"rollers" poems
Sunday sermons are spilling on the inner city streets
through the green heaps and brown bags
through the downtown whisperers
and sage solitude souls
Army bands prepare for march
(their trench members filling packs with canister and cane)
the high command and tricked militia head pinned
quick on the look for splinter, lorry and skuttle
Traffic patterns change at the COP connect
camouflage bearers break formal stride
battle men slip between colorful floats
unsuspecting slumlords (vein pricked and weary)
grin in their second suite dying rooms
Twitching men and rubbernecks
sit discreetly on the corner wall
JJ and the chief revere a 21 gun salute
holy rollers raise cheer (in a moment of silence)
chess men hold steady
with ivory cues
Flames belt from the distant foundry
streets come alive with crackle and dust
members of the attic group glance down from their perch
an elderly man in a straight jacket (happy in the now)
sits solemnly with a cold reflective stare
It’s not far from the steely mud holes
from the flying fragments and sharp broken dreams
from the arsenal digs and madmen (who quietly turned the *****
the ivy trellis
and flowing white gown
are a nocturne fit
for this elevated rolling highland
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 8:33 PM UTC
Watching a seagull floating lazily
Through an invisible blue ocean
Effortlessly soaring on invisible waves
Course dictated by winds currents
Piercing eyes watching, senses alert
Casting a moving shadow, cross the deep
Tracking a path none knows
Swooping, surfing ocean’s rollers
Wingtips gently kissing wave peaks.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 2:03 PM UTC
*How strange, the pull that tugs my heart, toward a distant sea.
How haunting are the sound of sea gulls crying eerily.
The allegory still remains, of timeless waves in life
Turning rock to shifting sands, the sea winds, like a knife.
And yet, amidst the turbulence, serenity and love
The struggle of the sea and shore, that fits so like a glove.
The music breaks my heart in two, this ballad by the bay.
And I shall hold it in my soul, this song we used to play.
I still can hear the rollers as they broke upon the beach.
And even though I’ve gone back home, my memory, they reach.*
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 9:50 AM UTC
The marchers make their way today
through town to Cardiff Bay
with whistles, shouts and banners up
for sweet old Mary Jane
they're marching for her freedom
all ages, colours, creeds
have come in joyful spirits
to help us free the ****
The rich, the poor, the movers and shakers
the blowback kings and part-time partakers
the rollers, the tokers, the bongers and such
the teenage goth stoners who've had way too much
skin up as they march while making their point
and meet up with new friends while sharing a joint.
Then down at the bay side
when the bands start to play
they'll **** in the sunshine
till the end of the day.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
Snapshot memories of are past
having so much fun with the hope that it would last
To my best friend Nan,
a beacon of light to a hurting world in need of love
To the truest friend I ever had
those memories by the stonewall
Started playing together as friends
She had blue eyes & long blonde hair
I had brown eyes and brown hair
roller skating on the sidewalk with the attached rollers with a key
Went down by the brook to catch poly wags
we both went to the same school
Having sleep overs was a blast
a secret passage to get to her father's soda shop
Taking ice cream and delicious candy
everything nice and dandy with Nancy
Yours was are youth to be captured with a precious smile
Cape cod trips when Nan would drive
going to a trip to Provincetown
watching the folks dive for money
Big ships coming to dock
the men would get the money in their mouths
The island we used to go
in a row boat along the beach
Looking for young boys and we found them
went to dances at the Bristol Boys Club
Doing the latest dance craze the Huck Buck
Boys wearing pegged pants and girls wore skirts
To cherish those lasting memories of a time ago
getting married
Nan had three children
Ann had six
To raise and cherish the family united in love
Today we are in are eighties
both with medical issues
Yet remained best friend's after all these years
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 4:36 PM UTC
The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,
A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,
A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.
But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust
In shimmering exhaust
Searching to slake
Its fever in ocean
Will play and be idle or else it will bust.
The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,
Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.
But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
Disgorges its organs
A scamper of colours
Which roll like tomatoes
Nude as tomatoes
With sand in their creases
To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.
The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,
She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,
She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.
But the holiday people
Are laid out like wounded
Flat as in ovens
Roasting and basting
With faces of torment as space burns them blue
Their heads are transistors
Their teeth grit on sand grains
Their lost kids are squalling
While man-eating flies
Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?
