"baskets" poems
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water,
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I alone can contend against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Curl round me as though you were frightened.
Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your ******* smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
Until I even believe that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
315.3k
~ Ode to Spring ~
Cherry blossoms filled with bloom
rhododendron’s sweet perfume
warming winds feign summer’s breeze
songbirds singing from the trees
Open windows, déjà vu
sunsets filled with graceful hues
families gather on their strolls
Mother Nature for the soul
Baseball season at the park
evenings lifted from the dark
daylight savings' finally here
patios for wine and beer
Cleaning house and planting seeds
rebirth fills the days and deeds
picnic baskets, hummingbirds
poets find their way in words
Kaleidoscope of bedding plants
shorts in favour over pants
farmers markets, garage sales
power-wash the decks and rails
Hiking, tennis, gardening
inhale the freshness of the spring!
painters, sculptors shape their art
gather here with grateful hearts
Mar 31, 2019
Mar 31, 2019 at 1:15 PM UTC
Drowning inside hands.
A fluorescent chime.
Skin scrubbed radiation.
Force-feeding plastic and sugar and flesh.
Pushing and pulling until tendons flail weathered
Up. And. Down.
Up and down upanddown until the store of powders, prints, nails tumble out carmine and is sobbing
gagging on a high chair.
The candied calculator like heart-shaped pupils and sticky soles.
Opaque ID’s and strands of you abandoned in navy sheets.
Shoulder tassels taught on Adam’s apple.
Love stitches bedding and hollows bodies.
Love lights the West and lines waste baskets wet.
Love is a little girl vomiting into a lion’s den.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC
Today not all of our mistakes are failures
Today I'm closing the door on
the things we keep behind our teeth,
the ways we never learned how to be
soft, but always tried
our best anyway
this is a tribute to the lost sleep
the nights I keep marked in tallies on
my arms, the letters I keep locked up
in a dark drawer,
where maybe something besides moths and regret
will eat away at them.
Today, not all of our thoughts are broken
today you take me out of my skin and I learn how to dance;
the rhythm is choppy but I follow
it anyway, after all we are only testing the waters here
we are only stargazers
awaiting some grand cosmic miracle, we are waiting with our
hands in our pockets for something big to happen,
we are falling in and out of obsession
chasing strangers
around and around in circles,
throwing our
fists in the air claiming "not everything is lost",
slowly coming to the realization that
it's also true not everything is found.
Today you don't know what you're looking for but you can't stop
searching the horizon, like maybe if you peer long enough,
your brain will slow down enough to process
the harsh thump-thump, thump-thump that tells you you're still alive
that tells you you're still here
that tells you you're still waiting
And my fingernails are digging into my palms now from the suspense
of writing and re-writing my name onto fresh pages,
crumpling and collecting them
in the bottom of waste baskets along with
half smoked cigarettes and
last night's rain, because
it is rare that two paths will cross in this world with anything more
than a brief flash of recognition,
it is rare that anything
better can be captured before it slips
down through the cracks;
but that thought was me eons ago
that was me in someone else's skin
today I'm putting nets out to catch the things
we throw around & never keep,
I'm writing your story into my
daily script & keeping a list
of "to-dos" before the big event;
tonight I'm alone and I'm
too busy to look out the window,
maybe the stars will flicker or maybe
they won't, but regardless
I'm still counting my heartbeats to know that I'm here
(still counting my heartbeats to know
the time I have left),
I'm still patching
this wound up with fragments of could have been,
reminding myself that not all
of our hearts are broken, and not all
of our moments are failures.
Aug 4, 2018
Aug 4, 2018 at 1:32 AM UTC
The days I yearn for you
Are like orchids
Without water
Summers burning of heat
Heart lusting none
Burnt through and through
I dare not where you are
In time I’ll find
Our dreams come true
Pumping you of our seeds
Filling baskets
You a father…
Aug 24, 2023
Aug 24, 2023 at 7:10 PM UTC
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
9k
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.
But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a ***
Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.
7.2k
*'Twould do any young person well to step into the muddy boots of a farmer for a spell . *** a field the whole day through , milk an ornery goat , pick a row of okra or two ..
Clean a hog pen , run the dogs at the crack of Dawn , build baskets and set tomato plants in the hot Georgia Sun ..
