"threadbare" poems
( Sonnet )
Under the primrose stars, the lovers
Lie abed, on green, threadbare croft
Of sleeping daisy, clover and moss,
Trails with hushed air, an embroidery
So fine as to stitch blushing heart fall
And wrap the waters full of quietude
In graces, winding, soft, granulating
Time, wings flutter and hum, winsome
Sparks, fire white, flying as little suns
Burst confetti, in sweet encampment,
Of grass and sapling wood, innocents,
Charmed are wholly twining, in moon
Rise a lantern to the winking heavens,
Out of their skins they are climbing.
May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 1:06 PM UTC
miles mean nothing to a heart that is pure
words penned in grace, sent to ether
give heartease to the overstretched
sowing stiches of understanding
in tapestry threadbare
little suns and stars
shining bright in love and hope
from face unseen and adirondack chair
gives strength to one down, from down under
allows grief, the words needed the abilty to care
for these simple gifts, no payment required
from the heart open to care...
Jun 20, 2019
Jun 20, 2019 at 10:09 AM UTC
evening loneliness arrives at dawn
and knocks on the dusty windowpane
in the kitchen, i lie — with threadbare arms —
against the shabby wooden cupboard frame
this house is void of all electricity
except for the light bulbs, the fridge, the T.V.
and my steady-beating heart of rhythmic defeat
lying naked across the tear-stained sheets
if you come home and find that i am dead,
perhaps some ***** dishes fell on my head
but most likely, i'll be, in the living room gloom
with a half-drunk bottle of wine to consume
with emergency flares tied to both wrists,
i'll leave you a smile, a sigh, and a kiss
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 7:52 AM UTC
You breathed your last breath from the air
in this room;
that threadbare Persian carpet
holds flakes from your skin;
hairs from your head
corkscrew the dented cushions
scattered and idly waiting on the sofa;
bed linen scented with your sweat
the goose down doona that stole
your last warmth;
sleep spit and tears
human moisture that permeates
the acrylic layers of your pillow;
an eyebrow hair wedged in the tweezers;
a clipped nail that flew off
somewhere out of sight;
that new toothbrush used only once;
your flannel and towel still drying out;
the wet press footprint on the bathroom mat;
the talcum powdered slippers
abandoned under the brass bed.
Each moment of everyday
we shed ourselves
shed dead cells and renew -
a cycle of shedding
until the last
shedding of ourselves.
© M.L. Emmett
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 7:01 PM UTC
At dusk I hang up
a worn blue work
shirt that smells
strongly of love
of dirt of the earth
melancholy, sweat
yesterday's brews
the blues, regret
twenty cigarettes
black breath
of the bone moth
old blood, moon dust
spring pollen, summer
grass, Autumnal ****
winter's cold blast
sea salt and pine needles
mountain laurel, desert air
my dog's hair, I swear
I can't bear the thought
of washing or throwing away
all the stains, the growing pains
the laughter, the sorrows
these history lessons I need
to get me through tomorrow.
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 7:58 AM UTC
*stacking the arrows in piles
a triangle of fuego
furnaces blaze fire
infinite reminders
of the morning after
shafts of light
drift from window panes
remake our names in
god’s slumbering veins
from here to there a whisper
or was it a word
fellow companions
have you heard
the threadbare sisters
took their turns
climbing mountains in order
that we could learn
the ways
of green hearted sun-scrapers
sweet little dangers
fellow death chasers
full of music
givers of blooming veils
bouquets of snow and hail
almond shaped eyes
resplendent thighs
and a mind as pure as a lake
during an alaskan winter
in the frozen splinter
trees are taken from their roots
the women are bleeding
weaving you the meat and the story
outsiders are cast from clay into statues
with feminine bodies
curving like cotton candy
i choose to impress you
repeat the compliments
that land on empty stomachs
string together words
like a rosary of sweet nothings
simple deeds give thrilling feats
a chance to restore their honor
purity is unwashed in ***** soil
as i am cut from the cloth of the earth
our shirts are pressed at birth
white light forming fellowship
dimples in the cheeks of the mother
the earth’s bones torn out from under
the way we made ourselves invisible
the minute we realized our accents were noticeable
our actions were abominable
how could we ever repay
the generosity we were treated to
our ultimate needs are met by poetry
upon a ridge a silent figure wept
and held his head upon a bed of cement*
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 2:17 AM UTC
Momentary
mourning peace.
