"duvet" poems
Every day is the same; they wake up in the same bed, at the same ungodly hour, to the same monotonous ringing from the alarm clock.
They grumble their ‘good morning’s; whether they believe it is or not, rolling out of opposite sides of the duvet.
They dance around each other in the bathroom, the heat of the shower creating a fog through which neither of them can see; causing him to stub his toe on the toilet or the counter, and steaming up the mirror so she can’t apply her make-up.
They continue their ritual into the kitchen; flicking on the kettle, popping in the bread, pouring the orange juice; stirring the tea, catching the toast and spreading the butter and jam. Crunching and slurping together at the table, mumbling about what their days have in store; tapping texts on their phones, crinkling newspaper in their hands.
They peck each other a kiss goodbye and mutter a ‘see you later’ before going their separate ways.
But then Monday comes...
Mondays are different.
He knows she doesn’t like Monday mornings. It’s the very beginning of a new, long, tiring week. She never looks forward to Mondays.
So he changes that.
He sets the alarm on his watch a little earlier than other days; shutting it off before it can wake her.
He slips silently out of bed and tiptoes quietly into the bathroom to shower; leaving her smiley faces and love messages on the steamy mirrors.
He creates her favourite tea and makes her toast with raspberry jam; just the way she likes it. Picking a flower from the garden; whichever one looks the happiest and brightest, he places it all on a tray and pads back up to the bedroom to wake her.
She no longer sets her alarm on Mondays. She knows he’ll not let her oversleep.
He places the flower in her hair and drops delicate kisses; full of his love and affection for her, to the corner of her mouth, until she stirs gently.
She smiles on Monday mornings.
They eat breakfast in bed, covering the sheets in crumbs and giggling contentedly as the cat licks them up.
She hums in the bathroom while he clears away crockery, and always re-emerges with the flower tucked behind her ear.
It remains there ‘til night fall.
They never once look at their phones or the paper, far too focused on each other to pay anything else mind.
Their kiss as they part reminds them of their love for each other and of the good things in life; like strolls along the shore, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, smiling sunflowers that open to a beautiful summer’s day, and of course, Monday mornings.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
Curled up beneath the duvet
knees drawn up to chest
inhaling the smokey scent of my fleece
sown fresh nostalgia
I remembered how
we laughed and ate off chinaware
while sipping out of plastic cups
sitting by the fire pit
in the backyard
my eyes wandered
towards the woods at dusk
and I breathed
realizing we are just specks of dust
that glimmer in the light of our Creator.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 4:17 PM UTC
This is past due like the rent paid on the thirteenth
Late better than never-- and I got this here forever
Flow like rain during any kinda weather
Keep this here close to my heart
And when the block comes, I don’t know where to start
Beat-beat Thump-thump
I'll just let the words flow from my heart
But you ain’t feelin me’-- You ain’t hearin’ Queen
So I got to bring you back to the forefront with my so⋅lil⋅o⋅quy
I remind you of all the things that had you fearin’ me
This Army of One, brighter than that star He created we call Sun
Under its blaze, us two can become one
(lets make our Son under His)
While I lay with fragmented words.... spoken
Promises I made to myself remain unbroken
And my gift is as natural as the slender ducts of my abdomen called fallopian
I am Woman
The prototype made perfect and pure
Whose prose is as tight as my kegels allow my femininity to be
Wrath your ******** may not be able to endure
Thought you knew a good Woman and tight ***** make you surrender on your knees
And dream dreams about your seed taking root in this royal vessel
I am Mother Earth
And this is my Gift—my Gyft
I am Myself and such a present I present to thee
For I AM Queen Poetree
So when I seem silent
When you think you hear nothing but your heart beat
Nothing but the cool air enraptured in the breeze
I am the Life that flows from you
I am the Wind rustling the trees leaves
I am the fragrance left in the air you interpret as another
I am the overwhelming sensation made between two lovers under duvet covers
I am the softness of lips and the sensation made by the flick of a passionate tongue
