"rusted" poems
_~a jump-rope chant~_
Black silk handkerchief,
what ya’ gonna’ hide?
A pox that knocks on the church’s side.
Preacher won’t preach where my daddy died.
Angel forgot which soul to guide.
Both arms wrapped in moccasin skin,
open the gate and let her in!
Snake-bone hag with watery eyes,
count to ten when the baby cries.
One for the moon,
and two for sin,
three for the teeth with the rusted grin.
Four for the girl with the copper cough,
dancin' in the attic with the light turned off.
Five, six,
skillet ticks.
Seven, eight,
shut the gate!
Nine, ten, count again--
bathe him slow and cool the skin.
held him close till the fever broke;
air curled white from pinewood smoke.
Chewed the haw and bit the sage,
wrapped his bottle in a bible page.
Ghost stood watch on the porch out back,
shadow thin and eyes coal-black.
Sayin', "I’m fine, don’t mind the cold,"
"died last spring but ain’t been told."
Oct 5, 2025
Oct 5, 2025 at 3:52 PM UTC
I can’t wait to be a hundred;
turning over the thoughts
and plots, of Caledon
floating on Zimmer inserts
and dusted Florsheims
three steps forward
in a dream woven
summer afternoon
Through the barn doors
and bee keeper flats
assimilating voices
from Sachems
and Forbes
and Hope Healers
coming and going
as the countryman
comes and goes
You can feel it
in a place like this
the 3 in the tree memories
of Allis Chalmers
and combine parts
of Sundrim poppers
and shallow carp fields
of patterned lawsons
and fading caulk
(on the ripped and rolled
frontier seats)
it’s a wishing well
for the peddler
and bold hydrangea...
both peeking their way
through the rusted
grinders wheel
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 11:55 PM UTC
Is that what we wake up to every day?
Fast food and gas stations are forever stamped in the corners of my eyes as they are looking through the glass of minimum wage to the red flashing lights of a man hoping to get back to his children safely.
Is life is a pointed dagger then my blade is rusted and dull when I wonder why I even try some days.
Do I dare defend my pride and still demand something more than this? Is this a call for engines in the air or wings made of wax? Death would be more alive than waking up to another day of shampoo commercials and microwave dinners.
You are always whispering in my ear though dear and telling me that you're more than just a particle flown into my imagination from a world so oh very different than ours.
Are your eyes as bright as I imagine? Will the glare from them blind me from the tax collectors whip and will your laughter drown out the screams of onlookers who are throwing peanuts through the bars at my feet?
Will your kiss melt me and cause me to fall into wind like leaves in a storm, a tornado of color and beauty..?
I lay in bed and my eyes close tightly, my breathing slows and thoughts drip into pits men drown themselves in, the murky waters of nihilistic cynicism...
Though my hand will still not be closed around yours when the sun rises, the whisper lets me know you are still awake and searching for me too...
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
Casualty: my interest fading
Once waxing moon now seen waning
And I did concede your irksome warning
And watched as the rest played out
So let bygones be gone, fallen out by the side
Of this road, worn down, still restless, keeping straight
Eyes glinting off token little bits of hospitality
Mother nature being so inclined at times
The stress so unnerving, I hardly doubt it
But tension is eased once it comes to acceptance
And I accept in full, finding time to unwind
Winding stretch of lonely road, dotted here and there by
An occasional landmark
Or a lonely tractor pulling behind it
Iron bars, old and rusted
Found in their hold
Bales of hay or
A small little pond
With a bench beside it
Holding initials carved against the grain
With a heart surrounding
As mine beats slower
At last, the sun begins going down
And the moon grows brighter
Even in its state
And my feet move faster
Though my body is withering
I feel this separation growing
As my mind takes flight and leaves me
Behind, in the twisting twilight
And alone, I walk along
Jul 21, 2018
Jul 21, 2018 at 6:31 AM UTC
Another Day
Another dollar
That's what I get
For, I'm blue collar
Working hard
For all the bosses
Sitting upstairs
In the office
Grab a coffee
On the way
do the same stuff
every day
nothing changes
It's routine
That's the way
It's always been
I am just a working man
Doing the best job that I can
Nine to Five, or Eight to Four
Do my eight and out the door
Loading trucks to hit the road
Get 'em out with a full load
Doing just the best I can
I am just a working man
Twenty minutes
and two breaks
That is all
The time I take
Sneak a smoke
When I can
This is the life
Of a working man
Old and rusted
two tone truck
Always busted
Just my luck
Working hard
To make a dollar
It's the lot
of a blue collar
I am just a working man
Doing the best job that I can
Nine to Five, or Eight to Four
Do my eight and out the door
Loading trucks to hit the road
Get 'em out with a full load
Doing just the best I can
I am just a working man
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with ***
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
17.7k
Handcuffed to a post, body chained to death.
