"shovels" poems
Yellow is
a high-minded mood
the extravagance of sunlight
to be touched--
before long
by colors of play
____________
It is of hair
tendering golden sun
brown pennies for lemonade
____________
Yellow is
bumping into the screaming end
of a lit
cigarette
_____________
Yellow is
dripping from the eaves
onto an empty soup can
_____________
It is
spindling sparrow song
from highest perch on roof
his pitch can aspire
_____________
Yellow is
in rattled doorknob
an infant's sweet
voice wanting – in
Reciting menu
above mattress
edges into sleep
two dark eyes
plead
for yellow
waking
Mother into morning--
“juice.... eggs”
Yellow ____
is
opening a car door
at the shore's
unmistakable!
Smells of life
warmth and breeze
touching strings
those kites
of sense
harmonics
above the tone
octaves of excitement
to see to hear to touch to taste
to know
again –
the ocean of my mother
as she calms the waves,
ignores the pouts of us
with stuff to lug out to the beach
the towels, pails and shovels
Picnic basket, cooler
lotion, comic books, her magazines
Mom looks out
She is a good swimmer
Her glasses, dark
Preside
reflecting beauty –
“Take your sister's hand.”
Yellow are the squeals
Feet thrashing sand
of cannot wait
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 10:06 PM UTC
hip-hop
split my mind open,
hear me flip-flop
happily irritated
watching your
constipated
face break
heavy tears
you shake
you ache
so take
a break
and take
a breath
digging holes
taking pills
sliding down
murderin'
fillin' hills
the chills
my thrills
no bills
countin' kills
ten fingers
smell lingers
hell bringers
not singers
give me that...
bring me there...
–
shovels
the troubles
my doubles
be bubbles
black moths
white veins
no money
hopping trains
you blame
the rain
for pain
insane
to think
a drink
of water
taught her
brought her
to the edge
nothing left
to take
so...
give me that...
underground....
hip-hop
split my mind open,
hear me flip-flop
happily irritated
watching your
constipated
face break
heavy tears
you shake
you ache
so take
a breath
ahhhhhhh
give me that...
bring me there...
we're going underground
–
your games
my flames
the names
we tame
the light
breaks night
we slide
we hide
in
the
dark
so take
a breath
Underground...
hip-hop
split my mind open,
hear me flip-flop
happily irritated
watching your
constipated
face break
heavy tears
you shake
you ache
so take
take me
bake me
shake the dirt
from my bones
love's
no longer
got me
in a
choke hold
feeling bold
stories told
so grab
a hold
as we unfold
underground
no longer bound
by fear
my dear
the present is clear
growing and sprouting
underground
–
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 1:43 AM UTC
*i'm not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!*i'm not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!'m not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!*i'm not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!*i'm not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!'m not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!'m not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!*i'm not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!'m not moralising, i see the toilet as the throne for the trinity of my excavations, like a coal-miner, i have my **** (the helmet and light bulb), i have my urinary duct (my chisel)... and i have my testicular duct (my shovel)... well... can't miss out on all the fun you peeps are having and not join in.*
verboclasm is real,
in england it's basically
f@!& etc., and in america
it's ****** (n@!&#£
if you prefer political
sensitivity and a blanket
and a ***** and a nanny);
unlike germ- -any (+)-
where they love to **** on each
other in the shadow
of the crucifix procreating for films,
while in england they're
into children;
owning a use of a word,
venerating its usage:
where's the Schengen vocabulary?
i want to be there -
free flow of words like spotting
a kestrel in my garden one time,
while the traffic shovels hours
into comparison with sea waves
and a traffic-jam becomes a static tsunami
for the eyes.
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 11:17 AM UTC
For some reason honey
I'm reminded of a song
A song I hummed
as with my mouth I slid down your thong
Something about the weather outside
guided my mouth in between your luscious thighs
and though the snow shovels and returns just as quick
That song won't leave my head
as I gently nibble and **** on your ****
We won't be able to go anywhere
nowhere at all
that was evident to me
as I thrusted as deep as my *****
But since we're trapped indoors
I'll kiss on your neck as we make love like ******
our burning flesh could melt the cruel snow and ice
let it snow let it snow... now that'll be in my head all night ;)
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 2:39 PM UTC
Enter the dragon with death and disruption
Pride and tradition cataclysmically thrown,
Magnificent structures reduced to rubble
Distraught people bereft of their homes.
Chasms of heartache with bodies of babies
Strewn with the bricks in vast disarray,
Dust in the air and the howl of the sirens
Shouting police on a horror filled day.
Christchurch is bleeding, her confidence shattered
Our keynote cathedral is lying in shards,
Vacant eyed people are clinging to strangers
Jagged black holes in suburban back yards.
Christchurch is bleeding, our torn, gracious City
The nation arises in hurt and alarm,
To face the challenge with strength and resources,
To nurture our sister with healing and balm.
Sympathy shown by the myriad faces
Racing to help from all parts of the globe,
Expertise offered with money and labour
Students with shovels and priests of the robe.
Sadness and torment for kin of the missing
Frustrated rescuers work till relieved,
Moments of triumph with lost resurrected,
Agony felt when the dead are retrieved.
Led by the strength of the Mayor of the City
Courageous citizens help where they can,
Moments of bravery, moments of agony
Inspirational feats of elan.
Poignancy shown by the sad Maori Warden
Guiding the aged through the strewn broken glass,
Aiding the ambulance crews in their labour
Proud to be Kiwi as folk show their class.
Christchurch WILL arise from the death and destruction
Once again people will overcome grief,
Pride and resilience will triumph with the passing
And time will repair with deserved relief.
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
AUCKLAND
25 February 2011
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 8:26 AM UTC
Press your ear close.
Sometimes you can hear the breath
rattling in my chest like a bone shrugged
its moorings and ought to be tied back down.
It’s the sound of a canyon
trying to expel a marsh:
hear the stones tumble down,
clatter and splash,
the stiff reeds scouring the walls.
Stuck bristles. Sticks.
The marsh is dauntless.
It can’t be pushed out through
the canyon’s narrow mouth.
It’s the sound of a cave-in.
Press your ear close and
listen to picks and shovels
plinking on the rock.
Soon the oxygen gives out
and all the miners go to sleep,
or they punch a hole through
to the sky and breathe,
mouths pressed to the breach,
gasping a little at a time.
It’s the sound of a brier patch
growing in your lungs.
It’s the sound of a brier patch
set on fire.
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 10:26 PM UTC
BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day's work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams-
and sometimes they doze and don't care for nothin',
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories, stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman's lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
3.6k
Dear Mr. Heaney
I wish I'd read your poetry
years ago when I was still impressionable and coy and all that jazz.
Now it resounds in my skull, leaving a tingle in my right hand.
My pen is somewhat snug, but a revolver, no.
Ink and shovels aren't far from each other,
so your point is well-taken. In fact, they're co-workers –
Ink's proved itself just as deadly. It slowly ushers men into the earth,
their soil-seat, while the shovel stages the unending play;
the eternal lattice.
The Nobel hung above your head,
the vast array of pins, medals, papers with your name in billowing scarlet.
What a treat. Like the last cupcake in the back of
the refrigerator that had too much chocolate icing and was only
semi-covered in multi-colored snowflakes. I'd loved to have
personally presented it to you. There'd be my own plaque,
billowing scarlet and all. It'd say, "Mr. Heaney,
, you must own a ***** I hope you'd laugh, and not be offended,
thinking me a distasteful and insensitive lout. It may not be right,
but I can't help but steal the volumes surrounding yours out of
every **** library so
"Seamus Heaney"
may catch the eye of the common passerby
more easily. I think I even went to work on
enhancing a spine with a red sharpie once.
Red hits the eye hard.
That was in the central library downtown.
Don't tell anyone.
Beyond a laugh, what I hope for most is that you get this letter.
Just look at it.
Wonder why someone so far removed in age and culture and place
would ever think of you holding an over-frosted desert as glorious.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 7:50 PM UTC
Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.
Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.
I ask you
To witness--
The shovel is brother to the gun.
3.1k
going outside nowadays is just a game of
who can hold their breath the longest and of
looking for reasons to pass the time in your
own backyard but the gardens i see are only for
the literary muses haunting writers into submission
and for digging up holes with plastic shovels and
for wishing that i could pick up the daisies
and place them in your hair
i was in the middle of drawing a circle when
my arm quivered and now the line shoots
way past the paper and it's currently
undulating over my desk and zooming past
a caterpillar that's contemplating whether the
process of becoming beautiful would actually
make him beautiful when he already knows
that he is beautiful
i hope the god i pray to forgives me for
making all the lines i write be about you
May 3, 2021
May 3, 2021 at 1:20 PM UTC
Seldom doth man stop and stare
At the caste iron manhole cover there,
Seldom doth he analyze
The majesty, which beneath it lies.
The pipe work systems vast and long
Dark catacombs so precise and strong,
Buried deep beneath our feet
Extending forth from street to street,
Out across the breadth of town
Those secret fluids trickle down.
Laser levels carve the pathway
Through the walls of solid stone,
Shovels scrape and dig with effort
Forging hard trajectories home.
Digging, digging metal mountains
Sweat cascades upon the brow,
We lay the pipes in straight formation
Precision's satisfaction now.
An Artisan's great work is hidden
Lost beneath the earth's grey stone,
Appreciation camouflaged in that,
The cast iron manhole stands alone.
Magnificence unrealized
For deep beneath your feet,
A subterranean Michelangelo's
Sisteen Chapel, lays discreet.
Unsuspected rivers
Flowing darkly to the sea
In caverns of unwanted waste
Quite unbeknown to thee.
Vaulting brickwork chambers
Which are ancient works of art,
Carry oceans of excretement
Far from where their journey's start.
With thunder's crash and lightning flash
And torrents of cold rain,
The road's awash and gutters flow
Through roadside grates to drain.
Gushing torrents cascade down
In waves of flowing might
To the storm water system
Which promptly swallows it from sight.
Magic, you say ?
Nay, nay I say unto you
That the drain layers artistry
Is unappreciated, that's true !
That the Herculean effort wrought
In winning his great fights
Is largely lost to all and sundry
Who avoid construction sites.
They miss the planning and the layout
And meticulousness too
And the rubber seals which stop the leaks
Which really bother you.
The massive holes and danger
Of being buried in collapse
And the wondrous satisfaction
Of achieving downhill flows... Perhaps!
Marshalg
Apprentice drain layer
MHX Beachcroft site and Eastport
19 September 2009
Jan 22, 2010
Jan 22, 2010 at 3:08 PM UTC
The cretens slipping through the trees
Nooses wound tight for the hangmans head
The angels weep n **** their guns
Fire charring the vocal strings of the innocent
Comparing battle scars to shooting stars
Its all in desperate wishing
Desire for their fallen deeds
Dragging steel shovels at their heels
Claiming bragging rights for dead dreams
Slow destruction of the spider webs
A delicately demolished reality
Those trapped at hells gates are singing sinfully.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 9:30 PM UTC
i always wanted to be
that girl
too brilliant to resist
too pretty to dis
that girl that stops traffic
walking down the street
that's the pretty girl, i wanted to be
and today i'm sure, that girl is me
but turns out
it ain't all it's cracked up to be
cause i've learned about her life
all her pain
all the abuse
how she'll never be a wife
how you smile to her face
while you stab her in the back
twisting as you push in the knife
i've watched her drag herself
across the coals for your love
beg for peace, like soaring doves
cry for relief as she crawls down the street
after your threw her out
like an out of date piece of meat
collectively flooding her world
all those tears that she's cried
all the disappointment that she's felt, for even having tried
i've watched her fade away
like that soul of hers that died
the day you showed her you'd never love her
for anything more, like her heart and mind
so she jumped from man to man
searching for the plug
to stop up that hole you dug
with rusty shovels and all your poisonous words
words so sharp they cut instantly deep
infecting her with your thoughts and beliefs
just so those physical benefits you'd reap
so you twist her thoughts of love and her worth
and deceive her and make her feel less than dirt
like the ground you walk on
cause you walked all over her
and your name's all over those scars she incurred
you wanna hold her close and tight
but only when it suits you right?
then pretend that you don't know her
this girl, she's been broken
by the thing she thought she wanted
she just wanted to be a pretty face
that anyone would notice
but a pretty face doesn't get you respect
it just got her used
he drew her in, and she loved him
so she let herself be abused
like a cloud covering the sky
she'd fake it just to get by
and she might just never try
again, to look her best
cause those days weren't her fondest
when you could treat her such a way
like the disposable pretty face of a women
that won't stand for it another day
so now when people to her say
"..you're such a pretty face.."
she can tell them all this story
and how unpretty it really is in this place
Dec 7, 2010
Dec 7, 2010 at 8:49 PM UTC
Out of all the words in the human languages, almost is the cruelest.
I almost loved you.
I almost won.
I was almost there.
I was almost *****
When he snuck into the room like a wolf stalking its prey, my stomach didn’t almost tie in knots.
It became a sailor’s masterpiece.
When he laid beside me as quiet as a stone, I wasn’t almost shaking.
I was a leaf on the San Andreas Fault.
When his long, spidery fingers began trailing down my back, it didn’t almost feel like razors.
He cut so deep the skin began to peel back and expose every
insecurity that I’ve hidden away between my vertebrae.
His fingers didn’t almost dig into my arm,
they became shovels that dug a hole big enough for a casket.
