"hobbles" poems
Rainy nights thinking about Rwanda,
fog seeps out of the woods.
Like smoke, it crawls across the fields.
My head lights attempt to cut through it,
as it intensifies, inhibiting my drive,
but it’s nothing compared to Rwanda.
I arrive at the Mobil,
wait five minutes for the cashier to notice I’m here.
When she does, she hobbles over.
I attempt to buy a pack of backwoods,
my card gets declined,
but it’s nothing compared to Rwanda.
I get in my car,
and have a fit when I can’t find my keys,
but it’s nothing compared to Rwanda.
I begin to drive,
get cut off and curse fellow man,
but it’s nothing compared to Rwanda.
I ***** and I moan,
an entitled little ****
but I’m alive,
which many can’t say after Rwanda.
Apr 13, 2018
Apr 13, 2018 at 9:55 PM UTC
Candy
Lack of interest
Hope
Disappointment
Candy with a movie
Popcorn too
Candy so sweet and groovy
Popcorn lovely too
Lack of interest clouds my judgement
Lack of interest hobbles along
Lack of interest leaves me lonely
Lack of interest hates my being
Hope
Hope of finding freedom
Hope that left me restelss
Hope that made me anxious
Disappointment rings
Disappointment kills hope
Disappointemnt sacrafices candy
Disappointment confides in lack of interest
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 2:07 PM UTC
bespeckled, blotched & blokey
feminine in aspects
only little ****** hair patches
two chins,
or rather a sloped one
the front evenly declining to the middle of the throat
a gradual slope from the tip, for juices to run if his manner and situation allowed him to be as casual and sloppy as his laziness chose,
torso without form, so there was no curvature on the buttocks or the fly region.
a mass
a blob of bulges on spindly legs
he leans on the wall
stubby in hand he balks
(he means jovial but unintentionally he vocalises mockery)
at the suggestion that the Pies will do better
& that Eddie is a clever man due for thanks, who has done his club well (apparently a straight Aussie arrow tried and true!)
the man ***** his head back & cackles
(the trebly popping bubbles of a gala crackle outwards as the man cackles)
& decides his arms need a rest,
(a long day of up and down they have had indeed, they deserve respect, or rest (or a benching))
so he places his beer down
on a sloped surface,
& therefore it slips down….
he sees it plummeting, he stretches toward it's tragic trajectory,
…..but he is too slow
it smashes
on his foot (the shards) the beer bottle it transfigures,
and the shards they impart their misery on his toes.
The shards they intrude on his relaxed state of wellbeing, they intrude on the security sanctioned within the casual footwear of a man at a barbecue; taking it easy.
he swears and hops, reaching in indignation for his bleeding toes
he holds the wound cursing; resisting the impulse to begin convulsive throws
(an oscar worthy performance from a usually suburbaly urbane individual)
the moisture feels degrading
(as it would within a man's pants)
the pain from the cuts it is worsened
by the smirking gazes of others about
he hobbles, disregarding his thong in the wreckage of the scene
off to retrieve a band aid
to mend his ego
and his foot
simultaneously
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 10:18 AM UTC
He loved it when she slid up
to him, as sweet as a sprinkle doughnut -
but now, something has befallen her,
she's been burned or frozen, tastes more like
cinnamon raisin; but by virtue of his
firelit face and tall tales,
he still gets invited out.
_____________________________
He creaks upstairs an hour late, we
are already tangled up on the
back porch, smoking, and the
liquor has made everything
an economy of scale.
He is a ray of sunshine. Tells us
all the old groaners. The big fish.
Ultimately says, "Happy birthday.
Never let your guard down."
and hobbles off, with barb-wire chafing
his heel, and the rheumatic suspicion
that "rest" and "wellness" are
the fables taught to us by
bogeymen, trying to convince us
there are no bogeymen.
I am a tender Twenty tonight.
I want to twirl my fists in Muhammad Ali speedbag-spirals,
saying, "I am the champion. Never undefended."
But I am too drunk, and maybe
too humiliated.
God! He floats like painkillers. He stings like loss.
There he is, the tall order, the iron giant:
a two-story brainfreeze milkshake.
I shudder, a pipsqueak of a prizefighter.
The bucktoothed squirt at the icecream booth,
too short to notice that there are only three flavours.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 3:01 PM UTC
He carries her purse on his arm
without awkwardness;
His comfort shows he must have been caretaker,
for some time.
Yet awkward she does feel.
He carries her purse on his arm
as if it belonged there.
Just another parcel to be handled
with care; yet not a care
to what this stranger thought.
This old woman hobbles
ambling behind;
a footfall - thrusts her forward,
one more step.
Doesn’t he understand she wants to go forward -
no more? One step closer
to the grave,
she can sense.
The cane catching
and holding her steady;
The pain, catching
and holding her firm.
She follows his lead; always hitting the mark
with her blue veined hand
wrapped around that staff
in her grasp.
Her gait, unsteady,
wobbly at best
As he carries her purse on his arm,
She follows his lead
one step at a time
A crooked cane
her only assist for the
ambulatory impairment she bears;
as he carries her purse
on his arm.
© 2010 Marlene Dunham
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 9:11 PM UTC
Pretty painted face
She hobbles on wooden shoes
Beautiful maiden
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 5:47 AM UTC
I think Grandpa Stewart developed a stutter
from years of being interrupted.
I've never heard him get out a whole sentence
on his own, without Grandma cutting him off
before tonight. He hobbles over to the kitchen
where I'm doing dishes after dinner.
Expectantly, I look up into the ***** windowpanes
of his old, gray eyes,
his hands are shaking and lips quivering.
When he talks, it's like a secret, and he
tells me, struggling over sequence and syllables,
stories of being a volunteer firefighter. Days
he was the strongest man anyone knew.
He stopped a flaming tractor trailer, once, from
running away all ablaze when its brakeline blew up.
Set his jaw, leaned into the smoke, another time,
and pushed onward in steady strides, putting out
a fire in a nickel and dime store, even when
the hose pressure was pushing his line of
sweaty men backward into the street.
Where the hell is that fighting man? I look
at the hunched, wrinkled one before me and remember
the panic that crippled him when
his second son killed himself 12 years ago.
Knelt down as if in prayer, begging
for forgiveness maybe, put a shotgun under his chin,
and blew his brains out, a different type of fire,
with carbon and sulfur exploding just as deadly.
They said the bullet came out his eye socket.
I don't know how they could tell.
It was a stranger in the casket they pieced together
from chunks of skull found across the basement floor.
Haunted by fires, Grandpa doesn't sleep now,
answers the phone on the first ring, paralyzed
in perpetual anxiety, yelling,
"Y-Y-YES?! He-Hello?!"
His stutters are a endless seziure convulsing
on his tongue. He's slower, he's somewhere else, he 's
interrupted and doesn't try. He's medicated
and sedated and
smothered into this empty shell of
a man, sleeping, existing on a living room recliner,
****** with colorless eyes,
desensitized to fear and family, broken
in the wake of fire's senseless destruction;
all the charred ashes left in its place.
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 12:56 PM UTC
Before last night, I'd only seen the forbidden-fruit curves and
ripples
rendering my skin unbeautiful.
But in the fluorescent indifference of a drugstore
I caught sight of my legs through eyes not my own,
new tapers and bulges swathed in black spandex
even too flimsy for the $15 price tag,
and wondered why words like "small" and "gap"
were heaven to my ears,
while "quadriceps" and "endurance"
have their own quaint ring,
a lovely taste on the tip of a tongue
which has spent too much time
wallowing in self-hatred.
Strength isn't a virtue in women,
we who learn from birth to take up
as little space as possible.
Our shapes always need shaping,
guiding,
sometimes our own voices telling ourselves
we deserve the pain of fatigue
after one mile too long spent running
up the avenue,
forcing ourselves to faint
for a glimpse of thinner thighs,
we deserve to be dehumanized
if we don't inch our way into
the body laid out for us by
Mother Society.
Where is the place for the girl who
hobbles home, skin bruised purple
but flushed with the accomplishment of stopping
every single shot in practice?
Or for the boy whose gentle hands provide
the perfect perch for a butterfly to land upon?
My strength is not an imperfection.
There is beauty in it, and discipline.
These legs can take me for miles if I
take off the iron vest that keeps me
anchored to a Hollywood version
of myself.
Without it, I can fly.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
Girl waits anxiously,
Foot bouncing
Hands tapping
Mind in overdrive.
The woman in charge
Has her hair shaved on both sides
And tattoos covering her torso.
She takes two smoke breaks
And decides she might as well get paid.
Science? On your body? Whatever. Get in.
The girl holds out her foot
Pink and white and black
Ready and willing
To be punctured
Like the god's coloring book.
She talks to drown out the nerves.
Her friend follows
Awkwardly? Quietly?
Holds out fingers
To be used in case of emergency.
The first gets a vise grip on them
She starts singing pop-culture
From decades past to distract.
It just seems out-of-place.
The woman pays no attention.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Refills her ink
As an artist must have supplies.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
She loves these needles
That penetrate and alter.
Allow the body to be a canvas
Both practical and beautiful.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The girl's hand sweats
Death grips do that, I hear.
She has to wipe it off more than once.
Her friend is being little help.
She cringes!
Needle got close to bone
To nerves.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
She finishes
Puts away her needles
And her ink
Cleans her canvas
Though this was not her favorite artwork.
She sends them out.
She hobbles
Foot newly changed.
Human symbols now visible,
She is no longer just earth.
Her friend follows.
She now has the mark of humanity
Of science
Of society
Forever on her skin.
She now belongs to the world.
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 8:40 AM UTC
Remember this? Remember this.
When I told you of Parameters.
Built around to self protect?
Well, those walls are not fixed,
The world is wont to move, to change
And how they change!
Sometimes a man shows you his heart's part.
You take it and see; you give your same's key.
Then sometimes you have no choice,
the heart alone breaks down your walls
as the heart wants to do, to break.
And how it does break.
The heart's a glass dagger, and in its struggle shatters.
But even broken glass still cuts and bores,
after a cup, built of diamond shrapnel shivs, falls
and finds a home in a little boy's tender foot.
But even after the offender has been removed,
whenever he steps down, he feels it still there.
And he's afraid to walk ever again.
And the floor is like his personal enemy.
And any glass is like a bomb mocking him.
And he wears double socks when he's at home.
And he sits in the tub and he picks and rubs.
And he lies in bed all morning wondering,
"And when will my heart stop aching?"
And he hobbles along in the world.
And he puts on a strong face.
And he wants to move forward without the pain.
And he wants so much not to fear anymore.
And he wants so much just to love at all.
Sep 28, 2012
Sep 28, 2012 at 12:09 PM UTC
No way for her to ascertain
the ashen carpets of erasure
randomly assigned to the tapestry of garish
hope's circumstantial hopscotch squares
with a body already incommodiously perched
upon legs submissive to the here and now's
drunken mercury
Alone she has been left to sweep up
the gravity that hobbles optimism
in the hops of faith around the ambivalence
of horizontal authenticity
Left alone to weep on twitching roots
and theorize a rally bloom in spite
of severance in tune with sparks of closure
The shadow of her sunken chin emits
embroiled tributaries of respawning yesterdays
Queen of checkerboard embodiment
her rhythmic rule entails zephyrs of endurance
in the vacuum of fulfilling prophecies
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 2:44 AM UTC
The space between chaff and
grain...misshapen yield vying
for the ecliptic plane.
As eye to eye...to be plucked
from what is gathered.
Moments timeout their
defining...what beauty hobbles
its poetry?
Something in league with or
without...passes off a kinship
nearer and dearer than bone
in plain conglomeration, as
strung to skeleton.
A seeing through of boundary...
as always open to season,
change by its allowance changes.
Our parenthetical infinite is
blessed/cursed with peripheral
vision...anonymously...
glory blurrily grows.
Begs from form what itself begs
form...we are thus force-fed
finitude, till what infinitude comes
of our eyes.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 11:46 AM UTC
Dusk is an old man with a gray cape,
Who walks with a limp and a cane.
Turning on street lights and lights in the windows
Sending the children home from their play.
