1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always ***,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every ***** and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is *****, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my *****-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-****.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the ******* of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the ****** floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-*****,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain’d by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-****’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they ***** with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The ***** that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown i

THE MELAMINE TABLE TOP WITH
THE PINK GINGHAM TABLE CLOTH

You're kidding?

The goat is on
the table.

The goat comes in
( doesn't even bother to knock )&

stands on the table
for a good half hour

as if it were  an art installation
or some obscure goat ritual

that humans are
unaware of

as if it were a phrase
in a foreign dictionary

the equivalent of
the cat sat on the mat.

And when the goat
is done

it just jumps down
and leaves

just as it came

as if it were
the most ordinary

of ordinary things
to do.

Even now, I still see
the ghost of that goat

even though it was long ago
made into stew

as if the goat realised
that a time

would come
& come it would

when it would end up
on the table

but not of its own
volition.

But right now
it is standing its ground

on the Melamine table top
with the pink gingham table cloth

and becoming that something that
just can not be

forgot.

Red gingham on jam pots
Wax lids preserving the berry
Tattered lace and old spots
Labels for black cherry.

Strawberries with leaves left on
Cups of tea with cream in
All the nice jam has gone
But there are biscuits in the tin.

Crumbs left on top when cakes took
pride of place after they were made
There is jam around his face look
Do you think the evidence will fade?

No because he has jam all over his top
and there is a smile on his jammy face
He keeps eating them, no signs he will stop
when there are jam tarts all over the place.

Red gingham on the table cloth freshly laid
jam pots with strawberries now preserved.
All the sugar used up, jam for the year made
get your hands off, that *** is reserved!

all I've ever known are ******, ex-prostitutes,
madwomen. I see men with quiet,
gentle women ­ I see them in the supermarkets,
I see them walking down the streets together,
I see them in their apartments: people at
peace, living together. I know that their
peace is only partial, but there is
peace, often hours and days of peace.

all I've ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,
******, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.

when one leaves
another arrives
worse than her predecessor.

I see so many men with quiet clean girls in
gingham dresses
girls with faces that are not wolverine or
predatory.

"don't ever bring a ***** around," I tell my
few friends, "I'll fall in love with her."

"you couldn't stand a good woman, Bukowski."

I need a good woman. I need a good woman
more than I need this typewriter, more than
I need my automobile, more than I need
Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I
can taste her in the air, I can feel her
at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built
for her feet to walk upon,
I can see pillows for her head,
I can feel my waiting laughter,
I can see her petting a cat,
I can see her sleeping,
I can see her slippers on the floor.

I know that she exists
but where is she upon this earth
as the ****** keep finding me?


Charles Bukowski

is pure cotton. check. we can sew straight lines.

i had imagined the house shrouded, in cream linen.

ties. yet.

they said it is mostly green gingham nowadays.

they sew on mondays, twelve till three, any thing
that is required.

it is a big old house, quite dark to stop the fading.

there is an example.

i can tell you so much more. yet.

maybe it is best to see for yourself?

i saw green gingham check.

sbm.

Crisp shirt
Buttoned up
Short sleeves
Blue gingham
In the least shades of vibrant colours
Black and gray,
the colour of our story
the colour of us
What's the point if we won't ever going to start
You belonged yourself to her
And who am I?
A passerby
Classic
Leather
Watch
Everything's reminding me of you
I'll erase my mind of out the picture
Let you stay stand proud with her
The calling of your life
Gentle touch
and sideway glances
Silly giggles--
Please stop
Let's stop
The road's been blocked ahead
and the passage way's closed
No use
Yet I think I love you

A sigh signals some sort of disclosure.
– glancing over his eyeglass frames
at the slow downward tilt of her chest
her gingham blouse rises again
as she inhales energy for her words,
words intended to clarify or confuse,
he does not know.
His own exhale and a frowning brow
signal that he is listening-
to judge whether her statement
is real or fancy.
Her words a mercury for her mood
no gauge left as he guesses
seeking to understand her,
to crawl through her veins like a virus,
to know her every desire,
every expectation, even every fear.
He is adrift in his own flaws,
unable to grasp precisely her feelings, her expressions.
His distrust is great whether of himself or of her.
Salt honesty with caprice and tasty fare is spoiled.
Gripping the arm of his chair,
muscles straining to lurch forward,
he escapes toward the door
leaving her words
to fill the hollow behind him.
Tomorrow he may choose valor,
today the fear of authenticity scares him to his den.

Needle, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where's the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?

See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams--
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady's dreams.

Wantons go in bright brocade;
Brides in organdie;
Gingham's for the plighted maid;
Satin's for the free!

