"rochester" poems
the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe
nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?
Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today
Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah
Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)
over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology - well, message me asap
wow there really is a Saskatoon!
the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin
see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)
ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea
gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 5:47 AM UTC
There's a funny sort of emptiness
that passes over me
as I walk past the paperback erotica that tuck themselves away
in the shelves of the local grocery store in places that are
simultaneously completely out in the open yet completely ignored
looking, as I do, with mock casual interest
and unfeigned disdain.
Who are these intended for, really?
Are they for the snuggly-wuggly, ***** cozy-woozy, wishy-washy and warm family of four
comparing chicken nugget prices and
weighing the health benefits of
vegetable medley versus succotash?
Or are they for the uni flatmates
walking huddled together for warmth or protection or both,
seeing as they're wearing only sandals and denim shorts
and this is the first time
they've been grocery shopping without mum,
that giggle loudly together to mask how homesick they really are
while they compare the calories in
Campbell's versus Progresso.
They went with Progresso if you were wondering.
Or are they meant for those who are cooking for one?
For those who have no need to compare prices
or calories
out loud.
For those who are well acquainted
with the old, familiar tiled aisles
as they have no one to take out to dinner.
Is this where they are to find company?
Betwixt the pages of a badly penned,
lighter than marshmallows,
more shallow than the kiddie pool,
more transparent than Casper,
not-good-enough-to-be-bloody-compost
"literary" garbage?
Is this -assumed- female
supposed to curl up with one of these slabs of drivel
and feel **** and aroused
in her baggy sweats and ill-fitting hoodie
after she ate a microwaveable chicken *** pie all by her lonesome?
As a single girl who often cooks for one,
I am offended by this.
Personally,
I think Lestat is ten times sexier than Edward,
Salai is way cuter than Fabio,
and Christian Grey couldn't S Mr. Rochester's D.
What I'm saying is-
Grocery Stores.
YOU are the primary reason for this pathetic f-ckery.
Everything else in the store can be compared for quality.
So why not apply that same knowledge
to the book arena.
Signed,
A Concerned Shopper
p.s. Please extend the validity date on the chicken *** pie coupon. Thank you!
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
A baby from Burundi sits next to me today.
He coos and drinks and swallows his mother’s milk.
His father speaks Swahili. Smiles, tells me that his last son
Is going to grow old in Rochester, NY,
Where I sit in a white-walled waiting room, watching
Mothers drag their babies by the armpits to be weighed.
A boy with braided beads holds up four fingers and tells me he is five.
He is too skinny. His pants are sagging and his iron is low.
His mother takes his vegetable checks, stuffs them into the back pocket of her jeans.
What the little **** needs is two percent milk, she says,
Her gold hoops fluttering.
Her son struggles with the small wooden chair he is carrying.
It drags along the carpet, hitting the high spots, and his tiny biceps flinch.
He sits, facing me, while a name is called. And another.
Another woman’s son hands me a book and waits.
He is watching my face and I watch his mother kiss her boyfriend in the first row seats.
He tucks his chin to his chest when I ask his name. Whispers, tells me Jayden.
First page. What color is Elmo, Jayden?
Shoulders shrugging. His lower lip, puckered out and innocent.
What color is he, Jayden?
The color of Jayden’s skin slaps me across the heart when he says he doesn’t know.
He was born in Rochester, NY,
With trash bags and Burger King wrappers wrapped around the fence
That separates his house from the street on which he will grow old
Too soon.
He starts kindergarten in the fall and I tell him Elmo is red, like his t-shirt.
Like his mother’s fingernails.
Like the tomatoes and bell peppers and beets he has never seen.
A girl who went to my High School carries in her youngest child
Who is old enough to walk, but wobbles.
She calls her daughter “thunder-thighs” instead of Jazmyne
And strips off her shoes. Her belt. Her gold bracelets.
The scale says Jazmyne is too heavy for food assistance.
