"sneakered" poems
The starters' pistol sounded once
and sneakered feet churn up the clay-
Fame and fortune they pursue
Four hundred meters ahead, gold, lay.
Muscles strain and lungs may burn
inspired by Olympic fire
Faster, Higher, Stronger, yes-
The Motto does serve to inspire.
The race is run and some excel
Others just happy they took part.
Those fastest, on the podium stand,
to hear their anthem, hand on heart.
Obama has a different dream:
He'd make those Medals Lead, Tin and Clay
If no man makes his own success
why give the precious stuff away?
Never mind the countless dawns
they rose to run in rain or heat.
The weights they lifted in the gym.
How hard they trained on blistered feet.
If no man makes his own success
and government is the source of all
Explain to me, Barrack Hussein,
How did the Soviet Union fall?
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 8:11 AM UTC
"oh look,
Right over there.
The footprint from your sneakers,
Has left a mark,
Can you see?
Just...there?
Yeah, right on the shattered pieces of my heart"
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
Sneakered feets skid the cheap wax floor
The screaming maddening muddled expectation of children echo unhappiness
Its a hot Saturday in retail hell
Where have a nice day meets a condecending flip off
And fake smiles still taste like caffine syrup
Over head lights flicker and bring the three o'clock head ache
Another day, five more hours
Until leaving
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC
For a moment,
We were both here.
Some part of me knew when you arrived.
The sun burned a little hotter, the moon lingered a little closer;
Flowers seemed to point in your direction.
I could feel the wind change its course whenever you laughed.
But while you swam through clouds and crowds
I could only watch from afar as I had to push past the forces
That pulled every part of me to where you were.
But you were here. And that was enough for me.
How funny that the streets I can trace like veins in my body,
Were so new to you, strangers to your eyes.
But for that single, fleeting moment,
You walked through them, not minding the newness of scenery,
Leaving your trace with every sneakered footstep.
I hope the city held you like I would.
My language must have tasted different on your tongue.
The words were as foreign in your eyes as yours were in mine.
For the first time, I could see your fingertips piercing through the barrier,
And God knows how close I was to connecting mine with yours.
Our stories were finally synced,
Finally on the same page.
I didn't mind that I was one word in your book
And you were a whole chapter in mine,
I was just fine with being any part of your story;
Even just for a moment, even if I wouldn't be a part of it again.
Now you are there.
And I am still here.
But I look for you in every thing I see,
Wondering if you saw the same.
And then, you are here again.
But just for a moment.
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 5:09 AM UTC
I.
This is how it ends:
Two sneakered feet pounding
Staccato hearts into the blackened tar
Of the streets, yelling.
*(But what are they yelling?
A name. My name.)*
And my platinum hair is up
Out of my face, so the wind kisses
My cheeks, turns them red and blue
Like me: Red, for the number of times
He will one day turn the color of my shame
To a scalding hot 10; and blue,
The cloud that lays
Over me, when he proves my instincts right
When they told me to run.
This is how it ends
And I’m six and overhearing
My mother tell my dad to
Do a different dance on
Someone else’s blackened tar,
And now they live in a cute house
Under a cloudless sky
With my dog and seven reasons why
They never look up and see me there,
Older and darker but
Always running to the south,
Away from their winter.
This is how it ends.
But not for him.
This is how it ends:
Pictures on a feed
Spinning realities you’ll never taste
And never need
With slings and smiles and
Canned joy, selling success for a nickel
And sadness for a dollar.
It ends, and you see her
With her dyed hair and lipstick
*(Red, to remind you
And red, to forget you)*
And you pause – because, really,
Did you expect that you couldn’t?
And suddenly you start seeing her
Silhouette in every doorway and
Hearing her heavy steel words
Laying like anchors on your heart
Always pulling, tugging, moving towards her
And that beautiful sunny day when
She looked through you for
The last time.
*(You wonder how a ghost
Could feel this heavy)*
II.
This is how it begins:
One coffee full of
Too much cream, and laughter
Ringing too loudly
In your ears
Because of something you said.
And footsteps slapping on
Wet concrete, meeting tiny slippered
Eager feet, feeling safer now
Hugged by tiny hands
Than in his strong arms that left you
Bruised.
It begins in the quick silences
Between sentences, and meanings
Upon words, and breaths
Between kisses
Atop laps,
Atop chairs,
Atop wishes.
It begins when you listen
And you’re sitting in your car
Watching dusk paint the sky
And you can feel the groan of the earth
Beneath you, see the planet revolve itself
Into darkness, and you can’t hear her
Caustic voice and
The way she sounded when she left, and
You can’t feel his hands on you or his
Beard where it chafed your thighs – no,
That is where it ends.
And this is where you start.
(Unload the anchors from your heart.)
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 1:52 AM UTC
I can laugh now,
but for a time
I was so scared
of my shadow;
that I would only
venture forth at
night, or noon
or during an
occasional
eclipse of the sun.
You might guess
that I’d be ridiculed,
what with carrying
a parasol to school
on sunny days in spring,
but my brother was
three hundred pounds
of muscle, hung out
with the Amboy Dukes
and carried, as a
weapon, half a tree
trunk like a third arm.
From the time I was
six years old, the other
children called me sir.
My mother put an end
to it “toot sweet.”
While no student
of psychology,
she took the time to
reason with me,
as she bent over a
steaming laundry tub,
in her ragged house dress,
like something out of Dickens.
She said quite clearly,
“Go outside right now,
or I will ******* you.”
My mother never hit,
but I took my sneakered
feet down the tenement
stairs, so quickly that they
barely touched the steps,
and then bareheaded,
I braved the April sun.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 7:59 PM UTC