"shiner" poems
To Bailey
What up cousin? It’s been a while since we’ve spoken..
I’ve been tryin to keep my mind focused and stayin open..
tryin to figure out how to rebuild my heart again now that it’s broken..
hopin and prayin to some god that it’s all a dream an I’ll be awoken..
But I’m not an ignorant or irrational man, so it’s back to life as I know it..
now I sit here with pen in hand, talking to another lost loved one as a poet..
god **** every time it seems to get a little harder and harder to be stoic..
I do it for you, but my choice would have been to find a rock and hide far below it..
But I’ve held you down, an showed the world a face with a sculpted smile..
Meanwhile inside I strong armed my stomach to prevent the expulsion of bile..
mind racing, god ****** Just 29 years is nowhere near a long enough while!!
and to think, you barely even got to spend 3 of those with your child..
It makes me want to shout to the stars and curse our own existence..
I guess I learned I can’t box god due to something about my arms and the distance..
so I’ve given up being angry about it and stopped my resistance..
but the one thing it’s affected more than any other is my persistence..
From time to time I’m gonna ask someone “has anyone told you they loved you today?”
and if they say no, I’ll be the first person to show them a sincere display…
YOU taught me that bailey, and no matter what, I’ll never let it slip away…
I can’t thank you enough for your life, I wouldn’t even know how to repay!
It’s those small perfect lessons we can all take from your life…
I couldn’t even begin to tell them all in the course of one night…
you were an amazing person to anyone who met you, a true delight..
people called you a shiner, a catalyst, a loving father, and a white knight…
everyone had a story of how you had given them inspiration..
I can’t thank you enough on behalf of the world for your donations!
I’m glad I could finally write this letter to show my appreciation..
the words had been escaping me with some trepidation..
I love you Bailey, always have and always will!!
I can’t believe you’re gone but I carry on still…
I soldier up when I need to then settle down to chill…
I’ll see you when I see you, you know the drill…
Rest In Peace: Bailey Paul McKeon-Phillips
Aug 7, 2010
Aug 7, 2010 at 2:57 PM UTC
My darling,
upon the mountain's caress.
My schizo-friendly mess
in a pineapple dress.
I couldn't love less
or less of you.
Young explorer,
drifting from world to world.
A huckleberry eye
that shifts from trembling duress,
with my hands onto her back.
Why can't life cut you any slack?
The chair is going out under
as the skies are mumbling thunder.
My violin underneath the sin,
sounding from within
"...I love you."
Broken water
bounce from cheek to chest.
Your breathing sounds the best.
With my words onto your lips,
and how the saliva drowns and drips.
I grip around your hips,
with the world releasing a boulder,
that drops upon your shoulder,
and I shake you senselessly,
why can't god set you free?
I can feel from you to me.
Blood, down, to ever and let go,
with your body in the snow.
My river-drowned girl,
engulfed by the swirl.
Love, oh no, from year to year.
Your words so everclear,
"I love you, too."
Silver-shiner,
moon-kissed and ever so,
your feet on the bathroom floor,
the kills from the handled snore.
What I wouldn't give to drink
from your fountain.
What I wouldn't give to die
on your mountain.
My darling, from colored-t.v.,
with a kiss and a motel fee,
I could know what the known couldn't,
with my fingertips where they shouldn't.
Turn down the volume and say
that you'll stay another day
or three.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 1:43 AM UTC
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine.
2.2k
We need you Jesus, we look for
Your light to shine down, shine
Down on us
Shine down brighter, brighter
Than any light on this world
You shine in your glory, you
Shine in your majesty
Shine with hope for a broken world
Shine brighter, shine everywhere
Leading the way for goodness and
We long for your vision, your
Goodness, your mercy leading our
Paths to live in heaven with you
Shine brighter, shiner higher
Shine down with your love for
A hurting and longing world
Shine to the joy and wonder
The hope we have in you, Jesus
We long for you, praise you
Rejoice at your throne of grace
You are our hope shining through us
You are the light for this world
BY: Leona Chaput
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 7:02 PM UTC
I learned an important lesson
during a street hockey match.
Don't stand in front of slap shots.
Some runt boasted
of how powerful he could smack the ball,
and I howled with laughter, a hyena,
standing my ground,
confident as a peacock,
feet away from his stick.
I was a hockey god none could conquer,
and he, a puck peasant
whom I could smite with a single shot.
But then he slapped
The ball, Crack!
the start of a track meet.
From there my memory is as shaky
as my knees when the ball
crashed into my eye.
They say I wailed and crumpled
to the ground, clutching
away, feeling the stinging
tears come.
I tried to fight them,
but like the eternal rains
endured by Noah, down
they poured. I slunk home, head-hung
In shamed defeat.
I ran to the bathroom
to inspect my battle wounds,
and there in the mirror,
dark and purple as a stormy sky
was my first
Shiner.
Dec 26, 2009
Dec 26, 2009 at 11:20 PM UTC
Paint me a Texas sunset
O’er the Brazos
And love me like a pickup truck:
If you treat me right, I’ll carry you through the rough times
and get your heart pounding as I race us down this old, red dirt road.
Keep me in your heart and remember me always
Like a priceless photo from your childhood
Don’t let me fade away into the hills
like those near San Antonio.
I’ll be your cold Shiner
If you’ll just be my one and only.
I’ll Love you like Texas;
Big, Bold, and Humble.
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 1:36 AM UTC
God help us, Imamu—stop playing the fool
as you babble unhinged in your kente hat.
Bebopping Mao is so very uncool;
what up wit dat ?
Flirtations with Castro (Fidel to the faithful)
and free Cuba Libres imbibed with the Beats
inflamed discontent when your verses turned wrathful
in the streets.
Predictable tirades where Whitey’s the foe,
attacking your hosts like an Afro/eccentric
gets old. It’s a stagnant unmusical show:
dull dialectic.
Who knows why the liberals that bankroll you love it?
Who cares what your most recent pseudonym is?
You old and you mad cause’ you can’t rise above it,
mired in the shizz.
Your lines are pure mannitol: dumbed-down *******
(The blow on the head by that riot-cop lingers!)
The syntax is whack in your ghetto refrain.
Snap fingers . . .
Still you wait for your war—or the Black Star-Liner . . .
Your rage was your royalty, paid in white money.
Your verse sought to give the right wing a dark shiner—
it’s not funny.
Insulting, belittling others more noble;
your legacy leaves nothing hopeful or witty
Just putrid black waters, the flow uncontrollable
under the city.
Inside of your Kabaa are yet many idols.
Your New Ark of verse did not save from the flood.
You mau-mau and bludgeon with words all your rivals
but draw no blood.
Lighten up, wise Imamu. Your age is soon closing.
You wrote for the stage and said some of it well.
But your verse has gone rotten and yields, decomposing,
a nasty smell.
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 8:50 PM UTC
i don't remember much from last night.
i remember going to the bar with greasy food and cheap drinks,
and flirting with the bartender, because i find homophobia amusing.
there was something about starting a scooter, and a very illegal drive home.
i woke to find an empty bottle of something or another, a case of bud ice,
and shiner blonde.
i've always had a thing for blondes.
i can still taste the fast food i must've had,
and can feel what was probably a full pack of cigarettes in my chest.
i left myself another pack, a coke, and some aspirin on my windowsill.
i'm so considerate.
i'll make a note to apologize to my liver, later.
maybe once the pounding goes away.
i've never believed in god, but if there's one thing worth blessing,
it's college night.
Aug 19, 2011
Aug 19, 2011 at 2:26 PM UTC
I know what it feels like
To be isolated
stranded on an island
in a sea of meaningful conversation
so remote you need binoculars
to find people holding hands
thats not us today
not you second mom
not me failing educator
but us
jovial and talkative
skipping down mainstreet
stopping in pocket parks
to plan our towns future
i want to take you somewhere
that place that we used to go
well not together
that breakfast place
's been around for a half century
well
its not there any more
its a bar now
look ill buy you a shiner
and you just sit there
look pretty
and write on this dollar
and thats what she wrote
"b [star] [heart]"
with the shapes there instead
just over washingtons face
and i made for it a frame
just in the corners
and the new bartender
stapled it right in plain view
above the ***** section
down at the end
where the old men talk about
the ways that it hasnt
or never will
work out for them
you embody their silent shrine now
you are reigning over the space
where they come to be lonely
but talkative though
the place where they come
to find people with whom to hold hands
to skip down main street
to stop in pocket parks
and talk about the way
things need to be changed
and how [we] can change them
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
**** stained drainpipe
raining pain
unexplained sameness
expressed
in veiny legs
egg salad crustacean
situationally challenged
prophetic procreator
bending spoons
and your will
shill trolls on and on
seeking weakness
tweeking while twerking
discolored molars twinkle
baboons ***
shiner dines on refined lime
mining dimes
unwound ground cover
lamenting
lack of green
queen like boy toy bounds across the turnpike
exhilarated and misinformed
dorm room ****
forlorn
sounding horn born of jazzy lips
quips to the mainstream
hipsterism is like a disease
complete with rashes and bumpy outbreaks
15 century rake awaits her date
and is placed on the stake
for a belief in an alternative
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 7:38 PM UTC
Without the audience I am nothing.
