"yarn" poems
How do you explain
to your children that the
horrors of the world are real?
How will I tell my son, We
found a place you can call home but
your bus might not make it to school.
Do not look too Jewish in this part of town
Do not play in the train station
Do not get used
to the weight
of a machine gun.
Or look my
daughter in the eye and say, someday
you might say “no” and someone stronger than you might
not listen
You will not tell me
Know that this happens a lot
Know that your wrists pinned against a
backboard will
echo in the way you move your hands
for as long as you let it
But
human hands aren’t as heavy as metal shackles
And I’m so sorry
but I won’t be able to
take the weight for you
You’ll wake up in the morning
That I can promise you
You’ll wake up
and your lungs will fill with air
whether you tell them to or not.
One day
I will hold someone
small, with my face
and they’ll cry and I’ll say,
*I know.
I know you’re tied with little yarn strings to the last life
I know it hurts to be here and
(honestly)
you’re never going back
But
the older you get the less you’ll remember
what it was like
before you had a body
when you were made of ash and infinite light
You’ll convince yourself you live here and
that your hands are you,
But remember that once you were boundless
Inside my body, without yours.*
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:34 PM UTC
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
My anxiety is not me.
My anxiety is shaking hands.
My anxiety is imaginative.
My anxiety is sleepless nights.
My anxiety is never satisfied.
My anxiety sits on my shoulder.
My anxiety keeps me from making important phone calls.
My anxiety forces me to want to isolate myself.
My anxiety makes me cry over nothing.
My anxiety makes me cry over everything.
My anxiety tells me a C may as well be an F.
But my anxiety forces me to avoid important tasks I have to deal with. Everything scares me.
What am I so scared of?
My anxiety wakes me up vomiting.
My anxiety forces me to pull away from the people I so badly want to fall into.
My anxiety keeps me from living.
My anxiety makes me at least two to twenty minutes late everywhere because I don’t believe I am ever prepared,
so I have to retrace my every other step,
constantly checking and re checking.
Constantly doubting.
My anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through my mind.
My anxiety is a menace, a monster, a fish with teeth,
black yarn, lawn chairs sinking in the sand.
My anxiety rules me.
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 3:00 AM UTC
the british way, not mentioning
yarn, too much, repeating words,
where no longer necessary. wool
in abundance here, piled on wool
lorries, neatly balanced with
premium acrylic.
it is a fine line we walk,
gently avoiding peptides,
only just a theory, yet used
independantly, alongside
honest work, for mending.
today is hallow e’en
sbm
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM UTC
Chlamydia, you grumpy cow!
You're twice as grumpy as Sarah the sow.
Half as happy as Jennifer hen,
But ten times better than all the men !
Chlamydia, Chlamydia,
we never will get rid of yer.
A fixture in the draughty barn,
giving us milk and a gossipy yarn.
Have some grass and Chrstmas cake,
have a snooze and then awake,
to a surprise picnic on your floor,
then you can be a grump once more.
Jan 2, 2011
Jan 2, 2011 at 7:12 AM UTC
My beautiful blue skein of yarn,
Here in my bag you sit,
I'd love to pick you up to knit,
If only for a bit.
But clothes need washing and babes need baths,
And food needs cooking too,
Besides, I'd have a hard time choosing,
What to make of you.
You see, my stitches were not even,
My gauge, no one could guess,
My beautiful blue skein of yarn,
You would not have been impressed.
But oh how I've practiced, how I've improved, I'm sure you'll find it so,
My stitches fly right off my needles and sit in pretty rows.
My gauge is constant, my edges neat, now I am ready for you,
But still that nagging question comes, what with you will I do?
Maybe I will make of you a felted wooly bonnet,
And everyone would stop and gaze and cast their eyes upon it.
I'll wear you on holiday, we'll march in a parade,
I'll prance so proudly, show you off, and say, "yes, you're handmade".
Maybe I will make of you, a purse, like those I see in Vogue,
I'll put in you my favorite things, and then, we'll hit the rode!
We'll travel round the city, and everyone will see,
How beautiful and remarkable a skein of yarn can be.
Maybe I will make you gloves,
My baby's hands to cover,
And everyone who saw her'd say,
"her mother must really love her".
A hat, a purse, a pair of gloves, your beauty for all to see,
But, only if I stop and knit,
Now look what you've made of me,
Your potential's not all I see...
