"icebox" poems
I am in a crate, the crate that was ours,
full of white shirts and salad greens,
the icebox knocking at our delectable knocks,
and I wore movies in my eyes,
and you wore eggs in your tunnel,
and we played sheets, sheets, sheets
all day, even in the bathtub like lunatics.
But today I set the bed afire
and smoke is filling the room,
it is getting hot enough for the walls to melt,
and the icebox, a gluey white tooth.
I have on a mask in order to write my last words,
and they are just for you, and I will place them
in the icebox saved for ***** and tomatoes,
and perhaps they will last.
The dog will not. Her spots will fall off.
The old letters will melt into a black bee.
The night gowns are already shredding
into paper, the yellow, the red, the purple.
The bed -- well, the sheets have turned to gold --
hard, hard gold, and the mattress
is being kissed into a stone.
As for me, my dearest Foxxy,
my poems to you may or may not reach the icebox
and its hopeful eternity,
for isn't yours enough?
The one where you name
my name right out in P.R.?
If my toes weren't yielding to pitch
I'd tell the whole story --
not just the sheet story
but the belly-button story,
the pried-eyelid story,
the whiskey-sour-of-the-nipple story --
and shovel back our love where it belonged.
Despite my asbestos gloves,
the cough is filling me with black and a red powder seeps through my
veins,
our little crate goes down so publicly
and without meaning it, you see, meaning a solo act,
a cremation of the love,
but instead we seem to be going down right in the middle of a Russian
street,
the flames making the sound of
the horse being beaten and beaten,
the whip is adoring its human triumph
while the flies wait, blow by blow,
straight from United Fruit, Inc.
19.6k
Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now——
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled¸ like Blake's.
Who exhibits
The birthmarks that are his trademark——
The scald scar of water,
The ****
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak
Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple
Frill at the neck
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.
The other does that
His hair long and plausive
*******
************ a glitter
He wants to be loved.
I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.
Somebody's done for.
6.2k
I've been ceaselessly sweating since June
And without fail every day around noon
My arm pits are sopping
My ****** are sodden
I feel about ready to swoon
It’s been glorious weather since June
I’m not sure if you’d think it too soon
But top up the icebox
For Pimm’s on the rocks
And celebrate all afternoon
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 4:20 PM UTC
I walked into the cocktail party
room and found three or four queers
talking together in queertalk.
I tried to be friendly but heard
myself talking to one in hiptalk.
"I'm glad to see you," he said, and
looked away. "Hmn," I mused. The room
was small and had a double-decker
bed in it, and cooking apparatus:
icebox, cabinet, toasters, stove;
the hosts seemed to live with room
enough only for cooking and sleeping.
My remark on this score was under-
stood but not appreciated. I was
offered refreshments, which I accepted.
I ate a sandwich of pure meat; an
enormous sandwich of human flesh,
I noticed, while I was chewing on it,
it also included a ***** *******
More company came, including a
fluffy female who looked like
a princess. She glared at me and
said immediately: "I don't like you,"
turned her head away, and refused
to be introduced. I said, "What!"
in outrage. "Why you ********* fool!"
This got everybody's attention.
"Why you narcissistic ***** How
can you decide when you don't even
know me," I continued in a violent
and messianic voice, inspired at
last, dominating the whole room.
