"mainstreet" poems
Friday- the most promising day of all.
The beginning of the weekend, but the one day that will spark appall.
Down on Mainstreet all the girls
In their fringed dresses, pouting their foxy lips and their hair waving in short messes.
The hags frown as the winged ladies pass by- displaying their carriages a little sly.
Oh, but Jane's favourite speakeasy was 'The Back Room' down on Norfolk Street: the place where the lost creatures meet.
Tin ceilings, velvet wallpaper, plush thrones and back in that dark corner, there is the sound of low moans.
'A whiskey, neat, please' as a shadow in a tuxedo walked towards her and he whispered 'Hi,' in a sensual purr.
'Who are you?' he stirred,
'Oh, I'm Miss Doe' and he lept into the stool with a swift flow.
And the jazz trumpets married the spontaneous harmonies and the saxophone created sublime melodies.
So they sat as idle as ghouls in the dim spotlights, until Jane asked Mr Buck:
'D'you fight in the war?' And he whined 'Cambrai, Amiens and Lys' - his lips seemed a little sore.
'I'm sorry - do I know you?' His face looked as familiar as Jay to Nick. A brief pause in time at that smile.
That was the final chord to the "lick".
He drove her down to Roslyn- to his replica of Versailles and Jane looked intensely shy.
'Oh, do come in,' the desperado soughed. And she walked into the gilded palace which Cupid's presence bowed.
'I have a favour to ask of you, Miss Doe. Would you be as kind to wash away my woe?'
And as they congressed under diamond chandeliers, his comrades gathered around the bed in amorphous silhouettes; watching disgustedly.
As for Mr Buck he was an alien, skin-to-skin with a haunted beauty and Miss Doe- a labourer on duty.
Jun 24, 2017
Jun 24, 2017 at 6:32 AM UTC
On old mainstreet, sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Rednecks and faux-necks and used-to-be-loggers,
Crafters and rafters, and activist bloggers,
And poets and hippies and mystics and fools,
And outcasts from the secondary schools,
And gypsies too: you’ll find them here,
Drowning in local, hand-crafted beer.
At night, locals sip organic tea,
And turn up the menagerie
Of lights and mics from another age,
Pieced together to make a stage.
And there, the guitarists waste their breath
Beating the Same. Four. Chords. To. Death.
There are some new lyrics, there and here,
But all of them memories of yester-year:
A year spent in the same **** space,
With others who’ve never left this place.
They sing of their dear loves and pasts,
And how much longer the wandering lasts.
And on they wail, and on they moan,
And twang the antique, rustic tone,
But their faces show they like it here,
This breaking haunt of yester-year,
And after the set, they carouse with cheer,
And smile contentedly to their beer.
On old mainstreet sits an old café,
Where home-town-grown musicians play.
Sometimes they like to change its name,
But the clientele stay just the same.
When times are tough down in the town,
You know you can’t get the Black Dog down.
Sep 13, 2012
Sep 13, 2012 at 3:17 AM UTC
In a crowded room filled with high society, and
In the facade of decadence, plays the Back Street Symphony
Winos falling asleep covered in yesterdays news
A lone saxaphone player, playing the blues
Neon signs and desinger lines are giving him his cues
He says "I've paid my dues"
I've got front row tickets to mainstreet
Walkin' by, don't know who you'll meet
A freak show on every corner
A broken heart walks on as a mourner
In a darkened alley you can hear him pray
Searching for a Savior with some words and a brown bag
Can anyone spare some change for me?
There goes the prom queen, is it a dream?
Hell is open twenty-four hours a day
I have front row tickets to main street
Watching the devils' choir earn their keep
There tearing down the walls in LA
There's a ****** on display, on main street
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 1:22 PM UTC
My mind drifts
To that night
You streaked down
Mainstreet shouting
To the late
Night world
That you
Were free
I manage to
Barely stifle
A little laugh
But they all
Knew it was
Me, their eyes
Surely said it
In that box
You're still as
Free as you
Were that night
And I'm just
The guy who
Laughs at his
Friend's funeral
Aug 4, 2023
Aug 4, 2023 at 10:31 PM UTC
I know what it feels like
To be isolated
stranded on an island
in a sea of meaningful conversation
so remote you need binoculars
to find people holding hands
thats not us today
not you second mom
not me failing educator
but us
jovial and talkative
skipping down mainstreet
stopping in pocket parks
to plan our towns future
i want to take you somewhere
that place that we used to go
well not together
that breakfast place
's been around for a half century
well
its not there any more
its a bar now
look ill buy you a shiner
and you just sit there
look pretty
and write on this dollar
and thats what she wrote
"b [star] [heart]"
with the shapes there instead
just over washingtons face
and i made for it a frame
just in the corners
and the new bartender
stapled it right in plain view
above the ***** section
down at the end
where the old men talk about
the ways that it hasnt
or never will
work out for them
you embody their silent shrine now
you are reigning over the space
where they come to be lonely
but talkative though
the place where they come
to find people with whom to hold hands
to skip down main street
to stop in pocket parks
and talk about the way
things need to be changed
and how [we] can change them
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
Cars drive by outside the window
Lying on the bed smoking cigarettes
Watching the moon come in through the curtains
Heavy hearted
I pass the trailer parks
Shattered windows
Rusted cars
There's a baseball field overgrown
Two miles down
But these mountains surround me
Blankets of fog lay on the hillsides
Rain taps on the roof
I'm a small town kid
And I can smell the tweekers and the ****** down on main drag
smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee outside McDonalds
No one trusts a new face asking around for pills
But the girl walks over to the window
Her black hair is prettier than yours
A ***** t-shirt three times too big
And a big smile
Maybe I just need someone
Who can show me the mountains
Someone who can name the rivers that run through town
Take me to where the Indian villages were
To the face of a cliff covered in graffiti
Take me to where the ***** drunk red neck boys like me
**** pretty quiet girls like you
She showed me where the river flooded
And tore her house from its foundation
She took me to the cold plateau
Of some mountain in west Virginia
far away from mainstreet where
a single stoplight flickers green yellow red
I think Im in love as you point your long white finger at the stars
As you speak in quiet southern drawl
About indians and fireworks in July
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 10:08 PM UTC
Downtown on Mainstreet, a sarcinarious empty feel, Mr.
Jones, so cold, alone, once
Hadst a home, sold his
Life for a bottle, clear
Liquid his daily meal.
Nothing in his touch but biker
Bars, where women art strung
On pills, men nightly jailed,
Life plans for prison bars,
Knives for cuts, and dope
For cars; This side of the
Street was where the
Dealers art star's.
Mr jones once a high-degreed
College lad, moved out of his
Home, he became the unknown,
Dropped out of public vision,
Traded knowledge for rich
Men's wishes, worked in
High elite positions, a man
Of superstitions, once a time
His pockets rolled with
Hundreds and fifties,
Now his clothes smell
Of cheap wine, as his eyne taste
Of death; now a holes in-
Side of his chest.
Dreaming one day, on the side
Of the cement, a being of grace,
Not of human race; an angel of
God to Mr.Jones was sent.
"Mr. Jones", the Angel didst whisper, I came to let thee knowest, im thy guardian Mr; for God almighty hast sent me to thee, to show thee second chances do exist, and sir im not make believe, mine light is God's kiss.
©Brandon nagley
©lonesome poets poetry
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 8:10 PM UTC
Down off the beach
The women wear gold and white dresses
Worlds of pearl and crystal glassed slpendor
I can get there in twenty minutes on the motorcycle
If she starts
But what a night it will be
If I make enough to buy liquor
Or a blue night home
The moon peaks just up above the sable palms
The night is warm and brimming with stars
The smell of gasoline and wind full of ocean salt
Where my home is by the sand
Blown into my heart
And no matter how I shake it
Or try to hose it off
The salt remains crusted
The smell of sea and home
Up town to mainstreet
Where little Cuban joints
Like to keep the neon glow
Where drunken black boys
Smoke *** in the yard
girls sit cross legged on the roof
Of squat sea blown houses
Painted pink, and blue and white
Like Miami hotel lobbies
The spedometer is broken
Just a haunting yellow glow
As onto Seaway I turn
More sea than road
God put this road here for me
Right here on a warm night
Where I can speed by the brilliant
Candle lit yards and dull sidewalk lamplight
The smell is strong of sea there
Heavy on the sky
The moon is a yellow crescent
Up above the ocean black
But the bike shifts clean and quiet
And the yacht clubs up the road
Are Shining bright
Where
Pretty girls dance
Red lipped in yellow lights
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 8:25 PM UTC
a gone, the world under the sky clouds all winter and summer the snow descends and occupies the ground
stars fill air with abstracted wings on crystalline lines and time between the stars a broken hinge
by the garage a flagpole mainstreet 5 cats yokked the world can't hold really too many absolutes but i am shattered and another time lost
while the sea slams the wind or lags an old woman's shoe flapping on the beach
and the awning was still there
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 7:05 AM UTC
I was told once that I lived a former life as a nun
I liked the thought
It rang true in my heart.
