"ratty" poems
There is a boy walking, maybe ten or eleven,
a skateboard under one arm,
his shirt branded with
THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.
And I wonder, what did she say?
Did she say she liked his tricks
or his ratty sweatshirt?
Did he blush,
swishing his hair in response,
exuding confidence and cockiness, in the mean time remembering his mother,
calling out to him before he left the house.
Did she say “Son,
don’t forget your helmet!”
Even though he was already gone—
Or was she really a he,
who sat him down a few months ago and said
he’d be gone for awhile
that he’d see him soon—
it’s been six months—
and maybe, when the boy heard this, he ran out.
And maybe when he gets older maybe he will run out more often,
to hang out with those who are deemed to be
“the wrong crowd”
and he will be drunk and high,
stumbling under the streets,
above the lights,
hearing-but-not-hearing everything that she is telling him.
She is telling him the secrets of the universe.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 8:42 PM UTC
as though a small town
beauty pageant winner
paraded through
local roads
tossing sweet petals
like fist-fulls of candy
from her seat perched high above
this fragrant litter
purged in layers
as the Catalpa tree
with its divinely
designed
heart-shaped leaves
plainly remains
an organic shade
for the neighbor's
ratty shed
.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 2:51 PM UTC
To all those people out there
who try to tell me how to run my life
I turn my back to you
I will stand my ground
I pay my bills on time,
I buy the things I need
Female products, shampoo,
razers, tooth brush, ect
SO WHO CARES HOW I SPEND MY EXTRA MONEY???
Yes I know I'm slightly obbsessed with Avengers
and I buy everything in sight that has to do with them.
BUT HEY I DO IT WITH THINGS I NEED!!!!
I needed a new bedset, my old one getting disgustingly ratty
There just so happened to be an avengers one
I needed a new bath towel,
Hey Look a cheap *** Avengers one!!!!
I needed shampoo
I found a three in one
shampoo, conditioner, body wash
3 buck! AVENGERS!!!
Sorely needed a new tooth brush
Dollar tree, Spiderman!!!!
So you see
even as I splurge
I'm doing it smartly
So to all those haters out there!
GET THE **** OFF MY BACK!!!
ITS MY LIFE
AND I WILL LIVE AND SPEND IT
HOW EVER I ******* WANT!!!!!!!!!!!
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
There's something majestic, yet also extremely gloomy, about a streetlight at night in the rain. Something, some unplaced dimension within the echoing cars and within the particles of water, as they spray...into oblivion
Mother, do you recall that rainy day?
The day my gumboots soaked through,
I beleive we were waiting for a bus. It was one of those city rains, when all you could dream of was home or the warmth and comfort. When all you wanted was a bath and hot-chocolate or another item of food, steaming with love. Mother, I remember holding to you're body for warmth as we sat under that old wooden bus shelter.
I clung to you're body and melted into you're lingering scent, you're falling breath and you're human form.
You held me, you hid you're shivers so as to warm mine.
We watched the cars spray etheral mist into the orange lights of the city.
We watched lovers rush by under umbrellas, we watched rain curve down the cement like a snake on it's own journey.
We listened,
oh did we ever listen, we ate up the noise, the stories within the rain, we cuddled until we felt the warmth from our bellies rise out of us like smoke or a dragons breath, tainting the air.
I, you're daughter. You, my mother.
You're long hair curling down your breast. Me, like a little berry scrunched up as close to you as I could get. Like our bodies would drip into each other as one, our breath the same. Only my gulps of air came much sooner and you silently resisted my subtle games. When the huddling was done you reached out to me with you're strong hands and you led me along the night of echoes. I can't remeber much else, asides from sitting with you in the empty pizza shop as we both savoured and satisfied our cravings for comfort. Cold-handed laughter as we danced over the most delectable pizza.
Then we caught the bus home, you sat on the red leather, grabbing the creamy yellow bar, I jumped onto the ratty blue seat beside you and leaned once again into you're body, melting into sweet harmonies.
Eating in the sounds of humans and the sound of the bus, splashing through water
and journeying on through the deep
and endless city night.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
"Cash, Grass or Ass-No One Rides Free!"
reads the bumper-sticker slapped on the ratty Harley.
Its black leather seat is cracked, tattered and torn,
the headlight is busted and there's no friggin' horn;
with mismatched saddlebags strapped to each side,
the panhead leaks like a sieve, but it's still quite a ride.
The gas-tank is dented, scratched and coated with muck,
the chrome no longer shines, but who gives a flyin' ****
Its tires are bald, the spokes are all rusted to ****
and the frame is off-kilter from a cage-driver's hit.
The biker just puffed the last hit from his pipe,
slammed down the rest of the J.D. from the bash last night;
then he hops on his hog, kicks the monster to start,
the muffler-pipes blast flames and roar like a ****
Together they roll down the road like old pals,'
with nowhere to go, just obnoxious and loud:
the tombstone tail-light flashes bright red on this mess,
'though Cashless, Grassless and Assless, they couldn't care less!
Sep 2, 2010
Sep 2, 2010 at 1:34 AM UTC
I like to do those quizzes
in glossy bubbles that you
find
in Cosmopolitan and
Elle and
Seventeen.
Which girl should I be?
Should I
dump paper flowers
on my milkmaid braid?
Long skirts, long chains, and
Beatles on my radio
during their ‘Indian’ phase?
Should I
paint it all
black, strip life down to
a middle finger,
blare punk at full
scream,
and cram my toes in ratty Docs,
smash all emotion
into smithereens?
Should I
sugar-coat my mouth with
Maybelline, button up
collars, laughs, opinions,
read books on behaving
just like a
daydream,
sip teas, bake cookies, aim for
Ivy Leagues?
Which gilded box do I crawl
into?
Which skin to don
this week?
Which fashion editor-friendly
stereotype to fulfil?
Which girl should I be?
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 3:24 PM UTC
she stood outside the apartment
finger halfway up her nose
scratching with her free hand
a **** loosely encased
in patchy, ***** blue jeans
ratty sneakers with holes where
her toes and dignity poked through
usually a whiner, a brayer
a donkey among gently purring cats
calling down thunder and racket
like a motorcycle tearing circles through a lamp shop
today, of all days, she swayed
silently
in loose waltz time
to soft piano of a long-dead Frenchman
curling down from speakers
mounted in windows
across the street
her misshapen hips and flexing calf muscles
lifting her up in a rude en pointe
somehow made elegant
by a quiet ballad, a soothing moment
on a hot August morning
in Main Street
of the hinterlands.
2/12/2015
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 8:48 AM UTC
She stands on a chair
Looking out the window
Above the kitchen sink,
Scrubbing baby bottles,
Sippy cups, and baby
Food jars.
She sees her entire
Second grade class
Playing a game of
Tag without her.
The baby cries from
The bedroom.
She jumps down
And runs to the
Back of the house,
Dragging the chair
With her.
She jumps on the chair
And lifts the baby out
Of the crib.
She reminds herself
To support his head
While she walks to
Their mother’s door.
Her mother is asleep
In the arms of a different
Man than last week,
She smells the all-too
Familiar mixture of
*** and Wine.
The man opens his
Eyes and barks at
Her to get out.
She carries the baby
To the ratty couch
And feeds him
As they sit with the
Two other children,
Listening to her
Peers laughter through the
Window above the sink.
Jan 5, 2016
Jan 5, 2016 at 1:45 PM UTC
Her ugly salmon sneakers
hang by ratty shoelaces when she takes them from the vendor.
I tell her to toss them lest she get a disease
from her gross salmon sneakers.
Her garish salmon sneakers
pitter-patter gladly, mocking me and staying forever.
She says she won’t ever buy another pair since
she’s got her salmon sneakers.
Her silly salmon sneakers
stay on even through our reception, our vows, and our wedding.
Though I do finally get them off that same night,
her wondrous salmon sneakers.
Her busted salmon sneakers
trip her up before she steps in front of a speeding driver.
As I scold her, I don’t even think I’m grateful
to her old salmon sneakers.
Her galling salmon sneakers
always stay two steps ahead of me and everyone she knows.
If only they outpaced the ones she didn’t know,
her ******* salmon sneakers.
Her stupid salmon sneakers
never grace her feet again, and I know she’d have hated that.
I don’t care because that’s all I have left of her,
her ****** salmon sneakers.
Her dreary salmon sneakers
seem so lifeless without her because she was what gave them life.
And I wish with all that’s left that she was there, not
her hollow salmon sneakers.
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC
For me they are something to follow
For her they are a beacon of hope.
They are ***** and ratty and more than a few years old
But they are beautiful to me and more so to her.
They say you should walk a mile in someone’s shoes
But I’ve gone on a journey without ever putting them on.
To say they save lives is an understatement,
‘Cause wherever the ruby slippers go
People are changed.
One day they may be famous
And I hope I’m around to see it.
Those faded red converse on the cover of
Every magazine.
True they will be beautiful,
But the person who wears them
Will be the most beautiful of all.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
A box entitled Lost and Found.
Inside-
a ball,
a silver slinky.
A pink backpack with unicorns,
a ratty teddy bear with love in it's eyes.
A math notebook that holds all the secrets of a girl named Alicia.
A cootie-catcher that has been ripped in several places.
A metal tin lunchbox with Spiderman on it and the name William on a piece of masking tape on the handle.
A barbie doll, looking as thought it has been given an amateur haircut, and wearing a yellow dress and one pink high heel, but still smiling.
A green hairband with several purple flowers on it.
A diary with a lock, and butterflies on the cover.
A stuffed puppy dog, with a red nose.
A key, probably to a lost diary.
One black shoe,
in the Lost and Found.
Apr 28, 2010
Apr 28, 2010 at 12:08 PM UTC
a ratty, mangled tooth brush and
two years of lost socks scattered throughout my house,
is what i am left with.
i go to bed alone.
i wake up alone.
i brush my teeth,
and there lies the toothbrush.
i can't get myself to toss it to the curb,
much like you did me.
i feel that the moment i do that
all hope is gone
and you'll never come back.
chances are,
you aren't coming back,
but i know the day i toss it is the day i not only lose you,
but i lose myself too.
your sock habits always made me giggle.
from holy socks to your moms floral, fuzzy socks,
you always left them everywhere.
we could be mid supper
and you would bend down to take them off.
i used to find it annoying,
constantly picking up smelly socks
in the weirdest of places,
but now when i find those socks
that i hadn't found before,
it brings me happiness.
i don't know if i will ever be able
to get rid of your toothbrush
or if i will ever find the last of your socks,
but i hope that i don't
because the day that happens
is the day i'm forced to say goodbye.
Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 1:46 AM UTC
I was six:
On the steps
Of the small
Carousel
Stood the old,
Greying haired
And mustached
Man in a
Ratty suit
Smiling and
Anxiously
Peering out,
Waited for
Me.
"He is your
Father, say
Hello please"
"Hello" I'd
Said to the
Stranger who'd
Introduced
As father
Yet I hadn't
Met or seen
Before or
After and
That's where it
Ends.
The one,
The only,
Memory
Of him.
Good riddance
I suppose.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
Their hobby horse carved from wood.
Upon metal frame and bouncy springs.
Kept our boys on the trail of good.
Rounding up outlaws and wild things.
Hot wheel cars and yards of plastic track,
racing from living room to kitchen.
They'd chase after their cars, then run back,
over and over, I should mention...
Tonka trucks and a pile of sand,
under the pear tree in our back yard.
Each one operated by little hands.
To get the boys outside, was never hard.
Forts made from sheets hung on the clothes line,
or in their bedroom if it would rain.
Turned an adventure out of lunchtime,
or "Boys Only" club when the girls came.
Blocks of wood cut different sizes and shapes,
dumped out onto their bedroom floor.
Became odd alien landscapes,
strewn from bunk beds to closet door.
Just an old ratty cardboard box.
Dented pan lid for a steering wheel.
No need for stereo or remote door locks,
as their first car, it was a steal.
So much fun, no batteries needed.
No computer generation.
Active minds cleverly seeded,
by two boys and their imagination.
