"shirtsleeves" poems
navigator’s balcony cocktail hour
rocket orbit ocean liner rising
clenched no teeth no guernica no bam bam bam
correspondent notary republic
address book dial figure 8
charred with a thousand jigsaw pieces
false as a beach chiaroscuro black
on black graveyard womb naked milk glass lit
footprint tourism by candlelight and flare
vaccination fatigue puke fingernail fish
moving a bandaged echo **** him **** her
familiar bell music **** them both **** them all
stretched shirtsleeves spanish toffee slashed tires
(failure as a painter he shaved his wife’s fur coat)
bust your ***** Barcelona red alert
knock-kneed broken squeezebox no hands
standing room only ladies first (please)
unbuttoned interrogation coffee rolls (stop)
marine’s vegetation (stop) early morning tea (stop)
armless menus (stop) pink cathedral fingers (stop)
and (begin again) move
we move
moving inside an eye this eye
that advances step
by step
10.3k
Let us go, Oedipus, let me walk you
'Twixt towers reaching to heaven,
Where women are charged to be patient and perfect.
You will not stay upon your leash.
We walk through Mandalay, not Paris,
Where the women have no face.
'Tis but a siren of emergency
That sings to me.
What worth I am to you, Oedipus,
What worth am I to them?
When the footman holds my coat, and snickers,
What worth am I to them?
Every man is a piece of the continent!
She may love me for the dangers I have passed,
And I her that she did pity them,
But she cannot, now and forever.
And while the sun excludes me,
I am not them and they not I,
And the waters do not glisten,
She is their chattel and not mine.
I gaze upon her ornate face and sing,
Her eyes are pools of wonder that see me, and swing away.
I am older, I have sense,
Like Oedipus my King,
But when I see her ornate face
I very nearly sing.
After many lonely nights
In shirtsleeves and not silk,
I went to her, and said:
Here, take this silver, for my milk.
And she may have loved me once
But for my thought and sense,
I'm but a bumblebee today -
I left at some expense.
Sep 17, 2010
Sep 17, 2010 at 6:04 AM UTC
You know what?
I will fight
Because it's difficult
Because the lows are so ******* low
Because the night air chills my damp shirtsleeves
Because sometimes the walls are impenetrable
Because I do it the hard way
But really because
He always says it back
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 6:07 AM UTC
the kids
that you didn't know existed
all winter
have been jail-sprung
they litter the sidewalk
like snowdrops
riding miniature bikes
with training wheels
zipping up and down
the street
in their
shirtsleeves
the easter bunny
coaxed them out
into the park
to search for treats
but they decided to stay
Mar 30, 2013
Mar 30, 2013 at 1:03 PM UTC
ed,
i "don't" know what me and my
"little bird" would do without you cause'
"uni" "take it back" to
"grade 8"as you
" kiss me" under the light of "all of the stars" cause'
"i see fire" when we both collide
and this "lego house" we had built for
me you and this "small bump"
so please don't "runaway"
but if you do i understand cause'
"even my dad does sometimes"
but don't fly away forever like a
"firefly" cause in the mornin' we'll sip some
"cold coffee" or we can get "drunk"
and you could "give me love"
but you'd have to "wake me up"
cause after all i am on "the a team"
watching as "one" of the "autumn leaves"
fall slowly down
and i realize that "im a mess"
so please don't "runaway"
we could take a "photograph" with
"the man" and "Nina"
or we could look at the "tenerife sea" while
we acknowledge our "afire love" and then i will
pull up my "shirtsleeves" and you can
feel my "bloodstream"
and maybe we could "sing"
what? i guess this whole time i was "thinking out loud"
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
halfmade foundations and unfinished
drainage trenches and the spaced-out
circles of glaring light
marking streets that were to be
walking with you but so far from you,
and now alone in October's
first decision towards winter, so close to you--
my arms full of playful rebellious linen, a freighter
going down-river two blocks away, outward bound,
the green wolf-eyes of the Harborside Terminal
glittering on the Jersey shore,
and a train somewhere under ground bringing you towards me
to our new living-place from which we can see
a river and its traffic (the Hudson and the
hidden river, who can say which it is we see, we see
something of both. Or who can say
the crippled broom-vendor yesterday, who passed
just as we needed a new broom, was not
one of the Hidden Ones?)
Crates of fruit are unloading
across the street on the cobbles,
and a brazier flaring
to warm the men and burn trash. He wished us
luck when we bought the broom. But not luck
brought us here. By design
clean air and cold wind polish
the river lights, by design
we are to live now in a new place.
2.1k
i like that the freckles on your face match the ones on your back, and no two freckles are the same
like snowflakes
your kisses are soft and wet.
you said my full name is pretty, and i like how it sounds when you say it
i'd let you call me by it if you asked.
you drank all my wine but what you didn't know is that wine was already yours
you gave me head on the floor
in my bedroom, you pick the best songs to kiss to.
i like the way you say 'jasmines'
a quieter part of me wonders how you would go about pronouncing every flower, and how long it would take
i would stay till the end
i didn't expect to feel anything when you said i was just your friend
you laid your head in my lap, and my thighs grew feelings all around you
but you run your fingers through your tangleless hair, and all my feelings fall to the floor
i will tuck them into my shirtsleeves, wear them like a friendship bracelet
we're just friends till nightfall, by midnight i'm your favorite.
i am not a tender thing to you, and i won't tell you that i want to be
so long as you continue to say my name so softly
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 4:25 AM UTC
“I need to write a poem”
Were the first words out of my mouth when my mother told me about
The Letters
One letter arrived one day, postmarked July 1st, 2014
I don’t know when it arrived, but that day
I guess that day her soul earned it’s wings
That day, that one day
My soul crumbled as hers rose to the heavens, with that piece of paper
that had Apology scrawled all over it in that handwriting of hers that
Didn’t change one bit
I was watching my family extra closely as my mother read the letter out loud
I didn’t want to see any of us hurt anymore even though I knew in my heart
We would get through this
We’re Zelinskis, strong and forgiving
We open our hearts to perfect strangers and welcome them into our home with hugs and laughter and game nights that don’t end at midnight
We are one in suffering and one in rejoicing
We wear the teachings of the bible on our shirtsleeves and kindness drip drops from our eyes
My dad says
We’re all children of christ
But Children still get hurt
My sister, she chose Laughter
My brother, his face was a blank canvas as I rubbed and rubbed, trying to see through the white blanket of paint that masked his emotions
My sister in law told me the Truth
My brother, I don’t know, I just hope he listens to his heart this time
My sister, she has a wedding to plan
Me,
Maybe I’m the only one who wanted to be angry
Maybe I’m the only one who sees their pain even though they can’t
Or maybe I’m delusional and no one’s really affected by the Letter
We’re still children
I’m still bouncing around the house, following the older kids around like a lost puppy
My sisters are still my heroes and my brothers
Are still my knights, my Protectors, the ones I could sass and make fun of because they
Did the same to me but with much more force than my small voice could carry
We’re still children
I know nothing of The Letters
Instead, I’m welcoming Her into our home again with a tray full of Grandma’s famous chocolate chip cookies and the goofy grin of a six year old
I’m meeting Her eyes again
Only this time
I know she’ll leave
This time, I know how much time I have
So I’ll write my letter now
And instead of remorse and anger
I’ll fill it with good times and Remember Whens
I’ll put it in the mailbox, swipe the red flag up
And wish on the mailman that you’ll get it
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 7:19 PM UTC
If my sins returned as monsters
if each lie awoke a ghoul
there would be no hiding place
nor shelter for my soul.
For my wrongs are many
and forgiveness has been spent
what with all the ills I've wrought
'twould be inane to try repent.
The careless sounds slipped from my tripping lips
the thoughtless flapping of my tongue
those simple phrases cost me dearly
on my shirtsleeves they've been hung.
Looking back at past events
I find it quite absurd
that God dost grant us no device
to unspeak a wicked word.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
Smoking is a working class disease
They said; he smiled at this.
Lean in body and broad of mind
With shirtsleeves rolled,
A modern man's philosopher
Who stuttered over the words
Like his fingers did over her chassis
Detroit rolling iron beneath his palms
Grease and lubricant under the nails.
The cigarette cherry glows in the dark
Giving him a hard edge aura
The gloaming settling into the lines
Of his work-worn face
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 4:19 PM UTC
"Forget her," he said
"Like waves forget the
sand on the beach when
tide goes out. Like dew
drops forget moonlight
when a sunbeam makes
them blush in the morning."
But I am not as forgetful as water.
I am a tree standing tall in an orchard
with snow around my ankles and my limbs
shivering in shirtsleeves but I won't for a minute
forget the springtime. Or the sunshine and how she
danced through it underneath me. I will always remember
that summer we spent in fields together laughing at
dragonflies lighting on nettles and catching the
warm breeze in our hair. She was a fully
shaken Polaroid. A postcard.
A Memoir.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 7:44 AM UTC
No two people
ever conceived by God
could possibly be more alike than us
We live our lives in perpetual hope
of Country Time Lemonade commercials
and old reruns of “Leave it to ******
We hope that, around the next bend
on a dusty, sun streaked road
we will find our Mayberry
That place where old men
weighing down sagging porches
speak in parable of better times
That place where young mothers
perpetually in their Sunday best
push strollers edged in brick-a-brack
That place where little boys
have impossibly grass stained knees
at the edge of muddy fishing holes
That place where little girls
pick Black-Eyed Susan's in verdant fields
and play at getting married while the little boys flee in terror
That place where dapper fathers
mow lawns in their shirtsleeves
and tip their pipes to one another in the falling afternoon sun
Together, we dream of this place;
this ideal;
this America.
Together we dream and, together, we continue
down that old dirt road;
hoping to find Mayberry
just around the next bend.
Mar 15, 2010
Mar 15, 2010 at 6:54 PM UTC
Shiver. Beetles under my skin
wear top hats in my fever dreams.
They dance on pinprick goosebumps in
the pale fabric of my shirtsleeves.
Crawling. Aching. Never let it stop.
I need it more than it needs me.
Lock me up; Throw away the key.
Gasping. ****** Never let it stop.
One more drag.
One more drop.
Lock me up; Set me free.
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 1:57 AM UTC
ears destined for rust and fallow fields
move smoothly in grime
for men in shirtsleeves
and women laughing in sunlight
silos line the horizon
stuffed to the brim
with pipe dreams and hops
children as shadow puppets
behind clotheslines
herald the bees and honey
thrusting pipes push earthen mounds
echoing coffins’ slumbers
men heave iron and wheat
on a forgotten country road
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
I chanced upon an old letter
That had clearly sailed legless on seas
Crumpled, damp but inside the envelope:
Intelligible writing by sight
But by comprehension I was lost
Disorientated and sea-sick.
Sometimes you come across
an object, and in no way
can you explain its origin,
it’s purpose, or the frame of
mind of the person who last
encountered it,
The letter was dry and slightly
smudged but the envelope (and stamp)
could not be made out at all
I could not send it back
If I could I would be lost for
words, as it seems they were in ways:
*...and I have little leaves, I love you and I miss you so much.
When he finished the day in the ocean waiting for you to choose from Aserahosov read our son and apricot. My shirtsleeves damp in your memory. Our subject is expected later to the rest of the flight path of the earth ready to kiss a little faster on the planet.
I broke a strong bird while I like the cakes, I break the strong current. Love my *** I strongly flow. It has been Pecan pie is to say...*
My understanding of romance is minimal
But to have leaves seems morbid
Even more so than the breaking of
the bird...
Why should a bird get hurt in this
gross courtship?
and a strong one too,
what act of love can break
anything but a heart?
I like the cakes, I break the strong currents
Perhaps the words of someone rushing
Across oceans in the name of love
Slicing through the chunky waves
But the cake is a bit out of place
Surely no one would rush across oceans
Wide and rough and restless
For a cake that was simply ‘liked’
This must all be a prank...
This one then—
*Love my *** off I strongly flow…*
Now, I hope the flowing is another
Nautical reference, it would tie in nicely
With the breaking of currents-
I cannot comment on what precedes it
There is much I cannot discuss
In this disgusting letter, I wish
I had not been given it.
****
—If I were a seahorse, I know that just being a seahorse would be enough...
