"sweeper" poems
A slow walk up Centennial
and I still can’t find the place
it's menacing cold, and muted
and the street sweeper and winter breeze
move the Turkish blend and dust pack
A novice mixed duet plays
Brahms on broken strings
the erhu and overcoat
veiling a blue heeler and sphinx
Maggianos is settled in the center block’s
luminance and seasonal drape
it's festive warmth bringing home Bedford Falls;
the flavour and character and social circles
Annie’s playing and the keeper's singing
(his word pool and slander
raising everyone in arms!)
the crowd chants and mayhem breaks
as crawlers and contemporaries
smash their steins
Dark alleys and dripping holes
hold a grim reminder of the pierced underside
paddies flutter and forge their words
with a broad manifesto
Night gardens come alive
(slowly sapping the respite)
hunched figures and ladies in lace
shuffle inside the big orange door
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 11:25 PM UTC
Sweeping past the lineroom yards
With a long hand held broomstick
Malayandi was a daily sight,
A hard and indelible insight
His quiet mouth a taco
Betel leaf and tobacco
The sweet red rose scent
Animate his hands to accent
Rhythms in the dirt puddle
strokes of savage broom
Frolic along sewage groom
Gargle alongside marbles
Rake up ripple giggles
Babbling bubbles fling
Driving mild stink flakes
To spread morning
Knit into a dead neat serenity.
On festival seasons vacations
Instead of grooming the vassal
comes blooming with big vessels
Collects cooked food in measures
From each and every homestead
People pour in quiet leisure
Rice in a *** of metal
Curry in another kettle
Filled with reverence and pleasure
His heart is brimming sure
All different kitchen meals
In a single container appeals
All children of the same ranch
With many a range
of community
A bonehomie of unity
The children heard
from their friend his daughter
They'd preserved
All those food in cold water
And all the while
They'd eat from it too
This collected meal
for a week or two
This made the children to
look up at them
With same respect due to
a national anthem
Are they more advanced?
With knowledge enhanced
In matters of life and cleanliness?
Malayandi was unaware
That his humble duty covered
Sweeping as well grooming
The children's hearts
With arts of rare sensibility.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 2:52 PM UTC
You're making me cry and I've only just met you
I hate you already
you're too nice
you're too beautiful
you're too funny
you're too perfect
for words
yet I keep wasting them on you
I want to not want you
but I do
I want to kiss you
all over
in your house
in my house
in public
in private
I want to peek at chu from afar
and drink you in when were up close
you smell so good
so so delicious
I could eat you for breakfast
I could sleep in your bed and make you hot cocoa
we could be afraid together
we could laugh and laugh
and laugh
I'm so awkward and
you
are too weird for words
you make no sense
we make no sense
I don't even know you
you don't know the real me
not yet
but you might if you keep this up
this act
it's so convincing
I want to believe you
in all of you and everything you're saying
I think back
and remember
it was so
wonderful
I worshipped that
it's a weakness
you're my weakness
now
I know what you're saying
it's probably not true
you just want it
like everyone's said
I mean I kinda want it too
and your lies are so good
your lies are exemplary
they're better then mine
so I'll play along
I have too
I'm hooked now
don't let me go
don't leave me
keep me here in this fake heaven
this cloud nine
I'm skiing your body with my emotions
I like it so much
I'll smile back
please
please just don't stop smiling at me
I think it will break me.
I'll keep a rag and dust pan handy
I've been told
I'm a fantastic sweeper
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 2:11 AM UTC
I’m a steam rollin street sweeper,
Bomb droppin heat seeker,
Warrior and peacekeeper,
Geek tweaker huffin ether.
I’m the sage, and the seeker,
I’m the audience, and speaker,
I’m the follower, and leader,
As I’m both, I’m also neither.
I’m a genius, I’m an idiot,
An erudite illiterate,
I’m about as insignificant
As I am magnificent
The hero, and the villain
Nervous wreck while I’m chillin
I’m the men, I’m the women
Spittin' facts while I’m pretendin'
I am more, I am less,
I invest, I divest,
As I focus, I digress
I am cursed, I am blessed
Serious, as I jest
Hyperactive, while at rest
I’m the worst, I’m the best
I’m the grade, I’m the test
I’m the train, I’m the tracks,
The uncharted, and the map,
I’m the boot, I’m the strap,
I’m the hand, I’m the clap
I’m the black, I’m the white,
I’m the day, I’m the night,
I am everything and nothing
I am wrong, I am right.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath.
And smil’d among the winters snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death.
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And because I am happy. & dance & sing.
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who made up a heaven of our misery.
2.7k
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back was shav’d, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair
And so he was quiet. & that very night.
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight
That thousands of sweepers **** Joe, Ned, & Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black,
And by came an Angel who had a bright key
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind.
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
2.6k
You are like
the smoke left
on my clothes
after a bonfire
summer’s salty sweet
taste still sticky on
warm skin
you-
are the last breath
of autumn sunset
so pink
once orange
slow to disappear
off the horizon
you’re winter’s
chilly breath
all the way to
the center of
my feeble heart
thump thump thump
like the springtime
again and again
pierce me with your sweet
green dagger
dragonfly wings
unnatural beauty
you my
slow season
breath
my wanton
unforgetting
8 month
long lost
lullaby
sweet girl
how I missed you
late summer
solstace
soul sweeper
secret
goodnight
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 4:33 PM UTC
The roots of the tree go deep
And the roots of our thoughts
Go deeper. Push the negative
Under the rug with a positive
Sweeper, clean out the muck,
Sweep out the dust, polish the
Rust, and learn to trust
Somebody that you can love.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 12:48 AM UTC
To the last street sweeper on the eve of the apocalypse
Whose life partner is beauty
Who makes more sense in a minute of listening
Then we do in a lifetime of talking
Who paints olive trees and cypresses
And now knows it's not called crazy
It's called pain, and it will pass
To the last street sweeper on the eve of the apocalypse
Who wakes up an hour before he falls asleep
And yet, never stops dreaming
Who rewrites morality with every fraction of information intake
And remixes truth until we're left bobbing our heads
With no other choice than to just feel it
To the last street sweeper on the eve of the apocalypse
Whose children are freedom
Who walks in the rain while we plain get wet
Who wants nothing more than to want nothing more
Who only makes routine out of celebration
And love
To the last street sweeper on the eve of the apocalypse
Who ties masterpieces to rogue kites
And whispers nonsense into researcher's ears
Who knows that nobody is perfect
And takes the words "meant to be" very very seriously
Who exists
And is **** proud of that
To the last street sweeper on the eve of the apocalypse
Who revises his rewrites of morality
When information intake is remixed by reality
Until we're left shaking our heads
With no other choice than to think
Wait for me
And save me a glass
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 11:05 PM UTC
Hot !
it was delta hot
With only two choices . . .
for breakfast we had scrambled eggs
toast and hate
The postman waved as he
brought more papered threats
Taking with him all the promises of a better
day
The cut took 21 stitches to heal but it
let out all your will
Overwhelmed , the stars have all fallen
out of the night sky
The street sweeper comes and
washes them down the gutter
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 10:15 PM UTC
He is who you want to see at the airport,
half asleep, pastel sweatshirt half zipped.
Half length shorts ending just above the knees.
Eyes matching the green and blue abstract swirls
patterned into the carpet to hide passenger sick-up.
The background to travelling japanese circus photos,
they’ll look back in their scrapbooks,
past the ponies on the baggage carousel,
see him waiting for the delayed international arrival.
Stiff legs tread quietly down grey hallways,
stringing a stickered suitcase along moving walkways,
thoughts caught between continents, in escalator’s teeth.
Tiptoeing over the hot coffee spilled like oil,
the taste of morning breath clinging to the back of the throat,
chalky as chilled ashes, abandoned and unswallowed.
When the taxis are cold and the day’s been worn out,
before it’s even begun; patchy fabric stretched over toes
rubbing thin on the inside of your shoes,
he’ll circle your head like a daisy crown.
