"mothballs" poems
lady craighead played the blues
on a stand-up samick
in the ***** room
along side the parsons project
and squabbling dogs
and night moves
stairs creek
up the mezzanine trek
wool sheets slide
on finished floors
little angels
play late into the seventh
(a closing match nearing
the midnight hour)
croaking toads and cicada
sing in the blue moon
musty smells and mothballs
settle deep in the vault
the kettle boils
and cat coils
as the pump house rolls
its heavy drawl
the red phone rings
and bird clock sings
(behind the ruddy stall)
a sleeman variation of the ruy lopez
employed heartily
by the incomparable master jack
marble toast burning
wringer wash churning
chris craft running
near the old carp canoe
rooster calls
and west wind squalls
rustle through the porch screen door
chicken *** pies
and rogue flies linger
a rocker chair placed
near the sepia face
(softened by the intricate frame)
donkey in tow
(with a fastened ***
maggie in her dreams
of green tambourines
the nocturnes
reflections
and whispering gospel bells
tractors pull on
the grinder stone
horses lay still
in the mid-day sun
a trump card is fingered
at the furnace click
(crosswords and puzzles are next!)
while the sparrow
*and that **** rabid fox*
are drowning
deep in castles well
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed
that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy
sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
I smash open my skull and pry apart my frontal lobe ,
so I could forget how your smile made me felt.
I pull my teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers,
to make me forget the taste your tongue left me.
I tear my fingernails off and replace them with sharpened glass between the ripped flesh,
to forget the tender sweet touch from your hands.
I gorge my eyes out,
so I can forget how you used to look as you slept.
I stab my ear canals with scissors,
to forget the sound of you laughing.
I plug my nose up with mothballs,
so I forget how your clothes smelt when I wore them.
I peel off my skin piece by piece
to forget how soft your skin was.
I can’t forget.
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 8:08 PM UTC
Drifting off in mid-day
She is there in my parent's house
Where she should not be
She's never met them
been inside their home
...and besides
She's dead...
Don't know where I drop my brains off
or my heart
when sleeping
I so clearly know this
but I dismiss it
for the moment--
go along with joy
to have her with me once again
She looks so well!
Her pale skin flushed
below her ragged, reddish hair
Wearing peacock blue sateen
as always
dressed to ****
to go somewhere
anywhere
away
from loneliness
from cancer
...and she had included me
on her glorious outing
without title
without honor
I had been her teacher-friend
like an elder wedding guest
she had grown
beyond ...
She helps me dump my canvas bag of poems
on my parent's bed
Where I conceived them
or they conceived me
“What about this one?
Or this is a good one too!
I know you can do this!
You read so well!”
she says
I'm thinking, “This is not like Jenn,
so reversed
for her to give a thought...
and besides, it is not even my event!"
Now she's in my mother's place
in her 1950's closet
pushing hangers across the rail
She would find it--
something
I could wear
I am so transported by the smell
of memories
that I don't care
mothballs, lavender, perfume
I get distracted deep within
almost losing track in the euphoria
to have found my friend again
I lose a moment in the soft fur of mom's mink
clipped together mouth to tail
to form the stole
an ouroboros
With its beady eyes
on me
like death
would drape across my shoulders
given half a chance
When from its mouth of glamorous lies....
Jenn shoves me through life's opened door
She has found that dress!
I wore...
the one with hope, and future's
purple flowers
dropped waist and scalloped neck
Yes, It would do, “Yes!"
But now,
she makes excuse to leave
...of meeting Joe
...of going on ahead...
I know
she must
as this is all some clabbered past
a gift of dreams
Still, I want to hug her
just one last....
but she feels empty...
