"draperies" poems
Too far away, oh love, I know,
To save me from this haunted road,
Whose lofty roses break and blow
On a night-sky bent with a load
Of lights: each solitary rose,
Each arc-lamp golden does expose
Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows
Night blenched with a thousand snows.
Of hawthorn and of lilac trees,
White lilac; shows discoloured night
Dripping with all the golden lees
Laburnum gives back to light.
And shows the red of hawthorn set
On high to the purple heaven of night,
Like flags in blenched blood newly wet,
Blood shed in the noiseless fight.
Of life for love and love for life,
Of hunger for a little food,
Of kissing, lost for want of a wife
Long ago, long ago wooed.
. . . . . .
Too far away you are, my love,
To steady my brain in this phantom show
That passes the nightly road above
And returns again below.
The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees
Has poised on each of its ledges
An ***** small girl looking down at me;
White-night-gowned little chits I see,
And they peep at me over the edges
Of the leaves as though they would leap, should I call
Them down to my arms;
"But, child, you're too small for me, too small
Your little charms."
White little sheaves of night-gowned maids,
Some other will thresh you out!
And I see leaning from the shades
A lilac like a lady there, who braids
Her white mantilla about
Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight
Of a man's face,
Gracefully sighing through the white
Flowery mantilla of lace.
And another lilac in purple veiled
Discreetly, all recklessly calls
In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed
Her forth from the night: my strength has failed
In her voice, my weak heart falls:
Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering
Her draperies down,
As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering
White, stand naked of gown.
. . . . . .
The pageant of flowery trees above
The street pale-passionate goes,
And back again down the pavement, Love
In a lesser pageant flows.
Two and two are the folk that walk,
They pass in a half embrace
Of linked bodies, and they talk
With dark face leaning to face.
Come then, my love, come as you will
Along this haunted road,
Be whom you will, my darling, I shall
Keep with you the troth I trowed.
4.2k
~
*atop the Manhattan skyline
her similitude descends as rain
we see her wonderwork
we see her water-standing
her very abandonment of draperies
unassuming and artless
where the heedless moths settle
with bodies of mystic warmth
colored with rose and a dash of flame*
~
– for Audrey Munson
May 18, 2021
May 18, 2021 at 9:52 AM UTC
(For Harry Clifton)
I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie bearen flat.
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.
Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
3.4k
A title, from the "Best of the Alternative Press"
After reading
I realize I'm not a woman after all
She can talk about the cruel things
men do to women
**** and ******
Then discuss draperies
in the next breath
how to organize your closet
Female Genital Mutilation in Africa
and her favorite appliance:
a Panini maker
I am supposed to rush into my kitchen
to make sure I have the same brand
"She understands how much women care about their houses"
I look around
I am happy here but
A new cake of soap doesn't send a thrill through my body
A fresh towel doesn't make me ******
I could make a grilled cheese sandwich
The way my ancestors, male and female have done
In a skillet with bread and cheese
If I squish it it, it becomes Panini
I check the mirror
I'm naked, and I see
I am a woman
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 9:39 PM UTC
sitting in a bar unawares
sobriety is relinquished
incoherence
voicing hallucinated delirium
sweating profusely in distress
disconnected
without identity, without form
a long and terrible descent
into the effects of derealization
staring at nothing
listening to imaginary sounds
that cling to the dark draperies
that hang upon the walls of the mind
charting the outer geography of life
with invested inner humanity
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC
how odd, to be a woman and a girl
to wear the dresses but concern about cleavage
more than meets the eye: because.
and so we waddle for the men –
twisting straps, my petticoat drawbridge
i am over-aware of myself: know the pulse and
when to tug draperies from ‘part thighs
they only see what i am okay with,
which does not include exhaling.
i am like a drum, drumbeat
i punch my body until the purple softens
and it sounds beautiful, but incomprehensible:
me, this woman-girl and child cheeks
placed upon petals that flap
with attention, not the old storm breezes –
every april shower molded me into a flower
i rise above each season, gay spectacle
the men that believe hurricanes so enigmatic
must lust me for such a reason –
i have been through many in girlhood
that i bleed one as a woman.
because of word infidelities, the muse
april said that i am only as big as my body
and i grew, grew, grew
until my stem became caught
to where it grew no longer, a woman-child
who took the wind like salad dressing.
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 5:36 PM UTC
Eating habits that resemble that of a bird
I don’t want to touch you I fear you will break
That girl. She’s anorexic. Haven’t you heard?
Throw some sparkles and clothes that resemble draperies. Quite the model she would make.
Whispers waiver between the walls of weight and withering away
Strut your stuff, Walk the walk
Break a leg! Don’t worry. It’s jealousy they say.
