"linens" poems
like cellophane wraps hard candy
like ink loves to dry
like hot sauce drenches noodles
like sunrise casts shadows
like band-aids sooth cut flesh
like irons crease linens
like origami folds paper
like water floats boats
like a tempest loves a teapot
like syrup and bananas drench waffles
like spoons love soup
like cats love fish
like french fries love ketchup
like wild girls dance
like a crow loves road ****
like eyes love beauty
like a circle loves a square
like buttered buns fit a bikini
like a kissed mouth hungers for wet lips
like moths love a flame
like dogs love ********
and like ******* hug butts
like howling ******* pulse hearts
like vampires love blood and castles
like dark grapes ferment in bubbling cauldrons
like madness loves a straight jacket
like a ***** loves a ****
and music gets you dancing
like suns fall through cobalt night all smashing diamonds
that's
how i love you
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 2:53 PM UTC
A Saturday, slow and sleepy
Unfolds like old attic linens
And drifts along
Like pipe smoke through the reeds
On a Saturday, bleak and weary
We just can’t get our act together
With hollow talk of book nooks
High seas back road voyages
And pints of Casey’s best bitter
On a Saturday, slow and sleepy
Taking action is hard to do
So slip into a daydream
And meet me out on the fringes
Where the sun and the moon fade from sight
And time is no longer real
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
I’m never ***** anymore
I used to drip onto the floor
Libido was higher, more, my core.
But I suppose, no, it was not.
Because it waned
Yet
I remained.
Yet
I miss being effortlessly wet.
I know, I know
It’s in my head.
But maybe mostly it’s the bed?
Say, what’s different about my bedding?
Is it that I had a wedding?
And now,
Linens my sister gifted my ring and I
Sacrificed
Sprawled beneath some other guy
Another lover
Oh! dear, I’ve blown my cover.
Oh poor dear, my mother.
I'm a disgrace,
A divorce, at my age?
So, is that what stole my soak?
You know, you shouldn't marry a man,
You don't really know.
Is that what dried my dripping *****
A quick ****
From a new husband,
Who wouldn't hear no.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Far too simple for my psyche
Jun 22, 2019
Jun 22, 2019 at 7:38 PM UTC
don't waste your breath
telling me to get better, talk ***** to me
don't hold your breath
hoping i try to help myself.
if you're going to hold my neck
hold it a lot tighter than that,
don't forget to push down
on my windpipe with your palm,
we're wrapped up in these bedsheets
because i want you to hurt me.
i want to see the rope burn on my wrists glisten
where it's begun to tear away at my flesh
and i like to feel real tangible knots
when i'm tied up in self loathing.
i struggle to find the line between
lovesick and depressed or
being a ********* what's the big difference.
either way i wake up with bruised
blue lips and oxygen deprivation,
and fresh linens wet with singeing liquids,
and a pain in my stomach or lungs that means
i'm still breathing slightly.
i wanted you to **** me.
Sep 12, 2017
Sep 12, 2017 at 4:39 AM UTC
Spinning round a windy ledge,
i kiss the cross around my neck,
these fever dreams replace the likes of you.
Grinning into space, alone and lost,
the dampened linens lie,
as i wake up,
covered in fake love.
In my den the china white,
embraced my blood and laced my night,
an amuse-bouche of courses left to come.
The past three years I can't recall,
coulda been fun, but was it worth it all,
i'm a coma patient lacking an excuse.
Truth,
is hard to come by,
You,
are a stranger in my,
Eyes,
collude disguise.
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 12:17 AM UTC
On a thin ribbon of light
unfurled from unseen heaven
direct to her parted robe
and disquieted ear
comes an angel’s voice,
the dove’s winged companion,
with words foretold in the book
now slipping to the floor.
What hunger fires
our flickering imaginations,
that require Grace come
wrapped in velvet purses-
with proof of the child’s
purity dripping from tables
and prophet encrusted walls?
I think they had it all wrong-
Fra Angelico, Veronese, van Ecyk,
and even Martini with his
gilded apprehension.
