Best Garages Poems
Connie was a cheerleader
bright white toothed smile
bouncing boobs
short skirt legs running long
through school boy fantasies
friday nights her stage
crisp November air her makeup
Robert was a loner
a stoner
bad clear down to the core
shriveled up inside
Salvation Army furniture
Batman comics
bologna sandwich supper
Connie was manicured lawns
gardens of flowers
white picket fences and stone pathways
Norman Rockwell dinners
lavender bath soap
silk pajamas
pink bed spread
Robert was a rundown trailer
on a filthy back lot
goddamn you f*****g punk
get the hell out morning breakfast
garage sale coffee table
stacked with beer cans and ash trays
overflowing with death
Connie had a secret
hidden touches
fatherly lust
make up hiding
violent bruises
don't tell your mother
if you want her safe
I can hurt her too
Robert had a secret
18 hour days
two jobs at garages
straight A's
never give up
never give in
blue eyes and crooked smile
whispering to the world to kiss his ass
Connie was the sharp
razor's edge that gleamed
like the holy grail
in her bathroom drawer
Robert was the strong will
the hard desire
the drive to move on
to something more
Connie was a cheerleader
Robert was not a quarterback
but they were each other's
Salvation
Mom’s Night Before Christmas
T’was the night before Christmas
Downtown stores they were packed
Shoppers looking for deals
Bargains bound to attract.
My mother navigated crowded streets with care
She put off Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve
Knowing the sales would still be there
She would check off her list – this she believed!
Every year, the same game
This her habit, her tradition
Christmas Eve shopping – her claim to fame -
Like a wise woman on a mission
All parking lots said no room in the inn
Garages full, nary a spot in sight
But mom didn’t worry, slowly she grinned,
She knew the secret for parking this night.
Singing Silver Bells, her favorite carol,
With visions of gifts purchased, just in time,
She wore her mantra like festive apparel
“There’s always room at the head of the line.”
Lo, and behold, what appeared
One parking place at her favorite store
Quickly she zipped in filled with Christmas cheer
Ready to finish her holiday chores.
There’s always room, her holiday legend,
One she passed on to me, thankfully,
When finding a mall space I look to Heaven
“Thanks, Mom!” I say with Christmas glee.
Miracles happen at this time of year
In positive thinking believe
A star in the sky – a Savior appears
All of life’s burdens to relieve.
12-6-22
Contest: T’was the Night Before 3
Sponsor: Joseph May
Every year on Christmas Eve my mom would drive downtown to do her Christmas shopping. With every garage and parking place taken, she would, every year, find a place to park in front of the door to her favorite store!!!! Her mantra lives on – “There’s always room at the head of the line!” Perfect for the belief in miracles at Christmas!
Look at you haven't you done well
With your custom built library office which smells if rich mahogany and many leather bound book's
Isn't it amazing what money can buy
An entire room of book's for the ignorant and illiterate
A country mansion and more cars than garages and bespoke suits and watches than day's in the week
With a trophy wife in check to adorn his arm
And blessed with everything he ever dreamed of
He still remained unfulfilled
As all the money in the world could not buy the 1 thing he craved left remaining
None of which he owned was earned
His wealth his house his car's his freinds his wife
At the end of the day it was all inherited
And therefore worthless
Above the clouds, beyond the tree she stays.
Remaining thus, the moon is chaste for now,
Allowing not her well-worn face to show
The many scars belying better days.
I glide along, my wheelchair making way
For no man here, the streets bereft of flow,
Garages closed to keep their cars in stow.
I roam the night, while they may share the day.
Secluded thus I flee from ghosts untold
Who question where my life has gone astray
While broken paths and other wrecks unfold.
I’m lost and cannot seem to find my way
Toward peace of mind, a way out of the cold;
The growing mist thus edging joy away.
A walk to school out of the backdoor, through the homemade back gate, through a narrow alley,
Cars parked on the curb, guarded by paraffin lamps, no garages, no parking area,
Walking down my road, past the bully's house, all is very, very quiet, careful
Then the front door opens, a big kid comes running and chases me down the road.
Near the end of my street was a large piece of wasteland, called "the logs"
Huge logs cut down hundreds of years ago, grey, split, tall trees chopped down,
Stinging nettles in large clumps, cars abandoned, a play ground for children,
Into a road full of bungalows, the posh side, people looking through curtains.
About a mile down this road, there was more wasteland, with a muddy shortcut,
Shoes covered in mud, trying to clean them with an old bit of paper, no good,
Out of the wooded shortcut, past the entrance of a railway, through a tunnel,
On the other side, up steps was a sweet shop, looked through window, no money.
Past the bank on to a main road, told many times to look left and right, careful,
Walking up another street, then a short cut through, an old mansion falling apart,
Down the coke covered road, into a road where huge flats were being built, ugly flats.
The into my school play ground, seeing class mates, queuing up to go into the school.
We dragged the slopes to our feet.
On the summit, we burnt our clothes
for wood and there shuffled our feet
in the hush of the falling snow.
We had come out of the scuffed grass.
With one look back in unbelief
exhuming the long trek
the silent keen
puffing through blubbery fingers.
We pulled the hoofed trail through
the trapdoor of our unchained links
foisting for new heights.
Beyond the Appalachian Mountains
the hanging fern on pine dripped snow
on moles burrowing in gashed hollows.
We paused. In that doubtful moment
we rued the climb, succumbing to the assault
upon this stilled millennia’s eerie silence.
All that time the swivelling blizzards raged
shifting soil, eroding avalanches.
Below, burgeoning customs
unmaned the silent dignity of bisons.
All bore testimony to a familiar preparation.
And then, suddenly before our eyes
the solemn ground rose with the breeze
the spangled map changing to the quick:
Chicago Pittsburgh Kansas City
wild barnyards dry-coughing, pop-corning garages
horrent timber ribbed the coasting steamboats
the linoleum walls
the mild Indian piqued he was
by the mahogany cubism of our speech.
We wondered if coming so far
only mattered, we would be content
to build a fire, here and now
and unpack our horses.
We saw little need to go on.
One night the summit might open
up and swallow us all or old age
would come upon us like a lonely neighbour
on a pretext to the door.
© T.Wignesan 1964
London, U.K.
[from the collection: tell them i’m gone, 1983; published in Fire Readings (A Collection of Contemporary Writing from the Shakespeare & Company Fire Benefit Readings). Paris-Boston: Frank Books, 1991, pp. 36-37.]
A semi baked semi colon is neither a seminar nor a seminary session. It is in fact the whirr of wheels from the large overweight apostrophe on a bike. Uphill downhill and all around the picturesque towns, villages and hamlets but not cities for cityscapes' are carnivorous and carnivores can charm even a chalice from a wagon if and when sealed with the juice of a steak. Well oiled grease test then. All in line. Good. Garages grab greenery giving great galloping geraniums. On the phone now are we? Oh good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. But never a good night in a customer query box ticked. Tickle a ticket to induce laughter. In many many rides on a bus or a train a mandatory mane maneuvers managing mere mobile movements. And always remember that the globetrotting goldfish in the wicker hat can sing mist loudly to a cone. Hahaha Kyu k pass hai saja hai mekhana and a fried onion belches to a melted cheese. *** geomorphologic Z
Form:
The wind dies down
People peek out their windows
To see the damage done
And damage has been done indeed
Branches strewn everywhere
Small fires
Power lines knocked down
Leaves and petals all over the streets
Garbage cans a few houses over from where they reside
Eventually, people start picking up the wreckage
Branches are thrown back in the woods
Fires are put out
Power lines fixed
Leaves and petals swept up
Garbage cans put back in people's garages
The sun shines
And all is well in the world again
Form:
If you would only look out,
you would see the star-studded sky and a
swooning sickle moon, and down below
a fleet of quiet snails sailing gently over
lawns scented with newly cut grass.
You might glimpse the ugly awkward
gait of a dishevelled fox, trotting across
a road that had lost its cars by midnight
to the garages of suburbia; and perhaps
spot a motionless hedgehog sleeping
soundly beneath its mattress of bristles.
If you would just open up your ears
to the night outside, you might hear
the howling owl in the primary school wood, and
the on-the-hour Swiss cuckoo-clock over
at Number Eight crying out, absurdly, for urgency,
through an opened window.
You would hear cats wauling
and hear the swish of bats in the thick
dark air, hear the wind softly turning the
leaves of trees in search of only the wind
knows what, and perhaps hear the tide,
which sighs through the night from far
away to someone, somewhere.
But you won’t. You are lost in the night
within, that deepest darkness where no
stars shine, no moon lies recumbent,
a birdless night shunned by animals, too,
a night without roads, without lamps,
a nightless night on the edge of death.
"CARE TO SHARE. I ALWAYS SAY"
I sat in the green booger today,
reading and waiting.
I lit my cigarette and let the smoke
make love to everything it touched.
there was a pep boys auto service
to the right of me and music blared
out of the garages: sweet home
Alabama and I swear.
dreadful combination if you ask me
but to the technicians inside, just a
distraction until it's time to go home
and tickle their whores.
my cigarette eventually came down
to the filter and as I turned the page,
my mouth opened and a sneeze shot
out like a German celebrating a victory
the moment their tank hatch opened.
it was then, I let out a hot and steamy
passing of gas.
I looked around to see if anyone was
there to hear or smell it but I was alone.
the music had stopped and I knew that
I'd have to wait for another opportunity
to create this perfect combination of
mucus
and gas.
By: Chicano Eddie
9-21-2016
if you have lived to see either
side of 30, you have been
offered a fruitcake---
it might have been round these
“holiday” times, when people
celebrate their fictional characters
that got the horrible religions
rolling, or the
fictional meal that didn’t seem to
stop the genocide of this empire’s
native people---
perhaps,
you might’ve gotten
lucky & had one
shoved in your face
at another time of the year,
no doubt, when this gift
that will no doubt be
around for the cockroaches &
rats to feast on when us
humans finally off ourselves in
a nuclear smorgasbord
(that so many are counting on,
hoping & “praying” for),
was rewrapped from said
“holiday” & passed on to you
so that you could do the same
to someone even more
unfortunate.
said to be spawned in ancient
Rome, the common recipe for
this dessert that seems to disgust
so many & yet get reproduced
every single year, without fail,
contains nuts & candied fruit at
its base, extending its contents
from this to a wide range of
everything from honey, spices &
even booze---but it all begs the
question,
“is there a place for fruit cake?”
even people who say they like it,
are never really found eating it &
even those who are found eating it,
never really finish a whole piece---
so,
why not find a use for this
cake?
why not use it for a doorstop?
we always need more of them?
why not use them on the battlefield instead
of expensive sandbags?
why not build garages with them in
the most arid parts of the empire?
could use them for roadblocks,
****,
the possibilities are endless---
think about it.
My fellow countrymen, the President, Politicians, and pulpiteers Though not in a cave like Rip Van Winkle, I must have fallen asleep in "indifference and over-business". It was more than Van Winkle's 20 years, because prior to my sleep, I knew an America that dreamed of chickens in every pot; of carports, garages, and picket fences; of a good education and catching the Joneses.
It appears I am awaking, not from, but to, a nightmare; and to what am I opening my eyes to see? Me thinks it's not 'my country tis of thee'; not a chicken in the pot or fryer in the skillet. But I see leaders in the kettle like a frog, where the fire is turned down low and heating slowly. Like the frog, they are relaxed and comfortable. Oh Lord, if they only knew the manner of the frog's demise.
I see changes, and multiple evils have been removed. Recovery and relief have been appropriated and dispatched for the poor. Reforms and revivals have periodically visited us from above. I see blessings and prosperity beyond comparison; melting pots of dreamers and immigrants still dine at our tables. That's part of the American beauty.
Oh America, we are busy face-booking and twitting; But we must realize that we are also bleeding. I weep for what might lie ahead for us. I grieve for what we are becoming. I fear for us, though not of guns and nukes from afar; But for rivalries in the white house and the halls of congress. And I fear for our pulpiteers who also relax in the kettle like the frog.
07312017cjFBPH; August Standard Contest, Brian Strand Part fiction
Telepathic Music
Drip-drop, drip-drop
On the the tin roof
Above our rustic garages
We sat on our couches
Silently gazing at the sloping lawns
Overlooking the rivulet
Warming our hands
On our mugs of
Aromatic costa rican coffee
My teenaged cherub
Sprang up at the sound of
Tin-tin, tinkle-tinkle
Jingling of our wind-chimes
Our aural garden ornament
She winked and dashed out
Into the lawns stretching her hands
As if to catch the wind
Kicked off her shoes
Unpinned her long wavy copper tresses
Tapping hip-hopping in the slushy grass
Joy vibrating in every gyration
Breaking down all norms of restrictions
A freedom of the heart
A fluidity in the music of the soul and heart
Heard by her lissome body
Freely expressed by the gravity of her body
My joy knew no bounds
At the telepathic music
Heard by her and transmitted to me
As the rain gods continued with
Their harmonica for their audience
October 4, 2015
contest: So I Thought Of This Line
Sponsor: Francine Roberts
Of the age of one to thirteen
Young, untapped kids
Of the team of 53 beggars in "Kaduna"
Fresh, unripe fruits
Of multiple-colours of plates at hand
Vivacious, veil children.
Of a song of sorrow to beg for food
Haggard –looking dirty issues
Of no means of livelihood . . survival
Wretched beholding green horns
Of kids known only to hunger . . .penury
Poverty-stricken children
Of brood with no shirt . . . shelter
Alms-begging unsullied progeny
Of our future seeds garbed in gloom
Destitute-turned juvenile
Of them hoodwinked with religious slate
Miserable-infantile, no scroll to read . . write .
They are the “Almajeris” of this land.
Alayande Stephen. T
12.20am
22nd of July, 2006
On our way to Kaduna NCP/NCC Meeting
Precisely at the one of the garages, we saw it happened .
NB-The word "Almajeris" is an Hausa Language from Nigeria used for the
wretched ,tattered looking young children in the Northern part of Nigeria. Kaduna
is a State in Nigeria.
Of them our rulers
To the pauperised people.
Of a kingdom surrounded
By millions of the “Almajeris” .
Of looters in power up towers
Thinking not to leave forever.
Of the Northern cabals
With donkey years in power,
Of them with the stench of the “Almajeris”.
Of the Bush –Pig with the
Hyenas on the Rock
Of them the gluttons and the greed
Of them that devours our resources daily
Of them the Southern vultures
That condemns us into misery.
Of them that worn for millions
Toga of millions of poverty . . “Almajeris”
Of them the Urchins who
Made us suffer amidst bounty.
Off them the Predator millionaires,
We shall seize power for the millions
For the time to wrestle and dazzle
To yank off the toga of the “Almajeris” is now.
Alayande Stephen. T
1.05pm
22nd of July, 2006
On our way to Kaduna NCP/NCC Meeting
Precisely at the one of the garages, we saw it happened
NB-The word "Almajeris" is an Hausa Language from Nigeria used for the
wretched ,tattered looking young children in the Northern part of Nigeria. Kaduna
is a State in Nigeria.