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Martin Narrod Feb 2014
The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten
Nat Lipstadt May 2013
I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day, too bad your schedule
is fully booked, but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees, for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put, not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand, my resume is absent of
razors and pills, poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths, here are my sums

If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones, my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command, by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...


If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself, parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011
hard to believe this poem will be 8 years old, soon enough; I well recall writing it and will return to the sunroom soon for inspiration and an afternoon nap.
Aodhán Corr Jan 2014
What’s your poison, Judas?
Manhattan! I find myself now an integral component of the strangest coalition of strangers anyone could possibly imagine, from all different countries and backgrounds and walks of life, now wandering about, underneath and in and out of the streets and back alleys of this city of sin, from the fish markets to the brothels--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Irish Coffee! Never before has there been a better time to wake up, fling open the shutters of the musty, ancient houses on Main Street and smell the gorgeous plainness of the morning breeze in spring laced with simple undertones of violets and honey and dew all contained in a material essence of the awe-inspiring wonder of this perfect, elegant world--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Sidecar! Here I am riding with the king of kings to the great stone castle atop the hill with the peach trees and the plum trees and the juniper bushes out back that holds luxurious ***** in the luxurious ballroom every Saturday evening where all the loveliest of girls come to drink and dance and to rendezvous to the frozen pond on the edge of the property--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Old Fashioned! Those smug supercilious charlatans way down by the river at the old boys’ club with their tailored suits and their waxed mustaches all get mighty offended every time some young gun with an hopeful persuasion tries to stir the ***, tries to just start a ripple, dips his raw, gentle hand in the bowl for a measly ******* second--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Planter’s Punch! You’d think that we were common thieves by the way that we’ve been received lately, brutally being beaten like insolent slaves, earning scars on my back and my hands as punishment for speaking my mind, and sharing the wisdom I’ve been given while I toil in this unrelenting desert sun, hungry, poor and fatigued--

What’s your poison, Judas?
French 75! Tormented by the cruel pangs of doubt in the face of adversity, I wish day in and day out that I could keep the faith in this enterprise I had when we first began, but the suffering has become simply too miserable to bear any longer and I now feel a tremor in my bone marrow that urges me towards the rebellion on the horizon like a yellow-bellied turncoat--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Whiskey Sour! The air may be cold, and the winds may whip with biting fervor, but with every breath I desperately drag into my heavy, tar-coated lungs to cleanse myself with icy purity this bitter taste still refuses to surrender or concede, and my villainous mouth remains a moist, infectious cesspool harboring the basest of vicious, vile vermin and crawling roaches--

What’s your poison, Judas?
****** Mary! You could scrub the callous palm clean off of my left hand with a hideous clump of rusty, jagged steel wool and wash the wound through and through with vinegar and Borax and this cursed, godforsaken spot on my conscience and on my very soul wouldn’t fade a half of an inch, only sink itself deeper in the flesh and shoot out its brutal clawlike hooks--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Jack Rose! The sorry ******* ******* was doomed, ******, destined for the doghouse from his first innocent and infantile breath, but after thirty good years I had to be the unlucky one the powers chose to fulfill the predictions of the powers' sons, I had to put the leaded bullet in his bleeding back, I had to pull the devilish trigger, and testify--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Last Word! Is there nothing you can do to please just take it far away from me, where I can’t see it, where I can’t even imagine it, where it might as well not even exist, where someone who needs it can have it, where that someone is anybody with a lick of morality, anybody but a back-stabbing, treasonous, perverted, weaseling, ****-of-the-earth Benedict--

What’s your poison, Judas?
Wine with gall.
Aidan Corr Olsen (c) 2014
betterdays Nov 2014
S Creeker

Just have to say
read your poems
and it was a wild ride.
from the hunter
onwards,
you laid down your words
in a pattern,
i read as truth...

at the moment,
your book here is small,
but i hope you stay....
and create a sheaf
of poetry so freakin tall.

you take me...
where i have never been,
or likely to go
and with style
and flair.....
i see it all.....
i be a ******, standing, gaping in the corner there.

so please,
take these words,
as  a compliment due...
and encouragement,
to let me again
ride pillion
on your mind's wild side.
as part of the dear blank challenge....
founs this new to here writer
great panache and style
give them a look-see
Anna Skinner May 2015
The world looks much better
from behind your eyes,
and I would love to view it
in that same light, myself,
but all those little lights
have their own dark corners
from my perspective,
so I'll follow you instead,
out of the dark and into the light,
a passenger in your love of the world.
I would have this girl, she would have a black bmx. We would ride chest to back, my hand prints burning on her shoulders. As she wore her brown raybans, she would call out to the cars nearby, she would howl like the mutt dog, and race after tailpipes. I would love her slender hips as they twisted over the seat and her legs tinted by the sun as she pulled tricks no two-bit dollar ***** had never seen, just to catch some sun. It looked like she was thirsty for the heat, and she was packing it, whooo-whee, she was packing it. And I loved her from her helmet head to her scuffed cons, from where she had put the brakes on, just to turn around and kiss me in the rush hour.

Anything to have you near, girl, I would tie streamers to my wrist to make it look like we were flying as we rode past the world. I would stand back and hold my arms high, wearing my scruff deep headphones, and a tie to clip her heart to. She wore her grandfathers cap, on her days off the ramp. It was too cliché to wear what the others wore, and she soon too became an article of clothing, many tried to copy and clone. We would lie on the grass, chipping beers bottles and picking daisies, that she would string around my wrist, promising to one day buy me a sidecar.

I tied a plastic rose around her handlebars, and left it for her to find in the morning. She woke me up with a kiss and a cracked mug of tea and told me we had some riding to do. I climbed on the back of her, and tied my arms around her charity shop tee, tight. We zipped between traffic and I told her ‘its a lipstick jungle out there’  and placed my nose behind her ear as she sought out new paths for us to sneak down. When the evening drew closer we found each others hands, and kissed parts of the skin that had arrived pink with the sun, and melted every so slightly into each others hips.

And then the wind came, it threw us off the park and past the roads. She left in the morning dressed for different days. She came home caked in mud and I washed her hair in the bath as she lay with her head in my lap. I told her tales of battles on ships, and stories of fighting, surrender and rising again in the new light of day. At nights we sat by candlelight and sipped ***** wearing lilies in our hair. We sat ink to ink, in bed and watched forgotten movies and laughed till we cried from the sham of it all. We understood each other, her pants hung low from the moment she moved to the time she stopped. Her, my girl, the one with hat and the black bmx; She was my street fighter in a pavement world.
A Thomas Hawkins Jul 2011
I remember paper lanterns with small red candles floating down the river
but I don't remember the festival or in who's honour they were lit.
I remember roadside shrines and little envelopes of money, not proper
money but a special kind who's name I don't remember either.
I remember the big pagoda but couldn't tell you where it was.
I remember so much about those years but there's so much I forgot.
I remember warm rain and warm puddles that we jumped in with flip flops on.
I remember the little guy on the motobike and sidecar that used to come
round selling soda and taking caps for prizes and the bubble stuff in a
tube.
I remember the paper pucks with feathers in that the local kids would
play with like hacky sacks.
I remember the smell on incense in the temples
I remember the markets. The sights, the smells, the sounds of so many
things never seen or heard or smelt before or since.
I remember Hong Kong
And I'm sure its changed since I was 5 but I want to go back and see
just how much.
Follow me on Twitter @athomashawkins
http://twitter.com/athomashawkins
life nomadic Dec 2012
.
warm breeze island street
stern squeezed man steers red scooter
sidecar girl texting
.
.
.
.
it was such an entertaining sight, wish I had a camera but this will have to do.
Only things missing in poem are two matching red helmets
betterdays Aug 2014
writing life on the upbeat
no mean feat
when riding pell mell
down to bowels of hell
on a harley fatboy
bought as look at me ploy
with a kooky sidecar
of sarcastic sidebar
talking of friends
my god  are
we are all just lemmings
to mediocracy in the end
found this.. must have written
it last night...vitrol aimed at self
fueled by red wine...
that why i normally drink
spirits or beer....
A sink of ***** dishes
Empty bottles on the floor
Fly strips black with corpses
And a broken down screen door

Glasses, full and empty
cigarettes drowned in stale beer
I look around, then I wonder
How the hell did I get here?

I'm Somewhere going nowhere
Or that's the way it seems
A place  you couldn't make up in your dreams
I'm somewhere going nowhere
At least that's how it seems
I'm in a place you couldn't make up in your dreams

Tobacco in the sunshine
Corn reaching for the sky
Vices grown of beauty
You couldn't write this if you tried

I'm hooked on beauty's evil
I live on the dark side
I've the devil in the sidecar
And this is how I ride

I'm Somewhere going nowhere
Or that's the way it seems
A place  you couldn't make up in your dreams
I'm somewhere going nowhere
At least that's how it seems
I'm in a place you couldn't make up in your dreams

I look into the future
And I just see the past
The tunnel now is narrow
The time just goes so fast

My yesterday's are many
Too many to be sure
Ten thousand pounds of ashes
Dropped and stamped into the floor

I'm Somewhere going nowhere
Or that's the way it seems
A place  you couldn't make up in your dreams
I'm somewhere going nowhere
At least that's how it seems
I'm in a place you couldn't make up in your dreams

I'm Somewhere going nowhere
but, hell it could be worse
I think nowhere going somewhere
could be worse
yeah, maybe
Nowhere going somewhere could be worse
sabrina Mar 2014
You
you bleed stars
I stare into your eyes
you are lonely
you want to leave
the forest.
you are dim
flying around in your sad sidecar
looking for a settling ground
I will hold your mask.
Spike Harper Mar 2016
Wavering.
Seems to be stuck in the sidecar.
With doubt in in back.  
And fear spilling out of every pocket.
Where can anything else fit.
It always seems like the only option is to floor it.
And hope.
The next experience isn't.
A wreckage.
Time seems to slow in this moment.
As if to give you one last replay.
Of what can never change.
Tumbling end.
Over beginning.
Through logic.
And past the last chance.
Lementing choices and decisions.
Hate flowing through burning veins.
Igniting the very air.
Causing a caustic reaction that seems to backdraft the entirety of it all.
Leaving only the ash to tell the tale.
And then there are those who see this very disturbance.
And find something within themselves never before used.
Touched.
Or seen.
And alter the very fabric of repetition.
With nothing more than a smile and.
Willingness.
Fear knot the emotions that entangle others.
For it only takes one to wade through the murky echoes of the past.
To ensure.
That The insanity will recede.
There are no shackles.
Only encumbering thoughts.
The only impass.
Is the very reflection staring back.
There is always a limit to just how many times one can get back up and brush off the past. It's up to us to decide what that number is.
Devin Oct 2017
I was chasing down the moon
Burning concave, sickle bow ahead

They thought you were cheese
They praised you
They feared you
They studied you
They tried to lasso you
They landed on you
They forgot you

And now I'm staring you down
Plain and laid in my sights
The deer to my lonesome, vague headlights

As I barrel into her labyrinth
I'm yielding onto her, and as I go
She eclipses the sky beneath her
And it's shrinking in my view

It's as so the distance
Barring us both,
Is fracturing with every inch of every mile
By time, we will collide in beautiful unison

The explosion wound send to fragments,
The line dividing
The candor of life
And the uncertain ether

Celestial dust and shrapnel
Will rain down a new gravity

Heaven involved itself;
Instead I am now driving with the moon
We team south as she occupies
The passenger side

She's my hitch hiker
Or if she were Bonnie
I'd have to be Clyde
We're gonna rob that big bank in the sky, baby

Weaving stories of home and the road
And love and loss and time and hope
And destinations and longings
And belongings and beginnings

And we disagree and we fear things
And we share dreams and we lose sleep
And we split gas and we drive fast
And we smoke grass and she laughs

