"shakedown" poems
I meander about the countryside,
Coming upon a fishing city.
They call it Riften,
Home of the thieves.
The guard that stopped me,
Persuaded with a shakedown.
I didn't believe him,
And persuaded back with venom.
The gates opened,
Before thy words.
Revealing a peaceful city,
With many souls.
I roam the marketplace,
Searching for supplies.
Before I make my journey.
To Ivarstead.
A man of charm and price,
Spoke with me.
He sought a job to be done.
He asked me?
Break the law!?
Seriously?
He nodded quietly.
I sigh,
Agreeing to do as he asked.
My friend faendal has taught me well
Of thievery.
This dark elf,
A Argonian lizard.
I took the ring to deliver.
Brynjolf spoke of snow elves,
And an elixir.
As I put the ring,
Into Brand-Shei's pocket.
Escaping the shadows.
The task was done,
And he asked me.
To join the Thieves Guild.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 8:46 AM UTC
i’m the man who’s gonna wake up next to you
slipping away, a non-starter, her leg crosses over mine,
a right sided shakedown shackle, adhesion flesh as
tough as old yellowed scotch tape sticking stuck
no escaping, a known 6:00am risk when you sleep with
a pre-advertised holy roller, twist and turner woman,
making you into an unofficial woe-man (too)
left hand grabs the lamenting instrument, the beat up iPad,
to record your enslavement, a distraction from the bladder’s
faint morn winking at you with a Cheshire grin, muffling a
chuckle, at a predicament wonderful familiar, but unresolvable
this situation, a category of life’s small measure of annoyances,
invokes the wordy title, and a write-down list of pluses and minuses,
which I’ll spare which o’witch be the longer list
poems are where you find them, under your nose,
looking out a city bus window, but sometimes like flypaper,
they just come unasked and stick to you, the separating of the skin,
like a too tight bandaid, ain’t worth the pain and freedom gained
later, share this missive and her suggestion, she will prepare an
NDA (a non-disclosure agreement) or adopt other strategies like
pushing me out of the bed without warning when i am typing ,
to witch and to wit, reply,
ah!
another poem commissioned, and
*perhaps, name change too, needed,
making love in the morning*
12/14/19
Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019 at 1:40 PM UTC
inside my chest is a coalmine. you have the raddest eyes I’ve ever seen & you hair smells like rain. I want to call you on the telephone & tell you a secret about your freckles. I wanna call you shakedown. I wanna call you shotgun. do you want to make a movie? I got this camera, see, & a backyard like forever, & when it snows it’s like the whole world is one giant pickup line. my body in a wooden box & you just like holes for breathing. if I’m lying my neck is a bird. free. the truth is skin & skin. your red and grey beanies. a stick of dynamite between my teeth.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 10:58 AM UTC
Make the skies eternal limits
I'm shooting for a paper moon
A thin white line disappears
The Crescent city blooms
She rises from the river
Without the sky's inner inhibitons
She commands all her passions
Painting exhibitions
There is no distance
Between each and every line
She is my perpetual lemming
Flung from from the cliffs of time
Dark haired Creole woman
Body damp with sweat
The gumbo boils in desire
You're my "Day-glo" dash board saint
Kissing white moonlit *******
That dance with each and every ******
C'mon shakedown the stars
Ashes made by burning lust
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 4:51 PM UTC
It’s in the wind.
The only times I ever feel
Always coincide with some semblance of a
Breakdown
Shakedown.
I think I’m in shaking in my boots
Eventhough it feels like 40 degrees in this shade.
Am I supposed to feel comfort in this
Desensitized sphere?
Cause all I feel is a detachment
From you from me
From the ground, up.
My roots are not existent.
All i want to do
Is burn the **** out
Of my eyes.
I’ve had enough of feeling
Like I’m walking on air
I’ve had enough of feeling
Like I always need to breath.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 2:54 PM UTC
There's butter in my coffee
I heard that it fills you up in the morning
It's the fat, they say, that sustains you.
The problem is, I haven't eaten in, oh,
19 hours or so,
And this buttery coffee is making me feel funny.
Like, nostalgic,
Plegic at the kitchen table
Staring at the new paisley tablecloth without being able to think about anything.
This house has a voice and it's making me tired listening to it scream all day.
Only a month and already I'm pushing away
You can tell, you keep trying to kiss me awake but I can't hear you over the house.
They say this is what happens, so I never tried until now.
You really see a person, they say.
And I can tell you are really seeing me for the first time in these three years,
And it's making you nervous that maybe I'm actually not okay.
Maybe I'm not.
This behavior isn't normal, I guess, I mean most people eat and sleep at regular intervals
And share themselves
And do their chores
And go to work in the morning
And live a life that resembles something.
And now you're really noticing.
Normal behavior hasn't ever really been my "thing."
But writing songs to the tune of your own heartbeat isn't the way to make other people sing.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 9:40 AM UTC
. .
pinhole eyes
observe over your kindled lie
the spread of your inedible pattern
doctoring against the indelible darkness
quilted climate of mediation forms over your bed
wiring out your unfiltered horrors with gentle fluence
(the rental of ebb and the menial of flow)
tapping metal musician on the raw triggers
that fore-reign your vital psychology
the inks the rigs the tinkers the shallows
the shadows and score that wink to us all
from the blue night
observed
pinhole eyes
. .
blue screen onto the window of the night
stalked by the lonely boy
you widowed it all away
vagranted and volunteered away all your daylight
gave up the tokens of family
schooling features and few friends
remaining ; an intelligence to pool fear
you take on the scientists
popping your dreams
to see if they spasm and scream
gutting their symmetry blazing a ****
recovering only more symmetry
rummaging away with their simplicity
extending the corridor without sympathy
searching out the temple of it all
a deeper darker origin to answer to it all
. .
shakedown plug right through the eyes
you were riding it for ecstatic life
made a corpse of it now
naked to the nerve your teeth grown in
invited to savage your way out
venture through the gaper glass
information salvaged wreckage retrieved
your markers picked up the importance received
up to you/ the message : "exist, if you please"
. .
Jun 25, 2025
Jun 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM UTC
I don't know when you got here
Or how
I can only guess
Part genetic stowaway
Sure, maybe
Or you leaked in
Through one of a couple
Of cracked helmets
Either way
You're here now
And it's been so long
I can scarcely remember
A time without you
I can scarcely
Remember
Period
It's a fuzzy feeling
Not warm
Mind you
Or cold
I can't handle extremes anymore
Just fuzzy
My memories
When you got here
When I left
What's left that's me
And what's a
Symptom
Or side effect
Who I am
Who I was
How much
How long
Have you been
Orchestrating
This shakedown
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 10:33 PM UTC
Hey, was the tremble in our bodies from the first magical touch, on the couch, unreal?
Or was I really a victim of the aftermath of the couch shakedown?
Hey, did our eyes lie to our hearts when they let their own raw ones open while they stared at each other?
Or should I have covered these naked eyes from the scorching effect of the glance, the stare, that stare?
Hey, did the embrace of our lips, chests close, beating together, finally put out the burning desire?
Or didn’t I have a true audience for the harmonious sound of our heartbeats and the dance of our lips?
Hey, were the long hour phone conversations long enough? Enough for our longing voices to match the hours away from seeing each other?
Or was I long gone in the radius of your diverse land of thought as I dived more and more into your pool of sweet utterances?
Hey, were you ever tired for running miles, miles and miles without long breaks in my mind? Were you?,
Or had I become a squatter,lost, creating a race that I foolishly waited a medal for? Was I to be awarded?
Hey, wasn’t parting shot the medication we both never wanted to take?
Or did I read a different prescription for every painful goodbye I had to make?
Hey, in the end, I wonder did you ever cross that four letter bridge between I and you?
Maybe I should have taken one last aerial view over the fallen, broken, damaged bridge that you left behind on your way to you.
Sep 2, 2017
Sep 2, 2017 at 9:51 PM UTC
hit the fields runnin' check back
brother sister
let me teach ya'll how to act
don't wind up shunned by the Pharisee crowd,
wave ****** flag cool colors loud
don't hold baited 'n hooked
people push 'n shove
take another look see **** ya'll do
to me us anyone
bicker clash
dustups like jabs at punchin' bags,
knock testament down inside gut
play rough balance tough ***** dumps
can't have place on run not planned or deliberate
desecration's child
dislodged drabbletailed 'n wild
daemon/cacodemon sittin' on shoulder
presses down like cinder blocks
reels 'n rocks
steps in avenue make or break
waves goin' steady backed down 'till now
up in face utter stainin'
shakedown beat down
daggers fly around
big shot judge 'n jury rapid fire sea fury
shook up soda pop foaming soft
cap off
slides down fast
slow to swallow won't last
sweet things arise 'n pass
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 4:13 PM UTC
She came at me,
notwithstanding
our chemistry
with a battering ram
to take down the man,
her shakedown in
my hometown
incredible?
attractively so,
but
I did fight you know
and I didn't exactly choose
to lose
but these things
are sent to try us.
She still comes at me
adding a touch of
insanity to the
spectacle by wearing
a ball gown,
in this town
anything goes.
Aug 22, 2017
Aug 22, 2017 at 12:01 PM UTC
Judges are shortsighted now.
After all, the measure of all sounds.
There's no scarier punishment,
Than dead silence.
There is no worse crime,
Than monotonous singing.
There's metal in the voice –
Means more adult became.
Hear the buzz of the drill –
So in the apartment the cracks.
The intercom is ringing –
In the house of a possible shakedown.
Boards creak in the floor –
Nerves are jangling.
The spoon clinked in the saucer –
Everyone's laughing at you.
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 12:24 AM UTC