Bruises didn’t almost blossom across my skin,
I was a primrose bush in full bloom and he was the gardener.
When he coerced himself between my thighs, I didn’t almost scream.
Years of ancestral abuse surged through my lungs and out my lips
into a battle cry.
When he tried to force his hand inside of me I didn’t almost feel spoiled.
I was a fruit rotting from the inside out, something that no one
would ever want.
And when my screams finally drove him off of me, I wasn’t almost okay.
I was paralyzed with fear and disgust and shame.
Everything I’ve ever believed in slapped me in the face as I told myself:
This is what I get for liking ***
I shouldn’t be so easy.
I was asking for it.
It was my fault.
I felt like a butterfly, beautiful but ruined by a man’s touch.
Never to fly again.
But the truth is, a butterfly sheds scales throughout its lifetime,
regenerating its wings.
So when a man reaches for your wings in attempts to rip them off
remember that you are not what he thinks you are.
Remember that it is never your fault.
Not even almost.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
planted in a garden,
with roots tangled.
we share water
while we grow,
and curl our tendrils up together.
when the shovels come,
after birds and bees and sun,
they'll pry us from our ground
inseparably brittle.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 9:19 PM UTC
this is an alphabet of all the people
who have dug holes in me,
and of all the people
who are still digging.
this is a gardening guide
for would-be lovers and pretty faces
who do not even realize
that they are carrying shovels.
this is a weather forecast written
from past experience,
a reminder that winter
is not kind on crops,
no matter how firmly you pack the dirt.
this is me,
reflecting on seeds planted.
this is me,
reflecting on seeds left to die.
A,
i suppose it is fitting that the first letter
is also the first person to show me what it is like
to have seedlings sprouting up from inside you,
the first person to show me just how deep you really have to dig
to make the sting last.
you never came back to water what you planted.
H,
i’d like to say to that i ripped out your roots with my own two hands;
i’d like to give myself some credit in all this.
you don’t look as lovely as you used to.
you say i’ve grown distant.
i’m sorry.
J,
you always feel like being on the verge of something big.
you feel like summer, like a deep purple,
a bath of darkness.
you are everywhere that plants do not grow well.
and i have always felt — and still do feel —
that that is such a grave injustice.
still, though you cannot speak the word “devotion,”
i beckon for more seeds.
P,
my greatest heartbreak.
heartbreak, though, is but a flesh wound when seen from afar.
and so i thank god for the miles between us.
i can feign forgetfulness when you are far away.
after all, what is a shovel in your hands if those hands cannot reach me?
S,
you are but a bud waiting to bloom.
and yet again i find myself so very afraid of growth.
(a.m.)
May 24, 2016
May 24, 2016 at 7:24 PM UTC
We are born not of flesh
carved from the visage of mother and father,
We are born of nebulae,
of a symphony in the snow and
the seeking of knowledge we never acquire.
We are birthed for
good.
We are grown in
evil.
Our lives nothing more
than the squealing of wheels
as they spin in our
sempiternal filth,
a footprint in the dust since God said
"Let there be fear and malice".
Faces of dead, liquored men,
shovels in our piracy
digging for hidden treasure in the graveyard.
So we crawl in the holes and
cover each other up.
Insulting the demons who pull us through,
blessing them
with good tidings.
We go at our passing, to face the Devil.
God as our jury,
your hamartia plays witness.
I am driven only by my fantasy of tomorrow.
What a way to live.
What a way to die.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
I want to hold you in my arms but I can't.
though I can feel the ache in my teres' as I hold them out,
hoping you'll change your mind and bury yourself in them.
hoping you'll find comfort with your face in my neck again,
kissing me relentlessly and telling me you love me,
telling me you love me from your soul to mine.
but we laugh and cover it up,
cover up the fears that we may be more than what we would prefer,
that there's more beneath our hearts,
more that wants to reach out and touch the cold, graveyards in us.
each headstone an emotion we left behind with the memories in the caskets below.
we want to take shovels and cover them in 6 feet of dirt.
we want to tear our nails trying to open each casket and say the headstones' names to each of them.
and we want to caress and heal each individual wound and scar the other carries,
we want to kiss them and watch them fold into new skin.
we want the power to protect each sunrise and sunset the other may behold some day.
we want to reach into the ocean of the others presence and pull up all the treasures below.
we want to show the other the beauty of their depths,
the trenches with new discoveries of the corals we may hold deep down
and the tropical beaches where our shells shine.
we want to uncover each other from each other.
but truly,
I just want your arms with mine, in that romantic way you said we had to give up.
