A Poet in the Kitchen
West Fifty-third was still Hell's Kitchen
the summer I first came to town,
Eleventh Avenue was boarded up,
the West Side Drive was falling down;
Jimmy Carter was still President,
though he'd become a running joke;
Abe Beame had recently been Mayor,
and New York City was flat broke.
I, too, was broke, the flat was free,
and so I landed in that place,
a walk-up three-room shotgun which
a gallery used for storage space
and where I could stay as long as I liked,
provided I kept an eye on the art . . .
but truth be told, it was hard to tell
where art might end and garbage start.
The premises hadn't been cleaned in years,
and clarity was not what the art was about--
there was clutter right up to the ceiling,
and I didn't dare throw anything out.
The bowl of pasta off in a corner,
the wall stuck here and there with pins,
might be a mural by Dike Blair
or an "installation" of Mel Chin's;
ink spilled across come binder paper,
pencil hashmarks by the phone,
might be a Vollmer, or a Tuttle,
or just a doodle by no one known;
a length of two-by-four was art;
and empty carton was art, too;
so was a hole in the plaster, where
an embalmed cockroach was on view.
There wasn't any inventory
and no way not to be impressed
with the thought that passing judgment
would be trickier than I'd guessed.
The entryway was the room in the back,
where a bathtub clogged the floor,
and a toilet filled an adjacent closet
left unencumbered by a door.
The entrance also served as the kitchen,
with no space, but with a range
on which I cooked whatever fare
I'd scraped together with spare change:
mashed potatoes drowned in ketchup,
kidney beans boiled in the can,
onions, pizza crust, and lettuce
chopped up with Crisco in a pan.
The middle room, which had no windows,
held a mattress, though no bed,
and what I hoped were only scattered
books I took a chance and read.
The room up front looked out on a lot,
and I used to sit for hours and stare
at days of 1979
from a Day-Glo painted chair,
contemplating a state of affairs
that appeared to be falling apart,
acquiring the taste for odd interiors
it takes to dwell in the House of Art.
I see myself then, learning to view
this world with a noncommittal eye:
the Russians are in Afghanistan,
stagflation is at an all-time high;
outside, the Iranian revolution
is in its first chaotic year;
inside, a poet's in the kitchen
washing won-tons down with beer.
poem by George Bradley
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Related quotes
Squalor & Chips
My angel of the night
came down the stairs of morning
his hair, brown locks of greasiness,
his mouth, those sweet lips, yawning.
He stopped three steps from earth that day
and gazed at trainers in his way
and then as I began to pray,
stepped over and ignored them.
He took four steps across the room
he missed the cloth, the pan, the broom
and squashed cold chips, bare footed
upon the kitchen flooring!
Alas my fallen angel there,
sat his bottom on a chair
and sweeping hand through tousled hair,
ate his breakfast without care.
Without thought for chips all squashed,
flattened on that kitchen floor.
A floor so needy for a wash
as I exclaimed, "Oh my dear God! "
I found the mop, the bucket too
I cleaned the floor, mopped up the goo
and then I had a notion to,
but my angel wouldn't let me through.
Squashed chips on the kitchen floor
last nights washing up,
sticky table, dustbins full
and an empty coffee cup.
poem by Ruth Walters
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No Lilies For Lisette
Said the Door: "She came in
With no shadow of sin;
Turned the key in the lock,
Slipped out of her frock,
The robe she liked best
When for supper she dressed.
Then a letter she tore . . .
What a wan look she wore!"
Said the Door.
Said the Chair: "She sat down
With a pitiful frown,
And then (oh, it's queer)
Just one lonely tear
Rolled down her pale cheek.
How I hoped she would speak
As she let down her hair,"
Said the Chair.
Said the Glass: "Then she gazed
Into me like one dazed;
As with delicate grace
She made up her face,
Her cheeks and her lips
With rose finger-tips,
So lovely - alas!
Then she turned on the gas."
Said the Glass.
Said the Bed: "Down she lay
In a weariful way,
Like an innocent child,
To her fate reconciled;
Hands clasped to her breast,
In prayer or in rest:
'Dear Mother,' she said,
Then pillowed her head,"
Said the Bed.
Said the Room: "Then the gleam
Of the moon like a dream,
Soft silvered my space,
And it fell on her face
That was never so sweet
As her heart ceased to beat . . .
Then the moon fled and gloom
Fell like funeral plume,"
Said the Room.
"Just a whore,"
Said the Door;
"Yet so fair,"
Said the Chair;
"Frail, alas!"
Said the Glass;
"Now she's dead,"
Said the Bed;
"Sorry doom,"
Said the Room. . . .
Then they all,
Floor and wall,
Quiet grew,
Ceiling too;
Like a tomb
Was the room;
With hushed breath
Hailing Death:
Soul's release,
Silence, Peace.
poem by Robert William Service
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Transcription of Organ Music
The flower in the glass peanut bottle formerly in the
kitchen crooked to take a place in the light,
the closet door opened, because I used it before, it
kindly stayed open waiting for me, its owner.
I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening
to music, my misery, that's why I want to sing.
The room closed down on me, I expected the presence
of the Creator, I saw my gray painted walls and
ceiling, they contained my room, they contained
me
as the sky contained my garden,
I opened my door
The rambler vine climbed up the cottage post,
the leaves in the night still where the day had placed
them, the animal heads of the flowers where they had
arisen
to think at the sun
Can I bring back the words? Will thought of
transcription haze my mental open eye?
The kindly search for growth, the gracious de-
sire to exist of the flowers, my near ecstasy at existing
among them
The privilege to witness my existence-you too
must seek the sun...
My books piled up before me for my use
waiting in space where I placed them, they
haven't disappeared, time's left its remnants and qual-
ities for me to use--my words piled up, my texts, my
manuscripts, my loves.
I had a moment of clarity, saw the feeling in
the heart of things, walked out to the garden crying.
Saw the red blossoms in the night light, sun's
gone, they had all grown, in a moment, and were wait-
ing stopped in time for the day sun to come and give
them...
Flowers which as in a dream at sunset I watered
faithfully not knowing how much I loved them.
I am so lonely in my glory--except they too out
there--I looked up--those red bush blossoms beckon-
ing and peering in the window waiting in the blind love,
their leaves too have hope and are upturned top flat
to the sky to receive--all creation open to receive--the
flat earth itself.
The music descends, as does the tall bending
stalk of the heavy blssom, because it has to, to stay
alive, to continue to the last drop of joy.
The world knows the love that's in its breast as
in the flower, the suffering lonely world.
The Father is merciful.
The light socket is crudely attached to the ceil-
ing, after the house was built, to receive a plug which
sticks in it alright, and serves my phonograph now...
The closet door is open for me, where I left it,
since I left it open, it has graciously stayed open.
The kitchen has no door, the hole there will
admit me should I wish to enter the kitchen.
I remember when I first got laid, H.P. gra-
ciously took my cherry, I sat on the docks of Prov-
incetown, age 23, joyful, elevated in hope with the
Father, the door to the womb wasopen to admit me
if I wished to enter.
There are unused electricity plugs all over my
house if I ever needed them.
The kitchen window is open, to admit air...
The telephone--sad to relate--sits on the
floor--I haven't had the money to get it connected--
I want people to bow when they see me and say
he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of
the Creator
And the Creator gave me a shot of his presence
to gratify my wish, so as not to cheat me of my yearning
for him.
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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The Hollow Nature Of Being
WALL I:
inside an empty room lies an empty box
and in that box is a four walled inside room within-
on each of the four walls is a mirror reflecting
the deep desertion of the next
and distant within each wall is another
echoing & spiraling back into infinite repetition
with nothing or no one except the physical entities
bearing back upon each other.
WALL II:
an empty room in an empty house
the house itself has no physical attributes because it
was built in a barren field-
there are no animals, no trees,
no beings of any kind
roaming around the house whose image cannot be
imagined,
at best, know that this house in fact
“housed” the room in question,
as any house might any room.
WALL III:
such a barren field stretches to all four corners
carrying itself out beyond the periphery
curling back in on the other side,
and walking in any direction will bring one back to the
beginning-
the barren field that reveals the empty house that
encapsulates the empty room is the most integral point of
reference within the endless flat plain of grass.
WALL IV:
endless flat plains of grass flowing out in all directions covering
the circumference of the area around the empty house residing in
the middle of the plain wherein
the inside of the empty house holds the
empty room & in the
room,
the four mirrored walls reveal only the replication of the
others,
spiraling into infinite repetition-
there is no feeling
no sound
no communication of any kind
woven with the thread of human fiber.
poem by Andrew Delapruch
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Welcome To The Door Of Freedom
this is the door of freedom
you just got in
i have a room beyond this room
no one has entered yet
between this door and my room
is a space
this is where some pieces of my are left
but soon they will be taken back
to be kept inside my palms
to be hidden once again from you
when you get in
you will be introduced to the ritual of knowing
what you do not know
what you cannot know
what shall be hidden forever from you
and you shall be a little bit
disappointed
but you must insist
you have to repeat your name many times
you will sort out the letters
there are onions and chilies
they will make you cry
and then you will wish upon another door
this time it is your door
towards your own room
you will doubt about breathing
about windows and exits
and then you begin to ask
if all these are worth it
you decide.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Rocket Science
My little boy once asked me
"Mummy, what is space?
