"sockless" poems
Beneath the couch today I found one of your toenails.
It reminded me of the way your toes once scratched against mine
and I was disgusted because I thought those things resembled
rotten carrots mixed with the stuff I've seen come out of my cat.
It reminded me of the way your hand once brushed mine
and I looked down to see those meaty sausage fingers
carrying on in their meaty sausage way
by spreading grease and filth and must and finger dirt
all over my nice white sleeve.
And then it reminded me of the way I couldn't stand your yellowed teeth
because I knew you didn't like coffee and
that your only excuse was not brushing.
So I looked deeply into that aged toenail found
beneath my couch and amongst some dust
beneath my couch where you sat that once
and I thought this toenail was a portrait of you,
hidden below my couch like the Mona Lisa's missing eyebrows.
But I left that toenail beneath my couch where it fell
the night you took your socks off to show me your tattoo,
the night you kissed me with no socks on,
the night I tasted rebellion in a sockless kiss with yellowed teeth
and sausage fingers in my hair.
Because I stuffed that kiss beneath the couch too
and let it break apart from my foot-life like a carrot toenail.
But that toenail leads me to think that your sausage hands were pretty soft;
that you probably would have liked coffee if you knew I drank it
and then that you were always a working man;
those fingers were proof of a hard day's labour.
So the night you took your socks off for me, could be tonight again
and I'd have the guilty happiness in your sweaty palms I missed before,
then I'd be perfectly okay when pieces of you shed onto my carpet.
But I don't regret the toenail beneath the couch
because at least it's there.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 11:35 PM UTC
With a flap of pink-flamingo wings,
whoosh of speedboats in the bay
the rear-swinging amble of
burnished girls in bikinis
“Miami Vice” launched itself
week after week
as a thoroughly ****** delight.
The show:
a pop-culture event
the media poetry
of the ******* era.
Two cocky
not very talented
male beauties who
spoke in innuendos
and dressed in pink T-shirts
Armani and sockless loafers.
The best episodes
were shot and
cut like movies and
glowed with neon and
pastels and
party lights in stucco mansions.
The varieties of pleasure under
an endless American sun.
(From the New Yorker article entitled, “Hot and Bothered.”)
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 11:32 PM UTC
I swear I can hear the clear sound of record static
Like snow falling loudly and quietly upon the mic puff
I can also hear the lights and electricity ringing
Like a group of lost hikers found dead in the snow in socks
The neighbors upstairs make knocking sounds at 3am from another dimension
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 3:14 AM UTC
I asked for peace.
Life gave me silence, disconnection—
and nothing to scroll away the discomfort.
Canceled plans,
one painfully awkward dinner with my parents.
(Spoiler: it worked.)
I prayed for strength.
Life handed me
spilled coffee,
a broken umbrella,
and a boss who emails at 12:01 AM.
Turns out—I flinch less now.
(Okay, maybe once.)
I begged for purpose.
Life said: “Laundry.”
Endless, sockless, mismatched piles.
I folded.
Then cried.
Then wrote a poem about it.
Now it’s framed in someone’s guest bathroom—
right above the toilet paper,
which feels oddly correct.
I wanted blessings.
Expected glitter.
Got bills, back pain,
and unsolicited advice
from my aunt who sells protein powder.
(Still, her hug saved me once.)
Turns out, blessings are quiet.
Struggles don’t wear signs.
And sometimes,
growth is just showing up—
with tired eyes, mismatched socks,
and a heart that’s tired,
but still says, “again.”
Sep 8, 2025
Sep 8, 2025 at 1:01 PM UTC
This is an ode to that bloke over there,
You see him? Glasses, very little hair.
Hunched over black coffee, holding it to a stare.
From his right hand hangs a spoon, giving it a stir.
A crumpled suit flecked with dirt hangs loose here and there.
He wears a yellowed shirt untucked and scuffed shoes a pair.
From his sockless ankles peek heels bare,
While he sits, head down, dispair.
