#quilt
Sehmi chaadar mein, thama hua saath tera
Khushboo se pehchaan loon, jaise pehli dafa
Chaadar ki teh mein, bas ek nishaan hai tera
Lehar choo jaaye, to yaadon ka silsila beh chala
Tu ** to neend shabnam ki tarah utarti hai
Har ek pal mein mohabbat ki khushboo bharti hai
Tu na ** to savera bhi be-sabab jagaata hai
Dil udaas hai aur hawa bhi yaadon mein ruk jaata hai
Woh chaadar jo kabhi saath humne odh rakhi thi
Ab bhi us mein teri adaon ke saaye base hain
Woh lamhe jo teri baaton mein chupke se dhal jaayein
Fasaana ban ke har raat mere paas laut aaye
Tu ** to neend shabnam ki tarah utarti hai
Har ek pal mein mohabbat ki khushboo bharti hai
Tu na ** to savera bhi be-sabab jagaata hai
Dil udaas hai aur hawa bhi yaadon mein ruk jaata hai
Dil ke sheher mein khoobsurat aashiyaana hai tera
Jahaan soch ki lehron pe behta fasaana hai mera
Har khayaalon mein dikha ek naya savera
Aur tanhaai tujh mein milne ka bahaana ban jaaye
Us chaadar mein teri garmi mehfooz hai
Tere saath bitaaye har lamhon ka maahaul qaaim hai
Tu ** to neend shabnam ki tarah utarti hai
Subah ko keh do, kuch der aur ruk jaaye
Palkon band karoon to bhi, tu kahin paas hai
Naqsh teri yaadon ka, har raah mein raas hai
Waqt ke patton pe tera rang chhalakta hai
Aur dil - bas tera, ab aur kya bacha hai?
------------------------------------English Translation--------------
In the Folds of This Quilt
In a quiet quilt, your presence softly stays
I know you by your scent - just like the first time
In its folds, your imprint still lies near
When the breeze stirs, a stream of memories reappears
When you're here, sleep drips down like dew at night
Each moment blooms with love’s gentle light
When you're not, even dawn feels lost and bare
The heart grows heavy, and the breeze just halts in air
That quilt we once wrapped around as one
Still holds the trace of your charms, never gone
Those moments that melted in your hushed replies
Return each night as a tale behind my eyes
When you're here, sleep drips down like dew at night
Each moment blooms with love’s gentle light
When you're not, even dawn feels lost and bare
The heart grows heavy, and the breeze just halts in air
In the city of my heart, there’s a home that’s yours alone
Where my drifting thoughts weave a tale of their own
Each thought unveils a sunrise born anew
And loneliness becomes a path that leads to you
That quilt still holds the warmth you left behind
The air of our moments, in every thread I find
When you're here, sleep drips down like dew at night
Tell the morning - just wait, don’t bring the light
Even with closed eyes, I feel you're near
The map of your memory marks every path clear
On time’s worn leaves, your color softly plays
And this heart - it’s yours, what more remains?
May 18, 2025
May 18, 2025 at 7:32 PM UTC
'I was beautiful once,'
she said,
her weathered hands mending another torn patch on an old travelling cloak;
"It was good in its own way, I suppose,
But it no longer had use for me.
...
I wore the beauty over my shoulders like
A second skin,
like a gifted jacket
which I one day outgrew.
...
My interests turned to other purposes,
And she was tucked away alongside the other tokens of my youth"
She stood, shaking out the quilt on her lap
which flared in kaleidoscopic colour -
an intricate map
of tiny knots and stitches which had layered over years of constant mending,
"I make my own clothes now"
.
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 at 12:48 AM UTC
Upon the announcement of my arrival
my ancestors weaved brillant threads to make a quilt for my bed
with steadfast hands, they weaved themselves a plan
who i was to become, what kind of man
upon the days of my arrival
my ancestors fantastically wrapped me up in the quilt of blue and red
this quilt housed me for many seasons
itched me, pinched me, left me cold at night
bit me, tripped me, straggling my rights
the brillant quilt made to protect became my golden cage instead
their plan created my strife
their plan corseted my life
after years spent suffocating in the threads
i decided to break away from the plan
emerging like a little chick out of an egg
i chose to live my life today
still the foundation laid was unscathed
every trigger sent my heart into disarray
independence fortified, return to the egg
the quilt might be itchy, it might be tight
but it is easier than learning how to fly
Jul 12, 2023
Jul 12, 2023 at 1:55 PM UTC
The bonfire is lit warm,
It is comfortable as a quilt.
We look at the photos,
Inside of our wallets.
The parents, the wife and kids,
Probably for the last time we kiss.
Tomorrow is the final battle,
We make a treatise with death.
Either she takes the novice boys,
Or let us send them to her.
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 7:18 AM UTC
These are poems about Ann Rutledge and her romantic relationship with Abraham Lincoln.
Winter Thoughts of Ann Rutledge
by Michael R. Burch
Winter was not easy,
nor would the spring return.
I knew you by your absence,
as men are wont to burn
with strange indwelling fire —
such longings you inspire!
But winter was not easy,
nor would the sun relent
from sculpting ****** images
and how could I repent?
I left quaint offerings in the snow,
more maiden than I care to know.
Ann Rutledge’s Irregular Quilt
by Michael R. Burch
based on “Lincoln the Unknown” by Dale Carnegie
I.
Her fingers “plied the needle” with “unusual swiftness and art”
till Abe knelt down beside her: then her demoralized heart
set Eros’s dart a-quiver; thus a crazy quilt emerged:
strange stitches all a-kilter, all patterns lost. (Her host
kept her vicarious laughter barely submerged.)
II.
Years later she’d show off the quilt with its uncertain stitches
as evidence love undermines men’s plans and women’s strictures
(and a plethora of scriptures.)
III.
But O the sacred tenderness Ann’s reckless stitch contains
and all the world’s felicities: rich cloth, for love’s fine gains,
for sweethearts’ tremulous fingers and their bright, uncertain vows
and all love’s blithe, erratic hopes (like now’s).
IV.
Years later on a pilgrimage, by tenderness obsessed,
Dale Carnegie, drawn to her grave, found weeds in her place of rest
and mowed them back, revealing the spot of the Railsplitter’s joy and grief
(and his hope and his disbelief).
V.
For such is the tenderness of love, and such are its disappointments.
Love is a book of rhapsodic poems. Love is an grab bag of ointments.
Love is the finger poised, the smile, the Question — perhaps the Answer?
Love is the pain of betrayal, the two left feet of the dancer.
VI.
There were ladies of ill repute in his past. Or so he thought. Was it true?
And yet he loved them, Ann (sweet Ann!), as tenderly as he loved you.
Ann Rutledge was Abraham Lincoln’s first love interest. Unfortunately, she was engaged to another man when they met, then died with typhoid fever at age 22. According to a friend, Isaac Cogdal, when asked if he had loved her, Lincoln replied: “It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: She was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife… I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often, often of her now.”
Ann Rutledge’s grave marker in Petersburg, Illinois, contains a poem written by Edgar Lee Masters in which she is “Beloved of Abraham Lincoln, / Wedded to him, not through union, / But through separation.”
Ann Rutledge’s original grave at Old Concord, once neglected, has a fairly new marker provided by her family. One side of the maker, along with her name and dates, reads: “Where Lincoln Wept.” An account popularized by William Herndon in his biography is that Lincoln was so distraught by Ann’s death that he knelt and wept at her grave. On the reverse side of the marker is carved “I cannot bear to think of her out there alone in the storm. A. Lincoln.”
Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner and a friend. He also attended poetry readings with Lincoln, who wrote poems himself. Lincoln called Herndon "my man always above all other men on the globe."
Following Lincoln's assassination, Herndon began collecting accounts of Lincoln's life from people who knew him. Herndon wanted to write a faithful portrait of his friend, based on the hundreds of letters and interviews he had compiled, plus his own recollections. He was determined to present Lincoln as the man he actually was, not as a romanticized national hero and saint, and this meant revealing things other biographers would omit or elide, due to the puritanical conventions of that day. Such details included Lincoln’s suicidal depression and his contentious relationship with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. And Herndon maintained that Ann Rutledge was Lincoln’s only true love.
Keywords/Tags: Ann Rutledge, Abraham Lincoln, poem, poems, poetry, love, lover, mistress, paramour, romance, romantic, quilt, grave, Dale Carnegie, William Herndon
Oct 25, 2020
Oct 25, 2020 at 10:42 PM UTC
life is like a patchwork, of various scenes
like the quilt you had, filled with so many things
the colors were bright with patterns mixed up
there were even flowers, sitting in a bright cup
the squares and the shapes made it dizzy to see
they told you a story in patterns of three
life is like that quilt, of patches I suppose
you go, and you go, seeing what life has chose
you never realize what you're about to conceive
just patches of time is what life is, I believe...
Brian Hill - 2020 # 289
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 6:02 PM UTC
i can piece together scraps
and tie up old ribbon
and weave a new story
out of old memories
and new friends
and tales of true emotion
heartache, heartbreak,
when there’s just a little more
at stake
echoes of laughter and music,
deep sea and vast distance
dip and weave
move and shake
from many pieces,
one does a quilt make
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 10:52 PM UTC
sky, patchwork designer quilt,
invites the dull sun to rest;
keeps the rain clouds away!
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 2:01 AM UTC
I am a sacred quilt,
sewn of the finest silk.
Patched together by
experiences gathered,
People I’ve met,
Days gone by.
My quilt vibrates
with love infused light.
With the moment,
as I add to its illumination.
As I breath deep
and harbor gratitude.
I am a precious quilt,
sewn with focus and intention
Always carried to give me warmth
as I align with the truth.
Truth hat I carry threads
of the Divine and therefore
am a gift.
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 8:26 AM UTC
Emotions running deep,
Like stairs entirely too steep;
I climbed.
My legs grew weak.
With shaky limbs,
I progressed.
A tunnel of hate
Dark and unforgiving;
I carried on.
Mountains of memories
Standing tall;
I shuffled onward.
A vast sea of guilt;
I sank.
For I cannot swim.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
My friends and I
are forlorn fabrics
haphazardly stitched into a quilt.
Comprised of different textures and fabrics,
frayed at the ends,
rejected pieces meant for the trash,
not good enough for made-to-wear mall clothes.
My friends and I
fit like a puzzle
consisting of pieces from various other puzzles--
found under coffee tables,
between couch cushions,
tossed into the bowels of forlorn toy bins--
forming a collage of something
disoriented and ambiguous.
Crammed together,
smashing our appendages,
leaving crooked gaps,
wrinkled, torn, ****** up,
but feeling better here
than in our small contribution
to the bland image of our factory's design.
My friends and I,
outcasts, rejects, punks,
convening in the junkyard heap
where we dance and laugh among trash
that makes us feel clean.
Pure when we're filthy.
Quilts and puzzles,
to instill and befuddle;
****** treasures.
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 11:53 PM UTC
Scatter the glitters
onto the velvet sky;
I'll pull it over me
like a blanket,
Kiss in patterns
of a soft good night;
Willingly,
I'll embrace it.
Knowing your hands
made it to keep me
warm and safe;
Dreaming of you,
the Night-Quilt Maker,
to whom, my love I gave.
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 11:36 AM UTC
2 am coffee rings on my bedside table
procrastination at the expense of a letter grade
Nana's hand-stitched quilt has never felt so soft
But her funeral hit me hard
That quilt draped over her coffin
matched the color scheme
of the one she made for a little girl
who love butterflies and spring time
I remember pool side juice boxes
stuffed animals from a pretty lady
she was nice to me
her mom was mean to her
she cried at the funeral
Nana was a better mother to her than
her own ever dared to be
her sister found cigarettes
shes so thin now
I remember her lipstick
its always been red
it looks so red on her skin
the color of the ash
that falls from her stick
matching the skin of Papa
Nana's son
He sang at her funeral
He cried the whole time
Everyone cried
Not me
but I cant cry
Jade Green words
she read them
spotty reading with bad rehearsal
but I remember
her and I and him and my brother
juice boxes
quilts
that pool
its all her
and
I wish I had known her well enough
to miss her
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 9:01 PM UTC
I thought a quilt would make a good gift
Something to keep you warm on these frigid wintry days
Something to keep you warm since I could not
So I unfolded scraps and remnants of our past
And laid them out on the floor
Piecing together parts of you and I
I found a needle and thread
And carefully stitched together the patchwork story of us
Until I had a blanket big enough for us both
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 12:14 PM UTC