"bathrobe" poems
The bar was full
in the basement of my mind
and i read the manual, my buddy hunched over on a
stool beside me.
“it’s a cinch he said”
not really, though, because people don’t speak in dreams.
(i ascribe to them 50‘s slang expressions)
my beer was magically empty
and others were magically full
studying alien life forms
in this book
this manual
and wanting to puke.
dreaming is stressful
and so is life.
where is the best place to hang
a bathrobe?
Jul 1, 2011
Jul 1, 2011 at 11:08 AM UTC
I wanted to be better than what
I’ve become. Like maybe a
real individual: An intellectual
in a burgundy bathrobe.
I would have specs
and impressive novels to peer
into the future with.
But I am just the same as
yesterday. They say I’m an
adult, but my robe is still
hot pink. My glasses are still
plastic. My novels are still
popular fiction.
All that I have become is underdeveloped.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 1:08 PM UTC
shuffled into the hallway
the laughing ignorance
stews in its bathrobe and cigar
at the edge of its own manicured lawn
with a pale eye it it calculates
with a thin cold lip it ponders
he makes his lazy way to his bed among the spilled leaves
makes his way to the comforts of eyes closed visions
the laughing ignorance proverbial
fool in ragged cloth dancing a jig
on a spring moon's grave
flowers in hand and wreaths of holly adorning
his head like a crown of soft thorns
his skilful laugh echoes across the barren field
littered with the passing of days
strewn with the formulations of nights bitter embrace
no mere words can delay or
mislead the way that darkness creeps into the mind
when alone with its own devices
done with his jig
he sits on the springs moons grave
and sips at the christmas wine
savoring its crisp life on his tongue
the laughing ignorance still wearing
the dancing fools leather shoe
is a hobbled prisoner of his laughing jest
no other time or place has room for his kind
for his pantomime of long lost victory's
on beachheads of distant sandy shore
his rancid eye calculates me
in all my rumoured mistakes
and he speaks to that dream not to me
so i will leave him here
standing in manicured existence
of his own sour pain
the fall will find him sleeping sweetly
on the spring moon's grave
and it will renew him
leaves swirling down as the world steals the crown
of the tree above
he will be a young man once again
renewed by the promise of maidens dancing
and the dance of winterlight on snowbound fields
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 12:55 PM UTC
I feel like a small frightened child, one who has become lost in the deep dark woods of every child’s nightmares, cold, alone, well past “losing one’s cool” and just precious inches away from “flipping one’s **** the only things that I possess a flashlight that I cannot figure out how to switch on, a compass that only points backwards and a magical, wish granting genie that only speaks in a language that I have never heard and therefor do not understand while at the same time am not understood, whose only option to improve his situation is to sit in one spot and wait for help to arrive but what if it doesn’t so I am forced to action to fashion crude tools and build a shelter and hunt and cook and survive because no one is going to find me and I am not going to find my way out, so I must live in the forest of nightmares and darkness...
...and then I begin to wonder if that small child is not a child at all, but an aging man in a worn bathrobe, alone in a darkened room in an asylum, sitting under a table with a bed sheet hanging over the sides like a makeshift tent, trying desperately to find the “ON” button of an empty pill bottle while I wait for a wound out, wind up clock to find North during the stock market numbers on the local Hispanic radio station, forever stuck in the nightmare forest created by his own mind, which is somehow less terrifying than the reality of his unreality...
...because it is beginning to become very muddled in both of those places and I am beginning to lose track of his self so here looks like a good place to sit down and wait for help to not arrive and over there a good spot to build a temporary cemetery plot to rest my weary hours and while away the bones because unless I figure out a way to sort his self out, I will forget to send for help that I am tired of waiting for and the seconds in the dark that were not there a moment ago and may not be here now will be gone forever when the clock strikes South-East and I am left alone again with only a snot nosed codger and a loony old brat, looking out a window that directly faces a brick wall, watching and praying for the sun to rise on its horizon.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 5:35 AM UTC
Fenola watched
as Eileen bathed.
She took in
the hand
moving
the lathered sponge
over the contours
of the body,
moving between ****
like some
venture ship of old,
moving down
the belly,
beneath the soapy water
to the pleasure dome,
then out again
around the neck
and under chin,
then whole body
over once again.
She knew that body well,
each inch of flesh,
each orifice,
each smell,
each loving touch.
Even the thought
pleased her
overmuch.
