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Mike Essig Apr 2015
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.
Sad.
Geno Cattouse Dec 2012
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.
Charles Barnett Feb 2011
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.
Nicky Vaught May 2015
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.
Appeared on WKNC's poetry corner.
Nicky Stevens May 2014
"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.
Tick tock
Michael Marchese Mar 2018
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
Kara Jean May 2016
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 ******* 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
Revised
Megan L Nov 2015
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.
Written on the night of 11/13/2015, after seeing my community theater's production of Mary Poppins.
Kara Jean Jun 2016
Her
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
The wrecking ball long since
     demolished boyhood house zen
located at 324 Level Road,
     a once rural residence,
     which soulful yen
I called home
     since February 28th, 1968, when

Boyce and Harriet Harris
     (my octogenarian
     widower father, a transplanted urban
cowpoke father, and late outskirts
     of poker flats mother) than
experienced livingsocial in the country,

      cuz aforesaid domain didst span,
and encompass,
     one hundred plus acre estate
     listed in national register
     as "Glen Elm", where ran
woodland surrounding a golden pond

     favored by Canadian Geese,
     but under game plan
of commercial developer Donald Neilson
     (a tall lumbering
     "all business no play doh" man

blueprints drafted for
     an army of vinyl city
     exemplifying Little boxes
     on the hillside ditty
Little boxes made of ticky tacky...gritty
material upending wildlife refuge,
     ah...what a pity

yet, impossible to stop industrialization,
     the das capital way
spurring thy preferential longing
     for nature preservation oye vey,
and to make a million bucks in USA

if land left off limits
     for propertied class today
then in the near future,
     an aggressive builder will sashay

confirming prophecy    
     scooping up gobs of profit
     out maneuvering competition
     analogous to a marathon relay
race quickly witnessing little boxes
     to sprout all the same

     by construction workers,
     who hammer away,
nailing steady income,
     viz all work and no play,
who maxim eyes

     American middle class dream
     asper buying affordable home
     after acquiring a mortgage to outlay
their limited choice sans, may
be there's a green one and a pink one

and a blue one and yellow one, how zing
free enterprise, and they're
     all made out of ticky tacky
     held together on a wing
and prayer they all look

     just the same ring
with a round of row zees
     awash manicured lawns
     with generic grass seed
     that doth spring

to life with synthesized,
(yet deadly) chemicals meant
     to guarantee wrest
ting control might and subdue
     so nature forced

     to become nsync from in vest
ment plot purchase
     as proving grounds to test
a money bagged well paid
     laborer at leisure time

sprawled asleep in comfy hammock
     a much needed self deserved rest
whereat successful proof
     evinces "American dream"

     no matter quest
necessitates becoming linkedin
     with fast paced lifestyle
     attendant ulcer inducing "pest"
keeping up appearances,

     where younglings nest
scolding woe begotten kith
     if flawless grounds get messed
by clod hopping kids and/or smart pets
     upsetting calculus figuring formula

     determining trigonometric
     landscaping tangential
     to maintaining perfectly
     squared off turf especially lest
the neighbors cease becoming hospitable
     and stop offering gold plated invitations
     to such honorable humble guest.
Brent Kincaid Nov 2016
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.
Smiles Apr 2014
"There's doctors and lawyers and business executives. They're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."
Dedicated to my family for always supporting me as an individual.... Sorry that was a bad joke... Don't tell it at parties
rsc Sep 2014
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.
Meagan Moore Jan 2014
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?
This was a response to a poem a guy in my class wrote. The line, "I try to find something, anything." was in his poem.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
the blank or nothing, forged in the frost,
                                                          ­         harrowing,
thumb and time consuming,
     toward the rally of "thus" heard,
          as ever a language of lawyers, but no law
being passed.
             churn out charcoal.
           pencil stirp stimata sharpen a few digressions,
but nonetheless the main
narrative comes back....
          and it comes back
nuanced, relative, muted and
      somehow mutually exclusive:
the idiot always appears:
        he never is.
   same talk of god & genius,
devil & idiot,
                     & gentleman...
           we are clearly making
a new prototype of the Belgian countryside,
or the talk of Trenches,
          but no head to be hunted...
     no "bad guy",
         just a guy that's there to be respected
because enough philanthropy sides with him...
  or dittoing caption:
   no matter whether heard, misheard or
            unheard,
           it's called the Thesaurus Rex stomp,
the Panzer pulverisation assault -
                     i don't care what words you used,
iron grits iron
            iron nibbles iron,
                   both sides are given hammers
and made to talk about nailing nails in
rather than investing millions.
       talk easy? i'll iota a séance...
but tell me... why is diacritical markings
disregarded when a name like Bartók
suggested? why is it Bartok rather than Bartuk?
or why is that umlaut arithmetic?
       enlighten me!                      please!
    are you educating people for free while
ensuring you own the fisherman's keys?
i guess you are!
       if A is universal encoding from French
to Norwegian, diacritical markings can employ
transcendentalism, in this case alienation -
       it's Bartook -
             the acute incisor cut open the o
and made a parabola of u -
                     don't squabble for what's already an
incorrect answer: diacritics unanimous
is a bit like alcoholics anonymous:
         feed the ******* shame of not asserting
the prescribed marching orders;
the squabbling hogs that you are: pristine my ***:
it's not a ******* birthright! squeem!
  and, go on, squirt out another adolescent
   piglet oink of pseudo Auschwitz!
    i'm saying: why bother to use it in the
first place? why not do away with the whole *******
Belshazzar pantomime of insurance Latin
      for adaptability of working on robotics?
                          sure, effective in Poland as
an aesthetic-variant of u, but elsewhere: no point for
the acute comma above the o, it's still an o -
we implanted that diacritical mark for jokes,
to create an economic sieve!
                  it was never Bar-ticky-tocking-*****,
           but Bar-took -
              otherwise stop pretending,
  or i'll slap you with a raw herring across your face,
and it won't be a politicised red,
  and fish included, or colloquial for a: white lie.
          my advice? either respect the diacritical
application, or go away with the Latin alphabet
altogether...
                      why?
      the soul is born when the words are added /
reason...
                  no words, no soul...
the argument counter? humanoids and that whole
Darwinistic debacle to connect the dots?
     it's called a zoo...
             and a zoological investigation -
self-reliant logic, not something individualistically
accountable for in terms of man...
              and humanism as: less zoo
and more university...
                 or cracking the coconut Dostoyevsky -
but as you do, love the semblance -
            i guess history only exists within a timespan
of 1.3.2015, and the ancient Greeks
       are but a yawn.
                         i don't mind,
i have built up enough qua
                        to answer quo -
                                            qua? as being thespian....
quo (vadis)? where are you going...
                a place called the submission to applause;
the place i'm act? a bunch of neurotics mumbling
toward a statue they're desiring to *****
but never do... they are a bunch of people
mumbling and gesticulating toward a statue they
desperately want to *****...
     or as i said in my Holly Valance kiss kiss video
to a poor Syrian girl:
                     so you too? less exposing the frantic
differences between us but nonetheless attracted?
or what said masculine blonde to the olive-tan girls?
    well, listen, the girls kindred of my impression
         on the word bone are prone to play the
bad girl who-did-it ***-appeal...
                           i just drink to fall asleep,
    i might talk before i do:
god - don't you think that "spoken word" requires
a substantial consideration for lessened poetical optometrics
of complication, and and an eased consideration
of language?
                        well, whenever you feel like it,
it's a grand schematic of a Taj Mahal daydream,
had i the marble and the desire to ***** something
comparably worth a number of tourists
that the original attracts -
oh **** me! poetry can plagiarise everything!
i say plagiarise, but i mean: take the mickey out
of every mouse...
                                or the peppercorn ****
you try to get rid of...
             once i caught a mouse, and it committed suicide
by jumping down the stairs.
Kara Jean Jun 2018
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
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?
Massive transformations for this teenage girl. :)
KM Ramsey May 2015
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.
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.
tabitha Apr 2018
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
Donall Dempsey Sep 2020
AND WE'RE ALL MADE OUT OF TICKY-TACKY

Oh...Zeus
we haven't heard of you
for such a long time

Ah Yahweh yes
we can see you but
we can't hear you

And Allah we
can hear you but
not see you

if you look down
to the left you can see
the icon...turn your video on

now who isn't
here or rather
all here...un-mute yourselves please

I see on the chat line
that alas
Buddha can't make it

and the Dharmic religions
offer
their apologies

let's see who are we
waiting for
ahhh there's someone

in the waiting room
the Second Coming
I'll just let Him in...ping

ok shall we begin then
I am who am
the Lord God of Zoom

and here we goooooo
zooming across the known
universe in our little boxes
T R S Sep 2019
Soft speakers.
Lured.
And held in secret.

Blessed martyrs.
Maybe matrons of
health and hell.

So, maybe.
I should be okay.
And maybe, so should you.
ryan Sep 2014
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.
Blue Flask Jan 2021
lithe heat strikes this insipid core
a corpse beyond any defintion
my heart is failing
my brain is failing soon
my liver
pancreas
are odes to grecian God's
ambrosia is the **** of the grecian urn
Mary Percy Shelly shelled
Why do I feel like Frankestien
the monster, not the creator
the tag line i need to say
to show i am me,  i am smart
that i am not Dr. Frankentien
wasting away with a prompt
that i am real
i am real
I am real
please
please God
I am real
The wrecking ball long since
demolished boyhood house zen
located at 324 Level Road,
a once nonagricultural,
pastoral, rural residence,
which soulful yen
I called home while
veritably sequestered, quarantined, positioned...
sprawled atop spaciously shingled roof
countless years (B)efore (C)ovid-19
scanning distant horizon
for unsuspecting barenaked lady,
perhaps said goo goo doll sunbathing

catching rays while maybe listening
courtesy iPod to WXPN
one among several favorite stations of mine
one hotmail (male) buzzfeeding
avast fancy feast
home sweet home
since February 28th, 1968, when
Boyce and Harriet Harris
deceased parents then at their prime
both transplanted Brooklyn
Borough citified folks,
hankered to escape urban jungle
quickly acclimated livingsocial in the country.

Aforesaid domain didst span,
once assumed, encompassed, incorporated
one hundred plus acre wooded estate
(analogous to fictional land inhabited
by Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends)
listed in national register
as "Glen Elm", where ran
woodland surrounding a golden pond
favored by Canadian Geese,
but under game plan
of commercial developer Donald Neilson
(a tall lumbering
"all business no play doh" man.

Soon after aforementioned builder/realtor
bought expansive land
blueprints soon drafted for
an army of vinyl city
exemplifying Little boxes
on the hillside ditty
Little boxes made of ticky tacky...gritty
material upending wildlife refuge,
ah...what a pity.

Impossible mission to stop industrialization,
the das capital way
spurring thy preferential longing
for nature preservation oye vey,
and to make a million bucks in USA
if land left off limits
for propertied class today
then in the near future,
an aggressive builder will sashay
confirming prophecy
scooping up gobs of profit
out maneuvering competition

analogous to a marathon relay
race quickly witnessing little boxes
to sprout all the same
by construction workers,
hired brawny hands to maximize
American middle class dream
asper buying affordable home
nailing steady income,
viz all work and no play,
after acquiring a mortgage to outlay
which prospective homeowner
doth figuratively hammer away.

Their choices limited indeed
maybe there's a green one and a pink one
and a blue one and yellow one, how zing
free enterprise, and they're
all made out of ticky tacky
held together on a wing
and prayer they all look
just the same sporting lawn
anticipating family with young children
ready to play kiddy game
such as: Ring-a-ring-a-rosies
A pocketful of posies
A tissue, a tissue

We all fall down
The king has sent his daughter
To fetch a pail of water
A tissue, a tissue
We all fall down
The robin on the steeple
Is singing to the people
A tissue, a tissue
We all fall down
The wedding bells are ringing
The boys and girls are singing
A tissue, a tissue
We all fall down.
Kelly McManus Sep 2020
All aboard the train
railroading you to the end
of the line mankind

                  Kelly McManus
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2020
let us want linear narratives -
by the current standard of: narratives -
let us all want parallel linearalities
and then: on some odd
occasion: forced to mesh-into
focus point -
                       when we were somehow
young and england
was a place at a time
when the handover of hong kong
happened -
what subsequently happened:
custard and fudge brain
crayon squiggly: attached to a fridge:
with a magnet...

here's to: i'm out to lunch...
toying with poker and... altruism...
solipsism, "atheism" and
albinos for autism...
rather: nothing will elevate
this circus -
          
   oculus per oculus -
     eye for an eye...
      skin for stretch... belts and leather...
and i hope: non-kosher shoes...
whitey brightey almost the: "almighty"...
but god! chugging along
with all these bachelor lepers -

i want to earn honour as a yack
herder in mongolia -
chequers: not chess -
because i need to go back
to m'ah rootz... my caucasian -
caspian sea - mongrel mongol
and of turkic or hOOn!

talent: "talent": a hot topic for
the imagery of phallus -
          a talent for a porceil girl of
toy-kyo...
           with a rabbit sized
bouquet of fleshy pwetty pwetty
pet-als!

  or... that it once happened...
the steve colberT show...
  the blind stevie minor...
        keeping up appearances...
a mrs. bucket that stressed!
it's: mrs. bou-kay... i.e. bouquet...
beau! literally! beau-*****-full!

stefan col-bear -
                stephen coal-b'err...
              it's tragic... a mrs. buckeT
sort of tragic...
         it's not as much fun when...
there might be people
who joke around "illiteracy" of those
who didn't used the proper
orthography...
that english isn't stress-laden
with orthography - but can be deviated
with and back into:
to speak is one thing: to write:
another...

  mrs. bouquet / alias bucket -
or a stephen colberT...
         alias: col-ber...
coal-bear...
                     coe-bare...
           it's like elevating a status
symbol: yeah... i too wish
i had a surname like: VIN-D'SOR...
or win-win-d'sour...
or windsor...
                
windy, sir?
            it's not like there will ever be:
something to play with in english
that might arrive at: suspense!
  it's the bare enlisted minimum -
i too have reached my cul de sac
of ingenuity -
perhaps i invented a light-bulb -
perhaps i have confronted
a river with a bridge -
        there's no second "eureka":
there's only a devolved "word salad":
or an attempt at a Prokofiev linear -
even with all the flurry of
decapitated sounds
running around like...
                    decapitated "sounds"...

i still come to the conclusion:
this was never going to be a language
that could be extracted
and used in a formal manner...
paint me a practical picture:
preferably a schematic used in
engineering: when looking at a Kandinsky...

now look at these words:
there's a rigidity of spelling -
a kept grammar?
well... to know blue is to also...
settle for the hue that might tease
either green or yell-ow...

               but is it a venture: prim formal?
i hope to find grave and bed come
11pm... and my legs come 6am
tomorrow... and at least 3 hours
of walking... till the point that
my underwear will rub so much
on my inner-thighs that
i will have to smear savlon cream
on what will become oyster flesh
tenderness from all the rubbing...

go full commando or wear a thong?
it's impossible to walk these parts
naked...

statures of man being childless -
this full-embodiment of a self-to-act-upon:
that there's nothing selfess about
the endeavour of clogging the thoughtlessness
of aether and the frictionless
eternal dynamism of heliocentrism -

sum up! there's that call for verbiage!
people often want,
instructions - the verb that does
the verb and some other bidding...
i have yet to read a philosophy book
that allowed itself:
grammatical peacocking -
that grammar is somehow only
ever pure instruction:
it can never be deviated from:

lesson no. 1: how you speak is:
the passable grammar lesson you will
ever hear...
get fudge: thrown into the deep
end and told to: tread water...
head above the floating mantel piece!
****** don't stink it up
with drowning!

       ergo: the great yawning sea...
and all the ghosts and myriads
and sentinetls and gargantuan: failed...
prodigies that come with it:
adding of course... a looting of
spanish armanda or some...
**** u-boat tricklet...

            god... when evil was fun...
when evil was tinged with:
a german plight of competition with
the french and the english and
the spanish and the russians:
this strange: by god... this very strange
inferiority complex...
you simply can't stage a formidable presence
with all that technological
advances on a whim:
when shuffling along with
some decanting'ant: k?

               of the little people that
england has somehow incubated:
where's my bombast?!
where's my: i'm here, i'm now...
i'm thoroughly fire-proof!
where is that... maybe not allowing
myself a presence nibbling at
crumbs from the tablature of London...
go back to Edinburgh?
get lost in Vales?
         yes... way over "there":
in way way over in les country...
a go-get-to-Lesley brittle...

             - which wasn't much of a sunday...
a tired body a welcoming
bed: the part of life where
every 34 year old might
finally settle for: get busy dying -
or vegetating or... basking
in the suns of former glories -

these ample three-sometimes-four
worded junctions
for all the biped beasts that:
prance or dance or run spectacular
migrations of fake:
in their marathons -
  
i have truly managed to assert that:
the world can happen by myself -
beside... on some distant reservoir
of thirsty new lives and:
vitality pomps -
    for their vitality i have a submergence
into a vitriol i dare not exercise -
that's of course:
they have been incubated by a lie...
any lie in the framework of
the already unshakeable complex
of pedagogy -
   it would have been better to have...
beside crushing me...
not given me this leisure of
education...
              to stand organic and proper...
to appeal to the thespian monotony
of customer service roles
where: the customer is always right...

it was foolish to educate a man
beyond the age of 16... all the guys who
dropped out of school come 16
are now either mortgage shackled...
definitely with wife and most certainly
with child in tow...
i'm hardly my own making...

tone death: blair -
again... is it a solipsistic statement,
that... famous mea culpa?
      it's my fault for most certainly it is...
but at what point did
other people stop existing...
at what point can i blame fortune
on myself?
this sunday was depressing because...
i made a bet...
on 8 football matches...
a bet on a win... and a bet on...
both teams scoring...
16 matches to choose from...
but this is why i abhor gambling...
it's this stupendous suspency
akin to reading a thriller...
which i have never...
but you get the idea should
such results as: 6 - 1 tottenham hostpurs
vs. man united /
   7 - 2 aston villa vs. liverpool...
ever... degrade your least
chosen of avenues of "hope"...

               - somehow a "little known" nuance...
albion is a chalk-faced
grinning monstrosity of lime, scaling
up to no ends meet: and meat...
of course... the kosher furore
surrounding the omnivorous
tacticians of: one rice patty
per village: sq. a dozen heads...

i too want linear pursuits of language!
hey! over 'ere!
i want to take it upon myself
to be native and be get-given
the wings of flight!
looks like i'm nowhere going...
looks like i'm going nowhere:
but i'm still somehow: a here...
in this heliocentric ferriswheel
post-scientific darwinism this: pop cull-the-truants!
i am somehow hier...
herr sir-farce-a-****-to-borrow...
and a lot...

to have to escape the russians
and the polacks and the germans
and all these subsequently not-listed
cretins of the european pervesion...
of: self-mutilating yodle yo...
barracks up-right and standing...
congregating around
the mafia proposal of the:
       vain-ticky-tic-toc-bataclan...

dog collars of priest simply ooze:
satisfaction with:
a missing status of believbility...
but do not fret!
the hougenots are the last rats
to bail... of a sinking ship...
and there's all this night's worth
to want to exploit with
the burdens of sleep!

that we are pulverised dead-end-knottings...
insomnia provoked...
it's no matter...
the people without attache
verbiage... with strict cohesive
conducts are all ablaze...
i want these skimmies for
detailing scoop of fat over fat:
leaving little of beliebvable bone
to be a miscarriage of... ahem...
"reality";

i have been accused of
missing an ego a clog in the jargon
of the: "ex machina":
a reality without a deity
is almost like...
            a flaking of a skin...
that must be associated with
an invitation to possessing a self.
Sherry Asbury Nov 2018
How many more springs will be granted.
Springs where seeds and flowers are planted.
How long will the filthy rain sustain the vigor
Of tender shoots so green and innocently eager.
We spew out human seed to take root on earth,
Lessening its space, its value and its worth.
How long until we are world of ants scurrying,
Everything trampled by the constant hurrying.
We have chipped the beauty away into rows
of ticky-tacky houses where nothing grows.
Where are the jungles, the forest primeval.
Not now but air and water that are lethal.
Oh, mourn the earth of beauteous expanse.
Now no beauty can be found with a glance.
Mayhaps we will survive - but maybe not. . .
between progress and the lessons taught.
Sleep well sweet Earth, beautiful orb.
I am an environmentalist and try to work for that through my art.
Aprilia Dec 2020
Mind a racing’

Fingers ablazin’  
                Across this page of mine.

Ticky, ticky, tock
                Goes this clock of mine.

Each year passing
                 Faster than the next.

A time-sensitive journey
                 To your ultimate Truth.

Taking time to evaluate...
                 To
                     Rearrange
                                Your
                                      Priorities.

It might just take a leap of faith and a hope that the universe will catch you when, and if, you fall down.
© 2020 A. Violet. J.
DeSwimber day #11
Ron Conway Dec 2019
Sing-song deal-making stoners in a tower
Ping-pong favourable circumstances sour
Hip-hop, rabble-rousing beatniks gettin' wealthy
Big, fat, silk-suited hippies lookin' healthy

Not gettin' rich if you're pullin' 'round a rickshaw
Clip-clop marching through this crazy mental jigsaw
Never ending placement on a silver teeter totter
If you're gonna swim, you gotta move to deeper water

Pitter-patter, rapid, measured footfalls on the pavement
Shadow slipping always kept in boundless, rapt amazement
Chest a-flutter from the garish, neon ticky-tacky
Don't be sayin' what you saw; they'll think that you are wacky

Tick tock times a-wastin'- better get a move on
Dodging 'round the traffic to avoid the lot that you've drawn
Crazy little, topsy-turvy microcosm fantasy
Live the modern moral life that comes without a guarantee
                                                       ­                     rc
ablaut reduplication
Ray Laccetti May 2019
?
?
I don’t think so…
but I don’t think… so?
Who thinks… or ever did?
If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
You can’t make an omelette
without breaking an egg.
Five will get you ten if you
know how to work it.
But no ‘ticky no shirty’ is
the theme-song for today.
— Ray Laccetti
The Fire Burns Aug 2019
Upon my dais, I must stand,
each construction brick a choice,
growing higher year by year,
with each decision and thoughts to voice.

There is no destiny, except the one we make,
there are no reasons we are here,
just a random bit of chance,
just take a look it's all quite clear.

So when you lay the mortar,
between decisions made,
will your building be secure,
with considered choices paid.

Or will it rock and twist,
with the blowing winds of change,
will it be square, cookie-cutter ticky-tack,
or will it be your own, secure but shaped quite strange.

You're the general contractor,
the platform of life you must build,
stand upon it proudly,
the power is yours to wield.

— The End —