I am that empty space you try to fill with another one
So when you think you hear nothing
When you think you’re all alone
I am every word, every adlib of your favorite song
Every stroke every morning when you brush your hair
I am your deep breath because, baby, I am your air
I am everything pleasurable—every pleasure experienced since your creation
And it all stems from the balance of my concentration during this poetic intrapersonal conversation
I am everything virtuous
I am the eye of the storm
I am your hope, your future
I am the pages of your favorite novel whose cover is worn
I am air, I am sky
I am the clouds, and the Sun’s heat
But most importantly, to my core
I am Queen Poetess B…
Apr 12, 2010
Apr 12, 2010 at 5:53 AM UTC
The sun on my tongue tastes
like home, like childhood, like all the happy parts,
like warm syrup running down my spine
and my worn feet, on grass, thistles, bluebells, your bed,
springing up to touch the wooden ceiling
later to be found peaking out from the duvet
as I was waking up to rain early
and smoke from the chimney across the way
and looking over to see, on the night stand, steaming tea and sticky-sweet buns
that taste like the sun, and you.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 9:07 PM UTC
love is like a blanket it can warm you through
takes away the cold and stops you turning blue
wraps around your body as it holds you tight
gives you lots of warmth to help you through the night
it can be a duvet so very thick and strong
and be there to comfort you when ever things go wrong
it is always there in everthing you do
love is like a blanket there to comfort you
Mar 27, 2010
Mar 27, 2010 at 4:08 PM UTC
i never wanted to kiss her lips,
just hold her hand
maybe kiss her cheeks because she suited a gentler kind of treatment
something softer and more delicate, quiet;
quieter than the constant raging storms inside my stomach,
inside my mind
(never my heart)
those plump lips
she bit them raw when nervous, and they swelled
blossomed ruby as she looked at me
like she knew this wouldn't last
her eyes remained doughy and mellow
when i met her gaze.
my smile stung as it stretched the lines left by winter's bite
and split them open once more.
she brushed the blood beads away with her fingertips
with a touch so reverent that, for a moment, i thought
maybe she felt as though she were touching rosary beads instead,
and i held my breath to stop myself from chasing her
touch, and pressing her down into the mattress
unholy, chasing pleasure.
both agnostic, but she was much more pure than i;
chivalries always in mind, i wanted to preserve that.
there's always been something inside me
that presses down the animalistic urges with
a conscience caught on consideration and something akin to courtly love-
i wanted to woo her before i pursued her
but i never got further than pressing my lips to her forehead,
wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
i laced my fingers with hers but avoided tying any knots.
i am not a man to be bound,
too free-spirit, too restless, too claustrophobic;
a few months in and i was choking on the ghost of a future;
she kissed me first and i suffocated on the phantom of her hopes for us:
a future that didn't yet exist,
and i didn't want it to.
i never kissed her; i never let her kiss me again.
we tangled fingers over the duvet
the television a background noise to our unsteady breaths,
shallower
than my love for her
i enjoyed her quiet affection like one might enjoy curling into a blanket when cold and ill.
i wanted her smiles, i wanted to fill her memories with goodness
so that she never need feel hopeless, like all men are the same
so that she had something to smile about when she looked back on us;
once the bitterness of our breakup had left her mouth-
whenever that eventual end would be-
she could savour the taste of our sweet, slow-burn, love affair
and be reminded that not all love is true love, but nor is all love heart breaking
i broke her heart anyway.
nobody ever taught me how cruel kindness could be.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 9:24 PM UTC
The misty fog outside,
condenses into a speckled bedroom glass.
Through which,
nestled deep under the blanket,
I hear the orchestra of a rainy 8am life.
Bothered by the unconducted iso-rhythms
of dripping water droplets,
dropping onto the metal window sill,
I peak my head out from under the duvet
and yawn out the stale air from my lungs.
I notice the coffee left for me
on the bedside table before she left.
I grasp the warm little blue cup.
I hear the birds in the trees somewhere below
warming up their sleepy little lungs.
