"scuffing" poems
Pinto?
No, not the wild-spirited, color-splotched mare
with mane streaming like flames-thrown
behind in the wind
Taking desert inclines
with scuffing hooves on rock
catching her balance in mesquite
curbing?
The sage, dust
All
that nature throws in its pathway to knowledge
toward treachery of crosswalks?
“P-l-e-a-s-e don't slow down!
Stop signs--?
”No!
Just keep going!
Don't slow down now!”
“They'll hear us coming
3 blocks away!”
Pinto?
Clogged carburetor--?
No one much-mentioned
rear-end inferno reputation??
A mere twinge in my signature
Woman-without-a-clue
“Hey, it runs, right?
Gets where we're goin'?”
Kids duck in back seat
so as not to be seen
In the cloud of smoke
We make our approach
Hiss Spitter, Belch, Pop
and--
BANG!
--Like a gunshot
Kids take cover
on street, in backseat
duck down
so not to be noticed...
“Oh Ma!
MA!!!
Not right here!
Farther down!”
...so not to be seen
...by friends that matter...
in this ride
from hell!
Backfiring Beast--
“Friends”
skitter away
from what will emerge from the smoke and fumes
of high-risk-situation
Kids spill out through jammed door
to unexpected accolades
onto equality's curb
of laughter
Public school's
wake of exhaust and relief
I drive mercifully away
Start of another school day
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
They float these pink balloons
Strings hanging down, they
Sway back and forth like
Leaves in the wind.
Weighted down never to reach
Beyond their moment, never to
Fly free, these pink balloons,
Swaying in the wind.
Scuffing across the floor, neither
gravity keeps them grounded, or
These pink balloons never to
Let this hanging moment soar.
I have many pretty balloons, my
Favorate is pink, pink is the colour
Of flesh, a beautiful tone. One
I like to cut and bleed, as they hang
There slowly strangled floating on air.
What will take them, floating along
Scuffing feet plead for the ground,
But I like to pierce the flesh, like a
Balloon life does deflate slowly
Then gone as if never there.
I have many balloons suspended, some
Stagnant still, while others twitch.
Floating just above life, gliding
Closer to death as they hang upon
String neither here or there.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 10:56 AM UTC
Like tigers scratching over scraps,
The fat cats posture and hiss
Over who gets the favoured meat
From the cows nervously
Chewing the cud, scuffing their hooves,
Pacing the green and pleasant hills,
No longer fooled by the purring soothe.
Each tiger takes a swipe,
Claws trailing blood lines
Over fatted flanks of meat
Of the cows hiding
In their homes, in their fields,
Pacing the mud that replaced the trees,
Not picked for need, instead for yield.
The fat cats grow full on our flesh.
I hope they choke on it.
Get it while it’s fresh.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 5:42 PM UTC
I slip my tender toes into your familiar bind,
your pink laces twist up my legs
and animate me.
En pointe, my toes are perched upon their boxes,
and your silken arms embrace my ankles
as if I walk on nothing.
Fuetes swing you around and I am a circus ride,
turned into painted porcelain,
a spinning doll.
I spend months with you, scuffing your soles, tearing your cloth,
burning your laces, stretching your lips.
We become old.
One day they will put us both in a tiny fabric box,
only to spin when it opens, only to dance
at the soft tinkling of a bell.
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 3:49 PM UTC
They made me a racehorse
Blinders and all
Huffing and scuffing my hoofs
Impatiently at the dirt
The open track ahead
But against my chest a wooden board
I heave and pant but it won't break
I wish it gone but here it stays
Twisting turning, turning red
Hot air balloons within my head
Wet steam rising from my nose
My chest is raw and splintery
But I will break it
Break through to the open track
Spreading my legs as long as I can
Forward, sideways, any way I want to go
Heaving and panting just the same
But free, this time
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 11:31 PM UTC
Blowing silence
like a bugle
to announce his dismay
he got set
to make a statement
without speaking for a day
but his mother
just assuming
he had nothing much to say
sent her silent
revolutionary
son outside to play;
outmaneuvered
in the kitchen
by his mother's disregard
for campaigns
of wild muteness,
the rebellion fell apart
to the sound
of scuffing shoes
and the grumble in his heart
'cause silent protest
tends to lose
when no-one's listening very hard..