If I believed that there was no one out there who was listening
or who cared
or who loved
or who chose to listen
I mean read
I would be a desiccated pear
I would be a tired excuse of a shoe.
I have to know that I am better than nothing.
If I received no feedback at all, no encouraging words from friends,
Sometimes I don't know if I would do it
if I would press on
and walk
and write
and rebel
and destroy
and rebuild
and light up then
burn out.
Sometimes I sit and I think about nothing.
and honestly it's great to know that nothing is something and
maybe I am something
or nothing
or a mouse
or a servant
or a shoe
or a revolutionist
or an egotist
or a **********
or I am a perfect uttered silence
a ****** quiet
or maybe I am Jack's shiner, his swollen-shut eyelid
but maybe
just maybe
I am there for a chivalrous reason and
I got just one good lick in
or maybe I didn't
and I took one like a ***** but
I walked her home
and I kissed her
and she liked it
and I did too
And I am nothing,
And I know this.
What I'm saying is, I wouldn't be able to sleep.
What I'm saying is, I hope I'm something you'll keep.
What I'm saying is, keep reading and I'll keep breathing.
What I'm saying is, and I'll shout it in powdery tones
What I'm saying is, don't make me be alone.
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 10:16 PM UTC
stepped on a sidewalk crack
seven year's bad luck
If it is chasms
Y'all desire...
sidewalk cracks freeze me
in bad luck repose,
firefly-in-a-jar trapped,
hole'd enough to breathe,
but no prison break escape
come to live
in my little space
these chasmic concrete cracks
my enclosure, my true cell immobile,
it is what they mean when they say,
"have you see his pen?"
boundaries man-built
serving a seven year sentence,
bad luck my only laughing friend,
my midnight to moon
fiend~companion boon
washer dryer closet n' bed
all in a three by three metered space,
my sidewalk castle
now a nyc tourist attraction
rain and shiner, the sidewalk cross
mine alone, even the pigeons
stay away, not so stupid as they look,
fair game for dietary consumption
technical setting details of no matter,
but they come by the thousands
not to see, just
snapping tapping taunting the
immobilizing invisible chasm crackled
sidewalk poet,
writing poems by governmental command,
literarily and literally,
for all to see
seven is not eleven and someday
only time will know, and advise
when cursed lifted, then,
he will never have to
write poems for the public's
insatiable need to
mock and ridicule
ever again
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC
I met her for the first time at a downtown bar in Denver
On a Friday night while sipping Shiner beer.
We drank and danced and mingled and she told me she lived single,
In a small room at the Rustic Pioneer.
What started as a one night stand turned out to be a double;
I finally left on Monday about three.
If I stayed any longer I would have to face the trouble
Of a love affair that wasn’t meant to be.
On a trail not far behind me rode a lawman from Laredo,
With my picture on a poster and a price.
Dead or alive made no mind to the dead I’d left behind,
Who had died cheating at cards or playing dice.
I left her in Colorado; headed straight for South Dakota.
But I lied and said we’d meet in Santa Fe.
Should the trail lead him to her bed and he acted on what she said,
I’d gain several days sending him the wrong way.
But the bravest hearts are fools for love when fate has dealt the hand
And I headed back to Denver at full speed.
I returned there for the misses, who had won my heart with kisses,
Taking no heed of the danger in my deed.
Back in Denver I was taken by the lawman from Laredo.
But there is no hero in this tale of vice.
At a downtown bar in Denver the girl shot me from a barstool,
In her hand she held a poster with a price.
With a bullet in my shoulder, my gun never left the holster
And the lawman moved to quickly save my life.
I met her for the first time at a downtown bar in Denver
At a jailhouse altar she became my wife.
Jul 31, 2011
Jul 31, 2011 at 8:12 PM UTC
The blue on her shiner
matched the azure of her irises,
she'd try to cover it cosmetically,
you could tell she was sad.
What a pathetic ****** he was,
big tough guy he wasn't,
he'd last about a second
in the real ****
be crying home
for his mommy.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
Wind blows through my hair
The grass soft against my feet
Everything seems fair
Even constrained in my seat
I have plenty of food
I'm safe and warm
Even if it's crude
I'm part of the norm
I'm sent to a place
That is padded ceiling to floor
I play with my dress' lace
While I sit there and bore
This is my punishment for speaking
I acted out to Him
The one who's been 'tweaking'
Me since life turned grim
Awful things happen here
But I'm grateful too
That I don't live with fear
The one I once knew
This punishment is minor
I've had it a time too many
For asking about her shiner
And counting to twenty
If I continue rebelling
And I do worse
Then spelling
I'll ride off in a hearse
I've been taken to a big crowd
I'm out of that room
That's when it went loud
And I heard a BOOM
That's the day I was found
The day I was me
I heard no other sound
But those of glee
I never understood
What I hadn't been told
And now I think how could
My parents never want to hold
Me
That was the day I was taught a word
One of beauty and glory
A word that I heard
That is its own story
A story so sweet
Saying I didn't need 'em
That I could meet
A world of freedom
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 9:07 AM UTC
As with any person that comes to the city
others will say of him that he came to be
where the action is, looking for his share of the spoils
but the truth is, he came to put on his suit and toil
more than most newcomers here
he knew already what skyscrapers were:
a daywatch to guard the sun from you
and leave you long shadows to walk through—
even on his shaded way to the ad firms
he slides on his sunglasses, he squirms
through the crowds relishing a moment
of thick silence in a packed elevator, as if sent
on a mission to happy anonymity—
but to die at this point would be a cliché
he thinks, and goes to the shiner to shine his shoes black
black, color of the pavement, the suit, the tie and the hat
black, the color of the plush bruise
in an apricot’s skin, the fruit he adores
taking his time to pick out the finest,
juiciest, softest, the freshest
but this man! you would never know it
seeing him walk in the street
seeing his sunglasses over his eyes—
it’s only apricots that separate his from yours or mine
barely two inches of sugary meat
and some skin to get stuck in the teeth
eventually spat onto the sidewalk—
rubbed by passing shoe soles into a grayish spot
Nov 29, 2010
Nov 29, 2010 at 5:18 AM UTC
Shut off the sky if I ask you to-
grab my world so brassy boring
between its battles and its courage.
I’ll arrive with cold hands and you
can bring the ghosts.
I smell dirt in the day and undo
things as I roam.
I don’t listen when logic roars,
but let it loosen in the sun
and sing my prayers through its marrow
like I’m blowing glass,
like I’m hatching galaxies.
June can wait a bit,
verses still spin sad
where you used
your knees on the good nights.
I tried the dancing.
I tried bleaching the blackened veins
and rusting ribs that held me together
with a smile brighter and stiffer than ever before.
It took a mirror and a shiner to remind me that was pointless.
Before was fumes.
Before was whiplash.
Before was my chattering teeth learning to limber over the back fence then dive into the novels
of your hands.
Before knew my night skin was something to flee and
that all betrayal
starts with moonlight,
isn’t that right?
Before knew that travelers
and wanderers
were taught to survey treetops and look to their shins,
but now I just jump.
You said you’d return with a body that wasn’t mine.
It’s okay if you lied.
I’ve tried to swallow the world between sheets
with a thawing mouth and sinking hips.
I’ve tried to whittle the scenery down to bad habits
and foxes tucked into the hills,
Illuminated just when you thought they were gone.
I’ve found a geography where our jokes are meaningless,
where our hearts are no longer the same,
and it is too gorgeous for words.
Thank you for allowing it.
Thank you for avoiding it.
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
In your thoughts i drown
with your love I’ve flown
high up by the moon
more than stars, there I bloom
shining even more as they envy
for I took their shine
and I’m encircling the moon
little do the stars know
that it’s not their moon
it’s my Gul that I encircle around
and the moon envy my gul
for she replaced it’s place
little did i knew but i do know now
that you are my moon
and I am your stars
and in this universe we bloom
shiner in this galaxy of ours
Nov 29th, 2021
9:17pm
~me
Jul 26, 2022
Jul 26, 2022 at 1:48 PM UTC
She plays black, then blue, then green and red and yellow,
Then translucent and impatient;
Messy and aggravated.
She fumbles,
Then runs full speed -
Touches the wall
and back again towards you.
Spread arm'd and clinched fist'd.
Clinched teeth and mismatched socks.
Haphazard hair and ****** complexion.
You slit eyes and wink and shine on oh great shining thing,
Until the dust of her lay at your feet.
Feb 2, 2016
Feb 2, 2016 at 1:03 PM UTC
#One World Limerick
The notion of nations united
gets the global progressives excited.
Their party of Babel
is Nimrod’s own rabble
(we’re left with the Right uninvited).
Values Clarification Limerick
Many worldlings (whose ways we bemoan)
hope their lives we’ll approve and condone.
But we couldn’t care less
for the views they profess;
we just wish they would leave us alone
Roman Limerick
Our antichrist leaders (so Fabian)
are more Nero, and less like Octavian.
So with Caesars and salad
I’ll dress up my ballad.
(The future’s plebeian or Flavian.)
Kente Pajamas Limerick
A racist obtuse Afro-whiner
Tried to give the right-wing a black shiner
While applauding Obama
He railed at my mama
His manners could be a lot finer . . .
Apocalyptic Limerick
The riddles of John’s Revelation
imply a large-scale devastation.
The end is not too clear
but looks rather nuclear:
a well-deserved A–bomb-in-nation.
Freethinking Limerick
An atheist, weary of fables
Found his intellect turning the tables.
He declared: As a nihilist
held to a higher list,
I’m for erasing the labels.
Mendacious Limerick
Fake propaganda as news
only fools those it’s meant to confuse
there is wrong, there is right
when you’re left in the light
of a nation with little to lose.
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 8:18 PM UTC
Gordon Ramsay decided to pay a visit to Mel's Diner.
When he criticized Mel's food, Mel gave him a shiner.
Now Mel wears an eyepatch because Ramsay jabbed him in the eye with a fork.
He hated Mel's beef and had to have his stomach pumped when he ate Mel's pork.
Ramsay didn't like the waitresses so he told Mel that they had to go.
After years of faithful service, Mel fired Alice, Vera and Flo.
Flo was so angry that she was chomping at the bit.
She told Mel and Gordon Ramsay to kiss her grits.
Ramsay finally had to give up on Mel because his food is so terrible.
Ramsay's job is to help restaurants but he can't perform miracles.
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 11:55 AM UTC
***pseudo-expression's
jagged diamonds
a fugazi sans brilliance,
shiner midst vague skies
in the eye of
practical indifference***
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 6:52 AM UTC
Hills and valleys,
Beer and vanilla beans.
Every peak is followed by a dip,
And the downward slips
Tend to sneak up on you
Every sip is sweet
Until it's harmful
Up and down
So it's no point in thinkin of the future now
Cuz joy turns to sorrow
Just as surely as today melts to tommorow
But that same heavy gravity
Will lighten to bright levity
Soon and sooner
Like Moon the Lunar
Makes way for Sun the Shiner
But never disappears
Just goes away long enough
For the day to hide Her
My point is to never hold to tightly to
Happiness or sorrow
Because both are momentary
As fleeting as they are hollow
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 1:47 AM UTC
March and April are the time
when crappie bite and winds chime
Cedar Creek, Prince's dock
it's the spot do not mock
Years of trees submerged there
fishing rods used by the pair
minnow on one jig on the other
catching crappie is never a bother
Medium shiner and red and chartreuse skirt
cast em out wait for the ****
cold Coors lite in the fridge
if not biting here, let’s try Caney bridge
Or maybe a dock across the way
down on the dam at the end of the day
but usually the dock will do just fine
under lights at dark or in sunshine
Fill the basket with white and black
watch the cork, reel the slack
when it bobs, set the hook
paperlip slab, fillet and cook
Electric knife and old butcher block
cleaning fish around the clock
cornmeal, seasoning and fillets
a great dinner at the end of the day
Shake in a sack and toss in hot oil
toss in some hushpuppies' watch it roil.
eating on the deck with family and friends
our bellies full, the day ends
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 9:30 AM UTC