Rusted irons pulling his spirit towards Hell.
Shackled souls who cry in hope.
His name in blood on white-washed walls.
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 6:37 AM UTC
*what forests are those we pass,
blazing along the railway tracks,
a tree bloom of still cranes,
stream black of ******* bane,
stench of dead city rubble,
factories of rusted cast metal,
distant cotton twilight skies,
sun slide across a bunch of wires,
passing tunnels echo
lonely platforms, frantic gecko,
looming hillside,
crackle dry wood fire,
a god barred in lock&key,
blink glimpse of the sea
one rush of vision,
pebble fling at frisson,
metal-crunch rhythm,
grind music sublime,
spark, grunt, grate,
we arrive, we dissipate...*
Aug 22, 2016
Aug 22, 2016 at 11:42 AM UTC
Numb
to not feel
to not feel, pain
or anything else.
being numb does not mean unable to notice
it does not mean, unable to pretend.
I know numbness.
long ago in a hospital,
it was pumped into my veins
and I learned.
Numbness,
will ease pain.
but now I am stuck
trapped in this place
where I pump myself full of metaphysical numbness
At the point I reside,
the only thing I feel
is physical.
I know the warmth of your hand when you hold mine tightly
I know the softness of her skin
and I know if I am injured.
One day,
one desperate day when I was alone against everything...
I released some of my rusted life from my arm.
and as the warmth dripped away...
I felt it.
a small spark inside
not happiness...
but a tear in my left eye.
My fears, not gone
but released,
the things I guarded so close,
brought to the light.
I remember a day
a long time ago...
in a hospital room I wondered.
which, is better?
To die filled with pain and fast,
or to be pumped full of artificial numbness, and have it last?
Numbness.
no word makes me sicker
not in disgust, but in a pit.
I am terrified of numbness,
and so I ask of anyone who will listen to my dying heart
please
DON'T let me die numb.
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
Translucent
A burned dream
Fingertips at trembling galaxies
Remembering stolen breaths
Dismantled from rusted logic
A steel garden flourishes
Sealed with infectious passion
A reflection of mirrored pain
Emerging bloodless depths
Rising to a caged silhouette
Shrouded in sacrifice
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 5:58 PM UTC
*The air your lips used to warm
as you'd breathe into mine,
has become too cold
from the space
you left between us.
Now,
I warm my own air
with flames
set from the peelings
of a burning heart
you threw away
in a rusted can.
I don't remember winter ever being so cold.*
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 7:40 AM UTC
born in illusory chains
gnarled metal
encrusted in my broken skin
the copper colored dust
of rusted steel
infectiously envelopes
shaving off antiquated layers
of fundamentalist religion
encrusted for generations
unpeeled until raw
an unsophisticated method
unveiling
ancient lodged glass shards
colored with deceit
brought before their court
interrogated
unfathomably skewered
an eerie salem witch trial
in modern times
barbarically they shun me
banished
i wander aimlessly
smelling the rotten decay of deceased community
as splinters pierce my feet
from the crooked wooden plank
i walk alone now
an unfathomable inner ache
kindled a residue within
igniting a wildfire from the darkest shadows
uncontainably erupting
i dance savagely
naked in the orange moonlight
and in every shaded edge
lit my soul ablaze
i am a nomad sheep
‘tho not one of their color
no pasture to contain me
no shepherd i can follow
theological safety nets
no longer there to catch me
bohemian-like
i plunge
free falling
plummeting
stripped wide open
magically
fearlessness
reverses gravitation
floating
untethered
i soar amongst
apricot tinged clouds
my skin still wet from rebirth
and rise with the flaming coral sun
you cannot destroy me
i twisted in your decrepit pencil sharpener
and with fresh mettle
cut through the chains that bound
you can have my ego
but you cannot have my soul
dismantling domestication
transcending limitation
wildly untamed
i fly
©2016janetaylor
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 6:40 AM UTC
the yellow sun
was shining down
on grass and sand and waves
it was a place
where children went
to laugh
and dance
and
play.
as molly ran
and wandered off
she found a magic thing
a deep blue house
carved out of stone
in which the wind
would sing.
the other children
climbed about
and gazed into
the cave
and johnny said
“i’ll lead the way”
(because he was most brave)
and tad and tommy
followed him,
for they were big
and strong
while alice chose
to stay outside
but molly tagged along.
the dark was very chilly
and the silence, very wet
johnny shivered and looked back
but couldn’t leave
just yet.
now molly didn’t notice:
awe
and wonder
filled her eyes;
she found a solace
in the stillness,
comfort,
in the pitch black sky.
when suddenly, there came a rustle
from a hundred winged things
as dark as sin
with deep red eyes
shrieking
just like rusted swings.
tommy was the first one out
(his long legs made him fast)
then john and tad
ran into alice
and tumbled on the grass.
and when the world
had settled down,
the quiet had returned
they saw that one
was not around
and they became concerned.
but don’t you worry,
little molly
was fine as fine can be
as she uttered boldly to the dark:
“you never frightened me"
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 12:04 PM UTC
Breathe in some gasoline
As I fly down to greet
Trade my butterfly wings
For a touch of machine
Take my evergreen
Get some new gleam
Your noxious fume spoil
Find some Asfalt sheen
My freedom I trade
For rusted shackles you see
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
It was early nineteen thirty four
The world was set to change
Europe was on fire
It was time to rearrange
Poland was the first stop
The German Army on the move
So we left for America
I hope you did approve
You came with me to Jersey
On a trip across the sea
You've guarded all my secrets
Known by only you and me
You used to spin quite gaily
Now you just stand there en pointe
You're my clipped wing little angel
That's the name I shall anoint
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
I sit here and remember
All the treasures you once hid
You've still some trinkets in there
Some from when I was a kid
Your tu tu is all tattered
The silk lining frayed and torn
But, you've held together nicely
But, I guess we're both quite worn
Your lipstick isn't red now
I hear your music in my head
It hasn't played for 50 years
I just remember it instead
The music gave up playing
You were slightly over wound
But, you still twirled and kept dancing
Even though there was no sound
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
I've told you more than anyone
Than I have ever known
We've been together now forever
You're the most precious thing I own
You've been with me for two husbands
And you've seen my kids pass on
There's just me and you, my dancing girl
All the rest of them are gone
Your paint is chipped and cracked
Your pony tail is broken too
If I still can recollect now
In the fall of fifty two
Your spring is rusted tightly
You need a hand to stand up right
But, then again, I do as well
And most days it's quite the fight
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
Charms and little trinkets
Plastic jewellery, real as well
Secrets of a child
Secrets you would never tell
I am now moving to December
Of my calendar of years
Soon my life will end and
There's no one left to shed me tears
I sit here and I wonder
What shall become of you
My Thumbelina Ballerina
In your dancing dress of blue
You started as a music box
You are not used as that no more
But, Thumbelina Ballerina
Will you dance for me once more?
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Dance your dance for me
We've been together eighty years
You are who I want to be
Thumbelina, Ballerina
Just one more pirouette
We've been together all this time
Our dancing's not done yet
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 11:47 PM UTC
(I love) Dignity
*tearing words apart,
a part
of a joy I cannot
explain or share exactly*
knew a man once,
forty two years gone,
died too soon enough,
soon enough,
he and I will be
the same age
this man
a duck out of water,
a stranger in an adopted land,
trouble-stooped, a hard life, well lived,
never bent,
dignified in every step
I cannot remember him
ever kissing me, tousling my hair,
holding my hand, loving me in
a manner I wanted beyond desperately
yet here I am, 5:22 am
weeping tears recalling him
in glimpses long ago seen,
adding them all up to get a
single sum
Dignity.
*tearing words apart,
a part
of a joy I cannot/explain,
share precisely*
dig
in
to
my
chambered memory storage units,
unlocking those rusted locks with freshly oiled
tears
and loving the dignity he exampled
to the son he could not kiss, hand hold,
but taught him the one lesson, digging deep
to respect life and stand apart,
stand with dignity.
all else will follow
the son kissed his children plenty,
in a vain attempt to make up his missed
homework
now the grandfather,
now the grandfather
is still kissing
his last hope, his newest babes,
rolling on the floor,
so silly kissing belly buttons,
smelling their skin repeatedly,
in a manner most
undignified
still weeping
the son,
he tries to sort it out
and forgives and does not forget
the man that taught dignity
in everything,
even, especially,
in slow dying,
forty two years is a long time to wait
to weep.
it takes two hands in the dark
repeatedly
to collect all the waiting patiently
wetness and the
accompanied sniffles,
so undignified,
the son smiles at himself
declaring unabashedly,
digging out from himself
a poem, a self-reflection
on time tarnished reflections
clear enough to make him
sob,
believing*
I love dignity.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 5:51 AM UTC
The rusted belt is tight
in our hometown city.
Black smoke masks the lights
In one gaseous setting;
the permenant fitting
Of our hometown city
Trees exchange steel
In our hometown city.
You’ve never seen the wheels
churn and the deals burnt
In the factories that take pity
On the nitty-gritty of our
Own hometown city.
The last laughs with us
In our hometown city
We don’t’ ride the Cali bus,
But yea, I'd say we are witty,
cause al'the prettiest girls
Live in our hometown city.
The river’s been burnt
In our hometown city.
Yea we’ve learned a lot
From our own ad(e)missions;
And now, clinics fill prescriptions
in ourown hometown city
In my own hometown city
We’re slicker than you,
Even though our York’s isn’t new…
Why? Watch my city revive in
Front of your eyes- then ask me;
Why is this your hometown city?
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:04 AM UTC
I look at myself everyday
in the mirror
looking at my body intensely,looking for errors
my teeth
those monstrous pimples
and those cheap glasses
that hunch-back
who am I?
no,who is this? This body of self defeat?
what is my worth ?
what do my errors add up to?
does it deduct my final value?
Like a rusted guitar or a cheap rag doll?
So I look at the reflections of many mirrors
I compare myself to them to the point of exhaustion
some mirrors raised my value
some didn't
some lowered my value
and some destroyed my value entirely
at one point I broke my mirror
because I finally realize
that value didn't matter
since all those mirrors came from the same thing
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC
bike's rusted chain
against the walls of my childhood
a new family lives inside
but what they don't see
are the notes of cardamom and burnt orange
rolls of film that my parents and I left behind
capturing sneakers over gravel
along the east river
toward the steel Hell Gate
as dad jogged beside me
his caramel skin
against the sycamores
my first time learning how to ride
they don't feel the bruises and scrapes nor
taste the paella we shared for dinner that evening
they only see what we gave them,
an empty house with matte finish
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 8:40 PM UTC
A duality of elan vital, two people
Spectres of emotion
Intertwined by a fuselage of bruised skin & tendon
Tissues become orbital, gushing towards grafts
Helixes of snot, **** and lymph
Boy & girl
As they embrace the animating principle and eachother, they fuse
A one piece tapestry adorned seamless with no hem, beginning or end
Always was, always is
Patiently turning to liquid as their being unzips
Lying figures of runny makeup and genetic *****
Quintessence, a texture of synaptic potential
Corpus Callosum
An entirety of self, lost in imbued disintegration
Theory of mind, looped & bound
I will water the thought
Roots envisaged in dystopian amygdala
Piercing data packets with a frost-like intensity
Forgetting our obsolescence moments ago
A neuron dipped in nylon
Theta waves and the non-euclidean crux of dissociation
Ghosts in the machine, your macro god
The sympathies of fractional distillation
Digitised/assimilated unto the nanosphere
Cold hands and brass backs galvanised in oscillated tears
Commodified, sold out and bought
Stretching, from purple, white and black
slowly losing its colour, amorphous in shape
brushed across a smudge, ambiguously chromatic
Monetised flesh god
An eternity bathed in starlight
Cutting an incision in the sky to allow entropy
Divided dimensions of energy
Fleeting and intangible
No longer a delirium of seperation
All semantics become light
As a rusted vehicle passes overhead
And all the worlds questions fade out of existence
Flutters of red tape and foregone growth of practice
Sinew flayed, integrated towards information
Our minds shared
In circuits and resistors
Photons and electrons
We radiate
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 10:49 AM UTC
Ships won’t be anchored forever
Rusted anchor will break free
Its weight will help sink deeper
With a loud clunk, noise will dissipate
The ship will set sail once again
No weight is heavy enough to overcome
Steered away to distant land
Searching for newer shores and destinations
Away from the land of constraint
Ship will sail safely through deeper waters
Navigating through inclement weather
Forces of nature will test its strength
For the ship shall find the happy shores again
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 9:46 AM UTC
A desolate town
Broken windows
Dusty roads
Rusted gates
Dead front lawns
Under a porch half rotted away
You'll find...
A cat nursing her kittens
New life, new beginnings
A star shines bright
In the dark night sky
© Crystal Erickson
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 9:10 PM UTC
¤¤¤
I've had dreams by day
That brought the nightmares back.
In the daylights exposure it was dark
When the negative light was bright.
In the sea of people
I was the floating remains
Of a Great White's meal.
On the lonely roads of thought
My mind was in gridlock.
Comforting memories were suspended
Over a psychic black hole
By jagged and rusted
Medieval-type surgical tools.
My remaining senses
Were nailed to a cross-section
Of psychically atrophied grey matter
Along neural pathways
Guarded by gladiator-type tormentors.
Left with nothing
But the stinging desire to be freed
From a curse that had to be cured
And the hell of searching for a cure
When I was convinced there wasn’t one.
The powers that be come with force
To quell primal lusts & desires
Forbidding you of them
As they seductively
Dangle them before your eyes
Until you are so frustrated and unfulfilled
That you no longer
Care for your world.
This cracked glass remains empty
Even though it is constantly being filled
Then spilled or leaked on the floor
Until you learn to lap it up
Like the lapdog that you have become
For their amusement.
You remain with a love for freedom
But your cage is so large
That you think you are free
Lost in societal fantasy.
You think for a while
That these fantasies are real
Until you come to your senses that aren’t
As you join other fools
In comfort that you're not the only
Broken-back pack-mule.
But in spite of it all
And in the face of them all
Don't let these birds of prey
And powers that be
Deprive you of what they
cannot see
In that hidden corner
Of what is still untouched--
The real you
Uninfected by the world.
Take care of your spiritual affairs.
Don't let the global beast
And your primal hissing forces
Make you be your own pallbearer.
Jun 27, 2017
Jun 27, 2017 at 6:28 PM UTC
Strolling through the park
With humans, dogs, and birds,
Pink leaves make their mark
As they hover down in thirds.
Drifting along lazy airwaves,
An amplified guitar echoes
As a band soulfully misbehaves
For all nearby bedfellows.
Apartments loom over trees,
From a place of urban gray
As blue air works to appease
Spaces between dusk and day.
Sturdy street lights rusted and old
Accompanying a worn path ignite,
One by one flashing dark to gold
On a normal Wednesday night.
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 7:03 PM UTC
An artist,
I’m scared to be left to my thinking atoms and nuclear cells
Why solder my raining thoughts to reality
In my head I can’t trust these clockworks
Rusted gears precariously tricking forward
Tensions unbalance on a pinched nerve ending
Hesitate I retract to others knowing what I don’t know
That once I start I might fail
I don’t do what I want to
I don’t speak when I want to
When I so desperately need to
Before I explode
Violently, into a void
Void of emotionless urges
An artist like me if I so believe I am
Doubtfully attempts to act in the face of thunder
Only to cowardly hide in a cat’s whisker
Inner bricking delays outer progress
Progress I provocatively flaunt to the alive bodies
While knowing the fallacious congrats is unwarranted
I don’t believe in magical rainbow kitten surprise wishes
But I won’t also hide my love
With the internal flame dimming
I want to act the part by flipping over the stones
For the mysteries hidden away
To see them crawling out
My untapped desires
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 6:34 PM UTC