Best Pillowcases Poems
Halloween Haiku
(9.7.10)
Suburban parade:
A night to transform yourself,
and beg without shame.
Subsequent morning:
Pillowcases wear make up-
Wrappers and trinkets.
The Thanksgiving porch:
Mouth with one neglected tooth-
The jack-o-lantern.
As I strip the mattress bare
and watch the pile
of sheets, pillowcases,
blankets and pillows grow
I find myself thinking of you...
and me.
What comes to mind
is sheer happiness.
As I tuck the sheet under the foot of the bed
(just like you like it)
I catch myself laughing
remembering the times we would stay awake
late into the night wrestling...
(I always won)
trying to stay quiet
until our laughter was uncontrollable
and we would hear one of the kids
yell from the next room...
'' PUH-LEASE! ! KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE!
WE'RE TRYING TO SLEEP! ''
I arrange the pillows
just as I always do...
(your favorite one on top)
and I take an extra moment
holding your favorite pillow...
your scent drifts up to my face
almost as if you are there.
I set it in place and realize
how many years have passed.
We've experienced so much
in this bed.
The laughter is what rings in my ears
as I fold back the comforter
to expose just a touch
of those all too familiar sheets
(you know...the ones with the ducks flying on them) .
As I leave our room
I find a sense of anticipation
in the thought that in a few short hours
we will be here again...together.
I fell this morning-
Stumbled over fear, surrender my bitter dressings
Kissing the distance of sanity
Defying gravity
Levitating toward the inevitable
Plunging into the comfort of solace fed into my spirit as joy becomes mine
Shoulders lightened
Released the burdens.
Unclogged empty spaces looking to fill lonesome nights with conversations
Extended one time moments to last
Lapsing into the disease of love
Nestle this heart in loyalty.
Faithful to the thought
I fell this morning-
Hit the snooze button to return to the passion jump starting my heart.
Misstepped through the possibility that a frozen heart could melt for carmel skin tones and baritones cadences.
Opening the potential of waking up to you til death due us bonded together forever.
I fell this afternoon-
Watched my tears stain satin pillowcases as you become my questioned tomorrow.
I slipped And stumbled over the misunderstanding right into love's possibilities.
What if I told you I fell in love with you this morning.
@ANUthepoet
The morning after
I wake up to my pillows talking to me
Your are gone but they say you were here
You left some time in the night after I said you couldn't stay
Even after all that excitement you caused with the little you brought
There wasn't anything your body could do to impress me
Make me want to change my nature to believe in more than my stripes
And these spots that have kept me sheltered and unharmed by love
Because love is just some female constantly barking at everyone to be noticed
Searching for gentle and caring hands to bite later
So you took a kiss and your clothes while I pushed you out my door
Imagine my surprise when I still didn't wake up alone
There is this feeling here holding me now
I can't help but think you left it
A revenge of some sort to combat my cool head, cold shoulders, and icy heart
And that makes me want to hate you
Who are you to come and try to change who I am in one night
You should have simply just left a note if you really had to have a say
Even I would have been less offended if you left cash on my nightstand
Just so our one night stand won't still stand in my room
Its staring me down as if I was caught with my hands in forbidden places
With someone who isn't suppose to be here
But there is still something here that isn't suppose to be here
It is the morning after
Well passed our mutual time of sharing
You took and I took
You gave and I gave
And I only rose above you after I spent time at your feet
It was a fair night
I don't think I deserve to wake up with leftovers sleeping over
Lounging in my bed stealing my sleep before my sanity
Because I didn't ask for any reminders
Somehow they have found themselves here infringing on my time
Loitering and littering my space with your impressions I refused to acknowledge once
Inspecting all the marks in the light of day won't allow me to do it twice
If only there were just pillowcases and sheets I needed to wash
Hickies and scratches on my skin I needed to hide
So I can fully convince myself you were never here
The morning after
Snipes are a kind of bird, difficult to spot
because they’re quiet and they hide a lot –
a kind of cross ‘twixt stool pigeon and an owl,
it is a bird that deserves to be called fowl.
Maybe a large rooster with antlers like a moose
some guys say they are more like a wild goose.
How do you catch them? Now that is where you
depend on luck; my friend hit one with his shoe.
Some make a cage from an old cardboard box
but pillowcases work. To really outfox
a large snipe, you may need to bring a rope
to tie him up; if it's real dark, you just hope.
First, you start to hear sounds - like gobblety-gook
and you may start to think that you are a schnook
but hang in there. Sometimes it takes all night
especially if the snipe puts up a fight.
