Long Tinny Poems
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The old upright piano sits flush against the wall,
has been hushed into silence, out on the sun porch
Ignored, neglected, but standing erect
I can imagine it was treasured in its prime,..polished, stylish, and new
But age has turned the varnish yellow
The veneer a bit buckled, the bench has been repaired
with clamps, screws, and Elmer’s wood glue
A relic from another time.
Songbooks are still cradled, but pedals are disabled.
We can almost hear its breath exhale, with tinny-rhythmic sighs
Two white keys might stick,...and three or four are chipped...
And tears, chopsticks, hearts and souls were spilled on ivory seas
If only clocks could turn back time
Mother sitting next to me, side by side, ... our worlds aligned
Keeping the rhythm, over and over, measure by measure,
... playing together the “The Blue Danube”.
___
With her hands over mine, pointing out the key of C
And what I can still see,...so clear in my mind..,
are the blue veins of her hands enveloping mine,
leaning into the waltz, a bit off key
(It needed tuning…It always did. Never mattered. Never will)
I was small. My fingers couldn’t reach them all,
those pock-marked, scarred, and magic keys
But the measure of Johann Strauss would bounce off the walls…
She would hum into my ear…
Her soft brown hair would mix with mine
I could smell Breck shampoo, and feel her breath upon my cheek
And feel the music, soft and sweet, classic light…from that old Upright...
A simple tune…the waltz of time
that has played on and on... long beyond her life
and will play on long beyond my own
__________________________________________________________
Dog Tags
By David J Walker
My Dog-tags remain
chained
Still hanging
On a hook inside my
Closet door
For years now
The same
Except for the occasions that
Remind me of why I
Wore them
And
Why I still keep them
With my
Last name first
First name last
Middle initial
Service number
Blood type
And religion
Everything one needs to
Know
To get me back home
The tinny tinkling
Sound
Of them around my
Neck
As I walk
The P-38 C-Rations
Can opener that every
Experienced soldier regarded as
Essential
Well
My Dog-tags were
Essential
For three years
And thereafter only on
Special occasions that I needed to
Feel them clanking between my
Shirt and skin
Before then
From my middle years
I could only
remember
And remember
And remember
For so many years
The memories
Would not stop
Would not fade
Would not go away
As each would invade
My every day
Every day
Every day
But the
Abacus
Keeps count
as the days turn into
Years
And
A metamorphosis occurs
Perspective
Has not made me necessarily
wise
Though perhaps
Gracious and
thoughtful
when I finally realize
the enemy wore
dog tags too
And now
As I am old
I can hold them
we can be friends
the kind that
after many years
finds reasons to
laugh again
so
It’s ok with me
If my Dog-tags rest
Upon my chest
and
They may be helpful to
Explain
Who I was
As I’m taken back home
Again
The bucket sits idle
catching the dripping of dreams
discoloring as they evaporate.
Their tenuous connection to time
now but an echo in the bucket.
The bucket has never held
any maudlin mystery
as age has just ticked me off.
I still use it to carry minnows
to the kayak and go fishing,
it also come in handy
when tossing rock salt
on an iced over driveway.
I sometimes sit - reminiscing
perusing the contents of my buckets
successes, failures, wins, losSes.
I dance with the memories
of my children's childhoods
lessons learned and now
visited on my grandchildren.
Lately, the bucket echoes
a tinny emptiness
as dreams succumb
to the sad reality
of unfulfilled buckets.
11/23/2020
What Have You Kicked Off Your Bucket List - Poetry Contest
Chantelle Anne Cooke - sponsor
The cobalt mind of ancient mariner of the seven seas,
the surfing sailor tosses on the waves of youthful life,
rolls on the curled crests with the splintered moon,
drawn into dark agony troughs of the drowned stars,
spread pearls of joy on shore embroidering exuberance.
Crushed sands sculpt the trail of the seaward footprints,
designed by the crumbled contours of transient decay.
Time arrow points to the turquoise terrain ethereal,
away from the wistful wilderness abandoned,
where the chasm stratifies the collapsed hopes undying.
The weed-webbed wasteland defined deep within,
piles up the shipwrecked splinters of life unlived.
Withering garden garners tinny bleakness, yet shining,
as the path paved outside the obscure familiarity fence
waits to be walked by the mesmerized wanderer
to the marvelous meadow of tantalizing tomorrow.
The invented alchemic aptitude of the mystic memory
makes glittering gold on the rusted crust of the ruins.
Marigold blooms on scrap heap with steadfast sanguinity
in Midas touched shipwreck junkyard of the metallic mind.
(not that ye wondered,
but simply tubby like totally tubularly clear
The Epic of Gilgamesh will not be extolled here).
Though thoroughly well mapped, parsed,
scrutinized vibrant wonders zoom
plethora, sans newly discovered life forms
cradled with fecund Gaia's womb
abound within unlikely places
such as mossy bearded faces
nestling, pronouncing,
and regaling pharaohs sarcophagus tomb
oceanographers also find organic entities
adorning, kickstarting,
and thriving within extremely
remote temperature zones,
where just enough telly tubby wiggle room
prevails for microscopic
Verizon patronizing Grand Poobah
barking orders unicellular viziers heed,
while latter bedecked
with itty bitty plume
invisible to the naked eye, yet within
subatomic world wide web
bit players air heir loom
appearing larger
then cereal grain re: life,
an arrogant, bumptious, and conceited Don
doth trump his young
unbridled, reprobate, and ornery baron as groom
material to check mate
distracted checkered populace,
where raucous, rebellious, riotous
majority lumpenproletariat fuss and fume
cuz gaudy Mar-a-Lago hiss poe tate
tow headed (faux towering
Taj Mahal doppelganger),
via slow vac didst suck socialist rowdy
bot tinny Rajah,
whose apprenticeship to exhume
(pro bone know) spy bots
miserably condemned from the get go
as president erupted rabidly trying to doom
rousing, scenting, and trawling
non-convincing "witch hunt,"
yet incontrovertible evidence carelessly
swept hurriedly under the rug
(by Russ Shins) via broom,
thus a sudden spike
visa vis master card er...
comeuppance will bring ringleader down
with strep away poison
nano trumps all abloom.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now in summer re:
this Dom minion doth attest
intention to write
a boot equinox got out best
head, although pleasurable
to loose imagination off chest
so thank you for
letting me be a cerebral guest
and now...no dilly dallying,
cuz another writing assign
requires responding
to Matthew Scott Harris's behest!
The only problem I find with you
as other people apart from not only
just me
Which has been brought up and mentioned
once or twice before
Is that you seldom seem to able to know
where to draw the line
Because you seem to do it for kick's and
revel in the thrill of it
And when you sense the taste of blood
You go in for the kill and tear your
prey apart into tinny fragment pieces
And it always culminates when you are done
with you licking your lips for fun and
garnering as much pleasure from the
final outcome as you can get
And you never seem to regret or wish to seek
forgiveness for however much harm or
damage you cause
And It simply doesn't bother you in the slightest
the fact that all they did was get in your
way or firing line when you were having a bad
or off days
And asking you stop take into account
or consider other people's feelings
Would be just like waving a red cloth in
front of a bill and not expecting subsequent
wrath to follow
I was four when I partied like it was 1999.
Didn’t know what Y2K meant—
thought it was a new kind of Ribena.
Mom said the world might end,
so we had fish fingers and Angel Delight
like it was our last supper.
She danced in the kitchen—
hip in one hand, remote in the other—
Prince on the telly,
sky outside grey as school uniform.
She said,
“If the world’s going to blow, we might as well boogie.”
So I did—
in jelly sandals,
on sticky lino,
thinking bombs were just what happened in cartoons.
The grown-ups were worried about computers—
I was worried about monsters under the bed.
Same thing, really.
I built bunkers from sofa cushions.
Told my teddies we’d be safe.
Asked Mom if I could stay up ‘til midnight
to see the sky explode.
She let me—
even though it didn’t.
Instead, we counted down
with paper hats, party poppers,
and a bowl of Wotsits big enough
to survive the apocalypse.
Prince said life was a party.
Mom made it gospel—
taught me the sacredness of silliness.
She sang with her eyes closed,
as if she could out-sing war.
As if dancing could un-plug the world’s doom switch.
And maybe it could.
There was a lion in her pocket too—
fierce in her softness,
roaring through a tinny tape deck.
She had a knowing in her sway,
like she understood what purple skies meant
long before I did.
Now I’m older,
and every headline feels like a countdown.
Still, I keep Ribena in the fridge
for emergencies.
Still, I dance—
barefoot on carpet,
arms full of invisible glitter,
like I’m four again
and nothing bad can touch me
while the music plays.
If the world ends again,
I’ll dance.
I’ll think of Mom.
I’ll play that song—
loud enough to shake the windows
and remind the sky
that we were here,
dancing,
as if forever still mattered.
Written: June 18, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Robert James Liguori
*****************
In glowing slime, Zoltar coins click and pile,
A silver box for green bills makes him smile.
Its glassy shell goes ticking a tinny refrain—
A zinc gear strikes a copper vein.
The soiled, smeared glass catches my sheen,
A ghost-volt amid grime fuels my adrenaline.
Two unblinking bulbs, too cold and bright,
As I put my money in his slot, it ignited—
Not breathing, not dead—stuck in sterile zones,
A painted mannequin on camphor thrones.
He lifts a hand of yellowed, brittle wax—
His features locked against a smirk’s cracks.
“Press close,” the speaker rasps in rusted mesh,
A synthetic tongue that mimics human flesh.
Static unfurls, within decades of dust—
A fake artifact that begs for your trust.
No prophet stirs inside this iron cage,
No cure to soothe a modern mortal’s rage.
The cipher fails to heal, or serve to cope—
It’s just a camshaft cranking out false hope.
He slams a plastic fortune through the slit,
a card saying I will reap fortune with lousy wit.
I read the inked spectrum of false desire—
While bulbs merge in bright phosphor fire.
I turn away and leave the box behind,
A trap of gears designed to catch the blind.
It whispers riddles to the empty floor—
A Zoltar speaking, stilled, forevermore.
ordinary average witch spells usually backfired on Winny Woo
She loaded her cauldron like other witches always do
But if anything can go wrong, it does for poor Winny
Then she’s out of ingredients, said her cousin Tinny
Tinny delights in Winny’s sorry escapades and mishaps
She is not a great relative, these mistakes she even graphs
The rest of the relatives love it when Winny messes up
gives them fodder to laugh about when they get together to sup
today Winny was trying to get a ghoul to come forth from her pot
Tinny will soon be delighted to tell us that a highland bull is what she got
Winny’s frustrations delight her mean cousin, Tinny, who is not so nice.
It gets better said Tinny; Winny got a highland bull twice!
A Violent Storm
It starts with dying leaves that litter lawns
All tumbled over in remorseless wind
Until at last, defeated, they collect
Behind the garden wall in tattered piles,
Discarded on a bleak deserted street
An empty cola can goes rattling past
Entrapped and powerless it bowls along
Its tinny clatter masked by mounting gale.
The clouds, as dark and grey as battleships
Amassed in fury, scud across the sky
Unleashing hail like bullets pounding earth
As scornful weather reaches boiling point
And branches, ripped asunder, turn and toss
Upon the lake that churns and boils with wrath
The hardy waterbirds, they hide in reeds
But where will tiny humming birds be safe?
As nature, wields her power, strength and might.
The storm, a deluge o’er the land has spread
To soak the fields so long deprived of rain
Endowing thirsty soil with healing wealth
Iambic pentameter