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TW Smith Jan 2014
I killed myself today.
It was too much.
The debt,
The expectations,
The hippies,
The stonefaced
Unsympathetic Vietnam vets asking me if I was a *****.
To tell you the truth, Gus,
You've got to be pretty **** ******* to slit that throat,
To pull that trigger,
To hang that corpse from a rafter high.
But I did it classy.
Yeah.
I died like a Roman who had plotted against great Caesar.
I went home,
Slipped into the tub wearing a suit I pieced together from Uptown Thrift.
As the scorching water flowed,
I sipped wine and read the bible.
King James Version only, mind you.
As the water approached my neck I shut it off.
I laughed at the hypocrisy:
A suicide scene with a bible strewn about.
I muttered,
Then took the knife and opened up my veins.
I bled out.
My thoughts drifted to depressing things:
My 2 year old brother working a night shift at Walmart holding back his tears while being yelled at by a balding middle aged man who never did anything with his life,
A dog corpse ***** and mutilated by some *******,
A banker smoking a cigarette and laughing in an infant's face,
And the world turning on.
As it always does.
As it always will.
preservationman Feb 2017
The name Eubie Blake
Entertainment that fits the slate
The mood of swing was the evening date
Eubie Blake being the Jazz Pianist turning musical notes into a hit
It didn’t matter the Rhythm, as every dance step would fit
It was swing that made you move
Dancing with feeling that essence to soothe
The ivories that were played to perfection
But it was Mr. Blake’s pure talent that added the appreciation
Entertain he felt
Eubie Blake turned up the heat and wherever he played all the dance floors would melt
He performed at more than a piano
His music could be heard high above on patio
Mr. Blake was a superstar of his own called “EUBIE” on Broadway and appeared in Movies
Currently, SHUTTLE ALONG is playing on Broadway
Eubie Blake wrote it
He is also my Great Uncle
With every single beat, you were bound to move your feet
This was My Uncle’s musical treat
A dance twist having a musical wish
However, Eubie Blake, my Great Uncle wants everyone to continue to dance and that’s his insist
I still hear the ivories playing
It’s Jazz and more Jazz in the spotlight of relay.
Traveler Sep 2013
Mythically attractive
This spellbinding October night
Uncountable stars
The moon shining vividly bright
The autumn leaves whisper
As they gracefully slither on down

The harvest we’ve gathered
Has our hearts waxing fatter
The lure of sweet passion
The magic that happens uptown

Jack o’lanterns and witches
Young hearts superstitious
Goblins and ghosts
Are the parties’ creepiest hosts around

We all take our place
At the feast as we haste
To go forth where old spirits abound
It's that time, love it!
Me love agony, seen?
Me hate baldheads, seen?
Me love collie, seen?
Me hate duppies, seen?
Me love easing up, seen?
Me hate fishes, seen?
Me love *****, seen?
Me hate harbour sharks, seen?
Me love "irie's", seen?
Me hate janga, seen?
Me love kush, seen?
Me hate lagga heads, seen?
Me love mateys, seen?
Me hate nyng'i-nying'i, seen?
Me love o-dokono, seen?
Me hate passa passa, seen?
Me love quashes, seen?
Me hate running belly, seen?
Me love science (witchcraft), seen?
Me hate toto, seen?
Me love uptown goodas, seen?
Me hate vixxin', seen?
Me love wheels, seen?
Me hate da yout, seen?
Me love Zion, seen?

*Me ******' love Zion
I made a poem, seen? "seen?" means "do you understand?", seen?
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2016
soul brothers from other mothers,
fellow city dwellers,
one up downtown
one down uptown,
fellow riders,
of the underground
of the by-NY-ways
of America

we met years ago ruminating on poetry,
late one night/early one morn,
just like us,
there is no difference,
call the hour what you want,
we spoke one language,
long long ago
in the early days here at HP

the I, lion of gray stumbled on me,
with a smiling, stunning midnight crosstown compliment,
kindred instant

he stole
my breath, with work that..
declaimed notions of
quiet unshouted artistry excellent
and a new appetite was birthed
in my head, in my bed
one night

the young black man-father and the
aging white-grandfather
so little in common,
but in the early morn,
we both haunt the hallways
of the city of poetry,
speaking the poetry of the city,
where blood is but
two colors

black and white,

like the poem words we share
that you are now eye-reading

and

in our torn,
but not yet shredded country,
we find ways to speak

I am long done, past being the past,
he is the dapper father of the future
and the river boundaries we share,
on different sides
are lines of connection
not demarcation
hellopoetry.com/poem/466149/i-am-unafraid-tonight/

Sept 2013

I am unafraid tonight

To write and sign my real name.

To like what I read which is almost everything here
For the sake, for the pain, for the unashamed, for just
Celebrating those who breathe life for the just
Trying.

I am unafraid tonight

To disclose that I live as an
Agonist
In a city that ghost taps on my windows,
( thank you Ilion gray for that),
When the quiet is pockmarked by so many crying the
Loudest tears.

I am unafraid tonight
To express my dissatisfaction with you.

I am unafraid tonight
To express the miracle of those across oceans,
And across town,
Welcoming me into their hearts and wonder
Where else do the wayfarers gather

I am I am
unafraid tonight
To curry your favor,
Despise your silence
Expose corners of me
That should be buried
Before my body later follows

I am unafraid tonight
To use or abuse punctuation
For their are spaces and ,
Between us that can and cannot be closed
But I am compelled to try to narrow the differences
For
I am unafraid tonight

Tomorrow, we shall see,
If the shale within can yet be fractured,
Brought to the surface
To be consumed,
Or the fractures spread
Destructing the whole.

But tonight,
I am unafraid.
..
Violation seeps in through every pore
The girl feels like a common *****
As men poke and **** with joy
Manipulating their new favourite toy
They sneak close enough to callously drool
Then further, breaking the cardinal rule
She feels an unwanted touch
Then begins to cry, deeming it too much.
..
With a purse brimming with cash
And a covered sceptic rash
The pretty woman walks casually
Sheltering any notion of tragedy
This was her first day of vacation
From her new laid back vocation
Though if a client was to approach
She wasn't beyond reproach
..
Horizontally gifted
An archway lifted
Customized displeasure
In any kind of weather
Morals slowly give way
To the luxury of good pay
Loneliness takes a back seat
To those with a thing for feet.
....
Stepped in late
A darkened slate
Crippled by fate
And a desire to be great
She felt like a clown
On her long way down
Then she lost her place uptown
To the notion of a gown
..
Poor girl
She had quite the whirl
Had five long years
Which left a few souvenirs
One being a harsh complexion
and the other being a hollow reflection
Now she has the rest of her life
To wallow in the footsteps of a wife
..
Soon her son would ask what she used to do?
The mother would reply, to who?
Ashamed she would pace
Trying to save face
Confused her son would leave
As the woman ran off to heave
Sick from the thought
That one day she would be caught
..
Sitting at lunch
A bully prods on a hunch
Displays an image
Of his mother's visage
A picture of an awkward pose
Featuring the woman in no clothes
Others began to taunt
As the poor boy went gaunt
....
Over the years some would knock on the door
In a meagre attempt to score
A run in with a *****
Who would take it on the floor
Of course they'd all be turned away
But the pain always seemed to stay
It was shown in the light of day
To be many needles in a sole piece of  hay
I was in the backseat of a 1988 Prelude
listening to Conor's sonnets and etudes,
moving my tongue in uncomfortable loneliness
because your passenger seat was occupied and
I couldn't decide if you were quiet or shy.
I hadn't met you yet.

Hennepin was good to us at 2AM and
gave us space to sip uncommon grounds
in the typically uncommon Uptown.
I saw bright eyes in your words
and unrecognized yellow birds.

