Shoestring Poems | Examples

Winkless Crumble

Tight about the past—
transparent glass panes,
stained and cracked
by crooked, wicked lies.

Sacred are these settled energies.
They muddle about,
never lifting their feet.

I mean higher than the next—
higher than anything else.

Tether thyself to greatness.
Witness its greatness,
or keep thinking
in the same tones you speak in.

There is no treatment—
only the fight
against debilitating sickness.

You hold it together
with shoestring,
scotch tape,
and wink-less nights
working alongside the sabbath,
long past first light.

Long double-shift shiftiness
into the only off day.

No longer tis old boulder—
a new obstacle
has been waiting for me.

I urgently need
the percentile damage increase.

If my awakened visions
lie in legitimacy,
or if they’re just
daydreams re-sold—
Sandman’s regift,
passed down,
along beside me,
and made well past due.

What use is standing upon
business if it’s business
encroaching on you?

It’s not impossible—
but the benefit
must be mine
before I just give it to you.

endless amusement

endless amusement
cat chasing same mouse teaser
on shoestring budget




AP: 1st place 2025

Soup Compared to Poetry Soup

Summertime, summertime
And homemade vegetable soup
This is no place for fruity loops
Only foods from the garden that rhyme

Oh! Give us soup in the summertime
One writes tomatoes, another squash
Another corn with peppers by gosh
End with dessert a pie from lime

Summertime, summertime
Oh! Summertime
Shoestring budget on a dime
Carrots, potatoes, butter beans prime

Awesome soups, mighty fine
Cut some okra, dream a dream
Snap a few beans then just steam
Cook some cornbread, make a design

In that soup mixture, have some verse
Maybe a sonnet, where love comes first
A stormy day Haiku, and rain clouds burst
Maybe a clerihew somewhat terse

Maybe precise wording, in every line
Just the right noun, verb, or conjunction
To have it just blend in a junction
On soup write, then forever to it consign

Flying Blind Like the Dodo

on a shoestring diet only going around in circles ~ yo yo 

inside a huge tornado just somewhere over the rainbow ~ toto

happily oblivious on a corkscrew rollercoaster ~ ho ho

somersaulting off the high board heading for a bellyflop ~ no no

paratroopers landing awkwardly behind enemy lines ~ go go

highly intelligent beings orbit the densest planet ~ so so

A STRAND (1063) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand 
02/01/22

Sitting In the Lobby To Read

His moustache was long and black,
silky at the ends, shiny almost,
slick with gel to keep the ends
turned up in a smile, even when
his lips didn't match.  They look
like shoestring ends, she thought,
all perfectly pulled together on
either size of a bulbous nose.
She never asked his name, just
watched as he strode with
purpose through the lobby of the 
hotel she liked to sit in, reading.
His hair was short, salt and
pepper, some would say, but she
didn't use spices, so she wasn't
sure.  Not white like snow, not
black like tar, but in between,
like a new snowfall driven over
by dirty cars.  She stared, just
a little too long and he turned his
head and smiled, wide gappy
yellowing teeth screamed at her
from underneath the black stache.
She turned to her book and read.

The Miracle of Memories

My breath once scattered seeds of dandelions.
I stared in moments lost to grains of sand.
Walked among the nighttime stars in wonder;
Held golden leaves within my youthful hand.
Watched a shoestring dangle through the wide eyes of a kitten. 
So much older then was I, my life unwritten.
I touched an eagles’ feather, wondered why or whether, 
Others felt such wonder in their heart.
Cold handlebars of bikes and dust or rust the likes of which 
Were Layered on much older things than I.
I watched a  paper airplane fly, a barrel burning in the yard,
Ate fruit right off a growing tree, and found it’s not so hard 
To wonder what it means to be. Life is still like that for me,
Filled with mighty miracles I wish each heart could see.

Old Souls

Old souls know about money,
and run from it more than the rest

They’ve witnessed the toll it exacts,
they’ve witnessed the joy it rejects

An old soul lives on a shoestring,
tied to something that money can’t buy

An old soul is not bought so cheaply
—as that new soul that’s never flown high

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

Angels

They find me here, 
a flickering vestige,
under incandescent 
pendulum lighting 
that was not long ago 
strung up and tied 
to the center beam
 
of an old moribund 
shoestring warehouse 
with the guilty look 
of an antiquated aircraft 
hangar

where my voice trails 
off after my duplicate
self-echo
pacing a smallish splatch 
of spotless linoleum 
surrounded like an 
occupied island by grey
waves of desolate flooring,

all out of breath and mired
in my brood, my legs
dangling over an over
-turned aluminum chair,
waiting to board their
intergalactic alien spacecraft.

The Fools Think I'M Overtweeting - In Trump's Own Words

They don’t get it, bunch of fools
Don’t they see how the media drools
Over each and every tweet
Crafted not to be discreet.

Are they blind to my great skill
Of bending media to my will,
Time and again I pull that trick,
And they fall over like a brick.

My strategy’s sublime there’s no denial
Prepped as a lawyer does for trial,
I make a case and sell it strong,
Daring them to call me wrong.

And once they do they’re in my trap
For all their energy I sap,
Each falling over like ten pins
To call out loud my litany of sins.

Oh dear God isn’t that great
How so easily they bait,
Puffed like Adders full of bluster
Regaling me with countless hours of laughter.

But with their faces ever redder
I’m invariably the header,
For my words to sing out loud,
To my all adoring crowd.
 
So on I go merrily tweeting
On a veritable shoestring,
The investment now all theirs
Fully answering my prayers.

Redemption Shoestring

Redemption from self
An invisibility cloak
And sharpened dagger 
No matter the tumultuous weather 
Hail , Thunderous,  Lightning 
Could tame
The pain never stop's 
Even if you stare at the tulips and the corn crops
Because redemption never forgot 
It feeds off the rotten 
Poem's and curses 
No human Doctors nor Nurses
Can say for certain drug's will cure
Whether Pious or Impure 
There is no cure for the Sinner or Flesh 
Only a departure notice 
From this world to the next
Will connect the dot's 
And answer the questions 
We feared to ask
Because if we knew
Everything life put us through 
Was all in vain
What was the point of all the pain
And suffering discussion 
What is right 
And what is wrong 
And why did I forsake 
And mistake 
The gift 
I held without knowing 
Each and every day
Was more precious than the last 
I wish I had never past
I wish I miss 
I was 
For a second 
Remembered

Defending My Virtue

Who knew that I would need
shoestrings to escape rape?
I felt safe on a double date, 
the “safety in numbers” misnomer.

He came on like a ten-armed
octopus with suction cup hands.
The couple in the back seat
were obviously in full accord,
based on sounds my ears
were recording.

Out-manned in size and strength,
I searched for a weapon. 
I found it in the glove box.

A single, unattached shoestring
serves well as a garrote
when applied to the neck
of one whose hands are
occupied elsewhere.

He took me home.

Shoes

Shoes

Support me on heavy sunken soil

Sanctify my journey’s secret solace

Save me from blistered scarred sorrow

Show my give and take in solemn stride

Sound the creaks and creeks of soft sojourn

Stipulate lunar sun-crested salvation on that

Shoestring of love passion sandalwood serenity

24th August 2016

Senryu Rant: Love On a Shoestring

#1
warehouse board and care
elderly housed in neglect -
ass kicking death camps

#2
inner city schools
vertical playing fields free -
only teachers taxed

#3
bigots block poor votes,
“limbo rock” the new dance craze -
politics of war

#4
war on drugs conceit –
prisons new investment frame
streets safe, guards now thugs

#5
justice for the rich -
their waste products trickle down
peons dream of love

#6
kama sutra love
pretzel logic both parties -
vampires don’t reflect

Long Tooth
June 22, 2016

A Special Christmas

A    SPECIAL    CHRISTMAS

Families should be together on Xmas day
Some kids’ folks are wealthy
They work abroad, but they never 
Fail to come at Xmas for a whole week and see the kids
Their house is specially decorated for homecoming
Like a huge icing-covered cake
A professional Santa is hired, (electronic sleighbells,)
To  perform ho-ho-hos and give out toys
At the big party
It is excellent to see.

Some kids’ folks are ordinary
They work in the local steel plant
Their houses have no special icing
To show it’s Xmas, no circus tricks
The  sleighbells  are done by dad 
Amusing the kids, jangling keys on a shoestring
Mum gives her  attention as they sing and play
And joke and do yard-work together every day
Xmas is not special, it is every day for them.

Retro Fair

Buckfast and concrete slabs
Neds and rain and thoughts of dad.
Highflats, pigeons, pavement's hue
Subway makes me think of you.

City City City lights
stream on by
flashin neons reds and yellows,
and the bridge that takes me into town-
full of buses, truks, cars and drunks-
and junkies. 
- hangin on by a shoestring,
eyein up ma bag like it's a new thing,
starin at me like im not really there, 
just another passenger through their smothered glare.
And where it all began and should end I've no idea
It's just another city,
Another Retro Fair.

On show for the world
Seems unreal, but you've heard
The screams of the caged up people,
The People, The People, the people.
They've forgotton to keep their eyes on the prize,
They've forgotton paradise.
Too many high flats and grey hues stealin their eyes,
The people, The people,
The People
Buckfast
Concrete
Rain
Pure lethal.

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