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Michael Sep 2018
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
This poem is from my book "One of the Guise" Written back in the 90's. I remember sitting on a window ledge watching this person sitting on a bench watching the activities going on on mainstreet. That was the inspiration. Copyright 1998
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.
09/12/12




Written for The Black Dog, Theatre Black Dog, and Isadora's, which are all really the same place under time's sneaky aliases.
Mike Currier Nov 2011
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
brandon nagley Jun 2015
She's a rebel
Hangs out on mainstreet
Past midnight!!!

With the ghoulies and ghosties!!!
Eleni Jun 2017
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.
A story based on the aftermath of the First World War, the birth of a "lost generation" and the excess of the 1920s.

1 'Miss Doe...Mr Buck' referring to a mature female of mammals of which the male is called 'buck'. This further adds to the animalistic imagery of their encounter.

2 'Cambrai, Amiens and Lys' battles of the First World War which the United States was comprised of the allied effort.

3 'Jay to Nick... that smile' an allusion of 'The Great Gatsby' when Gatsby and Nick meet for the first time at one of his lavish parties. Nick romanticises Gatsby's understanding smile.

4 'Lick' a jazz term for a repeating pattern or phrase in music.

5 'Replica of Versailles' a regal palace in France in this poem representing the wealthy individuals of 1920s America in New York.
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
grey on grey on gray
JL Mar 2012
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
A M Ryder Aug 2023
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
brandon nagley Mar 2017
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
sarcinarious: having to carry a heavy load or burden.
Hadst: had.
Art:are.
Eyne: archaic for eyes.
Didst:,did.
Thee)you
Knowest: know.
Thy: your.
Hast: has.
Mine: archaic for my.
JL Feb 2012
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
andrew levin Mar 2012
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
can't find it written down on the web so have transcribed it from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA1f4E9otRs
Kaweqamon Mar 2014
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
brandon nagley Jun 2015
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, ****, *****,  *****, ***, ****, 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...
brandon nagley Jun 2015
I remember being a fledgling of this old polish town, though "not polish mineself", I still had a respect for this place despite all the bad reputation for the polish many shalt speaketh of ( yet I loveth all people's) !!!

Anyways,
Back to the story lad....

There was an older, kinder, gentler, stranger soul in this town. As all of ( Rossford) "mine town" kneweth it as well..... This soul that lingered the old mainstreet strip was named ( Yanos) a man that wasn't ordinary by any means!!! An original Polish being from across his motherland. His knees weakly, his finger's frail, a brown old hat, with a coat to match.....People never got his walking up and down the corridor drag ( with candy in a bag), whilst at the same time picking up lost pennies, ( loose change) jewels to him off the ground!!! Some thought that he was some homeless man, some thought what a crazy fool, others knew it was just his strange soul that was different in all ways to them.......... He wasn't them (as I can more than relate with)!!! He'd  waltz up and down the artery ( Dixie highway) as if he was a spirit with not a care in the world, as if the world was oblivious to him... Heck, the world couldst haveth been burnt down, ( Yanos) wouldn't know.... See, Yano's always did something I shalt always remember,and something children back then couldst not forget...... He always tooketh some of that spare change he found from the ground, and even his own money ( from retirement with this old city) and go to the store ( used to be the pharm, now rite aid). And he wouldst buyeth bags of sucker's, ( OK Maby the cheap kind)!!! But the fact he'd spend all his time going and buying these sucker's, and wouldst passeth them out to any little children who wouldst walketh passed him.... All kiddies loved him, and even the one's who didint knoweth him ( Had great respect for this wandering soul that was just visiting in spirit form)..... Some of course thought ( just another ****** walking picking up pennies and giving candy to kids) ... Yet those art the same people miserable who knoweth not what love is!!!! Yet as I saweth Yano's do this for years for other's ( including giving me sucker's) I kneweth that this specimen was just visiting to giveth us a hint of love( then return back home)..... When he died, I went to his funeral..... People like me who didst not knoweth him, payed ourn deepest respects.... He cameth over here in the 1940s I found out by ship. From Poland of course !!!! And he was an ex-polish soildier... A man of high dignity, and most respected... As me and mine mother and father all stood in front of his casket, I thought how strange since noone kneweth the real him!!! Only his kind act's of love and and kindness to other beings...... But I kneweth this man was just passing through....... As god sent him here in the form of a humble peasant buying and giving away sucker's out of his golden chalice energy, God wanted him back home..... And I'm sure now, ( Yano's is the one who's getting the sucker's now, instead of him passing them out)... Or Maby He's still passing those suckers out to the infant ones in  heaven... Because he's a humbled soul.... And I shalt never forgetteth ( the candy man)

