"merchant" poems
You don't know strength until you have been a real ***
You have no idea how deep this **** really goes,
Its not for the faint of heart nor you squares,
Too much of the game is not being sold but shared,
The cold breeze that chills your bones at night,
The dark eyes of other girls standing under the streetlight
They don't understand our struggle or see our strength
They only know the bad and try to stop it at any length
Yet we all share the same vision with similar goals
Inspired to stay down by his game that has no holes
We have all been given instructions to carry out fast
Breakin a trick make him give you his very last
Show him your down for him add it up
He will take care of your trap and stack it up
Every real 304 stands up when her folks is around
Every real p loves a real one who's down for his crown
Some say its silly to pay a **** your hard earned doh
But it races through our veins so when he sends me I go
Maybe I'm a dreamer and he is the merchant of dreams
And I am investing in our future crazy as it seems
But when he speaks I believe in the words that are spoken
And I make sure that I don't get too deep in my emotions
A **** is a born and from day one he is already game
To build himself a stand up *** and and get his fortune and fame.
So a message out to those of you who don't know
They say pimpin ain't easy but it takes true strength to be a real ***
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 9:23 PM UTC
“I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.”
John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States
<>
a bad weakness, mine, mess with the perfect of others,
unsure what to add that will addictive illuminate further,
but as homage, a tribute, a salute
got to
got too,
no middle class delayed gratification for me, none, whatsoever,
read the words and my own hands choke me
as if to pull out, to free
the upsurging words in my chest-forming,
to uplift me up, from the floor where I am roiling in
wonderful wonderment at a prophecy come true
my recent family history,
about 400 years worth, got it written down someplace,
escapees from a Spanish Inquisition,
a Roman one before that,
meandering Jews who found a respite, a small welcome
in a small village in Germany
(the irony does not go unnoticed)
from villager to merchant, from tiny town to big city folk,
we went, warriors if any, kept secret, best unheard,
attract no attention, but do what survival doesn’t
always politely request
here I am child of the proverbial wandering jew,
fancy me a poet with, at best, a very small p,
one of three children, historians, book writers, scholars and even
poet~traders,
and so a President’s words, hammer my cells
upon an anvil for human skins,
the future shape of me foreseen
and I think to myself,
alone and out loud:
This, This!
is what makes America great,
welcoming the stranger,
even predicting their
possible pathway to a peaceful existence,
giving their descendant’s generations liberty,
liberty to become poets,
free, who can stand upright*
Jun 25, 2019
Jun 25, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC
My unrequited golden dove,
you are a merchant banker
them bloomin' groovy bars
are sad tonight
but given the chance I wouldda gotten
cash & carried
& spent me porridge knife
loving your mince pies
had I not known
you'd treat me golden dove thus
& yes, been your trouble & strife
with all me Horse & cart.......
I know, not smart
I know, not smart
Translation:
( In English tis not a very impressive poem... it's just amusing how you can make cockney rhyming slang into a poem, so I've been experimenting.... I really want to send this to the guy I'm unrequitedly in love with actually... & leave him (hopefully)confused & in the dark as to what I wrote....mostly I just really want to call him a ' merchant banker' e.g ' wanker' & get away with it!! xD ' Wanker' is a particularly offensive term to use when referring to a man!)
* My unrequited love
you are a ******
them ****** stars
are sad tonight
but given the chance I would have gotten
married
& spent my life
loving your eyes
had I not known
you would treat my love thus
& yes, been your wife
with all my heart
I know, not smart
I know, not smart*
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Mozart,
deaf,
died, eventually.
Picasso, pervert, died; Whitney, Winehouse, drugs, dead; Elvis, Methamphetamine, died
(on the toilet).
Van Gogh,
missing an earlobe,
died.
Plath,
head in an oven,
in front of her kids,
Woolf
Patron saint of insanity, I guess
waded into a river and-
River. River Phoenix. Drugs.
Natalie Merchant wrote that song about him in 1995.
Flash forward.
Me, twenty-one, drunk.
Proprietor of a collection of lackluster poems.
Sold their small, nonbinary soul to the Devil
in exchange for a fortune,
gone.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
Tibetan Brimstone butterflies wave wings madly at their paradise valley
In the beginning, before the beginning, and in the beginning
Their shaken snow globe makes them flutter in wild exuberance
As they reveal a mountain, then no mountain, then Kunlun again
Peace, followed by chaos, and then by peace
Mother Luna's kaleidoscope of enlightenment
Protected by the hooded one
Holds all worlds and shakes the four seasons
Nothingness, creation, abiding, destruction
The wheel of time
Moves the wind as it’s blown by vast circles of water
Aqua marine is washed again by golden earth
And in the center, the great opal mountain song of La
Nature's peace
Beyond white leopard snows, icy winds, and empty husks of death
Butterflies are born again
Shambhala’s mindful beat opens passage for light through darkness
Poets squint and ride on wings toward the hidden sunset kingdom
Watching another world's Avalon alive beneath a blue moon
Insulated chrysalis of love for all seasons
A fisherman, a carpenter, a shepherd, a merchant, a caterpillar
Discover a lush, isolated, peach grove
Nosing thickly scented nectar and purple primrose honey
In the jade valley of the kings, queens, and beggars
They meditate under the Bodhi Tree
Deep brown ****** lines are carved into their soft olive skin
Smooth hands are made rough, and then smooth again
Young, then old, and then young once more
Wisdom setting beside Queen Spirit Mother of the West
Sharing a bowl of her rice milk in harmony
Being in the realm between man and nature as Kalachakra turns
For six years the caterpillar eats of fig
And then the wheel breaks for flight one last time
Radiating light as she sheds her glorious wings
Here, the snow globe explodes flying petals of wild exuberance
Revealing a mountain, then no mountain, then Kunlun again
Transcending all, turning tears into the suns joyful rays
As they rise, then set, and then rise again
Nirvana
Beyond our Lost Horizon
© 2019 MJL
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 10:01 AM UTC
Portia and Bassanio
Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned
Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.
Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.
Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.
All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 11:52 PM UTC
In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.
O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.
Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.
This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 5:14 AM UTC
Without
your smiling face my love
So rare now to find in this place
Without
your Glasgow banter
What remains is left speechless and misplaced;
I am a ship adrift without its anchor
Within
deep blue ocean eyes
that look straight into me
In ways and wonders and for why
Without
I can not take back what was said
nor’ parting waves and late goodbyes
now lost to the turbulence
of new experience under foreign skies
Within
I almost hear your warm whispers still
Without
it creeps in my ears to replace wax with made-up doubts
Play round-a-bouts upon my brain
But listen intently anyway:
In case she might whisper it again
Within
a tender touch that knows my gentle being
The passions unwrapped as such
By fingertips
And a stolen kiss upon my lips
And all that I remember seeing
Without
I am the frosted breath of a Scottish chill
With
a voiceless shout
No exit out
I await
that which is meant for me
Within
Without
or cast
adrift at sea
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 12:20 PM UTC
The cottage is old and the garden trees have overgrown,
The long missed smells of mother’s food…
Oh, what joy to eventually come home!
Shrill morning breaks to the call of crows
As the sun rises from behind prison walls.
A reminder yet again, Light alights in sleeping hours,
Daylight brings hell, the unvoiced tortured wails
Which cry out for the Light.
But it plays tantalizing games at night
And leaves the mornings in the hand of the jailor.
No friend, no foe, no merchant nor sailor
Will ever come to see…
We’re alone in our six square feet cells
Us, and the haunting drum roll of the surrounding sea.
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 5:14 AM UTC
Passing through mid-century
these jazz oneironauts reached Apollonian heights
while society drifted into Dionysian drunkenness
the merchants caught on too soon
The most beautiful parts of humanity
enamored to serve the ugliest:
The merchant class, the bourgeoisie
Buddha’s undeserving in charge
If only in past centuries
those noble princesses embraced
even more lowly patronages
all this potential today could be staved off
Saved from the drive to be commodified
People stopped buying jazz as it reached its height
No more smiles to appease the whites
Jazz for the few
the noble, the individual in the know
Until this too becomes the simulacrum
The Ornette Coleman on the bookshelf
to signify your snootiness
your refinement from wealth
Aging Dads in thousand dollar sweaters
kicking out their 22 year old kids
for being ****** addled hipsters
meanwhile Bird on Verve is nodding out
and Dad’s girlfriend pops a Percocet
to deal with all the stress
Jan 15, 2022
Jan 15, 2022 at 10:50 AM UTC
Splish splash
The waves crash on the sandy shore
Attracted to the ground up rocks
Like children to lollipops
Or bees to flowers.
Splish splash
The waves are getting fierce
Rain is starting to pour
Like a child with a hose
Spraying their brother on a warm summer day.
Splish splash
The waves are like skyscrapers
Towering above me
Maybe I should go; I’m all alone now.
Splish splash
The waves have formed into one
One giant wave covering my island
I run away, up the mountain.
Splish splash
The devastation is done
The buildings lie everywhere
So do the bodies
I am the only survivor.