Mama pours a glass of mulled wine,
lights a scented candle
(- "cherries on snow" -)
and drinks to ol' Joan.
Passed down with the jewellery box,
somewhere in the will, the daughters
receive the annual chore of roasting
the turkey (delicious!) and the veggies
(good job!) and (could you pass the?) breadsauce
for their brothers and husbands huddled
on a threadbare sofa -- and a younger girl,
barely there, staring at a laptop screen.
Mama's not festive - always too tired -
barely celebrates, but orchestrates.
Years barely there 'cause she's needed in their kitchen
and someone's gotta cook can she please get a hand? and
one chivalrous male puffs out his chest, takes one for the team, gestures to the girl with no discernible attention span and
half-laughs an "ay, one day this'll be you!
Best get in there while you're young!"
((A baritone chorus of laughter.))
"You outdid yourself on the turkey."
"S'great, ain't it? Pass the potatoes."
Sometimes here, sometimes Spain.
We stay over. It's tradition: we're
scattered across the country,
maid duties are the least she can do.
Never our kitchen or living room.
Tiny. Messy. Unwelcoming.
Come Boxing Day, Mama gives
a bear hug goodbye and an
"it's good to see you";
Because it is, she thinks.
Thank you for inviting me
to carry out your labour.
I'm just grateful to be needed.
A month of red 'SALE' tapes
scouring the clearance shelves;
overtime for extra cash
scraped to afford the food she cooks you;
paying half for gifts she'd brainstormed
while Dad buys partial credit on the gift tag.
We vanish from your house
- like elves -
by morning.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
*Day in
Day out
He sits on his bench
No one goes near him
Because of the stench
****
****
White Lightening
Despair
I watch from my window
It’s really not fair*
So … I put on my coat
Open the door
Cross over the road
Step up to the fore
I tap him gently
Take his hand
Silently lead him
To my witness stand
As soon as were in
My head’s in a spin
Unsure what to do
Please … Give me a clue?
He then sits
ME
down
On my threadbare chair
Looks deep in my eyes
So much love
There to share
My lips start to smile
He touches my heart
At last I’ve discovered
My own golden cart
He imparts me with tales
Of a life filled with pain
Not looking for sympathy
For the dragons he’s slain
He just wants to talk
Connect with another
Before long I realise
This man is my brother
My brother in arms
My lost fellow man
My point of existence
My part in the plan
This wretched man
Has set me free
To live this life
With empathy
My heart is open
My *** is full
I now have the courage
Of a
Sitting Bull
I thank my guest
And he thanks me
I invite him back
A
S
A
P
He doffs his hat
He smirks that smirk
And
I just know
Our love will work
*Day in
Day out
He sits on his bench
No one goes near him
Because of the stench
****
****
White Lightening
Despair
I watch from my window
It’s really not fair*
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 7:29 AM UTC
My first gLove
Lost on the bus
Absentmindedly
Or In the street
Parted in the snow
My stolen gLove
Taken whilst my back
Was turned
My fleeting gLove
Impaled by a stranger
In the street
On a spike
For all to see
My forgotten gLove
Left lonely
For too long
My worn out gLove
Threadbare
From years of absent
Emotion
My Christmas gLove
Ill fitting but warm
And worn
For a day
My lost summer
Lost summer
Lost summer gLove
Didn’t make the suitcase
Home
My gLove for life
Soft yielding
And strong
These are the gLoves
I have loved and lost
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 3:56 AM UTC
Recoiled in one’s own world
The pusillanimous heart beats faintly
Holding onto the last thread of hope
Among the threadbare fabric of neglect
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
a storyteller's perspective, steppin' off the ordinary edge, into the unknown
An unsent letter lay on the rustic log cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light comes in,
where it laid fallen, half *** crumbled, yet never a wadded ball;
never an unspoken thrown paper stone, a befallen regret was all.
Silently atilt and leaning against the canted wall's slant
behind the gathered dust a squeaky hinged burl wood door
A timeworn tarnished copper wind up clock roosted,
an old lip smirched coffee cup time stood still;
an empty bottle of gin sat near the bed post headboard
where the ink stains and blotted spillings let the memories in.
Stained pages torn and bent like fallen paper wings
returned to the unread sender … postage due, south a heaven sent ―
A sullied envelope, gnawed and mouse chewed,
for a nest of new beginnings ―
just read: Lydia ... ♡
... followed by a scribbled empty heart
The time aged brown tattered tablet paper left behind
stifled like the unread heart it holds upon the threadbare pages
of smudged tear’s ache and spilled gin
The weathered rock hearth fireplace filled with spent ashes,
hand rolled cigarette butts, traces of an aching lament;
scratched up old vinyl records lay ***** and tired out,
from a time of sweeter fallen fences, a musical bliss, and
a lost angel's abandoned red slinky party dress,
aside a busted off black velvet high-heel stuck sullied
in a hollow knothole in the ancient barn-wood floor
a sparkly pearl pink jewel entangled in a spider web
An unsent letter lay on the rustic cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light gets in
The final unread words silently said:
*"We lost our way,
it all went wrong,
it all turned bad"
..."This is the outcome when someone you love
up and throws you away"
...“I’ll reach out from the inside
I’ll rise up again and do without”
..."You went out into the world
with an untamed hankerin’ ―
like a carefree restless gypsy breeze
and come back worlds apart"*
The Unsent Letter,
just whispered words to the dust in the wind
in quivering ink:
...*"how can I ever unremember you...?
a thrown stone sinks wordlessly as a rock...,
an old wood bucket with a rotten hole the heart,
fallen forgotten, rock bottom as an empty well"*
just signed: ... ❤ August
January 1st, 2017 ... august ... wild is the wind ♡
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 12:20 PM UTC
I held out my hands.
I placed a drop of soap on each palm
and took hold of my ***** spoon and washed it with my hands,
cupping and spooning it
like my gentle hands were trying to make it croon.
Like it were mated and flipped and slapped
against threadbare slacks.
That spoon is cleaning me,
is washing my hands as I wash its tarnished feet,
it is forgiving me.
For the scalding soups and bitter ice cream,
and not washing it but watching it grow crusted, disgusted.
And while I swoon for my spoon,
and grinning the spinning dizzy grin of Love,
I remember, and give thanks for my feast.
This spoon feeds me like a child on Mother God’s lap,
and kisses me with life, with food.
This soap, and my hands, and this bubbling love between my spoon and I,
it is clean.
My soul is more clean with my spoon.
Cleaner than dog’s saliva licking at old wounds,
but that’s alright,
cause everybody knows ******* love scars, dog.
And women love beautiful spoons,
maybe because of its viscosity, or its gentle curvature,
or the deep loving laugh it invokes,
when it sits on my nose.
My spoon communion left me with pruned hands,
bright eyes,
and a coy smile for what flowers in my mind may bloom.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 2:31 AM UTC
Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.
Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.
Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.
Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.
So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?
Feb 9, 2024
Feb 9, 2024 at 2:21 PM UTC
Museums as art
Art as museums
Sail the trail to my mausoleum
Psychopaths and physicists
Psychiatrists and philosophers
Philanthropists and pilots and painters
Declare now, that these are our days –
Our hours, and our days
These are our city, our hours
Our time, our days.
This is our world –
At 14:92 I landed here and claimed it
And searched it and found it wanting
Of civilization that I could so easily supply
By means of wounds and iron
And brawn and truth
(and just a tiny touch of influenza darling)
By means of our Lord,
Who grants us all that we desire
If only we **** enough of those he did not choose.
This is our world –
And we shall make it what we will
Make it in our own image
Teach it that innocence is not knowing the difference between right and wrong
Raise it to hate no one
But to love itself so deeply
That all other love seems hateful in comparison.
This is our child, love
Yours and mine.
