"toted" poems
///
A golden past dematerialized within a shadow light
As a full boat of time toted time to a black hole
A shadow canvas of heart has retorted the reality,
Of those darkest stripes of sky-
Your inspiration has created dynamic dream
As like as a kite swings on air
As my springtime I ran with grasshoppers to and fro
An Amour of aroma flowed from flower to flower
A Jerry-rigged time streams as murmur of river
As a gray fade pained pale sky-
Run away together with my past, present and future
Sometimes my child has reacted reverse what I have wished
I float a boat on sea when she is far from me
My mind has grown shrink as my body bended already
Someone has vamoosed toward the horizon within a shadow fog,
A dry but misty memory -
Though faded but has dreamed me again and again -
///
@Musfiq us shaleheen
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
your Colorado village was freezing,
even the eve of May
the bus dropped me there
you weren't waiting
I toted my duffel bag, now turned sixty,
to your place
you didn't answer for an hour; when you did,
it was not sleep in your eyes
we didn't fight--it was too cold in your apartment
for heated arguments
you didn't bother to say you were busy, or forgot
your father's only son had agreed to this visit
you had only stale bread, stingy swirls of peanut butter
in a cold jar
you left with a promise to get food,
and my last seven dollars
I waited for you until dusk, then dragged my bag
to a locked church
I put an extra ancient sweater under my coat, leaned
against the chapel's small west wall
I watched the sky turn from mauve to black,
until I fell asleep
and dreamed of a time I carried you on my shoulders,
under a warm sun
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 4:41 PM UTC
String of red and hair of the same
A common interest and a holy name
A chance meeting and a sudden departure
Stuck in my head - Shot by the cherubic Archer
Words were shared and feeling were kindled and
I toted your love like the sheets in my bindle
The warmth they provided from the cold of the road
Well it carried me onward whilst lightening my load
Life is a gift, both joyous and free
I'd give mine to you if you'd take it from me
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 4:58 AM UTC
I pulled my old green lunch box
down from the top of the refrigerator
the other day
because my blue one is broken.
I toted my old green lunchbox
swinging it on my wrist
as a walked in the rain
to the bus.
I noticed his
old green lunchbox
that he clutched in his hand
as he walked through the rain
on the way to the bus.
I thought something
preposterous.
Perhaps matching was not a coincidence
but a sign.
A sign from a god or fate that I don't believe in.
That matching is to destiny as fetus is to baby.
I hoped
I hope
That matching will lead to Love.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC
This bottle,
its bones creak
like mine
with each step,
from here and there
and back again.
No matter the sweet
alcoholic chatter,
even upon a third leg
with every guzzle.
Amidst each passing,
euphoric hour
our bones connect
it, me,
together becoming one
with dear life
as we,
both tenderly age
the same,
within a release
of a ******
intimately graced,
aboard the confines
toted highly
ascension into,
a solemn
intoxicated heaven.
Mirrored in sweet
delectable togetherness
interwoven tightly
of harmonious,
chardonnay shadows...
©Michael P. Smith
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 6:22 PM UTC
The Trouble With Assumptions
come when no words are spoken,
But plenty are implied.
The crash of her lips and
Her nicotine tongue
had me feeling five times sprung.
And I didn’t know it at the time,
but my feelings towards her were hanging
Loosely on an invisible line
And I’d have never known,
had her lips not met mine.
If anything, I knew the Ice Queen
Was trouble upon our first meeting.
Somewhere deep down, I knew
With all of the fire within me,
that she’d burn me to a fine dust,
Sprinkle me around until
I found some place to rest.
I didn’t know what to expect the first time
she grabbed my hand.
It was gratifying, electric,
like magnets, all over magnetic.
She toted me and joked with me,
indefinitely filled me with glee.
But she was distant and reserved,
and I hardly had the nerve
to try and pick apart her brain
and unravel her pretty thoughts.
I assumed that her head was a beautiful mess,
much like my own.
I assumed that she sought thrills from things
Much too dangerous for someone of her size,
and that she didn’t care either way -
she’d been through enough already.
Or so I liked to think.
See, I still don’t know the Ice Queen.
I know the gentle caress of her fingertips,
her breath, hot on my neck,
the curve of her lips and their cotton candy tinge.
I know the curves of her waist,
the arch of her spine,
the softness of her hair,
and the little sparkles in her eyes,
But I still do not know her.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
The memory of your battered work boots,
tipped on their sides and haphazardly strewn about
the back hallway, my mother
asking you to put them away.
To the love song playing on the radio,
you recalled that the first time you
heard it, you were standing in Times Square
and you immediately thought of my mother. (I
wonder if you still think of her.) You
picked up a can of Miller. You took a swig.
My sister, just a few months old and laying in
her bassinet, plucked from the comfort and placed
into her carrier. You toted her around with you,
took her to meet the crowd in the beer garden.
You took two sips.
On the weekends, you would lounge on the couch with
race cars in your eyes. Your thoughts were far
away from little girls playing dress up and
little girls toying with dolls. Your thoughts were on
the equipment from work that you had
begun hoarding. You took three gulps.