Eileen looked over
where Fenola sat,
on stool,
in bathrobe,
with feet
on mat.
Come on in,
she said,
room enough for two,
you rub my back,
I’ll rub yours
and other places too.
Fenola thought awhile,
took in her eyes
that gazed,
the smile
that spread,
the memory
of the afternoon
in bed,
the positions held
and played,
the *** ensuing.
Eileen pointed
to the soapy bath,
come in,
she said
with **** laugh.
Fenola stood up
from the stool,
disrobed,
set it aside,
stepped in the bath
and sat down,
the water engulfing.
Somewhere
from the other room,
Ravel played
from hifi speakers,
Bolero
or some such piece,
the sound touching
the bathroom walls
with steam and scent.
The girls rubbed
and scrubbed
and laughed
in soapy water,
each one
like a siren
of the sea
or Neptune’s daughter.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 3:42 PM UTC
The club is small and dark and hazy
like the veiled comedy of minstrel performers.
Those dingy lights do little for the atmosphere—
dangling hemp from clouds of cigarette smoke.
This hole is filled with the classy of day and the
sassy of night—a real “blue material” kinda crowd.
Harry, the manager, after calling quarter and five,
booked some awful oleo acts just minutes before
“places!”
—The crowd sits on their hands ‘til they’re numb
and lame like the fish they watch flop on the boards.
Two acts down followed by some soot-covered
clown’s lazzo about who’s who and what’s what.
Give me a break! The crowd wants fresh fish to fry—
Girlies in pearlies with spun out legs that tower
the torsos they’re pinned to. Give them that
New York Style Cheese-cakewalk Variety Act!
The listless listeners of this K.A. circuit let out a
snake-like hiss, en masse. (The only show stoppers
are off the billing, stage left at some other club!)
The manager thinks fast like a quick change act—
Harry snatches a prop from the nearest kook—
In a long brown bathrobe, with a broad brown cane.
He hushed the crowd of loud, jeering jerks, in one
swift swoop of his leg-breaking, knockout **** called
The Vaudeville Hook.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 8:10 PM UTC
Sun draped across her legs
crossed beneath her like
folded wings,
The Carnivore watches.
Satan said, 'stay naked as you came,'
so here she sat, white as mushroom,
raw as shrimp.
She leans, a sifted sack of flour, against her wall;
love rising within her like a cloud of mosquitoes,
for here comes her Plant Eater.
In her nakedness she hides,
watching him trot across the floor,
his movements thoughtful and slow as cooling lava,
shrugging on his brontosaurus suit like an old bathrobe.
He has vegetarian ankles,
his bare feet are splashed with mud
like an old truck.
Carnivore that she is, she bursts out of hiding
naked as Satan,
and she demands her heart.
“I do not love you,”
she lies,
and points to the cedar box in his soft hands.
“Now give me back my heart.”
“No.”
he cries,
and runs from her.
She knows the box is locked and has no key,
though the brontosaurus has not been told
that there is no hope
for this particular heart.
He hides from her behind a tree,
but the tree puts down its other leg and walks away
leaving him exposed as the naked Meat Eater
who catches up to him now.
This time,
before she can get to the tying by the wrist to the chair,
he swallows the box
and holds it in his belly.
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 8:59 PM UTC
The tea kettle is whistling
I hear the toaster go pop
Birds are happily chirping
I wonder what they have to say
Gonna be a beautiful morning
All is well for me today
In my bathrobe drinking my tea
I put my face to the blue sky
As I watch the world pass by
I see fluffy clouds in the distance
Playing hide and seek with me
All is well for me today
Sirens scream in the distance
Someone is mowing their lawn
A smell so familiar from my memories
Warm winds blow in slowly
Spring is finally upon us again
All is well for me today
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 2:39 AM UTC
I'm a medium poet
my temperature never rising too high
and that's okay my darlings, that's okay
historically, greatness seems to require more misery than i'm willing to wear
anymore. I let it go with
forgiveness
sold my soul to the angels so
i can stand in the garden in my
purple bathrobe to hear
trumpets blare see
little strip-ed bees crawling into the
foxglove, smiling dandelions
500 square feet of mystery and
i'm struck, once again, by
awe
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 12:51 PM UTC
Syllabus for a Summer Day
Awaken with the sun, and while thin mist
Slinks eerily across the fields, step out -
Labor across the dewy grass, near ripe
For the second cutting of summer hay
The lesson for today is clearing brush
Along the fence lines of both fields and life
The attendance check is for needed tools:
Old gloves, old boots, old saw, and fresh new verse
Awaken with the sun, honor the day
With work and play to earn a grade of A
Alternative Syllabus for a Summer Day
Ignore the stupid sun; go back to sleep
Reject the chatter of the alarming beep
And waken at a reasonable Christian hour –
Oh, ten will do; earlier is so sour!