Here the first shall be last
And the last shall be first
But once the first are last they shall be
Last
Last
Last
And once the last are first
They shall make it so they can never be last again
This is our primitive accumulation
Of necessary materialism
Let’s cultivate matter
To make objects that we can place on shelves
And in cases –
These are our cases
And we love them as we love ourselves
Museums as mass graves
Mass graves as museums
Kiss me in my mausoleum
Priests and prisoners
Prostitutes and prophets
Pioneers and pilgrims and pagans
This is our time –
And we are dispensing it in spendthrift increments
Buying threadbare bandages for our cavernous canyons
Buying ample earplugs
To seal in the silence
So we can somewhat say
“look there is peace –
Look we have done it
In our time it is accomplished” –
This is our peace –
And we know it by the signs
The lions and lambs lay quietly together
In our brass-barred zoos
For as long as shelves and cases
Are intact and the first are first
And the last are last
And the civilized are organized and holy
There is peace –
Oh, look
We made peace!
And as for Solomon and Socrates –
We take their words to weave through our new wisdom
And when we re-chart the constellations
We shall give them each a star
And salute them once a year
When they come around the universe
Oh, look
How wise we are!
Mass graves as art
Art as mass graves
There have been no better days
There has been no greater time
Politicians and pornographers
Professors and pirates
Psychologists and pastors and pianists
This is our time –
And we are doing with it the very best we know how
The last are toiling and trying
And the first are trying to think to try –
But there is a shortness in our hours
And a violence in our peace
There is inherent foolishness in our wisdom
And disease in our cities
And there is death upon our shelves and in our cases.
This is our world –
We crafted it and declared our truth to be true
We sculpted this, our colosseum
Please inscribe my mausoleum
With “we know not what we do”
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 5:43 PM UTC
A dozen fellows draped in threadbare tread densely,
Profligating goons in obsidian gowns
gathered under rainbow
moonshine shaking bronze hands,
howling and ****** in the shambles of the moon,
rap'n and nod'n to the notes of midnight.
The mellow marines mourned over malice,
lionizing over lost ones,
many howled venerated, exalted in wonder
in favor of their thrilling grace, and delight,
and brilliance, and might!
but some neighboring sticklers,
behaved haughty and in disdain,
of the crowdy Cavaliers bellowing echoes
signaling out
to the seers of the sea,
singing to the wands overwatching the wedding,
and ravens listened,
roving like noble patrolsmen.
Traveleres and trainees at sea
humble and bright
niave, and frieghtened
in traverse,
volatile and toiling,
tireless,
Lunatics, (laughing, laughing, laughhing,)
Rumaging through rain,
fireciely,
rallying and rableroused,
through towering halls of mohogony,
hefty and wholesome were their hearts
though, beast of the woodsy edifice
were foul and benumb
scowling with contempt,
haste to devide and devised to hindrance.
Hence the heroes heed
to the valleys of rose, and violet,
and strawberry fields of forever,
seeking Saint Nicholas,
in the bustling Byzantium,
in the murky shadows of doubt.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 10:08 AM UTC
Summer's almost over,
It's threadbare
As your towel;
The summer sands
Are shifting,
The beach is headed south.
The initialed picnic tables
Are stored for other outings;
The concession windows
Flapped now,
The busker's shouting quelled.
Sails are dropped
Like maple leafs,
The moon's rising
Too soon;
The night lights blaze
Over pitch and field,
Where sunshine
Shone in June.
Geese are wedging daily
To escape the wintery gloom;
I'll reacquaint
With the hinter sounds
Of lake winds
And banshee loons.
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
Bigger things are easier to see. You might miss a humming bird or bee. You won't miss a condor or eagle. The opposite is true for people.
How can that be? If there's more of me, why am I impossible to see?
Invisibility isn't a cloak or spell. It's your fat pants stretched thin and worn as hell. It's the T-shirt you never thought you'd fit now threadbare and torn in the armpit.
There's just more of you to love, I thought the saying went. Well there I was feeling only torment. Faces fell when I said no, I'm not pregnant.
Does love bloat like this body of mine? Does it get watered down like cheap wine?
My back, my legs, everything hurt. My body just didn't work. If not by plane, by train, or car, I wasn't getting very far.
I longed for someone to scoop me up, to cradle me and gently rock.
I didn't fit in anyone's arms and briefly flirted with self harm.
