"siding" poems
Overwhelming mental congestion for perfection,
Socially influenced blueprints of future attraction.
Constructive criticism given by construction workers,
The labor of family and friends for reassurance.
A solid foundation of first impressions,
Structured walls of growth and development.
Insulation of natural feelings and experiences,
Ventilation to cool down the heated encounters.
Electrical wiring of an emotional and physical connection,
A circuitry of passion and romance with a light switch.
Hardwood flooring for candle lit dinners and ballroom dancing,
Granite kitchen counters for intimate midnight snacks.
An attractive exterior siding to woo the public eye,
A secure lock of commitment on all the doors.
A roof of trust, and a picket fence,
And now, my love,
I’m simply yours.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC
It's a still morning, quiet and cloudy
the kind of grey day I like best;
they'll be here soon, the little kids first,
creeping up to try and frighten me,
then the tall young men, the slim boy
with the marvellous smile, the dark girl
subtle and secret; and the others,
the parents, my children, my friends —
and I think: these truly are my weather
my grey mornings and my rain at night,
my sparkling afternoons and my birdcall at daylight;
they are my game of hide and seek, my song
that flies from a high window. They are
my dragonflies dancing on silver water.
Without them I cannot move forward, I am
a broken signpost, a train fetched up on
a small siding, a dry voice buzzing in the ears;
for they are also my blunders
and my forgiveness for blundering,
my road to the stars and my seagrass chair
in the sun. They fly where I cannot follow
and I — I am their branch, their tree.
My song is of the generations, it echoes
the old dialogue of the years; it is the tribal
chorus that no one may sing alone.
7.6k
Do you hate the way
that our magnetized times
turn us all to metal shavings--
push and pull--charged each
day to fill up negative space
with negative attraction?
Were you repulsed when polarities
changed?
Or was that me?
Flipping switches
switching sides
siding
with pivot points showing, caught
with pants down?
"Be a man now!"
While the female end
of the port calls out,
"Shipwreck! Shipwreck!
All men down!"
Count me out at minus 4
it leaves a balance: minus 3
At minus 10, our blood could freeze
and fall back earthward; blood red snow.
Caught on the tongue it tastes like pennies.
Tastes just like
the metal shavings
we become
in magnetized times.
Polarized
and "Family Sized." Underpaid
Overfed. Neutralized America.
Greatest country in the ******* world.
Right?
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
I reminisce by this railway siding pond,
Musing on rail relics rattling on,
Recalling lives and times bygone,
But memories of their shades linger on,
The lonesome call of distant steam trains,
Eras that may never come again,
I see they're gone nowhere in particular,
Replaced by planes and transport vehicular,
I imagine queues on foggy platforms,
Awaiting the misted trains' shadow forms,
Standing by, expecting the status quo,
I blink my eyes, where did they all go?
Looking backwards along yesterday's track,
I'm no kid any more, get off my back,
I reflect and reminisce,
Nostalgia is for the times we miss,
I'll reminisce by the railway siding pond,
I recall the times and lives bygone,
As ghosts of rail relics keep rattling on......
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 8:53 PM UTC
Three days, is what the HR rep said, somewhat sheepishly,
As if she was fully aware that boxing up one’s grief
In a span of a few dozen hours
Is a matter of wishful thinking
And certainly she sympathizes
(Indeed, as she speaks,
She spreads her hands in such a way
As you half expect doves to come forth in full flight)
Empathy being their stock in trade,
But the law and the handbook say three days,
And then you need to have your head
******* back on and looking forward.
Eventually, the mail brings fewer envelopes
Marked with embossed flowers
And subdued and tasteful stamps,
The usual flow of solicitous inquiries,
Pre-stamped and pre-sorted,
Inquiring as to your credit needs,
The condition of your windows and siding,
Resumes apace, and more than once,
In fits of inappropriate black humor and frustration,
You scribble, in bold thick strokes of a marker,
The addressee no longer resides at this location.
You return to nine-to-five,
Though your ghosts keep their own hours,
Stopping by to visit on their own schedule alone,
Prompted by the tiniest of things:
The dog scampering to its feet in a hurry,
As if someone was at the door,
The discovery of a long-unused pitching wedge
Standing expectantly in the back of the closet,
A song from long ago which was beloved
When you lived in the pairing mandated by Noah
Before you entered the shadow world of ones and nones.