I remember things and I don't know why.
I remember the paper mache lady on Nicollet and
I remember that you sang about how it's neat that we all own guns and
I remember wishing that I was born on Independence Day and
I remember walking past empty bookshelves at the end of the day and
I remember remembering when they were stocked and
I remember loving the way we talked
about Huxley.

and it's a year or so later and I'm your passenger
and the streets are still full of images and hidden messages
and faces with whiskers.
"I saved a cat from a tree once,"
and my cackle secured the shackles on my ankles that
I picked out myself off the mannequin.

and it's always just us because Vic is always
with Lucy, Molly, and Mary Jane and
they're having dreams and hearing secret frequencies
(like the ones you pointed out to me)
and doing drugs and discovering Christianity
and decorating themselves with ashes and ashes with Ashley.

and the people I used to know from St. Paul
are working and growing small and
trippin' and slippin' and sippin' gravy,
but we're still sippin' uncommon grounds
and we're all still living in these twin towns.
But none of them are wearing the matching heavy crowns
that you and I picked out ourselves off the mannequins.
They're the same shade of gold as the birds in your words and
they're the same shade of gold as the shackles on our shins
that mold our golden grins
that we had our faces when you said,
"This is the world where dreams come true, right?"

and we're confirmed by a blinding white light that shows through
the windows of the theater in Bryant-Lake Bowl that compliments us
like you compliment me, like I compliment your skinny tie
(the one that makes me want to die.)
But we can't die because this city doesn't have any double-decker buses
or any other us-es.

and I watch you program lazers into my heart
and I think;
What a beautiful old man
What a beautiful growing boy
What a beautiful perfect cylops
with an eye of my color green to shower me in scenic joy.

and as we dance to the records we bought from Minneapolis antique shops,
I look into the eye of my cyclops from a centimeter above the ground
and realize that this is the dream where the world comes true.
"Write a New York style poem about Minnesota."
"Okay, professor."
I know no matter what I say or do.The words will sound so very hollow.For I am forever a stranger to you.Just a name in a sea of others.Fellow yarn spinners.Snakes and thieves friends and brothers.You cannot read the truth from a lie.The recluse writter the drunkand just another guy.A page filled with words andempty meanings.A seedy downtown theater that shows the best latenight screenings.My face is unknown  but my soul is already there.Blind are the truths of a scetchy past.So I remain forever a stranger toanyone who may care.Beautiful eyes that go unseen.Shadows on a clear night.So is my nightmare and how is your dream?I cant say I'll ever know the uptown citys respect.Im more of the twisted citys slums and back alleys favorite reject.I remove the ******* to expose thethe gritty side of what to me is brutal and true.I ride through the darkest part night.To remain forever a stranger to you.
its strange how  although  unseen yet here my opinions are so easily on display  I always  write of the top of my head and straight from my heart.
tread Dec 2012
I hope I see the moon in the British Aisles
So I can imagine myself staring from home.

I hope I see the moon from Belgium
as I imagine the old lover I will never forget gazing, exhausted, from Uxbridge.

I hope I seee the moon from Paris
so I can imagine the millenia of poets and I-love-you-till-it-kills-me romancers gazing from French cafes, sipping on their
wine, coffee, tea

and I think of great friends in Victoria, glancing towards it from busses 9 hours later on a commute to Uptown
Downtown
what town?

I hope I see the moon from Vancouver
so I can imagine child-me watching the white of the cheese-like craters wondering nothing
but so, so very curious.

I hope I see the moon from Toronto
past smog and spring-time city shadows
so I can imagine the short-lived friends I made in Ottawa looking to it with awe and smiles
grasping the fingers of a loved one.


Everytime I see that great omnipotent orb I imagine
Marcus Aurelius in the court of Rome
Julius Caesar on the battlefields of Gaul
Charlemagne crossing the Rhine
St. Augustine marching through the desert
Micochondrial Adam tossing a spear into  the heart of a boar
Soldiers of the American Revolution
the British war for South Africa
the Prussian Empire
the Third *****

Siddhartha and his son
Li Po hugging his moonlit reflection
Han Shan on cold mountain
Kerouac in San Francisco
Burroughs in Morocco
Snyder in Japan

Thomas walking to work
Brian out on a stroll

My future life lover
future girlfriends

all gazing at that wonderful omnipotent moon
the same moon
that gazes so still

so patient

forever
as far as
I'm concerned.
The charred scent of paper
Atop the ******* skyscraper
Burns when a life is consumed
In its greenish greedy gown
On it has been proudly sown
A golden triangle. It assumed
Its complete authority over
The human race we chase
Its glinting giggling gorge
Postponing the petty morgue
Adorning chests in a tower
Of wealth, of woe, of war
Some are the jacks in tar
Others the *****, the ace

Hovering over cities
Teasing the daisies.
That thick soot
Flawless is flaying
Slowly peeling
Away layers of our root
We gambol and gamble
Pitiful onions in unions
Hawkers jaywalking
Hunters, judges, humble
Flock of those who can think
Trying to make sense of ions
We can with a gun link
Deaths and collapsing ink.

The bright dollar bill smolders
On Atlas’ sore shoulders
An intricate golden lattice
In lieu of a benighted bodice
It lifts Man on a rusty noose
King on a heap of newspapers
The charred choking scent
Demonic, deliquescent
Atop the ******* skyscrapers.
For a divine raiment
Would the goofy government
Trade your blood and lymph
For a smoke and mirrors nymph?
I choose not, please turn us loose?

We are the scorching enemy
All in all, possessed by the mark
We gloat over the metonymy
Of our radiant success
We are nothing under duress
But pigs left bound to bark
In the mud of our sockets
Buy this diamond necklace
So you can prove, in the race
Of rats, you are the best of piglets
“How much does it cost?’’, asks the poet
But his voice is regarded as a dandling duet
Society sleeps, makes loves, guzzles
A writer too, probably feebly fizzles…


All the while the creased cremated paper
Will keep on swallowing us over and over
This smoke once was the signal of civilization
It is now the ominous gleam of our globalization
Soothing soot it is not, it throttles us all
I foresee it but soon we shall
Fall back into this drowsy land
Demise of those who did not stand
Up behind the legacy of a quill
That is now silent in steel, still
Child, write down your future
Your literature will triumph for sure!
I’d read his lines instead of gulping down
The shiny pill of tomorrow brand new uptown!

January 26, 2016
Guillotière, Lyon
7:17 pm
Connor Thomas Sep 2012
White, calloused hands
Gripping white soft belly
Bushy white hair
Rubbing clean white face

Unfurling smoke rising
Rising like the tide on a full moon
Into blue sky
Blue as the ocean itself

Lakes north of the Twin Cities
Life living liberally under rocks
Death staring darkly from the depths
Moon glowing brightly above

Train brakes screech
The passengers rustle a bit
Black as the night
Hard as a rock

Rampant youths file into the alley
Raging inside
Ranting out
Rigid bones cease

The drug addicts plead mercilessly
With their alter ego
More more more
**** **** ****

The businessmen do their fast walk
And the women do their little sway
Walking dogs and walking strollers
Clinically insane they repeat

Dark blond hair
Ripped jeans
Tighter than skin
Gay shoes

Beautiful brunette
Big *** ****
Smirking smile
She knows she’s hot

Random dudes street talking
Random chicks street banging
Random kids street dealing
Random guys finish the job

Men in work clothes
Buy love symbols for their niece
And rock shows for their nephew
But nothing for their sons

Watching the sunset
Watching the moon rise
Watching the tides roll
Watching you fake it all

Justine took all the pills
She’s passed out on the futon
This basement gives me chills
I think I heard someone call 9-1-1

Someone in uptown died tonight
Shot
On the street
Blood rained like rain

Red towels from the hotel
Stolen again
Marriot’s free swimming pool
Cost me 800 dollars

*** and drugs combined
Rugs and thugs
And enemy teams
Gunshots, gun fights
I get off the Belt Parkway at Rockaway Boulevard and
Jet aloft from Idyllwild.
(I know, now called J.F. ******* K!)
Aboard a TWA 747 to what was then British East Africa,
Then overland by train to Baroness Blixen’s Nairobi farm . . .
You know the one at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I lease space in Karen’s African dreams,
Caressing her long white giraffe nape,
That exquisite Streep jugular.
I am a ghost in Meryl’s evil petting zoo:
I haunt the hand that feeds me.

