"kitchens" poems
awakened by the
offsprings cry,
baby powdered
morning dew
showers the room,
coffee stained smiles
shine about
cheerio blanketed
kitchens,
so worrisome
for office tardiness,
the carseat won't lock
into place,
tire marks on
fresh paved driveways,
to daycare tears dry not
she's on time,
fatigued she plants
her seed to the office seat
to grow even less
awaiting to see the smile
of her child and say
her prayers before
falling asleep
-
awaked by the
offsprings cry,
gun powered
morning dew
showeres the village,
rotted teeth smile
amongst the
body-blanketed township,
so worrisome of finding
a slain mother
sister
brother
just like father,
the gun won't lock
into place,
they never will,
tattered couches
paved with the
***** of
slaughtered buildings,
mother's dead
tears dry not,
fatigued,
hands of
grungy drainpipes
plant beside,
holding stagnant
a somber sibling,
tremors ripple
crimson tides,
planted to
grow even less
awaiting to see
the smile of
his mother
his father
his sister
and say his prayers
with brother
before laying down
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 8:29 PM UTC
zelle ma belle
(zelle is an interbank system for sending cash in an instant to someone else’s bank account)
sent her an unexpected $250,
at 4:00am, of course,
a check-plus for her life,
because she revel reviews her day at school,
as special person day, teaches them well, and
anointed, appointed unsolicited confirmation by them
“as part of our family”
how they crave her body, her touch, at scary movie parts,
her kitchens diner size menu,
her refusal to ever disappoint,
her candy drawer supreme,
her crayon color visions which they execute,
her zen sense of their moods,
and for me,
for calling them without hesitation
my grandchildren
indeed more here hers than mine
she asks me why the $$ and poet doesn’t lie
but thinks quick at 7:30 am while bed prone,
“you won Nana of the Day award”
the only (grandparent) on the floor with two kids in her lap,
for the magic show,
all the rest,
benched, chattingly adultry things
she thinks on it and says
“ok, I accept!”
p.s. also, I have yet to inform her of the (my) elimination of a
crystal champagne flute while doing my manly cleanup from Friday night lights dinner pink champagne celebrating
le weekend’s arrival
olp
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 8:33 AM UTC
All that lead in their bones
Smoke lingering blood
They placed masks on their graves
Unmarked in kitchens
And fields of grain
Washed out and bitterly red
Against a blue white skin
Liberty fell with her rifle
Pointed at her own knees
Crown set a gutter for soldiers to cower and puke in their false beliefs
The only absolute in this ******* war is death
You freedom ******* hypocrites
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:06 AM UTC
Tall girls are beautiful, I see the poster say,
looking down to myself I feel my feelings turn grey.
Tall girls are perfect, I feel my soul pour out into my mind,
as I awake to see I am the same height as days before this one.
Tall girls are fair, loving as well as a lot more cute,
much more appealing for him, a fair or perfect height for a kiss.
But short girls can never reach their favourite snacks,
we have to pull up a chair and climb the sides of our kitchens.
Short girls have to tippy toe,
just to kiss him on the lips in the right way he wants.
Short girls can't look down on those who they love, only up,
which leads us to remind ourselves we always remain “small”.
Tall girls can stroll by and scare a small girl like me,
because we fear you might just realize, that tall girl is who we want to be.
You might hang up your coat and walk out on me...
Still I try my hardest to be proud of myself,
for short girls are beautiful inside and out.
Height should not determine emotional connection,
so please, like all those years don't judge me just as badly as I did.
For you see, Tall girls are beautiful.
But short girls, are just as beautiful too.
Feb 9, 2016
Feb 9, 2016 at 9:32 PM UTC
I search for some decor
to pretty up my house
A headboard, some dead boards
or maybe a couch?
The said so to do it
on public TV
my kitchens not pretty
as pretty as can be
But what will the neighbors
think of my design?
they'll report to the magazine
that it's beautiful and sublime!
Some ship lap, some sconces
all wrapped in a bow
i will trend till tomorrow
then die all alone
Rip it all down
Says Chip and Joanna
They are more popular
Than Hanna Montanna
They live on a ranch
an take millions to make
a spectacular suprise
for a couple to take
We all laugh an cheer
at Chip's child like antics
Which makes great TV
as Joanna gets Frantic!
