"lampshade" poems
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
26k
I asked my mother for a glass kaleidoscope,
but instead she handed me three shots of wine
and a field guide to running galactic bases,
which I guess is her way of selling dreams
at low prices. I have yet to understand a coffee shop's symmetry,
so I embrace the scrupulous company of a dragon-riding-a-butterfly.
One spin around the Milky Way leaves the butterfly
with holey wings and the dragon vomiting in my make-shift kaleidoscope.
The apple tree in the corner of the living room ruins the symmetry
of the space and I have to chug another glass of wine
to make up for the peach tree I couldn't dream
about and another wrong note sung by the basses.
The song's in too low of a key, which is the basis
behind the evil chinchilla's plan to mass-produce butterfly
farms as part of a larger goal to pillage the dreams
of dreamers. Luckily, we all have a handy-dandy kaleidoscope
and a bag (or two) of bitter-tasting wine
stolen from their boxes -- too much symmetry.
My brother put a block on local news; the symmetry
of our county's border was too much for me to bear. He bases
his action (when mother asks) on the wine
he didn't drink, so I throw the broken butterfly
out the window where it lands on my nephew's spinning kaleidoscope.
He doesn't know it yet, but that drum he's banging will envelop his dreams.
A hike to the top of the cliff (a leap) re-energizes my dreams
and I still can't relate to the maple leaves and their symmetry,
but at least I can look through a lampshade at the kaleidoscope
of trees dancing below me. There are seven thousand bases
yet to run and they still haven't caught the butterfly,
so a boy yells, "Drink!" and I take another sip of wine.
The dragon and chinchilla are tipsy from the wine
at this point and discuss the difference between dreams
and electricity while my mother sautés the butterfly
in ice cream and abstract ideas. The symmetry
of my right ankle is still a bother, so I tell the basses
to sing a quarter tone flat while I collide a scope.
Off goes dragon-with-butterfly (once again) and I finish the wine.
I make my nephew a chinchilla-skin kaleidoscope and rinse the rocks stained with dreams.
My mother comments on the apple tree's symmetry while the trees below keep running bases.
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 9:27 AM UTC
The light beyond the windowpane reads like the lines of a poem
And the headlights crash into streams on their way home
The lampshade brushes your arm and crushes you like a stone
You're still there but over here you're all alone
The streets are all black or maybe it's just the night
The day was long but now it's time to make it right
But when your memories are wrong and blurred out of sight,
Do you really have the strength to put up a fight?
You light your cigarette and close one, ****** eye
"Don't bat a lash" says the woman who last made you cry
And she follows you down to the depths of your mind
She complicates your soul and then she just hurries by
Somewhere down the alley, towards the church bells of dawn
You hear a voice that slowly carries on
Like a lost whippoorwill still whispering its song
A feeling comes over you and you wonder why you waited so long
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 4:09 AM UTC
I can make anybody pretty
I can make you believe any lie
I can make you pick a fight
With somebody twice your size
I been known to cause a few break ups
I been known to cause a few births
I can make you new friends
Or get you fired from Work
And since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynchburg and Bordeaux France
Been making the bars lots of big money
And helping white people dance
I got you in trouble in high school
But college, now that was a ball
You had some of the best times
You'll never remember with me
Alcohol
Alcohol
I got blamed at your wedding reception
For your best man's embarrassing speech
And also for those
Naked pictures of you at the beach
I've influenced kings and world leaders
I helped Hemmingway write like he did
And I'll bet you a drink or two that I can make you
Put that lampshade on your head
'Cause since the day I left Milwaukee
Lynchburg and Bordeaux France
Been making a fool out of folks just like you
And helping white people dance
I'm medicine and I am poison
I can help you up or make you fall
You had some of the best times
You'll never remember with me
Alcohol
Alcohol
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 3:41 AM UTC
a penny is a penny
and i am a monk hawking birth control pills
without any shame or pride
disguised in flamboyant tinfoil.
i am an extra sensitive *** on my daily street corner
turning into a crumb of hunger
staring down a long alleyway and eating the flowers
that grew up in concrete.
there are shadows of jugglers on the wall
jumping into the sun, and i am a burning lampshade.
henry miller is in a wheelchair now
and i am a walrus with a backache
being forced among the proverb writers,
but i'm no prophet because i've seen the bubbling fire
and the swords on the doorway.
i am a lover with a guilty conscience
and i have too much on my mind.
i stole the bread from the riot squad and
i blow out these words from a keyhole,
pounding my fist on a book
while the mystics get drunk with skinny ******
i don't go to birthday parties or funerals
instead i'd like to do something worthwhile
but i am your typical flunky, writing eccentric jokes about rich pimps
while my father lies dead on the hill.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 8:59 AM UTC
Nima showed me
her aunt's apartment
in London. Posh place,
up market. She had
her own key to get in,
and once we entered,
she closed the door
behind us and leaned
against it like one having
found the Promised Land.
