"sundries" poems
Millionaires in empty boxes
barricaded in bath robes.
Self-righteous sundries
sit still for that sunset they'll
never see, like "Layla" playing
with a gang of good fellas.
The trench took a bit, but
they're not worried. It will be
filled-in still-lifes well before
wives find out. Tough love
rises above the rest; especially
when you're pumping hot lead.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 8:45 PM UTC
the surprisingly sweetest clementine
2016
amidst
the marble and stone pillars
of the museum's fifth avenue grand hall,
a woman grows faint and woozy,
and the Egyptian artifacts five thousand years old,
re-proved as reusable, sustainable,
as leaning-against-posts
for the dizzy
the boyfriend well familiar
with dehydration side effects,
from pocket pulls a natural pill of
a sweet clementine,
restoring the well
to the good
she marvels at
how came I
to place a survival kit in my
coat pocket?
smiling, he confesses
his fondness for
providing
for all her needs,
known and unknown
even carries an inventory,
with back ups to back ups,
assorted sundries,
he calls it,
proving his point too well,
reaching into the other
pocket and offering
yet another,
a second helping
for his,
oh my darling,
sweetest clementine
she, undecided,
laugh or cry,
both equally attractive amazement solutions,
says only:
I love you for reasons,
known and unknown,
now,
take me home
for reasons
now known,
and others,
as of yet,
most happily,
unknown
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
Candleabra's flickering flames
cast a shimmering dancing
shadow of me,
upon my golden coffer overhead,
brought about by a sudden gust
of window-wind... God's finger-breeze...
Master airy-finger puppeteer
you are
dance the leaves
about my Autumn yard...
Push and stir
soft light newly blanketed wintry snow
on lifting eddies,
causing flying fancy, barnyard dancer's dos-a-dos
among infinitesimal,
and featherweight
delicately frozen
crystal-looking flakes...
Push tiny tango waves
upon reflected sparkling silvery lakes
that crest s l i d e then fall
And spectator trees
that enciricle about the watery ballroom-lake
surface-floor,
then with airy fingertips
clap, clap together
the loudly whispering and rustling leaves
that applaud
the watery dancing waves below...
And with windy fingertips
sail white billowing cotton like
vapor-sails
across an unplowable
oceanless
spatial blue...
Glad God
You mostly are
puppeteer of every star
Dance sundries of objects
on your play-ball planet
and puppet-likened stage
And let me laugh
in zestful rage
about danceable things
that can be danced,
that can be danced
on windy-finger days...
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
*They’re almost gone now a vanishing tribe
Peddlers of fresh sweets honeys from hive
Sellers of fish heads such sundries on head
Toys and bangles and blankets for bed.
Don’t see them around those struggling men
Making the choice of voice trudging the lane
Hoping to sell one piece in dream of gain
Faceless wind ringer in sun’s bite and rain.
Gone are those plaintive cries on summer noon
Raising road’s dust on trail singing the tune
Traders of trinkets girls’ ribbon hairpin
Yoyo and plastic top with endless spin.
Why the times ruined them made them a flop
Sellers travelers with head-full of shop
Sending their song of hope past locked in door
None could now fill that space nothing anymore.*
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 7:05 AM UTC
They took you across the home
like an uncharted furniture as the walls lost
gait and stumbled.
Before I could shatter a word without
compunction, they took you before my eyes laid
lattices – they faltered, officiating over space that
fails infinitely when turning you away before
I could understand, say the day again happens
and my grievous art flails like a ******* child.
a deep dream within
a shallow sleep occurring within sundries – miscellanea
collected together, put to question but no answer folded
to be sure in its destination other than where they took you:
the air minting the world on your face wanting to move
and remind a fate of decay: to be malleable within clay,
and hunger for a face they stole from me.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 2:47 AM UTC
I have nary a need a want a breath
no sundries, none wet,
no bucket or list of
climbing Mt Everest
or skydiving,
not a single wish left,
when they were answered,
all of them, my life became complete,
the day you were born.
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 2:48 AM UTC
One day Frick when to the place to buy some stuff
While Frack stayed in the area to do some things
Frack tossed out some junk
He used the the whatchamacallit to clean the thingamajig
Pick up the odds and ends
And he scrubbed a doodad with the thingamabob
Frick purchesed some knickknacks and bric-a-brac
A few sundries
A couple of tchotkes and trinkets
Some whatnot
A gizmo
A gadget
And more miscellaneous paraphernalia
When Frick got home Frack asked "What'd you buy?"
Frick said " Oh, this and that" "What'd you do all day?"
Frack said "Just a hodgepodge of etcetera, etcetera"
-Tommy Johnson
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 7:46 PM UTC
The old ones seem haunted
even with ole Presidents
making their whistle-stop
campaigns.
Blacks on their exodus from the south,
streaming into them, one can visualize
with their souls and
spirits accompanying them as they seek
a decent life.
Imagine the shoeshine stands with their shoeshine “boys” and black attendants in the restrooms
which was probably as far as some of
them got.
The newsstands with their variety of
newspapers and sundries alerted
the lonely travelers to Wall Street
and elsewhere, businessmen
who would stream in with a sophistication
the common traveler feared.
The smells of leather baggage,
the cleanser that porters used
to keep the coaches clean wafted in.
The smell of cigars and wrinkles
of old men’s skin let us know
that the porters would be appearing
with a bevy of special guests.
History speaks in these stations
as well as some bus stations
around the country with their
dangerous drifters who would serial ****
and the ambitious young talents off
to the big city to seek success who we would
later never hear of.
The local Union Station in Champaign has been
turned into businesses, but I can
just see Abe Lincoln arriving
speaking from the caboose and making
his way to a horse and buggy
outside to go to the local county courthouse.
Long live ghost-filled train stations
everywhere, and don’t let us forget
the homeless and destitute street people
who need to use their restrooms and
sit down in the waiting area seats
to take a needed load off.
They’re that important in the general
pictures of things, at least to me.
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 12:51 PM UTC
step into my shop of horrors
shack of nightmares not yet had
take in the aberrant, appalling aesthetic
i have dead sun flower
sundries that smell
of tangerine
i have the idol of
severed head and
exposed breast
i sell milk moon shell and
amethyst
incantations
ghost scrolls
student loans
buy my dreadful wares
and, please:
come again
Feb 21, 2018
Feb 21, 2018 at 2:59 PM UTC
Without a doubt
The faith was lost
Below the salt.
Dawn's eyes
Not so much Viridian,
Slightly less...
Herbal.
Dusk swims up its favorite tree
And collapses
Dead as death.
Dragon's Breath
Cascades the mountainside
In
Red fury.
The Sun sweats
U.V. afterbirth,
Drought frenzy,
And carmine fissures.
Flooding eyelids,
And my minds eye.
Ethereal starkness
Sunbathes in the
Sundries
Of a maniac.
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 6:47 PM UTC
wake late on wednesday,
remember your fathers’ mirror.
know that when all is mud and sundries,
it can be washed clean, clean as babies are.
that brings us back to chairs, that hold fear,
secrets, yet we are lucky in that
we have paid work, and he is not in
attendance.
these are old words.
sbm.
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 2:33 AM UTC
An ashen late Autumn was upon us,
and in our best worn coats and sundries we--
held steadfast by a masthead of a rotting boat.
Wooden on a shore of the lake we adored.
We held still as soft deer galloped their lanks through strange
lands lifted from grounds with brick built upon brick,
wherein now were filled, not berries, but hunter's saltlick.
We ravaged a place we called our own,
We stole from the savages their home.
But we found a peace amongst their nerves,
and we were fearful of speed and we'd swerve,
if ever we found in our path one that deserved,
to have the freedom to rummage through roughage.
On this solemn lake-side we found pride in the soft light.
Because what the **** else can we do,
but to sit where once grass stood in dew,
and instead of plucking and mucking about,
no, in lieu, we sat and stared and remarked,
instead about how we've done damage we can't undo.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 5:10 AM UTC
I spend the days of the week
Toiling for the man
Working with aluminum and steel
Making a living the best that I can
By the time the weekend rolls around
I've had enough of the concrete and steel
And it's time to get outside
Where at peace I feel
Then I can't help but wonder
How things must have been
For the pioneers of this nation
Those heroic women and men
With just a few sundries
As well as rifle, axe, and knife
They lived off the land
A challenging but satisfying life
Trapping by the river
Hunting in the woods
Gathering with other woodsmen
To buy and trade goods
No cell phone towers
No electrical lines everywhere
Crystal clear waters
And clean fresh air
Then from my reveries
I am jarred back awake
By the sound of man's traffic
And the unnatural noise it does make
Now we are more civilized
Living in city and town
Too civilized to hunt and trap
But adept at gunning one another down
Too civilized to live free
So we let gov't grow
Too civilized for independence
So we let liberty go
Give me a time machine
And I will go back to the past
For I care not for this civilized world
And the very dark shadow it does cast
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC
this morning they prayed
for those at sea.
the snail has been wandering,
silver trailed the mat
and hallway, escaping rain,
and wondrous sundries.
there is a calmness
a tiny red scooter.
we talked of loss,
they often understood.
sometimes they didn’t
and forgot the apostrophe.
sbm
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 1:43 AM UTC
First, we quickly unpacked stuff
and exchanged gifts.
Books, notebooks, finer pens, sundries.
Then we took food
and fed each other by fingers.
I always trick You to eat a bit more.