Do Chip and Joanna really
care about you?
As long as the station
gets ten million views
They tell us to fix it
even though it's not broken
go shop till you drop
and spend every token
Buy that cool sign
made from cheap yellow plastic
The richer get richer
but, our wall looks fantastic!
Do not give in
to the big corporate greed
there are sick, hungry people
and starving mouths to feed
so every cent spent
on the corporate wealth
helps the richer get richer
and we go to stealth
Wake up and see vanity
is causing distress
don't give in to pressure
of this corporate mess!
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 10:44 PM UTC
Like a meme of activism
This women's coalition
Mothers
Sister
Friends
Pioneers and heroines
There's courage in their convictions
A guild of collectivism
They hold luncheons in their kitchens
Talk of abolition
Mysticism
Feminism
Of heroes and magnetism
Seduction
Love
Eroticism
They scream like banshees at a crucifixion
About injustice
Dereliction
Terrorism
A tradition underwritten
With symbolism
Drums
Violins
Musicians
They may be sitting
They may be knitting
Baking muffins
Folding linen
Running errands
Stuffing chickens
A juxtaposition to their ambition
Of inspiring the unwilling
Turning derision to optimism
Their fire and brimstone
Will have history rewritten
Freedom of reproduction
Liberalism
Animism
They have wisdom
Intuition
Rhythm
They are fearsome
This women's coalition
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 4:07 PM UTC
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the *****
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.
5.9k
December, 1870
After the beef was gone,
after the pork and the lamb,
and the fowl and the fish
and the dogs, and the cats,
and the rats in the gutter,
the butchers turned to the zoo.
We ate the wolves.
We ate the wolves
broiled in sauce of deer,
the antelope truffled and terrined.
We ate the camels
with breadcrumbs and butter,
and when they were all gone,
we sharpened our knives
and primed our guns
and came back for the elephants.
The gunsmith Devisme did the deed,
hurled an explosive ball
through each of their docile heads.
They fell like mountains,
like the pillars of Dagon
pulled down by mighty Samson,
and then we hacked them up
and carted them away to the kitchens,
to feed the wealthy and the rich
in the clubs of bright Paris.
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
Earth is my bedroom and toilet;
an empty cup, my self employment
Days of empty stomach churning,
a forced sermon at "Sunday Breakfast"
Fast-food places are my kitchens;
Shelters,my free hotels and free meals
Police are my nemesis;
human rights, a foreign fantasy
Jail cells are my places for philosophical,
contemplated thought
Filth is my every day attire;
alertness, my only protection
Weather is my lover or enemy;
cold empty stares, my other human contacts
Loneliness is my constant companion
New horizons are never sought
by this man-of-no-land
,
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 4:19 PM UTC
America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights
of Peru with its yellow tassels.
But, poet, let
history rest in its shroud;
praise with your lyre
the grain in its granaries:
sing to the simple maize in the kitchen.
First, a fine beard
fluttered in the field
above the tender teeth
of the young ear.
Then the husks parted
and fruitfulness burst its veils
of pale papyrus
that grains of laughter
might fall upon the earth.
To the stone,
in your journey,
you returned.
Not to the terrible stone,
the ******
triangle of Mexican death,
but to the grinding stone,
sacred
stone of your kitchens.
There, milk and matter,
strength-giving, nutritious
cornmeal pulp,
you were worked and patted
by the wondrous hands
of dark-skinned women.
Wherever you fall, maize,
whether into the
splendid *** of partridge, or among
country beans, you light up
the meal and lend it
your virginal flavor.
Oh, to bite into
the steaming ear beside the sea
of distant song and deepest waltz.
To boil you
as your aroma
spreads through
blue sierras.
But is there
no end
to your treasure?
In chalky, barren lands
bordered
by the sea, along
the rocky Chilean coast,
at times
only your radiance
reaches the empty
table of the miner.
Your light, your cornmeal, your hope
pervades America's solitudes,
and to hunger
your lances
are enemy legions.
Within your husks,
like gentle kernels,
our sober provincial
children's hearts were nurtured,
until life began
to shuck us from the ear.
5.1k
Absence of imagination,
the End of independent thought.
Cities reek of corruption, ******
and the greatest of sins.
They raise and **** in
by the millions
yet onlysome men
seem to win.
Glorious eyes
of curve-free posters
used as wallpaper
for the cleanest streets.
Looking up
to their Father
all good citizens
try to weep
the plain and empty tears
the Party demands
them sheep.
Maybe it will soon end,
but I'm never able to trust us men;
maybe weeks will tell,
but I still can't seem to hear a bell
Inside the people's empty homes,
Fathers, sons left alone.
Big Brother dominates,
he commands,
a billion voices
in one hand.
Behind the money lies the pain,
into fields fall the rain.
With empty pockets
walk the road
a thousand stories
left untold.
Blood can be found on every street,
death and life here meet.
Maybe it'll someday end,
but I'm never able to trust us men,
maybe years will tell;
but I still can't seem to hear a bell.
A hungry stomach calls for meat,
rotting, green, foul or sweet.
Rank food from the kitchens,
will be served,
millions of peoples
have reserved.
Between the alleys at the mass
the cross’s shadow isn't cast.
Those booklets burn easy,
use them well,
let vain ideas
fry in hell.
Maybe it's will oneday end,
but I'm never able trust us men.
maybe our grandhildren
shall one day know,
Their grandeparents wept
but did not
sow.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 5:24 PM UTC
We are surrounded by shatter broken beer bottles, wine coolers gone to waste.
We've gone to war inside our own heads, pulling ourselves into corners and kitchens and couch cushions where all I can think is how pretty you look tonight
I can feel my heart beat to the technicolor rhythm of your butterfly gas leak eyes
"This music hurts my heart I want to leave now" is what you whisper to me under dropped basses and stepped dubs
"I know" is what I whisper back alongside the same sad forget-your-worries rhythm
So we leave, floating over alcohol puff swollen bodies left behind by unreliable boy-girlfriends sick of cleaning ***** out of the back of their pickup trucks
And we roll our sickly drunken souls to the Mcdonalds where they give you coffee to get rid of wasted smashed faces if you're underage and alcohol-laced
we sober up over cold coffee and scalding fries
We sober up,
But I get drunk on your candy stained mouth as you pour out lies you've never told anyone before
I want to let you know all my favourites, all my secrets, all my everythings
But I don't.
And after that pretty pretty night
where we sobered up
but I got drunk on you
The only time I see you
Is past someone else's head
As I smash my drunken lips to theirs.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 9:32 PM UTC
seedy motels crowded with undesirables
shooting up
smoking ****
toothless ******** for a fix
welcome to America
home of the brave
and the crack den
what a beautiful country ours is
majestic purple mountains
slick black tar ******
amber waves of grain
skid row and soup kitchens
the struggle to survive
we fight to stay alive
land of the free
but free has hidden fees
free love?
Aids'll stop ya
free health care?
Get out you ****** *******
free speech?
Only if you don't mind mace
Here the dom in freedom means **********
********** of the free
we go through it all like marionettes
glassy eyed and blank faces
our strings pulled by wealthy men
we become older and older until death
and don't forget the debt
that will be your children's problem
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 4:00 AM UTC
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
3.6k
I'd never cared for flowers
Symbols of affection that wilt
And forget memories
And fall apart in kitchens and bedrooms and strew their pieces on the floors
Dried and broken after only days of being lovely
Flowers with their alternating patterns of
Unreliable determinations
Claiming every other petal as an opposite declaration
Of a determination
Of love
And I never liked removing thorns from roses
Because they added something truthful and
Poetic
But when you gave me flowers
I held them to my heart and let my eyes dance across the kaleidoscope that they created in a glass vase
I let them live for longer than they did
Because they were still pretty even when no one else seemed to think so
And when they hang dried on a wall
Still colorful but slightly brittle
Maybe they'll stay like that if I just don't touch them
When you gave me flowers
I plucked off every other petal
Into a bouquet of He-Loves-Me
Because for once there was no doubt
For once I believed the sentiment in the flowers and the words from your lips as you handed them over
The lack of nots in the petals
Pulling apart the knots in my stomach
He loves me
He loves me
Truer than the dirt that holds
Wilting symbols of affection
Sweeter than the honey
Of their pollinators
He loves me
He loves me
A garden of something new and beautiful
Perennial and built on symbolism after all
Until you let me know that dead flowers were just dead flowers
That they were past their worth
And metaphors aren't worth the dirt they were grown in
That perennials can't return
When you've salted the soil
And brittle flowers on the wall should always be removed
But I always lived in metaphors anyway
And I had a new appreciation for flowers that I didn't want to lose
I was no longer a rose
But a thorn
I always thought smooth stems were so boring
Not to mention dishonest
But I didn't want to make you bleed
So painfully I dug an olive branch from my rib cage
Then realizing that a ****** token may not be so well received
I decorated it with a bouquet of blue Forget-Me-Nots
But you plucked off every other petal
And handed back an array of He-Loves-Me-Nots
He loves me not
And there was no doubt in the sentiment
The sentience of metaphors dying all around me
When all I know is metaphors
And flowers were never just flowers
And words were never just words
But both are found on gravestones and poems and apologies
And parallels have fallen into nice and even spacing
Reducing flowers to clichés
Of alternating promises
Of He loves me and
He loves me not
Of broken promises
He loves me
Not
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 6:04 PM UTC
An outcast,
A creature we despise,
It looks so small and tiny,
And has gimlet eyes,
It stalks the drains and kitchens,
And scavenges in the night,
And climbs upon our plates of food,
Such an unwelcome sight.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 5:55 AM UTC
My mother used to bake cookies with me when I was young
Intricate designs of colored icing that varied with the seasons.
They were always perfect and looked far to good to suffer the crime of eating.
For half a century I always baked cookies for the holidays
Whilst my children grew tall and independent with no apparent
Interest in baking
As the pale blue winter light falls into my kitchens I see myself
Cutting shapes and painting colors a silhouette on the shadows of the wall.
Placing the last cookie into a Christmas scene can I
Arive at the hospital and sit next to her in the ICU
I see her frailness the alarm in her eyes as she recognises me
But is yet unable to enunciate her thoughts.
Silence as loud as thunder fills the room the seams of the walls are stretched to their limits.
The outer limits beep of the monitor acknowleging her heartbeats
Counting down each one until the last.
I miss our intimacy in that long ago kitchen
And the random thought enters my mind
I am her only child and she is my only mother.
The monitor rings an alarm a code blue
Signalling the end of her like the end of a football match.
I feel the loss of her like a razor blade cutting my flesh.
And as I leave her for the last time
There seems to be a a mortality in the measured unknown days ahead and the cans of cookies yet to be baked.
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 2:04 PM UTC
earth boy.
air conditioned and living.
/or
following the light of something far from home.
begin:
old town and lovely she.
loved she.
love she like there is no other she.
the one and only she.
she dumps him.
finds a new he.
has *** with the new he in a far corner apartment complex peak
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles;
like screeching howls of love spit and **** city
at midnight.
he buries his hopes and face in pie
at the café
volta.
new her,
wiping the counter calm yet tired yet cute and soon to close shop.
she tells him -
about the keys of lost lovers.
the doors to remain open for the sake of dreams and all possibility.
she tells him -
of the pies at the end of the night.
the cheesecake and the apple pie
/entirely gone.
the peach cobbler and the chocolate mousse
/almost gone.
but the blueberry pie, always
/untouched.
he’ll have that.
some sort of broken in the heart have that/love that/eat that/pie.
they talk for hours.
he rests his head on the counter and sleeps
icecream on his lips.
she almost kisses him right there.
and she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s in memphis
/or
some other southern city.
he's on somekind of journey.
he works kitchens for more money to motion further west.
westward sweat and burgers. see/saw.
little money, little love, little city
and onto the next.
she remembers him.
attempts to call him while he’s deeper into the glowing desert dome
/or vegas.
/or, you see the stars above?
she writes him letters.
and he writes her back, and in return, they fall
toward a thought, a light, a lit-up little idea of life full
on good something.
return.
to new york and old scents. old town.
corner apartment complex peak window and memories of a once-was
girl.
beyond the tracks. train.
troubles no more.
return/
to pie.
to café and concept
of sweet-tooth, sweet real something, sweet blueberry nights
and icecream.
and there she is.
with warmer winter/spring smiles than even dreamt.
and her words for hours.
she almost kisses him, but kisses him.
something perpetual
is love.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 9:48 AM UTC
Keen little neons
playfully jump around, colliding with her mind
and she sits there, legs crossed, her ***** aroused,
but it gets doused as the Wall Street pinstripe type walks by
she utters a sigh, looks at the sky, the ending's nigh, and it's night.
