day,
because what Little Miss Shopgirl
and the legions of non-believers
did not think to consider
was the charm in "has been" Elvis.
A week before this legendary
concert experience, I had been
forced by circumstance to purchase
my very first pair of bifocals!
It was also around the time,
I'm sure, Harry left me.
So, the main event, I'm there,
third row from the main stage,
seeing Elvis for the first time
since our crazed youthful years-
a bedazzled jumpsuit walks on stage,
and I'm on my feet before I know it!
There was a little less swivel in his
hips. He looked a little tired, too,
all those years of singing do that.
How did it feel, then, to see the King
make his way across a cheap fog
machine, mutton chops and
love handles galore?
It felt like two lifelong friends
growing old, losing all those
frivolous people together-
"Are You Lonesome Tonight"
was still asked with the same
dreamy passion in 1973.
I've still got the handkerchief
he threw to me that night,
**** near lost it when I
caught the thing.
It's blue with polka dots,
ya wanna take a gander?
Sep 28, 2010
Sep 28, 2010 at 5:21 AM UTC
Beulah went to Memphis, just to see where the king was laid.
Bought herself a ticket, first time she’d ever been on a plane.
She sashayed down to Graceland, closest she’d ever been to the king.
Every gaudy jumpsuit, jet planes, and all those diamond rings.
What you gonna do, now that you’re king is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, lick your wounds and feed your head.
Beulah went to Memphis, feelin’ just like ol’ Tom and Huck.
All 5 foot and sassy, struttin’ like a Peabody duck.
She’ll be in "Blue Hawaii", long before the crack of noon.
Right where he shot his TV, in that jungle room.
What you gonna do, now that you’re king is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, feed your mind and lose your head.
Beulah went to Memphis, didn’t see where the King was slain.
All caught up in Vegas, she didn’t hear His sad refrain.
She was takin’ care of business, while the Angels sang, “We Shall Overcome.”
Didn’t hear the message, dazzled by the pandemonium.
What you gonna do, now that their King is dead?
You better get on back to Kentucky, rest your mind and feed your head.
Beulah went to Memphis, just to see where the king was laid.
Poor ol’ girl, he rocked her world, and then he went away.
Jan 19, 2013
Jan 19, 2013 at 10:39 PM UTC
The carousing carnival can never sleep
It bares and bewilders in the brain
Sunrise and sunset, season of sorcery,
Hell or heaven, havoc never happens.
The carousing Carnival cages ponderers
Under Ornate oaks too old
Dressing, dancing, dwelling in Graceland
Hula Hoops hover on hips
Fire fetched by fingers flared.
Lookers: love and lose the lot.
The crafty carnival's cunning tricks
Never need a nest to rest.
Sep 13, 2011
Sep 13, 2011 at 1:08 AM UTC
It has been brought to my attention by Elvis fans,
not to mention a slew of phone calls from irate Elvis impersonators
that my last poem was very insensitive.
For that I would like to apologize.
I would also like to set your minds at ease and inform you
that in no way were any corpses harmed in the writing of...
"Are You Lonesome Tonight" (AKA Digging On Elvis)
Although Elvis didn't hold up so well
on the trip back to Graceland...
As luck would have it though Walmart
was having a special on large trash bags.
Two for one! And the environmentally friendly ones too!
We all know how hard it is to find those on sale!
Now where was I...
Oh Yea!
So we were able to get every last piece of Elvis
safely back to his final resting place.
Once again let me apologize for any harm I've caused
the hundreds, no let's make that thousands...millions
of Elvis fans and Elvis wannabes.
Sincerely yours and a fan myself,
Mike
P.S. I'm also somewhat of an Elvis impersonator:
Pass me one of them there jelly doughnuts will ya...
Pretty good uh?
Maybe you have to be there...
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 8:15 AM UTC
If I could I would
If I could I would
says the most
sedimentary broken record
and my record player is
broken
someone tore the
chord out in the back
like someone tore the
piece out of your heart
and took too much Hope
from this little light of mine.
Hope is what is left
when he tells you he doesn't
love you anymore.
Hope is the smell of a campfire
on the coat you let me
borrow.
Hope kept me warm and
it will keep you warm
when you least expect it.
it's a namesake, not a joke
don't forget it
Hope doesn't live in Graceland
or in Ianville or in Joetown
but in your precious, little broken heart.
bird's wings will heal and so will you, Hope.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
Snow is in the forecast this weekend, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying events in and around Middle Tennessee.
The Best Buddies Club at Columbia Central High School is sponsoring a Prom Peek-a-Boo Fashion Show on Sunday at Westbury House in downtown Columbia.
