Portrait By A Neighbour
Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!
It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Til past ten o'clock!
She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,
She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
Any pays you back in cream!
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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Related quotes
Queen Of The Meadow
I think the leaves have chosen, my brave friend.
They patch the old roof with their berry blue.
I taste our epitaph in chimney smoke.
Queen of the meadow, where has August gone?
Queen Of The Meadow is a wildflower that comes and goes with August.
poem by Sandra Fowler
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Do It All Again!
empty water buckets
on a porch long deserted,
the old house falling down
like a tree sheds its leaves.
the chimney stands cold,
almost roaring with silence...
and there's still a marker
in the back yard where we buried the dog.
love yellowed sheets,
and maggots in the flour.
spiders march on the outhouse walls.
empty mason jars that remember green beans,
a hoe, and a shovel with a broken handle.
ghosts walk cobwebbed halls,
the old floor sags.
and the sounds of two young lovers
haunt the ticking of an unseen clock.
damn! to go back...
and do it all again!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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In the Garden, With My Father
It is spring.
As in my garden, I stand.
In the garden -
My father is there;
... though long since gone...
He IS there.
I tend to the weeds,
The veggies and flowers...
He is there.
I never understood him
(as I should have, could have) ...
Until now,
Here, in the garden.
Where I, like he, work the soil.
I've come just recently
(these last few years)
To enjoy and love my garden so.
- I am not as surprised afterall, as I would have thought,
To find him here.
Here, in the garden.
He loved his garden very much.......
I - at that early age of restless youth - had no use
For such slow moving things.
But now, I see, and myself move, at a much slower pace.
Therefore, it is him I am here and now able to see,
In the garden.
Watching it all grow, so peacefully.
It is somewhat sad, that now,
When I can no longer tell him,
I understand.
For I have come to find... I love the garden too,
Just as much as he;
And we both always will.
My father - standing in the garden -
I now know.
After all these long years.
And I've missed him so;
But, how wonderful to find,
He IS here...
In the garden, our garden,
Always, with me.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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A Hole In The Floor
for Rene Magritte
The carpenter's made a hole
In the parlor floor, and I'm standing
Staring down into it now
At four o'clock in the evening,
As Schliemann stood when his shovel
Knocked on the crowns of Troy.
A clean-cut sawdust sparkles
On the grey, shaggy laths,
And here is a cluster of shavings
>From the time when the floor was laid.
They are silvery-gold, the color
Of Hesperian apple-parings.
Kneeling, I look in under
Where the joists go into hiding.
A pure street, faintly littered
With bits and strokes of light,
Enters the long darkness
Where its parallels will meet.
The radiator-pipe
Rises in middle distance
Like a shuttered kiosk, standing
Where the only news is night.
Here's it's not painted green,
As it is in the visible world.
For God's sake, what am I after?
Some treasure, or tiny garden?
Or that untrodden place,
The house's very soul,
Where time has stored our footbeats
And the long skein of our voices?
Not these, but the buried strangeness
Which nourishes the known:
That spring from which the floor-lamp
Drinks now a wilder bloom,
Inflaming the damask love-seat
And the whole dangerous room.
Submitted by Robert Fish
poem by Richard Wilbur
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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No Butter?
No Butter? (when a country practice monopoly)
“Butter, the chef said, I can’t fry a snitzel without butter? If I use margarine
it gets too salty and tastes like whale, if I use olive oil, it gets a Portuguese
flavour, a snitzel is Austrian. How can you fry an egg without using butter,
one loses the taste of clover and rural idyll, farm yards and chickens looking
for worms? ” ” Sorry the restaurant manager said, but we have no butter,
you gotta use margarine and anyway the guests are not chefs they will not
notice the difference.”The chef looked aghast, put down his ladle and said:
“You can’t mean that, has all my work comes to nothing? ” Took off his apron,
had tears in his eyes, ready to walk out into the cold night and not return.
“Hang on the manager said, without you I can’t run this place, it is the caring
way you prepare food that our guests like you they know there is a butter
shortage, but they don’t mind as long as they now you are the chef.”
Mollified the cook took his apron back on lifted his ladle and said, “Ok, but
see if you can get some butter even if you have to buy it from the Danes.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Liturgy....
liturgy....
black coffee,
old hands opening boxes.
sweeping the floor
of the soul.
words shaped like photographs
made of wind and tears.
simple things...
simple doings!
the same shovel
digs the grave,
digs in the garden.
barefoot,
and half naked,
no need for words,
no fears to console.
live without regrets,
leave it all on the table.
do the work, and move on.
dont be the hollow religious image,
a body that has no love,
a love that has no body.
dont be so quick to wash your hands,
the dirt neath your nails
is your heritage!
liturgy...
black coffee,
and touching,
the shovel, and the axe!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Borrowed
borrowed shirts, borrowed shoes,
borrowed books, borrowed thoughts,
borrowed bed, borrowed lover,
borrowed dreams, borrowed salt.
borrowed children, borrowed mothers,
borrowed study, borrowed lives.
borrowed God, borrowed heaven,
borrowed killers with borrowed knives.
borrowed flags, borrowed lies,
borrowed virtue, borrowed freedom.
borrowed bombs, borrowed bullets,
borrowed puppets, borrowed kingdoms.
borrowed soup bowls, borrowed numbers,
borrowed tents, borrowed bridge.
borrowed hope, borrowed survival,
borrowed till it's sacrilige!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Beulah Needs Another Man
Beulah needs another man who'll take
the garbage out at dawn and not
bring it back again at midnight, something
Jasper's done many nights for years.
Beulah knows when Jasper's found
another woman but she never says a word
because Jasper always mows the lawn
and rakes the leaves and fixes
things around the house unlike
Homer who was never handy.
But yesterday the doctor said Jasper has
six months to live so Beulah wants to meet
another handy man at Jasper's wake.
She met Jasper at a wake the day
he dropped the lid on Homer's coffin.
poem by Donal Mahoney
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When The Leaves Come Falling Down
I saw you standing with the wind and the rain in your face
And you were thinking bout the wisdom of the leaves and their grace
When the leaves come falling down
In september when the leaves, come falling down
And at night the moon is shining on a clear, cloudless sky
And when the evening shadows fall Ill be there by your side
When the leaves come falling down
In september when the leaves, come falling down
Follow me down, follow me down, follow me down
To the place beside the garden and the wall
Follow me down, follow me down
To the space before the twilight and the dawn
Oh, the last time I saw paris in the streets, in the rain
And as I walk along the boulevards with you, once again
And the leaves come falling down
In september, when the leaves come falling down
Follow me down, follow me down, follow me down
To the place between the garden and the wall
Follow me down, follow me down
To the space between the twilight and the dawn
And as Im looking at the colour of the leaves, in your hand
As were listening to chet baker on the beach, in the sand
When the leaves come falling down,
Woe in september, when the leaves come falling down
Oh when the leaves come falling down
Yeah in september when the leaves come falling down
When the leaves come falling down
In september, when the leaves come falling down
When the leaves come falling down in september, in the rain
When the leaves come falling down
When the leaves come falting down in september, in the rain
When the leaves come falling down
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Family Sweet Dreams
The moon dressed in her nightly attire
Showing only a glimpse of her crescent shape,
Heralds the nightly rest of sleeping mortals
Windows yellow darkens with curtain drape,
Smoke thins from the chimney portals
As a lonely dog howls at the locked door.
Midnight strikes silently as dreams begin
The cat purrs stretched out on the floor,
Mother dreams of holiday isles
Punting Father dreams of another winner,
The boy’s toys dreamt, stretch for miles
Labrador whimpers for a never ending dinner,
No way will the mouse dream to please
He creeps past the snoozing fat cat,
To search and seize crumbs of cheese
The end of the chain knows where his dinner is at,
Crawling in with knife and fork in hand
The cockroach to the kitchen silent and fast,
As sleepers dream, .....Goes for dinner so grand,
As night ticks on the morning wakes to the alarm clock blast.
Dreams at end the family jump out of bed
Another day alive another night is dead.
poem by Ken e Hall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Midnight Dream
I'm sittin' on a mountain
Searchin' for an answer
Hopin' there's a chance
That she'll be comin' back to me
Midnight dream
I'm waitin' on the mountain
Thinkin' I can find her
Maybe if I find her,
Here is where she'll want to be
Midnight dream
I made my way down to Mexico
I spend a year travelin' 'cross the ocean
Without goin' anywhere
A hundred miles to the nearest phone
A thousand miles from a place called home
And all alone in my despair
I'd call you there
My midnight dream
So I'm sittin' on a mountain
Lookin' 'cross a river
Needin' to be with her
More than I believed I'd be
Midnight dream
I'm sittin' all alone now
Knowin' what I know now
Thought I'd be a teacher
But she would end up teachin' me
Midnight dream
I know that I lost my way one night
But if you ask me
It don't seem right
To spend my life without you there
And so I climbed to the highest peak
Just hopin' somehow that I what I seek
Will somehow speak and you'll appear
My midnight dream
Where are you, don't let go
So I'm sittin' on a mountain
How can I explain it
I'm livin' with the pain of thinkin' how it
Still could be
Midnight dream
Love is what I'm thinkin'
No two ways about it
Go too long without it,
Nothing really means a thing
Midnight dream
But if you haven't decided yet
Might be the only chance we get
Let's don't forget 'bout you and me
I finally ended where I began
You see before you
The sorry soul, the lonely man
I've come to be
Please come to me
My midnight dream
Oh come to me
My midnight dream
song performed by by Neil Diamond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Young
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling over me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Nurse's Watch
From 'The Boy's Wonderhorn'
The moon it shines,
My darling whines;
The clock strikes twelve:--God cheer
The sick both far and near.
God knoweth all;
Mousy nibbles in the wall;
The clock strikes one:--like day,
Dreams o'er thy pillow play.
The matin-bell
Wakes the nun in convent cell;
The clock strikes two:--they go
To choir in a row.
The wind it blows,
The cock he crows;
The clock strikes three:--the wagoner
In his straw bed begins to stir.
The steed he paws the floor,
Creaks the stable door;
The clock strikes four:--'tis plain
The coachman sifts his grain.
The swallow's laugh the still air shakes,
The sun awakes;
The clock strikes five:--the traveler must be gone,
He puts his stockings on.
The hen is clacking,
The ducks are quacking;
The clock strikes six:--awake, arise,
Thou lazy hag; come, ope thy eyes.
Quick to the baker's run;
The rolls are done;
The clock strikes seven:--
'Tis time the milk were in the oven.
Put in some butter, do,
And some fine sugar, too;
The clock strikes eight:--
Now bring my baby's porridge straight.
poem by Clemens Maria Brentano
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Ghosts
I walk in a garden of roses,
'Twixt lawn and shaven lawn,
And I think of the wild free spaces,
And the rose of a breathless dawn.
Gentle and sweet beside me
Goes the wife that bears my name,
But I dream of a wild-eyed woman
And the sea that hides her shame.
poem by Francis Ernley Walrond
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Legend of the Moon People
Two moons circle
a remote garden planet
The moon spirits become restless
and go down to walk the garden path
The Great Fire in the sky
smiles upon them and they
each become small moons
reflecting His day star light
Crossing paths one evening
both are drawn to the light of the other
Hand in hand, they now walk
the garden path together
He is Tortoise Moon
and she is Laughing Moon Woman
He is a gradual receding tide,
kind and gentle.
Passionate and impatient,
she is the rush of tide returning
May two moon people ever orbit
in perfect symmetry,
bound by the inimitable force
of gravitational attraction
poem by E.e. Wilholt
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The Dead Silence of the Heart
i dreamt of strawberry-rhubarb pie,
and fresh brewed black coffee...
long slow tender sensual sex,
lips hungry for mine.
the sound of rain in the night,
wrapping the earth in stillness.
walking in the frozen sunrise
with my old dog by my side.
climbing Hawksbill on a spring day,
looking down over the gorge in awe.
barefoot, planting a garden,
believing in the sun and the rain.
playing an old Gibson on the porch,
deep rich tones lost in the breeze.
the taste of good bourbon, and a smoke,
paying tribute to the sunset.
standing by the stone in a cementary,
talking without words, still heard.
writing poetry with a shovel,
and a borrowed pen...
flying with the hawk to eternity,
sprouting green leaves
on frozen branches... listening
for the sound of your voice...
in the dead silence of the heart.
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dead Silence Of The Heart
I dreamt of strawberry-rhubarb pie,
and fresh brewed black coffee...
long slow tender sensual sex,
lips hungry for mine.
The sound of rain in the night,
wrapping the earth in stillness.
walking in the frozen sunrise
with my old dog by my side.
Climbing Hawksbill on a spring day,
looking down over the gorge in awe.
barefoot, planting a garden,
believing in the sun and the rain.
Playing an old Gibson on the porch,
deep rich tones lost in the breeze.
the taste of good bourbon, and a smoke,
paying tribute to the sunset.
Standing by the stone in a cementary,
talking without words, still heard.
writing poetry with a shovel,
and a borrowed pen...
Flying with the hawk to eternity,
sprouting green leaves
on frozen branches... listening
for the sound of your voice...
In the dead silence of the heart.
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Golden Days
Honeyed baby kisses,
sweet warm baby breath,
chuckle bunny murmurs,
little frilly dress.
Roses in the garden,
Daddy mows the lawn
Baby's feeling sleepy,
we all watch her yawn.
Summer sun is shining,
holidays ahead.
Candyfloss and ice cream
running through my head.
Mother's in the kitchen
baking cakes for tea.
Chocolate cake for you,
Fresh cream scones for me.
Paddling pool for nanna
to dip her toes into.
Grandpa reads his paper
while sitting on the loo.
Dreamy times are over,
reality is here
but I can still remember
those days of yesteryear.
poem by Ruth Walters
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Near Letter
From me to me
Keep alive
Feel with your breath
Wine of dream that spreads in the air
Keep your life
As long as you able to walk
As long as you like to dream
In this dark hollow
In this uncertain wind
When you find pieces of light
Keep in your heart
If you swept by current
Or your flame no longer flares
That light will warm you a little
And keep you alive
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Fractured Moon
Fractured moon
In a silver spoon
Dissolved into the eyes
Of awakening tiger
Then moved away
In a vanishing light
With a lunar tone
Fractured moon
Swallowed
By a flying dragon
With all fire and no fire
The fractured moon
Collapsed in doom
While the souls
Of the dead
Still roam
Closer and closer
Near the moon
Around the moon
Within the moon
Or what have left
From a
Fractured moon
Or maybe
Another Moon
Like a photo of
A bright image
Held by aging fingers
Of a woman
Praying in her
Upstairs Room
For “long” dead
Human loved form
Near the bolted
Green back door
Stood a ghostly figure
Of an old man
Weeping
In the silence of
An astral night
Trying for an opening
To reach her
Over and over
But in vain
For the woman
in the
Upstairs room
Darkness born
In the second shadow
Of a fractured moon
And light moulded
In the old house
In a special corner
of
A very special room
Fractured moon
In a silver spoon
Dissolved into the eyes
Of awakening tiger
Then moved away
In a vanishing light
With a lunar tone
poem by Najib Altawell
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