Wool's to line a miser's chest;
Crepe's to calm the old;
Velvet hides an empty breast
Satin's for the bold!

Lawn is for a bishop's yoke;
Linen's for a nun;
Satin is for wiser folk--
Would the dress were done!

Satin glows in candlelight--
Satin's for the proud!
They will say who watch at night,
"What a fine shroud!"

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

When I first saw her smiling face
It was a good old summers day
She had moved down from the city
And I hoped that she would stay

We played games out in the haystacks
We ran races through the corn
Turn left and hit the river
Turn right, you're lost till morn

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

She occupied my dreams then
And still does to this day
Back then I hardly new her
I just hoped that she would stay

Short shorts and Gingham dresses
made her look the country part
But high heels and silk organza
Tugged the city in her heart

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

We'd go to high school hoedowns
And dance like no one else was there
But when she heard Big Band Music
She was dreaming of Times Square

She loved to go out touring
In my pickup through the crops
But in my heart I knew she missed
The sounds of taxi cabs and cops

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

She stayed here all through high school
But I knew deep down it had to end
I knew if I tried to say "I Love You"
she'd say "I love you like a friend"

She knew I'd never leave here
And I knew she had it made
If she went back to the city
And stopped her country masquerade

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

It was two weeks past commencement
When I told her what I thought
Then I dropped down to me knee right there
And I showed her what I'd bought

I looked into her smiling eyes
And prayed that she'd say yes
Would she choose to stay in Daisy Dukes
Or go back to her chiffon dress

I'll let you guess the answer
By the way I end this poem
But I'm still here in the country
And she's waiting now at home.

She's my pretty city country girl
She's something I can't lose
Is she livin' in  the country
or the city, she must choose

You know I really love her
She's the one I really want
But if she moves off to the city
It's my heart she'll stay and haunt.

In class the ******* and white tick-tock pinched
my mid-morning belly. When everyone else
borrowed numbers, my pencil lead and yellow paint
scratched out hunger. Minutes chugged like school
buses.  Even columns of three-numeraled numbers
minused the bottom line, scold of lunch.

A borrowed quarter and dime from the office,
meant a secretary’s red-lipsticked mouth, bent
and accusing.  Her coiffed curls shook my dreams.
I would starve before sailing into that office
for my little belly, but forever yearned for the secretary
to pet my hair. Say, “There, there,”like to a character
in a book rosy with girls in gingham dresses.

But, for all those lovely boats of hot lunches: meatloaf
with crusts of catsup like a winter cap, buttered beans,
dinner rolls
and cold-cartoned milk, not watered down--

Missing lunch,  I'd hide out in the cold storage
room of sack lunches next to the playground.
While the others ate, I'd escape at the right tick
into the recess of blacktop and tetherball.

the roads are wet
i don’t know when it rained
maybe i’m not
a writer anymore
maybe i stopped
paying attention
maybe i left
behind all wonder
in my adolescence
maybe i forgot
how to find meaning
in ordinary things
flowery air
and lemonade
gingham dresses
and handwritten
letters covered in
glitter and cursive
maybe i need
to read more books
and take more walks
and spin more
beach house records
then, maybe then i’ll find
stars in blue irises
and messy hair again

In the morning the mist arises
but some will say it is
yesterday's hubris.
I dont have an attic
to wayleigh communications
or require windows
to twitch gingham curtains
so the deep chill
void remains.

A debutante passed by my uncut grass
but she was no better served,
a dream interview with ******* Club
turned sour, this time of year.
At least she hasn't endless dealership openings
or humoured the word "exhilarating" in interviews
when inventing a rich Stepfather.
Like me there be few visitors.
Thirty  stubborn years will pass
but at least she know the meaning.
The pride of the morning.

maybe is the colours, red and white,
that appeal, the patterns, or the
retro items in the cupboard. he

gasped, and proclaimed the beauty
as the door was opened. so
yesterday, all was tidied, categorised,
more paper laid, for his, and my
delight.

he is home from holday.

sbm

For me, you are Sunday. Today is Sunday,
and tomorrow will be Sunday. Because I am stuck
in gingham yellow sheets, small white saucers
with matching ceramic cups, cigarette ashes
like a crop circle around them as I sip homemade
coffee. The ***** brown liquid sloshing
in the back of my throat, scorching my insides
as I swallow something not nearly as
painful as looking up for an answer to the crossword
and realizing you are not in fact actually there, and your hand
is not on my thigh, tracing the outline of my knee
with your thumb. I am stuck

like a kid on the monkey bars. Deciphering
between reaching my hand out to grab
the next rung or just allowing myself
to fall into the wood chips, welcome
that scraped skin and soil in the worry lines
of my palms. Because calling you,
reaching out to that line, could end with me
face up on my bed staring at the blades of my fan
trying to pinpoint just one to follow around and around
again. Or I could get your voicemail. Or you could
see my number and decide to hang up. How close
were we really anyway?

Or you could answer and we could talk through
how bad the weather is, how we've been doing,
and then get to the poignant silence, that hum
in the background that coils through the wires
into my ear, down the canal, and sinks into my heart
until the pressure becomes too much. Until
I tell you that its Sunday. That I need the 1994
Tony Award winning musical for 3 across, and hopefully,
you'll give me the right answer.

The hobby horse it bolted,
To him I'm still attached,
Bumping along the gravel track,
My arms are torn to ribbons,
My head is sorely hurt,
Hobby horse was just a game,
Grey corduroy head bowed low,
A matter of respect ,
I'm told,
It's neckerchief of gingham was checked in red and white,
Caught him on a bramble bush as I went flying by,
It poked him smartly in the eye,
Never saw what was going on,
His brain was made of fluff,
His heart was made of solid wood,
He wasn't always very good,
He was a dashing fellow,
His slender body pole,
Painted florescent yellow,
So all could see him coming,
He was just my favourite hobby horse,
Of course!
By ladylivvi1
I don't know if Americans have hobby horses. A horse made out of broom stick with a fabric head and children pretended to ride them!
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

I held up that grand quilt in my tiny hands, thoughts rushing past my mind.

That denim piece splattered with red paint,
ah, remember when you wore that for the first time as you picked carrots with Dad?

That cotton piece filled with a vibrant orange,
how could you forget? That was the dress you wore to your first ever play recital.

That baby pink rayon piece,
you wore that on the first day of high school, you could not forget.

That grey wool piece,
that was your Christmas present, and you wore it near the fire. You spilled hot coco on it.

That rare purple leather,
that is too important to forget. Remember, it was the jacket you wore on you first date.

That blue flannel piece,
you loved that one. You wore it all the time, ever since the first time you wore it when you won “best speaker” at a school competition.

That brown cupro piece,
you wore that to your mother's birthday, the one where she got promoted to L.A.

That green polyester piece,
never can forget, could you? That was the shirt you wore when Dad and Mom divorced.  

That white lyocell piece,
you wore it at your graduation party, and your whole family was there.

That barkcloth piece,
it was a day to remember, you united with you brother once again in that dress.

That calico piece,
you wore that to the hospital when Granddad got a heart attack.

That black and white damask piece,
that was so beautiful, so you kept it for your dinner. Which you hadn't realized was your engagement dinner with your boyfriend.

That red gingham piece,
wow, that was the time you met your dad's girlfriend. And Mom had not moved on.

That black lace piece,
a day never to forget. It was the funeral of your Granddad’s, and that was the dress you wore.

That grey gauze piece,
it was the shawl you wore when you visited your grandma, and found out she was ill of depression.

That amazing white gazar piece,
a memorable day. It was the dress you wore to you wedding.

That turquoise silk piece,
too soon after your wedding. It was the part of the purse you took to your Grandma's funeral. *

That white and blue jacquard fabric,
that was the fabric you had for your curtains, when you moved into your own house.

That leopard print intarsia piece,
it was an amazing day. Your mother visited you the first time in your new home. The both of you cried with the rain pouring outside. Nothing could have ruined that beautiful moment together, united.

That satin cobalt blue piece,
that dress you wore to the dinner with your parents and husband. Only to later realize that you brother had met with an accident.

That exotic lantana piece,
you remember, don't you? You wore that dress when you met your brother days later, severely hurt.

That red lace piece,
you went to London with your husband wearing that. You were so excited.

That madras piece,
it came from that cushion out of the four your husband bought you.

That cream organdy piece,
your mother had found it in her closet, a dress from her mother's, and wanted to give it to you.

That deep purple paisley piece,
you wore that on the day your mother died.*

And like that, all the thoughts came back to me. All the pieces of my past, fit in together. But it never made sense – that was how my life worked. And there were more pieces, more parts, to fit together, until my life was spread out in front of me. Like a patched quilt.

You almost kissed me,
and you shouldn't have.
On the gingham tablecloth in the yellow light,
you lifted me from the counter top onto my feet
putting your hat on my head and tickling my ribs.
You know it's my sweet spot,
leads straight to my heart if you're gentle enough.
I told you to stop and you walked away,
eyes lingering on my bare skin between where my top ended on my waist
and where my dark denim jeans began to hug my hips.
I flipped my hair back around, joining in some conversation too late
between a girl drunk on grape juice and a wedding crasher straggler
in a forest green flannel with camel cigarettes in the pocket.
That's when you came back over and started yelling
some story that happened to you the night before.
You told it well,
the circle captivated, me mesmerized
by how blue your eyes stayed all this time without me noticing.
You  had the whole room laughing with your wit and stupid vernacular,
but I was smiling because you looked so beautiful in those drunken
honest moments
where I recognized the person beneath the banter
where I saw you.
I was saying my goodbyes to the carhartt boys and their one night girls
when you grabbed me by the hand and spun me around
like we were dancing,
pulled me in by your hand pressed on my shoulder blades
the other around my waist
I gasped as your lips almost touched mine,
but then you looked down at me
with those same blue eyes
and took a deep breath,
slowly letting your hands glide down my back then to your sides.
I just stared back at you,
wishing you'd forget the logic and put your hands back where they were,
tracing your lips with that almost kiss,
and I could feel how much you wanted to be in this moment
desperately searching for a way to my lips
but something stopped us.
And I think it was because we knew it would only lead to something messier
than where we were at
it would be a backwards romance, reversing our ***** footsteps
in something we've tried and tried to understand
that it never works out the way either of us plans.
We were both doing so well, moving on
but in that moment we almost gave all that strength up
gave into something too tempting and too wrong.
Because we can't really stay away from each other all that long.
I mean,
you almost kissed me
and you shouldn't have,
but I swear
I wish you would have.

Presumably the next big thing will be soles — socks with holes. Or maybe zits — pants with zips.

It’s made me wonder what else is ahead for us this season, so I headed to the mall to find out.

Topshop proclaims the return of triple denim (noooo!), the corset and coats worn as dresses. The latter should be worn undone to the waist and half falling off in order to “create a cold-shoulder silhouette”. Doesn’t make such sense during a Melbourne winter, I must say.

Topshop also has a very worrying item called a “monochrome gingham flute tie sleeve top”, which looks to me very much like a chequered table napkin worn backwards with ribbons at the elbows keeping the sleeves on. I’ll pass on that one.

Over at H&M;, winter’s “new mood” is all about “sustainable style” containing recycled materials. That means a simple flannel top is reborn as “conscious fashion” and a blue worker-style singlet becomes a “lyocell vest top”.

What would they call hi-vis? Apparently, the fash pack call it “haute reflecture”. Yes, really.

Most concerning is a shirt with “trumpet sleeves” so wide they’d need a separate seat at a restaurant. Even then they would end up dipping into the dinner of the person sitting at the next table. It may help you work out what to order, but it’s not likely to win you any friends.

At Zara it’s all about a “limited edition ballet dress” that will look perfect under a “moto jacket” Did they forget the r? Or are they too cool for correct spelling?

There is also something very strange called “over-the-knee high-heel sock boots”, which are $100. Give them to someone you loathe this Easter.

Zara also wants us to wear “Mum-fit jeans with side stripes”, which will no doubt just draw more unwelcome attention to the dreaded maternal hips. Who needs that?

They also have a velvet sack-style dress with a drawstring at the mid-thigh. It’s the style that doesn’t discriminate — it’s guaranteed to look unflattering on everyone.

So what other trends should we be running away from this season? Fashion insiders tell me “street-chic utilitarianism” is all the rage. That seems to involve wearing a flak jacket 10 sizes too big in a rotting-flesh colour paired with floral leggings with built-in shoes.

There’s also “new shirting”, which looks to me like the same thing as “old shirting” but has the added disadvantage of being just about to fall off your shoulders at the most inopportune time.

Trust me, you don’t need that and you don’t need an ironic-slogan T-shirt that tells the world “This was not a gift” or “This is a white T-shirt”.

I am also quite interested to know that “bra out” is apparently a trend and I wonder if that means I should stop tucking my daggy mum-bra straps into my tops.

Now, as someone who spent most of Wednesday this week at work with a large shop store label hanging out of the back of my skirt, I’m obviously not a huge fashionista.

But even I can see that never before has there been such a gap between clothes the fashion-conscious labels are promoting and everyday pieces we actually want to wear. You know, clothes that are well priced, well made, last more than a few seasons and aren’t made by five-year-old Bangladeshi orphans.

THERE’S no doubt something very weird is going on when there’s a waiting list for Yves Saint Laurent’s $10,000 jewelled boots and jewellery made of real succulents is being tipped as the next big thing. But really, who wants to have to remember to water their earrings?

Wandering around Zara this week (from where I bought the $89 skirt I forgot to take the label off), I was interested to see sale racks packed with off-the-shoulder tops, summer denim and lots of body suits. When are they going to learn women don’t want press studs up their privates?

I know that in fashion everything new is old anyway and that’s what really concerns me.

I’ve been around long enough to remember all the best worst fashion disasters such as pooh-catcher pants, velour tracksuits, trucker hats and platform sneakers.

Frankly, there are some items that don’t deserve to be wheeled out again. They include leg warmers — because your ankles don’t get cold when you work out, do they? And let’s not revisit male crop tops, because a hairy muffin top is something we don’t need to see.

Back to jindows. Just because Topshop tells us they’re “globally trending in the denim space”, it doesn’t mean you need a pair.

Remember. You didn’t need jeggings, coatigans, skorts or flatforms. And you sure as hell don’t need jindows.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

in this dream i have
the one you wander through

there's wishes on the wind
and miracles in the dew

thunder is a whisper
there's water over stone

diamonds in the sky are smiling
at this dream we've grown

you sip honeysuckle nectar
from rainbow colored glass

and tell me secret things
laying in the grass

ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.
  
The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues.
  
It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor ataxia shuffle.
  
It is long ago, Elsie, and now they spell your name with an electric sign.
  
Then you were a little thing in checked gingham and your mother wiped your nose and said: You little fool, keep off the streets.
  
Now you are a big girl at last and streetfuls of people read your name and a line of people shaped like a letter S stand at the box office hoping to see you shimmy.

You might have seen them through the window,
a little girl pouting on the stool and her mother
behind her, deft fingers weaving the strands
together, chocolate hair in french braids and the
wrinkles in her blue gingham dress.

There is a beginning to everything.

Golden-hair boy, caramel colors glinting in the sun,
pieces that flopped over his eyes and plastered
themselves over his forehead when the wind blew
erratic. He wears t-shirts streaked with dirt and high-
water jeans half-rolled, half-bunched up to his knees.

She thought, I could love this boy.

They're in the field again, ankles itching under her
frilly socks and ants crawling over her shoes. He lets
one amble around on his finger while she studies him.
Holding it up to the light, all serious and squinting,
He whispers, "They are so small."

She remembers this field for a long time.

She points to his heart. This is where I live. He looks
at her skeptically, raises an eyebrow."Is it awfully
uncomfortable there?" She lets the silence grow while
the birds make conversation and smiles to herself when
she sees him listening too.

Sometimes it is cold, but then you remember me.

There are pieces of love scattered around this world.
I have been trying to find them, trying to arrange them
into a comprehensible hope. There's the field. There's the
beach. There's the little stream that carries us where we
need to go. There's you, in that one summer.

It's been so long, but I remember. I remember it perfectly.

She's making a daisy chain while he looks out over the
lake. Climb the tree for me. I want to see how high you
can go. Nearly breaking the branches with his weight, he
calls out, in the purest joy you've ever heard to this day.
"You should see this view!"

*I do.

welcome

she welcomes my energy inside and gives me tea
calms my busy light without a single word
smiles at my bright aura
a tabby ginger cat purrs on a gingham cloth
blue Delft plates in a row

this was a time with no fuzzy
no noise
no waste
no haste




dimming of all goodness

a woman’s head rolls on the fine sifting sand
dry and warm
a rapier juts forward, pierces the guts of an old man
who carries a child on his back
there’s a red blanket what flies on the line
soggy and now,  it’s hard to tell whose blood drips so

an elongated horn is blown from a desert hill
nobody lives in the mountains of Miranda anymore
her ghost has found voice in the echo of the brambles
her secrets still buzz in heavy hives of long ago
discovered and ravaged by trusted traitors
now hanging in clusters, newly unfound
dried corpses also hang (unmolested) in bloodwood trees
where every trace of gall is let flow in kino



the blood of Miranda flows on**

she of terminalis
lives on eternal
in brook and vale and bush
in veins of progeny bee
and also
in the crickets of the field

Mother,
you grew up
on honey
and white bread,
cream between your teeth
******* dry against
the roof of your mouth

And Mother,
your dolls
were always
children -- you swore
you'd treat them better,
dressed them up
in pink gingham cloth,
ran with them through
the jungles in your
backyard,

and that backyard
swallowed you
in secrets, you never
questioned what lay
beneath the floorboards
where your father slept
in the basement, you
tangled yourself in
the reeds

Some days,
you wondered why
the walls of your house
shook (they never knew
you listened) and some days,
the dust tracked itself
along your skin like evidence,
giving your hiding place away

You sheltered yourself
in paintings and broom closets,
caressed your clouded heart
against a generation built
on dreams and divorce,
the echoes of war aching
in your father's palms --

Neil Armstrong
landed on the moon
the day after your birthday
and you took it as a sign
that you would never
hold the stars in your hands

Instead,
you cradled
a child
against your chest,
hoping
it would be enough
to save her from
the sunlight in your eyes

In the dark velvet lining of a humid gilded box
is a little china doll:
a delicate charm for her grandmother's gold bracelet.
She lies languid. Her sinews are chains and her bones glass.
Light swarms through her: a mess of wispy snakes.
At noon
it bounces wildly like the pinball game
she's heard so enthusiastically described
in a wildly raucous rock and roll song.
Tentatively she reaches for the stars painted through her hair
raised a bit like brail and hot to the touch.
They're made of fire billions of miles away.
They have halos radiant at midnight.
At midnight
the humid gilded box
is damp and muggy and she twists and wakes
sullen with panic and covered in stardust.
The grime of the moon coats her gingham dress,
collected as she skidded to home plate.
Precious Darling,
Bless her heart,
for unbeknownst to her the humid gilded box
is within a teapot,
upon a shelf,
within a cupboard,
beside a grandfather clock
that chimes at each curly hour and rattles the gilding
so that as the hours pass - as the days disappear:
her darling little precious box
dims like the tapestry her grandmother hung
to mourn the grandfather clock.

On a bench in a park I sat alone
to watch the sun go down
and as I watched
the girl with the braided hair
sat next to me
I taught her about life
she lived where shadows roamed free
in a house on a field
with harboured secrets
silently, assuredly,
she mouths out to me
touching my hand
living the life I left behind
the girl with the braided hair
talked with me
I distract her from life
she pranced around in white mary-janes
in a blue gingham dress
with too-mature worry
sweetly, cautiously
she laughs with me
brushing my hair
living a life she wished to live
the girl with the braided hair
watched the sunset with me
creating her own life
where no shadows dared to roam
in a castle by the sea
with fairies, and light
sadly, wishfully,
she rests her head on me
dreaming her life away and I realise
the girl with the braided hair
is me

THE MELAMINE TABLE TOP WITH
THE PINK GINGHAM TABLE CLOTH

You're kidding?

The goat is on
the table.

The goat comes in
( doesn't even bother to knock )&

stands on the table
for a good half hour

as if it were  an art installation
or some obscure goat ritual

that humans are
unaware of

as if it were a phrase
in a foreign dictionary

the equivalent of
the cat sat on the mat.

And when the goat
is done

it just jumps down
and leaves

just as it came

as if it were
the most ordinary

of ordinary things
to do.

Even now, I still see
the ghost of that goat

even though it was long ago
made into stew

as if the goat realised
that a time

would come
& come it would

when it would end up
on the table

but not of its own
volition.

But right now
it is standing its ground

on the Melamine table top
with the pink gingham table cloth

and becoming that something that
just can not be

forgot.

The next little boat comes around the bend as the previous one sets sail.  No sails of course on these amusement park river rafts, but standing on that disorienting moving platform I can’t help but wax poetic.  I say wax poetic and I think of tall, slim candles on furnished banquet tables in foreign countries with languages that yearn to invert our *****, anglophile syntax and say wax poetic to mean ‘poetic wax’.  Wax with a flair for verbose romance.  Tall, slim, fleshy, slowly expiring under a weightless impossible flame, and thinking all along of shattered daydreams, looking into each like shards of glass and seeing not this melting candle but a solid body doused and extinguished with love and certainty.  There it is, my croissance poétique, my poetic waxing, to grow and elaborate, as wax simply does not - under these circumstances, at least. To be sure, I am still standing before my boat as my body moves constantly on the platform with no help from me.  I am thankful such thoughts find themselves so instantaneously or I would have found myself knocked under or over something or other.  I board.  Buckle.  I’ve never heard of anyone in an amusement park on one’s own; it’s usually a pair hand-in-hand, gripping each other on plummeting coaster drops in some panic-stricken foreshadowing of the taught limbs and pounding hearts that will inhabit their sheets come nighttime.  Or else a grease-stained fat lipped boy, esurient for the delicate touch his haggard mother and wicked-stepfather dole out upon his blind and handicapped sister, bound to a chair, bound to her own head, bound forever to her worn-out, frayed gingham mother and her stupid, jealous brother.  Even as my calves squeak against the rubbery seat and my knees bump with some hairy father of some screaming three, I’ve still managed to romance my setting into something far out of the realm of reality.  I’m afraid, though, I may be losing touch with it altogether.

Am I really there?  Something about the sensation of spinning and twinge in my core that feels like sickness tells me that is probably the case, but even so, I’m relying purely on a hunch.  A literal gut feeling, soon to be joined by the cold barrage of cascading water and my shoes turning wet and making my feet feel somewhat like jelly.  Physical experiences that root me in this world, while my thoughts, it seems, have died and transcended some time ago.  One blink and my transformation is complete, soaked to my center and the ride is over.  I’m exiting my little boat, orienting myself onto the platform that has kept spinning this entire time, unrelenting to anyone who would wish can this all stand still for just a moment my shoe is untied! The father of the three follows behind, but I fail to find a story for him. The faces I pass as I exit are not delicate, they do not carry with them tragic imbalances of the past, or beam with the pride of a love that seems to last forever (because it has lasted so long already, right?), they are blank. They are blank and wet and dripping like mine and they drip like they’re melting, like they are slowly expiring under a weightless impossible flame, and it is now that it has come full circle. The world as it passes has caught up once again and will continue to spin past, allowing only a moment where we both whirl together, where we are in sync and both of us have wicked step-fathers and both of us have soggy shoes and then again she will be gone, to unite with some other fleshy entity and reduce me again to my *****, anglophile syntax and my shattered daydreams and my wax poetic.  But she will be back.  And until then, I’ll drip into the floorboards and perhaps when she returns I’ll have something to show her.

Lost between here and there
A roadless road
Some cactus whiplash sun juice dry hope heaved onto an omlette of cow brains and mothers stale toast warnings. A gingham curtain on a beat up pickup truck / home shakes its dust in the desert wind where nothing runs only lives

.

Laughing endeavors with marigold dreams
Soft interventions in line with the seams
Post card adventures with reasons to share
All this I love every time we are there

Paintings of pansies and red apple trees
Kites filled with colors a’ sail on the breeze
Sunsets at twilight that cause us to stare
All this I love every time we are there

Sidewalks with tables of gingham design
Minutes and hours along just in time
Butterfly moonbeams so swift on the air
All this I love every time we are there

White picket fences along every street
Butter cream candies so tasty and sweet
Secret emotions that show that we care
All this I love every time we are there

Books filled with pages the two of us read
Empty filled spaces with just what we need
Vegetable gardens at harvest so fair
All this I love every time we are there

Days of the week as we call them by name
Dancing together so slow in the rain
Sunlight reflections a’ touch of your hair
All this I love every time we are there

Leaves that are changing in colors so bright
Holding you close on a cool autumn night
Feeling your love that can hardly compare
All this I love every time we are there

So many reasons I find in your love
Sent by the light of the moon up above
Tickles my heart as my world is aware
Each time I’m with you, alone, anywhere

I live in the bottom of a tea-cup,
the basin of an English town
that is no more remarkable than any other English town.
It has little flair,
too much submissiveness,
many characters but no character.
It is a stencilled town convinced that it is something more
than margins.

Front gardens are filled with bits and pieces
of broken things
that are perpetually leaving.
Cardboard boxes,
disconnected fridges,
unfinished patios,
wellingtons that have paused to collect the clouds.
The crocuses have frostbite
and the lawns are fraying at the edges
like muddy carpet.
As you follow the road the houses get bigger
and their front doors get shabbier.
Paint peels like sunburnt skin
and the road stains yellow.

The old and the new mix obscenely;
two girls, tied at the elbow,
crack their feet on the sound
of their sisters’ high heels slapping paving stones.
Most people have got extensions
that have left their house in two pieces,
the bricks never seeming to meet.
Gingham table cloths hang out to dry,
a red double-decker teeters on a corner,
biked teenagers slip through the net of the Friday sky.

It’s a green-ish evening
and the clouds are strung like DNA blots
around the blurring sun.
The light’s not strong enough to dry your bones but,
when you look at it,
it seems to have exceeded any outline.
A slab of sky is golden.

The allotment is rows upon rows upon rows of bamboo canes,
browned like apple cores.
Chicken wire and faded Wendy houses
slouch upon their soil trenches.
It is a patchwork of mediocrity;
the beige and the brown and the grey
overtake the green.
Tin cans stud the place
like piercings on the body of an ex-punk;
only dead things grow
and the colours have been switched to mute.

There’s a market on Saturdays
where strawberries will cost you the moon
and where egg boxes are recycled
until they drip in the rain.
My grandparents remember my town in its embyonic stages,
my parents remember when it still was framed with local business,
I remember it when Shakeaway was a fruit and vegetable store
that sold palenta on Wednesdays.
My town is locked in a cycle of self-improvement
that it never seems to benefit from.
It is infitely greyed
and nothing more or less than ordinary.
Boys with blackheads pretend that they understand parkour
and the haberdashery closes down.
Each month, the window displays alter to no avail
and the dust sinks a little closer
to the pages we’re constantly trying to turn.