But time passed
And she was due a few miles ahead
So she climbed to the back seat
To rest for a moment

And I drove on
With the familiarity she shone
She was quiet now
And so I kept to my thoughts and the road

I'd look back on occasion just to assure
She was still a pendant on the drapery of night
I glanced about enough to spot her
From the corner of my eye

And I sigh at the strike of reticence
But flood with saccharine
I remember her glow as a child
She was in a sidecar on every road trip

Again I turn to her,
But she made no appearance
Like a thief, she fled by window,
Not even a disturbance to the wind

I smiled for our ride together
And the protection she laid over me
It was finished now,
But everything always is

I caught the blemish in my rear view
As I moved on
She was a speckle behind me
And being swallowed by the hills and buildings

I couldn't know what anticipated in the remote
But I remember my old friend
As the slack between us
Became taut and expansive
Never can be
but always will be,
still we can only try.

buy a sidecar
ride a tramcar
slide your fingers in the jam jar
marmalade tastes great.

A Legal high?
legal to die?
sanctioned.

They sell poppers to boppers
and coppers come calling,
I'm nearly not quite though
falling through light
oh
it's shiny.

It's time we went
the rent's due
and I'm new
at this game.
JB Claywell Feb 2021
Sometimes I wish I had one thousand midnight hours all at once
or better yet,
a wristwatch full of the ticks and tocks of
all of the pre-dawn smallnesses for the next
decade or two.

These could be used to converse
with owls or coyotes,
foxes, hawks, ravens
or
river trout.

Our talks could be remembered
sweetly,
in the heat of a summer day
or
the dreariness of a wet, fall afternoon.

It is wished to not rely
on window sill,
moonlit memory,
mimeographed message
folded in half.  

No;
my boots would rather
chew earth,
pebble,
and
puddle,
seeking out strange nutrients.

Monday morning stanzas
are well and good,
yet
Saturday night
sonnets,
soliloquies;
those are the real
meat and potatoes
of a weekend
word ******.

Thursday night poems
are pretty ******
impressive too.

The Thunderbirds,
the phoenix of
the composition notebook.
Thursday poems and poets
ask for a sidecar of whiskey…
it shows up on the house.

Words and the working of them
should be fearless, eventually.

The best stories,
poems,
come from shadowed,
pained,
or
pining places
anyway.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2021
Donall Dempsey Nov 2019
BUT THAT’S...ANOTHER STORY!

Her mother died
giving birth

so from that day to
this

we considered her OURS
one of the family.

Ok, so...she was
a pig

but oh such
a pretty pig

and we kept her
in the caravan

reared her as one
of our own

almost considered her as
human.

Oh the squeals of
children &...pig.

Well, she grew & grew
until the day came for her

to be serviced.

Our maiden pig
a fine Welsh White gilt.

Now, being English
amongst the Welsh

I knew you needed
a license

to move a pig
from area to area

so, I presented my self
to our two man police force.

Well, of course
they had licenses

for the this of that
or the that of this

but alas
no license

for the moving of
a pig.

They had somehow
run out.

The licenses not the pigs.

So, they gave me
a license for a crane

& crossed out the bit
not pertaining to a pig.

I thought they might
ask me

how many wheels
on your pig or

what type of machinery
is your pig?

But when it was done
it was done

a kind of
Frankenstein form

half crane/half pig.

And I was free now
to move my pig

where so ever I wished.

And so I brought her
to the boar.

And then there was the time
there was a pig born

without an *******

( not an uncommon
occurrence they told me ).

And so I set off for the vets
on my motorcycle and sidecar

but
that’s

. . .another story.
The funny thing was she told the stories so nonchalantly as if they were the most ordinary thing going...as if everyone had a pig or two up their sleeve with or without an *******. And that sidecar with a pig in it. I told her she would have to write these stories out or I'd have to steal 'em. So I stole 'em! I couldn't leave stories like that on the shelf. She was Jan's school friend and they hadn't met for over 40 years and when they got together it was as if no time had passed and they chatted away like schoolgirls.