So what do you think?
She asked. Lovely place.
Does she live here alone?
No, she has a daughter;
moody ***** has her
own crowd, sort of in-lot.
We wandered around,
room to room and stood
at last in the kitchen.
Coffee? Tea? She asked.
Tea, please, two sugars,
little milk, I replied.
Take a seat in the lounge,
I'll bring it through.
I went in the lounge;
posh place, a settee
of white soft material,
chairs brown, aged,
but antique and fragile
looking. There were
paintings on the walls,
water colours, rural,
country scenes, horses,
fox hunts, red coated
hunters, hedges, trees.
There was a large table,
armchairs, lovely carpet,
and a lampshade in one
corner. Nima came in
carrying a tray with two
cups in saucers, spoons,
sugar bowl, jug of milk.
She put it down on a small
coffee table by the settee.
She sat down next to me
and kissed my cheek.
At last,she said, just us,
alone, no nosey parkers,
no nurses or medical
quacks to interfere or
spoil our fun or lives.
I sat gazing around
the room. You been
here before? Of course,
as a child I often came
and stayed if my parents
were too busy with their
careers or away on the
matters medical. I smelt
her perfume, sensed her
thigh touch mine, soft,
moving against mine.
Why were you sectioned?
I asked, looking at her.
Drugs and a sudden mental
breakdown and attempts
on my life by me, she said.
I see, I said, studying her
closer, each aspect of her
features. Forget that, she
said, lets drink up our drinks
and get to bed and have ***
Whose bed? The spare, not
Aunt's, she said, smiling.
Is it a single or double bed?
Double with silk sheets, so
watch out you don't slip out
of bed while having it away.
We drank our drinks quickly,
then she showed me the bath
and the toilet and the bedroom.
What if your aunt returns?
She's in Ireland with her moody
daughter, won't be back until
Monday week, Nima said.
First a bath together, then
hot ***** *** in bed, she said.
Nov 29, 2015
Nov 29, 2015 at 2:21 AM UTC
a memory
yes
but after
yes
atomic foreskins
pink and fresh
yes
but no
no dream rocoque
no krupp haloes
no religious artifacts
made of lampshade skin
beneath
a million kilowatt moon
no anticipating geometry
the smell of soap
nor calling into question
human sexuality
without flesh
nor the vibration of blood
that angry lobe
hammering overhead
that echo bite
again
and again
clenched
no teeth
no Hiroshima
no again again
black graveyard womb
milk-glass lit
bandaged echo
**** him **** them
familiar bell music
**** them all (with)
2.9k
I’ve never seen his skin,
But I’ve traced the curve of his ribs
Drawing star maps on his anatomy
I’ve witnessed the blade of his hip
Scratched his spine
And run fingertips across his collar
And last night I couldn’t sleep
Watching a set of fragile wings smaller than my pinkie nail
Circle the glow of my lamp, transfixed
After bobbing in and out of the lampshade,
It sputtered and fell onto my bedside table
Moths never know light is lethal
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 12:30 PM UTC
1. Sit down and cry. Cry until you have no more tears and don’t even remember the reason for your sadness. Realize that nothing, not even misery, is permanent.
2. Close your eyes and imagine your dream home. Don’t skimp on anything, not even the tiniest details like the doorknob or the lampshade pattern. Keep it always so that whenever you are somewhere heartless and cruel, you have a retreat.
3. Discover a song you love. Listen to it as loud as possible, listen to it as softly as possible. Listen to it backwards, forewords, sideways, and upside down. Extract from it all the truth and magic you can until you’re sick of it. Repeat.
4. Try and realize who your real friends are. Not the ones who will smile at your jokes and laugh at their own, but the ones who will walk with you even in the darkest of nights and never have to reassure you that they’re there.
5. Cut your hair. Cut it as short as you can without making your mother cry. Recognize that when someone says they don’t like it, what they’re really saying is that your appearance is for their pleasure. Know that it is not.