4.9k
dear bill,
so sweet of you
to leave behind
a paper jot
for me to find
for ev’ry breakfast
lunch and tea
gone missing since
you married me;
- however -
such wilfulness
I do condemn
each crust and crumb,
each stone and stem,
each potluck plum
purloined at night
to satisfy
your appetite;
this doctor’s wife
has had her fill
of poetry
and bitter pills,
and crumpled drafts
in juicy scrawl
appended to
the icebox door;
your words do not
a meal make
how many more
must I forsake
- meals, that is -
before your page
is fit for press
and I can sup
on more…not less
love, floss
ps dinner’s in the oven, probably
Mar 16, 2022
Mar 16, 2022 at 6:09 PM UTC
*Moth Wings, in the city
Moth Wings, aren't even pretty*
Trying to get far
These wings won't hold me off the ground
Trying to set sail
The ocean storm is knocking you down
It's knocking you down
Steal hearts, at the party
Steal hearts, deny thee
Love is now an icebox filled,
With poison and wines
Platonic memories trying to forget,
Forget all the love that once was,
The trash you once called treasure,
Where hate equals pleasure
*Moth Wings, in the city
Moth Wings, aren't even pretty
Aren't even pretty, Aren't even pretty
Little Moth Wings*
Go now thing about the pretty little things
The innocence that once surrounded love
OH, IT WAS SO OUTSTANDING
Where the beauty lies,
Love is where your truth will die,
Love is where his truth becomes a lie,
She will cry, Oh, she will cry
*Moth Wings, in the city
Well Baby, aren't you so ****
Pretty
Aren't you so ****
Pretty,
Little Moth Wings*
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 2:47 PM UTC
Cold hands,
Cold heart.
Ready to grab,
Never to give.
Icebox soul,
Broken to break.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
while you were singing in the churchyard
i was sleeping in the ***** barn
beside a withered picture of an astronaut
and a long beard filled with street secrets
while you were burning up in sainthood
i was screaming into a melancholy leaf
wearing sweat on my miserable *****
and a liar's grin on my face
while you were murdering your wife
i was milking this dream for all the light
and i thanked god on bended knee
saying you're a turtle dove in an icebox
while you martyred yourself into the ocean
i carried you with me on my road to freedom
like an aligator stomped hard by a mockingbird
or a mermaid shot full of antibirth tablets
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 10:51 PM UTC
Arduous late Winter
woes amplify in February
false hope
We’re all sick
of constrictive clothes
and cold climes conducive to staying in
Cabin fever running rampant
45° t-shirts & sunglasses
everyone driving with their windows down
Hoping Vernal rituals
performed early will
hasten Spring’s arrival
I’m done
fed up
ready to move on
Going crazy in the cold
writhing to get moving unimpeded
by frigidness and snow
I’m ready for Spring
for Summer
for Fall
I’m ready for the scent
of thawing soil in the air
biking in the Sun, verdance, and flowers in bloom
I’m ready for grass between my toes
Fireflies, crickets, peepers
and warm night stars
I’m sick of frost reddened runny raw noses
sick of numb fingers and toes
and having precious few daylight hours
I’m sick of combatting glacial winds with layers,
of treacherous icy apathy,
and dreary bleak boredom
I’m sick of not being able to sit on the ground
sick of long pants, long socks, long sleeves,
and silent stagnant long nights
So, despite the fact
that I’ll pine for January
every day over 90°
Despite the fact
that when mosquitoes swarm
I’ll wish a frost would **** the little ********
and despite the fact
I’ll get just as fed up
with temperate seasons
I still want Spring
and then Summer
and then Fall
But February brings false hope
and despite the lengthening cheery sun
months still stand
between us and t-shirt weather
mild nights, grassy hills,
and emancipation from an inclement icebox atmosphere
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 8:50 AM UTC
you cry like lost toys and dead pets
there's nothing you can do about it right now
you cry like a small animal with a broken spinal chord
you keep whimpering, but it can only heal in time
you cry like pressing the skin of your palms
into the membranes of your eyes
when everything in your head is so cacophonous
you want to rub away all the little things you absorb
want that your hands could throw out this migraine
like a candy wrapper on the sidewalk
and if you believe hard enough that it's gone
you'll never notice the sugar rush or the comedown
so you press your hands to your face
as hard as you can and try to pray like a religious person
but you were raised christian and american and
the ways of believing and hoping and loving that you knew as a child
seem insincere now, and hard to speak
the language is not truthful
everything is what they told you it was not
nothing is what they told you it was
or everything was always what it was
and you or i could've told them that
and you think that wrapper might eventually end up in a landfill
if you go throwing it carelessly around
and sadness taken with too much sugar can be a toxic combination
so maybe making the bad things go away
is harder than throwing away the wrapper and enjoying the rush
maybe the wrapper is somewhere else now you can't get to
where you can't hear it crinkle or see it shrivel,
but you can still relentlessly feel it
getting whittled away by time and weather
while steadily melting down bits of you
as you pass your heart around
gasping inside the icebox
until one day you look up and the sun is a bloodier color
and your lungs are full of ice like pins
freezing inside of you
and when seconds before you had oxygen
as you begin choking, you think it's amazing how long
it seems to have been
since you were alive
your knuckles are dry from holding on
to a rusty ladder wrung
even when you want to move so badly
and there's nowhere to climb
you refuse to jump
and you're still trying to figure out
how to fall correctly
to break the least amount of limbs
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 6:45 PM UTC
I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.