When they're all safe, he smiles to himself
And hums a soft, little song
That sounds a little like little bugs buzzing
As he hobbles along.
He pauses a while in the trees near the pond,
Waves his cane and stirs up the frogs;
Then he moves on through the outskirts of town,
Along silent gardens and past barking dogs.
He fixes his gaze upon distant hills,
That fade in a warm, violet mist;
He shakes out his cape--the pine trees turn black,
Dew starts at a flick of his wrist.
He stops by the park to smoke a cigar
That glows as it gets almost dark;
When it goes out, he leaps to the sky
And disappears like a spark.
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 8:30 AM UTC
Torture wreaked havoc with his mind’s sanity
The anguish just chilled me to the core
As the beatings continue to reduce him
He is scared he’ll not take too much more.
Again the water washed over and woke him
The bucket clanging as they threw it back down
Once again he was taken to the table
‘Waterboarding‘ I thought with a frown.
He was laid on his back and then tied down
They put towels over his mouth and his nose
They poured and they poured water on him
Once again in his chest panic rose.
A reporter who’d been caught in the crossfire
There was no information he could tell
No amount of hard beatings and torture
Could make him give secrets he’d not held.
Beaten and bloodied he is taken
Back as before to his cell
He’s told them all that he ever could tell them
But he still can’t escape from this hell.
He languishes in his cell I am certain
He cries out for mercy from each pore
I know that they still give him more beatings
I see him as he hobbles past my cell door.
©JRW2014
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC
i walk alone through the deserted sleeping city
the fog carries me away from and toward nothing
streetlights flicker in the distance
wounded memories coursing through my veins
naked heart bleeding in the moonlight
and the only thing love has given me
is a name for my misery
lonely shadow disappears in darkness
vacant surreal the world around me dreams
like a caged madman my heart pounds...screaming
stray dog hobbles past doesn't even see me
silent city speaks volumes...empty sorrow
winos sleeping every doorway... final nightmare
neon lights humming tired rhythm to my footsteps
and the only thing love has given me
is a name for my misery
the dawn yawns slowly hovering between worlds
bloodshot sun reveals hidden vagrants
last nights howling oblivion is shattered
slowly replaced by morality of morning
skyscrapers rub their weary eyes
i retreat to darkness as daylight burns the shadows
the final stars melt slowly into hearsay
and the only thing love has given me
is a name for my misery...
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:54 AM UTC
Late at night near a rural shelter, a wizened figure hobbles closer.
With chapped lips he drags on a bone pipe,
the warm smoke hangs in the air.
I stand still, breathe it in politely until my throat itches.
I'm told a tale of some faraway town
and a girl, his daughter, who left one night without explanation.
As an owl hoots somewhere behind us,
He wipes away a tear. It leaves a clean track through the layers of soot and grime.
A dog barks in the distance and the hedge full of cicadas almost drowns out his whispered, dreary tale.
I cough and move to reach for my wallet. He doesn't see.
He has started to shuffle away,
murmuring to himself about how she never made it back home.
Jan 11, 2018
Jan 11, 2018 at 4:56 PM UTC
You entered my life
When I was centered in strife
So you mentored me right
And invented the light
You were okay with my flaws
You were okay with my sappiness
You introduced me to God
You introduced me to happiness
You’re the shepherd
I’m the *****
Who’s ways were tempered
In the holy sector
You gave me a prize
By making things clearer
So I can look in my eyes
When I look in the mirror
You have given a gift
Of a life lift
Paradigm shift
Removing spit
Where I sit
Your inner peace
And inner beauty
Are within reach
And flow through me
So this foal hobbles
Behind its role model
Drinking the whole bottle
To match your bold throttle
Apr 7, 2019
Apr 7, 2019 at 11:31 PM UTC
Her home of a tree,
She jostles down,
As if height were but a myth.
She hobbles up,
And greets my hand,
With kisses of a little black nose.
She rustles up to me,
Her soft fur comforting me,
As all of nature sways.
"I haven't seen you in ages" I say,
Feeling as though too many years,
Years have passed since I have seen her.
