Best Scuff Poems

My shoes have traveled miles of roads
Their soles are worn quite thin
Struggling with this heavy load
I carry deep within
Beyond repair, no longer shine
Scuffed with many stains
It's mostly been an uphill climb
Some sunny days, some rain

A little big when they were new
With ample room to grow
This...

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Not this day
No 
My mouth shall not say
The words that linger
Trailing broken syllables 
From memory bay
Without meaning
I cannot form them
Even as I pray
Turning in guttural acidic taste
By bitter bile way
Fumbling resentment 
Phrase to phase
With no sway from sentiment 
Shall I dare?
Shall I say?
Nay!
Struggle thought 
Drowning...

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They hung around the beer joint with the finest Western wear
with thumbs tucked in their belt loops and such a studly air.
But those boots weren't made for stirrups and were polished to a sheen,
and on those fancy cowboy hats not a sweat stain could be...

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I glanced out my window watchin' kids plod along to school today.
I recalled my school days and how things have changed along the way
I watched the little fellers hunched over with their over-loaded packs.
'Tis a wonder the little dudes don't develop a twitch in their...

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AFTER HOURS
Dudes in duds broken down brims 
cocked and bent creases in trousers 
when thugs were gents 
People with attitude women too 
demeanor and outfits like 
Ebony's front pages
Dudes in duds broken down brims 
Money on backs eyes watching 
the eye's of watchers 
Entrances and...

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All those lies,
The creaking on the stairs
Glazed fixed eyes
Upon scuff marked boots
My abrupt croak,
Droned-out by sudden humming
From the refrigerator
My voice falls,
Pitched to the floor
Like suspended in time
To look upon these photos now
Hold nothing but false pretenses
A mirrored hope,
To escape for plummeting slopes
Our roots untouched lay
Fuming...

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My soul was on fire, as I entered the wood
By the old rusty gate, which silently stood
Absorbing history, making no choice
Passing no judgement, adding no voice

The rough ancient path, veined with roots
To test my step, or scuff my boots
Unhurriedly followed the line of the brook
But...

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SCARS

Sketched upon the weary landscape
Scuff marks of the cross
Deep and wide

The impressions of a timely death
Tears that flowed from earthborn breast
Pressed upon our Edenic chest

12/6/2017...

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The day’s hot-the wind like a convection oven
Blows hot air in our faces.
My cap and gown insulates me
Baking me like a potato wrapped in aluminum foil
I desperately fan myself and look around
My eyes search for my peers and see;
The bros that survived school with me;
The...

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I seize time when funky drummer songs break
into my body robbing feeling of nerves making me fly
off floors with hips bouncing and shoes sweeping soot on concrete
I leave my history on any ground wherever I scuff my hands
and greet earth beneath me made of cement...

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Rhymes with “Stuff”
     By Dane Smith-Johnsen

Bluff is a cliff that above land is laid.
Bluffs are charades to win card games played.
Buff is a tint between white and brown.
Buff shines stuff; rub a soft-cloth around.

Duff with raisins is a pudding that's stiff.
Huffing...

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Misty eyed and weary over the gallows I blow
daunting a mere string in tow
last school bells rung
but the hallowed halls still call

Scuff marks mark my sentence
tough times as seconds slowly ticked by
pure white first day memories
when fresh minds mattered

puddles and mud stained canvas
darkness haunts to...

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Who told you to love me
and all my flaws?
Who asked you to
penetrate the thick skin
that confined my cries and
who informed you to
let me know it was okay to breathe?
I’ve been scuff-marked
and drenched in a 
dystopia of pain
baptized in the burning hell
of mistreatment
then left to crawl...

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All these years at home, me and my momma alone
Daddy on the run, headed for the sun, he must of been..
Because I obviously wasn't his sunshine

Growing up wishing you were there when I had something to say
But now it's on pause, just like I am...

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A fine mist of rain falls silent 
on his thin, sharp-angled face. 
He picks up the pace and tilts 
his head to the wind. He walks 
through the plundered slumber  
of crumbled poverty, abandoned, 
in human acclimation to feral 
creatures who crawl and scuff...

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