Best Coattails Poems
my muse and I - riding on the coattails of infinity
Categories:
coattails, death, muse, poetry,
Form:
Monoku
Verses in italics by Jesse Whitehead
Verses in normal font by Timothy Hicks
birds in tuxedos
marching through snow
stifled laughter
a pair of short legs
behind the coats
patient as molasses
a surprise in waiting
tiny curled toes
it slipped through the claws
of a brown pelican
sharp as eggshells
words on deaf ears
nary a shrug
the stillness of earth
before receiving the rain
howling wolf
warm tears in the sky
silent moon
atop the pine-wood mantel
the treasured baseball
smoldering campfire
toasted marshmallows
precious longing
she pulls a Jurassic Park
turning on the gramophone
September sun
the wheels on the bus
through leaves and leaves
last stop
says the cattle driver
despite the breadth of these plains
my heart doesn't stray
chilly breath
beating drums
penny tossed to the curve
change of scenery
branches replacing winter
with wisteria
ladybugs gliding
through purple haze
hitting
the teacher's back instead
paper airplane
vapor trails
across the pale fields
did you see that one?
catching only the coattails
of a summer star
but alas
penguins cannot fly
Categories:
coattails, animal, beauty, change, imagery,
Form:
Rengay
Again words have failed me, creating a blank.
I feel like a pirate who's walking the plank.
With a head full of thoughts that will plunge to the death.
I wish words would flow like the lines of MacBeth.
Have surfed through thesaurus, a mad man possessed.
Been up for six hours, I'm not even dressed.
I'll find it, I know it, it's got to be here.
The view in my mind is so perfectly clear.
My thoughts go to tea and the comfort it brings.
It's coffee that's grounded this bird, clipped its wings.
Caffeine is evil, the devil, a curse.
I'm riding it's coattails, a corpse in a hearse.
"Get back on track!" A voice screams in my head.
But this train's been derailed and its passenger's dead.
Another poem lost to a wondering mind.
Tomorrow the words will be easy to find.
Categories:
coattails, humor, lost, muse,
Form:
Rhyme
The pendulum swings
(Left to right)
Zenith approaches
The vortex opens up…
With head spinning
My spin is heading
Towards your light
On the coattails of a watch and chain…
Tumbling down the word hole
Collecting words,
From the wall of air
That surrounds me,
To consume later…
Too much later
As quixotic adventures
Tilt me away from my pen
And images of you burn ever deeper
Onto the backs of my eyelids
Am I losing you?
Am I losing me?
Do I exist?
Did I ever?
It seems I am always risking
My life
My love…
The roulette wheel
Catches my fall…
Still spinning
I follow the white star
Onto the red
Where the tinker rings her bell
Smiling a Cheshire smile
Holding a blue-eyed pill in one hand
And a red-headed pill in the other…
Unblinking
The blue’s stare
Pierces my heart…
The burning flames of the red
Kiss the bleeding desire of my lips
Dissolving on my tongue
I am afraid to open my eyes
But, risking a glance downwards
The insane grin on my mad hat
Slips to cover Dorothy’s red shoes
That Alice stole from Robin
In Sherwood’s green forest
Now I am calm
As I enter your wonderland…
Melding with your mind
Dancing with your spirit
Swaying with your rhythm
Embracing all that you are
I am holding you so tight…
As the tears roll down my cheeks
The pull of never land
Tearing me from your bed of white roses
Back to the thorns on my bed of nails…
As...
(Right to left)
The pendulum swings
Categories:
coattails, fantasy, love, passionme,
Form:
Free verse
Sorry ,
My friend and confident of days old
Do not fret
Regret is wasted until the cost is met
I still hold you in high regard
I still remember you covered in your mothers make-up
And sitting on the naughty step
Until
Fame and success took hold of you
Before
Everybody grew through you
Not beside or along with you
You lifted while those around you stole
1 piece at a time a part of your soul
Hanging on to your coattails tooth and nail
Riding the gravy train for all it's worth
What on earth happened to you my friend
Fame and success has been unkind to you
And this is written not in pursuit of envy or jealousy
Rather than to remind you 1 day
When all is said and done
Down in the dumps out of luck
And your so called friends have abandoned you
You will realize I never gave up or left you
Cast aspersions or judged you
All I ever wanted was my best friend back
And to go back to having Sleep Over's
When we used to tell and share everything
I didn't loose a friend
I lost my sister
Categories:
coattails, celebrity,
Form:
Free verse
through
thick fog
tall ship
in silence
gliding
autumn
on its
coattails
AP: Honorable Mention 2021
Posted on November 5, 2018
Categories:
coattails, autumn, nature, seasons, water,
Form:
Free verse
I’m Out of Here
(lyrics to be sung by a man about a bad girlfriend)
You tell the world we’re the greatest couple,
but they don’t see what I see behind the scenes.
Your love is just pretend. You always get
your way, and you keep getting it by any means.
There is no give and take – no compromise.
My feelings are irrelevant to you.
You asked me for a love song, pretty please.
Well, I’ve got one about a love untrue.
Yes, “Darling dear,” I’ve had it up to here.
It’s time at last for me to hit the road,
so listen up. I need no backseat driver
nor any of your stuff in my place stowed.
Chorus: I’m out of here; I’m out of here.
My truth I’m no more hiding.
Find yourself another fool.
My coattails you will be
no longer riding.
So there’s your song. I wrote it just like that.
What say you about my little ditty?
Karma is a witch, and you know what?
She’ll find you, and things will not be pretty.
Just try to find another guy like me -
some guy who isn’t lazy, mean or shifty.
I gave my all while you gave nearly nil -
well below the norm of fifty-fifty!
You are a leech that burrowed beneath my skin,
but there are many fish inside the sea.
I’ll be going fishing for a good one,
and in the meantime, I’ll be living free.
Chorus: I’m out of here; I’m out of here.
My truth I’m no more hiding.
Find yourself another fool.
My coattails you will be
no longer riding.
Categories:
coattails, leaving,
Form:
Lyric
If I Were A Millionaire
If I were a millionaire....
There goes the plaintive cry of a popular song..
What a catchy phrase to incite one to dream on...
In the daily grind of making a living we are mostly blind...
Scurrying hither and thither strapped to the coattails of time....
If I were a millionaire....
Gladly would I sing along the words in that popular song playing in the air...
Heck I can even modify the lyrics as timely proof of my personal flair..
For as a millionaire living happily as in a song, there is time for song and dance..
I need not chase after Father Time for other dreamers will perform to my dance...
If I were a millionaire...
Money worries will not cloud my style of living in the sunshine and at the beach...
I can daily sing merrily and dance freely, carefree and unfettered in relief...
I will have countless friends for company and none shall I turn away hastily...
Even fair weathered friends and their friends can be part of my happy family...
If I were a millionaire...
With my carefree living ways, all songs and dances and frittering time away...
There comes a time when I should stop the live music and take stock some day...
For there is a millionaire, bless his kind soul at 82, who most wisely did demonstrate…
For true and meaningful happiness, spread some wealth and aid the poor desperate…
If I were a millionaire…
My gold and wealth I should rightly share with those in need somewhere, anywhere…
Cut the music, stop the song and dance for urgent help and assistance are sorely needed there…
After all is said and done, even one such as I, must surely pause at the pearly gates at St Peter…
I wonder and I fidget and fret, when the time comes, shall I bypass or shall I be welcomed to enter…
If I were a millionaire….
To the final end, will I still be one through the gates of Heavens or am I cursed into the depths of Hell…?
05 Oct 2015
Categories:
coattails, basketball, community, dream, encouraging,
Form:
Free verse
It began with rain, pelting
yellow daffodils to the ground.
Sleet rode rain's coattails,
staccato dings on our windshield.
In the empty parking lot,
black-lettered buses stood
empty; no church today.
Through potato-soup lunch,
we watched quarter-size
snowflakes cover sleet.
Over hours of a long, gray day,
snow mounded, transformed
familiar objects into phantoms.
Suet cake brought birds,
squabbling for food,
through the rising mantle.
One kicked snow behind
on the deck floor, its tiny feet
scratching like a chicken.
Wild Wind swept in,
shoved snow off tree limbs,
cleared rooftops, created
a sweeping screen of white
in the snowy air.
World without color,
a total whiteout of raw beauty,
surpassed only by concern
for the birds.
Categories:
coattails, bird, rain, snow, daffodils,
Form:
Free verse
To steal Moon's glow in troughs beneath my feet
as earth recedes and clouds embrace my flight;
a weightlessness and joy become my meat
and angels reach to set the stars alight.
Up here in space one feels
a brother to the wind,
and rides his coattails high
beyond the brightest star.
I rise to sit alone in God's deep lap
and reach to gather stars as I pass by.
I long to plant a kiss on Moon's stiff brow;
to steal Moon's glow in troughs beneath my feet.
Categories:
coattails, earth, flying, moon, sky,
Form:
Free verse
The universe revolves around patterns and numbers.
Like an insomniac knowing not the meaning of the word slumber.
To say it's a big place would be a gross understatement.
If it were a face we'd be living on a farthing of a freckle,
a speck within a speck, in a weak attempt at communicating
with other fellow specks.
So where does that leave us,
being little more than dust riding on the coattails of pebble?
In the grander scheme of things
are we just the byproduct that some entity imagined one day
from a place both incredibly near and far, far away?
One who is a whiz at math no doubt...
Just look at the population,
how in it's in a constant state of progressive multiplication,
born into a world yet only to be divided into petty categories:
White, black, brown, yellow,
short, tall, slim, fat,
Asian, Caucasian,
European, Indian,
Yugoslavian, Brazilian.
It's a wonder we are recognized at all
living on this ball within a greater ball.
You wonder who holds the strings
or if we're all just windup toys;
alive and exciting for a time
only to run into the last gear,
the last programmed function.
Just what in the world are we doing here?
The universe may practice it's progressive multiplication
and subsequent division. That doesn't bother me.
What I personally like to do is find the GCD (greatest common denominator)...
... the fact we live and breathe. Ears to hear and eyes to see. So pick up the pieces... we have a long way to go if we can ever hope to solve this puzzle.
Though we may be a speck within a speck
riding on the coattails of a pebble, rejoice
with me. That you ARE, that you BE.
Take a good long look
at what surrounds you. It is much more than
it appears.
I don't know all the answers, but I do believe
we have a purpose here.
For the Nationality Contest.
Categories:
coattails, imagination, introspection, philosophy, universe,
Form:
Prose Poetry
My kid sister, nosy parker,
sneaky peeker, what a pest!
always hangin' on my coattails,
never fails, unwelcome guest.
Precocious tomboy, she would try
to muscle in on ev'ry mission,
pester me with crazy questions,
never asking for permission.
Dressing in my hand-me-downs,
(in brand new clothes she won't be caught,)
a basin haircut, never bangs,
(no wonder mother's overwrought!)
She resisted wearing lipstick
'til she made her senior year,
nervously she tried on high heels,
overcame a childhood fear.
We separated, me to college,
she would take another track,
nursing school, her new found passion,
there would be no turning back.
Reunited four years later,
I could scarce believe my eyes,
my Pest transformed into a Princess,
Chrysalis to Butterfly!
Categories:
coattails, family,
Form:
Rhyme
I try to establish strong mental footholds
In resemblance to fort knox physical strongholds
Through repentance I lost the spiritual blindfold
So every sentence I mock material billfolds
I seek an understanding of answers beyond the proven
Discreet but demanding how choices response woven
Steep iceberg floating trying to go past frozen
Deep dreamer mind roaming wake to visions unspoken
I walk a new direction to relieve my transgressions
I look toward heaven to receive a better connection
My poetic expressions are close to schools lessons
Not prophetic but blessings do follow these sessions
I choose my own path and I fold up my coattails
So whether tears or laugh others stand behind guardrails
If life is simple math I want some calculus from Yale
No test I cannot pass its like the answers are wholesale
Categories:
coattails, faith, inspirational,
Form:
Free verse
Who’s Texas oil rich, just five-feet-six
and always seems to get out of a fix?
He’s married with four kids, and eyes bright blue -
a guy you love to hate. . . Still need a clue?
He came to CBS a year ago
to play the nineteenth season of the show
"Survivor!" Fans tuned in; there on Samoa
we saw him on a tribe called Foa Foa.
A villain on this game show like no other,
he’s one you’d guess could rat out his own mother.
He’s Russell Hantz, a genuine control freak,
and add to that, he’s quite a little sneak!
To cause a stir, he once burned someone’s socks,
feigned innocence, and then had secret talks
with teammates as he filled their minds with doubt
And made his plans of whom to next throw out.
With not one clue, he found immunity.
a “first” in all "Survivor" history,
then saved himself when there came times to vote
with idols he had found. (He loves to gloat!)
If someone were not “pliable,” he’d thrust
them out, while there were others he would trust.
But by the time the game came to its end,
he’d backstabbed them and didn’t have one friend.
And so he lost that game. We saw him cry
as votes were read, a crazed look in his eye!
A hundred grand he’d give to wear the crown,
but she who rode his coattails turned him down.
Respected by his fans, he’s gone anew
to play this time with villains, none who knew
him from before, and now he’s in a game
with old time favorites who seem really lame!
With blind-sides left and right, they’re falling fast.
I think Hantz might remain there till the last!
He gave an idol up to save a gal
I bet he wishes were more than a pal. . .
His poor wife has to watch him on TV,
all smiles while making eyes at Parvati.
But win or lose this time, he is the slayer
of those "Survivor" All-Stars. What a player!
(Watch for the season finale. It should be coming soon, either Thursday or maybe on a
Sunday)
For Linda-Marie Bariana's TV Tempations contest
Categories:
coattails, peopletime, time,
Form:
Quatrain
My kid sister, nosy parker,
sneaky peeker, what a pest!
always hangin' on my coattails,
never fails, unwelcome guest.
Precocious tomboy, she would try
to muscle in on ev'ry mission,
pester me with crazy questions,
never seeking my permission.
Dressing in my hand-me-downs,
(in brand new clothes she won't be caught,)
a basin haircut, never bangs,
(no wonder mother's overwrought!)
She resisted wearing lipstick
'til she made her senior year,
nervously she tried on high heels,
overcame a childhood fear.
We separated, me to college,
she would take another track,
office management her passion,
there would be no turning back.
Reunited four years later,
I could scarce believe my eyes,
my pest transformed into a princess,
chrysalis to butterfly!
Categories:
coattails, sister,
Form:
Verse