"pawning" poems
***** from the bottle,
Warm.
Hot dogs from the package,
When your down and *****
The grotesque becomes magic.
Pawning a guitar for a pellet gun,
To procure breakfast.
Squirrel stew in the back of a scamper camper.
Spotlighting bullfrogs,
And mopping floors for a hot meal,
And a cold beer,
And a sympathetic ear.
Nights when the blacktop turned into void,
And the painted lines became a tightrope to nowhere.
Full circle,
Bangor to Frisco,
Any woman who was willing to sleep in the bed of a truck
Was a queen for as long as she stayed,
Always had **** concealed on me,
The copper piece of road currency,
To the gold and silver, of *** and gas.
The exchange rates would change overnight,
But syphon some gas at a truck stop
And it all will be alright.
Misspent youth, following bands
And getting lost along the way.
***** from the bottle,
And hot dogs from the package.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 6:35 PM UTC
Good old Hawk. He was quite a guy. The truth of the matter was that Hawk was a needle freak. He was hooked on morphine. He had hepatitis. There was a whole in Hawk's arm where all the money went. Sad but true. Except for enough money for two beers for the Hawk and me.
Who has to hear it. No one, everyone. Needles can be useful for medicine: they can also be a curse. You pierce the skin and feel the ruch and the juices flow unil you get your fill. But there never is a fill until it's over. Don't kid yourself. It will be over because it's a dead end trip.
You'll crash at the end of your last trip. And the trip you have on earth will be on of misery and despair. Nirvana doesn't come cheap. Hundred dollars a day habit could lead to desperate measures. A life of crime, scamming, pawning, betting, borrowing, and stealing. I'm glad to say Hawk held himself above all this. It could not have been an easy road out to travel.
He overdosed three years before the end.
Hawk actually died and was revived by some kind of good fortune, or was it good fortune? Hawk after this had no memory or regular thought process. Hawk wasn't the same man after that. It was not a pretty sight. He was a hollow man, a mere shadow of his former self.
I grew tired of telling Hawk the same thing over and over again. He lived with us for a few years. He moved out into a group home which he didn't like -- too much macaroni. About six months later Hawk was found on the floor of the group home bedroom. This time he was really dead. I don't know if needles were involved. I never heard the details. I like to think needles were not involved for the last three years of Hawk's life. I know he was clean for all the time he stayed with us. However, a great deal of damage had already occurred when Hawk came to live with us.
Hawk was a night person. He would lie there on the couch watching TV all night long with our dog Ming faithfully by his side. They loved one another those two. They were soul mates. Hawk gave Ming her favorite toy - a little blue ball.
Hawk never gave up. His sister would come with raspberry pie and Hawk would glow for a few days.
Anyway, I gave Hawks eulogy. The song for the eulogy, "The needle and the damage done" by Neil Young.
To soar like a Hawk. To crash into the ground.
I'd like to think his spirit soars like a hawk. Maybe now Hawk has found the peace he never found in this life.
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019 at 2:38 AM UTC
A governess, a guardian of the young, so known and dear as to be called “Mother” and a noblewoman, just barely 12 by age, named Portia, sit talking as the sun sets the stage for a cool, cloudless night.
“Mother, who invented candlelight and the slow, delicate brush of lips?”
“Some rakish boy, pawning his experience for present pleasure, no doubt.”
“Say true, Mother. If you were a man, would you find this common body worthy of love?”
“You show no blemish child, and display a certain bony voluptuousness - I should think.”
The governess begins to comb and braid Portia’s hair for sleep.
“I saw Portincio this morning, in the courtyard.”
“The boy from Padua?”
“He’s a man Mother, and his cast portents a passion so sweet - it shakes my very frame.”
Mother chuckles, “Even hopeless birds sing in cages.”
“I am not hopeless!” Portia writhes angrily, like a snake about to strike but mother calms her.
“Shoo, shoo, now,” Mother purrs, brushing all the more gently, “I meant nothing of it.” After a moment, she continues, “Love is more than coquetry, little one, and it soon passes - like a parade, or a rash. For now, be happy, you are like the chaste stars - unreachable.”