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
Against the lavender of a Capricorn:
less chubby at age fourteen than at eighteen,
produced at the wrong time.
Her stars are their least private in December,
moths pick up ovaries and eggs
from below her dress
left behind from relationship number one.
A lesbian curse, no offspring
for her girlfriend was a Capricorn spirit too.
A nymph who took ten seconds to leave
though eight years to disappear:
nurses say, “it just hurts for a moment,”
but needles ruin your whole ******* week.
But out of two Capricorn women,
one is sure to get pregnant.
The first’s not heard of powdered milk,
nor would she have any,
calcium-deficient so others break her bones.
She has a cabinet of amber orbs
held with sickly insects, a million years old
and brown hair in like tiny ***** of yarn.
Some parts of a person can belong to another.
This was not their cornflower-eyes
but an ability to bear child from straight ***
female parts tangled like herbs and stars.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
Lost to backdrops scrolling past,
She sits knitting
in the carriage of a train.
The vague needles
They scintillate and glimpse
With the cadence of the wheels –
Upbeating ceaselessly.
Strips of tiny loops
And eyelets like dewdrops
Of condensation
Grouped on the superior rim.
Once in a while,
She gives a heave
To loosen more yarn from the skein
Of Filipino-made wool,
brushed worsted weave.
Spun and carded
from the richest fleece,
Deeper in the wicker basket by her feet.
The needles flash,
With ancient rhythms and attack
Of duellists in their chainmail coats.
With little hesitation she can tack
From plain to purl to blackberry.
Count back by rote or slip a stitch
While the fish-eyed gimlets gleam.
All gather profusely in her lap,
As windfall trove, rich-patterned
And warm with peach-fuzz nap,
All crafted from a single line of yarn.
Marvels fall continuously from wise
Spell-binding hands and all is well for now.
(9/11/13 @xirlleelang)
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
It turned cold quickly
Almost skipping Autumn
Reluctant to wear a jacket
Or a hat, or gloves
Too distant for my arms
To keep him warm against my chest
He said he never wore a scarf
But if he did, he would go Dr. Who style
I had to laugh as i looked up the reference
Fifteen feet of mismatched stripes
Maybe not the stripes, he said
I happened upon a huge skein of yarn
It felt like a warm blanket in the oddest,
Most interesting colors
Manly, neutral, and perfect for Fall
So i crocheted a scarf and pictured him warm
The pattern in those colors was a mess
I chuckled at why they would make such an ugly pattern
I crocheted every stitch with love
Through arthritic hands that felt no pain
I crocheted a scarf, stopping only when it dragged the floor when i put it on
Two feet short, but ridiculously long
I bordered it in shades of green to match
Not realizing it was variegated into Brown's and maroons along the way
But it matched the odd mix of colors
And finally made it almost pretty to me
I covered myself in perfume
And put it around my neck
As I turned I caught a glimpse in the mirror
It wasn't a horrible amalgamation of hideous colors
It was camouflage, with a matching border
I laughed so hard, and felt so bad
My hillbilly in camouflage
Wearing a scarf way too long
Maybe he would hate it
Maybe he won't wear it
I knew better
So, I packed up his bag of gifts
And sent it to the frozen mountains
He never wore a scarf
He opened it and put it on
It smells like You, he said in blssful remembrances
It's definitely camouflage, he laughed
It's perfect baby, I'll wear it whenever it's cold
And in the picture he sent
I saw its beauty
It wasn't in the patterns of crisscrossing colors
It wasn't in the accidental way
The border perfectly complimented the body
It wasn't in the fact that he would be able
To wrap himself up in me to stay warm
It was in that picture
It was the joy that filled his smile
It was in his eyes that danced in love
It was in the fact that he believes
Because i made it, it's perfect
Yes, i accidentally crocheted a thirteen foot camouflage scarf
And he loves that I can keep him warm.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 4:23 AM UTC
I’m knitting something new,
it feels good.
The new ball of yarn unraveling like time
but I’ve still got plenty left.
There’s potential in this dark teal wool
and satisfaction when I decide
the way I want to weave it.
I make mistakes, I change them
to become part of the pattern.
The stitches are like a song in my head,
I sing them, I tap them out with my foot
and whistle along to the tune I’ve made up.
I thought it might be a hat when I saw the skein
but now I know it will be an
infinity scarf.
My six inches of beaded rib is a metaphor for my worries.
Working my hands intricately help me forget them.
I have time.
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 9:35 PM UTC
My fingers tangle and trip
over sloppy knitting
like a deer
learning to walk on crooked
pencil legs.
Like a song I don't quite
know the words to.
I move unsteadily,
uncertain, with short shaky breaths.
Remember when I taught my lungs
to breathe again in August?
After so many mistakes that
I didn't know how to
reconcile.
I wanted to die out back
of a hotel in Montana, dramatic
in the weeds and grasshoppers.
Needles fighting, I
spread a mess of mustard yarn
across my fingers like
I need a napkin.
Has anything changed?
Dropped stitches, weary knots leaving
gaping holes.
I think of how I ran away
from it all.
There are days I still look back.
But I look straight into the sky
as if demanding an explanation from
God himself.
I have to shade my eyes
sometimes,
seeing blinding brilliance
in the sun now.
I can't live any longer only
by the light it sheds
everywhere else.
No, in births of light and bursts
of truth and slow, overdue breaths
is a song I'm finally learning
the words to.
You will not defeat me.
I rip out my knots
and begin again.
Oct 27, 2011
Oct 27, 2011 at 12:07 PM UTC
This yellow saree she wore
Just once in her life had wrapped
A coy twenty-year-old bride
Tentatively setting her dainty foot
Into the hesitant bridal home .
Somewhere in the backwoods
Several industrious silkworms
Had spun miles of salivary yarn
In the foliage of the mulberry tree
To make this golden yellow saree .
The rustle of her silk drowned
The wails of the boiling cocoons
The worms died that beauty would live
In their plaintive cries lay bridal hopes .
My mother, the bride of yesteryears,
Is now as non-existent as the worms
That had ceased to exist spinning
The smooth silk for her bridal finery .
Her bridal fragrance lives on among
The delicate folds of these gossamer silks
That the worms had died weaving.
Death is so fragrant , so memorable.
Nov 4, 2010
Nov 4, 2010 at 6:03 AM UTC
The light pollution
from the lives of little people
in the big city
reflects off the lowriding clouds,
the same way my knees reflect
in the little puddles
from the big rains.
It hurts my eyes to look up
without sunglasses,
hurts my lips to think of tasting
the subway oil that
drip
drip
drips
I speculate at the transformers,
part automatic, part people
in their pre-ripped jeans,
learning to get their Ns
to drive themselves away,
yarn trailing from their sweaters
like parade float streamers.
Citizens run so fast
to catch the early train home,
freefalling down the stairs
breathing in the exhales
of the other racer’s exhaust.
Marking their triumphs
with participation ribbons.
The pacific pants at toes,
a puppy that only occasionally misbehaves.
Impatient for attention,
waves wagging back and forth,
up the imitation river,
past the downtown.
Kicking the sea wall with it's gravity boots.
The geese are on hiatus
until they can take back the city.
Making the drains overflow,
creating their own habitat,
they’ll strut their haughty markings,
distinguished from orcas,
away from any saline nonsense.
Were we to retrain the population
to turn blind eyes,
we’d be much more efficient,
stop wasting time contending
to society’s obsession
with documenting itself.
But then, what would we do all day?
Creating light pollution
must give immediate gratification.
Once all the lights are turned off,
the influence won’t continue,
creating a lack of permanence,
making our need to be remembered
seem trivial indeed.
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 1:57 AM UTC
We are frail
But could be stout
We are patient
But could be tired
We are deep
But could turn shallow
Rather true
But pick the fraud fellow.
Whoever we are
Are carved from jolts
Which heart embraces
And grabs then stitches.
But when the *****
Had too much dinge
And no more yarn
Left to sew the bits,
This marred love
Will become dust
For a weeping man
To succumb in scruple.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
we tied yarn together
praying it would hold like rope
and maybe, just maybe
it could have
if only you had not let go
-carly jaye
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 8:41 PM UTC
Knitting yarn, she used to say
Son, your karma will always pay
Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter
False pride always fade away
Knitting yarn, she used to pray
May my child be healthy!
And will always be
Alongside me
Knitting yarn, she used to take nap
For filling rest in the gap
She closed her eyes for the time being
And I admired the most beautiful human being
|AB|
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 4:40 AM UTC
You breathed gin.
This is blood for you.
Your hands held your hair and your eyes shut.
