Best Shacks Poems
William Bonny AKA Billy The Kid
A Tale Of Billy The Kid
By Robert Gorelick
“Quien esta?”
Bang! It’s over,
you’re a legend now,
Billy.
Born in Hell’s Kitchen in
ramshackle consumptive squalor,
New York’s crammed gang infected
rat-infested shacks
and alleys.
Amid the iniquitous stench
of rot and the soul’s decay,
in a nation at war,
pulling, stretching, ripping
to shreds the frayed fabric
of its precarious union.
An abused juvenile fleeing west
emerging from the muck
to where a soul and body
may heal, breathe deeply,
expand.
At last—life
New Mexico territory spreads open
and wide, easy to be seduced by cynical
range-war ranchers’ welcome greetings
they pay you well for
every cattle rustled,
then desert you as you flee the
sheriff’s posse.
“Quien esta?”
With a concealed knife
you stab a drunken gambler,
self-defense is no excuse
as the ruffian had
important friends.
You’re set to hang, Billy
in a daring display
you shoot your way out,
steal a horse and gallop
off to your woodland
shanty.
Midnight, your shack’s pitch dark,
there’s breathing nearby,
your Mexican novia?
Why doesn’t she speak?
“Quien esta?”
Bang. Pat Garrett guns
you down.
A throw away kid from big city squalor,
becomes a legend of the wild west.
You’re a legend, Billy
1/8/23
Metrical Tale Contest
Sponsor: Hilo Poet
There is a place where the land bows down to kiss the misty tide,
Where rolling waves bring memories of the place my heart resides.
There among the old fishing shacks that stretch along the shore,
I find the thing I’m longing for, in your sweet embrace once more.
We sit together on a weathered log I carve my initials on,
And as you mend the fishing net, I sing your favorite song,
“Oh Danny Boy”, falls on the wind and floats across the bay,
As you smile at me and melt my heart, with words you do not say.
Beneath a golden sun with the fish and the smell of wild flowers,
A little girl and her Grandpa, sit happily and while away the hours,
And when the sun dips in the bay, we put the mended nets away,
And hand-in-hand walk home again, to the end of a perfect day.
~~~~~~
Author: Elaine George
(In loving memory of Theodore Evans - My Grandfather)
Fragrance from your flute
Wafting in the air
Powder of morning in your hair
Robins in their throat
In your smile clouds float
Here and there
Golden alphabets stare
The river flows on
Sprinkled sun melts in water
Inflammation grows in laughter
Rush roar race reel recur
Empty boats wait for life
Stories seek a soft chapter
Your shadows grow longer
Polka dots on your blue shades
Tiny airy footfalls on grass blades
Pleasure returns in white sails
Boats are astir in water
Ripples and jingles join them
In the spread of the blue jays’ wing
A blue and white game
Sinking sun sprinkles softened sparkles
Dream like little orange splashes
Infinity in your eyelashes
Gradually unfolds the time of musk
Whether in shacks or in palaces
Whether in love or in malice
Sometimes a full moon
Sometimes a dark lagoon
Somewhere the stories in a glowworm fire
Somewhere in a sparkling dagger
Until the eyelids are heavy in the weary night
Descending into the cleansing dark
For another daylight
________________________________________
15/02/2017
Winds
raged as
fires glowed in
small frowzy shacks
that strange Georgia eve an angel was born.
The sky proclaimed that lives would re-arrange;
with Joy’s first cry,
the tempest
changed to
calm.
Warm
Zephyr -
spring magic -
arrived with Joy.
Her laughter was kindling for hearth and home.
No galas in her future ; she was poor.
Never frowning,
Joy would flash
diamond
smiles.
Her
Mama
sewed flounces
on hand-me-downs,
which Joy wore with glee, celebrating life.
As Papa played his guitar for them all,
Joy danced and twirled.
Humdrum fled
in her
stead.
Fair,
yellow-
haired; slender
like sassafras,
this sunny lass gladdened all of the town.
Humankind exists that we might have joy.
Those touched by that
sweet angel
all learned
this.
Joy
expelled
gloom, giving
her cheer to all.
Nevertheless, joy is often short-lived.
One strange spring day, a cold wind blew in. As
thunder quaked, warmth
waned, and Joy
was no
more.
For Chris D. Aechtner's
"Double the Fun ~ (Tetractys)"
The eyes behind a head inclined reflect a universe
Of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
Of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
Of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
Of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
Of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
Of tinkle tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
Of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
Of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
While poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.
If I could be a cartoon character
Which one would I be
I thought about being Fred Flinstone
But he's too old-fashioned for me
And then there's maybe George Jetson
A man who knew electronics
Nothing like Yosemite Sam
Who needed to be hooked on phonics
And what about Shaggy and Scooby
You gotta love those scooby snacks
I've never really considered a Smurf
And their tiny little mushroom shacks
Or maybe I'd become a super hero
Who comes to save the day
Batman , Green Hornet or Underdog
Who puts the bad guys away
Maybe I'd live in Jellystone Park
Where Yogi is the king
For Hello Mr Ranger Sir
Is just the funniest thing
Nation’s Damnable Blight
Black slender man, bent twig on the branch of a slave’s family tree,
Planted in white culture during infamous time of our history,
From seed transported in the belly of those infernal slave ships.
Bitter tears flowing from his eyes; angry words pouring from his lips.
Spent by long days in fields under hot skies of one hundred degrees,
Living in substandard shacks: wife and babes bearing winter’s freeze.
Broken panes breach for frigid wind; shabby roofs sieve for cold raindrops,
Family worked from sun up to dark to reap the precious crop.
Truth is, most were prisoners of the system evil men devised.
Many struggling to be free from what politicians camouflaged.
Wisdom overrules such folly and the proverb is most profound;
Holding one down makes holder as much a captive as one held down.
This nation, “land of the brave and free”, held out freedom’s lamp to all,
Went out one ominous night and over “liberty’s lamp” threw a pall.
Had wiser men with hearts of love been ruled by God’s Divine Light,
Black and white would have been spared this great nation’s damnable blight.
Leading his horse in the heat of the day
Been gone a long time but he still knows the way
Just a few shacks when he went for the gold
He’d found a few nuggets but now he’s too old
So, home to the town that he’s heard has expanded
He’s also aware that the town’s been rebranded
He knows he’s too late to catch up with the guy
Who’d bid him farewell but now lives in the sky
He stops on the trail by the boundary sign
He don’t read-n-write but he knows the design
He knows that the words on the board aren’t the same
Must’ve been changed to display the new name
“Howdy, Old timer,” a passerby said
“The hotel’s just yonder for resting your head.”
The prospector said, with a big toothless grin,
“What’s the new name of this town that we’re in?”
“It’s now ‘Milton Creek’, as it says on the sign
It’s new name remembers a good friend of mine.”
The old fella, grinning and shaking his head
Said, “Milt said he’d live on long after he’s dead.
“I used to tell him he was being absurd
but he always was just as good as his word.
To be sure that fella deserved the ovation
But can we just rename the towns in this nation?”
The passerby said, “There are them that makes rules
And then there’s the ones that behave like their mules
But sooner or later things get a bit rich
And the mules all rear up and scratch at that itch
“Soup Creek fell prey to the powers that scheme
With lynchings and lashings an ongoing theme.
There’s cells in the jailhouse where innocents dwell
Soup Creek’s reputation had heard its death knell.
“You see ‘Soup’ emerged as a four letter word,
And good folk would tremble when e’er ‘Soup’ was heard.
So we ditched the mouldy old cheese for best stilton
And renamed our town to remember our Milton.”
The prospector slapped on the passerby’s arm,
“You think I just ran from the old funny farm?
When you said ‘Stilton’ twas just for the rhyme.”
The passerby grinned, “Fella… got it first time.”
KEEPING UP WITH THE DOW JONESES
These here are the indisputable facts
I was born on the right side of the tracks
WITH People who only smiled if their stocks or equity increased
If not they wouldn’t have minded becoming deceased
They had big cars, big bucks and big time class
With a million dollar house mortgaged up the a*s
Their children went to private schools in uniforms
With charming and well decorated dorms
I looked at their faces and wondered why I didn’t fit
That’s when the fire in my belly was originally lit
I had no desire to play with kids from private schools
Nor did I ever agree to obey by their rules
So one day I skipped over steel and these here are the facts
The people I found lived in tents, not even shanties or shacks
But they didn’t have to read Dow Jones in order to smile
And couldn’t care less about having Gucci type style
They smiled at things people ignore like little tykes at play
And somehow or other they AWOKE contented day after day
They had no stocks to watch fretfully fall or RESOUNDINGLY rise
And you could see the easiness in their gleaming eyes
That which I observed in them appealed to me a great deal
The wrong side people taught me how satisfied I could feel
They lived out of back-packs, antique cedar chests and sacks
So if you come a’looking for me I’ll be on the wrong side of the tracks
© 2011.…Phreepoetree ~free cee!~
How fast time has fled in limitless wingspan
How months and years have merged into eons
Bringing such changes, so awesome and spectacular
I have come swinging open the iron gates
Of the Netherworld where I have been asleep
For over the last four centuries from now
From my prolonged slumber, I am just awake
With my memory intact as in the days
I walked the London streets on my way to Globe theatre
And roamed through the streets of Stratford on Avon
Here, I stand stunned like a Rip wan winkle
Wistfully staring at a world so strange
Wondering how in place of shacks, skyscrapers stand!
How the serene villages into bustling habitats made!
How the frilled frocks into jeans and shirts changed!
Seeing the changes that have come over now
I can only remain perplexed and “tongue tied”,
An expression I used long time back, but still in vogue
Happy I am to revisit the literate of the world
Especially members of my own clan;
My friends of Poetry Soup who wield their pen
To see words are latticed like filmy cobwebs
In diverse poetic forms, on themes and subjects varied
And in rhyming sonnets, my favorite poetic form
Though I stand in a remote and distant tract of time
So happy you still remember me and hail me as an immortal bard
And you name the young lovers- 'Romeo and Juliet'
And write on their amorous romance in honeyed rhyme
You call selfish and cunning people as ‘Iago’
And exclaim on being betrayed- “You too Brutus”
When you are confronted with problems insurmountable
Like Hamlet, you ask the million-dollar question-
“To be or not to be”
My friends, this is my parting words to you
You may live by fame as I do
Through verse, your name you eternalize!
When dead and in solitary vaults you lie
May your verses ring clear in umpteen hearts
And produce echoes that time cannot stifle.
Jan. 13.2023
~Placed First~
Shakespeare in 2023 Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Anoucheka Gangabissoon
Drive across the country
Let imagination flow
Tumbleweed and flat lands
Reveal a western show
Mile markers pave the way
Across this land sublime
Wind blows through the car
On my arm sunshine
Generations of people
Spirits across the land
Occupy a history
Of faces in the sand
Deep inside our spirit
Adheres to our respect
This peaceful land of bounty
No one shall reject
Fresh cut grass lingers
The present rescinding more
Where old shacks and farms
Grasp our inner core
Land abound with wisdom
Dust has settled down
Enjoy driving the distance
See another town
Palm trees and ocean breeze heavenly received by this pasty white
northern teen. On the drive to grandma's snowbird roost she points
out a black family; "they must be renters, blacks are only here during
the week to work".
road to Disneyworld
lined with tin and waste wood shacks
short of dreams come true
7.9.2020
A Memory Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Line Gauthier
A brotherly jaunt through sinister mirth
behold the brothers Death:
gowned and guided, an ill century
the fourteenth, an alliance of crop, of plague
in ground-down death of torrential pains
in sores and blood under the rains
that drowned the land, starved the bellies
there echoed howls of ill exclaim
a wanting of a light to shine
is where the brothers thought that they
worked well together, effectively
one would scoop from ruined crop
one from sickness, war, attack
the beak, a sign, of the plague mask
in shacks, where hags mopped weeping rot
crosses on doors, on floors of straw
with nothing in the cooking pot
the brothers danced and sang their wealth
of many clientele they sought
and on they went, and on they struck
perfecting songs on appetites
of pestilence and of disease
hand in hand like trees whose leaves
do smother, smite, in murderous breeze
the brothers, down the ages tease
and beckon, wreaking havoc on,
like rolling waves of seas on high
always taunting their sister - life
Anchored in the solid granite cliffs
On either side of the tree-lined gorge,
Above the C&O tracks and rickety shacks
Of farmers and miners and naked children
Playing in the dirt ‘neath the front porch,
Who stop to watch the coal train passing
Underneath the arching silver steel girders
Wondering wide-eyed how they built that bridge! --
Way up yonder like a humongous gray rainbow
With its promise of faraway places,
And pots of gold someday in recurring dreams,
Knowing it’s not likely they will escape
Just like none of their older kinfolk did
Even though they believed that bridge
Was the road to places somewhere, anywhere
Away from deep and narrow seams of coal,
And raw memories of their poverty-stained childhood.
FIRST PLACE WINNER
a Brian Strand Contest
Poetry Soup, January 14, 2022
The Quakers, being religiously persecuted, set sail from expatriated England;
they were the first settlers to reach the shore of New England: a free land!
Later the Puritans came and settled in other eastern, bustling colonies
seeking the same religious freedom, but their urge was stronger than dreams.
Many moved westward on foot, on horseback and on overloaded wagons...
exploring the American wilderness plundered by indigenous Indians;
they searched for grassland everywhere, to let their cattle roam and graze;
first they built wooden shacks on vast, lush prairies full of Queen Ann's Lace.
And out of this American westward expansion, came the fearless pioneers,
who sought gold mines...despite the wild cowboys causing troubles
with heavy drinking and desire for unscrupulous women, seeking money and pleasure,
who served them more whisky and lured them to a room with a demeaning measure.
Beyond the Rocky Mountains' and the Appalachians Mountains' skies,
these diligent pioneers obtained wealth with sweat and sacrifices...
changing and shaping the wild landscapes of arable land,
avoiding the drudgery of getting stuck in mud and sand.