Feb 23, 2023
Feb 23, 2023 at 10:44 PM UTC
I don't sit well with happy
uncomfortable like a scab needing picked
or the way I can't say I love you
it gnaws at my stomach painfully
it ***** with my mind relentlessly
and leaves me feeling sick
I seek out pain like a ******
one hit was too much a thousand not enough
pawning my soul piece by piece
burning my body when there's nothing left
begging to battered bruised and
ever searching for a stronger dose
I can't sleep unless I'm hurting
or strung out stupid or drunk or
******* up my future trapped inside my head
I can't help but pick at sutures
just to keep on bleeding every good emotion
I thought I ever had
my heart it keeps on beat beat beating
tattered torn and full of holes
despite my best efforts to fail and fall
my hands they won't stop shaking
until I'm all run down and barely breathing
just staring at the cracked flaking wall
eating myself alive one memory at a time
self cannibalizing every comforting thought
burning mental bridges and savoring the smell
I can't stop thinking about death
but that would only stop these feelings
clutching at my broken mind
wishing it were broken glass
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
In a blanket of breath now pleasantly swathed
Our bodies made broken; prostrate in the fog
Exhumed from the boughs of tree-tops so balmy
On alabaster bones that tremble quite calmly
With thoughts of tomorrow, our miasmic today
That in wistful contemplation is thoroughly dismayed
Like the sullen, windy chimes of a church bell that rings
In the hardened heart of winter, on frost-bitten strings
Which frail, arboreal appendages, with nimble purposes pluck
To indulge the dulcet beds, in which our thoughts are tucked
In a licentious yawn that drifts, from scentless, sleepy shrouds
Like azure ships now sailing, through lofty, lilting clouds
Our pendulous hands still pawning these passionate decrees
With fervent fears to consummate your swiftly slumbered vestige
Atop my flesh, all slick with sweat, and in shadows sorely rapt
The mellifluous hum of reverent sight, through keyholes quickened pass
My heart is estranged from the banal constraint of this stagnant mortal coil
Held aloft in the piercing plea of love’s unbidden toil
All visions captive to the subtle sway of your chest now undulating
Like waves that crash, in rhythms vast; my thoughts, they are invading
Urgency deemed, from unconscious form, in sharp pangs of desire
The crease between your lips, the hand heavy on my hip: the nuances in which I am mired
The idiosyncrasies of you like a poem that is repeatedly folded
And jettisoned into my open mind, where these precious admissions molded
Taking form in tangible caress, to envelop with silken shivers
On the sill of windows wide where lonesome flowers withered
Thus proffered throat, in porcelain quiver, where stilted lungs concealed
In tear-wrought arrows, tempered and true, fly with errant zeal
To pin my ruminant heart upon this ragged, beggar’s sleeve
And chain my weightless body, from where it floats among the eaves
Oct 28, 2011
Oct 28, 2011 at 8:29 PM UTC
Do you remember our bulletproof afternoons?
The ones downtown wandering the pawn shops, looking for nothing.
Remember the antique Coca-Cola bottles you loved?
Remember the good deals on the old Nintendos?
Remember kisses you gave me in the back of the store?
Remember pretending the cameras couldn't see me touch you?
Remember holding my hand outside?
Remember your hand on my waist?
Remember the rain on the sidewalk?
Remember me laughing?
Remember the old books on the shelves?
Remember me stroking their spines?
Remember me writing my own stories about how they got there?
Remember watching me and loving that?
Remember the jewelery?
Remember the bracelets and necklaces? The trinkets of broken loves?
Remember the rings?
Remember watching me sooth the lonely rings through the glass?
Remember what I said?
Remember how it broke our hearts, to see them broken beneath the glass?
Remember how the engravings broke our hearts?
Remember how you held my hand and kissed my shoulder?
Remember how you told me not to worry?
Do you remember pawning my ring?
Remember pocketing the cash?
Remember watching the pawn man place it beneath the glass?
Remember the couple holding hands, hearts breaking over my ring?
Do you remember breaking their hearts?
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 6:32 AM UTC
It's the centenary of the proclamation – we shall lift our glasses,
not to Guinness or to Arthur Diageo's dream of the Emerald Isle,
distracted, appeased, quelled an' ****** on the tainted black stuff,
designed to keep us inferior, pig-carriers - at arms with ourselves,
but of Irish craft, guile an' the rising of Irish spirits, the creation,
of a dream long suffered for, long wished for, celebrated in private
for shame of the austere reflection of a country and its people lost,
We shall lift our glasses to the beginning of todays sour ending,
A'sure twas' a good Easter that year.
