I’ve known the streets: Places where the night lingers and the echoes of passing cars feel distant.
My feet have grown accustomed to the dim-lit alleys.
I walked past shuttered windows when the city slept, listening for the familiar footsteps that come and go.
I leaned against the brick walls, my breath clouding in the cold air, and
I whispered in low tones, watching headlights sweep across the pavement, and
I felt the city thrum with unseen stories.
I’ve known the streets: Quiet, restless streets.
My feet have grown accustomed to the dim-lit alleys.
I’ve lain stretched out, my body bare to the night, where beauty and sorrow mingled in my broken bones.
I’ve forsaken my soul for a walking dead man’s pleasure, trading dignity for a moment’s release.
I wanted to retire, live on the beach in Miami, listen to the waves crash on the shore.
But another car has stopped at the curb, and I must wear that smile that pulls at a lonely man’s groin.
I had a rival whose name was 'Susie'
The streetwalker I'd nicknamed 'the floozie'
Through the night she would strut
Wiggling her pudgy butt
If only I'd been holding an Uzi!
One night Susie and I had quite a spat
She called me a brat. I chided, "You're fat!"
But when she pulled my hair
I felt my temper flare
Bellowed at her, "Susie, you're not all that!"'
She said I was such an annoying prig
I tore off her cheesy Barbie Doll wig
Her horse teeth were gnashing
as she lay there, thrashing
Squealing much louder than a suckling pig.
Told her I knew her buxom boobs were fake
She shrieked like a witch, burning at the stake
I turned to walk away
That's when I heard her say
"You'd better be afraid of me, Cupcake!"
I stopped and glared into her startled face
Susie cringed as I stepped into her space
I smiled with hands on hips
Laughed at her trembling lips
Then calmly whispered, "Name the time and place."
March 6, 2022
Tall Tales 1 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Jeff Kyser
A streetwalker just grabbed my hand
And rubbed it against her damp gland
What could I do
But say, "P U!
Your fish must have died on the sand!"
An aging streetwalker, she
A hell-and-damnation preacher, he
Met at death's door, unexpectedly
His life she saved, as hers expired
Ministerial brimstone melted
~ by a harlot's fire
Celia Ann Blaylock, one of Alice’s doves
Plied her talents when the Wild West was
A Hooker, a hussy, streetwalker, floozy
a strumpet. Loose woman, whatever, a doozy
and then she met Wyatt, a man with a star
while working in Tombstone at Alice’s bar
she called him her husband, he called her his wife
she thought she had made for herself a new life
but after the gunfight and his brother was dead
old Wyatt took off for the Southwest instead
and Celia Ann Blaylock was left on her own
and back to the life she had previously known
Addicted to laudanum for the pain in her head
Celia Ann Blaylock then ended up dead
having morals
streetwalker
shares corner
Defenceless am I
In a world without pity
Parading my shame
As I walk through the city.
An outcast am I
In my chosen life
So different from those
Who are taken to wife.
Too late to repent
I must act out the play,
Descend one step lower
With each passing day.
The stamp of my calling
Cannot be denied
Forever I’m doomed
To the trade I have plied,
And yet do I sigh
For what might have been
Had the follies of youth
Not ended the dream.
HOOKER
floozy streetwalker
‘kerchief drops lake eyes open
so deep a mother
'Pinup Girls'
A pinup girl is a kind of cartoon character
With a disproportionate mind and figure.
She has this facial expression, the same one constantly,
As if to say wow, a birthday cake, just for me?
She lives in a fantasy world
In which everyone's soul has been sold
Living lives of raucous absurdity
Macho men ogle at the pinup girls in the city.
A pinup girl, upon noticing she's being noticed,
Will keep on walking but will look back with mock embarrassment.
If she carries one, she'll twirl her umbrella
Blinking long black lashes till someone shouts hey, ragazza bella!
Her walk is a sight to behold, a sight quite comic at least,
Waddling, high heeled, well tapered legs clumsily a-jut from a wasp thin waist.
A streetwalker, but not a whore, as innocent as a virgin but not an angel,
She's a pinup girl.
The careless, chuckling cheetah
With spittle on its mouth.
The skinny faced cheetah,
Emotionally frail,
Dreadfully trained.
The infant-minded cheetah
Sprinting into the black lake’s tears
For the skeleton of a vagrant.
Ball and chain,
elation, nature, elation,
The boys, the girls, the stars
The cigarette-scented cheetah.
Foxy, like a woman,
Alluring as a bronze skinned streetwalker,
Sexy, wicked
Cinnamon-lipped, noxious---
That is the cheetah.
And I, who am human, would love her
But she claws my face
And I, who am human,
Would lavish her with rarities
Yet she forsakes me.
So now I seek the husky---
The cold-faced husky,
For she, they say,
Is a politer courtesan,
And in her house my troubles
May escape the hex of the cheetah.
She’d recite the fairest refrains
As upon marble texture I languish
Moxie was her focus to sway me
I, never once yearning to retreat,
Became enveloped by an aura of passion
Spry was the breeze that descended
From the design ‘twas her lovely palms
Flowing out
breath be rushed
floated lungs,
unmasked and feted
break and shaking
these last nows,
future endeavored
crawls crevices,
like a streetwalker
flaunts
Tempted dreams of
cannot sees,
rainbows in the wind
they beckon soulful,
but,
hungry for life
in this ravenous
knowing,
someday will end,
a madness of dreams,
haunts of
white Lilllie’s and roses,
trees will sway
tempo to winds journey,
nights
forever evolving,
bewitched magic for poets,
trains travel
nights midnight express,
dancing couples
will falling love
swirl to life,
children forever
ever loved,
but spirit
soars
with ever-after
seared eternity
Future forward
time heeded,
wrung lifeblood
to drop
till ,
graced in peace
departed
and greeting destiny,
whatever may
begin or begone,
mystery is awaiting
in graced piece’s
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.