"eloise" poems
When I describe you to a stranger,
I do not mention your flawless makeup
Instead I think of your eyes, the window to your soul.
I describe the love that flows through soft hazel gaze that only a mother can produce
When I describe you to a stranger,
I do not mention your perfectly done hair
Instead I see you reading a novel on a hot summer day,
As if it were your true reality in that moment.
I see the power that literature holds
I describe your mesmerizing voice repeating the lines of Eloise in Paris to me,
I mention the soothing way in which you read the Velveteen Rabbit,
And I credit you for making me fall in love with words and the way they can make people feel.
When I describe you to a stranger,
I do not mention your schooling history
Instead I picture you and I see a symphony around your soul that courses cannot teach
I see Mozart's Sonata No.11 and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
I see Monet’s Water Lilies, Veronese's Wedding at Cana and Michelangelo’s David
I describe the joy in your eyes when we saw the Sistine Chapel and the Champs-Élysées
I describe the vast knowledge and art that makes up your personal mosaic.
When I describe you to a stranger,
I do not mention your professional accomplishments.
Instead I mention your ability to hold someone and make them feel loved
I picture the times you embraced me while I silently sobbed over circumstances that you tried to protect me from.
I picture the words that you gave me at just the right times
I see the comfortable silence you provided when I couldn't bear to hear words through the pain.
When I describe you to a stranger,
I do not mention your clothing or the way you dress
Instead I mention the way you clothe yourself in humility before God
I see the verses that you have sown into my heart since I was young
I speak of the way you clothe yourself with the armor of God
I remember the scriptures that you so carefully knitted on my heart
When I describe you to a stranger,
I describe you as
A woman after God’s own heart.
A woman who understands that beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised,
A woman who teaches wisdom and kindness and serves with joy,
A mother who clothes herself in strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future,
A mother who encapsulates the love of Christ here on Earth.
I describe you as everything that I hope to become.
Aug 12, 2021
Aug 12, 2021 at 12:42 AM UTC
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,--of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,--he asks,--in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,--
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
1.6k
Eloise in a Christmas tree,
swinging a straight razor
at the children below.
Never held enough
as a baby.
Never in love
just a maybe.
Eloise's father
in the living room,
drinking the news.
Those *******
******* and *****
he screams.
Never held enough
as a baby.
His mother smelled of
a late night and
pineapple blend *****
Eloise popping Prozac
like Tic-Tacs.
Fantasizing about
shooting the school body.
You sonuvabitch,
her father screamed.
He penetrated--
She screamed
and writhed.
Wrists held.
Body pressed.
Beans and toast
for dinner.
Mom left dad because dad
isn't big enough
or makes enough money.
Enough. Enough. Enough.
Eloise was supposed to be
a miscarriage.
Her dad lost some toes
when he missed a log.
Chop, the axe said.
The world is a swinging place.
Whispering in the dark.
A hushed frenzy.
Mix and **** out,
her gun let out a shout.
Eloise, queen of the
student mass grave.
Eloise's father turns on
the news.
He drinks liquor instead.
Eloise on the t-v.
Oh, woe is me.
He went to the shed
and blew his head
clean off.
The world is a swinging place.
The world in a frenzy.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 1:16 AM UTC
Life is complex, she said to me
A statement unfortunately true,
Reiterating the fact, real happiness
Has become a fleeting virtue.
The single most excruciating task
Of anyone to ever, have to ask-
Is to live this life, so full of pain
As the human race, itselve's disdain
Yet, its as effortless as drawing breath
The simplicity of air
Our automatic processes
That which contagiously, we share:
Laughter, Heartache, Hatred, Hope-
the humanistic ways to cope.
Despite that complexities insue,
You know strength, to let faith renue
Bestow some courage, place belief
In all that initially brings you grief
Every morning, a new dawn's shining-
& every cloud, has it's silver lining.
Mar 31, 2024
Mar 31, 2024 at 3:56 AM UTC
Say I was a sea captain in that life.
Say I sailed a barkentine, the Eloise,
on the Azores run out of Lisbão.
I was a sea captain in that life.
I sailed a barkentine, the Eloise,
on the Azores run out of Lisbão.
I found a green disc under my bunk
and instantly knew its use.
You have taken my books.
You're no sea captain.
The color you paint your toenails
is that of weathered brass.
The salt on your neck
and in your navel tastes
vaguely impure, like spray - delicious.
Say I was a sea captain.
Say I had a dinghy named 'Alouette.'
I was a sea captain.
I had a dinghy the crew called 'Woody.'
She sang when the wind stroked her ribs
and the spars rattled. Never mind.
Never mind the night breezes off Mosquito Island,
the roll of the berth as we lay
at anchor in North Sound
plotting our run to Anegada
so you could see Pomato Point
and what the chart called 'numerous coral heads.'
That morning, with Fallen Jerusalem
to port, you said four prayers, one each
to your gods and a last one to Sunday,
which you had neglected for years.
The swell in Drake's Channel is rising.
It will rise all through the night,
and if we are not too drunk on this fine black ***
we will rise with it.
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
i heard you mention my name in an elevator once
coming up from the second floor to the penthouse suite
you kissed my forehead and dropped your suspenders
blouse, skirt, ******* hit the ground
all that was left were your white lace lined socks
and your pretty saddle shoes untied and loose
I ran my hand through my hair you one called apricot
you seared me with your hands
and burned a hole through me with your mouth
eloise and i curled up underneath the christmas tree
covered in glitter, and pine needles
the soft crackling of the fire
and the nutcracker soundtrack playing over the speakers
safe in her arms and happy again
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 6:09 AM UTC
She was swept away on that stormy day
on a maiden ship she did board/dressed up in her finest clothes
and finest pearls
she had put her hair up the night before
to create her lovely curls
yes, she had promised to meet her lover
on a sunny New York day
instead she ended up swept away...
swallowed up in a stormy sea
it happened in the month of May...
Her name was Eloise, and she was like a breeze
of red roses, and that of wine...
when she spoke her words they were never terse
but always sweet, and always kind--
when she would walk on past
the gentlemen would gasp
at such grace n' beauty that she did display
they would scramble to tip their hats
trying to take in all her beauty
something to hold onto/something to make it last
Eloise was swept away on a stormy rainy day
she promised to meet her lover
on a sunny New York day
instead her lover waited every day for Eloise
to show up in the month of May.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
Stump Junction...
“How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm
(After They've Seen Paree)?”
-a song of the First World War
Speak not to us of Paris by moonlight -
How are they gonna keep us down on the Seine
When we have seen the gaiety of Stump Junction
By the romantic glow of sweet mary jane
The twinkle of gunfire from a .22
As Cousin Eloise potted beer bottles
While her new guy Kolby took a long ////
On her old guy Shane-Boy’s low-rider rims
The county mounties busted up the fight -
Speak not to us of Paris by moonlight
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 3:44 PM UTC
"you're taller
than i
remember."
-my way of saying i miss you
Eloise Night
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 3:23 PM UTC