Best Button Up Poems
Buttons for game pieces, buttons on totes,
Buttons on toys, shoes, sweaters and coats.
Buttons that open and buttons that close
On pockets and purses and edges of clothes.
Buttons that decorate; buttons that don’t.
Buttons I'm sure to lose; buttons I won’t.
Buttons as filler for bean bags and such.
Buttons collected are not used so much!
Buttons on greeting cards and on jewelry!
Thousands of buttons adorning a tree!
Buttons to reset , to turn on a light.
There’s “Cute as a button” and also as “bright“!
Button up (but not down); push them “hot” (but not cold);
“Button your lip” and do as your told!
Though buttons may vanish one day from earth,
We'll wear on our bellies - buttons since birth!
I button up my cardigan
The weather's closing in.
I'm follically challenged,
not my hairline, but my skin..
As the clouds begin to gather
and wind whips up to boot..
I twist my collar skyward..
deploy my bumbershoot.
And so.. I hurry past you,
we nod but hardly share
the time of day and just pretend
there's no time left to care.
"Is there fear of being open?"
as enclosure keeps me safe,
Suddenly I'm conscious:
all
these
layers
start to chafe.
Old wounds that pierced my skin
don't need to hide away.
The strangest gift;
these scars;
require the light of day.
But what if..
Summer's sun is early?
A transformation starts..
We feel the authenticity
warming up our Wintery hearts?
For what we crave is
Love.
Acceptance, sister. Brother.
But first we have to open up..
be honest with another.
Feel the raindrops on our skin.
Unbutton the protection.
Release us to the elements of
humanity's affection.
For deep within us all
there's stuff we hide away..
Exposure to the open air
and brightness of the day..
..it might be when the healing starts.
Wind, sun, or snow or rain.
Outside it may be different.
But inside..
we're all the same.
Close your eyes and see a loch, the spot I go:
icy waters swirl beneath my wooden boat,
tall surrounding hills are blanketed in snow,
lashed by hail, I button up my winter coat,
Nessie glides and fishes in her world below.
Will she choose today to surface, maybe float?
If she's friend or foe, I long to see her face!
Visits only in my head, I love this place...
for Carolyn's My Place contest
(Written with the help and great inspiration and original creativity of a good partner,
colleague and friend ---- Alexandra Onofrei. Keep writing, kid! You’re blindingly good!)
Wings sewn from blood-red curtains,
Sultry needles from all that sweat,
Closed eyes and fragranced cypress,
Sweep, with dreams, along the sidewalks.
Singlet’s creases,
I always knew they would match
(Pen’s beatitude)
My lips,
That now button up
Your lashes.
Hei! Are you still awake?
© 2009 Stefania Carmen Misaila
Yesterday was Button Day;
I somehow let it slip
Or maybe I just chose instead
To button up my lip.
Begun in 1938,
This date was set aside
To celebrate the crafters
Who keep notions stores supplied.
For think about your buttons –
Not those round ones, white and plain
But the myriad varieties
That sewing sites contain.
There are endless shapes and colors
And materials as well,
Most with little holes for threading –
Look real close and you can tell.
Why, the perfect style of button
Can improve a garment’s looks
And as fasteners, they’re easier
Than zippers, snaps or hooks.
Just don’t push somebody’s buttons,
Even one who’s button cute
For on Button Day (or one day late)
We owe them a salute.
Autumn gently grabs the lungs,
squeezes out the resin of summer.
Slaps you back into seriousness.
Rips children from laps
extends silence into issues
invites another ring of fat.
Time to button up living
roll another 4 inches of insulation.
Praying the old motor can handle another season
of less margin for error.
Autumn has risen to eye level.
Ordered sparrow into his beige feather hut....
Put poverty at the doorstep of the ice cream man
under damp pointed jewels.
A chorus of wind chimes is shrill
like a voice of metal and ice
winter will quarter autumn
cement its feet into death-
Penny for the Guy
Penny for the Guy
Please mister
Penny for the Guy
Nov 5th is close
Still need to finish the guy
Pa’s old clothes,
Pants, button up shirt,
Shoes and hat
Stuff and stuff
Make the guy firm
Plenty of leaves and hay
Penny for the Guy
Penny for the Guy
Please mister
Penny for the Guy
As we push the guy around the streets
People stop and stare
Drop a penny in our cup
One more penny for our fireworks
Penny for the Guy
Penny for the Guy
Please mister
Penny for the Guy
Burn him
Roast him
Like he planned to burn
The House of Lords
Penny for the Guy
Penny for the Guy
Please mister
Penny for the Guy
Nighttime falls
A top the bonfire
With fireworks in his pocket
In the garden and burnt
Thanksgiving for the plot's failure.
