"tablecloths" poems
good morning, my angel
my living lullaby
i glide across the fairest skin, you are the fairest one
of all. Good morning, my mother
my broken candle
you gave me the wax that has melted on many tablecloths
i feel I have lost you now, as I had lost you then.
Good morning, my first love
my little bridge
your mittens were warm when I needed heat
when I was so cold the tears froze onto my cheeks.
you ran me a bath a being
of divinity
we held each other in your father’s tub and laughed
at the bubbling abundance, burgeoning in overflow.
I wake to the puddle of your memory
That has grown since we last met, since I have wept
For the love I have not kept in place. Good
morning hindered lover, who worships me in forbidden light
a thousand songs have yet transpired born
from a single thought of you.
Inhibited inspiration,
camouflage constellation, I kiss you now
though I will always be
Years away from where you lie.
Good morning dear father, a forester
Braver than the lone wolf and his
solitary howl. The lesson of the arthritic toe shows you
True appreciation for the pain of existence.
You are the most loyal flame, my gratitude is overwhelming
Each time I embrace the past and the mistakes, unconscious
From the broken record
And its echo off the wall.
Good mourning to the loss of a lover, an ephemeral flame.
Good mourning to the death of a friendship, to the longing for a ****
Good mourning to the future in its casket,
That awaits a new life for me
In song.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 8:59 PM UTC
Quaint
pink curtains and tablecloths.
White walls.
The sugary smell of almonds, pistachio
and butterscotch skip around the room,
playing hopscotch and Mary Mack.
The display is impressive,
I can smell each grain of sugar
in these petit cupcakes and dollops of icing.
And then a little girl wails!
Mommy won't buy
her anymore
sweet treats.
Bawling--
the girl does an angry-stomp-dance-
and then a woman, livid--
storms up to the counter.
I said half dozen almond biscotti.
I can't take these to my book club.
Isn't anyone here competent?
Her booming voice has no effect
on the lone,
tired African-American woman behind the counter.
She seems disassociated from the present chaos.
The dark circles under her eyes
and the surrounding pursed lip wrinkles say everything.
Excuse me, but I've been waiting
on a refill of the complimentary coffee
for over ten minutes now
an uptight gent in a business suit complains.
When the woman behind the counter
pulls out out a shotgun--
there is silence.
This ain't what I wanted
she whimpers just before
the weapon gracefully slides
under her chin--
--!BAM!--
As I walk out the door,
I wonder how long it will
take for someone to realize
that's not red icing or sprinkles
on the cupcakes.
Aug 13, 2011
Aug 13, 2011 at 10:32 AM UTC
~
A crowded city street,
strolling a narrow sidewalk,
your hand in mine
Pastel neon lights paint the buildings
in soothing colors,
softening sharp edges,
creating a wonderland
on this warm summer night
A small bistro, street side tables
candle light and tablecloths
tiny dancing flames on white linen
igniting your smile as we take a seat
amidst the din of taxi cabs
racing to find the sunset,
lover’s fare put to good use
in backseat desires
Two glasses of Pinot,
fine crystal offerings
as are your eyes, glistening,
dark chocolate petals
calling me in, hypnotized
free falling into your heart
as I drink them in slowly,
tasting every tantalizing gaze
A toast to us, touching glasses,
touching hearts, changing lives
as I wonder what I have done
to deserve this dream, you and me,
no one else exists, the city bustles
unnoticed as we sip the fruits
of our love on an enchanting evening
hoping it never ends…
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
Thanksgiving
It’s getting close to thanksgiving day
When every ones table will be on display.
Tablecloths of different patterns and designs
Making the tables look just fine.
Where every mother or wife try to
Fill their hearts delight.
Food dishes and desserts passed down
From generation to generation
Leaving you with a tasty temptation.
On the table a butterball turkey
And a honey baked ham
Both sitting in their juices
In a large roasting pan.
Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes
Green bean salad ,and corn on the cob
It looks like someone was doing their job.
A pan of beans, and a large bowl of rice
Bottles of apple cider sitting on ice.
Everything to make a thanksgiving complete
Spending it with family and friends
What a beautiful treat.
But this holiday can not be celebrated
If it wasn’t for those pilgrims on that historic day
When they spent it with Indians
and learned different games to play.
This was the creation of this
Great country that we all know
And now macy’ s puts on its thanksgiving show.
You’ve got to love it !