6. Choose a day just to watch. Watch the wind whispering to the trees, the grass reaching for the sky, the clouds hanging on by a thread. Make eye-contact with the moon and see that everything is watching you back. They’re rooting for you.
7. Learn how to make your favorite food. Learn how to make it exactly like your mother does. And every time you taste those familiar flavors, know that home is wherever you are.
8. Draw yourself. Don’t look in a mirror while you do this, draw yourself as you truly think you are. When you’re finished, take a photo of yourself. Compare the two. Realize that how you perceive you and how the world sees you will always be different.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 6:42 PM UTC
It happened when I left home,
that I came across this fact;
Summer was murdered
and I didn’t care.
Like the never ceasing ticks of a cheap watch,
merciless protesting, and I play the conservative
atop a mountain of **** [I can’t save anything].
I left home a loser and came back a martyr.
I am vulgarity and purity in the same essence.
I bleed and I congeal. I am the prodigal son
with bleeding extremities and a worn mind.
I’ve seen so very much.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 6:18 PM UTC
white wisps
of bird
linger leisurely
before me,
until they're shot
by the fan
out the window.
there is no curtain rod
but a pillow case
thumbtacked
in place.
the window opens upwards,
held ajar by a jar
of dehydrated
algae.
we spin around the center
and the center spins back.
everything
revolving
round
everything.
another bird is born
and floats gingerly
around with
newborn
curiosity,
riding
the fan wind
round the world.
if an egg hatches
under a lampshade
a volcano is born.
Apr 12, 2010
Apr 12, 2010 at 5:18 AM UTC
You convinced me that only lies flow from your lips
So I stayed my distance
Always hoping to run right back to you,
Once my bruises healed
But always knowing
Blood would also be at the surface of those cuts
You are nothing but a lampshade,
Protecting the hot light that burns inside of me
That would shine brighter if not for you
Believing your lies was expensive,
But no more than staying
And I pay the price each lonely morning
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 5:21 PM UTC
Killed a moth on principle last night
I saw it outside standing on my air-conditioning
Then I found it inside after I turned my air-conditioning off
Climbed in through the silent vent
and orbited my light bulb l006 times
Before I killed it with a sock
and whipped it one more time into the lamp’s brass base
Almost saved a moth on principle last night
Rationality’s a sham and you know it
The moth said in the morning
I found it clung to my lampshade, dead
with white **** coming out from under a wing ripped in half
Life is a sham we all share
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 11:12 AM UTC
They said she suffered from visions, so
They locked her up in her room,
I heard her pacing the floor in there
To softly cry in the gloom,
Her food they slid in under the door
And that’s when I heard her shout:
‘You can’t keep me forever in here,
You must let my nightmares out!’
But a doctor listened outside the door
And shook his head as he went,
A Priest then wafted some incense in
And muttered a sacrament,
But no-one dared to unlock the door
For they’d heard a howl within,
‘She must be conjuring demons there
Or some terrible type of sin.’
At night when everyone was asleep
I’d put my head to the floor,
And whisper low to my sister through
The gap, just under the door.
‘Go find the key,’ she would say to me,
‘And unlock the door in the night,
We’ll creep on out while the house is still,
Take off while the Moon is bright.’
I didn’t know where to find the key,
I didn’t know where it was,
It wasn’t hung up on the kitchen hook
Or the nail in the wooden cross.
She begged me, ‘Keep on looking for it,
It’s the only chance for me,
Then we will be together again
At last, and finally free!’
But then her visions returned again
And lights shone under the door,
While sounds, like animals caught in pain
Built up to a sullen roar.
I whispered, ‘Sis, can you hear me now,
I’m scared,’ and started to bawl,
She cried, ‘There’s lights and a million things
All creeping out of the wall.’
I went to beat on our parent’s door
But I heard my father snore,
I ran downstairs and I found the key
They’d hid in the bureau drawer.
I hesitated before I turned
The key in my sister’s lock,
The door swung open and lay ajar
As I stood, stock-still in shock.
For in the room was a wooded glade
With creepers clogging the walls,
Bats were hung from the old lampshade,
The bed was a waterfall,
But of my sister, never a sign
She must have been lost in the trees,
But monsters struggled out of the wall
As I fell in dread to my knees.
They say I suffer from visions, so
They’ve locked me up in my room,
I couldn’t cope with my sister’s loss
They said, but she’s in a tomb.