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 1:21 PM UTC
rescinding messages of longing and lust
cast off to the wind like a broken record
skittering, twisting down the street in early morn'
your laying to rest your tired conscience on me
like one of those lovers in a movie theater
brushed off like salt on a shoulder
twirled like a young girls hair mid flirtation giggle
i think we're dancing in the streets now
scuffing shoes against concrete
mind-melding as we soft shoe across the yellow lines
i'm kicking you to the curb
like a rock into a gutter
your blowing through me like a chilled breeze
shuffling past me hurriedly to another time
like a scarf mid swing o're a cold shoulder
i turn 'round swiftly to meet you
dizzily.
Oct 20, 2010
Oct 20, 2010 at 6:09 PM UTC
One day I hope.
I'll be walking through the park in early Spring
in a big coat, scuffing frost.
I don't know who you are yet.
You are faceless as the wind and
formless as a passing thought.
But I know you will be waiting on a bench
for me.
And I will sit beside you,
On this bench,
in the park.
And we will be holding hands,
content.
Because one day I woud like,
the type of happiness
that come from
sitting still inside of madness,
and having someone to enjoy it with.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 7:55 AM UTC
Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.
Everyone was always to blame:
the last empty fifth of *****
the rusty nails and chicken feathers
that stuck in the mud on the back doorstep,
the worms that lived under the cat's ear
and the thin-lipped preacher
who refused to call
except once on a flea-ridden day
when he came scuffing in through the yard
looking for a scapegoat.
I hid in the kitchen under the ragbag.
I refuse to remember the dead.
And the dead are bored with the whole thing.
But you -- you go ahead,
go on, go on back down
into the graveyard,
lie down where you think their faces are;
talk back to your old bad dreams.
2.5k
To be a woman:
To be a woman is to bleed.
From between our legs, as young as nine, when the only worry in our young minds should be about scraped knees from riding bikes and scooters, the visceral meaning of womanhood begins to leak through the soft cotton amour of childhood.
The impending doom of what could be warded off by a child's imagination has cracked and no longer can be repaired.
This is the fate of a woman.
From that day we bleed.
Shoving gauze of soft smiles and politeness into bullet holes bore into our bodies by men.
Anything to stop the bleeding and remain a fragment of the person we once were.
We’re blithe in the presence of grown men that become aroused to the notion of humiliating us.
We try to feign ignorance and keep a straight face in times of turbulence to maintain modesty.
Our nails embedded into our palms, we bleed.
And a storm has formed.
Through the storm we seek the same refugee we watched our mothers seek. Always thinking that the outcome will be different.
This one is not the same.
We’re not our mothers.
Our love is different.
It’s respected.
It’s mutual…
as long as you’re the one doing the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and you pay your half and you look after the child that you nearly bled out for.
Nurturing, tending, cooking and cleaning and ‘whoops’ watch the knife…
bleeding.
Always bleeding.
It’s equal love though, isn’t it?
It’s what you wanted, right?
When you bore two children and you’re raising three, that’s what you wanted. That’s what you bled for.
That’s what you bled for?
Who has he bled for?
He walks into the kitchen, boots scuffing the linoleum on the way.
Dumping the scrapped leftovers of love you gave him in the early out of the morning into the trash and tossing the containers into the sink.
He pats the heads of the people he pretends make him whole and goes to the shower to rinse off the 10 hour shift of hard labor that didn't involve his family.
You don’t expect a kiss at this point because you learned that asking for what you deserve could come with a broken orbital socket.
So you let your heart bleed.
You bleed it into your kids.
You let them know that they are loved.
You pretend that everything is okay.
You go to work, you come home, you bleed and you bleed and you bleed.
Hopeful that your daughter doesn’t see.
Mar 8, 2025
Mar 8, 2025 at 6:27 PM UTC
White polos and navy blue pants and skirts paraded through the narrow classroom door.
Red and yellow chairs pushed back from the small wooden desks,
Neon tennis ***** stopping them from scuffing the floor.
"Waxing floors is so **** expensive,"
The principle whispered to the wide-eyed teacher.
Backs turned to the large ears on the small bodies.
Nose deep into the latest Barnes & Noble purchase,
Fear struck me as the two gray haired women ushered me into the hall
Where two navy blue pants and one navy blue skirt stood,
Eyes mirroring each other’s knowledge.
“Now apologize.”
Embarrassment burned red in the six cheeks
That mumbled confessions to their victim
A victim unaware she had been voted most blessed in the chest
Oblivious to the whispers of nerd, pizza face, and giraffe
Brace face, frizzy haired freak, and loser
Friday’s vocabulary quiz asked what the definition for friends was.
