Best Chesterfield Poems
Tippy toeing across the desert sand cracked Cement stepping stone road
We venture towards The blooming onion bonfire that Rises like a medusa’s hair in a galaxy fueled by the heat of a dying star
The raindrops roll down my china doll cheeks
Makes my hair glisten like candlelight hope diamonds
And the rain washes away my feelings of self loathing
This weathered couch so lonesome in a field of curious horses
Seats sociable strangers Intoxicated with vodka mixers and self pride
Under an umbrella a polish model speaks broken English poetry Cuddling into my side instinctively she acted sisterly
My body was their hurricane shelter and my arms kept them from harm
He slid in on the ancient couch to seek momentarily comfort from the soaking tsunami
Faded........floating on a wave of intoxicated insta-friendships that we made only in our kindergarten years
when we wore tiaras and over sized dresses wide eyed and gaped toothless
Imagining what greatness would become of us Superheros and Princesses
The bass of the stereos fueled masculine desires for destruction
They tossed the grandfather couch into the flames and became a beaming beacon of light in all the darkness the smoke spiraled as the fires creeping fingers consumed the skeletal remains of the chesterfield.
Twas cremated at the early hour of dusk
University was just the eclipse in our eye lids
Life is a wayward hurricane NASA plane emblazoning on a rainbow runway
spin yourself faster than a ballerina collapsing into the tutu frill.... brighter than a lantern fueled by essence of a thousand swarming fireflies
Our naiive youth is but the past, we left it behind in this catacomb laid to rest
A light mist of ethereous rain falls
silent on his thin, sharp-angled
face. He lengthens his stride and
leans toward the wind. He walks
through plundered poverty; crumbled
by the weight of exodus. Abandoned
to the blood-rough nails scratching
on the concrete diasporas of multiethnic
history.
Past the playground echoes of PS #59,
as they drift along the faded asphalt
haze of time. Echoes still ring true with
elemental bones of hope: the children
break out and through gunmetal gray,
graffiti covered doors, outside to the
saturated heat of inner-city rage.
Past gothic orthodox cathedral
mausoleums which sit like ancient
stoics and stare through burnt-amber,
azure, crystalline-blue stained glass
eyes; focused out with a kernel of
eternal mustard seed hope: souls will
come again and warm the sacred pews.
Past the Puerto Rican market
where the pig's head led the
carnivore parade of mastication
promise every day. A meat-market
window of letted-blood and death
reminiscent of Amsterdam whores
with their wares on display for the
dead-eyed stares of the men outside.
He comes to the dust and
grime of an empty lot covered
by old and broken concrete slabs.
He stops and lets his mind drift
back to watch a woman who wears
a ratted fox-tail wrap around her
neck. She holds a long, un-filtered
cigarette, loose, between her two
bright, fuchsia painted lips. She
wears a black velvet hat with veil
to her nose and a straight black
dress that flows below her knees,
mid-calf, above her shiny black,
high-heel, patent leather shoes.
He can almost see through the blur
of a chiaroscuro choreography his
mother, visiting with the Kazakhstan
neighbors, in this dreamlike memory.
The multi-plexed, subsidized project,
where he was born, once stood just
beyond his vision of a mother's visit in
high-heel, indigo, tangerine, sibilant
sounds; lit with electric light smiles
of denial.
She would hold her cigarette between
fuchsia lips and wear that ratted fox-tail
wrap until the cancer cough began to spew
Chesterfield blood on the molted fox-tail
head of her beloved fur.
Then she went to bed. Went to sleep. And died.
Pigeons cooed quietly on that New York City night.
Christmas, as I recall, felt magical;
happily hanging up our empty socks.
Under the Christmas tree, where piles of gifts,
and we'd try to guess what was in each box.
Our entire house would smell of gingerbread,
pumpkin pies, cookies, and sweet-scented pine.
Waking to the smell of Christmas turkey,
we'd open our gifts: I'd rip open mine.
While Mom was busy preparing dinner,
Dad would take a nap on the Chesterfield.
Christmas carols played on the radio,
and home did not feel like a battlefield.
These precious moments in time tend to last,
childhood memories of a Christmas past.
Once upon a corner in the City,
An old porch of craftsmen days
Vine winding posts and bannisters and rockers,
Drawing one and all on their way.
Afternoons were busy with our mother,
Rocking, mending and meting out wisdom;
Children resting from lawn cartwheels,
The paper boy stopping for advice about courting.
Scents from the gentle boiling of beans
Blowing freely in the fresh spring air;
Shasta daisies wrapping its foundation,
Bermuda smelling fresh from mowing.
And
There was laughter and lemonade, and
Newspaper, movie magazines and song sheets.
Young marrieds’ visits – women stay at homes, then
Stars began twinkling at twilight,
Father his Chesterfield, mother rocking at his side,
Recounting their day, children gone inside,
About Mister This and Mrs. That,
Teasing and whispering undying love to each other,
Where have these gentle times gone?
A Love Story 2
Huelva and the Golf of Cadiz and it was August and in the town
there were laud music and rockets in the air. I had met a gypsy girl
she wore a white blouse and a red long skirt she wore no shoes
her feet brown and dusty. Back then I smoked cigarettes- chesterfield-
they were supposed to be upmarket compared to Camel cigarettes;
even then I wanted to be different, a cook who could read
She admired my Ronson lighter it was expensive and no one on
the ship had a lighter that classy.
She clicked the lighter a few times how she coveted it, but I was
surprised when she suddenly ran away. I thought she ran for fun,
she would come back: she didn´t. Later I saw her she was with two
gypsy boys and I dared not say anything. I walked back on board,
borrowed a box of matches sat in my cabin smoking and dreaming
of her beautiful eyes.
Preacher E. Lye
He wears his white collar backwards
Piggy attenuated pagan wives’ tale
say the trigger Finger Man
has snake eyes in the back of his head
Got a gravelly-low, porcupine voice
that is cobra flatline prairie legendary
Using a lethal eighteen-wheel
hydraulic tongue roadkill,
he sermonizes with casket authority
Preacher E. Lye got one good eye,
and a black patch over his hollow socket
The last person who asked
what happened to the missing retina,
got buried
in an unmarked, dry gulch ravine pocket
Preacher E. Lye low rides
with malevolent, maverick posse power
Mister Pus Papal Evil Eye
walks double cross with uno orbital pallbearer pride ...
Hanging eulogy twine ties
from the BP church steeple belfry tower
His barrel jaw revolving lies
keep his baron territory on a fear cower
Terrified bottomless pit cries
of the weak townspeople reign hope sour
Preacher E. Lye loves to spew verbal caustic speech:
Potassium hydroxide vows
fire hot lead, full of lung roulette chambers emptied
Mister Pulpit Evil Eye, on the sulfuric snide,
preach yellow-belly worms give-it-up or die:
Collection plate extortion on the cactus side
E. coli talks with snow collar pestilent pride
Black Plague canon cloaked in blue gunsmoke attire,
Chesterfield veiled threats
got the long gun branding irons set in brimstone fire
Preacher E. Lye got one good eye,
and a black patch over his hollow socket
Bottomless pit bull preacher,
bullet lung blasting pie-in-the-sky,
got his casino hands deep in pew pockets
Lupus leper lip E. Lye
tear sow scorpion alibis,
thru his planted posse of doppelganger sons
Wil E. coyote clan cries —
dirt devils on a slithering bandito desert run
Preacher E. Lye got one good eye,
and a black patch over his hollow socket
Preacher E. Lye blows a dust tide
with malevolent, cougar bloody paw grit
Red Barren hope
flows down a cemetery canyon
White flag mope
leaves nary grave task undone
Blue metal smoke
is Preacher E. Lye’s kill clarion
Preacher E. Lye stalks the widows
with his condor one eye
Devour their body-and-soul vittles,
then bury their dead cry
I have a place
I like to go
It is like no other space
From woe to go
It is somewhere
That I can sit and think
About the cat that
Used to wink
Or about the time
When I heard a bell
With that extra special chime
That no one could tell
It’s my secret place
Where I like to reminisce
About the times of old
Of times a miss
The secret place in my heart
That I can get away from it all
And have a new start
Apart from it all
Getting back to life
Out of my secret place
There always seems to be strife
In and around this place
My secret place always is
A place for me to go
And to get away from all of this
In my heart
My secret place is
Right from the start
As it always is
Under the old Gum Tree
In our back yard
Where it is not so hard
To find my secret place
Copyright Karen Chesterfield 2006
He dressed up his best old shirt
As the sun was just showing her face
Another walk for his constitution
Amongst the human race
The park was beginning to come alive
With shouts from the softball field
As he reached inside his faded shirt pocket
And retrieved a half smoked Chesterfield
Ah, the music of the songbirds that sang
And the smell of someone’s apple pie
And the soaring fowl overhead in the air
As they glided through the cloudless sky
He loved this place on Sunday mornings
When players came from all over to play
And once he was among these ranks
But that’s another story for another day
Some think of him as a homeless case
And some even says he’s no good at all
But he remembers and smiles with glee
Of the time he stood straight and tall
He traveled across that big old pond
But a snipers bullet cut him down in Nam
Although he lived, he forgets sometimes
He’s no longer attached to Uncle Sam
Still, he walks this same old walk
And sits on that park bench for a while
He then goes back to yesteryears
And stays there for awhile
Sambissar
Our souls dampen
with torture
And hopes dash in a
hurry
Like northern
watermelons
Crushed by a hundred
thousand cattle.
Our hearts beat in
fear louder than a
drum,
Louder than the
fierce noise of an
enraged mob -
Our flower has been
plucked before
blossom
With our
maiden-blood running
deep
Streaming deep into
the merciless earth
Our paths are
slippery with the
oil of confusion
The heart of our
mothers are sore
Like backs of the
herds man's flock
Beaten severally by
the narcissistic rod
We, who have been
cuddled in the cold
Now face the fierce
wrath of these
beasts;
We who still suckle
on our mothers'
breasts
Have been
sequester'd and
flung far in the
forests
The echo has
subsided far beyond
the continents
The revolt has
mingled with the
wind and vanished
The unfought battle
has been won, none
vanquished!
