"nickels" poems
Promises are evil
Mouths open awaiting
To be filled with blood
Sometimes bones
Other times hope
They make you sell
Another man for nickels
They make you
Bury life to avenge the dead
I despise them so
For they demand too much
Often bruising, often enslaving.
Apr 6, 2021
Apr 6, 2021 at 4:40 PM UTC
she held me close and cooed and preened me
and held me safe from the night
from the large and troubling world
that my tiny brain could not comprehend.
those ancient hands
had seen many decades,
the raging waters sought the
liverspotted skin like a flame
seeks a moth to burn
by shining so **** bright.
She gave me dinosaurs
and quarters and
nickels and dimes,
she told me stories
and memories and
the dusty images of long abandoned time.
I sat and sat and listened and sat and
retreated into the shelter of
those far too weathered hands.
though the world was
largely storm clouds
and the incessant shouting of the thunder,
she held me closer,
covered me in her mass and
held me quickly against the oncoming storm of time.
those ancient
weathered hands
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 3:48 PM UTC
Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?
I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.
How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?
How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?
I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.
The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.
I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco. My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.
I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.
I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.
The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”
Friday never comes.
I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.
How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?
And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.
Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
It's all part of a bigger problem, namely the dollar sign
Our wealth we're given is merely determined by our blood line
The rich sit mighty high in the sky and dine
While the lessers scour for nickels and dimes
They spend all day wondering which car to drive
While we wonder if we have enough food to survive
They crack wise about their expensive wine
While we sit and buff our dishes that can't shine
We all dream of conquering the wall too steep to climb
while the affluent boot steps on those not of their kin
To clean the grime of the needy takes more time
They think an innocent gesture amounts to a crime
They're convinced we brought this on ourselves
and give more to themselves to stack on tall shelves
Unfortunately the wealthy control the people's power
Our greatest empires built by the common man's hours
Yet they are treasured the simple man's eye
The glitz and glamour are merely an illusion, an ally.
No matter how many thick gold bricks,
I am not falling for their dubious tricks
I wish to rid our society from the shackles of the dollar
But the commas add up and debt restrains like a collar
Until we can all break free from corporate's tight chain
They'll stay to drain the remains from our withered veins
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
It was daytime:
I was seperating siamese twins
at the waist
Like a government
trying to quell a rebellion;
I was reconfiguring
scarred old wooden toys
for Santa;
shining scuffed shoes--
pennyloafers with nickels
in the slots.
It was daytime:
I was decapitating
red-haired stepchildren
who had grown
sour from neglect;
removing brilliant succubi attached
to a wholesome family's
soul.
I was snacking on a
nerds rope,
washing babies mouths out
with soap,
slapping pink cheeked
toddlers on their feet.
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 11:54 AM UTC
Dear Perfect Girl,
Grounded in the real world
Taking care of herself like you’re rooted in a material one
Your eyes and smile never cease to amaze
But it’s your ambitions that set my heart ablaze
Your laugh puts a smile on my face
That seems to erase and replace
The negative and repetitive
If only for a second
I love our similarities
But our differences make it worthwile
From your taste in music to your sense of style
Because a venn diagram without differences is a circle
And I’d rather go the extra five-thousand two-hundred and eighty feet
To be close to you
Than to already understand most of you
By understanding myself
Dear Perfect Girl,
There are dimes that will do anything for a nickel
And nickels out making dimes
But I want your two cents
And though I may laugh at it
I take it to heart sometimes
Because like a game of monopoly
I don’t want to find myself back at the start
And I don’t really watch chick flicks
But I saw 500 Days of Summer
And you’re my Autumn
To which I’ll be sprung for in the winter
I wear no mask for you
Because I’ve divulged my past to you
For you are presently in my future
And though you may be a feminist I’ll try and be a perfect suitor
Dear Perfect Girl,
You say you’re OCD about some things
But it’s your imperfections that are great for me
And though I’m not sure I’ve met you yet
I dare you to wait for me
Because every day I improve myself
In preparation for thee
And a relationship you won’t forget
I’ll wear knee pads and a helmet
For when the day comes that I’m head over heels
I’ll be able to get up in time to catch you
When you fall in love
Disney taught me to wish on the stars above
And I’ve wished on every star
Thrown a penny in every fountain
And spent every 11:11
Wishing for you
Perfect Girl
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 7:02 PM UTC
The truth flowed out of me
Like a flood
And everything I've ever said
Tainted with the blood
Every shadow brooding
Silently I
Call to the sun
Open my purple eyes
Strangulation
Seared imagination
The child the child the child
Put down the child
Cast away the child
The prodigal son
Was killed by bears
Hounding sidewalks for nickels
The truth shone from my eyes
Half closed
Half asleep
Half adrift
Not alive.
