"pantries" poems
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
I am ashamed that I am Spanish because of Franco
I am ashamed that I am French because of Algeria
I am ashamed that I am Algerian because of France
I am ashamed that I am American because of Bush, Iraq
and the bloodshed once among brothers
I am ashamed that I am Russian because of Stalin, Gulag
and recently of this and that
I am ashamed that I am German because of ****** clearly
(Pol *** appears more and more seldom in the lists, but one is horrified, humanly ashamed, remembering)
I am ashamed that I am English because of football etc
I am ashamed that I am Polish — only when I am not proud
I am ashamed that I am Turkish, but then there are Kurds...
I am ashamed that I am Czech and allowed myself to be stifled
(I am just as ashamed myself — some say, who feel
shame in its extremity and hide weapons in pantries, waiting for that moment
in which they wash away their shame with the blood of traditional enemies)
I am ashamed that I am Orthodox or Catholic and I wedge and split
the mountain on which Jesus bled — before others made even smaller
pieces out of his Golgotha below
I am ashamed that I am Indian because... well, it’s no matter
I am ashamed that being Macedonian I let the Greeks be even more
I am ashamed that I am Korean and one of Kim Ir Sen’s
I am ashamed that I am Korean no matter where, as long as
Kim Ir Sen’s Koreans remain
I am ashamed that I am Serbian, but... let me think
I am ashamed that I am Chinese because: ‘You’re Chinese?’
I am ashamed that I am Romanian because of Ceausescu, Dracula of course
and now, God, all these Romanians all over the world...
I am ashamed of my nation even when I am not ashamed
— but each of us seeks to forget something
I am ashamed because .......... [Everyone: fill in the blanks, write yours here!]
but you, but you — you, only you
you, whose nation filled the desolate earth with life and kindness
you are the man who begins the new day
today
with your first step
Ioana Ieronim
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 5:22 PM UTC
And only when every prison
in the police state has
an art gallery
only when hip hop
sounds like a revolutionary
sermon
only when Congress disbands
itself for lack of moral conduct
only when condoms
are jammed tightly
into high school backpacks
only when free speech
isn’t subject to search
and seizure
only when housing projects
get gated fences
only when college
athletes use pi
to find the circumference
of a basketball in their spare time
only when food pantries
exist in old NRA hangouts
only when Monsanto scrubs clean
every black cloud
only when Noah comes back
and transports
two of everything to
a protest movement
only when a protest
movement morphs
into a diversity celebration
and only when the U.S. government
writes a 5,000,000 page
apology for every ****
****** and Bill O’Reilly
sentence uttered
will I even consider having
a picnic.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC
she brings him tea,
a piece of cheese late morn
for he has been toiling since dawn
his plane shaving the wood reverently
the old oak speaking, though not complaining,
in a language the man does not understand
a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance,
redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming…
first from Ypres, the Verdun,
now the Marne
before, he heaved hewn planks
for the hopeful homes, built their pantries
to be filled with the bread, the kind milk
now the sawn boards are for those who once
watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple
sounds of sanding, sawing
or anything at all
most of the lads do not come home,
their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass
or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin
thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall,
who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built
and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 2:30 PM UTC
Sweet as the pantries,
She basked herself in a fanciful coating of clothes and accessories,
Longing to find what she termed her "Identity" in her self-proclaimed journey of seeking Truth.
Basing herself upon these coatings,
The sweetness, the addictive tone of hanging on to the securities of being visually appealing had been the sole thought harnessed in her underutilized mind.
"What should I wear?" "Am I looking too ugly in this?".... undisclosed, subtle yet toxic cycle of thoughts kept protruding from the braincentre.
Things unkempt, bottles scattered over the floor, food wrappers uncleaned....she continued glorifying herself with her trance-like state of consciousness: Calling it "Nirvana" as she glanced over her new list of Boy-friends on Facebook.
While ignoring being a pejoratory display to others, she went on profusely with her self-consuming obssession on "Beautification"....with few occassions of gaining a few disapproving glints of nostalgia from her used-to-be down-to-earth mates.
****** Her work was disorganized, she was casted out from the team she used to collaborate with on a Science project, and became merely an alluring visual representation for pack of hungry alpha wolves.
Disintegration, down to the floor her teardrops were drained from her tearducts as she pushed every bottle of her exclusive make-up products away. "Useless, worthless...."the self-degenerating dictionary of vocabulary swarmed her psyche, attacking every single optimistic living cell in her.
Few days had passed when she found herself sleeping on the cold, hard, unrelenting floor. With a slow recovering stance, she gets up with the final thought of taking a chocolate bar for sugar.