I know she’s not, for I hear her whisper
Under the door at night,
‘We’ll creep on out while the house is still,
Take off while the Moon is bright.’
Then sounds, like animals caught in pain
Build up to a sullen roar,
I call for her, again and again,
‘Just get the key to the door.’
But then she fades, and she slips away,
So far that I have to shout:
‘You can’t keep me forever in here,
You must let my nightmares out!’
David Lewis Paget
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 4:28 AM UTC
There was a
lone light
hanging above
the butcher block
in the kitchen and
when the wind would
blow too hard
against the cedar shake shell,
the house would let out
an exasperated sigh—swinging
the bulb hanging beneath
the metal lampshade from
the cord where it sprouted
from the ceiling.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 12:28 PM UTC
At the back of the stage in a gloomy wee room
Where the cockroaches eat what the rats don’t consume
There’s a table enveloped in paper and grime
On a carpet now lost to a happier time
With a cast iron typewriter, rusted with age
In the gloomy wee room at the back of the stage
And under a lampshade of nicotine brown
Sits a comical legend of zero renown
How he plugs at the keys of his rattling beast
The years of persistence have left him decreased
Now he’s stuck in the shade of his hovering doom
At the back of the stage in a gloomy wee room
His words are for others and too, the applause
Though a standing ovation might cause him to pause
He hasn’t the courage to speak them aloud
For he’s lacking the bottle and shy of a crowd
So he captures the laughter in lines on his page
In a gloomy wee room at the back of the stage
Aug 25, 2016
Aug 25, 2016 at 7:38 PM UTC
it doesn't matter
that you used to
walk the night
in search of food
and housing.
it means, "I wish
upon a star" became
a wish upon a bar
stool.
our foolish lisp
never quarantined
itself for fear of
loneliness
the stir stick
of caffeine
insanity
(where was
your princess
when the king
-dumb fell)
"well," He choked,
"she was busy with
the lampshade..
or a lack thereof"
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 6:53 PM UTC
People would tell me I looked skeletal
Not necessarily in an overly skinny sort of being
But in an organic, carbon matter fashion
Bone colored
Grooved
Plated
My ribs shone through my abdomen, still
My stomach protruded tightly
Translucent skin like a lampshade revealing
Three beams of muscle tissue
I should have been observed in a science class
I thought this while walking down the hall, away from the shower I left behind
Into my cave colored bedroom
Head first, body soon to follow
An archaic method-
My stack of literature playing the role of mammoth
About to be speared and eaten by my fingertips
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 12:57 AM UTC
Take me up. Let the devil take me up, like the morning when we left ourselves. The ides are upon our lives, maybe backstabbing partners really won't pay the bills. The irreverent god, the irrelevant clause that speaks too soon, comes upon the midnight waning sky. Like the moonful of ham in the stock of the flesh, second helpings because I could not resist.
Pick me up. Pick me up. Like a devil born again in the flesh. Your womb is a rotten tomb of forced reclusion, I'm wide awake before I can even sleep. The Time, our heaven is pyre, we're in it now like you thought it had been. But the flesh never whispers when I tried to break it in, it only clung to me like pre-used clothing.
Write it up, tomorrow we make Japan. Tomorrow, the island is our vesper. Your nine lives have come, and you'd decided to trade all of your needs to please me. We intertwined into an elusive butterfly, you're dead inside my beak, chewy, squishy, crunchy meat. You're eleven but you've never tasted better.
Your lies are so stupid, I had to have you in supine. I had to lie to myself to placate me. I survived by being a witness to a life. A dusky, grayish shadow four feet yonder.
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 2:29 AM UTC
Del sat on the steps in front of a brick building, smoking a cigarette. She looked more like a thick, young teenage boy that a woman in her mid-twenties. With her track jacket collar pulled up tight around her, she recoiled into herself, slinking back into the steps. She siphoned a long deep inhale of smoke.
Andie blew the cigarette smoke through her tightened lips and whistled the smoke at the mirror in front of her. She reviewed her reflection critically with squinting eyes. It was cold and dark in the room except for the hot glow of cigarette and the glare of a bare light bulb without a lampshade. Her skin stood up with goosebumps and her ******* were small and hard.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 11:54 PM UTC
I am ******* on a lemon,
he lost his sour decades ago –
the pulpy, lampshade grind gathers
in the rings of my throat,
and burning like an enemy-girl.