Is it all just empty? "
I looked into his face.
I hesitated somewhat
before I gave reply
for I am not a scholar
and that is rocket science.
My answer was as follows,
you may not agree,
but my little boy was satisfied
and comforted by me.
I told him "there are moons,
stars and comets too,
but we just cannot see them
from our sitting room.
If we could switch a light on,
in space, just like at home,
We might see wondrous things,
but, for now, we just don't know.
Imagine for a moment
in this room, right where we are
A light bulb is the sun
and we are all the stars.
If we turn out the light
there's nothing we can see,
but when we turn it on again,
we see many things.
I often think that space
is like our pitch black room,
and one day men will light it
and it may be quite soon! "
My little boy looked up
at the big night sky outside
and said, "I understand now mum"
and rubbed his sleepy eyes.
I really hope I satisfied
his curiosity and one day
when he's grown up
he'll explain it all to me.
poem by Ruth Walters
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The Secret Door
The Mystery
Nadia, gentle zephyr of remembrance, where are you now?
In my mother’s flat there were three doors, the first door,
with an old fashion copper handle, often slammed in anger.
The second door into mother’s bed room was never closed,
but covered with a dark curtain. A small flat I slept on a sofa
in the living room.
There was a third door, from her bedroom into the kitchen.
Sometimes when mother was out, I tried to open it but it was
always locked. There were nights when I wasn’t sure if awake
or not, the locked door opened as a sigh of ancient dreams.
Dawn, I heard the faint sound again, but I was too terrified to
know the truth of what I wasn’t sure of
Morning, mother got up boiled water poured it into a bowl so
I could wash my face. Breakfast, slices of yesterday’s loaf with
strawberry jam and milky coffee. I wanted to know of the sighs
in the night, but sensed it was forbidden to ask.
Time has many doors some will be forever locked, so I ask?
Nadia, gentle zephyr of remembrance, where are you now?
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Central Park N West
(ian hunter)
The gulf and western garbage
Just aint the prettiest smell
When youre sleeping on the 4th floor up
Its like a living hell
New yorks finest rounding up the bums
The firemen get no rest,
And ambulances signal death, on central park n west.
Now there aint no sheets upon my bed,
Just a mattress and some wine.
The rain is pouring through the night
And Im glad my life is mine.
When frank carillo plays guitar
Trying to get it off his chest.
He gets the words he needs tonight
On central park n west.
And I think, I think, I think, I think, I think its the best,
When Im locked in the middle of new york city on central park n west
And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know its a mess,
But youve got to be crazy to live in the city, and new york citys the best.
And we all want just someone just like me
In the city we call home.
She leaves me sometimes when I write,
cause I write better on my own.
Bag ladies take my dollars)
Put my conscience to the test.
But waitresses give me coffee free
On central park n west.
So sing soul woman, sing the songs)
Its time to sing them now.
Im getting more than high from hearin em
Dont sing them quiet, sing them loud.
For you sang with the best of them
But now youre just a guest.
I tell you well get a hotel room
On central park n west.
cause I think, I think, I think, I think, I think its the best,
When Im locked in the middle of new york city on central park n west
And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know its a mess,
But youve got to be crazy to live in the city, and new york citys the best.
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, oh yeah.
I think, I think, I think, I think, I think its the best,
When Im locked in the middle of new york city on central park n west.
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know its a mess,
But youve got to be crazy to live in the city, and new york citys the best.
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Metamorphosis
a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
noe I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
poem by Charles Bukowski
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The Black Sheep
"The aristocratic ne'er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way
into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police." -- Extract.
Hark to the ewe that bore him:
"What has muddied the strain?
Never his brothers before him
Showed the hint of a stain."
Hark to the tups and wethers;
Hark to the old gray ram:
"We're all of us white, but he's black as night,
And he'll never be worth a damn."
I'm up on the bally wood-pile at the back of the barracks yard;
"A damned disgrace to the force, sir", with a comrade standing guard;
Making the bluff I'm busy, doing my six months hard.
"Six months hard and dismissed, sir." Isn't that rather hell?
And all because of the liquor laws and the wiles of a native belle--
Some "hooch" I gave to a siwash brave who swore that he wouldn't tell.
At least they say that I did it. It's so in the town report.
All that I can recall is a night of revel and sport,
When I woke with a "head" in the guard-room, and they dragged me sick into court.
And the O. C. said: "You are guilty", and I said never a word;
For, hang it, you see I couldn't--I didn't know what had occurred,
And, under the circumstances, denial would be absurd.
But the one that cooked my bacon was Grubbe, of the City Patrol.
He fagged for my room at Eton, and didn't I devil his soul!
And now he is getting even, landing me down in the hole.
Plugging away on the wood-pile; doing chores round the square.
There goes an officer's lady--gives me a haughty stare--
Me that's an earl's own nephew--that is the hardest to bear.
To think of the poor old mater awaiting her prodigal son.
Tho' I broke her heart with my folly, I was always the white-haired one.
(That fatted calf that they're cooking will surely be overdone.)
I'll go back and yarn to the Bishop; I'll dance with the village belle;
I'll hand round tea to the ladies, and everything will be well.
Where I have been won't matter; what I have seen I won't tell.
I'll soar to their ken like a comet. They'll see me with never a stain;
But will they reform me? --far from it. We pay for our pleasure with pain;
But the dog will return to his vomit, the hog to his wallow again.
I've chewed on the rind of creation, and bitter I've tasted the same;
Stacked up against hell and damnation, I've managed to stay in the game;
I've had my moments of sorrow; I've had my seasons of shame.
That's past; when one's nature's a cracked one, it's too jolly hard to mend.
So long as the road is level, so long as I've cash to spend.
I'm bound to go to the devil, and it's all the same in the end.
The bugle is sounding for stables; the men troop off through the gloom;
An orderly laying the tables sings in the bright mess-room.
(I'll wash in the prison bucket, and brush with the prison broom.)
I'll lie in my cell and listen; I'll wish that I couldn't hear
The laugh and the chaff of the fellows swigging the canteen beer;
The nasal tone of the gramophone playing "The Bandolier".
And it seems to me, though it's misty, that night of the flowing bowl,
That the man who potlatched the whiskey and landed me into the hole
Was Grubble, that unmerciful bounder, Grubble, of the City Patrol.
poem by Robert William Service
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Round Room
My room is round when I lay down, when I wake up it's square
When I go outside it's on a spiral set of stairs
The people that surround me are waiting out there
In a round room they can't find me anywhere
Right angle rooms drive me crazier each day
Put me in a box I know I'm never going to play
Put me in a square room and I won't know what to say
I want a round room at the end of the day
I had an apartment, four corners on the walls
Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep there at all
I want a curve to the place where I stay
I want a round room at the end of the day
If I pass out take me to the round church
Where echoes resound
And my spirit is found
And when I float high
Take my arm and I'll fly you by
The outskirts of town, to a garden that's round
I went to the lighthouse and I liked the view
I looked out the window and I could see you
Put me in a square house and I won't have a clue
I want a round room just to be with you
song performed by by Phish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Unwritten Law
(blackmore/gillan/glover/paice)
Listen to
Me
Ive got a
Warning for
You
Youve got to
Learn to take
More care
cos if you swim in
Dirty water
Be careful how you dry
Your hair
In a room within a room
In a hole within a hole
Youve got to learn to share
Your secrets
Or youll lose your soul
Ive got the evidence
I know you broke the unwritten law
Another town another one night stand
You know you broke the law
Its so hard to hold back
When the fire is in your eyes
A silver dollar in my pocket
I dont like surprises
Ive got your souvenir
Is that the price Ive got to pay
It aint been that long
Since the last charade
I know youre guilty
But Im carrying the blame
I took out much more than I put in
And I felt the pain
In a dirty little room
With nowhere left to hide
You told the truth with your eyes
But you lied inside
song performed by by Deep Purple
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Coffee
Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it makes sense in its own limited way. I'll tell you
what I mean.
Yesterday morning I went over to see a girl. I like her. Whatever we had going for us
is gone now. She does not care for me. I blew it and wish I hadn't.
I rang the door bell and waited on the stairs. I could hear her moving around upstairs.
The way she moved I could tell that she was getting up. I had awakened her.
Then she came down the stairs. I could feel her approach in my stomach. Every step she
took stirred my feelings and lead indirectly to her opening the door. She saw me and it
did not please her.