I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain ticks like a bomb.
In your offhand, mocking way
you've invited me into your chest.
Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
I'm supposed to go in with a torch
or maybe hot water bottles
& defrost it by hand
as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
It will shudder & sigh
(the icebox to the insomniac).
Oh there's nothing like love between us.
You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition.
2.8k
I require three pertinent elixir's inside my icebox ! Sweet tea to quench my thirst , cold beer to settle in for the evening and hard liquor to smooth out the past ....
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:40 PM UTC
The Siren song
Sung by the Sea
Sounded so much
Sweeter
Before the boy
Was born.
Truth be told,
I was born that day as well.
We shared our first breaths.
Delicate and enduring atmosphere.
Sweetest, most overlooked element:
OXYGEN
Awoken our lungs
And spread life out
Through our
Fingers,
Toes,
Tears.
(His were louder,
Mine were longer)
We shared more than
rarefied air that day;
Excitement.
Confusion.
Love.
Fear.
Before I knew it
My Scorched sailor’s skin
Sought sanctuary
In
Landlocked love.
You see
The inconvenient, unfortunate, and unavoidable
Fact of humans is,
They like to eat.
And warmth is also nice.
Diapers.
And Kathy next door just got this great icebox and she says she doesn't know how she lived
without it and that in the long run it will actually save her money, what with buying in bulk and not
going to the store so often and leftovers.
So there’s that too.
So I work
Willingly, willfully
With wetness
On Back,
But not behind ears.
And my captain is a good captain,
A true captain.
Our pay is always waiting when and where promised.
Pennies are not pinched when providing rations.
He gave me this job out of the goodness of neighborhood.
But he has no child.
No wife.
Little reason to head to port,
And less to linger long.
I see my boy’s chestnut eyes in my dreams
And they act like the cruelest potion,
Which, when sipped
Leaves the drinker with only more thirst.
But there are dollars here,
And, what other skills do I have?
And, bellies are full.
I try not to complain.
Tonight,
I want the fireplace,
Roaring.
Our boy smiling, laughing
His cheeks having played chameleon
With the scarlet of our flag.
His mother;
Her eyes,
Outshining her hair,
Outshining the sun,
Scroll between our boy and the page,
As she reads his favorite book of tales.
He doesn't understand a word,
But I do.
We share an unnumbered smile.
He likes the pictures.
My mouth has tasted of salt for
64
Long
Days.
The ocean gives,
And the ocean takes away.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
dad is in the garage.
days into spark-light and piles of polyethylene
etched.
soon, he says.
as grandaddy laughs,
rattling the icebox for more beer.
dad’s homemade android:
the thing.
like a doll polished
& grinning, it
dances for us in the kitchen.
the dog barks, chained in the backyard.
the thing,
do-si-dos for a laugh, catches a glimpse
of the trees beyond the yard,
overheats,
circuits popping into a limp heap of pieces.
dead.
left to mold-over in the garage.
the days.
the rain.
the cats tiptoeing along the edge of fences
across the street.
the dog barking, chained, &
snapped.
dead
beneath a truck.
dad is in hysterics.
dad is in the garage,
weeks in and his soaked red knuckles.
mom is drinking with grandaddy.
they rattle the icebox.
the dog.
the dog dances for us in the kitchen,
reboots and sits.
it digs a pit all night and buries three cats there.
it sleeps on the mound.
it never barks.
it waits there in the backyard, still
& staring into the trees.
the trees.
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 7:17 AM UTC
winter has crept from it's cathedral with it's blue loom of white sod
against black crows and over-coats. we awaken in our separate pause
and modify our crumpets with thin icing,
drizzled over moon faced scones -
as golden as your marmoset of port wine
and wrinkled wheels of cheese...
at a moment's notice.
you float through the open window where crescendo the crisp winds and the bacon fats
rendering in the musk of firewood, oaking the nose of the decanted day
the early hearth of heaven, now powder blushed and rustle thrum
with skylarks larking in the luminous icebox
of barely sunrise.
your eyes sparkle and my antlers score the aspen bark
on a lost acre of our thickening plot.
we love a lot.
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 11:22 AM UTC
Arctic Seasoned Disguise
Winter breathes in sepia tones along a lonely two lane street
divided amongst the sweeping frozen dunes
now forced into shouldered amnesty
Street lights shiver in snow capped bonnets
while sidewalks sleep ‘neath blankets of flittering flakes
The air, frigidly crisp…moves of tiny chiffon sparkles dancing
Rooftops, plump and soft, show off their frosted padding
as evergreens find alabaster fingers tickling their branches
in chilled teasings and frozen dustings
Footprints, once there are gone, covered and recovered again
all evidence of life is erased beneath pearl clouded skies
and faint outlines of distant thoughts
White on black stripes drape in glacial wanderings
spanning the slush of asphalt weavings
in straight line piercings across the wintry landscape
February reigns brutal, sub zero ponderings swirl
from high above the icebox wasteland, once brimming with color
now opaque in its arctic seasoned disguise…
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
It's not another blue moon
The wolves are restless
Their savagery grows like
The wicked fire outside my cave
It's almost there and I can
Feel it burning up my toes
My chest still, motionless, remains a frigid icebox
I forgot what purpose heat serves
It's been too cold
Too unforgiving
It's been too many black skies
Frostbite all over my skin
Closer to deaths conniving hand
Enough to graze
Enough to spark fear, touch, blood builds up, squeezing my veins, green vines, curling in and out of their white soil, pulsating, glorious serendipity, the tangibility of
Rest in peace
In pieces
Bony white sharp shards of
Nails
That don't even sever my flesh
No drops of red
Not even to cut the thick air
the clock keeps it's mouth shut
I have no answers
Monotony
In between living and dying
Limbo, flatline, where am I
Louder
Where am I
I hear the wolves howl once more, closer now
The stars shatter
a streak of silver lining
Cosmic brutality
I'm the punch line
Forever hungry
I finally feel their hot breath on the nape of my neck
I close my eyes
Where's my escape?
Stuck
Just
White teeth
Blades
Carnivorous
Famished
Just for one taste of my soft flesh
And god, god I whisper through
the stubborn air
Isn't that all that matters?
The murky cloud of my cry
Turns ghost
Another victim of my past pleas
A furry nuzzle to contrast the ruthless slay that leads me to my final destination
Pink fields, beautiful fidelity, your Golden Gates, on a cloud too far away
Always a little out of reach
I'll wait an eternity
For a god who never picks up his trash
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
My life consist of complex inginueity striving to be original but molding to the harshness of what the world is doing to me. Am i wrong for contemplating my lifes decisions. Because this isnt the way things where suppost to come out in my own depiction on the out come of my life. Maybe its my thoughts that are making me insane since i constanly think all i am is trash but theres a saying one persons trash is another treasure not sure if weather to believe it or not because woman come and go i just dont measure up to the dream guy. Maybe its my icebox heart that lets them see the coldness in my eyes gazing into theres filling false hopes of prosper and love each seem to be lies. Just to watch them break down in tears with no remorse when i see them cry since id rather not catch feelings being to scared to see where true love coulf take me honestly i dont know why. Im screaming in rage from the inside like im traped in a four corner room staring at walls hyperventilating unable to get out im balled up feeling trapped im at a loss. Maybe you the reader cant understand what i mean maybe you can i feel like my life has been a bunch of ups and downs more downs then ups i was just a accidental nut that swam into the womb since my fathers pull out game wasnt fast enough now im stuck with the harsh reality of a cold world that beats me down after i get back up when will enough be enough maybe i need to find love and stop trying to hide the void wheres my diamond in the rough maybe I'm thinking again to much enough is enough
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 9:57 AM UTC
I propose a toast
to a honeycombed crux
charred black
it wanes but it's no moon.
