"rickety" poems
Our love was a roller coaster.
It had ups and downs and I sat real close to her.
It had a real slow climb and a real quick drop.
I screamed "faster" and she begged it to stop.
I put up my hands and she held on tight.
Not a second of boredom on our rickety flight.
And when it came to a stop at that first safer place,
I said, "Let's do it again," and she puked in my face.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 4:57 PM UTC
This old house, made just of wood,
For years so proudly how it has stood,
Perched high upon the hill nearby,
The memories sweet, and some we cried.
The roof was sturdy through many days,
When storms came crashing in the ways,
With rain that beat at times like a foe,
Deep inside was where the love still flowed.
We painted it when time came round,
From very top to the bottom ground,
Polished the windows till shinny bright,
Our old house standing, a lovely sight.
Hung a porch swing for all to share,
Forgot our troubles, the devil may care,
Hugged one another on colder nights,
Inside the swing there were no fights.
The rickety furniture inside was there,
But comfort was not on them to bare,
And all the winter with quilts piled high,
We slept like dreamers, not knowing why.
So, as I leave old house to go,
Inside my heart, I still love it so,
And no matter where life now leads me on,
Still at the old house is where I belong.
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 6:17 PM UTC
To taste the bittersweet nectar of thy lunar lips.
Lie me hope, sing to me the song of the helix.
Proffer me the chance to breach thy bastion,
encompass thee in my love and compassion.
Sanction me to be that one whispering love stories
in thine ear while bathing in the Aurora Borealis
dazzling and clear.
You and I, a rickety tent and a love nothing less of
heaven sent.
In mine heart thou shalt forever remain.
My panzer maid grant me...the fall of rain.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 11:28 AM UTC
Saturday
Sounds like the pattering
Of bare feet
On a dusty concrete yard,
Smells of chimney smoke
And jagged coal heath,
Sheep-scent and
Wiry wool on a barbed fence,
Saturday
Is a jangly guitar
In a rickety truck
On a gravel road,
With a gravel voice
Rough as grit,
Deep as the caverns
Between the peaks,
Saturday
Is sunlight on an enamel ***
A tin kettle
And its blood metal tea,
It is blackberry-bitten legs
and iodine streams,
A canopy of heady bracken
Below penny-marked trees,
Then Sunday,
Slantwise
Against the setting sun
Away again.
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 6:09 PM UTC
Into a place far away but too familiar,
I push open the rusty purple gates,
Inhale a lungful of the province air,
Kick away blue pebbles on the dusty ground,
And then
Mano my lolo, my tito
Beso my lola, my tita
And give my cousins a nudge on the arm,
A pinch on the cheeks.
I squeeze between four people
In a rickety wooden bench and
Pass around plate after heavy plate.
I fill my banana leaf
With spaghetti too soft too sweet,
Almost like pudding,
With crispy chicken dripping with oil.
I wash it off with a cool glass of gulaman,
Chewy beads and gems in sugary water.
Fathers talk about basketball, boxing, billiards;
Mothers browse through photo albums and magazines;
While we children argue about Superman or Batman.
Our laughter fills the humid air
And goes up, up, up to the ears of the neighbors.
In celebration of the time we have together
And a nice sunny day
We devour our meals
And go ahead and
Climb trees and
Get our faces sticky with sweet fruits,
Lick chocolate ice popsicles,
Chase each other in the weedy playground,
Bike around town,
Pick colorful flowers,
Wrestle with each other,
Play badminton on a windy day,
Scare around chickens and guinea pigs,
And play patintero under the dull orange street lamps.
We nervously creep inside the back door,
All sweaty, bearing bruises and scratches
But still with wide smiles on our faces.
All is futile though.
An angry grandmother awaits,
Scolding us for
Coming home past sunset.
More and more stars glitter the sky
As the night gets deeper and deeper.
The gentle evening breeze whistles a note
As it enters through the window.
The karaoke blasts grating voices
Interrupted by hearty laughter.
Playing cards and corn chips litter the table.
We children exchange jokes and ghost stories.
And then,
We bid our goodbyes,
Sharing hugs and kisses
Stained with discontent and sadness.
Our hearts about to burst
In excitement for the next
Reunion.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 3:56 AM UTC
of this wilting wall the colour drub
souring sunbeams,of a foetal fragrance
to rickety unclosed blinds inslants
peregrinate,a cigar-stub
disintegrates,above,underdrawers club
the faintly sweating air with pinkness,
one pale dog behind a slopcaked shrub
painstakingly utters a slippery mess,
a star sleepily,feebly,scratches the sore
of morning. But i am interested more
intricately in the delicate scorn
with which in a putrid window every day
almost leans a lady whose still-born
smile involves the comedy of decay,
6.3k
Don’t love me.