Pick your meal in the morning and eat it at dinner , cut firewood in the dead of Winter . It would most assuredly do a teenager well , yes it would*
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 17, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
*On a bright and delightful Easter morning
A furry white rabbit, wiggled her pink adorable nose
Peeking through lush bushes
In a lovely and distinctive pose
And jiggled her cottony soft scut
Aiming into a vegetation
On this sunny day
With so much motivation
Quietly hopping into a blissful garden
Placing decorative filled eggs in pastels
With little time to rest
As she quickly inhales
Adding vibrant colours, to an emerald spiky blanket
And into a rainbow of unfolding tulips
Enlightening her way, like a dazzling carnival
For little peeps enjoyment, upon soft winds movement
Beginning in the latter daylight hours, as tots of all ages
Eagerly carried empty interwoven baskets, on their quest
Pacing through, as in peekaboo
And observing who competes the best*
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
I could see her eyes flitting all over the room, her petite frame ensnared in my mother's soft arms. I was so glad she was here, that she was with us. She'll be staying over for the third night in a row, she doesn't want to go home to an empty hospital bed yet. There's nothing there for her now except an angry father, a crying mother and several baskets of sour laundry.
He's mean to me in such a sweet way. How he manages to stare at me when he speaks, kiss my skin eeeeevvvvveeeeer so softly in the places I bruise, and still call me "bro", ignore me, flirt with every girl he comes across and then hug me so tight it's like we're lovers about to be separated forever, I've no idea. All my friends see the light in his eyes when he stares at me, hear the gentle joy in his voice when he says my name, see how he handles me in our hugs, his rare kisses and hand grabs, the way he slides his hands over my arm, my shoulders, plays with my hair, caresses my cheek; such wonder and caution in his work.
So why do I feel it means nothing?
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 1:24 AM UTC
THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, "O sea-starved, hungry sea.'
5.9k
Let me tell you a story about a busy steet in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world.
Somewhere near the end of this busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, there was a flowershop.
It was a lovely old place; an elegant building surrounded by beautiful gardens with daisies and daffodils and roses. It had bird baths where the cheery cardinals and bluejays stopped by for an afternoon splash, and even a sprinkler for the young children to run around in while their mommy's and daddy's were picking out pretty flowers.
Now, inside this flowershop, there were rows upon rows of pots filled with any type of plant you could imagine: dragonsnaps, lilies, zinnias, tulips, the whole lot. Baskets of flowers hung from the ceiling, overflowing with bright colours. Every once in a while, petals would rain down and the entire shop would look magical.
Everyday, people of all ages would dash into this flowershop. Men in suits, looking to find the perfect gift for their dates. Ladies in dresses, picking out just a little something to look nice in a vase on their dinner table. And of course, the gardeners, with their overalls and ***** fingers.
So, as I said, busy people on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world would dash into this busy flowershop, then dash back out and get on with their busy lives. Always looking for the most ravishing type of flower, the ones that could catch your eye as soon as you entered the shop. Never focusing on anything else.
What no one realized was that there was a small flower placed near the back wall of the shop. It was never moved; always been in the same exact place ever since it arrived at the flowershop years and years ago. The owners had stopped watering it, so the flower was beginning to shrivel up. Most of the petals had fallen off and were now laying in a sad little pile on the ground, and the few that remained had turned the colour of black.
The little flower got sicker and sicker every day, but it never lost hope. Every time the suited man stopped in, or the lady with the dress, or the ***** gardener; the flower would use its last bit of strength to make itself noticed. It stood on its tippy toes, perking up and spreading its wilted petals and frail stem as much as it could.
No one saw.
Then, one day, when the owner was sweeping the floor of the flowershop, he saw something near the back wall. Something broken. Crumpled. Blackened. Ugly. Dead. Something that once was beautiful until it stopped being noticed; stopped being loved.
You see, in a busy flowershop on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, no one's ever going to notice a wallflower until it wilts.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 6:47 PM UTC
Plant a seed of hope in your heart
Hope to make it through the night
When thoughts of fear and sorrow
Capture your mind and steal your peace
Be like a good farmer with faith
Knowing that the dry days will pass
And the soil will be watered
Once more you'll make a harvest
And your baskets shall over flow
With joy and laughter
©Sonia Ettyang
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 2:30 PM UTC
You know who you are
Bruised Peaches
Those hit, hidden
Shamed
Belittled and bitten
By the very people we loved most
Mocked
For staying with the bearers of our
Bruises
We warrior spouses
Some of the peaches are lucky
we rolled from the pain baskets
Others have to stay for seedlings
This particular peach
After years of bruises
Nearly got squished between the fingers
of a bruise bearer
And I'm bitter mush
But I'm still whole
And all the while
He whispered,
I love you, I love you little peach
He gave me a seedling
She grew
and with her
My knowledge grew
It took the kingsmens axe
To cut me from that dead tree
But thank God
This peach, is free
~A
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 8:16 AM UTC
“Never trust a ginger”
she sings giggling looking at the red head next to me.
Her song is a pretty good representation of our friendship.
Throw in a ***** bump and some dorky dance moves
oh yea
that’s the definition of our friendship.
Laughing and dying at things no one else gets
actions no one else see’s
and mouthed words no one else understands.
That’s just a little inside view of our “love”.
“Never kiss a ginger”
It’s a little late for that don’t ya think
blackberry tea and coffee making her laugh till she dies.
Hysterics that break her down till she’s on the floor rolling
rolling down a hill and being so dizzy she can’t get up.
Oh but she’s a monster that chases you around
trying to tackle you to the ground.
Falling off the playground rail and hitting her head
just like in our story
so she lays there laughing hysterically.
All I can do is shake my head
“Never kiss a ginger…twice”
yea that’s a little better.
he won’t be telling my slightly stunned, amazed face its cute again.
The face we later joked about
mouth dropped to the floor
eyes wide.
Like did that seriously just happen.
Our dumb and quirky reactions to everything
exaggerated, excited yeses
and happy little dances.
"Never date a ginger”
I’m not nor have I ever…
where do you get these thoughts that run through your head?
Ok I can’t say much
my mind wanders to the strangest places
and leads us to the greatest conversations.
Like cops on bikes with prisoners in baskets
leading to Mortal Instruments characters all riding one bike.
I’ve no idea where our minds get these strange ideas and imaginings.
“Never love a ginger”
I never said I love him
don’t let your mind wander
dangerous things happen when our minds wander
anywhere from dinosaurs ruling the world to death
and the things in between are sometimes worse to think about
“Never like a ginger”
OI!
with this again
I don’t I promise there’s nothing there
now please shut up.
Yes, yes I love you now please don’t attack my legs again
I really don’t feel like falling on the floor
it’s not very appealing.
Uh-oh
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 11:17 AM UTC
“but if you have to move your best friend’s body…
…you’re on your own.”
Your best friend dies
Before your eyes
Somehow stays alive
Then what?
***** salt-licked hair
Brittle and frayed by medicine
World’s unfathomable weight
Trembling beneath the Wisdom Tree
Her whole being crumples (arrugar)
But her life-force remains intact
Body bone
Running on spirit reserves
Why is that?
She stands and cries
Staring into ether
I sit
Wringing my hands
Her tears strike the ground
In tree-gecko unison
'''
Pacific parasite super-strains
Blood coated throat
The full range of abuse’s color on all fronts
for decades
Attempted assaults, ****
Dengue
Giant Centipede venom to the skull
But worst of all
Rootlessness and fear
the monkey on her back
had a monkey on its back
and was smoking a cigarette
'''
Have you ever seen someone
Completely broken?
Corpsic shell of a woman
Gaunt, wan in the tropics
“Don’t put your trust in walls…
…walls will only crush you when they fall”
Brick-bludgeoned body
The shrapnel lay like
Sun scorched
Novice-woven baskets
At her feet
But now she can see
And breath
Real breath
'''
Genocide’s a ***** yes.
Africans seem fatalistic to Americans
Baby boy body, Grandpa human- shield
“They’re your babies”
Short-lived, yes
But now they have peace
Witnesses still weave the jungle
What do you do with a friend who’s
Seen real atrocity? Evil?
'''
I’m learning.
Prayer is power
Will transcends the concrete (Bunkle, too.)
She serves realness only
Her seeking hands unweave the sacred
Time is of no luxury right now
Serve people through love
and Grace awaits discovery
'''
I’ve never carried a bleeding body.
I needn’t “fear the terror by night,
Nor the arrow by day”
But I saw someone perish
And resurrect
What a gift
What a gift
Gubaadagem, Tinmad.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 1:45 PM UTC
*veins of my fingers in riots of blossomed colours
like threads made of lilac, lavender, blues and leafs.
for the blues are essences of the Elysian skies,
while lilacs, lavenders and leafs were stolen from an old man's farm
every dawn the sunlit blue wept for the docile stars' hide
I knock my knuckles red and wild, like the raspberries from the monsieur's farm
my chin against the beige, I gaze to where the magpies talk too loudly on the garden moist
swollen and offended by the loud chirps of boisterous dins, the grouchy neighbour cry.
I fill my baskets with wild things and papers,
I have cheese and juices, fruits and sweet carrots.
I have peach trees on my nails for jam
I have cherries in my toes for pie
I have snows in my lapin's soul for some ice creams
I have poppies in my worn pants for a good sight
And there's even vineyards of all Verona in my mind
the ribbons on the hat loom into the gardens' tunnel;
I have herb gardens, I have secret gardens
And I have my old books and pens in there.
when my laces are riven, the embroidered flowers are not.
the canvas shoes is painted in petrichors and soil
my dresses go tattered, sewn with patches
into the vines, thorns and russet throats I lilt and leap
against smells of rustic wood pencils and redolent flowers
There, under a green willow is where to sit and devour wisdom
and to drink some saccharine wine with mon lapin and maybe some picnic pies.
The abominable tremors will be gone,
My morn soul diving into fairy pools of sensuous europhias.*
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 10:09 AM UTC
From whence we tip to toast the Cocktail new
Too pricey for a Sip, if you ask me
Still, those Pubbers demand your Freshest Brew
Either for Show or Truest Cheers that be
Now who composed the Price which I complain
May rob my Wages on half-month's budget?
You have Defense, though: Is that my Domain
To liver that Sign out of my Pocket?
I suppose either way Purchased or not
Those Senses concerned will take no Notice
With Baskets fare, Bread and Butter forgot
Mix the Lager still Best Friends acquiesce.
The Currant still topped, which to Celebrate
Ignore the Side-Bugs; Light the Good Debate.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 9:11 PM UTC
Kamarul is going to his village
All of us are going home with him
Kamarul is bringing
A bangle for his sister
Rafeeq almost buys up a jewellery shop
Kamarul takes as saree for his mother
Divakaran is busy searching for a clothes shop
While making tea
While emptying waste-baskets
While feeding new paper into the printer,
Kamarul sings his own song
All of us sing aloud privately
While going down in the lift,
He learns to count
4
3
2
1
All of us leap towards zero
Kamarul goes home,
Taking our letters
To the plant on earth
To the wind that blows in the evening
To the friend who promised to come
To everyone, for everyone
We wave our hands, wondering
What would be the time on earth
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there's the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there's the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,
Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring's array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
4.4k
There's a middle aged woman; she's dragging her feet.
She carries baskets of clothes to the laundromat
while the Mexican children kick rocks into the street;
and they laugh in a language I don't understand,
but I love them.
Why do I love them?
So the neighborhood is dimming as I smoke on the porch
and watch the people as they pass, enclosed by their cars;
on their faces just anger or disappointment.
I start wishing there was something I could offer them.
A consolation, what could I offer them?
And they are sad in their suburbs; robots water their lawn
and everything they touch gets dusted spotless,
and so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all
and the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses.
I have heard them sing in the shower,
making speeches to their sister on the telephone
saying, "You come home.
Woman, you come here."
Don't stay so far away from me.
This weather has me wanting love more tangible.
Something I can hold 'cause it's getting cold.
I say, "Hold up our fists to the flame in the sky.
to block out the light that's reaching for our eyes."
'Cause it... 'cause it would blind us. Yeah, it will blind us.
Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine.
So I may never be free of this apathy,
but I wait for a letter that is coming for me.
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope
so there is still hope.
Yes, I can be healed.
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
in my secret drawer, in my pockets deep.
You will find the reasons I can't sleep and you will still want me.
But will you still want me? Will you still want...?
Well, I say come for the week.
You can sleep in my bed,
and pass through my life like a dream in my head.
It will... it will be easy. I will make it easy.
But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time;
a melody to keep me from worrying.
Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy,
and words that are sure to come back to me
and they'll be laughing, and they'll be laughing.
My mediocrity.
My mediocrity.
(and they'll be laughing.)
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 11:52 PM UTC
The wild blackberry
plume bursts,
effervescent under briar
and brambles,
brilliant indigo and magenta prior.
We picked the posy
and sweet fruits
which scalloped along the ditch
until our baskets were full and rich.
The bronzey leaves quiver gently
but do not fall
however thick thorns plenty
tear our long skirts
and scratch our pasty legs.
Stained with dirt
And blood and mud
We skip home through thyme.
Through our childhood as
The blackbirds caw.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC
A Zippo lighter with a smoker's cough,
propositions the ladybug
clinging to a flannel pocket,
You can always trust a tealight
to warm the neglected beetles,
that cling to your chest.
this Ritual of the staring contest.
attention behind the curtain:
When You blink at the Rorschach shadows
tell me, they are not mailboxes.
The spirits linger; we stumble into entanglement
birch trees weaving
baskets from our branches
I'm known to cave on integrity, for the taste of freckles,
flickering tealights in the hearthstone, with a smokers cough.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 3:08 AM UTC