"vagrants" poems
There is an image
Working to free my mind
From violent dawns
It probes at the backs of my eyes
It tells me I am prostituting myself
Here in my bedroom
In incestuous union with myself
I hallucinate and fantasise about
Doctors sons, butchers boys
Teenage thieves, deserters
Drug pushers, scandalous rent boys
Vagrants, pimps, prostitutes
And silk lingerie and don't care.
I sit destitute of thought
An insonce dissonance of macabre music
Playing out melodies of an image in my mind
Apr 12, 2012
Apr 12, 2012 at 4:42 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
Now through night's caressing grip
Earth and all her oceans slip,
Capes of China slide away
From her fingers into day
And th'Americas incline
Coasts towards her shadow line.
Now the ragged vagrants creep
Into crooked holes to sleep:
Just and unjust, worst and best,
Change their places as they rest:
Awkward lovers like in fields
Where disdainful beauty yields:
While the splendid and the proud
Naked stand before the crowd
And the losing gambler gains
And the beggar entertains:
May sleep's healing power extend
Through these hours to our friend.
Unpursued by hostile force,
Traction engine, bull or horse
Or revolting succubus;
Calmly till the morning break
Let him lie, then gently wake.
5.2k
Winter has steadily come,
And I'm not sure I can convey
How readily glum
The frost singed air
Feels as it sticks in my throat.
I might as well,
I might as well.
A pig pulled a
U-turn to warn me
Of the ghetto youths
Roaming the neighborhood,
He said to put my phone away
And be on guard,
This area is dangerous, you know,
How long have you lived here,
How long have you been alive?
My knuckles are stiff
And my toes need stretching,
And my mind keeps retching
From the smell
Of rotting leaves
Mixed with deferred dreams.
In this section of town
Named for Hughes,
I perceive the blues
He was wont
To sing,
I breathe the fluid
Inherent in the slums,
And think on why
The oil shines in
The gutter,
Why it's working in our blood,
But it's not the same as love
Why vagrants mutter
And Hope dissolves
Once the glitter of
The campaign wears off,
Left to sparkle in the dirt
With the cast-off gloves
And chunks of weave.
Oppression in the guise
Of freedom stresses
My beliefs,
And it's all I can do
To take solace in the relief
Of taking my seat on the
Bus I've been waiting for
That will drive me
Towards a different lie
And a less realistic
Metaphor;
Cleveland Park
And its expensive stores.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 5:42 PM UTC
The man walked, shuffled,
Through blisters & sores.
His shopping cart stutters
Past the laden stores.
He's lost his mind
On rocky shores
He had hopes and
Dreams galore
Now he can't find them
Anymore.
In the land o' plenty
The woman lives hard.
Barely feeding her kids
With a food-stamp card.
The soldier lost limbs,
Now he's alone.
He is "housed"
But has no home.
*[chorus]
We know the rhyme.
We know the riddle.
But they still get caught
In the middle.
Caught in the cracks
The streets for some.
Cement & sky
Is not a HOME.*
Emily sits upon the stoop.
Goes to kitchens to get soup.
Michael lives.
He breathes.
He talks.
But he sleeps
In a cardboard box.
[chorus]
They're called vagrants.
They're called bums.
Labels they can't overcome.
Like wooden ships
Their only sea
Is in a bottle
They can't break free
Where's your HEART, society?
Where's your SOUL?
*Your *EMPATHY?
BRIDGE:
We must repent.
We must atone.
We ALL are guilty
To the bone.
We must help them
FIND A HOME.**
SøułSurvivør
(C) 6/8/2017
Jun 8, 2017
Jun 8, 2017 at 2:26 PM UTC
Overcome the apathy, disconnected truth
We, our fractured vanity, the forbidden fruit
A line once drawn, towards the edge we’ve toyed
Reality now gone, journeying into the void
Witch-fed lies, as we timidly believe
The vagrant’s cries, nothing special to see
Listlessly we begin to die, but this is not we
Forever asking, why this has to be
The intertwined insanity, a stricken route
Became lost in profanity, once in our youth
Striving towards a new dawn, only to avoid
The paths of an old pawn, as lines get destroyed
Once uplifted to fly, to never deceive
This vagrant’s only ply, is a subtle belief
To never be shy, and only wish to receive
Or, to rely on what he believes
Aug 19, 2020
Aug 19, 2020 at 7:23 PM UTC
first, make sure you are very concerned with
unlearned or silenced or misread minorities. this establishes that you
are a rarity, a person of charity,
a champion and deity of the small and the voiceless.
you’ve made the right choices
swallowed the right poisons
so now you’re not pointless,
you’re with the top few
of the economic disparity.
do you aver verity?
not so much.
you just make the choicest noises.
second, it is very important that you stud your vernacular
with words like deictic, post-spaciality, and sub-simulacular.
when you, font of knowledge, squeeze out pearls like turds
in twelve-point, double spaced, times new roman rows,
lined up like crows or some other ***** birds,
be sure to write no sentence shorter than thirty words, and
see to it that two thirds of these words have more than ten letters
that even the nerds in their plaid-patterned sweaters have not once ever heard.
when you walk, A paper in hand, from your car to your apartment, past four vagrants, do not look at them.
do not look into the eyes of the man standing in the rain, barefoot, black, green, and yellow toenails oozing and crusting, nodding his head and shouting at no one, and do not wonder whether or not he’d be there had he been educated.
lexicon is not eloquence.
erudition is not wisdom.
intelligence is not a prerequisite for rights.
you have no rights.
take a dictionary and shove it up your *** and
while you’re at it, shove one up mine, too.
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
Some 'others'
and so-and-sos
don't want to be found.
They don't want to be
solid.
They don't want to:
dematerialize or to rematerialize or to manifest.
They don't want to come into being or exist.
Some so-and-sos are vagrant and delinquent.
Truant vagaries of brush strokes
mushrooming in the tresses of dresses.
Indeed, some 'others' wish to remain anonymous.
They reckon it’s reasonable
to protect a human standard.
Their privacy a prison of unwatchfulness-
the walls closing in like they did for Hans Solo,
Chewbacca, and the princess...
like Indiana Jones or some platform pitfall romance.
The 'others' wish to remain alone.
How else would they be 'others'?
Anonymity is the preferred state of 'others'
and so-and-sos.
It is their church confessional.
Safe harbor to their ******
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 12:28 AM UTC
The world is a Bersinski painting
The rain is a Plath poem
The night is a Fellini film
The day is a Bach cello Suite
Our love is a winter fable
Cold, warm and passing.
The stars are drips of milk
The wind is God breathing
The sky is a floating mirror
The grass is mother earth’s hair
Her ***** is the earth
Shapely, comely and nurturing
French roast coffee is the turning of pages
A scandalous book in a leather bound cover
The Snow outside is the harp strings strumming
Flaking specs falling lightly and patiently
The city is a never-ending waltz
The *** lives are directed by Bertolucci
The homeless vagrants are saints in rags
The People walking are sinners
Each a sphere within a sphere
A world within a world
The theaters are abandoned rib cages
The poets are Russian matryoshka dolls
The painters are lost children
The eyes are broken, stained glass
Your arms and body are home to me
Cradle me, soothe me and touch
Those words won’t do it this time
Sometimes the silence is what I need
And you with me, away from it all
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 1:10 AM UTC
Tarmac under foot
Bootprint in gum stain
Pigeon among thorns, warble from ghost
Wind between railings, xylophone of souls
Altar for vagrants, drunks and rovers
Graveyard for worms of steel
Footstep footstep footstep
Echo, silence, echo, silence
The Wait.
Out of the moonlight, floodlight
Bone of back against wall
Tentacle of mist, droplets on window
Thunder of wheels through the emptiness
Deafness, echo, silence
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 4:16 PM UTC
STOP!
CROSS ON GREEN ONLY!
ONE WAY!
WARNING DO NOT ENTER PRIVATE PROPERTY!
NO TRESPASSING!
NO LOITERING!
VAGRANTS WILL BE PROSECUTED!
DEAD END!
Oooh my, can't stand this any more sooo...
...Felt a strange urge
in my legs
jumped into my car
wanted F R E E D O M,
craved F R E E D O M,
freedom away from
this imprisoning sign-city
Felt the true call of nature
Felt my natural urge to e x p a n d
needed my
ROAMING grounds
once more
Fled for o p e n country s p a c e s
where FREEDOM reigns
like, like refreshing droplets of spring water
BOLTED out of my car
where mother earth
cushioned my feet,
caressed me,
hugged me,
And go so far as to say,
even crawled into my jeans
and heard harmonious
chirping birds
Felt this strange twinge
in my calves
Ran like a deer
Ran into e x p a n d I n g o p e n s p a c e s
flight
Felt my legs take
practically off ground
Felt twigs, grass and weeds
gently stroke my ankles and calves
Felt country refreshing cool air
breeze my whole body;
and whizz
up my nostrils
BUT SUDDENLY!!
I trip over something,
it's a rusty large sign reading,
"KEEP OUT INTRUDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
PRIVATE PROPERTY"
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 8:29 PM UTC
Budapest
It’s an odd hour in Budapest,
that time when one finds themselves all alone,
passing vagrants who rummage through the trash,
searching for scraps of whatever and possibly some salvation,
I’d been drinking,
which I guess is good and bad,
coming fresh off of a philosophical conversation,
with an ideological Kiwi,
I couldn’t crush her ideological exuberance,
with my aged cynicism,
even if I’d wanted to,
because I respected her passionate optimism too much,
or not enough,
either way,
I was as alone now,
as I was before I met her,
except I felt lonelier,
because we all feel lonelier,
after having had the company of a friend,
or a stranger,
whatever,
it doesn’t matter now,
I’m several drinks in,
and I’m back at my rooftop apartment,
across from The Dohany Street Synagogue,
retreating into my writing which is where I find myself now,
at this odd hour in Budapest,
that time when one finds themselves all alone,
passing vagrants who rummage through the trash,
searching for scraps of whatever and possibly some salvation…
∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
author of The Poetry Trilogy
author of The H Trilogy
∆ ∆ ∆ ∆ ∆
∆ ∆ ∆
∆
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
For Beep & Sue Robinson, Foreman, Victoria Park Tunnel
Auntie Elaine Kingii
Died last night in her sleep,
Ninety years of age
Keeping secrets she would keep.
Last night she passed away
In her tiny single bed,
At the Onehunga rest home
Where she finally laid her head.
Auntie Elaine Kingii
Lived her long life on the street
Helping other vagrants
Find a kinder place to sleep,
Helping other street kids
With the hassles of their day,
Sharing a quick cigarette
Or a dryer place to stay.
Auntie Elaine Kingii
In her ninety years of life
Had eighteen babies born to her
From sailors , waifs and like.
Eighteen babies born to her
Beneath the Grafton bridge,
Each with unknown fathers
Or a family heritage.
Auntie Elaine Kingie
As a girl danced out of class
Where the morning sunshine sparkled
On the crystal dew, clad grass,
And her green eyes shone with lustre
In her joy of dancing free,
Whilst the street kids stood in cluster
Quite entranced by what they see.
Auntie Elaine Kingii
With her eyes of emerald green
Lived her days among the lost souls
Of the City Mission scene.
Life amongst free spirits
Was a chosen path for her
Shunning organised prosperity
With a structured raconteur.
Auntie Elaine Kingii
With her eyes of emerald glass
Chose to die the way she lived
Quite serenely with her class.
Happy with the company
Of whom she would befriend
In the park surrounds of Auckland city’s
Busy people blend.
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
21 June 2011
Jun 20, 2011
Jun 20, 2011 at 4:44 PM UTC
I live in a desert
My Dear.
With a loopy-eyed cat who bites
and a roommate who might as well.
All of my clothes are ripped and stained
and I don't know where I'll be working tomorrow.
The other vagrants and I
We can't afford to stay,
but we can't afford the gas to leave,
either.
The summers are too hot--
the winters are too cold--
and the days and the nights are too dangerous.
But we're here
and we're young.
And someone has to feed the cat.
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 2:28 AM UTC
Since 1876 the building had stood
In the middle of town
In a bad neighbourhood
But, empty for decades
And an eyesore to some
She was no longer "The Lady"
And her time had come
The old man sat there staring
As the charges were set
To bring down "The Lady"
he would not forget
His first visit inside her
In nineteen and ten
He'd been inside her much more
he figured since then
Talking to no one,
For no one was there
He talked of her being
He talked to the air
"She started out as a theater"
"Built by Colonel Tom Shaw"
"To showcase an actress"
"Known as Katie McGraw"
"He built her a showcase"
"To play many roles"
"But, Katie...instead"
"had other life goals"
"It stayed as a theater"
"Until Colonel Tom Died"
"Others took over"
"and failed as they tried"
"To bring in top talent"
"To play on the stage"
"But by then, yes then...vaudeville"
"Was now all the rage"
New owners and concepts
Vaudeville died
To keep it afloat as a theatre
Many had tried
A store full of trinkets
Of baubles and rings
A department store future
And the money it brings
The next incarnation
Was in retail not show
And for twenty odd years
They gave it a go
"The Lady" adapted
and was a great place to buy
But, her past as a theater
Well, it never would die
New owners took over,
A cabaret place
Was the next incarnation
She had a new face
"The Lady" was re-done
With tables for meals
Great entertainers
and she held wide appeal
"I remember Bob Darin..."
"Dean Martin and Jerry"
"Came here in to town"
"And they all made quite merry"
"Great singers and shows"
"Kept "The Lady" on point
"But, tastes changed again"
"a new King they'd annoint"
"Elvis, came through here"
"Played "The Lady", two shows"
"But, rock and roll stars"
"Don't come up where it snows"
"The Lady" closed up
became a hostel for a time
To hide all her beauty
Was truly a crime
She's been a store and a warehouse
And a place that made hats
But for thirty odd years
She's been home to some cats
Derelict, vacant...no one comes round
It's about time for "The Lady"
To be knocked to the ground
Some piegeons and vagrants
The bats, cats and owls
all leave in the morning
When the cityscape howls
The owner, not caring
Signed off on her long ago
It's been fifty odd years
Since she housed her last show
Her boards held up Jolson
George Burns, ***** Brice
And I said, she housed Elvis
He played here twice
But, now "The Lady"
Sits and waits for the call
Of the man in the crane
With the old wrecking ball
The old man, wiped his eyes
And he turned from the scene
"I would remember
"Of how she had been"
"A palace of talent"
"A place one should be"
"Now, she's only a relic"
"But she's "The Lady" to me.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 8:23 PM UTC
She's a happenstance mistake,
a healthy baby born on Independence Day.
Four days of work- for all it is worth,
nights of hearty cries
the soundtrack to a sudden, upside down life.
The needle pulling history
repeating different color threads-
patches of cloth, events and mistakes
patterns running through time,
past always stitched together.
I'm wondering where you came from,
drawing memories from the back of my mind.
I can only make up stories
as you sit in solitude
curving glass, covered in dust.
The alleyways are empty at this hour.
Only the vagrants, ******* their cigarettes, and strutting tom cats roam.
Nights drenched in orange glow-
street lamps guide me as
I wander the streets alone.
Is this the life I wanted?
Is this just how things have happened?
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC
Through peach coloured faded blinds, you watch him type on ashen keyboards
Low music playing, he used to cut her hair, she was breathing
Words from a soul, or words from dictionaries faded as the blinds and walls and clothes on his back
A team of typists, all in a line (factory work and the repetitiveness of city living)
You notice the desk, cheap and flat-pack, worn markings exposition of veneer and wood
Did you spot the reference, or did it pass your eyes,
- are you a fan?
His derivative verse of Bukowski and the like is painful to eyes and corroding of the soul
Have you seen the bees flee?
Watch as the lights turn dead, and the oven burns red
I'm not sure if one could call it homely; his home
The way darkness arrives early each night above that house alone
and the way rabid foxes walk in large circles to avoid the shadow cast
You hear him cry at night
(and I feel ashamed at noticing you)
He sets himself alight, to feel something new
You watch from your couch and flip the channel
Are the old haunts getting older still,
by the night's final adieu, a wild dog scampers home
To lay beneath the old car with grass in the engine
and we both know the house is burning
The flashing lights in the street and the coked up vagrants dance rhythmically
Smoke contortions over the grassy morning dew
A girl with a vacant stare, from a bench afar, watches and flicks broken nails
Everything you are is nothing you want, still watching from the window
Pacing. Pacing.
(I am on the rooftop, and I saw it all.)
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
He wasn't a loner.
He was just a wanderer in search for a place where he could find peace.
His imagination was too vivid and wild. His mind was like a sphinx, impossible to decode.
His thoughts were a tangled mess of knots.
He was a mystery.
He was never able to seek peace but he found something intriguing. He met her.
Just like him - Wandering like a gypsy, with chaos occupying her mind.
She was like the missing piece from his jigsaw puzzle of a life.
Together they dreamt about all the magical infinities they longed for all their lives.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 7:30 AM UTC
Under the sewers
Stay a race unknown
They've hidden themselves
So that we can't see
How good a people they are
And how bad a human we are
Under the sewers
Last among the village
A wee hamlet
Which inside is a wizard
Who is hated throughout their whole population
All coz he made a silly accusation
But insisted on a proclamation
That would divert them from devastation
Under the sewers
We're the children crying
Their tummies a aching
They mouths a shouting
Under the sewers
Of a great country
Is where many sit and sigh
This is where they hide for protection
From the above world
Where riches and material
Are valuable
And where deeds are left
And they treat many like vagrants
Under the sewers
were where my dreams would be
They would be out of the ordinary
Of course that's just a story
That I made up, imaginatively
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 12:57 PM UTC
Passion,
Woe that you should be my muse,
To have me painted and scarred so many hues
And oh to carry this poets heart,
Flooded by tides of feeling, floating world apart
In a flowing void of deepness,
The Self cast inward far,
Awesome gravity from all directions,
A black hole, holding ones brittle moon star.
With strained might it's forces burn the sea of mind,
Crashing thought-waves intoxicated on the outer worlds shore,
Breaking onto rough and rational sands,
Oft shadows of their true selves tender moon-star flaming,
Vagrants misunderstood and poor
And so ever the artist quests to rightly express,
pressurised creations they may yet release
Making room for the abstract storms atoms to saturate the waking,
Liberating its blooming centre of still, silent peace.
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 7:19 AM UTC
A poem inspired
by the awe and majesty of the pouring rain
falling upon the cathedrals and the vagrants
that say their Hail Mary's and Our Father's
on the front steps.
A poem inspired
by the love of a woman who
accepts the faults
and ignores the mistakes and regrets
that haunt many dreams.
A poem inspired
by the friends and the acquaintances
who hold up the hands of the weak
and give them a new sense of hope
and a new sense of buoyancy.
A poem inspired
by the soft melodies
floating softly over the plucking of strings
and the pounding of keys
ricocheting off the walls.
A poem inspired
by the enlightenment of the mind
that only comes once in a while,
but when it does come,
time stops and everything is perfect.
Jul 15, 2011
Jul 15, 2011 at 7:29 AM UTC
negotiating modernity
at the MoMA
one's pushed along
mass conveyances
inertial rush an
intractable force
surer then the weight
of Newton's gravity
routes precarious
contemplative moments
nails scratching
Pollack's #9
in desperate attempt
to hold ground
Mall of America's
crushing crowds
vagrants pacing
the large garages
barely glimpsing
composite walls
the open spaces
bagging fast food art
not a bit of intimacy
in the **** place
Music Selection
Ornette Coleman
with Eric Dolphy
Free Jazz
2/24/11
NYC
jbm
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 8:41 AM UTC
A star with night between her teeth; a girl
Staggers a dance of seven heels, less six.
Cues strewn along her route: a pin, a pearl,
A tired, ****** queen a-lean on bricks.
Though under veil of spotlight she makes sway,
No trace of rule remains on head or feet.
Each sunset swallowed before birthing Day
To toss to sirens feeding in the street.
Nocturnal vagrants fever dreaming deep
Her cafe consorts, seeking but a friend.
Mascara floods downstream where ducklings sleep,
So get her to a bed and to an end.
And though low trolls will ever tweet her shame
Each morning's jay will always sing her name.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 10:00 PM UTC