Please, don’t love me.
I know myself, we’re quite close actually, and let me tell you, you don’t want to fall for her,
you don’t want that girl, I hate her.
I hate her because I know her so well and I know how horrible the truth can smell.
Don’t love me, because even I know to hate myself,
the vanity that despite this loathing I might actually believe that someone could fall for me.
Don’t love me.
Don’t love me, because I met Heartbreak once and she left me gasping for air
and I will never meet her again.
I refuse, so if you love me, please be aware that when you do,
some day I am going to leave you, battered and bruised, because
twisted self-preservation has taught me all the tricks to keep myself afloat by drowning you.
Don’t love me.
Because as much as I will love you, I’m not friends with Commitment,
and whenever I see him on the horizon I set off running in the opposing direction.
I will treat you like there will be no oxygen unless I’m holding you,
but when you’re the one reaching for my hand I’ll become the wind.
Commitment is not my friend, I said, but no one listens.
Don’t love me, because I am a tornado, a storm to chase until I’ve taken everything from you.
Don’t love me.
Someday, you will be married and happy, and I will
whirl back into your life like the hurricane that has never been named after me, and
you will believe that all your scars
and your broken heart
have healed enough that you can run with me.
But I have razors between my fingers and wedged in my teeth,
and your scabbed over heartstrings will be powerless against me.
I am an expert at running, at hurting, at ‘maybe’s.
Don’t love me.
When you ask me for something more,
I will tell you that I am not ready, because I never will be.
Chances scare me, and trusting someone so much will always be risky.
I will tell you that I am not in the right place for your Commitment,
for your future Heartbreak,
and you will tell me that you understand but you’ll stick with me,
and fire will consume everything.
Don’t love me.
I can’t even go a few years with a friendship before
burning it all for at least a few evenings, but we’ll always rebuild the
rickety ashes of the bridges we’ve passed.
Don’t love me.
I’m only saying it for your safety.
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
The Aliens are coming for me soon.
And I will be here waiting for them.
My whole life it's been like someone-
no, THING- no, HOW
whispered
'Kid, one day, we're gonna make you special.
Just wait for us."
Since my first kindergarten play.
Since my first line of yay.
From the first time I heard-
'Relax, kid, you're gonna be okay.'
From my first dying day.
Excuse me.
Birth day.
My Dad never saw how the sun rose in that way.
On that day.
But the Aliens do.
And they were beautiful.
They Aliens know everything that surrounds you,
hounds you,
the ones who confound you,
and every single person who actually found you.
The Aliens know.
And the Aliens are coming to help.
And I am waiting for them.
The Aliens know about how you got kicked off the T-ball team.
They know about how much your dreams mean and how mean your been to others.
They know about the struggles you've had and you blame it all on your Dad.
But really it's all about yourself.
They know we put things on a rickety shelf and pray they'll never fall.
They know the human race is really just a flaw.
But the Aliens are still coming for me.
The Aliens are the only ones who know us.
The Aliens are the ones who can, but won't, control us.
They feel what it's like to be kept waiting
and waiting
and waiting.
Because.
Because they have been waiting.
Waiting for me.
And I am waiting for the Aliens.
Still I will wait.
Because only the Aliens have waited for me.
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 1:14 AM UTC
You aren't the first to walk these roads.
These lonely, gravel trails covered in broken glass and nails.
Every time a rickety car breaks down and fails
it leaves it's wreck along the side of highway,
just watching the traffic pass them by.
They are monuments to every effort we have made and given up on.
They are why you MUST try.
Whether you live in a town or a city,
there are going to be some pretty ****** moments in life.
It takes a lot of strife to get a small amount of satisfaction
but the chain reaction
of doubts and down 'n' outs
is drowned out by the radio static and
I don't mean to sound dramatic but
I understand.
I just want you to know
you're not going to go on your own this time.
Every moment spent crying is time that could better spent trying.
If I told you I don't have these moments,
well, I'd be lying.
Because I've felt the color drain from my face
as I try to remember the last place I left my courage
because it's not at arm's reach this time.
Sneers and eyerolls draw spirals around me
like I'm at ground zero of an M.C Escher painting.
I can rephrase suffering so many ways.
But at this pace, I still can't outrun my own thoughts.