We have been
abandoned to our
fate!
The tabloids have
forsaken our plea
The maddened
competition stole
the day
With men all over
glued to the noisy
boxes
And children
everywhere
"hooraying" away
But our mothers
truly can never
forget us
The breast we have
suckled cry for our
return.
We bleed, we cry, we
mourn, we appeal,
Please, please,
Bring Back Our
Girls!
E. R. Chesterfield
Come, Aanu, fly away with me,
And let us nestle in our own tree.
Through vales and fountains and hills
And savour the sweetest wintry chills.
Let us probe the lilies in the fields,
And the earth from which every myrtle yields;
And we will feed on the finest of worms
While the coy sun our colourful din warms.
Then we will challenge the moon to an am'rous fight,
And inquire whose is the brightest sight.
We will glide through the frosty wind,
And storms in which some peace to Find.
And we will glide through the misty clouds,
Seeing fond lovers kissing in their crowds,
Or singing lullaby by the glistening streams,
Plotting mischievous dreams.
And I would spin you nests of finest twigs,
Upon mahoganies, Eucalyptuses and figs;
Hovering through thickest fogs and dew
Bearing blanch roses in my beak for you.
We would leap from cliffs with no doubts or fear
And build an empire in the stormy air.
I should watch you like an owl at night,
Before we make our final flight.
Come, fly away with me my LOVE
And we will all vagaries REMOVE
Till we conquer most prominent HEIGHTS
Beyond mountains, hills and Heaven's LIGHTS!
-E R Chesterfield.
I cannot subject your immortality to my art
For something deathless cannot by death survive,
Nor can I anchor your beauty upon the sun
Which although shines bright, is dead at night;
Summer mornings oft’ become wintry evenings
And everything that breathes sometime must die;
Music does fade, and poetry ceases to intrigue;
Tales do not amuse, and paintings are oft’ stolen;
Sculptures once made are tried by the wicked sun
And spring’d gardens become summer’d deserts.
So, you see, not the burning sun, nor the changing weather
Nor anything as ambitious as my childish craft
Can I compare your strange beauty to,
Since that which you are eternized by, resides in you!
— Efe Chesterfield
In Chesterfield and Spats
The father of the girl
I stare at now,
as we wait for our morning bus,
stands across the street,
tall and proper in his
chesterfield and spats.
He is waiting for a bus
that goes in the opposite direction.
He wears a derby,
swings a silver cane,
smokes a green panatela.
Suddenly he pirouettes
and smiles at my daughter.
She takes the same bus
to school every morning.
That night at supper,
I ask her about him.
"Dad, he's super!"
At 12, she knows.
"Dad, he rides the same bus
as me every morning.
He checks my homework
and I ask him questions.
Dad, he knows all the answers."
Donal Mahoney
There they are
living within our hearts while
coloring our world like rainbows over the sky
they seem like bits of fluff blowing whilly nilly in the wind
pausing now and again
to take in moments of bliss, laughter and playfulness-
We love them
gently and firmly guiding these
tiny humans that live with our blood flowing through
their veins reminding us of our young lives formerly spent
reminding us of how the world
appears like a huge unknown
I smiled yesterday
when Rishi said he wanted to watch a dvd with all of us
on the chesterfield with a blanket over us
and then eating popcorn
Leela immediately agreed and we hunkered down
after dinner
grandparents and grandchildren
together again.
Smoke Vegas
Ladies and Gentlemen
Hit it again Sam
Tickle that Ivory Joanna
Black velvet tuxedo suit
Tanned Brown Chesterfield Leather Booths
Polished studs out
Crooner poised spitting on the end of a Stainless Microphone
Either hand holding a smoking cigarette
And tumbler of Burbon Whiskey on the rocks
Dames in 1000 Dollar Frocks
Drenched in Diamond's and furs
Mistresses not wife's
Straight City Life
Bright Light's
New York City
Big Apple
No Sleep
Room's upstairs
Illicit affairs
He who dares
Them were the day's
Manhattan to Vegas
Stranger's Broadway Night's
Hollywood Stars
Town Cars
Red Carpets
The Golden age of Song and Stage
Old Blue Eyes
Frank Sinatra
Slow dancing with your Partner
Pressing up close and personal against her
Holding hands
Wishing the music would never stop
Times were simpler way back then
When girls were young ladies
At had to be home by Ten
And Marriage proceeded having babies
And young men wore suits
How i yearn for the crackle of a needle on an old record player
But that was all our yesterday's
And as the story goes
Not this old story again Grandad
Move on those times are gone
Put a C.D on
And don't you know you are not allowed
To smoke indoors
You may survived and fought in World Wars
But we are the snowflake righteous generation
So far above our station
You just can't tell if am talking through
My mouth or my bum
jungle governor green, respectable robin egg blue
beyond banana mania, periwinkle too
brisk bluebonnet, French fuchsia and plum
tickle me pink, where did you come from?
wild strawberry, chesterfield on my swollen lips
radical red, overdressed orange wearing two slips
midnight blue, outer space light saver green
a few crayon colors at one time in a box seen.