Why
Why did I survive and not the wise old man down the street
Why not the old merchant who only sold oranges and beets
What would father say?
I know
I know what he would say
He would say, “Because you are you and no one else is you. That’s why you survived.”
Now he is gone
Splish splash
The waves are calm again
Attracted to the sandy shore
Like children to lollipops
Or bees to flowers
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 3:15 PM UTC
Dear Friends, this poem was composed many years ago and posted on ‘Poemhunter.com’. Time here is compared to the money lender and miser Shylock in Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant Of Venice’, where Shylock insisted on cutting out a pound of flesh from the merchant Bassanio, for having failed to pay back the loan taken from Shylock! Hope you like it, - Raj
TIME THE GREAT USURER
TIME the great usurer, is a great miser too,
Always knows the cost of things to be paid
back by you!
It readily loans you the desired amount in
number of years.
Smilingly assures and allays all your doubts
and fears.
It makes the loan to appear like a free gratis,
So you hardly bother to take any notice!
But with the passage of growing years and
life depleting with time,
In paying back your interests, you got to
default sometime.
Precisely at that moment, the usurer knocks
rather loud,
And through death takes back its’ principal
amount !
Alas, Time the great Shylock knows the cost
of everything.
When will it learn to appreciate the value
we attach to things?
-Raj Nandy, New Delhi.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 12:02 PM UTC
these 21st century writers / poets,
think they'll make cheap
thrills, and a load of bucks
playing computer games
at the same time:
i'll be found as a suffocating
salmon in their writing:
boy play the game,
expect prodigious output
when your father becomes
an art dealer rather than
a market-stall merchant;
irish idoot:
listen, your father approached
my father when my parents
were taking canadian friends
to the opera: you were a pristine
stoner... and i a damnable drunk...
like i said... you ******* leprechaun...
king's insult when trying to turn
a european into an african
ready for cotton picking of an export;
i took pity on james joyce...
you didn't... you didn't even read him.
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 6:13 PM UTC
580
I gave myself to Him—
And took Himself, for Pay,
The solemn contract of a Life
Was ratified, this way—
The Wealth might disappoint—
Myself a poorer prove
Than this great Purchaser suspect,
The Daily Own—of Love
Depreciate the Vision—
But till the Merchant buy—
Still Fable—in the Isles of Spice—
The subtle Cargoes—lie—
At least—’tis Mutual—Risk—
Some—found it—Mutual Gain—
Sweet Debt of Life—Each Night to owe—
Insolvent—every Noon—
3.2k
709
Publication—is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man—
Poverty—be justifying
For so foul a thing
Possibly—but We—would rather
From Our Garret go
White—Unto the White Creator—
Than invest—Our Snow—
Thought belong to Him who gave it—
Then—to Him Who bear
Its Corporeal illustration—Sell
The Royal Air—
In the Parcel—Be the Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace—
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price—
2.9k
One autumn day in Providence
I opened up a door,
And entered into a stuffy room
Called "Edgar's Nevermore",
A curio shop with things forbidden,
And things bizarre and perverse,
And obelisks of ancient books
Occult, arcane, and diverse.
I poked around the pint-sized potions,
Inspected a petrified eft,
But made no purchase; and empty handed
The merchant's lair I left.
Returning home, to my surprise,
Like one who'd broken the law,
I found I'd taken a good unpaid for:
A little monkey's paw.
It tightly gripped, with fingers curled,
A flap of baggy sleeve;
And there it stayed, upon my jacket,
When I hung it up at eve.
For many days it didn't move,
And seemed the perfect pet;
But never trust a monkey's paw,
Or this is what you'll get:
I went to bed a drunken evening,
And slept as though I were dead;
And I didn't hear the monkey's paw
As it crept beside my bed,
The monkey's paw that had bided its time,
And waited, still as could be,
To choose this night to strangle it—
My voodoo doll of me!
(Why did I have a voodoo doll
Of me, you ask? Well, I...
Well, let's just say...well...I can't tell you...
I'd blush to tell you why...)
I awoke (with bleary, blurry vision)
To the monkey-fisted grip,
Then died without a single curse
To swear upon my lip.
And in my town I'm still remembered
As that quintessential loner
Who died alone with a mangled throat,
A creepy doll...and a *****
O.O
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 3:13 PM UTC
remember mr shakespeare he was very bright
he wrote lots of plays hamlet and twelfth night
the merchant of venice the taming of the shrew
othello and king lear just to name a few
he was born in england many years ago
with the name of william that everyone would know
he wrote lots of poems in between the plays
thats how mr shakespeare used to pass his days
now is name lives on to this very day
the name of mr shakespeare will never go away.