He saved my life today that bloke over there,
I feel inclined to tell him but I doubt he’d really care.
Jun 2, 2013
Jun 2, 2013 at 7:28 AM UTC
Don't you find Christmas a little askew in its purpose?
We remember a man who, born on this day, walked the Earth some two thousand years ago
By burning pockets with gift giving,
Decorating a door frame with a $70 wreath which will die in two weeks,
Stuffing our faces with high fructose desserts and fat filled ham
Competing for the brightest tree (also going to die in two weeks) and the loudest outside decorations
Did we forget the homeless man on the corner who can't even buy a sock?
Who would give anything for that one sock, perhaps even another sock
Why is Christmas a competition
What happened to Cindy Lou Who, who asked where Christmas was and why she couldn't find it
I seem to think that Christmas should be much the same as Thanksgiving,
But I am the only one,
As we continue to spend thousands of dollars each year's end
And soil what God intended originally for these twenty four hours
Maybe, just maybe,
Spend a little less ******* money on your family,
And spend a little more time with them
It's all that homeless man could ask for,
Besides that sock
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 5:50 PM UTC
I AM GOING TO WIN, I AM GOING TO WIN, I AM GOING TO WIN, I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON
THIS ROCKS MY SOCKS MAN
BECAUSE I AM THE BEST AND I
DID IT I DID IT I DID IT
YES I DID
YES
I AM THE VICTOR
I HAVE ACHIEVED IT
AND I THANK
PEOPLE
WHICH PEOPLE?
I DON’T KNOW
EVERYBODY, HOW BOUT THAT
A LITTLE PIECE OF GRATITUDE
TO CARRY AROUND IN YOUR WALLET
AND SHOW TO THE PERSON
STANDING AT THE ****** OVER
AND HE WON’T PUNCH YOU
BECAUSE HE IS SHOWING YOU HIS LITTLE PIECE OF GRATITUDE TOO
YOU CAN HAVE A GRATITUDE PARTY
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS
INVITE STRANGERS
INVITE THOSE PEOPLE WHO GO AROUND
IN THOSE GIANT STREET CLEANERS AT NIGHT
BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO HAVE FUN TOO
AND WHEN EVERYONE HAS COME TOGETHER
WITH ALL THEIR LITTLE PIECES OF GRATITUDE
THEY WILL MERGE TOGETHER
AND MAKE THE ULTIMATE THANK YOU
AND IT WILL BLOW YOUR MINDS
AND YOUR SOCKS TOO
SO YOU’LL BE STANDING AROUND MINDLESS AND SOCKLESS
AND I WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD
AND MAKE EVERYONE WALK BAREFOOT IN THE SNOW
AND THEY WILL LISTEN
BECAUSE THEIR MINDS HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO BITS
YOU SEE
AND THEY WILL DO WHATEVER I TELL THEM TO
SO I WILL MAKE THEM FORM A PEOPLE HOUSE
FOR ME TO LIVE IN
AND IT WILL BE THE STURDIEST HOUSE
THAT WHEN AN EARTHQUAKE COMES
IT WILL ONLY SHAKE IT LIKE JELLO
AND JELLO IS GOOD SO THAT IS NOT A PROBLEM
AND THIS MY FRIENDS
IS WHY YOU MUST NEVER THANK ANYONE
BECAUSE THEN YOU BECOME
SLAVES
Aug 21, 2010
Aug 21, 2010 at 7:18 PM UTC
Of withered petals just and nearly red
which falling from my hairy hands to bed –
these flower pieces can’t make up a whole
but soon enthrall your drunk and curious head,
and puff as fervent, brisk i lay you down;
upon the busy spread soft, scattered soles
of four (some sockless) feet, one evening gown,
and fresh-laid drying petals bounce around.
It seems your innocence that this night stole
but ****** ties were freed as we were wed –
the Stolen are the flowers from the ground
now serving us as petals in a bowl.
Our Romance culminates in quickly dying,
you, sitting on the now-red petals, crying.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 2:37 AM UTC
My feet smell the deliciousness of long Thanksgiving. O! plain footsoles
wandering about carpet-jailed stairs like violin strings'
gravity encircling a soul. Hum a-long enough and you can conjure whole
oceans in my eyes, whole masses of water that don't exist
where we were born (hey, landlocked love). Outside in New England it
sometimes snows.
Today it rains.
Anyway, I am a magician. Look here. Can you see
our landlocked love from the shore it does not
have? Like the Pilgrims
finding Indians not from India,
I find me
not from me but from these smiles, our people, these feet,
sinking and stinking of some small peace and walking sockless
up and down a small warm home. And tomorrow,
Harvard again, and someone has snapped my wand
and killed the sparkling airs of incantations I had.
But wait! Isn't this proof of a person who was once
something not transplanted, but rooted earthily into a couch
as brown dancer? I'm waiting for movies
and the seizures of memory there as our minds' own lenses,
and that empty feeling here remembered as good enough reason
to greet us, draw further breaths, comb curls, chew and walk and talk
of the cold outside (waiting endlessly for the landlocked sun), and talk
of the bitter pinpricks of our still-life skin.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 7:10 PM UTC
Day after day her sanity peels away,
Living to fight another day,
Her hunger stirs inside once more,
Murky shirt is hanging loose,
Her face and hair covered in grime and dirt,
Clothes ripped and worn,
Her skin is withered and torn,
Physically craving meal,
Weighing 10 Stones lighter,
Sockless and penniless,
Time keeps slipping away,
Feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders,
She lays there on the hard concrete floor,
Feeling scared and alone
Looking over her shoulder,
Terrible fears plague her,
In this place she calls her home town,
Strangers walk by gawking,
Analysing her vulnerability,
Criticizing her capability,
Paralyzed by her identity,
Stability is what she is hoping for,
A facility that puts bread on the table,
But the system shuns her away once more,
She grasps onto her faith in fear it will start to crumble,
A sense of purpose to stay alive
She sees a familiar man standing by her side,
He offer’s his hand with a welcoming promise and smiles with a high-spirited expression,
A sense of warmth and belonging races through her body,
She traces his wrinkles on his face,
His eyes are hazel-nut brown,
His hair and beard is frosty white,
She recognizes his smell from when she was a child,
A scent of incense and lavender,
He gently rests her cheek in his hands,
Sadness fills up in his eyes,
He glimpses into her shattered soul,
The grief which had burnt a hole,
The anguish deep inside,
Tears trickle down his face,
There a stands a man of her heart
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 5:29 AM UTC
When the rain has driven away the dry
What’s left of us sticks
To the soles of sockless feet, between the toes
Where nature and the self meet
I can taste it, building plaque between my teeth
With hopeless fingers scrape it
Wait for tooth decay, part with the idea
Of a life fulfilled and the perfect day
You can’t run away from death
The harder you try,
The closer it seems you get, and then
Your knees are hitting the mud again
There’s nothing I can do, the night closes in
The doctor’s orders
Are to kiss once again, and part
You have my beauty, you have my art.
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 10:33 PM UTC
you are purity northen snow
looking for a ***** puddle
to splash your dreams
your calling card
a lavender garter belt smile
greeting me
in sheer rip away pantyhose
I take stock in your provisions
your dainty crimson heart
in huggable fluffy blue socks
in contrast to my bohemian
naked sockless tender feet
your legs open minded
to take in my deep thoughts
my ****** veracity booms
your ****** groaning barrier
decelerating silky winds
your painting shadow
fades into us as one soppin wet
tongue twisting kiss
swaping syllables in the ears
our spoonerism speckled
between our two worlds
my dark silhouette presence
buried in your chandelier
shaded light
Nov 21, 2019
Nov 21, 2019 at 8:21 PM UTC