Best Hucksters Poems
And what of poetry
Those muffled lies
Exposing truth
Hyphenated hucksters
Working the crowd
Barrel drummers
Echoing a distant rhythm
Hop-scotch rhymes
Keeping time
A rat-a-tat
Of Rappers rants
And what of words
Rekindled, reignited
Scorching sentences
Tortured by line breaks
Altering the meaning
Of repetitive rhetoric
Exploring the caverns
Of cryptic creativity
And what of poets
Wishfully wandering
A whitewashed wasteland
Searching the souls
Of passersby
Glassy-eyed warriors
In search of a cause
Blind believers
Sharing insight
Into a silent wind
(ALLITERATION)
Cows milked: mitigated mooing in the meadows then
Weaving on the warp, some workaholic women
Harvest of hapless halibuts on hooks
Bookish book-worms buried in books
A palomino and a pony patter on the paving
Hucksters and hawkers hawking every housing.
Ravers out on the razzle raising a raucous razz-ma-tazz
Beavers busy building beaver-dams but about it quite blasé.
Doves cooing in divine chorus
Frogs frisking out of focus
Horoscopes are hocus pocus.
Tidal waves of tsunami treacherously tread
Sea-anemones scattered upon the sea-bed.
Geraniums genuflecting in jungle-like gardens
Hunters wary of wandering wild-life wardens.
All this when I ventured about videotaping
Nature's much nicer even with no landscaping
These are direly different scenes from different parts of the globe
Perhaps like a space probe's kaleidoscopic poetic probe
( this poem has every letter of the alphabet except x)
The word of discovery of gold in '49 in Californy raced across the nation!
Why, it was said you could fill a bushel basket full with little botheration!
This appealed to a young feller in Boston town named Clancy Wiggins,
Who forthwith trailed the sun west to help himself to his share of diggin's!
In them days to make the trek you had a choice of travelin' by land or sea.
He chose the sea carin' not a whit for wagon trains or tanglin' with Cherokee!
Clancy left his mom and dad, Spike his dog and Sarah Jane his fiancee,
Fixin' to strike it rich, return safe and sound to marry-up with her one day!
In March of '49 he boarded the ship Barnacle and sailed from the Boston quay.
'Twas cold and icy, the sea was rough, he was sea-sick, not a cheerful day.
They tacked to and fro and three months later transited perilous Cape Horn!
Four months later they reached San Francisco, both man and ship badly worn!
Clancy bounded off the ship anxious to head fer them thar hills and streams.
He bought the necessaries needed to accomplish his far-fetched dreams.
Includin' shovels, boots, jeans and grub as well as a sassy mule named Fred,
Plus pots and pans and a tent to 'batch' in to lower costs and overhead.
Fer nigh on a year he panned, dug and sluiced searchin' fer that pot of gold,
Sufferin' claim jumpers, cheatin' partners, floods, rain, snow and cold!
Now and then he'd pan some dust or a nugget, but didn't amount to much;
What he found he quickly blew on gamblin' whiskey, wimmin and such!
His venture didn't 'pan out' like them lying Californy hucksters said it might.
He sold Fred and his belongin's since his future as a miner didn't look bright.
Clancy left Boston with 21 bucks and left Californy with 18 bucks in his jeans.
It might be said that he didn't arrive back in Boston as a man of means!
"The Lobster House" on the St.
Johns River in Downtown-Downtown 1950s
Jacksonville, Florida, was where
"The Creaturefrom the Black Lagoon" crawled
up from the deep onto a riverfront
deck to howls of derision at Hollywood
hucksters from an island girl and her
Friday-night, dining-out friends.
In her just-married uber-sophistication
she would order a MANHATTAN,
unaware of the eminence of that dark
and delicious libation: a cherry
within for a small town girl with a yen
for New York City, never dreaming
she would one day stand, island-girl-
awed, for the first time ever in the middle
of Times Square: riveting heart of
Manhattan as swirling headlights of
cars spelled consummation.
Farcical characters of ill gestures,
they be no friends of mime
Mute clown suits
wearing viol marionette smiles
all of the puppet string time
I tell you, of a silent truth,
those pretzel-tongue jester troupes
are theatrical buffoons
spoofing on a global would trivial comedy stage
These ol' pantomime hucksters,
dipstick lip syncing on babble timer delay rage —
Crying out loud,
them cold quip cheeky blusters
never were any spoken for friends of mine
Just some dumb glow, dim enemies ...
who always pearly grinned a dumber shine
You'd hear them every morning
Like a band of baritones
The echoes of the horseshoes
Clacking, on the cobblestones
Each huckster with a wagon
Pulled behind a blindered roan
Parading back and forth between
The rows of old brownstones
One would have fresh vegetables
And one would have fresh fruits
Another might have leather goods
Like saddles, shoes or boots
From furniture to pots and pans
Each peddler resolute
But if you looked then walked away
They'd follow in pursuit
Some just made deliveries
Likes eggs, or milk, or ice
Regardless of their service
Each one friendly, each one nice
Though some might have a gimmick
Like a special, to entice
If you had bought from them before
They might just drop their price.
By Daniel Turner
Definition..one who uses obsequious compliments,
to gain self-serving favor or advantage from another.
P…parasites who want payback
H..harmful hucksters, hedonists
O…obsessive, offenders, outlandish
N..nebulous, narcisstic, nuisances
I….impetuous imbeciles, imposing
E..egocentrical, entangling, enemies
S…support-savages, so selfish!
4/ 23/2023
Saturday Farmers’ Market
Here’s how it goes at our Farmers’ Market:
shoppers all ages, clothing, and races,
parents push bundled babies in strollers,
children dash eagerly through the crowd.
Others meander to and fro, seeking
new food and old faces they know.
At the top are the hucksters and politicians
handing out stickers, buttons, petitions.
There’s music: guitars, banjos, accordions,
fiddlers, and a guy playing a digeridoo.
There’s lines for coffee, authentic Peruvian;
for fresh-baked bread: ciabatta, focaccia;
for pasta: fettuccini, tagliatelle, agnolotti, maccheroni,
chitarra; for cheese: Locarno, cheddar, gouda, and brie.
There’s heirloom tomatoes, bok choy, lettuce, kale,
Swiss chard, Satsuma mandarins, Fuyu persimmons,
just-ripened peaches, nectarines, pears,
fresh strawberries, blueberries, plums,
just-caught mackerel, salmon, sole,
a homeless guy peddling his Sparechanger rag.
There’s just-caught mackerel, salmon, sole,
fresh strawberries, blueberries, plums,
just-ripened peaches, nectarines, pears,
Swiss chard, satsuma oranges, and fuyu persimmons.
There’s heirloom tomatoes, bok choy, lettuce, kale;
cheese: locarno, cheddar, gouda, brie;
pasta: fettuccini, tagliatelle, agnolotti, maccheroni, chitarra;
and fresh-baked bread: ciabatta, focaccia.
There’s lines for coffee, authentic Peruvian,
and music: fiddlers, a guy playing a digeridoo,
guitar, banjo, and accordion players.
At the top, handing out stickers, buttons,
petitions are hucksters and politicians.
Seeking new food and old faces they know
are others meandering to and fro.
Children dash eagerly through the crowd, their
parents push bundled babies in strollers.
With shoppers all ages, clothing, and races,
that’s how it goes at our Farmers’ Market.
On the dreary streets of a quaint but callus steadfast hamlet
A pearl in the bluster carries a handwoven sweet grass basket
The umbrella' d tinge of the tiny town was opaque and gray
As the girl in the blue dress out shined the break of day
A beauty comparable to the first hint of light after winters darkest night
Emerging from the black ashes of peril like a beacon in your sight
Walking a well beaten footpath to town that was forged by frequency
She seemed to float on the earth's surface with affluent translucency
With a quick cut through an alley she'd enter a market in the center of town
Where farmers, hucksters, and traders peddled their wares till the sun melted down
There was a hastening hum to the hurry and hustle of the bustling crowds
But she stood out with a deafening silence as does the sun amongst clouds
My ears quelled the chaos as my eyes froze the scene like a loyal horse waiting
She was the sole proprietor of movement in my eye's still life painting
From the first instant I saw her, many pairs of years ago
She implanted herself inside me as a seed with a need to grow
Her smiles were the rain that perked me up when I was wilting
Life is but a patchwork of blocks the gods must be quilting
And if the large design of life were sewn together pieces of fabric effigies
I'm the stitch in the ditch of the piece work that she will never see
When our eyes made contact It was the sunlight I needed to thrive
For I'm but the sapling in the forest fighting for some sun to survive
To survive the cruelties of nature is a feat far from a cinch
Formidable giants must fall for me to gain but an inch
Generations of time pass till the present season is all that I got
And one by one all the old growth must rot
And the timbering of my brethren in the past has been fine
But now I creek when the wind blows and I'm next in the line
Time cannot age youthful thoughts that are as sweet as honeydew
As my mind travels back to that pretty girl in the hand sewn dress of blue
The handful of times our hands touched strengthened me like the winds from the west
I'll never forget the girl in the pretty blue dress
Present-Day Snake Oil Salesmen
By Elton Camp
In the past, hucksters came, patent medicine to sell
“It will cure all human ills,” is what they would yell
“While supplies last, only a dollar a bottle,” the call
“It’ll cure cancer, rheumatism, dropsy—one and all.”
Now all kinds of quack remedies we can easily get
They are brought into our homes through the Internet
“Doctors don’t want you to know about it,” they claim
But throughout history, sick folks have heard the same
That there is a conspiracy to suppress this they will say
Because the greedy doctors want things done their way
Glowing testimonials from users they proudly present
“I was sick, took this cure, and away my troubles went.”
Self-limiting conditions always fuel the quack’s success
Improvement after using the “cure,” the gullible impress
Many symptoms resolve without any treatment at all
So that the snake-oil, a miracle the sufferer will call
Also, the severity of most symptoms will come and go
But it’s the “miracle cure” that supposedly made it so
Can anyone think effective treatment a doc would hide
And so deprive himself of cure and his family beside?
If there was some natural stuff that would cure disease
Then there would be untold doctors that it would please
The next time e-mail with extravagant claims you meet
Do yourself a big favor by simply punching up “Delete”
Haiku 9-1-2016
splattering raindrops
hucksters peddling their wares
gray calling clouds
John G. Lawless
9/1/2016
Today's so-called music is nothing more
Than repetitious, raucous rot performed
By untalented, unaccomplished bores.
Their cacophony is worthy of scorn.
Instead they are held in admiration
By tin ears insensitive to sound.
Instruments amplify modulation
Or it might be the other way around.
Nevertheless, its purpose is to drown
Out feigned singers who couldn’t hold a tune
In a shower lest risking being found
Out. The day will finally come, and soon
I hope when these hucksters who can annoy
Are replaced with music all can enjoy.
Those who keep my Sabbath
And fear my holy law
And look for real compassion
Through the mist
Find a Temple waiting
And peace and calm inside
And praise and meditation
Heaven-kissed.
The eunuch begets “children”
And multiplies Good News.
The stranger finds
A welcome from the fray.
And Israel grows
In leaps and bounds
As Gentiles come on board.
They too have privileged
Quarters here to pray.
But Jesus comes this morning
And finds the hucksters’ game
At every stall and seat
That meets His view.
And eager pilgrims
Victimized
As shepherds fleece the flock.
He drives them forth.
His cries and whips subdue.
Now settle children
In His peace and presence
The rendezvous
Will touch your inner heart
Let silence calm the ennui
With loving friends beside
And wait…
The True Vine’s life He will impart.
Isaiah 56
Mark 11: 15-17
I sailed an olive boat
into the center of the sea
alone
to find a cure for my loose heart
not the spring-back type, noble with elasticity
but leap-forward lecher-wild
binding to any skirted frame and drooping hemline
like friendly burrs in shrubbery lanes
sat in an olive boat
drifting mid-seas
unaccompanied but for Hope to land a cure upon my knees
to heal my lousy, narcissistic zeal
an insatiable human thinks like a possessed apiary
an overwrought dam
I tonsured my beatific locks
as bare as Samson
hoodwinked
by his pet Flytrap
tossed reflective surfaces, anything that would give my face
a way to self-seduction
safe in a roasted green-pea float
lost like dead at sea
to recover a voice that scarcely has been mine
its echo returns not
through bursting towns
busy at trade
hawkers cawing,
hucksters' crow delirious,
chattering cashboxes
traffic snakes wending
Nowhere do they end in time
always metal and rust
ferric towering towers, condominium pride,
noisome domiciles, toxic steel cages
barring the success of this voice~
the sound of your mind drowned inside the urban brawl
not a jot of space to reckon nor conciliate
blushing-rushing-golden consciences
an echo may not return to its sender then ~
a man with no name.
21 Aug 2017 - Sonnet
When all the joys you ever chased in life
were bait that NEVER came without a hook -
high-market hucksters charming you with fifes
that drove thirst mad (and all done by the book),
the heart seems more a handle and a hook,
and less a dancing fountainhead of joy,
an open door for shysters, whores, and crooks
to dazzle you with bright and shiny toys.
What sort of life are men supposed to live?
Are we the brute-faced cattle of the rich,
well muzzled, grain they're disinclined to give
kept back since our true fate is just a ditch?
Or are we all Salome, shaking tail
to sell ourselves, and others, straight to Hell?
~