Something deep within has died
Brittle bones and shaky sighs
Rattled breaths and paper hide
Put down the child
Goodbye
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 10:29 AM UTC
For me, these things don't seem to be matter of questionable choice
If you understand my face, then there's no need to hear my voice
Like a beautiful bird's everlasting melody it sings
Never wasted, for all the joy that it's song brings
Until the grim reaper's phone call eventually rings
And I make an obvious decision on boneless wings
Ride me like a horse, and return me to my stable
Use me then divorce, just like you're stealing cable
Oh no, I broke my leg, hole in my head like a bagel
Is it chicken or the egg, either way life is a fable
choices that we made, until we're no longer able
No brainers weighed, don't ask me booth or a table?
So don't come to me with questions wasting time
If the winds blowing might as well hang a chime
Karma will always cleanse even the perfect crime
Deserted island, poetically just reached my prime
So much to say, but just became a professional mime
Always had two nickels but really wanted a dime
Life's pointless questions, like should a poem rhyme?
To me if you don't, you"re a mexican beer, w/out a lime
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 3:32 PM UTC
my date with thc,
serendipitous and sublime,
like the first time
curious george killed
the black persian *****
got me sky-hiking
in a cloud of delusion
and creativity,
climbing ladders of abstraction
for nine mystic rungs
from mundane muse,
regrettable
like drunk ***
with an octogenarian
to lucid peaks of eccentricity,
a vaunted house built by
jimi and john,
long gone,
but resurrected
this date
we split a dime
into 3 nickels
and rolled every penny
into a top-5 billboard joint
we sprayed the submarine
purple
with haze
then made the wind cry
mary
as we gazed at two
giraffes making babies
on the serengeti,
laughing hysterically
like schoolgirls watching
riding miss daisy
then the cbd kicked in
and I toodle-ooed
my two
ungratefully dead hippy
stoneheads
and crashed from
the ninth rung of
the last ladder
onto grandma's bed,
clutching the first lines of
my date with thc,
serendipitous
and
sublime...
~ P (#Pablo#hcgktbpp)
(8/12/2013)
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
Redds shine like new nickels on the dark river bottom,
salmon have returned to spawn the Deschutes,
navigating by primal memories written in DNA,
an internal Tom-Tom GPS wired in their brains.
Watching them struggle up the ladder,
consumed with a drive to leave offspring,
they are herculean athletes battling
the current and the inexorable pull of gravity.
Were these the fry I helped to seed four years ago?
A Squaxin woman told me once,
ghosts of her Coastal Salish ancestors
ride the salmon out to sea and home again.
Roe in these redds dream also of the sea,
their salty eyes and nostrils perceiving
spirits in secret claret-red kelp beds.
The waters ask only to be haunted again.
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 5:20 PM UTC
I am a poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to water my feeble hope, thorny rose
rooted in concrete hatred.
Roots, like my fingers,
too feeble to hold anything
but this patch of dirt to remind
me, I exist.
ALMS! ALMS! ALMS for the poor of heart!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to wash away the muck kicked in my face.
A cup of change
to cleanse the wounds made
by verbal bullets shot out of nine millimeter mouths
wielded carelessly by boys society has deemed as men.
I sit in this spot and fester,
like a dream deferred.
My skin, cracked and brittle
like aged parchment, hangs over my frame
like sheets over antiqued furniture.
I sit in this spot with
arms open wide, heart open wide, eyes open wide
BEGGING FOR CHANGE!
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
A cup of change
to strip the lies and propaganda
from the decrepit facades of your ideas,
storefront workshops left from the age of enlightenment.
My body yearns for nourishment
but I can't afford your lies.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Now I'm not asking for a Jesus on Galilee moment,
just a cup of change to feed what's left of my soul.
But who am I to ask for anything?
I am just the poor man
sitting on the corner of
Your Conscious
and Your Reality.
All day everyday
I sit in that spot and
beg for change.
But keep your quarters, nickels, dimes
for someone else
'cause all I want is a cup of change.
