"saddlebags" poems
Thank you ~
for a life not to trade
blessings, in spades
tight spaces
behind laundry doors
packed closets
and open drawers
gator tails, tarnished brass
cracks in kitchen sliding glass
wet towels, withering plants
foundation filled
with carpenter ants
buckets piled with
shoes and tags
village clothes
and saddlebags
peeling paint
and broken walls
****** seats
in bathroom stalls
clogged pantry
frigid rooms
table scribe
and carbon fumes
comfort capsules
empty tanks
broken limbs
from children’s pranks
**** finger
double tongue
long goodbyes
and sidewalk dung
cluster flies
chavie’ clique
accompanying
the hypocrite
cracked back
and hidden smiles
chalk on board
with mr miles
atomic wedgies
closing doors
wrotten eggs
and open sores
jaw jack
nasty folk
dinner calls
for pig in poke
penny pinchers
double dip
yellow mouth
and silver tip
brown nosers
thick red tape
paper cuts
and pimple nape
gallivants
so out of norm
the joy of life…
in basic form
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 2:03 PM UTC
"Cash, Grass or Ass-No One Rides Free!"
reads the bumper-sticker slapped on the ratty Harley.
Its black leather seat is cracked, tattered and torn,
the headlight is busted and there's no friggin' horn;
with mismatched saddlebags strapped to each side,
the panhead leaks like a sieve, but it's still quite a ride.
The gas-tank is dented, scratched and coated with muck,
the chrome no longer shines, but who gives a flyin' ****
Its tires are bald, the spokes are all rusted to ****
and the frame is off-kilter from a cage-driver's hit.
The biker just puffed the last hit from his pipe,
slammed down the rest of the J.D. from the bash last night;
then he hops on his hog, kicks the monster to start,
the muffler-pipes blast flames and roar like a ****
Together they roll down the road like old pals,'
with nowhere to go, just obnoxious and loud:
the tombstone tail-light flashes bright red on this mess,
'though Cashless, Grassless and Assless, they couldn't care less!
Sep 2, 2010
Sep 2, 2010 at 1:34 AM UTC
The Riddle
One of you has seen my face.
One of you knows where I live.
Stuff. Important stuff,
like the locale of
my hidey-holes.
My email and my
cell disclosed
soon to be
on sale on eBay
for a trifling sum.
So now I must
disburse to parts
more remote,
reappear in a
nouveau identity.
Just a necessary precaution.
Moreover, methinks
you have grown
tired of my waning voice,
waxing ineloquently,
opining too frequently.
feel like a
thick wooly straw
welcome mat,
edges unravelling,
grown raggedy,
roundabout the edges,
or like a
paperback book,
tho well thumbed,
nonetheless,
consigned to the
bye-bye
discard box.
riddle me,
me be the riddle,
when I scribe
under a new
Nom de Plume.
will you recognize,
my signature
hid amidst the
restless words that
still need a home?
are my poems
worthy of a
second glance,
do you predispose
your attentions on
your favorites only,
the newbies squeaking
ignored and unattended,
whose ranks I have
now rejoined?
did you ever meet
a poem
you did not like?
did you ever greet
a poet
with palms
outwardly raised,
saying, no mas,
had enough,
no time for you
and your
clouded clarifications?
need you.
need you to judge me,
without the saddlebags of
predisposition and imposition.
if you need me
just give me a
loud holler
in my sleepy hollow.
tho sadly my
country road,
has listening posts
on the telephone wires,
I will know, when.
you call,
your voice,
I will come,
if you ask,
always.
I'll be riddling
in plain sight,
if you have the taste
for and of me,
you will find me
soon enough.
HOWEVER,
in emergencies
all you need dial,
my digital signature,
911 and
ask for the
Poetry Hotline.
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 11:23 PM UTC
A hand around a cold, dead, arm
waning fragile and thin
Impressions of fingers on flesh,
twisted, crooked, bent
Across railroad tracks this sack is
dragged, heaved, yanked-
Like saddlebags;
you walk with dead bodies attached to your hips
You still have yet to question this
I wonder though, if you did,
would you see how much dead is attached to me?
Everyone has a Past
and like Death, it asks to stay
Asks you to hold it's hand along the way
To help it across mountain peaks and swamp trenches
This thing, it even asks to sit with you on park benches
There are a thousand empty wooden pews, but still,
you let it sit, and this,
this is where it will not quit
-Yanking still, across garbage piles and sidewalk cracks,
it even begins to ride piggyback
Again, you don't question
What do you see?
Nothing, darkness, it's numbed you,
blinded you physically
It builds it's palace atop your spine,
and evermore straddles between lines of harm and lie
Breathing in pure battle cry
DDD
(11/26/2013)
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
I find my finger tracing silhouettes of strangers
As I tap my foot and stare outside the glass pane in front of me
Onto the street where passersby greet the crisp morning air
With knit scarves and hats and boisterous jackets and saddlebags at the hip,
Ready to ride into town and run out the sheriffs in charge of the show
On West End and Broadway.
|
|
Flurries of snow greet the ground with thunderous applause
As I sip my brew, intertwining fingers with my mug like lovers
And tracing silhouettes of strangers standing at the corner
With my free hand.
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|
The silent footsteps remind me of the cars at Piccadilly Circus on the first snow of the season,
And how all rhyme and reason belong to silhouettes of strangers that walk past the storefronts and stoplights and billboards and Barclay's
Instead of the steady sound of tires screeching and stopping traffic
In this picturesque place.
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A winter's day in New York is a lot like a winter's day in London;
Silhouettes of strangers are outlined by the fingers of fresh-faced people sipping coffee in a corner café.
They tap their feet and wait for a silhouette to escape the bellowing silence of the snow and the roar of the barren roads.
All they want is to intertwine their fingers with another,
Instead of a lukewarm mug.
Aug 24, 2017
Aug 24, 2017 at 10:03 PM UTC
Who am I?
Crack of dawn,
fresh spill,
Fifteen demands before coffee?
Who am I?
Sport utility,
Front facing,
Five point harness?
Who am I?
grey roots,
saddlebags
tattered unmentionables?
What is this?
Ground hog week,
triple speak,
automatic deduction?
Whence comes this paper trail?
Condensing us into forms,
Sorting us into audits,
assesing penalties?
What happened to 5am?
Frozen in time?
Slow dawn creeping,
into a still-frame prescience?
What happened to days in bed?
Long hours in my head?
To ideas unfiltered,
and consecrated ground?
What happend to glitter clouds,
And living out loud?
To boundaries shattered,
and reality questioning itself?
Where do I find my heartfire?
Art and desire?
The uncharted,
now the lost...
Where is my life lust?
That signature passion,
for this domestic pursuit?
My sense of adventue?
Why is youth so visceral in its wake?
Am I a hollogram to the present,
that I exist in this backdraft,
of moments passed?
How am I consistent to the deadline,
but find myself so unready?
How is progress such a burden?
Why is nostalgia so heavy?
Nov 14, 2017
Nov 14, 2017 at 10:36 AM UTC
I'm dressed for travel!
Tattered rags and
Drawstring leather saddlebags,
Home-made shoes and
Unkempt hair...
A woven sack? What's hiding there?
A folding knife, a
Length of string, a
Photograph, a mandolin,
A lumpen package bound in twine,
An apple and a draught of wine,
An empty space I've yet to fill--
Lord willing, though, I think I will.
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 5:48 AM UTC
(20 minute poetry)
This,
is like walking through glue and when you look at a book you all judge by its colour or cover and you look at each other the same.
Name me one or two who have not set with the Sun and gelled with the glue and I know there are many.
'If anyone knows of a just impediment' claws for the pause and the applause may cause you to bow.
How to recapture the lusting for living among the hard faced uncaring because between the giving and taking the wire's electric.
We get the scene set and ready to go, this is like formula one but taking it easy and warming up slow,
I don't know and I doubt you do too if the cover's the problem and if so who do we turn to?
I cram so much in my saddlebags and I water the horse.
West of the Pecos which could be anywhere,
if I try really hard and click my heels it feels like
I'm back in
Kansas.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 8:36 PM UTC