Mar 9, 2010
Mar 9, 2010 at 3:01 AM UTC
From the sea I bring you it's treasure's my love
the bounty I have is from Neptune's shallow domains
with his blessing I have a purse full of pearls
I will endeavour to find a merchant skilled
and he will make this adornment for me
proclaiming my undying love for you
I am your humble servant
with a purse full of pearls
to put around your slender neck
I have held all your letters to my heart
wishing year after year we would meet again
not just as lovers, but the best of friends
For I have travelled far and wide
with salt winds in my eyes
to give you a purse full of pearls
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
Feb 18, 2014
Feb 18, 2014 at 7:42 PM UTC
These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant’s price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.
Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?
2.8k
A famous ship that set sailed
The name “Titanic” a cruise liner marked for preserver, but something down the line failed
The Titanic made it’s way over the seas
Yet on the deck the passengers were treated to an endless breeze
As the music played an elegant melody
The feeling of majestic royalty within red carpet hospitality
This was the first of the Titanic voyage
History in the making for sure
But will the Titanic reach destined shore?
A final night that everyone narrates and regrets
As the doomed cruise liner continued on the waves
Disaster struck with thoughts on did the waves behave
Panic was among the travelling passengers
The passengers being distinguished in the category of who’s who
There was a special passenger and I will give you a clue
The insignia of R.H.
I didn’t give the last name as I am trying to see if you figured out what R.H. stands for
You will be surprised in galore
The passenger was Rowland Hussey Macy
The name associates with MACY’S DEPARTMENT STORE
A store you probably shop today
But Mr. Macy perished on board the ship “Titanic”
Yet he was a man of the seas by way of Merchant ****** from Nantucket
But the Titanic was constructed to be unsinkable
However the situation does make one think as what really happened on the Titanic?
A mystery of the seven seas
Let your mind wander but feel at ease
All the passengers perished, and their soul’s went to thee.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 5:57 PM UTC
What does a painter do? A painter paints.
Of paintings inspired by the universe;
Of legends luminous as pious saints.
But people like me work to fill my purse.
Not artisan by trade nor rich merchant,
With rough and stubby fingers callused palms,
I'll starve if I were the master's servant
And soon to take the streets to beg for alms.
I paint for sake of commerce not for art;
I paint all kinds of buildings, houses, schools.
None enters, jobs can't start till I depart;
Scrappers, ladders, paints, brushes are my tools.
Do what I'm commissioned to do. To paint.
But Leonardo or Angelo I ain't.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:48 PM UTC
Transplanted to these '...fruited plains...', grandpa,
One of Gaia's fruits, what was his twinkle among
The countless stars? Here, millions have come
To stay, imbuing us with their place of origin,
Their souls dancing, flying, in a universal way.
For over 60 years Americans to be came through
Ellis Island, headed to who knows where West,
My grandfather, Uru, which means hero, a Fin,
One of three who left a concentration camp that
Fifteen thousand entered, did too, to NYC, NY.
Following freedom's beacon, its first light he saw,
The Statue of Liberties still unscorched torch, thanx
To Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, and the French. Of
Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom and a
'...Tabula ansata, a tablet evoking the law, upon
Which is inscribed the date of the American
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.'
The broken chain of tyranny lies at her feet,
Upon a pedestal, wherein etched words are,
From Emma Lazurus' sonnet, 'The New Colossus',
Which may rise again, only if we embrace them:
'...Her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she
With silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'
Only 151 feet tall, she will ever stand taller, or
Be turned to dust with us, all of humanity and
Large mammals, as well as the Earth, tragic
Members of extinctions annals, if we don't stop
The permanent altering of weather cycles through
Overuse of fossil fuels, the degradation of the
Earth's orbit around the Sun. We can walk in
Nature's abundant balance again, humane beings.
Still, she gives hues to the vast canvas of what
The Big Apple, and its beautiful mosaics' art, can be.
I shine only because he, a Merchant Marine, did.
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 2:06 AM UTC
After Li Po
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.
2.6k
SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS
THERE was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
I also bear a bell-branch full of ease.
I tore it from green boughs winds tore and tossed
Until the sap of summer had grown weary!
I tore it from the barren boughs of Eire,
That country where a man can be so crossed;
Can be so battered, badgered and destroyed
That he's a loveless man: gay bells bring laughter
That shakes a mouldering cobweb from the rafter;
And yet the saddest chimes are best enjoyed.
Gay bells or sad, they bring you memories
Of half-forgotten innocent old places:
We and our bitterness have left no traces
On Munster grass and Connemara skies.
2.6k
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