First time I went, along about one o’clock
I smelled what I thought was a rat in a crock
quick as a wink, I caught onto a small snipe.
What a night! but I got it, all in one fell swipe.
They fall, cascading down your cheeks
When you are happy and sad.
The fulfillment of a true miracle
Or the loss of that miracle
Breaks the peace of serene eyes.
Pinches, pokes, and lashes across
Your ego erupt in a bout of saline
Waterfalls.
Damp pillowcases next to burnt out
Candles of loved ones
Collect in lakes that run rivers
From wax and cotton.
Alone, cold, and without
Another soul to connect
Elicits a monsoon of fear
That burns the heart
Shinning jewels of emotion
Fits of joy
Pains of loss
Agony of the flesh
Lonely sorrows all called
Tears
The paths and streets have worn the soles...
scraped the feet, this journey has seen this soul's defeat
At every turn the hope was dashed
...the love fell through as feelings clashed
A day without strife was lost to me
...all want for self was there set free
And numb is the heartsong now
every sunray cast askew through clouds
Yearning was real, yet never struck deep
....a hazy dream in a fit-filled sleep
Awaken to tear stained pillowcases
....but blurred are the faces-and the emotion is now forgotten
the new day downtrodden-before these weary feet
every feel the cold hardwood world
Behind the sun, with a little bit of assuredness, I saw the shades of his smile
swing toward the moon...
and I cursed six p.m. In a voice that hid the memories of
nineteen~ninety~two
when I wore my shoes underneath the shadows of stars and in the feel of his lips
when sixteen is innocent despite the cold exposure
of skin.
I wonder if he knows I whisper to him in his sleep, my promises slipping underneath the
blanket he holds tight around him,
and feathers escape pillowcases when I laugh,
they tickle toes and dissolve the taste of fear
as my tongue finds the outline of his lips after the sun falls down and his
smile
is apparent.
I tidy myself up on Mondays, and wreck the idea of perfection with my curls...
I wear jeans that smudge mountains across back pockets and imagine how the hem of my
burgandy dress would fall across chilled creek splashed rocks,
I wonder if I'd be able to stay pretty when my hands fall into mud and the wind attacks my
cheeks...
but he smiles, you see, when the sun falls...
he smiles when I change my clothes...
and he kisses me when my curls detest reality and Monday smirks at the idea of cleanliness
as my imagination drowns hems and rips fabric.
So I kick off my shoes with the idea that my toes can taste Tuesday and my feet can squash
the memories of
nineteen~ninety~two
and revel in innocence as I discover
the cold exposure
of skin.
I never flinched with I felt
the needle sink
into my skin.
Love is for masochists
and I was tattooing an image
of Forever in my mind.
Even when the tears stained
like blood
on my bed sheets and pillowcases,
I pushed through the pain.
And now silence somehow fills
the spaces where
“I love you”s danced much too freely
and for far too long.
These thoughts of us
are nowhere close to killing me yet;
they chain my limbs,
only binding me to
you
more than ever.
Violaceous twilights,
clandestinely sated
lavished 'til morn's early blush
midst honey suckled euphoria,
poetry hidden 'neath
silken pillowcases,
written 'tween the dew
of rendezvous'
blissed arousal
evermore eagerly breathless,
reawakening intentions
aloft the vast obscurity of
a wistfully surrendered sunset
The River's overflowing
These days it never stops
There's a flood in my backyard
And it's boiling to the top.
The tides are all muddied
Rocks at every turn
No shore in site,
Still I'm swimming for my life.
My raft sprang a leak a few miles ago
Now my legs have grown tired
And my arms can no longer row
It the rains would stop falling
Maybe the waters would go down,
But for now I'm drowning in this pool
And the grasses have turned brown.
I never thought there could be a thing
As too much rain in these parts,
But not only have the plants been dying,
My pillowcases are all soaked through.
Rain Rain go away
And bring me then a summer wave.
We were bloody.
Bearing the weight
of a gaping moon like
young Titans-
full of arrogant imagination.
We ran, hellbent.
House after house
playing tricks-
casting spells with
veracious foolishness.
That first pumpkin was
my stepfather. I watched
as his carved out grimace
became the nothingness
I was determined to fill with
chaos.
I screamed the lyrics to our
favorite Hatebreed song down
every street. Letting the Universe
know that no matter how insignificant
the World thought we were.
We would be heard.
All of us, brothers.
Bound by dark matter-
the silent replies to our
prayers that we'd never
admit to sending out;
Together we didn't need
Him, The Devil, or anyone else.
