Morning in the Burned House
In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.
Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,
their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,
every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,
the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.
I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.
I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything
in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,
bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts
and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.
poem by Margaret Atwood
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Related quotes
Because Of The House, There Was Never A Home
because of too much concern for the house
that someone other than yourself may live in there
and steal away what you are keeping there
the furniture and the kettle
the glass and the spoon and the fork
and the spam and sausages and
wheat and bread
because of too much worry for what a house can
be
so much home has been wrecked
so many homes were not even conceived and born
because you want a nice and expensive house
now you don't even have that dream of a home
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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ET Came To Breakfast (Fun Poem 10)
My breakfast was going snap, crackle and pop,
when suddenly in the chair opposite something went plop.
I looked across the table and was astonished to see,
a little green man looking at me.
I blinked a couple of times,
even pinched myself to make sure it was real.
He was, you can believe,
and my breakfast he was trying to steal.
We pulled at the bowl,
no one getting the upper hand,
and then he stuck his finger in the bowl,
and sucked out the blinking lot,
milk and my snap, crackle and pop.
The moral of this story.
If a little green man comes to breakfast,
Get an extra bowl.
28 April 2007
poem by David Harris
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Your dressing table in the hall
In the house in fifth avenue
I put a small pink white marble table
below a mirror in the corridor
with a bowl with flowers standing on it
that acted as your dressing table
and as a place of display
where I saw your face smiling back at me
while you were doing your hair
teasing with curling tongs
or reflections of the rows of paintings
with the wood floor fading into the distance
and now that mirror and table
is probably still there,
but you are living alone
in that big house
and will never again
smile back into my face.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Mimics in a kitchenette
A spoon in the rack
Beside sugar and salt jars.
Spoon mutters;
'I love both of you and you're like twins
But it complicates me without tasting you
How do I jump to the old Master's
Cup of Tea?
Kettle whistles and the Master still asleep.'
Parrot in the cage whispers;
'On holidays Master won't wake up early.'
Then who poured water into the kettle? '
'Don't you know Master brought a sweet *bride last night.'
[*A job agency has supplied a house-maid from a rural village.]
It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.
-Brigitte Bardot
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Bowl full of sky is in my mind.
I took it upon myself one day,
To fill a bowl with sky
I scooped the vast space with a spoon,
The sparkling blue stars brought tears to my eyes.
I took a bite out of the sky
It crunched and melted and fizzed
It reminded me of the days of life
I had experienced until this.
It had a taste I cannot describe
In just these words
I realized how bleak life is
To not imagine it first.
The experience had frightened me,
yet,
I was so happy,
I cried
I felt that I had to write
About my bowl of sky
Now, I might be greedy,
For stealing from the sky,
But the sky will never, ever end
Just as long as it is in my mind.
poem by Mahfooz Ali
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The Spider As My Analogy For You
the black spider
with a yellow mouth
and invisible tongue
early in the morning
on the jack-fruit tree
webs its house, so
beautifully transparent
against the sun
it is art and functional
at the same time
a house of beauty
and a trap for prey
a fly is trapped and
breakfast is ready
at the center table of
its creation
full, the spider basks
in the rain as i watch it
still thinking about you
and your house of lies.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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When We Are Left Alone In The House
just you and me
i am 48 and you will be 45 the next day
and we are left alone because they all have to be in their homes
her mother is sick and she must bring money
on the other hand, she is quitting her job and leave us for good
to join her lover in the city, her last chance to be married at 36
these domestic help helping themselves
to be not like us, loners
consumed by the weariness of our flesh
for years and years the hours filled with emptiness
i can hear the sound of the clock ticking so slowly
like the fins of an old goldfish in the glass bowl
i bought for you on the day of our marriage
today we are left alone in the house
you keep yourself busy washing the dishes
drying the laundry in the yard figuring out that you may rush again
the next minute it will rain
the cloud darkens
i keep choosing my words, thinking the idea of this union
us for 24 years, just us, just us and nobody else
in the same house, the same furnitures unbroken feet
and unstained in the living room, where the same color of
drapes are changed almost on the same months, the same seasons
boredom, too much familiarity, the wear and tear of our gazes
i call you from the kitchen, asking you to give me a glass of cold water
and you complied like the woman who loves her man more than him
loving her
i have more words to choose, more ideas to think, to trap, to keep,
to smoothen and polish like a piece of wood sculpted to the form
of a woman's beautiful body
thank you i said, i thrive on cold water, all the days of my life,
i take in the water that slides on my throat
smooth like red rhum down to my soul, i could have asked you again
if i had the courage, i ask myself if my love is strong if this will survive
us, through the boring years that come and yet to come
i did not have the courage to ask, if
you still love me
with my balding head and wrinkling skin
i got colder, i am sure, it is the water, half of the ice in the glass
is completely melted.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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To The Other World
try standing naked by this mirror
see yourself to every detail
look closer to your eyes
count the waves of your eyelashes
open your mouth and see how many teeth you have
all white, pure white lining up on your pink gums
feel your lips with your fingertips
feel the pulp the flesh of the lower lip
to the upper lip
touch your hair
do not imagine them all black
closely they are not at all
move a little bit closer and see your body
this beautiful human body
flesh, contours, curves, some muscles
the whole of your skin wrapping
everything in your body holding them all
nothing falls, on this erect body, this
god before you, standing steel-like with dignity
in front of the mirror
do not claim you have seen your soul with your eyes
do not lie
be honest to yourself now,
alone, you are alone, do not imagine
any god, any soul, any spirit,
just be honest,
touch your body with your hands
feel the joy of having this body
your body, pinch a part of it to feel
not pain, but just to feel that you are alive,
do you ever ask what made these parts stay as one?
look again at the mirror of this stature
your body, it is you, touching your body
take a hammer, and destroy the mirror
shatter everything to pieces
this is the world without a mirror
there is nothing to reflect you now
nothing to imagine, it is you, the real you
do you ever ask now, where is that other world?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Every House
Every house has a sun and moon,
And a little porcelain cup,
And a little silver spoon;
Every house has laughter and pain,
And feels the kiss of a needed rain.
Every house has a pet or two,
A cat in the tree,
A dove that coo;
Every house has a little mouse,
Lives in a hole he never comes out.
Every house has a window or two,
And some grass and trees,
And a sky that's blue;
Every house has a child that dreams,
As he plucks at raw reality's seams.
poem by Patti Masterman
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Something To Get Me There
I use to look in the mirror
Wonder what happened there
Where did that youthful look go
I don't know Don't really care
For this body is just something
To get me there
For one day in heaven
All will be perfect
Including me
So you may laugh and point at me
But when you all leave this earth
They're be no differences
Between you and me
That's why I don't care
For this body is just something
To get me there
poem by David Kush
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Parroting Courtesies
my niece asks me to hand a spoon
and i ask her to say 'please' and she utters the word
(perhaps her mama does not teach her the word)
and i hand her the spoon and she is afraid to say the word 'thank you'
and i tell her to say the word and she says it as though it is a strange word
for her (perhaps her dad, who is my brother seldom uses the word in their
house)
and then i tell her after she says thank you 'welcome my dear'
and she giggles, perhaps the words are ticklers to her frail body
to her small hands, to her fingers which grabbed the spoon as though
there are not so many
so many spoons in this world, we know that,
but the courtesies are forgotten, as this happens i feel like i am
parroting words, and sometimes i reflect: do i also really understand
these words, deep down to the longings of my heart?
thanks, but am i that really thankful to God?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Who Can Take This Longing?
there is always a longing upon the mouth of an empty bowl
the one that you place beside the house that gapes its gaze towards the sun
when it rains you hope that this longing may be sealed by cold water
dropp by dropp throughout the whole night when the world is not seeing
anything, any ripple in your river
body,
no water can fill it, no rain can boast about its power
to level things with its pouring
there is one thing though that you wish to happen
that a child with a stone hits the body of the bowl so that it can be
broken into pieces
that finds no semblance from anything whatsoever
that it can be beyond repair
so that the longing shall be taken away by the pieces
now with its shattered voice
into the void.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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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Oh Mirror
Mirror, mirror,
On the wall
Who's the THINNIST
One of all
Oh reflection,
I know its not me
I'm just too FAT
AND UGLY
Mirror, mirror,
On the wall
Who's the SKINNIEST
One of all
Oh reflection,
Stand up straight
Suck in your GUT
Then I may not hate
Mirror, mirror,
Clear and bright
Please don't WATCH
As I starve tonight
Oh reflection,
I'm stuck in this body
With food to fear
And you to HATE
Mirror, mirror,
Broken and shattered
Don't stare at ME
With this body battered.
poem by Lailani L.
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I've gone through stages where I hate my body so much that I won't even wear shorts and a bra in my house because if I pass a mirror, that's the end of my day.
quote by Fiona Apple
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Broken Images, Distorted Views
Every mirror tells a tale,
My mirror is a memory I do not wish to tell
Eery reflection has a story yet to be told,
They say the mirror never lies, but that's all my mirror ever sold
Look Into the reflective piece of glass, that mirror, pool or lake,
Gaze into the lie and realise that it's fake
Oh you look so classy in the mirror, but take a look inside,
Your body spins a different song, there's things your eyes can not hide,
Now I use a different mirror, one that doesn't lie,
Mirror Mirror in the sky, look down in judgement from up high
Give me the facts, tell me the truth,
Strip away the layers of lies, right back to my youth,
The image I see in the mirror is not good enough, it just won't do,
The person starring back is perfect, but I'm just not you.
poem by Ralph Acosta
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Broken Images, Distorted Views
Every mirror tells a tale,
My mirror is a memory I do not wish to tell
Eery reflection has a story yet to be told,
They say the mirror never lies, but that's all my mirror ever sold
Look Into the reflective piece of glass, that mirror, pool or lake,
Gaze into the lie and realise that it's fake
Oh you look so classy in the mirror, but take a look inside,
Your body spins a different song, there's things your eyes can not hide,
Now I use a different mirror, one that doesn't lie,
Mirror Mirror in the sky, look down in judgement from up high
Give me the facts, tell me the truth,
Strip away the layers of lies, right back to my youth,
The image I see in the mirror is not good enough, it just won't do,
The person starring back is perfect, but I'm just not you.
poem by Phil Whittaker
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Breakfast
A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,
A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not slight
Those kindly words we use, 'Good night,'
Yet parting words are words of sorrow,
And may not vie with sweet 'Good morrow,'
With which again our friends we greet,
When in the breakfast-room we meet,
At the social table round,
Listening to the lively sound
Of those notes which never tire,
Of urn, or kettle on the fire.
Sleepy Robert never hears
Or urn or kettle; he appears
When all have finished, one by one
Dropping off, and breakfast done.
Yet has he too his own pleasure,
His breakfast hour's his hour of leisure;
And, left alone, he reads or muses,
Or else in idle mood he uses
To sit and watch the venturous fly,
Where the sugar's pilëd high,
Clambering o'er the lumps so white,
Rocky cliffs of sweet delight.
poem by Charles Lamb
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New Mirror
New Mirror
My wife brought home a new big mirror
She wanted to see all of her glorious self.
I was happy with the old one that showed
my face, upper arms and chest.
This damned mirror makes me look like
a child’s drawing of a man, a rotund body,
matchstick arms and legs. My image took
offence walked away in disgust, left me
standing there in my elderliness, staring
into blank eternity.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Sunday 4: 44 A.m.
the church bell sounds.
you wake up.
you wash your face.
comb your hair and
wear the best dress
on sunday.
you look again
in the mirror to check
if all about you is well
and presentable.
you take the rosary
and the prayer book.
you read the gospel.
you mumble your prayers,
you thank your husband.
you take the puppy.
you smile again in the
mirror. you thank God.
now you open the gate
and head for the nearby
church and hear mass
and the usual sermon
of the parish priest.
90% of your life
is devoted to religion.
10% is devoted
to anything else.
you have aged.
you still mumble.
i still wonder whether
it is you who misunderstands me
or i misunderstanding you.
everything seems to be
mangled and mingled.
when you come back
breakfast is ready and
everyone in the house
pretends that there is nothing
wrong with the table, or the
cover, or the broken pieces
of the glass.The maid is
quick in sweeping them
away from the door into
that thick grass beside
the window of this house.
sunday morning is still
our morning. A nice one.
the sun has come and
we are planning for another
picnic in the nearby beach.
there will be no questions.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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