"pike" poems
who lit the candles
placed so eloquently
behind purple rock?
that sculpted radiance
and chapel grace
wound in a chosen
defined way
down the spiral
stone stairs
street cars dawdle
alongside
the packer slew
biding merchants
shuffle their wares
as the front man
and pock face
sing their sullen
holy blues
cut jazz echoes
over the accompanying
gabble and drone
incense and haze
pour from
a lower trap door
sack fish, truffles
and splendid crafts shine
inside the stained glass fronts
a wide mouth snapper
with a bloated tongue
greets the
morning tide
(not camera shy
in the least!)
the fish traps
and beaneries
bring life
to the flourishing causeway
hula hoops
and circle ballers
join the
cobaine stage
favoured rogues
and mac jacks
speak easy
of the big daddy
beth’s triple by pass
taking firm hold on
tricky ****
and the nutcracker
maze ways,
taggers and
lost tunnels
of cu chi
strike a
nerving blow
a poised finger man
belts out his tune
(with a sniff sock
and iterating glare)
his nosey neighbors
cut artisan bread
(with a white wine
and jelly spread)
midwives push forward
for an afternoon
toddle and stroll
Jan 19, 2018
Jan 19, 2018 at 11:12 AM UTC
they stained the back deck today (with a hard to match 7 periwinkle)
400 square feet of knotted pine (in a striking rivet sequence)
red ant drivers (who can forget those little ******
caked fir needles & feather cone
bug hologram & cedar moss
graffiti crack & cut joist
wheel rut & pick
pike stain (s)
sow bugs
electric
blower
purple
fueled
washer
missing
foul bits
and two of
its former pins
somewhere near
the erratic 9th stroke the
side kick (and his sloppy dullard)
fell sadly in a cacophony of sick laughter
anxious peckers, poinsettias, grub box, rail stems
lacewings (ladylike in their task), third door down windows
old ergonomic chairs (so highly touted in the checkout isle at Lowes)
all for not, I guess ~ seems they never reviewed the Homestead Manual on Fine Deck Painting ~
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 3:55 PM UTC
I gulp down an Energy-Booster-X,
blue and sour.
Siri turns on Radiohead,
15 Step.
I step up to the pyramid of treadmills,
bouncing and salty.
Surrounded by Greek gods,
Beta, Alpha Gam, Pike.
I motivate myself by my surroundings,
bulging and ****
Cardio first and then core,
2 miles, 200 crunches.
I connect my sweat in a line down my shirt,
blotchy and stagnant.
Everyone stretches in the end,
Thighs, biceps, pecs aflame.
I will not stop until I am perfection,
beautiful and sculpted.
Alarm set again,
For 6:30am, 7:30pm
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 12:16 PM UTC
Under the old house
cast in conglomerate mix
the cataract window
and cracked sill
broken joists
and cross beams
wringer wash
and saddle set
A draw string light
brings life
to the corner bench
fowler toads
and fingerlings
jitter bugs
and dazzy vance
dirt planks filled
with mason
crown classics
Buggy whip
and whippletree
shelved on the
chopboard
tackle and mucks
stacked at the back
horseshoe and jack rod
bend the pike pole
a sawhorse placed
for the Martindale push
Gallon jars
and growlers
prepped
for the taking
ropes and reins
for transport
and fest
goggle eye
jumps the flyer
setting up nicely
for the
Haldimand town fair
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 12:31 PM UTC
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the *****
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.
5.9k
My gorilla wears tennis shoes
He reads the paper and sings the blues
My gorilla, my gorilla
My gorilla, he's a sensitive guy
I took him out for a wedding, and man did he cry!
Tears all down his tie
Well, he can drive most greens from the back tees
But his putting brings him to his knees
My gorilla, my gorilla
My gorilla loves pork and beans
He rides a scooter in his cut-off jeans
My gorilla, my gorilla
He can make a mean souffle
He's great with omelets, but his specialty is flambe
So I eat one every day!
He's been working hard on a half pike
But his cannonball empties the pool
My gorilla, my gorilla
My gorilla is so much fun
He buys taquitos for everyone
My gorilla, my gorilla
My gorilla loves tequila with lime
He's taking classes at a school for mime
Cracks me up every time!
Well, he's looking cool in his "white face"
And his French beret looks oh so fine
My gorilla, my gorilla
Oh yeah...
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 4:46 PM UTC
My sleeping children are still flying dreams
in their goose-down heads.
The lush of the river singing morning songs
Fish watch their ceilings turn sun-white.
The grey-green pike lances upstream
Kale, like mermaid's hair
points the water's drift.
All is morning hush
and bird beautiful.
I only,
I didn't have flu.