I left it blank.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 1:15 AM UTC
Scuffing shoes slowly make their way towards a hazy destination.
A few jokes break the relaxing silence of lovely company.
Searching the clustered banks of the shoreline.
Illegal trespassing.
Breaking glass.
Hairless tennis *****
Years of smoothed and broken decay.
No wind.
Rising tide.
All ours.
Happy smiles.
Aug 3, 2012
Aug 3, 2012 at 4:17 PM UTC
He gave me the look of "really, "really,
Scuffing his paws as if covering filth.
"What's a matter snoopy?
Then looking at me, raised an eyebrow
"Didn't know they could do that?
I went to rest my head and in a puddle it
Did land soaked fermenting upon my head.
"He was their licking his fangs,
I threw a slipper bouncing off the wall
Ricocheting and face planting me instead.
I changed my pillow cleaned my hair, and
Slumbering I once again rested my head.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch,
Morning awoke as I heard noises grating
Downstairs? I got a bat and in my white fronts
Edged down to find My EP player on.
"Hello anyone there, I know karate? "what,
A new word for scratching was born, whisks of
Clawed plastic on the floor. My best record now
Worthless recycle. And there he stood on the fire
Place his claws tapping in rhythm is what I saw.
From that day on I never gave him the cheap food
A lesson learnt, I thought I was the boss and he
Was just a pet. But a lesson learnt never *** off
Your feline friend there smarter than that.
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 3:44 AM UTC
beg the sun to reclaim my mind
seen nothing but a steep decline
ease a little from the race
uncovering pale scars to trace
swooning over blackened clouds
no one pay attention now
starved enough to feed the flame
never lasts to see the rain
scuffing up the jaded ice
breaking into silence twice
running backwards in place again
laughing at the solid bend
subtle esoteric smile
intentions make the night worthwhile
inside your blanket stare i see
the footprint of catastrophy
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 10:48 AM UTC
wednesday
the squeaky-shoed boy day
the extremely annoyed day
the ice cold void day.
the boy who's all teeth
smiles with the girl in the cleats
drowning in bicuspids
telling her how he 'roughed it'.
sneakers scuffing
hair fluffing
smoke puffing.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 3:48 PM UTC
Today, it snowed and it never snows here in this state and you told me once that this place was madness and I guess that's why we can't have snow because it is quiet and so gentle in nature and maybe we are just too noisy and inconsiderate and God knows we can never have anything white for too long without scuffing it up. I haven't been able to write anything like this about you in a while and for some reason I typed out an apology, about to press SEND like you even knew that I had anything to say about you in the first place. Once, when I was very small, I had a fever and my mother told me I was mumbling in my sleep like I was crazy but she didn't know at the time that I actually was, and somehow I don't think it's sheer madness to conclude that whether you believe in spirits in a bottle that grant your wishes or spirits in a bottle that can only pacify your misery for a night, neither can grant the wishes you may have made when you were cradling your cheek and your mom was trying to assure that Daddy always loves you. Suddenly, it isn't so insane to think that the glass slipper on the stairs could become your heels on the sidewalk at 1:30 AM and fantasy fades into reality not in a flow of water color, but in an unexpected explosion, and I realize that once upon a time I thought was a flame but I was only on fire, and now all I am is smoldering.
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 8:25 PM UTC
fifty years later
you girls wear their old dresses
over sky
blue leggings
lace
and fabric that smells
of lost time
you found them
in stores
with high ceilings
and a sloppily simulated
rustic vibe
you love your
waists tastefully
cinched
and collar bones
concealed
you twirl before
the full length
mirrors and
wish oh how
you wish
you could
have been born
then instead of now
everything
was so much classier!
the women
were a different
kind of beautiful
women
who smoked
in their bathtubs
cardboard hairdos
unraveling
women
elbow deep in
baking
soda and dishsoap
soft secretive
smiles overtaking
their
faces
as they rattled
through the
medicine
cabinet
for a snack
(twice a day)
pregnant again
for
the fourth
time
yet
thin as a rail
somehow
ghosts
in their own
skin
silent but
deadly
crying manically
because of
the smoke
in their eyes
choking gently
on the powder
all over their tight
lovely complexions
dinner ready
at six
sharp as a rusty nail
fantasizing
about what it would be like
to fall in love
with another woman
scuffing their knees
and showing the raw
skin off to all
the young men
with sunlight left over
from childhood still
swimming in their
eyes
or walking home
in the rain
without an umbrella
and having that be ok
slapping their
own faces
at such trecherous
thoughts
obsessing
over how
their mothers did
it with
so much **** grace...
but yes
girls
their clothes
were simply
divine
Feb 2, 2010
Feb 2, 2010 at 11:33 AM UTC
You suit my ruin
fellow me and we'll each please the other
scuffing lovers
we'll sputter and prune
Dec 21, 2021
Dec 21, 2021 at 4:17 PM UTC
There's a pair
Of missing people,
Walking in the rain.