Safely back in Denmark, I receive treatment
For my third bout with syphilis at Copenhagen General.
Cured at last, I return to Kenya and Karen.
In my solitude or sleep, I go with her,
One hundred miles north of the Equator,
Arriving at Julia Child’s marijuana herb garden–
Originally Kikuyu Land, of course—
But mine now by imperial design &
California voter referendum.
(Voiceover) "I had a farm in Africa
At the foot of the Ngong Hills."
My farm lies high above the sea at 6,000 feet.
By daybreak I feel oh, oh so high up,
Near to the sun on early mornings.
Evenings so limpid and restful;
Nights oh, so cold.
Mille Grazie a lei, Signore *******!
Andiamo, Sydney, amico mio.
Let it flow like the water that lives in Mombasa.
Let it flow like Kurt Luedtke’s liquid crystal script.
We zoom in. We go close in. Going close up,
On the face of Isak Dinesen’s household
Servant and general factotum. (Full camera ******)
Karen Blixen’s devoted Muslim manservant,
Farah: “God is happy, msabu. He plays with us…”
He plays with me.  And who shall I be today?
How about Tony Manero for starters?
Good choice. Nicely done!
Geezer Manero:  old and bitter now,
Still working at the hardware store,
Twice-divorced, a chain-smoker,
Severely diabetic, a drunk on dialysis 3 times a week.
Bite me, Pop:  I never thought I was John Travolta.
But, hey, I had my shot:  “I coulda been a contenda.”
Once more, by association only,
I am a great artist again, quickly made
Near great by a simple second look.
Why, oh God? I am kvetching again.
I celebrate myself and sing the
L-on-forehead loser’s lament:
Why implant the desire and then
Withhold from me the talent?
“I wrote 30 ******* operas,”
I hear Salieri’s demented cackle.
“I will speak for you, Wolfie Babaloo;
I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.”

Must I wind up in the same
Viennese loony bin with Antonio?
Note to self:  GTF out of Austria post-haste!
I’ve been called on the Emperor’s carpet again,
My head, my decapitated Prufrock noodle,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter.
Are peaches in season?
Do I dare eat one?
I am Amadeus, ******, infantile,
An irresistible iconoclast and clown.
Wolfie:   “I am called on the imperial carpet again.
The Emperor may have no clothes but he’s got a
Shitload of ******* carpets."
Hello Girls: ‘Disco Tampons!
Staying inside, staying inside!
Wolfie: "Why have I chosen a ****** farce for my libretto?
Surely there are more elevated themes . . . NO!
I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes,
People so lofty they **** marble!"
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis.

So, I mix paint in the hardware store by day.
I dance all night, near-great again by locomotion.
Join me in at least one of my verifiable nine lives.
Go with me across the Narrows,
Back to Lenape with the wild red men of Canarsee,
To Vlacke Bos, Boswijk & Nieuw Utrecht,
To Dutch treat Breuckelen, Red Hook & Bensonhurst,
To Bay Ridge and the Sheepshead.
Come with me to Coney Island’s Steeplechase & Luna Park, &
Dreamland (aka Brownsville) East New York, County of Kings.
If I’m lying, I’m dying.
And while we’re on the subject now,
Bwana Finch Hatton (pronounced FINCH HATTON),
Why not turn your focus to the rival for Karen’s heart,
To the guy who nursed her through the syphilis,
That old taciturn ******, Guru Farah?
Righto and Cheerio, Mr. Finch Hatton,
Denys George of that surname—
Why not visualize Imam Farah?
Farah: a Twisted Sister Mary Ignatius,
Explaining it all to your likes-the-dark-meat
Friend and ivory-trading business partner,
Berkeley (pronounced BARK-LEE) Cole.
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

Oh yeah, Tony Manero, the Bee Gees & me,
A marriage made in Brooklyn.
The Gibbs providing the sound track while
I took care of the local action.
I got more *** than a toilet seat, a Don Juan rep &
THE CLAP on more than one occasion.
Probably from a toilet seat.
Even my big brother–the failed priest,
Celibate too long and desperate now–
Even my defrocked, blue-balled brother,
Frankie, cashing in his chips at the Archdiocese,
Taking soave lessons from yours truly,
Taking notes, copying my slick moves with chicks.
It was the usual story with the usual suspects &
The usual character tests. All of which I flunk.
I choose Fitzgerald's “vast, ****** meretricious beauty,”
My jumpstart to the middle class.
I spurn the neighborhood puttana,
Mary Catherine Delvecchio: the community ****
With the proverbial heart of gold &
A backpack full of self-esteem deficits.
I opt out.  I’m hungry and leaping.
I morph again, grab *** the golden girl.
Now I’m Gatsby in a white suit,
Stalking Daisy Buchanan in East Egg,
Daisy: her voice full of money;
My green light flashing on the disco dance floor.
I, a fool for love; she, my faithless uptown girl,
Golden and delicious like the apple,
Capricious like a blue Persian cat.
My “orgiastic future” eluded me then.
It eludes me still. Time to go home again to the place
****-ant Prufrocks ponder their pathetic dying embers.
Time to assume the position:
Gazing out from some trapezoidal patch of green
At the foot of Roebling’s bridge,
Contemplating an alternative reality for myself,
A new life across the East River,
In the city that never sleeps.
I crave. I lust. I am a guinzo Eva Duarte.
I too must be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires:
THE BIG APPLE.
But I am ashamed of my luggage,
Not to mention my baggage.
It’s like that last thing Holden Caulfield said to me,
Just before he crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Crossed over to Manhattan without me,
Leaving me alone again, searching for our kid sister,
Phoebe, the only one on earth we can relate to:
“It’s really hard to be roommates with people
If your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
Ow! That stung; that was a stinger.
I am smithereened by a self-guided drone,
A smart bomb full of snide antigravity,
Transformational and caustic.
My meager allotment of self-esteem
Metastasizes into something base,
Something heavy and vile.
I drop to earth like lead mozzarella.

I am unworthy, unworthy in the maximum mendicant,
Roman Catholic mea culpa sense of the word.
I am now Umberto Eco’s penitenziagite.
I am Salvatore, a demented hunchback
(Played flawlessly as a demented hunchback by Ron Perlman),
Spewing linguistic gibberish in a variety of vernaculars:
“Lord, I am not worthy to live anywhere west of the Gowanus Canal.”
By East River waters I weep bitter tears,
The promise of a promised land denied.
I am a garlic-eating Chuck Yeager,
Auguring in, burnt beyond recognition,
An ethnic trope, a defiant Private Maggio
From here and for eternity,
Forever a swarthy ethnic stereotype
Trying to escape thru a small but significant
Hole in the ozone layer above South Ozone Park,
New York, zip code 11420.
That’s right, Ozone Park.
If you don’t believe me, look it up.
GO ******* GOOGLE IT!

