"bedclothes" poems
Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.
Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.
Tonight I am going to sleep alone
on the bedclothes of purity.
Aloneness
is the first hygienic measure.
Aloneness
will enlarge the walls of the room,
I will open the window
and the large, frosty air will enter,
healthy as tragedy.
Human thoughts will enter
and human concerns,
misfortune of others, saintliness of others.
They will converse softly and sternly.
Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.
10.2k
For what as easy
For what thought small,
For what is well
Because between,
To you simply
From me I mean.
Who goes with who
The bedclothes say,
As I and you
Go kissed away,
The data given,
The senses even.
Fate is not late,
Nor the speech rewritten,
Nor one word forgotten,
Said at the start
About heart,
By heart, for heart.
4.2k
I am reading this poem,
late, in the snug familiarity of my bed,
with gentle night-light and sable night-sky,
stars swimming beyond the glass,
warm breaths fogging up the panes.
I am reading this poem,
curled on a beanbag in a library with her my by side,
breaths stirring against my skin,
like the winds of time, of change, taking me away from here.
I am reading this poem,
in a room that is abound with remembrance and days gone by,
where the bedclothes are heaped, fresh and steaming with warmth,
with the same freedom that the open valise speaks of,
a journey ending in success, a triumphant flight.
I am reading this poem,
as the underground train screeches to a halt,
and before heading up the stairs,
towards the love that life has bestowed on me.
I am reading this poem,
by the glow of the laptop screen,
where the headlines flash and flicker,
for once, joy is splashed across the monitor.
I am reading this poem in a waiting room,
of meeting eyes and crinkling smiles, more friends than strangers,
without fear.
I am reading this poem by firelight,
in the simple joy and jubilation of the young who know they matter,
and live with hope and inner liberation, from the earliest of ages.
I am reading this poem,
freed of the curved lenses, the cloudy cataracts,
and I can see the letters for what they are and I read on,
because this freedom is precious.
I am reading this poem as I sit by the radiator,
the milk is already warm (electricity isn’t cut these days)
child in my arms, book in my hand,
because life is waiting for me to live it,
knowing it is never too short or too long but just right.
I am reading this poem not in my language,
while she sits at my side and helps me translate,
because tongues are free to roam now.
I am reading this poem listening for something,
stopping to savour the taste of freedom,
to be able to refuse the task I cannot turn to.
I am reading this poem because I can,
and there is so much left to read
I have now and forever,
to soar untamed with wings unclipped, clothed as I am.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:56 AM UTC
In whiskey sodden dreams I feel silky bedclothes encompass
my flimsy pretty negligee clad body
Whimsy takes a hold, bold dreams drape my mind
My dimly lit boudour welcomes the vibrancy of the dream
Unblushingly dis inhibited by the sweet sickly whiskey
I feel frisky, risky, risqué
I want the silkiness of the dark dimly lit night to
ignite, I want flimsy, gipsy, filthy, ***** love.
In whiskey sodden dreams I feel my inner *****
in dreams I can open the door.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:55 PM UTC
I'm sorting pictures in the archive box.
Shelved for that day that I kept putting off.
The job's to cull and have less stuff to store,
but spiders lurk and snakes are sliding out.
The photo shouts in raw dismemberment.
A howling wind, the prowl of packs of wolves.
I stare at trembling splinters held so close.
Her daytime Self looks like a sweet old dame.
I hear again the creak as floorboards pause;
my breath is held lest I miss steps that halt,
outside my door in seconds held at bay.
I see the handle
slowly...
lower..
down.
Her strides are swift and next, her perfume's here.
With broken breath, she yields to clawing drives
and throws my bedclothes off like spider webs.
My youth she steals as night groans on and on.
For merchants took her bloom on stormy sea.
I clutch my knife and picture stabbing her;
But I've no strength to do the deed - I'm five.
Her mouth is pushed on lips zipped up and cold.
The bed is torn in tangled bits of knots.
My legs are jammed together- ripped apart.
My pillow's wet as aunty takes her cut.
Dec 3, 2022
Dec 3, 2022 at 8:36 PM UTC
Lived on one's back,
In the long hours of repose,
Life is a practical nightmare--
Hideous asleep or awake.
Shoulders and *****
Ache----!
Ache, and the mattress,
Run into boulders and hummocks,
Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes--
Tumbling, importunate, daft--
Ramble and roll, and the gas,
******* to its lowermost,
An inevitable atom of light,
Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper
Snores me to hate and despair.
All the old time
Surges malignant before me;
Old voices, old kisses, old songs
Blossom derisive about me;
While the new days
Pass me in endless procession:
A pageant of shadows
Silently, leeringly wending
On . . . and still on . . . still on!
Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly. A cinder
Falls, and the shadows
Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me
Turns with a moan; and the snorer,
The drug like a rope at his throat,
Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse,
Noiseless and strange,
Her bull's eye half-lanterned in apron,
(Whispering me, 'Are ye no sleepin' yet?'),
Passes, list-slippered and peering,
Round . . . and is gone.
Sleep comes at last--
Sleep full of dreams and misgivings--
Broken with brutal and sordid
Voices and sounds that impose on me,
Ere I can wake to it,
The unnatural, intolerable day.
2.2k
Death stalks
On velvet paws.
A pounce, a flash of claws,
The small and helpless in its jaws.
Fat Cat!
Milk calls
Emptying lap.
White drops make warm nightcap.
Silky shadow dodges a slap.
Fat Cat!
Warm bed
Invites slumber.
Contented purr thunders.
Muddy paws on bedclothes wander.
Fat Cat!
Jan 23, 2012
Jan 23, 2012 at 5:01 AM UTC
Today I wrote a song about your teeth.
They are crooked and imperfect.
Just like this. Our hands. And these
songbirds are all liars. We haven’t learned.
Flesh memory is overrated. Last night
I felt the linen, and it whispered to me
nothing. Not even the shape of you
reminds me of happiness. What is the use
of these metaphors if they can’t
beautify you anymore. No longer as fierce
as the inferno I allowed you to become.
Drowning in bedclothes, trying to understand how streams of consciousness
are becoming bodies of water. Today
I wrote a song about your teeth. And I
read it aloud to the voiceless, and now
they know what love tastes like.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:06 AM UTC
The pillows are arranged
the chairs all un-sat in
my bedclothes pressed
as if no one has slept in them
My desk is tidy
the pens in a jar
notebooks stacked
as if I never struggle
My shelves are full
novels organized by author
the remote next to the TV
as if I never indulge
The floor is spotless,
the carpet is straight
the shoes in are rows
as if I never go anywhere
My bedroom, newly cleaned
stares at me
with wide blinds
and an open door
As if I am a stranger
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 3:41 PM UTC
I won't put her in a place where she'll be forgotten,
Where the floors are ***** and the bedclothes are rotten,
Where others will taunt her and strip her of pride,
And watch her slowly wither, when her soul has died,
I will keep her and love her, as she loved me,
I will cook clean and sew, her mother I'll be,
And for that I'll be thankful and keep in my sight,
As I pay back the love, that she gave so right,
I will cherish each moment, as if it were new,
I will learn things each day, as students do,
Coz I've not done this before for my mother you see,
I will feed her and clean her like she did for me,
I will learn her new songs and make her laugh,
I will tell her the stories from each photograph,
I will speak of a woman who is the queen of my life,
I will speak of a mother and a wonderful wife,
And she will listen as though she knows,
And nod her head as her memory grows,
And look at me through eyes that knew me then,
And hold me and make me feel home again,
And at night when I tuck her in bed,
I will lay a kiss on her beautiful forehead,
And whisper I love you, forget me not ever,
Because my love for her no one can sever,
And in the morning she won't be alone,
I won't be a voice on the end of the phone,
I will do what it takes to make her feel free,
And thank her daily for the life she gave me.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 6:26 PM UTC
I recall, until my head pounds,
by the tides I shall be led,
the landscape of your body
in the ocean of our bed.
Among terraforming bedclothes,
old fires leapt anew,
my scent was freshly salted
by the minerals of you.
Blood catches pace and thunders
this sea is not so kind,
the ancient powers rise to claim
all the helpless they can find.
Headlong unto the harden'd shore
by joyous, raging speed
carried into ecstasy
my nose begins to bleed.
Small roses bloom upon you
as you wipe the scarlet spots.
So I will lie here, shipwrecked,
'til the pounding stops.
I cannot see another spit
of coast or island land
from the vantage point of head tipped back
ceiling sky and pinching hand.
The creaking timbers echo
with the lifting of your chest,
"ssh, don't move, it's stopping"
so I close my eyes, and rest.
Awakened from a slumber
without dreams or care,
I find a lonely rosebud
dried within my hair.
