WALK OF SHAME

/ September 15, 2015

I love when poetry tells a story but even more when it makes you feel.  The great thing about this poem is how “Punk Rock Papa” Briton Underwood put himself in another gender’s shoes.

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WALK OF SHAME by Briton Underwood

If these city streets could talk
They’d speak about your late night walks
And the little games you play
Your midnight mates, they never stay.

Each and every day
you are winding and grinding
And the perverse fucking boys
They are pining, they’re pining.
And you can walk of shame
only so far from the past abuse
before you look in a mirror
Or do you avoid it out of fear
Because when your finally face to face
Do you recognize who you are?

So apply the lipstick to your lips
The boys, they like your red stained kiss
And smile through the pain
But it won’t take the past away

When you look in your own eyes
Do you even recognize?
Or is a stranger looking back at you
Behind those hardened baby blues

Your soul is gone
Your heart?
Battered and bruised.
A cigarette on your lips
The tears don’t stain
they’ve been replaced by rouge

The street lights know your name
They have seen your claim to fame
And your heels scuff the pavement
As a car pulls up, you’re famous

unnamed

Briton “Punk Rock Papa” Underwood is a proud Parent, Writer and Original Bunker Punk. His passion for writing is second only to his passion for parenting. Co-founder of the Original Bunker Punks, Punk Rock Papa enjoys helping people’s thoughts, stories and emotions be heard. You can find him on his personal blog or on the Original Bunker Punks writing about what he loves, the people around him.

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22 thoughts on “WALK OF SHAME”

    • Well, thanks for reading. I would say that the profanity provides a point of emphasis and might have even done better if it was in italics. Also, I hardly look at the surface on ANYTHING, as you don’t judge a book by its cover and certainly never judge a poem by what seems so blatantly and easily laid out for you. Poems are like ogres, which are like onions.

      I enjoyed your poem, G. R., it was very nicely written even if it wasn’t a new concept and has been done before.

      Again, thanks for reading!

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      • Profanity is cheap and easy. Appeals to juveniles and the hard of thinking.

        Never claimed mine to be a new concept. I did claim it was social commentary and it is. What I wrote was from the mind of one who doesn’t like double standards and I said that too.

        Thank you on mine.

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        • I have to disagree on the profanity. It is, when used conservatively as with any words, a good way to add emphasis. I used fucking, in two forms of the words usage.

          The piece wasn’t littered with profanity or any words thoughtlessly thrown in there. It was used with a purpose to which personally I felt drove home a point about said boys. It was also a play on a popular new word among the youth, a fuckboy.

          Plus, I listen to a lot of teenage angsty music when I write, so the poem could be completely juvenile. Oh well, Tomato Tomahto.

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          • You mean the teens who are utterly fucking clueless? The ones that are too fucking stupid, thoughtless or lazy to explore language? Those same dumb asses that are utterly unaware of what is going on 3′ in front of the nose they have buried in their phone?

            Profanity like that work for you?

            Me, I was exposed to English and that is one of my motivators.

            “Therefore never send to know” what a great part of a line. The rest of the line is a bit further along. Do you know it? Can you figure it out before you see it?

            Shame that poetry had to be spun in to other words and while the modern rendition is good, it just doesn’t quite cut it.

            Raising up, elevating awareness and knowledge. I’m big on those too.

            The rest of the line is this and there are not many who don’t know it, “for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”.

            The bell is tolling now for that generation and they’d best hope something profound unfucks their collective heads.

            I saw a statistical piece not long ago and it said that this generation is the first one in many that isn’t expected to live as long as their parents generation.

            How was that for poignant and judicious use of profanity?

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            • The generation that raised this generation to be how it is now condemns it. Question the parents who, and here I will use profanity, fucked this generation with their horrible parenting skills, now blame the youth. We went to YOUR schools, your churches, your institutional learning facilities. (paraphrasing Suicidal Tendencies- Institutionalized, which is a GREAT song)

              We can agree to disagree about profanity and respect each other. I just chose not to go into my work not armed with a full arsenal of words. Why limit yourself, props to the man who pulls off profanity, which I think I did.

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    • I love both poems. I love poetry because it is very unique to the people who write it. One concept can be done over and over and not one will be the same. I don’t use much profanity but I do like it in poetry because, like I said, each poem has its own personality. I use it when I feel profanity is the only possible way to prove how hurt or upset I am. Yes there are other ways to say certain things but the best poetry says it with the most “felt” word.

      Poetry gets such a bad rap and so many people pass over poetry as boring and too mechanical but it isn’t… poetry is a personal flow and says so much more about a person than essays or biographies ever could.

      Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your poem 🙂

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      • My comment wasn’t clear enough and I apologize for that.

        I wasn’t going to get in to a commentary fight over word usage in a space that isn’t my own.

        Yes, both are good and thank you. I took time to get a note privately off to the other writer.

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      • “Poetry gets such a bad rap and so many people pass over poetry as boring and too mechanical but it isn’t… poetry is a personal flow and says so much more about a person than essays or biographies ever could.”

        I love the poem. Poetry is the simplest form and the hardest to master of expression. I don’t mind the profanity and love WALK OF SHAME written from a male perspective. There is a Chapter with the same title in the THE VAST LANDSCAPE.

        The profanity, I don’t find it lazy. It’s part of our daily discourse. Grammar & rules are meant to be broken. If not, how boring the literary world would be.

        Tha’s my two cents. 🙂

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  5. Using the word ‘fuck’ in anything is kind of less about opinions, and more about the reality of language. The English language has many words that some view as being vulgar.
    The truth is that each word in English is part of the language we speak, write and read. The vulgarity of any word, even considering context, is defined only by opinion. However popular, most opinions are not shared universally. Words in common use, however, are more universal than any opinion, because they are commonly used in language regardless of opinion. Those words are therefore more relevant to a typical audience than a critique of those words can be.

    A non-contextual critique of the presence of specific words in poetry isn’t really valuable nor relevant critique. The argument against using the word ‘fuck’, presented above, suggests that the word should not be used because it has been used before. The word ‘before’ has been used before. So has the word ‘concept’, and the word ‘it’. It’s kind of like saying “I don’t like your poem because you use common words like ‘the’. It’s been done before.”

    Further to the point, no word in any language is inherently vulgar. All words are simply part of a language. It’s reality. I would encourage any writer to appeal to the reality of what the audience knows, and would then ask the writer to think about who the audience is. In some instances, so-called ‘vulgar’ words will be more or less appropriate than others.

    In this particular case, the use of the word ‘fuck’ is well-thought-out, and applies well to the tone and perspectives presented.

    Use of language, especially that use which is expertly presented here in Briton’s poem, can be judged merely by opinion. It is every free-thinking mind’s right to judge it so. But judging a work based primarily on personal taste in language style is neither an intelligent nor useful way to judge a work of language that draws on a full spectrum of words in common use within that language.

    Context needs to be considered. Style needs to be considered. Audience, impact, ethics, freedom, and artistic license all need to be considered.

    Wise use of ALL words is expert use of language. And no amount of opinion will ever best even a small degree of wisdom.

    Without knowledge of how to use ALL words, your ability to effectively use language is, in reality, incomplete.

    Avoiding particular words, in common use within the language you speak, is not a superior use of language. It is in reality an inferior use of language. The critique here of using the word ‘fuck’ in this poem does not have real evidence to back up its reality. It also fails to address the context of the work, and is overall irrelevant to poetry in general. The critique here challenges style, but style in poetry is infinite, and subjectively controlled by the writer.

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  6. First off congratulations for keeping the back and forth civil…about the use of “fuck,” if an author chooses to use “fuck” then that is his/her choice. In a relatively free society no one else has a say. That’s just the way the creative process works. Of course readers can have opinions. But they are generally of less value than the original content. (Critics take note.) If a reader is offended by “fuck,” then they can opt out of reading the instant they see it. Use of the word “fuck” has absolutely nothing to do with writing quality. I won’t post any of the hundreds of great authors that use “fuck,” and neither will I post the lousy ones who use it. Again, individual, isolated words have nothing to with writing quality. Now about the poem: the first stanza was reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. Listen, for example, to “Nevermind.” You didn’t keep that up and then it went into something else. I’d go back and consider keeping it lyrical and written as a song since you have some great hooks here. Set to music it could be very interesting. Okay, thanks. Duke

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