And I just don’t know when to quit.
So why quit there?
Work with me, fratello mio, mon lecteur.
Like you, I took the LSAT so long ago.
Why am I not a distinguished American jurist
Asking the one question that seems to be on
Everyone’s eugenic lips today:
“Aren’t three generations of imbeciles enough?”
I am Charly from Flowers for Algernon,
A slow learner with a push broom, swept up in
Some dust from Leonard Cohen’s cuff.
Lenny: a grey-beard loon himself now, singing
“Hallelujah” for fish & chips in London’s O2 Arena.
“Suzanne takes you down, Babaloo!”
At last, I am Jesus Quintana—
John Turturro stealing the movie as usual--
This time in a hair net and a jumpsuit,
"Made of a comfortable 65% polyester/35%
Cotton poplin, you can even add your own
Ribbon leg trim and monogramming
For just the right look to be one of
The Big Lebowski’s favorite characters.
Mouse-over the thumbnail below to see our actual style
(Color must be purple). Style #: 98P, Price: $55.95. On sale: $50.36.www.myjumpsuit.com."
Fortunately, I am a savvy marketeer:
I understand the artistic potential, the venal
Possibilities of product placement. Go with me
To that undiscovered country.
The humanities uncorrupted till now by
Crass gimcrack television ads. That’s right:
******* commercials smack dab in the
Middle of a ******* poem. Why not?
Great literature has always been about
Selling something, even if only an idea.
Hey, **** me, Herman Melville!
We both know the publication costs of
Moby **** were underwritten by the tattoo artists &
Harpoon manufacturers of New Bedford,
Matched by a small research grant from some
Proto-Greenpeace, Poseidon adventure in some
Great white whale-watching swinging soiree.
Murray the ******* K, pendejo!
At last, I am The Jesus, a pervert & pederast,
According to Walter Sobjak—another post-traumatic
Post Toasty, like me, still out there in the jungle,
Still in love with the smell of ****** in the morning.
My bowling buddy, Walter, comfortably far to the right of
The Dude, and Attila the *** for that matter,
But who gives a **** if Lenin was The Walrus?
(“Shut the **** up, Buscemi!”)
“Once you hang a right at Hubert Humphrey,”
Said the streets of 1968 Chicago,
"It’s all ******* fascism anyway.”
That creep could roll, though, and as we know so well:
“Nobody ***** with The Jesus.”
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

INCOMING!
I just heard from an old girlfriend who is miles away,
Teaching school in Navajo Land.
The Big Rez:  a long day’s interstate katzenjammer,
A Route 66 nightmare by car, but by email,
Just down the block and round the corner.
I had previously closed an email to her with a frivolous
“Say hello to my stinky friend.”
It was a total non-sequitur, an iconic-moronic,
Ace Ventura-mutant line from Scarface,
Which may have meant–in my herbal lunch delirium—
That she should say hi to some mutual acquaintance
We mutually loathe, Or, perhaps an acknowledgement that she–
My surrogate Cameron Diaz–has a new **** buddy,
Of whom I am insanely jealous.
Or maybe it was a simple Seinfeld “about nothing.”
Who knows what goes on in that twisted *****’s head?
She spends the next two hours in a flood of funk,
A deluge of insecurity.
A veritable Katrina ****** of self-consciousness,
Interpreting my inane nonsense in terms of vaginal health.

Hey, you want to ruin a woman’s day?
Tell her, her **** smells.
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
I

These days I forgive myself everything. After all
I'm alone and unhappy so I give myself a little treat
whenever possible. On summer nights I remember
the good women who loved me but live with their husbands
      now.

This is not an easy life but I'm not afraid. Despair
leads me to talk too much about myself rather than
be transcendent. I trade push for shove with the world
and sitting above the river feel I could move the globe.

If I could stay out here on the roof all day,
get ****** and read the I Ching, write a few lines
and forget my troubles, I could be happy
today. Then I would go to work tomorrow.

But I rise at dawn and drink some orange juice.
It is good with ice. Buy a newspaper going to the train.


II

In this lousy life we work five days a week.
An Indian could gather a week's food in three days
and go swimming in the hot afternoon. The pleasure
civilization offers is a drive past fast food joints
on Merrick Avenue to a sea food restaurant in Freeport.

Almost everyone I know is dissatisfied with life
as we have been pressed into it. The system gives us
cancer and heart attacks and repressed sexuality when
I was born to be sensuous and enjoy another's body.
Instead I slug the world and the world slugs back.

I have five minutes to finish this poem. I remember
the smooth women I have known, remaining in bed
all morning. Our big ambitions are our curse.
We uphold our end of the society.


III

While it's true that I'm not happy, I'm very amused
at the craziness I have let myself in for.
Hopefully it's only one year of sleeping in my clothes
without a woman and drinking plenty of wine after work.

I listen to someone start a car downstairs, but that
is not my world, nor do I know any of these eight million
I live beside in the crotch of many waters. Above
Broadway Saturday, the geese fly south for winter.

This morning, in twenty minutes, I will go downstairs wearing
a shirt and tie and jacket and carrying a briefcase.
I will tear myself from the pleasures of tea and breakfast
to arrive at the office where each day my happiness is
      challenged.

I accepted humanity as a natural part of nature. When
I did that I had to pay the rent and get a job, too.


IV

A famous samurai crosses a plain in winter
looking for work. He comes to a farm community
but the farmers have no use for his skills. So
he removes his swordbelt and sets to work digging.

It is temporary employment while the seasons change.
The sky is gray and all of the women are occupied
warming their homes. None look up from their work
except to glance at the strong samurai digging.

Why is he digging in the frozen ground? The poet
knows little about farming and less about fighting.
He has put the samurai to work at a pointless task.
It is too early in the year to begin digging.

Nobody pities the pointless samurai or gives him food.
He ties on his sword and starts chopping wood.


V

These bird songs, this January morning, I look
for a way out of life. The Texas woman tells Marc
stories about the football players she's ******.

Although I complain like a blue jay about it, life
has accepted me. Walking uptown with Stephanie it's clear
how much the Empire State Building I've become.

Nevertheless, we make our own decisions. To fight war
or not. They are all my friends, I work for their success,
but choose my poison independently. For me, laziness
and anonymity when I could have been a star.

Newspapers indicate there is much to discuss besides myself
but the Muse seems to disagree. My few friends and the age
will look quaint as a daguerreotype in the light
of the holocaust. I kiss the girl of my dreams.


VI

Again it is almost Spring. It gives me only pain
to think back on past Springs when I seem to have been
someone else. The people who lived then live today
in the same bodies but changed in every other way.

Of course I must continue, with or without good humor.
What was amusing in my youth, that God's finger
could move me to another square, now makes me fear
old friends who are dead to me and yet still here.

The veil of life is thin if one doesn't believe in mystery.
Frequently it blows and reveals the thickening body,
alone, without a soul. One hopes for a consort who
through her own pain has become gentle and simple too.

If only I could share this life with a good wife.
But she would only be unhappy and bring me grief.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
TheTeacher Oct 2012
We took an impromptu trip to where you can have fun when it's real late. You don't have to leave the building ....but you can still get a date.

The lights are dim and there's a few flatscreens on the wall.  The barmaids are looking good and serving up the drinks. The music is pounding shaking the floor.....dollars are being thrown and the girls are looking for more.

The bottles are popping in VIP.....I'm just enjoying the eye candy that I see.
She approaches me from the rear and rubs her hand across my chest.  She says "You feel kind of tight....you must be stressed."

A slow song plays in the background .....and she begins to dance like a king cobra.  The only difference is that I wasn't afraid to hold her.  I pull her close and rub her like Aladdin's lamp.  My intentions are to make her damp.

We are transposed to a place where we are all alone....I whisper in her ear some sultry adjectives and verbs.....and her response are faint whispers...muffled words.  Syllables spoken,but nothing heard.

She grabs my hands and leads me around her temple. She takes my hand and makes me massage her *******.....and runs my hand down her legs.  Her attempt to make me beg for more.....and to get me on the other side of the door where I could pay to play.

She whispers in my ear that she is getting moist down below.  The question is if i want to continue the show.  The dance continues and she stops grinding on my *******.  Her eyes lock on me and she places the most seductive kiss upon my lips....