Your eyes contain the oceans,
shifting immortality
your fingers are still bloodstained
salt and blood, that's you and me.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 9:22 AM UTC
Hist? . . .
Through the corridor's echoes,
Louder and nearer
Comes a great shuffling of feet.
Quick, every one of you,
Strighten your quilts, and be decent!
Here's the Professor.
In he comes first
With the bright look we know,
From the broad, white brows the kind eyes
Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow,
White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,
Towel on arm and her inkstand
Fretful with quills.
Here in the ruck, anyhow,
Surging along,
Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs--
Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles--
Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves
Round the first bed, where the Chief
(His dressers and clerks at attention),
Bends in inspection already.
So shows the ring
Seen from behind round a conjurer
Doing his pitch in the street.
High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones,
Round, square, and angular, serry and shove;
While from within a voice,
Gravely and weightily fluent,
Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly
(Look at the stress of the shoulders!)
Out of a quiver of silence,
Over the hiss of the spray,
Comes a low cry, and the sound
Of breath quick intaken through teeth
Clenched in resolve. And the Master
Breaks from the crowd, and goes,
Wiping his hands,
To the next bed, with his pupils
Flocking and whispering behind him.
Now one can see.
Case Number One
Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes
Stripped up, and showing his foot
(Alas for God's Image!)
Swaddled in wet, white lint
Brilliantly hideous with red.
1.4k
Despite your resignation and sudden departure,
shooting in the direction of Not Me as soon as my lips parted
and those fateful words escaped,
you never left.
The refuge of cool bedsheets in bedclothes on a bed too big for me
houses nightmares and a silent love affair,
neither tangible nor real,
but when the sun peers through the curtains and my REM becomes
remember, I do it; I sit up, kick back damp bedsheets and bedclothes
and let my feet dangle from the heights.
A cantaloupe, a fragrant pollen drenched lilly, ginger beer,
these are my companions in a desolate Whole Foods.
I stroke, smell, drink, relive the ecstasy of my own reveries,
the ones I created before I lay eyes on you,
before, when your name was merely a source of laughter,
like some fat obnoxious cartoon on television,
lovable and detestable in one viewing.
I walk to my car and turn the ignition-- that makes my fetal position
in fifteen minutes
significantly more realistic.
Somewhere between the interstate and the inter state of my mind,
the threads unravel and dissolve,
and the knot that stated not, no, never,
says yes, you **** well can, now, and always.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
The Quiet of a Pickwickian World
By Sy Roth
In the silence of my Pickwickian world,
A transcendent quiet stands vigil.
Left to its own devices it rattles around, a
lonely brown-suited courier,
Hefting weighty cargo from one sooty corner to the next.
Seeks tranquility in a world where,
Fettered by golden reins
Hobbled by unceremonial chain mail
Lanced by coronets of thorns,
Astride, a long-in-the-tooth steed
Spurred on to wrestle shredded windmills,
A cavil of unrepentant correctors rest.
And they still come--
Tidal waves of disturbances,
Tsunamis that rip ashore and sweep all away
Into a loathsome pile,
Bilious flotsam of a generation bereft of empathy.
A forced silence clings to the dusty rafters
Where sages once stood
Hanging like KKK castoffs
In a closeted Jim Crow attic of rules and regulations gone mad.
A quiescent quiet demands quiet.
Nestles behind muffled screams
Of ages of piles of rotting flesh.
Dolorous vision of a peaceful world
Where peace packed for a long vacation
To Edens that exist only in fairy tales.
Bring with them untruths of understanding
Swaddled in ****** soiled bedclothes.
Leave me to my silence,
Lave me of the Ash Wednesday smudge
Where realities come home to roost in the dim corners
Where the highwaymen have no access.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 8:03 AM UTC
I am undone -
resonating, thrumming
with feelings out of time.
Suffused with the scent
of orange, clove and cinnamon.
The house on Folgate Street
has me, whole,
powerless against an eternity
of mutating, shifting
happenings and moments.
Twice, the black cat followed me.
Dully gleaming fur
reflecting a landscape
of bunched bedclothes,
that it batted
then bunched some more.
Between the rooms,
landings captured me -
miniature palaces
hung with candied fruits
and mercurised pools
where I dove in naked longing
into both our pasts.
Huguenot shadows
writhed and climbed,
in faded effervescence.
The motes permitted not to utter
a word of breath.
With freshened eyes
I farewelled an age of deeds
in whispered thanks.
How long I stood at the corner
I cannot say.
Rising from a dream
has never taken so long.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 10:25 AM UTC
I’d have liked to have heard
those tinkling bells
through the ether
while at the kitchen sink
behind me
from another room
As I have before
I wish that you would haunt me,
That I would see the motion of a darkened blur
out of the corner of my eye
Or hear your feet upon the hallway floor boards
I remember when as of late
I would pass by and you’d reach out
to stretch or say don’t go
I’d hold your hand and say
I’m coming right back
Now I look at my bed to find you
I touch the blankets and the other tumbled bedclothes
Here and Here
But you’re gone
Just sleek emptiness
I remember this well from before
Of standing in dark closets
breathing in and out
stale papers and linen over-crisp
the scent of solitude and
Memory
Of what never happened and never will.
Where are you?
I would cry how is there no trace left?
No butterfly a-lights or pennies appear on sidewalks that I roam
No hummingbird flitters before me to dash away
No breeze rustles through
the palm tree fronds
as if to say
hello, I am here always
You’re not in the bathroom or in a chair
I can’t hear you cry for me in the dark
Or touch my face at two a.m.
I hope that you still love me
I hope I never hurt you and that’s why you’re
Gone.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
I went to bed with a cold,
lost feeling and woke with
it in my eyes—I saw where
the blues were hiding beneath
the violets and greens of my
walls and bedclothes, where
the floor had gone rough and
sandy like the beach without
the pleasure.
The mirror showed my skin
****** dry by the autumn
air, my pores shriveled and
my eyes glassy with a thin
film far less painful than
the trachoma infested
Native Americans of the late
nineteenth century, institutionalized
to feign them off from their
tribal roots.
Lights become cruel arrangements
of fireflies above my head—
buzzing and whirring over the
music of morning:
“It overflows, it overflows”
And the water is running,
my face is dry, gasping for
moisture until I find the
tears. They warm my face
as the sun rises out the
window, past the trees.
The moment is lost, but it
was born with the intention of
never being found.
“By the look on your face
the burden’s on your back
and the sun is in your eyes”
And I can see your face—
my tears can’t seem to find
an end. The guilt rushes,
I’ve lost you too—it wasn’t
hard to find a way once
I pushed you to the coast.
And you must have seen the
lights leave my eyes as I
saw my mother’s mouth
say “he’s gone” because
here you are, shining.
“So bright, so long
I’m never coming back.”
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 7:53 PM UTC
it's all
up in my head
all these disparate threads
all these under the bedclothes
secrets
all these don't mean to be
but am what i am moments
all stuffed away in stacked suitcases
braced by not sure what you ,mean faces
all those sacred and scared places
within this wearied, wary and weirdly warped soul
all the tattered scraps, the you are here, maps
the body slaps, the landings without *****
the god i need a nap snaps
all stacked racked and filed under
memories:
vivid, hazy, pleasant,pissant, piquant,
crazy, tearful, fearful, beerfull
and happy, sad glad mad,
**** why did i follow that there fad
bad...badass
fragile as glass
pain in the proverbial...
ask no questions ....
tell no lies
time flies....
all there bats in the belfry
cats in there pj's
no where, mayhaps be free
listening to internal dj's
dancing til dizzy
drinking slightly fizzy
alcohol.... misty tizzies,
getting bizzies...
all there, in a mixed up soup
smiling faces, put through paces
thoughtful moments, all the components
to make a life....to make a life
it's all up in my head.........
roosting
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 7:17 PM UTC
That leftover warmth on
disordered bedclothes;
the leftover smell
of sleep.
Tumbling through
crushing darkness;
stumbling over silent
exploding lights.
The reek
of sterile sunlight;
frosted windows
so ***** that they're clean.
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
Hush, and feel the flush
and crush upon your body
as the air is expelled in
a gushing, rushing torrid of
****** memories.
Damning you to want more,
you want to thrash at the bedclothes
needing to find that release once more.
Yet you lay there spent in the morning's
hush, laid upon the chest of the one that
has made your heart sing, ears ring and
left you corrupted at the core.
The rise and fall of in sync breathing
is the only sound in the room
hush, hush, hush.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 7:25 AM UTC
the anti-siren alarm song
collapses the dimensions of the oneiric realm,
fidgeting infinitesimally,
the tangled engine of acidic tubes
combusts last nights pepperoni bacon chorizo pizza
all of sparta trembles
stalagmites shake loose and dust the bedclothes,
cemented eye-lashes decalcify and split,
as two stumbling gargantuan steps
off the promontory of your bed
lead an unguided hand to the light-switch
the florescent hum gnaws at you
a singular parameter in the speaking mind's running mouth
“caffeinate me”
a hill, no, a mountain, no, a sheer abyss
'the stairs', a godly ascent
an ascent for winged creatures of light
creatures with legs for arms, zeppelin-like centipedes
legs whose construct are Dalían,
nightmarish vaulting apparatuses,
whose step is a bound and whose bound is a flight,
as if all of the thirteen foot-tall steps become cliffsides
and all of the cliffsides become interdimensional worm-holes
as the distance between two mustard seeds grows
and exceeds the circumference of the universal ellipse
we see our premonitions are of infinite potentiality.
resignedly, we take the first step
the next twelve follow succinctly.
we reach the ochre chamber of caffeine
only to be halted by a question
a sempiternal question,
a question of mythic, unverifiable stature
a plaguing question,
a question rooted
in our achey-breaky hearts and nigh-arthritic bones,
rooted in the seeping pathos
of our ritualized morning zombie-shuffle:
but it doesn't get asked today, we drink coffee
the world is right-side up again.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 10:47 AM UTC
I tagged along with you today
trying to be useful
helpful
to be there for you
nurse you..comfort you..clean your wounds
go with to the doctor
help to call your work..make us black tea
help you take a pee..bring a hot bottle
and painkillers to ease your pain
lift you on the pillows..straighten your bedclothes
try make you comfy
try to arrange a van
then you shut me up
when I try to speak
just to make a suggestion
of help
why, I don't know
then you mention that
if we had break
from each other
who would you have turned to
in your hour of need
this is all I am to you
now you push me into a corner
tease with a cruel joke
all at my expense
I ask you: don't repeat
and yet you taunt
that you will not be shut up
and you repeat the cruel joke
knowing how hard it is
for me
you know something?
when I nursed your wounds this morning
I took care not to hurt you
let it sting too much
despite the medic's words
of aggressive treatment
you did not take that same care
just now
you touch an old wound
you know it hurts
and yet
you persist in taunting
and pulling off an ugly effort
thanks so much
for fuckall!
:(
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A SHOCK I ALSO GOT!!!!!!
**** you for hurtin me so
your deliberate taunts hurt
more than you know
and who is still here?
me.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 10:00 AM UTC
love that shadow
that dances over
your lips and bedroom walls
and your fingers
tangle with smoke
and mysteries
that he carves out
with killer’s hands
****** and almosts
setting alight
the fairybooks
and writing on your pages
needle-points in irises
blind in light
and brilliant in darkness
so you see
his brilliance
and resent yours
can’t stay,
run faster
- the wolves are catching
on the souls of your feet
and the mothers are crying
for the lovers
you leave
always leave
the bedclothes *****
and the faces blurry
singing Morrissey
blame humanity
for the hatred of everything you touch
and touches you
rainwater down a window
a shadow
still warm on your tongue
sweet boy
could be young
must be so much older
insubstantial you,
runaway i
*this
is
a
story
of*
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 6:48 PM UTC
Its been one of those days
Your Mother warned you about.
Not frustrating
Not annoying
Just
Long
and
An exercise for
For patience.
Like an old boss who
Wanted everything done
12 hours ago
But cheap.
The job was interesting,
And sharing with
"The morning Lady"
Had its problems and its fun.
Trying to decipher instructions
From the four letter words had its moments
But was still the best of the jobs on a long
CV
Pruned to "perfection"
As we all did in those days.
I don't look back often,
And then with a fondness
That even I did not appreciate those
Good times until past.
Now even if not so far away
I smile at the memories of working with the majority
Of those men.
Artisans but skilled to the "nth" degree that
I really envied them Their opportunity to perform
The jobs they did with evident enjoyment,
And with an ease
That didn't need frowns,
And
The irregular turning off of the alarm, to get them through
Their need to turn over and pull bedclothes around them
Like a windproof collar,
Protecting them from the frosts of even a
Summers day.
On this Summers days' end
I'm so glad
The frosts seem warmer, and the drizzle
Softer
Unlike those even
Older and sharper days I seem to remember
Am I the only one who looks back fondly to the future?
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 5:10 PM UTC