The state says her mother isn’t poor enough for welfare.
The girl I used to know leaves without her daughter’s shoes or the food checks she came for.
In conversations of pretension
We talk about first and third world.
Pretend that America is the land of second chances
Where a baby from Burundi can grow old in cashmere sweaters,
Even when his parents couldn’t pay.
The father who speaks Swahili looks at his shiny watch and his family’s vegetable checks.
Smiles. Tells me his last son is going to grow old and full
In Rochester, NY.
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 12:51 PM UTC
We waded knee deep in the puddles
of vacant lots when the flood filled
our gutters to the brim.
When the rain died down and the water pulled
itself from the streets we watched the rainbow
of oil swirl around our ankles,
walked the wooden footbridge that broke
apart under the weight of our feet,
the water-logged wood rot
splitting while rusted nails slid
out of place. We followed the streams
back to the plaza, back to fake IDs
and the ash-stained tobacco shop.
We found ourselves under flickering
lights, leaning against the rusted
siding of the family market, faces hidden
in a mask of smoke. We got lost
in the electric hum of the laundromat's cyclic drone.
They paved over it all -- covered freckled
skin with cloth and hot tar,
crushed vacant houses like hollow skulls,
ignited neon lights and street lamps,
strip malls and drugs stores
that burn holes into old hiding places.
They still try to sift through shattered glass,
silence the hiss of the popped bike tire,
wipe away the blood flower that blooms
from my scabbed knee.
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 10:29 AM UTC
The Fox sisters of Rochester
lived in a haunted house.
A spirit there was stirring
That was probably not a mouse.
Spirits rapped upon the walls
and on the window panes.
The sisters Fox would rap right back
according to their claims.
The Foxes were sensations,
The Belles of Halloween
Their Séances well attended
By the credulous, T’would seem.
Spirit fever gripped the land
With rapping on a table
(Maggie Fox was double jointed
And the whole thing was a fable.)
It’s hard to sell your real estate
when it’s a haunted home.
But when spooks rap, rap right back
You’ll never be alone.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
I was the one who received the faithful letter from Mr. Darcy
I was the one who held Holden when he cried
I was the one who Guy Montague thought was beautiful
I was the one who Heathcliff came back to the Wuthering Heights for
I was the one who Mr. Rochester tried to illegally marry
I was the one who D'Artagnan grieved over after the abduction
I was the one who Captain Wentworth fell back in love with
I was the one who Dorian Gray actually cared for
I was the one who Candide brought the gold for in El Dorado
I was the one who Winston Smith kissed in that attic
I was the one who cried when they all left me with a silent flipping of a page
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 2:50 PM UTC
Feel great, feel cool, feel nice. Nice people, nice things, nice ice. Ice cream, ice blocks, ice cubes. Cube, pyramid, cone, sphere. Circle, circle of life, what comes around goes around. Ring around the rosey. Tulips, daffodils, daisies, pansies. Scared, frightened, freaked. Surprise, happy, content, friends. Social, shy, outgoing. Going out with friends, going out of town, going to bed. Sleep, cozy, pillows, blankets, nighttime. Stars, moon, owls, darkness. Dark hair, dark chocolate, dark night, Dark Knight. Batman, Superman, Cat-women, Supergirl, Flash. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor. Pepper Potts, Peggy Carter, Jane Foster. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, William Shakespeare. Elizabeth and Darcy, Romeo and Juliet, Jane and Rochester. Love, tragedy, comedy. Happily ever after, never, future, past, present. Wishes, desires, wants, needs. Thoughts, actions, words, deeds. If, when, now, how. Questions, answers, research. Study, work, write, draw. Art, paint, opinions, facts. Math, history, grammar, science. Religion, faith, beliefs, devotion. Marriage, together, apart. Separate, different, change. Old, new, used. Abandoned, left, alone, useless. Useful, helpful, needed, wanted. A place, person, thing. Adjective, verb, adverb, noun, pronoun, proper noun. Mad Libs.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 1:24 PM UTC
Rochester, public market,
New York, and you see
The woman standing there
With her bags full of shopping
Waiting for her husband to come
And return with the car, with a face
That tells of annoyance and speaks
Volumes. Where the **** is he,
She mutters unaware you can
Hear her as you pack away your
Shopping in the back of your old
Ford. Won’t be long he said,
Be just a moment, she says, her
Voice rising like the fat dame in
The opera house before the curtains
Fall, and here I am waiting and my
Feet aching, my migraine returning
And all he can think about is laying
A bet and going for a drink with that
Logan loon and me here standing like
Some worn out ***** desperate for
A final pickup. She turns around and
Gives you the stare, takes in your skimpy
Skirt, your dyed blond hair, then turns
Away and scratches her *** and moves
Her feet and looks up and down for her
Husband’s returning car. You close
Down the lid of the old Ford and get
Inside and sit and watch the woman
And wonder if she has kids and grand
Kids, or maybe a secret lover, some
Poor schmuck down on his life’s luck.
She swings one of the bags of shopping
In front of her legs, her agitation increasing,
Her face deepening with lines of her frustration.
He knows I don’t like him drinking while he
Drives, I told him if you’re going to drink,
Then I will drive, I don’t want the *******
Cops breathing through the car window on
Me just because of the your drunk reckless
Driving and what does he do? Goes off in the
Car to meet the Logan guy and bet and drink
And me here like some ****** waiting and
My feet aching and the piles giving me hell.
She stops as her husband’s car returns and
He pulls up and gets out real slow and puts
The bags in the back and says nothing, passing
Her by and getting back in his seat and she
Climbing in her side of the car says, Hi Honey,
Did you have a nice drink and bet with Logan?
Yeah, he says, but the horse fell and the beer
Was warm and Logan didn’t show and so I
Drank the warm beer and bet the one horse
And then came here. You? Had a good
Shopping trip? Sure, she says, her voice
Now mellow, a smile on her lips, just got
What we needed and they did my hair.
You watch as off they drive, and as they
Go off the woman gives you the middle
Digit up you sign and a dark black glare.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
Rochester, public market,
New York, and you see
The woman standing there
With her bags full of shopping
Waiting for her husband to come
And return with the car, with a face
That tells of annoyance and speaks
Volumes. Where the **** is he,
She mutters unaware you can
Hear her as you pack away your
Shopping in the back of your old
Ford. Won’t be long he said,
Be just a moment, she says, her
Voice rising like the fat dame in
The opera house before the curtains
Fall, and here I am waiting and my
Feet aching, my migraine returning
And all he can think about is laying
A bet and going for a drink with that
Logan loon and me here standing like
Some worn out ***** desperate for
A final pickup. She turns around and
Gives you the stare, takes in your skimpy
Skirt, your dyed blond hair, then turns
Away and scratches her *** and moves
Her feet and looks up and down for her
Husband’s returning car. You close
Down the lid of the old Ford and get
Inside and sit and watch the woman
And wonder if she has kids and grand
Kids, or maybe a secret lover, some
Poor schmuck down on his life’s luck.
She swings one of the bags of shopping
In front of her legs, her agitation increasing,
Her face deepening with lines of her frustration.
He knows I don’t like him drinking while he
Drives, I told him if you’re going to drink,
Then I will drive, I don’t want the *******
Cops breathing through the car window on
Me just because of the your drunk reckless
Driving and what does he do? Goes off in the
Car to meet the Logan guy and bet and drink
And me here like some ****** waiting and
My feet aching and the piles giving me hell.
She stops as her husband’s car returns and
He pulls up and gets out real slow and puts
The bags in the back and says nothing, passing
Her by and getting back in his seat and she
Climbing in her side of the car says, Hi Honey,
Did you have a nice drink and bet with Logan?
Yeah, he says, but the horse fell and the beer
Was warm and Logan didn’t show and so I
Drank the warm beer and bet the one horse
And then came here. You? Had a good
Shopping trip? Sure, she says, her voice
Now mellow, a smile on her lips, just got
What we needed and they did my hair.
You watch as off they drive, and as they
Go off the woman gives you the middle
Digit up you sign and a dark black glare.
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 4:38 PM UTC
Strings attach our beings;
Love, omnipresent,
unites forest with fire.
(C) 4/10/15
Courtney L
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 12:16 AM UTC
we partied in a Chevrolet station wagon
the night we graduated went fast around the devil curves that
uphill gravel laiden course
to the top like we were the best
to the hill west of Rochester
where those acid drop rainfalls fell
into our open eyes
made rainbows kaleidoscopes
out of evergreens and
telephone poles
flashes shone in brief aware
and dreams they spoke out echoing
no one sane was here
found our way safely back
across the street from my house and parked behind the garage where
Hope came up in a tight dress
drunk and quite acting
nervy knowing she had
made all both our heads turn
or all ten of em
and only having one
Chevrolet
the backseat turned down
into almost a bed
we gave the pulsing energy
the flashes a go
a right groovy we
said at the time
one at the time impulse
the stars
the moon
the rocking
Chevrolet
all night
half the next day
I don't think it was
just my
imagination
Jun 18, 2017
Jun 18, 2017 at 6:02 AM UTC
my hairline sweat and tears
mist from a shoreline,
paint down my wrinkles like waves cresting
a rocky beach,
my colors so dissolved, all my fleshy canvases
exposed to too much sun, my piercings all droopy,
teeth falling out. I need a hair cut a good dentist and Dr.
Phil. Or just strip down to my loincloth
go back to Rochester,
run with wildness, as I did then
through brush and bathed in purple
abandonement, virile unabsorbed
lazing under the mulberry brush
the willows swaying down to touch my unscarred youngness,
with hope with hunger, then.
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 9:26 PM UTC
his bedtime stories
could still be treasured
through the Rochester stars in her eyes;
fables of a hopping bunny
that chewed carrots and
smiled in its sleep.
little did she know
that the bunny’s teeth had shattered
biting into those carrots when
happiness itself became
make believe,
and her teeth shattered, too
when a fist overpowered a
father
and though the Rochester stars still shone,
every nighttime fable
became a living nightmare.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 4:27 PM UTC
lady gaga: i like it rough:
what was ever wrong with being tender, treating a body
opposite to one's own like porcelain?
never mind...
these days i'd rather
be bound to caressing a cat than
touching a woman.
me? gift to women? a don juan?
**** no!
ha ha!
i'm waiting for the comedy
of seeing women age and become
barren due to their cherry-picking
not having entered a harem...
mmm...
what now?!
conversations with your mother?
me? i already told mine: i know
where switzerland is... and i'm thankful
for their competence in discussing euthanasia...
sure, i'll hold your hand, because i'll
take the same route...
i think that's called the serenity
of dignifying something called a: human.
after a while or the years: i just
lost interest with all the ***** bitch-slapping...
i can't remember a ********** wanting
the sort of fetishes these free-women of the western
world want or sing about, or frankly
celebrate...
i must be victorian...
a 21st century jack? he wouldn't be after
the prostitutes...
believe me...
after a while you're
just like: whatever... can't be bothered.
the totem of jealousy dries up
anyway, given enough time for it to do so...
an old bachelor? akin to mr. portillo?
nothing sad about that...
it's actually quiet welcoming that a man
could accomplish being a bachelor at his age...
but with women?
that's just sad... a bit like the fetish
women have with mr. rochester and the madwoman
in the attic... i'm starting to think:
when's edward coming out with
entire circus?
oh right: now they can't handle reality!
but they're still into "loov"; beckoning Grimsby!
this language has as much monetary value
as a penny dropped on the street in Silesia / Śląsk.
