"inventories" poems - Hello Poetry

How many times I lay On that old couch Just through the doorway Where she shuffled from the table to the stove Bringing food to dad, In for supper late, Or moving dishes to the sink While I rested from the day, Just lying there, Unaware of conversations I was soaking in. "I should have sold the winter wheat A week ago. No telling how far down the price will go Now that Russia's stopped our sales." "Pizza, two for seven dollars again; Apples three pounds for a dollar; Bread for seventy-nine." Or heard his offhand orders for next morning: "Fencing's got to be done at Henry's. Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures. Take some salt and mineral along!" Mother seldom spoke, or if she did, She gave correction, Reported pizza inventories, or bread. Asked clarifying questions, But always the creaking oven door Or the running of rinsing water. I awoke this morning at three, Almost a year after my fathers death From a restless dream of lying there. Heard my mother's sounds, My father's voice, Life as once it was, Mundane and wonderful From the couch around the corner of the door: A living memory I would no more expunge Than to remove my own name. In a dream state, Attentive now to sounds Grown too late significant, Too late sweet, Almost too painful now, I lay, Half aware or half awake... Thankful to live a memory so real, Unaware I was transfixed Inside a memory Moving lightning speed Through dreams.... As he was readying to leave, Perhaps to go down to do one last chore, I heard my father's footstep at the door. "Dad, I wanted you to know I love you very much!" I spoke the words, Loudly, so he heard. I heard him clear his throat, Say something about getting back to work. And I awoke, a full day's drive away From that old couch, Itself five miles up the hill From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.

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Jan 18, 2013

Jan 18, 2013 at 6:27 AM UTC

don-bouchard

Three O'Clock Dream

How many times I lay On that old couch Just through the doorway Where she shuffled from the table to the stove Bringing food to dad, In for supper late, Or moving dishes to the sink While I rested from the day, Just lying there, Unaware of conversations I was soaking in. "I should have sold the winter wheat A week ago. No telling how far down the price will go Now that Russia's stopped our sales." "Pizza, two for seven dollars again; Apples three pounds for a dollar; Bread for seventy-nine." Or heard his offhand orders for next morning: "Fencing's got to be done at Henry's. Boys! I need one of you to check the pastures. Take some salt and mineral along!" Mother seldom spoke, or if she did, She gave correction, Reported pizza inventories, or bread. Asked clarifying questions, But always the creaking oven door Or the running of rinsing water. I awoke this morning at three, Almost a year after my fathers death From a restless dream of lying there. Heard my mother's sounds, My father's voice, Life as once it was, Mundane and wonderful From the couch around the corner of the door: A living memory I would no more expunge Than to remove my own name. In a dream state, Attentive now to sounds Grown too late significant, Too late sweet, Almost too painful now, I lay, Half aware or half awake... Thankful to live a memory so real, Unaware I was transfixed Inside a memory Moving lightning speed Through dreams.... As he was readying to leave, Perhaps to go down to do one last chore, I heard my father's footstep at the door. "Dad, I wanted you to know I love you very much!" I spoke the words, Loudly, so he heard. I heard him clear his throat, Say something about getting back to work. And I awoke, a full day's drive away From that old couch, Itself five miles up the hill From the buried urn where his cold ashes lie.

64

soft soliloquies cannot touch me for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere and still deny their shadows from the fog and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed -- stiff joints acost and above, an albatross! roams discreetly through the sky yet all hell's dead wretched through molten lead succumb to false alibi (and fate's caress never questions why) -- your bamboo words and tourniquet hands bear loss of convicted man. and piano strings like forgotten things have cost all the contraband. -- --oh, but sweetly they had fallen the petals which forgot the sun and faces the moon while acrobats form the constellations of the sky and so— so weakly it had passed us by but yet had still seen the sails of clouds adream of every lost sunken shroud ever shining by. -- defeat me, hang a noose from every ceiling --and maybe i'll change my mind or faint like festered wounds trailing down the hallways --and maybe i'll forget the way you made me see it clearer than mirror rooms and moulded like day (your lungs full of clay) breathe me out or sheathe it in complete me, hang an emptied world from every airway to rust all the ventilations to flood all the irrigations and condense into the black hole you left behind. -- words called windows walk on sunday lanes toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins and iced over stairways that have no name or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends or ghouls that catapult just to make amends then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends perhaps even holes called souls can confine and mists like cysts fail to intertwine and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne. —and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.

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Nov 18, 2012

Nov 18, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC

sleuthed

sequestra

soft soliloquies cannot touch me for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere and still deny their shadows from the fog and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed -- stiff joints acost and above, an albatross! roams discreetly through the sky yet all hell's dead wretched through molten lead succumb to false alibi (and fate's caress never questions why) -- your bamboo words and tourniquet hands bear loss of convicted man. and piano strings like forgotten things have cost all the contraband. -- --oh, but sweetly they had fallen the petals which forgot the sun and faces the moon while acrobats form the constellations of the sky and so— so weakly it had passed us by but yet had still seen the sails of clouds adream of every lost sunken shroud ever shining by. -- defeat me, hang a noose from every ceiling --and maybe i'll change my mind or faint like festered wounds trailing down the hallways --and maybe i'll forget the way you made me see it clearer than mirror rooms and moulded like day (your lungs full of clay) breathe me out or sheathe it in complete me, hang an emptied world from every airway to rust all the ventilations to flood all the irrigations and condense into the black hole you left behind. -- words called windows walk on sunday lanes toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins and iced over stairways that have no name or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends or ghouls that catapult just to make amends then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends perhaps even holes called souls can confine and mists like cysts fail to intertwine and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne. —and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.

64

Hard frost and treacherous footing. Nobody wanting to admit that the new year tastes an awful lot like the old year. None of our heroes have been supernaturally resurrected. There's the same rank toxicity to our fears. The jaunty carnival of ****** and maiming continues unabated. Death remains as senseless. The corridors of power are still slippery with slug trails and viscera, and all the janitors have been indefinitely furloughed. It's cold, and the bus is late again. Still we persist in believing that today will be different to yesterday, that all those wrongs will be righted, that the proper order - as we each individually, as thin-skinned gods of our own personal nuclear universes, perceive it - will be perennially restored, the buses will all run on time, and no one good will ever die again. But the truth is, this year tastes an awful lot like the old year. I could be wrong, I guess. Maybe everything will turn out fine.

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Jan 14, 2017

Jan 14, 2017 at 4:25 AM UTC

nico-reznick

Cold Morning Inventories

Hard frost and treacherous footing. Nobody wanting to admit that the new year tastes an awful lot like the old year. None of our heroes have been supernaturally resurrected. There's the same rank toxicity to our fears. The jaunty carnival of ****** and maiming continues unabated. Death remains as senseless. The corridors of power are still slippery with slug trails and viscera, and all the janitors have been indefinitely furloughed. It's cold, and the bus is late again. Still we persist in believing that today will be different to yesterday, that all those wrongs will be righted, that the proper order - as we each individually, as thin-skinned gods of our own personal nuclear universes, perceive it - will be perennially restored, the buses will all run on time, and no one good will ever die again. But the truth is, this year tastes an awful lot like the old year. I could be wrong, I guess. Maybe everything will turn out fine.

36

The Inner most House Outer distain the walls contain The rhythms divine deepest well Outward debris fasten so well The plaintive soul does swell It inventories the coastal tides The pirating the savage overthrow Of purity at its center and seat All betrayed nothing good left to know Abuse at the bases level silent cry Peace was sold it will never be told Only the most forlorn deadly sigh But it only has the voice of the dead Nothing living pays it any mind All the days of life it warned of dread But it was taken as error and was misread The caldron glowed the body was bowed Trouble grew wild without restraint All the value and great truths it avowed Tossed on the trash heap nothing left to do but weep You killed the guardian placed to give life its greatest good You wonder lifeless all that is filled with disgust does seep Now you eat from a poisonous bin filled to the brim Turn here there nowhere is there rest How long will you plod the ghostly waste? Turn back confess I lost all that was best Out ward tears will restore all that was royal and chaste

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Nov 17, 2011

Nov 17, 2011 at 5:26 AM UTC

hal-loyd-denton

The Inner most House

The Inner most House Outer distain the walls contain The rhythms divine deepest well Outward debris fasten so well The plaintive soul does swell It inventories the coastal tides The pirating the savage overthrow Of purity at its center and seat All betrayed nothing good left to know Abuse at the bases level silent cry Peace was sold it will never be told Only the most forlorn deadly sigh But it only has the voice of the dead Nothing living pays it any mind All the days of life it warned of dread But it was taken as error and was misread The caldron glowed the body was bowed Trouble grew wild without restraint All the value and great truths it avowed Tossed on the trash heap nothing left to do but weep You killed the guardian placed to give life its greatest good You wonder lifeless all that is filled with disgust does seep Now you eat from a poisonous bin filled to the brim Turn here there nowhere is there rest How long will you plod the ghostly waste? Turn back confess I lost all that was best Out ward tears will restore all that was royal and chaste

27

I have never liked fictional stories Their fake and illogical inventories The possibility of stories never turning into reality Despite the temporary moments of glee Eating up children's wild imagination it lives The pointless hope it gives I have never liked fictional stories

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Jan 12, 2019

Jan 12, 2019 at 9:47 AM UTC

Fireflies

Fiction

I have never liked fictional stories Their fake and illogical inventories The possibility of stories never turning into reality Despite the temporary moments of glee Eating up children's wild imagination it lives The pointless hope it gives I have never liked fictional stories

7

For though we might,  We cannot fight the wind;  Try as we may,  The mist eludes our grasp;  Shadows defy our clutches,  Rainclouds form,  The sun and moon rise and set  Despite our will;  Controlling nothing,  Still we do not see,  And frame our lives with an order  That is illusion,  Timetables and inventories  Of ignorance;  Labels and times and convenience  We set in stone that crumbles  Like sand before the winds  Of Impermanence;  Change is the symphony,  And fluid the score  Of this dharmakayic waltz,  And though we dance  We fancy ourselves but  Onlookers to the show;  That when the crashing finale  Resounds -- as it must --  We stop our ears and wail;  Not seeing, deaf to the choir  That has but turned the page  To sing a new song;  Our own melody ended,  We fade only to be played anew  From the string of another bow;  The song goes on, rising, falling,  And Bliss is the one  Who follows as the Piper leads  With Namu Amida Butsu.

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May 27, 2019

May 27, 2019 at 2:38 PM UTC

Kobu1971

Nembutsu Piper

For though we might,  We cannot fight the wind;  Try as we may,  The mist eludes our grasp;  Shadows defy our clutches,  Rainclouds form,  The sun and moon rise and set  Despite our will;  Controlling nothing,  Still we do not see,  And frame our lives with an order  That is illusion,  Timetables and inventories  Of ignorance;  Labels and times and convenience  We set in stone that crumbles  Like sand before the winds  Of Impermanence;  Change is the symphony,  And fluid the score  Of this dharmakayic waltz,  And though we dance  We fancy ourselves but  Onlookers to the show;  That when the crashing finale  Resounds -- as it must --  We stop our ears and wail;  Not seeing, deaf to the choir  That has but turned the page  To sing a new song;  Our own melody ended,  We fade only to be played anew  From the string of another bow;  The song goes on, rising, falling,  And Bliss is the one  Who follows as the Piper leads  With Namu Amida Butsu.

37

Dear Betrayal You’ve always been near You limited loving Intimidator... You lured me in Your deceitful web Moths of time Dried up dread I don’t take it personally The action of wrong I never assumed You meant to stay long The waters shall wash And so soon we shall see The truths that uphold Our inventories Dear Betrayal I forgive you I wish you the best And so I shall sleep on Straight through your mess!

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May 11, 2021

May 11, 2021 at 7:25 AM UTC

TravelerTim

Betrayal

Dear Betrayal You’ve always been near You limited loving Intimidator... You lured me in Your deceitful web Moths of time Dried up dread I don’t take it personally The action of wrong I never assumed You meant to stay long The waters shall wash And so soon we shall see The truths that uphold Our inventories Dear Betrayal I forgive you I wish you the best And so I shall sleep on Straight through your mess!

21