The alcohol lulled your brain to black.
It escaped your veins,
Diluted by 37.5% truth serum.
Gasping at the
Divine realisation
Where slurred lips
Contradicted
Your once straight-faced,
Certainly-certain speakings
Of your very crooked lie.
So crooked, it wound his heart around yours.
But that ball of yarn unravelled in an instant.
And the jumper you knit together,
Came apart
Stitch by stitch.
In my fogged memory,
I had choked myself that night
With a bottle and a ball of yarn.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 12:16 AM UTC
If I could write my life as a poem
For millions who'll read, understand, think
I'd conjure an epic, a mystery
A tale on edge, a tragedy's brink.
I'd weave gripping waves of pleasure
Together with heart-wrenching tides of pain
A sea of battles with no leisure
Of joyful wins going against the grain.
I'd stitch metaphors with gleeful pride
Constructing rhythm with a bit of rhyme
I'd dabble with similes here and there
It'd be my thread on the sands of time.
But when I see my life as it is now
How different it is from my lovely tale
It retains its mystery, some agony
A once-green crop grown dead and stale.
A lost yarn of mistakes and pitfalls
With regret binding the threads as one
Repeated faults with no known structure
A once-free verse that is trapped, undone.
So I'll cast away my dream of a life
In a graveyard as a forgotten goal.
Some dreams never come true, it seems
Just like some lives will never be whole.
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 12:42 PM UTC
Here we go again,
Another yarn to spin,
As you once again
Pretend that it's the end.
And that besides your curls,
Your dimples, and your pearls,
You're not like other girls
And you wish you were my world;
And I wish you were all, my darling,
But I don't get to make the rules.
A man is not a man
Because he has a plan,
And just because he can
Counts ev'ry grain of sand.
For as sure as they are numbered
And that one and one is two,
Twelfth & Vine is on his mind
And Mississippi, too;
But I wish you were all, my darling,
But I can't seem to pick and choose.
Each time you come back down the hall ––
(Each time you earn my trust) ––
You confuse what you're supposed to do
With that which you must,
And by the idols of the mind
Young is wasted on the youth,
So to hell with being honest,
For once I'll tell the truth:
That I wish you were all, my darling,
But I wish they were all mine, too.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC
Sleeping someone somewhere
Dreams of drinking daises
Laying lucid loving lavender
Adapting admiration of the ages
Koala kites, kaleidoscope cries
Bubbles blowing bare beauty
Riding radiance rapidly realizing
Forsaken focus freeing form
Soaring sensation seeps synchronicity
Dripping differences deranged
Rearranged ripples randomly react
Enacting endorphins equally engaging
Induced ignition infinitely intact
Pulsating precision purpose full pact
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 4:52 AM UTC
A mother whispers into the fire of Night
I hold a match
I hold Yarn
I Am Wool
Shrinking to the formation
The intricate designs of your rib cage
of your brother's belly
of your Grandfather's waist
Am I simply a fool?
And Who
Doth I ask This question too?
A Torn book
A tattered sonnet of Man's sore feet
blistered eyes that are Green
That are Brown
That are Blue
I Lay with myself Tonight
I am Awake
I am Loud
In your Night
I Am the Janitor beneath the hardwood floors
of your Dream
I am the
Poorly Waged Electrician
With Shoes that resemble an old dog
I Light Your Highway
Your Street
Your Morning coffee
your
cigarette
Am I The Child?
I fall in love with women I see on the streets
Their Wavy hair
like a French sea
Her pale complexion
the Brown Glimmer in her eyes
And I paint on her on Tombstones
On Coffee Mugs and on carpets rolled up for the Dumpster
At Nights
I prefer to dream awake
and sit with a BathTub of words
of stories that melt like cheese
that stiffen like Ginsberg ****
that Shriek and Strum like Tom Waits stomach when he starves on backroad streets
And when I cannot
reproduce
I make love to a woman
And a poem is made
and I kiss her
and my lips say 5 am
and I wish her not to go
But the Dog
is waken by Robins
by the Pigeons
by the digestion of night to day
by the Greek Gods and Goddess' Light
That Falls down
like long hair of woman you have so longed for
and you kiss her chest
And there is no Death
There is no Sleep
or ****** addicts or gasoline or paved roads or shaved faces or mothers or Dostoevsky or Beethoven
There is just her
and you run your fingers across her skin
through her hair
She is the bottom of the Ocean
You are a homeless crab
a Shellless Clam
falling down
down
down
to the bed of the great ocean
and there she lays
With a reflection of Youth and Beauty
And her complex simplicity makes me think of
me as a boy
running behind brick collapsed business buildings
Kissing a girl behind church
Buying Icecream with Josh in Winter
That's what a woman does
She erases Death
from the palms of your hands
and your thoughts
and you sink
to the bottom
and you watch the Coral
The other fish
swimming along
and you laugh
Because you do not know Death
And Death does not know you.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 3:16 AM UTC
I'm weaving with yarn
crocheting stitches
across my heart
sewing up my wounds
allowing release
through art
a slipknot here
a whipstitch there
I weave and weave
as I crochet into repair
the frayed edges of my soul
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 8:16 PM UTC
For years, they stole and robbed from our pockets.
For years, they murdered what faith we had,
Killed what hope we gained for ourselves.
Poverty loomed over us like death, the
Loss of materialistic payment. Currency controls;
We have none.
Beginning with a silly addition to parchment and paper.
A "stamp act," if you will. Oh, the rarity of a few extra
Coins to spend on a cake for the mistress!
Rebellion and violence against the act increased,
The Sons, the ones of Liberty left
Blood splattered on the ground we walk on.
Fear installed in the hearts of agents,
Collecting and shivering as coins ring in their satchels.
Soon, though, they left. Resigned and replaced themselves with
Another thief.
The Townshend- adding cents more to imported,
Provided, goods. The people starved for things
They need and can not afford.
Naive. They had materials. They had the skill,
But no need to use what they contained in their minds
And their bodies.
Begin the new world! Spin your own yarn and twine!
Build your own shoes! You don't need the goods
From old English factories and makers.
The disagreements and retaliation, the lack in
Morality in the brainwashed heads of soldiers.
A bothered redcoat drew his gun, leaving holes,
Horrible voids.
The dive from cliff to cliff, swing from tree to tree,
The ****** of blood and
The determination to be freed from the grasp of
A controlling monarchy.
The greed they exhibit and the cruelty.
Revenge for taking what is ours?
Sweet tea, English tea,
Soaked in the harbor. The tax will be no more!
The need for peace, rejected by one
Who wanted control and a steady reign.
The isolation, suffocation of the new land like an
Abused child.
It was only a matter of time before the child ran away.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
I see the boy's eyes
puckered
destroyed
he can't grasp
how is this
so?
on balance
tales and
lies do
for the spark of
a yarn's
pull?
or are the child's
ties torn
the parent's
solidity broken
his rock
in a world
shaken?
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC
**Here I lie wide awake,
thoughts pouring through my mind.
How sweet the touch your body,
when craving after mine.**
*Playful eyes and dancing toes,
wrestling to shed our clothes.
You bite my neck and I taste yours,
we slowly kiss, our tongues explore.*
**I toss and turn, try to ignore,
these visions now vibrate my core,
the chance I'd take if you were near,
to breathe you in as though you're here.**
*Lips running down your heartfelt chest,
caressing them along your breast,
excitfull moans begin to flow,
the further down I go below.*
*With grace I trace, my love expands,
this sanctioned sin, no reprimands.
You feel me now, passions run deep,
quietly your sounds they speak,
and as they do,
I follow through,
through the depths of reaching you.*
*As inner thighs,
quiver and quake,
salty sweet your taste I take,
your fingers running through my hair,
you pace my face,
and steady,
there!
You groan in ecstasy,
your love receives the best of me.
I slowly give my all to you,
with rhythm we begin to move,
clasping our hands, you sway your hips,
you raise them up, as we eclipse.*
**It echos through these deep elations,
driving in intense sensations.**
*Entangled we begin to dance,
form beads of tropical romance.
You rain on me, and I on you,
our bodies moist like sultry dew.*
**Tell me now, where have I gone,
this feels like some celestial bond.
I'm but alone, in my own bed,
yet here you are inside my head.**
*Joining rapid beating hearts,
pulsating through our tender parts.
Increasingly your warm breath's felt,
together we begin to melt...*
**I must expel this lustrous notion,
to sinfully vow my devotion.
How can it be, to have not met,
yet yarn for you, without regret.**
Dec 7, 2016
Dec 7, 2016 at 11:20 PM UTC