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 11:46 PM UTC
Every couple days I see him
Standing, never sitting
Head bent, leaning with the car
The other people are constellations
But he is this one lone star
He never looks up or right
Just down with crinkled frown
He doesn't know just how bright
His light shines through this brown
This brown, this palpable ****
It covers us all
The fat, the lazy, the fit
It clings to our shirtsleeves
Pulls at our cuffs
Slowly burning our tree leaves
In slow deliberate puffs
But here he is
Every other day
Devoid of this **** and stank
Simply moving with the sway
I sometimes think of getting up
Of telling him how I feel
Mister you are beautiful
A wine glass where I am a cup
A plastic one with lines to tell
How much is too much
From ***** wine, even 7up
Though I never will
Sir it's not just that you are beautiful
It's because you never sit
You just stand and sway
Flexing your mighty wrist
You never stumble at the stops
Your ******* headphones
I doubt they twist
I know what I'm doing
Or at least what my mother would say
I've turned you into an ideal
A bet that will never pay
You'll be mean, jealous or loud
Sorry or far too proud
But how can you still shine like this
Each and every other day
An orbiting star standing three feet away
In this ***** **** covered subway
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 12:49 PM UTC
i’m of that particularly pretentious belief that each and every one of us is larger than the biological self
our connections can reach far beyond far beyond the movement of our mouths into something metaphyiscal.
the crazy biology teacher at my old high school knew this and she sent herself into a panic over my brother’s white aura.
and in this roy-gee-biv of being, gold means good. blue means beautiful. red means you’re hot and dangerous but i’m gonna touch you anyway. green means get the **** away from me you freak.
i can tell you with celestial certainty that my aura is spiders.
spiders. spider moms and spider dads making millions of spider babies on my soul. spiders crawling all over my face and out of my mouth. spiders crawling out of my shirtsleeves. spiders in my hair.
i invite you to bathe in the light of my spiders.
i make people uncomfortable. i frighten small children. i make grown men run away in terror. i have high corners so i’m prone to webs. i bask in the warmth of damp basements and nauseated screams.
while my brother is busy being a pure soul. while red seems out of reach. while all the colors mix together in fantastic combinations unavailable in any box of crayons, i’ll be watching you all. silently with my spiders. judging.
Jan 17, 2016
Jan 17, 2016 at 7:36 PM UTC
Giggles from the child as water
runs down her back, matching
the swinging wind chimes just outside
the wide-open window. Her mother
smiles, her shirtsleeves rolled up and
yet wet and covered in tiny bubbles.
The white tile around them glistens
in the sunlight pouring in, and I,
the grinning dad who just got home,
stand in the doorway, softened clay.
My wife, my beautiful wife,
looks up at me and says “Hey honey,”
and runs another small jug of bathwater
over my baby’s soft head of hair.
The little one trickles out “Hi Daaaaddy,”
and giggles again, as her mother scrubs
her little back and shoulders. Seeing this
scene in front of me, my eyes water
slightly. I pull it back in; after all
these years it’s still difficult for me to
simply be joyous. Nonetheless, there is
an ache in my heart, the ache one feels
when they first fall in love, and I am standing
here falling all over again. I roll up my sleeves
and drop to my knees, and give my wife
and my sweetie the biggest pecks I can muster,
and clean her delicate little arms. The mother
pours another jug, and once again, this little
darling angel, like wind chimes swinging outside,
giggles.
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 6:49 PM UTC
Seeking the sunrise,
Hiding in shadows,
Compressing the moonlight
Into your pocket
Because who knows when we'll see it again?
Pictures
Of what may never come back.
What we loved,
Lost,
Hated.
They last a lifetime
Like my tears
on your shirtsleeves.
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 2:48 PM UTC
Oh those bodies
on the museum walls
Tennessee Valley bodies and Los Alamos bodies
shining blackly like the stripe of a credit card.
The price of bread fixed at five cents
and we all eat it in slices.
Your name is your labour and
your labour your name.
I have disappeared into a country that doesn’t know me
and I am tearing it up with my teeth.
Oh those bodies
that were once slaves.
Were they pictured any other way
but in idyll or whipped dry?
The dusty Union regiments at Baton Rouge
have made a postcard of one scourged back;
they share it around and die for it.
I have a few postcards, too.
It is strange to see any man kneeling.
Oh those bodies
Cornbread bodies and bodies like a corn snake
crushed among the broad leaves of tobacco;
The ones in bone corsets and the ones
in reed baskets, floating downstream.
The ones in rosy marble and wrought bronze
the ones whose striped backs are coming out in wings
feathers pink and wet
like a new-hatched chick or a stillbirth.
Your body
is a tight machine of grief
packed into homespun like a fist
and relaxes in sepia as it never did in life,
a babe slung underarm and the food
only from cans; they keep the dust out.
Oh those bodies that tend the home, larder and ledger,
and reach for the high cabinets
and keep reaching.
The old voices are back at work.
I am not the one they are speaking to
but I hear them all the same.
They spread out a catalogue of wares
on a sisal blanket in the dark
and every price sounds fair, every garment lovely
unless you made it.
The country workman in bronze now and forever
with his rolled shirtsleeves; his body
raises a hammer and his bicep, mid-shiver
is always striking something, always building
Heaven, and Manhattan, from the foundations.
Stained glass his union flag
and Union Army blood he forgot or never knew.
The thin white arms of Andersonville,
meeting two generations hence, in his arms,
the dark scarred shoulders of the South.
Who brought forth upon the continent this new nation,
and who brought forth the ironclad Monitor
and who put into song the Maple Leaf Rag or Swanee River
and who put that soil there from which the cotton still grows
and who made your dress?
Who owes the debt and who records it?
You and I.
Oh those bodies swathed in light.
Oh those bodies becoming angels.
Bodies bound blackly
and bodies forgetting
which is what bodies do with injury:
they absorb, and they forget.
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 1:36 PM UTC
the palms of her hands
are calloused
from the constant
digging.
she is
digging a hole,
running on empty.
as she falls to her knees,
her fingertips
are enveloped in
the cool earth,
cooling the blisters
and bruises.
carefully,
she climbs inside.
and as the cavern fills up
with rainwater,
she feels her swollen tongue
and the rug burn on her skin
and the acid in her throat,
and she reaches for the comfort
of her shirtsleeves.
the grit
of cough syrup
and mud
between her teeth
makes her gag
over the patter
of rain,
she can hear a shovel
against rock.
another person
digging a hole,
but into the rocky portion
usually reserved for those
with nothing
left.
and so out she climbs,
cradles the digger
in her arms
and fills her hole
with flower petals,
dropping the lost soul
inside
and she wraps her fingers
around the soaked piece of wood
and metal
and groans with that familiar sound
of metal on rock
as she resumes
what they left behind.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 9:51 AM UTC
Is it okay
if sometimes
I can't tell the difference between
you and me
the places that separated us
have gone and disappeared
and now when you're gone
I am too
and I can't take anymore of this
I hear drums in the background
and it must be a sonata
waiting for me to conduct it
a pulsing rhythm
In and out
like the swell of a crowd
with the sweat intermingling
and I can't tell
who you are
you're just a circle
nothing but a circle
something fluid like the water
dripping from my shirtsleeves
in the dark
in the dark with no blue moon anymore
you took my blue moon
when you left
and you can stay away
because I can't handle this
I just can't
I can't live
with this solitude
So someone come along
and free me
from the mental
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 2:29 AM UTC
bile rising in my throat
i’m the ground again
away from people
but the noise won’t stop
won’t stop
_god why won’t it stop_
my mind is a never ending barrage
of loud, violent thoughts
overwhelming, unstoppable
i hide and hide
laying down to slow my heart
beating, racing
as if trying to escape my thoughts
is this a panic attack?
but i’m not crying
and this feeling has lasted days
so of course not, of course not
my skin doesn’t feel right
like i could peel it right off
my clothes are too tight
i can feel each atom in my body
vibrating so urgently, so violently
nothing is right
other methods fail
_they always do, they always do_
so i turn to my worst comfort
tearing into flesh on my arms
carefully hidden under shirtsleeves
i can finally breathe
this feeling is all consuming
no end in sight
i hide and pretend
i can’t worry anyone again
it’s been days
but i can wait
help is too much trouble
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 7:07 PM UTC