I want the heart you have.
I wish I was good enough for that heart,
I wonder what I'm missing.
I will always wonder if I'm good enough.
why you can't make that decision?
I know it's from her,
but why can't I surpass that?
what do I lack?
which shell isn't bright enough?
which scar is too ugly?
which wound hurts too much?
which casket is too *****
which headstone is too large?
is my graveyard too vast?
which cavern is too deep?
which trench is drowning you?
which sunrise isn't beautiful enough?
which sunset is too dark?
which star isn't in your constellation?
is my sun too hot?
is the moon too low?
which galaxy is too far?
what could I have done?
can I?
am I good enough to fix anything for you?
Jul 11, 2023
Jul 11, 2023 at 2:05 AM UTC
oh dear one
lost across the sea
so unknown to me,
how fair thy little mind
thinketh and playeth thy harp!
no man shall raise a hand to thee!
least ye scorn him,
banishing him
and his brazen knuckles
to the brazen edge of
the whole brazen universe.
shy be he not!
lameth shall he be forever.
but two shovels should be found
and used for to dig unto the ground,
a new grave: doubly wide and doubly deep
for two of the fairest of them all:
the maidens lost to the wilderness,
left to her own devices and thus
self-deprecating her selves
into planetary alignment
with that new planet they just found
that's like 1,000 times bigger than Saturn
and with millions of icy rings.
forever cold shall she be!
forever unknown to me!
bear witness to thy handiwork:
my shoulders, lips, and toenails are all mine;
for a moment they were thine
and in breaking my peace
i thus aireth my whine.
and i'm fine. really, i'm fine.
taketh no liberties with me!
giveth no light,
shareth no warmth!
beseech me no inquiries!
for i have not an answer that makes sense,
nor a limb that works perfectly,
and not a day goes by
that i don't ponder you.
yet
the
moon
pondereth
the
sun
forever
and
ever
and
ever
but
never
the
two
shall
meet.
wandereth, fair maiden,
and i shall wander, too.
but should you face about
my eyes will surely see you.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 8:21 PM UTC
ARMOUR AVENUE was the name of this street and door signs on empty houses read "The Silver Dollar," "Swede Annie" and the Christian names of madams such as "Myrtle" and "Jenny."
Scrap iron, rags and bottles fill the front rooms hither and yon and signs in Yiddish say Abe Kaplan & Co. are running junk shops in ***** houses of former times.
The segregated district, the Tenderloin, is here no more; the red-lights are gone; the ring of shovels handling scrap iron replaces the banging of pianos and the bawling songs of pimps.Chicago, 1915.
1.9k
Is there a poem in a sidewalk?
Paths of cratered concrete, cracked
By morning frost and midnight freeze,
Wimpy weeds grow through the fissures.
Children fall and skin their knees.
Is there a poem in a sidewalk?
Canvas for a budding Rembrandt,
Using colored chalk as paint,
Drawing flow’rs, and stick-man family,
Curbing not her young restraint.
Is there a poem in a sidewalk?
Adults dare not let loose the leash,
As they exercise their dogs, and ease their own stress,
Must carry bags and tiny shovels,
To clear the concrete of the mess.
Is there a poem in a sidewalk?
Scooters, skateboards, wagons, bikes,
Off the path, then on again
While yielding the right-of-way
To lovers walking hand in hand.
Is there a poem in a sidewalk?
Collecting children at the corner,
A guard, with yellow vest and sign,
Moses parts the sea of traffic,
Cautiously keeps kids in line.
Through front yards, across drive-ways,
Toward bus stops, stores and schools,
Gathering mown grass, autumn leaves, and winter snow.
There are poems in small town sidewalks,
Imagination on the go.
Phil Lindsey 1/11/17
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
segregated churches
segregated souls
segregated fires
segregated coals
segregated freedom
segregated dreams
segregated whispers
segregated screams
segregated neighbors
segregated homes
segregated doorways
segregated zones
segregated people
segregated minds
segregated signals
segregated signs
segregated graveyards
segregated souls
segregated shovels
dig segregated holes
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 8:10 AM UTC
ON Forty First Street
near Eighth Avenue
a frame house wobbles.
If houses went on crutches
this house would be
one of the cripples.
A sign on the house:
Church of the Living God
And Rescue Home for Orphan Children.
From a Greek coffee house
Across the street
A cabalistic jargon
Jabbers back.
And men at tables
Spill Peloponnesian syllables
And speak of shovels for street work.
And the new embankments of the Erie Railroad
At Painted Post, Horse's Head, Salamanca.
1.9k