"walkman" poems
SNOW FALLS
she wakes
to a morning
with no reason for living
cries in the mirror
to be
forgiven
puts on her make-up
takes off her clothes
sits there & bleeds
until she can’t feel
the blood in her veins
runs cold
the razor blade
bleeds
bleeds
the cat
cries
to be fed
the batteries in her Walkman
go dead
the Rachmaninov stops
a letter
she will never read
drops on the Welcome mat
a mobile
rings & rings &
...stops
a member of
a minor political party
looking for her vote
rings the doorbell twice
slips on the ice & ruins his coat
curses
a man laughs
at another man’s joke
it’s a big laugh...he’s a big bloke
laughter
invades the square
there’s a chill in the air
a friend calls for her
(to go on a blind date)
...she doesn’t hear
snow...
...snow...
...snow falls
Aug 31, 2018
Aug 31, 2018 at 3:11 PM UTC
There's a voice on the phone
telling what had happened.
Some kind of confusion,
more like a disaster.
And it wondered how you were left unaffected,
but you had no knowledge.
No, the chemicals covered you.
So a jury was formed
as more liquor was poured.
No need for conviction;
they're not thirsty for justice.
But I slept with the lies I keep inside my head.
I found out I was guilty.
I found out I was guilty.
But I won't be around for the sentencing
'cause I'm leaving on the next airplane.
And though I know that my actions are impossible to justify,
they seem adequate to fill up my time.
But if I could talk to myself like I was someone else,
well then maybe I could take your advice
and I wouldn't act like such an ******* all the time.
There's a film on the wall
that makes the people look small
who are sitting beside it,
all consumed in the drama.
They must return to their lives once the hero has died.
They will drive to the office,
stopping somewhere for coffee;
where the folk singers, poets, and playwrights convene
dispensing their wisdom;
Oh dear amateur orators.
They will detail their pain in some standard refrain.
They will recite their sadness
like it's some kind of contest.
Well if it is I think i'm winning it, all beaming with confidence
as I make my final lap.
The gold metal gleams,
so hang it around my neck.
'Cause I am deserving it: the champion of idiots.
But a kid carries his Walkman
on that long bus ride to Omaha.
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin,
'cause each note stands so pure
it just cuts into her,
and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes.
Now to me, everything else,
it just sounds like a lie.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 7:01 PM UTC
i met him in 1989 in a study hall class
and haven't forgotten him since.
a month ago,
i found out he had died in 2014.
the girls liked him
he'de tell me what was playing on his walkman
so i listened, learned, put a penny in an envelope
and mailed it off to columbia house
some weeks later i received my 12 cassette tapes.
i quit eating and got creative with eyeliner.
i memorized a lot of cure lyrics and went to study hall
prepared.
the semester ended and we weren't in the same
study hall class anymore. he ended up transferring to another school.
but i still had hope.
i had memorized so many lyrics.
i had gotten my hair cut into an inverted bob
and learned how to dye it black.
it felt like anything was possible
and it felt so good.
the next year
i transfered to the other school, but he wasn't there anymore.
the year after that
i transfered to an even worse school
he was there
finally.
soon after that,
emily became his girlfriend
one day, i ran into them at the park and ride
as i was getting off the bus
we spent the night on the sidewalk
outside of emily's dad's house.
none of us were allowed to go inside,
not even emily.
but emily managed to sneak inside
and stole a jug of homemade alcohol,
which we did not call moonshine.
emily fell asleep with her head in his lap
while we talked, smoked three packs of cigarettes (all mine), and drank the homemade alcohol that her dad had made.
emily wanted to be a fashion designer.
he really believed in emily and her drawings.
the sun came up
and i caught a bus home.
we both ended up
dropping out of highschool.
Jun 27, 2017
Jun 27, 2017 at 8:05 AM UTC
He shambles along picking the scabs off the street,
meet
the pauper
likes
Cyndi Lauper
and listens on an antiquated walkman
and he walks the talk man.
I met him in Stepney
a proper old Cockney
he asked me for cigarettes
I gave him
a quid.
Some say,
better to be rid of them and
by them they mean the poor men,
but if we did that who then
would pick the scabs off the street?
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 6:33 PM UTC
poor buick good dog we’re almost done bad moon bellyful of big dumb blond last line i want uh a memory yes before yes atomic foreskins pink & fresh yes hunger for the womb **** **** **** *** junk food ****** with a walkman playing schumann to dilate woman oranges have more delicacy oranges orages oral fruit caught in the act the memory here it is a certain man crippled since birth caught in the act *** without hands his only defense: today today is only the beginning this is only the beginning a sick man’s argument okay last line
while in the street already leaves are falling
2k
Its designed to deliver,
engineered to inspire.
Being powered by the energy of a coiled spring
and kept in motion by a complex
self-winding system,
relying on the natural movements of one's self.
It's rubbing elbows with rebels and royalty.
Introducing *** to Cola,
and creating a bathtub diver,
a daytime sleeper,
an organized mess.
Seems my shadow has kept busy.
It's my wild walkman,
my electric pickle.
Nov 21, 2012
Nov 21, 2012 at 3:23 PM UTC
I remember when you sat next to me
you and your curly Blonde hair
and those blue eyes cut me so deep
I remember so vividly
Man. your rough looking hands were so appealing
I just wanted to grasp them as they went towards my own
But instead of your hand fitting like a puzzle piece, you took my Walkman
"What are you listeing to?" you asked
"Marry you by Bruno Mars" I said. you took an ear piece and began to listen
you began to sing and I was melting
you turned to me and sang that song for me but you weren't serious
But still i melted
This memory and so many are fading
Like when we held hands as a joke
and you pulled back saying " I Never held another guys hand."
How cute you were.
or how bout when the times you sat next to me on the ride home and you would just stare at me when i wasnt looking yes I noticed
Man, I wanted to lean on you
those memories are fading, maybe
For I might fall for antoher
we are just talking but who knows
I can't have you because you are not gay, or bi thats what you say
I love you enough to just believe it
Anthony, man just saying your name is like a drug, I love you
But you and these memories might be fading, maybe
I might have found another Guy
one who might like me and I might like in return
If you do like me but dont want to admit it then
Please hurry
But if you are really are straight then its good
that you might be Fading, maybe
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 8:25 PM UTC
is the tendency of the reddish sunshine
to become drenched some more
let us hear
what the milky-way seamed by pins
says
and it’s you
how much can you be able to read
the venation of the Barringtonia acutangula
can you touch the season of making apples
in the aquarium
the empty bottles without any co-ordinate
that shoulder with endless grief
the hands of the wall-clocks
in a sudden depression
they’re also making crowd
at the beauty parlour
you have promised someday
to present a flower-vase to display some drops of blood
in the circled face
do you remember it
you haven’t floated that turnip
till now
here the month of trumpet-flower
covers everything
with reedy grass
with the festival of colours of the white horses
the new leaves of bananas become associated
the total dipavali rows
along the evening-balcony
taking it as daylight
will any bird fly towards it
then send a walkman
for the bamboo plants
you must go today
in search of the source
of the hand-woven lamp-post
from the pitcher-worship to the kantha-stitch
it is a very large
twelve-horned deer
the mango-marrow
demands more land
demands more kingfisher
the breath of the Ravenala
touches the chicks of the black-pepper
in every evening
the flood that tears the button
touches the bowstring
that passes through the centre of magnolia
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 5:32 PM UTC
Oakland...walkin with my Walkman
Collecting cans to get 10 cents so u can try to pay the man
Gang banging...ppl slanging that good stuff
Yup that's Oakland
Walkin to the corna store
Gimme more gimme more
Make sure I get the right kinda mint like the wood
Maybe I could try and get outta Oakland
Dreamin of a better life
Free from familiar strife
Shoot this is life
Sharp like a two edge sharp knife
I laugh cuz I kno I'm better than this
Oakland...walkin with my Walkman dreamin...schemin...believin
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
Women who think like men
Men who act like children
Children who act like they're forty and think they're adults
I opened the box to find a crudely written IOU on the back of an expired Domino's coupon
We tried to assimilate the whole thing
My co-worker made a long distance phone call
It was to the peanut gallery
They told her she should have put another quarter in the parking meter so she could have avoided the fine
"Fredrick Brown"
Said my boss
That was the name he gave us when he made the reservation
Sounded like pseudonym the chiseler made up on the spot
But all he ate was side dishes
And a bag of corn nuts he brought in
Now the investigation was in full swing
The cops came
Asking questions
A description
A name
And what he ordered
"Burnt french fries, uncooked calamari, re fried beans, a salad with only brown lettuce, a can of cranberry sauce, a porterhouse steak medium rare with mushrooms and onions and a hot fudge sundae without any ice cream"
The officers perused the table and found that sundae and the steak were untouched
And the can of cranberry sauce was only half eaten
Days later a man was found screaming in the industrial park
Yelling obscenities and wearing a bald cap
While trying to listen to scratched skipping Cd's on his Walkman that had no batteries
It goes without saying the man was deranged
It was the very same man I waited on in the restaurant
Police only released one statement on the matter
They said when asked why he was in there in the first place
He told them he was looking for work to pay a bill the he owed to a local restaurant who had top notch service
His real name was Ercy ******
That name is now branded into my memory
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 8:10 PM UTC
you left behind plane tickets
in my wallet
because when we were on
that plane
we were one
and like a wife
I kept your belongings.
you left behind train tickets
all over my room
in my purse
and in cupboards
to awake memories
whenever I find them.
you left behind
a Walkman,
a pair of earphones.
a bracelet.
a book.
gifts from your mum.
a bunch of photos.
I left behind
pieces of paper
with my heart
laid out on them
naked and
entirely yours.
I left behind
a watch.
a bracelet.
My scent on your
red sweater.
A bunch of photos.
I wonder if you deleted
all our pictures.
I wonder if you threw
away my letters
like you deleted me
like you threw my
love away.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 5:15 AM UTC
Clouds of white March mornings
Surf inside this smokechamber I call a brain.
I was twelve and you were thirteen
Both separate rigid crystals growing
In the back of Mom’s awful red minivan.
We stained our fingers with Oxnard cherries
And got high on orange and eucalyptus.
Sand behaved like molasses.
My Walkman was full of ants
Who hated Third Eye Blind with a vengeance.
I had a pimple on my chin
Which I tried to hide with makeup
And I really hoped you’d notice
My cotton candy body splash
I got it because you like
Juicy Fruit gum and
That smells like cotton candy to me.
I chunked down short white shanks
On the red crabbed beach towel
Hoping you wouldn’t notice the ricotta billows
Developing on the upper thighs
Between slushy rivers of purple lightning stretch marks.
I couldn’t deal after ten minutes so I got in the water.
I laid myself across submerged tidal-pool boulders
Near-floating on the frigid little water-pyre
Congealing my skin like vanilla pudding
Bogging me down like a sea sloth.
It took me a halflife to figure out
That while I miss those mornings,
I do not miss you.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 2:11 PM UTC
I have your (our) CD on my walkman
It's playing
all our fears and regrets
all our promises and dreams
It's playing the past
before people left
before we left
before everything
started to change.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 2:09 AM UTC
(for my fellow dharma bums)
why is this backpack so heavy?
chicken & country cole slaw
forks & knives & spoons
a bicycle helmet hanging off
a sketch pad
books
the next 100 years
how the beatles destroyed rock’n’roll
a walkman & cds
the soundtrack to the darjeeling limited
faust’s first two albums
tom waits & alan holdsworth
compilations of local prog rock
modern blues & albert king
old newsweeks
a black t shirt & blue scrubs
a folder with poems & instructional material
the brain death protocol
a stethoscope
but why is it so heavy?
must be the hot sauce
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 6:31 AM UTC
I'm happy.
That might not sound big
but I've been depressed
since I was a kid
like a broken record
on repeat.
My memories were
and old-school walkman
that can't stop skipping
too many bits and pieces
are missing.
But now music overflows
from my joyful soul
instead of crackling
inside my heart
like radio static.
m.w.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
The big gray dog home with a Walkman on my chest ,
The long drive from Anniston , hitting every small town
to the West ...
Driver please drop me off in Hapeville , destination Kelleytown or
Covington , anyplace on Earth will do , anywhere but Fort McClellan !!
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 11:28 PM UTC
Mid-April in northeast Ohio.
She’s bitter at the cold,
for overstaying its welcome.
The snow obscures the line
between the sidewalk
and the Devil’s Strip.
There’s a long line
of determined footprints
punched into the snow behind her.
Halfway through a song and a cigarette,
the CD skips -
figures.
These library disks never play for ****
She ***** her fist
and whacks her Walkman.
Across the street,
in a wifebeater and sweatpants,
he people-watches from his front porch.
Sipping ***** and orange juice
from a chipped mug -
World’s Greatest Dad.
In his driveway sits a ‘97 Cavalier
with a plastic wrap passenger window
he’s hoping holds up to the wind.
Will this ever stop?
he says to himself, toward the falling snow.
A passerby might think he meant the weather.
Next door, she’s been up all night
with her newborn tornado siren
fruitlessly singing lullabies off key.
Six cups of coffee
keep her from collapsing
into a pile of ***** laundry.
She thinks about herself as a kid.
Thinks about how she used to like to
walk with her eyes closed.
How she used to like the thrill of it
the uncertainty and doubt of it.
This is like that. She tells herself.
She almost believes it.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 4:35 PM UTC
Father Joe died that year.
The Benedictine monk
who’d got you through
the worst of things.
Cancer got him in the end.
Your youngest daughter
was born that year but
nearly lost some heart
**** up the docs fixed
with their box of tricks
and the hand from God
you guessed. A year you’d
listened to Nellie Melba
from old opera recordings
on your Walkman sitting
on trains to the hospital
and back having visited
the sick wife and babe
both on different wards.
Before the babe was born
you and your wife had
visited the abbey grounds
where Father Joe had been
laid to rest with a simple cross.
Aug 10, 2012
Aug 10, 2012 at 2:36 AM UTC
watching everyone take off their head phones,
just to hear me, just to hear me.
on the corner of, crest and woodview,
you couldn't see me, but i was near you.
screaming at the top, of both of my lungs,
not much air left, it wouldn't matter.
feeling like that bell's, finally been rung,
no more laughter, only children's sadness.
there's a court date coming,
there's subpoenas in the mail,
we can all just ignore it,
but as soon as we will fail.
there's a court date coming,
there's subpoenas in the mail,
this is something we should go to,
or this world cannot prevail.
all my scars are from familiar places,
give it a name, and i will listen.
shootin' stars, ask for me to wish them,
i couldn't do it, to my discredit.
i'll exchange a book for your Walkman,
happy birthday, happy birthday.
from afar you will see smiling faces,
no more hiding, now you get it.
december second at three forty two am, with 12 seconds...1988
Nov 4, 2017
Nov 4, 2017 at 10:52 PM UTC
I jammed on my sneakers
took my walkman and speakers.
The forged American Express,Link and Barclaybank card
I had decided to leave in my yard.
I had to dash.
So I pocketed the ready cash
and scrammed up the lane.
I wasn't hanging about for the police.
I would have to explain
Why several large cases and antique
Chinese vases were tucked up in the attic.
Never static that's me
there is always another spree to go on.
Around about noon which seemed to come very soon
I was down on the coast looking for a mark
who would be marked before dark.
But the sirens waylaid me
the policemen had played me for a fool.
Being 'old school'
I bluffed it for a while
until the day of the trial when all was laid bare.
The judge(an old **** played his part very well
Take the prisoner to the cell
I've given the wretch a twenty year stretch.
Now I sit and I stare at the bars and the wall
The call of the wild and the reckless behind me
Unbroken
Not free.
I look around me to see
a way out.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 6:08 AM UTC
I love the way you put your stupid
hipster glasses on the collar of your
band t-shirts to fix your straight yet
messy brown hair that you haven't
washed in a week with a thick black
hair tie that you hate to wear on your
wrist when you don't need it because
it's so bulky so you put it in your front
pocket next to two strips of emergency
gum and a can of altiods which you
finish in a day and replace at night
I love when you air guitar in the
middle of Froyo Joe's most likely to a
song on The Front Bottoms CD you're
playing on your Walkman you got at
that one thrift store and everyone
stares at you then stares at me staring
at you, smiling and laughing so much.
And I love how you bow in the most
exaggerated way that anyone could
ever possibly bow because you air
guitared so impressively (you should
definitely start yourself a band) that
the unexpecting audience applauded
you for that marvelous performance
which definitely made their evening
And I love the way you look at me in
the train car when you're dragging me
to the next town because you finally
have enough money to go to the little
store that has the same name as that
one author you love and buy the
vintage coat that smells like moths and
depression because you want to wear
it and feel like a 1923 troubled rich
woman during an early midlife crisis.
I love when you tell me the things you
love about me at 3 a.m. in this diner
after you read to me that God-awful
poem about a woman who hates
shampoo and listens to blue grass
during all her classes and we're sitting
in this diner where all the food tastes
horribly like canola oil and salt and
I am immensely in love with you
Dec 26, 2017
Dec 26, 2017 at 7:29 PM UTC
You are standing in the rain, humming
nonsense. They won’t let you
carry a Walkman to the bus stop yet,
knowing you’d be stupid enough to throw
it away accidentally with your lunch.
Your mother packed a spoon for your soup
last week. It is still in your pocket,
or did you throw that out too?
Why can’t you remember things like that?
You’d forget your little pig-tailed head
if it weren’t sewn on to your neck
and held there with itchy turtleneck
collars. Your mother markers your address
into everything, in hopes that someone
might send back the things you’ve lost.
You’re busy finding other things, I guess—
like the loose corner to the grated storm
drain where you wait for the bus every morning,
almost loose enough to crawl under.
Or the miniature floods when the snow melts
and you can feel the rush of fast water
over the cheap “leather” boots on your feet
while you stand there, on a storm drain,
humming in the rain and stomping in cold, wet socks.
Remember when your mother stopped walking you to the bus?
She does; and she remembers following behind on rainy days with the car,
just in case you got too damp.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
Sixteen,
skin baked with brine and chlorine,
Top 40 hissing in my Walkman.
The girl found me first,
barefoot on the sandy trail,
tears spilling, pointing back to the sea.
A jellyfish sting, she couldn’t say it,
just clung to my leg like kelp.
Her mother rose from the dunes,
black bikini, tan lines,
two beach bags gnawing her wrists.
coconut oil, salt, chipped Jackie O shades.
She sighed, called the girl dramatic,
drifted home on scraping sandals.
Their world leaked into ours,
adjacent green bungalow
with fronds rattling like bones,
oranges sagging into white fuzz,
ATV ruts torn through the yard.
Rob polishing his Camaro,
coughing through pollen and Skoal,
swearing he saw a gator the size of a boat
slide into the canal at dusk.
She’d wander up, black bikini,
thighs shining,
shadow falling across my pool chair.
Hey, you see my kid? she’d ask,
leaning close,
the scent of Coppertone
and Marlboro Gold
fogging my thoughts.
I’d shift polite, church-boy manners,
No, ma’am,
She’d grin
at the clumsy hormones
rising off me
like steam.
Those nights were bonfires,
oranges softening to flies,
Rob coughing in his driveway
while the pool light hummed and flickered.
Her shadow swam on the walls,
slick as a gator sliding into dusk.
Aug 4, 2025
Aug 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM UTC
Partners
no crime,
innocents,
time served deserves
an extension
we pretend that others do not exist,
stare our way through each day
until we get home and
then it's the telephone and
the world is okay
but
I take a ride in the landau
listen to
Spandau
ballet
really?
yes,
it's just a matter of no fact at all.
Walk tall, mum said, as I hid under the bed,
always monsters to fight
wrongs to fix,
right?
nearly midnight and no Oasis
what's this,
music of the solo mind?
Walkman no talk man makes
Jack a bull dog or something
that hides in dark corners.
Still dozing my way through the
thoughts and each day
I am dozing
some more,
it's slightly not keyed in
the code is not right
the dots don't line up
or
it could be my eyesight.
'if you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do'
then they decimalised the system and the
scheme fell through,
what about you?
do you collect stamps?
get cramps?
forget your name?
I am one of the same among many
cloned,
declawed even as I roared
my defiance and we should not
place any reliance on the material things
nor spirituality
punctuality
or any eventuality that eventually
will occur
share nothing
even thoughts have shadows that
show up in ultra violet light
wrong or am I right?
This is broadcast by the
'last of the Mohicans',
'should have kept my hair on,
white eyes speaks with forked tongue,
bet he
eats his peas with it'
thank God for madness
she is
the mistress of sanity
and
the goddess of poetry.
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 4:17 AM UTC