"panhandling" poems
Street performers.
Busking. Panhandling. Begging.
An artist’s most submissive position.
Music’s all-powerful mystery beholden to pocket change.
Until a blind man, guitar in hand,
On the Blue Line platform,
Plucks from an unsuspecting heart
An unmistakable theme-
“What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?”
An unmistakable love story...
One bill and some coins in his collection basket,
A mysterious, gentle reminder-
Dynamics come wholly undone.
I drop in my all-powerful dollar,
All aboard the train.
Down here and now will I
Write for the first time in nearly three years.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 12:00 PM UTC
My dreams
do not come attached to
the ideals of my people
or the sacrifices of another country.
Instead I am poor
and mine are clinging to life
the very idea of existence.
Mundane flashes--
not adventurous endeavors
nor flights around the world
this is what richly folks do.
Simply a mingler
someone whose life
flourishes around the bends
of florescent street lights
and panhandling
nearby a farmers market
just after sunrise.
This remnant is few
as these are neighbors
local countrymen
who stoically face
the world's deviation
and deprivation
from coexisting
by the bonds of
agriculture and personality
even as a beggar
it is but a joyous memento
to a world that
no longer thrives.
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 3:51 AM UTC
-Light up a cliche under a streetlight
while singing "the Star Spangled Banner"
and receiving oral from a trans-woman.
**** in the drive-thru of an Arby's.
-Fist fight a bear that people
find much uglier than myself.
Made a bucket list of ****
I think might be legitimately worth doing;
haven't run it by my girlfriend yet.
Speaking of which,
she deserves a round of applause
for dealing with my melodramatic ********
-Strike a police officer,
after robbing a bank with a water pistol.
I wanted to call her to let her know
I'd chased a bird till it crossed the street
and tweeted at me in anger or excitement.
Flipping the bird "the bird", I shouted,
**** YOU BIRD!"
and continued home.
-Throw a rock at a train.
-Toss a Molotov Cocktail at a moving car,
and cook a hot dog in the flames.
She deserves a million dollars
and a ******* Nobel peace prize.
-Call one of those panhandling
money worshiping televangelists
a **** bird, and offer them to ****
themselves [the ugliest people I can think of].
-Wear a habit over a burka.
I don't believe in souls, soul mates,
anything supernatural or special,
but I love that woman,
and that's why I believe in love.
-Not die alone.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 12:51 PM UTC
The city tosses, turns, and finally rises,
Surrendering to daylight and giving itself over
to the bustling movements of its citizens.
At the crosswalk, an old codger in rags holds a panhandling sign,
And nearby a bearded hippy plays guitar.
The sound of beggars, musicians, bored businessmen,
And all the teaming masses drift through back alleys,
And float through the air like the heady perfume of car exhaust.
Each street, each block, each break in the never-ending flow of man’s own personal jungle.
Brings to mind stepping into a whole other world.
Here, in one such strange nexus, a building likened to a castle,
Stares across a narrow stretch of road at an abandoned building,
Cracked broken and peeling, tattooed with graffiti from a hundred vagabond artists.
It conjoins directly to a new building,
the fresh, well maintained walls of which offer striking contrast.
The confused, confounding nature of the true jungle is in this manmade facsimile
More well reflected than anywhere else in the world.
The muggy air rings with life, the heat is stifling,
And for all that it has a strong allure.
This city, and all cities.
For in every corner, at every street, life bleeds from a city.
It grows from the crack like a flowering ****
And in truth,
Is a flower born in the streets of a city, atop the stem of a dandelion
Any less a flower than a rose from the heart in the woodland?
To me, that a flower could be so brazen, so proudly out of place,
Makes it all the more a thing of beauty.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 1:08 AM UTC
Hello old friend,
With your tall sweeping evergreens
Towering almost endlessly
Into a blue clear sky
The endless swell of traffic
Cars peeling down the street
The smell of roasted coffee beans
From some hole-in-the-wall cafe
The obvious transplant donning an umbrella in the Autumnal warm rain
The light sprinkling of water enough
To nurture the verdant green
Hello old friend,
Mt. Rainier, she greets me,
Looming ever majestically
Over expanses of tree and road
Her white peaks cresting over
Fields of blossoming flowers
The tulip fields scattered across the sloping
Skagit Valley, her vineyards spanning for miles and miles
Hello old friend,
Seattle's grungy nature
Masked by her streets of trendy
Cafes and farm-to-table restaurants
Her mom and pop cafes
Her canvas gray dress marred by graffiti
And street tags
The busker on the street corner panhandling for change
The homeless sheltering under a cardboard blanket outside of a Starbuck's
The transplant with the umbrella stopping down to drop change in their jar
The crumpled dollar
The locals who pointedly ignore him on their way to work, to school, back home, to somewhere...anywhere...
The constant dazed bustle
The stench and pungent odor of ****
Curling around every seedy corner and
Affluent street crossing
Hello old friend,
It's been a while
Let me nestle into your newness
A new coast greets me across the horizon
Replaced by homespun everything
Pastoral fields where the bovine and equine reside
Hello old friend,
I suppose you're home now
I suppose you're home...
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
Dear homeless man on the side of the street
Begging for a dollar, a smile, or a treat
I’m sorry I looked away
I’m sorry I pretended like I didn’t see you
I need to shelter myself from the truth
I want to shelter myself from you
See I can never be a shelter to you
I could tell you there is rest
In the shelter of the Most High
I just assumed you’re probably high
I can’t handle the guilt of greed
So I blame you for panhandling
Now please let me drive by
Before I’m caught up in a drive-by
Dear homeless man on the side of the street
Begging for a dollar, a smile, or a treat
I’m sorry I looked away
I’m sorry I pretended like I didn’t see you
You’re in my blind spot
I cannot see you
If I pull up my blinds
Then I might spot you
So I stay in my dark room
Where I picture a world
Captured in imagination
And developed in reality
I stay in my dark room
I time travel with a flashback
I picture the world in just white
I picture the world in just black
So I expose the injustice
Until it’s black and white
Now I see the picture right
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 6:03 PM UTC
He exchanged his
routines
for the
long dusty road,
he exchanged his
jeans
for a long white jacket
he called it the "white robe."
His hat said "Home"
He took off on the
road only travelers
go.
He had a pretty girl
he was was going to see,
then he knew
he would have to leave.
He stopped saying much,
mainly "thank you"
and "please".
He had exchanged
his mind set
for a new set,
his confusion for clarity
his narrative for poetry,
many said
it had led him astray.
He exchanged his
fullness for emptiness
and
began to take it all in,
the old dusty road became
the only way he knew at all.
He would stand in perfect silence
and
hear it all.
He would stand in perfect stillness
and
travel it all.
He exchanged his awake routines
for dreams.
He traveled here and there,
where ever
that dusty old road
would take him,
some places made sense,
some were flashes
of total innocence.
He had exchanged
his expectations
for creations.
He could love you on the road,
be with you
but with you
he would never go home.
Rumor has it
it was his fatal flaw.
He had exchanged
success and failure
for
experience,
he avoided many a cliff
many a fall
in having it all.
You won't find him
hitchhiking
panhandling
soliciting or pandering
selling drugs
or
in bed with your mother.
You'll find him in the whispers
you hear
in the rainbow aura
around street lamps
on night time
deserted streets,
the meteor at midnight
the green flash at sunset.
He had exchanged
staying for going
and
he was on his way
with dust devils
blowing
behind him.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
I have sharpened my teeth ready to rip and tear
like soldiers and their swords
I am listening to the sound of the rain on the roof
while you fold your clothes to sad song about madness and memories and it is quiet in the house with the same kind of finality of
a lock clicking of
a door slamming of
a finished book
like a knife slicing through a teen on a Chicago city street at 1 am
no streetlights
no police
no gunshots
just this skin
this blood on asphalt
on sidewalk
on boy
on knife
just blood on the roof of this house like a warning
something wicked resides here do not come near
something that says dangerdangerdangerdanger
Never look back.
Never look here again,
there is something about you that keeps me coming back for more
like you are selling crack ******* on the street corners and
I am an addict panhandling
I know you will leave me when I am hopelessly in love
I know I will not be able to breathe without you.
