"scruffs" poems
Walk by numbers in
the Parisian palette ,
spreading the paint around
in a long line of lip red scarlet.
Pipette sized width following you
as you tread on stone, you’re new.
Sit with the trains and listen
to walls and notice small change,
loose change on the floors.
Passenger’s stare moves you from
carriage to carriage, regardless of UK, American baggage.
Surface again, the longest breath you’ve ever held
has escaped again into winter’s cold.
Steps climb and feet follow,
Anubis with a rifle watching over-
graffiti crowd control for the younger;
sad face, a smile face, Sacre Coeur white face.
Sink down along the track,
railway men hanging large and fat.
Tea for two with warm milk,
tea for two without the milk,
no tea- up and leave, tip with guilt.
**** kicker Paris scruffs her shoes
amongst the paint, the blues, the museum’s closed.
Again, we have to wait for the universe to align before we get to see her smile.
Wait, keep waiting, Mars is coming, revolving towards us.
Doors unlock and we enter a tide of tourist
and artist and the modernist futurist- lost in this department.
She sits there still, not smiling
Paris, without you no coffee would ever be deemed good.
Without you, I’d be lost and artless and heartless and broke.
Even when you take the covers from under me-
I’m still warm.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 4:32 AM UTC
hand reaching over
the phantom scars on her leg,
eyes profoundly broken as
flickering christmas lights,
a child weeping inside
the grown woman.
she smiles, she sighs.
there is grey where there
used to be sunshine,
there are desolate trees,
where the birds used to sing,
and crane their necks
like curious strangers,
at women who sit on lone benches
cradling palms,
stirring up memories of
touch so gentle it hurt.
until people float in and out
like a lifebuoy at sea,
until a wolfish man in scruffs
whistles and waves slowly,
as though time itself has broken.
she sinks deeper into herself,
into the womb of mothers;
into all the love
and all the heartache.
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 8:15 AM UTC
a torn sole which collect
painful rocks all along the
way.
the heels have collected
wedges formed by the
pounding of the stone.
collection of scruffs that's
formed rough art from the
miles of travel each day.
tied to fake comfort to
makes the steps easier
to make.
old and no longer needed
but faith has it grips to say
take one more step today.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 2:29 AM UTC
A midnight daydream could not match my prolonged slumber,
but the ice cold grin of isolation prohibits my resistance
and such theology burns crisp justifications into my hands.
Golden locks of hair surround the frayed edges of a rug
conversing ideas and mocking the unscripted door I stand on.
So I fabricated a tasteless disposition
to leak through a thousand inconspicuous sermons
that lean against me like a pile of corpses.
Without a single whisper, I abandoned all but a faulty quest
which holds me like a rotting prisoner
between the contrived confessions of a minister
who is required to dress into the eligible axiom,
so he repairs his scattered dependence in the light of day
and polishes the scruffs of his boots with the blessed liquid of God.
But I required none but the shimmer of this crescent
which produced this aberrant midnight daydream.
Dec 3, 2011
Dec 3, 2011 at 4:07 PM UTC
Its Friday and school is ended
Home we run, both trying to win the race to the garden gate
Hot and red faced, my brother beats me by an inch
I tell myself "I let him touch the post before me"
Into weekend scruffs we climb, piles of school clothes left behind
For mum to gather, washing to be done
My brother and I have something more important to do
We need to make sure they are ready
And they are, all washed and clean and ready for 7-0'clock
When the pop van comes.
4 empty bottles, waiting to be handed back and reborn
4 empty bottles, worth 5p each off the next ones!
4 empty bottles to exchange for 4 full
But what will we choose
When the pop van comes ?
7-0'clock
4 bottles, 2 each
We march to where the van full of wonderful fizziness will stop
My brother and I stand in line, there are children all around with their bottles too
All waiting for their turn to swap
1 empty for one full
with 5p off!
When the pop van comes
My brother chooses first as he beat me to the gate (I let him win)
Raspberryade!
Now me, Shandy please, (I like to pretend its beer)
Finally mum joins us and chooses orangeade and a bottle of dandelion and burdock for dad
We take back our bottles, excited, thirsty,
Into the glass I pour my 'beer'
Glug glug, glug, glug, fizzzzzzzzzzzzz,
gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.
Too much!
Bubbles tickle my tongue, I lose my breath, too fizzy
Buuuuuuurp!
I love it when the pop van comes
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 8:21 AM UTC
Life in solitude, emptiness surrounds
Silent mist rising in the serene woods
The birds seldom sing their songs
Satins, sapphire, and soul
The stream slithers in slender streaks
Squeezing past senile saplings
Squirming into the smooth sky,
Set clouds slink upon the heavens
Brush speechless under solemn gaze
Tranquility seduces scruffs of leaves
From past autumn, someday stalling
Another year, or another two
And life keeps skidding, sliding
Around the slow line of time
No stopping, no pause
Sanctified continuum.
May 31, 2021
May 31, 2021 at 6:02 AM UTC