"camomile" poems
There was an Old Man of Vienna,
Who lived upon Tincture of Senna;
When that did not agree,
He took Camomile Tea,
That nasty Old Man of Vienna.
3.6k
Take me to the Rookery with its many paths
A tea house selling refreshments in pretty glass
Three striped lollies covered in chocolate beads
Biscuits and sandwich are all that we need.
The garden was set out, in brick oblong beds
Raised from the ground and divided by hedge
Many bush roses, of the older kind, smelling of
Cold cream and sweet camomile.
There was a terrace with steps leading down
To a sunken garden where the roses reclined
Hanging over arbours, pink , white and cream
And other perennials added to the scene.
This place a haven at the top of Streatham hill
Does anybody know it, it might be there still?
My daddy took me often on a Sunday afternoon
To ramble in the sunshine, and play at my will.
Love Mary x
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 8:02 AM UTC
My hands are trembling more than usual,
so I have altered my coffee to a camomile tea.
I administer everything as if it were medicine;
a chemist punctuating his day with
guilty cigarettes and vague homoeopathy.
*It's all ******** I know-
but whatever gets you through the day...*
In the season of advent, my fingers are bitten
down to the quick; throat seared with
half-functioning lighters and fragile matches;
I can scarcely operate either in this state.
The fairy-lights turn the high-street to a runway.
*But all I see are charity shops
interceded with bookies and coffee houses.*
This home-town exists to keep up my interest
in finding some purpose. A path to eventual escape
from all of these old bonds and ties,
pinning me down with memories of ***
and all of the street-names I have learned by rote.
*I'm treading water here-
living in the comfort of a sink-hole.*
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:41 PM UTC
*i.
He told her
That mathematics was too
Sombre.
Too, too
Linear
To be poetic.
She said that
He had only seen himself
In a mirror,
A reversed hologram
Of his external self
Burned into his retinas with
His subconscious filling in the gaps.
But she had seen him
The rays reflected straight off him
Into her eyes;
Not some half-assed reflection
Off some silvered surface.
ii.
She said that
His jawline was
The slope of a curve
Pencilled on a graph sheet.
His candlewax skin
A wavelength
Quantifiable on paper.
His spine
A number line with
Dashes, to show real numbers
The set of which was infinite.
She said that
A Fibonacci sketch was
A minimalist rose,
A post-modern bouquet.
And that
The reflected pale morning sun
In a half finished cup of camomile tea
Was a cardioid
With fixed coordinate values on the axes
And an algorithmic tangent.
And he
Was a negative infinity
A paradox not sorted under
Quine's classification system.
iii.
She had
Recorded his heartbeat and blood pressure;
Measured the distance between his lips with her own;
Tried so hard, so very, very hard
To put him down in a numerical form
And write him off as an equation.
But all she could say was
That he was more
Than the sum total of his meagre parts
And that she
Was his reciprocal value.*
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 1:05 PM UTC
There's a peculiar feeling about emptiness.
Like hundreds of misshapen rocks
Have all been carelessly dumped
Into the cavity which should hold
My red, pulsing heart.
It's not obnoxious
Or tangible,
But it lurks somewhere right beyond
I love you
And I miss you
And I don't care.
Like termites slowly devouring
An old pewter coffee table
Left on the corner in front of a tall
Decaying townhouse.
The legs slowly deteriorate,
Revealing their soft fleshy wooden insides.
There's no warning sign for this kind of
Isolation.
No tell tale symptoms
Or home made remedies
Of honey and camomile.
Flashing neon lights
Flicker and fade into the
Heavy night.
And symmetrical posters
Don't illuminate the pathway to loneliness like they should.
Instead,
It just creeps up on you when you're least expecting it,
Between casual conversations
And vulnerable moments of passion.
You can't stop it,
Or push it into a corner
The way you can with guilt
And premeditated promises.
It's too disfigured to be shut away in a symmetrical closet
Or empty dining room.
It's the absence of understanding,
The congested feeling in your lungs
And heart
And stomach,
That comes when you suddenly realize
No one understands.