Without the weight of your body and breath on mine
you will leave me peeled and gutted, spineless.
Every dream crushed like a body thrown from the 40th floor.
You will leave me like tsunamis leave islands,
like hurricanes leave cities,
like tornadoes leave houses
utterly destroyed from the core out,
and you?
You will leave like a bird from a nest.
Weightless.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 1:02 AM UTC
Surviving beneath bypass
Cardboard ripping, some spyglass
Thin covering, protection
Sharpening knife, perfection
Past life professional man
Bad karma, God, dealt sad hand
Panhandling corner right here
Homemade sign makes purpose clear
People ignoring, glower
Certainly love hot shower
Having nothing accept rags
Don't own anything, no bags
Eating something, drugging, *****
What's needed most cannot choose
Spent long hot days begging cash
Got ***** finished dining trash
Trodded back to cardboard home
Peeking out feeling all alone
Oct 3, 2013
Oct 3, 2013 at 4:52 PM UTC
I'm panhandling my music because,
who even gives a **** about anything else?
I certainly don't.
"I'm gonna quit" I tell them,
and start recording new material.
I should burn them; burn every *******
instrument in this room and get poisoned
on the fumes and die in my sleep. In pain.
Haha. Laugh, it's just a dark comedy.
I'm going to quit, ******* sell out,
and sell cigarettes or invent an engine
that makes rich people money and runs
on labor, sweat, tears, and blood.
I'll... ****** haha... wait, I'm really laughing
because if I made it they'd find a way.
Tell me you don't get it-
those god **** rat ********
would make my engine
RUN.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 1:54 PM UTC
Oh old days of past lives lived -
West coast ridin’
Thumbin’ ‘bout the coast -
San Diego up to L.A. -
Zoomin’ through Big Sur with strange friends,
Stranger than strangeness itself.
Arrive Santa Cruz,
Cops called,
No transients allowed,
Caravan keep tumblin’ northbound -
San Francisco Bay,
Oh, that Oakland scene
With Park Prophets
And worn-out crack minds
Panhandling supermarkets
Begging coins for fire -
The Sun isn’t enough -
Old man needing dirt
Paid with by pity,
Smoking up the score
Singing little ditties
On Piano, beating keys
loud, Loud, LOUD
until Cops called
by neighbors afraid of God,
claiming Jesus freaks of being demons,
Oh old days of past lives lived -
Walking Telegraph to Berkeley
In the rain Rain RAIN,
Stolen bicycle,
Making friends, People’s Park
No more noise -
Just rain fallin’ fallin’ fallin’
And in the rain, I do miss those lives -
Those faces. And I know, forever I will. Forever I will. Forever I will.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 11:56 AM UTC
I've seen you hundreds of times before,
with your broken shopping cart.
Sometimes filled with your possessions,
and other times with bottles and cans.
I’ve seen you hundreds of times before,
with your broken spirit.
Sometimes holding a sign,
and other times a bottle.
I’ve seen you hundreds of times before,
with your broken life.
Sometimes sleeping in the park,
and other times panhandling at a traffic light.
You’ve seen me millions of times before,
with my broken attitude.
Sometimes filled with compassion,
but most times with fear and disgust.
You’ve seen me millions of times before,
with my broken society.
Sometimes building a bridge,
but most times putting up a wall.
You’ve seen me millions of times before,
with my broken movements.
Sometimes going forward
but most times headed nowhere.
I’ve seen you hundreds of times before,
with your broken shopping cart.
Filled with my worst fears,
as I walk by.
You’ve seen me millions of times before,
with my broken attitude.
Filled with your hopes and dreams,
as I walk away.
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 at 5:10 AM UTC
Two dead girls, flayed into leaves on the forest floor. Butterfly knife not so flitting, more like flying through the air, cutting whatever it dares come across. Mostly pearls, but then again you see a lot of baby opossums drifting up from the side of the road these days.
Cotton, cotton filling the mouths of anger hungry boys, not so sharp jaws and those dull blue eyes you see on every magazine cover. Who knew death looked so fresh dressed in tattoos and bruises that are the same color as your moms wedding night wine?
Tell me, boy, where did you get your emotions? Is that mania an heirloom? Or did you buy it from whoever first sold you that Xanax? Did you rip them from the heart of the first girl you told looked beautiful in blood?
You ***** ******* liar. You filthy thief of virgins' teeth, swaddling your broken skin knuckles in baby bonnets.
I hope God finds His way under your greasy fingernails, your greedy skin and stained teeth. I hope the waves that toss your thoughts only curl towards the bottom and your heart only strains it's sides to reach your father's ghost.
There are so many messy, sloppy secrets behind every self hating fool with a pension for roadside crying and cheap liquor shopping. A desire for so many I'm-only-trying-to-pay-off-my-loans ladies, covered in last weeks work and warm old men cigarette breath and guilt. I hope for all eternity that you find something worth panhandling for, whether it be disease or love. I hope God finds you in the sewers, whimpering your sister's name and your brother's license plate.
(The devil went to find what's his, down in Los Angeles where you last hid.)
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 11:43 PM UTC
Donald Trump's unleashed a budget
with fanfare great and loud;
And if you helped elect him
you are, no doubt, standing proud.
Such joy and happiness you'll feel
and oh such special thrills,
to find yourself in bankruptcy
from rising healthcare bills.
With public education trashed,
most kids will come out fools,
but so glad for those richer kids
in better, private schools.
No more funding for the arts,
oh what a lovely treat,
to walk past starving artists out
panhandling on your street.
When you drink water from your tap
and start to gag and choke,
be grateful that the E.P.A.
has gone right up in smoke.
If you're old and your Medicaid
won't cover that prescription,
will "Proud to die before my time"
be on your grave's inscription?
So where will all the savings go
from all this cost reduction?
Be thrilled to know it will buy more
weapons of mass destruction;
and it will build a monument
to Trump, so we will see
a massive wall, so broad and tall,
as useless as is he.
Though into pain and suffering
your country will be slidin',
your vote for Trump has given you
a budget you'll take pride in.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 2:32 PM UTC
panhandling daily
sympathy cards all used up
tired of all this
slashes his wrists then sits down
on the curb eating pizza
his blood dripping down
his mind is on the pizza
does not care to live
EMT's take him, fix him
72 hour hold
dude's a survivor
gets psyche evaluation
returned to the streets
proudly bragging about it
to anyone who listens
came to my office
asking my friend for some change
friend's a minister
rejected, the dude cusses
picture of humility
he doesn't ask me
he knows what my answer is
done enough for him
all I can do is just wait
then spray the air freshener
Apr 1, 2010
Apr 1, 2010 at 9:42 AM UTC
I dabble in dreams
Singing with the sirens
Masking my shrill screams
I'm searching for guidance
These eyes are empty
I'm living outside of me
My demons tempt me
Form a different reality
I spend days in a cloud of smoke
With my nose buried in my collar
The more I try the more I know I'm broke
Living lackluster life in squalor
I'm panhandling on the corner of the street
With only pieces of my broken heart in my paper cup
Yet I find it so hard to admit defeat
I'm down not out I'll pick myself back up
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 5:19 PM UTC
past where ***** lie
beside christian soldier
whose older and bolder
panhandling shames guy.
eyes lift from dirt to seat.
overflow shame is then
crammed in a telecoms pen.
salvations' hat sits complicit
with our gaze raised upto
other responsible 'sort'
whom donations taught
to be our virtue.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
I frown at the fifthy & stenchy bums downtown. They're panhandling is all around.
Wobbles toward you with their horrible garble.
Mentally ill with no marbles.
Probes all the trash cans on the globe.
In their doped trance, they do their drunken dance.
Through the streets they hobble.
From the garbage scraps they gobble.
They are a slobby mess.
Professionally they will never dress.
Can their stench reek any less?
They litter their beer cans & cigarettes pollute.
They dress in rags & will never west a suit.
They figure society owes them something.
Their philosophy is why bother to work for a dollar?
Released from jail for public grief.
Pity that will eventually cease.