I prefer a scene without
unblemished lilies-
no fine linens, puffing cherubs,
or embroidered pillows on display.
I picture her instead
at her daily labor- pulling
on a ***** rope at the village well.
With calloused hands, she
draws her trembling reflection
skyward, when, announced
by the slightest breeze,
a stranger appears.
Before their eyes meet,
a bird’s flight distracts her-
water splashes from the bucket
washing the dust from her feet
and soaking the tattered hem
of her robe. His silent glance
holds her only for a moment.
In the distance, a voice
calls out, “Daughter!”
She turns, sets off,
bowing to her burden.
A cloud’s shadow
melts in the heat of the road.
Tom Spencer © 2018
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 8:30 AM UTC
It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM UTC
There are conversations in which my mental frame leaves the
parameters of my body.
No longer can I fathom the concept of ‘being in love’
I witness dates
and
feel as an apprentice of such a trade might
an inadequacy to replicate the models of those before me
Gone are my indefinite moments of sanity
Childhood is laced in linens of silk
Soft-spoken words
and
Finely crafted spontaneity lacking responsibility
Ceaseless are the times in which I must conceal the thoughts I abhor
Depravity seems to chain my soul
which leads to
a Resolution in pixelation
due to
a visual handicap which has left my eye blind to choosing right
My friends make me happy
but as a glass transforms back-&-forth between half-empty &
half-full
one glance across our wooden dinner is all it takes
for
My thoughts to liquidate into bars of gold
Telling myself I must exchange their conversation for my motivation
heavy on the mind
light keystrokes
Once i reawaken at 1 A.M. from my conscious-coma
i ask myself
What good is it?
To be thoughtful
Yet have no action
What good is it?
To fantasize
Yet refuse your own inclination for renovation
What good is it?
To be dramatic
Yet have no one at your performance
I do understand what it means to ‘be’
Watching Tuesday suns burn in loops of ongoing weeks
- lacking peaks -
As I continue to lay under clothes line
Wrapped in a melody of melancholy
But I do not understand what it means to be ‘me’
My mind feels as a lemon candy might,
sour at first bite -
hollow on the inside, then gone
Without ever truly knowing what it tastes like.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 9:03 PM UTC
Meaningful is the wayward child that is found,
For he or she finds favor in thus adoring praise.
Replenishing spiritual vines that spread messages
of hope above and beyond.
Therefore, the third eye knoweth all.
Whose breath gives life to the faint hearted.
As barriers are tore down, crossing over...
Anointed one, where, the precious angel entered.
You are the brothers and sisters in faith building.
They do preserver as the battle of Jericho.
In a molding guidance of clay made hands...
For their is hope of feeding the milk as well as the flesh.
Kisses of glory befall unto your good graces.
Thou wisdom quench the hell like rain pour puddles.
His world! His judgment! His wrath!
Bestow thou honor, in hills of perfect talk.
Fatherless child! Fatherless child! Beware of the dragon den.
Slay your enemies with delicate wings:the cup of kindness.
As you are humbled in purple linens, fading all unseemly.
The soldier of bravery, when thou hour come, there is a home.
Cross over into the well enlightened pathways.
Make the rough roads a gateway to the everlasting promise.
Sing in jubilation, for tribulation is done and your vision seen.
