"doily" poems
The bottom of my dress
ballooning out,
like a doily on the dance floor.
Feeling like a princess
As I held Mommy’s hand.
Twirling me all around,
Like a ballerina let out of
Her jewelry box.
My greatest dance partner,
To the best drummer in the band.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 12:21 PM UTC
Oh, but it is *****
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a *****
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly *****
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a ***** dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color-
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
3.8k
There was an old man, I once knew
Peaches was the name he used
He was the drunk, set on our trunk
his body old and abused
Sharing his beer with an old horse
who caroused in the end stall
Each day by three, they'd walk by me
and stumble but never fall
His liver was a lace doily
alcohol pickled him thin
He'd been turned down, all over town
no one ever took him in
He drank his beer with ole Nellie
she could tip a bottle too
Swig and sway, like Don Quixote
as they staggered, swirling, brew
We were headed for the races
this blustery afternoon
Each planned the trip, we had to ship
I knew we'd be leaving soon
From where we trained at the fairground
we carted them to the track
Where all would race, and take what place
each earned in front or in back
Peaches rode in back of the truck
so he could drink the whole way
My uncle said, he'd soon be dead
drinking had seen his decay
We sat apart from others there
he and I were best of pals
He'd tell me tales, of life’s travails
while I ogled all the gals
That day he shared a sordid tale
of pain he caused his own son
He had shouldered blame, bore the shame
for this thing that he had done
Back when he was just a young man
a pillar of support
He took his boy, his life’s great joy
to play their favorite sport
They went to a picnic that day
he had drank one too many
On the way, to watch his son play
of fears he hadn't any
His boy was riding in the back
not thinking they skipped the seat belt
He'd rolled his car, the door ajar
surprise was all he had felt
His boy was tossed out in a field
sweet clover of timothy
The child's light hair, seen lying there
remembered so vividly
"I was a Veterinarian"
said Peaches to my surprise
"I went insane, called out in vain
but God never heard my cries"
"So now I ride where I belong
In back of my self-made bar
Hoping he, will come to take me
by tossing me from the car"
Just then a tear fell from his cheek
the pain enveloped me too
Here cried a man, much deeper than
any of us ever knew
Tate
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
A book left open
A red poppy lying on its pages
Two bouquets of flowers
A tiny basket holding strawberries
A white tablecloth on the table
And a white crochet doily
Why is it that
Still lives are always
So very beautiful?
~Marian~
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 2:37 PM UTC
Dress me in lace,
color me porcelain,
drench me in white cloud and blue sky and dandelions.
Touch me yellow,
Tell me you’re swallowing sunshine, tell me again
how I am the floating door and you are the ocean.
Even if we do let go,
our love doesn’t need dressing up.
It doesn’t even need poems.
It doesn’t need glitter and flash and spark pop sizzle
but we still like those things, regardless.
Our love is the crooks of elbows.
Our love is 250 miles apart, is so close to the sea, is
a word that doesn’t feel big enough.
Our love is floral, is big black boots, is seashells and lime-green goggles.
Swallow me whole,
shower me love,
our bodies may be brittle but we can still breathe,
can still sing,
can still dance in the kitchen,
can still have chocolate-chip-pancakes-lots-of-smiles-kinda mornings.
I am forever regretful that our brains have been unforgiving,
but I’ll try to never let go
and I’ll always know, your collarbone dip and soft hip and laughter laughter laughter
are the best things I’ve found in a while.
So dress me in lace,
color me porcelain,
cover me doily and southern sky and make me breakable.
I will be breakable for you.
I will be antique-shop yellowing whale bone corsets, I will be glass on the floor, I will be the floating door.
And I’ll try
to never let go.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 2:23 AM UTC
it... it's too small for my hands
I smile winsome to convince
the loose doily cloth of naivete
the backwards crone covered in bark
the little old lady who looks young in the dark
she belongs under secrets in a lemon grove
she's the oldest and newest in all of the park.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 10:20 AM UTC
Here, on the flatlands
I was put in my place.
formed and pressed
into their neat and presumably safe little box.
It's all they knew.
It is so hard to think of them as once children themselves,
formed and pressed.
Formed from a different time, with different conformists.
There are no manuals when we are born,
you get leftover instructions from previous pipe fitters.
Agrarian raised, like grain fed beef.
Complete with the fears and habits of bygone generations.
I leave one bite of each item on my plate,
with just enough drink to wash it all down.
I have done that as long as I can remember.
I want the whole candy bar, rather than just a bite.
Pressed and formed my Father saves.
He saves twist ties from bread bags.
He saves old welcome mats, and garage door openers.
He buys in bulk, and has two deep freezers full.
Full of freezer burn, tasteless, barely nutritious,
neatly formed and pressed portions of frozen in time Salisbury steak.
It is as if he himself would like to be frozen in time.
He is a depressionite child.
In the basement there is an old dresser that he found at a yard sale.
He painted it a hideous green,
but it has a formed and pressed neat white little doily on top.
In the top drawer there are various expired drugstore items,
some dating as far back as 35 years ago.
"You never know when you might need something in there."
Expired aspirin that has broken down into powder and smells of vinegar.
Vicks Vaporub, in the pretty blue glass jar, that is dried up and orderless.
All brand new and have never been opened.
Formed and pressed neatly in their little containers.
I watch these molders of my life slowly pass away,
becoming neatly formed and packed into their aging corner of the world,
neatly formed and packed into a stereotypical old folks home.
Forgotten, in the way, slow, aching.
Soon all they will have will be memories.
Soon all they will need will be memories.
Neatly formed and packed in their aging minds.
And then, like a comet that has shuttled through space
for thousands of years, millions of years,
they will burn out and fade into dust.
And their whole lives
will be neatly formed and packed
away,
in a trunk
in the attic,
to be opened like a time capsule,
at a later date.
the result of a week with my 94 yr old Parents
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 4:32 AM UTC
Sighing deeply into Omi’s embrace
Like a thimble replaced in a sewing kit,
Her permanent warmth that can’t be erased.
A doily made of cream coloured lace,
Her set of values is tightly knit,
Sighing deeply into Omi’s embrace.
She makes extra stroganoff, just in case,
Then, whole-house clean-up, “Lickety-split!”
Her permanent warmth that can’t be erased.
My sister and I in a hiding place,
And nothing of our plums left but the pit.
Sighing deeply into Omi’s embrace.
The whole rainbow neatly interlaced,
In Omi’s garden, her butterflies flit,
Her permanent warmth that can’t be erased.
That pair of blue sweat pants we couldn’t replace
Because no other pair will ever quite fit.
Sighing deeply into Omi’s embrace,
Her permanent warmth that can’t be erased.
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 8:08 PM UTC
I remember spinning in circles around the brown, hardwood floor,
My tiny hand grasping tight to mommy’s outstretched finger;
The sound of music from the live band was filling my ears,
While the laughter was spilling from my smiling mouth.
My dress was ballooning out like a doily,
While perfume and cologne were sneaking through my nose.
Mommy was twirling me all about,
Like a miniature Cinderella, glass slippers on my toes.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 9:54 PM UTC
On the ladder of pain, others sadder than we are
Are climbing up and down constantly
I watch them from my balcony, when they come and take out their garbage
Because right behind my building, by the containers
Is the end of the ladder, and beyond it
Well, who knows. Nobody knows
Or maybe I’m not told. I’m not as yet one of them, you see, to be let into such information.
First I told myself: nonsense. And John, from 7th floor said the same:
Get out of here, what ladder? What holes?
Hey, buddy, I’m telling ya, there’s no ladder there! No hole, man! And I take my ******* out every evening.
There might be one in your head!
I touched myself: no hole! So, I started watching.
Today, tomorrow, until one evening when
I saw it.
It was…a huge hole! It swallowed me at once! And the ladder,
Was shiny and sturdy.
I ran to the kitchen, I took the sack with leftovers and started going down
Running.
The others, quicker than me, were ahead. And they were running as fast as their legs would take them, as if someone was after them.
And when they were touching the ladder, they would suddenly throw themselves head first! And the ones they were bracing themselves trying to hang on were pushed from behind.
So, slowly but surely, I started to slow down.
And, when I saw no one was watching, I started going backwards.
Then I started running.
I went to a halt in the middle of the sitting room and grabbed my head in my hands.
Somebody had moved the ladder by the foot of the table, the big one, covered in the
Last supper doily (maybe the guy upstairs, John, in a moment of adamic hate rage)
Years have passed since. Questions, frictions, showers, pills…anyway, nonsense.
I’m now cured by that thing with the ladder. Oy, mate, I say, there’s no ladder there!
In my house only the wooden floor’s shining! You can shave in it mate! You can shave in it!
Look at it! It came all the way from Germany, they know their stuff, Germans!
Mar 24, 2010
Mar 24, 2010 at 12:23 PM UTC
Tiptoe with me through roads of mottled rainbows
We’ll build a city of coffee cream clouds and crystallized light
Our sticky shadows can stumble jump rope with fizzling stars
And our light will tang in the air with peace
Every streecorner will have an off-key symphony
Played with tongues broken from laughter
Raise your arms to catch the words that’ve ballooned into the stratosphere
I’ll tangle my fingers in your palm to lift you higher
You’ll collect liquid moon in a sandcastle bucket
Drips of silver catching in your spidersilk hair
I’ll pour it down all outside the doily mold
It’ll twist down to earth in fractured motion
Trust me, I never knew how to fly
Only to fall, and to fall with broken hands
Jump with me and skate down a sunset
Dorothy ain’t got nothin’ on this kind of color
I’m blinder than an arsonist with night vision goggles
But only ‘cause I see with my heart instead of reflections of light
Life is opaque when your soul is an old one
Though I’m still getting drunk on the learning wine
Take a rose and ***** a finger on a petal
The softest feelings always have the sharpest bite
The devil’s left the details to hammer her way up to heaven
She’ll shatter kaleidoscope bullets into mosaics of sin
Love is the game that all the best dreamers play
I think up slow nonsense that fills my lungs with longing
Bright towns are always blurrier than the grey
And my brush is shaky from absent disuse
So bring me home (my home is you)
Build love from the broken rubble souls
Sing for our voices reaching higher than the sun
As my hair links with yours in the summer breeze
Frozen bubbles can chime on every door
Our bare feet will press into wet desert clay
Smiles will be painted pure and golden
And all the colors will fill our footprints as we walk away in joy.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
It’s not mystical, the winter solstice.
Think of pink fish, red fish, the sun, a pond,
Part water and part reflection, beneath
Fresh ice, so slowly sinking, not frozen, just cold,
About to touch bottom and death, their thoughts—
Of carnival barker and circus clown
And Superman all rolled up tight—about
To be extinguished, with summer so far
Away, you start to think it is death, not
The kids not splashing in the shallows, and
Not the less than dire necessity
Sophisticated poetry, read so
Professionally, so dainty and so
Doily-like, that it seems like ashes scattered,
Lost in some larger lake’s ichthyology—
But still byzantine enough for fish to fathom,
The depths their special province now that ice
Has capped the pond and crested creation.
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 4, 2010 at 5:03 PM UTC
It was winter I last visited
with a container separated into thirds,
one for me,
one for you and
one for apples.
Your hair was blonde.
We wove autumn tea out of your cigarette smoke
that wrapped into the trees like a vice
secretly brushing our necks as it built up.
Your smoke left a sleepy trail of spilled wine on the carpet
making naked flowers appear on your arms.
Those belonged to the ace of spades himself
lungs deep in a poison.
You became a dreaming mess,
the phone began to worry for you,
you kept chaos in a syringe and
cobwebs were spun onto the floor.
A doily waits for you,
under the apples.
May 29, 2012
May 29, 2012 at 12:58 AM UTC
crochet me a doily
I can wear as a hat-
intricate dainty and soft,
knit me a pair of spats-
pink-
I can wear on my mocassins,
sew me some cute *******
crotchless are best.
For I am getting tired of
acting tough.
Spare me the ***** hose, so
restricting, and until I take hormones,
the uplifting bra from Frederick's,
is useless.
teach me , though, how to apply mascara,
I just painted my ear hair black.
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 9:56 PM UTC
My favorite trips are the ones I never took
In Kazakhstan there are trees submerged in Lake Kaindy
who instead of rotting have remained frozen in time, heavy
with icy spruce--and I feel strangely in touch with them.
Sometimes I'm self-sustaining on a single kiss, like any insect
of the Coleoptera order, literally, sheathed wing, the ones that crack
into the summer soil and bury themselves between dry blades of grass
and decomposing springtime--
I am a lot more of myself inside my head, terribly forward and
magnanimous, always curious and split into hundreds of questions
firing like these silvery synapses or a school of minnows refracting in and out, i'm afraid of never letting her go, that my fear of falling through every open door will forever deter me from finding that she is the best and most beautiful part of me.
that I will never change seats and let her continue on in thrilling fantasies of how I almost was--what I almost said and what could have been, building ecosystems around laughs and
hands and that feeling when in the low tangerine glow
two people pull up their shirts and press their skin together
unfolding in soughs as if they are gales rushing through
each other's sails, fluttering between knees and
glowing in barns.
she is there and wants to try everything, the most careful exhibitionist in daisy leaves and doily patterns, barefoot in your room with dandelions between her toes, wisps of cotton quilted into her hair, unwavering in the light and ever more in the dark, and when I am silent she is in the background quoting John Keats and Dylan Thomas, taking your fingers to trace her own lips, effervescent and tireless in the ways that she loves you without regard--
I want to let her go
I want to let her go
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
I first felt her flow as Blue Lady tea steeped on a delicately crafted doily.
Cranberry Orange Scones paired with doll-sized cutlery.
I’d be excused.
A late bloomer,
steeping slowly from the flowering buds of my very own teapot.
Mothers, sisters, friends, daughters together
sharing a Blue winter in that tea shop.
When at fourteen, womanhood gifted
me the first of many
moments.
This would spark my wondering why women weren’t known
solely for their strength, rich in resilience,
like the blackest tea.
As Blue Lady steeped steadily from the table to the lady’s room.
Anna Blake
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 11:59 AM UTC
✿⊰✲⊱✿
I stand in front of a baroque mirror; grand,
gold, gilded with leaves, grapes, dolphins
angels, swans and shells. So wonderful, and
proud on my chamber wall. And in it, I see
myself in a fitted dress, velvet, and of the
deepest plum kissed by gold-jacquard; a
single, heart-shaped Tanzanite suspended
from the girdle belt; the skirts trailing
behind me.
✿⊰✲⊱✿
I marvel how the light hits the embroidered
florals with pearls and diamonds; they sweetly
glint and wink, sending shards of the rainbow
around my room. Around my slim throat,
a pendant, a coin with lace doily pattern,
and amethyst at the core the size of
a robin's egg.
✿⊰✲⊱✿
Across my forehead, a golden diadem
decorated with filigree, beaded with pearls,
delicate gem tendrils and patterned with
lotuses and lilies, the symbol of my proud
Aurelinaea. As I tuck a black curly ringlet
behind my ear, my earrings twinkles,
tear-cut, Tanzanite, with gold filigree.
✿⊰✲⊱✿
"My Lady has had a long day indeed,"
my senior handmaid Ainhana smiles
and waves her hands, her menagerie of
handmaids begin to help me undress.
Removing the jewellery, removing my
diadem, unlacing my dress and
removing my corsets and heels.
"You must be relieved that it is over."
✿⊰✲⊱✿
"Yes I am," I sigh as a handmaid presents
my iris-purple kimono robe which I slip
into. Another maid presents a large bowl of
rosewater while the other held a silver tray,
upon it, a milk-white towel spun from rose-silk.
I proceed to wash the make-up from my face.
The delicate aroma fills my nose, as my skin
feels cleaner, feels purer. As the waters drip,
I use the towel to wipe my face and pat
the rosy drops down.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 4:10 AM UTC
Tissues tear under pressure.
As careless onlookers try to breathe in
the air of something fresher.
Self-satisfied glares under
the gaze of a doily umbrella.
They mutter "Oh that poor Cinderella!"
Rotting flowers falling from an empty hand.
Not caring on which grave
they land.
A flowing dress stiffened from a hard heart.
Lying beneath the dirt
is this dying art.
Powered blue sorrow drifting from caked eyes.
Lying on the frosted grass
this love's demise.
Translucent wings ******* blue veins from the back.
A halo is what
this dead girl lacks.
Wilted dandelions wrapped round the neck with love.
Choking and cloaking a man's
abusive glove.
A lovers' kiss won't wake
this sleeping beauty.
But a suitors love did break
both soul and body.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:22 PM UTC
swirling steam, meets the morning breeze
bubbling water encompasses the bag with ease
aroma of cinnamon fills me with savory grace
resting precious china on doily of lace
tepid tea, wintry soul appease
warm caress in a cup guarantees
moments of harmony battles bleak disease
warm trickle down, likening embrace
swirling steam, meets the morning breeze
dreaming of life overseas
imagine now, the possibilities
believing in an impactful trace
young and learning, necessary space
muddled thoughts over early tea
swirling steam, meets the morning breeze
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 7:33 PM UTC
Happiness is what makes me reach out and scream hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am a barbarian who eats library books. I am inside all of the books that I read. I do not consider the outcomes for if I were to do this I would become a figment of your imagination AND I CAN'T HAVE THAT.
Sadness is a disease that becomes infested with remorse and I will not ride that steed.
Being rid of things - moving a broken picture after you found it hidden away in a dusty cabinet and then forgetting - old laced doily, time ragged & brown stained from Grammy Pete's tested hands. One last wind of the pocket watch.
The Juniper tree lay treasure down over the old beaten blue car that I took many a day to think in. It was a good winter and I remember it well.
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 11:46 PM UTC
just raises brows quizzically
(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCXXXVIII)
Soft blue skies feign a note of what fr'intents
I thought to know at dawn, whilst in betrayl
"He's" finished and quite gone, me like to scale
'Non wondring if twas all in that joke's sense
Of "April Fools!" or but a dream from hence?
To rub my eyes as groc'ries, laundry hail
Me for attention, dinner too, in frail
Excuse now feeling like I've small kids thence.
O! How I long to go outside and fer
All that, just breathe! Forget the day we knew,
Hark to the birds, and lose myself as twere
In that soft calm. But oh! that will not do.
Watch golden light draw shadows up, each fir
A lacy doily, til that sunset cue.
01Apr19b
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 9:52 PM UTC
eye roll pita-patter
that went to flatter
the doily with a queen in absentia
but her placenta wear halter in zebra
to fabricate ***** but a summer thrill up yonder
in a bat cave wonder
with blond tenderness so blind
yet her sunken ***** there
her patriarch kind butter
this ice grab yellow
Jun 23, 2019
Jun 23, 2019 at 10:56 AM UTC
wine print on neutral veronese,
some drink to live,
some live to drink
i spent a lowly year "out back"
high up in the Adirondacks
i spent a couple grand and change
lay a lady lay again...
here lies conquer with no-seq
ne vis plus, prefaced as con
harboring the depth of write
just to overcome the wrongs
always drone as rhythm does
pin and doily on the water
mag-a-nolia, Julian, golden
life of old and orchards open
send a silhouette to the cabin door...
happy getting older, broaden
road and carriage,
stock and bale
bail and stalk
walk o’er hill
neatly seated at heron
seated on the bench i stole
i knitted up the overgrowth
and lay i shall think of the olds
of plum-stained linens from the gods,
rags and gore,
pale blue bones
the modern peril is destination and fortified knowns.
Oct 31, 2019
Oct 31, 2019 at 12:14 PM UTC