Best Backstreet Poems
I saw my yesterday's love today,
on a quiet, shady, backstreet lane.
I knew his eyes, though his hair was grey,
said he'd forgotten my married name
Or would have called me when moving back
to see how life had been treating me.
Just words said to fill memory's lack
Smiling, we talked a moment or three
Then we hugged and each went on our way,
and I thought how easily our romance,
we dreamed would last forever and a day,
became a passing meeting by chance.
On an ordinary summer day.
Promises not clasped closely in hand
can slip away like but grains of sand
As I travel down
The roads of my life
I love the easy roads
Brightly lit
And easy to roll down
As I pass the exits
Of the backstreets of my mind
I see
Regret Street
Sorry Avenue
Anger Way
Memory Lane
Excitement Road
Love Highway
Happy Lane
I wonder what backstreet
I will choose to visit
I love the exits
That bring joy
And wonderful memories
When I least expect it
My ride may break down
And I am forced to relive
A dark backstreet that brings
Pain and bad memories
I realize this trip is life
All roads are not smooth
Some have detours
And many potholes
But I will not stop
I will keep running
For this trip
Makes up who I am
In The Backstreets of My Mind Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Silent One
9/23/19
PEDDLING HOPE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a small pill, solace in a blister pack
legally dispensed by a white coat
promises relief, a cure, a return to normalcy,
a life unburdened from pain and disease.
the ache returns, however, louder and more insistent
another pill, then two
the dosage creeping like a vine.
a pressed white powder, a crystal shard
illegally peddled in a dark alley
promises escape, temporary reprieve, abnormality,
a life numbed from pain.
the craving returns, however, the gnawing need
the body screams,
desperately clawing for the next fix.
addiction cares not about legality~
the hungry monster gnaws the same
whether fed by doctor’s script or dealer’s promise.
Big Pharma, a sanitized name
cartels in suits and white lab coats
pushing their product with glossy ads.
the cartel’s hand, a brutal fist
deals death blows and ruin,
pushing their product in seedy places and backstreet alleys.
one wears a suit, funds politicians,
smiles on commercials, promises relief from disease.
the other whispers in shadows
creates transactions based on desperation and fear.
Big Pharma’s towers gleam, untouchable
built on prescriptions, on the fine print no one reads.
cartels hide, their dens and caves obscured
built on blood, dead bodies, and broken dreams.
how many lives line the pockets of pharmaceutical giants,
legal drug pushers in suits peddling hope in blister packs?
how many lives line the pockets of backstreet cartels,
illegal drug pushers in hoodies peddling hope in powder?
Wait! don’t tell me about regulations, about quality control
when the end result is the same:
bodies chained; minds enslaved
lives bartered for fleeting highs and ephemeral repose.
Bring back blonde babes
with big boobs and butts,
showing bare bellies, wearing black and brown boots.
Because they get the bikers and big boys
to bring in big bucks buying bottles of
Budweiser and, blue ribbon beer,
Besides the booze and beef burgers
on buns with bacon and baked beans
for brunch while they watch and
bet on baseball games or boxing matches.as
they banter with their buddies at the bar
or in the booths and bathroom.
The jukebox plays Blondie, Blues brothers
big Bands, Bono, Bananarama, Brandi, Billy Ray Cyrus.
Benny King., Backstreet boys., Beach Boys, Billy Idol
Bobby Brown, and so much more
at Big Busty Babes Bar
Bring your best buddies with you to
Big Busty babe's bar. Down on Broadway and Bakers Boulevards
Near Buster's Barbecue and Bobby's Billiards and Bank of America.
Bonnie J Hollywood-Cutts
Sin City is where I long to be.
With all, it's frivolous activity.
Vegas is the place to be!
The wild excitement in the air
I know the hot scorching sun is a bear.
But still, there's excitement everywhere.
Back down the alleyways.
Truly lies hidden mysteries
Backstreet lovers'
Or even worse.
Someone's taken it.
And left you uncovered.
But apart from the ally-ways
And the pimps and drug dealers.
The worn-out and left behind hopeless.
Sin City is where I long to be.
With all, its bright lights
Vegas is the place to be.
10;30pm 5/ 27/ 2014
Awake in a nightmare dream,
reality can't keep pace.
And like Munch's painting, "The Scream,"
anxiety warps my face.
Rank smells announce my coming;
roaming the land of the blind.
For folks reduced to slumming,
stink of sweat and piss; combined.
Draped in garbage-bin fashion;
I strut about ten feet tall.
And yet, dirty and ashen,
I'm invisible to all.
Victim of hypocrisy;
they treat me like backstreet trash.
And despite democracy,
all rights are tethered to cash.
I'm more a myth, mired in doubt,
kept out of mind, out of sight.
For a whisper cannot shout,
and a ghost evades the light.
Dreaming of a pot of gold, you came to town
It was sprawling, this metropolis, you knew none around
Your earnings were scant and engagements, irregular
The overseer assured steady income in lieu of a favour
You succumbed to ward off uncertainties, and gradually sank deeper
You were born of impoverished stock, high up in the Himalayas
Your clean looks and youthful age were your kin’s panacea
Your home, the arid plains, where land is mostly barren
Starvation a reality, your innocent world was broken
When it comes to sacrifice, inevitably you are chosen
You were a country girl, pubescent and barely thirteen
Travelling to the big city with a distant kin
To serve an urban family with mop and pail
A drug laced cup of tea made you vulnerable to a cartel
You woke, imprisoned, in a dingy room of a highway brothel
Battered and beaten and raped to submission
You forgot the gods and your daily oblation
Your escort paid dearly for his betrayal and malice
Was it your homage to the gods or backstreet justice?
You languish now in jail, but the brothel still exists
You were in your second year, studying BA (Honours)
With a weakness for the life of the upper class
And the knowledge to achieve what you felt, you must
The initiation was debasing – no niceties, just frenzied lust
The payment was in cash –the first time wasn’t the last
You are not alone in your tainted existence
Women arriving at the metropolis in suburban trains
Working by day and exiting before the peak hour rush
Living in opulence, in times past – barely middle class
Very discreet, these devil women and financially flush
You conceived, a professional risk, and the baby you resolved to keep
Now nineteen and actively trafficking, his misdeeds make you weep
His latest catch, a tender ten year old, the same age you were shackled
Your flesh and blood, the son, you had mothered from the cradle!
Your agony was incomplete, now it had completed its cruel cycle
Hail lady of the night
With time, you’ve overcome both fear and fright
And blended the distinction between wrong and right
You’ve lost your vision, though you retain your sight
In a world shrouded in darkness where the sun still shines bright
Because this here is your passing
out parade doth your cap and gown
This here I don't know if you if you are
aware or know it yet
But also the end of what was once
your student life I hope you kissed
it a fond farewell and goodbye
As your days spent on scholastic
dissertation theoretical drunken debate
expressing your altruistic views putting
the world's wrongs to right in some or
other cheap backstreet pub
And pack away your monogrammed
slogan t-shirts and swap your long hair
and man-bun for a short back and side's
Because you my friend I am sorry
to inform have finally just crossed over
to the dark side
Welcome to the big wide world we have
been expecting you
And though you now have in your possession
a certificate denoting you are university
standard educated and have letters
to accompany your name as proof
Nothing you learned or where taught
be that even higher level education
would or could possibly have prepared
you for the harsh reality life has in-store
And unlike school which eventually
runs and has a predetermined course
over a precise timeline
Life means life and the remainder of
your's has just begun starting now
The time has come for you to put your
degree to some use find a job buy
a car and a house somewhere to rent
or buy
And oh did I forget to mention most
importantly of all
Start paying back whatever student loans
you took out compounding interest that
got you where you stand today
Until your 10 year graduation reunion
comes around and is the 1 and only
topic of discussion that everyone
still have left in common
Same old people as before now
just all grown up replaced with
long drawn faces
That once sparkled with aspiration
instilled with dream's of changing
the world and making it a better place
Who now wish for nothing more than
to be able to put food on the table and
go to sleep without the fear of the power
being cut off
Not the 3rd degree or lecture
Lin, a Chinese friend giggled at my feeble, say,
pedestrian attempt at Cantonese,
the Chinese word for butterfly or dragon even moth
just vanished down the throat of one
so eager yet befuddled,
turning egg shell noodles under spit fire lanterns,
our laughter rose and fell amid the sotto voce banter now in train.
Me, the woodland boffin, immersed in esoteric marshland plant life,
the sort that rules the grand designs of green leaf activists.
Lin, the restless late teen nomad,
who had yet to sink deep roots,
often dwelt in backstreet fruit and flora stalls.
On occasions even flexing sylvan muscles
on craggy mountain tops.
Her flawless English honed through years of rough sea ferry ventures,
on holidays abroad in trendy sunspots,
at major meadow festivals where gaiety and buzz words sprout.
We keep in touch through text and pen as often as we can.
Meeting up is fun.
I hope one day my knowledge of those mystic eastern tongues
will stray beyond the basics of some tawdry travel phrase book,
the one I’m prone to cart around the world but seldom use
Contest : YOUR PERSONAL FAVOURITE
Date judged with N/A : 4 th August 2021
hey man, your words smell like tuna fish
your rhymes are ludicrous
and I have a wish
you on vacation would be my bliss
your shirt is wearing spagetti
did you dine in the serengeti
oh yeah ha ha just call me ever ready
my words will make you sink and weep
I could be part of those boyz backstreet
'cause I got the beat
get off the rapping stage
and get back in your cage
your rhymes have no mustard
they are lackluster
oh yeah they are just clutter
so cheap and flat
and that's a fact
do you need me to make a map
you need to call it a wrap
and take a long swim
while I grin
and drink gin
and you and your poems in the water spin
do you want some oil of olay
best go to bed for the day
maybe pray
until you grow gray
and your poems decay
just quit
if you don't like my wit
just stay in your pit
okay I am done
and really need to run
you know this was just for fun
all those insults I spun
yeh, its just for a competition
and I was on a mission
__________________________
May 25, 2018
Poetry/Rhyme/Rap/Battle
Copyright Protected, ID 18- 1025-878-01
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
For the contest, 8 Mile Style,
Hip hop/free style rap
sponsor, Tim Trim (a.k.a. Nick Trim)
Ninth Place
Whatever happened to the twelve o ‘clock rambler,
nocturnal venturesome brushstroke sort,
they paint sound and city pastel,
never at a loss for inspiration,
weather neither bar nor barrier,
in the face of whirlwind snowfall,
freezing ice, torrential downpour,
within themselves, he, she, they plod on,
hardship is adopted, never cast aside,
while others brazenly squirm,
wallow in uproarious denial,
wilt before the slightest storm,
taking flight in arid comfort zone,
shelter is their first convenient port,
not for stoic diarist this threadbare exit,
exodus of the half-hearted humbug,
but ironclad ilk stubbornly remain,
eyes and ears are substitute antennas,
alert does not begin an ample portrait,
of this wilful dwindling genus,
genus, genie, genius, glow worm ghost,
peaceful prowlers with pen on queue,
they capture worlds sidereal,
under velvet moon imagining bespoke,
crescendo of cathartic bonhomie,
icy night frost punctured by high drive fog horns,
deft nib from dark ink manteau nomad,
who engross themselves in light and shade reflection,
how magical their canny weave lexicon,
for us timid souls to relish evermore,
as we balk at the eerie life we revel in,
vicarious the kismet, excitement from afar,
drama under bridges, shadow figure chinwag,
river stream babble, blind alley gust,
eavesdrop on historic past teaser,
litter swept aural gossip whoosh,
eventide mournful dog bark heart tug,
darting elfin’s sly mind peep thereon,
yet the vagabond minstrel has to comb,
each backstreet, zebra crossing, sprawling suburb,
for inert sleepy after hour dozers,
who crave eye candy fodder as humdrum sidestep
We were both of us young
when I walked her home from the pub that night.
She held my arm while explaining to me why she was a virgin
and would be until she married.
She didn’t ask me inside “..my parents” she explained a little sheepishly.
So we sat together on her doorstep,
the stone top step of two
the two that kept her front door from the narrow footpath
and the cobbled gutter
of that dark and narrow backstreet of her dark and narrow home.
Leaning back against her door we talked
of her Catholic god who I
clinging to my dark and narrow hopes
did not question in that way she did my godlessness.
With no dark side she talked to make a Christian of me
while I did as best I could at being as honest with her
as she was with me.
She gave to me her rosary beads and asked if sometimes I might pray.
What should I pray for?
For the peace of the World, and for its homeless and its children.
Of course.
She was short haired, blue eyed, blonde, Slender and small breasted.
Her name?
Did it begin with a K? The sound of a K?
We hugged and lightly kissed as we said goodnight while
the world’s wars raged and its homeless and its children bled and died.
We never saw each other again.
In a decent just and Christian world
she might have known the life she wanted.
Perhaps she might Have married Christ and
now and then could feel her prayers were heard.
I sometimes wonder how many young men had sat with her
on that cold and hard stone step
and now wished they could recall her name.
Delhi seems closer than it was last time.
After a tea with GST,
on to a backstreet of Varanasi,
Untouched by authority;
ignored more by memory
than darkened by amnesia.
A huge black cow lazes about,
like a Moghul monarch blocking
half the street. It won’t let the OLA pass.
At the hoary-holy sanctum,
my poor drops of milk from a paper cup
pour on to the Lord’s cosmic crown.
Ganga, here, is a very old Benares
fraying at the edges, laid out in the open.
So still, like samana, the balancing prana.
From a boat I watch how human flesh fuels
the firewood at the Harichandra ghat..
Benares eyes Harichandra rather darkly.
Then, the Ganga Arati at 6.30
Their off-white attire. The huge lamps they hold
and draw patterns with, in the air.
Lines with the solemn predictability
of a Ravi varma . Ganga is a new Miss world by now.
At the Manikarnika ghat too, bodies dutifully burn.
In the dark, Death sparkles like huge fireflies;
pampered by pundits and Sanskrit
I lie in an OYO at Godowlia so ill.
So close to mukti. A godsend of a doctor
At Matha Anandamayi hospital queers my pitch..
One of a tribe long extinct in Serpent town,
his fees: ‘whatever you please’.
I remember hospitals back in Kerala.
Thank god, I was not in one there.
Else, I would have hit hell by now, looking for money.
Sure, the ‘path to hell is paved with good intentions’
( of corporates and false swamis)
Notes:
Varanasi: It is also called Benares and Kashi, One of the holiest of cities in India, known for its temple, by the Ganges, dedicated to Lord Shiva.
OLA : The taxi cab app, OYO : An app to find hotel rooms.
Serpent town : Trivandrum, Samana : One of the five pranas(breaths), the equalizing prana.
*Image of Shattered Time by dreamstime
Broken Time
Its hands went frozen a warm summer June,
Bought it new when cool though it waned since then,
Days were young and fresh loved e'er so oft loom,
Vivid hues displayed stills toured page again.
Surged wave tickles feet, residual foams,
A swept updraft breaths as white floats thither,
A thoughtless lapse inside watery zones,
Checked, still ticking, stoppage, not a whisper.
An off-Broadway show, we took the backstreet,
Save being noted, the maddening crowd,
Numbers by one less the proper count sheet,
I look, it is time, lifts the curtained shroud.
Crumpled real, keepsake be, not a myth,
My minuteman whose Father Time, kept with.
2019 September 23
*2nd Place*
In the backstreets of my mind
~~Silent One: Judged 2019 September 26
Soft tendrils of your hair
draped across my arm--
A scent so subtle
it lightly teases,
while I breathe deeply
blazed starlit dances.
Against the curtains,
there-- velvet pillows fold
until gyrating shadows wheel about;
uninterrupted murmurs bursting
ignoring the subdued daylight
until we give in to an ever private dalliance--
Two lovers happily surrender
on the backstreet of lured affair.
It Was A Beautiful Affair
7th July 2016