Now she is a healthy, spiritual woman committed in empowering others to find their true identity
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
those
countryside colours
dug deep in the pantries of
longlost obsessions and falling pinecones
stowed between rifts in woodwork-framed floorboards,
leaving vague lessons for the sunday crowd who'd
*finally groomed their hair and walked out,
sunglint balding projections soon crawl*
under the drainpipe circle of light ancestors ago would have thought god,
*with revelations through seven now
each night broadcasts photon showers,*
leaking through drying eyelids, blaring and spinning,
a stranger sits home,
feels so alone,
hadn't been taught to deal with transmission,
recursing discourse in patterns
in static of two
one where life went fine, and the other where we went on,
keeping tact forever and feeding geese on sunday afternoons
as the sun
shone through chemical ceilings,
*we had
tiny
birds
in
our hair,
then.*
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 7:16 AM UTC
I
expression for not in my culture
take it all slice of alternate
-universe
all height it all is all talks at last
II
it happened to the fuel what was
need to power it the apparatus I
-needed a
time machine if im ever going to
be anything other than this effing
nun I have to go back do something
take some action wrap again crepe
paper around the limbs nail christ to
the wall I want one of those when I
-come back
a hard body pantries full of fuel
have to go back and snort the hologram
ignore the urge to change my name to
-at the end of the world
III
-sinkholes
opened up next to a chrysler
wormhole to no-work-day to
a little late for the rodeo we
set an orange cone there its
raining underground where
- the circus
is an all year thing an
elephant jumps a pink horse
sings my mothers evil step
mother tells me not to wear
******* and tights at the
same time I think thats
nasty I tell about papas
-aliens
she says its his fault her
birth control failed now she
has to ask him for money
IV
the middle fuzzy like a
-peach colored
static bloom I believed you
were better and now I would pay to
waterfall over paint samples
-dissolute
stand solid in the end of the world
glasses full of muck fell off an
escalator got a scar in the shape
of a stiletto or maybe an asteroid
-they think of
a knife what cuts in the trim this
riddlin man this feral cat living
-life
on a soft backseat
oh and the driver
-being translucent
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC
When you are all done for the day,
And u end it with a small prayer.
When the birds fly back to their nests,
Seek shelter and take some rest.
When the busy streets are empty,
Closed are all bakeries and pantries.
When the skies turn dark,
Sails in the moon in its cloudy ark.
You buzz off to the land of peace,
No worries full of ease,
No joy no pain!
No loss no gain!
~Farheen zehra
Jul 17, 2016
Jul 17, 2016 at 3:37 AM UTC
peter hated the house on mckinley street
in his eight-year-old brain it was a hot mess
since his parents moved there
all he heard were complaints and yelling
his mother was always moaning about the small rooms,
the lousy closet space, the faulty plumbing, the leaky roof
and the mice
they were everywhere - in closets, in pantries, in drawers,
behind the heater, under the radiators
they were in nooks and crannies, behind the refrigerator,
in the laundry room, even in the crawl space
they were almost always in hiding, rarely seen in daytime
except when they were found dead in a trap - also a rarity
traps were set methodically, enticing hors d'oeuvres were created
laced with cheese and peanut butter but still nothing worked
his mother would religiously check the traps every morning
and every time she'd mutter "those little ******* ********
the sly moves of mice to avoid the guillotine snap of a mousetrap
as they nibbled around a flap of cheese amazed everyone
besides traps his parents bought sticky cheese pads where the
tiny monsters would get their heads and bodies stuck permanently
one time peter observed a black mouse lying - and dying - on
a cheese pad...he pushed a second pad over its face
"i suffocated the little **** he exclaimed and when he told
his parents they bought him a gift card from the lego store
but every now and then one of the lilliputian invaders would
make a live unscheduled appearance
one october when the nights began to get colder his mother saw
a gray mouse climb up a cord leading to the microwave
she almost had a heart attack right there on the spot and there
was the time his father was looking in the refrigerator and
heard a strange scratchy noise behind him - he sensed
a sudden descent; a baby mouse had scurried off a shelf and
fell into a small trash can so his father immediately picked
up the can and hurled it out the back door
ultimately the parents decided to move to a swanky apartment
house and the night before peter had his last "mouse dream"
it featured a giant white mouse's head that was the size of
a billboard so big so menacing it scared him awake
finally he fell back into a gentle state of dreamless slumber...
and when he woke up his parents were taking down pictures
he looked out his window and saw a moving van pull up and
for the first time in a long time he was happy
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 3:27 PM UTC
ready to walk off the edges,
meet death like heath ledger
in a why so serious endeavor
no wonder a cyclone's furious forever
spit heat into ocean long ago
a sultan asunder
royal hurricane candy,
empty pantries,
a mother with a sweet tooth
weeps for her family.
a nauseating oder of mildew seeps
into good news
fancy
anger and regret
shared on set
get antsy,
hands up, waist deep
road a river.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 6:07 PM UTC
hmmmmm
rooftops lights on in the house, hm, the over arching, the branches reaching, plants lampshades, tanbark and grass, hmmm deserves to be named, hmm, in the background a rake, a call, response, ohh, of shallow breath, not wanting to break the moment, the bike, parked on its side, ready for a ride, laughing at the mistakes, laughing at the wrong, everything has fallen into place, into lap, where it can be pet like a cat, hmmmmm, inside, the light, inside, the light, no pantries opening, in the distance a call, a response, the rake, the rake, the sounds spin into the silence like a slender yo yo, wooden, craft, roll back, roll back
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 9:03 PM UTC
Courtesy food pantries
Saint Eleanor's Saint Mary's,
Our Daily Bread,
the missus and yours truly (her spouse)
well stocked with good n plenti of
soap, shampoo and detergent.
Spongebob squarepants
would be in seventh heaven,
where sudsy clouds (resembling
Mister Krabs, Plankton,
Sandy Cheeks, Squidward, et cetera),
would drift across celestial vault.
Gratitude bequeathed to prophets of virtue
benevolent good samaritans
who trend righteous true
to the calling of helping hands who renew
faith (mine) in goodness of humanity
assisting not only yours truly
and the missus, but people
from South American country named Peru
or even indigenous tribes
accorded recognition comprising
population of inhabitants occupying New
Zealand, offered reparations
under the Treaty of Waitangi,
a process of reparation allowed
Maori to be fully recognized
at political level in lieu
of unfair practices inflicted upon
original occupant loosely similar
to descendents of long lost tribes of Israel,
endowed with (pure tin) pride
wishing I too could call myself proud Jew,
nevertheless attraction manifests destiny
(mine) someday to learn Hebrew.
Courtesy atheism more so Unitarianism,
I need not adopt
an explicit dogmatic, fanatic, humanistic...,
lunatic, narcissistic, puritanic... paradigm,
but only tout poetic justice (mine)
to recognize laudable traits
linkedin to orthodox faiths,
albeit rationalistic rubric
that caters to selflessness
for no other reason
than allowing, enabling, and promoting
random acts of kindness
without any forthcoming great expectation
downplaying remuneration,
no matter destitution begot mein kampf
hard times living within bleak house
slight hyperbolic exaggeration
poor as a cheesy church mouse poet.
Lemme coast to a fitting conclusion
bringing reasonable rhyming blather
originating courtesy me noggin,
within which wool doth gather
thus I a halt and
dial down philosophical lather,
cuz most likely
ye dear reader would rather
experience palmolive oil slather
preparatory to full body massage.
Dec 16, 2021
Dec 16, 2021 at 8:39 PM UTC
Love, what have you become?
In broomsticks and cupboards and pantries,
On the dust-covered stairs,
In the breathless rush of faucet water,
On the crumpled lampshade at night,
Love is the summation of an individual’s life alone,
Somehow still expressed by two across the bridge of language failing.
Aug 6, 2019
Aug 6, 2019 at 2:00 PM UTC
We've hit it
yes we have
the end of days draws nigh
a Grand Master now abased
beat by a algorithmic, self-taught AI
It's not that a computer
hasn't won before
this one learned the game
in hours, only four
Stock your pantries ladies
fill the tubs, and baths
Armageddon, now approaching
a mechanical type, laugh
The masters no longer flesh
setting tasks, we can't comply
building smarter robots
up until the day
we die
Dec 22, 2017
Dec 22, 2017 at 8:50 AM UTC
Autumn, without Summer's knowledge or consent
Early this morning, under cover of fog, went
out tinting some flora; whispering, "Hurry!" to fauna,
For days of steaming in Summer's sauna
Are passing quickly, and Autumn's sweet brush of chill
Foretells piquant Fall colors and the need to fill
Pantries and jars and underground spaces
and caches with bounty from various places.
We're grateful this day for windows flung wide
And the cozy sweater for which we sighed,
For simmering cider and pumpkin displays,
All thanks to the Father who shortens the days.
And Autumn, if Summer catches hold of your sash
As you run toward the equinox in your mad dash
Just slip off your apron. That's what I would do
If I were the one racing toward 9/22.
Sep 30, 2020
Sep 30, 2020 at 7:31 PM UTC
A glass of wine
I long for this morning
End of the day mealtimes
Us lucky citizens
Our pantries loaded
Stores full to the rim
Fourty percent waisted
This claim just came in
More food than we need
Yet hunger persists
In huge areas of this planet
Due to inequalities sin
What's wrong
Citizens priorities make that list
Socialists find your place
Liberalism a middle ground
Questions remain
Strongholds of religions
If not used for righteous claim
Boundaries on this earth
Delete wars and pain
Now
Bring back Compassion's Dame
(c)near_lane7
Nov 15, 2020
Nov 15, 2020 at 7:32 PM UTC