Rockets, sparkler, crackerjack explode
A top of the bonfire Guy is seen
A lit curling and swaying
Sounds of spitting and crackling
As he burns the dry wood
Smoke tendrils and curls towards the sky
Children eating hot chestnuts
Cheering and dancing
At the sight of a Catherine wheel
Sparkles with coloured flame
Rotating quickly putting on a spectacle
Penny for the Guy
Penny for the Guy
Please mister
Penny for the Guy
11/30/2016
to late for the contest
The 60's
The look was penny loafers, bobby socks,
pleated skirts, button up shirts,
bell bottom pants and headbands
Flower children were also the era,
Stood for peace and love also political movement
Listen to the music of the Beatles, Monkeys, Rolling Stones plus many more.
My heart throbbed for John Lennon, so young and in love
In my private time I listen to Liberace on the radio
Danced the Twist, Jerk, Monkey, Mashed potato, and the Watusi
I love to dance at the school Sox Hop dances up on the bleachers
Swinging my long auburn hair to the waist, back and forth
My hips moved to the twist
While everyone else danced on the gym floor
Mom’s favorite hair style, the Beehive
Dad looks so good looking behind the wheel of his 1959 De Soto station wagon
A child’s joy jumping rope, hopscotch, jacks,
Rotating a Hula hoop around my waist
Playing marbles with the boys
My favorite, climbing trees but
It always came with a broken bone
Our 35th president was John F. Kennedy
I was sitting in a swing in the playground
When we all heard he had been fatally shot
I was only 12 then
Tears ran down my face when I heard
People weren’t being treated equal
He stood for Equal Rights
We lost great man was that day
Growing up in the 60s was fun, but also very sad
Contest Name: Decades The 60’s * 2nd Place
Sponsor: Kelly Deschler
All an illusion
It's all an illusion.
No matter where I am, I am alway just,
sitting there. Unaware, with a blank stare messy hair
and probably the same clothes that I always wear.
Wrangler jeans, and a button up, sleeved. (period)
Because, I hate T-shirts.
Hate them!
In fact, I'd be fine if they all just disappeared!
Into thin air. I'm serious.
the plague, wasting, predators, or aliens came to take em!
They'd say.
Or they inbred too much,
and their lineage diminished
intelligence forsook em.
Gene pool plummeted
they became disoriented, wrangled and out-competed
and just sort of drifted away,
They'd say,
it was probably believing everything they see on the news.
That led to their doom.
That, and marrying too young, having litters,
of far more than they could possibly support on their wage!
Stupid T-Shirts
And later, when documentaries are made on why their society caved.
they'd say in five languages: “Stupid T-shirts”
You'll see em today, at the Walmart or on display in friendly glass cases,
With nothing but idiotic slogans, and quotes from bad movies
“That's what she said”
Or some sort of shark-cat reaching with fangs and claws up at
a bikini wearin slice of pizza...
They call it “Paws”
Myself, I'd rather be shirtless in a game of seven card stud.
I'd rather be seen strung up dangling by my hair parasailing through Canadian Territory,
and mistaken for a chipmunk. Covered in varmints blood, Or spend my weekend servin sweet tea to
Donald Judd.
Than even be seen wearing one.
No dignity in em,
Just picture Grant, Lee or even Sam Houston
Wearing a shirt with an arrow
That reads:
“I'm with Stupid”
Does your workplace make you wear a uniform
Because you’re a firefighter, nurse or a cop?
Do you proudly wear your dark blue trousers
With that sexy white button up top?
Are you a chef cooking in a ridiculously tall hat,
Or a judge with an outlandish toupee,
Who gives terms of punishment out to the criminals,
Then tells the guards to take them away.
At work uniforms worn say we belong to this group,
Say allegiance, say honour and truth.
I guess that’s why the bikie gangs around town
Give logoed jackets to rambling youth.
But me, I’m simple, I wear smart casual at work,
During the day I am out of sight.
It’s when I get home, alone with my girl,
We dress in uniforms all throughout the night.
It doesn’t mean we belong, or have honour or code,
Or any real deep meaningful duty.
It means we love the implied power, the roles we can play,
Is a mental abstract form of beauty.
He's love’s anvil
Banging beauty with propellant power
Bends no ear for mercy--
Body batters tempo hour after hour.
He's love’s anvil
Dashing dreams into the dust
winds whirl them high
as clouds roll by
Never pausing ---
rhythm raging rhythm
hour after hour
like the cadence of the sea
drowning men are history
Hammer pulverizing--
Ferocity in nature can't be taught
like a crazy tiger
that can't be caught
He's love’s anvil
Seeming harmless with no outward hazard sign--
Beckons with a cold-beat
Fear and joy now intertwined.
Throbbing is love’s anvil
Elemental altar of no second chance
Sparks are remnants soul-burned--
whirligig of ashes spinning
in the dangerous splendid dance.
He's love's anvil.
Button up your lip.
This is not a story of romance.
V, Anderson-Throop©2015
I used to watch my mother sew
she would sit at her machine
and run the fabric through its course
making perfect seams.
She would make me suit,
fit me with lots of little tugs,
call me a handsome little man
and give me loving hugs.
She’d button up my self esteem
me, dressed in my suit of youth
and walk me very cautiously
down the avenues of truth.
With the patience of eternity
she would persevere
and explain away uncertainties
that filled my timeless years.
She had a rainbow in her heart,
sparkling through the prism of her eyes,
eyes still dancing in my memory
like a parade of fireflies.
I soon found myself in rebellious years,
in a world I couldn’t define,
that wore my understanding thread bare
and tore the fabric of my mind.
My mother she would patch me up
and iron out my thoughts;
me dressed in tatters of deceptions
and lies stitched into my thought.
She said one day all these things
would hang in the closet of my past,
and that all things fashioned by deceptions
were never bound to last.
She had a rainbow in her heart
sparkling through the prism of her eyes,
eyes still dancing in my memory
like a parade of fireflies.
My adult years would have been
pockets filled with emptiness
but for the patterns of deception
mom showed me in the social dress.
One day I got a call, the clan was to gather ‘round
it was almost time to put mother in the ground.
When we buried her, it was in late July
I stayed behind till the sun began to die.
I stood there in my memories, had myself a cry
while the silver moon rose and came alive.
When I turned to leave upon my last goodbye
I could see through the teardrops in my eyes
parades of dancing fireflies
hugging all the stars up in the sky.
She had a rainbow in her heart
sparkling through the prism of her eyes,
eyes still dancing in my memory
like a parade of fireflies.
Coming
And then again you are alone
The bird is gone, a bird has flown
When you made the fatal slip
Forgot to button up your lip
And other than a fatal flaw
Something that you never saw
Guess you lost your grip
But coming soon another light
Candle burns with her’s alight
Better sharpen up your sight
Pretty as a bird in flight
Another timeless slip
accept her is my right
Don Johnson
It's these times the brainwaves' brimming
But there's no cored means to articulate
Hooked at a slant of transcendence
Staring down fat glimpses of life lived through death
It clots red-black, thick in the dropper
Junky blood comes and it goes
The eye of the spike, the swell of elation
Death peals, heart drags, blow outs
Headglows
Don't patronize me
With your long, lean laughs
Stretched skin, smoothed skin
Droning wisps of sour-smelt breath
No-teethed, gumless, bone-grinding
Skeletal rasps
What exactly is it that…
Makes you any better than…
The junky in the gutter groove
We all have our button up, fasten, tie-in, fix
Some just subsist in it, with it
Live it to exist in it
It's high time the wavelengths blurred
When Ali asked me to help her find a used car for Ava I thought, “She’ll thank me forevermore!” because this is exactly the kind of thing we parents were created for.
Wanting to show my daughter and granddaughter I was equal to the task…
I researched, when buying a used car, the 25 questions you should ask.
I even looked into how I should act…should I smile, sneer or scoff…
and how I need to look responsible, mature but not too wealthy or well-off.
Responsible, mature but not wealthy or well-off…well here’s a little fact…
that description fits me to a tee…I wouldn’t even have to act!
A button-up shirt with a collar…something in greens or blues…
no expensive jewelry…and please…no worn out shoes.
When we met Ali and Ava at the used car dealer I was a wonder to be seen
comfortable shoes, blue jeans and a button-up shirt…I chose the color green.
I was cool, calm, collected…didn’t want to appear tyrannical…I was ready with my questions about mileage and any problems electronic…or mechanical.
I looked over the car with Ali…ready with my questions to amaze and to inspire….
to show I knew what I was doing…I even kicked a tire.
My plan was to ask insightful questions then render my opinion and support…
but Ali had the answers already in her own Carfax report.
Ali did all the negotiating…in fact the only thing I could think to say…
Was…can you tell me please…the color of this car…is it brown or is it gray?
As I was ready to enter the negotiations…to put my prowess on display…
Ali closed the deal…got the car she wanted at the price she wanted to pay.
I’m sure my reasoning is correct here…that my thinking’s not bizarre…
and whenever Ali’s asked how she managed to get such a good deal on Ava’s car…
She will look that person in the eye…
Think of me…and the truth she will not skirt….
“I’m pretty sure,” she’ll say with a smile, “it was due to my dad’s shirt.