Volunteers from schools throughout Maury County plan to model dresses in style for this year’s prom season. Tickets for the event are $10 each and can be purchased at the door. Proceeds benefit Best Buddies, a student organization that pairs students with others who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Club vice president Lilli Beck said most IDD students usually consider a parent or teacher as friends and usually do not have friends their own age. Peer buddies spend time with their buddy, calling them on the phone or helping them when needed, Beck said.
“We use fundraising to buy Christmas gifts and sponsor parties or helping our kids if they need something,” she said. “Some of our kids come from low-income families.”
Buddies also are expected to participate in Sunday’s events, serving as greeters and hosts.
“I hope I can convince one of them to say a little something at the end of the show,” Beck said.
2. You can’t live in Tennessee without remembering the king of rock-n-roll Elvis Presley, who would have turned 81 on his birthday Friday. There is a long list of activities scheduled at his Graceland home in Memphis, beginning with fans singing Happy Birthday at midnight. Go to www.graceland.com for event schedule and details.
3. Love is in the air in Nashville with the Enchanted Bridal Show on Sunday at the Hutton Hotel. Wedding and event vendors offer a variety of ideas and new styles for spring brides.
read more:www.marieaustralia.com/red-formal-dresses
www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 2:27 AM UTC
Hound-dog swallowing poly-coated pills, filling up, bloated, falling off stage, and into a more permanent and lasting Graceland, to be surrounded by another’s verse.
I only enjoy what comes from my own head, a modern Samuel Johnson, no matter what happenstance brought about to be said, a cage free Bronson. Hearing false verse through a syllable count, hoisted onto adverbs easy to mount. Congratulate a lesser mind, reaching commonalities most could find. Ease in creation, opens floodgate doors, distributing specs of grace through misworded spores. Life, love, and the pursuit of vanity, leaves simplified lumps of prosperous thought riddled with anonymity. The invention of despair overwhelms those ungifted, and leaves them erecting stale forgeries they grifted.
In the wee small hours of escaping light, a crooner steadies his hands as he falsifies his originality, reading off the music from another’s sheet.
A change in topic is something to hold as worthy, though in a modern context of prosaic prose, such good fortune can be exceptionally elusive. Broken hearted symptoms shared through a hash-tag, rerouted and worded, to fit an illiterate youth’s lesser diction, reposted to approach validity, only to be called forth as an original soul, one to revere, and hold as an entitled fraction of logic.
The piano man knocks out a tune, hit in stride with vocal conduct, inspired and laid in pen by a lesser man propelled by better wording, given up for another’s career.
Market’s over-saturated with teenage sonnets, weeping over cut wrists, ended (Victorian inspired) trysts, refreshed and brought back around until sentimentality vomits. Themes used to run rampant with fresh ingenuity, made extinct, occurred in a blink; now every poem has some congruency.
The grapevine got entangled, getting involved with a troublemaker, providing the soundtrack, using another’s words.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
They opened up my heart to see
the self and fallibility
and
in the time of waking,I saw
continents for taking,saw the minerals
that broke the souls,
the souls that slaved for yellow gold, and
holding on to minds, were free men breaking
open liberty or was that in a dream I had when
morphine took the best of me,the green light of
my destiny marched off and set the dogs to bark and
I would be a danger if I had the sense to know it
but when danger shows its face to me,
the self and fallibility comes in
and laughs out loud.
I see the ending of an era and fear a sharp reminder that
the Devil sits in memory of dreams that he once sold to me,
upon the bed I tremble as the angels all assemble
and they're shaking out their wings while in the background
I hear Elvis sing and
Graceland is my home.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
On a hot August night in Memphis
At the tinder age of forty two
Behind the gates of Graceland
America lost its tune
Gather round the throne room
The king is sadly dead
On the cold linoleum floor
Is where he last laid his weary head
Fought so many battles
In the star filled lonely life he lived
If you're keeping score this is one war
That he lost the battle in
His scepter it was golden
His voice it was the same
He just lost his soul is all
Somewhere along the way
With papers read the words they bled
Out on the written page
Tears that poured as the world all mourned
And still do to this day
So bow your heads the king is dead
Elvis has left the building after all
Although long gone there is still the song
And he still is the king of rock and roll
Dec 18, 2016
Dec 18, 2016 at 7:36 AM UTC
"That's a thing that I do in the back of my head"
Ilove you, baby.
So very much.
I'm tempted to write this in tongues.
I wanna kiss you so much.
So very much.
This is my love poem, baby.
I guess I never wrote one before.
Feels kinda good.
Ok it feels great.
I love you, darling.
Say when I can use your name.
I hope you make friends.
Jk.
I know you are philosopher Queen.
Don't need friends.
It's okay.
I'll never be your friend.
I'm your man.
Time to listen to more Graceland on a walk to the school and its overgrown baseball field.