To hold the tiny scars on his broad shoulders,
traces blemishes like a mine sweeper,
would be like orange juice at 40 000 ft.
Intimate in a way only TSA agents know how to be,
looking for explosives behind the ribcage, to the left.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 3:48 AM UTC
To live without tradition
To live without religion
But rather to have faith and hope ... for all
Simply to be one and not divided
Not to be seen as man or woman
Neither black or white
But as a person
Is that really so much to ask
Not to be a race or gender ... but a being
Just a being of self
No ugly ... no pretty ... no rich ... no poor ... no status
Just a person ... an existing and living being
Radiating Love towards all
To know that the light needs the dark
And the dark needs the light
Both need to coexist
No-one can perform a good deed if there's no evil to conquer
The street sweeper won't have any work
If there weren't people careless enough to pollute the environment
And so also the ants carried your breadcrumbs away that you left on the kitchen counter last night
But still it's good to dream
To dream of a perfect existence
Of a place where there is only Love and peace
A utopia I believe does exist beyond what we know
The perfect dream
The authentic dream
May 4, 2022
May 4, 2022 at 4:47 AM UTC
She is a sweeper
She swept everything
Under the brown fuzzy rug
In her living room.
Old magazines
books
newspapers
Old photographs
records
love letters.
She swept them all
Under the brown fuzzy rug
In her living room.
One day
It turned into a hill.
All the things she swept
under the brown fuzzy rug
in her living room
turned into a hill.
But she didn't mind.
She kept sweeping
old friendships
romantic relationships
truth
lies
feelings
regrets
mistakes
apologies
forgiveness
into the hill
under the brown fuzzy rug
in her living room.
The next day
The hill turned into a mountain
She didn't mind
And kept sweeping
Until it exploded
Broken hardwood floor
Burnt brown fuzzy rug
Everything scattered
In her living room.
She stood there
In the middle of the aftermath
Thinking
“Do i throw these all away?"
But she's a sweeper.
So she cleaned the mess
Swept everything back again
Under a new brown fuzzy rug
Laying on her basement floor.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 8:36 PM UTC
My emotions towards you are aquatic. They drip, slip, pulse
and flow to the path of most resistance. Subtle beauties
stealthily scrapes my fear built walls to sudden stops.
These firing synapses, so intense that post spinal separation
I feel as if I have woke from a dream, fallen from the
beautiful skeleton winged bird carrying me.
The years I have spent hidden from eye’s view were attempts
at thwarting toothy rejections. Hidden, you wouldn’t
notice me cautiously juggling salacious seven faces.
You see, if I were to over commit past the “we” to the “us”,
my fine, out of tune Life of Possibilities would rattle
down, fracture shut. In a positive way of course!
I fear that if I gave you my crumbled, humbled heart you would
leave it somewhere, somewhere that the ravenous street
sweeper sharks might get their carnivore fins on it.
You knew all of this already, placing us back at level 1.
I tried my damndest, you can hardly see. Sorry
my dear, this is the best my poems can do.
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 6:41 PM UTC
Finally a body lay restless fighting against all the odds.
Lying immobile in a bed of thorns and pains for four decades so long.
Where she should have been
And where did she reached today.
Once she was blessed with beauty and intelligence.
Blessed with a beautiful life to live upon.
Could she live that beautiful life, as it should have been?
Helplessly she watched,
when cruelty gripped her from all the sides,
which never gave even a chance to rise up,
Even though a new day began.
How many dreams she may have had?
She fought the pain till she breathed her last.
She lay motionless in a bed of shattered dreams,
With a pillow of bed ridden thoughts and tears.
Lying in a bed around decades of four
Hardly she may be two and half decades born
For years she lay crippled and helpless
fully dependent on others.
Indeed some blessings was there with her
Thankful to the people who stood for her, who loved her,
Took great care of her and travelled along with her till her end.
A fateful day took away all her dreams and twisted her life so cruelly.
From there her life hanged in between if and not, till she breathed her last.
Tears do we shed but also feel relieved,
Finally a soul was freed from all the prolonged pains and grief.
Till the last moment she fought bravely against all her pains
before sinking eyes to death!
May Her Soul Rest In Peace!
Hats off to all the nurses who went on adding
Drops of priceless contribution each day
as a part of their dedication to humanity.
In what better they could have shown!
PEACE!
All rights reserved by Geetha Jayakumar.
Note: (Courtesy: Google)
Aruna Shanbaug an Indian nurse, then aged 24years, from Karnataka, died after living in vegetative state for more than 42 years. She worked as a nurse at the King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM) Mumbai. At the time of attack she was engaged to a doctor at the same hospital. On night of 27th November 1973, Sohanlal Walmiki, a sweeper at the same hospital, sexually assaulted Shanbaug. He attacked her while she was changing clothes in hospital basement. He choked her with dog chain and sodomized her. She was discovered with blood splattered only at next morning. Since then she lay in a vegetative state. Nurses from KEM hospital took entire care of her till her death in the same hospital. She was born on 1st June 1948. Finally she died from pneumonia on 18th May 2015 at the age of 66.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
That pen was not just
another pen like,
Was close to his heart
soothing moonlike.
He bought that pen
after paying huge cost,
That was one reason
he liked that most.
For sbowing status for
showing the fame,
What he had achieved
position and name.
Pen was a symbol for
flaunting repute,
That he was on top this
no one dispute.
It reminds him also
reminds the all,
He reached at the top
after many so fall.
But one day in office
that pride was lost.
It was that pen that he
liked the most.
He doubted in office
workers and staff,
At times in office
abruptly he laugh.
He had suspicion on
ally and friend.
Driver & sweeper too
themselves to fend.
One day in office clerk
found that pen.
Was hidden in file and
lying since then.
He wished to say sorry
and admit the guilt.
His ego but came in
his way as a hilt.
Ajay Amitabh Suman:
All Rights Reserved
Dec 25, 2021
Dec 25, 2021 at 9:13 PM UTC
sometimes love can be evil
but don't get discouraged don't blame all us people
deceitful to trust and be mad when it's lost
you are the giver taker and receiver
you make your losses
and you chance your tosses
until you are dead you are your own believer
your own lovely keeper
no maids for your mess you are the only sweeper
use swiffer be swifter don't sniffle don't fall
don't let the dust get in your cracks on the wall
hang up some paintings a picture or four
each of your memories stick them in drawers
no room for bad company kick out remorse
open their door
vacuum the floor
clear out your vents
and make way for what's more
spring cleaning is fun
isnt clutter a bore?
not knowing what's here, and never getting much more
May 26, 2020
May 26, 2020 at 6:39 PM UTC
Rag picker on the street
Dust eater and maggot breather
She can tell the smell
Of burning plastic and paper
Of turning dung to soil
She knows the ways
Between the hills of refuse
Between the footfalls of her children
But who cares who she is
The lost and never found
Inherited a kingdom thrown away
Who cares what she thinks
She finds meanings in a bottle
Looks at a glossy magazine and wonders
Her slightly bent back aches
Sun ravages her skin each day
Brazen with resistance like herself
Her skin glistens with labors each day
Filling her heart with hazy dreams
Who cares what she sees
She hears those kids play faraway
A world insulated from her own
Where plastic is used and thrown away
And the worst smells won't make you sway
She sees the worth of this world
For what it truly is
She lives in the belly button
Never forgetting it was the beginning
And it may be the end
But who cares what she says
She's just another sweeper
Another rag picker
Treasure hunter and bounty filler
She sings old forgotten ballads
Songs with no beginnings
Songs with no creators
As she looks for something
An old school bag, a plastic earring
But who cares who she is
Just another one of these
Souls in an eternal sea
They never were
They never will be
An entire generation
Of nonentities
Forgotten children of Destiny
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 5:28 PM UTC
woven and webbed in but words,
our profits are handsome,
kindness, tenderness,
the gold coins minted internal,
that
overflow up above from
deeply hidden,
earthen-vaulted,
unchambered hearts
sovereign wealth sharing,
one country of two,
income equality,
now worded beyond just two mortals,
t'is my duty charged
and discharged,
to both hide~disguise and
expose,
how the treasure grows
alpha-bet oxygen-increased,
ever larger,
for now,
the cellular-total
the divided parts,
far exceed the original whole
these profits,
are but the
gotten gains
of mere dreamers,
that the night sweeper
shall remove, replace
scheduled near midnight,
easy taken, like daily dust
once fallen, and now used,
no longer available,
for writing poems
on the floor
but the atmosphere be
nugget laden, bejeweled motes,
freshly fallen dew to drink,
snow to inscribe with ungloved fingertips,
fresh foolscap,
upon to decorate
with letters of many tongues
new letters rearranged,
the dreamt profits
of which
are only realized
when shared
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 8:49 PM UTC
I went outside for a cigarette
Sat on the step and
I see myself down the street
forty years from now;
Burnt like an ember in an ash pile
Ground into a particle by
the street sweeper to be eaten
by the atmosphere's tangled black tongue.
Walking up and down the
battered stairs tires my weary legs
with every trip I make
Lungs crying for air like a newborn.
A tool for procrastination
A tobacco fascination can lead to
a disastrous situation. Kurt
Vonnegut once said, "Cigarettes
are a classy way to commit suicide"
He must have been stupefied making that statement.
Like taking a blade serrated 1000 times
and nudging one more notch through
his flesh with every caramel covered kiss.
But he was too scared to take it out.
Exhale and apologize to Earth
for his suffocated statement. Breathing in
snakes and rusted copper.
The man down the street probably wishes
to be my age back in his day again.
My eyes frozen in space like Walt Disney's
severed head.
He catches a a cloud of smoke
and his lungs scream through stalagmites
that drip with unwashed tears
that never fell from Vonnegut's stone face.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 11:44 PM UTC
Everything is so vague
Every word every bit of an image is so feeble
As if a black hole in my mind
****** all my memory away
Dreams are like that,
Resplendent enough,
But as soon as I wake
There's nothing inside but the residue of dreams
A few bits of ashes left
That the sweeper in my mind forgets
And leaves them like mystery to solve,
Deep in my subconscience
It is ensonsced
For me it's amnesia,
Nothing lucid,
No colour but black and grey,
As if a black hole
****** all my memory away.
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 7:44 AM UTC
The street is full of the nights left-overs
We sit under the dead orange glow
I take a glance at your face, scared
Its twisted look of
Confusion
Sadness
Exhaustion
makes my body twist itself
Until I have shrunken so tiny
I could sit upon the pin
that I just stuck into your chest
My pocket gives three sharp beeps
Are you coming?
Your not stupid
Your face tells me that
I'm not going to do this again
You say, pained
as you pull out the pin
I take your hand and hold it tight
Our skin blends together, but i want it too
I
Love
You
and no one else
despite tonight's activities
We rise from the cold
Shake the glow off our shoulders
And watch as the sweeper takes away the streets mess
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 5:36 AM UTC
Hush my love, your night has fallen
feel it's cool embrace, feel your heat beat
fall into my eyes, no need to weep
for I am the dream maker
the mind sweeper
I will sing to you a sweet lullaby
at night I will always be by your side
coaxing you into the realms of make believe
worry not, I am not a soul taker
I'm that of kind things, a mind sweeper
I stand over you, like a black cloaked guardian
I make sure all your dreams are full of joy
so rest in the arms of Morpheus
I am something of the night my love
keeper of dark secrets, a mind sweeper
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC
*O breath-bloomed beast,
O phantom pulse,
O sweeper, swift,
O shadow scars
Of destinies
And designations,
Of heart's desire
And desperation,
And despair,
Downward detours
To despair, the deep Danube
Of departures, I detonate
The dormant dynamite
Of decent death,
Now, seal the sea
Of my seeping soul,
Let alone the love
And sshh the sails
Of sorrow, that I might
Greet her tomorrow,
With a trellis of tears
And a smile.
A smile.*
© 2015 J.S.P.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 11:30 PM UTC