Words of concern, gossip, rumors, backstabbing..it’s all just talk.
Thin as a rail glancing down at the scale
Feed me numbers of perfection
Strung out on diet pills and caffeine-not the ideal fairy tale
Cries of control and misdirection from my flawed reflection
I am me, one of a kind, beautiful they say. Just look in the mirror.
Loosing this fight tear after tear, year after year.
May 24, 2011
May 24, 2011 at 11:16 AM UTC
Gossamer draperies swell
with heat, eastern winds
push daylight
over tangled bodies.
Fingers travel up
and down your naked torso,
my hand caught suddenly
in yours as you stir,
a sleepy god awakened
by the warmth of morning.
Your body, a sundial,
keeps perfect time with mine;
two lovers cached in silken strands,
our sacred place now fully lit
with the hunger of summer.
The solstice lingers past its prime,
drifting over equator
and into southern skies
as autumn patiently waits
outside the bedroom door.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 8:49 PM UTC
--To D. F.
I watched you saunter down the sand:
Serene and large, the golden weather
Flowed radiant round your peacock feather,
And glistered from your jewelled hand.
Your tawny hair, turned strand on strand
And bound with blue ribands together,
Streaked the rough tartan, green like heather,
That round your lissome shoulder spanned.
Your grace was quick my sense to seize:
The quaint looped hat, the twisted tresses,
The close-drawn scarf, and under these
The flowing, flapping draperies--
My thought an outline still caresses,
Enchanting, comic, Japanese!
1.3k
If ever you resided within a chamber of my heart,
Know that it still wears your decorations of affection.
The crafts we built of time,
The wrinkles in the draperies,
The tearstains in the carpet,
That used to bring us comfort.
I may have changed the locks.
Shuttered it to yesterday.
But late at night,
When all is dark,
When silence falls upon my spirit,
My inner child,
A forgotten hope,
A life we birthed and buried....
Cracks the door,
From time to time,
And sparks a whispered vigil,
So light can touch the splinters
In the plaster of my soul.
A faded house of love...
A place we once called home
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 1:58 PM UTC
goaded by a stereophonic monotone:
a flumine voice waxes with lovelorn dregs.
i heard the plump word of rescue
dangle from the heady decibel of song,
winterward, blue-veined and stillicide.
no more, shall the wind traverse the impasse of the verdigris. the incertitude
of beginnings sigh ultimately.
o people, your darling children soldered
to your denims. o rosefrail and sightless
bannerets — we mourn such coming.
it sleuths with a tangle of fingers
underneath fringes of flesh-warmed
draperies with a different temperament
as moderate as climates in squandered tropics, flows with a truth wishing it
more of the untruth:
never shall return, in faraway lands,
never shall look back and lay in prairies
attenuated, continue to sing oblivion.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
a green silhouette of grey, towering in secret turmoil
where shadows shuffle past clothed in draperies of U
like the front door of a public house at night time
on moments they stop and peer through windows
as if searching for themselves
and seeing themselves not within
place a hand on each others shoulder
with slender tapered touch to life
and wander on looking
for the fresh warm rain of belief, any belief
they just don't care
dark as unforgiven justice
neither divine nor temporal forms
shadows that reflect no change
ensure no truth, show no energy to immerse
and this applies no effort to pick their chaos
nor specialised catastrophies
though do marshal devils of distinction
from the ramparts of the night
who dance in crooked form
twisting around the indolence of faces
peering through others windows
howls too for they make such howls
as such the shadows dismiss them
to their own oblivion
the shadows in their old humiliating story
move on still peeping, peeking and peering
but they languish in a wander land
always calm and reasonable
they move on like gassed first world war soldiers
but trembling inwardly with a frightful rage
cursing priests veined with age
who have told everyone's confession
and doctors slowly losing their hair
who never confess their secrets
not even to veined faced priests
and sometimes in a few seconds
these few but precious seconds
before the next window
it is remembered, yes remembered
shadows are the colour of light
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 3:47 PM UTC
I waited in one of the cities dark and dangerous alleyways. The vile odors. The Gads knows what forming puddles around my best leather boots. The ones with the shine to blind the eye.
There she was. A common strumpet. Drunkenly making her way towards me. Jingling her purse of meager coins.
Blood money.
Obtained by logging men on the heads whilst they took their fill of her. Only to have her sell them to sea Captain's that do not ask questions of where their crew came from. Or whether they were willing.
I could feel the evil in the air about her. I heard her heart beat and felt her blood pulse.
She was delicious.
Not a drop wasted.