I find my courage at last
but there is no sticking place to ***** it to,
so I just say ***** it."
I can't say I knew it would end this way,
but if all this poem comes down to
is a whiny teenager trying to be edgy
than I guess I...
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that ***** sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
4.1k
I love roller coasters.
I love the old rickety ones that jar my spine and push me into my little sister and i can feel our ribcages collide with the
click-click-click as they slowly build suspense and propel me towards the sun.
my last boyfriend hated them. He felt that his stomach couldn’t stand up to the drop of gravity so he ran at the sight of the climb up to reason and fled the line when i unbuckled my seatbelt.
i love waiting in line for a **** good thrill, and i count down the minutes until the spill of my scream echoes into the hairspray of the woman in front of me as she holds the hand of her cut-offs husband.
i guess you aren’t one to pine for the wooden tracks of thrill, either. but last night i lay in bed, on my side, trying to memorize the planes of your face, trying to calculate the angle of your nose as it leans slightly to your right, you tell me it’s crooked, i tell you it is lovely. it is the finest architecture this side of eiffel tower and you run your hands from the top of my collarbone, down the valley of my waist to the top of my hip, and you tell me you wish you had a tiny car to run along the line.
most of all i love the fall.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
we look at TV screens that show
thousands of persecuted and bombed-out families
on the run for safety and sheer survival
so sorry
borders are shuttered now
the boat is full no more come in
we have to think of ourselves
so sorry
we sincerely regret that you
are suffering from cold and rain and snow
in your rickety makeshift camps
so sorry
we are sure there’s someone
to take care of all that mess
it’s just not us
so sorry
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 4:30 PM UTC
Although the experience of trauma is a certain force with which to be reckoned, one can frame its power within the realms of a problem or a possibility.
Consider the bond of brickwork in Massachusetts, as it resembles structures of olde, where the witch trials were an extension of ******* Catholicism.
Please acknowledge that there is lead in the windows of rickety black-and-white buildings of Tudor establishment, which must remain if its integrity is to be preserved.
It truly is a long way to the top of Australasian rebellion.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 11:52 PM UTC
Fever-flushed children and
Broken bodies
Litter hospital halls like so much
Human refuse
….Wondering why
their need for care is treated so tepidly by a
Society which worships
Profits
Power and
Prestige
….Waiting while
they wallow in anguish as
Privacy
Paperwork and
Payment are
Debated by bureaucrats in cubicles
….Wanting to be refreshed and
restored to some measure of usefulness
….But
Free to Pursue Life on their terms in exchange for
Silence
Acceptance and
Despair
Huddling for warmth and in
Fear of discovery
they assemble in rag-tag formation
having scaled formidable fences
Seeking freedom from
Poverty and oppression
Searching for work of any sort
….No matter how
Humiliating or
Hard
….No matter the
Cost or
Conditions
Disparaged and despised they labor
in hope that their children will have a chance for success
instead of suffering a similar fate
…..But
Free to Pursue Liberty
in a land where their presence is
Ignored if not Denied
Unkempt in camouflage
One-legged and
Vacant-eyed
he rolls his rickety wheelchair along grassy median with muted effort
displaying cardboard sign
childishly scripted
in one weather-worn and gnarled hand
while clutching a decapitated jug in the other
Forgotten
Forlorn, and
Discarded veteran
Victimized far more by country than foe
….But
Free to Pursue Happiness while
Begging on street corners as
Upright citizens dispense
Unwelcome opinions or
Pocket change with equal
Self-righteousness
Life
Liberty and the
Pursuit of happiness….
Ideals that slowly incinerate on the
Altar of Capitalism
….Songs forever lost in the
Cacophony now
Played on the
Instrument of Politics
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 7:17 PM UTC
far, far, far away
lies a house
with a fireplace
and an old rickety rocking chair
even farther away
lies a mountain
and behind that mountain is a box
with a lock on it
in that box
lies a small, battered bag
and in that bag
is every piece of joy
which you stole from me.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
Dear Night,
please **** off
out of my life
back to your bars,
theatres,
prostitutes
& big neon city lights
don't visit the suburbs
of this small town
where there is
nothing to do
but wait for the dawn
& write
because yeah
I'm even tired of that
old hat trick
& again
there are no stars
in the sky
to comfort my
rickety heart
& no-one on the telephone
& no nightingales
in the garden
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 1:44 PM UTC
The time’s may have changed,
days aged our bodies
but you are still wholly
yourself, only more
magnanimously
magical, which says
something, because
your oeuvre was such
already.