But what about this other one that keeps showing up in my dreams?
Where I smoked virginia slims
Danced nights in a hazy dive bar
Black hair
A luscious mystery
Mainstreet by Bob Seger
That'll take you there.
Oh, and please, I would like if you trusted in me
to discern imagination
From a soul memory
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
I feeleth for thou
Stripper trying to make a buck
I feeleth for thee homeless one
No home food nor truck
I feeleth for thou
Mother with no lover
I feeleth for thou panhandler
Being humble and ashamed
I feeleth for thou innocents
Getting caught in wrong time and place
I feeleth for thou
Kids with no mums nor dads
I feeleth for thou
Slave trade beings
Made as material of trend
I feeleth for thou
****** on mainstreet
Noone told thou of God
And how thy soul for him he could keep
I feeleth for thou
Angry and frustrated
I feeleth for thou
Lost and forgotten
Old and outdated
I feeleth for thou
Lonesome one in back of the room
I feeleth for thou
Because I'm him to
I feeleth for thou
Because mine God maketh me feeleth
I feeleth thou even on mine own
Just who I am
Didint thou knoweth?
I feeleth for thou hopeless romantic
Who seeks all the wrong places
I feeleth for thou
With mascara stains
And cuts on wrists
I feeleth for thou wonders
That hast been called slave, **** whore, bitch, *** **** sick
For only if those men kneweth thou huh?
I feeleth for thou who canst see one inside
I feeleth for one
Who think the only way out is suicide
I feeleth for thou
I feeleth thy pains
I feeleth I know
I've been scorned all the same
But please forgiveth others
As they shalt do thou
I feeleth thou
Oh yes
How I feeleth thou...
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 1:17 PM UTC
Take a right on mainstreet
And turn into unfamiliar territory once again
Pops always said take it like a man
Like a man I took it
Into this dark, unclear space I rode into, with a can-do attitude
Letting nothing block my path
Staying two steps ahead, avoiding any set backs
I had a place to be
Commitments to fulfill
Promises to not be broken
Flying on by in that cherry red convertible
Dragging a stream of color behind it, brightening up the place a bit
Suddenly came a bump in the road
The life pulled out of my tires and spit into this strange abyss
The dangers surrounding the safety of my little red car made me think for but a moment
Do I ignore my promises, and head home, out of the danger?
Or be a man, and revitalize Old Red
Men never turn back, physically or on a promise
And a man I choose to be
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 12:14 AM UTC
She walked along the wet side walk, looking steady enough,
Her dark coat, became red in the early morning and street lights,
Pocketed hands, hood up, hiding all but a tuft of,
her brown black hair, walking toward me, with a vacant stare.
The leash in my hand went slack as the beast, as we call her, stopped,
To nose around in the rain-wet grass, I looked toward that girl again,
Red coat, hands stuffed still in her pockets, red hood, pointed top,
Was that a stumble or a wobble, as she got closer to us.
She spoke with a slur and struggled slightly with, "Isz this how I get to MainStreet?"
"I am rEally drunk rIGht now! I am trying to GET there isz thisz, how? "
I said "sure keep going up the hill and on the Skytrain to go downtown."
She headed north while it seemed like her choices went south.
As she walked away, I wondered after Red, if she had already met the wolf or was
she on her way to Grandma's house and that encounter hadn't happened yet, because.
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 12:31 AM UTC
Melancholy tongs wind, little music box, tell me the secret
To fields of daisies, that golden gaze,
You lifted me within your arms, I was charmed,
Watched the heat from your hat imprint upon your brow,
We melted along mainstreet, as your song rang through,
Throwing out twirling notes into the falling world
I heard, in the quiet after a chord, we swayed
Reaching for applause like panting dogs on a hot summer's day
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 1:43 AM UTC
She's a rebel
Hangs out on mainstreet
Past midnight!!!
With the ghoulies and ghosties!!!
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 12:38 PM UTC