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 Jan 2017
Stephen E Yocum
In ’68 Hutch and me,
Sitting at the bar drinking
Our third cold beer.
In a semi Fern Bar
Laguna or Newport Beach
Which now, I’m not sure.
It was around nine or so,
A week day night,
The place more empty than not.

She came in alone, made
Entry like the dramatic host of
A TV show. As if she were the
Center piece on the nations
Thanksgiving Dinner Table.
Over dressed to the nines,
Lots of color, heavy make up
She didn’t really need.

Her perfume scent hovered
Around her like a cloud of insects  
On a hot summer night in a wet meadow.
Kind of made my eyes water up.

She perched daintily like a dancer,
Upon a bar stool,
Three empty stools down,
Nodded the bartender her regular order.
A martini, a double it was,
With but a dab of vermouth.
One green olive on a stick.
The glass was prechilled as if
It had been waiting only for her.
She pounded that first one down,
As if the stem wear was a shot glass.
Another full stem glass appeared,
That one also quickly consumed
Two bright red lipstick stains all that
Remained in or on the stemmed glass rim.

Her main task accomplished,
She audibly exhaled,
As if tired or relieved.
I couldn't tell which.
Turned around on her stool to face
Hutch sitting closest to her.
“You boys Marines.” She declared,
More than inquired.
The close chopped hair cuts
giving us away.

Hutch just nodded, he never did say much.
A ****** just back from The Nam,
A dark scary guy of few words.

She opened her fur trimmed cloth coat,
exposing two very nice stocking clad legs,
And just a quick flash of red underpants.
Rotating towards us so we got a better shot.

She announced her name,
like as if we should know it.
Our blank stares informed her we didn’t.
Her face was to me, somewhat familiar.  
From movies in the 40s or 50s.
We were early 20 guys, she much older,
Trying hard to look younger, not succeeding.

Soon she was sitting right next to Hutch,
Two more Martini stems had come and gone,
Her lipstick finger prints upon them.
And still Hutch had not spoken more than
Three or four words.

She bought us a pitcher of brew,
Hutch grunted a short bit of gratitude.
We didn't have to say much, she was in charge.
It was all about her, she rambled on and on
Speaking volumes saying not much at all.
Beating back her crushing obscurity,
With flowery reminiscence recall,
Of glory days, long gone away.
Important for the moment, if only to her.
It was all; “me and I, I did this, I was that,
I slept with him,
And him and him”.
How about so and so?  I asked,
“No Darling not him, he was gay!
Still is.”

It was not long and she was touching Hutch.
On the hand, the shoulder, she was working him
With languid hungry looks from her big baby blues,
And the message could not have been plainer,
Had she held up a large hand lettered sign.

I don’t believe she was a “Working Girl”,
Just someone very lonely seeking to find
Herself, and some company for the night,
All to prove that she was still alive.

Looking at her, I could only think,
How sad and pathetic she seemed,
How desperate her plight.
To humble herself so,
In that dingy bar, among strangers
She did not know, Acting yet, still
On the only stage she could find,
Staring in her own bad ‘B’ movie drama.
In that dingy smelly bar.

Hutch and her left after a hour or so,
He never told me much about it.
He was unofficially AWOL for three days.
I covered for him, kept his name off the
Missing Morning Formation Reports
and the Daily Duty Lists.
No one cared to check. Our unit made up
Of mostly guys back from the war,
A pretty loosey-goosey outfit.

Once in a while now I see an old movie,
most are Black and white, Film Noir stuff,
And there she is, a much younger her,
Looking pretty **** good,
Not real big roles they were,
Claimed she was in the chorus
Of "Singing In The Rain" in '52.
To this, I cannot attest, over the
years watched that film several times,
But I never saw her there.

