Best Button Down Poems
IT TAKES A REAL MAN TO WEAR PINK
I went to Belk -- they had a sale
It seems they always do
They had men's shirts -- buy one
Then for half price, another two
I bought a button-down oxford
A pretty solid blue
Then I had to make a decision
On the color for the other two
Should I get a plaid
And perhaps a stripe
Maybe choose another solid
Or perhaps get one of white
So I began to stop and think
Back to my teenage days
Of the combination of grey and pink
That really was the craze
But now that I am seventy
What will people say
When I show up in a shirt of pink
And a tie of pink and grey
Then the thought occurred to me
Why worry what others think
Be bold, stand tall, smile and say
It takes a real man to wear pink
Categories:
button down, clothes, color,
Form:
Rhyme
A haze…
Languorous oft in summer days
Where sundrops drip
From melting skies
Onto city grind
And parasols shade the cobbled grays
Across back alley lanes
Trains and trolleys tip toe by
As a fool in love forever waits
Among a noon bistro Paris crowd
For his girl, who is always fashionably late
Outside a sidewalk somewhere café cityscape
Young beauties amidst a mid-day stroll
Becomingly, become ever respectively
The flowers that line the picket way
Or some frilly prize ponies
Beneath carousels about avenues of Torrid place
A testament to this…
The carriage horses that turn their whiny heads
And then, when I turn mine
It’s to witness boots of cavalier instead
That step to one side
For moments languor has left
As my own prize has made red carpets rise
Those flutter lashes like shotguns glint blasts
And soon the white dove makes its notorious descent
Where the gentlemen, unbeknownst to them, become like minded ruffians
As they dive into madness for her precious handkerchief
“Oh” this women of mine, she has her perculiar ways
Just like all the silly rest
My damsel mademoiselle never enters into throes of distress
Longer lace invites mischievous about a button down dress
And her kisses offer smiles and arduent waves
With utter love contempt to them, but my hand is her biggest praise
I guess it’s the thrill of the game
And she’s the tigress and I her willful prey
Opening up the Gazette, coffee I incredulous sip and purposely hide my face
As my sweet flora strolls my way
And lands into her lover's arms
In a somewhere summer Paris afternoon café
Categories:
button down, relationship, romantic, summer, love,
Form:
Romanticism
I suspect in my feckless youth my folks thought me rather slovenly,
Obnoxious, averse to work and associated with dubious company,
But Air Force sergeants dealt discipline with lingo at times unsweet,
Convincing me that life is easier if things are regular and complete!
They taught me to hang my clothes on hangers all facing the same way,
With buttons buttoned and shoes shined which I observe to this very day.
I prefer button-down collars; my pants must have a crease and pleat,
Because you see, I insist on things being regular and complete!
The Caddie DTS must be washed and waxed to a perfect sheen,
And when dining out, woe to the chef who screws up my cuisine!
My lawn must at all times be the best manicured on the street,
Because you see, I insist on things being regular and complete!
My barber must see that my eyebrows and hair are neatly trimmed.
The barkeep must serve my beer ice cold with all the suds skimmed.
I like folks who keep their word, show up on time and are discreet,
Because you see, I insist on things being regular and complete!
I detest cell phones and the 'magpies' who on them endlessly blather,
Especially when driving or dining; they work me into a seething lather!
I reckon some folks think me an old curmudgeon and rather off-beat,
But dad gum it, I insist on things being regular and complete!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 2015 All Rights Reserved
Categories:
button down, humorous,
Form:
Rhyme
I prefer my home and family buttoned down
rather than too wild and disorderly,
disheveled and irrational.
I prefer natural order
and shades of color
and dialects
and economic/political vocations
and sequential rules of nutrition-producing order,
and yet wonder, too.
I have been hurt by too much wild
struggling against my too much gay
internal loss of homophobia,
struggling with We fear and Me anger
about my too-wild sexuality,
might self-recruit toward loving bisexuality,
poly and/or meta-sexuality,
a co-arising ecopolitical co-gravitation
without fear and anger lose/lose boundaries
might open my closed-pen
toward boundless win/win love.
Too wild
these fears and angers scare me,
preferring my home and family
more panentheistically transformed
to integrally button down
our polypathic sacred wild.
Categories:
button down, destiny, family, fear, gender,
Form:
Parallelismus Membrorum
Zeitgeist - My 1960s - Liz Walsh
Kaftans, mini-skirts, Carnaby Street fashions.
Angel Delight, Hirondelle wine and that sheepskin rug.
"The price of round steak on a Saturday" while
Magdalen Laundries kept dark, dark secrets!
Nylon socks, Cuban heeled boots, body odour -
"it's always the girl's fault - she led him on!-
Button-down collars, civil Rights Marches,
Suspender belts old fashioned, false eye-lashes black -
Excitment, tights, "parents afraid of the new".
Stilletto heels crucifying, Rosary beads grumbling -
"Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in thee"
Hamburgers, Fleetwood Mac, Anoraks - guilty! remember
Archbishop McQuaid! Bishop Lucey bullying Father Good!
"Wimpey Take-away" - meet a fella - womans lib!
Vietnam War, Albert Hall and Wilson Pickett.
"Would you kiss a boy on the first date?
Drip dry nylon, Dickie Rock gyrating
"Plastics are the future” the graduate said.
"Would you take the pill?"
Tayto crisps - "cheese and onion" munching in the dark.
Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tung and that little red book
In an empire line dress.
Church domination, contraception and major cigarettes
"Back-combing" Vesta Curries and a packet of smash
Maxi, mini, midi-dresses - pan-stick
Mary Quant, Twiggy and the Film Society party.
Flirting innocently, terrified hope - guilt ridden thoughts.
Surges of males, females standing
Eyes scanning, high pitched laughing
"Would you like to dance?"
Free love, flower power, heart thumping
Expensive shoes, a relic of St. Imelda and a chain-store dress -
"She will only get married” Miss Brigid Hayes said!
Afraid of the future, afraid of corruption
Brain exploding - ALL MIXED UP -
Categories:
button down, nostalgiaheart, heart,
Form:
Charles Bukowski Road Not Chosen
While reading Charles Bukowski poetry
On the metro ride home
Listening to Buddha bar music
On my oh too hip IPod
I begin to see myself as I was
Over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player
A minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem
A wild young underemployed intellectual
Hanging out in dismal bars and dives all over Asia and California
Hanging with disreputable women and drunks and drinkers
And characters out of his kinds of haunts
A mad poet bard of the underground
A drunken poet in a drunken bum show
That nightly played in his head
Then one day I met the women of my dreams
And went down a different path
A long slow path to respectability
And now 30 years later
I am no longer a wild man
I am still a poet at heart
But I am now also a bureaucrat
In a button down suite
Doing the people's business
Working for the Government
I've become the Man
Sometimes I wonder
Would I have been better off
Going down that another path
Would I have ended up
Somewhere else
Doing something else
Would I have been as happy
Would I have been as successful?
There is no answer that satisfies
The longing in my heart
For that wild thing
That still lurks beneath
It's civilized cover
And I know that I am still
A mad poet at heart
Railing against the injustice of the world
As I work day by day in the belly of the great beast of State
I recall the ancient Chinese saying,
"Confucian during the day while Taoist rebel at night"
Playing out in my head and nightly dreams
In the true American Upper class patrician tradition
I close the book and look out the window
Get off the train, and walk slowly home
And realize I had no choice
But to take the path that I’ve trodden on
And so I put aside my misgivings
And say goodbye to my "Bukowskian"desires
For another night of domestic contentment
Was it worth it all to take the conventional path
And not take the bohemian road to hell and back
I look at my wife and realize
I had no choice, had no choice
But to follow her to the ends of the earth
And beyond by her side as we walked our path
Of shared destiny
Goodbye Charles Bukowski wherever you are
May I meet you in a bar in the next life
And figure out where we should have gone
Until then the drinks are on me.
Categories:
button down, anger, anxiety, career, change,
Form:
Free verse
Some fellers like to make fashion statements with their dress,
But I'm a rather conservative dude (much to my wife's distress!).
I'm fine with loafers, button-down collars and pleated slacks.
I'm not taken with tailor-mades, I prefer to buy off the racks!
Some dudes make a statement with the T-shirts they wear,
Sharin' their philosophies with others (who don't really care!).
They tout their favorite beer, sport and even some nasty words!
Lord, spare me from wearin' such - I'm OK as one of the nerds!
The latest fad is sandals, tank tops and droopy shorts,
And displayed on their hide, suggestive tattoos of all sorts.
They're mutilated with things piercin' their nose and ear,
And to top it off, wear their baseball cap facin' to the rear!
I'll deign to wear a suit and tie to weddin's, funerals and such,
But I'm here to tell you, I don't relish it very much!
I'd rather wear jeans (of course with button-down collar!),
And a fancy belt with a buckle as big as a silver dollar.
Lord, forgive me for judgin' fellers by what they wear,
By what their T-shirts preach or how they wear their hair.
But, Lord, permit me to say, I've seen some rather curious sights,
But I reckon they have a right to express their First Amendment rights!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
Categories:
button down, funnyme, me,
Form:
Rhyme
Another dream
My strength seeps from the cracks,
crevices ripped in a single slip
Reaching for hope again
I left my chest wide open
Streams of worth
flow like lying children
stealing quarters from the collection plate
at Sunday school - knowing it is a sin
More of the same, though different
beneath stained glass shadows
with leaking pens pointing
to the exit vestibule below
Staining my crisp white shirt,
collecting in the wrinkles
of this button down nightmare,
pooling at my motionless feet
Exhaustion cradles and I can’t move,
losing a step at each turn
Internal screaming becomes deafening
as the pain sings harmony off key
I see my face in the stainless steel
but can not reach my wrists
It falls, mingling with debris,
scattered amidst this love I’ve lost
I am weak, I know weak,
I have taken this test before
Lessons on blackboards never sink in,
report cards inked in letters far down the scale
There is no more running, only hiding from myself
Sleeping in the darkness of my fears knowing
they will only bring another dream,
that I will once again follow
Categories:
button down, heartbreak, lost love,
Form:
Free verse
Tonight I walk alone
For no apparent reason
I have friends who care for me
But I had to get out of the bar
I couldn’t stand the band (and I was in it) and the smoke
Was choking me
Outside under the neon lights of the
“South Side Bar” I look up and wonder
What has this gig brought me?
A brief moment in some frat boy’s memory
He will share and enhance to impress his fat boy
Buddies in their button down shirts and top siders
Punch drunk and full of cheap cocaine they bought from
Some guy named Raul at the Rum Boogie.
They’ll stagger down Beale Street knowing nothing about the blues
Except that it comes in their daddy’s credit cards and Beamers
And tie dyed shirts bought at the Peace Frogs boutique.
They will walk down to the river and smoke a fat one headed
For a Wide Spread Panic show on Mudd Island.
The perfect evening of frat boys playing for frat boys pretending to be the Grateful Dead.
Trying ever so feebly to live in the past and be in the present. What a joke. Do the hippie dance…sway from side to side, shake your head and grow the hair on your legs and underarms. So cool yet such a stench of human waste.
It ain’t fair. It ain’t right. It just is. And that’s the way it’s going to stay. Cause money can by coolness and cars, but it still can’t buy me.
So I light a smoke and head another direction. There’s a great BBQ joint about four blocks up and they serve white people. At least ones that show respect.
Categories:
button down, crazy, drink, music,
Form:
Free verse
The night descends with a button down moon
against a powder blue comforter sky,
fluffed and puffed with the down of seed
cat and nine tails bursting with pride.
The mothers have called the dinnertime
and the scent of soups on the wind,
sneakers are stacked by the backdoor,
the dog knows, it time to come in.
The table once set is abandoned
for the trays by the big screen TV,
and autumn gourds and chrysanthemums
abandoned on the tables display.
Soon, silhouettes form on the den walls
and children are hurried to bed,
with the call of a wild coyote they run
diving beneath their bedspreads.
All the human light dims, as they hideout
and starlight covers their ceiling,
Mom has places plastic stars of Venus and Mars
to usher in dreams, as they’re drifting.
Oh, the night with its warmth will not last
and soon the chill dawn will arrive
with the call of a neighborhood rooster,
ah, the country’s the place to be alive!
Categories:
button down, family, happiness, night, autumn,
Form:
Quatrain
awkward girls delivering their spoken thoughts
like hand written love notes
perfumed hopes cherished brightly
one of a hundred that stand at the edge of reality
and in the near perfect unison of dropping lovely invitations
to the magazine advertisements man who is supposed to
sweep them off their feet
the manly man who has button down eyes
and a wrinkle-free shirt
to him sex's butter is romance
her temperature dog
haunts her lonely steps
with a eager wag of his ratty tail
his pleasant eye wagers that she will return him for the deposit someday
its for the girl who has everything and a box of candy too
its not in what you have but its measured by how much you reject
sex's butter tastes salty sweet
she has a sidewinder viper gently cradled in her arms
calls it the child of her destiny
sex's butter is her bed and breakfast
an empty conversation
like a small hole in my mind
spilling its useless phrases to be swallowed whole
in the tepid sea of her eye
her hollow laughter two tables away
suddenly as it comes it limply dies away
alarmist by nature
she crafts a tale of woe
to suit her mind
but that tale is an empty eyed charter boat fish
that lay barren and objectified on her dinner plate
basted in sex's butter with a twelve inch whip...
Categories:
button down, beautiful, beauty,
Form:
Ballad
You are the button-down mind of my dreams; all safe
and tucked away in the regimented reality of your nine-to-five
world. I want to tie you to a straight-back chair, lover-boy,
and squeeze some spontaneity out of you. Rattle 'round
your work-bound imagination; set fire to your spreadsheets,
and snap the erasers off the pencils you still use. Are you
getting this picture? Dinner's at eight, don't be late; your mom's
keeping the kids. Francis will be on the stereo. When you hear
"All of me, why not take all of me." Well!
If you have one creative bone left in your body.....
Categories:
button down, love,
Form:
Narrative
Swing like a tennis pro
Swoosh as badminton flow
Dance and twril as you whirl
The magic bug zapper racket
See a bug I fling to attack it
Keep that button down
Brave electric courrent sound
Die little insect die
Goodbye you nasty fly
Mosquito a crisp bye bye
No wasp or mean bee
Better never threaten me
If I hear a buzzing sound
Now I can hold my ground
Armed with my bug zapper in hand
I am in command, Mother Nature understands
Slap a roach on the wall
Poor spider no place to crawl
Any bug I see
Sting them before they sting me
To the strong the world belongs
Total power gives you calm
Tiny vermin a slap a pat
A tush moving swoosh
A graceful wave a playful swing
In my hand my bug zapper I cling
Slight twist of the wrist bugs burn crisp
Now my space a bliss
Gone all tiny pest
Bug zapper I could kiss
As burnt lip and fringe hair confess
Categories:
button down, appreciation, funny, humorous, insect,
Form:
Rhyme
Ooh...this... just an amazing grace note
recalling how I felt like an ass
and wanna toot 'bout me getting steered
(as a heavy metal kid Rocker)
toward befriending a brass
see gutsy, horny,
and MainLine snooty upper class
action button down
(grace fully slick as vaseline), airily glinting
forcibly hawked, laundered, and pawned
by the instrumental
Mister Deangelo O'Donnell, High School
(mud flapping, ornery hearing,
and quid juicing Ska Welch ching)
music teacher oompah crass
tone deaf when aye trumpeted desire
to master the Coronet
analogous to pursing lips
blowing tightly held grass
blade between two abetted,
cinched fastened opposable thumbs,
which tooting a supposed aural aphrodisiac
to attract a zaftig well proportioned lass
(ideally shaped like a miniature Tuba)
with one steel funnel like mouthy mass
that probably explains, how such a gal
could easily emulate
facial pucker earning pass
to illustrious honorable first chair
and blasts gratitude akin
as Gabriel would declare
heavenly expressions conducting
angels thru atmospheric ether
alighting on mortal ushering melody
with rites of harkening
springtime Renaissance Faire
solar rays golden raiment
splays rainbow fragments off
beveled, bellowed, and
bedecked polished flare
audiological sound waves trick
saw toothed reflected
silhouetted orchestral shadows
to dance as conductor's baton gear
musicians horns ensemble
epochal feast to hear.
Categories:
button down, 11th grade, 5th grade,
Form:
Elegiac Lyric
There is a new fashion range
Launching in the spring
And if you are of certain bent
Then for you it’s just the thing
There will be corduroy trousers
With a very high waist
And knitted sleeveless sweaters
To suit every taste
Jackets will be of Harris Tweed
With leather elbow patches
Shirt collars will button down
On a tie that never matches
So when will these hit the shops?
Is that the question I hear?
Be patient it will be with us soon
And it’s known as Boffin wear
Categories:
button down, funny
Form: