Tag Archives: mid-century modern

Loaf

hard-boiled eggs

Bury the eyes, always,
that they may not witness
this turbulent mystery.

green olives

With pimento pupils,
they stand sentry, to repel
untoward advances.

orange slices

From what grove,
and how came they here?
They must be wondering.

 ground beef (?)

Structural putty.
Muscle memory retains
the shape of the pan.

canned peas

From every crevice
springs
a mockery of freshness.

tomato slice

Countersunk
against
indifference.

mint

A jaunty sail,
a hint of life
other than this.

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re on Facebook, here’s the photo that inspired this poem. See more from the Kitsch Bitsch here. Yummy! Also, if it’s Tuesday p.m., it’s Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. June 11 marks its 100th weekly session.

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Just Beneath the Acrylic Wall Art

There’s another wall waiting to begin
if only we can escape the gravitational pull
of this owl’s orange eyes, threaded with
yellow yarn, a big, dark, wooden bead
in the center of each, like a knuckle
in a fist. This is not what I came

here for, to sit on this houndstooth couch
with you, trying to explain what I mean
about walls beyond walls, some world
other than this one where we are
men and women, machines built for
coping, not for understanding

each other, not in any real way, except
through the flesh. You are wondering
about my flesh even now; I can feel it in
your eyes, your male eyes, and we will
never reach that other world, not
together, not this way. You have

your hot toddy, and I have mine; you are
not my ride home, the shoes under my bed.
We are nothing but two people sitting under
an acrylic owl, trying to ignore some things,
pay attention to others, and—for the next
ten minutes, twenty—not confuse the two.

 

 

For NaBloPoMo and PAD Challenge Day 4 (prompt: Write a poem in which the title is “Just Beneath ___).

 

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Desi Arnaz Western Hills Hotel, Palm Springs, for Open Link Night

Desi Arnaz Western Hills Hotel, Palm Springs 

Phyllis poses on the diving board, arms out
in front of her, stiff as if she’s frozen there,
a zombie in a black bathing suit. Awful.

I should have been the one; I could have
given it a real sense of motion. My parents keep
my medals in the cedar chest they’re saving

for if I ever get married someday. But I
filled out the yellow bathing suit better;
the good thing about that is, I am in

the foreground. I’ll be the one you notice first,
on my chaise by the pool, as Phyllis and I,
Donna, and the rest—I feel sorry for some,

the girls whose heads will be dots in my
background—spin on a rack in the lobby,
by the cigarettes, next year and the next.

 

 

For Open Link Night, at dVerse Poets. Also, take a minute to see if you can figure out, generally, what I’m talking about … and then click here and see how close you think I got. (And many thanks to Kitchen Retro for giving me something to write about today.)

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Let Memory Be a Paneled Room, for Open Link Night

Let Memory Be a Paneled Room

Let us now be gracious
and thank our humble homes.
From shag carpet we arose;
the ugly couch was always
more comfortable before
it was reupholstered,
made more acceptable
to our changing eyes. Let us
now love Linoleum, warm
underfoot, forgiving of stains,
those accidents of carelessness
and time. How the years passed.
Let memory be a paneled room
with heavy curtains. Let it keep
every word we ever spoke.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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