Skyline looks pretty
beams and lighted apartment block kitchens and real pop-up ads,
them keen little neons,
her eyes flicker like those hanging lights in horror films,
perpetuate fear, the skeletons are in the clear.
I told you, you schmuck, the end is near.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 3:28 AM UTC
Put on a clean shirt
before you die, some Russian said.
Nothing with drool, please,
no egg spots, no blood,
no sweat, no *****
You want me clean, God,
so I'll try to comply.
The hat I was married in,
will it do?
White, broad, fake flowers in a tiny array.
It's old-fashioned, as stylish as a bedbug,
but is suits to die in something nostalgic.
And I'll take
my painting shirt
washed over and over of course
spotted with every yellow kitchen I've painted.
God, you don't mind if I bring all my kitchens?
They hold the family laughter and the soup.
For a bra
(need we mention it?),
the padded black one that my lover demeaned
when I took it off.
He said, "Where'd it all go?"
And I'll take
the maternity skirt of my ninth month,
a window for the love-belly
that let each baby pop out like and apple,
the water breaking in the restaurant,
making a noisy house I'd like to die in.
For underpants I'll pick white cotton,
the briefs of my childhood,
for it was my mother's dictum
that nice girls wore only white cotton.
If my mother had lived to see it
she would have put a WANTED sign up in the post office
for the black, the red, the blue I've worn.
Still, it would be perfectly fine with me
to die like a nice girl
smelling of Clorox and Duz.
Being sixteen-in-the-pants
I would die full of questions.
2.9k
I am not your sunrise lover.
I am 10pm
after a hard days labor.
Dinners cooked and kitchens cleaned.
Lazy hands trace
limp bodies.
Breath softens and bodies roll.
But I am not your sunrise lover
I am midnight moon
high in the sky
eyes thrown back and
thighs open wide.
Sweat drips
breath thick
blood rushing in our lips
body quivers
spirits moan
But I am not your sunrise lover
I am 2am
secrets whispered through
heavy voices and drooping eyes
true selves revealed
under the cloak of night.
Bodies held close
-which is yours?
-which is mine?
It doesn't really matter
I'll be gone before dawn
Because I am not your sunrise lover...
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 2:46 PM UTC
I stand in the kitchen
not really present
talking about baking potatoes
with my husband.
For a second
the girl who baked potatoes
in so many other people's kitchens
looks out of these woman's eyes
awed at the fact
that she can bake potatoes
in her own kitchen.
In that instant the woman
receives as a gift
the incredible pleasure
of baking potatoes
in her own kitchen,
and is grateful.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 4:01 PM UTC
Neon Stella Artois lights and sly hellos
It commenced as we were flew spinning
Ticket stubs and ink -stains
Oh, as our love flirted we both were seeking
Brooklyn Subway stops and ***** clothes
We perched by the equator but only when beginning
Backwards flasks and *******
Then winter solstice was challenged by spring’s springing
Strands of soft pearls and wishing wells
We shivered the anxious touch of a faux July summer’s evening
Empty bar stools and firelight
It was still bitterly February but with the mockery of songbirds floating
Two Thirty Seven A.M. and sea shells
How can the world deceive us in this fashion: fools, we accept ever-knowing
Buttered bread and hindsight
Dawn will crash with frostbite and these daisies will pay the price of their beauty’s sinning
Wine before noon and payphone bills
Wind will eviscerate this moment for once you have touched the sun the ice is more than suffocating
Dry heaving and ribbons
We were only waiting then at the heart of a train station for the stretches of shadows to lengthen
First drags of cigarettes and blue diet pills
The glitter within the dew drops stolen from our tired eyes when our first summer was stolen
Cheap motels and kitchens
We could barely exchange syllables, our melodies quarreling, our blood had thinned
Calendar pages and black lace *******
The euthanasia of the spring would have hung us too if we had breathed it in
The Last calls and lollipops
One can repose more gently in the absence of color than in the theft of sin
Bitten manicured hands and autumn leaves
We used to sleep in a room with wonders, windows, and blankets within
Midnight whispers and rooftops
It was the only place that could soften the swords in all this ruin
****** wrappers and painting supplies
Today is cruel, it cannot be summer if the world doesn’t spin
Happy hour cocktails and goodbyes
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC