To the tune of My Favorite Things by Rodgers and Hammerstein...
Pop-ups and wheelies and brodies and skids,
A hand-me-down junker to play with the big kids -
We'd play Red Baron, though I was a tyke -
Now I remember my favorite bikes.
While good transportation, it was, for me,
I wanted a Schwinn Stingray under the tree.
Candy apple-red - what kid wouldn't like!?
Now, I remember my favorite bikes.
Freedom and speed, and the feel of the wind -
My ten-speed became this boy's best friend,
No offense to Jeff, or Alan or Mike -
but I remember my favorite bikes.
When old age brings
Things I dislike
and I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite bikes,
and then I don't feel so bad.
Rust and chrome, a hand-me-down bike,
granddad’s grease still singing in the spokes,
each turn a prayer he hammered back to life~
the bent frame straightened under stubborn love,
the chain baptized in oil and patience.
Ten years old, I straddled time itself:
the saddle, cracked like his laughter,
the pedals, spinning secondhand stars
beneath my untested feet.
He said, Every wobble teaches balance,
and the road rushed up to meet me,
not as a stranger, but as a conspirator~
wind in my face, the world unspooling
behind me like a liberated kite.
Even now, the ghosts of those handlebars
twitch in my palms—how they trembled
before they learned to trust the fall,
before the wheels, like memory,
stopped fighting the curve.
O first flight, O rattling heirloom,
you were never just a bike~
you were my resurrection.
related memoir vignette can be read at
poetrysoup.com/short_stories/a_girl_a_bike_a_librarian_and_a_magical_spell_13645
Please open the door, it’s dark in here. “Go to your room,” the
The command hangs heavily.
Can I come downstairs now? The question met with silence, a
hollow echo.
Hungry, a plea lost in the suffocating air.
Be quiet! A hiss that chills deeper than the winter wind. Be still, a
demand that binds like rusted chains.
Wrapped eyes and hands, a sightless, touchless world. Can’t see,
can’t feel, adrift in a sea of fear.
The peel of a skinny branch, a cruel reminder. It bounces back, a
mockery of the sting it leaves.
Cold baths, the bite of water on chilled skin. Hand-me-down
clothes, a constant reminder of what’s missing.
Winter outside, a mirrored coldness within. The memories are
pushed to the back of the mind, but remains.
The needles from childhood are sharp and ever-present.
The door opens, and a sliver of light pierces the darkness.
But will it be enough to chase away the shadows?
You can look back now
being much older
for they had pulled your number
in the lottery
you had won the grand prize
an all expense paid trip
to neverland
courtesy of Uncle Sam
hand me down helmet on head
slightly used peace in hand
in turn....
you marched
others had before you
falling prey to an unforeseen enemy
some....a surface wound....
the others are all dead
shall we hold a funeral
where no one will come
and everyone will cry ?
some surrendered to hallucinations grasp
pseudo-reality for sanity's sake
the sane could have only dreamed reality
but you had won, you had found the answer
you crossed over....the brook beneath you
babbling under the pretense of happiness
crimson from end to end
to no-end
It took the black magic years
To earn the hand-me-down crown —
A crown admired by eager successors
In this hypocritical town.
It took only a minute,
A second to be specific,
To evacuate the soul from his body,
Leaving his carcass behind, rotting in hell.
the deer died with her eyes open
which means she watched herself
become field
something permeable
I found her on the third day of autumn—
found autumn wearing her decaying hide
like a hand-me-down dress
the flies had already written their poems
in the metaphors of her throat:
small black punctuation, multiplying
I wanted to close her eyes
but my hands passed through
what I once believed was boundary
later the biologist told me
decomposition is just the body
finally telling the truth
about how many selves were always
inside you waiting to be released—
even the child who never grew old enough
to be revision
now when I say I, I mean the forty trillion
bacteria who call this dirt-body home
I mean the deer
the flies
I mean the light
that passed through her
and landed here
in this poem
which is just another way of being eaten
which is just another word for love
by the porous self
how many years I lived
without knowing the decision space in front of me
didn’t depend on the stingy calculus
of a lover’s whimsy.
I can’t believe—
how many times I mistook silence
for verdict, god’s understudy,
how many times I called a locked door just,
as if my wanting were felony,
my body a crime scene.
I called it love—
letting all other appetites eat first.
I called it love—
when I folded my desire, my voice
into a paper crane,
set it alight,
then apologized
for the smoke.
But freedom—
freedom isn’t a hand-me-down.
It cannot be conferred, is not a ribbon tied
to someone else’s mercy.
It’s my pulse still thrumming,
a window they swore was nailed shut
splintering, opening, opening.
Freedom is sky without edges,
my mind a kite unwound from every fist,
kissing my own lips,
striking my name like the last match on earth,
calling it holy—
to breathe without permission.
my mommys love was a loves room I knocked until my Knuckles bruised.
she taught me Silence like a bed time song, and bitterness in breakfast.
Her hugs were shark -skin
smooth if you dont move
but alisia moved
alisia always moved
She gave me her tired
like a hand-me down sweater
too tight in the chest
loose in the soul.
I learned to fold myself
like laundry she forgot in the
washer.
I wanted her wanting
but sne wanted drugs.
