"ragtag" poems
He's found himself in the closet
After he lost to himself in a game of tic-tac-toe
And tied his lobster bib tightly
Then hid his cheat sheet, for the pop quiz he knew was soon to come
It's curtains for her
She let the cat out of the bag
And now she's up **** creek with ****** for paddles to go **** herself with
Right in the birth canal
Then we'll auction off the ******
We'll pass them off as European defibrillators
Maybe some extremist will want them
If we spew out enough mindless dribble
The All Time Shit-Show is about to begin
We have
The Chronic Masturbater
The Hypochondriac
And The Pathological Liar
It was either sometime yesterday
Or sometime tomorrow
Or was it sometime today?
That you were all going to make fun of the boy with the cleft lip down at the laundromat?
Out of the three of you The Pathological Lair sticks out like a sore thumb
I can tell he was the runt of the litter
Who always bites off more than he can chew
I see the Hypochondriac has convinced himself he has eczema
He rattles off all his symptoms
Inordinate filibustering
Now there's the Chronic Masturbater
He looks like he's over the hill
He's only twenty one
But the blue circles under his eyes and the deep defined lines on his forehead denote his inelegant aging
I sign all your lives away in my horrible cursive
And now you belong to the ragtag trigger-happy posse of gun-jumpers
My billfold his happily filled
So I must go do some reconnaissance
Spy on those who have quit their day jobs
The fish out of water
You must find that thing that really rolls off the tongue with a nice ring to it
******
*******
*******
*******
No...
Go hang youself with dental flossed you home-schooled fool
Indentured servants we're just an after thought
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 4:27 PM UTC
People wish to be settled. Only as long as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
-- Thoreau
My life has been
the instrument
for a mouth
I have never seen,
breathing wind
which comes
from I know not
where,
arranging and changing
my moods,
so as to make
an opening
for his voice.
Or hers.
Muse, White Goddess
mother with invisible
milk,
androgynous god
in whose grip
I struggle,
turning this way and that,
believing that I chart
my life,
my loves,
when in fact
it is she, he,
who charts them--
all for the sake
of some
as yet unwritten poem.
Twisting in the wind,
twisting like a pirate
dangling in a cage
from a high seawall,
the wind whips
through my bones
making an instrument,
my back a xylophone,
my *** a triangle
chiming,
my lips stretched tight
as drumskins,
I no longer care
who is playing me,
but fear
makes the hairs
stand up
on the backs
of my hands
when I think
that she may stop.
And yet I long
for peace
as fervently as you do--
the sweet connubial bliss
that admits no
turbulence,
the settled life
that defeats poetry,
the hearth before which
children play--
not poets' children,
ragtag, neurotic, demon-ridden,
but the apple-cheeked children
of the bourgeoisie.
My daughter dreams
of peace
as I do:
marriage, proper house,
proper husband,
nourishing dreamless
***
love like a hot toddy,
or an apple pie.
But the muse
has other plans
for me
and you.
Puppet mistress,
dangling us
on this dark proscenium,
pulling our strings,
blowing us
toward Cornwall,
toward Venice, toward Delphi,
toward some lurching
counterpane,
a tent upheld
by one throbbing
blood-drenched pole--
her pen, her pencil,
the monolith
we worship,
underneath
the gleaming moon.
2.3k
It's a common trope,
the Danse Macabre that troops us
toward hushed tombs.
Blame its plague on Wolgemut
or Bruegel (Pieter the Elder),
and certainly Bergman
What with his iconic black-clad Death
and the parade of captive players taken
hand-in-hand on a joyless march.
But Life has her own fleet moments to lead,
and these flip-flop pageants though ragtag
are not the less enriching to behold
Or so I'm told in passing by
the delicate bluebell peaking its buds through
a monochrome rubble.
May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010 at 3:34 PM UTC
mostly undiagnosed ghosts host coast roasts
and no one shows
haunted wind blows going slow
dethroning grown men being sown
unknown gnomes debone stones
throwing plumbs at scrub jays
whilst listless fitness ****** insist
on resisting mystic visions
implicitly –
ragtag gag gifts for bags
smoking **** with saggy pants
chancing protagonists
and prancing fisters
wrist rocket **** pocket
time, clock it
rock it sock it
don’t mock
interlocking bicarbonates
wait for the ingrate to **********
and regulate the regurgitation –
****** ancestrally protestors
digest their disgust
discussing muskrats as lab cats
basking in the glow of white coats –
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 3:02 PM UTC
She would take it down
on old crumpled receipts—
imprisoned at the bottom of
her bag.
Each laid to crooked rest next to
questionable crumbs of mystery
and a pen that leaked its
remaining potential
into scattered
Morse code all over
cheaply sewn lining.
The saving grace
of these little ragtag proofs
allowed her to
relive the moment
when his singing voice
brought all of her
dizzy moth thoughts
to a stand still.
With each coo, he
pulled on all of the right strings,
and all of the right curves
on her body turned up
in all of the right places.
Once again she
danced a smile with her eyes
and rolled her hips with her tongue
like she never
forgot how.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC
*I well recall encouraging
in the early days,
sending messages to and from,
what was beyond and in between,
what lay between a woman's
wind tossed
heart
and her
breathless, winded,
words
these spaces,
so wonderfully human
and fine,
that we better
recognize
their existence
in ourselves,
through her words
motives purely
selfish, then, I guess,
words pearly,
gifted and given,
how we find the same language,
forges all
our contexts,
with a binding grace,
that elevates us all
beyond and un-between,
above
life's grays
I well recall the
rare, early days here,
when communitas was the
only guiding principle,
seldom was heard
a discouraging word,
how sharing each other's
innermost,
was
the most,
the finest,
expression of the ultimate humanity
inner,
that we choose to accept,
when wearing the
poetry cloak,
a notional emotional
grace
supra-national
in a shared world heritage site,
that no one poet could ever hope to obtain alone
I thank you
once more,
one more,
time and time again,
for the bloom
of your rose,
gifted to all we
itinerant dabblers,
in a world where
words and will,
literary and love,
transforms and re-forms
each other
with the constancy-frequency
glowing alliteration of
an early morn Florida sunrise
you are among the best of us,
we will brook
no,
this denying,
keep us together,
be the poetic glue,
the ganglia connecting us,
this ragtag band
of brothers
and
sisters,
after all this
are we,
not the lucky ones
who read, observe, feel,
and love the special aura of
the poetess*
Ketoma Rose
~~
with affection
nat
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 8:48 AM UTC
the sun romances the night sky
seeping its slow blue
into the wheeling starfeild
its own grandeur carousel fades
as the stars dulled by the dawn stray away
one by one they bid farewell to the day
dawn
her blushing bride endeavor
expanded to her full embrace horizon to horizon
leaves fine line lace of mist
on the water
and begins to warm to announce
the forthcoming of her proud man
noon approaches
thundering hoofs of furnace heat his stallion
his brow breaks with the sweat of his labor
pushing the sun up to her pedestal heights
so a breif rain sqaull rocks our ragtag little ship
noon throws lightening and makes such rousing appeal
but the younger sister approaches
and noon must forsake his place
the quiet seductress afternoon
with her hazy summer heat lulling
and her many sweet scents and sounds
lay with you in the grassy field and
makes love to you with dreams of everlasting summer
and remembrances of childhood carefree abandon
she calls out to her mother evening
who comes and with a mothers love cools your brow
suppertime and laughter with loved ones
gathered at the kitchen table
dream time in safe places of the soul
finally night comes
slipping in silent and swift
deep and quiet he is mystery
gathering of soldiers who fail to conquer
gathering of lovers who two by two not
only are the world but make it anew
with love and with children
now full circle we have come
on the spiral track of our days
as the sun romances the night sky
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 11:08 AM UTC
A young man with a family back home
A wife and a little girl back home
No one cares who he is now
No one will remember him when he is gone
Whether he was a grade “A” student or not
He will be replaced if he falls
He is a solider of America
His unit drives strait into an ambush
His friends killed by his side
Death everywhere he looks
Someone starts to yell fall back
But is stopped in mid-sentence
By a bullet through the heart
Someone manages to spit the words out
Once they finally fall back,
He looks at the ragtag group around him
A man from Georgia
A couple from Tennessee
Their leader didn’t make it
Nor the man who finally yelled fall back
He is the last of the officers
Nothing in his training could have prepared him,
For this
Now not only is his life in his hands
But those around him
He breaks down and cries
An aged man with a family back home
A wife and a little girl back home
Now he is all that stands between home and death
His next move could be his last or his best
He has a choice between life or death
He has a choice between waiting or fighting his way out
Waiting they could be ambushed again and all die
Fighting their way out they could all die
Only seventeen remain
He chooses to fight his way out
They break out the back entrance
Only to find more enemies
After a brief scrimmage they continue adrenalized
They see a Humvee and a troop-transport that look unscathed
He sprints followed closely by his men
Halfway he hears gunfire
His only target is the 50 caliber on the Humvee
Running through bullets and crossfire he makes it
His men low on ammo
His enemies coming by the thousands
He yells to get in as soon as he is shooting
They escape barely losing only one guy
But as their code says,
No man left behind even his body comes
He continues shooting over a hundred yards away
Even though there are no pursuers
He finally climbs back in
He looks over his men checking for wounds
Only to see the color drained from their faces
He begins to see black
He wonders if this is what death feels like
A dying man with a family back home
A wife and a little girl back home
A Purple Heart recipient
A Medal of Honor recipient
A Medal of Valor recipient
A man now decorated with honors
An army veteran with a family back home
A wife and a little girl back home
A survivor of Afghanistan with a family back home
A wife and a little girl
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 7:57 PM UTC
a cooler breeze
takes the edge off the south florida heat haze
lizards and shallow drinkers keep you company
on your front porch in the night
a fiesta of lights moves slowly by
an old mans toothless grin and the never ending party
you call it mercy to have all these friends
but as you sink they just keep toasting the queen
that cooler breeze entertains your hair and
scatters the plastic baubles she saved for you
as she absently sweeps up bits of dust
and waits for her someday
there is the crux of it
cause her plans don't include washed up cowboys
or the ragtag company they keep
for pieces of loose change you gamble away
all those hard to face burning desires
you just keep your cards close
and bet to win
dawn filters in humid as breathing water
and she slings another drink to you
as the tropical sunrise really gets moving
she gives you your plastic baubles and a raincoat
kisses you on the cheek
wishes you goodnight
and floats away on the cooler florida breeze
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
Aghast in the AM
as my friend from youth ago
reminded me of what I know,
and know I’d forgotten
my impulse is to call all:
ragtag and happy,
still on the
line
them good girls gonna go bad
hey Jonny?
snug tired is enough for now
Sep 25, 2021
Sep 25, 2021 at 8:00 PM UTC
She was in love with the road and the music
It was her home
Underneath the lights, amidst the noise
Her soul was dark and free
She was a drifter, one stage and city to the next
He was in love with her
The way she could pour herself into an eighty five minute set
How she could move a moshing crowd to tears
She was his home
Her smiles, her lips, her messy hair
The way she'd kick her laces boots and watch her feet as he told her he loved her
She fell hard, he fell harder
They fell in love to the beat of a ragtag eighties grunge song and things just never changed
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC
I.
discolored snapshots
breathe life into memories with blurred edges
unabated joy in thoughts of, "forever will feel like this"
Silver Bells tasted like pine boughs and cinnamon
she built home out of air
filling lungs with life that made love
into the root of all things beautiful
ragtag Charlie Brown trees, the most beautiful of all
II.
Fall fell hard and the trees died too
lights and empty gestures, for the sake of children
eyes clenched in prayers that, "forever won't feel like this"
breathing in the smog of auld lang syne
can't save what couldn't be saved
sometimes things end without ending
love in seedlings or old oaks still scorch a heart
Silver Bells in saline reminders of nothing feels familiar
III.
stomped into submission beneath icy indifference
short breaths feel alive in crystal shards that penetrate lungs
when they try to break free from truth
normal in stifled emotions where a toothy grin pretends it's elation
Silver Bells smile without a voice to jingle in
and snapshots prove happiness is possible...or was--once
believing that angels walk with us
teaching us how to make love into the root of all things beautiful
maybe, "forever, we can try to build home out of air"
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 3:06 PM UTC
here we go
Love
forehead touching
and we are gripping some cloth
something meaningful
an ally has died
the cloth is bloodstained
we are plotting our next move
and we meet eyes
and know what must be done
strap on our ragtag trappings
put on some lines of warpaint
kiss one last time and strike out into the night
they don' know what's arriving
I call my sword Jesus in a Manger
that's how surprised they are
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 10:23 AM UTC
Every morning I paint over purple rinds
Of exhaustion beneath my irises.
Every morning I curl my joints inwards;
I have nowhere to go anymore.
In the end, where am I?
Slandered, spoiled, sea-sick,
Misfit, ragtag, falling star,
Washed up to age-old shores
And confined within their limits.
Nobody can join us, nobody
Will join us, it’s a matter
Of admitting that you’re broken
It’s a matter of building walls around
Your own disembodied pieces.
I watch only through breaks in the smoke,
When on occasion the edges
Fall into sharp clarity,
Like a kaleidoscope of bad dreams;
My dull eyes take in the present
With regard to nothing but the past;
He falls in love with a girl who is
Beautifully, dangerously naïve.
Like the flicking of a lighter,
Life sparks and jumps forward--
Not the steady flame that follows,
I am the curling hush of ash.
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 8:14 PM UTC
dull treacle melting against the pavement
cicadas hissing in the heat
an occasional breeze is a ragtag flag
fluttering before going still
syrup sitting warm and heavy on your tongue
soda fizzing flat and falling sharp
a sour note to end
a miserable heat to begin the day
hot humidity pressing down
wind humming in protest
sweat dripping slick and tacky
eyes slipping slowly closed
until
the heat
ends
Jan 20, 2018
Jan 20, 2018 at 8:33 AM UTC
The reverberations of
Sergeant Sargent’s rat-a-tat
ring in my head.
Listen up, ding dongs!
Any jibber-jabber is a no-no!
This ain’t no ticky-tacky, artsy-fartsy,
wishy-washy wingding!
You ragtag riffraff are gettin’ tip-top!
So cut the flimflam, quit the chit-chat,
and gimme super-duper!
No namby-pamby hanky-panky,
and everything will be hunky-dory.
Now chop-chop!
May 28, 2025
May 28, 2025 at 5:11 PM UTC
dog's worn out
so are we
social buttrfly
and social bee
not our schedule,
not our cup of tea
but the golden boygod
has now discovered
the mystery of girl meets
boy ...and then runs away
only to dart back ..."wanna play"
new year new school...needs
new mates..so we opened up
the gates ...
the tuxedo rex
chose discretion, the pup
absolute valour, followed
by adoration of the...omg
these little humans will
play with me, a lot, kind....
whoopee!!!
we made nice with new faces
some wanted to play,
we be the Jones'es races
some played aloof and standoffish
those with aspiring social graces
a few came in all bluster and huff
but with first words called their own bluff
then there were those comfortable
in their skins, those who chatted
and engaged, they were not here to win,
just to meet and greet begin to know
the parent of those with whom,
their kids will grow
those who's kids come first,
those kids all running ragtag
fit to burst with energy and joy
hopefully they are the ones
that the golden god boy
chooses to team up with
for this stage of the game
but when the dust settles
and he makes his way
we will be social with who ever
cause at the end of the day
we have our friends
made on many such days
our team is big...
if some what greyer
than when we started
his is newer, brighter
and he gets to choose
win or lose..
part of the learning
as for today, all went well
no major meltdowns
no social hell
just a family worn down
and tired excepting the cat
who is now inspired
the anti social thing:
to sing to us the
"song of his people"
in an earsplitting key
and will only stop
for a sardine...or three
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 1:41 AM UTC
The Merchant seafarers' war
When world war two started Norway was
neutral but unsure which side to stay on.
The English thought occupying Norway
but they were too late the German army had
done the occupation.
The British sent a ragtag military force to Norway
trying to cut the country in half to stop further
advances but were told to pull out.
Norway had at this point a big merchant fleet
It was sequestrated and used bring good and weapon
for the allies.
This left thousands of ****** nowhere
to go those go tried to flee was arrested and sent
back as crew members of any merchant ship.
They the crew lived under a constant pressure
(one out of ten) never made it home can you imagine
how they year after year lived in constant fear
a tank ship full high octane for planes with the enemy
U-boats lurking about. When the war ended and
they could go home they were treated with indifference
like shirkers who had avoided the war.
These seafarers where heroes of the highest order
but the government ignored them, they let down the pride
of Norway, one can say without them the war might
have lasted much longer
Dec 26, 2018
Dec 26, 2018 at 4:52 AM UTC