The sad thing was that both pigs died...one by the shock of being "serviced" in that *** came as a bit of shock and the other little pig from the attempt to give it an *******. When I imagine the little pig zooming around a corner in the sidecar I always see it wearing goggles. Don't think I have ever been told such a deadpan amazing story as this.
Jackie Mead May 2021
To ride a bike
To run wild and free
To play hopscotch and marbles outdoors in the sun
To laugh and run
To eat Jamaica *** and Raisin chocolate on a Saturday night
To wait up late to watch a man walk on the moon
To hide behind the settee when Dr Who comes on the T.V
To climb trees
To watch cricket played in the park
To roller skate
To swing as high as the cross bar
To grow your hair as long as your knees
To try and get it to curl with rags in your hair, desperately
To have your family motorbike and sidecar towed home by a taxi
To run on the sand
To watch the Royal Marines marching band
To swim in the sea
To walk on the moors
To be free to explore

And some people don't and that's okay.  These experiences are unique to me.  Allowed by my parents to play wild and free.  Free of the shackles, growing up with epilepsy.
Just remembering.
EP Robles Sep 2018
i birthed one of my famous dreams
   last night  and invited the
whole town.    every inconsiderate
  thought came   and the flat shadows
    of my dearest fears.
  the Child with no face on the sidewalk
outlines in broad strokes
     Despair.  a piece of dove of peace
  smothered in regrets on a wooden table
served on a terrace of blinding terror.
  only the smallest of facts carry
the greatest stories of which this one
is condemned to 3 o'clock each mourning.
       before heaven awakens.
       before sizzling strains
           of gravity prove awakened
               minds are too heavy.
as the rest of the town hides everywhere
   that sanity has escaped i press
hard into my eyes by thumbs to forget.
             manifested dreams is a sidecar
of my mental vehicle.  again at sunrise
    to find that one last star yet devoured
by daylight.  a wish upon that remaining
  survivor -- allow this to be me!

:: 09-10-2018 ::
What more to say.
Chris Slade Apr 2020
When the skylarks would warble hover and sing
at about a hundred feet, high on the wing, and we…
on a heat clicking Sunday between Salt End and the sea,
well we knew - just from the ozone, on the breeze
that we’d be off …a shimmering heat haze convoy of old crocks,
Bud, Margaret, Brian and me to Tunstall,
a diminishing, mystical land of sun, sand, sea - and tumbling rocks.

But it wasn’t just us…it was a cavalcade - motors galore.
Uncles,  Aunties, Cousins, Grans, Grandads and more
in Austins, Morris’s, Vauxhalls and Fords,
And a big old Rover wi’them wide running boards,
a motor bike’n’sidecar with Maurice, Denise & our Val
to wring the best from the day a’la Plage de Tunstall’…

The beach crackled in the heat…
if you walked too slow it’d burn your feet.
and our Dads, our ‘civil engineers’, built a brick oven and in a
giggling gaggle… Mums cooked a real Sunday dinner.
Kids’d run back & forth to the sea and back
buckets & spades, hacking big holes and shots in goal,
cricket with fallen rocks for a wicket and,
after pudding, burying drunken dads in the sand.

Heavy, wet woolen cozzies, sand in groins,
...changing in turn, under a soaking wet, gritty towel.

“Don’t dry me with that, Ow! Buddy hell - watch my sunburn.”
Then, all back in the cars, for our return
into the sunset and driving away.

Chaffing sore shoulders.

Chuffing good day! - yeah…Parfait!!
Memories of an East Yorkshire childhood. Let's hear it for Tunstall.
Goes up North
To see those
Who haven't seen
The change he's made

This people who annually
Lose sight of the new
And innovative bricks
He's laid

Riding sunset sidecar
Window blasting melodies
I can't tell if he likes it

He's keeping a facade
For he won't be seen
For another year
So fake a veneer
Just so life seems less
Of a cluster

If he leaves he'll leave
As a boy with the words of a "man"
Dark Dream May 2021
I wasn’t even the same
Not in shape or size
I was different
In color and my thighs

I wasn’t similar to her
And definitely not them
I was an anomaly
A flawed and broken gem

I wasn’t that important
Or essential to the game
I was just the sidecar
So why treat me the same?
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
My mind is a fireworks display
A single thought shoots out into the dark, infinite abyss, like a rocket against the night sky
Its presence ignites a phantasmagoria of colors and emotion that defy description and belief
A thief in the night alights upon my brow, he is the embodiment of how, who, what, where and why
Birthed from fireworks, he sparks another fire, building the pyre higher
A pied piper, taking aim like a ******
Firing at the page he creates another cypher
A rhyme so clever it takes years to decipher
After which flees back into the abyss
Formless night returns, a solemn song
But it doesn’t take long for a new show to start
The sky fills up with fiery art
Neurons crackling, cackling laughter from the afterlife
A thunderstorm destroying norms, ripping open conceptual forms
Stitching them back haphazardly, I look and see a radically different reality
From placid and serene to wildly careening
And everything in between at this private screening
All I know is it starts a flow that goes and goes from head to toe for eternity
No time for modernity I blast into the future
Sloppy sutures have wrinkled time
I ride this rhyme around the cosmos
Maybe god knows but I don’t so I close my eyes and glow
In a sidecar on this shooting star, I have so far to go
For more poetry and essays, follow my blog on Medium at https://medium.com/words-ideas-thoughts
Thanks for reading!
KV Srikanth Jan 2021
Friendship Epitomized
Friends Eternal
Ballad Born
Bakshi and Burman
Duet by Dey
Kishore in the fray
Nib and Number
Single on Vinyl
Jaidev and Veeru
Reel Names
Amith and Dharam
Real Names
Acting during Shooting
Convey Male Bonding
Bike a Bullet
Sidecar and Harmonica
Motifs memorable
Dharam and Amith adorable
Shrine the throttle
MYB 3047
Number to remember
Sanctum of Endearment
Projected on Projector
Song a rollercoaster
Riding on the Highway
Changing riders Midway
Soulful lyrics
Reflect Soul
Rider and Pillion
Are but one
Camaraderie reality
Translates beautifully
Sizzling Chemistry
Status immortality
Bromance on Wheels
Amitabh and Dharmendra
Names mentioned together
Body and shadow
Amigo and alter ego
Billion hearts
Recite by - heart
Every word and note
***** and Whistle
Interlude exotic
Audience Ballistic
Depiction realistic
Symbol of friendship
Till today remain
For every Indian
Yearning the same
Lucky we are to
Live in the Era
Of Amitabh and Dharmendra
On or off Camera
Live by example
Loved by all
Integrity of intimacy
In thoughts and memories
Made the song become
India's Second  Anthem
Jamie Bell Oct 2020
sorrow catching my eye in glancing along the sides headphones
dry up form music flowing safely home swimming the stream
dream relaxing into it and out of it furthermore striving inside
the haste of time and space leaps forward catching fish Google
the names of people still not here for you and I lips reading
the notice on the wall by night sorting moods and blue light
goes out of the clouds riding alive and free eternally into the ocean
of goodness we never see the reigns of the old and passed the future
we go onwards but luckily sure of ourselves but yes he said testing
the old stuff into new territories like the old school flies on the walls
coping with the stress of it all to tie the ends of fame and fortune
crying sighs the clouds move in on him park rides and scatter cushions alive feeling to stress the importance of love five times they said that to your whole company beats money and things although he crashes on the waves to meet the fears by night and by day we all say
today that the day comes before the dawn night air feeds folk love lost trite excuses follow the lead on by day and hopeful necessity flings itself beginning from the mouth of the ocean rivers flight by the by to meet the order of the dayside loneliness heights of fiction function beneath us time and time again and again over and over tomorrow freely likes the excuse of never coming to meet us morning times coming and going fortune reigns high on heads of might and yours come follow me to the hall taxi you can be there in spirit and hope gladly I see them all moving forward those fields in different colours vivid through and through my dad where is he I saw him earlier but no more stress on legs from crossing the tides chair away on the carpet tv on high below the strife of times away gorge on fruit and rubber duckies triplicates forward to the marketplace Robin Williams long grass and blood from the eyes of the breezes cold wind blowing knows shoes to take in Paris ghosts haunting the rooms
of the hotel desk table with soft light and fairy lights dim
and nearly gone to turn freely like the beach cards on which we play and frame our references on them let us leave it all to you then sidecar halfwit in control of how things should be normal or not normal or whatever you say is nonsense but the belief is strong and the winds of change are coming fast to throw you all on the **** heap of misery built on the sores of people raging in their hearts from nursing their wounds blooming flowers of negligence to take their heart to gold and charity caving in on their souls for good luck to with the night airs of chairing the meeting of time and Teams for 10 o’clock likeness of the world gone by cavernous value of meritorious victory sponging on the cave tonnes of brickwork graffiti faces
This is a Surrealist poem outlining experiencing in Lockdown.  I think it's a good one to read out loud.
Zywa Sep 2020
I have felt old today
the food squeezes my gut
and the words slip away
out of my torn nets

With some ifs and buts
I can still participate
calmly and comfortably
riding in a sidecar

without philosofolly
or showing the way
only a joke if it works
Inside, I am collapsing

I often go for a ***
but nothing comes out
of my head and my hands
I have a chat with the neighbours

For me, no thick enjoyment
between golden bars
or sitting between
fate-fellows, waiting

for attention and the future
of acquaintances and family
I'm just tired, so
you shouldn't want anything from me
Collection"Blown san"d
Donall Dempsey Nov 2020
BUT THAT’S...ANOTHER STORY!

Her mother died
giving birth

so from that day to
this

we considered her OURS
one of the family.

Ok, so...she was
a pig

but oh such
a pretty pig

and we kept her
in the caravan

reared her as one
of our own

almost considered her as
human.

Oh the squeals of
children &...pig.

Well, she grew & grew
until the day came for her

to be serviced.

Our maiden pig
a fine Welsh White gilt.

Now, being English
amongst the Welsh

I knew you needed
a license

to move a pig
from area to area

so, I presented my self
to our two man police force.

Well, of course
they had licenses

for the this of that
or the that of this

but alas
no license

for the moving of
a pig.

They had somehow
run out.

The licenses not the pigs.

So, they gave me
a license for a crane

& crossed out the bit
not pertaining to a pig.

I thought they might
ask me

how many wheels
on your pig or

what type of machinery
is your pig?

But when it was done
it was done

a kind of
Frankenstein form

half crane/half pig.

And I was free now
to move my pig

where so ever I wished.

And so I brought her
to the boar.

And then there was the time
there was a pig born

without an *******

( not an uncommon
occurrence they told me ).

And so I set off for the vets
on my motorcycle and sidecar

but
that’s

. . .another story.
Zywa Oct 2020
People who get married
already know how it works:
not spontaneously a heaven

of love on earth, but
then what? Is heaven too holy
and too high?

Is love cherishing?
solidified into habits
from time to time

a fountain or the sidecar
from which we see the real
holiness: the pool

of change, the heal-whole pool
of nourishing, devouring, and decay?
Are we loving

if we extend the decay
by nourishing each other
devouring little from each other

and letting each other free
to fail and to grow
from within, by oneself?
Collection “Without reserve”
KV Srikanth Mar 2022
On a bike Ignition on
Fitted with a sidecar
God seated there
Guiding us thereof
Spiritual force right next
We've got the best
Navigating the path
Wrong turn of thoughts
He tells us to stop
Forgiving us every sin apart
Throws light when darkness falls
Provides shade when the Sun hits Noon
In case of an accident
Falling down we  still turn up again
Hostile terrain
Rides from within
House made of Marbles
Holds your hand
So that you don't slip
Trust and faith
Used as investments
Makes sure you don't get lost
Whatever is right for you at any cost
Without his presence
Your bike wouldn't have come this far

— The End —