What I would call the street today,
As kids, we’d say the gutter.
It was a place to play for some
And moms would often mutter,
“If you’re not home on time, then I
Will see you, in my mind,
Lying dead out in the gutter
And your body they will find.”
The gutter also was the place
You took your dog to go,
For pooping on the sidewalk
Definitely was a no!
I never knew about the gutters
Meant to channel rain.
I have those on my roof right now
And cleaning them’s a pain.
But yesterday, I did just that
And as I scooped out goop,
I heard my mother’s voice call out,
Like she was on the stoop:
“Be careful near the gutter!”
Yet this time, my fear instead,
Was that I’d fall down while cleaning them
And crack my foolish head.
Categories:
gutters, home, memory,
Form: Rhyme
I came from the cracked earth,
where sirens sang lullabies
and gunshots kept rhythm
like a mother’s heart—
fast, then gone.
We ate what we stole,
slept where we fell,
and called rusted chain-link fences
the edge of the world.
The old man left,
the old lady broke,
and love was a rumor
we didn’t believe in.
I bled young.
Learned young.
Fists before forgiveness,
pain before prayer.
But I built.
One scar at a time,
I stacked mistakes like bricks,
cut my teeth on truth,
and spit out the lies.
Didn’t ask to be saved—
just wanted a shot to stand.
Not clean, not perfect—
just honest.
Now I walk with a limp,
but it’s mine.
I speak with weight,
’cause I carried hell on my back
and still came out
looking like a man.
Categories:
gutters, anger, change, city, dad,
Form: Free verse
icicles on gutters
glisten in light
of early morning
reflections of sun
when sitting alone
my dreams of spring
Categories:
gutters, dream, longing, morning, winter,
Form: Verse
Those roses hungry
for beauty and life live
alone in gutters.
Categories:
gutters, love,
Form: Haiku
The fall to the abyss is incendiary by design,
Burning out and plummeting toward
The bottom of a fjord or the shaft of a mine,
To impale upon a metaphoric sword.
The climbing from the dark is instinctive by default,
Implanted in the root of human soul,
With each progressive step to scrabble from the vault,
Victorious emerging from the hole.
Regeneration spreads it’s slowly beating wings
To raise the heart and mind against the night,
And even in the depths of all the blackest things
Draws us once again into the light.
Just as Oscar Wilde was clearly heard to utter
In defiance of the fates and prison bars,
I may have sometimes lain in a pretty dismal gutter
But my eyes were always fixed upon the stars.
Categories:
gutters, faith, inspirational, life, philosophy,
Form: Verse