We were fearless, because we had
each other. And the might of bond,
not in blood shared, but spilled as one.
Parents tried to chase us.
Reign us in.
We laughed and taunted-
swinging our pillowcases
full of savory sin with a sense
of joy that only a lost boy could
even begin to understand.
Hands covered in slime, and seed
thundered together and sent out our
cacophony of delight as I tipped over
the HOA's Porta Potty.
Red and blue lights flash.
Someone has had enough.
We escape into the woods.
Sit on the edge of Willow Creek,
and light up a bowl of dirt weed.
The creek was shallow that year.
But, our hearts could fill it up;
All that life pulsing, racing through
our ephemeral- jack'-o-lantern husks.
Smoke signals went up that night.
As we exhaled our silent melancholy.
I think we all had some sort of hope
there, in that place. That our rage
would be sated. That we would be
enough to keep each other safe from
what we could already sense
was encircling us.
We never wore masks.
Not until we got older, grew apart.
And began to see we had to hide
that primal nature inside ourselves to
keep the moon from breaking our
backs. Because, we don't have
each other for that anymore.
But, I'm pulling mine off tonight.
Have a good look-
The scars. The worry lines.
The bloodshot eyes.
That same grimace I tried to destroy-
lighting up the room as if it were
carved to scare you away.
But I am no totem.
No walking masquerade to incite
any sort of terror, or joy for that matter.
I’m just another pumpkin head; candle
dwindling.
Waiting to be smashed.
-James Kelley 2018
His eyes cower under the weight of prescription leaflets;
Side effects are augmenting the blaze of the pyre that
Depression built. Glowing bright- static, and indifferent to the soaking of logs meant to slow the ignition.
At the very least, he can try to send a signal with the smoke.
But in the fog, there is only a fading voice describing the reasons why razor blades and gun oil seem to find their way into the same paragraphs he reads about in articles describing, not only his condition but how to deal with it.
Even his doctor told him that some people found cutting
“therapeutic”. He didn’t say any more than that.
That was enough.
And in that awkward few minutes after, while the man who spent nearly a decade supposedly dedicating his life to learning how to help people like him. He got nothing
but a side eye, and another audible of chemicals that “just might”
do the trick. We’ll see in 2 weeks.
But in those 2 weeks that young man will be alone.
Braving the introduction of a new onslaught to his mental state.
Creeping through midnight hallways. Dismantling a .40
he’s come to call the final way out.
Screaming into pillowcases, and carving into his hate of himself with the knife his father left him. Wondering how many nights he did the same thing. Because even though he didn’t get to know
him well. He knows that when people say, “you’re a spitting image”.
It’s on the tip of their tongue.
Somewhere, deep down. They’re wondering.
How much longer he’ll last.
-James Kelley 2018
Ode to breathe
With every word,
every decision and every cry,
comes a breath.
Unnoticed.
Barely noticed.
A dry desert throat, lined with thorns,
forcing each wheezing breath to keep its host alive.
And then suddenly,
a tsunami of emotions;
red fear,
orange excitement,
all distract the inevitable inhale and exhale.
Cold oxygen,
brain freeze to my heart.
Pulsing in my throat.
No heart left,
only throat.
Only a throat that won’t breathe.
A breath that refuses to dip down to the stomach,
instead, it floats.
Blocked by a swollen tongue.
Each loss of breath sends me deeper into an abyss of angst,
a place where a single breath is a privilege.
Now burning hot oxygen.
A hiccuping inhale that comes in desperate waves,
accompanied by the distinct taste of bitter-sweet tears and the feeling
of sadness, regret,
forgiveness.
Now deep down to the bottom of my stomach.
In and out, filling like a balloon,
yellow and warm.
Soothing, a pile of embers way down,
filling my intestines.
Calmly marching forward
Humming with the metronome's beat.
Rhythmic, in and out.
In and out.
coaxed forwards by the smell of freshly washed pillowcases
and the aroma of night blooming jasmine.
Slower,
in and out.
Now each breath is intentional,
and each breath brings me closer to another reality.
In and out without a thought,
an action of habit.
it's simple, it’s terrifying, it's complex.
It's necessary
One sigh to let it all go;
The desert, the storm, the slumber,
reduced to an invisible scroll of carbon dioxide.
One sigh out, it's all gone.
One sigh in, my lungs are full of new air.
Air which hasn't been contaminated by thoughts
or fears
Air that is crisp.
Air that doesn't judge, doesn't take sides.
Air that is just air.
His and Hers embroidered pillowcases
AP: Honorable Mention 2026