"vendor" poems
To be a woman
Is to be property
To act ladylike
Is to mold into the stereotype
To speak up is unheard of
Just go crawl behind the white man you see in front of you
A glimpse
Of steel is all you see before
The warmth of blood drains every part
Every being you thought to be strong
Now gone
Pick up the pieces
Bandage that wound
We have a war
One that was fought before
Blood on the knife
Stained the suit of the man walking to the congress chair
He holds it up with a smile
And the other men in the house follow
As they add it to the closet of achievements
We are strong
We are not blind to perspective
We see in color
Stitch up the knife wound
Targeted at the abdomen
Property does not fight back
A piece of land does not speak words
The cornfields do not unite
To be a woman
Is to have a voice
One loud enough to be heard over laws
That prohibit natural human rights
Our bodies are not to be tagged by the market vendor down the street
Politicians now playing a game of operation in their makeshift white coats
Forgetting all that we have achieved
Women's bodies are now more dangerous
Than a gun on school property
To have a body
Is to have a choice
To be a woman
Is to bring justice and unity to all
Jun 1, 2020
Jun 1, 2020 at 12:25 PM UTC
I saw a brinjal...
I saw a brinjal...
I saw it on the roadway...
Yes it caught my eye,
As I walked on by...
There must be a vendor...
With desperation on his face...
Who thought I would buy you...
And he dropped you on the road...
You're nutritional!
You're nutritional!!
You're nutritional!!!
It's true!
There must be a vendor,
With a smile on his face,
When he thought I would buy you,
But it's time to face the truth...
I shall never ingest you...
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 2:52 AM UTC
Four blocks down,
A man who never gives the same name
Stands every day selling condoms
With Tiger’s face telling us to “Protect Our Wood”,
And next to him is the vendor where
I just bought my new favorite scarf.
His name is Lorenzo. He’s 6 foot 4,
Old school Italian, and after two months
I’ve yet to see him wear the same shoes twice.
Natalie played softball in high school.
She now owns a hot dog stand just outside
That I’ve seen fifty people wait in line for.
After a heartfelt conversation we had
On a certain rainy Thursday morning,
Natalie now throws me a free Polish sausage with peppers
Once in a while when I open my second story window.
She hasn’t missed once.
My one neighbor is a Latina grandmother named Sofia.
She brought her kids here illegally,
And they’ve since used their success
To cut all ties to dear old Mexico
And to her.
I eat with her once a week,
And we share cooking recipes
And small tales about life BNY
(Before New York).
There’s a homeless man downtown
Whose sign says “A quarter a day
Keeps my teeth off your leg”,
And ever since he’s proven it to me
I’ve dropped fifty cents a day,
Hoping for extra protection.
When my friends from college come to visit,
They were all curious about Lorenzo’s shoes
And Natalie’s pitching arm
And when Sofia’s daughter would show up
(Tyler had a thing for hispanic girls).
I never tried to explain, because
I never felt the need to know the answer myself.
All I cared about were Natalie’s smile,
Sofia’s homemade tortilla chips,
And how a guy like Lorenzo ended up in New York City selling scarves.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 2:03 PM UTC
The platforms are full of passengers
The fruits, coffees and tea stalls
The train runs on the track with heels
Like the whops of horses
Passengers enter the train in a hurry
And leave without any worry
Someone sleeps in the berth and snores
Some other sits and reads the news
The gluttonous eater eats the eats
The vendor sells nuts and peas
and cries like the buzzing bees
the T.C comes, wakes up and asks
for the ticket and bribes for berths
the beggar begs for alms singing hymns
some play cards making unbearable noises
the child weeps ,cries and moans
the thief enters the coaches
and tries to steal the bags
the passengers make friends with ease
but it will very soon cease
life like railway travel is a passing shower
it doesn’t last forever
It lasts only till the destination comes
The passenger takes the bag and leaves
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 6:16 AM UTC
The white paper snail
Followed the *** trail
To a small gold boat
Where sailors hang their coats
The two eyed pirate king
Went Sunday fishing
To buy his pretty daughter
A pearl diving otter
The pet store vendor
Had putrid body odor
To solve his dilemma
He ingested a chimera
The knight and his squire
Went to sing and play lyre
At the cave with a bear
Who had no head hair
Another crazy poem
From an old seaside home
The brown eyed bard
Sends you a greeting card
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 11:41 PM UTC
so i sit here
with a hole in my foot
with a hole in my head
with a hole in this book
with the hole in her eyes
when she gave me that look
with the hole in my face
when i saw what he took
the hole in my heart
i still don't know the crook
paper is just too easy to tear
and you think i'm easy
when you see i've been shook
i think i need a hook
now there's a hole in my stomach
and it's feeling tight and queezy as she ties
me up in knots of my poor esophagus
her knuckles white from squeezing
i breathing like a snake trying to shed
the desert sun is hot so
please lift this mask up off my head
i try to offer a white flag
but she kills me instead
cause she doesn't like the things
that she can't understand
and so she holds her fists like
they have holes in them
holds me like there are holes in me
cavities of ample opportunity
for punishment and further tearing, no tears,
none of this teething willful jeer
i'll split and rewire, i don't need old fears
i am only tired at best
the pieces did not defy gravity
they fell right out of my ****** chest
but landing is a skill you see
tear me apart for free and be my guest
ripping down the wallpaper
wrestling with the messes of stresses
no one will unremember
looking for the emotions
you desperately want to render
but while i'm still soft
i'm no longer tender
so remember when you enter that
no matter what the temper of the sender
or persuasion of the vendor
i will not surrender
to all these social mind benders
there is a hole in my flag
my blood is an involuntary badge
no more flags, white stains
too easily
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC
I was on the way to find out my destination,
It was a rugged terrain without shed of trees on the road side,
Burning Sun shine on the top of my head and
Stony patches below my foot,
On a junction of the two roads,
You came out!
With …..
“Generous green of forest in our face,
Deepest blue of ocean in your eyes,
Melodious wind of mountain valley on your hair and
Splendid light of the don on your smile”,
As if this new path after this junction
going to lead me to the nature’s own womb.
Conversely, when we face each other you asked
‘Who I am?’ and ‘where I am going to?’
I was surprised; no one poses such questions to me on this long walk,
But I have already comes a crossed the Security man with gun in their hand,
The Beggar with stony beggaring plate in their hand,
The Food vendors with hot food in their basket,
The Knowledge tycoon with bag of books on their shoulder,
The Political guardian with embryonic power in their muscle,
No one asked any thing!
Not even look at me!
Probably for them either ‘I was insignificant or invisible!’
But your questions,
Compel me to think about my identity,
I don’t have a search engine,
to take help from the world wide web of identity,
So, when observing you with sensors of Imagination, Emotion and Cognition,
I found my lost identity in you,
As your child everything rooted in you,
Than I started to walk with you
Just to get the aspiration of living planet and
To protect you from the spite of ownerships, rationality, consumerism,
and demonstrationist humanity.
But after a while,
Every one started to pose question,
“Who I am?”
“Why I am walking with you?”
“How I get the right to do so?”
Than I replied my scruples enlighten me to do so!
No one understands ‘what I replied?’
Now the Political guardian of the society starts a campaign,
The knowledge baron prepared software for this operation,
The beggar and food vendor distributing the literature with illustrative interpretation,
That…..
“People like me are threat to the society”!
“This is an evil force of our society”!
Tomorrow…..
The security man going to declare a ‘decree’ on
Emotion, Conscience, Humanity and Love. □□
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 8:10 AM UTC
As I move on the streets of Mangalore city on the west seafront,
It is an afternoon and the sun is starkly overhead,
Burning, roasting in the hot-dry sky of May.
While en route the beach I passed from a really silent street,
Then I pass from the side of the Rosario Cathedral,
The only person I notice was a young vendor.
The vendor is a little girl who looked determined to empty her stock,
I peered into her basket and was pleased to see in it,
Even today I believe she sits there by the street.
Sitting in the rain or in the harsh, merciless sun she prays to the God,
Just back to her the church apparently has some priority line to Him,
She bribes Him a beautiful sea shell or two if He sends some buyers...
Though I do not need any sea shells, but I still go and spare a look,
I choose a pair of green sea shells and pay her for it,
Because she sells the sea shells by the street side.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 9:55 AM UTC
Nobody got anywhere in this life
throttling bums,
and robbing hotdog vendors,
but a Saquatch eating a knish on top of a flipped bus
is a sight that sticks to the roof of your minds eye.
Let's eat caramel apples down by the seawall,
trade tall tales, and lizard scales,
run for the hills, but settle down in the shadow of the valley.
Prickly pear and agave nectar, nopal cactus fruit,
blended together, you can hardly taste the tequila.
I'll boost you onto the roof, and hand up my guitar,
and you'll help me climb up,
singing and chanting till the sun knocks us off the room,
we'll go pool hopping, with ski masks on,
and steal lawn ornaments,
and eat churros, and drink egg cream.
and kiss under the Brooklyn bridge.
I just gotta go throttle this ***
and rob this hotdog vendor.
If there isn't a sasquatch
I'll be home by the apocalypse.
Then we can get naked,
and set off the sprinkler system,
and dance in the halls.
Until the sun explodes,
and 2+2= 37.
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 4:26 PM UTC
One step forward, three steps back.
The queue shuffles,
visible breath in the winter blue.
The vendor vends,
fingerless gloves clamp the steaming mug.
Grunts and groans alike,
the warmth fills the withered corpses pale.
A gaze is cast,
into the misty nothing that inhabits the park.
A twitter is heard amongst the frosty masts.
Eyes meet with a rufescent-chested bird.
These same eyes are then met with salt,
a sorrow, a pang of jealousy.
A sheer longing for that same freedom.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 1:12 PM UTC
the grating voices of neighbors unsuccessfully singing Celine Dion ballads
the monotonous mechanical humming of the metal factory
the squealing of housewives watching an afternoon soap opera
the blaring siren of a firetruck racing with tragedy
the clunks and clangs of a nearby construction site
the roaring of the engine of an overloaded jeepney
the chiming of laughter from kids playing in the streets
the calls of the street vendor peddling sugary cotton candy
the whining of the dog begging to run around outside
this is the music of life in the outskirts of the city
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
We see eachother
Through our screens
And we see nothing at all.
All of us,
Our pixels staged
Like empty vendor stalls.
Substituting eye contact with
Fingertips on
Static.
Everything emotional
Is frozen,
Mathematic.
I am longing inside out
For
Savage,
Revealing
Touch
Warmed not by
Electricity,
But by a
Carnal
Flush.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 2:42 AM UTC
I sell for a living.
But not the kind of selling
you do at the supermarket
and not the kind you do on the net
but the kind where I give parts of me
to strangers I will never again see.
Strangers like the boy with the pretty eyes
and the woman shedding tears
and the gentleman with many stories.
I give away the parts of me
I think will make others smile
an ear for you sir
and a part of my heart to you madamme
would you like a hand? a dimple?
Let me know because I give it all
and when you leave
don't say goodbye,
let me believe
and dream that one day we will meet again
and you will give those parts back
so I can be whole once again
for the one who would have cared
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 2:49 PM UTC
The rain falls softly on the sleeping city…. Cloaked in the blanket of a monsoon lull…. A few stray dogs scamper for shelter as the first storm of the season colours the dawn a deeper crimson…..
The thunder rumbles from the north east…a deep slow sonorous sound coming from the underbellies of the moisture laden atmosphere…..
The soft drizzle forms a hazy blanket of morning mist around the city…..already stirring with the first signs of life…. The resurrection of the everyday work-a-day world…….
The musical tinkling of a bell echoes around as a pushcart brimming with flowers rushes down the street, hurrying to the market…fresh, preened and ready…to be sold to the highest bidder…
The soft music of the approaching storm inspires a boatman, out on the holy river, to sing…… his voice echoes over the bass of the thunder……a plaintive pleasant humming……the nuances of the bhatiali fill up the empty cracks in the morning……
The rain deepens…………the drizzle expands into the monsoons first downpour… pitter-patter sings the rain, reverberating off a thousand tin roofs……the sky darkens……enveloping the dawn in its grey being…..
Somewhere, someone tunes a harmonium…..clears a throat…a hand draws a curtain aside…..
The peaceful reassurance of the daily azaan spreads out from the mosque…..calling the faithful to prayer…..
The flower vendor…now setting up shop, attaching an extra strip of plastic sheet to fend off the rain…. Stops a moment and bows his head as the nearby tolling of a bell and the sound of a conch shell being blown announces the beginning of a new day in god’s abode….
A woman kneels down in a pew…..praying…..the calm of the church mirrored in her peaceful face…..
The rain looks down at the city……..now, half awake…slowly stretching its limbs……..stirring from the depths of a restless rest…………awakening to the jangling of a bread earner’s faith……
The shower relents……..probably giving in to all the Monday morning groans and grumbles emanating from a city forced back into consciousness…..
Finally, all that remains is the moisture on the flower vendor’s tarpaulin and the shadow of the boatman’s song on the rippled river…….
May 4, 2013
May 4, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
blue dress- it is soft, it shapes around your chest like it's supposed to be there, and you begin shaking with no end in sight
white feather earrings- your face is softened and you remember you don't want to be soft
blue beaded earrings- they match your dress and your dress makes you want to die
bird earrings- they are small and bright and you curl up on the floor and wonder which parts of you are real
moon and star earrings- they are small and pale and no one but you can ever see
sun earrings- you shiver and don't think anything
blue crystal earrings- they are the strongest form of feminine you have ever had, and you remember buying these from a street vendor, holding them like some strong piece of the world belonged to you
peace symbol earrings- they are small but familiar enough to be recognized and you feel sick in your throat, your face, every part of you that accepted peace is aching, you want to tear it out
blue stones and dangling silver hoops- these make you look like a woman, which is a familiar future you have been told of, and you realize just because you understand it doesn't mean you want it
dangling iridescent gems- these make you look like a girl, she would love them on you, and you decide to give them to her before you remember she's changed, now you don't know what to do with them
warm colored striped dress- it shows all your bones and still makes you look so soft, you are so, so cold
black feather earrings- these feel like how you used to try to be strong femininely, both of those at the same time, and you tore yourself apart for years not understanding why it was so hard, blaming yourself
black beaded earrings- these make you look like femininity comes easily to you, as you wish it didn't, these seem to belong, as you wish they wouldn't, and these are so heavy, just like everything about this, you are still shaking
silver rose studs- these are small, indistinct, you remember being familiar with this small amount of femininity you thought was necessary, and you twitch violently, something itches, you are hunched
black pants, shirt, jacket- you have a body, in the most abstract sense, and now no reasonable person could call it what they wanted
spider stud- it's small, looks metallic, and delicate yet menacing, like you never could be
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 4:44 AM UTC
16th, 17th, 18th chapel I don't care how many of them you make
If there's no gift shop how am I supposed to remember I was ever there?
In Germany I got a mug and a spoon
In Wales, Austria, and Poland I got a spoon
They're small and made of poisonous metal but very heavy for their size
I heard from a former classmate that you can't get a spoon in Egypt they only sell forks
What do you mean you're "not a very visual person"?
May your indictment remain sealed despite the current widespread family tumult
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 5:17 AM UTC
In my home city of Dhaka, there is an abundance of bananas. Their sickly sweet aroma hangs heavy in the air, mixing with the stench of human toil and chemical wastes to produce the true odor of despair. The lives of these bananas are relatively short. They start off in a poor farmer’s tree, dragged to market in a broken-down truck, and sold at a cut-throat price to the vendor. In a well-rehearsed play, vendor and consumer haggle over bruised bananas. The tired consumer brings the bananas home and hangs them in the kitchen where cockroaches stalk empty cupboards.
The next day, we, the children, will carry the bananas in empty lunch boxes to school. Together, we will sit through vapid lectures, tailored to make the clock tick slower. Not once will the teacher pause to encourage us to achieve. During lunch, we will devour our bananas with unwashed hands. Despite our best efforts, we will be corralled into our parents’ lives and become the next generation of factory workers and office clerks.
Sometimes though, a child manages to get a glimpse into the other world. I was fortunate enough to be one of these children. One afternoon, my father came into our tiny living room with a smile on his face and an object protruding from his shirt pocket. He told me that he had a special present for me. With a practiced flourish, he took out an orange from his worn shirt. My eyes widened with amazement.
To me, oranges were objects only celebrities and corrupt politicians could afford. They were luxury items, myths seen on television. Yet here I was, nothing extraordinary, holding a real orange in my palm. Slowly I peeled the orange, feeling my old impoverished self peel away simultaneously. As I tasted the first tangy slice, I heard the shackles of the banana chain fall. It was then that I truly felt that I had the power to become anything I wanted. That day, I was liberated from the vicious banana cycle.
From that day forward, I looked for positive events in my life, for signs of hope and change. One day, I saw my strict, condescending teacher discreetly hand an orange to a classmate whose family was unemployed. For the rest of the day, the child stood a little taller. For that day, he was no longer living in a destitute environment, but residing in the warmth of human nature.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
The attendees are told, in a manner befitting a high mass
You have been finally set free,
(Although, in truth, free is a very large and entirely vague word),
And the message is sent forth from all comers in all corners:
Vendor and visionary alike,
German socialists who left university to ride boats for Greenpeace,
First lieutenants doing their level best
To appear at ease in civilian polos and khakis,
But no matter the vessel,
The message is still the same.
The tyranny of cables and storage space is dead,
It is all but shouted from the lecterns,
(Although it is noted, in small print and sotto voce
That there are certain requirements
In terms of hardware and licensing)
And it is stated by Those Who Know
In tones which neither brook nor invite contradiction,
That they have surmounted, all Hadrian-like,
The alpine divide separating mere data and magic.
Two or three blocks down the street from the convention center,
In a narrow storefront housing an exhibition of ether-only comics
Which have broken the nettling constraints
Of editors and syndication,
There sits, under a somewhat opaque
And slightly scratched piece of plexiglass,
A yellowing comic strip of uncertain vintage,
In which a frowzy cat,
Free of the constraints of panels, gender, and standard grammar,
Is the recipient of a mouse-tossed brick
Whose flight, unfettered by physics, probablility, indeed time itself
Ends striking its mark right between the x’s of the eyes
The projectile itself an inexplicable alchemy
Of confusion, mirth, frustration
And the impossibility of an undeniably pure love.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 9:29 AM UTC
After twenty years, as cursed as I may be
for having learned computerese,
I continue to examine bits, bytes and words
and insure that I'm one of those computer nerds.
Program design, source code and compile
followed by walk-throughs that place me on trial.
There's lots of testing - a means to an end
in hopes of avoiding future production abends.
There are micros, minis and mainframe hardware
which are made to work with in-house and vendor software.
Provided are many platforms for everyone to use
and assure misinformation in data's abuse.
Author Note:
Learn more about me and my poetry at:
www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513/
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 7:14 AM UTC
Pencils are opportunities, it dulls as you write,
mistakes slowly burns the red rubber ****
and sharpeners are luxuries or government help or socialism.
But what about cheap pencils,
whose lead dulls or breaks easily.
Pencils are all equal if you look it in the outside
but what you can't see is that these cheap pencils
does not have a solid strip of lead inside,
it has some small quantities of opportunities to write.
I need to sharpen it once in a while
so I can clearly write.
But not everyone has sharpeners nor extra pencils,
some even bought this kind of pencil
with all the money they have
and they cannot write their stories
and their happy endings,
when the luster of their leads are constantly fading
into white, swallowed by the open
free-market place of ideas blank paper.
And I can't blame the poor vendor who sold me
these substandard opportunities.
However,
I am blaming the owners of factories,
for making such lousy imitations,
for exploiting my hunger to write.
I am blaming the government,
for allowing such pencils to ever exist!
Their lust for power, their greed takes away
my opportunities to write clearly and continuously,
I am blaming them for assuming that all of us have sharpeners!
We should not pay for social sharpening services!
Sharpeners and pencils should be free!
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 8:45 AM UTC
The lightbulb on the roof
Is flickering with proof
That the mind is dangerous
It's a poison in our youth
Our thoughts are hazardous
There's war inside of us
How are we still alive?
The abyss is cavernous
That to which we strive
We know will never thrive
We're told we should surrender
We weren't destined to survive
Our wounds are feeling tender
Our hopes are getting slender
We're buying what we're told
From the catastrophe vendor
Our brains fill with mould
Our bodies grow cold
We'll die before we get old.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 12:21 PM UTC
Her ugly salmon sneakers
hang by ratty shoelaces when she takes them from the vendor.
I tell her to toss them lest she get a disease
from her gross salmon sneakers.
Her garish salmon sneakers
pitter-patter gladly, mocking me and staying forever.
She says she won’t ever buy another pair since
she’s got her salmon sneakers.
Her silly salmon sneakers
stay on even through our reception, our vows, and our wedding.
Though I do finally get them off that same night,
her wondrous salmon sneakers.
Her busted salmon sneakers
trip her up before she steps in front of a speeding driver.
As I scold her, I don’t even think I’m grateful
to her old salmon sneakers.
Her galling salmon sneakers
always stay two steps ahead of me and everyone she knows.
If only they outpaced the ones she didn’t know,
her ******* salmon sneakers.
Her stupid salmon sneakers
never grace her feet again, and I know she’d have hated that.
I don’t care because that’s all I have left of her,
her ****** salmon sneakers.
Her dreary salmon sneakers
seem so lifeless without her because she was what gave them life.
And I wish with all that’s left that she was there, not
her hollow salmon sneakers.
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC
Take two Spoons, and see where the Sugar bruise
Far-advised they must in Colour, contour
Bet for the Shades; Yet though Red at best, Blue
Twice shopping for Pets in console does pour
Haply do beg, then, cop this Tired Shout
And perscribe the slip to Praise you instead
Even though, by dough, what the Tripe's about
And fry this Belligerent Fish for dead
You knew as the Wrong which should have been Right
Yet cast the Charmer to part with his Staff
But there, with She, took your Honeycomb's Might
Did Good to yourself whilst Others are apt.
Now with your Shings, that change your Vendor gave
Rewind your Perception; And opt you Brave.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 1:07 AM UTC