"formica" poems
Gloria, latex snap. Opaque lipstick.
I should press holiday stamps
over those big blue eyes of yours.
Misspelled spoken word, whole hunting
from malignant orange ,
crosshairs and et cetera.
*** on me - stellar hardwood floor ;
the last unicorn was a battered woman
with certain dysmorphic symptoms.
My boyfriend thinks it's **** when
i read the dsm v the way i eat jello shots.
Still, I don't **** him how I would the
surrealish ***** in a polyester uniform.
He knows there's been a cowboy in a parka on the corner for days
politely asking about the three legged race. I have no answers for him
or his handsome eagle co-defendant.
I really think
I'll marry my best friend for her
enameled heart and health insurance.
I took my multivitamin , tapping out
morse on old formica ,
while telling my dead dog im sorry for
letting them **** him.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
As I wait, I see on an uncomfortably high stool
the grandmother perching opposite
the comfortably bored teenager
replete in his distressed Ramones tee shirt
and ripped white jeans.
She holds her black coffee with both hands, while he plays
with the long spoon in his tall glass of hot chocolate,
her eyes focused on the top of his head,
his engrossed in the puddle of brown milk around his saucer.
Below the music, she pleads for a friendship that he
shows no interest in until she reaches into her bag
and emerges with perhaps something that he’s been waiting for –
And beyond the counter, shielded by formica, the percolators and stacked cups, the apprentice barista drops his tray and from the back two men in ill-fitting suits give a half-hearted cheer, while his boss withholds her anger in front of the paying customers, but judging by her face she would gladly take her protégé by his stained apron and string him up – I think this isn’t the first time she’s taken the cost of breakages out of his salary.
And I’ve missed what it is grandma has presented to her grandson
– all I can see is a suggestion of his fingers playing with silver,
a ring perhaps? The hot chocolate is pushed aside and his shoulders straighten.
She still looks uncertain, and the seconds drag until his face seems to soften.
He looks up and mouths what might be a thank you.
And he doesn’t withdraw his hand when she covers it with her own.
Jun 19, 2022
Jun 19, 2022 at 3:33 PM UTC
Tremors, filagrees, tendrils
Laughter and lamentation
Coffee conversation
Nonchalant smoking of a cigarette
passed between street-stained fingertips.
He draws pictures in films of sugar
piled high like illuminating sand dunes
on the formica tabletop,
dismissing eye contact as
just one of those things.
Take it or leave it.
The menu we've seen before
in various other places
just like this
with similar generic names
and similar generic faces.
Places a crumpled dollar bill
in front of the waitress
"We'll share a coffee"
Such is the way of life when you're broke and homeless.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 10:51 AM UTC
One hundred years of solitude
and Marquez still couldn't shut you up,
your words tear down the walls of Macondo,
heckling the Buendías, poking fun at Aureliano
and his golden fishes. The circular history
spins to a halt, and I fold down
the corner of a page, as if closing the book
could save the city built on paper,
on the Formica tabletop
of an old café with a broken clock
A few chapters back,
you were chastising time,
saying one day you'd
crack your watch open,
rearrange the gears, twirl the dials
and steal back from the ticking hands
that steal so much from you. On page 178,
you committed abominations,
spooning sugar into espresso,
and declared your love for Dali because
the man melted time,
didn't care for anything
not molded to the back of a horse.
Cranberry scone finished,
you ruffle the newspaper,
bemoaning the stockbrokers
who grow fat and complacent
on the crumbs of seconds,
chewing chronological cud, you called it,
but you said nothing could ever pin you down,
much less some cheap Timex
on a nylon strap. Cast out of the fourth dimension,
Marquez scribbles graves for the Buendías,
in death, they've forgotten the original sin
and the Colonel forges fish
from the gold fastenings on his casket
ad infinitum.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:11 PM UTC
from the sizzling southwestern sun
we stepped into the beer stenched shadows
of the Blue Agave Lounge
left lizards in the street but there were plenty inside
lurking in dark corners, their bodies draped like the dead
faces in pools of beer on ancient formica
we were killin' time
and brain cells
and any lingering ambitions
that lurked in our dark corners
on the wall behind the bar
was a "Felix Garcia" original
some desert artist
who doubtless killed some of his own time
in the blue shadows
of the Agave
the painting, unblemished by the dying around it
was of a schooner
white masts full in blue skies
rolling on purple waves
headed to some blind horizon
far from the Blue Agave
drunken eyes digested this
and perchance wondered
if it reached some blissful port
or took men to a deeper doom
if we could only ask Felix
but he is not to be found
and he may not know
for in the Blue Agave
hidden from the light of day
dreams are drenched in darkness
and tomorrow is a land the lizards fight to forget
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 10:45 PM UTC
He manages to free his thoughts
as he gazes the television
for news from a distance,
while continuing to sample
his supper of rice,
and sauteed vegetables
on a aluminum serving plate.
The restaurant he owns
dimly lit this mid-afternoon
with ghostly lanterns,
and artistic impressions
of times past on the wall,
while customers
walk and gingerly pass
ordering from an eclectic
menu of indo-latin-euro-oriental cuisine.
A neapolitan of condiments
dancing among garlic chili sauce,
and mayonnaise.
Mahogany grained panel walls,
and formica woven
seats, uniformly
scattered among
porcelain white
plates; traditional.
Engraved Jade pieces
hung with colors of luck
on each entrance.
I approach the counter.
A sepia toned
picture of his family
hanging by his register
no first dollar bill
or recognitions.
Just family held,
through time,
as he hands me a check.
Jan 23, 2010
Jan 23, 2010 at 10:29 AM UTC
My Dad built a whoopee room in the basement of our house, that's what we called it back in the fifties, basically it was a free barroom; he worked tirelessly, tiled the floor, knotty-pined the walls, built a Formica-topped bar, with foot rail, and a pool table center stage.
At one end, he pasted and framed with the utmost care, a life-like mural, a bucolic scene of mountains, pines trees, some guy canoeing across a deep blue lake, right underneath an eight foot, padded bench to sit, toss a beer, gab Red Sox, Pats, Bruins, Celts.
The guy could make anything, fix anything in his neat as a pin workshop, totally in control, competent, a rack of tools, his innate ability to figure out, you name it, he’d fix it, in hands-on kingdom this man did it right, measured twice, cut once.
In the Mr. Fix-it realm my father welcomed me, drew me in, shared his man in the know ways, I fetched his tools a quick study daughter, I observed knew ahead of time, like an operating room nurse ready to assist the famous surgeon at his work.
But then without prior notice he’d grow silent, retreat, drink copious whiskey shots, get mean, angry, tried to outrun the never good enough farm boy he once was, this love starved kid would engulf my honest, hardworking, overly sensitive, insecure father, then we all suffered his childhood trauma all over again.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 11:18 PM UTC
I can still see the lights flashing
off the walls of the Crossroads Cafe
the red and blue turrets spinning gyroscopically
as they loaded the old guy in the ambulance
sliding the gurney in
like a tray of bread into the oven
but that old guy ain’t getting cooked
and coming out smelling fresh
they worked on him ten minutes
on that ***** diner linoleum
while our food got cold
three of us, at least, punched in 911
on our cells, all being told by the dispatch
the paramedics were already on their way
like maybe someone had a crystal ball
and knew the ancient diner
was going to fall flat on the floor
when he got up to pay his check
(for $4.88 I think)
I could see three quarters on the Formica
his silver goodbye to the world
his gift to some faceless waitress
who would not sleep that night
without an extra couple of beers
because his face, contorted and staring
into the florescent haze above him,
would still be in her head
when she closed her eyes…
after the cops and the paramedics
disappeared into the night
I ate what was left of my cold eggs and hash
when I got up to pay, my chest felt tight,
only for a second, under that same buzzing light,
when I crossed the spot where the old guy had lain
a fat roach made its way across the floor
through the last somber slobber
the man would ever drip
I crushed him casually,
remembering
I had forgotten
the tip
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 6:57 PM UTC
It takes some time to make sense of his surroundings;
the bright light,
the cold floor tiles.