Mom's up.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 7:50 AM UTC
the sad thing is
when I've written this poem
there is a chance
it will become a eulogy:
the passing
of sliding doors
from which
there is no return
only tinted windows
reflecting memories
and My Love
left wandering
somewhere in the gloom
waiting
to be found again
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
"These are the days of miracles and wonders and don't cry, baby, don't cry..."
I wanna tell you that you're looking like a movie star,
But somehow I know that wouldn't get me too far.
I'm wishing on a burning hot star and don't mind don't mind, no.
You've got an action that makes me wanna split,
I don't really care too much how you get it.
I'm an eagle with white hair and whatever eyes so baby I'm flying, flying for all the wise.
I miss you but I can't stop complaining,
The overt arrangement is lightening my usual basement.
It's okay I'm sure somehow just sometimes I meet French girls and kinda stare and mutter in amazement.
These are the days of cold slick thunders and big fancy boats that don't have a gun.
These are the days of punch bowl amazements and I know you're having fun!
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 1:04 PM UTC
Hotdogs, Mustard and Omelettes please
Yellow cabs, jay walking down Florida Quays
Four lanes, Juggernauts and Chevrolet cars
Lights,cameras and Hollywood stars
Palm trees, beaches and Hawaiian shirts
Gucci, Versace and loathsome old flirts
Fields, harvesters and barns full of hay
Buildings, boxes in lifeless decay
Piers, amusements and huge crashing waves
Soup kitchens, The Mission and a life it could save
Islands, storms and the hot lazy sun
Big Apple, Windy City, Graceland’s is fun
Sirens, Hydrants and never ending noise
Planes, Aliens and conspiracy driven ploys
History, Presidents wrapped up in Sams hat
Shrine, Humility where two towers once sat
Arizona, the desert, dry and ongoing
Vultures, Eagles and freeways never slowing
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 6:16 PM UTC
Elvis woke me in the afternoon
He told me
Church was over
That I missed the Sunday service
Yet I still heard the choir
Just down the corridor
I prayed on the steps of Graceland
To a statue of a lion
Cascading in the light
Spilling off stained glass
He told me
Winner takes all
And I gambled my heart
Right out of my chest
Sliding out of my shoes
I fell down the stairs
And landed in a hotel bed
Picket fence lining my frame
The devil told me
My alarm was going off
But I like to think it's all apart of
My American dream
Aug 23, 2024
Aug 23, 2024 at 12:59 AM UTC
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen your smile.
I can feel us change over time
But there is something more than time between us.
More than distance.
Back then, we danced between sparklers and slides and sunny afternoons
Only the sun above us and our future ahead.
On that big hill, we huddled our knees together like little kids
Hiding from the rain and the resonance of Graceland Too,
but you’re the only one hiding now.
I can’t rescue you and I can’t find you.
Back then, I would have cried till I went blind.
Now I just cry.
Jun 25, 2023
Jun 25, 2023 at 5:31 PM UTC
between graceland and never
is a small door
growing up faster than you want,
dead,
into something better.
psychology-
keeping someone too close.
playing with guitar strings, without a loose chord.
love, to question the dream
and never find another
somewhere in destiny, or between eventual and alternate realities.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 6:38 PM UTC
Hare Krishna's
In their Pickups
Depressed Comics
Down on their Luck
Teenage Girls
Screaming Meme's
****** Pinko's
Leftward Leaning
Vincent Price
Flo and Eddie
Rodger Rabbit
Priscilla Presley
Nuns in Habits
Dwarf's in Ponchos
Deadbeat Dads
Munching Nachos
Right-Wing Nut Jobs
Trading Slogans
A few Hero's
Including Hogan
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Buddhist Monks
With Electric Banjos
Holding Signs Up
Of Marlon Brando
Taxi Cabs
Blaring Show Tunes
Pregnant Women
Down-loading Soon
Derby Jockeys
Flying Monkeys
Kool-Aidholics
Skittle Junkies
Bozo The Clown
Bumper Stickers
Psychedelic
Crazed Toad Lickers
Rhinestone Cowboys
In their Skivvies
Gothic Girls
Heebie Jeebies
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Blue Haired Granny's
In pink Moo Moos
Ballerina's In
Tattered Tutus
Mathematician's
Number Crunchers
Even have Some
Out to Lunchers
Model 50's
Do *** Daddies
One More Round Of
Flo and Eddie
People Sneaking
Across the Border
Lonely Fry Cooks
Taking Orders
A Few Wannabes
Not Saying Much
Will The Real Elvis
Please Stand Up
Are just a few of the sights that you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Thank you...Thank you very Much
Ladies and Gentlemen
Elvis...Has Left The Building
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 5:46 PM UTC