I close my eyes and feel the cold air
through the window.
Hiding under my duvet,
I drift back to sleep.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 4:47 AM UTC
Bedroom’s painted fisherman’s blue
There’s a cut out of Hayden Panettiere naked in a pink bikini with a hula-hoop on the back of the door
Copies of British Vogue desperately hidden underneath the bed accompanying an empty bottle of Glen’s
Manchester United duvet cover and matching pillows to boot
The bin’s filled with pre-packed home-made lunches from the last six months
Wardrobes a collection of ill fitting blue jeans bought for me by grandmother and football jerseys for teams that I’ve never even heard of, yet let alone see play a single game
Uniform ironed and sitting out ready for school on Monday at 8am sharp
***** clothes cover mostly all the floor smelling of Lynx’s finest even though there’s an empty laundry basket just waiting in the corner to be used
Inside one of the woolen blazer’s (that is way too big for me) pockets a single unopened ****** and an AES 256-bit encrypted USB stick
An old PlayStation 2, with a single controller; games including FIFA years through 2004 to now, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and GTA.
Blood red shoplifted lipstick that’s now melted hidden in the little secret compartment at the back, meant for network expansion.
Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, and Harry Potter all adorn the bookcase
Physics, Maths, and IT textbooks remain firmly closed on the desk in addition to a smashed phone from me and Daddy’s last “physical altercation”
Lady Gaga’s “I Like it Rough” is playing in the background on repeat…
Aug 23, 2020
Aug 23, 2020 at 2:43 PM UTC
Leave us in a bedroom
a locked room
both bound by a fleeting veneration
but no tangible definition
and windows will fog up
with excess anxious laughter
and phlegmmed throats
til the glass transforms
transparent to translucent
so the outside world becomes
an informed guess about
which coloured shape is going
where.
The door handle will twist into the room’s
home grown central nervous system
backed by rising voices
rising pulses
assuring ourselves it is
everybody outside
who is trapped and not us
because ‘cosy’ has scribbled over
‘cramped’ between the sheets of peeling
wallpaper and bodies upon bodies upon
bodies only excites.
We will stay in bed
cocooned around this single duvet
and distracted into its folds because this
is how we choose to spend
free will. Don't
murmur about the locked door
and even when it opens for
lack of air or food
so we tentatively tread through into the
open, or perhaps closed,
I beg you to
grab my wrist and pull me back and whisper
tear yourself up
decrease with me
because this will always be the one place we’ll happily suffocate.
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 8:38 AM UTC
I just pulled my clean sheets
duvet cover
and pillow cases out from the dryer.
I will wrap myself in them
basking in their warmth,
the warmth I don't get to feel from a living thing,
before putting them in their specific places;
taking in the sweet scent of vanilla
each thread is coated in
instead of the scent of you.
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 9:12 PM UTC
i found myself last night whispering your name under the shield of my duvet, willing myself to pronounce every syllable of your name to the darkness of my room. i looked up to the plastic stars on my ceilings, remainders of the childhood i once had, and said it:
“yoon. jeong. han”
every syllable clear and true.
and it occurred to me,
how beautiful your name was.
“yoon” — the moon and the whistles of the wind, lulling me into dreamland.
“jeong” — a masculine edge.
and finally, the concluding “han” that returns it into its original softness.
clean milky way.
i’ve never expected to fall for a boy with your name. but i’ve always been fascinated with the universe and all the bright lights surrounding our blue planet. so i guess, it is only fitting for me to fall for a boy whose name means “clean milky way”
so i whispered your name over and over into the night.
yoon jeonghan.
yoon jeonghan.
yoon jeonghan.
until the taste of it becomes as familiar as the quiet.
and i swear, i saw the plastic stars on the ceiling growing brighter with every syllable.
i whispered and whispered until i fell into morpheus’ charm, and awoke with a new realization:
your name is my favorite sound.
Feb 15, 2018
Feb 15, 2018 at 3:33 PM UTC
My duvet is a map,
It remembers all I’ve said,
And I’ve slept here and loved here and cried here,
All of my demons, awake in this bed
And I know I’m selfish, I’m unkind,
But I won’t apologise for half my crimes,
Because you’re closed up like a fist,
Ready to strike,
But I’d still lay with you here,
And we can set our fear alight,
I keep waiting for the bad news,
In every declaration,
And do the ghosts of your past,
Saturate our conversations?
I can’t hear you singing in the shower,
But I know the sounds of your heart,
You’ve grown entangled in my muscles,
And to tear you apart,
Would be a haemorrhage,
I would be bleeding soul for hours,
But take all you want from me,
Don’t ever give me flowers,
I can’t stand to watch them wither,
And I never say goodbye,
I'll tattoo a garden on my body,
And those will never die.
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
heavy dark curtains
tired swollen eyelids
hideout under duvet
sound of passing car
-
craving the dulling freedom
in the blurry paradise of nights
begging; let me in
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
They have been together,
give or take, for fifteen years.
Their marriage in the clasp
of puberty, its voice deepening,
its stubble sprouting.
Not long ago, shopping.
Necessary. Kid’s birthday.
It comes around quick,
like lunch, paying for the Ploughman’s
at the self-service in town
when the clock flicks to twelve.
Her right hand on his right hand.
They still do this,
though not quite as often.
Today,
he returns from work, wrenches
the tie out from beneath the collar
of a shirt she ironed yesterday.
Son, out.
Daughter, also out.
The fridge plagued with magnets
and a list; Milk,
Bread,
Eggs?
Inside, two beers,
sweating cold.
Later, he thinks.
How’s your day been darling?
We need to be at the school at six.
Oh yes.
They need to hear
how their progenies
excel at the expressive arts.
He hasn’t been expressive in years.
Hours expire.
Now his bare feet slide
under the duvet.
The wife reads a while,
Sunday Times bestseller.
Then she hugs him,
touches the skin she has known
since she was nineteen
at Northampton, literary sponge
absorbing Shakespeare and Joyce.
It is warm.
It is something
that has not changed.
The two of them are content.
They know they can
always have this.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 6:01 PM UTC
Backed and sponsored by the cabinet
Our heads on the server and internet
BCI experiments while we're under the duvet
Foot-soldiers follow orders on their handset
Rockwell is not paranoid
They've seen us on the TV,
iPad, iPhone, and Android
The BCI app that makes us annoyed
Please God, destroy that satellite with an android
My doctor is like Sigmund Freud
Give him the anti psychotic steroid
For making money off the unemployed
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 9:33 AM UTC
You know I don't like it *****
I keep my freak for the streets.
You know it's just
pull the duvet over my head
so it's just you and me
hidden in this little space.
It's the voice you make
when you want to stay on the phone.
Softened, gentle
oh-so-lovely
the look you give me in the half light
misty, half closed eyes,
turned up corners of your mouth.
How can I love you this much
and yet
not at all?
In this comfortable way
like a best friend
or a husband.
It's not exciting at all
and definitely not rewarding
but I care far too little about myself to stop it
and love you too much to change it.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 2:02 AM UTC
Dusk’s last breath puff up the curtains
in a flash of the post traumatic kind.
A crocheted-cliché, peach-purple duvet
drape the mountains in war paint;
redwood generals’ shadows on attention,
disorderly pine infantrymen struggle
against the wind,
some broken,
most wounded,
shattered limbs on display.
The war hero sighs into the bowels
of an instant noodles cup; dumplings shiver
((uncooked liver)) when he whistle-whispers
untold stories of courage,
guts served on blood-soaked battlegrounds;
no-one listens,
save spiders
with hairy legs
that hang on his every word.
Feb 15, 2011
Feb 15, 2011 at 9:47 PM UTC
She shuffles and scuttles quickly along
beating her way,
through the Christmas throng
The north wind cutting her mottled face
But shes not part of the Christmas race
For things not needed, luxurious, unwise
Her mind fixed on the price and size
Of a winter coat in that Oxfam place,
she prays its still there, she quickens her pace.
The bell dings-a-ling as she opens the door
Not feeling her legs so tird and sore
Like a long lost friend it waits on the rail
she thanks her god its still for sale.
Her hurry finished, her purchase complete
She focuses now on something to eat
To the corner shop she makes to go
happier now , her step is slow
bread and milk ,this and that
two tins of food for her little cat
Home at last her mission complete
She models her coat and warms her feet
She cuddles her cat and locks her door
She makes their tea and she cuddles him more
She dims the light her prayers are said
She thanks her god for her winter coat
that doubles as a duvet for her bed.
Jun 28, 2010
Jun 28, 2010 at 4:08 PM UTC
I said...
Ribbons lemon chewing gum
Daisies dandelion
Button teabag souvenir
Cheese cake Uncle Brian
Pepper buses diary
London *** Nantucket
Leaves carrot underwear
Ten piece bargain bucket
Raisins phone apple pie
Sock key Zanzibar
Duvet sausage dinosaur
Peanut bumper car
Mouse banana chicken wing
Fleas vermilion
Elephant soda stream
Stoat pavilion
Moose flower stickleback
Garlic salted butter
Taco dragon paper cut
Poison pizza cutter
Sandwich Batman coffee cake
Vaseline grape snow
Golf ***** haberdashery
Weasels tally-ho
:o)
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 3:07 PM UTC
The Lung.
The broken bone branches hang heavy off knuckled tree. As cold and uninviting as wrapped meat in cellophane prison cells and those sweating milk bottles left on doorsteps. Women cry with the blackbirds as day breaks, rousing their reluctant nests.
As the shadows trawl in from chicken farms and slaughterhouses, across the squalid estates and past a debt collectors party. A ***** drinks his soot like coffee and waits for another years tide to retreat. Holding pith less ambitions and unmentionable qualifications, stewardess pass, uniformed thoughts and averting faces..
The rusty playgrounds sink into the fermenting wood chips, and a plastic bag runs through the scene; only to commit suicide in the oil ribbon canal. The chemical clouds thicken into a duvet of sky whilst arrows of a natural sun run home with tears of fear on their hot faces.
Down here the street lights flicker, and the patched uniforms drape off children sick with the flu that hit the school like a plague. Herding like cattle into the classrooms, to learn about the natural world
that is most unearthly to there reason.
Lunch bells ring from factories and the sky has drained to a sick -off white. The chip shop sells butties with no sauce nor bun, which machine like men guzzle and slurp.
The car parks lay stagnant in the distance and pigeons too fat to fly lay droppings on the bronze statue of a crying hero. As the roaring stops from the factories and high visibility coats are hung, the sky bruises and the men fill the pubs, until wives with children hung on washing lines drag there sweat soaked frames to the table, only to indulge them in a row.
Night creeps in, bringing with it the hooded figures that flutter along the streets. Music plays from a vacant building and seems to brighten the night.
A silhouette is seen standing on the edge, watching the busses bellow run like migrating snails, filled with the elderly and too young.
Cigarettes infest the streets creating a carpet of ash and litter. The city survives, remaining grey, never blinking, never heard.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 6:20 AM UTC
this is
your open field
this is
where you lie on your back
on a fluffy, plaid duvet
eating strawberries
forgetting the sound of honking cars
and car alarms
this is your studio
replace the clay with bars of soap
paintbrushes with shampoo bottles
write your thoughts on fogged glass
lists of run-on sentences, scribbled
without inhibition
this is where the water runs off
your shoulders
this is where you reflect
it is not poetic
it is quiet, it is ordinary
knots of hair from gushing wind
smoothed over with aloe conditioner
everything is spinning, but here it slows
this is where you pause
this is where you breathe
this is where you begin again
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 11:32 AM UTC
Je m'étais endormi la nuit près de la grève.