An empty tequila bottle floats into focus—
not that it makes any sense to him whatsoever
(tequila bottles don’t operate that way).
There’s a shot glass and first aid kit on the floor,
salt shaker,
meat cleaver.
It doesn’t take long to realize things had gotten out of hand;
he’s in cuffs,
she in fits and giggles.
He looks up at the underside of the kitchen table—
a blade of some sort is scraping over the Formica top.
Her legs are covered in badly-dressed wounds,
a hundred open mouths French-kissing
Betadine brown bandages.
He closes his eyes and asks for forgiveness,
prays that there’ll be love in her violence.
Forgiveness comes in the form of an axe,
and all the love she had for him
he’d beaten out of her.
Feb 11, 2011
Feb 11, 2011 at 2:55 PM UTC
here’s what i’ll do
a good british thing
i’ll queue
get to the front, lean on the counter
(chipped and worn and scratched formica)
‘One memory preservation order please’
(it always pays to be polite)
‘That’s not how it works, here’s the form’
(form i can)
thankyouthankyouthanksverymuch
many boxes to tick
many scratches to itch
complete finally, submitted with its
appropriate fee
in a few weeks, two or three
i’ll receive
an unbreakable, unviolatable
memory
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 3:17 PM UTC
Pickaxe handles
jitters the species.
But cheek by jowl
there's an always ardour
in teak panelling
Can I follow her down
and love her for now ?
There's perfection
in preserved 1970's, Formica,
bubble wrap with squeak;
on a wholesome ligne roset tableaux
the height of sophistication
always the French language magazine
Paris Match,
as I plunge the Johnny Hallyday
fork deeper
hoping longer.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 4:13 PM UTC
Les nèfles de Kabylie
Il est des souvenirs d’enfance qui dominent longtemps l’esprit et ont des goûts de saveurs douces telles les madeleines de Proust.
Pour moi qui suis né à Bougie Ce sont les nèfles de Kabylie.
C’était en mai soit en juin que ces fruits blonds arrivaient sur la table de formica dans des couffins tressés de paille,
comme le signe d’un printemps qui bientôt deviendrait fournaise mais vibrionnant de Soleil.
Il fallait enlever la peau et en séparer les noyaux qui me faisaient penser à des billes Mais leur chair était succulente avec des zestes de vanille. et de bonbons acidulés.
J’avais huit ans, c’était la guerre !
Mais quand les nèfles arrivaient, j’oubliais les soucis des «grands» pour goûter à la chair des nèfles, jouer aux billes avec leurs noyaux.
C’est ainsi que parmi les drames, le regard de l’enfance est lointain.
Car la mort leur reste chimère. bien moins réelle que les jeux et les fruits dorés, bref privilège de l’enfance.
Paul d’Aubin (Paul Arrighi)
Toulouse- février 2014.
Feb 22, 2014
Feb 22, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
My weekly downhill drive past your flat
And your static life in your static flat
Briefly synchronise courtesy of your mirror's angle,
Opening a brief view into your lonely life:
Your brown vintage sofa
With it's vintage orange cushions,
Your formica TV dinner table.
A retro combo,
Reminding me of the set of a 70s sitcom
Minus the laughs.
Yes, it's a terrible thing
That I can't help but gaze
At that speedy reflection
Of your Thursday nights
Above your anachronistic Everything shop;
The shop *** museum that you've curated
For forty years or more.
Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019 at 4:44 PM UTC
"Sunny day we're having"
the man quipped
his head fixed firmly on the Formica bar
his words given time to die
and he is rewarded
with nods and broken English
we all knew -
it was sunny
swimming in the silence
not funeral silence,
but post love making silence
a comfortable,
relaxing silence
because it was still sunny
before the words were spoken
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
they acted as if I was not there
alone with my elbows on Formica, only six feet from their booth
she said she wished his mother was not moving to town
“I wish she had not outlived Dad” he said,
his eyes looking through the window
like he expected to see her appear
or perhaps, through the old glass, he saw his father
stretched out in a dark pressed suit, silent, supine
while his mother sat tall in the first pew
feigning agony for the loss
of something she never found
her face hidden in her hands
while the priest prayed, and
spoke of the man he did not know,
one who had only come to his church
after time had silenced his days
and the embalming fluid filled his veins
but mother wanted the mass
mother wanted a glistening casket
a shining home he would not even see
“Dad did not believe”
“I know” she said,
stroking his hand that held an indifferent cup
from which he had not drunk a drop
“I know, but it was for the family”
******** we are the family” he said,
pulling away, sitting upright in his own pew
again looking through the glass
I knew, he must have been back
with his father, when they sat
together for the feast,
or that moment in time when his father
released his grip from the bicycle
for the first and final time
setting him free to spin down the roads
his father knew too well, perhaps
even the one that ended in this café
where on a mournful Monday
he and his wife would lament loss
over unbroken bread, and let a stranger
hear their tormented tale
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 1:29 PM UTC
Treasures layed out on a bed
On a rainy day staying indoors
Opening a lidded Formica box
Faceted stones glinted before.
From broaches now broken, undone
Sorted into colours, spectrum through
Golden backed pyramids of glass
All spread out in straight rows.
Love Mary x
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 3:09 PM UTC
Skewer a bleak piece of meat, bruising
rhythmic hips bumped up
against Formica while stirring
slow, marinating salty—still angry
about yesterday and lemons.
It’s morning
and you’re sorry, subtly flavored
savory with a Worcestershire bite.
Nibbling juicy,
like lime flesh lolling open
to peel my onion layers
one by one to the floor;
petaled out until
just the rawness remains.
Teasing taste buds
into taut lines, forgiven rows
rolled over
tongue. Delicious.
Peppered red and seedy-sore now,
but satisfied
that we won’t forget our manners
at the dinner table. Folded
tee *** napkins,
folded hands and don’t
touch the silverware. Yet.
Eat it bare or not at all.
Swallow. Whole.
Ask for seconds,
maybe thirds
if you’re vulnerable.
And I think
from the throb in your throat,
(a tender, exposed slope)
that you’re stirring to be.
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 2:25 AM UTC
In my mind
a yellow one speed, black banana seat and chrome ***** bar,
leans casually against unpainted drywall
a turned hip’s width from a paneled Caprice Estate
a car so big, all three of us could sleep in the back
lined up straight, sharing a thin plaid blanket, musty pillows
Starcraft popup in tow.
Wind still roars through the top of bare Pocono trees
comforting coal smoke swirls, stinging
as I step inside the kitchen
foggy and warm, formica and maple.
Zippers clack rhythmically,
slapping time in a softly rocking dryer,
steel cake cover rattling along.
Next to the oven
the growth chart is still there,
plotting our course by order of birth
pencil lines scratched in wood
awkward spikes upward, sudden stops
sooner than anyone expected
the birthday ritual faded
we stopped growing up and began fading out.
Did we leave it behind?
To be sanded smooth, a somber start for a fresh family
with their own journeys to take
Fears to face
Growth to plot
Dreams to form
Or will the bike always lean and the coal smoke always swirl?
Mark W. Meehan, PhD
February, 2017
Feb 13, 2017
Feb 13, 2017 at 4:18 PM UTC
Life is like a thousand
piece jigsaw puzzle
opened up on Christmas morning,
Laid out on
the formica top kitchen table.
All you see
is a sea of colors,
endless and random...
An unsurmontable feat before you.
Suddenly it happens...
You find two matching shapes,
then a third,
And before you know it
A corner piece...
The edges becoming more obvious.
A picture begins
forming in your mind's eye...
Confusion becomes creation
Labor's sweet reward finally realized.
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 12:58 AM UTC
i took it back, today.
in that ***** office with the years of waste covering all the surfaces.
i slapped out of a box that held dulled wit and
and i stood so tall
that all my inches did their sun salute
and i took my space.
i took my broken, back
from the faded formica
wearing down from days and hours and shifts
and bodies
weighing
down
on
it-
and when it said, 'i always wished i was marble'
i understood.
i always wished i had marble too.
so i took the battered files
containing nowhere words
about the sick and dying
and i throw them
at the yellowed ceiling tiles
so they could shower down a jumble
of breaking through the wound barrier
and my heart beats until i moved around
like the quickening of this rebirth
and i leave
with my dignity
crumpled up with a tissue in my pocket.
And i leave with a humming in my ear
and all that i came with,
ill have it back now.
tied to a string, i attached to my belt loop
thrown in bag that i hold by heart-
i take it back.
******* this succubus
but i will take this tattered woman back-
i will take this twisted spine
i will take this faded sense of righteousness
beautiful woman,
back.
sahn 7/29/15
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 12:15 AM UTC
she drinks coffee like it is her float in the sea she drowns in, chugs it like it'll buoy her better or let her use less effort in keeping alive
(her legs are kicking anyway, mouth screaming defiant at the sea in spitfuls of salt water, and her eyes are blurred angry sore red, brows hooked like an eagle's staring down prey)
-and she should fit in with the insomniacs, whose one associated item are styrofoam coffee cups of mom-and-pop diners and the accompanying coffee rings on formica table tops (as if all insomniacs are the same and if they were they would only have one token, but we'll pretend this is an amateur author's first novel) but she's not quite them and she's not quite one of the living, either-
oh
oh
silly goose, silly me
the insomniacs are one of the living.
are they?
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 1:05 AM UTC
Sat on the pew as a boy
My hand brushed the formica underneath
Holding the hymn book like it was a toy
I bit it with my small stubbly teeth
Mother tapped me forcefully on the shoulder
And I shirked at her disapproving frown
It's only now as I become a lot older
That I realise I was behaving like a clown
The priest in all his glory spoke high from the holy table
And I yawned as my father gave me a look
Whispering to my mother ‘the boys unstable’
His bony fingers took away the heavy book
The old lady started playing the tune
So we all stood to sing a hymn
Hoping the droning would finish soon
I thought should I sing but the chances were slim
The old lady with a wrinkly grin
Waved the collection tin in my face
Mother passed some coins that I dropped in
And then we left the cold hallowed place
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 4:43 AM UTC
NaPoWriMo Day 7: write about something you value. This poem is from my Cherished series http://lillianthehomepoet.wordpress.com
The Table
She found the table at Marshall Fields
in nineteen forty-nine, and pictured
her family at exactly half-past six each night
four plates, four forks, knives and spoons.
White oak, the Illinois state tree
with tight growth rings
durable, resilient, and
carved with artisan's care.
Emotions buffed artfully into lustrous patina
over years marred by scratches, chips and burns
tuna-noodle-pea casseroles set forgetfully upon the wood
and forks slammed down in anger.
Keeping up with Rita, Gwen, and Claire
teflon pans and a formica table-topper
emotions erupt with modernity as leftovers
disappear in a single swipe of the hand.
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 8:38 AM UTC
holding hands across
the cracked Formica
eyeing cracks in paint
he's thinking
*I like her, no, I love her
she'll never be my regret*
She's hurting and nervous
but she can't forget
how it is to beg
She licks her lips, tasting his hatred
sitting in front of Lasange and
wilted salad, Its not Steak
she whispers in a pathetically
apologetic voice
and he swallows his instinct
to roar his pain, in a calm voice
he states *I'm useless to you,
to me and the baby, I've gotta go,
I'll be home maybe, maybe when
I've lived up to my promises
of giving you another life...*
She waits on the stairs
for him to come home
She IS his wife
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 2:41 AM UTC