Then bathrobe-shuffle to the coffee ***
See what is on the news, or maybe not
And scratch and yawn and look around to see
That nothing has changed since last night at three
Ignore all work; just stick it on the shelf
And for my grade, I’ll happily take an F!
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 4:04 PM UTC
not exactly high heels and thigh highs
but an invitation is an invitation,
engraved or post-it.
when I one-stroke open your furry bathrobe,
furry slippers thunking-kerplunking
onto the polished wood floor,
poet-puts you laughing, protesting, prone,
on the dining room table, we both shaking,
possibly from laughter?
when I one-stroke open your furry parts
with various soft tissue medical instruments,
to which ****** harm is now "uncovered"
as specially advised by my insurance company,
no more, no matter,
the lady doth protest too much about my methodology, methinks,
no more, no matter
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 1:09 PM UTC
When Friday buried Thursday
at the cemetery
I was eating eggs and
bacon in my bathrobe.
The other days wore black
attire to the burial
and brought white geraniums.
I stood in silence for three minutes
after I finished my breakfast
then wrote a note for the weekend:
“My time will come,
don’t wait for me,”
and left.
Jan 12, 2017
Jan 12, 2017 at 3:46 PM UTC
I got locked out of the house today
While feeding my cat on the porch
In a bathrobe without my purse
No phone, no key, barefoot of course
So I sprinted to the driveway
Where my man was still backing out
Engrossed in checking his emails
He must have missed my screaming shout
Backed out all the way to the street
His eyes ahead in the early dawn
He didn't see my panicky dance
Off to work, in a flash, he was gone
Despite my last ditch effort
Racing after him down the street
He never looked back, not once
I was abandoned with ****** feet
It's only half past 7am
Time to problem-solve my way inside
Even though I had a ladder to climb
Every lock and bolt let all hope die
That day I spent on the patio
Long and hot it was to be sure
Feeling neglected and left behind
I cried a few tears in a blur
Then I did some overdue yard work
Drank out of the hose like my dog
Relaxed in the hammock instead of lunch
Dozed off in an afternoon fog
Till I found a book on reflexology
I'd been meaning to read for so long
Practiced a few techniques on my cat
And planned how I'd tell Bill he'd done me wrong
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
Wear a bathrobe
when beating the keyboard,
when borrowing words from your muse;
Let the stale air in the
dim room
form as
fragrant
beads of sweat,
thick with whiskey,
on your brow
Wonder if what you're
writing
is poetry or ****
Proceed to not care and
write, write, write baby
because at the end of it all,
when the words are used up
and you've sobered up,
someone will tell you
it's ****
and someone will tell you
it's gold
But you don't give a **** do you?
You just
reach for the whiskey
bottle and ask your muse
for some more
Netflix and chill
But hey, wear that bathrobe;
it gives you character
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 12:37 AM UTC
She sings, unites beautiful melody with a naturally melodious language
The end result being how I don't have a clue what she's saying
chanting the mantra given to her
by the bearded sage in the terry cloth bathrobe
who told her "your mind is a vast field where elephants gather to play"
before conferring the mantra
She lets the Sanskrit words roll over her tongue
a vernacular of formidable power
effecting even those who don't speak a word
such was I, Sanskrit illiterate, but the repetition
opened the lotus flower of my heart
the baby blue visage of Sri Krishna materialized
from the words she was singing
I took away his flute and blew a line from an old Jethro Tull song
she thought it enchanting
but Krishna was not happy to see his vaunted woodwind in the hands of a mere mortal
he stepped up to me, polite as can be
he says "if you don't give me my instrument I will be forced to cut off your hands, and then what do you think will happen to this poem?"
I stood my ground, possession being two thirds of the law
I blew the flute solo from Genesis' "The Musical Box" (having known it by heart)
the blue boy asked several times for me to
give him that almighty flute
each time I told him "No! You'll have it soon enough"
apparently not soon enough
(For he felt a pair of garden shears slice firmly through his right hand
the same set of shears severed his left
he dropped his stylus and papyrus to the ground
toppled over, landing smashly with a great crash
within a matter of time he bled out from the stumps where his hands had once been attached
Krishna picked up his flute and said
"what a pity"
and vanished into thin air
it all ended quickly as it had begun
and the sweet lady never stopped chanting her mantra
in fact her back had been turned before Krishna even showed up
it was a great shock to find her gentleman friend's lifeless and handless body on the ground
She shed a tear
I was no less miserable and sad
wished above all else
that I had been a real poet
so I could have finished the man's life work)
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 5:21 PM UTC
It started with the wide-leg Giorgio Armani pants
And it all went downhill from there.
They were so chic, and might improve her stance,
She could wear them to the market, hell, almost anywhere!
When she put them in her shopping cart
And continued to enter her credit card number,
A shot went right through her fashion-hungry heart
A jolt she still remembers!
It was the feeling of a new era
A new time in the lifespan of her wardrobe.
She would become a Prada-shopper, a vintage Chanel-wearer
No longer would she need to shuffle around her apartment in that awful bathrobe.
She'd strut down the street, sporting her Carolina Herrera.
A month later, a tingle slipped through her spine
As she donned a lapis Michael Kors
It was that sudden thought, "This dress is all mine!"
"It's mine now, so it isn't yours!"
From then on, it was her bank account that took the hardest hits
Money trickled through her Valentino-studded hands,
Down her Vera **** hips,
Came running down in thin, green strands.
Of course it all came falling apart when she saw the flawless Birkin bag,
Sitting there in the Hermes shop window
She knew it was the one thing she'd yet to snag!
However, there was just one thing she didn't know.
As she had the cashier ring it up,
Dropping another ten-grand
The cashier had her card snatched right up!
For this, Madame Fashion couldn't stand.
"Give it back!", she said, snapping her gold-dusted finger
"But dear you're overdrawn," said the snappy lady.
How she wanted to scream like soprano opera singer!
It was then that things got real shady.
In a lurch of madness, Madame jumped the counter!
The other shoppers were struck into awe and fear.
The cashier woman tried to stop her,
But Madame had just barely escaped, finally in the clear!
As she ran down fifth avenue, clutching her precious steal
A horrible revelation took over this felon,
She'd forgotten that she had wanted the purse in gorgeous teal!
Instead she had gotten melon.
Sep 23, 2011
Sep 23, 2011 at 3:55 AM UTC
I 've been up since 7:00 AM.
The time has flown,
It's raining and somber outside.
A day easy to ignore.
It's nearing now 5:00 PM
I sit here yet in my Bathrobe,
As I have done all day long.
Never did that before.
I apologize to no one,
Not even myself. It was not
Sloth or depression inspired,
It was an overpowering need
For massive doses of Poetry
That caught and held my attention.
Passion or obsession, who is to judge?
And what truly is the difference?
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
When life departs
Where does one even begin to start;
the healing.
Those left behind masked and basked in burning feeling.
A hanged man
A hanged man
How does one justify a hanged man.
A man who seemingly had everything, but became a brand.
A bathrobe belt around his neck tied to a doorknob in a french hotel, ****
A hanged man
A hanged man
A man who had everything,
Yet a heart full of pain, searing.
We may only see the outside.
The inside is hidden from us, tearing.
The cries for help ignored, no hearing.
The inevitable demise pushed out of our minds, fearing.
A hanged man
A hanged man
A hanged brand
How do we accept a hanged man,
a man who had everything.
Jun 12, 2018
Jun 12, 2018 at 5:23 PM UTC
Somewhere between
the night i kissed you
in my bathrobe
and the current
moments we find
ourselves
crawling around in,
I fell in love with you.
Lovely.
Absolutely Lovely.
I aspire
you achieve
We work well together,
yes?
May 9, 2011
May 9, 2011 at 4:07 PM UTC
So I’m sitting in this dark room, smoking cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. Staring at the pile of mail on the table. Left behind junkmail, junk that I have to answer, his junk. But then again I am wearing his clothes, his shoes, Christ, This might even be his bathrobe. Moved in on another mans turf, or am I just keeping the seat warm? So he can go sow his oats, sleep with some secretary or ****** do fat lines of whatever, never having to check in while checking out . I remember I think , what that used to be like, to be free of things, things like commitment, things like meeting your obnoxious co workers at the bar, And not the cool downtown bar with its dim light, backbooths and jukebox full of blues, The uptown one with the yuppies and their bluetooths and never ending vain chatter. Things like love, things like forgetting that your favorite color is yellow, not mustard yellow but bright ******* canary yellow. The yellow that reminds me of bathroom stalls and jailhouse walls, and all those, late late night trips to the E.R.. Things like time , Remember that time when You said “lets take it slow “ Then the next morning you wrote I love you on the mirror in Red lipstick. Should have been a stop sign, a flag ,god **** warning, right there. Things like Freedom, The freedom to fly away, To escape, to set sail. To be free like that B.M.W. on the autobahn, in the commercial, aimed at the friends, with the Bluetooth surrounded by yellow walls that sing those blues, To be free But then who would be wearing our clothes ,our shoes ,Christ, even our bathrobe, Hell who would even answer the mail.
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
*Oh lover! Your absent heart has left me wanting.
Your unfocused mind has left me wandering.
You are a playing field, and I am the ball.*
Bounce me.
Words are funny things;
We think we know them;
We think we have mastery over them,
That they are ours to manipulate.
But words, they have a life of their own,
And the power they can speak, we do not fully grasp.
Maybe, words will spill out of you tomorrow morning
As the sun lifts it's brow,
And you are in your bathrobe drinking coffee.
Will you be waiting for them? Will you listen?
Maybe.
Or, perhaps you will be engrossed in the sports section
When the next clear moment arrives.
And you will miss hearing it.
And those words will fly on past you
And settle on the ears of another,
Less inclined to avoidance of the truth.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 10:21 PM UTC
My muse, my muse,
She’s here right now
She just took a shower and her hair is still wet.
She's wearing a bathrobe, she walks up to the bed and sits
When she crosses one leg over the other I catch a flash of her thighs
Inviting thighs, long legs
She has pretty feet
And pretty ankles,
I always look at feet.
She has delicate wrists
She has long thumbs, here she is
Now leafing through a magazine
With those long thumbs,
Long fingernails.
Her shoes are on the floor, shoes that she wore last night
They've fallen over on the carpet,
My eyes find my way back to her
She seems to have found something interesting in the magazine
Here she is, concentrated on it, her back is straight
In this light, this natural light,
Without make up,
She looks impossibly lovely,
Renoir would paint her.
I get out of bed and walk into the shower.
There’s something strangely intimate
About taking a shower in a girl’s bathroom,
Shampoo bottles and hair conditioners all around me
Water cascading down my bare chest
Recollecting and replaying scenes from the night before:
Unbuttoning her jeans, pulling them off
Seeing her Hello Kitty underwear
And laughing, and thinking it was cute
And saying, umm… so how old are you again?
Humour always works, yes, humour always works.
I love ********** this girl.
It seems as though I'm always ********** her.
At night in the living room, on the sofa
Unfastening her stockings and slowly rolling them off,
Next her skirt, then her underwear…
Sweet parting flesh
I begin thinking of how it’ll be, how it’ll go down
She's always in something classy,
But man, it seems as though I'm always ********** her.
Sometimes I strip everything off her body,
But I ask her to leave her earrings and heels on; they confirm her nakedness
Hoop earrings
Red lipstick
Red heels
I lie in the middle of the bed, lights are dim, she climbs onto the bed
Curls up between my legs, begins by kissing on my stomach...
Great lovers lie in hell, the poet says.
Great lovers lie in hell.
I'm falling asleep afterwards, but not her
*** invigorates me,* she says, tying her hair in a ponytail
This girl, she has the effect of lighting a matchstick in the dark.
She lays beside me and begins to read Jeanette Winterson
And just before I succumb to a deep slumber I remember something and tell her,
Baby, baby, baby, your Morse code interferes with my heartbeat.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 4:45 PM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
It’s a witch hunt
Donald Trump insists
But listen closely
And then dig this
You don’t hunt witches
Where none exists
Despite the President’s anger
And him balling his fist
It’s a witch hunt
You’ll hear him shout
At various rallies
But there is no doubt
He runs the coven
And they’re all about
In his administration
As well as out
It’s a witch hunt,
That Mueller probe
But Trump lacks the patience
Shown by a Job
The investigation
Stays on his frontal lobe
And he appears naked
Without a bathrobe
It’s a witch hunt
And Mueller’s caught witches
He’s indicted dozens
Of those sons-of-bitches
The president needs to
Be kicked in his breeches
Because the emoluments
Adds to his riches
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 6:48 AM UTC