Just wasn't right
You lift the lid in awe, a seat and lid
Upon an inside stall where you can go,
Quite unlike the outside loo at home,
But oh the smell, the hellish smell
So rank and raw – you see some objects
In there clearly, disbelieving things you
Really shouldn’t see; it is a step too far,
A wide-eyed confrontation, a graphic
Realisation this is not the same,
Clearly not what you naively thought
It ought to be. So now you’re caught
A step beyond your safety zone,
Trapped alone and scared, poised to run
Away despaired because no-one
Will come unbid and make it safe,
Or give you confidence that yes, this is
The proper place and show you
How. And now you are prepared to cry,
The tears are welling in your eyes
But you can hear them crying sissy boy,
Sissy boy, you’re nothing but a sissy boy.
You will not cry, you will not run,
You’ll walk away and hurry home,
It’s not that far. And when they notice
You have gone and worry where, or later
Ask you why you disappeared from sight,
You’ll say, I couldn’t go in there,
That dunny can and awful smell just wasn’t right.
Related poetry:
- I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
- Vocation When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our Lane. Every day I meet the hawker crying, “Bangles, crystal Bangles!” There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must Take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home. I wish […]...
- Rain I opened my eyes And looked up at the rain, And it dripped in my head And flowed into my brain, And all that I hear as I lie in my bed Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head. I step very softly, I walk very slow, I can’t do a handstand I […]...
- Animals Are Passing From Our Lives It’s wonderful how I jog On four honed-down ivory toes My massive buttocks slipping Like oiled parts with each light step. I’m to market. I can smell The sour, grooved block, I can smell The blade that opens the hole And the pudgy white fingers That shake out the intestines Like a hankie. In my […]...
- Indifference I said,-for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,- “I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed; But I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be some As would let him in-and take him in with tears!” I said. I lay,-for Love was laggard, O, he came […]...
- Ballad of the Moon The moon came into the forge In her bustle of flowering nard. The little boy stares at her, stares. The boy is staring hard. In the shaken air The moon moves her amrs, And shows lubricious and pure, Her breasts of hard tin. “Moon, moon, moon, run! If the gypsies come, They will use your […]...
- Velvet Shoes Let us walk in the white snow In a soundless space; With footsteps quiet snd slow, At a tranquil pace, Under veils of white lace. I shall go shod in silk, And you in wool, White as white cow’s milk, More beautiful Than the breast of a gull. We shall walk through the still town […]...
- The Song of Quoodle They haven’t got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe. They haven’t got no noses, They cannot even tell When door and darkness closes The park a Jew encloses, Where even the law of Moses […]...
- He Reproves The Curlew O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the water in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind....
- The delectable ballad of the waller lot Up yonder in Buena Park There is a famous spot, In legend and in history Yclept the Waller Lot. There children play in daytime And lovers stroll by dark, For ‘t is the goodliest trysting-place In all Buena Park. Once on a time that beauteous maid, Sweet little Sissy Knott, Took out her pretty doll […]...
- The Doctor Will Return The surgical mask, the rubber teat Are singed, give off an evil smell. You seem to weep more now that heat Spreads everywhere we look. It says here none of us is well. The warty spottings on the figurines Are nothing you would care to claim. You seem to weep more since the magazines Began […]...
- Salome's Dancing-Lesson She that begs a little boon (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Little gets – and nothing, soon. (No, no, no! No, no, no!) She that calls for costly things Priceless finds her offerings- What’s impossible to kings? (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Kings are shaped as other men. (Step and turn! Step and […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 04: 02: Death: And A Derisive Chorus The door is shut. She leaves the curtained office, And down the grey-walled stairs comes trembling slowly Towards the dazzling street. Her withered hand clings tightly to the railing. The long stairs rise and fall beneath her feet. Here in the brilliant sun we jostle, waiting To tear her secret out. . . We laugh, […]...
- New England Here where the wind is always north-north-east And children learn to walk on frozen toes, Wonder begets an envy of all those Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast Of love that you will hear them at a feast Where demons would appeal for some repose, Still clamoring where the chalice overflows And crying […]...
- When my love did what I would not, what I would not When my love did what I would not, what I would not, I could hear his merry voice upon the wind, Crying, “e;Fairest, shut your eyes, for see you should not. Love is blind!” When my love said what I say not, what I say not, With a joyous laugh he quieted my fears, Whispering, […]...
- The Rear-Guard Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy gloom of battle overhead. Tripping, he grapped […]...
- Train Ride After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery could recover Our […]...
- Train Ride For Horace Gregory After rain, through afterglow, the unfolding fan Of railway landscape sidled onthe pivot Of a larger arc into the green of evening; I remembered that noon I saw a gradual bud Still white; though dead in its warm bloom; Always the enemy is the foe at home. And I wondered what surgery […]...
- TO LEEDS BIG ISSUE SELLERS When I come from the Smoke to visit my son on the ward I see you everywhere: by the station, by the neon sign of ‘Squares’ By every shopping mall. Leeds seems to have more of you than anywhere: How do you stand there for so many hours in freezing winds When most you solicit […]...
- On The Sea-Shore, Smell Of Iodine On the sea-shore, smell of iodine, And square as in Sicily, and dancing. An intellectual that came from the common people, Preparing himself to be Rosencrantz. He decides to serve Claudius and therefore Spy on Prince Hamlet from the fountain. All over the world – the prison. At the world’s End a certain John plays […]...
- The Revelation The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut; Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut; Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train: Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again? […]...
- The Stupid Jerk I’m Obsessed With The stupid jerk I’m obsessed with Stands so close to me I can feel his breath On my neck And smell The way he would smell If we slept together Because he is the stupid jerk I’m obsessed with And that is his primary function in life To be a stupid jerk I can obsess […]...
- Poetry Of Departures Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, As epitaph: He chucked up everything And just cleared off, And always the voice will sound Certain you approve This audacious, purifying, Elemental move. And they are right, I think. We all hate home And having to be there: I detect my room, It’s specially-chosen junk, The good books, the good […]...
- A Note Left In Jimmy Leonard's Shack Near the dry river’s water-mark we found Your brother Minnegan, Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground. Beany, the kid whose yellow hair turns green, Told me to find you, even if the rain, And tell you he was drowned. I hid behind the chassis on the bank, The wreck of someone’s Ford: I […]...
- The Best Friend Now shall I walk Or shall I ride? “Ride”, Pleasure said; “Walk”, Joy replied. Now what shall I Stay home or roam? “Roam”, Pleasure said; And Joy “stay home.” Now shall I dance, Or sit for dreams? “Sit,” answers Joy; “Dance,” Pleasure screams. Which of ye two Will kindest be? Pleasure laughed sweet, But Joy […]...
- The Poem Cat Sometimes the poem Doesn’t want to come; It hides from the poet Like a playful cat Who has run Under the house & lurks among slugs, Roots, spiders’ eyes, Ledge so long out of the sun That it is dank With the breath of the Troll King. Sometimes the poem Darts away Like a coy […]...
- A Song of the Road O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare, You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air; No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’ anywhere, It can but be a joyful ja’nt whilst you journey there. The road you take’s the path o’ love, […]...
- A Tragedy Among his books he sits all day To think and read and write; He does not smell the new-mown hay, The roses red and white. I walk among them all alone, His silly, stupid wife; The world seems tasteless, dead and done – An empty thing is life. At night his window casts a square […]...
- A Holiday The Wife The house is like a garden, The children are the flowers, The gardener should come methinks And walk among his bowers, Oh! lock the door on worry And shut your cares away, Not time of year, but love and cheer, Will make a holiday. The Husband Impossible! You women do not know The […]...
- Assault I I had forgotten how the frogs must sound After a year of silence, else I think I should not so have ventured forth alone At dusk upon this unfrequented road. II I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, […]...
- Far-Darting Apollo I saw the sun step like a gentleman Dressed in black and proud as sin. I saw the sun walk across London Like a young M. P., risen to the occasion. His step was light, his tread was dancing, His lips were smiling, his eyes glancing. Over the Cenotaph in Whitehall The sun took the […]...
- Summer Nights Lamoni, Iowa The factory siren tells workers time to go home Tells them the evening has begun. When living with the tall man Whom I didn’t love, I would wander The streets, dreaming of Italy. Trekking the handful of avenues With him, he would say look there Between pink cobblestones, There’s manure like mortar. The […]...
- Lichtenberg Smells are surer than sounds or sights To make your heart-strings crack They start those awful voices o’ nights That whisper, ” Old man, come back! “ That must be why the big things pass And the little things remain, Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg, Riding in, in the rain. There was […]...
- The Home-Coming My boy’s come back; he’s here at last; He came home on a special train. My longing and my ache are past, My only son is back again. He’s home with music, flags and flowers; With peace and joy my heart’s abrim; He got here in the morning hours With half the town to welcome […]...
- Denial When my devotions could not pierce Thy silent ears; Then was my heart broken, as was my verse: My breast was full of fears And disorder: My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow, Did fly asunder: Each took his way; some would to pleasures go, Some to the wars and thunder Of alarms. As good […]...
- Tz'u No. 3 To the tune “Red Lips” Tired of swinging Indolent I rise with a slender hand Put right My hair The dew thick On frail blossoms Sweat seeping through My thin robe And seeing My friend come Stockings torn Gold hairpins askew I walk over Blushing Lean against the door Turn my head Grasp the dark […]...
- The Wife “Tell Annie I’ll be home in time To help her with her Christmas-tree.” That’s what he wrote, and hark! the chime Of Christmas bells, and where is he? And how the house is dark and sad, And Annie’s sobbing on my knee! The page beside the candle-flame With cruel type was overfilled; I read and […]...
- Life I made a posie, while the day ran by: Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But time did becken to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away And wither’d in my hand. My hand was next to them, and then my heart: I […]...
- Shirley of Serendipity Where were you Shirley of the Sanguine Lake? Where did you disappear? The echoes of your empty house Were almost stilled yet held to soar the scheming rough And quaver in a hollow fear. We raked the mirrored water’s edge And poled the willow shrouded brakes, We plumbed the deep and darked ledge And traced […]...
- A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...