12 Bar Blues

[Tathagata]

They say that Santa's comin'
with his reindeer through the sky
but Santa he ain't comin'
and since you left me neither am i

Christmas is a lonely time
so pass me a bottle of booze
you can call me Ebeneezer
but you know I got dem Christmas blues

 

[Angeline]

They say that Santa's comin'
with his reindeer through the sky
but Santa he ain't comin'
and since you left me neither am i

Christmas is a lonely time
so pass me a bottle of booze
you can call me Ebeneezer
but you know I got dem Christmas blues

You can deck these halls anytime,
you can hang up mistletoe,
You can climb konglike right up the tree,
but baby please don't go.

If you light up my menorah,
I'll shine eight smiles your way.
Auld Lang Syne's an attittude,
mine's raptured when you stay.

 

[Cub4ucme]

as jugs of draft labatt’s and molson’s
slid down lonesome throats.

.

Nice little story in your poem.

As a musician I could relate.


best,
andy

 

[eagleyez]

The neoprene glass,
All foibled and stanced,
Rises up above the community
Tonight, in pensive glances
As I watch the Piemen with their chances,

Parked illegal I dash,
Two bucks for a tip I dig-
The foggy December moon
In the west looming ever so big.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

He's playing Gershwin but
no one listens.
he doesn't care
really
the air is blue
with the blues and smoke
that curls up
from his unattended cigarette.
he leans in over
beer stained keys sticky
with history
and swallows loneliness
the better to feel
minor notes that make
him remember her.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Wiping off the bar and rolling up the blinds



bump

 

[The_Fool]

Better friends
or bitter friends,
let's find us a bar
that smells of the memory
of cigarette smoke
and laughter.

Some old man
sitting at the upright
making love to the ivories
with singing with the sadness
in his eyes
and on his lips.

I think every blues song
has the taste of that last kiss
before the morning
brings reality.
With maybe just the hint
of that last drop of scotch.

 

[Trixareforkids]

A Toast

To all the ones that came before
Who laid their heart upon the bar

To the ones who kept their time
Felt their rhythm and sang their rhyme

May they all find their peace
In the music which does not cease

 

[pensivepoet]

The photographer waved his wand pulling lies and posterity
out of the rabbit's ass
knowing time
would foil the trick.
the cardoard hat cheaply
covered in the telling black,
a perfect contrast to the
virgin white, once worn,
and there, Frank shaking
uncle Milt's hand, for
every game has its rules.
So said the rabbit, but
it's 2am now, dropped cake marinating in spilled
champagne on the rented
dance floor,
trays of ham, turkey, kebabs,
colder than snow, wilting
shameless in excess.
And the laughter of children
pretentious toasts, crafted
smiles~and the chicken dance
have gone the way of helium.
The priest, knowing
how the story ends, left
before the blade broke frosting.
He and Sister Margaret got
drunk again, on pilfered gin
and wicked taboo.
The only ones
with a lick of sense.

 

[pensivepoet]

Me and Hank

Woke up in the backseat
of Hank William's cadillac
once again
me scrunched in one corner
him in the other
and I felt his dull kick
"get up, boy, we got a show in Jackson tonight"
the blinding light, blazing
through the trees,
through my one eye barely open, seared my fried mind.
'where are we?" I mumbled
through desert lips in my drift back to numb
'How the fuck should I know?
Alabama I think"
falling out to take a piss and
get my bearings I took note
of the surroundings;
a gravel lot on the side
of a backwoods roadhouse
now abandoned, cept for us
and a few memories kicked in.
"hey, Hank~
what happened with that blonde
all painted up like a
circus clown?"
he was pissin off the other
fender and as I waited for him
to stop coughing, I knew
I should cry or pray
but all i could do
was giggle stupidly
'The one with the red pants?"
I laughed
"yeah, she looked like cherry jello
In an earthquake"
Hank hawked up some stale
whiskey, spit, and his shaking
fingers lit a cigarette
"I don't know, boy. The barkeep said she was buggy and she smelled bad"
Wonderin which way Jackson was, I fell behind the wheel
and she fired up, as Hank
plunked away in the backseat
warbling, I saw the light.
I guessed left, not really caring
as i flung rocks and broken glass
on another fucked up night and
glanced to the mirror.
Hank sat looking like a pile
of bad shit, smokin a Lucky,
the smoke searching for new chords to bend.
"hey Hank?"
"yeah, boy?"
"how come we live this way?"
Hank stopped strumming and
looked out the window
far beyond my seeing
"cuz some of us were never
meant to get old, and dyin young
aint as easy as most people
think"
I just smiled and nodded
knowing Hank was right again.

 

[Angeline]

Woke up in the backseat
of Hank William's cadillac
once again...

This is wonderful stuff: evocative with excellent images and a great flow. Kudos.

 

[pensivepoet]

This is wonderful stuff: evocative with excellent images and a great flow. Kudos.

Thanks Angeline. I actually wrote this one a few yrs ago and posted it on one of my blogs, back when we thought blogs mattered. I was reworking it today, and decided to post the new version as it fits the thread.
I hope you're doin ok

 

[Angeline]

Thanks Angeline. I actually wrote this one a few yrs ago and posted it on one of my blogs, back when we thought blogs mattered. I was reworking it today, and decided to post the new version as it fits the thread.
I hope you're doin ok

I'm hanging in there. I have good and bad days but it's a process. It's going to take a long time to get my head wrapped around this, but I have a lot of support from my kids and his. And I'm writing again, which I know is a step in the right direction. Thank you for asking.

 

[pensivepoet]

I'm hanging in there. I have good and bad days but it's a process. It's going to take a long time to get my head wrapped around this, but I have a lot of support from my kids and his. And I'm writing again, which I know is a step in the right direction. Thank you for asking.

It actually hit me hard as i spent much of a week reading him, and felt a real affinity.
He wrote things that i feel, and i'm a prime candidate and age for the same surprise.
If it happens soon, i hope i can catch his train.
Glad you're writing.
Take care
~alex

 

[Angeline]

It actually hit me hard as i spent much of a week reading him, and felt a real affinity.
He wrote things that i feel, and i'm a prime candidate and age for the same surprise.
If it happens soon, i hope i can catch his train.
Glad you're writing.
Take care
~alex

I hope it doesn't happen for a long, long time. We need all the poets we can get around here. You take care, too.

 

[todski28]

the holdfast

The Holdie, beach shore bum about
loose dress code same as the women
three quarter pub/restaurant a place
for the local wannabies to strum a chord
crack a voice and tune a tambourine
some had talent
going no where faster
than dark light smoke machine haze
the tune plays on my time
some one that just won't shut up in a movie

interrupting my melancholy a sad beer
flat and frothless warm as monkey piss
the last dregs of swill
payed my fill
order up tequila and salt
best remedy to flog your memory
tired bloodshot glaze
missed the glass on first attempt
then she lit up the night

the quaver in her voice the same timbre
as that sad little hole I've been pouring drinks in
the blues baby, oh the blues
she has us in the honey of her throat
that drips sweet sadness
fill your pockets lads
this is bankroll payday for us sitting here
trying to die slowly because we lack commitment
for fucking anything
bar the bar that holds us steady
dulls the tremors and that ache that tells you
you are too old for this, but to young and dumb
to retire,

Her voice drops to an amplified whisper
that slices the air keen cut
it wafted on the ocean slick breeze
and fell into my brain
punched my eyes
till they bled tears

I don't know to this day what she sang
never saw her again but I can still
feel her
in that tired place I try to drown.

 

[pensivepoet]

The Holdie, beach shore bum about
loose dress code same as the women
three quarter pub/restaurant a place
for the local wannabies to strum a chord
crack a voice and tune a tambourine
some had talent
going no where faster
than dark light smoke machine haze
the tune plays on my time
some one that just won't shut up in a movie

interrupting my melancholy a sad beer
flat and frothless warm as monkey piss
the last dregs of swill
payed my fill
order up tequila and salt
best remedy to flog your memory
tired bloodshot glaze
missed the glass on first attempt
then she lit up the night

the quaver in her voice the same timbre
as that sad little hole I've been pouring drinks in
the blues baby, oh the blues
she has us in the honey of her throat
that drips sweet sadness
fill your pockets lads
this is bankroll payday for us sitting here
trying to die slowly because we lack commitment
for fucking anything
bar the bar that holds us steady
dulls the tremors and that ache that tells you
you are too old for this, but to young and dumb
to retire,

Her voice drops to an amplified whisper
that slices the air keen cut
it wafted on the ocean slick breeze
and fell into my brain
punched my eyes
till they bled tears

I don't know to this day what she sang
never saw her again but I can still
feel her
in that tired place I try to drown.

I had me one of these. Her name was michelle mcarny (i think) and she became my obsession
Then she got hit by a house on the highway. Literally
Thanks todski for bringing her back for a moment.
Really great write

 

[todski28]

I had me one of these. Her name was michelle mcarny (i think) and she became my obsession
Then she got hit by a house on the highway. Literally
Thanks todski for bringing her back for a moment.
Really great write

Thanks, yours was really friggen good, as Angeline said evocative with great word choices, line breaks and your final six lines are sublime.

I've been rolling through my memory to get some of the bars and night clubs I have bounced at not too long ago, I didn't mind the Holdie, some nights though the lack of musicianship was staggering.

 

[pensivepoet]

Todski~
Seems i've been in nearly every kind, coast to coast, border to border
But not the perfect one yet
That'll be a chicago style pizza
A very dark place, with a touch of dank.
It'll stink as it should
The smoke will hang heavy
A brick front and a back door to the alley, dripping with disease.
There'll be a dozen people scattered to small round tables, no two people together.
And there will be a guy on a small makeshift stage that'll make joe bonamassa seem soul-less
Then i can stop searching
Damn! Now i need sloe gin

 

[champagne1982]

Burton Broke My Heart

Old boards of gin-soaked history
and echoed tunes of guess
who and you say could never
happen but I grew up where
Toronto shines in the south
and sexy boys from Winnipeg
could take that mellow voice
away to find girls more eager
more practised at groupiness
to kneel down and show them
that head games are played
with tongues and teeth
when your mind is so blown
that you can't think beyond
another bar with prettier
American women.

 

[champagne1982]

On synagogue place...<snip>
the new religion of cracked ice poison
go fast till you crash

Someone's been watchin Breakin' Bad, I think.

 

[pensivepoet]

Well, you sure ruined my plans for tonight, tod
What? No urinal cakes cuz the taco bell closes at midnight?
The thngs we do for a broken heart

 

[pensivepoet]

at the zoo

The Zoo burned down
so in the fumes of another
Phoenix fart
Zoo II arose
~the sequal
New rules
were posted on the door
then someone stole the door.
Shirts were rarely worn,
Beechnut and Copenhagen
splattered the floor
in a temperamental rain,
and the cussing reminded of
a butcher losing one more finger
to the slicer.
That's the women, the men
were worse.
"hey," I said, to the glassy eyed
bobblehead beside me.
"who's that?"
He squinted, leaned, and wobbled
like a sleepless sailor lost
in the soup.
"oh, that's Janey. Ain't she hot?"
She was, and my dick suddenly
forgot it was drunk.
Then he waved his hand like
a plague of fruitflies
had descended.
"you don't want her, pal.
I've heard stories"
"yeah, well I wouldn't mind
writing a chapter or two"
Just then, she looked my way,
hip swaggled to the pool table,
ignored the shoot half played,
dropped her pants
hopped on the corner
and sank her shot, with
perfect english.
And the entire time, she never
took her eyes off me.
"that's why they call her
The Madcrapper" my bobblehead
friend said just before hitting
the floor
leaving me alone
with the drunken monkeys
and an open table.

 

[pensivepoet]

It's always the quiet ones
Ya know?
Peoria
Second shifters,
John Deere tractors, and
a brass rail to dream
upon
Just a friday pass through
for a young innocent
skirtin the breeze
hearing the band
thirsty for beer
too weak for the tease
Her legs went to heaven
her boots down to hell
this statuesque beauty
in raven mane mystery
spurred me to swell
From the towering heights
her smile descended
I set down my beer
tackled my fear
and my hopes
were ammended.
What a lovely dance
so slow and close
she nibbled my ear
I swam in her hair
perfumed
in heavy dose
When it was over
she kissed me so sweet
I beamed like a fool
having tasted the lips
of Peoria's
elite.
The bartender nudged me
and then did divulge
"I hope you have lube,
didn't you notice the bulge?"

 

[pensivepoet]

Haha I have a similar themed poem pensive only it really happened .....

What makes you think this one didn't? Absolute truth from many naive days ago, but i remember it well. He/she was a great dance. I often wonder if we should've had a 2nd one.