"clotheslines" poems
This one time, my mom
and I said goodbye
to Juan's mom and we
walked from her apartment
to wait for the elevator.
Mom didn't like it
when I wouldn't stand still-
sometimes she'd smack me
upside my head just to
make sure I was there
(accompanied by her
motherly calls of malcriado)-
so I'd look in any direction
for a distraction or two.
Through the window a few feet
from my left, I could see two
older ladies in curler hairdresses
bochinchando like caffeinated hens
about the awfully friendly suelta
living next door to gallina #1
(they hung their hand-me-down
nightgowns and their husband's
boxers with such professional care;
if any article escaped the grasp
of family clotheslines, it was
roadkill forever).
I turned to the right
of the elevator doors,
counted the tar-black patches
of decade-old gum on the floor,
finished the half-written
sentences sprayed in *****
rainbows on the sweaty walls
by the zig-zag flight of stairs.
A boom and a click,
and the door creaked open
with the sideways grace
of a crab.
My toddler's impatience
boiled past the brim, I
exclaimed "FINALLY"
and began to walk forward.
Not a second later, I heard a
"NO" behind me, my mother
grabbing the back of my
cartoon mouse t-shirt,
letting out an ay cono, pendejo
that echoed eight stories down,
past the empty space substituting
for an absent elevator shaft,
soaring down that rusty freefall
at ten thousand times the
speed of a human boy's body.
Letting out a long exhale,
my mother did not allow
her emotions to brim over
the barrier-she recomposed
herself, all the while silently
chanting hymns of gratitude
in dedication to fate
and her reflexes.
We decided to take the stairs.
In my youthful oblivion,
I noticed a toy store
right outside the building
from the corner of my eye-
I plan to start begging when
we're at the bottom,
if we ever get there.
My mother took her sweet time
walking down those many steps,
reveled in the scratchy bristle
of the concrete against her sandals,
cultivated a newfound admiration
for my atonal imitation of a
Washington Heights car alarm-
it was a sign I was still there.
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
On a slow train
out of the Savannahs sudden exile,
the sunlight swallows me,
a calligraphy of days, hours, minuets, now
inscribed on my limbs,
syntax gives over to a dry, dry sound,
and parched, the aftertaste of sloe gin
inhabits my ribs, the lay of bones,
a labyrinth of absence,
and this velvet ache
at my wrists, a pure burning,
burning the memory red,
words swell and crumble with a kiss,
what absence, Soul of Winter,
what absence is this, spreading
over roadmaps, soliloquies, nights
stretch into mornings, always mornings,
as my fingertips pull daylight from an orange
in dream alphabets that soon dwindle
to vowels, the word, harbour, bends
the old alder beyond what it can bear,
so many ways, you say, to live like a prisoner,
at home, the rooms
are all windswept, reckless
chairs overturned , abandoned
in this, the evenings parable,
love is no more
than a syllable in a bottle
of shattered blue glass,
a poem written on the underside of a childs teacup,
their jump ropes curl like adders
at our feet, the thread
from where I dangle
in doorways and twilight,
as I bide time, perilous
over train tracks, your fingers
trace tally marks along my vertebrae,
the hollows darkening in a pathos
of blue rheumatism,
and in the carnivorous tremor
of my body breaking
like the spine of a book,
the paper gone pink at the edges,
like azaleas and bruises,
erosion, after all is the altar of the body,
and there are scars beneath my temple,
and this ache, still, in my wrists,
unbearable when it rains,
ghosts inhabit my lungs,
wrung from the silence of shut windows,
eternal clotheslines and linen
span for miles across the Savannah,
and the early frost is at last,
calling me home....
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
concrete shades the yellow-lighted symphony.
The peso-heavy take taxis;
security valets motors steaming castle gates.
I ask, which way is the 158?
Indifferent, they say, walk straight neath the freeway —
there is a bus stop two blocks away.
****
****
****
Clocktower hands transpose Cindarella-brick
to embers of electricity,
a factory aside scrawled graffiti;
fingers timidly ricket pitchfork fences.