She, with her knives and languages
learned afresh, just for a pit:
there are none left in my lemon,
he has become so dry
in her memory too, a four year cave.
Fear that he may vanish,
and upon his last chance: nine.
The lives I let spill in my mouth &
deaths I take responsibility for,
****** the eight, his skin and bones.
She comes wielding pillow cases,
for the brain I have swallowed,
and soon he is a carcass,
better arid than shriveling in water,
my lemon rather than a prune.
I gave her a go, and now I must leave
or else I cannot save him by me,
no lemonade to drink.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 12:44 PM UTC
laying there upon her bed
the sins are running through her head
playing over and over again like a broken record player
how you sat upon her couch with the little light you had
that was coming from the bulb with the dangly lampshade
the night went on and convinced her that the expensive ring you bought
was a token of your love
what'a ******* liar as you walked away telling her you'd see her tomorrow
she waited and waited
hoping for a call or text but that phone never rang; she'll never admit that
you bruised her feelings like an abusive relationship
leaves mark not just on her body but her heart
you took her to a place that she loved just to sleep with her
did you think she was that stupid?
I hope that teaches you a lesson for all the women
that you've lovelessy ****** in the doing of your own self pity
you make me sick to my stomach and she regrets telling you how she really felt
you ****** with the wrong girl and in the end you'll pay
because she ain't playing your ***** love game anymore
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 8:36 PM UTC
The moving van pulled up blocking out the sun, stopping right outside my window.
The house next door had been empty for a few weeks now. I was intrigued to see who would be moving in.
I opened the front door and made some up some excuse so I could walk to the end of my drive and have a look.
To see what was happening.
From the angle I was at, all I could see was the ramp at the back of the truck.
Descending down the ramp came a family of apes, carrying a variety of ornate furniture.
The dad looked over his shoulder,
looked me straight in the eyes,"Hello there, I'm Mr Johnson".
He then put down the lampshade, reached out, and with his long simian fingers proceeded to try and remove (imaginary) tics from my hair.
I stepped back and he offered his hand for me to shake.
Shake it I did.
And the lampshade he was carrying was delightful. It would have matched my curtains and I turned away, jealous.
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 4:27 PM UTC
In my head
I imagine the future to be
Lipsticks lined on a marble counter
According to color and mood
And clothes warm from the dryer
Because they didn’t cool in the car
And heartbeats under bedsheets
Imported from Milan
Where no clothes are scattered
Because we always remember
To hang them, properly,
(The way we’re supposed to).
And in my head
You wear a sweater
And I brew tea
In an electric kettle
On a spotless counter
In a kitchen scrubbed clean
Except on the stove
Where a smudge of chocolate
Here and there
Reminds us of
The night before
And you see me clearly
With curious eyes
And I see you exactly as I did
When we first met
On our third date
When you asked me
If I would, please, finish your plate.
And I imagine the future
And I adore the order
The absence of terrifying smudges
Of chaos
Against a marble façade of
Rosy (or pink. or sparkle.) perfection.
I crave the
Nights spread over soft, warm sheets
That I call mine
And warm lips that wake me
Only when the sun is just right
So I see the mischievous sparkle
In your half-closed eyes
Before you tickle me awake.
And in my head
I long for this,
For the perfection of a
Practiced hand.
I want to build myself
Like my mind builds worlds
With one smooth stroke at a time.
But I do admit
As I lay in jersey sheets
That I do quite like
The way the soft lamplight
Falls over my cluttered bedspread
And how my books are stacked
One
Two
Three
Against my bookshelf
Rather than inside it
(The way it’s supposed to.)
And I am fond
Of the sheer lavender cloth
Thrown haphazardly on the lampshade
And tied with a purple cord
From a graduation I can’t clearly remember
And have every desire to completely forget.
And I will rise
On an overcast day
To the cold lips of sea air
On sheets made from
Recycled materials
And I will stand on aching bones and trod
With a limp and a frown
To the stovetop kettle
And I will brew tea
To the gentle hum of the fridge
That was here when I moved in
And I will be wearing
A robe with no cord
And a face with no grin
But I will look to the sky
And see the sun promised in the
Nebulous lining of the silver clouds above
And I will smile and
Stretch my arms
And see myself clearly
With selfish, curious eyes
Amid the ***** pots and pans and I
Will find peace
In chaos.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 11:25 PM UTC