Un vent frais m'éveilla, je sortis de mon rêve,
J'ouvris les yeux, je vis l'étoile du matin.
Elle resplendissait au fond du ciel lointain
Dans sa blancheur molle, infinie et charmante.
Aquilon s'enfuyait emportant la tourmente.
L'astre éclatant changeait la nuée en duvet.
C'était une clarté qui pensait, qui vivait
Elle apaisait l'écueil où la vague déferle
On croyait voir une âme à travers une perle.
Il faisait nuit encor, l'ombre régnait en vain,
Le ciel s'illuminait d'un sourire divin.
La lueur argentait le haut du mât qui penche ;
Le navire était noir, mais la voile était blanche
Des goélands debout sur un escarpement,
Attentifs, contemplaient l'étoile gravement
Comme un oiseau céleste et fait d'une étincelle
L'océan, qui ressemble au peuple, allait vers elle,
Et rugissant tout bas, la regardait briller,
Et semblait avoir peur de la faire envoler.
Un ineffable amour emplissait l'étendue.
L'herbe verte à mes pieds frissonnait éperdue,
Les oiseaux se parlaient dans les nids ; une fleur
Qui s'éveillait me dit -. c'est l'étoile ma soeur.
Et pendant qu'à longs plis l'ombre levait son voile,
J'entendis une voix qui venait de l'étoile
Et qui disait : - Je suis l'astre qui vient d'abord.
Je suis celle qu'on croit dans la tombe et qui sort.
J'ai lui sur le Sina, j'ai lui sur le Taygète ;
Je suis le caillou d'or et de feu que Dieu jette,
Comme avec une fronde, au front noir de la nuit.
Je suis ce qui renaît quand un monde est détruit.
Ô nations ! je suis la poésie ardente.
J'ai brillé sur Moïse et j'ai brillé sur Dante.
Le lion océan est amoureux de moi.
J'arrive. Levez-vous, vertu, courage, foi !
Penseurs, esprits, montez sur la tour, sentinelles !
Paupières, ouvrez-vous, allumez-vous, prunelles,
Terre, émeus le sillon, vie, éveille le bruit,
Debout, vous qui dormez ! - car celui qui me suit,
Car celui qui m'envoie en avant la première,
C'est l'ange Liberté, c'est le géant Lumière !
Jersey, le 31 août. 1853.
2.6k
I find Nirvana in the smallest things,
in the laughter of strangers,
in the perfect edges of morning frost,
in the duvet curled protecting my toes,
in the silence and loneliness of night
and in the chatter of a city street.
I find Nirvana in the hope of things,
in the scent of the sea,
in the tale of far away lands,
in the pictures of distant places,
in the eyes of someone new
and the stories they have to tell.
I find Nirvana in the love for people,
in their parting words on a long trip,
in the bond they make with each other,
in the fortress that is family,
in the affection shown to strangers
and loved ones alike.
I find Nirvana wherever I search,
It is peace and happiness
tranquility and love,
It is in laughter and music
landscapes and faces,
Mostly, it is too often left behind.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 7:09 AM UTC
I’m small enough to cry for those with frozen teardrops
who can’t get up off the side of the road to die in peace
So I'll abide in this polar freezing cold silent deliverance
where a hollow warmth hides the tears that aren't for
cryin’ alone
There’s a bitter arctic wind blows right through the tree trunks
there’s no shelter leaning on the dream of the leeward other side
This winter isolation grasps on impatient pieces of frayed light
like hope a mustard sized seed of shine may move venerable
mountain peaks
Who ever knows how long salvation lasts ? They said he died
sleeping on a cardboard comforter and blue plastic tarp duvet;
a holey old coat stained with all what went wrong in life …
And .., I feel a sickening guilt of a warming fire's thickening
smoke
The chimney’s icicles drip an angel’s frozen teardrops
But .., I can’t find no heaven in this big ol’ world ...
wild is the wind ... January 4th, 2017
Jan 4, 2017
Jan 4, 2017 at 11:10 AM UTC