"baubles" poems
When you come to me, unbidden,
Beckoning me
To long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.
Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
Trunks of secret words,
I cry.
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Writing a poem is like making a necklace,
Bead by bead, pattern on pattern,
Complex or simple, colorful or monochromatic,
The good ones take talent, but chance luck can help.
This one for that friend, that one for this day,
Good words like fancy baubles,
Well placed they make the string,
Wrong placed and they ruin it.
Some come easy, some are long thought out
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
her wrist bears a set of golden bracelets
with bells and woven beads
light blue with a tangle of red
it goes with her dreadlocks
and the trinkets woven into her hair
beads and baubles
there is amongst other treasures
on the edge of one of her dreads
a tiny box
within a small face
made of pewter
old as lord nelsons prize at the nile
old as the length of a pewter mans dream
i am the pewter man and
the absence of her perfume on the air
is the absence of my soul
and my heart labors
how will i push the pen forward
can i even breath without her near
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 5:56 AM UTC
Stuffed full of toys and ribbons,
Tinsel and baubles,
Santa and his reindeer,
Deliver to all,
Presents for children,
For their mums and their dads,
For Aunts and Uncles,
Nans and Granddads,
There’s perfume and clothing,
Chocolate and sweets,
Santa delivers the nicest of treats.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 11:20 AM UTC
On this humid summer night,
heartbreak is even more painful:
here you lie scattered
in trinkets and baubles.
Half your name on an airplane tag;
Old diary with
hurriedly noted recipes;
A bangle whose
other in pair is now lost;
The cherished handbag,
hidden away behind clothes;
That first scarf I bought for you.
You lie scattered like this
here, in every shadow and dream:
why, Spirits, this fate for us?
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 10:19 PM UTC
The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips—and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words—
Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined
Then desolately fall,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall—
Thy heart—thy heart!—I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the truth that gold can never buy—
Of the baubles that it may.
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Krypton didn’t fit with anyone,
as it was the unfriendly one,
it never went beyond it’s limits
even if others did loose their limits.
It was from a forlorn world,
nobody cared to say a word,
to this enigma of another world;
no one wanted to share a word.
The nobles were always preoccupied
with their occupied shells,
they never hung out with the occupied,
nor the unoccupied.
Krypton was mistaken for kryptonite.
It wondered every night,
Why they accused it for the assassination?
it didn’t have the power of absorption.
Krypton had very few of it’s kind,
it didn’t know where they were aligned.
He held the hope of being able to be lined,
with the rest of it’s kind.
Poor Krypton, he was on the farthest
arena of the periodic table
it wished if it could turn the table,
so that it can at least act a bit feeble.
Experience taught this novice,
it calculated the calculations,
to traverse the long distance,
fear hindered the transmissions.
Krypton used to think without links
he was one of the stable nobles,
he wasn’t the one that wobbles
and, one of the table’s baubles.
Dec 17, 2016
Dec 17, 2016 at 4:36 AM UTC
Sitting in a restaurant
Over a cup of coffee
And silently having our dinner
With hardly anything exciting
Either to brag or blather
My eyes got hooked
On the occupants of the table, next
Two kids, seated on small chairs
A boy and a girl, obviously a pair of twins
Adorably cute, their father, so young
Who having placed the order
Were in wait for their turn
Carrying a tray, as the waiter arrived
With something of the plainest kind,
Small cartons of French fries,
Bottles of sauce and plain ice cream
The little faces gleamed in excitement
Their beaded eyes riveted,
And their heads bobbed in happy approval
As their Dad opened the carton
And placed before them
French fries sprinkled with some sauce
The children, sprang to their feet
With an upsurge of delight,
Jumping up and down,
Clapping their hands and shouting!
At a small distance, sat we
‘Solemnly’ consuming our meal
With nothing to titillate our palette
Or excite our toned nerves
I thought;
How, in course of time,
Everything becomes a routine ritual
And what stark difference
Between our subdued composure
And the overwhelming excitement of kids!
They haven’t learned yet
That such open expression of emotions,
Is not in keeping with accepted norms
To what peaks of joy, they get catapulted
With mere trifles and silly baubles
While we remain ever at the bottom
Unable to be lifted up
Is this what we call aging?
Or is it
The death of spring
The summer’s dirge
Autumn’s mellowing
Or the chill wave of winter’s blast??
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 6:39 AM UTC
i saw my little cat in my christmas tree
taking of the baubles and bringing them to me
dropped them at my feet all placed upon the floor
then gently running back to go and get some more
he climbed up to the top and brought the fairy down
with her magic wand and a lovely golden gown
then he got the tinsel rolled and rolled around
in between the tinsel he was truly bound
he managed to escape undone it from his head
crawled in to the corner and jumped into his bed
his little game was over his eyes began to close
he curled in a ball to have his little doze
Dec 28, 2013
Dec 28, 2013 at 10:29 AM UTC
I wish
It were Christmas
Because I love the frenzy
And excuses it brings.
It's a beautiful
Excuse to not do
The ******* things
In life that we spend
Our lives doing.
The fairy lights
Entwined in the trees
Cross continents
With the buzz
of electricity.
I wish it were
Christmas because
It brings the beautiful
Excuse to love
Extravagantly.
Just as we love
The icy daisies
Of spring I love
The warm branches
Of bare Christmas Trees
I wish it were Christmas
Because I want to
Hang the rosewood
Baubles round
And see the glitter of sequin
Bunting strung happily
About the bedrooms.
I love the beautiful
Excuses brought
In the gifts bought
And how love is sieved
Through in the snow.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 12:54 PM UTC
In the twilight of immeasurable hope
I run, I pace, I stagger.
A moon of sorts tucks its hefty beams
Behind the gauzy, twisted zephyr,
As if teasing that its crisp, round, clarity
is merely an echo of a distant, convoluted story:
a myth.
One moment I am carrying out my quotidian realities
Unfiltered, unbridled, lucid,
Running my fingers through laughing waves
of golden, auburn richness,
Letting my wavering, billowing hair
slowly melt into the quavering, trembling wind…
When suddenly-
I am caught in the labyrinth of veils.
I, with my hair and my warmth,
I am auriferous.
And these sheets, oh these hangings!
They float like century-worn cobwebs
And they ensnare me so.
This is where the tangled messages
And mangled mixed signals
All wriggle themselves into form
And make their zombie graveyard.
And yet there are sparks,
Little voices trapped in burning baubles
Shining like the ever-loving soul of the universe,
Which whisper the stories of the moon-thing
Beyond the borders of this haze-land.
Sometimes I attempt to fashion
these ethereal sparklings into my hair.
They suggest insanity, so close to my ears,
And I can’t fill my soul with enough…
I cling to the faith that they will lead me out
Into the amaranthine beyond.
I come back here often,
Always hoping that today will be the day
That the beams from above
Will reach to seek me.
For that, I will love the mists,
And carnally sip away
At the nebulous, crepuscular,
Pools of Fantasy.
But in retrospect,
I should never have told you
That your name means “Purple” to me.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 1:35 AM UTC
Pretty soon the conkers would be falling, she could already see their
plump, cherubim bodies
spiked and dangling
like baubles,
or those underwater bombs,
from the oak leaves,
hanging limp.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 6:40 PM UTC
Bring down the Yuletide smile
Of countless generations and open winter faces
Gaining frail but everlasting spirits
Feeling tender and warm at pieces of literature
Made relevant with countless references to such
Wondrous elements known to man
Not wishing to send negatives of loud examples
Moods of love and forgiveness abound
But can they last as time moves from a tiny
Microcosm of capsule-like events
Hung like baubles to an expectation
Why is this so?
Nothing is as regimented as December
True Yuletide is a celebration of an end
And a beginning, a pagan festival
Sustainable and honest from a tangible simple respect
Banded about and tainted by commerce and Jesus
Nothing could be further from seasonal vita
Dec 18, 2010
Dec 18, 2010 at 10:10 AM UTC
mass culture is designed for complacency [ ];
the Great Depression of the 30's ended the Roaring 20's;
as radio brought WWII & TV Vietnam into homes
where easy-chairs & TV dinners reigned in cartoon
silence; Bud sneaks off to the garage to smoke bud,
when the innocent stoner gets a draft card,
turning radical, Bud grows his hair long &
giving the middle finger to some, peace
sign to others [decades go by when hideous was fashionable];
9/11 breaking our post-grunge
neo-70's-80's haze [for what, like a week - - -
then came the hoax of Islamophobia
spreading paranoia & nervousness in case
the terrorists missed anyone; the 90's
were already nostalgia by the time of the invasion
of Iraq; mass culture is designed for sedentary complacency
but when society is in upheaval
the media just has to wait
until it's all over to start promoting expensive baubles again - - -
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 4:21 PM UTC
For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.
I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 10:16 AM UTC
I stood where Love in brimming armfuls bore
Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit:
And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit,
Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store:
And from one hand the petal and the core
Savoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shoot
Seemed from another hand like shame’s salute,—
Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for.
At last Love bade my Lady give the same:
And as I looked, the dew was light thereon;
And as I took them, at her touch they shone
With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame.
And then Love said: ‘Lo! when the hand is hers,
Follies of love are love’s true ministers.’
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God, beautiful God
your savior voice converges
from every direction
but your deafening song, adrift
in a thousand siren winds,
carries flickers of fear to my
spread-open operating table self
how those hands work!
forcep fingers draw red lines
and pluck out the worms
once planted by ache
casting aside swathes of skin
and blood-slick baubles of silver,
you pull out my pearls
and put me back together
crossing my burgeoning breast
are threads of saintly white
my paragon body immune
to pain and love alike
when Eve ate the apple
she did it every day
to keep the blessed
doctor away
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 4:26 AM UTC
Old jewelry box
accepting
of all my broken baubles
for stories told
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 7:31 PM UTC
It’s time to take down all the decorations,
They look tatty with no celebrations
to give them purpose,
Bauble’s shine turns to rust,
The tinsel starts wilting
Like flowers left in a vase.
Fragments of sellotape cling to the wrapping paper,
And grab at the walls and window ledges it passes on its way to the fire
Trying to escape death.
At least a kind of death.
Floating up out of the flume to be part of a white Christmas for next year.
A flake of ash that ice molecules wrap themselves around to become a snowflake,
And to think you used to be wrapping paper.
So much tasted of last year,
How much is recyclable?
How much to care about complacence of wastage?
How much should I shed a tear?
How much should I care for carbon footprints and ******* tips?
I don’t want to care at all
It’s too much baggage.
All I want is to fly this year,
I’ll make a kite from the bones of the Christmas tree,
The baubles and tinsel and snow spray stripped,
Now bare of all personality.
Maybe it will fly…
If it doesn’t,
There will always be next year,
Until there isn’t…
…And even when I die someday,
Maybe I will get to be a snowflake.
And I’ll get to fly that way.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 6:42 AM UTC
Cold.
Not the chill down my arm
but the one down my spine
at the sight of decadence
at the show of extravagance
at the display cases with
carats and watches
plastic women wearing
someone's house in fur
and silk and adornments
covering their arms like a
Christmas tree gone awry
with its baubles and lights
bringing neither peace nor goodwill
to their men who foot the bills
after a night spent with slots and
levers and cards and mysterious
figures that disappear into lifts
that reach infinite heights before
plunging into clear, crystal waters
that sound like diamonds and the
view you see makes them say
'Oh it's beautiful' but
the waters are shallow.
A beautiful mirage.
Still too cold for me to sell my soul.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
Lazy days and choppy waves
Upon a copper sea,
A breezy, warming westerly
Is blowing down on me.
Sunlight striking wavelets
Below clouds of cotton cool
And seagulls hang in squadron lines
Aloft from oyster pool.
Road signs judder in the breeze
Ripples weave amongst long grass,
Mangroves bend in unison
And asphalt bakes in molten glass.
A parasol of brilliant blue
A picnic basket brimming high
With lemonade and icy beer
Whilst sausages and onions fry.
Two barking dogs cavort with joy
Chasing hard on sandy beach,
Leaping high in summer air
Running, fetching, ***** to each.
The lazy summer saunters in
Engulfing us with solar heat,
The pretty girls wear tiny shorts
Which breathless boys find such a treat.
Pohutukawa’s bursting forth
In waves of rich and scarlet red
Which juxtapose dark olive greens
Of leafage midst each flower bed.
A sky of brilliant powder blue
With salt spray aura in the air
As swimmers splash in gales of fun
Hot sunlight baubles kiss their hair.
Marshalg
Port Waikato beach
15 November 2011
© 2011 Marshal Gebbie
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 12:28 PM UTC
Barefooted teenager
Sliding D&G; watches
Into a bag filled with
Addidas shoes.
It's bonfire night in the cities
Of England. Come out, children,
To the heart of the city and
Bleed it dry.
Betray your hunger,
The greed that consumes you
And the indifference bred into
Your marrow.
Bred by despair and shiny
Baubles in window displays
And worn by all those
Stars in those glossy mags.
It's a consumer's world; it's about
Instant gratification, not hard work -
Even if work could be found.
But why work if you can steal?
Bonfire night. Like when we burn that
Guy. Fawkes? He tried to destroy Parliament
But teenage angst and thugs could do in a few nights
What his barrels of gunpowder couldn't.
Alcohol and **** to last a
Short lifetime. Shopkeepers in the way
Should know better; You can't fight
Irrationality. It has no conscience.
****** loot, burn like in those
Movies about war, Grand Theft Auto,
And a million other games. Just keep
Moving so you never have to actually think.
But just in case, let's blame someone else:
Let's blame race, the Met, politicians,
The schools, the economy, parents -
Society.
Burn, London. Burn, Birmingham,
Burn, Manchester, Burn Liverpool.
Burn, Gloucester. Burn, burn, burn,
But let tomorrow be just another day.
Bonfire night. Every night.
Till they put out the fires,
Tend the wounded and
Bury the dead.
Aug 19, 2011
Aug 19, 2011 at 5:55 PM UTC
Christmas is upon the masses
The white flakes fall, but
Hanging
Swaying,
Dripping
Upon the crisp white
A puddle frozen of crimson red,
Baubles of the deceased
Upon a branch, eyes bleed
Baubles,
Red,
Sightless
Eyes, cracked within, as blood
Drips between the cracks,
He hangs them with tinsel rope
Glistening in the sun,
Inscribed,
"Merry Christmas"
Still fresh from the cut
Blood like a leaking tap
Drip,
Drip,
Drips
Upon pristine snow,
"He is the tinsel hanger"
He waits until the white covers
Then he begins his
Christmas list,
He thinks them naughty in is eyes
So they now sway above the ground,
There is not always one,
For what is a tree with but
One
Bauble
Hanging,
More must adorn a single tree,
"Happy Christmas"
"Died Smiling"
"Jolly Dead"
Were his trademarks upon dead flesh,
Birds perch upon limp shoulders
Pecking, upon the dead,
The last things heard,
As he records his crime,
*"Please don't **** us"*
"Have a heart"
"A heart"
"A HEART"
Pleeeasss....
And then there is but muffled sound
"Thump"
Lifelessness now upon the ground,
Another Bauble
For him to hang with tinsel
Above the freshly powdered ground,
He is the Tinsel hanger
He thinks the white gives purity
To his twisted deeds
Pray* that your not just left
A Christmas bauble,
Hanging,
Swaying,
Lifeless
Above freshly white snow, because
You'll not be alone this cold night,
Family will also be hanging around, tinsel shimmering off moonlight.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
Pellets of rain pestered the cotton swagged
sky, cloudy purses grew black with scowls
coldly spelling their injustice. A chapter of
sunrays shot shamesless shards, irony perched
between chaperones; a truce maybe, rains restless
pathways of rays bleating their appeal, rooming in,
black balaclavas, rooting for blue beams,
itching bony beads of cloudy sweat, out of reach
In turn, limbs colour coated grassy spaces
tides of sun worshippers laughed out loud
their inner duets, hand in hand the sweltering
dance floor bathed them, sidling cotton clouds
Swiftly passing the sunscreen, laying back, beckoning
the sun from beneath neatly positioned cloud baubles.
Within an inch of our lives the splodges began, light
heavy, heavier, to the swell of April in full tune
Instantly the greedy green spaces groaned, ejected
sweet harmony, rolled out goodbyes, tongued stiff
breeze longing for its thirst to be quenched, and so
torrents rushed in where fools once lay
A lonely sunscreen bottle, remnant of warm
minds soaking heat, long days teasing into belief.
Yet April fooled us once more with beguiling banter,
chorused a chanting cheating lullaby of lamentation
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 1:04 PM UTC
the girl in room five fifteen
the royal roach motel
sitting with her box of crackers
in the setting sun
most of the time shes focused on the path
to the next drama free dream
but tonight shes putting on that red dress
and fixing up a confused face to put on
and picking up the keys to the kingdom
she strolls out the door
and up on the avenue
shes a smile to thouse she endears
shes a shadow to thouse who dont
remember the first lesson of the road
you cant succeed till you have utterly failed
so i play her a soft song cause i know it must hurt
to be on that bitter betrayal with no way home
she toils into the night hunched over the table
to create a boxer to fight her demons for her
she makes him out of cardboard
and pictures pasted from magazines
but she is quick to judge
and kicks him out before he can say a word
so he sits quietly at the greyhound station
and crumbles slowly into his pretend memories
the girl in fife fifteen
royal roach motel
up on colorado boulevard
eating her crackers in the setting sun
waiting for her prince to rescue her
but he caught a train
and now hes in the california mountains
trying to be a better hippy
she knows she has nothing left but
the crackers
and the setting sun
i think thats a terrible way to live
but im not the one looking for perfection
in the baubles from the gutters
of colfax avenue
so glad left all that misery behind
goodnight my spanish bride of the winter
fare thee well
hope you find your kingdom
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 10:26 AM UTC