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 8:39 PM UTC
i hope you see my face
in the clouds one day,
maybe i'm gone
and you're still there.
Oct 25, 2021
Oct 25, 2021 at 10:24 PM UTC
The rain comes swiftly,
To mourn the loss of another tonight.
Tears from Heaven,
Falling to Earth.
It pours down from the sky,
Drowning out the whimpers of the grieving few.
Was it really just yesterday,
You said you were far too young to die.
I think God agrees,
He keeps the gravediggers,
From laying you in the ground.
Rochester is a sanctum of sadness,
Even though few will ever feel the lose of you.
Dec 18, 2024
Dec 18, 2024 at 1:20 PM UTC
ROCHESTER'S CALL FOR JANE
Jane, my Jane, l need your love; please, come to me.
I have lost my hand and sight; come make me see.
I feel that l need you much; my heart calls you.
Don't neglect my urgent call; come, be my view.
I have lost all that l have, but l don't care.
I feel a great surge in heart to touch your hair.
Come, l want to press you hard to my faint chest
and give you my loving heart, what's for me left.
I can't keep my heart, that cradles your love, safe.
I wish to entrust this love ere l get off.
It's my treasure in my life, and all l've got.
Please, come soon. You are my hope ere l depart.
I have seen a lot, but you have got the touch
that could enslave all my thoughts and my heart catch.
Come let me enfold your heart to sing the tune
that my heart has sung for long; please, Jane, come soon.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
____________________________________
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 5:48 PM UTC
Poets coming into Rochester,
Welcome to the perfect poetic city!
We're dark in November,
Blinding in May.
Sleepy streets,
Winding roads.
Dinner at a diner,
Welcome to your second home, it's a winner's city for sure.
Feb 10, 2025
Feb 10, 2025 at 2:29 PM UTC
In Rochester, on East Avenue,
A greyish soul treks off to work,
Throws back the coffee handily,
Sleepily pays the sales clerk-
His gaze is now transfixed by a tree
Colorful and flowering
Wishes he could stay outside
Alas, the tasks are towering…
He checks and sets the openness
Of his eyes in his image in the glass,
So as not
to make it seem
he’s as gone
as he is;
Stumbles past the guard, plops down on his ***
Planted thus, in front of his monitor,
In a cubicle, first floor, across from the lab,
Curses his fate for landing him here,
In this windowless slogging, dark and drab.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 8:44 AM UTC
It wasn't that he didn't remember the lay of the land;
Hell, knew it as well as his own name,
(Even though, he noted with some disquiet,
The pavement had crept a bit farther up Bootjack Hill,
And there was a driveway or two,
Not to mention the odd electric meter,
That hadn't been there some years before)
But there were considerations now,
Things which needed to be taken into account
Which, in his days of rattle-assing in these hills
In his third-hand '75 Nova
(Last of the Rochester straight-sixes,
As so many bottles and cans raised in tribute noted
Before he sold it to some kid from the neighborhood
For fifty bucks, probably forty more than it was worth.)
Had been under his radar, if not beneath his contempt,
But he wasn't driving a beater with a cracked manifold now,
And his hips and knees were less than amenable
To changing a tire on a narrow strip
Of packed dirt and gravel,
And if you moved at more than a snail's pace up there,
You could bust a brake line in short order,
And if even you could walk to a point
Where you had cell service,
You had to convince someone from the garage in town
To send someone up to those hills
(He could just imagine someone on the other end
After an incredulous pause saying
You up where, now?)
And he'd decided to tuck his car
Into one of those **** new driveways
(He'd have just K-turned it back in the day,
But he knew those culverts were deep and serpentine)
And headed back downhill,
Reaching the Irish Settlement road
(Itself only paved completely back in '84 or so)
The drone of the tires on the tarmac
Faintly irritating and mosquito-like.
Jul 17, 2020
Jul 17, 2020 at 4:20 PM UTC