As I think about my time as a child,
Naive and dependent,
I think about my adulthood.
She makes no noise,
But the ruffles of her feet—
My smile hers as I brush her.
After all this time,
I feel differently about this place,
This changed, familiar place.
She is the sun of Nostalgia's light,
A memory of the past.
I reminisce about the fallen trees,
And wonder how long she has waited.
"I'm sorry I neglected you so long" I say to her,
"I simply had to grow up".
Her whiskers warmly tickled me,
Her thoughtless happiness saying,
"I forgive you" in some way.
I think about the stretches of time,
In which all has changed,
Yet I stand in the back of the mystifying yard,
A slice of altered past, long swept by the seas of time,
Where she affectionately acknowledges me.
As her soft, large, round, greyish, white-brown face,
Pushes against my ankles as I squat,
I forget the strain of my body's weight.
She lifts my spirit into the air,
Leaving behind my grounded form,
As we gaze at each other from eye to eye to eye to eye.
"Come back any time", she says,
"And I'll be here.
I'll never be lost to time".
I open my eyes, sitting amongst the grass of a lonely yard.
The encroaching forest chirps with lulled noises, as I look at my hand, extended for naught but the short stalks of green that rise from the ground.
I feel my adult self, my life, pouring through my head.
I know, from within the realm of my heart, I know that I can always return.
I can always return and feel her again.
Nostalgia.
© 2019 t.v. Amaryllis
May 30, 2019
May 30, 2019 at 11:09 PM UTC
its okay,
bad days pass with the wind,
i seem to be
caught in many unlucky drafts.
this air hobbles southeast;
God bless the storms.
i am told:
(often) "use your sails for the wind."
foolish are they-
i already know my repost:
"have you ever
held these ropes?"
and i ride
the winds.
Sep 26, 2018
Sep 26, 2018 at 2:34 PM UTC
The hectic hubbub of the New York
subway – overwhelming,
to say the least.
Crack.
Screams pierce any sense of peace remaining.
Gunfire? Is this a riot?
The businessman to my left
Is too engulfed in the sweetness
of his blackberry to even hazard a glance.
As the commotion settles, people
return to their normal pace.
A hobo with a Goofy tee hobbles around,
claiming he has AIDS in four
different languages.
Drunk, he comes up to me,
Asking for a smooch.
I give him a quarter.
The smudges on his face
Wrinkle into a frown.
Almost falling, as if in a swoon,
He looks at me.
Dead in the eyes.
******* he says…
Tackle.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
A pink flower sways in the breeze on a calm, cool night.
It stretches out its smooth petals, inviting others to join her.
Soon, a young bee hobbles along and freely accompanies the flower.
She plays with its leaves, caresses its petals and hovers above the flower's stigma.
A sudden gust of warm breath pushes the bee into the flower and is wrapped up soft arms.
The young bee quickly gathers some golden powder, tickling the flower.
Then off the bee flies, waving back and thanking the pink flower,
Which still sways in the breeze of the calm, cool night.
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
I feel your stones sink in me
they rest like broken bones trying to find there homes
nesting in a soul that’s plucked out like a bird,
shot down from the sky and is all you do ask “why?”
Your truth falls away, a glimmer of false hope that sits in the distance
and then it’s gone but all you left was resistance and you still take a stance.
No one can hear you but those that are dear to you and even they turn away their ear.
We are homeless here. We are hopeless here.
You still chase after it even when it’s gone and so on and on and on it goes
the bird shot down hobbles onto it’s toes and still tries to take flight
but not even with the will of its might
can it fly off and disappear into the cold night of our forgetfulness.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 1:25 PM UTC
.
TERRORIST
/--\
___
the old lady hobbles with her cane
Down the street
/:/
The old country
Hobbles down the years
With a nuclear bomb
TERROR
•
The little girl
Looking for love
Eyes her ******
In the mirror
//
She is about ready to make a poor decision
)(
!(
If we pretend we don't see the poverty
We can hide our intensions
For a little while
//
TERRORIZED
::
We try too hard to pretend
That we are not
::
The blood
Dripping across our face
TERRORIST
seems the only thing to be
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 8:21 PM UTC