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 10:54 AM UTC
Tomb of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
For upkeep and flowers
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
The merchant prince gone to dust
Commanded in his written will
Over the signed name of his last testament
Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
Around his last long home.
(A hundred cash girls want nickels to go to the movies to-night.
In the back stalls of a hundred saloons, women are at tables
Drinking with men or waiting for men jingling loose
silver dollars in their pockets.
In a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or
dress goods or leather stuff for six dollars a week wages
And when she pulls on her stockings in the morning she
is reckless about God and the newspapers and the
police, the talk of her home town or the name
people call her.)
2.6k
The cry
of the barrel screams
Screams resound across the earth's
Great Expanse
Expands from the lowlands of Vail to
the valleys of Los Angeles to
the depths of Oceania to
the oceans of death and,
after incessantly increasing,
incredulously stops.
Except not really.
Really, to most Valians,
he was just a name in passing,
fluttering past consciousness just long enough
to get a "poor thing" or a "shame."
Really, his body hit the cement a full
7 hours, 6 minutes before his parents came work
from home, not the other way round,
Saw the alien body of their offspring, then the corpse,
and threw themselves
at lawyers, counselors, and more lawyers
as each professional debated which lover
he wanted as his teammate in the opening of
The Blame Games.
Really, the cessation of Adam's heart
didn't open the gates in exuberant expectation of
The true savior.
His beats stopped when
the world began
The lost change in between his seat cushions
never had just one meaning.
Really, he never thought he would
ever amount to more than a dollar.
Really, the only question that matters,
the only entreatment with gravity,
is, Was he right?
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 10:57 PM UTC
I'm like your Swear Jar.
Whenever you mess up,
And let naughty words slip,
You toss a nickel in.
And everytime you lie
Everytime you cry over them
Yet another nickel will go in.
I'm your Charity case.
Filled with blind hopes and dreams.
Living on faith that things will get better.
Yet always knowing,
No amount of nickels and tears
Could clear the air
Of the words you've said.
I'm like your punching bag.
Catching all of your blows,
Easing your pain
Trying to bring you
To tranquility again.
But sometimes
I'm your pillow.
Soaking up your tears
The only one
Who's heard all of your fears.
Day after day
I bear your weight.
Because. ..
YOU ARE MY CAGE.
Making sure I can NEVER ESCAPE.
TRAPPING me with your soft embraces.
And PROMISES of what we'll do,
With ALL THE NICKELS THAT WE'LL SAVE.
I'M YOUR MISTAKE JAR.
FILLED TO THE BRIM
WITH ALL YOUR LIES.
AND HOLDING ALL OUR FALSE HOPES
AND DREAMS.
I'M YOUR SWEAR JAR.
only wanted when your
HURTING.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 5:09 PM UTC
A quiet kid,
lonely in the rain,
fingers the nickels and pennies
in his pockets, waiting for the bus
to splash around the corner,
so he can get to work.
He lives with a demon of a roommate,
and shares snores with the roaches,
Bathing in the shower of their incontinence.
After college, he lost it and wrecked his mind
in a haze of liquor so foggy it
swallowed the moon for awhile.
He stumbles through pitch black nights
with an ugly soul and redemption on his mind;
The worst kind of late night wanderer.
Coffee and sugar keep him alive--
just like war and famine are the black angel's wives--
bringing him back into this liquid reality.
In the mornings he breathes in this world,
totally sober.
It tastes like sourness
and the milk of ***** entrapped in blue jeans
in 100 degree weather
all day.
It was the worst kind of sobriety.
All the horrors of birth.
He lives many lives:
One for his mother,
where he plants fruitless kisses
on her cheeks.
Little wreaths of future disappointment.
She hugs him so warmly.
It makes him want to suckle his .45.
One for work,
all smiles
and plumb submission.
9-5.
5-2.
12-9.
6-3.
4-12.
And if he's lucky
12-4 on saturdays.
All this in 5 dollar clothes
and a rumplestiltskin attitude;
trying to weave his own ugliness
into truth.
One for his girl,
the one who'd hurl her tongue at Appollo,
puke up her month's sugar intake,
and curl her fingers so tight that she cut the cappillaries,
making a red and white fist like a christmas cinnabon:
If he ever told her who he really was.
His love for her is secret.
One life for himself,
to keep the mirror happy.
This kid.
