Best Jackknife Poems
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Jovial Dr Jekyll played for juvenile Justice
a just jaspered journey
jokingly jumped a joyride
to juicy jukebox jabbering
in jackal jackboots
from nearby jungle
Dr Jekyll clasped a jackknife eating
jambalaya to justify a
juggled juxtapositional
jurisdiction jamming
as jugular vein jingled jewels
joyfully jauntily jaywalking
to a jay named Jim Jolly !
Onward he jumped to a
Jungian junction
Jupiter jocund watching his
journeying joints
journalese seemed a jibe jig
but neither Jewess, Jesuit
or jeweller jiggled this job
So he jerked his jess
like a jape for Japan
Jejuning onto January for the
next jangle of jasmine
No jellyfish was Dr Jekyll in Jordanian jerkin
though sometimes Mr Hyde
with jeroboam swirling alongside !
The road may be bumpy on the highway of life
So fasten your seat belt and hang on tight
Watch for those steep curves or you may jackknife
Keep your eyes on the road and your goals in sight
The road will get smoother, the sun will shine bright
The wrong exit may leave you lost for awhile
Find your way back as you travel the miles
There may be some detours and even delays
But keep on driving, the journey is worthwhile
Success is your destination, determination the way
You are rock and bone,
sturdy eyes and heavy leaden shoes
line up by the doorframe like splinters.
The wood is peeling, and the
stairs cave beneath our feet in surrender.
My papa’s new wife would place glass paperweights
on every surface of the house, like tiny orbs.
I wonder know if she was trying to hold down
the whiskey bottles that were swallowed up
by each rise and fall of his chest on the sofa,
Instead of old tax forms.
I flick the lights and sit on the stairs in the dark
and think how lately
your hands are like the North Sea,
colder than the night we got into the elevator
staring up at our reflections on the ceiling
and you said, “I think I love you.”
You touch me with the patience of a jackknife,
apologizing up the thirty-seven stairs to my apartment.
“I am so sorry; you are my home.”
I tell you that homes are made of wood and metal,
and I am a human being
I am leaving you.
You kiss my toes and cry,
I shut the door.
crazy steam whistle
wakes me to a cooler ‘morn
blown loud
moisture piercing
rock rock rockin'
on grease
on iron
on splintered sleepers
creaking through
frost blown meadows
do I jump?
do I stay?
next station comin'
station bull gonna ride you away
blackjack swingin'
applejack head ringin'
raggedy wine bard
mad mad mad
for the reach
the sun
the tickle of dawn
eastern philosophical lunatic
preachin' to a lima bean
sermonatin' to a jackknife
cryin' in a canteen cup
jump jump jumpin'
sloppy in a junction box
skiddin' out on corderoy
laughin' with crows
flyin' west into the dawn
dawn run runnin'
away
Fanatics in feigned fury forced fellow fools for fait accompli
Laying lies as labyrinth loyally to murdering Lord,
Haggard Haters in hounding habits and hypocrisy as honor hunched,
Bearded Blackguard blazes bright sword amongst blinded buffoons,
Jabber with Jackknife judging jaundice with Kind “Jihads”,
Happy to hack the Innocent whose life they cannot save,
For the foolishness and orderings of an epileptic and adulterous protagonist,
Ten times in ten holes for ten years hunted by his guilt in 9/11,
And thoughtless Arabian protects a coward from justice of his acclaimed crime,
As Hitler and Haman hewed wicked gallows sitting as Judges of men,
As Abacha abandon décor following the doctrines of murder in “holy unholy book”
As Mobutu, blazing terror the macabre style
And like Osama Bin Laden,
Another coward fanatic dies running from Justice
Wildlife cannot remain contained;
Life in a glass dome is so secure;
Strife lines the broken trail to success,
jackknife just to watch basic shatter;
Sunlight isn't gifted glitter like splinters;
Rewrite is a creative's closest consort;
Recite what they say in a new way,
smite polite I want to make art.
Attorney General William
Barr black marker in hand
kept promise to censor vital
details of Mueller Report
swift as Usain Bolt candidly,
grandly, lustrously, roundly
youthfully blocked out more
rapid than an elegant eland
vibrantly, regally, magically,
and gracefully skirts borderland
which favored topography
constitutes grassland or woodland,
far more pleasing to observe,
than reading adulterated brand
of aforementioned compilation,
distillation, edification, fortification
zeroing questionable activity
upon head of trumpeting brigand,
whose arrivistic, bombastic, caustic,
demonic, electric broadband
outsize ego still convinces
me, thee commander in chief
delegated one or more chargehand
perhaps while delighting as
gourmand savoring chateaubriand,
where his best buddies imagined
themselves in seventh heaven cloudland
every so often taking siesta sans repast
or golfing with grisly handicapped clubhand
non verbally communicating,
in viz sub bully taking a peas zing
cues from presidential high command,
which coterie (i.e. den of thieves)
manipulated social media with nefarious,
insidious, deleterious, et cetera
analogous to "FAKE" contraband,
maybe even milking innocent cowhand
unwittingly planting GMO electronic
bugs amidst future bovine fodder cropland
to allow, enable, and jackknife demand
that moost every eligible voter tricked
induced by virtual reality dreamland
with sinister motive for thee "Apprentice"
rule his kingdom, and expand,
realm asper Medieval days
declaring himself chieftain of fatherland
and/ or North American motherland
where naysayers guillotined
by uncontested firebrand,
who without provocation
very likely bomb into Stone Age
formerly edenic, lush, verdant
geography into flatland
rendered hostile, poisonous and uninhabitable
nonetheless radiating for miles with gangland
forced labor tilling barren, desolate, fissured
landscape erecting unsightly grand
standing room only (cause he know Shylock)
terrain (reign) vast highland
manor as poobah, and husband
to his only heiress, the former
a kooky monster from foggy bottom marshland.
Above the lowly metro din,
we climb through earnest efforts
to slopes of grouse and goats.
Where skies brim pale and pure,
trails narrow, plummet, climb,
and jackknife over the granite jumble
of broken planetary bones.
We glimpse a momentary thaw
in a world frozen in icy fingers.
But we don’t whisper this to the lush grass
springing from damp soil,
pooled in the cool seeps,
between the shades of fir and spruce.
Who trembles on the lonesome
peaks and ridges?
Disoriented, by sparse air and stark beauty.
I long to view the hidden valleys
of alpine grace, and remote peaks of
unreachable distance,
and ponder a holy, violent birth.
I bow to this risen paradise.
After about fifty years as married wife
the last three fraught with strife
obvious telltale signs of terminal illness rife
hysterectomy irrevocably didst jackknife
at the least severely incapacitated
think pitted, riddled,
and rounced her tortured life.
Ovarian cancer affliction
on par with megadeath
bald pate (color of bleached skull),
and crossbones characterized mortal death
oxygen tank to sustain each measured breath.
Nonetheless her angry spirited accursed
ferocity, ejaculatory, denunciatory burst
expletive and epithet
peppered preponderant rant,
(no kidney you) laced
and dull livered worst
fulmination, exasperation,
(albeit feebly faint)
damnation well versed
lips mouthing implacable thirst
to defy grim reaper uber
lyft driver analogous hearst
jubilation immune to
interrogation and/or humiliation
diatribes interpreted glorification,
remained scythe lent bore
scathing rebukes hurled regarding
her sole son (courtesy
miraculous biological reproduction)
dogged with financial perdition
eased series of unfortunate events narration
blessed nonagenarian widower husband
generous father gave male progeny
eased (his/mine) absolution
availed immense monetary boost,
she (envision banshee)
voiced abhorrent objection
regarding liberal outpouring
triggered her vitriolic remenstration.
Similar with pointed gesticulation,
excoriation, cannibalization, abomination...
against reducing his albatross
yoking penurious defeat
her livid hostility displayed, decried,
damned how Matthew Scott,
(I shoal mussel metaphor
without clamming up, how
said offspring coasts) along easy street,
while she sorely protested (thankfully in vain)
even after succumbing to painful demise,
she vehemently, obstreperously and helplessly
loathes handsome handout
to yours truly forsakes Pete.
You never think what is to come.
The little kid you smiled at
is a well-known author now,
a thousand miles away; you found
the trash-filled lot you didn't care about
is now a church—
the nicest one around.
The old stockyards are gone.
Your young best friend is dead.
You think: that was the life I led,
my very own behind my third-grade eyes.
And is the village park still there?
You'd settle for a journey back
across those 70 years—
with jackknife probe, dig up a marble,
still intact, and now
three inches down. You lost it once;
it was a shooter (big one) and
you couldn't understand just how it got away.
Poorer when you went to bed that night—
You'd traded off six glassies for it...
Yes. The blue and white.
It's got to be the one.
You knew the grown-ups wouldn't care—
no miracles for them,
just irony; a kid's old rusty knife
could never be the tool
to resurrect their life.
The little park may still survive
upon a ghostly plain, you thought,
and not the marble, but a part of you
have lain there underneath the years
not quite forgotten,
yet with some bewilderment
to see the sun again
~
A staid old art collector in Quincy
dotes on cats but with people is chintzy
He willed old shoes to his wife
and to his son a jackknife
His tabby got a Monet and Da Vinci
Written 2/13/22
I remember so well that Christmas date.
The year that things changed - I had just turned eight.
I was no longer a child in my view,
And I hoped Santa had seen that, too.
The time for toys and candy had now passed.
I was learnin' to rope and ride at last -
Hopin' an prayin' for things I could use
Instead of new socks and prob'ly some shoes.
I stood there awhile in front of the tree,
And wondered this year how Santa saw me.
My hands shook as I reached for the first one -
This gift would tell if Christmas would be fun,
Or if it would be just another year
Of playing with toys and hearing reindeer.
I tore the paper while toys I feared -
And to my relief a jackknife appeared!
I had come of age - I could handle knives!
Santa knew I was through with children's lives.
I recall so well that year I was eight.
I was a cowboy and I couldn't wait.
December, 2016
Through every spin and jackknife,
you peer into my soul's keyhole;
Far beyond this condensed life;
Written with stars onto my scroll,
our story long ago branded boundless;
You are my other half, my whole;
No matter how difficult it gets,
absolute bond nothing can sever;
A broad mote surrounding a fortress;
Impenetrable when linked together,
hold onto my hand forever.
Take a look who’s behind the kit,
he’s not our regular drummer;
Make no mistake he’s taken a life,
with that jackknife to a pounding heart;
So notorious, his beat’s ferocious.
He’s ransacked an alley and the bar,
on tour he remains midnight’s shadow;
Take a look you have seen him before,
in the corner of a club poster;
So ferocious, his beat’s notorious.
Bouncing from one band to another,
the cymbalist committing vile crimes;
Don’t try to memorize his face,
he has mastered immortal glamour;
Bloody scrumptious, a bit dangerous;
He’s not our regular drummer.
Snippy was with
A family of five
Until he decided
To do a nosedive
In the water he went
Just shaking his tail
Swimming all around
Like he had set sail
But something took notice
Of this duck having fun
It moved in closer
Ready to make its run
On the poor little duck
Who didn’t have a clue
He was about to be eaten
Boo who, boo who
But the little duck noticed
Something moving in close
So, he started quacking
It was about to take hose
A family of five and
So much more
Came to the rescue
And to settle a score
The little duck was saved
And the raccoon ran for his life
There were to many ducks to fight
And he didn’t want to be jackknife