The city had such pretty clotheslines.
Women aired their intimate apparel
in the emery haze:
membranes of lingerie—
pearl, ruby, copper slips—
their somehow intestinal quivering in the wind.
And Freihofer’s spread the chaste, apron scent
of baking, a sensual net
over a few yards of North Troy.
The city had Niagara
Mohawk bearing down with power and light
and members of the Local
shifting on the line.
They worked on fabrics made from wood and acid,
synthetics that won’t vent.
They pieced the tropics into housecoats
when big prints were the rage.
Dacron gardens twisted on the line
over lots of Queen Anne’s lace.
Sackdresses dyed the sun
as sun passed through, making a brash stained glass
against the leading of the tenements,
the warehouse holding medical supplies.
I waited for my bus by that window of trusses
in Caucasian beige, trying to forget
the pathological inside.
I was thinking of being alive.
I was waiting to open
the amber envelopes of mail at home.
Just as food service workers, counter women,
maybe my Aunt Fran, waited to undo
their perms from the delicate insect meshes
required by The Board of Health.
Aunt Alice wasn’t on this route.
She made brushes and plastics at Tek Hughes—
milk crates of orange
industrial lace
the cartons could drip through.
Once we boarded, the girls from Behr-Manning
put their veins up
and sawed their nails to dust
on files from the plant.
All day, they made abrasives. Garnet paper.
Yes, and rags covered with crushed gems called
garnet cloth.
It was dusk—when aunts and mothers formed
their larval curls
and wrapped their heads in thick brown webs.
It was yesterday—twenty years after
my father’s death,
I found something he had kept.
A packet of lightning-
cut sanding discs, still sealed.
I guess he meant to open the finish,
strip the paint stalled on some grain
and groom the primal gold.
The discs are the rough size
of those cookies the franchises call Homestyle
and label Best Before.
The old cellophane was tough.
But I ripped until I touched
their harsh done crust.
1995, Sensual Math (W. W. Norton & Company)
Copyright ©:
Alice Fulton
A few random poems:
- The Essay on Liberty by Abraham Cowley
- Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower by Taha Muhammad Ali
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- Владимир Маяковский – Современный Козьма Прутков
- The Gardener LXXXIV: Over the Green by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling
- Juvenilia An Ode To Natural Beauty
- Dying
- My Sweet Lad You Have Not Been Lost poem – Yiannis Ritsos poems | Poetry Monster
- The Choice of Trees by P.J.Reed
- An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr. John by Thomas Carew
- Ballade Of The Summer Term poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Day-Dream’s Reflection by William Allingham
- Ballade Of Old Plays poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Robert Burns: The Toadeater:
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Doomes-Day: The Fourth Houre by William Alexander
- Doomes-Day: The First Houre by William Alexander
- Doomes-Day: The Fifth Houre by William Alexander
- Doomes-Day: The Eleventh Houre by William Alexander
- Doomes-Day: The Eighth Houre by William Alexander
- Doomes-Day: The Second Houre by William Alexander
- An Eccho by William Alexander
- A Short View Of: The State Of Man by William Alexander
- A Parænesis To Prince Henry by William Alexander
- Written In A Quarrel by William Cowper
- Written In A Fit Of Illness. R. S. S. by William Cowper
- Written After Leaving Her At New Burns by William Cowper
- Watching Unto God In The Night Season by William Cowper
- Watching Unto God In The Night Season (3) by William Cowper
- Watching Unto God In The Night Season (2) by William Cowper
- Verses Written At Bath, On Finding The Heel Of A Shoe by William Cowper
- Verses Printed By Himself On A Flood At Olney by William Cowper
- To The Rev. Mr. Newton, On His Return From Ramsgate by William Cowper
- To The Rev. Mr. Newton : An Invitation Into The Country by William Cowper
- To Mary by William Cowper
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