God bless thou Yano's old friend......
R.I.p Yano's ( Candyman)
Ottar Mar 2013
Red
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.
This girl was somebody's, daughter or princess, why was she alone on KGB at 6:30 AM on a Saturday?
In any state??
Alexandria Hope Jun 2015
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
Zywa Nov 2018
Village boys drive the harvest
princesses through Mainstreet

the eels in the source swim
answers for the lovers

who seek assurances, but we
lie on the attic mattress

and repeat what should never
end, we know it for sure

in every cell of our body:
more real we cannot feel

like no one can reason away
diseases or torture, so

let us, weightlessly heavy, sink away
together in the smell of angelica
Collection "Eyes lips chest and belly"
Ken Pepiton Aug 2022
Engulging dull gen-e-rational
curses from the last of the old to die
for the lie,
nessecito - guard the secret truth,

divide the knowing, good and evil.
Teach the children,
organize the engineered future, according,
tying, linking, thinking wedominionate, ping

CR disappears, as an action in reaction to ping
before the end of the line, on the first iteration
of my magnificent word processing machine,

****, woncha remember with me, not so long
ago - there were few, total few, zero
who had the where withal to do, what most
10 year old smartphones can do in a city.

Or along a trade route, major arteries of commerce.
Wireless Fidelity, High Fi- taken to the future
by virtue of infinite differentiating
-ping to correspond
My fingerprints differentiate me, for what that's
worth
appraise the role of one of my kind, with such skills
in 1858.

Infinite progress, with no regress for consideration,
who do we think we are,
who do we act as if we are,… my link to a living

line of my innerbeing, who I am from core to crust.

We, mortal readers and writers of thoughts,
code mode, readers,
- entertained by comparizoned boundaries
- bottom line, profundo mundus, mental
- novelty threat to global trade
- imbalence valence slipping
- on rolling ares, arrest that man
- he waxeth strange
odd
random reason, aitia cause and accused,
silly simple some, greedy grand plan for us,
this we
of me and thee, one with words, one with minds,
one with many
rediscoveries, little things, one must ignor, or else.

Nor must one image, to imagine, words alone
bein' in and of a current opinion, as to how why

is so seldom right, at first glance. Pain is a principle

price we learn to pay, in tolerable increments,
no pain, zero pain, is as if
- nowhere man, and the fool on the hill,
- were figments of shared imagination, to a few
- who remain from the
you cease reading, and this ends with you
hanging

from a thought with no words to hold it, long enough
to pierce the depths of difference

so slight,
least heat, zappa child reflection from an outlier edge
point to living in a living desert, see
we learn to live gently, walking soft. Stepping gen-tle

Knowing my time, and the ether-real or not network
tying strings to my fingers, reminding me of knacks
I was given, so when I came into my full potential,

I might function in my role. A bit of this we, of me and the
other people.

Sure, I left a trail, my neesings are frost on the deep,
see, a trail through a trial,
a time in a covideonic mind, unimaginable, a week ago.

If you were in that number, 3.2 billions, in 1962;
then you were included in the transition to now,
without your will being considered, the cultural
norms were fully functional,
once more, order rose from the chaos of industrial

excessive progress toward the wardening of all
mankind, wombed and un, and otherwise minded.