As I sit here, the thought comes to me, that I shall
be ******
But wait! I am already ****** and I thrive within it. I not only thrive...I revel in it.
Now where is that odious, rangy, mouse burping kitten gotten off to.
GADS! She is up the draperies once again!
I will calmly go get the ladder, which I had to buy just for these occasions. I will place it up against the drapery staff.
I will climb up. Gently coaxing the little flea bitten darling to me. She will hiss and claw like the ***** she is.
But, alas. I adore her so.
~Lord Kellington
Oct 19, 2010
Oct 19, 2010 at 3:55 PM UTC
Dulling mind in comments and commas
And introspective melodramas
Draperies
And Cakeries
Rhyming what should be Bakeries
And taketh me
To a different place than this
With super-human strength
And sub-human lips
Crisp
Diner-level chatter
In the back of the mad Gavel's
Hatter
White Matter
And flow of the rainbow
Falls
Let's hike for five miles
And lie for seven
I wish you well
More than I'd wish you hell
But I'd wish both to no one
And I'd wish the latter even less
Than the bestest guest's guess
bag
Beer goggles to the hags
And rags on the bar stools
Cleaning up the bar fools'
leftover lunches
Left on hunches
Atop 4 long legs
Reaching up about 4 feet high
To allow patrons
to reach the bar
to tell stories
about long lost
loves
friendships
dogs
And country music
That some hate
And some love
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.Sir murmurs feverish death
spells,
Bewitched hysteria enchanted elven
ears,
Violin strings of stuttering velvet
echo,
vacuity beguile cracked
telescopes,
Sir’s feigned ruby lips
lament.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.Draperies comb the purple
hare,
Riveted coats sneeze in the
pallor,
Stabilizing the drunken
absences,
Late violets exhale in
tedium.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝
.Sir views tree sagging in dirt
coffins,
In fabricated
tranquility,
With pleasant booming
hums.
⇜⇝⇜⇝
⇜⇝⇜⇝
.Sirs deteriorating dense
chasms,
Encounter convenient
disorientation.
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜
⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜⇝⇜
.Spotted desolate greenery a hafted ax of
demise.
⇜⇝⇜⇝
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 1:28 PM UTC
Crystal is once again, up the draperies.
She has a veritable path of claw marks
leading from the floor to the curtain staff.
I have decided to ignore her when she does this.
But, as she is lurking behind me, atop the draperies, it is not an easy task.
At any moment, I expect her to pounce.
Ah! Like father, like daughter.... in a sense.
I realized tonight that I excel at being a Vampire.
never a drop goes to waste.
Never a witness spies me. Not one that lives, that is.
Never do I go hungry.
Never am I bored, or boring.
Why only earlier this night, I went to the Ballet.
A spritely tune was played by the orchestra, while dancers ran hither and yon upon the stage.
I was dressed all in black.
Bland I know. But "Society" demands somber dress
at the oddest occasions.
I have my own box, from which I enjoy my privacy, while enjoying the entertainment.
Oh, not the entertainment on the stage.
The entertainment of playing the gallant host to my next meal.
I wine and dine them.
Regale them with lively anticdotes.
laugh at the right moments.
Look regretful, when called for.
Show shock, when due.
Outrage, when warranted.
In the end, they leave my box and my company, none the wiser.
mayhap a bit wan and listless.
But, always grateful for a lovely evening.
They always blame their condition on the wine.
Ha!
~Lord Kellington
Oct 28, 2010
Oct 28, 2010 at 7:43 PM UTC
I don't believe it!
I, the blood thirsty monster
of every nightmare!
Who fills the night time streets with
a true evil unrivaled!
What am I to do
with a tiny white kitten?
It followed me home...truly.
A pathetic little thing.
Probably full of fleas.
I have to buy milk!
I have to buy stinky fish!
What else will it need?
It does have cute ears
and the tiniest pink nose.
IT JUST WENT UP MY NEW VELVET DRAPERIES!
It will not come down!
fine. It can stay there and starve.
See if I care.
Now I have to go see if I even own a ladder.
My dinner is getting impatient.
He thinks that he is here for a job interview.
As if I have the needs of a butler.
Hmmm. Maybe I will let him get
that flea bitten thing down
before I partake.
~Lord Kellington
Oct 18, 2010
Oct 18, 2010 at 6:08 PM UTC
luna lolled a tongue of light through the cottony
bifurcation of fluttering draperies
licking her window with shimmering
spittle
refracted by the pallid idea of her flesh
she seemed a glowing angel of bone
wreathed in this incandescence
i took her sharp words and sewed
her love in the fabric of my being
oh god how i love her virginal
vessel
please won't you give me that gift
let me make your clean all grimy
with my ***** fingers
alas how can such an ugly thing as this me
ever lay in the proximity of a her so achingly right?
i am a nothing and she an everything
please don't leave my sheets this morning
i want to sing your song
bending my tongue about its fragile melody
in the distance a chime murmurs
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 3:42 PM UTC
I do not recall the day
When my hand stumbled upon his
Like a lost puzzle piece
Among countless others
I don't remember that sincere sensation
That filled my soul
As I looked into those cool brown eyes
That looked back at me with such passion
The infinite hours discussing our dreams our hopes
Till the morning hour light shines through the draperies
The dearest words of affection
Whispered sweetly
That made my cheeks scarlet with delight
I dont recall just exactly what went wrong
We were...picture perfect
I dont remember ever thinking that it was my fault
I don't remember that pointed dagger
Spearing my heart
To let it shatter against the floor into a million fragments of love
Scattered upon the ground like the fallen leaves
And like a wounded soldier
I fell
And cried soft tears of anguish
I dont remember ever finding another
All I remember now
Is just a shadow
This shadow of true love
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 7:05 PM UTC
outer, inner what are realities
conscious, unconscious
differing thought that gives
tangible form to such as that
which has only existed in my imagination
when voiced indicate the delirium
of those dark despairs
that hang pitch black draperies upon the wall of my mind
in continuous distortion of ordinary motives
amplify my feelings, implosive and apocalyptic
forming an agonized arena of anguish
whose illusion is a disguise of perplexities
in a deployment of destrubing exchanges
of dubious sense that sit like a petulance
upon the mind
while I in patience stand smiling at my grief
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
Dear diary, today is the day-
The day of communion,
The day of impregnation,
After a series of cursed sterile nights.
So, dare not to hoist any **** excuse
To stay behind the draperies of modesty
And hide your immaculate flesh
From the ferocious tip of
My hungry dying pen.
Let your voluptuous pages
Woo the ink out of my pen
So that, its strangulated wish
To scrawl a masterpiece,
May finally get materialized
On the contours of your *****
©Badee Uz Zaman
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 5:27 AM UTC
I was feeling a little lost so I started looking for myself, I checked under all the couch cushions and behind the books high on the shelf. I even checked the laundry and behind the draperies, but I came up empty handed, it seemed it wasn’t meant to be.
I couldn’t be found anywhere, at least anywhere that I could see, but I knew that I would soon find out, I had too eventually. When my persistence paid off, then just maybe, if I kept looking there I would surely be, I had to be around somewhere, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t remember what I had really done with me.
I retraced all my steps so I could try to see, if I could find a clue or catch a glimpse of me. At least a little something, so I could have some peace of mind, but I didn’t give up looking, because I knew that in my mind, I had to pop up somewhere, I would, it was just a matter of time.
I knew it was important too, the me that I had lost, I knew that it was something that to me was beyond cost. So I scoured the whole house, from top to bottom, looking for what was mine, and wouldn’t you know it…of all the places…I was right here the whole time.
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 10:41 AM UTC
I drink of the waters of sinner’s delight
Smooth to the taste I believe
Washed up ashore on a moonless lit night
Much more than one can conceive
Poured in a goblet of yellow and blue
Butterfly patterns a’ shine
Wings in the vestibule, blinding the view
There only destined of time
Here at the stairway that leads to your heart
Spiraling up to the sky
Winding in tapestries, threadbare to start
Whimsical fabrics now sigh
Taking each step as I breathe in the change
Shadows about do compare
Absolute beauty of love rearranged
Finding the most in each stair
Hallways extend each direction a’ flow
Candlelit beacons provide
A knock on your door in the midst of their glow
Whispers now call me inside
Therefore my eyes as a silhouette fine
Loveliness clings to a smile
Chantilly lace in the garments a’ shine
Filling my eyes all the while
Heavenly scent of magnolia bloom
Fresh as this hot summer’s fire
White opalescence in shades of the moon
Painting my soul with desire
Touches of satin, so smooth comes your skin
Breathless endeavors soon pour
Hoping on hope of the welcoming in
Of what this night has in store
Lips of chiffon in a raspberry grin
Porcelain shimmering thighs
Desperate these thoughts now awash in a sin
Breath comes a sonnet of sighs
Reaching I stumble, my balance unsure
Shivers, my toes to my spine
Stuttering nervous of this I adore
Formed of the sweetest design
Then with a wisp as the draperies wave
Flames flicker quick of the flow
Smoke from the wicks meets the ceiling once more
As I cry, where did you go
Standing here holding of one dozen roses
Cellophane wrapped round the stems
Seeing the window so quickly it closes
I was but this close again
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 8:24 AM UTC