Twice at work I took to crying. It went unnoticed without my trying.
The wrong solution looked too friendly and as of late, far too trendy.
Left alone I pondered fate. If I died, I'd be dead weight.
I felt stuck forever like dried cement. Sinking too low even to lament.
I watched my waist size raise and fall with the tides. If the full moon swells with admiration, why was round me full of desperation?
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 10:21 AM UTC
Never have I been the best at hiding how I feel. There is no peaceful game. My face reveals the truth. Never to be doubted. Nothing left to wonder. Still, I reign it in. I stifle my reality in an attempt to keep you close. So tender-hearted beneath that thickening shell. The shell I penetrated somehow. Once you found me in your heart, you pushed with all your might. Trying to get me out. I cannot be budged. Yet, I am not free to love you. You refuse to let me be yours in theory or practice. You love me, but not by choice. Fear of the possibility of pain keeps you at bay. Yet saving yourself from pain has deemed my own inconsequential. For running from me pulls out my heart.
**Pushing me away
What's best, or just what's easy
Burns holes in my soul**
Not one to take the easy way out. Suffering to love you. There is no expectation of love requited. There is nothing but a dream, part memory part wishful thinking. Hot needles still poke at me, slowly breaking me down. Weakening my very being with the sharp jabs of stinging words or careless action, or worse...absolute inaction. I have learned to stop expecting the "Morning Sunshine" or "'Night Darlin'" that used to brighten each day. Those thoughtless things, the tiny nothing things that let me know I was on your mind. So far from nothing those nothings were. Days and nights seem incomplete in their absence. Weaning to make your days bearable makes mine unendurable, empty, and melancholy has come to underlie all things.
**Joy of love melts ice
Heat smothered by a tear cloud
Threadbare soul survives**
Challenges faced sideways leave blind spots. Choices made by indecision. Letting mistakes be made, watching as they choose wrong. I see the truth and know what I know. Everything is aligned for my own misfortune. For as a bystander, I lay no claims. Anything I do will hasten the inevitable. So I let the weaning drip down to nothing. Reluctantly I watch as you disappear with my heart in hand. I stood firm as you ran away in place. You turned to me, you needed me, you loved me. As the clouds dissipate and the sun creeps over the horizon, With the blue sky I turn to mist. Slowly fading to the past. A ghost of could've been, used to be, and never was
**Surrender takes time
Reluctantly relinquished
I will fight no more**
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 12:36 AM UTC
i could not hold on anymore
to the desperate plea of the futile ones
who live off another wallet
so i set out that night for the south
to find the great parking lots
where i might find a space and place to rest my weary head
where i might find a place to be safely reckless
with her potions and instruments
but the violin she played spun a queer note
and i knew that if i did not go on with
whatever she wanted she would be the end of me
the end of poor poor me
gather my slim riches in my carpetbaggers coat
and picked up the threadbare bag
that had all the steam-pipes and tools
for making a new titanic
lets sink it right this time
we ended up just east of Pensacola
in a fairytale land of flea markets
trying to barter our yesterdays
for a bowl of thin soup today
gather my threadbare deadlock hippie chick companion
and counseled her against talking too loud
against the tourqouse monsters
and she told me i was just nervouse
and stripped away the rationalizations
to show that the fat man is only selling tickets
to the free show
so i follow her
having made up my mind that she sees the reality
of this sandy soil wasteland
we ended up leaving Pensacola
and with a quick prayer
we were on the the boat to the Bahama
with our lives intact
maybe next time we will escape
maybe next time you will come back with another woman stead of me
and i said that's a possibility
that wouldn't make either of us happy but
that's the way it should be sometimes
life doesn't always make sense
well most of the time it dont
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 6:15 AM UTC
It's telling looking through
the window’s eyes ;
a room with a paling grey glass view
befogs the clouds reign inside the storm
Often feeling misbegotten regret
for the unfiltered passing glimpses,
whetstone honed and splayed ;
raw hues of a latent life exposed
There's an uncertain hidden shame
in the unheard truth
starving out in the cold;
dwelling in a petrifying silence
of a common hunger
the lonely do ache
Merciless hunger pangs
manifest and shake
with an unrelenting bitter taste ;
loneliness grapples and grips
like a silent earth quake
rattling a rib caged heart — writhing
as Autumn bares the trees
A jagged ambiguous fault line
ripples through the hollow echo ;
a bolt of lightning caught in a bottle
strikes — silently contained
swallowing the unspoken words
in a greater good
This broken merry-go-round
keeps turning round and round;
the great mandala spinning on
like a worn out hamster-wheel
without a conscious trace
of going anywhere out there
The place you come from
is gone when you leave it —
even if you really never
feel you were from anywhere
but a thousand unmarked mileposts
from out here somewhere adrift;
a pilgrimage towards understanding
why sometimes I don’t know
if I know who I am — or could have been —
waiting on a threadbare prayer
One-day the winds of change
will shapeshift — bye and bye ...