Nov 12, 2010
Nov 12, 2010 at 3:26 PM UTC
On really good days
I'll leave a crisp five
In the back pocket
Of my ratty blue jeans.
That way when my future self
Feels as fragile as spun sugar
But tastes like burned bitterness
And needs to shake herself awake
Drag herself from chore to chore,
Convince herself that collapsing isn’t a cure,
[Though doesn’t the cold tiled floor feel refreshing?]
She’ll only have clothed in comfort:
Her baggy gray sweatshirt,
Consuming her body whole,
Making her shapeless,
So maybe she can shape shift,
Into a bird or a bat or a pterodactyl,
And make the most of her new wingspan,
Flying further from her fractured reality,
Into a fabulously far-fetched fantasy.
Her ratty blue jeans haphazardly thrown on,
So worn that there are holes in the knees,
Frayed hemline attesting to the tired trampling,
But when she tries to shove a ***** tissue,
Into the back pocket hoping it’s mere placement,
Is enough to leave the memory behind her,
She’ll stumble upon a long forgotten monetary love note.
Yes, you do love yourself,
Yes, I know it’s rough now,
In fact, I guessed it way back when,
But life is just a series of juxtapositions,
And maybe you’re in a hole dug so deep,
That you’ve burrowed out into China,
And now look, really look,
You’ve got a world of exploring to do!
But if you’re not yet strong enough to
Climb the Great Wall,
Don’t you worry,
Building endurance takes some time,
But until then,
Here’s a crisp five,
Go buy a Kit-Kat,
A can of Sprite,
And a cheap horror flick,
And never forget,
I always love you.
Jul 28, 2013
Jul 28, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
rays of light strike the wall where a window should be. the hurricane is over, we haven't yet taken down the boards.
the thing about the storm is how exhausting it can be. it can take so much out of you that all you can muster is enough energy to think. hours expended in forceful trance don't quite seem like hours at all.
more like something else entirely.
i rest my head on the back of a ratty couch. there's a coffee table before me that i'd like to prop my feet on if only i had the strength to. i notice Elizabeth cross legged atop it. she's smaller than i remember. not in the way of height or weight, but in a way i can't quite put my finger on. she looks straight through the boards on the window, though i feel her gaze on me.
a few minutes have gone away. following their departure, Elizabeth turns to me and asks,
"do you remember me from somewhere?"
Feb 26, 2021
Feb 26, 2021 at 5:30 PM UTC
People ask if i am a ******
I say yes, i am waiting for marriage
I hear "good for you"
or "dude you gotta get laid"
still, a part of me doesn't believe what i say
Everyone has there Thorn?
i mean who hasn't looked at ****
but where does it stop
I have Never had ***
but i had a sick addiction
Filled by this simple prescription
Every night i ****** that girl on the little screen that taught me she was merely a possesion
I Just typed in those 3 letters
and it became an obsession
A black hole
Ripping apart time and space
Not even light would escape
And the only thing that mattered
Was me
Me, and that thing on the screen who nobody wanted to be
An object
Like a silly little toy
For those ****** up little boys
Who after batting you around
And shoving you in the ground
Just cram you back in that chest at the end of there bed
Like a ratty stuffed bear
No Love, No soft touch, no sweet embrace
I didn't even have to care
Why would I?
How could I?
You were just a wave of photons collapsing in my eye
to come and go as i pleased
projected from that ***** little screen
You were just a *****
to me
and not anything more.
In a place where i was supposed to have the deepest most intense connection
I would replicate with meaningless, emotionless self satisfaction
i would sow seeds of my own destruction every time i opened that link
where i was made to feel love and joy, i would only sink
becoming tangled in emptiness, i was lost, i was dying
like a bird drowning in a sea of stone
where no one would think to find me
No light would be shed on this pathetic part of my life
A life of darkness in that room where my face glows
and my pupils dilate
My fate slips from sight as i separate
Body from soul
I see myself Mindlessly staring at that dark light
It was a drug, My sick Addiction
I wasn't even trying to Fight
It consumed my Thoughts, took me from above
dissolving my capability to love
I tried to run
I didn't think
That without His hand
I will always sink
Back into that creaky chair
Where this beautiful creation of God, this person, this human being
Just becomes one of my daily rituals, self fulfilled
She becomes just a thing
In short, if i gave an honest answer, i am not a ******
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 11:33 PM UTC
It’s not always *****
And glass slippers
Handsome gloved fingers impeccably asking for
Just one dance
There aren’t always fairies with good intentions
And neatly pressed dresses
Popping out from
Rose bushes while you cry to
A mother grave
Sometimes dirt under fingernails
Doesn’t come off
Sometimes you learn to live by
Snatching crusts thrown in
Hot fires so you
Reach in to hunger
And come out with scarred fingers covered in ashes
Chores are not always performed
By animated, peeping creatures
And instead you know their presence in the dark as
Whispered tails run over your ratty hem
It’s not always a fairy-tale
Sometimes you sing harshly
To the tune of a whip on your back
As the words
**** from the cinders
Ring in your ears
But sometimes clever fingers steal material
Working late into the night
And pacts made with older Magic’s
Help you bewitch a prince so he sees
Only you
And sometimes you get to watch blood fall
On your wedding dress as your tormentors eyes
Are plucked out by winged doves
And you do feel happy
In the sunlight
Until in the dark, again
Hands run over you, whispering then
Biting like the rats
And you realize, lying back
That you have traded one form of servitude
For another
And happily-ever-after has
Only just begun.
Sep 2, 2009
Sep 2, 2009 at 7:46 PM UTC
Cigarette smoke and suntan lines
Big ******* conglomerate of it all
California short hours away
Small town America burns hot
Scorched with dreams
Drunk and sappy on cheap beer
And wonder
How does it all make sense?
Where does it all go?
What Divine notices all that happens?
Going unseen
Uninhibited
Unrestricted.
Scene continues forever.
Worried in hot sweaty short drive
To carry on Sherman
Fall on Caves
First fill up, gas up, cookies and gum.
Girls work icecream stands
Firewood ten dollars a stack
Sliding into drunk dresses
Drunk kisses in
Drunk bathrooms
Room to love
And to fight
To hate and leave and stay
And we do stay and
Don’t mean what we said
When jealous.
Best friend backstab
And open road fall back
Drink,Drink,Drink
And fall on same old singsong solitary stool
Or walk on till all
Makes sweet holy sense.
Think where they will go,
Where they’ve been,
Sleeping in beds of tomorrow
And eat the toxic cancer of now away
Till only in remission can the
Revolution of our unconquerable youth shake.
Natalie keeps kids and complains
But truly is the best mother and friend of all
I really do believe it,
Kate drinks and dreams
And I dream with her, too
Of highways and great plains,
Ratty dives and eclectic bars
Too hip for She,
The Messiah of cool, even.
Gone.
Too soon.
How can we consent,
Look away, turn away from such terror?
It freezes, chills to bone and I light up again.
Figurative fire scorches lungs
Grass burning from the inside out
What’s she care?
It’s over anyways,
It always comes to an end,
But I really just don’t see
The beginning of the magic.
I’m here for you.
Helicopter scares,
Sober stares,
Where did they all go?
California dreams
Dust and ****
Close your eyes
See the soul,
The sun sink past sand,
The sky turns gray
No beautiful aversion,
See the orange and red,
See the beauty that doesn’t fit here.
Go.
See it all.
Go.
Jul 23, 2010
Jul 23, 2010 at 10:28 PM UTC
We got back from the bar and were sitting at a makeshift one in our friend's ratty old trailer that was barely suitable to live in.
He grabbed a piece of paper and began writing something out of my eye sight.
He smiled and slid it over to me like we were passing notes in class.
"You are cute. Wanna hold hands?"
Check YES, or NO.
I put a check mark in the box next to Yes and just as quietly gave it back.
We smiled at each other and I shoved the yellow piece of paper into my purse for safe keeping.
It now hangs on my fridge underneath a magnet from the Aquarium.
Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 4:35 PM UTC
She's got that peasant stink stuck to her
radiating failed dreams and passed-over advice
speaking to the untold quantities
of filthy, illegitimate children
birthed through pale and quivering thighs.
Tattered, low denims
faded, high-cut blouse
full head of ratty, unclean hair
propped up in a high-rise hair-spray style
that hasn't been popular in the trailer parks
for more than a decade.
She always worked real hard
yet always put failing-foot forward
and though I asked,
she could never tell me why -
she never, I think, knew herself.
It doesn't matter though
she'll just fall again
fall to her knees before another he again
fall into the welfare lines due to another newborn again
fall back down into what she knows again.
She saves her non-handout-cash
for the spending on endless streams of hash,
bottles of paint for nail and eye-lash
-because she believes, as she's told,
that she's worth it -
even though it's real clear that she's not
and that
it's real clear that she's one for looking-on
and never acting upon and yet,
I cannot help myself
anymore than she can -
I have fallen
completely and pointlessly
in love with her.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 8:59 AM UTC
I'm walking laps around my apartment complex.
Passing a red-headed girl with a bottle of Corona,
a few Johnny Rebs talking adderall,
headlights, streetlights, lighters,
swirling, combining, but never providing enough bright.
I'm still bearing a slight headache from Saturday night,
but finally past the nausea.
I spent the day conversing with Rachel's family.
The domesticated, scene of warmth was a sharp
contrast to the hell I put Rachel through in
the waning hours of night.
I woke at 9 this morning to find
her barely covered in a ratty,
blanket, no pillow under her
ruffled hair, her eyes burnt red,
asking if I was okay.
I thought she was overreacting.
She shoved water in my face.
She said, "Drink it, ******
Like she'd tried a few thousand times before,
and apparently she had,
I just didn't remember any of it.
She had saved me around 4.
She cleaned off a death mask
of filthy ***** by force.
I wouldn't comply because
I wasn't coherent.
Tonight as I touch each crack
of the pavement with my sole,
the rest of the human family
is pounding beer, suckling the barbeque
off their pudgy fingers,
and howling at a nation divided between Cheese and Steel.
I'm stuck in the trough of existential contemplation.
Old Mr. Huxley self-medicated with mescaline
and said he discovered the "is-ness", and somehow
found contentedness in "everything is".
That never made much sense to me.
Bukowski found god in ******* and drinking beer.
Vonnegut said when god created the world,
man asked what his purpose was. God was surprised,
and he replied, "I don't know. Make one up."
Feb 6, 2011
Feb 6, 2011 at 4:53 PM UTC
Have you ever smelled a colour?
It's as easy as can be
Just pick one out and sniff one
Close your eyes and you will see
Just think of what you're smelling
Be it orange, red or green
But, you have to keep your eyes closed
To experience the scene
Just try it...it's amazing
Pick a colour, take a sniff
It opens all your senses
All you do is take a whiff
Just close your eyes and do it
There....you'll find it in your mind
You will surely be excited
By the pictures you will find
Green will bring you gardens
Overflowing with their scent
It will bring back thoughts of camping
Setting up that ratty tent
Red...fruit and anger
Cherries freshly picked and cooked
It will also show emotions
Try again...I know you're hooked
Try and smell a colour
Smell blue and see the sea
Just close your eyes and sniff them
Then you'll see the things I see
Each sense has got a trigger
You may think I'm off my gourd
But...try and truly smell a colour
Close your eyes and come on board...
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 5:11 PM UTC
On a cold and bitter night,
A day when to celebrate a child's birth, children work,
A man lies dead in the snow.
Frozen by harsh reality,
This man lies dead, his open eyes staring at a polluted sky,
Where a tower blinks red, unlike his reindeer which men had for their flesh,
How can such a man exist, when what he stood for was compassion,
and now only avarice runs rampant today.
Above him, in a ratty apartment,
the TV blares advertisements made for holidays.
Above him, the people believe only in gifting to receive gifts,
Money can't buy you love,
Yet it seems so untrue when the cold wind kicks in.
This man lies dead on cold snow,
and no one lifts a finger to save him.
No cookies and milk wait for him near a warm hearth.
Santa is dead, the Grinch has won.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 10:53 AM UTC