The pavement rough
Beneath their feet,
Scuffing at their shoes.
They walk together,
Through the puddles...
To the rhythm of
Their skipping hearts.
Their joined fingers are laced
With memories,
Happy and sad,
But shared together.
Their shoulders bump
Seeking each other's
Sweet familiar warmth
To guard them,
From the patter
Of the cold water.
There's a pair of Missing people.
You've passed them on
The street.
They eat at your favorite
Coffee shop,
And laugh at old jokes
To the sound
Of sipping lattes.
Their hands know
One another well.
And their smiles
Are always adorned
With thoughts of each other.
There's a pair of Missing people,
He plays with her hair.
There's a pair of Missing people,
As she leans against his chest.
There's a pair
Of missing people,
Who love each other so much.
But they were torn
Away.
There's a pair of Missing people...
Who only came close,
To being born.
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 11:53 PM UTC
I am here today, but i may not be tomorrow - a hitchhiker i picked up somewhere between Bennington and Marlboro Vermont
The library at Packer's Corners had
the smell of damp and old
as a lush august climbed the faded
wide wooden planks outside
and we schemed our
nightly dinner theatre performances.
The gang congregated disorderly
across the rocky garden before the (stage) barn,
plates and carafes of wine, rapt in the play.
Marti, a painter with knobby hands, salt and pepper hair,
the face of a sage and a speech impediment;
Veranda must have been a muse with her sharp
bohemian features and sleek black bob,
smelling of rosemary and musky Parisian perfume;
Oona, so young and stormy crashed about
those mountains in moods as protean
as Vermont weather and jeans
that were more holes than fabric;
Cootie, in his black goatee and the scent of
cooking oils under his mottled and freckled skin
would squint through the bugs and heat wave haze
to Marco on the pitcher's mound
scuffing his mortorcycle boots into the
sandy tan soil riddled with stones and
laughing with the reckless abandon that
waters the eyes with antifreeze for the soul
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 12:29 AM UTC
You had the truth in your hand
But I guess you couldn't stand...
...the demand...
... of being a real human
So why does your shame
Make it necessary to blame
The others for suddenly being
A stranger
Does that not create the danger
Of rearranging the facts
While jumping the tracks
In your haste to move forward
What could be the reward
For striking such a chord
Of internal discontent
Where your morality is bent...
... To the point of almost broken
While fueling the fires you alone were stoking
I had relinquished the remote
As I felt the chill wind blow
Still I did not don a coat
Out of righteous indignation
Or from forlorn resignation
Although there was temptations
I let you hem and haw - have your say
So you could do it your way
The window view instinctively knew
And slowly dropped it's shades
The window curtains instinctively knew
And dropped... so as one side fades
Going back into the obscurity
There is a melancholy pull
Looming large and weighted down with insecurity
Even in that first moment of triumph
The serious side knew
This was no contest
It was an awakening
While nowhere near sleep
As if the dreamers shuffling steps recede
Scuffing the floor in metronomic
semaphore
Sounding like the best the best the best the best the best the best the best
Continuing as it crosses the room
The best the best the best the best
right on out the door.
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 5:52 PM UTC
Lovesick for the sound of you
Scuffing up the floor
Waiting for your return
The candles burning out
The rich scent of food dissipating
Into the darkest night
Loneliness creeping back on home
Keeping me up all night
Wind howling beside me
Keeping me company
Foolishly knowing
You left for good
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 11:34 PM UTC
Streetdogs rattle
a drunken cackle
spilling home after hours.
Scuffing pavements
dragging heels and dignity low.
Voices traveling further
than they need to go.
The ****** persist in splitting peace
invading night.
Children pretend to sleep
believing the bowsies are cool.
Wanting to be just like them.
Some will too.
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 3:53 PM UTC
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killing part of myself scuffing dreams bare in the air unfair
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May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 7:30 PM UTC