"streetcorner" poems
The taste of happiness
still remains
in the streetcorner
the colored days
turning into a good song
time and distance
can never break
the gate valve
of friendship.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 12:58 PM UTC
an assembly or
better named
a clump
of multifarious flotsam
presenting its untidy self
on a recent passing
streetcorner..
a hesitating photo records
a drifting pinecone
centering a stained
and shredding newspaper
a broken sharp stick
red rocks of scales and shadings
flecking dried green leaves..
order imposed by
framing and shaping of
the sidewalk corner..
might other forms emerge
with a focused patience?
a partial headline reads
...sound without the wires..
news of expanding connections
outside a material realm?
headline seemed embedded
in thick advertising bulk
announcing a continuing
culture of material weight..
much else of red and green..
the centering pinecone
occasional pineal symbol of
higher dimension entry..
somehow rightly here
in the dark center
of this mess
this a brief experiment
not yet for most an answer
a question now of mining
finding patterned varieties
in large nature's trove..
patient visions residing in
gathered fragments
if gathered they be..
expectations of more
in what persists
of this and that in
time... :)
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:03 PM UTC
To be awake,
to be blind,
I’ve never understood the difference.
On a parkbench,
on a streetcorner,
silent, idle, waiting
for sadness, or the lack of it,
waiting
for the excess of it;
to be awake, to not know
is there a difference?
In the water,
submerged
floating, sinking, drowning
in sadness, or the lack of it,
smothered
by the excess of it;
When I awake, I am blind,
When I awake, I do not know,
When I wait for the bus,
on the street corner,
I am blind.
When I am sinking, baptized, or drowning,
I am dumb.
I am always
drowning in sadness, or the absence of it.
I am always
drowning in sadness, or the excess of it.
I am always floating
in the not knowing,
always smothered
by the dumbness of it all.
Do you feel the same? Choked to death
by melancholy?
Does some thick smoke cloud up
your lungs?
Is it the melancholy? Is it the
sadness?
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
There was a squandering ember that climbed her spinal chord
and lit the deteriorating birchwood on the peach-fuzzed tea lamps.
When those stairwells cramped and swelled with staggered liquid terraces
in the foundational pin-cushion that cradled family after family.
Woe begone chants that railed support beams moaning under elemental abuse.
A litter of ghost kittens coiling underfoot where the rug
used to yawn before the grandfather clock,
now senile and rotting with absent-minded tick-tocks.
Inside her streetcorner, the music was that
monkey hopping to street ***** blue notes on somber ropes.
The air thick with the regal, chunky vibe
of batting eyes, flirty sighs, and bourbon.
Between the buildings again...
embraced with the same warm feeling that
entrances your fingertips, lips, and ears when within a man's arms.
In this city, Love is those two birds on that same powerline
that bowed and ebbed with summer's sweet sigh.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 11:47 PM UTC
i sit on the streetcorner of your mind
and every once in awhile
you drive by
throw money at me
say
hey baby
how about a
smile
and i smile for you
because im in the red
naturally
you do not mind
paying for my ********** smiles
and playing with the curvature of my lips
you do not mind
buying me for an hour
to smile at you
i am glad
that my crinkled eyes
are enough to make you feel better
i am glad
that you feel you are good enough to me
to demand a smile for free
sometimes
and only because
i want you to feel better
do i give them to you
even when the bank is looming
shaking all the outstanding debts
at me
that i really
owe myself
you do not mind
ravaging the smile
you paid for
you figure that you are allowed to ****
that which is yours
and i let you
because you
paid for it
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 12:16 AM UTC
TWO ENGLISH POEMS For A Woman
I.
The useless dawn finds me in a deserted streetcorner; I have outlived the night.
Nights are proud waves: darkblue topheavy waves laden with all hues of deep spoil, laden with things unlikely and desirable.
Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals, of things half given away, half withheld, of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act that way, I tell you.
The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with, music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.
The big wave brought you.
Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked and you have forgotten the words.
The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street of my city.
Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter: these are the illustrious toys you have left me.
I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and to the few stray stars of the dawn.
Your dark rich life…
I must get at you, somehow: I put away those illustrious toys you have left me, I want your hidden look, your real smile –that lonely, mocking smile your mirror knows.
II.
What can I hold you with?
I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the ragged suburbs.
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghost that living men have honoured in marble: my father’s father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather –just twentyfour- heading a charge of three hundred men in Perú, now ghosts on vanished horses.
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness humour my life.
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
I offer her that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow – the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 6:47 PM UTC
windowsill views: this smile has gotten
the best of me..
peculiarities particularly interest me
during these (almost) spring days
because I know I’m free
hometown nights not so silent anymore
streetcorner w/ a reputation:
but it’s always the people I see..
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 5:29 PM UTC
You will come back to me,
But I won’t be around.
You’ll look for where I’ve been,
And they’ll tell you
“She’s nowhere to be found.”
You’ll look on my old streetcorner,
But blackness is all you will find.
You had me, you lost me, I am an imagination of your mind.
Jul 24, 2012
Jul 24, 2012 at 10:14 PM UTC
jesse only smiles when he means it.
nowadays, it takes a needle
to get the boys and girl
around the streetcorner high,
but all jesse needs
is an average girl with a pretty mind.
his timid mouth and crooked teeth
is the prettiest treasure a person could find.
Mar 3, 2013
Mar 3, 2013 at 3:51 PM UTC
The KNIFE Feels right IN MY Hand dear friend! I am a king IN a long forgotten land
Her hands left burns upon my arm
Collapsing veins
Like Blue Flower Petals
Nails digging Into flesh
Infest
I gaze a way
Under my breath
HER FINGERS FEEL LIKE RAZORS
HER WORDS BROKEN
POINTS SPLITTING THE
SUNLIGHT
HERE ON THE STREETCORNER
AS IF SHE DOES THIS
EVERY DAY
her pail skin
Cunning
In day light
as I fight
For a breath
Her jawline
soft geometric
Are you lost?
Doped on hash she
Tears into me
With sideways glances
Laughing knives in my back
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 9:33 PM UTC
Blooming seeds you had on
your tongue when I kissed you
on the streetcorner in blaring
sunlight
I wanted to taste them,
and later recalled how thin you felt
your ******* against my chest
subtle enough
but I pulled back
The lightpond where I sat
that's the place where
shimmerish fish float the
smoky air
You caught one and
got drunk on its blood
That ***** look I'd never
seen you wear as you took
my lips in yours
and when your bloodrough
tongue touched mine the
seeds were grown
"Sommersprossen,"
I whispered into your mouth
as you bit off my lip
Thereafter in your starry
room you took your knife
and I mine
*"Ich bin allein
Bereust du?
Wirst du?"*
Our hearts in our hands
spat their deathred mess
and soaked the sheets
Drunk on each other
with lips cherryred
to you I whispered
and to me you,
*"Dû bist mîn
Ih bin dîn"*
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 6:42 PM UTC
Snow white cat on streetcorner sits
reflecting blinking bike light
into the road with no streetlamps
on a night full of stars.
Every song that feels
like it's written just for you is another
reminder that your feelings are
more commonly experienced
than you might think.
Breezy autumn evening rides
for time travel and other such activities
make music from wind in leaves
and weave from side to side.
I am off to build a house
and lay down bricks one
at a time, one at a time,
to live in for a short while
and then to leave sitting, alone,
until long abandoned, we
return for exploration.
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 4:52 PM UTC
eyes are bursting
(insert adjective here) feeling has found me again
this time I was careful to hide far enough away beyond fields beyond highways beyond everything I once was
..but it found me anyway
deep footprints in snow that hasn’t even arrived yet
streetcorner calls my name (straight up after Tunney’s)
bright lights of a (not even on a) corner store
I remember staring so long, sitting in that cold apartment
6am sitting on that cold kitchen floor by the heater
because that was the only place that was warm
& writing poetries until I knew I was done
those moments are buried so deep - (or at least I thought they were..)
six feet of memories pushing metaphorical nails out of their coffins
my mind has to intervene & immerse questions,
coax them to retrace fumbling steps
bribing my own brain w/ promises
best kept under locks & keys..
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 6:14 PM UTC
I’ve been roped and doped
Also been ***** and taped.
I’ve been slugged and drugged
I was bugged, then I shrugged.
It is all just another day’s work
For a silly streetwalking ****
It’s life without a single perk,
Pays less than a checkout clerk.
I keep changes of tight clothes,
Show off the body, anything goes.
Use a languid suggestive pose
No one questions, everyone knows.
Stand by a light pole and grin
Someone will quickly pull in
And ask if you’ll go for a spin
In half a hour, I’m back again.
If they seem to want to pass
Turn around and show some ***
I make sure I show some sass
And am sure to be smoking grass.
Sure I get picked up by the cops
But, this old story never stops.
It’s a tale as old as these shops.
It’s bad when the temperature drops.
Rain, sleet and snow, I’m around
Staking out my piece of ground
To see what trade can be found
Hunting for the everyday hound.
So drop by and see me any day.
I’m not like the sun, I won’t go away.
I’ll be here as you drive by to say:
“Hello, baby, want some fun today?
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 2:58 PM UTC
One thin linen layer
separates my spicy palms
from the vast unscoopable harvest
of the crystal-scattered light.
Sunbeams brace the icy sky.
Early bursts of starlight score the dappled shade
whilst snowcrush of silence
interrips our invitation-emptied poem page.
So strange how soft it is.
The insulation stationed
on the streetcorner of the universe
intersection: stars sky & stone below.
I'm stepping in and leaving shocks of shade
just above the blades of grass
with tangled roots that sink into the icy loam
and stone-stacked-stone,
the earthy bone that plumbs deeply
to the heart & hearth of Earth -
a hidden molten core, the nethers
of a depthless tunnel filled from core to feet,
my feet, and then my torso-mind-and-eyes
that see. How strange it is, how softly sets my gaze
upon this world, a fleshy inglenook in space
that sees itself and steps into the snow.
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 10:04 PM UTC