In a contest between the stupid and the smart,
the stupid, at first, didn't really know where to start.
But after a while
of applying streetwise craftiness and guile,
in the contest between the stupid and the smart ~
the two were actually not that far apart.
Big fight
Last night
Clyde's Bar
Bizzare
Tough guys
Streetwise
Much brew
Fists flew
Thrown chairs
Pulled hairs
Black eyes
Loud cries
One bloke
Nose broke
Heads bashed
Teeth trashed
Knives slashed
Pecs gashed
Cops came
To tame
Powwow
Peace now
All's well
That's swell
Great fight
Last night
Plain brick walls
Wait for clinking cans of spray paint
To color in streetwise notions
Beyond the naked eye
Quiet strings of violins
Wait for hands to draw across bows
Or play pizzicato melodies
Beyond the well-trained ear
Blank pages
Wait for clever pens
To write stories and verses
Beyond the bare mind
Sparks of star light
Wait for a ready lifeforce
To ignite a hellmouth fire
Beyond the ordinary self
Wild Leafs flutter in a hue-laden town,
windows creak open, spritely faces gleam,
cheerful air burgeoning, no need to frown,
sweet fragrant coffee dock, a gust of hot steam,
just rejoice as the heavens don their gown
Bus stop close at hand, joyous high alert,
laughter billows skyward without panic,
rainbow veneered archway, daylight concert,
broadcast on the pavement, sound of manic,
street painter chalk marks granite slab, dull gray berth
It’s autumn and those colours bound to show,
bright clad walkway, budding Rembrandt canvass,
red hot sun trail blaze, smoldering, aglow,
ice cool fall in situ, magic atlas,
urban setting nod to season wide flow
Power lines a home for migrant songbirds,
they chirp at streetwise citizens in train,
who brave the latent chill in eager herds,
huff and puff swarm enduring tingly rain,
rapture in a plot for winter blizzards
Don’t your daughter’s skin
Attack with a pin
Nor her blushing wall
Hit for an amusing fall…
And don’t your vibrant son
Leave in improvident sun:
Now playfully moving clockwise
If he ventures out, that’s streetwise!
Perhaps, you’ve your Good Head
Forced to forget what you’d read:
For what a bloke has succeeded to obtain
He should at all costs guardedly retain.
She lately hears lyric nightingale at the sole window,
And through its bars witnesses a melancholy moon,
And her heart longs for the freedom of velvety flight,
But lessons she now knows weren't learned too soon!
An innocent victim of childhood abuse and ensuing rage,
In the days of sugar plum fairies and make believe,
A streetwise teenage runaway, who soon lost her way,
After making an unwise choice of whom she would love!
During lights out she makes plans and begins to reminisce,
Knowing in her young heart, it won't always be like this,
Like the transient rainbows that are destined to reappear,
Or the twinkling stars that often grant fervent wishes!
Her youth has mercifully granted her second chances,
In accordance both with beautiful logic and holy decree!
Written on August 19, 2020
For: Woman in Chains Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John Hamilton
Cigarettes and alcohol
had washed her youth away.
The fresh faced girl, with the wayward curl,
that I knew from 'yesterday'
had now been replaced,
by something hard faced,
playing the oldest game in town.
Her painted on smile and streetwise guile
trying to hide the tears of a clown.
Our inner voices give us choices
of the pathways we should take.
It's a downward spiral, that soon goes viral,
if those voices are all fake.
And she had reached, and then had breached,
the nadir of her life.
She had once been a friend, staunch to the end,
a daughter, a mother, a wife.
And as we walked, so we talked,
about the might have been's.
The what went wrongs, remembered songs,
and prom night Kings and Queens.
We said goodbye and she said she would try,
but I knew her cause was lost.
And I'd scan the obits, for lost souls and misfits,
and she'd be there, as a thaw follows frost.
When asked
The traffic rider
That streetwise acrobat
How
He knew without a prior
When a driver would do that
This performer replied
Spinning
With some pattern recognition
After long
Is spun
Into chaos intuition
He who's streetwise
can fool people twice.
Volodymyr Knyr
2017
Never met this guy, he's a facebook friend,
He reads the posts I sometimes send,
From my old neck of the woods,
From stories he tells he has done the goods.
Older than me by a mere ten years,
But we have shared both laughter and tears.
Our childhood memories seem to collide,
The truth will out we have nowt to hide.
Growing up we have both done and seen,
Very alike me and John Nadene.
Like me he writes about days gone by,
Some for a laugh some for a cry.
I seem to fall into the same plot,
Telling about the family that was my lot.
We grew up streetwise 'cos that's where we played,
Sometimes looking back, I wish I had stayed.
I found going back a huge mistake to face,
The memory I had, long gone from the place.
So now I write about what it was like as a kid
The truth that we enjoyed and lived as we did.
Now with memory clear, I can look back down the years,
We did OK, we had nowt to do but cast off our fears.
© Dave Timperley 2 November 2016
Burning twisted battered cells
A thousand needles a thousand hell's
Addiction...affliction... crucifixion...
Who cries for their demons...they do
Empty spaces with empty faces a heart is torn
All the while in denial a new crack baby is born
Come inside...my genocide... suicide...
Who cries for their demons...they do
Aged anger with fermenting lies
Abuses... excuses...no compromise
Ugly sorrow...no new tomorrow...beg steal or borrow
Who cries for their demons...they do
Echoing fear through darkened skies
Silent screams...streetwise...sunrise...need more supplies
Rehab no tab...remix a fix... crucifix +
Who pays for their demons...we do
Feb.11.2016
the wind was roaring
an open road forever-
trees a blur of green
My brother brought him home for supper one day,
I recall it was a beautiful warm day in the month of May.
I hung on the back of his powerful motorcycle, happiness
Oh, this was love! I had never felt such joy- in my young heart
He was everything that my parents hated
Rough, streetwise, a real bad boy, reckless
To me he was a guy that God himself created
He left me breathless and my memory is endless
But a life with him would have been dumb and careless
__________________________
December 23, 2016
Poetry/Verse/Haiku/Couplet/Free Verse/Quintain/
My First Date and Love- A Poet's Dozen
Copyright Protected, ID 16-738-196-0
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
For the contest, A Poet's Dozen 2, First Date,
sponsor, Silent One
Third Place
In the tangled jungle of my mind
creepies and crawlies
bite and suck.
They feast on your blood
and fill you with venom.
Howls of the night
keep you from rest,
and contorted vines
grab at your feet.
Oh, and the poisons
that turn your mind within
and make you fear your past.
And your future.
Those poisons in the smoke,
the innocent leaf,
and the full round berries,
Juicy and ripe,
that would lull you to a soundless sleep.
In the cave-dark recesses
I see nothing
but danger.
Whilst you, bathing in the dappled sun,
taut with adrenalin,
lean and young and brilliant,
agile and streetwise,
your light shields your eyes
seeing only the soft green shoots
and fearful creatures.
Seduced by that beguiling woodland.
Aware of only good
You go where I would fear to travel.
Take care.
Atypically, she was alone
and silent,
wig askew,
all the muzak shut away
behind her half-closed door.
I knew that she had also drawn
the blinds within her mind,
to soften the impetuosity
of joy.
She struggled
to pull back the thoughts
that like a child
would run away too soon--
reminding me again
that all the "simple things"
she ever thought or said
elude her;
then the love that she had stored within
emerged to let me hear her say,
"I am so thankful
for my family."
Her 97th year, a time
for facing new goodbyes,
new deaths in her to come,
that we will string upon the fraying tie
that flesh alone will bind.
Then in parting our embrace extended
past my equanimity; I stepped inside
the elevator, closed the door,
and thus once parted from her
struggled unsuccsessfully
to don my streetwise smile.
~
____________
the girls who stand streetwise in tights,
beneath the sparkling city lights
displaying wares on summer nights
attempt to sell their own delights
young men and old they will entreat
and turn down none in all they meet
they pinky vow to be discreet
each conquest just a business feat
next morn when he begins to sweat
from one who should be virgin yet
for weeks or more now he will fret
on what he hopes he will not get
he goes to work each day and then
while coming home to his chagrin
the feelings stirring deep within
soon need attention once again
while on their corners much the same
stay girls who hawk their claim to fame
they wave and call him by his name
he stops and simply says, “got game"?
© Feb 11 2012 Charles Henderson
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