"slatted" poems
Dawn
light just seeping
through slatted blinds
robins begin
their morning song
at full-blast volume
I am awake, listening
hoping you made it
through the wilderness
and are sitting on the deck
with your morning coffee
listening to robins too
or loons calling on the lake
watching the sun rise
you said you wanted
to be lying naked
next to the woman
you love
when you're ninety
I hope to be the one
in your arms
perhaps completely deaf
to the robin's cacophony
and a little
worse for wear
but still loving
each other
just the same.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 9:57 AM UTC
sun, light, murmurs
through slatted edifices
onto restless 4s
they shuffle tireless
ssssn uf fle
those 4s
ever do
on strawlittered floors
t
rapp
-ed
in woodly cages
a 2 enters
pets 4 1
whispers to 4 2
soothes their aches
2 astride 4 1
clumsy gallop
through golden portals
into ****** time
Apr 17, 2010
Apr 17, 2010 at 5:48 PM UTC
Gazing south as if some wise, well worn fisherman,leaning against the wroughted railed pier in all its victorian, gordy, standing, splendor.
Warmed and held by the summer sun as close as shared spoon-cuddled arms.
On thermal air, calls and laughter rise from towelled steaked plots
blinding and shading the razor sharp hungry sea-gulls eye from flakey white flesh in all its golden battered salt-shuck sharpness,
competeing on the nose with hand-held melting creamyness, as they waft and weave gently by.
Below the slatted sound , the magic hypnotic spell of lapping waves lift and tilt me on a day dream of youthful lost love.
To a day we made our sun run in all its lazyness, dimming the enviour moon in its wake and kissing still the hands on the pasty-face black towering clock
As time slipped way and was some where else.
With worn drift wood and tingleling toes you defaced the sand with a graphity the council tryed but couldn't erace.
And there it lies still, benieth the smooth pebbled shore,
kissed each day with salty tears and remembered sighs.
A fearful screaming siren pieces the soft English air, Its doppled blast, chilling, pushing, demanding its screeching way through the brain, to some others pained, tear filled day,
then fades on the breeze.
A sun blushed child frowns through pink Brighton rock lips and eyes as blue as the sea, a secert smile is shared as if in that innocence I knew that one magic day she will run on skipping painted toes and giggles sweet to etch for him in soft blank sand her love on this dreamy day beach.
So off the sea and off the pier I strole, absorbed and lost among the tripping faced crowd,into the sun dipped west and home alone.
Yet knowing you will remain forever mine, held in crystal dimonded grains, whilst around the bitter -sweet changing tides ebb and flow
down
through
the
years.
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 1:41 AM UTC
Green sea-tarnished copper
And sea-tarnished gold
Of cupolas.
Sea-runnelled streets
Channelled by salt air
That wears the white stone.
The sunlight-filled cistern
Of a dry-dock. Square shadows.
Sun-slatted smoke above meticulous stooping of cranes.
Water pressed up by ships' prows
Going, coming.
City dust turned
Back by the sea-wind's
Wall.
2.4k
You pace in circles.
I speak in smoke rings,
an occasional finger-snapped heart,
a masted boat if I could.
Away away to ocean
in long-legged strides.
Waves crash against the sides,
left, front, and right,
in ripe blueberries and whitewash.
Come to the cabin,
a tail of breadcrumbs,
keep your socks striped,
pinks and purples.
A David Austin rose, or three.
I'm not cohesive either.
Flaunt the ship's wheel,
solid oak, dark, mesmerizing,
nearly your eyes now.
Let gray skies form clouds,
don't pray for better weather.
The rain grumbles hunger,
veiled moonlight stretches its arms
down to slatted deck,
spraying it in gangtag graffiti.
Stay here, circles more on the floor.
Your hips, footprints up your toes
from a whiskered mouse with dusted nose.
He's escaped and curled up
the nook of your ankle.
Eighteen knots tangle your hair.
Call the winds to come in storms,
they'll surely lead the way.
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 12:47 PM UTC
By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
and there are pets for the children but the lives that followed
courses of their own other than ours and older
have been migrating before us some are already
far on the way and yet Peter with his gaunt cheeks
and point of white beard the face of an aged Lawrence
Peter who had lived on from another time and country
and who had seen so many things set out and vanish
still believed in heaven and said he had never once
doubted it since his childhood on the farm in the days
of the horses he had not doubted it in the worst
times of the Great War and afterward and he had come
to what he took to be a kind of earthly
model of it as he wandered south in his sixties
by that time speaking the language well enough
for them to make him out he took the smallest roads
into a world he thought was a thing of the past
with wildflowers he scarcely remembered and neighbors
working together scything the morning meadows
turning the hay before the noon meal bringing it in
by milking time husbandry and abundance
all the virtues he admired and their reward bounteous
in the eyes of a foreigner and there he remained
for the rest of his days seeing what he wanted to see
until the winter when he could no longer fork
the earth in his garden and then he gave away
his house land everything and committed himself
to a home to die in an old chateau where he lingered
for some time surrounded by those who had lost
the use of body or mind and as he lay there he told me
that the wall by his bed opened almost every day
and he saw what was really there and it was eternal life
as he recognized at once when he saw the gardens
he had made and the green fields where he had been
a child and his mother was standing there then the wall would close
and around him again were the last days of the world
2.2k
Fossilized
Bed frame in the garden
Picked bare by the vulture of rain.
Analyse.
Mustachioed archeologists
Will dustily brush
Its slatted ribcage
And wonder how many years it suffered.
“This ornate four poster,
This mahogany rollercoaster,
Was used to aid in sedation and
Sensation.
To the best of our knowledge
It seems to have broken
Under the weight
Of a boy's imagination.”
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 2:07 PM UTC
Sturdy as the mighty oak, I withstood
drought, deluge, dishevelment, deliverance
my once vibrant leaves became crisp,
shattered, scattered, veins crumbled, crumpled
all that was left ... gnarled old roughened bark
revitalized, I am now trod, that old tree,
sawed, sanded, slatted, varnished
to perfection, reflection of owner's pride,
care is given to keep me supple, strong ...
cover me not; let my beauty shine,
sparkle and please all who see me
In the vast oaken families of ancestors,
descendents, those yet to root, while
our beauty be ****** out of rich soil
to praise the God who created us
we joy in our present, treasure our past.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
i grew up in a patch
of green
low rolling hill
tumbling sky
red maple picnics
cool earth
roses at the chain link
spring's surprise
play dates out front
shoddy wooden hideaway
to the rear
woodpile-beware!
sister scarred
angry bees collect
red-shingled horizon
white shack
rear view
laundry-line perimieter
prison yard
beware
invisible fence line
irish drunks
right side
wife shouts
captures best friend
back-rear torment
pup trapped
evil about
boys and bruised knees
cheek kisses
and sunset
bike rides
snack spot
woods of death
the sky fed me
my roots
tightly woven
spanned, undisturbed
summer mornings
on the run
heat like fire
pebbles, glass
walking on
escape, run, be wild
dreams your navigator
loose teeth
mother's hugs
father's presence
marlboroughs
motor, artistically
deconstructed
colored red
powered escape hatch
off-license
long gone
tree trunk porch presence
dead bird picnic
red-slatted bridge
fruit spider visitor
tiny rodent winter traps
screaming zia
e mamma
adniamo
basta!
communion veil
st. albans bound
pappa, look!
gum stuck hair
and
ruined sleeve
tumbled jacks
fruit loop bed
times
mas*h
glass box
from the carpeted
haven
orange-smokey
scent
beat downs behind
the woodstove
hair-dragged reckonings
begging
cries
anger passed down
mother to
mother
to
brother
pray, midnight
smoke
sleepless-haunted
hell
i grew in no-man's land
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 8:17 AM UTC
she was
s
p
eaking
a forest a
n
d
it ex
P
LO DED
! a mercury ankle flexed wings digital crunch of elated
cleating sunlight through the tiny between of slatted window treatments.
a vanilla of hot dreaming darkness. the best nothing. a fleeting
permanent second burning. and we climbed
into each others mouths our pink snakes tremendously. the air
was sweating jealous vanity of her. an aphrodite detonating in my
cotton ocean. 500 threadcount pleasure bashful sheets clamoring
beneath a writhing light of feminine stink.
what a splinter. in my flavor
it
loves well
and
i
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 12:10 PM UTC
-
Dust collects on the closed slatted blinds
as carpet stains scream each time I walk through
leaving trails of bread crumbs and ashes,
though without you I always find my way back
to those corners in the dark
where cobwebs celebrate solitude
awaiting a face to capture
and laughing as they surf the web
A broken down couch of green fabric,
worn and tattered from unending naps
groans of feet propped up on its arms
(Blood flow to the brain…yeah whatever)
Beer bottle rings create a drunken mosaic
on a helpless coffee table
between scattered junk mail, wayward Doritos
and a cell phone with an almost dead battery
The one I stare at, waiting for it to chime,
beep, ding, play the Game of Thrones theme song,
whatever the hell it is supposed to do
when you call…when you call
as I am reminded how much I hate commercials,
all of these happy people running around
driving new cars, going out to dinner,
finding name brand shoes at discount prices
Why can’t I forget, lose those memories
File them away somewhere, like a drawer
in the kitchen I never use, it’s no use
You are there, always on my mind
that smile, those eyes, the times I felt truly loved
and I still laugh…me, loved? Maybe that was the problem,
maybe that was my problem,
maybe I was the problem…ring **** it!!!!
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 9:48 AM UTC
The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch
How sweet the endeavors of lips—to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is no illusion like love ...
Grown childlike, we wish for those storied days,
for those bright sprays of flowers, those primrosed ways
that curled to the towers of Yesterdays
where She braided illusions of love ...
"O, let down your hair!"—we might call and call,
to the dark-slatted window, the moonlit wall ...
but our love is a shadow; we watch it crawl
like a spidery illusion. For love ...
was never as real as that first kiss seemed
when we read by the flashlight and dreamed.
Published by Romantics Quarterly and The Eclectic Muse (Canada). Keywords/Tags: Childhood, children, bed, bedtime, story, flashlight, kiss, goodnight, dreams, pleasures, lips, fantasy, illusion
Mar 21, 2020
Mar 21, 2020 at 10:52 PM UTC
Fairytales, or maybe Hollywood,
Have us expecting
Grand gestures of romance
Like universe-traversing declarations
Of undying infinite love
Or gravity defying stunts
Displaying unutterable sentiments
Of all-encompassing passion
Or no-amount-of-money-is-too-much bling
Presenting the most ornate emblem
Of breath-stealing desire.
Or even a simple poem
Attempting to put into tangibility
A deep souls-stitching, time-surpassing love.
You've to come to expect these
Or something matching in intensity.
But I have none of those for you.
Not even as a poet
Have I found the better words
To beat the three
Whose sound
Is what we all long to hear.
I say them
At sunset
When your head slips onto my shoulder
As we watch the stars rise into the sky
And your breath steadies and slows
Into slumber
And I know there is no other place for me now
For I belong only where you are.
I say them
At sunrise
When your lips graze mine
Before you tumble out of bed
In preparation for your day
And I watch through slatted eyelids
And I know there is no way for me to survive
For you hold the very breath
That fuels my lungs.
I say them
When you're not around
But your face and being
So easily come to mind
And I can't help thinking about you
And telling you even though you're not there
Because I know that my thoughts will never
Not contain you
For you are the "think" to my "I am".
I say them
With every inhale and exhale I take
Because that is how often
I want you to hear them.
I say those three words
Because there are no grand gestures
Or passionate declarations
Or sentimental pieces of jewelry
That will ever best
Their ability to convey my heart for you.
I will say them to you always:
I love you.
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 7:27 PM UTC
~for R~
She dances. In soft light. The sun is slatted
Always slatted. With her words. She has them all.
She is playing. Plastering. Words like ceiling.
All over the walls, words like tomorrow. She has words
on her arms. Handfuls of words. Spilling out of fists.
Words like flutter. Her dress has one string
dangling with her dancing. Dangling with words like billow.
Billow was hanging. She puts words on her face. Milk is one. Ce-les-ti-al is another.
Stepping on words. They stick to her feet. Shadows of them
drizzle about. Wafting down. A word like kite. She is lost.
In them. Does not hear. Footsteps. The door yawns.
Less footsteps. The only sound is the crack of skin against skin. Words fall
from everything. They curl up. Like worms. After rain.
The room shakes. The words claw. Again. Again. The words fall.
Again- again- again. Some of the words die. Some hang on.
Words like tomorrow. Words like milk.
Oct 5, 2010
Oct 5, 2010 at 1:05 AM UTC
I want to go exploring in the deep green woods
Where the leaves shuffle past on your feet, on your toes
Where the yellow streetlights and the red ones fade
Deer graze in the cracks at Kensington Station
Birds nest between the wheels of the dead railway
I want your lips against mine in the silence
In these hollow spaces, the reclaimed world
Bark peeling, sprouts, on the wood house beams
Colour of rust and liveliness, womb of ours, heart of ours
Greenboro metal on the slatted tracks
Jul 16, 2020
Jul 16, 2020 at 11:18 AM UTC
I have made memories of myself
Salvaged, translated and translucent memories
Like dust twirls that spiral
Revolving in the rays of a white sun
Through wooden slatted windows
While the heaviness that hangs
Hunted shadows over me night and day
Refuses to lighten
Real and imagined codes and expectations
Imposed themselves on me
I have become mirrored in other peoples' reflections
A shadow cast by moonlight in a memory
Aug 13, 2012
Aug 13, 2012 at 3:39 PM UTC
you bought your ticket,
year round roller-coasters
and a faded welcome sign,
hanging on by one lonely *****
the most unamusing park
there is.
practicing screams in line,
"I'm not even scared,"
you boast, but I see your eyes
shifting a little in the slatted light.
chewy popcorn, almost squeaks
when you bite it, coca-cola like
midwest flat land. looking
around, it feels that way too.
pretty sad when you beg the
tumbleweed for some of it's time.
blows past you, unaware,
uncaring, uninterested
in anything but the wind.
startling clarity settles.
*you have a ***** loose, honey.*
I was talking to the ferris
wheel, of course, but
I'll take you high too,
scrape the sky even.
"why touch a storm cloud?"
because I can.
poke the sleeping bear.
I want to see where he hides
those claws, if he has any at all.
I've heard the rumors, but
some people have to find out
for themselves.
what's honey without a few
stingers in your shoulder anyway?
still honey, but that's
besides the point.
reminds me of the gas station
lollipops we got on the way here.
bee's honey, my honey, it's all
the same: all honey, tastes sweet
no matter who it belongs to.
still nothing on victory though.
more cotton than candy, more
squeaky wheels than you're used to,
this house of mirrors a revelation.
hold my hand on the trek up, and
scream for me.
Aug 1, 2017
Aug 1, 2017 at 4:01 PM UTC
I have lived many years
As a mouse
Many years I have lived
In this house of umber
I have kept
Asleep I have slept
Gazing
Watching
Clouds floating
The vibrant trees
Their descendants
Through my many windowed
Walls of slatted wood
In Summer breeze
I have gazed
For your eyes
I have slaved
For your feathered face
Excuse me
I don't have to
Love you
Or anybody
Maybe they told you
But you don't deserve
My forgiveness
You *******
I'm sorry
I owe you nothing
My love that you shrugged
Is no longer in stock
But my hate
That's another story
Endless
But never enough
To heal
My broken heart
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 12:44 PM UTC
wake late
into slatted sunshine
force your mind
to gather fragments
and embrace chaos
take a shower
become a shark
swim in water
you do not understand
play Vivaldi
let the lute notes
wash over you
feel the feather
plucking your heart
vibrations in rented rooms
resonate and vanish
listen intently
to the wisdom
of a cat
who says nothing
the coffee cup looms empty
the ashtray overflows
dust motes in a sunbeam
regularly portend disorder
disregard them
clarity is a fiction
be still and grateful
content to know
you cannot know
which way
this day will go
until the circle
closes tight
until this day
returns to night
- mce
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:14 PM UTC
Dancing between
Raindrops
Hard gardeners
Cut down the weeds
Brightening the view
Through my slatted window
Now a flock of pigeons
Feasts on the seeds
These they spread in
Targetted drops
And my beloved
Flowers return
Introverted I allow
This wild dance of
Nature, unknowing
Gardeners, the seeds
And the birds
The **** that sprouts
The lovely flower
And my rain dance of
Inexplicable joy
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 9:16 AM UTC
Today was a sad song day
And I am alive.
I read a poem about love and tomatoes
that moved me to tears
And it’s raining now,
storming.
And I am alive.
Were I a different kind of mother,
the kind from movies,
I would wake you up so we could run outside and dance flailingly in the front yard as the neighbors peer through their slatted blinds, shaking their heads.
The storm has already slowed, though.
It always ends eventually.
The rain will bring tomatoes
and soften the grass between your tiny toes.
And I am alive.
How perfectly my aliveness fits my every me,
how much room there is in here.
If fill my aliveness to the very top, somehow it is never full,
there is always space for another swirling galaxy,
another thunderstorm
another sad song.
Tomorrow there will be tomatoes
and soft grass and tiny toes.
Today was a sad song day.
And I am alive.
Apr 30, 2025
Apr 30, 2025 at 11:52 PM UTC