You are not like the other men who view me as a passing ship.  They want to slip their hands and money in my thong like they are paying a fare.

When they get off ....I'm just sitting there....waiting for the next one to come along.  I'm glad that you treat me with decency and respect.

She placed a kiss upon my neck........and said thank you and took her place on deck......the d.j. introduced her

Coming to the stage ......our featured dancer of the evening "Destiny".
She began to work the pole after she wiped it down.  I finished my drink and gave her one last look.....and made my way back uptown.

I thought about destiny on my way back home.......and smiled when she sent this text to my phone......"Since you left I feel all alone....I can't wait to lay next to you when I get home." "I Love you."

I'm your private dancer...I dance for your money. I'll do whatever you want me to do.
Jared Eli Sep 2013
I can't say that I know what it's like
To lose someone
And it's not because I have never experienced death

My Great Aunt died of lung cancer
Though she never smoked
And was the nicest lady
With what I assumed
Was a New York accent
To ever be convinced that I loved
Her Spinach Frittata
And who indirectly
Made jokes about my insatiable desire
To consume the apple pie

She died on the tenth of october in the year two-thousand ten
(10/10/10)
And I remember my father calling me to the kitchen
To tell me the news
I cried a little
And went back to my room to write angry poetry
But ultimately I was just tired
And went to sleep
Without really adressing anything

At her funeral, I remember my cousin telling me
The story of how her (then) long-term boyfriend
Used wire cutters to remove his braces
A week before they were due to come off
They called me over to put a shovelful of dirt
Into the grave
And I did
Then ran back, jumping as I did (jumping as I did),
To my cousin
Because her candid attitude let me know that it was ok
Not to be somber

My dad's friend had a stroke which dislodged blood clots and sent him
Into a coma for a long time
And while we posed with him for Christmas pictures
(I hated posing, I hated the picture-taking, I hated smiling, it all felt wrong)
And my father promised that hypnosis was going to work
My dad's friend died
In a hospital bed
In his home
In a historical region of uptown Whittier
My dad lost his friend
My mom lost hers as well
When she stopped talking to his wife
Who had been her friend first

The cousin who was talking to me at the funeral
Lost her (then) boyfriend
When she woke up one morning
To find him dead with her
In bed

So I can't say that I know what it's like
Because I have lost people
I've seen death
And I dislike it
I dislike the thought that all my
Teachers will die before me
And I am sad thinking about those days
That I will be in the crowd
One of the Touched

I dislike that I don't know what it's like
Because I don't see it like the others
I try to remember beauty in their life
Beauty that they shared with me
Beauty that I will keep alive
Like the energy cell
The Doctor blew life into
To power the TARDIS

But if I can't find it
If there was nothing we shared
If there is nothing to tie me to them
I feel bad that someone else feels bad
I dislike their pain and
I wish I could give them a hug
And that the hug would fix everything
But it won't
And all I can do is think about
How much I ****
At comforting grievers
And how much I wish
I could be a better comforter
But I'm not
Because I don't do well with death
oh ****
I saw the piano man
singing his songs
to the uptown girl
by the fire he didn't start
for the longest time
you believed
he was the entertainer
you may be right
but its all in a matter of trust
I SAW BILLY JOEL TODAY!
idk poem with titles of his songs
I saw her at the diner
She caught my eye right from the start
It wasn't too long after
That this woman caught my heart

She didn't fit in with the people
Drinking coffee , eating up
She was drinking with her pinkie out
As she held her coffee cup

She's was high class in a low class world
That was plain as plain could be
I wanted to be in her world
And I wanted her with me
She was queen of somewhere
I don't know, and I wanted to be king
She was high class in a low class world
And I wanted to be king

She had her napkin tucked
Just so, you know
Not all scrunched up in a ***
And she only dabbed the corners
Like an Angel sent from God

She was crisp and pressed and perfect
Not a hair was out of place
And the light just made her eyes shine
She had such a lovely face

She's was high class in a low class world
That was plain as plain could be
I wanted to be in her world
And I wanted her with me
She was queen of somewhere
I don't know, and I wanted to be king
She was high class in a low class world
And I wanted to be king

She was sitting in our diner
although she belonged far uptown
Most folks here all wore ball caps
while she deserved a crown

When she spoke, my heart just trembled
Her voice was breathy, like a wisp
And she spoke like she was Royal
So cool and cut and crisp

She's was high class in a low class world
That was plain as plain could be
I wanted to be in her world
And I wanted her with me
She was queen of somewhere
I don't know, and I wanted to be king
She was high class in a low class world
And I wanted to be king

She was someone from a movie
Full of mystery, intrigue
And I knew from looking at her
She was way out of my league


I wouldn't know just where to start
She was gold and I was tin
She was High class in my low class world
And I surely wanted in

I stood there in the kitchen
Washing dishes in the sink
And I knew I'd go home lonely
What else was there for to think?

She's was high class in a low class world
That was plain as plain could be
I wanted to be in her world
And I wanted her with me
She was queen of somewhere
I don't know, and I wanted to be king
She was high class in a low class world
And I wanted to be king
Hands Nov 2012
The fog began to roll in,
twirling and twisting into the darkly shaded night.
The air smelled of young adulthood and
the lovehot and wild bucks and does
rolling and romping around in their
thick clouds of pheromones.
We ventured into this haze,
arms locked together and
hands intertwined.
Your warmth radiated off and
filled me with heat and
tingle-loveliness and sweet,
sweet music.
It scared me,
these new and bizarre things
that I had never felt, before.
I felt myself begin to swell up,
a bright red balloon in the dark, black night,
filled with the lighter-than-air molecules
of my newfound feelings.
Please, body,
don't you float away.

We walked in tandem--
already did we walk as one being,
one body.
It was 4 AM and
we were sauntering uptown,
stuck together like
the feathers on a bird
that had never before denied
its instinct to fly away.
I stared intently at your face,
trying to wish you away.
What about
my freedom,
my wild and untamed
boyish libido,
those future nights of painless,
faceless encounters to be blurred into
the fog of my young and wild buck-crazy
life?
Your thumb rubbed the back of my hand,
rubbed my mind and
rubbed my heart.
Your thumb rubbed
my very existence,
rubbed away the dirt and grime and
rubbed me to my very core.
I felt the ice of 47 different men
begin to melt away,
as the thing that I had sought to keep hidden
above all else
was being exposed.
That weak and
pulsing *****,
beating like a drum;
a tiny,
fragile,
little drum.
At any moment it could stop,
the tempo could change,
our arms would unlock and
our fingers drift apart.
At any moment this warmth could fade away,
could roll and sew itself into
the cold, harsh night
or lose itself in the
lonely company of the thick curtain of fog.
I looked up at the sky,
saw the light of stars I had never before noticed.
In that moment I realized,
The temporary is more beautiful
than the everlasting and the infinite.

In that moment I realized
that even though I was afraid of pain,
pain is natural,
it is inevitable.
Pain is like
the squeezing of my hand
inside the grip of another
or the heavy breathing on my neck
of a head resting on my shoulder.
It is a sign,
a message;
it says,
I am here,
I am alive.