"When the light that's lost within us
reaches the sky"
Jesse Stillwater
November 2018
Nov 1, 2018
Nov 1, 2018 at 2:16 PM UTC
When words fail and the song dies in your soul
The soft cushion weighs heavy, threadbare, when
Dust invites the attic attack to the last memory stroll
A fretful protest march accompanying the wood grained heart
You noticed the space in short supply, with tight breath, the
Expert bargaining skills have begun, bypassing
The weak hearts, those that are still journeying
Their healing held up in tight palms of moistoned skin
And the slide into another day begins, dreadfully
With arched pain barriers drumming their morning
Beat. Occupational hazard was on the rampage
Cracking skull caps from their skinned residence
I shone a light into the acute grey tone of those
Hearts, those whose shapes lost conviction as the light
Shot arrowed tongues from the deaf interiors of wise men
Out on the town of feeble failings, they held nothing as their companion
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 7:15 AM UTC
i woke with a **** and
a windpipe full of butterflies, so i
swallowed them down to my chest
my stomach and below and
it was then that i realized
they weren't butterflies
but backward flies
that turn to maggots and
eat dead things
so it was then that i realized
i was dead, in between that
chasing-my-breath consciousness and
sepia splotched dream
which featured my favorite
human being
waking me, winding me
up...
hey saige, come on, so i
unlocked my eyes
even though i knew it was my
little brother
all along...
bright
cobwebbed windows at my
feet and
brighter fringe above me
brushing my forehead, like fingers
he leaned
over me, nudged me
hugged me, come on
saige...
i began to rise, which is why
he stopped me, that's when he
kissed me, and that's when i
forgave him
because i knew it was
an accident
except for, that was when
he did it
again...
my lips inside his, and
i kept my eyes
open
kept telling myself to
just kiss back, since we'd
already ruined everything, because
that was all he
wanted
because maybe
we could go back, maybe we'd still be
inseparable if
i hadn't screamed, enough!
maybe nightmares
are second chances at
being better
best friends...
i was torn
worn threadbare and i felt it
in every fiber of me
lying there, but i couldn't
pull away and i've
never wished to hurt him, so i
couldn't push, either
just clamped my eyes
shut, as he did the same
with his mouth...
and that was when
i woke
without a soul nor a shame
save for the maggots
in my veins
May 5, 2018
May 5, 2018 at 2:53 PM UTC
Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised,
With idiot moons and stars retracting stars?
Creep thou between—thy coming’s all unnoised.
Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars.
Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fray
(By Adam’s, fathers’, own, sin bound alway);
Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say
Which planet mends thy threadbare fate, or mars.
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These days
I am too cold
My palms are at rest
Down for the long winter
My coordination and
dexterity will hibernate
And I'll cloak this poor body
With anything I can
An almost married woman
Clings to the hems of my sleeves
With thin fingers
With scissors
There to cut away the warm wool
With wild eyes
and a bitter mouth
She gathers my coat in a basket
Unravels all the careworn fibers
To cast upon her empty loom
As though she'd spun them
Casts off newly sewn kisses
Threadbare affection
Muttering crossly about the weather
And how the sun
does not melt the snow
She is only my friend when
She can touch my bare wrists
Give me white hot iron to hold
And ask me if I'm warmer
Only my friend when
She can graze my skin in surprise
Wrap my hands up with stiff yarn
And ask me what burned them
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 11:27 AM UTC