All settled then,
we keeps some accords confidential.

Scoff the co-inspiring reasons for fear.
Abhor evil,
live free/

you get the idea, I get the glory, in the story/

confidential assurance, you know what I mean?
What is the watch word?

be very sure/ steady solid seeming grounds
for contesting truth,
with reasons war uses to this very day,

to lead the innocent to rage.

Who, in ever, has lived as we live,
if you can read this line,
you are empowe'ded with tehkne, knowledge
harnessed and put to the yoke, thro
ugh
the exageration station into all in all.

Meandering rivers of white space where
edges promise what feels like falling, every time.
--------- eight line bit
bytes of bets you once imagined making

I bet the whole world laughs at me, and then
I said nothing.

It was very funny. At the time.

What do you think happened?
Did they die?

Did the audience disappear as soon as we looked out.

Standing out, salient aspects of personal being,
recollected for resorting
to old ways, where good is, yet, even, smooth,

as silk from the looms in distant lands, with dragons.
and mist
and mountains only fools wish to climb.

-- Well, here we are, in the middle of wars
and rumors of wars and proven plagues and famines
feedback from the whole life plan, we paid into
from the gitgo,

gone to reason with America, at Guantanamo.
Gone to wrestle with an ancient will to rule the world.

Meet me in the middle. Infinite Jest. I did read,
Proust and James Joyce, I did not read, but judged,

from a time in flux, filtered through the new
world order,

We, the Americans, become the other people.
The innocent standers by the mainstreet at Disneyland.

Gnost-algia, Anacin hammering on my medial frontal
shell

controlling nada, zilch, meandering along old synaptic
trails trial runs to the edge,

imagine we imagined we jumped the snake river,
wearing our Occulus, in June, of '22.

Who can forget an Imax experience, really,
when you remember your first flight

in the right seat,
sitting on my Daddy's  lap, I was that little.

  

The first flight above clouds.

Look at now,
look at this, us, as readers reading type
set as
thought, really, only code appearing in letting
lines letting lines form rhetted fibers, combed and
curled in natural twists, to reaffirm the function,

give us skin for skin/ made for shade, where
water is for us, to live
and have our being.
------------

Ignoring the cost, the man of leisure, the gentled
old man, the quitter, the walker away from the course,
settles all final bets.
For nobody bet on my horse, but me.
Of course, I had no horse, and that all stands to reason.

I am at the end of an era of errors, compensated for,
with vegetation, once the idea life had was
manifested as a sea of green, when seen from on high,

valleys, gentled, settled valleys filled to form the soil,

when the mankind mind is made up to know,
come hell or highwater,
who can hide the truth through put in functional code.

If it runs it runs, play the game.
Think, of course, when in the course of Human Events.

We are all involved. Me, as one among the 3.2 billions
alive in 1962 who brought forth fruit.

Multiple interests converged, in time. Each with its own
reason to be considered, cosmical influent.

Story wise, since ever when the fewest variables
variegation currency worth valuation
-came to our attention,
that is the point

to the order in which organized systems developed,
occurrence…
- living in knowledgement, state of sci
- =
the birth of the wombed man who did become,
science und wissen und kennen-wise, become
mother of all mankind.

Mito-mom, we say. She is as Eve, or Pandora
or Lilith or

Objection Orientation, east is where the sun is
in the morning.

I am thinking, in my easy chair. As comfortable
as can be.
At the moment, instantly in prayer, are we as ware
as we were
once, we knew for the first time, in our reality, we

who and whom, with all this room for individuation.

Consider modern ants, consider the meta-ant,
and the eco-system that has developed it,

the global transport, spreading the functional
universal aspects of earth's will to function
as one point within the scope of mortal minds

where we become the last staged event.