It's unpredictable in that way,
The sudden realization,
There's no telling when it will spring upon an unexpecting moment,
And devour the innocence of longing.
But when it happens,
When your whole world feels frozen,
Stagnant and stuck between the cracks of reality,
And covered with a thin veil of dust
And failure,
When your throat is dry and chalky,
Full of almost there sentences
That dance in the chaos of your desperation,
You'll know.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 11:57 AM UTC
~ Triggers ~
The smell of nail polish
High heels on a hardwood floor
Movie kisses and love scenes
The smell of perfume
Hair spray and flowered soap
Orange blossoms and chocolate
Ocean waves and a crackling fire
Gasps, giggles and high pitched laughs
Silk sheets and brass beds
A breath, a touch, a kiss in the dark
Waking up naked, camomile tea
Roses, roses and more roses
All of these things bring joy to my heart
Make me feel like my body and mind aren't apart
Make me long to be someone that I've never been
And give me a reason to wake, and imagine I can
by Lj Mark 2015
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 11:57 PM UTC
I slept with the thought I would never quite sleep
When my mind works the night-shift, and my thoughts flit and creep
From the back of a wavelength, to the edge of the steep
Steep
Steep drop at the edge of my cup of steeped tea.
Sleepytime camomile
My whole life I've been wide-eyed
Asleep.
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 11:38 PM UTC
I
Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos
Climbed to the top of a wall.
And they sate to watch the sunset sky
And to hear the Nupiter Piffkin cry
And the Biscuit Buffalo call.
They took up a roll and some Camomile tea,
And both were as happy as happy could be--
Till Mrs. Discobbolos said,--
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
'It has just come into my head--
'Suppose we should happen to fall! ! ! ! !
'Darling Mr. Discobbolos
II
'Suppose we should fall down flumpetty
'Just like pieces of stone!
'On the thorns,--or into the moat!
'What would become of your new green coat
'And might you not break a bone?
'It never occurred to me before--
'That perhaps we shall never go down any more!'
And Mrs. Discobbolos said--
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
'What put it into your head
'To climb up this wall?--my own
'Darling Mr. Discobbolos?'
III
Mr. Discobbolos answered,--
'At first it gave me pain,--
'And I felt my ears turn perfectly pink
'When your exclamation made me think
'We might never get down again!
'But now I believe it is wiser far
'To remain for ever just where we are.'--
And Mr. Discobbolos said,
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
'It has just come into my head--
'----We shall never go down again--
'Dearest Mrs. Discobbolos!'
IV
So Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos
Stood up and began to sing,
'Far away from hurry and strife
'Here we will pass the rest of life,
'Ding a **** ding **** ding!
'We want no knives nor forks nor chairs,
'No tables nor carpets nor household cares,
'From worry of life we've fled--
'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
'There is no more trouble ahead,
'Sorrow or any such thing--
'For Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos!'
1.2k
Is she like Calypso
in The Camomile Lawn,
knelt down and speechless
by the fire, resembling
Jennifer Ehle so closely,
as the camera lingers
at her being naked as a jaybird,
and quite comely at that?
Or is she perhaps
more like Felicitas
in Flesh and the Devil,
a dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
who brazenly encouraged
illicit love and rivalry, only
to go quietly by falling
through thin ice?
Sometimes the siren's call
is more a winsome variation
in its silence.
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 9, 2019 at 11:10 PM UTC
A mug of camomile tea is best accompanied
By the gloam of a late summer's day and
The distant bleats of young sheep,
I find. Peace lies between
Two silhouetted trees, black
Against a blueish sky.
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 5:33 PM UTC
She wears an old fashioned shawl
laced wool of camomile
flecked with seeds of apple pip brown.
Wading shin deep with stork length legs, though lacking all brittleness,
she hems the thirsty sand line of shore
that's forever sipping foam
and swishing froth from the sea's diaphragmatic shifting.
The drag of each stride breaking
v's in their wake
all too soon dissipates
only to be replaced
with every surge and **** and lull.
She recites a poem as she treads the shallows
Hardly a whisper above a whisper
Blending lullaby syllables with the rhythmic surety of the tide.
Every word a billowed sail
carrying the craft of verse upon ripples and surf
back to the memory of one long lost across the sea.
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 5:03 PM UTC
"You've climbed a few mountains during your time."
Says the obnoxious ad
Given by some financial management company
I've climbed no mountains during my time
Content to wander and lie about in the valley
Drinking camomile herbal tea
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 5:49 PM UTC
Drown my sorrow in cups of tea
The only place I want to be
The overflowing heat
Melts away my fears
Only for a moment though
Until the cold sets in
Adheres
Anxiety can crawl back in
Hidden in the snow
Unnoticed
Alone
I feel alone
So I make another cup of tea
Alway in my favorite mug
You see
My body craves routine
It sets my mind free
Camomile, mint, jasmine, chai
Whatever the flavor,
Always by my side
I promise I will savor.
The moment my anxiety was shoved
Outside
Jan 26, 2021
Jan 26, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC
Pastel coloured flutterbyes, almost plush yet with elegant movement
Honey & camomile warm, summer sweet air
Indigo and plums in the midnight sky
Fresh peach and raspberry in the morning
The smell of my love making me coffee
Let me soak up all there is to be greatful for
and fall asleep in satin sheets
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
Surfer Grandson Smoker
Manager Traveler Father
Daughter Cook Teacher
Mother Reader Lover
Trainer Son Painter
Volunteer Exhibitionist
Santa Claus
member of a fishermen club
tomorrow
or you name it
if you still have air
we left ourselves outside
alone with these explosive days
blind witnesses
have buried their faces
into the desert of time
the concentration of pain
remains a universal constant
the world is a helpless arena
of master plan illusions
what shall I become
or what shall be consumed of me?
and these rupture faults
body-dynamite against ego-dynamite
culture crushing nature versus
nature crushing culture
the soul famine
in the book
of unknown faces
we were all just enlivened cells once
while we feast in our blood
the discreet continuities
remain hidden
identity encapsulated
in the wave length
of supernovas egos
poetry is left with this
apparent nonsense
camomile turns into laughter
and the pride of butterflies
deserves better
this rhythm consumes us
faster than the speed of dreams
the speed of thought
the speed of forgetting
how our mothers
were never healed
to be or not to be simple
that’s a question
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
such that you are, a bane of hurt
that to him a rib, a bane of craft rebellious
that i too rebellious
against my creator -
i did indeed take a book
into the forest
like i'd take a slice of glass
into a desert,
and herded horses, eating camomile
flowers, gesticulating,
pouring beer into my hand and
letting them drink it,
watching the ******* sunset
of london like watching a Chav buying
underwear in Primark + Armani = Primani...
the pair of them walked home...
i ripped off flowers from the spring bloom crop
to ease the footing... something resembling
Lavender and indeed camellia: a wedding, no pause -
for their feet treading - the most colourful
garbage littered and not bothered -
just left intact, like the many shades of autumnal auburn
littering the streets come November.
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 4:19 PM UTC
i like that phrase, what a handsome
ransom to pay a man into
transcending being a pen-pal
and instead a constant atmosphere of attention,
like: ooh honey pooh bear,
you take that earl grey tea of yours with
honey or light-brown shoo gar?
no wait, i said camomile, i didn't say two kids!
and when they think they know you,
they anonymously "think" / purposively insinuate
you'd actually say that sort of **** in your
day-to-day exercises of: ah wait, sun's been here
before, right?
exactly, there's no pooh bear here for you -
there's me, my shadow, a football dribbled for
2 miles to state... well... eh;
of the cursed alignment - (she) oh look at me
peacock look at me peacock all with l'oréal
slogans and cosmopolitan magazine quizzes -
(he) i say, when you tried being a womaniser
after discarding all long-lived potential mates,
your only salvation comes in a chocolate-box
of celibacy and jokes, where you're forever
the no. 1 joke - well, someone had to dangle on
the crucifix, but as Patti Smith and Shaggy said:
it wooz'ent n00b me.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 6:19 PM UTC
I am the bitterness of ***** streaming down your neck,
and you are the sweetness of caramel. Smooth, sultry,
enticing.
I am black coffee on a stark, bleak Autumn-Winter morning,
frowning faces and angry remarks lingering on the tips
of tainted tongues, broken glass and empty bottles
clinking quietly on a rickety shelf,
ready to crash down and fall.
You are camomile tea on a Spring evening, smiling, sipping,
loving comments whispered in the ear of someone you love,
something whole and full, ready to cushion the fall
of someone broken.
You are much more than you think you are,
and you make me more than just bitter and broken.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 10:27 AM UTC
Where the white land is green and young
but the songs still mourn
for generations gone
in the mists of waiting
on the mountains across
where life is hard and old
where the fireplaces always burn
marmots raise their noses
by the elderly sitting there
picnicking and painting
the creeping broom and the round table
beyond the camomile fields
on the mound behind the heather walls
and the fern hedges in the narrowdale
that still are waving there on the helmets
of drowned iron soldiers
I muse about life and I eat
chocolate at the camel river
Today no mists on the hill
where once stood the Lion Fort
Sep 9, 2025
Sep 9, 2025 at 4:02 AM UTC
As i layed down on the old shoe polish porch
At the bottom
Where the river rests
I felt armistice
The slight whisp of Chinook camphene...
Loaded with caffeine
Lost in a dream
Of what could be?
A camphor smooch I seeketh to wake to,
Camomile drunkenness,
A bagged ducat, that I can keep safe and unseen!!!
As she shalt fadge me
To badge me
As I grab her in a romanticism novel hardback!!!
Ourn bodies tightened
Secretion smacks
Deeply to be immersed!!!
A temple
A ladder to god
A church!!!
To serve another as angels
As ourn creator to fasten ourn spirits as knitted sweaters!!
The worse goes away
For with one all things to get better!!!
Homely in ourn mansion
Though not made of brick and dust
Created by will,fate, and trust
Consumed by ourn hacer el amor!!!(love-making)
A knight hood
Of stories
Thou wouldst tell thy children before bed!!!
Tis,
We are them!!!
Tis,
They are us!!!
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
Once again, we have returned.
Lunch in a side-street café,
window seat,
watching students
huddled together in duffel-coats
venture into this Christmas commotion.
George Michael’s voice emanates
from somewhere as a girl with golden
hoops in her ears
and fingernails the colour of lava
takes our order.
A stranger’s drained cup,
a torn open sachet of sauce
oozes wound-like,
then removed.
Two minutes pass.
A toasted baguette in a basket,
Coke pasting a fur on my teeth.
I could have had Earl Grey
or Breakfast tea or Camomile
but no.
I stick to what I know.
The blonde waitress
greets more people.
I do not know who she is.
And I have finished,
ready to be bruised
by the wind’s invisible fists.
Dec 5, 2015
Dec 5, 2015 at 5:02 PM UTC
She was tragically sad in a way that I was but couldnt afford to have tattooed on me because im african and no one has time for internal misery when there are kids with flies on the look out for something to unempty their bellies, you know stuff you see on telly
She had blond curly hair and we had the mutal understanding that bus rides were where we went to check on our selves, see how well we had supressed the demons for that day or week or past ten years
When I was going through my episodes I'd reinvent myself by establishing a new laugh
"Does this make me sound happier"
She would decide she was moving to india but never really left the university or ended up in brixton
Thats heres india if you cant afford the real thing
We would go for months without speaking and she would show up At my door with dark brown tresses dyed to conseal the misfortunes, unrequited loves and abortions
And I would put together the potions to help us through. No bus rides. just camomile teas and rouge lipsticks
Sit at cafe rouge and pretend to be happy old ladies meeting to exchange photographs of our grandchildren
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 12:23 PM UTC