In embrace
she turns to ash
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 3:49 PM UTC
It was a Saturday night in the park
his trees were singing
out of tune
his clay pigeons needed to come out
of his closet
for he was parked
on a stool
at his favorite watering hole
amongst a full house
where pairs beat singles
and there he was
shooting blanks
drowning in his sorrows
on his nine lives of lowlife
hoping for a sitting duck in despair
the kind that waddles right up to the Romeo's
with suspense in their hearts
and spontaneity in their wings
a cackle
that he can tackle
to take home
to his garden bed
for him to be fed
but what he got
was for not, naught, knot
wistful thinking
sitting in a bar sinking
for the jukebox played a broken record
finding love in the wrong places
and the joke squarely was on him
for thinking, he could round the bases
looking no further than the escape of his glows
or a crutch of decoys
and sitting ducks
for he was no Romeo
yet
there he was still, like steel,
a stole away in society
forlorn, preserved
like mamas mothballs tucked away
in basement storage
squandering the forage
for there were no triple treats
tonight for him
or forever sounds grim
for his reality check gone dim
or
no eye candy
for his heart beats
no picnic
for his ****
and all the bottled whiskey
could not drown out his pain
as his eyes were slain
as the sitting ducks turned
from his fantasy corner
phantomlike
and though
he's sitting at the bar, a loner
reminded that in cards of life
pairs beat singles
and in his worn hand
familiarly holds a lonely joker
for it's like he tries
and its
like his sitting ducks
are like hoofed deer
and his little sweets,
are spooked
hoofing
away from his
now darken forest
like red ants at his picnic
and the gleam in his eyes turned
to the poorest
its
its
as if his life and watering hole
was condemned
his garden bed cut at the stem
it is as if he has a red vest on
and a rifle don
and all the hoofed deer
panic
looking at him in fear
like he's manic
or maybe it's his eyes
that hold dark skies
he orders another double
trouble
for what else is there to do
on his Saturday night
than to sit in a bubble
forever sounds grim
but sing him a sweet hymn
he says please
to wit as he steals peeks
at the bartenders triple treats
like a bee to a hive
his joker still strikes a beat
if only he can find a bolster
for his gun needs a holster
and a deer in the headlights
would be hard to find
the confession now told, tolled, towed
through tears
the guy in the bar window
is me, sitting
resigned
Logan Robertson
10/18/2018
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 6:23 PM UTC
It's a Thursday evening
and over par for the course I'm sitting
in a sandtrap.
The lie is bad,
I'm buried next to a watering hole
in the wall.
I can't get out.
The half truth is I'm a drunk
a sea of sorrows.
Even the dolphins, I shed no mercy.
The real truth is I'm ***
anchored to a barstool,
barnacles from the dead sea
hanging on the four legs.
If this bar stool ever came to life
the voice would bubble to the surface,
get me to dry dock.
How fortuitous the wind in my sails,
finding every sandtrap
and waving at the mothballs.
Blind to letting the barnacles take it's course.
Corrosion creeping up on me, like its
relative.
Who cares about the long lost voice
or the red ants at his picnic.
Or if Uncle lost his strokes he never had.
Did someone say shipwreck?
I order another double,
with fire in my eyes,
adding another burn to my stomach.
I look at the bartenderess
and my eyes don't lie.
She's my type.
My head tilts this way and that.
I see people starring back at me.
If only they knew how the ball bounces.
Logan Robertson
12/21/2018
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 9:22 AM UTC
i live with Moths in my Head.
they flutter around on dusty wings,
coating my Brain with dirt until that’s
all i see:
a world covered in grime.
nothing’s clean -
especially me.
i want to shove mothballs
in my Ears,
i want to unleash a colony of bats
in my Skull
until every Moth is reduced
to a bad moment
instead of a bad life.
alas! these Hands of mine are human -
they are useless.
they cannot breach my Bones
to extract wild, immovable pests
so untamed they grow into ravenous beasts;
beasts that consume my:
Words, Will, Esteem, Ego -
until i am left bereft
of who i hoped to be.
but as i lay in stillness
side by side with you,
our bodies mixed up spider webs,
i take note of my Hands
holding you -
and i think perhaps
they are not as useless
as i’d first thought.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 10:17 PM UTC
I was vacant:
dust wafted off the window-sill, swirling in the afternoon sun
when you came, rapping green fists on my empty door
peering into my cloudy windows, glancing at the address
shrugging
and letting yourself in without a key.
You floated across the creaking floorboards of the foyer,
sweeping my cobwebs into a corner.
Did I forget to leave you the dustpan?
You strode through glass-pained doors into the kitchen,
scrubbing my china with the cold iron-water that poured forth from my pipes.
Did I neglect to provide you with lye?
After you lumbered up the stairs, coughing on mothballs,
I imagine that you shook your head at the tassels
hung on my fraying valence,
for soon enough you hurried your way
back down the stairs
into the kitchen
through the foyer
and out of my door.
I wonder—
Was it the dust?