I wasent the drugs was
he child and i needed
her but
She needed them.
Now I carry mommy
In my Jaw in
in dreams
In the way I panic in someone
Says "mommy”
by alisia bentley
Without food
Means to change station
As go the dying poor in document
So must I
The forager
Origin of contempt
Translation of bureaucrat
My headaches not for information
This and this alone
Finds the civilized item
Creating civilizations
Spaceman
Sour Apple Ice
A hand me down
From a news friend
On our street
Whom possessed the capacity
Of a bad gateway?
A spacemare lands her bright
Simplicity and amaze
Without charge
Her lounge and a courtships ending
Where and how does a man resemble
His fortune after beings are conquered?
The post of California
In lost postage
Where has liberty wronged?
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Hello Poetry
LRH11ZY1
I recently received a cookbook
that was given to my older brother
A hand-me-down from my dad
that was passed down from his mother
After I use my cookbook, and before my time is done
I'll keep my family's tradition going, and I'll give it to my son
Black top was miles and miles away
Dirt road as far as you could see
The future just a minute away
Was everything you wanted it to be
Taking our time but not slowing down
Heads in the clouds, bare feet on the ground
Up with the sun, chasing the moon around
Dirt road living with a real country sound
The black top was miles away
The dirt road was here to stay
Or so we thought
In younger days
Hand me down clothes and used cars
Knowing right from wrong wasn’t so hard
Sunday School and parties at the lake
Life like this is too damn real to fake
We were young on that old dirt road
Didn’t listen to half the things we were told
Fishing poles and twenty-twos
Cowboy boots and tennis shoes
The black top was miles away
The dirt road was here to stay
Or so we thought
In younger days
On a dirt road we were living wild
Free and being nature’s child
Free and living nature wild
Black top was miles away
Thought that life would stay
But the dirt road has gone away
And though the black top’s here today
My heart still runs that dirt road way
The black top was miles away
So very very far away…and the dirt road…
Goes on forever
In my heart
A covert narcissist dressed in a hand-me-down victim cloak,
Master of the tear-tantrum tactic —
He sniffles, sobs, and simpers until your defenses drop,
Then slides a betrayal in your back so smooth you almost thank him.
A codependent parasite latched to his mother’s emotional tit like a tick,
Bound by an enmeshed dynamic so tight you'd think she birthed him twice.
He’s 40 going on 14,
Displaying classic symptoms of Peter Pan Syndrome with a sprinkle of Oppositional Defiance Disorder every time life whispers “grow up.”
Zero employment history,
But extensive experience in triangulation, gaslighting, and learned helplessness.
He’s the CEO of deflection, a PhD in projection,
Weaponizing guilt like a toddler with a grenade.
He calls you "too emotional,"
Right after he weeps his way out of another confrontation
Like a soggy Machiavelli.
He’s not just a mama’s boy.
He’s her emotional husband,
Their emotional incest dressed up as devotion,
While he lets her make every decision
Between his gaming sessions and tantrums.
He’s the kind of man who, if given a mirror,
Would still find a way to blame the reflection for his failures.
Seagulls and Saints of Emmaus
David J Walker
I see Seagulls and Saints
And icy sills of Window’s
Restraints of blurred realities
And unaccompanied Complaints
But clearly every pray ends
In amends and Amens
And incitant constraints
I see syllables in Sawgrass
A syllabus of things passed
Down in hands of hand me down
Phases and phrases
Of false praise promises of
Devine Salutations extended to
The someone just behind me
I see sunsets and bad bets
In this and that complications of
Unfinished pages of equivocations
On the road to Emmaus,
(about seven miles from Jerusalem)
“Stay with us” we plead
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost done.”
So he went and broke bread
And then fled as their eyes opened.
And That’s when I saw
Seagulls and Saints
Dining in fields
of locust and wild honey
Walking down the old country road,
Hand me down clothes in the bag.
Clothes with holes, and tattered robes,
There’s no worries in getting dirty
We’ll wash away the dirt in the stream,
Whilst you stand there, smiling at me.
Sing the songs that nobody’s heard
As we look above, at singing birds.
We’ll sit in meadows, of golden bed,
As we dance without shoes, into scarlet nights.
I’ll hold your hand, as I hold your heart,
I’ll make you happy, you’ll see.
I’ll publish my words, and sing my songs,
For other people to hear,
Of the days we went on the country road,
And by my side you’ll be near.
But for now I’ll wait, by the tree we met,
And I’ll wait there for your presence,
I’ll write my words, on paper with pen,
And forever I will wait, my dear.
Two skinny legs dangle from hand-me-down frocks.
Elastic bands holding up her socks.
Scuffed shoes on her feet so small they barley fit.
Water leaks through the crack where the sole had split.
Wheat coloured hair pulled away from her face.
Tied back in a pony tail with a crimson lace.
Blush Full lips hide a row of crooked teeth.
Always on show when she opens her mouth to speak.
Deep blue eyes and pale white skin.
Her frame is petite and she is painfully thin.
Her existence is humble but she is rich beyond compare.
For she lives in a home with love in it, a bond that they all share.
Many years have passed, a woman is she, respectful, beautiful and kind.
Now re living fond memories of the happy child hood she left behind.
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