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:
- Robert Burns: Written In Friars Carse Hermitage: On Nithside
- Олег Бундур – Чем пахнет мама
- Владимир Маяковский – Рабочий при капитализме работал из-под палки… (РОСТА №666)
- Михаил Лермонтов – Я видел тень блаженства
- I am not ashamed of myself by Swami Aaron Thomas
- A Tale of Elsinore by William Topaz McGonagall
- Robert Burns: Birthday Ode For 31st December, 1787:
- The Poetic Principle by Mark Olynyk
- Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua by Samuel Coleridge
- Вера Павлова – Сражаться с прошлым
- Владимир Набоков – Вдали от берега, в мерцании морском
- Songwriting Tip – Structure of a Pop Song
- Василий Жуковский – К Перовскому (Счастливец, ею ты любим)
- My Mother’s Body by Marge Piercy
- At His Grave poem – Alfred Austin
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
- Вера Звягинцева – Шафрановым загаром
- Вера Звягинцева – Психея
- Вера Звягинцева – Пойдёте пешком на кладбище
- Вера Звягинцева – Околдовано сердце моё
- Вера Звягинцева – Не пастушка и не Психея
- Вера Звягинцева – На смерть Есенина
- Вера Звягинцева – Моя любовь к Армении похожа
- Вера Звягинцева – Летите, летите зелёные долы
- Вера Звягинцева – Карусель
- Вера Звягинцева – Качаешься в гробу стеклянном
- Вера Звягинцева – Другу-переводчику
- Вера Звягинцева – А если ты любишь не можешь
- Вергилий – Скопа
- Вергилий – Лидия
- Вергилий – Георгики
- Вергилий – Буколики
- Вероника Тушнова – Молчание
- Вероника Тушнова – Мне говорят, нету такой любви
- Вероника Тушнова – Мать
- Вероника Тушнова – Люблю
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