Sometimes you give into the giddy madness,
And rise to waltz around the room,
Careening about unsteadily, clumsily
As you have yet to completely master
The difference in weight shift and distribution
That is required of a solo act.
The timing of these visitations
Often disrupts your schedule and sleep patterns,
And you think that perhaps tomorrow you’ll call in.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer.
The leather law books of Alexander's father fill a room like hay in a barn.
Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books.
The rain beats on the windows
And the raindrops run down the window glass
And the raindrops slide off the green blinds down the siding.
The boy Alexander dreams of Napoleon in John C. Abbott's history, Napoleon the grand and lonely man wronged, Napoleon in his life wronged and in his memory wronged.
The boy Alexander dreams of the cat Alice saw, the cat fading off into the dark and leaving the teeth of its Cheshire smile lighting the gloom.
Buffaloes, blizzards, way down in Texas, in the panhandle of Texas snuggling close to New Mexico,
These creep into Alexander's dreaming by the window when his father talks with strange men about land down in Deaf Smith County.
Alexander's father tells the strange men: Five years ago we ran a Ford out on the prairie and chased antelopes.
Only once or twice in a long while has Alexander heard his father say "my first wife" so-and-so and such-and-such.
A few times softly the father has told Alexander, "Your mother ... was a beautiful woman ... but we won't talk about her."
Always Alexander listens with a keen listen when he hears his father mention "my first wife" or "Alexander's mother."
Alexander's father smokes a cigar and the Episcopal rector smokes a cigar and the words come often: mystery of life, mystery of life.
These two come into Alexander's head blurry and gray while the rain beats on the windows and the raindrops run down the window glass and the raindrops slide off the green blinds and down the siding.
These and: There is a God, there must be a God, how can there be rain or sun unless there is a God?
So from the wrongs of Napoleon and the Cheshire cat smile on to the buffaloes and blizzards of Texas and on to his mother and to God, so the blurry gray rain dreams of Alexander have gone on five minutes, maybe ten, keeping slow easy time to the raindrops on the window glass and the raindrops sliding off the green blinds and down the siding.
3.9k
The world is not complex
People just say it is to hide their bull **** excuses for self justification
Let us give them our admiration for their condescending inspiration
Lonely is fun when your enticingly crazy
Never entirely board when your consumed in self argumentative rambling
A gesture I call exciting
I don't deny the chaos erupting from my skulls siding
Nor should anybody
I have a tendency of getting delighted the moment I put my animosity on display
It's kind of like my you have a "blessed day"
Yes I'm ok
I have daily meetings with the counselor in my head and he
said this is progress
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 1:48 PM UTC
Pure cane sugartar that sits on teeth,
sits on a canine porch swing
and swings too far, kicking the enamel
siding, wood knots, and greying-thin
windows. More exposed than Brad
Pitt's marriage or JonBenét Ramsay
on the cover of Old World News Daily
in the dentist's office. And there we
are. We're bleached white and burning
beneath paparazzi bulbs and a
a ****** case. Brief case money/
two thousand fourteen and it's still
relevant, still useful blood money.
Novocain lightning flash; burn a tree.
Cali home tucked behind parsley
palms. Fortune teller, baby, O.J. didn't
do it. Not The Juice, not him.
The gloves. The gloves. The gloves.
Comfort of picket fence rainbrushed
paint stripping. Raymour retail
of a mocha-cushion couch half-off
'cause the back's spattered with
toothpaste and taxpayer juice
like Grandma's cancer handbag.
Put your feet up, stay a while.
Don't leave.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 10:14 AM UTC
Rain drops trickle down the siding,
Each one an orphan,
Rushing to find it's way home.
The sound of it all,
Streams,
disecting their way through the grass.
Determined.
Puddles,
fill the cracks in the old, broken down drive way.
Healing.