In that moment I realized,
even if it has an end
at least it had a beginning.
Time does not exist;
the present is the only
real reality.
And really,
in that moment I realized
that taking a temporary risk
paid off,
as we never really forget someone
after we feel their hands,
their fingerprints,
after we have engrained their body heat
into our very body chemistry.
The fragility of it all,
the temporary glasshouse that
shielded these exchanges from
the harsh glares and gusts of
a world too large for itself,
made me want to cry;
the lightweight feelings and the
tippytoed carefulness
as we walked up the stairs and
into his house.
Three bears were asleep
and so we kept on walking,
laying ourselves down and
stringing our limbs together,
breathing our fallen-for-you and
forget-me-not breath
into the face of the other--
a young and inflated mirror image;
a doppelganger infatuation.
I turn my head above
and look around your room,
trying to fin the stars that
you have hidden away.
Your walls are covered in the
places you want to see,
your dreams filling up
each and every one of those
pieces of flimsy paper.
The world doesn't matter.
The roads and the streets,
the unknown and unseen locales,
they have all been mapped out by you,
seen by your heart's eye.
As we lay together,
lips interlocking and
tongues twisting together,
I present to you another place
to map out just as well.
It is a newly discovered land
full of hopes and dreams and loves and losses,
covered in pockmarks and scars and
a pale and fragile pallor.
I present it to you as a gift
and as a message,
I am here,
I am alive.

You accept it graciously,
gulp down my heart and
all of my feelings with it.


A week later and
I watch as the routes have been placed,
the forests uncovered and
the ruins and ghost towns brought
back from the haze of
historic obscurity.
did he know how he had killed me from the start
Mystery was a riding on that uptown train,and she knew,
it's just another ordinary average day.
Wondering if everbody's gone insane.and she knew,
it's probably always been this way.

'When the world changes and it all just seems so lame,
ooh maybe I'll stay the same.
If the world is differant,and it still just seems so lame,
I'll just find someone else to blame.

Then I was a riding on that downtown train,and I knew
That everything we looked at excactly the same.
turned on the t.v. to watch the day,and I knew
it probably always had to turn out this way.

When the world changes,and it all just seems so lame,
ooh maybe I'll stay the same.
If the world is differant,and it still just seems so lame
I'll just find someone else to blame.

Mystery was a riding on that uptown train,and she knew
It's just another ordinary average day.
Turn on the t.v. to watch the day,and she knew,that we've always been on the same train.
Megan Sep 2012
I casually lie on my worn couch
wondering and wandering in my mind about
a girl, the girl
She moves in me from head to toe,
from rooftop to basement floor
I crawl into her and she accepts me
and takes me in and feeds me bowl
after bowl of every kind of warmth
you can imagine
We are inside each other and she bathes
me in kisses, touches and looks
I'm so close to her that I could feel her
rapid heartbeat and the sweat dripping
from her glorious curvy body is now
becoming my sweat
I tell her never leave me
She says never move from this position
for here and now is exactly what we need
Our beating hearts are bass drums
in a New Orleans high school marching band
that drums and drums throughout a six mile
uptown parade
Something's happening and I'm so in love with
your body
It's not foreign anymore because it's the best place
I've gone to
I sailed to you
It's like you have the best parts from all my favorite places
You-with the most delightful and mouthwatering views
Your ******* are like two sunflower-filled hills
and your stomach is the white snow in which
I lie in and make snow angels
Your thighs are waves from the Gulf
pouring over me
and I can't catch my breath
rough draft, made on the spot
Jonny Angel Apr 2015
I am afflicted,
dreamy,
with vivid visions
like deja vu.
We're seated there,
in uptown Manhattan,
she's sporting platinum hair,
covered in golden fleece,
scribbling
cryptic poetry to me
underneath the table.

Her eyes turn azure,
screaming
daisies
over a plate of alfredo,
I am in a hurricane.

And from the corner of my mouth,
I drool streams,
seeking answers
from outside the box.

Does she feel
like I do?
Brandon Webb Jan 2013
I type in that old address
expecting google not to show a house
to show the empty lot
that from what i heard
was the result of putting a dishwasher
into the kitchen
and causing complete septic failure
that flooded that entire uptown PA acre.
But, it flies me there
and I cry a little
because it's an old picture-
the house is still there,
just as i remember it;
an empty lot to the side,
the dilapidated apartment in the back yard,
the shed at the end of the driveway
(which was just a couple of cement tracks
slightly thinner than the pathfinder tires)
the apple and pie cherry trees we used to climb.
the alley in the back
where we used to skip rocks
and run from the neighborhood dogs (and cats)
looks the same as well,
every car the same,
every empty house still empty,
every tipped trashcan still being tipped each week.
I go down every street I used to walk,
they're all the same,
the bus stop is still where it was
the trails are just as long and dark as they ever were
and each yellow yard looks just as it always did in midsummer.
the ponds in the park are still the same color
with the same algae growing in them
and the same overgrowth hideaways around them.
A mile down the road;
the mini-mart where I bought gum when i had money
hasn't changed a bit,
even the pink umbrellas are still in front of the smoothie bar
but, across the street
the used book store that i would get lost in is gone
and from there i notice subtle changes:
the blackberry bushes by the middle school,
that mom made multiple cobblers from, are gone,
the maternity store moved,
the shed that my stepdad first told us would be our new house,
(before showing us this place)
has been torn down, or fell over
(as i assume it did),
and it doesn't end there,
I practiced my eye in the small details of this small ****** of the world
even though i never talked to anyone
in all the hours i spent walking.
But i guess I remember so well,
because, four-and-a-half years later
I still consider that house home.
that house where my brother was born,
where i first went without my glasses, and liked it
where I was first given the freedom of a bus pass
and permission to leave the house,
where i had my first (and only) overnighter
where i first became addicted to cleaning
where i've packed so many memories
that i can understand why the sewage line broke
sometime after that picture was taken



©Brandon Webb
2012
Kyle Kulseth Aug 2015
Rx
Tear it up and turn it grey
for the sanitized miles.
Turn it grey and tear it up
for clean-cut faces' ***** smiles.
That's the uptown style, boy--
                  the predator's call--
so bring your knives and brass knuckles
to the board meeting ball.

I've watched my town follow gridlines

from city parks to parking lots

And I can read the prescription

spray-painted on the Wal-Mart wall

               I'd turn away
                if I could...

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
WITH A BELLY FULL OF MEAT
WHEN ASPHALT COVERS ******* FLESH
AND YOUR DREAMS ARE ALL CONCRETE

TWO A DAY
TAKE TWO A DAY
Then try to get some sleep
where the wires and the tenants wear fatigue.

Turn it up and tear away
all the sanitized grins.
Watch the businessmen play checkers,
watch the crocodiles win.
That's the uptown game, kid--
                  the alpha wolf's goal--
lap the blood off boardroom tables,
let the necktied heads roll.

They used to watch their kids play there.

Trees, voices, playgrounds are all gone.

And you can see the prescription

spelled out above the mini-malls.

              can't run away;
              wish you could...

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
OR A MOUTHFUL ALL THEY CARE.
WHEN LIONS LEAVE THE BALLROOM,
THERE WON'T BE ONE BONE TO SPARE.

TAKE TWO A DAY
TWO A DAY
WITH A BELLY FULL OF MEAT.
AMBITION RIPS THROUGH ****** FLESH
AND BLEEDS DOLLARS FROM CONCRETE.

TWO A DAY
TAKE TWO A DAY
Then try to get some sleep
where tenants and the wiring are fatigued.
John F McCullagh Apr 2013
She was on a crowded Uptown "A",
with one hand holding on.
In her other hand, a paperback,
dog eared, its cover gone.

Hamlet and Polonius
were with the player King
Bed-Sty might well be Elsinore-
when the plays the thing.

There were plots and counter plots-
to do young Hamlet harm.
"My money is on Fortinbras-
I said, then I was gone.
I didn't expect to find an adult strap hanger reading Hamlet on the "A" train. You most usually see that on the Uptown #1 train.
Hank Helman Mar 2016
Each afternoon in June,
I loiter-linger on the corner of 37th avenue,
Both eyes asleep,
A summer’s sunset smile on my face,
A flock of fairies in free float round my head.

My habit, a daily pause,
Plant my haunch against the blue barrel mail box,  
Old empty drum, anachronism, stubborn antique.