He's all or nothing.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 10:54 PM UTC
Coca-cola has the taste you never get tired of, always refreshing, thats why things go better with coke after coke after joke
Is this a joke
Cola-Coke
I musta mispoke
Coke.
Blow your smoke
and my heart evoke
Mr. Coke
Mr. Coke
Strong as an oak
I swear, you tryna provoke
I’m being short-changed
Changed by the pain
of empty wallets and weight gain
Is this the dope or just coke in my
Brain veins
Cause I swear e’re time it rains
I get a little bit stickier
with that sugar sweet
fresh, ahhhhh
taste you just can’t beat
Without a drink
my meal ain’t complete
I trick or treat
for that bittersweet
flavor that makes my heart wanna beat
Say bye, wave hi to e’re passerby that I meet
I’m incomplete
Is what they want me to think
And so i drink
I drink and I'm
filled
I drink and I’m
thrilled
Just to be a little part in their bigger party
Seein only things that they want me to see
I nod to agree
I read the marquee
Lock down and guarantee
But I’m still nobody
Nobody to you
and nobody to me
and now I see
they WANT me to spend money
But I’ll spell it out for you
M-O-N-E-(WHY)
do I buy things
I feel a certain way
Why do I buy things
I had a bad day
I think I buy cause I’m worthess
gotta validate and purchase my purpose
And coke’s throwin me inna circus
of life, liberty and the pursuit of happy times
But it's hard to pay your way with nickels and dimes
but I can refund this bottle for 5 cents
or break it, and it be my defense
How does that make sense
Now I’m on the fence
Do I buy another bottle
or a six-pack for the road
I don’t really know
when it comes to cola-coke
coca-cola
sugar sweet
can’t be beat
Will that be debit or credit
Our chip reader doesn’t work
See you tomorrow
Mr. Coke
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 1:54 AM UTC
I wrote a poem
My heart was a scratch-and-win
And wrote another
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 9:13 PM UTC
When I laugh like a 65-year-old smoker,
when I fill in the lines of her face with my fingertips,
when my thoughts crash,
when I don't return my mother's calls,
when I apologize for stepping on your new shoes,
when I read Wolfe instead of socialize with the priests,
when I stare into open caskets,
when I microwave popcorn for all my friends,
when I throw nickels at Vietnam veterans' feet,
when I drink almond milk,
when I swear celibacy,
when I break oaths,
when I decide to write an epic poem that rips off "Howl",
when I browbeat idiot roommates,
when I buy books I never read,
when I hit on summer girls through text messaging,
when I wake up beside myself,
when I sleep on the tile by the toilet,
when I **** off the neighbors
when I hear someone say New Journalism died,
when I say they lied,
when I break my fourth finger against a wall,
when I listen to The Silver Jews during a heinous fog,
when I get to the table on time,
when I talk to Shorty about Waits,
to Zach about Springsteen and Ryan Adams,
when I'm surprised my friends actually listen to me,
when I straddle roadkill,
when I rock the proverbial boat,
when I lie with good intentions,
when I hook,
when I line,
when I sinker,
when I shift,
when I falter,
when I fix,
when I fake,
when I take the bait---
it's involuntary.
Dec 28, 2010
Dec 28, 2010 at 11:24 AM UTC
Back in my bone crushing
poverty ridden days,
I collected cans for nickels;
enough cans meant ***** and
smokes for the day.
one morning I came across
an empty can of beer, it said,
Dead Irish Poet Beer.
i thought, how odd is this?
Just then, a car blew by blaring
a Van Morrison song.
I thought, ah yes, but he's alive.
I didn't take the can for the nickel.
I left it to its green garbage
can grave.
Jan 14, 2021
Jan 14, 2021 at 1:13 PM UTC
This actually happened pretty much as I have told it. It happened on a weekday afternoon in summer on 60th Avenue in the Queensboro Hill section of Flushing, NY. The Mister softeee trucks still roam the streets to this day playing the same jingle as in my youth. For some reason they have adopted a sensible pay first policy. The Pioneer was the name of the local tavern at the foot of the street. it now serves bubble tea to the asian elite.
Our ice cream man on Queensboro hill
was a curmudgeon, to put it kind.
I'm pretty sure he hated those
who paid in quarters, nickels and dimes.
Ritchie was a "special " kid
He was a big kid for his age.
To put things gently he was slow,
Half a wit and not a sage.