Was it the dishes?
Did you ever stop to open my curtains?
Did you ever peer out the window, and into the gardens below?
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 4:35 PM UTC
down the lane the summer homes all yawn,
open & airing out,
depositing mothballs, musty deck chairs/on the lawn
strolling i see all last year's forgotten furniture
waiting
on the roadside, dust covered.
here a couch groans out to me:
*"such a life!
reeking of mildew,
springs worn from children jumping on the weekends
--and the old man couldn't stop them.
too busy slamming drinks on the porch!"*
i very nearly weep,
"poor tired old thing!"
for it is a hard ride to be a couch.
Jul 5, 2011
Jul 5, 2011 at 6:39 AM UTC
Like this morning for instance
Hot February and dry cracked
skin of my shadow
which sometimes seems
to look at me
and move w/out me
and I, w/out it.
Sometimes I see the flicker
of a dark soul jeer; a savage dance,
right in front of me,
or in the corner of my eye
when my head is tilted.
The other day at my friend’s
I felt like I was, briefly,
in the sunflower courtyard
of this ol’ dark
underwater museum
full of mirrors
that float adrift.
Angles that perpetually
gyrate and shift…..
I hear the sound of a whale
submerged in a highway
crying with striving despair
at night
and I'm sad
because his lovers reply
sounds so distant
and it sounds as if it comes
from a cavern w/in an ocean
below a sun
I hope he finds her
and dies happy
in the warmth of her flippers....
I miss the panther-warm wine & cream
Was it worth it
Is this worth it
Cold violet city
vacant warm lobbies at night
desolate allies and dogs in such deep slumber
they cant even wake to bark at impending footsteps
The musty brown cars
whose aura of mothballs and pipe smoke
reminds you of a childhood irretrievable
I smiled back at the rocks that snickered
Beside the fence
which stood firm
In caring vigilance
Cold verdure within
Misery mixed with
Getting bored w/ absorbing it
There’s a strange saloon w/ hotel attached
at the center of Melancholy
where flames are lit music is played
bodies are slowly denuded
and silver knives are thrown
I can show you…
(Long ago it seems
I bit and kissed and became
aquatinted w/ the bark of
the root of delirium
Recently even I’ve spoken
to the heart of delirium itself
from within
w/ no reply
but I can remember
all my memories were hallucinations)
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM UTC
Everyone is quiet,
Papers rustle,
The slow speed fan
Creaks above our heads,
The air conditioning
Is broken,
We start to sweat
From sunlight coming in
Through the tintless windows.
Exhausted,
We sit in silence,
Unwilling to share
Information.
Miserable in this heat,
Someone drops their pen.
As he picks it up
The room sighs,
Almost as if in relief
That he retrieved it,
While no one else moves.
It's far too hot for that.
The table smells like mothballs,
And the people around me
Smell like sweat,
Perfume and cologne.
You can smell the coffee
Oozing from their pores.
Bloodshot eyes,
Aching backs,
And all-consuming stress.
I'm in class.
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 10:46 AM UTC
I daydream of dreaming
a dream:
comfortable and surreal.
In it, an antique shop full of character
and the scent of mothballs and dust.
A haphazard maze of dark lit corners
pulls me to its depths,
where nestled in the back,
is a perfectly imperfect piano.
Ironic how the blatantly splintered key
is the most out of tune, no?
In this dream within a daydream,
I sit on a squeaking stool,
foot on a loose damper,
and play all that I know.
In this dream to be,
I know not,
or recognize what I play,
but know it's home
and find peace in knowing.
The name Chopin
would be the faintest
of underlying memories,
but the first upon waking.
All we are is what we are not,
and were I dreaming this dream,
that notion would live in my being;
in the pockets of my marrow
and in the pit of my throat.
No Steinway could produce
such a twang so unimaginably beautiful.
Only the physically appealing use the word ugly,
and only the true understand the word beauty.
In my dream to be,
I watch myself,
but feel the keys
as they disintegrate
after violently being yanked from slumber.
Would I dream,
I would gasp and reach in wake,
grasping nothing,
and yearn again
to live without
vivid self awareness.
Yet when conscious,
I seek lucidity,
despite the comfort
found in effortlessness.
So snap me out of it.
Slap the porcelain saucer
that is my cheek,
for I am no Poe,
and this no "dream within a dream"
but a waltz
with the idea of serendipity.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 4:55 PM UTC
A lonely red tugboat anchored at the Hudson River
The Red tugboat in its day would pull some very lavish cruise ships
But here’s a tip
Back in the day, there were stories Sea Captains would say
For starters, the red tugboat having the engine power to pull ships and barches
But as years rolled on, tugboats became a new wave of technology
As you probably gathered, the red tugboat became out of date
Later it gathered dust with no captain nor mate
But things are about to change
A new criteria that will be arranged
The Red tugboat had a new technological engine
This was a reason for the tugboat to feel useful and have fusion
The Red tugboat ropes were thrown over to the deck
It moved from being idled like mothballs
A cruise ship that was travelling from New York Harbor to London, England and the red tugboat was assigned to the call
The tugboat regained its life from being in a stall
But the red tugboat returned with its legacy and it stood tall
A new and improved red tugboat with its sea legs to be proud to be on the Hudson River
All the Red Tugboat needed was a push of confidence
It later became inspiration being the indication
The Red tugboat knows where it belongs
It’s heritage of accomplishments that was so long.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 1:09 PM UTC
The shelter sleeps like a ghost at night
and I walk with him during the
day, his one shoe on my right foot –
I barely look like a woman,
or if anything, a ********** waiting for
someone to provide her a second
glass slipper & slip off her ball gown.
She will lay on her back in a motel –
beautiful as a tulip’s head
nursing on fertilizer for sustenance
but largely agreeable with champagne.
Even lying on pillows like a pubescent
chest, perky and barely touched,
she is a **** alone with leather boots.
No one knows his name but
he comes and goes and feels like home,
the fuzz still in her eyes from sleep
still collected from a previous divorce.
I visit the shadow with my tongue
and only mothballs when the sun sets –
an uncomfortable rat in the soles too.
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 2:54 PM UTC
Whenever I see
Mothballs rolling over
To sublime inside
The ***** of
My closet,
I reach in
And touch its coarseness,
The roughness of size;
How come it withdrew
Itself to the world
By shrinking its
Speculations.
Strange though,
but a thought
Came to my mind:
Its state
Is similar
To a feat
Such as mine.
Jul 7, 2010
Jul 7, 2010 at 1:20 AM UTC
As the other kids traipsed off to bed,
You held me on your knee,
I watched the cricket, next to him,
As they made history
The crack of the bat against the ball,
The cheering of the crowd,
I didn't understand it then,
And neither do I now
But his room would always smell the same,
Of mothballs, damp and sweets,
The three of us would all sit around,
In pyjamas with bare feet
The taste of garlic lingering,
The best food in the world,
And I knew what it meant to him,
To be next to his favourite little girl.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 5:58 PM UTC
Oh where have you gone to my old purple coat?,
With your buttons made from the horns of a goat,
How i fought with my mother when she'd make me wear you,
Yet now i just wish that the mothballs will spare you.
I have searched in the attic, where my dress up chest is,
And ive looked in the garden where my tree house is,
How ive hunted and searched for you,my head has no peace,
I so want you to turn up, to give you to my neice.
Maybe one day i'll find you and hold you so close,
And say sorry for hating you and calling you gross,
I feel sure you're hung somewhere warm, in a cupboard,
So until then i hope you're safely covered.
(c) eileen mcgreevy 2010
Jan 24, 2010
Jan 24, 2010 at 9:52 AM UTC
Leaving well enough alone
I go home
where only your words serve to burn me
remind me to learn that to be free
is to be one with
oneself
And alone very selfishly I turn over another leaf.
Oh thief, come then and take me
and let us not tarry
marry me into your night.
Out of sight out of mind
the wallpaper lines the drawers in the wardrobe
and mothballs like meteors
flash warnings to creatures
do not enter
and the scent of her lingers
I lick my fingers as if I could taste her
as if I could paste her to the walls.
On the inside of life where I fall into tomorrow
where yesterday lives in the crook of the hollow
below my cheeks and today sneaks a peek but decides to return
to a place I would spurn
Oh if only I could.
She is still here or there
somewhere in the recess wearing that Westwood creation
I station and anchor myself to this point
and at the point of a pin
where the needle grows thin
I jab it into and under my skin and I blunder
along wildly
in panic, but that's nothing new
to a fool who would do such strange things.
Eventually relenting
and I on repenting she brings me to her
here or somewhere each place names the same as the last
and each one disappears as fast as it came.
This is a round about big dipper,dip for a duck
childhood fair ground game that we play
we all want a coconut
but some don't want to pay.
She comes to me to say
'it's okay it'll be fine'
and each time I believe
until the mothballs remind me she leaves and I grieve
And the drawers remain shut
the wardrobe is but another reminder
a laughter at me
one day I will find her
again.
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 5:12 AM UTC
If dreams were tangible, dear princess, I'd give you mine
this dream where unfading echoes never die
Back a long, grassy lane, a house once white, now greying with time
set against the slope of verdant hill, and crowded amongst a hundred soughing pines
Nearby a sundappled wood with tranquil creek and mossy stones
Ferns tall as your waist and creamy mushrooms
Beyond stretch clover scented pasture haunted by purplish dusk and
ghosts of gurnsey calves with solemn eyes
To bring a smile to your lovely face and a song to your heart.
Above a garret where silvery moonbeams dance
scented by old mothballs and books from bygone days
their yellowed pages mildewed and musty with age
Perhaps some tear stained journal from yesteryears
penned by long dead poetess, kindred spirit facing hardships like our own
listening to this same ancient wind sweeping the trees, gaunt branches scratching windowpanes as souls forlorn
yes, I would give you all this, sweet princess, if wishes had wings
just to bring a smile to your lovely face
this dream where unfading echoes never die
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
Caffeine
a pen
I yawn and then
yawn again
nothing flows out except
mothballs
cloth ears they called me
deaf to their pleas
but
I was as different as
chalk is to cheese.
I yawn once more while
weevils bore into my brain
and yawn again.
The snipers have got me
shot me on Monday
sometimes I wish
I was
Solomon
Grundy
then I fall
into the week
because I'm weak
or antique
couldn't hold on to
the
yawn again
dawning on me that
what I see is
what I'll be
by Friday.
Dec 19, 2016
Dec 19, 2016 at 12:28 AM UTC
On days that
I have a
difficult time
writing, I let
my mind wander
to another
place and scene.
Today
I imagine a
musty attic.
It smells like
mothballs and
old perfume.
I stumble upon
an old trunk.
And when I look
inside
I find hundreds
of my poems that
I wrote and
forgot about.
I thumb through
the brittle pages,
and read.
"Hey, not bad.
This one is pretty
good.
Hey, here's one with
multiple layers.
Writing as a
metaphor for
******
This silly exercise of
mine just netted me
this poem.
Wanderlust of the
mind promotes
creativity.
Now I can nap,
after I ***
of course.
Feb 19, 2024
Feb 19, 2024 at 5:39 PM UTC
Sensible, I'd
think it was the way.
Your heart grew claws
that latched on to my skin
and I wore your obsession
like an overcoat that smells like
mothballs because I was ashamed
to wear it for so long.
And I wrote you
eighty page love notes filled with
all of my nonsensical prose just
so you'd never know exactly
what it is I dream.
And at night I'd pretend
you're lying next to me, a warm
presence for a stiff like me.
And for once my cheeks
would be rose and my
eyes a little lighter,
but in the morning
you're never there
and I am only
human
once again.
Oct 10, 2009
Oct 10, 2009 at 5:31 PM UTC
Had the hospital to himself
He had broken his childhood against Army historians and mothballs
When reassembled he would say
I could carve a better man out of public demonstration and a woman's hair.
But the world had to bury him
In a coffin lined with a transparent curtain,
False perception,
And blame.
Until it all caved in
Pointed back to him
Reborn again
A stranger in
The home town.
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 7:26 PM UTC
Skies have been cloudy for days
Great mothballs threatening liquid
Vengeance, and all the weathermen predicted
Rain. I for one anticipated a second
Flood, torrents of water so as to wash
Everything down the drain
And why not?
That would be horrifying and
Exciting in most respects
But the rain refuses to be
Dislodged from its clouds, looming
Above a waiting world to firmly assert that
It will not visit, not until the grass is a bit greener and
The flowers show their true colors
But the brittle brown grass cries out for water and the
Cracked gray flowers weep with despair
Because, of course
Water is vital, and
Everyone needs a rainbow
May 28, 2011
May 28, 2011 at 7:50 AM UTC