© L . RAMS
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 10:50 PM UTC
Summer doldrums,
Morning heat risers
On the sky,
High nubile towers
In the distance,
Freshwater fountains
To slowly refresh,
Washing over
Water and land,
Beating down
The soaking rains,
Their tall images
Standing there,
Thunder sounds
Barely echo there,
All puffed-up
And neatly draped,
Hung like white
Formal tablecloths
Across the everglades.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 1:56 PM UTC
restaurants take your shadows
and remove your clothes like linen napkins
tablecloths embody all that was ever on them
but you are still the nakedest of all
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 5:56 PM UTC
Secretly?Tall=Tower-fee lucky
777 "I'm Free"-Flowery + $$$
Being Oz-wizardly
Toto lucky bite red slipper
((Cowardly)) Lionly
-Whoa__ She got that Geisha Irony
This is Tokyo
Not the flower shop of Soho
(( Japan Chefs Black Panthers))
Shout box____
Unique flowers of
faces-gather
Too outfox____
One Geisha Flowery room
Twilight-places lightly bloom
Overpowering
Sunflower showering
Going nowhere
Her body heat
Is always
somewhere
Over flowered the rainbow
magic women
romantically spritz and spray
Love me love me not
I am waiting today
Flowered over one
Man?
Her Fortune-beds
The Geishas fine ink
Never pink
The best time to arrive
See her lucky red
((Geisha Flowery))
* * * *
Happy go lucky
Not the back rub
The gift of gab
Time feast Rolex
her index finger
Webs of flower cut
Debs
Was the cover-up
The best of the last
defeat of her
She Petals faster
The zipper-movie cut
Go zip
Irish spring shower
Boysenberry, Cherry, Power
Geisha dance flowery-trick
The vanilla-bean sky quick
The yogurt Greece fly
Her tablecloths
He finger
points cactus sharp points
The climate tells the
clues can you handle tricks
Crazzzzy____
glue
Softly silk skirt steak
Missed a few buds
((Geisha Flowery funds))
Tantalizing tiara pull
Off gave it to the
flower girl china doll
The music
Black Magic
women
Her sheer blouse
loosely fit his fancy
Playing Santana
Sitting with her
tea tiger lily
Felt so lonely
The champagne
half-heartedly
The whole Monet
Chandon
shirts
of Gucci
She's perked me
up Pucci *******
coo
Danger me dandelions
The next recruit
black rose pin
pursuit hungry like
wolf
Duran Duran
The discovery of
custard flan
The Geisha flowery
New York State
Who snitched out
her spouse
Flowers divinity Godly lands
I gotcha
Right in the palm
of my hands
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 12:29 PM UTC
You won't remember the color of the tablecloths,
or the design on the plates.
You'll remember the gleam in his eyes,
and the way 'I do' tasted on your lips.
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 10:16 AM UTC
Tablecloths faded side out
Wispy hair brushing skin
Soft bubbling, white froth
And voices in the distance
Hard words pared to whispers
Fingertips of what has been.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
I'm sorry for my poetry
I'm sorry it isn't about coffee stains
On lace tablecloths
I'm sorry I don't have little anecdotes
About our shy and awkward love
Or his fearless mouth
I'm sorry the lipstick is always faded
The metaphors are sloppy, stumbling drunks
And the skies are never blue enough
I'm sorry about my poetry
I'm sorry for my poetry
I'm so, so sorry
Please just let me cry it out
I swear I'll clean it up
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 2:38 PM UTC
.
What do you do with a fried pickle sandwich
when lavender leaves have messed up its hair
How do you cut it in two equal pieces
while no one is home and you don’t like to share
Why is it sitting alone on the counter
as saucers of milk perform on the stage
Where is the flavor when bland is in fashion
and comic books sing on the very next page
Will you surrender to appetites chanting,
crossing the line where the pickets are white
Shoveling corn flakes when it is not snowing,
flying a kernel instead of a kite
Serving a side that is right down the middle,
leftover vegetables mashed into paste
Like a potato but not very filling,
smothered in ketchup to drown out the taste
Do you like tablecloths made out of vinyl,
just like a record but square when they play
Nothing to spin when you can’t find a needle,
looking through stacks that are covered in hay
Cook books too heavy to fit in your diet,
checking your math while subtracting a pound
Running in place when you’d rather be singing,
wishing the dining room table was round
Can you believe that a poet would write this,
watching a hummingbird outside his door
Smiling from one ear but not to the other
feeling the pinch when his cheeks are too sore
Maybe his mind is a swirl of affection
and it is her that he is thinking of
It’s a safe bet amid all this confusion
the poet who wrote this has fallen in love
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 6:51 PM UTC
I crawled away from you
The way a dog deserts its pack to die
And you all
Watched me make my slow progress across the floor
Inch
By
Inch
And you did nothing.
You saw, and I saw you see
And you saw me see you pretend to know nothing.
And now I am alive again
Awake and able.
The shadows of my suffering still follow at my heels, trying to trip me as I walk, and scurry behind doorjambs and under tablecloths when I turn to catch them but,
I no longer crawl.
I no longer struggle.
And as I have woken and made my weary way back to humanity
I have found that my complete transformation
My journey into hell and through the fires-
The torment that forged me into something utterly new,
I find that you look past it
Let your eyes slide over me like you used to
Unwilling to ask,
Unwilling to know and yet your false knowing sets off bombs
The ones I walk so lightly over
Grenades buried beneath the tender green new grass
Which covers the battlefield where I fought for my life, for my status as a human being, for my place in this world,
And you say *"We all fight."
"Everyone struggles."*
Of course
To hurt is to be human. Everybody does-
But not everyone
Sits back and watches another crumble to dust,
Not everyone says
*Well
It isn't my problem if they can't cope,*
Not everyone looks with eyes
So cold
Upon a bleeding, broken thing
And concludes that because it bleeds when beaten it invites its wounds.
And as you look past me
As you name me by a word I no longer recognize
All I can think is that
I fought
I won
At a cost
And I am still not fully healed,
And yet I am the same to you
Either way
You who are supposed to see
You who are supposed to be
Observers
Of the human condition-
Observers, not bystanders!
Nowhere is it written that you must take notes--
*'Oh yes, see how her lip trembles as she cries
See how she fights for breath.'*
Nowhere is it set down in stone that you can't
Get up and at least pretend to be like they are
These people you look at
And study
And pin to your pages like butterflies catalogued.
Can you feel? Did you
Feel?
Did you look into my eyes and see me
Decimated
And blame me? And never ask me the truth? And create your own?
Did you really think I could forget being
In the center of a circle
Of lies I had to agree with to survive
Shredding my pride for the sake of my place?
My place, indeed,
In a place where emotions are bought and sold
But never owned or treasured.
You watched me fight
Life or death
You, whose arms I've fallen into when I could have hit the floor,
You who I am supposed to trust with my soul and its dark wounded parts
You who I am supposed to grow with.
You watched me and
You let me
Fight
Alone.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 1:51 PM UTC
.
Your ink,
sadly spilling
on fresh tablecloths
with torn lace trim
beyond paper napkins
absorbing the smiles
you should be smiling
Darkened tear drops
drenching emotions,
free flowing sorrows
collected in fractured phrases,
penned stanzas now
erasing happiness
in dull pink smudges
When just outside
the sun sits behind heavy drapes
drawn tightly closed
on panoramic picture windows
waiting to frame the beauty
of spring for your eyes
in nature’s poetry
So open them,
(your eyes and the drapes)
behold the wonder
where small children play
and laughter scents the air
allowing light to enter that ink,
your ink
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
June 15, 2010
Buildings reflecting buildings; surrounded
by a dull murmur of conversation
held over neutral jazz easily ignored;
the din punctuated by angry horns
Dappled sunlight peeking
past the towering concrete giants
as a cool breeze lifts white tablecloths
and stirs the newly formed leaves.
An inky crow alights, looking knowingly
at crowds of people rushing by to nowhere
as the gold afternoon sun dips
past the artificial horizon.
A man walks up – a pause –
then into the restaurant he strides.
Following him is a wild looking beggar
who steals all topics of conversation.
And in my mind, my thoughts
drift back to melancholy places
tomorrow’s fears mingle all too well
with yesterday’s well aged regrets.
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010 at 3:58 PM UTC
Breaking glasses,
Smashing plates,
Spilling hot food across the carpet,
Chilled white wine, splashing on the tabletop,
The chef shouts and holds a knife,
The women and her children,
Seeking a hiding place
Under dinner tables and tablecloths,
The sounds of his screams are
Glossed by the smooth jazz through the walls,
His rag-time tantrum,
He was done taking orders
And all he got
Was a wine bottle
On the back of the head.