Hand shakes warm, clean an' orchestrated with restrained sincerity,
A Kingdom reborn, a Republic divided by the maths of peace-makers,
The brave sacrificed for the sneering survival of these eels of politics,
Landowners who owned more than just land - the people's will,
Testament to this abortion of values, morals, history and desire,
is the wholesale pawning of the Irish coast – to support our captors,
the constant glance over our shoulders with panic in our quiet eyes,
as the money men, smug with irresponsibility laugh safely inside,
A'sure twas' a good Take that year.
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 11:43 AM UTC
The chirping of the crickets
the flashing light of the fireflies
transform the night into a majestique
The air felt sticky
while lovers were icky
My heart felt lighter than ever. .
However,
The grip from his hand felt tighter
Yet, warm at times
Being fifteen, sixteen and seventeen
Lot to perceive with your mind
It was a lovely year of seventy-nine
Our first kiss wasn’t a designer kiss
It was our signature moment
To blossom in the moonlight
Did we got it right
Oh yes we did!
It was the talk of the night
Two thousand and thirteen
A fine closure
To pawning memories
Goodbye my loves: My diamond rings
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 5:17 PM UTC
Better to be dead
Than live in your head
All the lies and discontent
Are better left
In the cleft
Of cleverness
You slice
While i sever it
Never hit
The hard six
Without two clips
Backing my ****
I submit
To nothing
But
The sultry shade
Of my suffering
While still loving
Every minute
Of the absolute
Truths
Starting coups
With youth
In suits
Made of bombs
Watering roots
To grow on
Lacing boots
For strong arms
Staying calm
In the calamity
Detonating
The anxiety
Inside of me
Pawning the notoriety
For a long gone society
In the brawn
Of a family
Burning in the tragedy
Magically
Melting
The dynasties
Of rotting cities
Raising from the grave
With rave reviews
From slaves in suits
Who missed the news
To the dark pursuits
Of suicidal fools
Abiding by the rules
Of lawless crooks
Flawless cooks
Of crutches
For assumptions
In thunderous
Concoctions
Altering the functions
Of the faction-less
Getting traction
With the hack and slash
Mashing the happenstance
Of meaning
Seeding into rants
I am the giant
I am the defiance
In an alliance
Of one
Got all the ammo
But no gun
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
A life with herion I wish no one to experience. It is so hard to describe for all to understand. First do understand it does **** If lucky you'll only get hooked.
The first words out of everyone's mouth is "not for me". I said it, guilty as charged!
Your first fix, you say your "just going to try it once", famous last words. So you do it. What a feeling. A warmth comes over you your eyes go shut, off to that euphoria, a land of lands, a settling feeling better then *** Don't be fooled.
Many people die their first time.
As you said only once, the second and third time come. You want a little more each time. The money starts flowing and the tracks start. And you found a friend, the monkey. He needs to be feed all the time.
Money runs short, so you pay your bills or get high. Well if you don't get high you get sick. Just put it this way, when sick, it's paralyzing to say the least. So you say you'll pay the bill later one last time. Now your in a vicious circle. Pawning and stealing, manipulating loved ones and friends.
You think know one knows, wrong they all do, they beg you to stop. You think they don't understand. No, you don't understand. Help is the only way out.
Please understand this, ****** is bad but not the worst. **** alcohol, coke, barbits do much more harm to the body.
These are not bad people, they just have bad ways. It's Insanity, doing the something over and over expecting a different result.
5 days to detox
28 days to break a habit
Follow up with treatment
N/A, C/A, A/A if needed.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change.
The courage to change the things that I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 11:33 PM UTC
The maniac , manic depressive walking city streets , world inverted , diving head first into the blue separation where night verses day , darkness at war with the light of the world . Gray day inversions , deprivations , tainted perception , misconception and miscalculations .. Bright eyes remit their focus ! The child loses his way . Incapacitated . Confused . Yet intent , focused on the garden of good and bad , temptation , righteousness ! Sexuality . Lasciviousness . Piety surrounded by Lucifers minions ! Crocodiles await the migration of wildebeest , rainbow trout tread turbid water for their afternoon meal , mourning dove to field of millet ! Bewildered sweet spirit reduced to crying in supplication , misunderstood , longing for the path by the light ! Traversing mean streets like the rat , the security of a structure to one side , on a high state of alert ! Pawn of the citizenry , cardboard empire and the bottom feeders . Catfish pawning for dung , corruption amidst the sea of inequity . Images flying point blank , a thousand miles an hour ! Shoot him dead ! Continue killing him long after his last breath . Send him back to the blue , where Angels await !
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 1:26 PM UTC
Cracked glasses
Shredded tights
Broke *****
Sleepless nights.
Piled dishes
Tired eyes
Hollow wishes
Finance lies.
Poor and sad
Kids getting cold
But I'm glad
No one's told.
We move along
With mouths closed
Sing that song
No one knows.
Being broke is tough
Being alone is worse
What will be enough?
Who'd lift this curse?
Some say it's inherited
Some say it's funny
That we're not merited
For even milk money.
So it's down we go
Is there road up ahead?
We will never really know
We just push on instead.
Without a house to lose
Or a car to sleep
We don't have to choose
Which treasures we should keep.
Money's just paper, right?
Coins are just pounds
But we count all night
Doing the income rounds.
Cadillacs in our dreams?
Maybe so on occasion
But few it seems
Are of that persuasion.
No money left
None at all
So time's set
For our downfall.
Late at night,
Not really anything
Setting it right
Pawning a ring.
Bounced checks
Running away
******* wrecks
Without pay.
Baby pouts
Getting sunny?
Going without
Milk money.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 11:17 PM UTC
dimmed in-candescent trails
streaming through thoughtlessness
grow old in cold knowledge
flutter and waste a shuttered taste
dreaming of wonder, lust
deeming trust a liars blunder
knowing only flowing undertow
bestow a bow upon the tower
lead the weak to seek another
pray for prey to bleed together
cower beneath the power, beseech
teach words that preach not leach
we'll reach the peak of leakage
peel back the streak of team credence
desensitize the lies and compromise
deny the times i tried to feel demise
your eyes guided me, blinded me
snatched vision from decision
pale walls involve crawling, sprawling
drawing proof to unroof this calling
pawning you to the coup of dawning
may we start again, this time, yawning?
Feb 4, 2011
Feb 4, 2011 at 8:16 PM UTC
Got money, but I spent too much.
I have to pawn something,
something worth pawning.
Can't sell a guitar,
they gotta be firewood.
Sell what? Blood?
Maybe a ******* kidney?
Have to stay calm,
can't pressure cook it.
Have to form a plan,
stretch it out over a few weeks.
Can't breathe too fast.
Been calm. Head on.
Better make it last.
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
Pantoum I - Non-Rhyming
I took my diamond to the pawn shop
but that didn't make it junk@
though I didn't get much money for it
just enough to buy a meal
what makes something junk
when you come right down to it
if it buys you a meal
and can satisfy a need
when you come right down to it
what value can we give
to satisfy a need
when we swallow down our pride
what value is there really
in any things we have
if they swallow up our pride
like useless diamonds pawned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pantoum II - Rhyming
I took my diamond to the pawn shop
but that didn't make it junk@
didn't get much for it
value, it seems, had shrunk
pawning doesn't make it junk
if it satisfies a need
even with its value shrunk
pawned diamonds make you free
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 8:56 AM UTC
sometimes,
I sit and think of you,
and then perhaps another.
I think of the moments we spent,
the times I longed to call you my lover.
I feel a deepness in my chest,
rising then falling,
with every breath.
Floating and lingering,
like a melancholy chord
oh, how sweet it rests.
I've always hoped for courage,
I've gained it in all shapes and colors.
But the courage I'm missing in my collection,
is the courage of love for another.
Professing and Proud,
not pawning nor painful.
Pliable and Passionate,
without polluting a punch.
This courage,
pleasant as it sounds,
may it one day reach your ears.
-Julia Aubrey Rhodes-
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 8:32 PM UTC
From stars to cars and bars of all kinds,
I snarl of wreaths that paraded mankind,
Which once gargled me in a brawling growl,
But it will no longer howl
No more.
Forgotten
Sootened,
They lay in
Blackened
Lying
Ice of Cold and Tremors
Murmurs of sore nerves
Of Cold chills
spine-wrenching curves
I have no remorse.
Whining groins to pawning reigns,
I gwaah at sheaths made of chatoyant neighs
It once skewed in me a featherly meow
Lest I forget the breeze
And howl into that ol’e reprise.
Mar 11, 2018
Mar 11, 2018 at 3:06 AM UTC
Standing across the table (there were no chairs in the house) was my father, Emilo. The table itself was a sturdy rosewood, and one of the last items in the home. We had sold our belongings after mother had died -- my father said it was to help pay for school. We had each kept one tattered shirt and one nice shirt which I would wear to class every other day (we were shirtless in this moment, no need to sweat in clothes unnecessarily). We had one pair of jeans each - both tattered and mended with old quilts taken from the tailor's trash can. We also kept three of mom's blouses - one for me, one for father, and one for her. We were close to pawning hers, though. On the table, near my father (and, away from me) was my semester's grades and a polished bottle of amber liquor. His skinny arm swung across the table, smashing the bottle of gasoline-smelling alcohol against the bareness of the dry, wood wall. The liquid seeped into the pores of that portion of our home leaving a dripping stain. It never really dried. Two weeks and three days later, my father would flick the ashy edge of a cigarette **** into the wall. He was too drunk to know he wasn't in Hell.
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 8:54 AM UTC
I'll never understand why,
people look you in the eye and lie,
trying to deny -- who they really are.
They take things it too far.
Pretending to be something they are not,
denying you of who you are.
What for?
Just so they can continue their plot;
the realer you are -- the more they explore.
The closer they are the more it hurts.
Right hand man playing you right into the hand.
Triple cross you, left you right where you stand.
Saying they have your back, is just a part of the plan.
Take you out right out on the spot -- for a grand
Crossing your heart, just so they can gain the upper-hand.
Pawning your love, to gain the rights to your land.
Some will never learn, some will never understand.
The pain messing with your chest,
as you watch how the pieces of your life land.
Trusting people to do the right thing;
then things don't go as planned.
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 10:01 PM UTC
A train to the big city
Where the pavements are of gold
A job, a life, a future
A cardboard box in no-man’s land.
Why do they come? Refugees
From their own poverty
Here to share in ours.
There’s a boy in oblivion over there
A needle in his arm
And **** in his hair;
Sold to the dream of another world
Not here.
Some walk the streets you know
Teenagers, offering their bodies
Hoping to save their souls;
Pawning dignity for a take-away,
**** in sin city
For the rich and gay.
There is no gold here, you fools
Under the same sky you sleep
On the same wish you weep
Crying yourselves to sleep
Counting lambs to the slaughter.
Aug 11, 2019
Aug 11, 2019 at 6:34 AM UTC
A full moon illuminates our oblivious escape.
The incandescent devil ignites our narrow path and pilots our parcel's placement terrorizing earth's landscape.
"I'll give you $180 for your wrist watch."
"You animal, this was my grandfather's Timex, I'll take $360 and a barter."
"$240, take it or leave it!"
The moon meanders for a moment, to contemplate whether to turn a full or half cycle. She settles on a little more than half a turn.
"Fine, I'll take $240, but you're gonna lose a few months."
"Deal! Tell January, November and December to **** off."
"Sold! Haha, you sucker, those cubes have been melting for decades anyways."
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 9:13 PM UTC
no Shakti--
no Libertation.
beware these
feel good, non dual
Advaita teachers.
pawning just another
philosophy.
Apr 30, 2019
Apr 30, 2019 at 5:07 PM UTC
I can't afford loving you, honey
I no longer wait in the back
Too many were reckless endeavors
That drove me far off of the tracks
It's true, I'm a far better best friend
A wingman with love spells and cards
I'm meant to help lovers in turmoil
And tell of their story as bard
The cards long predicted your coming
Venus provoking the best
Yet Athena had told me, "stay single"
And I'd rather you not like the rest
Because love can be fun when it's midnight
When you're longing for someone to hold
But right at the wake of the morning
One's ardour will always grow cold
Love looks sweet when seen from the outside
A pure shell of raspberry pink
With color is bright months of summer
You'd never step back twice to think
But I ate the six seeds, each one desperate
And I wish I had just spat out then
Because I never knew just how bitter
The world is when pawning with men
Any you could convince me you're different
And sure, something tells me you are
But the bitter taste came as too painful
And nothing has swayed me thus far
So I'll shove 'schroding's' kitten down under
I'm curious, still I won't look
'Cause the Gods say, "life's built by an order"
And it's high time I've lived by the book
So goodbye, 'cause I can't afford hurting
Or asking the cards any more
I know of my place in the love world
As the wise man, the lowly, the poor
And I'll still assist you on your journey
I'm always a second away
But I can't have a man who will keep me
From the island out there in the bay
Jul 6, 2019
Jul 6, 2019 at 3:52 AM UTC