They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces
And start up the serpent
And headache it homeward
A car full of squabbles
And sobbing and stickiness
With sand in their crannies
Inhaling petroleum
That pours from the foxgloves
While the evening swallow
The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,
Touches the honey-slow river and turning
Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves -
A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.
4.3k
I wonder why you want to row
When there are just so many terms to know
Before you get in the boat and place an oar in the water,
Before you take a single stroke don’t think you ought to
Remind yourself of what they are, these parts and pieces,
Actions and orders that rowers use (but poets don’t)
So forgive me if I leave some out.
Let’s take a look at the boat (or rather the shell):
The seat you sit on,
slides, backstop, shoes and riggers.
The skeg that stabilizes the shell,
shoulder, saxboard, and pogies.
The top-nut that keeps the rowlock in place,
swivel, stretcher and rollers.
Now for the oar (or rather the scull):
There’s the Spoon blade, the Macon blade,
Smoothie or Tulip.
Ready (or not) for the stroke you take ?
An Airstroke (in the air) ,
backsplash, backwater, or body stroke,
Go on bury the blade, check the cover,
but don’t catch a crab!
Mind out for the drunken spider,
watch the feather and the finish,
Inside hand, outside hand,
hands away, miss the water,
Leg back, lie back,
pause the paddling, watch the pitch,
Release and recover,
don’t shoot your slide,
Swing the stroke rate,
and space those puddles.
Careful there’s no skying,
and absolutely no washing out.
Ready for a repecharge?
Or perhaps you’d prefer an egg-beater?
Ask the *** to call a flutter.
Easy oars
Hold her hard
Ship oars
One foot up & out
Waist, ready, up
Shoulders, ready, up
Way enough!
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 2:14 AM UTC
buffalo head cloud
rawhide drums
saline rollers at tantalus cross
ominous light
forms a short mile away
head lice
and peckers
tap the metal track
shovel train pings
the night quiet
moonlight
shines in
geometric form
arches and skiddles
and skirting reflections
(a vast connection of
grand design)
7 horns
at the passing
(oh that cold metal joy!)
stirring the blades
and ground cover
you better not turn old friend
just nod,
and cut what you need
it’s a bitter run
on the winter line
(with the finest
of wheels
and runners)
hold tight
on the pulley
the canyon wires
are clipping
there’s a gateway
to the copper town
*with a key held
by coveted few*
you can spot the
riders in their
box cars
watching closely
at the chunnel’s
dark turn
we’d walk
the lines often
(and put an ear to the ground)
the mine town still
and barren
hidden treasures
and pocket *******
settled deep
in a tranquil, stolid place
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 12:03 AM UTC
So, up to Liverpool,
pretty cool,
I've got family there, and I'm trying to find my bearings.
When I was a kid I went with my Auntie to the Adelphi Hotel,
I remember it well,
so that's where I'll start, move my feet,
it's a quick walk to Bold Street.
Everyone flocks to the Albert Docks,
regenerated, updated, and has created a vibrant corner of a once-thriving port city,
which is pleasing,
the only downside is it's ****** freezing!
The nights out are decent too,
this where Liverpool really pulls through.
Matthews Street, can't be beat,
or Concert Square,
where, you head to Baa Bar for some shots and a few jars.
Then onto Nation with the rest of Liverpool's student population,
going down to Wolstenholme Square,
great memories, shame it's no longer there.
Capital of Culture, lots to explore,
the council wants to restore the city centre,
Liverpool One is second to none.
New shops to buy our Fred Perry tops,
new bars to entertain us,
new places to wear our smart Adidas trainers.
A modern shopping centre to walk through,
have they really called it Everton Two?
Girls off to the supermarket with their hair up in rollers and wearing their PJ's,
funny looks on the face of people who are new to the place.
Lads in black Lacoste trackies,
in the 1980s they came back from the continent after European success,
wearing Fila and Ellesse,
it was called casual,
the style went national.
A city of myths legends,
some more tongue in cheek but still unique.
A sock robber from Kirkby,
is it the original Cavern Club? Well, to a degree.
What about Carragher's tattoo?
He's blue born and bred,
is Paul McCartney actually dead?
I know it's a clichè, but I must say,
it isn't a mere rumour,
there is undoubtedly a Scouse sense of humour,
wordplay and the inflexion on the things they say.
A witty city that's for sure, come and visit,
you'll have everything you need and more.
May 6, 2020
May 6, 2020 at 12:45 PM UTC
Growing up way back
when life was simple.
There were wringer wash machines.
On Monday morning I remember my mom
fill the wash machine with hot water.
Add soap powder, but watch or it will clump.
Then she added fels naptha soap
Which was a bar, and you sliced off
pieces for the extra ***** clothes.
SIMPLE?
Now she added the clothes
While they are agitating
You wait...
You have a second tub filled with hot water.
to transfer those clothes into, for rinsing.
You always used the same water over.
You started with white clothes,
then eventually by the time the
dark clothes came around
the water looked pretty gross..
SIMPLE?
After rinsing you use that magical wringer.
Which is two rollers that sqeeze all the water out.
Time...it all takes time..
Then into the wash basket.
Laundry back when life was simple...
By then your basket if full of wet heavy clothes.
Out to the clothes line.
But first you had to run a dry cloth to wipe
the dirt off the clothes line.
Hanging up all that laundry
with those cute wooden clothes pins.
Not even clip ones were invented back then.
But the bag which held all the clothes pins
was real cute, it looked like a dress...
SIMPLE?
Socks, ****** shirts, slacks, towels,
oh those heavy towels
and my favorite the sheets.
Time, it takes time to dry those clothes.
Laundry back when life was simple.
Back then everything was ironed.
Starched and there was no spray starch,
or steam iron.
Mom would dip the collars of the shirts
into a bowl of starch,
and roll it up,
it was ready to be ironed.
Laundry back when life was simple...
How can that be a simple time.
I watched my mom and grandma
do this every Monday.
Starting early and it would be evening
when she would finally have
the clothes folded and put away...
The next day was for ironing.
~~~
SIMPLE?
We have the simple life
for now we can throw in a load, have it washed,
thrown in the dryer, and hung up
in a couple of hours.
Taking a coffee break in between
the washing and drying...
by ~ judy
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 11:03 AM UTC
Stuck on the actual prime meridian
where gambling and grown up shenanigans
are viewed all *****
hurting society, though I could legally go to the drain on my street
and drop a thousand twenty pees in it
nae bother
our equivalent bet
as high rollers we are surely not
I miss you Vegas
with your daft anti-reality cushions,
the strip with no history or heritage
necessarily
but with goofy drunken dreams brimming alive
and I know vice, bad, horror, addiction yadda yadda
I miss you Vegas
Feb 28, 2021
Feb 28, 2021 at 10:43 AM UTC
cons:
do you know how often i have to shave?
**** man i just want clean armpits
and then i turn into a giant dog every month and that hair grows back really ******* fast
i need to invest in one of those lint rollers for shedded animal fur because it is becoming a problem
also i'm pretty sure i chewed another pair of shoes up the other night i need to find a safer spot to put my shoes
shoes are ******* expensive to be constantly replacing i can't ******* do this
not to mention the need for meat okay meat is expensive unless you buy tons of cheap stuff and there is no way i'm eating something that tastes like a greasy foot
(looking at you, cheap sausage patties)
pros:
i've got self-defense pretty much covered now
i'm prepared to **** people up if i need to
and i'm pretty warm like all the time now so i don't have to spend as much on heating
(though at the same time there's the air conditioning in the summer,,,)
also i get to tell all my friends I'm a gay werewolf so i'm basically the coolest
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 10:27 PM UTC
WHAT can we say of the night?
The fog night, the moon night, the fog moon night last night?
There swept out of the sea a song.
There swept out of the sea-torn white plungers.
There came on the coast wind drive
In the spit of a driven spray,
On the boom of foam and rollers,
The cry of midnight to morning:
Hoi-a-loa.
Hoi-a-loa.
Hoi-a-loa.
Who has loved the night more than I have?
Who has loved the fog moon night last night more than I have?
Out of the sea that song
-can I ever forget it?
Out of the sea those plungers
-can I remember anything else?
Out of the midnight morning cry: Hoi-a-loa:
-how can I hunt any other songs now?
2k
Your heart is made of silicone
I know, because it bends and changes form
I shake and I tremble
Because I don't know if you'll love me tomorrow
Your head is made of marble
I know, because it's hard and chiseled a newly mood
I shake and I tremble
Because I don't know if you'll remember me tomorrow
Your eyes are made of rollers
I know, because you never look at me for too long
I shake and I tremble
Because I don't know if you'll find me beautiful tomorrow
Your feet are made of amphetamines
I know, because you always walk away and around
I shake and I tremble
Because I don't know if you'll be here when I wake up tomorrow
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 3:11 PM UTC
If you'll be the sea cliff, then
I'll be the rollers--
breaking on your heart, oh!
ardent lover.
If you'll be my snow field, then
I'll be your Spring sun--
hot clouds of steam rising
when we are done.
Then I'll be your fog bank, if
you'll be my wetland--
secret caresses from
velvet-soft hands.
If you'll be my seabird, then
I'll be your night breeze--
lift you in ecstasy
over deep seas.
Then I'll be your night sky, all
swimming in moonlight--
lighting your way to my
heart here tonight.
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 7:14 PM UTC
It aches when I smile.
My State's a disaster.
Coal rollers, burnouts and days full of rapturous
laughter and "Red Face"
down in Lusk in the hot days
of Summer--it's boiling;
Winter winds burn up your face.
I first learned to hate
myself in a snowstorm
on Dow Street in Sheridan.
My best friends are the slow warmth
that spreads through the chest,
lifts a cold heart, grabs popcorn and pints
at the Blacktooth on hundreds of nights.
And 500,000 simple souls are a sight.
Still they're just half a million salty
drops in the ocean--
A quick squall of rain on the Bighorns.
They've opened the floodgates for *********
morons, bigots and rednecks
and rich, ******* ranchers thinking
everyone owes them.
And their dollars are deadpan
gallows jokes down in Cheyenne.
But I've seen cheap smiles 4 miles wide
out by Sundance.
And I've got good friends that I still carry with me
like the potent, sweet, earthy afterburn of good whiskey,
or the smell of the lodgepoles in the Spring
up in Story.
And it's still my home
even though it's so empty.
It's still my home
though it sometimes seems ******
That State's in my bones,
I don't think it'll leave me.
So please understand that some nights
when you find me,
you've stumbled across a small splinter
chipped off of Wyoming.
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
Six or seven women ranging from thirty to sixty
stand chit-chatting in a somewhat-circle outside the State House.
Slowly, they dry their skin and dye their hair in the smoky sunlight
of the morning break; taking their time off with each long pull and curl.
A light skinned black woman dressed in navy sweater and
pinned with power star speaks to the group.
Deep inside her lungs a road is being paved.
You can hear the tremble of the rollers flattening molten pavement,
the rumble of the endless packs of 100s of dump trucks
the wisp and rasp of steam, the cough and hack of working men who’ve spent too
much time paving roads.
I have never heard anyone say a word in the way that woman said that word
this morning. What was her tone? Condemning?
In her blue commando, she pointed right at me (without ever seeing me)
and said, “Us and our cigarettes...”
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 4:36 PM UTC
My gravity
My light
Infinitely shining
Saturating your being
With sensuality
A comet shooting through
Your body with insistent need
Filling you up with
Bottomless provocation
Ripening in spring nights
With the promise of diversion
The romance of moonlight
Eclipsed by arousal
Caught in my orbit
Your shooting star
Blazes through my constellation
I hunger for your sea
Flooding my mind
With a surge of longing
Rippling through my body
In spasms of desire
Churning my craving
Into waves of passion
White tipped rollers
Tantalisingly out of reach
I surf through your touch
Swelling, twisting - finally
Breaking in a crest of elation
Before ebbing slowly
Back into the calm expanse
Of salacious bliss
(C) Pixievic
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 11:38 AM UTC
Take a hold now
On the silver handles here,
Six silver handles,
One for each of his old pals.
Take hold
And lift him down the stairs,
Put him on the rollers
Over the floor of the hearse.
Take him on the last haul,
To the cold straight house,
The level even house,
To the last house of all.
The dead say nothing
And the dead know much
And the dead hold under their tongues
A locked-up story.
1.5k
a tiny woman
has hips
with a thousand mouths to feed.
her little feet
are
acetylane-based
and her philosophy
is
a
by-product
of a lack of faith.
"It's going to be a good night, for a little while,
but let's not spoil a night
by thinking about it,"
her hips
say
to your fingers.
The thousand tongues
lap at your fingerprints.
Her tongues
make rollers
of passion,
and bury love
deep beneath the ruined sand
of a nimbus-warped beach
blackened by pain,
x-rayed by fingernails of lightning.
She makes you think
of such a beach.
The tiny woman
wraps her long, lean
arms
around your tiny
hairless neck.
Her breath singes
your uncovered Adam's apple.
Little man,
she calls you,
this old cougar
with rat teeth
and **** eyes.
"Little man,"
she says,
"I know how men
get down these days,"
Her body is verve,
electric skin
and loose, vibrating fabric.
Her legs are muscle
only,
as tight as a horse's quad,
you can see all the veins
and their tributaries
in her thighs,
and how they wiggle
against olive muscle.
"Little man,"
she says,
beer like a Titan
on her breath,
"I'm hungry."
And you are too,
and she will lead you,
holding your arm
by the drunken,
half-holding,
half-forgotten
vice
of her fingers
and you and her
will eat at Waffle House.
At 2 a.m.
She will dry out,
and become salty.
You will dry out and finally be hungry.
Eat,
Little Man,
she thinks,
because you're walking home
tonight.
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 1:10 AM UTC
the small woman from the attic sits cross-legged
with her pink plastic hair rollers for hours. her
life spins like the spool of thread on the sewing
machine. she sleeps wearing a flowery morning
gown in the room with a flowery wallpaper and
a secondhand carpet imitating autumn grass. she
boils her lime tree tea and dairy free pasta on the
electric boiling ring. she washes her hair with nettle
essence shampoo. once a month she goes to the
central store to see new dress designs then she reads
at midnight group portrait with lady. in a sideboard
she hides a pair of perfumed lace gloves the color of
the skin. she wears them when the spring wind blows.
on a shelf in the kitchen a grated lemon in an egg
saucer is slowly getting dry.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 1:48 PM UTC
Confounded by the notion-
tough calls made by high hitters
holy rollers
pushing perps towards methods
needles and thread
heart of lead
logs split the stems of the reasons,
sob stories, trust issues
daddy problems
it's all the same
to some
the proletariat
guilty and prestigious
what a winning combo
lacked freeness, full of this knowledge
can't write worth a ****
**** poor,
not anymore
since passion was absorbed
a dried up, muddy ******
spring is coming! spring is coming!
One if by land
you if by me.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 9:39 PM UTC
Hawaii,
Just the name sounds magical,
Oahu.
Oh, wahoo!
But the swell was dying down,
Not as big as days prior.
Still good enough for me.
The undulating earth,
Not fire, water.
Slow rollers
With surprising speed.
Cresting, foamy peaks
Avalanching into those clear bowl-like valleys below.
Temporary hollowness
Racing to devour the escape
As the sleek slide rides
On until the chase is up.
Barrel after barrel
For time out of mind that day
Was spent in the surf.
Great day in those crystal waters
Riding the waves of the earth.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 9:04 PM UTC
Call it stupid
But feeling not at all
Light-hearted and romantic
On St Valentine's day
I pedal off
Without thinking
And follow my front wheel
To arrive among brides and grooms
Bouquets and buttonholes
Limousines and vintage Rollers
And even a flippin’ horse-drawn carriage
As I cycle into Gretna
Marriage-Ville, UK
On St Valentine's day
Feb 13, 2011
Feb 13, 2011 at 12:51 AM UTC
to decipher what we are
encrypted transcriptions
in morrow's restriction
tangible redundancy
that is what we are
we run to eat
and eat to keep
this impeccable brilliance
the vision gone wary
horizons too narrow to rise
intelligence naught for
what is missed
skyscrapers and holy rollers
roaming our cliffs today
as we devour electricity
to generate more
stupidity
a never ending finish
I wish to seize
our incredible neglect seethes
in our oceans and trees
try to decipher what we are
we are all drifting apart
we are nothing
but tangible redundancy
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 5:26 PM UTC