"clothesline" poems
Saturday.
what a glorious time of week.
laundry hangs on the clothesline,
the ghosts of the week left to dry
as we softly stare out the window, chalky panels
between crusting paint. Attempting to
listen to the silence,
muffled by words, we discussed
a day free of demands, and the boy
in his blue shirt, with his ball.
If I were to wish anything on anyone
it would be a year full of
Saturdays.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 6:35 AM UTC
That’s alright baby, tie me down to this familiar ground
Say you wanna grow a garden
In my old backyard, dig
Say you wanna be my man, all I got to do is forgive
It’s alright baby, ain’t nothin' new
I been hidin' under the same rocks you're throwin' for most my life
Cursed to carry a love like yours, I can’t be sorry
For the bruises on my hide
Better at drinkin' than forgivin', better at walkin' than your lovin',
Babe I can’t be sorry though I miss you still
I hear you been doin' well
Hear you’re runnin' fine
Put those strong hands to good use, quit throwin' pebbles at my house
You and me just can’t be friends
It’s alright, baby
It ain’t nothin' new
I’ve still got my pretty blue dresses, still got whiskey kisses
And I can’t be sorry no more, so
I’m gonna bury my thoughts of you, dig
My own **** garden
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:40 PM UTC
who benefits from keeping
our lakes and oceans polluted
who is to be blamed for this intrusive nightmare
i am clean and ready to swim in your water
yet many are drowning in the fish bowls they live in
where are our minds and hearts these days
why do we run away instead of sit and pray
who is responsible for these atrocities
why must we pay for others to take care of us
please shut the fence and take a hike
and do not return without a bicycle
i wish to ride off into the sunset
literally on a water buffalo or a dragon
these lions are friendly and sun-light is handy
for most of our energy needs
i pride myself on being ready for anything
so shut the front door and leave through the back
and we better get ready cause they are bound to attack
you say you're not paranoid, that you're intelligent
though sometimes i'm unclear of the difference
we remove our folded souls from the clothesline
and dream about the crossroads that takes us back home
jokes are pointless here and tools are worthless too
for only fools hang from ropes in such high altitude
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 1:50 PM UTC
Her funky , modish, lingerie on a clothesline hung to dry,
doesn't bring to mind any wild imagery,
he just sees that: an undergarment
decency wouldn't permit to make an exhibit like this,
"My God!" he realizes with a shock"The midlife crisis has already started"
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 10:47 AM UTC
You need to pay a sin tax
for the way you talk smack,
calling me your property
your syntax is making me
over. the. hill.
I’m heels over head with
you
making me crazy
the way that you speak
your diction’s too weak.
“you’re so nice”
how boring, I choose more
elegant words
to describe your glory
I could write
a five-page double-spaced
essay about you
and get accepted to your ivy league
I could wrap my
arms around you
like ivy on stone
hang you up to dry
on the
clothesline
til you answer the
telephone
I could cling to
you
like static
on your sweater
you better
not
flick.me.off.
Hell, my poetry ain’t free
it’s about as free as
slaves
I have confines, rules
bats in caves
It costs me thoughts
and time
and frustration
costs me more than just greenbacks
and a vacaction.
you need to pay up
talk isn’t cheap
your words cost you
attention
even if
my love don’t cost a thing
I train you like a golden
retriever
you retrieve my orders
like a wide receiver
my language is figurative
but your actions are derivative
you’re confusing me
like
trigonometry
love triangles are not my thing.
our
l θve i ∫ a sin(x)
cos we go off on
tangents and don’t know where to
begin
first we’re infatuated
then we’re done
next we’re inebriated
then we have some fun
happens so fast
then we come together at last
This rollercoaster of emotion
has me puking again
I’m trying to calculate this algorithm
in my head.
its so complicated
I’ll need something else instead.
in this kaleidoscope
I see
many sides
of you and me
I spin it round to try to understand
all I see is a blur of colors
even when I hold your hand.