May 21, 2011
May 21, 2011 at 10:21 AM UTC
morning dew drops on your collar
impressing me with the zealous way the seasons drastically measure the moment it takes me
to reach forwards and brush it off
liquid winter falling onto a ***** cement
the initials 'F T' written jaggedly into the cold stone of asphalt
i wait for it to disappear, for the flicker of everything gone to fade from my vision
but it passes too quickly
i look back up and there's no one around
the street is empty and the capricious wind has ceased
a sucker for patterns i walk into a fabric store and feel my hand linger on the erratic linens
fingers paused on the peach organza sprawled like a pink bubblegum sea
and i am swept into the manic fantasies of wearing the sheer tissue-like textile into
the abdomen of your sweaty palm and sinking like a sticky sweet stripe
until you put your hand in your pocket and i spend a year inside melting
into the every thread and curve of your jean until it is nothing but disgusting sugar
everything i could be when i am hidden from sight in the dark caverns of denim pants
who knew the tongue in cheek joke would be nothing but my tongue in your mouth
touching all the way up your gums
find me sweltering beneath the uvula wondering if i could go back
to the time i found that girl with the mountain logo sweatshirt who whistled between her teeth and hummed all the reasons i should skin my knee and kiss the salty wound because there's no greater pleasure than knowing you don't have to wait for that morning dew drop to fall from their ******* collar
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 1:30 AM UTC
she smells (nameless and shameless)
*a concoction of mixed aromas,
a once in a lifetime scent,
impossible to bottle,
impossible to name,
nameless and shameless
morning coffee, last nights vin rosé,
a come-a-little-closer-tasting for the summer solstice,
the stale of the evening meals of grains and kale,
the sour remains of bedroom sweat,
the displeasing scented sight of
sweat soiled clothes carelessly discarded
the first of the season red spot-stained white peonies
fail to mask the bodies aromatic musks,
which are mostly gender identifiable
my sneakers hail mary, her stockings odorize the atmosphere
most unusually, nylon and lycra are strangely familiar,
prior memorized perhaps, from deep within, a ****** hallelujah,
deep amidst where, the ***** linens are shelved and binned,
before they journey to the Egypt Nile of the basement waters
the burnt crumbs of illegal in-bed brioche toast
amazingly invisible on unclean sheets,
state “breakfast in bed, was yummy in the tummy,
but next time use a big dinner plate,
down here, the burnt of the bread and the burnt
of other things (popcorn pieces)
is just a scratchiest fragrance too far,
needing a sheet wiped clean slate
even the colorless and tasteless water
absorb the ionosphere of smells,
because one does usually speak poetically,
one of us makes a (vice) presidential declaration:
she smells, I man-ually stink, each,
each glower shower nower,
open the window to the spring wet grass aroma fresh cut,
to exhume and then send away
this odor now christened,*
nameless and shameless
11:47 28/4/19
May 5, 2019
May 5, 2019 at 10:25 AM UTC
Haters, haters, hiding in the closets, hiding in faeces
your putrid minds full of fears and all your weaknesses
You are not men but degenerates and cowards in excesses
but in your attempts to distract away from your deseases
Look the parents you have and you know you're like rat fleas
you lack a lot which makes you so angry and in pieces
Washing once a week on other days its wet towel on faces
smerge on stunted wieners never to be a winner at the races
You're un-cool all you do is pretend but you ain't got the aces
as charmless as chicken *** you're the left-behind in chases
Never had a true compliment because you have no graces
deep down you're a mess and petrified of background traces
You have ***** linens and bad secrets buried in bad places
you're nasty, think nasty and 've done things that debases
Always afraid you pick on your betters rocking in perfect places
full of inferiority complexes real abilities get up your noses
You've wet your bed and at night you knowyou're *********
playing macho when in reality you want to do men's *****
Nobody likes the faceless cowards and abject scorn they entices
partners and frenemies are there for themselves and free passes
They see through them and smell their weakness without paces
faking laughter at their hate and anger at winners they despises
Haters are sick sad losers miserable inferiors with dark devises
never happy, never content just slimy cowards in dumb disguises
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 8:29 PM UTC
The old order changeth, yielding place to new
-Tennyson, Idylls of the King
Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there
If you vote they give you a sticker
The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees
If you vote they give you a sticker
The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.
If you vote they give you a sticker
Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps
If you vote they give you a sticker
Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The **** lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math
If you vote they give you a sticker
An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather
If you vote they give you a sticker
And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence
If you vote they give you a sticker
While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world
If you vote they give you a sticker
And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists
(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)
But if you vote they give you a sticker
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
So fine,
the slender votive silence
of palms, open
to the torn banners of rain,
so tender,
such surrender
in the gesture of hands...
You pour so much
of your red earth,
to soothe and loosen
the tongue from its leather tomb
and adorn me
with a lighter burden,
too much mine, at one
with the dark, lavish earth
in all its sorrow, spun
of the sleek commotion of silk
and vanilla linens... I leaned
into the ******* of my wings,
honed from those muscular
fairy-tale dreams...
My mouth,
learned solely on a valentine's
shiny white kiss of hemlock,
humming into the cells
of the spellbound body, quelled
by vigilance, your lips
teach me now, how to go softly
over the red earth of dahlias,
in all their everlastings, your hands
deep in the soil, reap...
The resonating grail of memory,
kept in its rich loam
and coals spread over
my mouth of red, red clay,
so swells its golden hue
of rose and rhododendron,
too much mine, rising
its fevers in the fawn brown
of eyes, closed ...
Over this long,
shuddering quiet,
you come
in all your calico
to calm
the votive silence
of palms, cupped
in the earth of your hands,
so much mine....
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 12:47 PM UTC
I have never been a religious soul but I found a cathedral in my bedroom in the form of your body hardening beneath the white linens attached to my mattress. It was the perfect combination; I'd begin on my knees between your thighs and sin again and again in the form of sliding you down my throat, and then I would crawl up your body and sit on your lap and rock back and forth as I prayed for redemption. I never knew grace until you pressed your kiss to my breast and I never felt a revelation until you tucked your hand inside me for safe-keeping and wouldn't remove it until my whole body was shaking. And because I have never been a religious soul I fear that I cannot promise to return to this cathedral but I'll be ****** if I don't burn it down before I go.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 12:15 AM UTC
When you think about someone so much,
your dreams start to smell like them.
And you have to wash your linens
because your sheets started to smell like them.
Had to get a grip because when you breathed,
it still smelled like them.
What I'm saying is:
love isn't love when you're without them.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
God and Creation
God and the Church
God and Me
A husband and his bride
Two lovers wrapped in a divine embrace
A love that is so close, so intimate, so beautiful
It could not possibly be broken from the outside
But within
Within
Within it is delicate
It is sensitive
It is fragile
Because it is love
And fragility is not weakness
But it is vulnerability
It is nakedness
And as I stand before God
Naked
He says, “I see you, I know you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
But as I look upon perfection
It seems the only thing left to see
Is my imperfection
And I say, “You see me, you know me, so I’d rather be anywhere but here,
and I’d rather be anything, but naked”
So I run
I run away from a perfect love
And into broken arms and broken hearts
Broken hearts that don’t care to know me
They only care to feel me
And I only want to be felt
Because it’s easy
But it’s empty
Why am I imperfect?
Why do your white linens
Show off my stains?
Why can’t I bleed away my stains?
Why do you have to see me *****
before you can wash me clean?
And why can’t the washing be easy?
Why does it have to hurt so much?
And why is it that even though everyone says the work on the cross is finished
I still feel like I’m waiting for it?
You are God:
Promiser of providence
So why can't you guide me where I want to go?
I know
The answer is in the question.
And I know
Your guidance will take me to a much better place
And honestly
I want to follow your voice and run into your arms
But I can't
I can't bear the thought of revealing to myself
What you already know:
That I am broken
And I can't fix myself
See as long as I keep myself in this hallucination
That either I'm not broken
Or I am working to make myself better
Then I can keep myself busy
righteously
Because as long as I keep moving
I don't have to rest
Because in rest
You are there
And where you are
The truth reigns
And for someone who wants to be independent
Who wants to be able to fix himself
That is terrifying
"Do not be afraid
"Be still and know that I am God
"I see you and I know you and I'm not going anywhere
"You are broken, you are sinful, but I'm not going anywhere
"You can't fix it, but I will. I'm not going anywhere
"I'm not going anywhere."
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 5:49 PM UTC
he promised he'd take her out on the town at a quarter past three
and by a quarter of three she was dead in the living room
with her father's linens draped around her ankles
and below her skin, a purple fountain flowing
he promised her father he'd mend the holes in the linen
which had stained dark after her ascension
after her stomach acid bore craters into the floor polish
after her tongue fell from her lips to kiss the lace
and then men with suitcases took her body away at a quarter past three
they came without breaking or collapsing in the living room
they shrouded her in clinical-white sheets
and walked out the door bearing stoic expressions
leaving nothing but the world behind them
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 6:52 AM UTC
Clean and fresh
And clean and pure
I feel so pure
I feel just me
So clean and fresh
And fancy free
And all I can think of is
Me!
I hop out of the shower
I hop out of paradise
I jump into cold air
And the refreshing smell
Of linens and towels
Entice!
They pull me towards my bedroom
Me all soft and clean
I feel cleaner
Than the purest element
Of Hydrogen or Oxygen
I feel so clean
I feel so...
New!
A renewed skin
I renewed vow
to cleanliness
I feel holy
I feel whole
I am happy in my happy place
Void of dirt and grime
I am clean
My shower is the path to enlightenment
Apr 14, 2011
Apr 14, 2011 at 7:07 PM UTC
With each breath drawn, the distance which parts our bodies will evaporate, like dew after dawn.
And with each exhale of humid breath, the time taken slipping out of fabrics slows to a streamlined unveiling; that could entwine me until death.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 12:48 AM UTC
You and I are piles of skin and bones
Wrapped in linens to protect us
From getting holes
I'll follow you through your ever venture
Blue eyes pierce me like the icicles we strolled past
As I fell marvelously in love with you
Golden tips to the nuts and bolts
Of a crying, perfect, hopeless disease
I'm calling this sensation what it is
(Remind me to tell you in the morning.)
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 11:31 PM UTC
She is olive.
A tan-skinned Jasmine.
A rare earth metal;
and jewel-encrusted.
Sepia crescent moons
Dart at me. And then away.
A velvet petal.
My spine crumbles; rusted.
And when she negotiates a lone fold,
it
babbles
down
to her shoulders
and comes to rest
across nape and breast.
As if immune;
she
never
resisted.
She manipulates this simple tuck,
and every lesson, line, lecture, lash and lambaste in my language or hers is gone and has never existed.
This only tuck,
that single fold;
who gives a ****
Or so I've been sold.
Her hair is coveted;
linens for kings.
It gleams in my den,
near unworthy things.
Jun 27, 2011
Jun 27, 2011 at 9:46 PM UTC
i fell in love with you
once
long ago
with my eyes closed
and the dream-screen drawn
we danced
like music notes across their barred landscape
we danced
the loveliest late-night lullaby
you became my hiding place
lilac and lace linens
stretched over a lumpy matress
my indiana jones
waiting patently and poetically
in a long-lost temple of slumber
you come back to me in waves
softly and subtly
while i'm half awake
you're kissing the broken down shorelines of an insomniacs holiday
i wish i could keep you
like an empty bottle in the window-sill
or a heart arrhythmia
this lonely romantics cardiovascular waltz
let me snag you up from my dream-dust
and stitch you to my sole like a lost boys shadow
let me find you in my reality
tip-toeing over an underlined paragraph
of a beer stained paper-back
i'll find you
someday
after a long-over-due nights sleep
perhaps in the guitar strings
or type-writer keys
or at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in the ever-humming freezer
be mine
evasive valentine
i'll even let you hide in the curls of my hair
or under my fingernails
i'll keep you
if you'll let me
just don't forget me
come sun-up
when you gallup away
from my sub-conscious escape
take my heart-rate with you
tucked into your breast-pocket
like a floral handkercheif
or a photogaraph taped to the dash
come back
to the grey matter kingdom
tucked behind my eyelashes
i'll meet you in the idiosyncrasies of my synapses
writing love stories that never once happened
Dec 20, 2012
Dec 20, 2012 at 12:56 PM UTC