My weekends, spent with my grandparents, felt
like mini vacations. Your cool distance and rotten
behavior towards my mother felt like arms outstretched,
keeping me away, forcing me away. Childhood like a peach
out in the sun for too long, overripe and decaying,
you threw it in the trash and I helped.
The sour taste in my mouth is leftover childhood
ignorance, the kick in my gut when I think about you
is leftover betrayal—I will not mourn a traditional
childhood, I will mourn your lack of apathy. You will
never know remorse.
The phone will ring, and I will not answer. You will
leave messages, and I will delete them. We are
on two different planes now,
Daddy.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 12:55 AM UTC
My dearest friend, what have you done tonight?
I fear you may have ****** up once again.
You only had one chance to get it right,
And now I think you might have lost a friend.
You ran away as soon as she declined . . .
Affections are a ***** if not returned,
And many who assert themselves will find
The hearts they wear upon their sleeves are spurned.
But don't give up completely. There's a reason
This love-will-find-a-way **** is so toted.
Some day, somehow, within the perfect season
You will find Her. And I'd like it noted
That though you walked into a trial today,
It was a stronger man that walked away.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 2:16 AM UTC
inside, outside
upside, downside
east side west side
don't be so snide
i find you cried
after you tried
needing two minds
seeking bedside
"abide all nine
thousand and five"
ain't but half fried
feeling you died
your side, your hide
not my own fight
up to you Clyde
but **** you slide
molded, folded
formed, stolid
candy coated
heaps of no dead
inside noted
kept you floated
safe and boated
from the toted
to your faux-head
mercury and lead
hitting homestead
killing your bed
Clyde I warn-ed
you turned instead
mind insipid
soul got shredded
waiting hating
same-old-stating
working, pacing
"what's you bringing?
me some red things
lectric singing"
know it's stinging
making ringing
could be stringing
I'm just saying
Clyde you're dying
writhing, frying
clinging, peering
never hearing
you keep working
I'll keep singing
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
Mincing words and little smiles
Not too much teeth
A delicate flutter of the fingers
And a calculated toss of the hair
Over a craftily twitched shoulder
*Take small steps
And be sure to swing your hips -
But not too much*
Dear God, the claustrophobic prison
Of tiny, perfect words and
Tiny, perfect movements
You've created for yourself!
Let me scare away every man I meet
Before I put myself in such a little box,
Easily picked up, easily toted,
. . . easily discarded.
I will be me, loud and obnoxious,
I will dance in the middle of the street,
I will wave to random passersby,
I will wear funny hats and bright red boots,
I will carry plates of food on my head,
I will laugh as loudly as I want,
And I will be loved for who I am,
Or not at all.
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 5, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
Tony lived out in the country
on a hundred acre estate
There on our throne, we called Tombstone
is where we would tempt our fate
On what we called the back forty
set the barn where our ponies stayed
There we could count, each trusty mount
to partner in each game we played
We picked up our neighbor Georgie
from a bit farther down the lane
In an hours course, saddled each horse
then set off with the morning rain
Georgie always rode ole Rusty
a stud with a mind of his own
Tough and so wild, mind of a child
ole Rusty was bad to the bone
We never went on safari
without carrying BB guns
Which we toted, locked and loaded
we were all mother nature’s sons
We had mastered our universe
or to us at least it seemed so
That afternoon, we shot a ****
how he escaped I'll never know
Off we raced to Lost Creek
our favorite watering hole
Crazy Rusty, hot and dusty
rode out on point for this patrol
Out past the neighbors fields of corn
our club house in the willow tree
The winding lane, a weather vane
to the creek that ran to the sea
We tied the horses to a tree
in the grass by the swimming hole
Piled up the rocks, just like Fort Knox
making it deeper was our goal
All afternoon we played out there
shooting targets off the ridge
Saddled each horse, and in due course
we set off for the cement bridge
The bridge barely cleared the water
where the rain had swollen the creek
So now it ran, over the span
as it had the entire week
Now George of course wanting the lead
headed for the top of the ridge
He couldn't see apparently
the algae that grew cross the bridge
He met the bridge at full gallop
Rusties shoes slipped as he went down
George screamed "Oh crap," and with a snap
broke his leg and began to drown
We both jumped in and pulled him out
caught his horse and threw him back on
Pain made him hurl, he screamed like a girl
any dignity was now gone
We drug him back to his mothers house
where she promptly rushed him to town
Tony and I, both waved goodbye
determined that we wouldn't frown
We camped under the stars that night
each wrote out our Wills in a draft
Tony turned in, and with a grin
said "tomorrow we build a raft"
Tate
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 1:29 AM UTC
*Have you heard the black 'n tans -
howling by the December moonlight
Have you shot mistletoe down -
from high atop an oak tree
Gathered pecans on a frosty -
morning , toted well water -
in the heat of summer , led cattle
to their winter quarters
Have you picked blackberries and wild plums -
all day from the side of a gravel road
Have you ambled long distances through -
piedmont forest to get to a little country store
Did you ever seine minnows an hunt crayfish
in the springtime
Have you tasted concord grapes fresh off the vine* ..
Nov 29, 2017
Nov 29, 2017 at 10:44 PM UTC