" It’s a fraud " you say.
Your sandwich is "Mediterranean".
From the quilts we make a tent
And stare at each other.
Embraced.
In the evening we are drinking beer and seek some nose drops.
We would like to see a good sci-fi, or a horror movie
but the program is mostly ********
"You see, they live in the center of Beverly Hills,
Downtow, in the circle of main City trams
and for half an hour You don’t realize what is happening.
The industry push them from a young age. "
We turn the TV off.
½ tucked
¾ tucked.
Utterly tucked.
Cocooned.
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 6:05 PM UTC
wake late on wednesday,
remember your fathers’ mirror.
know that when all is mud and sundries,
it can be washed clean, clean as babies are.
that brings us back to chairs, that hold fear,
secrets, yet we are lucky in that
we have paid work, and he is not in
attendance.
these are old words.
sbm.
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 1:05 AM UTC
On the counter sat a faded black and white photograph
a young woman’s face smiled bright with hope for the future
a future that included me and my brother, a husband,
and one lover only she really liked.
A cough caught my attention and I looked at her wrinkled face
it had been days since any eye contact
since food had passed those dry, cracked, and peeling lips,
instead a small pink swab attached to a plastic white stick
brought dabs of moisture to a shriveling tongue.
Candles burned around her high school graduation picture
dark wisps of ashy smoke braided itself and disappeared
I took a cold unresponsive hand in my own
and thought about how many more times I would be able to touch her.
Each room in the facility held the same story
though none of us spoke to each other during those days
aside from an overly friendly care giver trying to delicately
flop a body around to change sheets or clean soiled sundries.
Mom’s breath stopped…
just at the moment when fear of being an orphan
had locked my chest in God’s own vice grip
she exhaled.
I laid my head against a cold steel bar
there to protect her from falling out of bed, but also
to keep me from crawling in and wrapping my arms around her body
in an effort to keep her warm. /
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 2:13 PM UTC
The old ones seem haunted
even with ole Presidents
making their whistle-stop campaigns.
Blacks on their exodus from the south,
streaming into them, one can visualize
with their souls and
spirits accompanying them as they seek
a decent life.
Imagine the shoeshine stands with their shoeshine “boys” and black attendants in the restrooms
which was probably as far as some of
them got.
The newsstands with their variety of
newspapers and sundries alerted
the lonely travelers to Wall Street
and elsewhere, businessmen
who would stream in with a sophistication
the common traveler feared.
The smells of leather baggage,
the cleanser that porters used
to keep the coaches clean wafted in.
The smell of cigars and wrinkles
of old men’s skin let us know
that the porters would be appearing
with a bevy of special guests.
History speaks in these stations
as well as some bus stations
around the country with their
dangerous drifters who would serial ****
and the ambitious young talents off
to the big city to seek success who we would
later never hear of.
The local Union Station in Champaign has been
turned into businesses, but I can
just see Abe Lincoln arriving
speaking from the caboose and making
his way to a horse and buggy
outside to go to the local county courthouse.
Long live ghost-filled train stations
everywhere, and don’t let us forget
the homeless and destitute street people
who need to use their restrooms and
sit down in the waiting area seats
to take a needed load off.
They’re that important in the general
pictures of things, at least to me.
Oct 19, 2016
Oct 19, 2016 at 11:27 AM UTC
wake late on wednesday,
remember your fathers’ mirror.
know that when all is mud and sundries,
it can be washed clean, clean as babies are.
that brings us back to chairs, that hold fear,
secrets, yet we are lucky in that
we have paid work, and he is not in
attendance.
these are old words.
sbm.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 1:30 AM UTC
wake late on wednesday,
remember your fathers’ mirror.
know that when all is mud and sundries,
it can be washed clean, clean as babies are.
that brings us back to chairs, that hold fear,
secrets, yet we are lucky in that
we have paid work, and he is not in
attendance.
these are old words.
sbm.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 4:43 AM UTC
I closed my eyes against the trouble
a window was opened in front of it; I am able
to know you, sundries that are large and small
of the houses, the dead left behind us
The beatles playing on the radio wings
your tired and sweaty horses instantly
the horses waiting saddled to the blues
to which I bridled, on the plain of my heart
You mouths look like the men with clumsy hair
who whipped wind-up toys in childhood in the streets
your fruits taste like the rapt, sourish friendships
while they are gathering for the morning
They got lost at full gallop with the longing
for their youthfulness days they lost
your horses whose manes were embroidered
with unhappiness, an escapee wind in their pillions
I am pulling you into the shallows of the sea
without hurting, into a minaret of fairy
while the old clowns of our hearts
drowning of happiness in an evening
Koray Feyiz
(Translated from Turkish by Koray Feyiz)
Oct 15, 2016
Oct 15, 2016 at 8:09 PM UTC