I live in the bottom of a tea-cup
and I never stop trying to read insubstantial fortunes
from the dregs I’ve left behind.

we don’t need
to be fixed.

we need to be
aware. open. owning it.

embracing
our pain, our history
our patterns, our spasms.

confession:
I've been fantasizing…

that one day you'd roll up,
like Richard Pryor at the end of Moving,
sitting atop a semi-truck of your whatnots,
war paint smeared upon your dashing,
wearing a tie bandana and bullet sash,
carrying a semi-automatic weapon,
after stalking your **** cross-country,
to the front of our gutted dream house,
after this misadventure, arriving, finally,
at home imperfect, thankful just to be,
there with delirious, Cheshire cat grin,
like a lion dragging in a carcass,
bloodied, brave and proud,
eager to greet my eyes and say:

Honey! Look what I found!
I found my ****!
I brought my **** home...
This is my ****.

and I would greet you,
with water-colored greys
inking down my dimpled peach,
in a black and white gingham apron,
heels, nylons and corseted vintage dress,
mirroring that ****-eater right back,
tray of warm hash brownies in hand,
that got nothing on my toasty sweet
lips dripping to say:

Your **** is lovely, darling.
It'll go perfect with mine!
It's up in the attic - properly labeled,
arranged and categorized.

and with that kind of
ownership, acceptance and bravery,
there is no way our stuff will ever be
more powerful than us, together,
merged and emerging,
by way of wings, soaring,
above our ****-spattered clouds.

" COLLABORATION Jack & Frieda "

A hush does wake this early dawn
in whispers formed on breathless dreams
Sunrise of horizon’s glow
through flowing curtains on opaque glass

I sense in the distance, a tingling  
the air crisp with Fall's spinning
a tangible scent of warmth is mulling
like hot cider's comfort beside a fire

Crimson and ochre paint the valley
in a tapestry of nature’s desire,
gently woven in patterns of bliss,
collecting thoughts in blue tinted jars    

Memories of far away encounters
as if captive in snow globes embraces
Topsy-turvy recollections and reminisces
painted in hues of yesterday's resolve

Secured neatly with plaid and gingham ribbon,
set upon the sill amidst cranberry ornaments
Reflecting past love and new day wishes,
scented by a heart longing for autumn’s sweet kiss

*A gentle sway of a zephyr sweeps my hair
I'm reminded of your touch at the nape of my neck
a season of whirling calyx in sweet surrender
I sigh in this moment, for I wish you were still here

Dorothy Gale, all freckled and pale
Was asleep in her gingham print nighty
When a ****** great twister enveloped the vista
And blew like the good lord almighty
It ripped up the grass and it took out the glass
As it lifted the house from position
And a blow to the head from the post of her bed
Put young Dorothy out of commission

She awoke with a fright as she fell from a height
Landing squarely on somebody's gran
She emerged from indoors to a round of applause
And her journey had surely began
The people of Aus (because that's where she was)
Gave her hazy but helpful directions
She should hastily wander the road over yonder
To reach Tony before the elections

So she took to the road from her former abode
In her quest to get back to her folk
She aquired some mates, all in similar straits
Or the **** of a practical joke
A man made of straw was quite hard to ignore
With a lion quite lacking in guts
And a fella whose skin was constructed from tin
Held together with rivets and nuts

Such adventures they had, though I think you'll be glad
That I've cut to the crux of the rhyme
Where a meeting was set, their request would be met
To meet Tony in ten minutes time
They arrived and were greeted, quite comfortably seated
It was then Mr Abbott appeared
He regretted to say, to their growing dismay
That their wishes had not all been cleared

"As I haven't a heart" he was heard to impart
"then the tin man is leaving with jack"
"And I'm gutless as well" he was careful to tell
"So the lion can hurry on back"
"And I've also no brain, so it's no once again"
"But young lady, your problems are sorted"
"You'll be locked up off shore for a month, maybe four
"And by christmas, we'll have you deported"

By Ben the Poet

I marry you in the playground.

This limitless concrete jungle, a place where wars break, houses are made and tea is served now hosts a grander event.

Spring blossoming hedgerows arch over head framing our glee, we stand together.

Resplendent in sweatshirt, Teflon and scuffed Clarks, your gingham has never looked so glorious, and I feel under-dressed and overwhelmed next to your face. The one that every mother could love.

Presided over by a select few and away from prying eyes, boisterous scuffles over footballs and teachers who just wouldn’t, couldn’t get our love.

Our diamonds and sapphires might be gelatine and e-numbers, but this commitment is delicious. As sweet and sticky as the hold you have over me.

I take your hand in mine and run for the boundaries.