Clothing Poems
Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]
by Gertrude Stein
What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.
What is the wind, what is it.
Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.
It Was The Beginning Of Joy And The End Of Pain
by Gillian Conoley
The sewing machine had a sort of genius, high, oily and red
over that little hellion's pants. Joy and Pain crossing legs,
then coloring in the poverty—
Are we a blue, blue whine in the restive trees?
Are we under the imprecision?
......
Duality
by Tina Chang
Perhaps I hold people to impossible ideals,
I tell them, something is wrong with your
personality, (you're a drinker, you're
too dependent, or I think you have
a mother/son fixation). This is usually
followed by passionate lovemaking,
one good long and very well meaning
embrace, and then I'm out the door.
In daylight, I'll tip my sunglasses forward,
......
My Shoes
by Charles Simic
Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.
My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.
......
Mending
by Hazel Hall
Here are old things:
Fraying edges,
Ravelling threads;
And here are scraps of new goods,
Needles and thread,
An expectant thimble,
A pair of silver-toothed scissors.
Thimble on a finger,
New thread through an eye;
Needle, do not linger,
......
Tender Buttons [A Long Dress]
by Gertrude Stein
What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.
What is the wind, what is it.
Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.
My Shoes
by Charles Simic
Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.
My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.
......
Mending
by Hazel Hall
Here are old things:
Fraying edges,
Ravelling threads;
And here are scraps of new goods,
Needles and thread,
An expectant thimble,
A pair of silver-toothed scissors.
Thimble on a finger,
New thread through an eye;
Needle, do not linger,
......
It Was The Beginning Of Joy And The End Of Pain
by Gillian Conoley
The sewing machine had a sort of genius, high, oily and red
over that little hellion's pants. Joy and Pain crossing legs,
then coloring in the poverty—
Are we a blue, blue whine in the restive trees?
Are we under the imprecision?
......
Duality
by Tina Chang
Perhaps I hold people to impossible ideals,
I tell them, something is wrong with your
personality, (you're a drinker, you're
too dependent, or I think you have
a mother/son fixation). This is usually
followed by passionate lovemaking,
one good long and very well meaning
embrace, and then I'm out the door.
In daylight, I'll tip my sunglasses forward,
......