I wish I could see
the thoughts you hide
from me
I want to understand
you’re radioactive
your face is glowing
even in pitch black
your smile is showing
but, I never get to see
your eyes
make me crazy
hazy
they trip me up
and pull me down
periodically, you’re in your element
and everything clicks
then we stick and the chemistry’s quick
but then you open your mouth
garbage spurts out
I think it’s about time
I take you out
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 2:06 PM UTC
The living reality of a metaphor, almost every ounce in-taken,
Every nuance, every pronounce, measured, weighted and weighty,
Fluid or firmament, each encapsulated, prior to release, scaled,
Tabulated, ordered, noted, recorded, and ultimately judg-ed.
Totality of it all, the varied quantities of the ingested nutrients,
even the forecast of the future, if every day was a metaphor for
like today…
DO
I speak of the day's headlines?
Of the quantity and nutrition that passes through my lips?
Or
The surround sound of the surrounding sounds of this day,
the flocks of bandito geese who exist only to torment,
the landscape working crews, with their tools, like a 7::00an wake up buzzing about, for the entire street, going house to house, looking for itinerant grassy knolls of patches of bright green,
overnight sprung up and needy to be
guillotined,
laundry to do, rugs needy for clothesline screaming/beating or merely super fast vacuuming;
they, hawking their skills available for the old and infirm,
or the fatty catty cattle lazy, (somewhere in there is moi);
and the decibels of their machines, the rat-a-tat of their rapido, voluble speech that feeds me poetry by the ounce of their laughter, but more exactly of,
What do I speak, to what do I allude?
Why all and none, everything and specifically nothing,
for the metaphor is meta! (1)
It is life itself, from the quarter teaspoon
to the overflowing bath, it is life at its most incremental,
the moment
of flushing face,
the second
of ah ha! recollection, the,
long term trends
trending,
the flatline of my EKG,
the weighty pronouncement of my talking scale (you've been bad),
IT IS THE EVERYTHING
that is measurable, weighable, isolatable, defined;
it is our existence of our each & every of action and inaction strung together like a necklace and a chain
We are metaphor, reality, is, the script,
which is the product of you.
scriptwriter…/
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 6:17 PM UTC
save breath for later
lungs in a tupperware
container
ziplock baggies full
of sounds
the ones, the words
I'm too tired to make
hang my eyelids
on the clothesline
to dry, leave the weight
behind
pull all my teeth
plant them in the ground
grow some new ones
place them in my mouth
and let them fall out
that's not how to smile
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 2:42 AM UTC
Her profile reads “I dance for tips,
downtown in Portland.”
Most are looking for the next pair of lips
to kiss
between their legs.
But I'd like to hold
her hands
behind her back
as she bends over
realizes I don't drip ink,
or cash,
and wimpers.
A sugar-daddy?
With tattoos? No,
you might get an insurance salesman,
or occasional sports equipment re-saler
a single father or two
to pay for your tired, old
opinions.
Or you might stop dancing,
sell real-estate
your creativity decaying inside a white,
metal box
like those bloodied
tampons janitors were
embarrassed--
ashamed-- to pick up
in junior high bathrooms.
She might move back in with her parents
and fly
like some silken night-robe flapping on a clothesline all day Friday,
all day Saturday. Until lunch on Sunday,
when she pulls it down.
Or she'll flap that way
for years, on a line in Portland.
Until one day,
one day,
that man who won't hold her
in the shadows
will
come
with money,
tattoos abounding
and watch her dance
with tears
streaming
into the sheath of her time-worn robe
in afternoon sun.
Jun 7, 2012
Jun 7, 2012 at 2:39 AM UTC
Just between you and me,
I'd rather be a saint than a poet...
But to see the world like this:
A huge, shining consonant, lying on its side,
over the very ordinary clothesline,
well,
that's something, isn't it?
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
"I dream of the day I would see the flowers bloom in Palestine",
says an ally.
"I dream of the day I would see the flowers again",
cries an old lady from Palestine
"I dream of the day I would see Palestine",
prays a refugee in a faraway country
"I dream of the day when I would not dream and pray that there would be another day for Palestine",
screams a little child in Palestine
And the sun is the witness
The sun knows it all,
it has watched, witnessed and waited...
I dream of the day I would see the flowers bloom in Palestine!
From the bullets bored through little children's ribs,
to the bloodied blouses hanging in the clothesline.
I dream of the day I would see flowers again!
From the people's laughters and childish ease,
to the tears and pain I can't even begin to imagine.
I dream of the day I would see Palestine!
From the river, in the desert, the colorful markets,
to the sea, there in the beach, taking our sweet sweet time.
I dream of the day when I would not dream and pray that there would be another day for Palestine!
Because there would only be days of freedom!
Only for the children, for Gaza, mothers, fathers,
doctors, soldiers, every Palestinian!
Days that are theirs!
Days and endless days are all there is!
And it is all theirs!
And the sun is the judge and the jury
The sun grants it,
the justice for every injury, freedom for every perjury…
The moon and the stars commands it,
the promise that Palestine and its people will be free!
Nov 27, 2023
Nov 27, 2023 at 11:43 PM UTC
sunshine in the raindrops
sunshine of the raindrops
sunshine for the raindrops
sunshine with the raindrops
sunshine around the raindrops
sunshine into the raindrops
Sunshine from the raindrops
raindrops from the sunshine
raindrops into the sunshine
raindrops around the sunshine
raindrops with the sunshine
raindrops for the sunshine
raindrops of the sunshine
Raindrops in the sunshine
on swinging clothesline.......right now.
Jan 29, 2025
Jan 29, 2025 at 11:50 AM UTC
The concrete depresses with each small step I take in the Arco parking lot
I fold this song up into my pocket and my schoolwork starts to rot.
Your hair hangs loosely by your eyes as you ration out my shots.
I wanted to remind you that your nails give me goosebumps, but I forgot.
Your legs laced up and shining in oil are sculpted out of bronze
Lying naked in aphids as we strive to be shameless among your father's front lawn
You are sunlight disguised by a sheet on a clothesline
In the middle of meadows made of wheatgrass and starshine
How can something so beautiful share a species with me?
A shopping cart overflowing with grace given away on the streets for free
My jeans are turning into strings of flayed fabric under your yellow moon
I'll shower you in music, if you promise to abuse it, within my crimson room
Lock me in my comfort stall with dividers emitting petroleum fumes
Break down all the walls with your desperate call as your temple, I consume
From within towers where light is devoured, against all odds, I bloom,
For a skeletal mastery with ultraviolet eyes crawls into my tomb.
You are a symphony of epiphanies for a boy made of concrete
In the midst of a city of asphalt and batteries.
You splat on my canvas and blast from my headphones
And if you opened me your name would probably be on my bones.
Keep the covers at bay
So I can admire your frame.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:55 PM UTC
It’s been weeks,
and the refrigerator stands empty.
Except for our bed sheet,
nothing has remained on the clothesline-
everything else has been carried away
by the wind.
In the old parking lot,
strangers sometimes find bras and underwear.
Handkerchiefs and
your black socks.
It’s been weeks
and sometimes I accidentally reach out
to your side of the bed.
Nov 7, 2010
Nov 7, 2010 at 12:20 PM UTC
Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.
Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.
Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.
All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.
My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.
I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM UTC
I enjoy driving slowly
Up Kathleen Avenue,
It brings out my
Split personality.
The sun strobes
Through pre-leaf spring;
I remember a boy
Twirling on the dance floor lawn,
Then called to the back,
To the used nail pile.
There's gratitude for the rain,
Splash in gutters;
The weeds will grow.
The spades, like naked stick-children,
Are heeled into mounds,
Beneath the dripping clothesline,
Far from his playful sounds.
I am me,
I was you:
My cryogenic memory
Thaws to resolve
We two.
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 9:23 AM UTC
Every story I write
has a quiet boy who loves words
and a girl he doesn’t quite understand.
She has a laugh that ricochets
and she makes the quiet boy smile.
She looks like algebra but is more like calculus.
She is deceptively hard to solve.
You don’t see her fault lines until you think you already know her,
but her plate tectonics only cause aftershocks,
never full earthquakes.
I always thought she was me,
always thought I wanted to be
that kind of captivating.
Enough to make the quiet boy happy.
But then I met you
and your quarter moon smile.
I always thought the girl was from some coast
but the first time I saw you in a bikini
I realized you don’t have to be from California
to have drops of seawater glow like individual suns on your skin.
I want you to drip dry
on my clothesline arms.
I’ll hold you up to the sunlight,
let your bare legs dangle in the wind.
I want to straddle your fault lines
and hold you through the tremors.
I always thought I wanted the spotlight
but I’m content
being the quiet one beside you.
I thought I loved the boy who loved words
and I wanted to be enough to inspire him to write
but you make me want to get published just to share you
with the world because
something so beautiful should not be kept secret.
You said you wanted to make the history books
and you will, but for now
I hope my poems are enough.
You are rainy day inspiration.
I thought I was the girl
but it turns out I’m just a quiet boy
who needed someone to
inspire me.
May 11, 2011
May 11, 2011 at 1:06 AM UTC
Quilts hang, wet on clothesline
More than seven suns pass yet they stay drenched
Hellfire couldn't stop
Storm-clouds in the hearts of an entire species
Brands that singe the arteries of life
From microbes to oceans
Placed on the altar of Earth
Dubious goals led us far away from our homes
Viruses envy our might
Kilowatt-hours rule
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 3:29 PM UTC
I love you like a funny joke.
I'm smiling because i just remembered your punchline but I always seem to forget it.
I love you like an artist loves his first painting.
Although there are flaws, they are what makes the painting unique.
I love you like my favorite band.
I know every word to your songs and and desperately want to talk to you but I never get the chance since you’re touring in bigger cities.
I love you like a kindi-gardener’s fresh box of crayons.
Rarely touched and taken well care of.
But eventually lost and broken and smashed
I hate you like a sheet on the clothesline in the middle of a hurricane.
Being ripped from my line and drifting off away from you while you’re safe and sound.
I love you like a heroine addict loves his dealer.
Enough said.
I love you like a tree loves the rain.
Soaking up every drop of you that’s given.
I love you like a book worth reading over and over again.
Wanting to memorize your every feature like I could never see you again.
I hate you like a broken down car on the highway.
Stalled out, I was replaced before I had a chance to be fixed.
I love you like a sunset in the summer.
Indescribable, speechless except for the word “gorgeous”
I love you like star gazing.
Watching to find something and call it my own.
But I haven’t discovered anything yet.
I love you like pancakes on a sunday morning.
I love you like chocolate
I love you like nature.
I love you.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
An army
in flower-print
dresses
resides in our backyard
on a guilty clothesline.
Their bloated bodies
float in the water
of the wind.
In our tiny gestures, we tell potential buyers
that we had two beautiful daughters
who left their clothes everywhere,
and we have finally killed
them.
In small voices
they sing for justice
on the clothesline.
But the dresses
are our own childishness,
and not our fake childrens'.
And we tell our buyers these things,
because we want to leave this place,
but on our own terms.
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 9:00 PM UTC
Jimmy opened his suitcase in the room
at Lourdes and said Oh no there’s molasses
all over the clothes and shoes and I’ve got
a whole week here and he sat down in a chair
his head in his hands saying What have I done?
What am I going to do for clothes now? you
went over and looked in and sure enough
the molasses were over his clothes and shoes.
What am I going to do? he said and you said
Leave it to me Jim I'll sort it and you went through
the clothes taking out the items untouched
by the molasses and set them aside on the bed
and then carried the suitcase of black sticky items
Into the washroom and there one by one you carefully
washed them through with soap and water until
they were clean and smelt of soap and fresh air
and all the while 94 year old Jim sat in a chair
watching with his eyes watery and jaw hung loose
seeing the black water run down the wide plughole
and once it was done you wrung the clothes out
like your mother used to do when you were a kid
and hung them out on the balcony on the small
clothesline and placed the washed out black shoes
by the outside wall to dry out in the hot afternoon
sun and Jimmy came over and stood on the balcony
with one hand on the rail and the other on his stick
looking over at the Pyrenees in the distance and he
said That was real good of you. I owe you big time
and you stood next to him feeling the hot afternoon
sun on your face and arms and felt good and you
said You owe me nothing Jim I just did what some
good guy would and his watery eyes swept over you
matching the French sky’s watery afternoon blue.
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 4:04 AM UTC
At times,
Cold departures leave
A stain of faith.
You're departure,
However hellish,
Remains immaculate,
Even as you turn
With a blizzard on your heel,
Kicking Winter in
My eye.
You replace him up there.
Not in piety but
In hierarchy,
Of the royal void breed.
I tailor the nails to your palm
And broken foot.
Drying like slaughterhouse
Meat on my clothesline.
I found our nature
Profoundly meaningless.
Was it transcendence?
Algor Mortis?
Or did my new eyes
Survive incubation?
I await the birth pangs
Of sight,
Callousing the whole,
From lid to lash.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 10:34 PM UTC
My neighbor and I still hang out our wash,
(I, each Thursday, taking my chances.
She, according to weather forecasts, I think,
or maybe by what she feels in her bones).
We laugh at StarTribune's report of some suburban bans
against clotheslines.
We wonder out loud whose tomatoes will first turn red,
and whether cucumbers will make it at all;
this year, it's been too cool and dry
for normal progress to the fall.
Tenacious dandelions, spread as stars across green-earth skies,
drive in spike-like roots, take hold of earth, and won't let go.
Kids squeeze bunches of stems in tight fists
that will open only to release the buttery bouquet to Mom
who hurries to put them in water, in a crystal vase,
wondering how soon she might mourn both flower and child.
While hanging bright, white unmentionables (some somewhat tattered)
on our clothesline, I, unembarrassed, remember my mother:
with one clothespin held in her mouth
and half a dozen more in her apron pocket,
(thus needing not to walk over and over again
the east-west path to the back door
where full supply of pins hangs on the ****
she does her woman's task with flair,
spacing each garment so as not to block the sun or air.
You'd think she'd held some tool to calculate
where the sheet would best allow the breeze to circulate
or where to place each pillow case and sock,
so each would recognize and meet their mates!
And I know she theorized regarding how to hang those socks,
always with the toe pointed upward, so as not to show,
when dried and worn, a crease or ever-so-slight evidence
of the pin's pressure displayed for all to see
on the exposed ankle,
as if that might be a matter
worthy of shame.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
10W
clouds
like wet grey garments
dripping
from a celestial
clothesline
soulsurvivor aka
Write of Passage aka
Invisible inc
Catherine Jarvis
5/4/2014
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 2:43 AM UTC
I used to go out for cigarettes before bed
with music and connection to the world,
I’ve learned to clam the
addiction to nosiness about
trump and
syria,
petitions about
dying dogs and
sensitivity,
and I just sit out there with a shovel
in my eyes digging the other way and
appreciating the sky and watching the
clothesline sway like elevator wire
and I feel more connected
by reading the stones that
shower a braille on my palms
as I tap the ground in withdrawal
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 1:30 AM UTC
.
where are my clothes...
she wakes with a start,
your little robin and her
bare-breasted sunday morning
where. are. my clothes?
the sweet, white milk,
coffee barely missing her lips, i am pushed away yet
cascade down her sweet chin, neck, and out my window
onto the clothesline below
staining her
Jan 20, 2019
Jan 20, 2019 at 3:55 PM UTC