An aged wine of light
shining like sacred
grapes made of quartz in
the field’s center.
I remember when
you guided me to
the fox. I can still
remember when you
were sprouting—
sacred knowledge to
me in the back of
the school bus. But now…
dots are connecting,
I’m remembering
my fire ether
name. Your knowledge had
pollinated me—
sure took time
to take root, and ferment,
but now it is
a very good year.
It’s time to uncork!
A party army
awaits, clad in such
an iridescent
armor armed only
with <3 - shaped fire
on torches, ready
to burn down rotten
rickety aged
bridges built of dead
green ink-stained wood, all
converging on a
barren cliff so we
may ignite skies and
shine in darkness.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 4:42 PM UTC
Hair flecked with silver streams
Grooves in the skin creating ripples of wisdom
Wisdom shown in the glossy eyes
Body of watery experience sitting in the rickety chair,
the chair that squeaks with every rocky wave
If wisdom had a visible aura
it would be seeping out of his eye sockets
creating rivers of tears flowing down the cheekbones
It would be pouring out of his ears,
watering the thirsty hydrangeas that rest by his feet
It would be running out of his nose
into the decades of wisdom gathering around his chin
It would be salivating out of the corners of his mouth,
down his chin
drenching the front of his argyle sweater vest
But people walk by
blinded by nearsightedness
They don't see the water that creates a tsunami
strong and tall
People walk by
content on their dry scratchy gravel,
not wanting to dip their toes
into the murky pond before them
People walk by
closer toward the desert
where they get stuck
waiting for something to quench their thirst.
Nov 25, 2011
Nov 25, 2011 at 5:05 PM UTC
Imagine waking up on a filthy, uneven floor -
light coming solely through the flimsy wooden wall.
Imagine trudging through the mud barefoot -
mud merged with remnants of God knows who.
Imagine breathing in thick layers of sooty dust -
the colors sullen, lifeless and dull.
Imagine smelling the scent of faeces and decay,
of diseases and of death every single day.
Imagine your belly gurgling with hunger and distraught,
sniffing glue - the only way to delude.
Imagine walking on rickety bridges -
a step amiss and drown you will in these murky watery ditches.
Imagine wearing the same old rags - all tattered and torn,
being beaten and battered, no rights of which to call your own.
Imagine having silly daydreams of going to school
but there's not a penny to spare - not even for a worn-out book.
But alas, imagine no more for such children exist,
with ghosts clouding their starry dreams
And death hanging heavy upon their tiny, little feet.
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 4:49 AM UTC
She doesn’t let herself think about it anymore. She has a schedule now, a timetable, something that might look like a life if you don’t scratch the surface too hard.
Wake up, call the hospital. Tend her garden, call the hospital. Get driven to the hospital and sit with Dean for hours, hours, hours, go home, cry. Lather, rinse, repeat. The only thing that changes in her life is the sky and the inversion it brings.
She walks on the sky when it clouds, because it’s more solid and sure under her feet than the traitorous ground that swallowed her children whole.
She bargains when it rains, to God or Big Brother or Allah or the deity of the day, because if the Jehovah’s Witnesses are right and their god is a merciful god, He will give her family back.
Once there was an earthquake and she smiled so wide she thought her face would hurt, stood between two rickety, heavy bookcases, prayed that she would die.
The most tragic part of her life is that she doesn’t. She knows this, knows it runs through the marrow of every bone in her body, which has to be why they all ache when they see the sunrise, as if to say another day, another tragedy .
Today she wakes before the sun and hugs her knees to her chest, sits there for a good three hours after he’s called the hospital and heard the same thing as always - the only thing that changes in her life is the sky - “We’re sorry, Mrs. N----, he’s the same.” Every day it’s the same, the same, the same-
-but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Same dingy cab, same crotchety driver, same stale cigarette smell. She lets herself smoke in here because if she’s lucky that’ll **** her first, but she doesn’t fool herself into believing that. Her luck ran out the moment she heard that shot from the door, heard her husband scream and saw all the blood staining the foyer-
But she’s not thinking about that. She’s smoking and she’s listening to the sound of the tires pummeling the ground mercilessly and she’s thinking maybe I should be that ground and she’s not making much sense at all, because she doesn’t sleep anymore and she thinks she might be halfway to insane by now.
They pull up outside the hospital. She’s always surprised her feet haven’t worn a track in the ground yet that leads straight to Dean’s room. She supposes she doesn’t need one.
She pushes the door open and the spark of hope he can never suppress dies with a silent scream, because Dean is the same, her life is the same, she’s the same and the same and the same and she hates it.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 9:02 PM UTC
As firetrucks pass
And crowds gather round
The smoke billows through
From the sky to the ground
The town just watches
And silently gapes
At the mansion that’s burning
Right past the big gate
It’s four houses wide
And three stories tall
With a narrow tin roof
It would be easy to fall
The paint was chipping,
There was rust everywhere
But that was all covered
By the smoke in the air
“Is the monster gone?”
A boy asks his mother
She caresses his ear
And whispers in the other
“I’m not sure, baby.”
“But I hope that it’s true…”
She doesn’t finish the sentence
‘…or he’ll come and take you’.
You see, in this town
They suffered quite a plight
Of a demon that takes children,
Steals them into the night
Also in this town,
On the hill past the gate
Lives a solemn old man
Er well, lived I should say
If you guessed he resided
In that rickety castle
Well your guess would be right,
Now was that such a hassle?
He moved in last summer
And that’s when it started
Parents waking to find,
Their children departed
Without much thought,
The town formed a mob
To track down their kids,
Revenge the lives that were robbed
The signs slowly pointed
To the top of the hill,
To the castle past the gate
And the mob grew shrill
“It’s that man!”
“It’s that creep!”
“Let’s take him down!”
“We’ll band together and drive him out of our town!”
But as you know,
Mobs can be hectic
Then there was fire,
That part wasn’t directed
No one pointed fingers,
No one placed blame
For, you see, their goal
Was ultimately the same
Dispose of the monster,
The man in the house,
And now they all watched
As the fire was doused
The body was covered,
All white with a sheet
He was gone, they did it!
Good job, what a treat!
That night, the children,
All safe in their beds,
Slept soundly and safely
Happy thoughts in their heads
Their parents were jubilant,
All worry-free
Their babies were safe,
So they sighed “Yipee!”
But then midnight came,
To that boy with the mother,
When she awoke.
She cried and she shuddered
Her son, he was gone
Not a trace of him left
But an etching that said,
“I’ll be back for the rest”
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 4:18 AM UTC
Two strangers in a rickshaw in Varanasi:
Two strangers who never felt like strangers.
Two people lost and alive in the moment,
The same moment
With every sense standing, antennae bristling..
Two in a bubble
Together, held apart.
Caught up in a parade and surrounded by shy , smiling faces
Waving modestly at the fair haired strangers,
Laughing
At their surprise and joy.
Knowing that moment's awe
Delighted to share the festival.
Rickety trucks gaudily decorated blare out the tinny music and
High pitched voices distorted by the tannoy add an urgency
To the motion.
Shimmering saris glisten,
So in tune with the music that trembles with joy.
That joy spills out from the
Scents, the colours, the gleaming grins and the shy waving that marks our welcome,
Till every sense tingles
With life.
And then the sand storm
Swirling and circling the speeding rickshaw
Arrived mysteriously, magically,
Like dry ice in a theatre.
The air now tangible;
Surrounding us like the skin of a bubble
Lifting us out
Of ourselves as the scene comes and goes.
The sand screen clears to reveal
An elephant
A beautiful, smiling elephant
Dressed in splendour
Accompanying us on our magic carpet ride.
Close enough for us to touch his hide.
Bejewelled and glorious
Smiling too
And all is one in that moment
And each looks at the other and feels enchanted and wants the parade to go on forever
Just like this;
With motion
And music
And colour
And smiles
And laughter
And
An elephant.
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 4:04 PM UTC
Every morning
I feed the mewling cats,
chug my hot instant coffee,
sit at my rickety linoleum kitchen table
and peer hopefully out my thin window,
through the cracks in the glass
beyond the rusted screen
into the acres of wet trainyards and commercial blocks.
There in one non-descript grey building
underneath the watertower
beside the Sheriff's substation
a band of laughing saints
craft delicate malas of lapis
and manzanita windchimes
while diaphonous angels all a-hover
manifest vast verdant grassland prairies,
great ocean waves, sunsets
and spring flowers hidden in rock crannies
where nobody will ever walk,
and they launch grand air balloons
bulging with epiphanies
that may drift my way.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 6:33 AM UTC
Drowning out through seeping acrylic
Unconventional canvas on a rickety easel
Not even possessing the power to paint
The broken wing of a broken swan
Despite her weakened frailty
She paints
Using her beak, using her feet
The swan finds it consoling to know
That the littlest, infinitesimal purposes
Are purposes
None the same
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC