Best Scuffs Poems
An idiom by which she's always stuck
is 'having one's head buried in a book'
The truth behind it, she was unprepared
that morning as she went to climb the stairs.
Stopping to lift a bottle, bad mistake
especially when one isn't quite awake
her balance gone, could not control herself
now plunging headlong into the book shelf.
Bruised head, bruised knees,bruised pride was quite enough,
thankfully, make-up would disguise the scuffs.
But then she only went and made it worse
by saying that it would make a good verse.
Hopefully next time she will be wiser
and not tell me, but tell 'Trip Advisor'
29th August 2016
With love, Connie, from Viv x
you used to whisper to me
in stoop slang and bachata basslines,
kiss my cheek with corner store breath -
hot beef patties, papitas, a dollar Arizona.
you’d walk me past block parties
where the speakers cracked from joy,
and the aunties sang louder than the music.
your hands were rough -
but they knew my curves,
my story,
my roots.
but now,
your voice got quieter.
real estate signs stutter
where murals used to speak.
you wear button-ups now — ironed crisp,
smell like rosemary and rent hikes.
your laugh don’t echo
off bricks no more.
it gets lost
somewhere between the wine bar
and that dog park
you said wasn’t for us,
but now you walk through like you forgot.
when did you stop calling me “mami”?
start saying “ma’am”?
when did you trade timbs for toms,
cafecito for cold brew,
“you good?”
for
“you’re trespassing”?
i loved you when you were loud,
when you cursed and prayed in the same breath,
when your shoes had scuffs
and your hair still smelled like shea butter and sweat.
now you slicked it back — forgetful.
i see you in Whole Foods windows
with your new girls —
their yoga mats, their green juices,
their way of looking at me
like i don’t belong
in the place that built me.
you changed, Harlem,
and not in the way lovers grow —
but in the way dreams get flipped for profit.
still,
i walk your blocks like a jilted bride,
tracing memories
where laundromats used to hum
and grandma's gospel broke morning silence.
you once held me
like a secret.
now
you just walk by.
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 and puffing might cause moods’ shift.
Fluff is stuff that flies when pillow splits.
Fluff is spare language, added tidbits.
Cuff is hitting or playing too rough.
Instant speech is “talking off the cuff.”
Gruff are the words folks say to sound tough.
Guff is gobbledegook's made up stuff.
Muffs warming fingers used to be hip.
Now a day people don't give a flip.
Scuffs are boo-boos found on feet that slip.
Snuff is brown stuff not found in kid's lips.
Buff, cuff, duff, huff, fluff, gruff, bluff and ****
Puff, guff, scuff, scruff, all rhyming with stuff,
Some have two meanings, others one.
That's enough rough tough rhyming word fun!
Dedicated to Hunter G. Jackson, a kindergarten student who loves to rhymes words.
Built to take the abusive raqueteering
punishment unleashed upon me
by human beings
Towering around those agile people
so quick of foot and strong of arm
with blood sweat, and testosterone raging
Black rubber ball scuffs pure white painted walls
a dash here, a strike there, a record good or bad
but each a mark of personal aptitude from a player
Highly varnished wooden floors sit at my foot
Echoing squeaks and thumps from trainers around vast cells
where contenders choose to be imprisoned
Supportive friends often stand outside courts cheering on
While racquets wave, splicing the air repeatedly
Until game over, exhausted and calmer pair remove shoes then vacate
Will this leave me in peace again
or will it mean my services are further required today
Just what is on my timetable and for how long my working life?
I stare at the world through slats in the blind
Which are partly obscuring the dazzle at times
There's nothing particular to spot there today
As even the birds seem to have all flown away
But once in a while a tractor growls down the track
Hauling a jangling old plough or a planter at back
Then later the post van is speeding here with the bills
Soon I watch our Postie get in and out of the chills
In past times we chatted when the dogs were inside
But now I'm in here while they bark out their pride
He'll stop at one house though and sample some tea
But there's nowt going on - it's his sister you see
Just across the river in the giant glass houses there
All trays have been cleaned and stacked with such care
Not much more to do now for a good month or two
Soon be time for their rest in the warmth of Corfu
Not far from their place is a great old machine yard
See bright yellow lorries sport scuffs where they sparred
With anything that didn't yield to their determined path
'Another post over' you may hear their drivers laugh
A few hundred yards more just out of sight on the bend
Is a specialist scrap yard with old machines that they mend
And sell back to farmers for much less than when new
In these cash strapped times there's a few more in view
When times past we ambled my old dog Griff and I
Some walls were crumbling and I thought they might try
To patch up or rebuild them but still they survive
If they fell in a high wind it would be no great surprise
At the jetty quite near there is a boat on the Glen
A spot where a while since I fed our ducks and their friend
The swans have moved on now and the grebes cannot be seen
For the best pickings have gone though the waters still green
It's time for a drink now so maybe I'll potter off to
The kitchen where there is much less of a view
Some soup and a sandwich will be nice I do think
Just as soon as I've washed all the pots in the sink...
©Rhumour
October 6th 2008
Edit February 2016
(Note: this edited version is different from that in the paperback 'Rhumour Has It'
Cold day?
I am not fazed or dazed By
Winter’s fast approach because In such cold days
I just indulge in the comfort of Clinging onto my curvaceous wife’s gorgeous Cleavage
It’s like mind over matter as Minutes turn to hours and hours into days
I mean, Under clean sheets as our bodies collide and slide ,
as we twist and turn , till we both get burnt like we are laying naked on the sun’s surface.
our hearts mingled as one in a body to body out of body experience it seems we fracture the space time displacement
because you see , indulging in such a pleasure would have you think and feel that two hours is actually just a second
For Men and women who are unified in marriage as I , winter is not to be feared ,
Coz you see, My wife’s tender loving care
Completely covers me like the luxurious fur of a polar bear
It is As though she’s Whispering kisses, when her soft lips make contact with my skin, they bring adrenalin driven warmth to my cold ears.
Ahm…
While others get dressed up / with Boots , coats , scuffs and gloves
We get cooped up
close our eyes and but open minds to new ways of love
ahm,
We conquered a cold day
With a much Coveted foreplay
Bongani Malete , Ronny Madonsela
03/03/2014
If I could just use my tongue, oh what a tale I'd tell
One filled with your neglect, that's made my life hell
You've worn me out; you've filled me with holes
There's a gash in my side; nails stick out of my soles
You get me all dirty; then you throw me around
You flood me with rain; I'm so damp I could drown
When you take me off, you toss me aside
Are you ashamed of me? Should I run and hide?
Well, I shall get even with you, my ex-friend
I'll pinch you in the sides, in the front, in the end
When you need me to shine for a special affair
I'll show all my scuffs and scratches, you'd better beware
And if you go to get new shoes, that'll be your death knell
No one'll sell you a pair, the way your feet will smell
You wore a green shirt,
as I remember.
It was bright and lit up your eyes.
Your smile scrunched, your eyes narrowed
sweetly, like you knew what you were doing.
You sat to my left, I was scared,
nervous, not brave, but stunned
to a stammer, before I could ask you.
A simple drive, to pass the time;
soft cheeks, funny jokes, it
wasn’t so cold out but
winter hung over us like an outlook.
We hustled along, passed the parked
cars and up the sloped hill.
Honks spilled along the sidewalk’s sill.
I wish it had been you with me, along
the lonely walks I had walked once
alone.
Until you, not showed up, but
rolled in, like the wind does
while the seasons change,
like a green clue subsides to blue
or brown sounds drowning like summer
does to the autumn tides.
The seasons worry me, ‘cause they’re
not the only thing changing, everything
they stand for and bring herds and
burns the sensations left wasting.
They buy tickets and stamps and
long letters that will only get
lost in the translation or the
transition, which brought and formed
at the last meeting.
So I’ll greet you, smile, wave
drop you off, come pick you up,
carry your bags and brush away the
scuffs that you’ll inevitably bring back.
But I’ll be up, sometimes down, by the
corner we walked and talked out loud around.
Your arm over mine in the sun
shine, your face looks timeless like
broken hands snapped off of a clock,
ticking at the reunion that is the
next time we’ll see each other.
Something like one hundred days, nights, weeks,
months, yet less than a year. A
year I could do; without the shouts
we never said.
A year I’ll think about the white sheets
and the love songs, on the window
seat, laughing and writing lyrics with
our hearts. We both say at the same
time we wish it wasn’t happening but
the sad part, not the ending, has us coming
back to the same place, where I’ll see
your face again, walk in and sit to your right.
You’re wearing a green shirt,
as I remember.
A campaign for a bloody jewel!
The gold is in mine insides. Dig through if the greed
So eats you, so seduces you.
Do not fear me for risk of dirty hands;
If you are afraid of the conspicuous coal-scuffs that would be,
here are gloves.
I pieced them over months of lambs I loved.
The ultimate communion in honor of all-others.
It so bothers the wolves, to be silent -
They prefer a singing prey which will narrate its own death
As a loving manuscript, a classic opera!
And the fall of a wailing Athena, to please the
Witch-burning crowds, chewing their cinnamon
But, I never have screamed. My chords a botched surgery
To fix the brain which resides in a concrete block, to chisel out
A fossil that has ever only frustrated.
I flee to some yolk-soaked desert that coats me like crumbs
As I tumble, run, purposed to be devoured by bronze brazen waves
With faces, they.
I am some sought treasure,
A wedding ring plucked from a pheasant's wing
And set aside in a pearled bowl while the bird is consumed
As Sunday's supper.
A life a-chase, a slack-handed clock's base.
It is to be a pigeon stuffed to brim
With aging jade.
I've stayed away from trouble
Straightened up my life
I pay the rent
when rent come due
I gotta a day job
I'm goin to school
I give up the whiskey
the late nights out
I got myself a savings account
But here comes TROUBLE
Ridin up on his 4X4
He scuffs them dusty cowboy boots
across my polished floors
Here come TROUBLE
he's just in time
I've been so good
Nearly lost my mind
If I could just get into TROUBLE
I'd be fine
Mama, you're gonna be so disappointed
when you hear I've turned a fool
But this get tin up early
Five days a week ain't cool
Ima gonna pop the tab on this cold Coors Lite
Go lookin for trouble
Maybe a fight
If Iand in jail
I've done it right
No ball games, keep out, no access
and please keep off the grass,
restricted zone, no entry here unless you show your pass.
Stay clear, don't go beyond this point,
warning! Electric fence!
(you could tell by the transformer-
unless of course, you're dense).
Remember childhood playing outside, all
bumps and scrapes and scuffs?
You lived by using common sense, and if
you didn't- tough.
Public information films said don't go
flying kites near pylons, swim in
quarry lakes, in case the foolish might.
But now we're wrapped in cotton wool
and everyone's just fine
but freedom's being washed away-
if you can see the signs.............
Footprints in sand, indelible till the tide comes in,
reliable impressions, etched, embedded, enveloped
to form an album of traces:
crab hole excavations,
scurries of hurrying birds,
seaweed twirls wind-driven in curls,
tiny sand flea hop-craters,
crab claw side-step shuffles,
drift-wood scuffs and scuppers
remnants of tidal riffles and ruffles,
snap-shots of scrapes, stomps, scats and scars.
Footprints like graffiti deface the awe of seascape shore
with a mushyheaded mishmash of double-exposed impressions.
We had a few puffs
and had a few scuffs
drank wine and some beer
listened to the old songs
sittin' in the new Fongs
on across the road from the TC Square
I had an old truck all patched up with luck
destination Bay de Verde
logged off for the night
breakfast at first light
listening to songs of birds
Before hittin' the road I checked the load
the shrimp are like cold hard cash
when we left the old town
I had to gear her down
because the Jake brake was taped to the dash
into the morning sun we had become
Snow Crab headed for stores
you know who we are
me and my Western Star
gearing up for our long journey home
Sea food!
food from the sea
truckin' along !
you won't catch me
I'm haulin' shrimp
we are carrying ice
watch out for the water
cause it don't smell nice!
So soon the seasons
in cycle.
The chill of winter’s
tangible breath to scorch
the freezing air,
the paperboy’s virgin
footprints etched within
each dawn breaking frost.
The solidarity of summer
from the middle moor
the length of the daylight
to ease the pain of waiting
for heady days in fresh cut
meadows.
The gold of autumn
as one scuffs oceans of
decay caught in the
eve of their lives.
The surprise of spring
One-day nature’s nakedness
the next the creation,
a virgin inflorescences
to confront the perfect
day!
© Harry J Horsman 2000
The kitchen table
was the centerpoint of childhood,
a place of gathering,
an easel for artworks, battleground
for homework and Eden
for the creation of lifeforms
moulded from plasticine.
It was the Formica altar
on which daily meals were celebrated,
a patch of the real, ground zero
for tears and laughter
and a bench for my mother
to cut fabric into shapes
from paper patterns to sew
together into minor miracles.
The kitchen table was an arena
for games where monopoly fortunes
were won and lost on its real estate -
a surface slapped senseless
in games of “snap”, the pride
soaked soil of the Colosseum
where my Dad and I played chess.
It was a resting place for the hands
and elbows of four generations,
a soak for human pain and hurt
and wore without protest
the hot candle wax and cream
from countless birthday cakes.
It listened patiently as lives
unfolded in language.
The kitchen table was a poem
written not in words, but in wear
and tear and in the morse
of scuffs, scratches and stains
inscribed upon its surface.
I do not know its fate.
Sadly, like the pages
of most poetry,
it has been lost to time.
It deserved better.