A felon with no home.
Shuffling around with no cell phone.
A sap with a tooth gap.
Unfortunate crap.
But they adapt with their diseased clap.
Map out their next nap.
© Harmony Sapphire . All rights reserved
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 2:22 AM UTC
Life turns on a dime,
usually at just the moment
when I have no change.
- mce
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 5:54 AM UTC
You'll find your God(s) lying in ***** soaked camouflage pants and a black wool sweater next to his or her grocery cart . On the corner of a busy downtown intersection waving at the cars ! Their panhandling at the liquor store for loose change .. Standing at the off ramp of the expressway holding a sign that says " Need Food ! " They're the people talking to themselves as you try your best to look away ! Maybe inside a cardboard mansion in the shadow of the state capitol building ..Freely associating with their disciples on a city park bench . Waiting any day to be crucified by a disinterested government !
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
People’s rhymes sold in auctions, please take caution
Of the window washing smileys panhandling toxins
Give no option, moshing many minerals
Cocktail parties are more hardy maybe visceral
Rock the mini marts when the boys tumble out
To cull clerks hurtin’ in no cocktail lounge
Shout outs as loud as the whole neighborhood
Mounds of scatter chips blitz grub to scrounge
Shout out to the clerk, sorry we’re super drunk
How bout not being a dupe or **** you entertainment monks
Who’d of thunk these the spunky thinkers of tomorrow
Jul 1, 2017
Jul 1, 2017 at 1:07 PM UTC
The uniting spirit between us
hundreds of thousands of years and
we lived as hunter-gatherers
This blip in civilization
has been the ascension of the individual
Look at all us tyrants can do by exploiting the universal potential
Spur on division amid the masses and channel any
enlightening sciences into lip service appeasements
that only serve to enhance the status quo
hum-ho, regular old exploitive system
we verify by looking back
in our teleological telescopes
Just like the Dutch East India pirates in the Spice Islands
The worst of it is the hypocrisy of it all
Saying they're for freedom and rights
and endorse the man from Galilee handing out fish to
panhandling outcasts, but no
of course the killing is worse
than the irony in between
MacDonald's dead, his tartan's in rags
We're powerless
so we became smart as kids
Putz around, find out stupid ruthlessness wins
Some folks just can't do it
Jul 21, 2025
Jul 21, 2025 at 11:25 PM UTC
I caught my man panhandling I handed him my last thread of common sense, he only wanted the dollar
That's all I had left, reds an ugly number
Sensitivity is rarer than ever when you can barely feed you're kids on those old vendettas
I bought a bottom level house when the promise of higher living was brighter than sun setters
Told my girl we'd be living better
Now her head wrap, look like Erykah and I stole the fabric from the thrift shop, the irony did not register
Ain't no love in the struggle
Even less in hip hop
But I'll keep ******* around with **** until my ******* mix tape pops
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 8:19 PM UTC
Artistically,
being a child is something always
painted to be one of flesh wounds;
one bouncing between hyper activity,
and being bewildered by a snail
after the sprinklers have gone off in the morning.
Maybe the precious life
that fills their lungs -
refreshes a child's waking moments
is rewritten to be poetry; folks panhandling for distance memories always better than ones they hold today.
We find their outlandish thoughts
to be ones of tomfoolery.
Looking at children with eyes that do not see them as people.
Instead we milk our own absurdity for rewritten nostalgia.
Please,
Stop. Remember. There is nothing to lose, which has not already been lost before. If it can be gained once. So may it be done again.
Children are not children
because of age or inexperience
they are everything we aspire to be,
and that is to be free.
Jul 27, 2020
Jul 27, 2020 at 4:46 AM UTC
So
have I got to be dead before you read me?
The poet said if you
don't feed me, you don't need me,
I'll get a job at Walmart
that'll do for a start
it's better than
panhandling on the turnpike,
I might get on my bike
go off to war
fight,
I might,
but dragons scare me when
they're not windmills.
So many hills to climb,
much easier for me
if you can find the time
to feed my need for you to read
before
my time is up.
Oct 16, 2021
Oct 16, 2021 at 2:33 PM UTC