We heard the Mister Softee Jingle
from a good half mile away
It must haven driven the bald guy mad
to have to listen to that all day.
Ritchie went up to the window
He got a cone then refused to pay.
Mister Softee left his station.
Ritchie made to run away.
It was like a Chinese Fire Drill
Ritchie jumped into the truck
The keys were there, the engine on.
He displayed considerable verve and pluck.
The softee truck rolled down the block
with Mister Softee in hot pursuit.
His bald head gleaming in the sun
wishing for his long lost youth.
The truck crashed into the Pioneer.
Ritchie was cuffed and led away.
Mr. softee nursed his vanquished pride.
His truck sold no more cones that day.
Dec 10, 2011
Dec 10, 2011 at 8:35 PM UTC
The checkered cabs have come and gone.
Hot melon, lime juice sipped by girls with practical names like
Petunia. “Fill me up,” she saltly said. So, with words, she swallows up out, erode the beds of fingers and of the sand, rode up the preying tide, rusting the shoreline like a spoon. Poison ivy and pennies, brass nickels and gums.
Flaking leaves from branches, barren and sad. Growing up from them are twisted spines, prodding the landscape of iris greens. Drowning pinks, hot melon, lime juice -- quickly, swallowing raw.
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
*A Love poem to his lady
from a man's man.
Jude Kyrie
There's a songbird in my heart.
No one knows she is there.
She is beautiful and so delicate.
I can hear her singing sometimes.
She wants to come out of me
To let everyone see and hear her.
But I keep her imprisoned,
She is my private songbird.
|If I let others see her
I would lose respect and power.
I would lose deals.
People can see only
the worldly tough old me.
The one who doesn't
take wooden nickels.
The one who never cries.
The one with a
Missouri, show me, attitude.
But then sometimes
When the night is blue and long
And in the quiet, you are lay by me,
So beautiful And full of softness.
The moonlight framing your lovely face
I let her out
Just for you to hear her.
She changes the glow of the starlight
that outlines your body
and frames your hair like a halo.
She softens my voice
Almost to a whisper,
I say things to you that
I would never say
I whisper stupid things.
That the tough old me
would never say.
Like you are
the most beautiful thing in my life.
And I love you beyond life honey.
Tears of happiness well in my eyes
She makes me so gentle and loving.
It must be some kind of songbird trick
But then as the morning dawns sunlight
into our bedroom window.
I put my songbird in her cage again.
And get ready to face
the garish rude world
for just one more day.*
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC
the professor
name's John, I think
every day a goatee
a ponytail
and an honest smile
brings me flowers
sometimes.
pays in nickels
sometimes.
"have an easy day"
he says to me
man in the same brown
suit, mismatching
every day
coffee, hunched over
with something under
his arm
sometimes.
never seen him speak
just a scowl
and a solemn shuffle
the owner
of the bar next door
I think.
out for a cigarette
every 30 minutes or so
or move his car
he gets our mail
sometimes.
glasses on his forehead
never on his face
always a fleeting
noncommittal smile
pacing past the door
sly eyes.
there's the guy
stuck in the 70s.
every day
bell bottoms
a black bowl cut
it's a wig
I think.
a leather jacket
sometimes.
walks like he owns
the sidewalk
he doesn't.
the old man
the half-blind one
orders the same thing
always.
with his walker
his hands searching
haven't seen him
in a while
the big guy from
the burger place
across the street
no, not the famous one
the other place.
took his suggestion
got a burger
wasn't very good
but he's always so
cheery, gotta be nice
the one guy
blue shorts guy
stops by during his
run, to check
the selection. back
an hour later in
pants and
a jacket now.
never buys a thing
wearing those blue shorts
the woman with
oddly spaced teeth
and hair
the short witchy kind
lots of shawls
and oversized tote bags
and cargo-capri's.
complained of
an allergic reaction
once
to god knows what.
keeps coming back though
a mother and son
mother, tired.
ten year old
private school boy
asks for too much
and too many questions
"did you make this?"
"are you really 20?"
"do you go to school?"
he asks so many questions
"yes, yes, no."
"why not?"
"well…"
mom saves me
distracts him away
the poor skinny one
the homeless man.
ill-fitting clothes
always.
women's
sometimes.
begging, cigarettes and money
has a tic, says
"hello! hi! hello!"
every few seconds
he's very persistent.
and very polite.
gracefully insane, I'd say
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 4:20 AM UTC