"shoelaces" poems
while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty
*you know
i never echoed until you died*
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
happiness...is everything. Happiness isnt based on money and sometimes not even on what you're doing. Its about who your with.
its about living with no regrets
And realising that a bad thing will last a few months, so who cares if he doesnt ask you out? who cares what your parents catch doing with the one who does? and who cares what anyone says about you.
Happiness is taking a risk
and it pays off
and even if it doesnt
another oppurtunity presents itself.
happiness is staying up all night with your frends.
happiness is water fights on late summer evenings.
happiness is love....lust only gives moments of happiness to the fact you cant believe you have that person...love leaves you eternally in wonder of how you ended up feeling so right.
happiness is being with your friends and wearing crazy *** hats in public
happiness is seeing a familiar face in nevr ending sea of lies.
happiness is no homework
happiness is having tickle fights with the one you love
happiness is lying in the sun looking at the clouds
happiness is doing wat you want to do
happiness is helping one another
happiness if giving all of you no matter how much you recieve in return
happiness is being able to speak your mind
happiness is knowing you have earnt all the praise you get and being able to say thank you...not going red, studying your shoelaces and bringing yourself down
happiness is confidence
happiness is working hard for something
happiness is being wateva you want and not caring what anyone says...you only get to live once..you will nevr live it down if you're on your deathbed and you realise that you've spent your whole life being what everyone else wanted you to be. living a lie
happiness is finding out who you are
happiness is coming home and your parents ask you how your day was...evn if u jst grunt back
happiness is singing in the shower as loud as you can...i mean showers hav that magical power that means no-one else can hear you...rite?
happiness is not being afraid to say someone is hot...it makes u all giggly...saying someone is good looking doesnt neccessarily mean you want them
happiness is feeling safe
happiness is feeling wanted
happiness is feeling at peace with yourself
happiness is feeling that someone always has your back
happiness is when something isnt funny..but your so happy to see someone that u cant stop smiling
happiness is that one thing you can nevr really express to someone...its like a drug, it makes you do crazy things...its make you feel ontop of the world.
this made me happy knowing that peopl will read this and feel happy
it made me happy because i made a good attempt to describe something that can nevr be completely decribed.
happiness is the one thing that keeps you going when you're like the single flowers whose colours hav turned to shades of grey
i cant explain this happiness
Jun 19, 2019
Jun 19, 2019 at 11:17 AM UTC
Sitting on my bed
Gazing out at the view
Laptop in lap
I wonder
Being of mixed race
The truth of my origins
The blood coursing through my veins
Goffle they would say
But iv always believed a man's skin colour doesn't define who he is
Kwabulawayo
A place where he is being killed
Home of the Ndebele
My hometown
Built on the ruins of a Royal town
uMzilikazi ,Leander Starr Jameson ,Lobengula ,Cecil john rhodes
Men of courage
Black and white
Fought struggles
Years before my birth
Mater Dei Hospital
My journeys beginning
My grandfathers end.
Joy and pain
My hearts memories
From Primary
Whitestone
Green fields
Where i spent my childhood
Life's little joys
Clay-yaki
In the rain
Barefoot.
Speargrass
How it stung
Running through the grass
Taller than i was
Forts
Built with shoelaces
Marbles
Fights in the sand
Afternoons spent picking mullberyys
The girls dormitory
Offbounds.
Matrons
Got me the cain
Thursday Nights
Prefects Priveleges
Sports
Cross country
The houses of Tuli, Shangani, Shashe
lifelong friends made
A place frozen in memory
Home of the best years of my life
Tears streaming down
Every Sunday evening
The way back
A boarders sentiment
Lasting 5min till reunited with friends
Tuck shared
Eskimo Hut
The Green Mamba Or Pink Panther
The food hall
Quiet
Till dessert came
Mr Haworth
Everyday
"The queen would be disgusted if she saw u eating"
The tide of his time
Wandering around my childhood
I bumped unintentionally into
Maturity
Starless nights
First kisses
A little bit older i was
Aug 21, 2010
Aug 21, 2010 at 8:34 AM UTC
The way he looks at her
and she looks at him
makes love look so
effortless.
He doesn’t even notice
how he is leaning in –
towards her. And how her arm is
intertwined
around his so tightly;
with such a devoted glint of comfort
and familiarity.
I hope you're on the same train.
Making the aftermath
of falling easy, the complexity simply
luminescent.
Almost allowing me to feel light.
My heart had its fair share of
lightness, brightness – heavy now but
the smiles, the laughter;
It makes me feel as if
perhaps
that is what I yearn for in The End.
But will I ever find happiness if I'm overflowing with joy?
Because the
Melancholy
of a platform sliding out-of-mind,
with You standing there debating the
tangles in your shoelaces
warms up my equally tangled,
Masochistic
heart. Because that is not granted for me (us).
Not the handholding
nor the scent of your hair
when it’s 5 a.m. and your arms
are knotted around my waist and we
waste the day, the days, days in my bed.
Oh, yes (please).
No. I can't get that.
I remind myself:
"I don't need that."
I step onto the platform.
I mind the gap.
I dare do much
But I cannot dare to
trip, stumble,
and fall.
For You. (I already have.)
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 8:59 PM UTC
That small man who always sang
That small man who danced in my head
That small man with youth
Undid his shoelaces
And broke all the barracks of the festival
Suddenly everything collapsed
And in the silence of the festival
In the ruin of the festival
I heard your happy voice
Your voice so torn and fragile
Innocent and desolate
Came from afar and called me
And I put my hands on my chest
where they trembled ******
Seven broken pieces of mirror
with your twinkling smile
10.8k
Oh yes! I had plans to woo you
with roses and chocolates
and other mushy make-up
that might just rev up your fireworks
Yet I knew deep inside
it wouldn't work so well.
So jugular it was
condoms and plastic roses
knotted in shoelaces
painted and welded on a metal frame
worded: I will take you
to take me: Now!
But you laughed
and blew the condoms into balloons
and spray painted the roses in silver
and I used the shoelaces
to hang my head in creative shame!
Yet when we met on the deck of union
for the first time
the sparks lit up the nightsky
and we slept curled up around each other
like question marks
Thats how we bought tickets
to forever
Crazy?
I waited-you came!
Author Notes
Most enjoyable poem today.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
i've made a home
out of untied shoelaces
in the morning
and crowded bedrooms
filled with smoke
and laughter
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 6:57 PM UTC
Genderless with scraped knees and
A lipstick crush on one who bore the same name as me
Uncut brown hair untouched by bleach and
Stealing kisses from my best friend while my parents lied asleep
Lying in the grass with a picture book on faeries
Listening to the wind whistle through our dying trees
Jumping on the bed with my ***** and my bubby
Giggling hand over mouth when my mother called him "hubby"
Daisy chains and he loves me nots
Unbrushed teeth beginning to rot
***** shoes and ***** shoelaces
Visiting imagined places
Pink striped socks and a skirt to mismatch
Waiting for robins eggs to fall or to hatch
O, to be a child and to live within a dream
To lie awake at ten past eight, imagination like a stream
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
"I knew this girl once,
she had long hair, so long it whispered tiny kisses along her hips and waist
she had the oddest bluest eyes i'd ever seen, the color of the sky right before it gets completely dark
her thick, long eyelashes framed those eyes, and freckles formed constellations across her cheeks
i could almost draw the big dipper and Orion's belt on her milky white face.
She didn't know i existed but i admired her from afar. I could tell she was educated- She always had some form of poetry in her hand. But of all the things i could have noticed about her i noticed her bookmarks. She would lose them all the time, i would see her chasing after the scraps of paper as they flew through the wind down the street. She'd stick anything in between those pages, wrappers of all sorts, leaves, pennies, shoelaces, once i even saw a page ripped from a different book. It became my favorite game to guess what the next bookmark would be. After awhile she stopped chasing the various bookmarks across the city and she cut all that long hair off, then awhile after that she started using unoriginal, uninspired plain old bookmarks.Then even awhile that she stopped bringing books altogether, until one day she didn't show up. Nobody knew that beautiful, mysterious, bookmark making girl was locked up inside her own mind. Nobody knew she hated her long hair and her freckles and even those baby blues. Nobody knew that she couldn't stand to live in her skin anymore so much that she swallowed a couple pills one night to ease away the pain. Even worse was she didn't know i watched her for so long and thought she was the most interesting human being i'd ever encountered. That girl committed suicide because she hated herself learn from her mistake, my mistake, everyone who ever noticed her bookmarks mistake, and don't do this, don't off yourself with a .45 before you've even had a chance to live" he's desperate now
"please please you don't have to do this" he sputters
I answer simply " I never was much of a bookmark girl, i always dog-eared my pages"
bang
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 6:35 PM UTC
it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse
a woman, a
tire that's flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard...
it's not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he's ready for, or
****** ****** robbery, fire, flood...
no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse...
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left ...
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can **** quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver's license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink's stopped-up, the landlord's drunk,
the president doesn't care and the governor's
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill's up and the, market's
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it's
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there's always ***** and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they're
your friends;
there's always that and worse;
leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.
or making it
as a waitress at norm's on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a car wash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady's purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and China and Russia and America, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
*** except maybe one to **** in
and the other one around your
gut.
with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.
so be careful
when you
bend over.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:48 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
It’s a shame
And the disgrace is
A neon shirt
And pink shoelaces
Resulted in an act
So tasteless
That the victim wound up
With stitches in some places
A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this
Why you ask
Was he under attack
Homophobia
And as a matter of fact
Though it’s not a case
Of white or black
The bottom line is
It was a hateful act
A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this
What people do
In my point of view
Is a matter of personal choice
Not up for review
Unless it’s hurting others
Or causes their rights to
Be infringed upon
Then ya might wanna sue
A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this
And here’s the thing
That I don’t get
How is what he does
Considered a threat
To anybody else
Albeit
Even those who object
Shouldn’t become upset – cos
A neon shirt and pink shoelaces
Or acting effeminate
If that’s what the case is
Physically attacking him
Was entirely baseless
And sooner or later
We all need to face this
(c) Copyright 2015, Cedric McClester. All rights reserved.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 4:30 PM UTC
The night crawls under my skin
Fever delirium laced with heartbreak
in the cracks of my chapped lips
I let down my walls
Now kite drifting away like balloon let go
You were the walls of this maze called home
fog blanket me into Limbo called fever delirium hot and *****
icecream cone by the fireplace
defy the logic
cut the shoelaces
defy the logic
jump and walk on the sky
defy gravity
Swallow the whole **** ocean
Do the impossible
Have *** demand icecream for breakfast
throw punches in the street
Do drugs you don't know what they are what they do how they can hurt you
trusting abuse like a unicorn but it's just a horse
hear the dragon roar
Underneath the bed you make love on
your friends are sometimes the monsters
Spilling the probation all over the floor
Realize he's not sleeping next to you
He doesn't love you anymore
You can tell she hurts
Lives away from home
Digs teeth into words like wounds will heal like they are stitches
Fall for boy in coffee shop
Leave dream boat to pursue reckless thought
You give leaves
He gives you hope
Helps your lighthouse at sea float
Secretly as you sleep inside the sun
When your lighthouse work is done
He paints over the stripes
He thinks it is like the love story of your mother and father
She is angry with a tiny clustered house with the smell of her smoke filled lungs
He paints every room like reversing time
But it's all pretend, just men being men
Let the leaves burn
Steal the words from books
Cut them out
Cut your heart out
And try again
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 1:19 PM UTC
My shoelaces flap side to side like one of those car-dealership inflatables arms-
My veiny stompers pump puddles of pure procrastination from perceptive sprinting-
Underneath the tune-buds, I cannot hear my sneakers scraping the scrap rocks of gravel-
To my left- a hooting owl habitats itself in a hushed game of charades-
To my right- a slick tree frog flies freely from a lofty leaf and lands in the lagoon-
Elapsed images of elastic languages fill my mind with everlasting wisdom-
Entertained by the watercolors, my canvas curdles and secedes the state of mind-
Pressing harder- the curtain continues to close as I chase the condescending daylight-
Pressing softer- the tuner in my temple turns into a terrorizing shriek from my tibia-
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 3:41 PM UTC
White shoelaces tied carefully,
clothes ironed straight,
not a strand of hair in his face,
private school and Christian home.
His momma packed him PB&J.;
She said, "Son, don't hang with the wrong kind of kids,
the ones sitting in the back of the classroom
who wear words on their necks and
black every Sunday."
And she puts a napkin in his lunchbox and reminds him
to wash his hands.
And she prays for him to find cleanliness,
and she checks the internet history every day
while he finishes homework and practices piano.
She tells him, "Son, don't let those celebrities
with their drugs and their ***** words
influence you."
And she emphasizes "man shall not lie with man"
and not "God loves all His children"
and tells him not to let any mud get on his new socks.
He sits on the couch and
he sits in the audience and
he's told what isn't okay.
He is raised following predjudices he doesn't agree to,
stereotypes engraved deep in his brain to the core.
He was never taught any different,
he was never educated on differences.
He knows a million shades of white but God forbid he touch a blade of glass.
He was taught to keep his window locked,
head down,
eyes shut,
mouth closed,
hands folded,
back straight,
shoelaces tied.
Momma says, "Son, better keep yourself clean,"
but she touches him with ***** hands
and ties a rope
he never wanted
around his neck.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 8:34 PM UTC
I have imagined this moment over and over again and now it's finally happening and I can't quite tell which direction is up or down or backwards but I guess they're all directions so it really doesn't matter as long as I'm going somewhere. I've been watching my shoelaces as I've been walking and they seem to tighten with every step as though even they know you'll have me floating right out of them. My palms have already begun to sweat and the puddles they've created in my pockets are just deep enough to drown in. I look up for a second to see the air in front of me holding a string. A grin spreads across its face as it suddenly begins to pull and my breath is stolen from my lungs. I reach out to grab it but it has already disappeared and suddenly I realize I can't breathe without you here. I close my eyes and stumble, not wanting to go any further, not wanting to face the reality of a situation that doesn't involve sleeping beside you. But then I realize, that was something we never did. I have been falling asleep beside myself for years, I have been waking up with regret and a heart broken into more pieces then the number of tiles on the bathroom floor. I have been sleeping with my head on my own chest and praying that someday you'd fill the empty space between not being able to fall asleep and never wanting to be awake.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 2:40 PM UTC
'1. List of things that I can no longer be:
A Viking
A Sorceror
True
2. List of things that no longer taste as good:
Angel delight
Dip dab
You
3. List of things I still might do:
Stay
Leave
Get a tattoo
4. List of things I no longer build:
Rockets
Carts
Bridges
5. List of things I will no longer do:
Marry
Light fires
Tie shoelaces
6. List of things I will always know:
The scent of your sleeping
The lengths of our bodies
You and I, touching
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 11:50 AM UTC
This week, Jesse Herndon has more on her plate than the typical high school student.
She has spent hours after school each day making calls, finalizing details for an event happening Sunday.
Collecting donated items for an upcoming silent auction. Calling every bakery in Greensboro.
“It’s very stressful,” said Herndon, a junior at Weaver Academy.
But it’s all for a good cause.
She’s organizing an event with free pastries, live music, a fashion show and a silent auction, which will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday night at The Blind Tiger, 1819 Spring Garden Street in Greensboro.
Admission is $4 with the donation of clothing of any size. The goal is to collect clothes that would comply with Standard Mode of Dress, or SMOD, the uniforms required at some local schools.
The fashion show will feature clothes from Plato’s Closet, Mack and Mack, and Patina Bridal and Formals.
The silent auction would include items such as Weaver Academy student artwork and a gift bag full of beauty products valued at about $200. Herdon is still seeking donations of items to auction.
The event will benefit Backpack Beginnings, a local organization that provides food and clothing for thousands of local needy children.
All 127 Guilford schools have a dress code, but a few dozen require students to wear uniforms.
Some parents have complained about the cost of buying the uniforms. They’ve also complained that the uniform dress codes vary from school to school, requiring additional clothes purchases if a child changes schools.
Parents and some students also described dress code violations for wearing a jacket with a hood, a logo deemed too large or the wrong color shoelaces.
“SMOD is really expensive,” Herdon said. She knows because her sisters have attended SMOD schools.
In January, the Guilford County Board of Education unanimously approved changes to its policy on SMOD. Principals of current SMOD schools have until June to survey parents on whether to continue requiring students to wear uniforms in the 2015-16 school year.
Now, school administrators at traditional schools also have to get public input before requiring uniforms. Ever two years, traditional schools with SMOD have to reconsider requiring uniforms and demonstrate public support for the policy.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 10:42 PM UTC
When I was younger,
I ran barefoot,
Innocent and happy.
As I got older,
I began wearing shoes,
Because that was 'cool'
They hurt my feet,
And killed my innocence.
They drew me to the edge of a cliff
And as I walked along it's edge,
I tripped over
A stupid shoelace,
And now I am falling,
Dreading hitting the ground,
All so I could be 'cool'
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 7:28 PM UTC
I don’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday
I walked out my door forgetting why as I locked it,
my shoelaces didn’t tie themselves today like they usually do.
Also, I called my friend “Mommy.”
But after certain ungodly hours spent between pages:
I can spell the names of all those ancient Greek poets
and recite the tragic tale of Dido, the Carthagian queen.
If asked, I might outline the life cycle of a fern and
tell those (few) who want to listen exactly how
cells communicate-cascading signals down in a waterfall.
I know the ratio in which certain atoms combine,
in a dance of mutual benefit and energy.
Yet my keys, sitting right there, in front of me,
on the desk where they landed five minutes ago,
play a hiding game as elusive as that thought
which forgotten, tugs at my mind, trying to tell me
its name, trying to tell me the terrible truth that
I didn’t brush my teeth this morning.
Memorizing makes an absent mind.
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 12:36 PM UTC
This pounding in my chest
It hurts my love
It hurts so much
Because my mind well it's decaying
And what used to help has stopped
Everything has stopped
So I need you
I need you to do me a favor
Take my heart
And unravel the veins
Like you're untying your shoelaces
Then kiss me tenderly
Let me close my eyes
And weave flowers in my hair
(daisies if you can)
And tip the mortician so she does a good job on me
Then when my body turns cold
And my lips are sealed with glue
Just know in my final moments
I was thinking of you
So wipe away your tears and get rid of that frown
Cause baby I'll be happiest when I'm in the ground
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 5:01 PM UTC
the best version of myself exists in clearance-nike-outlet-wear
pulling up hair made blonde by the sunshine
bending over tanned and strong legs
tying shoelaces
and laughing musical notes
willingly escaping genuine smiles
my tummy is strong then, but with soft edges
i'm proud because it's held my body together all these years
i'm proud because it will carry a mini human
someday
inside my head there are coloring books
sprawled across a playroom factory
and all the gears are turning and i'm functioning
i'm breathing
my heart is beating
and i'm not scared of eating girl scout cookies when i'm with my girls in clearance-nike-outlet-wear
i'm not scared to let laughs float to the surface
or hiccups
i'm not scared of anything at all
we're real together
and we have freckly runner legs
that love splashing in the puddles our tears make
we're not always gonna be together
we are always gonna be real
together
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 1:30 PM UTC
On some days, the sky is greyier as if it is shaded in by a 6B pencil.
Black as charcoal with a very shaky weak wrist.
Everything that passes through chapped & soured bitten-back lips tastes like weak tea.
(I think sugar cubes were all eaten.)
Oh, your head hurts, aches, like bad bruises from hitting the sharp edge of the table.
Cotton bandages and one light kiss above the left eyebrow helps.
And your chest is too tight, the kind of feeling from shoelaces knotted hard against your ankles.
Use safety scissors.
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 12:37 AM UTC
*it is true
when we give our blood too much
we aid in disempowerment*
1.
constant giving in love and providing can set unhealthy-precedent
and when it falters in its expected-rhythm
ugly-tantrums get thrown, bordering on disrespect
2.
demands kick in hard upon trod-floor of insidious-hooks
there's always a rider for the other party on tightrope-theatre
some or other condition to feed the monster of excitement
while health straddles some jarring regions
in hostile-spitting strong enough to lance startling-injury
shoelaces dripped in hazard-oil over a generational-canyon
provides unwanted-fodder for establishing long-term slippage
**(no! you weren't raised this way.. where does this stem from?)
there has been no failure to show how humans act and speak
this is unacceptable)**
oh............you want / you want / you want..... all.. the.. time
then kick up unholy-storms when there's a break in rhyme
*get ye, lad.. go practise your ire on a field
go throw a stick on the prairie
go find your path, you're old enough
yer insolence plain *****
(I could tell you .. you're rude.. go home,
but you already are!)
S T - 10 dec 13
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC