Shabbily Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

Premium Member Carpe Diem

You will see me alone, dining.
Always near a window
Watching people hurrying outside,
Or well-dressed patrons
Frequenting the five-star diner,
My favourite eating place.
Alas always alone.

Still one lady, impeccably dressed
Always visited the place every Saturday.
And always with a different escort.
I wondered who she was,
But I could hardly ask her, could I?

Her escorts seemed rich and elegant.
Not that I was shabbily dressed.
But I was not the handsome type.

Then one day she came in alone.
She had no escort as she ordered her food.
What could I do?  I approached her meekly
And asked for her company.
"Finally, you came," she smiled.
We never dined alone from then on.

FICTION

Money Is Loved By Many

I am surely not after money
Like a bee after sweet honey
This World is to me funny
Here riches make life sunny

For money all are deeply craving
And so are very crookedly behaving
For ten generations are just saving
Poor man's chances, they are shaving

They spend money like a lunatic
And are thinking like an eccentric
Currency notes make them ecstatic
They appear to me damn pathetic

They squander money on luxury
Care not for those in penury
They are always in a hurry
For them I feel greatly sorry

Father and mother will be hungry
Toward them, they will be angry
To feed parents, they won't agree
Their hearts are shabbily ugly

They will lead a lavish life-style
To none, kind words, they will mail
To show generosity, they will fail
From devil greed, they will ail.

Drums and Crowd

It's as Early as the first drop of a water
Water from no ocean, just purification and sweat 
All are illusion. 
In a square garden full of grown habitant full of beard, squirk face,beautifying set of rags and a weakling nature of ideology 
Stretching and footing like a king in a Palace, living luxury in the sphere of dirt, fears and tears 

Comes a sound and word like a blowing breeze of Eden 
Shaking the ears with tunes of rhythm 
Dancing, moving,, laughing in an happy tree manners 
A sound move intrigue of Bullets, Aggression and Oppression 
Thereafter, a shining chariot with flames of fire and lightening shows a fang of and smile throwing stones with a whip leather asking 

"Lord'd we start the Dance? 
Lord'd we start the merry?" 

Shabbily! Shabbily!! Shabbily!!! 
We sing the joyous of our heart into iniquities 
We Dance our moves into shell. 
The Gathering went off and woefully.


Premium Member Three Cents Shy

She stood in line holding a loaf of bread,
so I motion for her to go ahead.
Thanking me, she started counting her change
and I must admit she looked somewhat strange.

She had a hand full of pennies she'd found
outside, where I had thrown them on the ground.
She looked hungry and was shabbily dressed,
but the busy cashier was unimpressed.

They didn't add up; she was three cents shy,
it broke my heart when she started to cry. 
While I was throwing my pennies away,
this poor girl didn't have enough to pay.

I offered her a hundred-dollar bill
and told her to keep the change from the till.
And I thanked her for opening my eyes,
leaving her shocked, with a look of surprise.

I questioned my hypocrisy that day
nonchalantly throwing money away.
For I found out that even a penny,
is a treasure when you don't have any.


(Rhyme)


7/17/2021


Touch My Heart Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Regina McIntosh

Premium Member What Could Be More Important Than Appearance

We are all the same they brag
So we can be friends
I look at them
One old one young
One toothless, one with pretty straight white teeth
One dressed shabbily, the other one a band box of beauty
I know I am missing something.
I am thirteen.
I should be able to figure this out
Surely nothing is more important than appearance

Elizabeth Slumbers

Jazz piano scale skip quick notes implore me
Siphon symphony verve blurred by saxophone sass
Floated lilly pad leap frog spring legged surety
Splats on brass buttoned soldiers dedicated amass


Bulbous glass swirl burgundy grape stem bitter 
Absorbs oak barrel sentiment, forested persuasion 
Ace praise expires, a swiftly swallowed splinter
Comical dive antics of cork fragmenting abrasion


Dissolving Elizabeth, shabbily written character
Simmered limply submissive, a nouveau improvisation
Vat of pursuit poured by Stu picks a passenger
Chords hover mahogany piano cascade syncopation 


Composition three minute summit misconstrue
Violins textured crescendo vibrates bow tight strings
Apron strewn, Libby leaves her rolling pin askew
Butter heart hails harmony a true companion brings





           22nd January 
     Stu calls me Jasmine


Premium Member Child Knew Him Instantly

They flocked to church and sang the Christmas carols.
Loudly and proudly, flaunting their Jesus pins, and their pretty children.
Many were annoyed with the shabbily dressed beggar who asked for spare change
As they walked up the hill to their star white church.
Some spoke of him in whispers and laughed in the vestibule.
No one invited him to join them. He was not familiar to them.
The new Samaritan gave him ten dollars for a cup of coffee and a hot meal.
Gladys Know-Everything saw this and reported it to her women. They cackled about it.
Samaritans must be naïve. 
Too bad, they thought, thinking this weird man had been taken advantage of.
Jesus saw all of this and more.
He shook his head sadly.
Dropped the ten spot into the hands of a child 
Who was walking up with her mother. 
She squeezed his hand and smiled,
knowing Him instantly.

Blues Cafe On Main

blues café on main

they sat looking down at their plates
contemplating long and lonely fates,
    
      “I miss mine, bet you miss yorn.”

two old men
shabbily shorn
smelling of age and neglect
torn
between crumbs of toast and bits of bacon.
old hearts aching from missing loves
and saddened by their lives
still mourning the long ago passing of 
of old friends and wives.
     
     “mornings are the worst, I guess I just miss her face.”

the same seat each morning at a quickly slowing pace,
they come from old dark unkempt homes.
    
      “not so awful cold out today.”
     “cause the winds laid down some.”
     “a little more coffee please and I’ll be on my way.”
     “some say it might snow.”
     “yeah, we could be in for a blow.”
     “I still have her clothes and shoes.”
     “yeah, me too.  don’t know what I’m gonna
      do with her stuff.”
     “man, it’s rough…it’s just too damned rough.”

Acceptance


You were always a step ahead
of the backbiters
Thoroughly progressive in your thinking
A woman of intellectual substance will always
be treated with some male hostility
But for other women to despise your gift of wit,
and treat you shabbily because of it,
is a gender obscenity
Yet your acceptance of other’s intolerance
makes you stand even taller still
A giant among Lilliputian pettiness
keeps you moving further ahead,
striving instead to be better than your tormentors
Though morally superior, you chose to take the high road
Others who are low brow inferior,
look so tarnished in the presence of prodigal gold
Entering the realm of advanced intellect,
you accept the fact that you have so much to learn,
and just how little you know
No guile keeps you grounded,
staying ever so humble
Acceptance by peers who respect you,
allows you to have the freedom to pursue
your dream of letting ego go
And observe with clinical curiosity,
your intellect quantum leap exponentially grow

My Train

People that stare, people that glare and people that simply don't care,
Hot people, tense people and people who's life isn't fair,
People who don't want to talk, poor people and people who are lonely & sad,
Shabbily dressed, barely washed, ill mannered and some who are plainly bad,
Good people, sometimes, polite people, rarely and people in some way are glad.

Enlightenment

Loose leaves rustle. 
The gray light of evening dips and sways 
and night closes in. 
Gone are the jays and the wagtails, 
the harbingers of better days. 

No fancy gadgets, 
just a jar of pencils newly sharpened. 
The clatter of a typewriter 
haunts the silence, like a woodpecker 
probing for nutrition, finding little. 

Curtains flutter. 
She's shabbily dressed and thin. 
A lonely candle sputters as she struggles. 
Notes and erasers jostle for position, 
still no inspiration to brighten her face. 

Coffee and cigarettes, 
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears 
of ever grasping white from black, 
light from limbo, the curse of the damned, 
the never land that has her jammed. 

One word, one spark 
of enlightenment nudges her back. 
Excitement whacks her like a sharp evening breeze, 
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys.

Le Mot Juste

Loose leaves rustle. 
The gray light of evening dips and sways 
and night closes in. 
Gone are the jays and the wagtails, 
the harbingers of better days. 

No fancy gadgets, 
just a jar of pencils newly sharpened. 
The clatter of a typewriter 
haunts the silence, like a woodpecker 
probing for nutrition, finding little. 

Curtains flutter. 
She's shabbily dressed and thin. 
A lonely candle sputters as she struggles. 
Notes and erasers jostle for position, 
still no inspiration to brighten her face. 

Coffee and cigarettes, 
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears 
of ever grasping white from black, 
light from limbo, the curse of the damned, 
the never land that has her jammed. 

One word, one spark 
of enlightenment nudges her back. 
Excitement whacks her like a sharp evening breeze, 
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys.

Le Mot Juste

...inspiration from 'Preludes' by T.S. Eliot


Loose leaves rustle. 
The grey light of evening dips and sways. 
Evening birds bleat their lonely tattoo. 
Gone are the jays and the wagtails, 
the burnt-out end of smoky days.

No fancy gadgets,
just a jar of pencils newly cut.
The clatter of a typewriter
haunts the silence, like a woodpecker
seeking nutrition, finding none.

Curtains flutter.
She's shabbily dressed and thin. 
A lonely candle sputters and she struggles.
Notes and erasers jostle for space,
still no inspiration will brighten her face.

Coffee and cigarettes,
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears
of ever grasping white from black,
light from limbo, the curse of the damned,
the never land that has her clammed.

One word, one spark
of enlightenment nudges her back.
Exhilaration wracks her, inspiration smacks her
like a sharp evening breeze,
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys!

Le Mot Juste

Loose leaves rustle. 
The gray light of evening dips and sways 
and night closes in. 
Gone are the jays and the wagtails, 
the harbingers of better days. 

No fancy gadgets, 
just a jar of pencils newly sharpened. 
The clatter of a typewriter 
haunts the silence, like a woodpecker 
probing for nutrition, finding little. 

Curtains flutter. 
She's shabbily dressed and thin. 
A lonely candle sputters as she struggles. 
Notes and erasers jostle for position, 
still no inspiration to brighten her face. 

Coffee and cigarettes, 
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears 
of ever grasping white from black, 
light from limbo, the curse of the damned, 
the never land that has her jammed. 

One word, one spark 
of enlightenment nudges her back. 
Excitement whacks her like a sharp evening breeze, 
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys.

Premium Member In Love With Pirates

In love with Pirates





When titanic sank, 
we were on the deck,
The boat did rescue us afar, 
destiny had in store a new avatar,

The ship we asked help for,
lately been captured over,
Pirates killed kids and men,
sparing only few women,

Ugly faces, red eyes and  shabbily dressed,
killer instincts, hatred be guessed,
Tears down the cheeks, my heart bled,
Days in captivation, breathing half fed,

Agony put to end with new pirate friend,
all different stories I could comprehend,
The day captain said his sad tale,
Catching up, I was no more frail,

Months passed as I lost my cool, 
Tough ordeal, life dwindled in blood pool,
Countless shots even with my gun,
Pirate captain now is my only son !





Written Sept 17th, 2015
For contest "A pirate's life for me" by Kelly Deschler

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