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Martin Narrod Feb 2014
The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten
Olivia Kent Feb 2015
Amsterdam,
Oh Amsterdam.
The lingering bells of a multitude of bicycles.
Clinging to the misty air.
Carefree.
Careless.
Canal flows past.
Upon which dances sunlight.
A bundle of sparkles.
It's early morning in-situation.
The ladies of night, are still sat propped up sleepily.
Looking like they're wide awake.
The coffee shops seem to  never quit,they never seem to sleep.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
Delft grinders shaped as windmills turn and grind.
Oh to awaken in fair Amsterdam.
(C) LIVVI
Tom D Jan 2023
Such simplicity
yet magnanimous in its undertaking
One marvels at the whole of it
in awe of the glorious painstaking detail
Colors calm and easy
leaving no part of it's aura unappeasing
It's nature so sincere and moving
the stricken feel the need to bow
Lana May 2014
Hi there,
I say to the ocean,
dropping my shoes
for the sandy pilgrimage
to shore,

A lone figure wanders
into a Delft seascape,
Blues and whites
of Dutch perfection engulf
my field of vision,
Water and sky reflecting
back infinite shades,

the blue of stiff dungarees
at the horizon,
clouds in shaving cream white,
the heron blue gray of the shallows,
I could name twenty shades
on a good day, like today
when the beach is all mine,

I step into the cool ooze,
jolted into a sudden jig,
I hop, a riot of ah's and elbows,
Waves rush at me
like a legion of puppies,
frothy and excited,
I laugh at their sloppy greeting,
Overwhelmed by their welcome,
unconditional and salty,
Spray lapping my face
as I find my footing.
S E L Dec 2013
welcome

she welcomes my energy inside and gives me tea
calms my busy light without a single word
smiles at my bright aura
a tabby ginger cat purrs on a gingham cloth
blue Delft plates in a row

this was a time with no fuzzy
no noise
no waste
no haste




dimming of all goodness

a woman’s head rolls on the fine sifting sand
dry and warm
a rapier juts forward, pierces the guts of an old man
who carries a child on his back
there’s a red blanket what flies on the line
soggy and now,  it’s hard to tell whose blood drips so

an elongated horn is blown from a desert hill
nobody lives in the mountains of Miranda anymore
her ghost has found voice in the echo of the brambles
her secrets still buzz in heavy hives of long ago
discovered and ravaged by trusted traitors
now hanging in clusters, newly unfound
dried corpses also hang (unmolested) in bloodwood trees
where every trace of gall is let flow in kino



the blood of Miranda flows on**

she of terminalis
lives on eternal
in brook and vale and bush
in veins of progeny bee
and also
in the crickets of the field
James Andrews Oct 2013
Waiting for the ferry
I found a piece of Delft, or so I thought,
Blue white and shining on the rock beach at St. John's,
Mixed it in with unfamiliar coins of Canada
Dreaming of a foundering ship,
The dish and how it might have looked
Stacked on all the others in a busy galley
Ages back when it and she were whole.

I walked along the rounded stones made slick with growth
And watched the tide sweep out so fast
It seemed the ocean raced to find its home.

You lingered by the picnic tables.
I saw you check your watch six times,
Wondered at your sharp fixation,
Your sense of past and future,
How it might survive me.

Later in the empty bar,
Amidst the dreaming roar of engines
And the splashing underneath our hull
I thought I heard you laugh but I was wrong.

You were huddled by a table
Peering pious in your half filled glass.
The laugh I heard came from a stranger.
A fisherman I came on later on the deck.

He pointed towards a far direction
Misting emblems of his home.
He said he missed his wife.
I envied him.

I was moving far from mine.
The closest thing to memory,
Those foreign coins
And small white fragments
Jostling close to silence
In my pocket.
CK Baker Apr 2017
pear leaves strum the high wire
fern roots claw a sun drenched bank
creep vines mount the hedgerow
sow bugs jump a grated worn step

picket wall stain on cedar
mountain stream brisk at lush green pass
four legs down the foot path
biscuit brown trailers fill the pipe

spiders march on dew web
knots and rivets cut hard at the seam
maples cover the forest floor
sap ***** ping the front gate

dandelions drift on west breeze
blue berries plump at shepherds grove
wood sill holds a stained glass
letter box lined above the scrub

delft ware on the mantle
(with petals and script for a promised guest!)
junior poised with mouth agape
birds and squirrels whistle jovial tunes

goldfinch darts the sea ranch
tabby cat rests in a white wicker chair
a crafters window in the alpine
follies await the summer task!

queen bee on the flutter
airedale set on a woven grey mat
watchmen of the hollow (+ earwig and mite!)
scurry, under rustled moist leaves

frogs leap at trickle creek
shutter bugs mount on gryphons lair
still water ripples in the shaded pool
folding fingers on corner bridge

foragers cut the high shelf
silver fish come to life
whiskey jack sings on indian green
elijah and xavier pause...
at a long days end
jo spencer Jul 2013
Nostalgia for a vanished world
of  Macfisheries and the
Orange Hand boyswear store at Golders Green.
Bar Linda at the bus station
close to the record shop
with listening booths.
Those were our prize days
with au pairs Franny  and Janine
and our London memories.
As children
we never knew we had it all.
In our back garden
buried treasure - a cows bell
and delft plates.
The Jackson Five and Banana Splits,
bubble gum the preferred choice.
America so abundant on the horizon,
Pickettywitch on the radio.
playing that same old feeling
we so accordingly search for now.
Bob Shuman Mar 2014
Eyes travel from canvas to porcelain, flowers
arranged with care, catching the right tone,
her brush flicks.

A squall bruises the cerulean sky.
Welts of indigo rise. The room flares
white, light divorced from shadow.
Her palette hot, each smear of paint burning.

The doorway, lintel near kindling, frames
Emily, fourteen, feline, grace and arrogance,
her beauty a warning almost too painful to bear.
The girl’s ******* her mother’s own before they fell
with time and weight and nursing.
Emily child skin sloughed off, flesh ripe, glistening.

Old words drop on mother’s tongue, “I could eat you up
(as you ate me).” Images in the painter mind
of porous *******, Emily’s rooting lips, shirts, blouses
marked with nursing and her own early nights,
reveries of a man and, by him, a baby.

(But the man never ravished her as the child did.  His anger
burned sienna between sheets and walls
for months as she kneaded pleasure from the rising swell
beneath her belly until muddied by blues, sullen
he left.)

“How was school today?” mother asks warily, resentful
to be so. The daughter turns to head below
and slit-mouthed breaths, “Fine.” The word
a jagged line across her mother’s work, cut roses,
carnations, mums, a Delft tureen. Brushstrokes writhe,
clench into figures---mother, father, Emily---and vanish
as laughter, a tease of easy joy no longer shared,
rolls upstairs. Mother’s hand, the brush
too tightly grasped, shakes and spirits spill.
She sits in bathroom quiet, tissues wet with salted tears.
Feet scuffle from down to up, a knock opens the door.
“Mom, take me to the drugstore. I need
some stuff!”

The painting day a ruin. “Only if you want do you need.”
“At least I use them,” from Emily, crimson flush
to her soft defiant cheek. She turns, but
mother’s hand to keep her youth from going grabs her skirt.
It rips. Emily’s nails rake her mother’s face
who, hand to cheek, is amazed to find palms stained with alizarin blood.

In fearful flight from what she’s done, Emily raises a tube
fat with madder rose and holds
the canvas hostage. Colored snakes inch out. Emily
and her mother now striped reds with blood and paint,
souls soaked through,
thick with love. The tall grass outside steams.
Happiness spasm my tired bone
Offshore of sea picnic zone
Spreading love tentacles of blissful moments like ozone
I spray layers of happy day

The setting sun shines in my heart
Bringing soothing relief of love day
Upon river of time I await my undying love
As I delft in waves of radiating sun
So I ball in dance, dinning gown

Waiting for your spins of love words
Where elements witnessed our enchanting talks
Upon our heart its stalk
Making moments bliss with unending joy
At the sand of sea we dance walk

Tongues of kisses
Break the silence
And our heart rises
In love waves


Martin Ijir
nitelite Jun 2020
moving on to eighteen,
lost in loving a velvet
silhouette of a dream.

with hands off the world
as it open-heartedly spins
winds and rings and pearls,

delft blue skies dim down & done
leaving in the care of the night
the light refracted from the sun.

shadows blurred to one behind
closed eyes, where reality subsided,
relighting beloved falsehoods in mind:

instants of fleeting transient sparks
abscond tips of fireworks in air
with scarce care whilst piercing dark.

but alas blinding sun returns, flooding down
reality sustained, killing all sparks
without a single one extinguished.

lost in love, then loved & lost
enveloped in limits,
submitting to sunfall.
Tom D Dec 2018
I'd like to hear Mozart
from the starlings in Vienna
Then pull them from the azure
and put them into my piano

I'd like to see the cypress trees
waving in the wind
Pleading for my intention
to sketch them once again

Paint the weathered boats of Delft
along its waterway
Fill a mural with peasant girls
sleeping in the hay

When it's time to awaken
from this pleasant reverie
I'll need to take a step towards earth
and return to reality
Bruce Levine Mar 2019
Raisins on the radar
Blips up in the sky
Momentary fragments
Dissecting the nebula
Into quadrants of infinity

Paradoxical parodies
Of timeless interventions
Parading down the highway
Toward the Main Street
Of all life

Opening credenzas
Containing empty virtues
Of Delft and Meissen statues
With layers of brocade adornment
Pretensions held up to the light

Fascinating sorrows
Measuring despair
With candles unextinguished
A world in disrepair

A bastion of hollows
Carved in granite heights
A tempest once devoured
Retains the kernel within
To reignite with a teardrop
A Phoenix full in flight

3/26/19


www.brucelevine.com
Donall Dempsey Jul 2021
WITHERED HEART

Spring, hung a left turn
& got hopelessly lost.

Buds: blossoming into frost.

(Kinda hurts when...you’ve nowhere to turn
but hey...you learn...you learn) .

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring gambled & lost
got cleaned out by Winter & Old Jack Frost.

(Spring got unlucky...that’s all...had to pay the cost) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring got sidetracked & left upon the shelf.
(What happened...happened...couldn’t be helped) .

Delicate china... broken Delft.

No use crying over the milk that is spilt

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Your name on a window...written in frost
a last letter       lost       in the post

(Useless words written with tears) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

... left with nothing but a withered heart.
Ryan O'Leary Nov 2021
One day I will be alone,
a solitary toothbrush in
the glass, lid of the paste
missing and a dental floss
dispenser empty.

Unopened mail on the big
shelf, delft double parked
on the kitchen sink, rusted
clothes pegs on the line, an
overflowing bin.

One day I will be alone, I
will remember everything
about being together, I will
stand shadowless in rays
of the setting sun.






Ps,

The Big Shelf is my
metaphor for the floor.
Donall Dempsey Jul 2022
WITHERED HEART

Spring, hung a left turn
& got hopelessly lost.

Buds: blossoming into frost.

(Kinda hurts when...you’ve nowhere to turn
but hey...you learn...you learn) .

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring gambled & lost
got cleaned out by Winter & Old Jack Frost.

(Spring got unlucky...that’s all...had to pay the cost) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring got sidetracked & left upon the shelf.
(What happened...happened...couldn’t be helped) .

Delicate china... broken Delft.

No use crying over the milk that is spilt

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Your name on a window...written in frost
a last letter       lost       in the post

(Useless words written with tears) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

... left with nothing but a withered heart.
Donall Dempsey Jul 2020
WITHERED HEART

Spring, hung a left turn
& got hopelessly lost.

Buds: blossoming into frost.

(Kinda hurts when...you’ve nowhere to turn
but hey...you learn...you learn) .

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring gambled & lost
got cleaned out by Winter & Old Jack Frost.

(Spring got unlucky...that’s all...had to pay the cost) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

Spring got sidetracked & left upon the shelf.
(What happened...happened...couldn’t be helped) .

Delicate china... broken delft.

No use crying over the milk that is spilt

...left with nothing but a withered heart.

Your name on a window...written in frost
a last letter       lost       in the post

(Useless words written with tears) .

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

... left with nothing but a withered heart.

— The End —