And the beauty of it all gives me a little hope,
Maybe we are all just rain drops or puddles,
Looking to fall peacefully into something broken,
something we can heal,
something we can make new again,
something.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 1:15 AM UTC
you tried to feed
me stardust
sway and hold me
as we danced
you tried to make a home
out of me
open my shutters
let the light
flood inside
push sheer magenta
curtains aside
you tried to run
your fingers reverently
over my rosewood
you tried to ***** my home
raise it from the island
kiss my lips after broken
storms hold my hands in your own convince me that you replaced my old
broken doors
peeling paint and vinyl siding
you tried to
feed me stardust
sway and hold me
as we danced
you tried to make
a home out of me
but I was really an island
ready to be claimed
by the fire and the sea
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
It Was A Warm Spring Day,
In Our Downtown Home,
White Paint Was Lethargically Pealing,
Off The Siding Which Lay Beneath Curling Vines,
I Still Remember Your Smile Daddy,
Your Coal Colored Hair Lingering In The Breeze,
As You Asked Me, "Do You Wanna See?"
I Nodded Not Quite Sure What I Was Going To See,
You Gently Lifted Me Up,
Put Me On Your Shoulders Like You Always Did,
And Let Me Peer Inside A Forest Of Vines,
And What I Saw Both Frighted And Enchanted Me,
Something Completely New,
A Little House Wren Who Cradled Her Eggs,
And Looked At Me,
Her Heart Beating Quickly,
"She's Protecting Her Babies," You Whispered,
"Just Like I'll Always Protect You"
"Hi," I Said And Held Out My Hand,
The Little Wren Flew Away And I Sobbed,
"Why Was It Scared Of Me Daddy?"
"It Was Only Letting You See It's Eggs"
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 11:43 PM UTC
With special thanks to George Ella Lyon
I am from crumbling brick
(red, dusty, smelling of musk).
I am from aluminum siding
and triple-deckers,
tall, strong, unmovable.
Hailing from the city on about seventy hills.
From Grandfathers and photo albums,
cigar ash salad and pinecone wars.
From "use your imagination" and "go play in the street".
I am from a whirlwind of faith,
belief from non-believers.
From schoolyards, playgrounds, and crawlspaces
come these faces, and these memories
are worth more to me, than anything.
Sep 22, 2010
Sep 22, 2010 at 7:02 PM UTC
What are we doing?
but siding with the beast
kids crying out of fear
feared to shed a tear
mother's lying on floor
with their blood covering
the sea.
what are we doing?
kids stunned to death
whether to realize whats real
or not real.
fathers running away
with full speed.
kids feasting with there own
fear confused with this
collision
A world
thats feasting with blood
and tears.
--Ismahan
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
We waded knee deep in the puddles
of vacant lots when the flood filled
our gutters to the brim.
When the rain died down and the water pulled
itself from the streets we watched the rainbow
of oil swirl around our ankles,
walked the wooden footbridge that broke
apart under the weight of our feet,
the water-logged wood rot
splitting while rusted nails slid
out of place. We followed the streams
back to the plaza, back to fake IDs
and the ash-stained tobacco shop.
We found ourselves under flickering
lights, leaning against the rusted
siding of the family market, faces hidden
in a mask of smoke. We got lost
in the electric hum of the laundromat's cyclic drone.
They paved over it all -- covered freckled
skin with cloth and hot tar,
crushed vacant houses like hollow skulls,
ignited neon lights and street lamps,
strip malls and drugs stores
that burn holes into old hiding places.
They still try to sift through shattered glass,
silence the hiss of the popped bike tire,
wipe away the blood flower that blooms
from my scabbed knee.
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 10:29 AM UTC
The smell of grandma's porch was wonderful
but not in the clothes on the line or fresh apple pie on the windowsill kind of way.
Grandma's porch smelled of old paint
of winter even in the summer and of
damp wicker, an ancient outdoor rug, oxidized aluminum siding
and dust from the cars on First Avenue speeding to,
or from,
the Post Office on Main Street at the bottom of her street
These were not necessarily "good" smells
We'd wash them off of our hands before we ate lunch in front of
the TV with grandpa, watching Jeopardy
but the old one not the one with the Canadian guy
But they were good smells to us because
they reminded us of a grandma who allowed her grandchildren to build massive forts
from blankets
and every chair and sofa cushion in the house
TV tables too
As long as they were dismantled before Noon when Jeopardy came on
and grandpa would want his lunch
and the vapor rising from his bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup
would wash away the smell of grandmas porch from our noses.
Aug 13, 2012
Aug 13, 2012 at 4:37 PM UTC
Unborn
You were alive and kicking
one third a child and one half me
But I was half the person
I was half-dead and hurting
And now I'm half-alive, half-dead, half-empty and half-full
Alive enough to feel the dead part of me that's missing.
In this world I can never make sense of
That makes the unnatural seem so right
Everything natural lead to you, and now I'm siding with the unnatural.
I'm living with half myself and no more you
Beautiful, alive and kicking
Kicking me into the unnatural world and yourself into oblivion
You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in black and white
But nothing about this was black or white
I'm fifty shades away from the greyest grey
And I miss you. Even if we'll never speak. I miss how much you scared me. I miss my natural world. My world of alcohol and *** and cigarettes and love and me at the centre.
And I still picked me. But you're half me.
This natural world is unfair; people who want you can't get you and people who don't want you do.
Now I'm siding with the unnatural.
But it's too grey to handle, too complex
never as beautiful as you
It's mother's Day today and I am no mother.
And even in your non-existence my hair is turning grey.
What I didn't realise when I ****** the life out of you is that I ****** some of the life out of me, too.
I know you cannot feel, but I wish I could have comforted you as you became sixths and eighths and suddenly nothing to be afraid of any more.
I wish I could have held you and briefly been your mother for just a second as you left me and as you screamed.
But you can't scream.
No, you're just cells. I'm just cells.
A nervous system away from you and
cords and worlds apart.
I wish I could have gone with you to your world as I felt the artificial peace of mine when you left me in my sleep.
I think I will prefer your world to this unnatural one.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
Immortal Love, author of this great frame,
Sprung from that beauty which can never fade,
How hath man parcel’d out Thy glorious name,
And thrown it on that dust which Thou hast made,
While mortal love doth all the title gain!
Which siding with Invention, they together
Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain,
(Thy workmanship) and give Thee share in neither.
Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit;
The world is theirs, they two play out the game,
Thou standing by: and though Thy glorious name
Wrought our deliverance from th’ infernal pit,
Who sings Thy praise? Only a scarf or glove
Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.
1.9k
THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.
Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always-I never knew it any other way-
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
And the rain and the corn and the sun and the corn
Talk things over together.
Over the road is the farmhouse.
The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose.
It will not be fixed till the corn is husked.
The farmer and his wife talk things over together.
1.9k
flip/switch.
the dark runs to corners:
unswept cobwebs, unmarked
graves of
lacewings.
mirror, mirror.
tessellate:
you
me
you
kaleidoscopic in the seven years’
worth of bad luck.
you come here with new eyes and
brand-new dockers. i
mend the broken siding in my mind’s eye.
prune the wisteria and uproot
ivy in handfuls.
i unconsciously check for
onion peel
underneath the kitchen sink.
the pantry
where one of the pups died.
the disappointment of eyes
bloodshot
but dry.
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 26, 2011 at 7:19 PM UTC
I have an old farmhouse inside my chest,
wooden siding rotten in places and windows
fractured from too many winters,
the roof of which sags near the chimney--
faint smoke-clouds rising, and a light
glowing yellow inside the kitchen, a beckoning
invitation into the faded blue walls
full with portraits of four--my mother, father,
and little sister--brassy frames hung close
together above the wooden table,
nicks and scratches connecting each placemat
like dots of the coloring book page left
magnet-stuck to the refrigerator.
The countertops have grown dusty.
fruit-bowl collecting gnats and mold,
but the zinnias over the sink flourish, replaced
daily and blooming red as the teakettle
rusting on the only remaining stove-top burner,
the others broken, tossed into the garbage
beside the back door, which leads to a forest--
rib-like oaks bent and bowed
over the farmhouse, ivy vines coiled ‘round
each trunk, stretching limb to limb, weaving
webs tangled as the unruly branches from which
they hang, caressing the slumped rooftop
as if to remind the battered, tired building how,
despite everything, the hearth still smolders.
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 9:18 PM UTC
Cotton is everywhere,
it's on the ground;
in the ditches,
all brown and soggy like
wet hairballs; in the wheel wells,
the rotor tiller;
the SNAPPER'
the squash;
your wife's ********
tingling her constantly;
the speedometer,
the pulled pork,
collards,
mashed potatoes
and most definitely
the gravy;
it's in the eyes,
makes them red
and explosive,
it's in the dark loam
and gloam; the unwashed streetlights,
the blue dark
and even bluer
lampposts in the middle
of fields black as oil;
the pink sun,
white clapboards
and redwood siding
of that burned-out homestead;
the cotton is everywhere;
thrown up by the slaves;
a ceiling made just for
February lovelessness
as I pull on my Marlboro
and crook my arm
like the cornices of a power station.
Feb 6, 2012
Feb 6, 2012 at 10:41 AM UTC
Sometimes I sit alone and stare at the sky.
and I wonder how anyone could ever feel big
when we are all so painfully small.
and they know nothing of what is shared
between shimmer and darkness in the big blue nothing.
I wonder how I could ever feel important again
under a mass of uncharted forever
that is holding up so much of my life.
because forever is a long time
when you have so much to lose.
and so much to prove.
and there are worlds between my eyes and the sky
that have been starved of light for so long
where they were meant to be forgotten
but never were.
Worlds when we drank too much *****
on that beach with no name.
and everything always went terribly wrong.
Worlds where love never wins.
where love is always lost.
These worlds where we forgot how old we were
and acted how we wanted, and didn't care who we hurt
or why.
Where we chased moonbeams onto cheap plastic siding
and left everyone behind for nothing in particular.
Worlds with glamour and softness
with cruelty and train tracks
Worlds that make it easy to feel what you feel
and be what you are
and know what you know.
Only to find that these worlds are not to last.
and it is such a part of everything
that love and worlds and faces and names
must be lost.
So in the end, when things are lost,
I stare at the sky,
where my worlds have gone.
I walk amongst the fire they set
in the limbo I'm trapped in now.
and hold out my hands to catch the heat
before it burns what I have left.
Jul 13, 2011
Jul 13, 2011 at 9:25 AM UTC
The highway changes when you travel it
At different times,
In different seasons,
Weathers, road conditions, or decades.
The places you pass and your final destination
Will change entirely from year to year
Or day to night.
The highway will tell you totally different things,
The signs change from year to year
And day to night.
The sky goes dark, the lights come on,
Some letters are lost, and new meaning found.
A roadside motel becomes simply a mote,
There is vacancy where before
There was nothing at all,
Just an abandoned fruit stand, which by twilight
Becomes a small house—
The siding might be yellow or brown—
With dark curtains and neon signs
Proffering readings, psychic insights, an open palm.
The other night, I came to the end of the highway.
I would have crashed right through the barrier
But God or my survival instinct intervened,
And my journey continued
On a different highway altogether.
Apr 8, 2021
Apr 8, 2021 at 2:34 PM UTC
Woop As the siren blares/
Scared nervous/
I hear a loud pull over!/
Its the Grammar Police/
awwww snap
They want to see my diploma/
I keep my hand on the pen
Like I don't even notice/
In my window of opportunity
Asking/
Son Do you know why I pulled you over?/
Cause I'm in the office
sir writing these poems?/
I take full responsibility
I don't got no diploma
I just got this GED/
He said that's not good enough
Put down the pen son
Your coming with me/
Now there's Turmoil thru the streets
drama around every corner/
There should be no commas
Period I question marked your honor/
Butchering with clevers
run on sentences for ever/
The alphabet guys set up
Planted evidence missing letters/
Sworn I had it down to a T
The I before E
how does that go?/
Well don't look now
I done broke another law/
How ever this may trouble you
I keep my vowels sometimes Y & W/
Somethings not write I'm reeling feeling uncomfortable/
Is it me?
Well don't you see/
A fused two V's?/
That's my story
I'm sticking to it
my testimony/
Yet we speak it double U/
confused by another rule/
They label me an outlaw
In the middle of the court room/
A mystery/ A victim being pursued/ by the Grammar police/
The jury siding with the prosecution
I may never be released/
Its Invictus/
The defense rest
Now they have an eye-witness/
With an eye on who did this/
There, their, they're, hair, heir and..... here/
The Ironies in the rule book/
similar sounding confused look/
If i where to spoke this and not
wrote this you would have not notice/
No no Input
was it done on purpose?/
For a purpose?/
One things for certain/
If l lay dying dead in the street
It's cause you took shots at me
Just remember I wasn't perfect/
But you are the grammar police
Just doing your job I know working/
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 10:43 AM UTC
Stop bringing me into your fight!
Both of you are my friends and I love you equally.
I would get you to stop fighting but I can't.
So I'll remain neutral (like Switzerland)
and pray that you stop fighting so that I can
talk to both of you again without being accused of siding another party.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 12:18 AM UTC