Palermo is 11 km north.
Where is the north star?
I look straight ahead, repeating what
the travel blogs said like,
Be lost, don’t look lost;
flappy plastic maps scream vulnerability.
Be lost, not rich;
iPhones in gotham alleys are batman signals.
Walk fast.
Don’t pay attention to the eyes that pass.
Careless ponytails and brass hair attract
glances back.
Two blocks deep into the homeless shelter
beneath freeways, blankets
in shopping carts toppled over,
cars screaming away the symphony
into shadowed silence between heels striking.
Tunnel breath emerging on the other side,
gasping past stacked Jenga towers,
wired with antennas and empty clotheslines;
families and crack ****** sleep inside.
Safety’s herd thins as couples dart left down
cobblestone tributaries
that either lead to bus stops or parked cars.
I walk straight ahead with
sleeve-covered hands that swing like sticks
in the wind.
The symphony turns to
heartbeats and footsteps
plucking quickly;
fearing the 180 behind,
to zombies with sunken eyes,
thirsty for a thirty-cent high.
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
take a walk to air out my skull
the summer on a week long break
no sweat forming on the brow
the cemetery almost empty
on this Saturday Morning
graves, mausoleums, and monuments
as far as the horizon will carry them
all contained by the twisting limbs
of great ancient trees
I am worrying about things
like the rent and the electricity bill
and the milk and sugar
azucar y leche
and how many cigarettes I have been smoking
these men and women
will never be alive again
to worry about such silly things
victims of the civil war
brother against brother
victims of the passing of time
breath against breath
one and all
strolling down riverwalk ave
the old train tracks running along
the spine of the James
always flowing
streaming
as birds dip in and out of the banks
and the shin high grass sways
with the music of pleasant mornings
and see a family
small children running up the grass hills
only to sprint back down at double speed
not a moment spent out of breath
and I think back to that time
when we found a quiet corner
and let the lighter light up a bowl or two
for the dead homies
and how much we laughed when one of us fell
and how much we gasped
when we saw the small tent village
of homeless people living in the wooded outskirts
their clotheslines bare in the gentle breeze
How insane it is
that we should all
walk through this park
the scent of what life promised us
fresh in the air
as we lazily stroll
through a vast field of corpses
immortalized through monumental history
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 1:39 PM UTC
I’ve got these worn clotheslines
and street wires humming across my brain
in cold winters chill you told me I was eloquent
but I still cannot seem to remember your name
I stopped smoking to make room for you in my lungs
You didn't find that suitable enough so you left
We are the same person if your bed
has held more people in it than your heart
I see this warmth of a summer day
but I can never know the touch of it on my skin
I wonder what it feels like to be kissed by the sky
Probably kind of like kissing
you
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
Sardonically ironic, moronically harmonic,
Are beats of emotions unspent.
Overly protective, and somewhat selective,
My shoes on the gravel-laden roads
Of winter are old.
Your silvery hair, neat and bare
Is unfinished. We’re not there yet, you and I.
My name becomes forgotten,
Yesteryears laundry on clotheslines
So hauntingly frigid, and cold they could dance.
The secret of warmth is lost
As the moth dies into the hold of my hands.
Bone-framed windows, with a cryptic message
Surround my palm-tree hair.
My front door is open, hopin’ for a
Short visit, of friends I had not there.
Winter’s approachin’, tree lines are lookin’ in
On the cuckolded dreamers.
Repent.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 3:28 PM UTC
The last time I was in the room with a ******
flowers speckled my hair,
pink as privates, cloud-white. I considered our honeymoon
and thought about how we loathe
sunshine, but would create our first bed on roses
after I have spent five or more years removing her thorns.
I did not know about clotheslines being used
for more than our damp second skins.
She once described it as a construction zone, being the
property of some government
who does not care if it ruins someone's habitat
to build a brand new home. But I do not know if I can say
the same; a house is your mountain above
all hurt, only you
can jump from the top and make yourself bleed.
There I sat and swung on wooden benches,
my most disturbing thought a wonder of how it could hold
me. The sky was supposedly blue,
just now I cannot remember, colorblind of any
possible plane forming smiling men above our heads.
Sometimes, things are not on the tip of my tongue
but still making their way through my
brain-cells. I wanted to lay down on my stomach for love
be a carpet of hair, unshaven legs, sweat beads
until the clouds showed me handcuffs. My
safe lover, agoraphobic, now I can understand why.
I did not think about blankets being used as
shields, or mattress springs made of barbed wire.
If I had known, I would have eaten
my own hair and thrown up every petal on your doorstep,
their broken flower souls, now warm-blooded.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 7:37 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
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
It's my birthday, and I'm a disaster. I'm searching for things to say.
I woke up this morning, wanting to see the sunrise in the beautiful small-town Maine eighteen degree-darkness.
I breathed out fog and watched sleepy houses, my fingers screaming for mittens, as I laid on the salted tar. I thought about everything.
Cars drove by slowly, and I was reminded of life here, and how slow it is.
In this world, time drips on like molasses. Time wanders through pine groves and iced-over rivers, through quiet streets and underneath clotheslines. It is never overwhelmed. It's able to bask in moonlight and live comfortably. It's dependable.
When you walk around these places, you can see the ghosts everywhere. It's like coming home.
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 4:45 PM UTC
We have lived our lives on clotheslines
and antiquities; I carry my home
in the soles of your shoes:
home is where you are,
and happiness is where my arms
always find yours in the dark.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 11:58 PM UTC
I can see your skin in every pane, as a sheet of candied paper reciting poems from a sandy dream
The moon is out eating clouds,
and is writhing in blood-smelling peat,
gnawing at your sleepy feet,
I get to eat the earth and cry again
April, May, June, and the lantern moon
and one day, outside, the clotheslines and orchids will grow and tickle May awake,
I just feel it,
and break from want, from Hell
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 11:03 PM UTC
ears destined for rust and fallow fields
move smoothly in grime
for men in shirtsleeves
and women laughing in sunlight
silos line the horizon
stuffed to the brim
with pipe dreams and hops
children as shadow puppets
behind clotheslines
herald the bees and honey
thrusting pipes push earthen mounds
echoing coffins’ slumbers
men heave iron and wheat
on a forgotten country road
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
When I was a child
We had an army in our backyard
They suited up in flower-print dresses
Their bodies billowed out in the wind
With new gush of air
And their shoulders were pinched by close pins
Holding them in a steady line formation.
My brother and I thought highly of our soldiers.
They guarded our house when they were outside
And inside they warmed our mother’s body
We returned the favor in different types of weather
When it was raining we could take them inside
And lay them flat and resting on out parent’s bed
And in sunshine we would let them bath in light
After a hard night’s watch.
We would sit on the porch and watch our troops
Hand in hand as children, whose world could
Afford to be guarded by clotheslines.
And we would know that the value of this memory
Would be vindicated by its longevity in our memories.
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 4:58 PM UTC
I sit surrounded by the carnage of the day’s efforts:
Words dismembered, metaphors bled dry.
I flap my wings in discomfiture at each glaring new
Example of mechanical fallowness;
Words hung out on clotheslines of manipulated
Speech patterns, wherever they could squeeze in-
Between the wet, moldy socks and twisted, bedraggled underwear.
I am a trained chicken at best, trying to force something out
At least partly digestible. As I peck out the sterile notes
One by one, on my red toy piano,
An automaton digs thru my internal filebanks, the flux of
Catapulted words continually bouncing over the chickenwire;
Escaping to flap heavily upward towards the trees:
And there to look down beady-eyed at the
Flopping, feathery decapitated blight.
For good reason, I hail from a long line of extinct dinosaurs.
Clucking with irritation, I see someone else has
Already laid all the good eggs, the golden eggs;
I can only scratch out some maggots and hope they hatch.
Apr 2, 2010
Apr 2, 2010 at 10:41 AM UTC
I'll be the slumpy man
caught on the clotheslines in the wind
strung out on powerlines
graced by the company of crows
and the circling buzzards
all hungry for my eyeballs
I'll be the slumpy man
hung over the sofa
draped across recliners
trying to dry out
before my braincells die out
trying to stay awake and sober
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 1:50 PM UTC
On the street
by a crumbling grey tenement
of old white sneakers and coffee pots,
blue clotheslines and floral wallpaper
a young mother sits on her porch
folding her son's laundry
her eyes darting from button to fly
wondering what she could make him for supper
I stop
gather damp newspapers
and discarded plastic bottles that lined the curb
and stare long at the mother
whose hand gently flattens the creases that run
down the faded denim legs
of her beloved, ******* child
I light
a small fire in the rain.
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC
Memories and flashbacks
Childhood. . . Grandma
Spoiled
Peaceful, country meadows
Ponds
Spaghetti O's
Roast beef, beans and cornbread
Homework
her third grade education
Finding me with n Strangers
When my mom decided to go on drug fending binges from city to city
The swingset I wanted
The mudpies she ate
The sacrifices she taught me of
The determination she instilled
The cold mornings she made fires
Warmth, breakfast in bed
Kittens, clotheslines, and the never ending biscuit bowl that I never understood how it remained full day after day.
The plaits I hated yet love now
The smell of her clothes
How she sashayed when she dressed up
Her anger
Sitting in the porch with our dog Spot
Princygal the cat
Late night peanut butter cookie baking
The sign in her wall that said
Life is one fool thing after another
Love is two fool things after each other
That I read over and over again until finally I understood.
Everything clean and cooked by noon
What happens tomorrow?
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
She walks through the noisy street
every day of the hot summer months.
She sees colorful kites flying overhead,
over the tops of roofs, coconut trees,
over the clotheslines, garbed in undergarments,
tattered shirts and poorly-sewn trousers.
She waits for playmates to come and
ask her to play tag, to waddle in the canals,
***** and smelly. The scent sticks even after
a week of being scrubbed and hosed down.
She climbs mango trees, steals the fruits and
with a mischievous smile, throws them
to her favorite playmate, waiting under the tree.
She loves long talks with her favorite playmate.
Sometimes, they would go to the park,
loiter around and walk hand in hand, just talking.
And sometimes, they like to play tag until dusk.
She adores this special playmate and considers him
her best friend in the whole, wide world.
She always looks forward to just sitting around
with him while he shows her cool card tricks,
holds her close, makes her feel like a princess--
his special, beloved and worshiped princess
Her world slows down; her mind falls silent;
her heart calms in his presence as he
shows her the universe, the simple things
city life denied her, the comforting silence
her buzzing soul is just coming to know.
She admires her beloved playmate, who, for her,
is the wisest, the cleverest spirit on the planet,
who shows her that it's possible to remain
a child forever, to keep the heart
of a young soul for all eternity, to see
the world in verses and poems, in stories and songs.
She weaves wonderful tales with her precious playmate,
stories full of fantasy and love, brimming with glory
and success, abound with heroism and dreams.
They will always be together, she and her playmate,
she vows. through summers and storms, through months
and years, through pain and pleasure, they will be together.
The summer later vanishes; the skyscrapers have become
too tall for kites to reach, the host of cars too noisy
to hear her playmates call. The world is just too fast
to remain a child forever. But there is one special
part of summer, one call she would always hear
above the din of cars and the loud ticking of clocks.
Her favorite playmate calls from the depths of her soul,
reminding her that she could always choose to be
a child forever, a child in her mind, in her spirit, in her heart.
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 3:41 AM UTC
sometimes there are these places in my head
I can see them so clearly just like the raindrops on my windowpane
they are faraway places
they remind me of a time that never existed
and I know that if I find these places
that is when I will be happy
that is when I will find home
I see flat, grey buildings overlooking empty roads
the sky is the brightest shade of blue and it makes your eyes hurt, your heart hurt
flapping clotheslines
I want to run to this place as fast as I can
I want to close my eyes and be small again
see nothing, know nothing except what is right here, right now
I see this place and almost
it feels like I am there right now
and I can hear the steel guitar and the faraway traffic sounds
my home, my childhood home
nobody understands
Oct 13, 2012
Oct 13, 2012 at 11:22 PM UTC
synagogue bells jar and outside is the
color of green, mist enshrouds moss
macadamized in young wall;
beating back to lips, a paler hue of scorched red,
a moment twists, hurries back to
the shell of a modest hour,
rearing in its tender arms, tantric ***
of rain and tendril. tenuous wind swiftly
purloins sound
submerging the world in picker-patter,
the moon fronts and the sun
behind — this is my world and within
its breast, the riverrun stride in between
stone packs its smell of mud
clotheslines full with heavy fabric
weighed down to intent and inertia,
dragged down to sleep and dream
as the hourly siren tolls somewhere that
does not have a beacon, a name
even, blaming only the shadow frittering
back to its console, pinning us
down to the calm weather we sing
about in the afternoon — reaping
in the twilight,
a cold-mouthed Hefeweizen!
Nov 15, 2015
Nov 15, 2015 at 2:50 AM UTC
(morning, noon 'til night)
1)
dew drops fall on grass
slight sun permeates bay window
a cool breeze blows by
2)
parsley sprigs adorn
a bowl of yellow puree
hot creamed pumpkin soup..
3)
while sipping soup, muse
flies with brown mariposa
rain taps sharp on roof
4)
i run....to gather
fresh, sun-dried clothes from clotheslines
dog stirs from the rush
5)
wet soil's scent meanders
dry earth quenches thirst with rain
petrichor smells good!
6)
after chasing breath,
crisp cropeck, teams with coffee
crumbs adorn my shirt...
7)
fragrance chokes twilight
"queen of the night" spews sweet scent
white blooms...so divine!
8)
monitor lizard
tangoes up the ceiling...stares,
then falls on my lap!
9)
from the bamboo tree
gecko's distinct twilight call
shrills cold twilight air
10)
moon nestles coz'ly
in a circle of gray clouds
night.......is all her own...
Sally
Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 3, 2019
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 5:17 AM UTC
“…the war…often seems to have happened to someone else.”
-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
A pickup truck beside a Navajo road
Tables of souvenirs, a Thermos of coffee
Clotheslines of dreamcatchers catching the sun
For now; the dreams must wait for sleepless hours
“You were in Viet-Nam,” the old man said
To another old man. No mystery;
He simply took a chance to make a sale
And did, for both had known the Vam Co Tay
Old men along the road, catchers of dreams
Who burned their chances in the long ago
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 2:49 PM UTC
you know?
sometimes you think
i am the only one
writing the whisperings of the world to eager pages
they strain their lined ears.
but the lines fall flat
hang limp as clotheslines
wait for the next dull batch of words to droop on the line.
hanging the writer out to dry has a completely new side to it.
you are not the first to shiver during a goodbye kiss
taste nostalgia in an ice cream cone
marvel at a shattered beer bottle on the blue-black asphalt.
and you’re not the first to believe you might be the only one.
but you know?
you know?
you are the only one
who makes me shiver
i remember to eat between spoonfuls of you
admired your aim and laughed when you missed the trash can.
i’ll pick up the words when wind blows them off the line.
i’ll pick you up
my ears are eager.
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
it seems to me that the child is beheaded –
there is not much to look at in this paling weather.
moderate climates douse their bleak, blank face-ovals,
their frigidity has no relation to stone,
their silence, loveless as a fabric is torn wild
by a rabid dog, dragging it senselessly against the furniture.
outside, the whiteness bears no reputation of laundry
impaled to clotheslines: frilling at the collarbones,
fringing at the high afternoon, distinct flutings
of iridescent night-gowns,
they want the life of some lovelorn progeny.
the scald of water is his trademark – it seems innately natural,
those who, someone else lauds the **** verdigris
of trees, able to tell how immense the stasis
of the darkness is, outside when all homes bellow
a concatenation of absences:
it seems to me the child is guillotined at this
moment, verily, in moderate climates.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 10:24 PM UTC