4.1k
Far be it from me ~ to say that LEAD BALLOONS don't float ! For example, how thick is the lead, how big is the Balloon, is it filled with Helium, is it to be floated on earth , or perhaps the moon, with much less gravity and,,what about aboard a space craft ? SO, just like I said, I can;t say LEAD BALLOONS don't float. Could it be said, that Man's feelings are like LEAD BALLOONS? How Thick or Thin skinned are they, how big and attractive are the temptations? Who and what are the Tempters, that will draw our attention away from truths , carried aloft by LEAD BALLOONS. In any of these cases I ask ...." IS THERE A TETHER ATTACHED"? SO,,,, for the floating portion of the test !! Prepare as follows: Snorkels, Diving Suits, Flippers, Masks and Weighted Belts. Just the things we need for Proper Diving { just in case}. Fully suited Swan Dives may not seem in place at the Olympics, BUT at these Major Finals,,A fully suited person is REQUIRED. Double pike with a Full Twist help in escaping "THAT HUGE SUCTION SOUND". And of course the Perfect Bathing Cap, to keep hair out of FACE. There is Something about having a situation "RIGHT IN YOUR FACE" .
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 7:52 AM UTC
I take flight
With all my might
To be your kite
Following you wherever you go
To be part of your ebb and flow
People think I ingested the wrong pill
Because up here I can't see the roadkill
And float over the pitch black oil spills
From the end of your string
I become king
There is an approaching storm
As you deviate from the norm
And discontinue acting warm
Your lightning strikes
My metal pike
Electricity tears through my thin fabric
As I dream of a tranquil casket
And you want to grant me my death wish
I guess that's why they call me Icarish
For flying to close to the rain
Only to constantly feel pain
To distract me from the shame
From those with unknown names
But familiar bigoted flames
To me you both are the same
Once I go against the grain
You tell me to stay in my lane
High above the gravelly ground
Where you can't hear my sounds
Of impaling wailing
Because you're bailing
Letting go of the string
You become king
I am a kite floating
Spending night noting
All my many mistakes
That caused these breaks
But despite trying my very best
The wind provides a difficult test
After I am battered into tatters
My hopes couldn't be flatter
So I start to feel it doesn't matter
When my dreams came true then shattered
The wind solemnly sings
Of distant powerful kings
But I cannot fly anymore
In my broken kite form
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 3:17 AM UTC
I sit amongst rampant consumerism,
Yet I smile as I sip my Starbucks tall Pike Place.
To my left, old ladies decked in Tiffany decry their neighbours folly,
Even while they sit blind to their own.
To my right, Chapters!
Book store that offers so much more,
A perfect monument of society's needs answered in one storefront.
We don't shop here for a read, or for the escape some unknown author's words spell for us.
No, this masterfully crafted shop answers our shared need of empty spending on soulless items that will lift us from the mire of our meaningless lives for one instance,
Before that scented candle or witty greeting card is left to collect the dust of our fallen gods.
Behind me the street is full of noise but no one is listening,
Busses carry the many but each is a world onto themselves,
Thoughts not of their making wrestle for attention with smartphones,
Before long the thoughts echo what the eyes read on the digital screens glowing below them.
The enemy of my friend...
Don't let consciousness wake!
Combined the noise without and the noise within will drown whatever chance we had at relevancy.
And so Oprah wins,
Look under your chairs,
It's your new life,
Not to be mistaken with your old one,
This one comes with a shiny new automobile, trip, ring, dress, shoes,
Anything but enlightenment.
Before me,
Possibilities.
You?
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
Real Love
Love can be so very strange,
life you must now rearrange.
Butterflies in the tummy,
clam chowder is so yummy.
Naked massages, magic touch,
finger tips, I love so much.
When not home, I get lonely,
nothing about us, is a phony.
You're my very best friend,
I text you and hit send.
We fight more than we should,
I'd fix that if only I could.
Laying naked in the bed,
cuddling with you, no more said.
We were two halves, that became one,
my hot dog fits perfectly in your bun.
We never kiss and tell,
******* make us yell.
What's mine is also yours,
even my brand new fishing lures,
What's yours is also mine,
I don't quite fit in your Calvin Klein.
We share and share alike,
together we face problems,
that are headed down the pike.
Nothing can tear us apart,
I rode in a bus, and you in a **** cart.
On the day that we wed,
that night we will have a wet bed.
We will live happily ever after,
Lots of trust and a little laughter,
So if you ask me what is real love,
I don't know, but something not to get rid of.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
.
oo
oo
oo
oo
o oo
oo oo
ooo ooo
ooo ooo
oooooooooooo
oooooo
**•an
eternity it
seems like•dang-
ling your hook in the
sea of life•hoping for bre-
am, salmon or pike•one of
which would make the perfect
wife•many a fish in rivers and lakes
•plenty more awaiting in oceans and seas•
many would do whatever it takes • battling
the days' heat and nights' breeze • wishing
upon many moonbeams•followed by
• the passing of indifferent •
sun-rays •waiting an
entire lifetime
it seems
•just to
finally land
that coveted catch
of the day
• •**
.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 9:52 AM UTC
Quick to make an Irish exit
Missed the moments, leave them black
Stick to every silent lesson
Take them home and read them back
Wicks, they burn and fire lets them
You'll find home within the wax
Missed your turn, the pike, that exit
You're alone and time has passed
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 6:46 PM UTC
IT'S going to come out all right-do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass-they know.
They get along-and we'll get along.
Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting
And the letter you wait for won't come,
And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray
And the letter I wait for won't come.
There will be ac-ci-dents.
I know ac-ci-dents are coming.
Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,
Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.
But somehow and somewhere the end of the run
The train gets put together again
And the caboose and the green tail lights
Fade down the right of way like a new white hope.
I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky
Spilling its heart in the morning.
I never saw the snow on Chimborazo.
It's a high white Mexican hat, I hear.
I never had supper with Abe Lincoln.
Nor a dish of soup with Jim Hill.
But I've been around.
I know some of the boys here who can go a little.
I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.
I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.
I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had a million dollars.
I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for a prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance.
She had eyes; she was safe as the bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.
Last summer we took the cushions going west.
Pike's Peak is a big old stone, believe me.
It's fastened down; something you can count on.
It's going to come out all right-do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass-they know.
They get along-and we'll get along.
2.1k
Plant a fertile garden in summer & harvest all of the fruits and vegetables.
PIckle all of the vegetables.
preserve all of the fruits-leave some
Apples for pie.
Place pickles and preserves in the darkness of the root cellar.
Order How to ****** a Farmhand in 10 Days from the book catalogue.
Order the Art of War also just in case
Invite Handsome Jimmy Pike from the neighbouring farm over for pie.
Get Uncle Abe to cover the dirt floor with planks.
As Mama always said a frozen dirt floor is just for the dirt poor.
Bake Pie. Place on windowsill.
Waft the smell
Of hot pie over toward the woodpile where Uncle Abe is chopping wood.
Invite Jimmy to play Gin Rummy the evening when Uncle Abe is mysteriously ill of a stomach complaint and sleeping in the barn.
Show Jimmy Uncle Abe's tongue and groove method of log cabin construction.
Ask Jimmy to show me the **** and pass method of using unmilled logs to **** up against each other without notching.
Spike Jimmy's tea with ***
Show Jimmy the root cellar.
**** up against Jimmy with notching.
WITH LOTS OF NOTCHING.
Fall pregnant.
Tell Uncle Abe and have a shotgun wedding.
Bake another special pie.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
On rainy days
I look up poems set in Seattle,
then look back at the rain set against the window
I imagine the water was carried here
from the shores of their bay
across Pike Place, through Belltown,
in buckets they use
to carry Pacific salmon off fishing boats,
or in lidded Styrofoam bowls used
to take out clam chowder
I practice walking in this manner, sans umbrella, through the parking lot of a South Florida strip mall.
When I reach the 24-hour Dunkin Donuts, past the laundromat and the check cashing store, I channel my inner Seattleite: poised in wet socks,
unrushed as the sips they take from their mugs when its **** pouring outside
I renounce sugary accoutrements and have what they're having:
Black coffee with a splash of rain,
A balance perfected on their slanted hill streets
that breed more poets per capita
than anywhere else in the country
Vegas can have its mirages in the desert
San Francisco, its gold bridge
I think I should just have this coffee,
and this rainy day
as the poem it is.
Aug 24, 2017
Aug 24, 2017 at 10:58 AM UTC
So you say you want to die?
I suppose subjectivity can be heavy
Repetition, boredom and existential claustrophobia
But you should at least see the world from the top of Pike's Peak first.
It can be your beginning
A catalyst for awe
The explosion that sets you aflame
After that you will begin to see it in everything
Even in something as mundane as a blade of grass
Then your life will be spent at the top of a mountain
Your head will always float in the clouds
Light as dandelion seeds in the wind
Deep as the whole of existence
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 10:12 PM UTC
horns sound, flees the sun
men tire, day’s undone;
blue is wrung to grey,
rendered with a gasp,
and tar night, foul
as a steel pike, or
frau Troost’s onyx soul,
settles on the world
like a cyclone blanket
in a concrete shower.
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 6:35 PM UTC
take an F250 down a dusty bush road
& it will create
a new universe of dust.
let a bald eagle lead you
as you island hop
in an aluminum outboard.
bushwhack out to a lake in cougar country
& teach all the pike you catch about
the 4 noble truths.
