Related quotes: Your wife wants: this time...

Jarred`s Daughter

Your wife wants:

this time it`s chickens.
So you winged a coop from wood and wire
for her birthday. You found a supplier
a farm near Ely, and the A10 fed you to The Fens.

Jarred`s Farm is a listing wreck

on a black claggy sea.
A faded wooden chicken leans,
propped and peeling by a front porch
that drips creeper in scarlet entrails.

The air is different here:

somehow sickly, like a mildewed echo
of marsh and stinging grey mist.
But it`s the sky`s bone-clinic whiteness
that quietly smothers you.

Jarred`s breathing is a dying accordion,

his lungs lined like a coop floor.
He guides you through a clamorous shanty
of cherished cocks and hens, their colours oozing into
the smote-filled air like a ruptured rainbow.

And then the girl appears, still wearing her summer skin,

stretching the sinews of your eyes,
eating the eyes from your head.
She curves her way through the melee
in a next to nothing floral dress,
golden-threads of straw in her midnight hair:

you reach for them.

‘Don`t touch', Jarred rasps,
his words burst you open:
you snatch your hand back
and her eyes are flecks of green ice.

You stride to the car, you flounder for the keys.
Thunderbugs float towards your sweat
in the early autumn haze,
maddening your scalp and eyebrows:

but the prickle at your neck

is Jarred`s daughter,
caressed in shadow
at an upstairs window;
her floral dress gone,

her father`s hand on her shoulder.

poem by Bob Dellar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Related quotes

Reflections

When I looked into your eyes,
I saw a garden
With peonies, and tinkling pagodas,
And round-arched bridges
Over still lakes.
A woman sat beside the water
In a rain-blue, silken garment.
She reached through the water
To pluck the crimson peonies
Beneath the surface,
But as she grasped the stems,
They jarred and broke into white-green ripples,
And as she drew out her hand,
The water-drops dripping from it
Stained her rain-blue dress like tears.

poem by Amy Lowell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Chicken and Other Foods

She is coming home tonight, been away for two days.
Bought her, what she likes… a well roasted chicken.
On the farm where I was brought up, old hens that
didn’t lay eggs as before had heads chopped off and
ended up in the pot. Incredible tough meat had to boil
it for hours. Never liked the smell in a chicken coop,
I think concentration camps must have stunk like that
too many bodies in small rooms and no escape.
The coop’s capo wasn’t safe either, when it didn’t
perform as before, off with its head. When she enjoys
her roasted chicken with lemon sauce I will eat a burger,
since it doesn’t look remotely like a dead animal and as
I have never seen a dead cow, only milked them every
morning at five, it will taste ok with Italian salad.

poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Church Sitting

You sat with Jane
in her father's church
the bright morning sun

piercing high windows
pushing colours on flagstone floors
the silence caressed you

her nearness warmed
her ankle socks and sandals
had an innocence of strawberries

her flowered summer dress
rode up to her thighs as she sat
her hands resting on her knees

can you feel that breeze?
she said
cooling isn't it

you sensed it as she spoke
yes I can
you replied

your eyes moved along her thighs
then lifted to her face
as partial sunlight

seemed to show
grace there on skin
and dark black hair

and you watched her lips move
as she spoke and said
I was christened here

and maybe I'll be wed here too
to whom?
you asked

and she looked at you
a thirteen year old boy
then looked away

some birdsong from outside
had caught her ear
and she turned her head

and you gazed
at her neck and jaw
and saw her beauty

in a way you had not before
sunlight catching her
as it had coloured patterns

on flagstone floor
you wanted to reach
and touch her arm

her skin and sense
her pulse of life
that pumped within.

poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

The Habanero Reel

Cool in the corner, tom cat sitting
On the edge of the yard; sand-flies flitting.
Orange order on a field of green.
Smothers me to smithereens.
Rum and cola, ice cubes crashing.
Jumping beans and brown eyes flashing.
Long hair swinging, tell me how dyou feel?
Well, hot and fancy, its the habanero reel.
Troubled skin? pour oil upon it.
Shes fit to burn in her new scotch bonnet.
Spice up anybodys stew.
Frogs and goats and chickens too.
Barefoot in the sunshine.
Kicking empty beer cans down on the high tide line.
Big wave nearly float your dress away.
And Im thinking that its just another day:
Just another day.
Feel that hot rush start its tickle.
Sweat is rising, taste buds prickle
With ears of bat and eye of eagle.
Its just as well its strictly legal.

song performed by by Jethro Tull
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Lydia

There was life before us

my sister and I discovered
looking at photographs

we shouldn't have been looking at
of the English girl my father

was engaged to during the war.
Here she is right in front of our eyes,

the woman before my mother,
in a black lace cocktail dress,

a cigarette in a holder,
pensive, earthy—waiting

in front of the carved wooden radio,
for news from the front.
This is the war, after all,
and here she is again, somewhere

on an English beach, draped
across my father's shoulder

all of her silky skin radiant
above the soft folds of sun dress.

They stand in front of a sign
that reads 'Seaside Cottages,

two dollars.' And here she is
again, painted onto the cockpit

of my father's plane with hardly
anything on at all, and here he is

in his flight jacket, looking
in fact, happy. My sister and I each

lift our pencils like cigarettes,
taking long sultry drags to puff
out invisible rings. They rise
in the air like silver nooses

that will catch our father
and hold him to us.

poem by Geraldine Connolly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Paris Rain

Sitting on a porch
In splendid Paris as the doves
Guffaw and then scour -
We watch them flutter away
To their uncanny retreat: a slow resignation.
The candid lights flicker
And the sound of the automobiles are blaring -
The deafening cacophony of the sirens.
Among the foreign tongues,
She sips on her coffee as her eyes are filled
To the brim with enthusiasm.
The lights are trapped inside your eyes.
She told me, wearing her vibrant array,
Her mesmeric grin and her usual floral dress
That I have come to pick up in her absence.

The people chatter in a mad clangor
As they sprawl over their coffee
A rower came by underneath the winch
Where the river streams resiliently like
The lock of Janine's hair -
I run my hands through her hair and I am reminded
Of how hope slithers into my core.
It started to rain, gently
The supple bending of the cypress to the wind's
Amorous bluster is poetry to our eyes
The sound of the people scrounging for shelter
Is a saturnine humor
And how the rain engulfed her floral dress,
Leaving it with smudges of the heaven's tears
Made her glow in such a resplendent burst:
To see the Sun this close under the rain,
Lost in Paris is captivating -

We watch the rain drops shatter
Like glass tears from the heavens filled
With mire and her steady fixation
On the dank concrete made me jealous -
I wish to be the concrete, her stare
Is as precious as the ebullient trance like how one
Stands in front of the sea, naked
And wan as the wind starkly brushes your soul.
She continued to take fewer sips on her coffee mug,
Her stench defeats the petrichor,
The rain ceased and the doves began to scatter
All over the Paris asphalt, bickering over parcels of
Bread - she sat down again,
In front of me, on a porch in Paris.
Without the rain, Paris still razes with a beauty unfazed.
I was living in one of her dreams which slowly
Transpired into mine as well,

But then again,

Without Paris,
Without the rain,
Without the doves,
Without coffee,
Parcels of bread even,
Without the automobiles of
Uncouth machinism,
Without everything,
Everyone,
Way away,
Alone with her immense eyes
Is where I want to be.

poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Not Always What We Seek

After you'd got on
the school bus
and sat down

in one of the side seats
Jane said
who did you fight with

in the playground
lunchtime?
Woolgar

you said
he pushed me over
against the wire fence

and I got up
and went for him
she looked disappointed

I didn't think
you could be violent
she said

I'm not usually
but it was an automatic
response to being

pushed over
you said
my daddy said

one should turn
the other cheek
especially if you're a Christian

she said softly
the school bus
started up

and took off down
the school drive
sorry

you said
but the creep
got under my skin

and if you let them
get away with it once
they'll always do it

she gazed at you
then out
of the window

at the passing shops
and buildings
of the town

were you watching?
you asked
yes I saw you

from the girl's playground
she muttered
not looking round

guess it looked
kind of bad
yes it did

she turned
and looked at you
but at least

you don't do it
all the time
she said

and touched
your hand
with hers

and you felt sad
inside that you'd
made her feel like that

and you saw
how lovely her
dark eyes were

how there seemed
to be a mini universe
in them with their own

galaxies and stars
and moons
next time I'll think twice

you said
before hitting
the other boy

she nodded
and smiled
and her hand

squeezed yours
her skin soft and warm
her hair black

and drawn back
into a ponytail
sitting there

beside you
her grey school skirt
and jumper

and white blouse
the neck open
the sight

of her throat
and you wanting
to kiss but not doing so

her neck
her skin
the feel

of her hair
against your cheek
sometimes

you thought
we can't have
what we seek.

poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Come Up From The Fields, Father

Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother-here's a letter from thy dear
son.

Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the
moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis'd
vines;
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and
with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful-and the farm prospers
well. 10

Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father-come at the daughter's call;
And come to the entry, mother-to the front door come, right away.

Fast as she can she hurries-something ominous-her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smoothe her hair, nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly;
O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is sign'd;
O a strange hand writes for our dear son-O stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes-flashes with black-she catches the main
words only;
Sentences broken-gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish,
taken to hospital, 20
At present low, but will soon be better.

Ah, now, the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through
her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay'd ;)
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be
better, that brave and simple soul ;)
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already; 30
The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently drest in black;
By day her meals untouch'd-then at night fitfully sleeping, often
waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed-silent from life, escape and
withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

poem by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

You could put this record on and not get jarred half-way through. I wanted it to be all cut from one cloth, and that was the way we took it through the whole production process.

quote by Jules Shear
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Scrawled In Sap

O the sky grey orange
An the walls stained blue
An I laid right down on the golden satin with you
Into sween dark circles of beautiful eyes
I go round
O lord
I go round
Will you tell me once again
Cream white skin
You are my friend
I seen you walkin and your white hips sway
O girl I will have you no more
To the moan in your voice
Not a charm do you lack
Your skin to touch as a black ravens back
But I cannot go far with these words as they rhyme
As to tell, of the pleasure, your hand in mine
An I pray as I say this song in this way
That your eyes they would close an your head begin to sway
An youll feel how he heals with his blood on our skin
I am yours lady scrawled an thin
Will you tell me once again
Cream white skin
You are my friend
I seen you walkin in your husbands way
Girl I will have you more

song performed by by 16 Horsepower
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Attadale, West Highlands

A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,
Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep
The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;
Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze;
The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke;
The braes beyond--and when the ripple awoke,
They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.
The air was hushed and dreamy. Evermore
A noise of running water whispered near.
A straggling crow called high and thin. A bird
Trilled from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore,
Yellow with weed, there wandered, vague and clear,
Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard.

poem by William Ernest Henley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Unstrung

My skies were blue, and my sun was bright,
And, with fingers tender and strong and light,
He woke up the music that slept before—
Echoing, echoing evermore!

By-and-by, my skies grew grey;—
No master-touch on the harp-strings lay,—
Dead silence cradled the notes divine:
His soul had wander'd away from mine.

Idly, o'er strange harps swept his hand,
Seeking for music more wild and grand.
He wearied at last of his fruitless quest,
And he came again to my harp for rest.

But the dust lay thick on the golden wires,
And they would not thrill to the old desires.
The chords, so broken and jarred with pain,
Could never be tender and sweet again.

poem by Ada Cambridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Three Flights Up

On the first floor On the first floor
On the first floor there's a young girl reeling
Her body's numb and without feeling
As illusions dance on the midnight ceiling
Now she's falling, now she's kneeling
It's almost like she's bowed in prayer
A savior she's about to bear
She screams for help, but no one's there
On the first floor
On the first floor people walk the halls
But none can hear her desperate calls
There is no sound beyond the walls
So to the telephone she crawls
She telephones her only friend
The one on whom she can depend
But the phone rings on without an end
Then rings no moreOn the first floor
There's a party on the second floor
And through the picture window you can see them all
They're laughing and they're dancing
Admiring the Renoir that's hanging on the wall
But in the master bedroom where the coats are piled high
A silent, saddened lady thinks of what it's like to die
And as she dwells on all the years she still has left to face
She wonders how she'll ever find someone to take his place
Then suddenly she's jarred by the ringing of the phone
Oh, why do you ring now, just when I want to be alone?
So she walks into the bathroom and drinks some water from a cup
But the telephone stops ringing just before she picks it up
My family was very poor
So I worked hard to be secure
I married one I had to wed
And not the one I loved instead
When I was young my blood ran wild
But we stayed married for the child
Now three flights up, I'm all alone
My wife is dead, my child is grown
My daughter leads a wayward life
She's been a failure as a wife
And though she lives just one floor down
She never calls or comes around
Step off the platform and onto the train
Look out your window and into the rain
Watch all the buildings that pass as you ride
And count all the stories that go on inside
And then ask yourself if it must be this way
Should walls and doors and plaster ceilings
Separate us from each others' feelings?

song performed by by Don McLean
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Flat earth theories
strange jarred with seasons' change range
question of degrees

haiku by Jonathan Robin (20 August 2009)
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

A Gingham Dress- Beth's Memories

He told me that
he had seen me
on the cover of a dime store novel;
that I looked a lot prettier in person.

On our first date
he brought my mother
a box of cigars
and my father
a dozen used golf balls.

The trunk of his car had no lid
and you could see the road
on the passenger side beneath your feet.

He had charm.

He stood under my bedroom window
and tied a note to a brick;
it broke the window
set off burglar alarms;
the police came
and he apologized.

We went to dinner and he smelled like chicken poop
from putting barb wire around the chicken coop.

I told him pigs will fly before I married him
and he showed up the next day
at the hardware store
where I worked
with a pig in the flatbed of a pick-up truck.

He called me out
strapping wings on the pig
yelling:
“Pig to fly on runway nine
Pig to fly on runway niner.”

He had charm.

Showed up one Saturday
wearing a gingham dress
over his jeans
saving he was saving up
to buy it for me.
“How does it look? ”
he said, “wanted to be sure.”

I was sure.

Married him.

Oh, he still has charm;
lots of it rubs off on me.

poem by Lonnie Hicks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Amans Amare

A cottage small be mine, with porch
Enwreathed with ivy green,
And brightsome flowers with dew-filled bells,
’Mid brown old wattles seen.

And one to wait at shut of eve,
With eyes as fountain clear,
And braided hair, and simple dress,
My homeward step to hear.

On summer eves to sing old songs,
And talk o’er early vows,
While stars look down like angels’ eyes
Amid the leafy boughs.

When Spring flowers peep from flossy cells,
And bright-winged parrots call,
In forest paths be ours to rove
Till purple evenings fall.

The curtains closed, by taper clear
To read some page divine,
On winter nights, the hearth beside,
Her soft, warm hand in mine.

And so to glide through busy life,
Like some small brook alone
That winds its way ’mid grassy knolls,
Its music all its own.

poem by Daniel Henry Deniehy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Mama, Dont Treat Your Daughter Mean

(ry cooder)
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
cause you treat her so mean and shes only sweet sixteen
It was late last friday evening, when everything was still
I heard somebody calling my name outside my window sill
I got up and I looked outside strainin my eyes to see
And my heart went wild when I realized just who was calling me
I hollered
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
cause you treat her so mean and shes only sweet sixteen
Now, her eyes were blazing up at me
Her hair was black as night
And her naked skin shone like gold
Out in the pale moonlight
She took my hand and she pulled me down
Where the grass had grown up tall
The she moved her body all around
Just like a cannon ball
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
Hey, mama, dont you treat your daughter mean
cause you treat her so mean and shes only sweet sixteen
Yonder comes your mama, girl, cross the field
Runnin and a-shakin like an automobile
Daddys got a shotgun in his hand
They just dont understand
The first time I seen that sweet girl
She was runnin home from sunday school
And the next time I seen that sweet little girl
Was when she broke her mamas rule
But the last time I seen that sweet little girl
She was filled with a strange desire
Rollin and tumblin out on the cold wet ground
Her skin burnin up just like a cane fire
She called my name a thousand ways
The tears came streaming down her face
But just when I was bout to blow my stack
Her daddy came a-creepin and a-crawlin up behind
And he shot me in the back

song performed by by Ry Cooder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

Aren't you jarred and jaded of my poems

Aren't you jarred and jaded of my poems
All include faint signs and predictive omens
My lines so dull and deprived of new pride
So far from variation and nimble change
Times passes and I never glance aside
To new found methods and complicated compounds strange
Why I write still all one, ever the same
And bar innovation keeping it a tattered weed
Every word every line screams my name.....
You would know in advance what I proclaim or how I proceed
Oh NO! Know dear love I always write of you
You and love are always the subject of my argument
So I put my best to dress old words new
Chewing again what is already by generations spent
So as the sun is daily new at dawn and old at dusk
So is my love still telling what is told and forever lasts

copy rights 2010

poem by Isaac Ziv
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Swan Song

Her hair was as black as a starling's tail,
Her cheeks as pale as a swan,
Her eyes, like two slim moonstones, glowed
And her mouth was the Holy Grail.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.

While I still rise with the early bird
To tend to my father's fields,
As the only son of an only son
I watched the woman leave.
She cried sweet tears as she said farewell
And vowed to come back, and soon,
But the village streets of a western town
Hold nothing for Ling Xiaodan.

The weeks went by, then the months and years
And I heard of her now and then,
She was dressed in expensive clothes, I heard,
She was driving a shiny car;
She was seen at the Beijing Opera
By a man who worked at the door,
'She glided by like a Queen, ' he said,
'As her dress trailed long on the floor.'

And her wai po, down in the village square
Would brag of her daughter's girl,
'She will snare some man with a million yuan, '
She said, 'not a farmer's son.
Go home to your fields and forget her now,
She's not for an also-ran! '
And laughed, as the tears sprang into my eyes
For the love of Ling Xiaodan.

She came back once to the village street
To her home, as ever we must,
But carefully held her dress up high
To avoid the rubbish and dust,
I stood at the side and she looked at me,
Then turned, looked quickly away,
For Ling Xiaodan and a farmer's son
Had nothing at all to say.

But I saw her once before she left,
Alone by the mountain stream,
Her eyes were sorrowful, in remorse,
Remembering how we'd been.
'I loved you once, as a child, ' she said
'But the world is harsh, and grey...
We do what our fathers want us to,
And my father sent me away.'

I sat by her then, and held her hand,
Stroking her neck, and hair,
And kissed the cheek, so pale and wan,
And I cried in a deep despair.
'You must get on with your life, ' she said,
'Get a wife and a baby son;
I leave tomorrow to see the man
That my father has met in town.'

I heard that she'd wed a businessman,
And cried in the quiet gloom,
My dream had died by the mountain stream,
On that day, in the afternoon.
She worked in a shop her husband owned,
So they said, but I never heard
'Til the body was brought back home again,
That the love of my life was dead.

It seemed that she'd sold her favours there
In the rear of a grimy store,
To any man with the change to spare
While her husband played Mah Jongg.
He'd gambled his fortune, and lost it all
While his wife kept the fool from jail
With what she earned with her hands and hair,
And a mouth like the Holy Grail.

But then, a man who was ill or mad
Put his grimy hands at her throat,
And squeezed the life from the darling neck
That I'd once both loved, and stroked.
They buried her up on the mountainside
By the stream, in sight of her home,
And from where I stand in the paddy fields
I can see her pale white stone.

She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.
I married a woman I barely knew
And she bore me a black-haired girl,
With eyes like two slim moonstones, and...
A mouth like the Holy Grail.

10 March 2006

poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!