Molasses streaks the sky
disguised as light
it will not calm the alabaster globes
bobbing in the icebox of her gut.
Stolen
she wanders ghostlike and barren
expectant for the cuckoo's cry
consent to come
unhinged.
An overture in reds and golds -
hardly untruth
the hues bury shame:
eggshell-white and stuffed full of monsters.
Take heed
and never trust the oleander
the fox-eyed traitors
of the flower patch.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 12:24 PM UTC
I let these word run from my heart
Paraded by the emotions and tenderness
Thousand and thousands of hurts and pain
Million and millions of love and laughter
I trusted these words to guide my way
Gave them my blood and everthing
Their firmness stood for me when I crawled
Danced with them as they seduced my tongue
I hide in the rhythm and sequence of music
As they permeated my soul, the honesty shield
My voice faded in the unending river of essence
Overtune from a hidden spirit of the yesterday
I believed and these words healed my depths
Sunk in the icebox of caged coldness and loneliness
Memories evading craziness, condensed character
Barricades of conditions and illusionary dissolutions
The keyboard had eyes for me as I winked at it
On its reflection I saw my face, my body, my all
The rotated changes, the persistent difference
A simple kiss, a warm embrace, an extended thanks
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
American restoration....
While watching the program
American Restoration
An icebox was brought in
To restore, into a wine cooler.
A young man who was helping
To restore it, was puzzled.
Where did the ice come from?
There were no cords
We oldies forget that young people
Never had to use an ICEBOX.
This is my memory of
"THE ICEBOX...."
It was an insulated metal box,
Just like the one being restored.
Once a week THE ICEMAN
Came out to our cottage
In a big Insulated Truck.
To deliver a big block of ice.
I was always so excited to see him
Because he would always chip off
A large piece of ice for me.
That was what kids now call
A Popsicle.
The iceman would carry in the block of ice
And put it in the icebox for my mom.
And that ice would keep our
Milk, meat and eggs
Cold for a week....
~~~~~
Let me add that American Restoration
Did a beautiful job
Turning the icebox into a wine cooler...
They added refrigeration,
Shelving, and a cord.
and the ICEBOX it was no more...
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC
These smitten mittens
will forever web
my phalanges
Shove my hands
into an icebox
and I'll need
that temperature
forever
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 1:28 AM UTC
my future feels like
mascara
dripping down my panicked face
quietly imminent
i never forgot the way he laughed at me
that day
7 months ago
and though my switchblade heart
moves forward into what will be
i feel myself retrograde into his closed arms
and although good days seem bright and scintillescent
and the space feels infinite, full of hope
i still feel myself retrograde into who i once was
because doubt is not a skin that is easily shed
i retrograde
because moving forward feels like
constriction
feels like
stepping into an icebox on a winter day
i retrograde because
my mind is so broken that backwards is the only way to
move
on.
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 9:38 PM UTC
"Melting into the floor in the icebox
all the effects are wearing off
The temperatures wrong
I got them double sox"
Mar 3, 2013
Mar 3, 2013 at 11:02 PM UTC
winter has crept from it's cathedral with it's blue loom of white sod
against black crows and over-coats. we awaken in our separate pause
and modify our crumpets with thin icing,
drizzled over moon faced scones -
as golden as your marmoset of port wine
and wrinkled wheels of cheese...
at a moment's notice.
you float through the open window where crescendo the crisp winds and the bacon fats
rendering in the musk of firewood, oaking the nose of the decanted day
the early hearth of heaven, now powder blushed and rustle thrum
with skylarks larking in the luminous icebox
of barely sunrise.
your eyes sparkle and my antlers score the aspen bark
on a lost acre of our thickening plot.
we love a lot.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 2:59 AM UTC