Jun 13, 2011
Jun 13, 2011 at 9:54 PM UTC
The Calm(before the Storm)
"It's not often these days that I get to relax,
see the Sandman I'm usually draggin an axe,
with my ex's new fella's head stuck on the spike,
cause it was cut the **** off like I was wielding a pike.
but today I'm very level,no need for medication,
turn the interwebs off,no need for ************
Just me and my clan(the Irish version not the stupid one),
everyone is rollin one smokin one or lightin one,
flip the top off a bottle and contemplate a rattle,
with the lady of the hour all's fair in love and battle.
And this is nice....I like it when people don't flinch,
hear the singin of a Finch as I pinch another inch,
off the the J Jay handed me,a gentleman,a scholar,
lean to me left to pass it on to Mal another,
of the scientific,dapper rapper witty individuals,
that make up the collective that I'm part of,see our principles,
are the one thing that brought us all together,
completely different birds yet all of one feather-
as we feather the nest I smooth the hairs on me chest
and...relax...
cause its the eye of the storm,
time to take stock,huddle up and keep warm,
maybe huddles turn to cuddles as the music moves your feelings,
cause its a warm fuzzy feeling,underneath the same ceiling,
with me mates and me lover,I think I'll have another beer...
Of course I'll have another,
cause we're...safe now,for the moment at least,
from the big bad wolf hulk,the Sandman sleeps,
and while the cats away I can kick up my heels
enjoy the solitude that Skitz rarely feels,
cause the forecast's bleak,those clouds look like thunderstorms,
but just for five minutes I'm relaxed ahhhh...,its the calm before the storm."
Apr 1, 2016
Apr 1, 2016 at 1:37 PM UTC
*****
Aren't you a big shrike?
Those ***** are lady-like
And we can talk freely about other women and its not awkward
What's not to like?
Get that pike
Out of your rear
Because it's apparent
That you are not easy to like
By the way you label people nastily
It's not appealing any way.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 3:09 AM UTC
It screams.. Oh god, it does scream.
All I feel now is sorrow and pain,
just looking for things to punish and blame.
Trapped, I lost all type of sense.
Pushed from all sides, as a block of stone my heart is dense.
Oh, it does scream..
Nobody hears.
I cry, my soul is full of tears.
I look in the mirror,
I don’t recognize that guy.
Who is he? What has he become?
I hear them calling,
that’s not my name.
I look not with my eyes,
and all I see is a stranger.
Surounded by people I am alone.
“Get away you filth, begone!”
If they knew what’s in my blood,
they’d nail me on a pike, oh God.
From the bottom to top I’m filled with hate.
Nobody can’t even think of passing my gate.
My face I can’t stand to look.
Who are you stranger, you who my face took?
From me, for me I feel fear.
I’m not getting out of this void anytime near.
And I do know, that deep hate has been born
from deeper love that has been torn.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 7:22 PM UTC
He is stark mad, who ever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
I saw a flask of powder burn a day?
Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us Love draws,
He swallows us, and never chaws:
By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks to die,
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
If ’twere not so, what did become
Of my heart, when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room, I carried none with me:
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me: but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glass
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite,
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore
But after one such love, can love no more.
1.5k
From the dark black clouds
lightning strikes
rusty old iron pike
pointing the sky
atop a haunted mansion
Charge flows into the earth
getting dispersed, neutralized
sky and clouds rumble
in joy, their claps thunder
across the valley
window panes resonate
with laughter
I stand in the haunted house
like an apparition a Ghost
at the window
Clouds appear to me as parade
of tiny dust people, Mexican wave of charges
travelling down vibrating hot plasma
to my blind eyes
enhancing the beauty of
a streak of white on
dark black canvas
In turn enhancing charging
electrochemical excitation at synapse
releasing a wave of calcium ions
as billions of cells and charges
work in harmony to create
a single conscious me
A vision of future
not so bleak dawns
before my blind eyes
as billions of living conscious
living organisms blend
in harmony as all the charges
resonate upholding inherent
diversity we empathize
into a single entity earth
Clearing the puzzle of evolution
from interacting particles and charges
to a cell with auxiliary units to
multicellular organisms to a single
Conscious beings to a single Conscious
PLANET
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 10:31 PM UTC
Why is it "American's hunger to move"?
Is it a lack of identity (i.e. being a mixed bag of ancestry such as Germanic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon) and the search to find one?
Is it something in the land pounded into the earth by the feet of it's nomadic natives long ago?
Is it the near constant expansion since the days of Lewis, Clark, Pike, and Hudson?
Could it be the cyclic disillusionment inevitable in the culture and economic cores of the country?
Is there just too ********* much space?
It would be easy to blame President Eisenhower for the whole thing by giving people a means of traveling the whole country so conveniently in the first place.
But I don't think that is it.
Who am I to know though? I'm not even pretending to have an answer.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC