Long Hand me down Poems
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My elementary school was a box full of broken crayons.
You know, the kind that no one likes to use because they fit inside your hands like a hug that lasts three seconds too long.
Me and my classmates wore
hand-me-down smiles.
They were too big for our faces. We figured that eventually we would somehow grow into the sound of our own laughter, put on our happiness like gloves and wear our skin as if our bodies were made by Louie Vuitton, just hoping to be more than tattered pages ripped from the torso of coloring books.
More than the aftermath of two runaway trains headed to the same direction. Our parents drove their affection without insurance, and we are just head on collisions with no coverage. We got shattered windshields for eyes, and tongues made out of safely glass held together by super glue. It’s no wonder we spoke broken English.
With an entire orchestra drowning inside our throats, veins like guitar strings, our voices cracked like the self esteem of single mothers who carried us in their wombs like Molotov cocktails, and prayed that we would somehow find a way to mature into land mines
exploding underneath the feet that have trampled them for too long. These women, they dream in a language only fully understood by the tiles of an abortion clinic on a busy afternoon.
They raised us on top of broken promises made by men with grape jelly in their spines who were too busy jamming to their own
two-cent mix tape that they chose over their priceless women.
We didn’t come with a screwdriver. There is no picture on our box to show you what we should look like when this all is over.
We were just put into this world with a note that read
“Some assembly required.”
We were built inside of a neighborhood that looked as though it was slowly loosing a fist fight to cancer and kemotherapy claimed all of it’s dreams.
You see at a young age I was told that no matter how much furniture you move with a Honda Civic, it’ll never be a pick up truck
but have you ever wanted to be more than what you were made for?
Was there ever moment in your life when all you wanted was to be more than the wounded options that circumstance has nailed to your shoulders?
People question why we even have the audacity to breathe. That’s why when we walk it looks as though we are apologizing for our lungs.
But we ate not sorry for living this loudly.
It’s the only way we know how.
I am Späces
The poet's muse
And I bring something old
And something new
The spirit of the word am I
And I've existed in all places
And all times
Filling the gaps
The empty spaces in between
What we say and mean
Recognize my face?
Familiar, the cast of my eye?
Many faces have I
All spaces to fill
And voices too
The lowest and the high
The light on neck and on my wrist
Like perfume is
Filling up this space
Or maybe a stage light twist
Sweeping these boards
These empty, empty boards
I will more
Filling up this space
All history is a metaphor
Vile word that!
Metaphor
What for?
Yet metaphor it is
An arcing, ranging beam
Upon whose plinth I sit
Poets & priests foretell
The common bond between all things
How the grandest designs are writ
In the meanest things
Patterns repeat, expand, breathe out
Until they are full blown
And then no more
Recede & quite fade into oblivion
Or at least a scale which we note not
And that's my job
The tiniest atom, the galaxy is, if only in model
The same force which makes it and the forest primeval
Makes us too
And therefore is beauty but a reflection of that recognition
A mirror unto ourselves, both fair & fell
Which once was lost
Cities rise and fall, armies amass and disperse
Family fortunes have their uséd patterns too
Each one a metaphor for the other
A children's toy from Russia
Matryosha doll you know so well
Many painted, self-containéd shells
Crack open the large, therein the smaller lies
Same face, same charming peasant red cheeks
And again & again
There is no heart.
The heart is the pattern itself
And thus are we all but shells
Nay, less than shells, for did you know
Seven times each cell's replaced within your life?
That's seven new bodies -- more or less
More in childhood, fewer with time
The brain less so for thence proceeds the pattern
Each cell has a memory of all its former lives
Tending to which, like a magnet, it will return
Our body's but a beggar's coat
A patchwork hand-me-down
Bound by a silvery thread of life
Or a mere funnel for food and water
Food goes in, serves its seven-year sentence
Released from the cell is expelled
You are pinching earth, water, and a plan
Nothing more
(Continued in Part 2)
Herons fragment the mist,
appear and disappear while remaining motionless.
The skiff rocks as a coal barge trundles past.
A dewy sky shivers.
Nowadays he just sits in a boat looking at Ohio.
This morning the sun reached the top of a willow
and got stuck.
He rowed toward the bank thinking to get under the tree,
filled an imaginary pipe full of tangy river smoke,
sucked on the wet air
as he watched the tree struggling with the sun.
For a while it was a tussle, then the willow shook itself
and the sun slipped away like an unmoored ketch.
At first, the sun just hovered like a blanched balloon
then it found a window above the mounded smother
and it rose up like a Choctaw bass
about to mouth a trill of small fry.
He was near to the shore now,
Ohio slanted down to meet him
cattails and reeds scratching the aluminum hull.
A couple of mallards jumped out of nowhere
and flew over his eyes. The clatter of wings
ruffled the chill bank where a dank light had sunk.
His mind followed them for some time
until they settled deep down
amid a wraith-wrapped Kentucky.
A heron slowly rowed the wind
stirring up the vaporous air, Patches of clarity
drifted across sky-high filtering puddles.
Ohio becomes a river town, the huddled houses
have scuttled their roofs upon soggy pathways.
The mossy hulks of an abandoned industry
wallow in a foggy backwash.
Castaway wharfs drip a spatter and smear,
a hand me down script of a yesteryear.
A small blue-collar marina,
beer cans roll on swaying pontoons,
a couple of dry docked rowboats
and canoes.
Truck tires thump harbor chains.
Someone is up early, someone else watches him
gut and clean a large flathead.
On the damp dock cats circle the bones and scales
creep through the miasma
their fur wet and glistening eyes flashing a liquid silver.
The catfish is naked and shorn of the river
a thing to be watched least it return to life
as something beyond the ken of cats and fishermen.
On the ramp he hitches up his straggling life
and drives away from a berth awash
with the haunted cries of Loons and Redtail’s.
Soon he will be back in the patched-up pockets of Ohio
where corn husks snag hoarfrost and rattle
in a fresh rinsing breeze.
In the year, nineteen an’ thirty-nine,
in a small town that seemed not to care,
a little girl tried her very best
to dress well, and groom her dark hair.
She’d fight for her life—whatever it took,
an’ survive her father so cruel,
her heart would stay strong , she’d try hard to belong
in this town, and much harder—in school.
Her mama had passed on to Heaven—
five years since she’d breathed her last breath…
Daddy had tried to hide how he cried,
but then chose to live life in the past.
He drank every day of the week then,
and worked—but seldom, at most.
His life seemed meaningless—useless,
lacking life goals he might boast.
Food was quite scarce in the cupboards,
and her thin arms and legs bore the tale
of bruises and stripes from the whippings
she received every week without fail.
She was only a girl in the fourth grade
but her will and good marks got her thru’—
nobody would come to her rescue,
in those days—t’was the wrong thing to do.
Her dresses were hand-me-down clothing
with ties hanging loose in the back—
bright calico colors were faded
but worn proud no matter their lack.
She tried hard to comb her long tresses
and bathe whenever she could,
but water was heated on a potbellied stove,
and Dad wouldn’t chopped any wood.
The house, feeling cold and so lonely,
was never fresh cleaned as before,
looking neglected and run down—
crooked shutters and broken screen door.
Kids teased her at school on the playground,
and shunned her when seen about town.
Her soul was burdened with sorrow,
and her eyes looked sad-blue tho’ dark brown.
Suspicion and rumors abounded
but folks minded their business back then—
they stayed out of another man’s family
no matter his obvious sin.
She struggled each day in her hard life,
making plans for a future to live
but fate was cruel and decisive—
too soon, she had no more to give…
The town had just turned a blind eye—
neglected to care for this child,
protect the poor girl who lived in their midst,
and was known to be quite meek and mild.
Now, a grave lies stark—unattended,
her birth date and death carved in stone—
murdered by her drunken father,
ignored by a town—left alone.
(dedicated to Donna who survived abuse)
Tamara Hillman
©2007
[Verse 1]
He wore the tie like a hand-me-down,
Swore he'd make it big in some glass-wall town.
But his mind kept drifting to that red clay bend,
Where the river runs slow and the line don’t end.
The lights were bright, but they hurt his eyes,
And no skyline ever beat a Tuscaloosa sky.
He laughed on cue, played the part just fine,
But he missed the quiet and his Granddad’s pine.
[Chorus 1]
Take him back where the stars still shine,
Where the porch swings creak and the air smells pine.
Where the coffee’s thick and the biscuits burn,
And you learn your faith more than you earn.
Just a one-way ride to the place he knows,
Where they say your name at the Texaco.
Let him breathe where the silence feels like home.
[Verse 2]
He carried the weight like a Sunday lie,
Told himself it’s just a phase, it'll pass on by.
But the cracks ran deep through a polished life,
And he never once cried for the things he liked.
He’d pray in traffic, curse at red lights,
Dig for hope in sleepless nights.
Tryin’ to be more than his old man’s name,
But all that tryin’ just fed the flame.
[Chorus 2]
Take him back where the roads don’t care,
Where the cotton fields stretch like a whispered prayer.
Where the work is hard but the pay feels fair,
And God don’t seem so far from there.
Just a one-way ride to a mailbox leanin’,
Where “how ya been?” really means meanin’.
Let him rest where the world don’t chase his name.
[Bridge]
He ain't lost — just run too fast,
Lookin’ for peace in a place that don’t last.
It ain’t on a map and it sure ain’t fame —
It’s in muddy boots and your mama’s name.
[Final Chorus]
Bring him home where the stillness heals,
Where grace feels real and the hurt unpeels.
Where the heart remembers what matters most—
Not the job he left, but the Holy Ghost.
Just a one-way ride to the life he missed,
Where a front porch hymn still brings you bliss.
That’s the freedom he was always running toward.
[Outro]
He didn’t run ‘cause he lost the fight —
He just got tired of sleepin’ through the light.
Paradise ain't paved or paid —
It’s found in surrender, down in Sweet Home clay.
He didn’t run from life or from the pain —
He ran to grace… and walked out changed.
I learned on a relic...quite bent out of shape,
rusty and dented..... and not even quaint!..,
An rattle-trap, hand-me-down, that had seen better days
A ten year old's wishes, had faded away....
But, then on my birthday, as I opened my eyes...
There sat a beauty, my birthday surprise
My very first bike.....shiny and red!!
My dreams had come true.....as I jumped out of bed!!!
I tore off the ribbon, to take a good look
No time now, for breakfast, no time now, to groom
I jumped into my clothes, and then burst from the room
Onto the sidewalk, and into the street
Shouting to everyone.. "Will you come, look at me??!!!"
With legs long and tan, I began peddling fast
The sun hid it's shine, the cold wind was brash
Breeze blew through my hair and into my face
With time on my side, I was winning a race!
We were sailing along, I could hear the wheels spin
Over the hills, where often I'd been!
Clutching the handles, pumping my knees
I flew past the graveyard, as I peddled with ease
Far down the lane that circles the fields
With rows of tall corn stalks, all waiting to yield
Passing the warehouse that sold Daddy's seed
I flew past the postman, and the church near the square!
A turn 'round the corner, the train depot there!
Splashing through puddles along the bumpy old track
My legs kept on peddling......with no looking back!!
Didn't notice the dark clouds or storm in the sky
The air was so sweet as I held my arms high
Was I dreaming? I didn't care...as I glided in time
All the happiness I felt, all the joy of that I ride!
I remember that birthday....that's been hidden inside..
Look at me!! Look at me!! On my red bike, it's me!!
Don't you see??!!! Don't you see!!! ... That young girl was me!!
Like a clock that's unwinding..!! That is me that you see!!
I remember....I remember....How happy and free
As those wheels spin beneath me
Look at me !!!!!!!!! Do you see??
Free as a bird....it is me, it is me!!!
Wheeeeeeeee!!!!
This feeling 'without a footprint' haunted me unknowingly,
it had remained hidden much too long
I was hiding behind a mask,
not able to acknowledge or recognise
the smouldering spark, deep inside,
I was living life
neither dead nor alive.
I felt I did not belong in this world,
I had no right or purpose to be here
I was 15, and had been living rough
for a year and a half.
Mostly I hated myself,
but life, urges me on with my freedom.
I had already taken my first cautious steps
towards an unclear perception of my future,
I just knew that I wanted to live.
this was a year and a half after I was
forced to flee for my life,
I had still not worked-out
why my father wanted me dead.
I was a good kid, honest, did not steal, told the truth
mostly got good marks at school
(discounting the big black and blue ones dad freely gave with his big belt)
fate intervened and I had to survive.so I ran.
I worked farms for food , and hand-me-down clothes
I was a "ghost" till I was 18.
no national insurance number, no healthcare
a foreigner in my own land;
the disconnect was immense.
Over the years I tread with more certainty and passion,
a need to 'find myself'
In November 2014,aged 60 years and three months, that's what I did.
I was ready to explore what I was,
to evolve, into who I was at last,
ready to experience the lightness of being.
The kindness and understanding
of two people I had never met, only "talked to" on the internet,
Sydney, and Shaunda, brought about a breakdown
of my "walls of isolation".
All my senses re-awakened with enthusiasm and curiosity,
a week-end in May 2015 became the week-end,
to break and dissolve my chains
my maiden voyage took a year
before I discovered my sexuality.
something is tickling my creativity
inspiring me to explore beyond boundaries
maybe hormones opened-up new neuronal pathways,
maybe when the walls came down
I was more receptive to me !
denied self for many years
repression lifted
wings spread
drying in the suns rays.
Elizabeth alexander 24/2/2016
inspired by Jim baruffi.
No winter postcards of deep snow and bliss
No winter postcards of mistletoe kiss
Winter was cold, winter was tough
Winter was long and we all had it rough
No Father Christmas, no Saint Nicholas
No bright blue, glass baubles, no presents for us
Fantasy Christmas, fantasy tree
We had to live, through the reality
Dad was long gone, the man did his best
When chronic bronchitis, seeped into his chest
The place where he toiled, was all he had known
But it's dust and it's damp had now left mam alone
What would befall us, what would we be
Who would care for us, if we did not have, she
Mam did her best for her nine hungry brood
But I will never forget, there was so little food
Mam had her pride but the children came top
She burnt all the cupboards to keep the rooms hot
Furniture smashed for the fire was the norm
Furniture burned just to keep the kids warm
The hard times as a child sit deep in my mind
The emotions and memories, I remember, unkind
The hunger, the cold, the panger remain
So little food, again and again
The times were of hardship, poverty, pain
Coats on the bed was the name of the game
No warm fancy blankets in my childhood
Just old duffle coats and we fought for the hood
All of the cooking, from one frying pan
Hunched round a fire, nine kids and their mam
All I remember is fried porridge oats
Dark dankie bedrooms and old duffle coats
Snotty nosed kids crying hungry and cold
What bread there might be would be covered in mould
All of the clothing was hand me down stuff
Nine children to dress, there was never enough
One stocking each and sometimes one shoe
In all of my memory I can't recall two
Now most of the children, have just what they need
Warm clothing and food and laptop PC.s
Ipods and kindles with mince pies for tea
Have they ever heard of the word, poverty
I am not angry, I am not sad
One learns to accept, what one had as a lad
Would you swap that Hulme time, to be young in this day
With modern technology and regular pay
Would you sell your soul to escape poverty
Then sell it elsewhere, your not swapping with me
Humanity is a series of mistakes that have molded society into what it is today. It's important to learn from mistakes—lessons that teach us what not to do. Success is one goal we all have in common; happiness is the ultimate achievement. We strive for perfection, only to fall short and set unrealistic standards for ourselves. Parents guide youth with the tools that they have been gifted—Hand me down apples wind fall from the family tree.
A boat brought a great many across a sea of hope. Hoping for a better life that free will facilitated, melting into a pot of a culture that didn't exist; simply because it hadn't been created yet—blind faith driving the dream—only to be awakened by the existence of real life. Too good to be true was but a distant saying; undoubtedly manifested due to murderous mutiny of hope and solidified within treason. Free willed men killed in its name for a better way of life, only for it to get ripped apart through amendments that dictated through loop holes. Debating words that they themselves do not even understand, all while blowing out the flames of the dreamers' candle.
Left in the dark, men lower themselves in desperation and mistakes teach lessons. The shadows of the past follow us; whispering in our ears—stalking our every move; surrounded in good intentions.
Standing in the way is a judge named, Society. Bright ideas bully beliefs and feed us full of modified foods. Money making morons make believe. Lying and cheating the very fabric of morality—testing integrity and eating the most forbidden of fruits. Mistaken men make choices based on instant gratification; ignoring the whispers in the wind; completely aware—stepping on innocence all the way to the top. Judgmental and critical towards everyone else yet internally evaluating feelings of inadequacy; projecting his personal outlook with deviation—secretly insecure...
Ashamed of himself, he is constantly tormented. Plagued by his inability to shake the tail of The Stalker Named Genius . . .
Written in Feb. 2015
Every so often, my mind wanders back to the summer of my youth, where a specific memory awaits.
Having completed my first year at University, I’ve come home. My younger brother John, fifteen, seems all grown up, so different. He’s gotten taller but it’s more than that.
I'm surprised when he offers me a tour of his new ‘Boyz Only’ clubhouse. I almost wonder if he has missed me while I was away, likely not. The shell of a hand-me-down camper has been converted into a hangout. When I mention that he keeps it surprisingly neat, he snickers and reveals his stash of hidden girlie magazines, safe from the inevitable parental inspection.
I am impressed, and at the same time, I can’t help but feel like I’ve entered a time bubble, a door, a transition. On one hand, it feels surreal; on the other hand, it’s simply an honour to just sit here as a guest.
I talk to John about what it was like to adapt to life in the big city. He talks to me about his recent exploits and his adventures with his friends. It isn’t long before we reminisce about the escapades we shared when we were younger. In our pauses, we’re somehow cognizant that we’re one step closer to adulthood, to what we might call freedom.
In the past year, I haven’t thought much about home and our countryside fields. For me it’s more about what the future has to offer. But on this day, it’s tangible how John and I are setting out on different journeys. He is next in line to fly the coop and I'm sure he realizes it. As we spread our wings, it’s obvious that the gap will only grow.
This precise moment clings golden to me, ever so close to the surface of my heart.
at the forest’s edge
by the old baseball field
youth within reach
AP: 1st place 2024
Submitted on September 1, 2025 for contest 2025 POETRY MARATHON MILE 13 sponsored by MARK TONEY - RANKED 1ST