Once upon a time it pleased her very much, last week. I wonder where it went,
pretending to be naive.
"I feel strange now," she said. "I don't want to talk."
"I want a cup of coffee," I said, because it was the last thing in the world
that I wanted. I said it in such a way that it sounded as if I were reading her a telegram
from somebody else, a person who really wanted a cup of coffee, who cared about nothing
else.
"All right," she said.
I followed her up the stairs. It was ridiculous. She had just put some clothes on. They
had not quite adjusted themselves to her body. I could tell you about her ass. We went
into the kitchen.
She took a jar of instant coffee off the shelf and put it on the table. She placed a
cup next to it, and a spoon. I looked at them. She put a pan full of water on the stove
and turned the gas on under it.
All this time she did not say a word. Her clothes adjusted themselves to her body. I
won't. She left the kitchen.
Then she went down the stairs and outside to see if she had any mail. I didn't remember
seeing any. She came back up the stairs and went into another room. She closed the door
after her. I looked at the pan full of water on the stove.
I knew that it would take a year before the water started to boil. It was now October
and there was too much water in the pan. That was the problem. I threw half of the water
into the sink.
The water would boil faster now. It would take only six months. The house was quiet.
I looked out the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage
and tried to figure out what she had been eating lately by studying the containers and
peelings and stuff. I couldn't tell a thing.
It was now March. The water started to boil. I was pleased by this.
I looked at the table. There was the jar of instant coffee, the empty cup and the spoon
all laid out like a funeral service. These are the things that you need to make a cup of
coffee.
When I left the house ten minutes later, the cup of coffee safely inside me like a
grave, I said, "Thank you for the cup of coffee."
"You're welcome," she said. Her voice came from behind a closed door. Her
voice sounded like another telegram. It was really time for me to leave.
I spent the rest of the day not making coffee. It was a comfort. And evening came, I
had dinner in a restaurant and went to a bar. I had some drinks and talked to some people.
We were bar people and said bar things. None of them remembered, and the bar closed. It
was two o'clock in the morning. I had to go outside. It was foggy and cold in San
Francisco. I wondered about the fog and felt very human and exposed.
I decided to go visit another girl. We had not been friends for over a year. Once we
were very close. I wondered what she was thinking about now.
I went to her house. She didn't have a door bell. That was a small victory. One must
keep track of all the small victories. I do, anyway.
She answered the door. She was holding a robe in front of her. She didn't believe that
she was seeing me. "What do you want?" she said, believing now that she was
seeing me. I walked right into the house.
She turned and closed the door in such a way that I could see her profile. She had not
bothered to wrap the robe completely around herself. She was just holding the robe in
front of herself.
I could see an unbroken line of body running from her head to her feet. It looked kind
of strange. Perhaps because it was so late at night.
"What do you want?" she said.
"I want a cup of coffee," I said. What a funny thing to say, to say again for
a cup of coffee was not what I really wanted.
She looked at me and wheeled slightly on the profile. She was not pleased to see me.
Let the AMA tell us that time heals. I looked at the unbroken line of her body.
"Why don't you have a cup of coffee with me?" I said. "I feel like
talking to you. We haven't talked for a long time."
She looked at me and wheeled slightly on the profile. I stared at the unbroken line of
her body. This was not good.
"It's too late," she said. "I have to get up in the morning. If you want
a cup of coffee, there's instant in the kitchen. I have to go to bed."
The kitchen light was on. I looked down the hall into the kitchen. I didn't feel like
going into the kitchen and having another cup of coffee by myself. I didn't feel like
going to anybody else's house and asking them for a cup of coffee.
I realized that the day had been committed to a very strange pilgrimage, and I had not
planned it that way. At least the jar of instant coffee was not on the table, beside an
empty white cup and a spoon.
They say in the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. Perhaps if he has
enough time left over, his fancy can even make room for a cup of coffee.
poem by Richard Brautigan from Revenge of the Lawn (1971)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Thirteenth Street Bus
god died...
nothing else unusual about the day.
the Thirteenth Street bus was late again,
people passed each other walking heads down.
when the bus finally arrived,
no one was there.
old Mr. Peterson and his crippled wife,
were nowhere to be seen.
three hours earlier...
an angry young man sat alone,
hugging his knees and shaking,
in an empty room neath a bare light bulb.
unable to focus or think,
peeling back the layers of hell...
consumed by the rage of need.
old Mr. Peterson made the coffee,
and boiled water for oatmeal.
two creams and a sugar,
and he took a cup,
to his wife still lying in bed.
he felt the faint smile of the wrinkled face,
birds just outside the window were singing..
45 years, or maybe yesterday,
he didnt know or care anymore.
the enraged young man
caught Mr. Peterson in the kitchen,
and cracked his skull with a lead pipe.
he rifled his pockets for what he could get,
and started slamming through drawers.
Mrs. Peterson hobbled in on her walker,
he stabbed her with a kitchen knife...
and left her dying on the floor,
as he pillaged the house....
the birds were silent as he ran.
when the police burst through the door,
it was already too late.
his body hung in an empty closet,
while the radio blared in stark despair.
crumpled clothes in the corner,
a mattress unmade in the center of the room.
a food stamp card and a dirty needle,
an unopened letter from the unemployment office.
a lone picture on a stack of boxes,
taken three years earlier...
the young man in his military uniform,
the day he came home from Iraq.
three funerals on the same day,
no one attended either.
a borrowed preacher in a coffee stained suit,
a few words and a worn out prayer.
it began to rain, and it was over,
three lives that never were.
three short paragraphs in the newspaper,
the county picked up the tab.
god died...
or maybe we died,
passing behind blacked out windows.
standing behind indifferent curtains,
lips moving but never speaking.
the Thirteenth Street bus was on time that day,
but it didnt even bother to stop!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Men Cleaning Women Cannot Abide
My wife said she was going out to shop,
I knew she'd be gone for hours,
So I cleaned the house from bottom to top,
Then went out and bought her some flowers.
On arriving home she asked what's that smell,
I boasted I had just cleaned the house,
With what she said it's like something from Hell,
It stinks like a hundred dead grouse.
By doing the cleaning I thought you'd be flattered,
She said exactly what have you cleaned,
That really left my giant ego shattered,
How dare she leave me feeling demeaned?
The house is filthy what did you use,
I replied the same stuff as you,
She said it's my intelligence you're trying to abuse,
I'll now have to start cleaning anew.
What have you done to my kitchen floor?
You've got it full of stellar streaks,
The worktops are scratched like an old barn door,
My mop bucket's now full of leaks.
The toilet is filthy I said no it's not,
She said look at the state of the pan,
You've left enough stains to play dot to dot,
As for cleaning you're now on a ban.
She'll be so impressed she'll be singing,
That's what I honestly thought,
Now she's saying I've got the house minging,
Remember good cleaners cannot be bought.
I walked away totally deluded and sad,
It's moan if we don't then moan if we do,
If they had a self- cleaning house they'd still go mad,
I'm going down to the pub for a brew.
The moral of my story affects far more than me,
It's a problem that is truly worldwide,
It's a sexist thing I'm sure all males would agree,
‘' Men Cleaning, Women Cannot Abide ‘'
‘' They think we do it deliberately''
My Dream Home
My dream home would be a log home in the city
Downstairs would be the kitchen with the laundryroom in it
And a storage area
Also there would be a family room with a living room
The log home would have 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms
In the hall of the log home would be the linen closset
At the front of the log home there would be the stone driveway
But at the back of the log home there would be the indoor garden so that We could use it all year round
The floor in the log home would be wood
And the walls in the log home would be beige
There would be Ikea furniture inside of the log home
Also the neighbourhood would be a well established neighbourhood
But very quiet indeed
Not too much traffic
The parks nearby would be very sophisticated with colorful
Flowers and beautiful trees
poem by Aldo Kraas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Flowers - Giving It All Away B-side
Renegades and shifting shades
And the lights in your face
And you friends talk lying
But some of them got flowers in their room
When its on and youre falling on every floor
That youre hoping to score
And youre every night ? ? ?
But some of them got flowers in their room
But some of them got flowers in their room
But some of them got flowers in their room
Hear the word that the man on the stairs
Knows your every affair and is holding your hand
And he says some of them got flowers in their room
And he screams in a face
But the smile on the face is cool and its cold
And it reads vacated
And some of them got flowers in their room
And some of them got flowers in their room
And some of them got flowers in their room
And I take someone home and I cant be alone
And theres faces to please and I walk on the knees
Oh you see, I got no flowers in my room
And I laugh with my mouth and I laugh with you
But the joke was a joke that I never really knew
Some of them got flowers in their room
Some of them got flowers in their room
Some of them got flowers in their room
song performed by by Ocean Colour Scene
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A letter which never sended
Last night I was a dream
About your house
Were the roof leaks everywhere
A green-painted house dull
I walk to the room
To the kitchen
To the front
The water to flood (inundate) on the floor
The water rose higher and higher
Flow to the visiting room
I walk to bend (bow, stop) and to walk on tiptoe,
I walk on tiptoe to avoid The water flood
Everywhere, from the front to backyard
I walk on zig-zag
Head made a low bow
To avoid the bird excrement
Much of bird cage hanged
On the roof
when the water to flood (inundate) increasing highest
to their food’ knee, -you still cook in the kichen
in the bend of the dull wall and moss-covered/mildewed
The water flood increasing and increasing on the foots
to the broken chairs
to wet, dampen the books which to scatter, spread everywhere
I could stop to find your mother anymore
she likes to codle me (to observe by holding in the hand)
when I was child: “She said, I just could walk
run around the kitchen, along the corridor
and riding the pedicab cycle
near the thing being dired/the wash
while playing the little car.”
To day i find your mother
In the overcast house
A green-painted house dull
Dull painted
Dark and overcast
The water to flood (inundate) on the floor
Everywhere
Just I found your mother walking stick
And her articial foot
poem by Prasetya Utama
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Not A Poem
It's flush left,
The first letter
In each line is
Capitalized, and
I use a simile, but
It's more police report
Than poem.
At just past 7 a.m.,
On a Saturday,
My father slapped my face.
He slapped my face
Because I didn't eat
The scrambled eggs he made.
It was easy for him to slap my face
Because it reminded him
Of the people he hated.
He hated my face.
He slapped my face so hard that
My heart stopped beating,
I stopped breathing, my eyes
Bounced around in their sockets, and
My cheek was pushed hard
And deep into the empty space
Where a tooth was.
Then he quickly went back up to his room,
He was always going back up to his room,
And he slammed the door.
My face was numb, my arms went limp
And my legs buckled. I watched
The squares on the kitchen floor go up
And down. The bicyclists
On the wallpaper moved.
My heart became bloated with sadness.
More than ever before.
It dropped, like a water balloon
Falling to the sidewalk
From a second story window
With a never ending anticipation
Of destruction.
poem by Francis Santaquilani
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Part 3 of Trout Fishing in America
SEA, SEA RIDER
The man who owned the bookstore was not magic. He was not a
three-legged crow on the dandelion side of the mountain.
He was, of course, a Jew, a retired merchant seaman
who had been torpedoed in the North Atlantic and floated
there day after day until death did not want him. He had a
young wife, a heart attack, a Volkswagen and a home in
Marin County. He liked the works of George Orwell, Richard
Aldington and Edmund Wilson.
He learned about life at sixteen, first from Dostoevsky
and then from the whores of New Orleans.
The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards.
Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars.
Most of the kooks were out of print, and no one wanted to
read them any more and the people who had read the books
had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic
process of music the books had become virgins again. They
wore their ancient copyrights like new maidenheads.
I went to the bookstore in the afternoons after I got off
work, during that terrible year of 1959.
He had a kitchen in the back of the store and he brewed
cups of thick Turkish coffee in a copper pan. I drank coffee
and read old books and waited for the year to end. He had a
small room above the kitchen.
It looked down on the bookstore and had Chinese screens
in front of it. The room contained a couch, a glass cabinet
with Chinese things in it and a table and three chairs. There
was a tiny bathroom fastened like a watch fob to the room.
I was sitting on a stool in the bookstore one afternoon
reading a book that was in the shape of a chalice. The book
had clear pages like gin, and the first page in the book read:
Billy
the Kid
born
November 23,
1859
in
New York
City
The owner of the bookstore came up to me, and put his
arm on my shoulder and said, "Would you like to get laid?"
His voice was very kind.
"No, " I said.
"You're wrong, " he said, and then without saying anything
else, he went out in front of the bookstore, and stopped a pair
of total strangers, a man and a woman. He talked to them for
a few moments. I couldn't hear what he was saying. He pointed
at me in the bookstore. The woman nodded her head and
then the man nodded his head.
They came into the bookstore.
I was embarrassed. I could not leave the bookstore because
they were entering by the only door, so I decided to go
upstairs and go to the toilet. I got up abruptly and walked
to the back of the bookstore and went upstairs to the bathroom,
and they followed after me. I could hear them on the stairs.
I waited for a long time in the bathroom and they waited
an equally long time in the other room. They never spoke.
When I came out of the bathroom, the woman was lying naked
on the couch, and the man was sitting in a chair with his
hat on his lap.
"Don't worry about him, " the girl said. "These things
make no difference to him. He's rich. He has 3, 859 Rolls
Royces." The girl was very pretty and her body was like a
clear mountain river of skin and muscle flowing over rocks
of bone and hidden nerves.
"Come to me, " she said. "And come inside me for we are
Aquarius and I love you."
I looked at the man sitting in the chair. He was not smiling
and he did not look sad.
I took off my shoes and all my clothes. The man did not
say a word.
The girl's body moved ever so slightly from side to side.
There was nothing else I could do for my body was like
birds sitting on a telephone wire strung out down the world,
clouds tossing the wires carefully.
I laid the girl.
It was like the eternal 59th second when it becomes a minute
and then looks kind of sheepish.
"Good, " the girl said, and kissed me on the face.
The man sat there without speaking or moving or sending
out any emotion into the room. I guess he was rich and owned
3, 859 Rolls Royces.
Afterwards the girl got dressed and she and the man left.
They walked down the stairs and on their way out, I heard
him say his first words.
"Would you like to go to Emie's for dinner?"
"I don't know, " the girl said. "It's a little early to think
about dinner. "
Then I heard the door close and they were gone. I got
dressed and went downstairs. The flesh about my body felt
soft and relaxed like an experiment in functional background
music.
The owner of the bookstore was sitting at his desk behind
the counter. "I'11 tell you what happened up there, " he said,
in a beautiful anti-three-legged-crow voice, in an anti-dandelion
side of the mountain voice.
"What?"I said.
"You fought in the Spanish Civil War. You were a young
Communist from Cleveland, Ohio. She was a painter. A New
York Jew who was sightseeing in the Spanish Civil War as if
it were the Mardi Gras in New Orleans being acted out by
Greek statues.
"She was drawing a picture of a dead anarchist when you
met her. She asked you to stand beside the anarchist and act
as if you had killed him. You slapped her across the face
and said something that would be embarrassing for me to
repeat.
You both fell very much in love.
"Once while you were at the front she read Anatomy of
Melancholy and did 349 drawings of a lemon.
"Your love for each other was mostly spiritual.Neither
one of you performed like millionaires in bed.
"When Barcelona fell, you and she flew to England, and
then took a ship back to New York. Your love for each other
remained in Spain. It was only a war love. You loved only
yourselves, loving each other in Spain during the war. On
the Atlantic you were different toward each other and became
every day more and more like people lost from each other.
"Every wave on the Atlantic was like a dead seagull dragging
its driftwood artillery from horizon to horizon.
"When the ship bumped up against America, you departed
without saying anything and never saw each other again. The
last I heard of you, you were still living in Philadelphia. "
"That's what you think happened up there?" I said.
"Partly, " he said. "Yes, that's part of it. "
He took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco and lit it.
"Do you want me to tell you what else happened up there?"
he said.
"Go ahead."
"You crossed the border into Mexico, " he said. "You
rode your horse into a small town. The people knew who
you were and they were afraid of you. They knew you had
killed many men with that gun you wore at your side. The
town itself was so small that it didn't have a priest.
"When the rurales saw you, they left the town. Tough as
they were, they did not want to have anything to do with you.
The rurales left.
You became the most powerful man in town.
You were seduced by a thirteen-year-old girl, and you
and she lived together in an adobe hut, and practically all
you did was make love.
"She was slender and had long dark hair. You made love
standing, sitting, lying on the dirt floor with pigs and chickens
around you. The walls, the floor and even the roof of the
hut were coated with your sperm and her come.
"You slept on the floor at night and used your sperm for
a pillow and her come for a blanket.
"The people in the town were so afraid of you that they
could do nothing.
"After a while she started going around town without any
clothes on, and the people of the town said that it was not a
good thing, and when you started going around without any
clothes, and when both of you began making love on the back
of your horse in the middle of the zocalo, the people of the
town became so afraid that they abandoned the town. It's
been abandoned ever since. "People won't live there.
"Neither of you lived to be twenty-one. It was not neces-
sary.
"See, I do know what happened upstairs, " he said. He
smiled at me kindly. His eyes were like the shoelaces of a
harpsichord.
I thought about what happened upstairs.
"You know what I say is the truth, " he said. "For you
saw it with your own eyes and traveled it with your own body.
Finish the book you were reading before you were interrupted.
I'm glad you got laid. "
Once resumed the pages of the book began to speed up
and turn faster and faster until they were spinning like wheels
in the sea.
poem by Richard Brautigan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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