-Jamie F. Nugent
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 10:25 AM UTC
It comes on an Autumn breeze
during a morning in Spring
where the Buds have begun to open—
covered in Dew.
It floats from the brown Cardinal
as a whispered Melody—
Bees respond with a low hum—
echoed by a Snore.
It touches notes of Candy stores
and Wraps itself around lavender bed sheets—
It smells like Summer
but sounds like Sweetheart.
It is smooth like Jazz and Rose petals—
It tastes like Espresso
after a night of cheap Wine and Cotton tablecloths—
after a day of Coastal conversations.
It curls toes
and moves Fingers like tumbleweed
from Sun-kissed freckle to sunken Wrinkle—
It spells out Forever and never lies—
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 3:51 PM UTC
We live for the weekends were you scrounge yourself tablecloths sheets and shelves smooth pavement for the ghost of a heavy load we run for the sake of health and we waited for a knock on the wall but what I got was the ringing of a bell
But our prose was true and my eyesight mistreated
Colored in thought my eyelids retreated
Fall back to the fall
I miss what I saw
In come sun and a world on que
Dinosaurs died to make room for something as magnifecent as you
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
listen.
just so you know,
i know that you're not alone
in those pictures you post
((a table decorated
by two half-empty
glasses in a bar
in the city where we met))
as it slides past my screen
amongst other photos i don't care about.
because you never did anything alone,
really.
not like me
the man you met,
((who went to movies alone
long before he loved you,
who spent nights scribbling
over a tiny desk
in a sex-soaked bedroom))
the man you changed
& then wondered aloud
what the hell happened to him...
& yeah you don't tag anyone
& yeah there's no one even in the photo
but i know
you know
he ******* probably knows
exactly what you're trying to say
((he paid for
the whole thing))
with the dim lighting
& tablecloths
& glasses that aren't mason jars,
this is how you deserve to be treated,
right?
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 3:45 PM UTC
It was undistinguished, commonplace,
A little shop, just one in a row,
But on a winter’s day to walk inside
To feel the warmth, bask in the glow
Of an atmosphere filled with the scent
Of coffee beans and almond nuts,
See tablecloths in red and white,
Hear the tinkling tone of teaspoon on cup,
Was to escape the weather’s hellish grasp,
The biting cold, the blustery wind,
The drizzling rain, the swirling snow,
And find a piece of heaven within.
From Entertaining Verse Poems
©Blair Gowrie (Roderick Macdonald)
http://www.macdonrod.com/EntertainingVersePoems.htm
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 12:50 AM UTC
As a little girl
The world was so large
Within my tiny hands
I spent my childhood
Under the table
Peeking out
From my fort of tablecloths and blankets
The world transformed
Into fantasy worlds and bustling cities
Within my eyes
So young and so innocent
That I wanted to grow up
Now, I am standing
In the middle of this vast world
It grows exponentially with your expectations
Now, I just want to make sure I make it to bed
Before the first alarm hits
Some days I want to crawl back
Under the table
Peek out from my fortress
See those fantasy worlds
Filled with so much possibility
Before reality consumed me
To feel so small, but so fearless
To no longer be limited by the sky
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 1:47 AM UTC
Faded faces on a poster,
smeared lipstick and messed up hair,
burglarized of their dreams
by a modern day masquerade
A lonely disguise pleading endless attention,
outstretched hands offering peace,
playing house beneath the dinette
draped in crocheted tablecloths
calling to the foolish
with pretty words
and overused catch phrases
Offering tainted tea and stale biscuits,
chuckling behind faux teardrops
painted pale blue for effect,
luring the helpless,
promising friendship,
pinky rings and throw pillows
softening the blow
before bearing claws, ripping flesh,
shredding hopeful hearts
till ****** remains drip
into little grey circles
of vacant farewells
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 7:52 AM UTC
Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/20/2018
Look! - white petals, like the first snow,
like a holiday linen tablecloths.
I? - I remember those holidays:
warm shadows of candles, you put on the table,
and the puff of breath in disarray,
entertains with the play of colors, and from feathers... sizzles.
Look! - from smoke I plait this poem short:
for fogs over an autumn meadow
with heathers strewn and drowsy,
for stubbles, fields and forests - in honor - of bards!
I? - I know they're hardly rustling
the strophes of simple words... And you? - you weave sorrows!
Wieslaw Musialowski 6/19/2002
Oct 6, 2019
Oct 6, 2019 at 4:40 AM UTC