And we all get together, to close the show.
Re reading Wonderworks. Living in the library.
Whit Howland May 2021
deep in the mountains
a small town

the smell
of evergreen

Mainstreet
a square

a geodesic dome
undulating

on a crisp
sunny day but

was I really there
or was I lost in thought

a conversation
endless and breathless

whit howland © 2021
An impressionistic word painting.
abuzz with Autumnal thrum

Divine myriad biota amidst
heavenly Lily of the valley
(Convallaria majalis),
he didst imaginatively greet
Edenic heavenly terra
incognita immeasurably sweet

nature's ensemble proffering
Gaia's quintessential orchestration
resplendent sensational treat
natural splendour regaling,
this fellow wayfarer
happenstance gifted autochthonous peoples

espied proud specimens unobtrusive
planted armada, viz sleek bodies fleet,
of foot while me accidentally
risking, schlepping, traipsing... offbeat
winessed unschooled tribe,
yet verily synchronized,

primed, muscled... athlete
their soundless rhythmic swiftly tailored
flit to and fro upon poetic
unshod calloused feet
carefully, gingerly, lightly...
I shod dully tread nsync

toward drumlins upbeat
mouthing, kneading, imbibing... glorious
ebullient choral unadulterated feat
extemporaneously kickstarting crisp and neat
pow hour full rhythm across
analogous macroscopic excellent spreadsheet

inducing their sonorous symphonic
roundelay unfamiliar tweet,
whereby flora and fauna future meal to eat
oblivious regarding mine seat
dated existence, which quiescent aesthete,
yours truly basked,

froliced, luxuriated... complete
as once innocent hymnals kindled atrocity
this observer, spectator aghast white as sheet,
how civilization's machinations didst deplete
terrestrial firmament within one fell stroke
eradicated once pristine unbroken

promises chiseled to cheat
rightful owners expansive swath
over yonder til ocean and land did meet
Europeans scoured seas one after another
lumbering bulwarked fleet
exhausting resources while simultaneous

mowing down aborigines
grotesquely analogous harvesting wheat
indiscriminate deliberate genocide
decimating indigenous tribes beat
defenseless against microbial
weapons of mass destruction,

thus only within third blind eye
courtesy invisible paleface with tenderfeet
strictly envisioned Perkiomen Valley
once abundantly populated
with ample game during cold and/or heat
paradise unbroken stretched hinterland,

where place names mock to pay hollow tribute,
where native peoples no longer replete
vinyl city amidst amidst graveyard
lovely bones turned to dust
paved over by mainstreet.
32x Sep 2020
twenty shots
and on my journey across the planet i would use nineteen
i would capture towers and churches
trees and flowers
mountains and tigers
but i would save the last one for you
because your eyes cannot be found at a magazine stand
on mainstreet or
in a coffee shop on a saturday morning
Eastern Standard Time abuzz auld Durin
(ya know whit I'm Tolkien about
Elder days long regarding) Autumnal thrum –

The perfect balm to avoid feeling glum
supine upon greensward
I (a doubting Thomas) hanker
to take front row cat bird seat
divine myriad biota amidst heavenly Lily of the valley
(Convallaria majalis), he didst imaginatively greet
Edenic heavenly terra incognita immeasurably sweet
nature's ensemble proffering
Gaia's quintessential orchestration
resplendent sensational visual unadulterated trick
and the best Halloween treat.

Natural splendour regaling this fellow wayfarer
happenstance gifted autochthonous peoples
espied proud specimens unobtrusive
planted armada, viz sleek bodies fleet,
of foot while me accidentally
risking, schlepping, traipsing... offbeat
winessed unschooled tribe,
yet verily synchronized, primed, muscled... athlete
their soundless rhythmic swiftly tailored
flit to and fro upon poetic unshod calloused feet

carefully, gingerly, lightly...
I shod dully tread nsync drumlins upbeat
mouthing, kneading, imbibing... glorious
ebullient choral unadulterated feat
extemporaneously kickstarting crisp and neat
pow hour full rhythm across
analogous macroscopic excellent spreadsheet
inducing their sonorous symphonic
roundelay unfamiliar tweet,
whereby flora and fauna future meal to eat

oblivious regarding mine seat
dated existence, which quiescent aesthete,
yours truly basked, froliced, luxuriated... complete
as once innocent hymnals kindled atrocity
this observer, spectator aghast white as sheet,
how civilization's machinations didst deplete
terrestrial firmament within one fell stroke
eradicated once pristine unbroken
promises chiseled to cheat
rightful owners expansive swath
over yonder til ocean and land did meet.

Europeans scoured seas one after another
lumbering bulwarked fleet
exhausting resources while simultaneous
mowing down aborigines
grotesquely analogous harvesting wheat
indiscriminate deliberate genocide
decimating indigenous tribes beat
defenseless against microbial
weapons of mass destruction,
thus only within third blind eye

courtesy invisible paleface with tenderfeet
strictly envisioned Perkiomen Valley
once abundantly populated
with ample game during cold and/or heat
paradise unbroken stretched hinterland,
where place names mock to pay hollow tribute,
where native peoples no longer replete
vinyl city amidst amidst graveyard
lovely bones turned to dust
paved over by Mainstreet.
abuzz with Autumnal thrum

Approximately six weeks since August sum
er re: lazy dog days witnessed lolling about
sipping cocktails, whose primary ingredient ***
pulled and sated esophageal tract nsync
with thirstily quaffing Slivovitz plum
wine to experience becoming comfortably numb
inebriate of air also suffused mine being
keeping yours truly mum
envious fauna simply exist
oblivious to earn an income.

Divine myriad biota amidst
heavenly Lily of the valley
(Convallaria majalis),
he didst imaginatively greet
Edenic heavenly terra
incognita immeasurably sweet

nature's ensemble proffering
Gaia's quintessential orchestration
resplendent sensational treat
natural splendour regaling,
this fellow wayfarer
happenstance gifted autochthonous peoples

espied proud specimens unobtrusive
planted armada, viz sleek bodies fleet,
of foot while me accidentally
risking, schlepping, traipsing... offbeat
winessed unschooled tribe,
yet verily synchronized,

primed, muscled... athlete
their soundless rhythmic swiftly tailored
flit to and fro upon poetic
unshod calloused feet
carefully, gingerly, lightly...
I shod dully tread nsync

toward drumlins upbeat
mouthing, kneading, imbibing... glorious
ebullient choral unadulterated feat
extemporaneously kickstarting crisp and neat
pow hour full rhythm across
analogous macroscopic excellent spreadsheet

inducing their sonorous symphonic
roundelay unfamiliar tweet,
whereby flora and fauna future meal to eat
oblivious regarding mine seat
dated existence, which quiescent aesthete,
one run of the mill human basked,

frolicked, luxuriated, tasted... complete
as once innocent hymnals kindled atrocity
this observer, spectator aghast white as sheet,
how civilization's machinations didst deplete
terrestrial firmament within one fell stroke
eradicated once pristine unbroken

promises chiseled to cheat
rightful owners expansive swath
over yonder til ocean and land did meet
Europeans scoured seas one after another
lumbering bulwarked fleet
exhausting resources while simultaneous

mowing down aborigines
grotesquely analogous harvesting wheat
indiscriminate deliberate genocide
decimating indigenous tribes beat
defenseless against microbial
weapons of mass destruction,

thus only within third blind eye
courtesy invisible as one paleface (me)
who sports tenderfeet
and gnarly growing toenails
strictly envisioned Perkiomen Valley
once abundantly populated
with ample game during cold and/or heat
paradise unbroken stretched hinterland,

where the streets have no name
and native people's place names
mock to pay hollow tribute,
where native peoples no longer replete
vinyl city amidst graveyard
lovely bones turned to dust
paved over by Mainstreet.

— The End —