"ticky" poems
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 9:23 AM UTC
March in the streets
But I urge you beware
They’ll still butcher the sheep
With the arms that they bear
Private properteers part with
No slave cropper’s share
So this Northern aggression's
Like Freeman’s red scare
All the colors of wind
Through the head-shavers’ hair
The Guevara adventures
These pigs wouldn’t D.A.R.E.
The Arabian knights
In the grand wizard’s lair
The denaturalized dreamer’s
Recurring nightmare
Of the Stalingrad ghost
Still witch-hunting like Blair
The projects to the precincts’
New modern welfare
The post-trauma disorderly’s
Empty screen stare
The savages they thought
Were waaaaayyyy over there
The debt clock ticky tock
In the heart of Times Square
The 1st world problem-children
Who commonwealth care
Because some barely EAT
And we’ve so much to spare
But these cowherds still like their calves
Medium rare
And the bulls try to sell you
Their laissez-faire snare
Till your trapped in a minimum cage’s
Last prayer
And the only escape
Is upgraded software
Like automaton autobahn’s
In disrepair
In this fascist facade’s
Fragrant breath of fresh air
Just as toxic as stocks
Of the mock billionaire
So I shock ‘em like Tesla’s
Bolt-action Voltaire
And I leave it to you
To go **** it out there
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 6:27 AM UTC
Party like a rock star
Pretend to be elegant and wear sundresses
Remember to smile and wave at the desperate housewives, I choose to offend
I'm inconsiderate
My charismatic side makes up for everything
So blow me a kiss and flirtatious wink
I will ignore the fact you have a plastic grin
I hate to say it, love you're not my friend
Hey, don't worry I will do this again
Contaminated, I hope to infect the ticky-tack world
Please don't vanquish my plot of sin
Don't forget to bring a bikini (optional) and gallon of whiskey
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 6:59 PM UTC
I live in a small town with nice people.
Nice community theater people.
Nice non-swearing churchgoing people.
Nice people who keep their mouths shut and their eyes closed.
Nice people who live in ticky tacky houses and sweep their front porches.
Nice people with children who send text messages and drive to nowhere in the middle of the night.
Nice high school teaching, comfortably living people.
Nice mothers-and-fathers people with bright voices and dark eyes.
Nice bored people.
I live in a small town with nice people.
But occasionally they all go momentarily mad.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 2:04 AM UTC
We beat the paths that
are laid before us with
machetes and gunfire
Loving violently, loving
violence like Roman citizens
at a colosseum.Cringing
heroically at dismemberment
and pain.
And we're all just the same.
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 9:32 AM UTC
She's the women
You imagined
Stepford wife
She sit's with Hands clasped tightly
Courtney Loves drunken sister
Resonates within
Her wilted box keeps disintegrating
Her barricades
Useless
Soaking filth from the ground
She would cry
Tears dry
Salt is only producing
She's a mist uncontrolled
Wild growing daisy
Sitting in a ticky tack
Garden
She sees freedom
Fake
Placed in the deserts hot sun
Thirsty
Last drink
Now haunts
Suited up in her dress
She carries on
Fragmented
Dissapointing denial
Jun 7, 2016
Jun 7, 2016 at 2:24 PM UTC
All the planets are falling
Much to my chagrin
From their fishing line and ticky-tacky
Out of the stucco cosmos.
The days are carbon copies
Of last month’s plans:
Work and meet with people who matter
Not enough that I don’t need reminding.
The second bookshelf isn’t quite full
But the knick-knacks look nice
Even the fake succulent
Helps to tie it all together.
A brown lizard on the wall
Still only metal
Extends his tail for a towel,
But all of mine are folded on the floor
Next to the briefcase-looking record player
I hardly use but use enough.
And the TV is in front of my bed
Where I hardly sleep but sleep too much
And now the incense has died
But it will smell nice all day.
When I leave the microcosm will crash
Except for the sticky ticky-tacky stalactite
My burnt out light bulb will be replaced
A star for a new solar system
If any god or goddess thinks to make one
But for now
The planets are falling.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 2:24 PM UTC
Veronica LaMonica
Played the harmonica
In our local high school band.
She collected japonica
She says it is a tonic
Attuned to a young lady’s hand.
She swears she is not picky
But avoids the ricky-ticky
And goes instead for the class.
She claims not to be picky
But avoids like a big hickey
Anything of plastic or brass.
Veronica LaMonica
Played the harmonica
In our local high school band.
She collected japonica
She says it is a tonic
Attuned to a young lady’s hand.
Veronica is the prettiest
Down to the nitty grittiest
Girl in the local school we both attend.
She’s not always wittiest
Rather hit and messiest,
But I’m glad at least she is my friend.
I’d like her to be more
That’s what this rhyme if for
To tell her she’s the best in the world.
She ’s the very highest floor,
The one have always adored,
She’s most artistically talented girl.
Veronica LaMonica
Played the harmonica
In our local high school band.
She collected japonica
She says it is a tonic
Attuned to a young lady’s hand.
Nov 19, 2016
Nov 19, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
"There's doctors and lawyers and business executives. They're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 7:43 AM UTC
Come on, you say to me,
help to **** the soil dry of
deep, muddy clays made by
colonial lullabies and
forgo your selfish thoughts
of suicide in favor of a
dark grey summer salad coupled with
a nuclear fish fry.
Unleash a cosmic sigh, I
bleed to breed my human seeds and
cultivate forests of ***** while
pulling up deliciously
edible weeds who sing
laughing limericks we
care not to listen to and
languishing warnings we
care not to heed.
Me and you, baby, let's
build a box made of
ticky-tacky in the back of
some skeletal, suburban
cul-de-sac, crafted over a
cesspool vat of human feces,
spicy DDT and industrial-grade
mercury.
Apathy towards the life source
breeds apathy towards corporate force
breeds disgust, killing the serpent and
reclaiming the horse, tossing the
apple, preparing for the worst.
Pile up pounds of gold and
crowns to assign money a meaning
and postmark letters filled with
plastics and post-its with
"PARADISE IN THE REACH OF ALL MEN"
scrawled in felt-tipped pen to
peoples perched on the edge
of the planet, to whom
time gave rhymes from learning to
lay their ears down in the
dirt and succumbing to the
the devil wearing a blood-stained,
starched, white shirt.
Dilute the base of me with
an acidic you, quick, pollute
the river so salmon scurry
downstream and the arduous algae
dries up, screaming.
I wonder if the taker can
become the giver.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 6:58 PM UTC
"Time is a **** she screws everybody"
So much to do,
So little time.
Is there a chance to rewind?
Sadly no... It's not mine
Life throws things at you like the speed of light.
A lot of times you won't know what hit you, a right cross in a fight.
Just know to make the most of it.
Don't be blue,
Shine like a rainbow and use those precious hours, minutes, even seconds graciously given and just be you.
As years go by, the child won't have the time to rewind.
Bad choices wasted away,
Wishing there was another day.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC
one plus one is two.
Right?. Grass is green and sky is blue. Right?
You have to be up before you come down. Right ?
If I love you you have to love me too. Right? Right?. Smoking causes cancer
Liquor cooks your liver.
Stress Bums your ticker.
The world owes me for this that and the other.
If I have a cute face then You should let me La da da da.
Get real. No ticky, no washy.
Mommy kept you under wraps way past 21
Taped rose colored wrap-arounds real tight to your head.
Fed you spending account till it all turned red. Reality bites.
No Ticky No washy.
You had a nice ride all shinny and pimped.
Daddy said "son you have to learn to only
Claim what you earned" and now your ego has a limp.
And your cool got burned. Guess what Drama king.
No ticky no washy.
Pulled up to the Car wash to clean up your beater.
A little wax on wax of to be a bit neater.
pulled loose change from the tray just below the heater.
You came up one fifty short and cant pay the
Senorita.
Guess what Steve Jobs.
N.T.N.W.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 7:49 PM UTC
Sitting – well, slouching
Parochial ticky-tacky chair distorting sprawled alignment
How does a piece of paper weigh so much?
How do I extrude a greater weight from it into another page?
Fumbling with knotted headphones
My eyes drop into the inked Times New Roman
The page intones my fumbling succinctly, “I try to find something, anything.”
What boyscout, boatsmen, or climber crawled in my bag and tied this interminable knot?
My eyes turn to the knot -
Still fumbling with the toner’s entombed dance
I grew up in this slouch, in this tangle, thinking in Times New Roman
Etching knowledge into or from 8 x 12 reams
Does the paper weight I feel in the paper’s request equate to the weight of a neural connection ascertaining chemical knots?
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 2:59 PM UTC
You're sickening, kisses like cyanide
I hide, from a world guesstimating
A potentional of none
The different is done
Procrastination is fun
Imagination is hung
Ticky tack in our lack, it's to late to go back
Steadily we stand, no need to navigate
I won't hesitate
The mundane has won
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 1:52 AM UTC
February 28th, 1968 marked the date
Boyce Brandon Harris
(my octogenarian widower father)
purchased a small tract of land
constituting shadowed sliver
once hailing, hallmarking, harkening,
glorious vast "Glen Elm" estate,
which circa 1910 encompassed
a hundred plus acres of woodland
Pooh would Winnie
(including a pond frequented
by migrating Canadian Geese)
eventually zoned for commercial,
industrial, and residential development
(all in the name of productive land use)
particularly put into motion
courtesy Donald J. Neilson,
who transformed expansive woodland
rivaling shutterfly
sprouting like mushrooms towed stools
booming explosively
after ample precipitation
little houses on the hillside
little houses made of ticky tacky...
popped up overnight
transforming landscape
displacing flora and fauna with vinyl city
(minus spit of property papa bought)
manicured bumped uglies with wild wisp
reduced pristine niche leftover jot haven
squawking disoriented geese instincts
thwarted, where drained wetlands
a Arcadian past suburbanization
overlaying (palimpsest like) rural setting
trademark bucolic print Currier And Ives
stock in trade signature prints
landscape sparse human population
country aire sprinkled with family farms
fresh dairy, produce, vegetables
butchered animals free ranging
without synthetic injections
nostalgia faintly recreated here
Highland Manor Apartments
Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
a slip of country revered
against a Paul Ling urbanization
nothing appears familiar
retracing roadways now major highways
frequent moments breeds alienation
familiar ground confusing, frightening, and perplexing.
May 17, 2018
May 17, 2018 at 8:57 PM UTC
Here we are,
Swimming afar from Great White Sharks
Cooling with chill manatees from Mars.
School Break has been pleasant and it has been unfortunate as a peasant
Tenth grade is all over so what will tumble to cover when the eleventh is to hover?
I am fazed to predict the outcome.
My mom is long gone
And it appears that all is lost
What shall I regain in place of this unpresent ghost?
Never realized
The ultimate surprise
Could suppress me.
Never knew I could be so encouraged
When the terrain gets tough
I am stable to be.
Time surpasses on the clock ticky ******
I remain tucked in my snuggly bed at night
Pondering,
On the thought of how it all came to flash before my eyes in a heartbeat.
Last December
What a chilly, lonesome snowed forest
Current in July
What a hilly, hotsome blown storage
Abstracted memories,
Not a topic listed in my book.
Passages of temporaries,
Fish back to my hook.
What is to uprise
What is to dubb nice
What is to enlarge size
In this life?
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 1:50 AM UTC
You
are the airplane,
Traveling faster than the wreckage of noise
you leave behind,
You
Low-flying roar
Shaking the cores
of youths on rooftops
emptying beer bottles
into their bellies
Confusing birds,
******* on your territory,
an audio stream of noise pollution,
Claiming the sky as your own
You
The shining relic of the millennium,
An aerodynamic wonderamongst Midwest wheat,
The technological feat
of bored men with a hungry need to
prove themselves (W)right
The birds will not thank you
Neither will the families with
ticky tacky shelters plopped beside the tarmac
“Worse than living by the highway,” they say,
“I would live by the sea, if I could have it my way”
(a different kind of jet blue white noise)
The people you carry,
we are the only thankful souls
Being checked, scanned, and crammed
into tight places is
a preliminary condition I have lived with
You’re breaking the sky,
but you’re taking me places I could never be
otherwise
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 4:03 PM UTC
take me to the river
and let the water rush
in torrents from the
tear ducts of the source
the spring gurgling up
with a frigid message
ground water from
aquifers of secrets and the
memories that you swear to me
don't exist anymore
yet play in the crystal clear
blackness of your
eyes
when your pupils disappear
and blend into the river
of your mahogany irises.
walk me to the water
with the lead around me
and the bit of your attraction
burrowing between my teeth
as i bite down and
grind my molars to the
pollen that leaves a yellow green
sheen on the
surface of your watering hole
pull me as i fight
raging against the magnetic force
that shackles me to you
and leads me to the light
at the end of the tunnel
even though i'm lost.
you can lead a horse to water
just like you can tie me to you
sew me into the
secret place of your heart
and incorporate me into
the intricate web of your
ecosystem
fed by the endless supply of
that water which
digs its claws into the sides of my throat
and coats my stomach with
a poison
that i welcome.
you can lead a horse to water
but you can't make me drink
you can move the mountain
and dry up
snow drifts that drip and
melt into a
band of wild horses running
downhill to tread upon
my ticky-tacky heart
but if i drink then i'm surely lost
the sutures between us
cut out to reveal
the nascent pink scar
puckered at the edges
that represents our connection
how easily it can be
torn asunder
and leave me bleeding
on the banks of your shore
while you float away
one with the waves.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
It's raining outside. Of course
It's raining outside, it always
Rains here.
The drops rasp on the skylight;
They streak down the windows,
Clinging onto
the glass, praying not to hit
the ground.
Hitting on the glass, the ticky-tack
Drip-drop pitter-patter paradiddle
Resounds in my mind.
I hear it, the rain, but not the rain.
I hear it, your voice.
The way you laugh, your rises and
falls, your tiny snorts, your aghast
gasps and sounds of speech.
Your lips parting and pursing, your
Tongue weaving a song, breath
Sounding and resounding
with the rise and fall of your
chest, heavy with tender love.
The deep gray refracted in the water
Is so friendly, so inviting, when it
Speaks with your gentle voice.
It's raining outside, and I would bet
It's raining on you too. Maybe even,
The whispers in the rain,
Sound like me
to you.
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 2:13 AM UTC
The reverberations of
Sergeant Sargent’s rat-a-tat
ring in my head.
Listen up, ding dongs!
Any jibber-jabber is a no-no!
This ain’t no ticky-tacky, artsy-fartsy,
wishy-washy wingding!
You ragtag riffraff are gettin’ tip-top!
So cut the flimflam, quit the chit-chat,
and gimme super-duper!
No namby-pamby hanky-panky,
and everything will be hunky-dory.
Now chop-chop!
May 28, 2025
May 28, 2025 at 5:11 PM UTC
Edementous eyes...
Act a Little surprised...
Mirror in my face...
It's the smile that I chase...
The broken heart aches...
So I put my blood to ace...
I've fallen for the lies...
That felt like a paradise...
Read the letter of that phase...
It's my heart that's a race...
Ticky alarm that rings up twice...
"I love you" was a falsities...
The broken heart aches...
So I put my blood to ace...
And I could feel...your lies...
That you like my eyes...
~leila
Oct 30, 2024
Oct 30, 2024 at 1:21 PM UTC