"saloons" poems
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.
Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In the graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams to not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulers.
On day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.
Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possess now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.
Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theatres.
9.3k
Because the thirst wouldn’t simmer; it ruptured cities into boils,
turned cultures into armies, an armageddon of cheeky stubborn Irish Catholics and thick veined Germans couldn’t imagine a world without their stout hearty headed pint.
Because white dry protestant angels thought crime existed in a vacuum, in a filthy saw-dusted saloon, the hub spawn of evil.
Because twice as many of those saloons were ******* by unlicensed blind pigs, not through free swinging doors on the streets, but in the domestic sphere; in the dark crept crevices of household sanctuaries.
Because bootlegging capitalist princes turned the industry into a stenchy liability with their home brewed distilled poisons. Alky cookers wrapped the commodity fetish and dubbed it moonshine.
Moonshine – spirits for the poor and blind.
Because this social reform was a moral reform lost in the oblivion of politics, lost in the timeliness of progressive spring-cleaning referenda’s.
Because the ragged, toothless class had to be scold, striped clean of their traditional barings,
because wisdom is everything and they’re spirits ran vilely wild.
Sep 26, 2010
Sep 26, 2010 at 6:57 AM UTC
Tomb of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
For upkeep and flowers
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
The merchant prince gone to dust
Commanded in his written will
Over the signed name of his last testament
Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
Around his last long home.
(A hundred cash girls want nickels to go to the movies to-night.
In the back stalls of a hundred saloons, women are at tables
Drinking with men or waiting for men jingling loose
silver dollars in their pockets.
In a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or
dress goods or leather stuff for six dollars a week wages
And when she pulls on her stockings in the morning she
is reckless about God and the newspapers and the
police, the talk of her home town or the name
people call her.)
2.6k
A man was crucified. He came to the city a stranger,
was accused, and nailed to a cross. He lingered hanging.
Laughed at the crowd. "The nails are iron," he
said, "You are cheap. In my country when we crucify
we use silver nails..." So he went jeering. They
did not understand him at first. Later they talked about
him in changed voices in the saloons, bowling alleys, and
churches. It came over them every man is crucified
only once in his life and the law of humanity dictates
silver nails be used for the job. A statue was erected
to him in a public square. Not having gathered his
name when he was among them, they wrote him as John
Silvernail on the statue.
2k
she came in out of the dark rain
her guns hanging loose at the ready
her worn leather death hand just driftin above
the handle of her colt
eyes searching for the hard glint of steel
in the faces of the saloons crowded floor
but none had noticed her come in from the storm
she walked to the bar and called out
for a whiskey
leaned and let all but gun hand rest
as one of the prettiest bargirls came up
and smiled for a drink
without conversation the girl lead her
to a backroom
and this gypsy's night was filled with hot passions
and the gun hand was forgotten
in the sweet arms of virgina citys sweetest rose
but morning came with the rolling
of the steamtrains whistle
and the sheriff calling out the gun hand
she had laid some dog of a man low
for putting his hands on his woman
now she got to hang
cant be shootin our law abiding folk
we don't take kindly
this gunhand
this leather clad hard riding woman
with the softest sweetest heart
the kindest of souls
wasn't gonna let em hang her
for shooting down a ***** dog of a man
so she kissed sweet rose long an deep
and bid that sweet girl fare thee well
took up her colt
out into the dusty raw heat of
noonday sun she stepped with
her gun hand driftin over the **** of her colt
eyes blazin for the fool of a sheriff
who had come to lay her low in the name of justice
in the name of their lie of a town
they faced eachother and drew pistols
both got off a shot
one fell to the dusty earth
never to rise again
the other laid down pistol
and walked away
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
Red lips curl watching Earl Grey unfold in clouds inside a cup
and brown eyes flicker over long fingers folded around porcelain.
She is a carefully written poem on ivory paper, royal blue
ink blooming on a page, kissed and tied with a ribbon.
She is a timeless woman, inhabiting a thousand eras.
Her sharp eyes have outlived the courts of many kings,
have seen revolutions unfold and succeed and be shattered;
she has watched fights started over her in warm saloons and
soapboxed revolution on Boston Common, smiling dangerously.
She is the brightest of all muses.
He is in his element, shining bright with eyes like starlight,
a compliment to the beauty he saw first of everyone.
I feel a soft adoration for what she is to him, and think how
that, really, is poetry.
Nov 23, 2017
Nov 23, 2017 at 3:23 PM UTC
BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be?
Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons?
Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night?
In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer at the roller coaster parks,
Wherever figure eights are carved, by skates in winter, by roller coasters in summer,
Wherever the whirligigs are going and chicken spanish and hot dog are sold,
There you come, giggling baby vamp, there you come with your blue baby eyes, saying:
Take me along.
1.6k
A town filled with degenerate and clowns,
where stars shine bright and street lights are nowhere in sight.
Drunken buffoons, swarming the saloons,
stirring up chaos with their little spoons.
Lost actresses turning into brainless waitresses,
the common conversation turning into nothing more,
than the gossip of your ever fashionable *****
Stay too long in this dystopian filled town
and you'll find yourself growing old and bored,
dying internally like a cancerous plague,
waiting for the zombies to rise.
Not aware that the zombies are here, alive and well,
roaming the streets, ever so disguised,
make eye contact and prepare to die.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:22 PM UTC
I walk on embers made of ice and the skin still melts away.
I look through glass to sunshine beasts and still my vision fights decay.
I scream,
I charge,
I draw my sword to fight
the ever,
that endless horde.
But words of steel and wounds unhealed
will be there tomorrow for me to feel.
For now I lay in silence unbroken and this stands alone on thought filled balloons...
In the morning I'll fight these perilous wars,
one breaching my senses,
one behind closed doors.
But right now I'm grinning
and quite justly sinning
in dwelling on those things my heart branches
towards.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 11:52 AM UTC
Emily will take her cedar box
of hidden poems
throwing them on a Sou’ Westerly breeze
in a New England Spring —
They will be snatched and fly
daring, dainty flutter byes
across the stretching continent
the Great Plains and New Frontiers —
The Sun — rising in ribbons
Mountains dripping scarlet sunsets
vast Miles of Evening Sparks —
as the Hemispheres come home
to early Night —
they’ll be read by lonely cowboys
drinking whisky, in the sagebrush
Indian braves campfire smoking
Sung in Saloons by husky-voiced dames
can-can dressed and a whole lotta grit
and gumption.
Emily, lightened of her load
unknotted the Skein of Misery —
Universe unstitched —
in this moment of escape
Landscape will listen —
Shadows will hold their breath
until the words are spoken.
Emily’s skipping down the stairs
of that morbid, cold wintered house
with its bare Slants of Light —
rushing out the door
throwing herself on the Open day —
Telling True, but slanted.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC
Playing songs to empty chairs
Taking bows when no ones there
We're on the road to famous town
But, no one really cares
House parties, and the legions
Around town and the region
We're on the road to famous town
But, no one knows we're there
One day we'll make it to the top of the mountain
They'll know our name and all will know our songs
It takes a while but we all have the vision
To be the best, so we will sing our songs
Our fans all scream for us to sing them for 'em
We'll reach our hall of fame one day
We'll play Ryman Auditorium
And when we do ....just listen to us play
Years of clubs and small time tours
Opening for kids half our age
We've walked a million miles
Just walking out on stage
A chance comes down the turnpike
Get recorded at a show
The Nashville people hear it
We're on the radio
Requests to sing our single
Come so fast, we take them all
We're no longer the shows opener
We're the top bill at the hall
More music and more albums
Larger tours and tv shows
We don't sing to empty bars no more
We're the name everyone knows
One day we'll make it to the top of the mountain
They'll know our name and all will know our songs
It takes a while but we all have the vision
To be the best, so we will sing our songs
Our fans all scream for us to sing them for 'em
We'll reach our hall of fame one day
We'll play Ryman Auditorium
And when we do ....just listen to us play
It's been twenty years in coming
We're an overnight success
We've climbed on up the mountain
You know where we go next...
An invitation to the Ryman
The Country Music Hall of Fame
A show where greats are thought of
And everybody knows your name
But, now...we still are playing
To our fans in bars, saloons
But, one day we will be famous
The Ryman...we'll be there soon
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 11:30 AM UTC
It’s High noon in a tumble **** town
And everyone’s running for cover,
Shops are turning their open signs around
The saloons piano player is now frozen with fright
All is quiet like a cold winter’s night.
Back to back ten paces forward
Counting in your head the jingles in the others spurs
Turn and draw
Be quick or be dead
Shots ring out like thunder
One grazed the other not so lucky
Town’s people wrap you up like a caterpillar in its cocoon
Slumped is your body over the back of the horse
Now is trotting you to your resting place.
The piano man is now unfrozen.
(CARSr.5-1-12)
May 23, 2012
May 23, 2012 at 4:10 PM UTC
You can hear them if you listen
When the wind blows in the night
The people who once lived here
Who are gone now, out of sight
The buildings, many shuttered
Housed ten thousand at it's peak
Now empty, vacant, skeltons
Once vibrant, now, so bleak
Silver once was mined nearby
Thousands flocked here for the chance
To strike it rich, be wealthy
Uninvited to the dance
For all that comes with promise
The devil comes as well
With money comes temptations
As the small town starts to swell
Business and homesteads
Spring up where once was none
Lawlessness is rampant
The law is by the gun
Saloons, hotels, and harlots
Soapbox preachers, grab your purse
We all cannot be winners
That is just the boom towns curse
Like a zephyr in the desert
A boom town changes in a flash
Prosperity will vanish
And so does all the cash
The boom town dies as quickly
As a flower in the snow
Scattered now back homeward
With nothing left to show
The earth takes all she's given
The buildings may still stand
But, the mines are all now empty
There's no value to this land
Listen to the voices
The wind let's them sing out
You can hear them in the darkness
That's when the locals all come out
A ghost town is a relic
It shows the best and worst of man
So, listen to the wind now
Hear their stories if you can
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 8:58 PM UTC
The lure of gold brought Fifty-Niner’s in droves
to the Kansas-Nebraska territory
laden with packs, picks, pans and shovels -
hell-bound for adventure and facile wealth.
Placer miners squatted beside frigid streams,
dipping their pans and filling their sacks
with nuggets bound for the assayer's verdict.
Mine towns sprang up where the veins were strong.
In ******* Creek, Leadville, Independence and Central City,
the valleys rang with the strident cacaphony of
drills and explosives - burrowing shafts deep
into the ore-rich valleys and mountain slopes.
Headlamps lit and shadowed mazes of timbered tunnels
where men piled rock high into mine cars
headed for the mammoth crushers at Idaho Springs.
Whiskey freely flowed in saloons and hotels
where raucous miners let off steam with
every mode and cast of ***** talk pleasures
In time, the veins were spent and profits dwindled.
When the drama ended and the curtain fell,
the miners vanished - leaving only ghost towns behind
and a new state named for its reddish river – Colorado.
Aug 5, 2020
Aug 5, 2020 at 12:41 AM UTC
the sun setting on the high mountain passes
brilliant colours in the sharp cold air
he rode slowly along the path
holding the reigns in one hand
the other resting on his colt revolver
his dark coat pulled up
covers his face
from the biting cold
some hours from now
further down the trail he will rest a bit
before pushing on
make the rio grande before the week is out
make the border and freedom before
the hangman can claim him
he shifts his weight on the saddle and
his horse flicks a worried ear
his appaloosa was his friend
too many miles shared and they had come to understand
and know eachother too well
from the desert towns dry and bitter
to the rain swept mountaintops of colorado
from saloons and dancing girls
to the long hard chase of the lawman following
had seen more miles than care to think
such a sweet tale
such adventure as he had dreamed of
when he was a boy
robbing trains and gunfights with bad man
but mostly he thinks of his country rose
and her little house near topeka
and how she said that there was always be
room for him in her bed and heart
with the hard won smile she gave him
rough round the edges but she was soft in every way
that a road weary man like him could hope for
thought of her now
all these miles away
as the sun sets on the high mountain passes
so deep with winter snows
so silent under crisp moonlight
her face there in his heart
as he drifts through the darkness
drifts through the years and miles
forever more
one hand on the reigns
the other on his colt revolver
some men were born never to rest
born never to know a home
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 8:22 AM UTC
Ernie’s big sister
was a *****
or so
your old man said
although
he didn’t say
what she did
or what
she was for
you often saw her
go out
in the evenings
from the downstairs
lower flat
on the corner
dressed in a short
red skirt with
a slit at the back
and high heel shoes
and her hair
up high
in a beehive style
or you’d see her
by the entrance
to the Square
standing there
talking to some guy
with that
come **** me look
in her eye
but no one told you
what a ***** was
or did that part
of the action
your old man hid
you thought
she was a small time
actress like the ones
you saw on
the big screen
who stood in saloons
when the cowboys
came in or was a moll
who hung on to some
gangster’s arm in those
black and white films
you saw on winter
afternoons
but when you went
by her standing there
or she spotted you
up on the balcony
of the flats
she’d wave or smile
but seldom spoke
other than to say
hi there kid
or how’s your old man
and off she’d go
with her tight skirt
with the slit
at the back
and her wiggling ***
and high heel shoes
and her hair piled high
with that
come have me later
look in her eye.
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 2:37 AM UTC
We happy few,
Who breathe and walk.
(The joy of sunlight, snow or rain!)
Who can – just casually –
Write and read AND talk.
And have a functioning, undamaged brain.
We eat, unaided, *** as planned.
We’re even free to start a band!
And yet we sulk, and whine and whimper…
(That’s what I call “to drop a clinker”!)
We’re never sated, always vexed –
Some people cannot even text!
We have the gadgets, have the shelter…
If you so want: ride helter-skelter!
We cross the oceans, study stars.
We’ll soon be up to go to Mars!
... We spoiled brats, we grouchy goons.
How many more last chance saloons
It’s gotta take to make us see
How blessed and fortunate are we?..
Life’s what you make it,
A point of view.
Yours blissfully,
We happy few.
Dec 31, 2018
Dec 31, 2018 at 2:14 AM UTC
The Road to Magdalena, New Mexico
The wind is cold, a Colorado cold,
Blowing the summer back to Mexico
From whence it came; it sat upon this land
For dreary months of heavy, lifeless heat.
But now the desert dawn is blue; the stars
Make one last show before withdrawing to
The Caves of Night beyond the timberline,
Where no man walks, for fear of ancient gods.
This desert dawn is blue with promises;
The road to Magdalena creeps beneath
The ridges where the Watchers of the night
Seem now content to still their thunderstorms,
And grant a grateful pilgrim sunlit hours.
There will be coffee in Magdalena,
And not much else. The cattle drives have ceased,
And the railroad is gone; the school is closed,
As are the saloons, but there should be coffee.
May 30, 2017
May 30, 2017 at 3:41 PM UTC
Ingrid stands
this evening
of coldness
her small hands
in pockets
of her coat
I inside
Old Neptune's
fried fish shop
getting 2
bags of chips
6d each
is that all?
the man asks
yes that's all
unless you
have any
free crackling
not tonight
he tells me
I go out
with my chips
the bags warm
in my hands
here you are
here's your chips
I tell her
taking hands
out of her
blue rain coat
she takes hold
of her bag
nice and warm
she mutters
embracing
the chip bag
we stand there
*********
the hot chips
into mouths
fanning our
mouths with hands
to cool down
the hot chips
buses pass
on the road
big red things
with people
gazing out
we walk up
the pavement
eating chips
with fingers
to the new
ABC
cinema
and gaze
at the billboards
photographs
of film stars
I could be
a film star
too one day
Ingrid says
her fingers
half way out
of her mouth
mild buck teeth
wild brown hair
and brown eyes
sure you could
I tell her
a film star
an actress
in big films
she dreams on
I eat chips
the warmness
swallowing
down my throat
bright dresses
and red shoes
she goes on
maybe kid
I tell her
you'll be that
but just now
you're a girl
eating chips
9 years old
just like me
full of dreams
full of hopes
yes guess so
she mutters
walking back
pass the shops
the bright lights
from windows
buses pass
big and red
she dreams of
big film parts
nice dresses
those red shoes
I think of
the Wild West
wild saloons
big shoot outs
with bad guys
guns smoking
Dodge City
red eye drinks
and sweet smokes
we walk home
down the dark
Meadow Row
our chips gone
fingers warm
but greasy
mine clutching
a silver
six shooter
at my side
she licking
her fingers
one by one
another night
going home
after chips
having fun.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC
It's not my mistake, I did not make.
Whether your asleep or awake.
It is not our's to break.
Is Lucifer on Jupiter?
The lawn ghome says so.
Saturn developed a pattern.
On Venus dwells an eternal genius.
Neptune has no saloons.
The day turns the moon.
Stand guard to patrol the black hole.
Inventions to time travel through dimemsions. Uncharted outer space.
Engineer a patent.
Discover a lifestyle with endless limits.
Author Notes :
A tad bit ****** & spooky .
© Harmony Sapphire . All rights reserved,
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 2:22 PM UTC
Give me
the darkened doorway
the cause behind
the bricked up window.
Indigo shipwrecks
of tatty saloons
on ill lit streets of moody repute,
where the glorious truth of
of all imperfection
is welcomed,
accepted,
made beautiful.
Here I am among my people.
Give me the handshake
of needle on vinyl,
the tannin stained chapters
of Gideon bibles to burn
in the grate of
a derelict crib.
There is nothing as wry
as the smile
of children, in thrall
to the cancerous faiths
they were given
who grieve for the loss
of a parent still living
in legends.
Those
hereditary tenants of sediment means
examining tea- leaves in tardy
canteens off a tenement floor, while
studying fates in a library of faces,
one eye to the weather.
So waltz with the dealing
Phoenician itinerants, clevered
in scandal of travellers tattle,
to bring out
the stories of war.
I embrace Undesire
Come
tambourine laughter
of river Bohemia redeemed
with the nurturing sapphire of gin,
that I take as a galloping flame
to a dry August heath.
We are
all of us ever
but one step from ******
All of us ever
one breath from release.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 10:07 PM UTC
Courteous love knows the charm
Of the loved body’s pleaded sheet
Upset before a well of tears
He is the first to complain
Friendly love whistles a gay tune
in her glory, mischievous
She appreciates powdered saloons
And many a silly mischief
Sensual love and his perfumes
Reads on purple lips
The screams and sighs at the frontier
Of a bliss– It’s morning already!
Translated on October 27, 2017
Lyon
Inspired at the thought of Laurentin
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 7:05 AM UTC
Hair trigger-by me. . . . an explosions coming, the media is buzzing with news destructive to young minds! old,deaf,blind. Awake your inner sense, remorse will be lit at torches, your libertied statue will crumble to rich mens sinful imaginations. For whats your relationship you talkers an gawkers? you do nothing about the violence! your streets will flow of red wined blood. Martyrs turned **** Awaken you american dictators, murderers and haters! the seas will split as mountain peaks will pop to thine own hell youve unloosed. For heres thy noose to tangle upon thine own necks! all love turned dissrespect! Your dollar will be your downfall oh dire innocent! or are you an innocent after all? The flames you have lifted upon your own streets will singe your every day class citizen! your towers shall fall, have you seen what i saw? Oh bountiful land? A callus you have been made, for its to late to turn the page, the prophecies have already been written. No thanksgiving anytime soon! You make bars and saloons your god and dope your bible, cant you smile? can you hear me you deaf an breathless mess! For the suns darkening is bound by gods artistic hands. . . . .
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 4:20 PM UTC
Riding high up above them
listening to the chain clinking
what was I thinking
climbing way up here
Everybody thinks I'm insane
so they bind and try to hide me
somewhere institutionally
but I always escape
I am damaged but I'm alright
the stars and my future are bright
someone turn on the light
so I can get this thing going right
Travelled all over the planet
and discovered it's spreading
the ******* virus we're dreading
with lightning fast speed
I want to write and post
much better than most
but it is a hard game
to start playing
I am damaged but I'm alright
the stars and my future are bright
someone turn on the light
so I can get this thing going right
I send up ideas all the time
tied tight to balloons
released from saloons
where I have been drinking
Mental voices in my head
are asleep and deep breathing
when they should be screaming
what do you think, hit the alarm or just go on without them
I am damaged but I'm alright
the stars and my future are bright
someone turn on the light
so I can get this thing going right
the flag whips in the wind
my mind is full of sin
about the girl across the street
I hope to meet
I have smiled and waved
but I hadn't shaved
so I didn't do it till
they drove off
I am damaged but I'm alright
the stars and my future are bright
someone turn on the light
so I can get this thing going right
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 8:08 AM UTC