Had parts Playing damsels in distress,
A mobster’s gun moll a time or two,
Or unhappy Play Girls on a bar stool.
I guess it was type casting that done her in.
Or maybe she got a little too long in the tooth.
A sad ending to a short B movie career.
Life isn’t easy, even for a so called “movie star”.
Fame is not all it’s cracked up to be.
A smattering of fame, apparently worth,
Nothing at all.
True stuff from an old guys past.
She had called the Company Office
once or twice, looking for Hutch.
He told us to tell her that he had
been Shipped Out, when he actually
hadn't.

She no doubt found someone else to
tell her story to.

I saw that woman the other day on TV,
an old film on Turner Classic Movies
doing her thing. I sort of wonder what
ever  happened to her, but refuse to
Google it to find out.
Some information you don't need
or what to know.
It did inspire this little Poem Noir write.

Got a letter from Hutch in '70, we were
both out of the Corps. He was headed to
the Arabian Desert as a hired gun, to guard
some pipe line operation. Have no idea what
became of him after that. Hutch was a real hard
case, 14 confirmed kills through a ****** sight.
I hope he made it out of the desert all right,
maybe sitting on a beach someplace recalling
his back in the day three nights with a once
upon a time B movie star. Actually I doubt he
recalls her at all.
 Dec 2016
Lazhar Bouazzi
Poets, like
madmen and prophets,
are banned from
the Kingdom of Reason,
as they are
the progeny of the sun
(the sun who illumines as he blinds)
and the siblings
of the rays
who never tire
of beating
the world into
magnificent new shapes
that fascinate us
all – including
Unwavering Moon whose
lonesome secret is to be
madly in love
with the rainbow.

© LazharBouazzi, May 26, 216
 Dec 2016
Dimitrios Sarris
We seek happiness like an unfulfilling dream
but there it is right in front of us.
Small precious moments in our everyday lives.
Moments which hold so little, but they are
acting like a counterweight to the so cold face of pain.
Pain which comes in waves.
You feel helpless, you can't fight it,
and you don't even know if you'll make it.
It plunks your entire world into one fine point
and when that wave goes away you feel
relief just for a moment.
Then it comes back to remind you.
Don't give in.
(I)

Pale mulberry was the sky,
No bird dared to fly!
Thus all seemed wrong,
But then, you came along
Suddenly like summer rain
And quelled away my pain.

(II)

Velvet blue was the sky,
No bird dared not to fly!
Thus all seemed right,
And as pure as a cloud in white,
When suddenly like the rainbow,
You quelled away thy heavenly glow.

(III)

Dark grey is the sky,
No bird seems to ever fly!
Athwart my wild blue yonder
Where I, indignantly do ponder
Night and day wondering why,
We can't give it just one more try.

(IV)

Pitch black is always the sky,
But, faster than any bird I'll fly!
Swifter than a scudding cloud
Whilst calling upon you so loud,
All the way to a strange plain,
Just to ever feast about you again.

(V)

Magenta magic will always be the sky,
When once again we'll merilly fly!
Then, flowers once again shall bloom,
To see you and me as bride and groom
By a placid Mulberry Moon on the rise,
To kindle our enchanted paradise.



©Kikodinho Alexandros
Jumeira, Dubai
1st December 2016
***!!! Can't really believe it that among the myriads upon myriads of beautiful poems here at HP, this poem has turned up the daily. Thank you so much dear friends to have catapulted me to stardom for the second time...I'm really all gratitude.

#Retrospection
#Nostaligia
#Lonesome
#Craving
#Wishing
 Dec 2016
mrmonst3r
I have outlived suffering,
I have endured pain.
I have gently walked
thru fire and rain.
I have swallowed anger,
I have eaten sin.
I have bled
and lost what lies within.
I have surpassed doubt,
I have suppressed blame.
I have taken stock
of what remains.
I have absorbed sadness,
I have taken loss.
I have appraised the damage
and paid the cost.
I have been loveless,
I have been true.
I will never
be beaten by you.
For my demons.
 Dec 2016
mrmonst3r
I am gone.
Adrift thru cold dead air,
Lost in the horizon.
There's no comfort,
No means of adaptation.
Only this void.
          this loveless space.
Out here I am forgetting you —
Slowly,
As my oxygen depletes.
"My God—it's full of stars!"
 Dec 2016
South-by-Southwest
Troublesome love . . .

will not let you sleep . . .

Sort of like a basketball game . . .

Questions are bounced mad and furiously
against the hard wood floor with only
more questions bouncing back .

Meanwhile someone is trying to steal
your dreams causing you to twist and turn distorting your image .

And you fight your way down
the court of life and toss your hopes and
dreams into the air and pray to God . . .
go in.
 Dec 2016
r
The hours before dawn
are as much a territory
as moments in time
Alone in a darkened world
listening to sounds the
morning shares with me
and I alone
A rustle of a small creature
settling more comfortably
in its bed beneath frozen branches
within a pine-straw burrow
The creak of ice-burdened limbs
high in the loblolly pines
The crack of ice breaking loose
to land on frozen deck
like an echo of a rifle shot
from many years ago
The pecking of small pellets of
sleet upon my glazed blue
tin roof with dragon's teeth
icicles hanging above my head
This is my territory
and my hours
before the
dawn

r ~ 12Feb14
During the passing of winter storm Pax/Feb 2014
In the cloudy evenings with strong hints of rain
You heard them once and you heard them again
The air would rend with their cacophony
The torrents would send them in ecstatic glee.
Even a few years back you could find them around
The harbinger of monsoon with harsh croaking sound
On your yard and garden in quite large packs
Frolicking for insects, the great jumping Jacks.
They scoured the marshland in search for food
Calling in monotone and setting you to brood
With your mind gnawed by the incessant rains
That rattled your thoughts and the glass window panes.
But then lands were devoured by the human sharks
Soon disappeared open spaces and parks
Came up apartments and rows of house
Urban growth you accept without grouse.
Now in the lonely evenings with fair hints of rain
The rains will be back but you won’t hear them again
Their habitats are gone there aren’t left any bogs
And with these are gone your neighborhood frogs.
 Nov 2016
The Dirty Vanilla
There is never nothing new
Just rearrange things

I don’t write poems
I just remove the extra words that are in the way

Hold on to the words like whispers and shadows and wings
Recklessly insert adjectives
Tie it all to your delusions of profundity

Dig down deep for pain
no matter how senseless
Pick at your emotional scabs
Bleed

No one likes poetry
Constantly remind people of that
Tell them that you make it sound good to you and **** them
(Even though their ovation means everything)

Slip, dip and weave
With ambiguous wet dreams
Full lips and thick tongue
Mouthing…
Come
to an understanding
***** is much better than clean
Make it filthy
Soil it

Make it nostalgic
People need to be reassured that you were really ******* up as a kid
and that this poetry **** doesn’t just happen to people overnight

Make it esoteric
That way, when no one knows what the hell you are talking about,
you will have a good word to explain why

Say things that are so ill mannered that they are weighty
I will give you an example
“I’m not looking for a girl that is beautiful
I'm looking for one just barely ugly enough to **** me”

Incite large groups of people to *****

Get so personal that it gives people headaches

Expose yourself until everyone is embarrassed for you

Spew it all over the bar
In a drunken stupor
flaunt it lasciviously with your genitals
Pour yourself into reckless collisions
Drink from your soul until it rots your liver

Write until you want to **** yourself
then write about that

Make it as bitter as a Wal-mart associate
Make it so sweet she will swallow it all
before looking up at you with eyes like tiny puddles
To say, “that was beautiful”
(even though it was disgusting)

It should be raw
It should make you itch
It should be like rubbing up against it spreads it
It should be like VD

Make really long
Like it’s your *****
No,
Make it really, really long
Like its my *****

Make it rhyme
I mean don’t
Don’t

Don’t ever write another ******* poem
because I assure you
if I did not write it
than it must ****

and that is how poetry works

Michael L Sutter
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