I cringe at the mad jazz of shrieks and horns on cue,
The hatter’s rush at end of day,
There is purpose in this cacophony,
My city boasts and brags with noise,
Intoxicated on aroma,
A frequency with every smell.

Baptiste’s Pizza owns the breeze at 4 p.m.
Inhale this baker’s breath,
An oven-joy in one warm gust,
Blond baked crust,
Tomatoes boil and bubble cheese,
Salt fresh anchovies, red peppers,
A currency of meats.
I salivate and lick the wind,
Hunger is desire.

Sudden harmony in one sweet waft,
A pleasant jet stream,
A toker passes by,
And gifts me with a 60’s contact high.

A small girl’s mouthful voice,
A jam cram of donuts is my guess.

The rattle, clap and black lung cough,
An old school diesel delivery truck,
The air brakes squeal for release,
It’s quitting time and everything wants to be free

A homeboy,  my local jive,
I know his dreams,
A lacquered finish,
In love with his axe,
You feel me... tap, bump and go.

Vinegar and toxic spice,
A window washer’s delight,
He squeals a squeaky clean

Fresh roses, oh a hopeful night, bonne chance,
The catastrophe of a cigarette,
The killer joy of a fresh cigar,
An uptown girl's stealth perfume,
She knows her prey,
He knows her ploy,
A mid west girl and a downtown boy

Daylight begs to dim,
The sun will witness just enough, no more,
My corner holds its own,
Each afternoon my part in scenes,
I dream,
And never wish, but often wonder,
About the life that might have been.
jeffrey robin May 2014
(
          )
(    
\/
/\
/    \
/////
///
//



( Closin in )

Time to gather
Our wits together

Know ourselves
Before the Start



The forces of War !

DO NOT JUST SIT IDLY BY
WAITING FOR A LOVE
JUST CAN'T BE THERE!

••

( there is a love that is here
But it's just me in the shadows )

••

The ****** poetry hangs limply
Upon the side

Of the bombed out building

••

The one one the street where you once lived

When your children were still alive

••

Remember to forget all that you believe in

••

There is a god but it aint the god you watch
others pretend to pray to

That's for sure !

••

All the Good Folk are in jail

••

Your government is trying to enslave you



Little Joey done **** in his pants
While out on a date
( lookin for romance )

She said :

Hey boy
You really stink

He said :

I done **** in my pants
Guess that's the thing

••

and it was such a beautiful morning !



Soft
The hour of love

Out of the alleys

We come for each other
(Each for Each )

We reach for each other
Face to face

••

Please remember to forget

Everything that you believe
brandychanning Jul 2023
near three years, nearer to eclipses,
since last scribed here, been there
been loved, mistreated, done my share
of giving beatings, for the deserving,
never been any body’s biatch, no starting
now=ever.

men look at me, their eyes self-seducing,
a crook(ed) finger never summoned me
or any self respecting woman of valor,
with a full fist of words, a tongue sharper
than a deli slicer, if looks can ****, then
left my fair share of men on the Riviera,
the Hamptons, the Gold Coast, uptown
and way downtown where the cool kids
pretend play @ being prey hunting grownups.

ya, hear your thinking and it’s stinking,
my generated magno-electric vibes that’s
to blame, get this kids! never your fault
being whom you the actual F are, it’s their filters
that ***** their vision, their desires unbidden,
casual dispensed, thinking glory is theirs to share.

my road is not broken, there are signs even I spot,
when the man I crave is nearby, whose calm is not
couched cool, who doesn’t wear his possessions on
his sleeve, one who says adventure, yes, let’s go,
never saying when, for the only when is what both crave,
the loving of immediacy of “right now,” and add
to that pithy, my name, Brandy, acknowledging it’s
me, just me, he addresses and not some vision that
was crafted by others into an ideal,  and ‘because’ is
not sufficient but the perfect rationale, to trust what
your absent father called your “finely tuned instincts for
human finery, humans who eclipse ordinary stars

Robert Zanfad Nov 2013
yeah, read an old poem again and remember sitting across a dark sticky table, pitcher of beer to wash down the fear of losing control. the guys told jokes - called them "brain droppings", like intellectual pigeon **** puked on the window -  but i was fighting not to get lost in the patterns of condensed water pooling from sides of the pitcher, laughing on cue because it seemed the right thing to do. i counted bright flashes, blue, a neon sign - froggy's bar open - for clarity, my fingers still melting into pencils at fine edges of the discussion. i carried a notebook to write in but nobody noticed. i thought i was a poet.

green sat there, slack jaw acid jockey, dead eyed silent fish out of water. educated somewhere. not here. it was hot. i think he'd had too much magic mushroom or that black sticky stuff we smoked in the bathroom that made me choke like a dying newborn, or maybe the pale colored microdot collage on paper rolls we all shared at a concert hall earlier. the humidity.

cool, man - i quietly pined for some brown-skinned chick away at college, home again but still not calling, so i wanted to forget my own name and split in some dime bag fog when the sugar slipped out over my lips; i spit, he didn't, i drank. green was hungry, brain-******, out of time, dreaming about some key lime trees in florida, ogres in fairmount's forests, the dealers from new york who wanted to **** us, then gut  laughed at something funny he saw in his sneakers. we hefted him by armpits to the stairs and left him there; it was too hot to walk all the way up to the flat's front door. green **** himself;  we left. green, by any other name, got lost like smooth longhairs on motorbikes, that girl, the pretend hit men from uptown, none of whom ever cared who i was, because i wasn't  really anywhere.  but i didn't realize green could fly. it was a secret he'd left on the pavement outside. i'd wished i could fly like green. but he died. i'm still here, bluffing i'm living.
inspired by memories and "Green Sees Things in Waves" by August Kleinzahler
Karan Sherwal Jul 2018
"Poor Boy"
And so I say to you
In the 21st century, Youth messing around uptown and downtown
Frequent gatherings; temporary pleasures.
They have to reassure, their relations
I of them all allowed myself to grasp the sweet melting moral,
It have to be fascinating because
All my life I was dreaming of having materialistic pleasures.
In the midst I watch time passing by..it's not dark yet
I am waking like a traveller who is in search of something, he never felt or saw it  in movies,comical clips etc.
Seldom have we been so slow,
Seldom have we been so far !
I am tired of days not resulting in tangible gains...
Hot red blood boiling in my veins.
Oh! great creator of being,
Hold my baby finger, take me to dreamland ! If not ? Then tell me the hidden meaning of daily signs,
I am attracting  and I saw,not the church but the Jesus is the true vine.
Mark Lecuona Apr 2015
Jump on come on
Gonna lay you out
Flirt zoo showdown
What's it all about?

Head game voodoo
Think about do you
Smack talk all uptown
**** strut walk around

Turn it on ignite your flame
You never be the same
You see you're my plan
Get up girl I'm your man

Funky Gotchy don't I girl?
Rhythm method dance floor whirl
You want I like hot lips pouty
*** love exotic dark-eyed beauty

Hypno mind-zone freakout
Hip sway barfly holdout
Walk toe shuffle foot
Love starved crapshoot

Breakdown hard to get
Intrigue mind is set
Crazy hold mind on you
Alcohol stumble on thru

Funky Gotchy don't I girl?
Rhythm method dance floor whirl
You want I like hot lips pouty
*** love exotic dark eyed beauty

Drunk walk dance floor queen
Move stop tease my dream
Close far wet hard rock
Rhyme poet walkin the walk

****** ***** push away
Eye look what you say?
Smile coy make me wait
Night life stay up late

Funky Gotchy don't I girl?
Rhythm method dance floor whirl
You want I like hot lips pouty
*** love exotic dark eyed beauty
The title came from a dream... the words are a dance floor scene
JJ Hutton Feb 2015
The conspiracy's got holes, water coming in, and
everything you say on the burner, they're going
to use against you in a court of law or as
a bargaining chip to go a level or two up,
but if you get caught, who can you give up?
Whose real name do you know? You feel
it all closing in. The black sedan whose
make and model you can never peg
is always parked off to the side.
Some days it rains, and you
try to remind yourself
to cherish this. You've
killed one man, been
asked to **** two more.
The sun sets uptown and
the jewelry stores close
and the bars open,
the ones with oak tables
and longbeards serving drinks,
the ones where they look at
you funny when you pay
in cash, the ones where
the women talk loudly
about their shapes
being real, about beauty
and food and thigh gaps,
their world entire.
What a funny set of problems,
you think to yourself as
the third beer hits your head
just right and headlights
come in through the window.
You walk out the back through the kitchen
into the neighborhood with
bikes left in the street. Two, three porch lights
on. Watchers east. Watchers west.
You break your phone on the hood of a stranger's car.
You run for the first time in months.
You run past the coffee shop and the frozen yogurt shop
and the artisan haircut shop and the tattoo shop with fair trade
ink. You find yourself at your sister's on 23rd. You tie off
in the living room while your nephew yells at the
Xbox and the LCD. It's curtains. Uneven.
The warmth and softness of synthetic women swirl around
you. There's a word for this. Maybe two. You swear when
you wake you will be hunter. No more defender. No more
user. Hunter King. Dark Secret on the Wind.
RJ Days Mar 2015
Some converted industrial uptown space
$20 brunch at a table for one
Nice and filling it seems, no room in my gut
Nor wondering why I walk gasping for breath
Pouring water, wishing it were alcohol
Too dumb when the check comes to add a figure

Some deep lasting sustenance from that, I figure
Stumbling home down block past shop and vacant space
Nothing sanitizes quite like alcohol
Great to see strangers holding hands one in one
Except I'd claw them and beat out their breath
Wrenched and stuffed I'd kick them in their stupid gut

That's not very nice, I know it in my gut
But somehow don't care much more to figure
Which story to tell or the smell of my breath
When tables for two require just as much space
And a spot at the counter suffices for one
Despite the sadness and lack of alcohol

I think lager, Malbec, other alcohol
And there is some deep craving still in my gut
For drunkenness or eternal truth, which one?
What luck, I'm rescued by a dashing figure
Some vibrations in my pocket fill the space
Imagination comes up to catch its breath

But that's about it, no handsome man with fresh breath
Just me standing in line to buy alcohol
Squeezing past the register makes for tight space
But maybe it's all the sausage in my gut
There's no lasting sense in minding my figure
So long now resigned to the comforts of one

The alternative is an uncertain one
And to explain I feel I'm wasting my breath
But there's no harm in ogling a nice figure
And there's no harm in a little alcohol
Oh, poor decisions, I feel them in my gut
Forgetting prescient matters of Time & Space

Perhaps there is one, sipping on alcohol
Inhaling deep breath, with a fire in his gut
Awaiting a figure to write lines in space.
Robin Carretti Apr 2018
But as sad as it seems

the imposter

Came closer
"Winnie' Con Pooh"
Arrh
Grrh
path
Huh?

Dark
Goth
Earth
Eeeeh
Ever Imagine?

Both  R$Worth

Crooked teeth
To be born
(Singers)
That way
"Lady "GaGa"
Don't go near my
"Mama"_

All people, the stranger

fire up ranger


Conned to be dated

Wrong types
Websites
The bite
"Boston creme pie"

"Boston Cafe Strangler"
All over skype lies

All Don Juans
Fake Hollywood tans

Bad Moon impersonators

when its all said and

done

"We wanted every lie"

No way out 6 feet under

My little big lie slice of

Apple computer
Viruses stay memories
deleted


2 B myself? stolen gadgets
all over my shelf
Money trick hats of
rabbits

My house was empty


New Renovation
Devil Nation
Demolition

Some
R&R
Robin-Risque

My Coffee Imposter
Stealing my good beans


My cup

Naked Gun=Fun


Godfather of the mob
Loan shark
NY Central Park

*     *     *     *    *    

His imposter suit dark
crooked lines 2-B Pressed
Don't start me up
I am not
impressed

Recharge my
I- Am
Linked into the
 Imposter
phone

Why did they pick me
24/7 like a clone

Carnal $ Cuddly

Smart *** got nailed
Long French tipped
knowledgeable

and stealing
Wifes other dreams
remarkable it seems

The ***** laundering no

'Holy Water'

Eyes of the crime

Estee
Lauder*
The makeup case
mob of utilities
Being an Imposter
Such clever abilities

Dealing with morons
City cat felines
no catnip just
Scientology all
  %%%
brainwashing_


Reindeer ****** nose
Big tip Ghostbuster lose


Comic-con of
Roosters & Hustlers
bars filled
with bust her ******

Why are they so good

at what they do


That summer solstice


Throwing wedding rice
It's better when
U-R
fed up twice

My Bentley bruiser
French tickler

The computer browser,


Being adventurist

"Zen"

"Avatar"
Not human lover

Being fooled by the
right star


Was so foreign
"American Uptown Girl"
playing
Cons in her own
"Billy Joel World"
the piano stranger
Start him up Pluto

All heirs no fears

Startup! Uppishness

Her money so played up

The *** drive he rose up
Oh! Gosh!!

So *******

Upmanship_
why did the man
         Go
"DownDamn-no-tip
_
?


And the woman

she vanished

His upper pants

to her underpants



Give up_ Startup


Watching his upper lip

Meeting her lower lip

More deceiving

All con artist doers
Those eyes of snakes
Like a shoe shiner
Demon

Jupiter Mars and
fake stars
Imposter and his dog
trained him well
Just like that to roll the
money over

What a bad start
upbringing

Such laryngitis copycat

imposter singer dead ringer

The good thing she was left

with her wedding finger$$$$$$
Imposters or crooks having loads of fun don't get taken in the
shade and sun you do have  a chance perhaps it's better to run
Arcassin B Oct 2015
By Arcassin B & wolfspirit & pea

WSQF: placing my heart on a platter
only for you
letting you see the insides, like that
clear plastic anatomy figure
from science class at university
downtown from uptown ..crosstown
this is the expressway to you
finding you wherever you may be waiting
with that smile, the one etched into my soul
nothing is wasted when it is tasted
we are all eternal in our guilty indulgences
but in living,
there is no shame
no one is to blame
exchanging those knowing smiles
our mission here.....is clear
AB: I'll put my name in a book for you,
Making my way down town,
Crossing esponola bridge,
Just to see that insecure smile,
But all the while,
I'm futile,
Of all the imaginations that you carried
When you were a child,
Don't let that smile go to waste,
Don't let that smile go,
As it came,
I use to have and felt shame,
So please don't let that smile goto waste.
SP: The memory of you never
goes to waste around here
I miss your kisses the most
eerie sweet ,clad moist tongue
I taste the mist off your lips
I miss your mystic touch and
pleasant need of desire...
your heart restless in the
unspoken comfort of being
alive, your words echo
deep in my mind...like
great audacious tolling bells.
Love is forever...and so are you
in my heart.
Wolves in the Ark
N R Whyte Feb 2013
Like a city grows on the banks of a river, water giving the people life, the brain grows in the skull.
Burroughs of the brain flourish, expand, fill with children; all age together.
Roads are built down familiar trails.
Thoughts flow like traffic, passed honking person to person.
Somewhere seven ghettos are folded into the pattern, somewhere seven suburbs.
Churches grow in clumps uptown, the steeples of the brain.
The people grow up, find careers that never change.
All are infertile.
School classrooms, though the books of teaching remain, empty.
Age claims first the eldest, tragedy claims others lost to alcoholism and extreme sports.
Libraries close, leaving suburbs of food sprawling.
Eventually all are in nurse-less homes, the TV flashing but set to no channel, ******* their pants.

— The End —