Best Sewing Poems
i'm just getting started
unraveling the threads
of this tattered lonely soul
sewn so long ago
apparition's crooked hands
grapples the rusty needle
as she unsteadily threads the eye
...flashback to childhood years
where a mother ties the loop
of darkened threads
cleaved from her own spool
pierced by torment
of each aberrant stitch
i am sealed in the seams
bound, unable to break free
as i bleed through the confines
of my soul's weary cries
my blood spills crimson
through shadows cast
of harvest moon
as she rocks unsteady
upon the walls of mind
beneath the hum
of unsung lullabies
watching as i undo
each crooked thread
sewn by her hands
unable to baste
with death's bony hands
she pricks through my heart
with soulless glower
as i disenthrall
the last threads
i stitch her deep
within the weaves
of memories
and poetry
...i'm just getting started
September 18, 2019
Just getting started poetry contest
Sponsored by John Hamilton
Serging through life, I whipstitch, weft, and welt,
But always, my thoughts are pick-threading.
As stippled patches of emotion rise and fall in me,
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
Just too many scars.
The mindless mind stresses itself through mental snares,
I waste away beneath it all, piecing and pondering.
Where the struggling soul and pleating body meet,
I seek significance in life’s lucid-lined layers.
Confronting my inner fears as an owneress,
Time leaves its cursed mark in starched stitches that cut.
Each moment experienced is like a closing zipper,
My calm exterior ridges are often rough, ready, and ruffled.
A life full of scars.
While unique experiences blend like transient ombre shades
My essence feels like a needled complex knit.
Memories form patterns from life’s four-patches
Challenges scissors cut are like shredded sharp diamonds.
Yet more paths diverge along life’s shifting chevrons
I strive to fit somehow; this square is what I do.
Yet my world stands out like tri-recs blocks
Creating stars and pineapples to fight fifty-four forty.
Scars that are hidden and visible, surface and deep.
Like trapezoids, I sense those oblong obstacles loom
Worth or less by my own limited gauge, I measure.
I pray each day new chapters begin casting on
While others exhaust, reaching their bind-offs.
I do seek a pattern master, and I need to pray for one.
I contemplate constantly along selvages of thoughts.
They hang like dangling tails…
I start to visualize my purpose slowly seaming.
Look as I whipstitch, weft, and welt through life, serging.
As I graciously and sagaciously test life’s many swatches,
I devote my life to the Master Seamster the…
Healer of scars.
Sewing machine long idle, gathered dust
inside the room my sister liked the best.
Old fabric pieces lay where they’d been left.
I let my hand upon soft velvet rest.
I lit a candle like she used to do
nights of our youth when she’d gone there to keep
her mind off her young groom who’d gone to war
and not returned. Sometimes I’d hear her weep.
The war years seemed like only yesterday
when mother , then my sister, passed away.
All those years she’d sewn for pay, heart-broken!
She’d chosen - with our mom - alone to stay.
My fingers lingered on the velvet meant
to have been worn by her so as to spark
romance with her lost love. Unsewn it lay.
The candle sputtered, spent, and all was dark.
April 28, 2018 for Viv Wigley's One nine and sixteen poetry contest
(total fiction except I have a sister who loved to sew!)
In the corner of a dark closet
Lives an old, old sewing box,
Scratched and painted blue on wicker,
With flowers on its top.
It silently holds a lifetime,
Of buttons, thread, hooks and metal snaps,
A few colored ribbons, needles, and
Half inch elastic that also snaps.
Little pearls from a baby's batiste,
Bias binding from a bib, an unused pocket,
Folded left bits of printed calico,
Rolled lace from a prom dress formal.
Remembrance of a date, school skirt, a dance,
A child learning how to sew,
A very creative mother’s love,
An old sewing box of a long time ago.
So and Sew
I sew
it’s so
So Fine
nimble
thimble
Lost Pattern
quilted
wilted
Chain Stitch
lost link
pants sink
Running Stitch
pants torn
forlorn
Stitch in Time
mended
splendid
Long Stitch
I sew
so slow
Prickle
needle
bleedle
* * ° * *
In
Mother
Moon's armoire
hang star-gilded
gowns of indigo
silk, heady with
cedar and
sandal
wood
* * ° * *
A Beautiful Collection
Artistic. Brilliant colours. Dainty embroidery.
Fragile golden hues in jewelled kaftans.
Light multicoloured needlework on patchwork quilts.
Rich silken tapestries
Unusual vestments with xstitching. Yarmulke & Zucchetto.
Make your mark
Swimming with the sharks
A needle prick
Sewing machine, long idle, gathers dust
Its graceful frame a filigree of rust
Needle, naked pointing to its resting place
A symbol of the toll all life will take
Sunshine streams surreal through silent space
Past the broken stone that was a window case
Beams of sunlight scatter wildly in their blame
Illuminating memories of pain
Love's last hallowed hiding place reviled
Beneath the jagged glass where once they keeled
To ask a witless god for sacred grace
And pray for revocation from this place
The battles ended long ago with no peace won
Lifeless soldiers buried neatly in the sun
Stars and crosses left to mark the empty space
Where lust consumed the last of love's embrace
Daylight sinks below the hollow gloom
Of lonesome darkness strewn across this room
The war years seemed like only yesterday
When history played out its terse cliché
Spirits stalk the dead to join in sin
'Till candles sputter, spent - now dark within
The stars give up a silent last cerise
And darkness fills the emptiness with peace
written 2018.10.22
Sewing machine, long idle, gathered dust;
it's now a desk which seems a breach of trust.
Clothes made at home had always been a must.
Married in the "dirty thirties" hard years
for dust bowl folk who stayed despite the jeers.
Dependence on social welfare brought tears
to one proud farmer. Bills he could not pay,
he chose to join the army straightaway.
The war years seemed like only yesterday
rememb'ring those who fought that war in vain.
Soon he would send his sons to war again;
his daughter, a skilled seamstress, caught the train
to work sewing bags at a powder plant.
Burning her candle at both ends, my aunt
never came home; but she had made her mark;
the candle sputtered, spent, and all was dark.
Lines 1, 9, and 16 were written by Viv Wigley
The mythical fates had a dubious task
Sewing the cloth of life for men
“How did that work?” you ask
Well, get three sisters who sew
Give each one a specific job.
When done, down the tubes you go.
Anyway get the picture…its destiny
Clotho sews the cloth of life
Putting in all the events for a person
Joyful time or existence filled with strife
It was then that life could improve or worsen
Marriage, children, oops…divorce, of course
Married again, children, oh no….divorce
You forgot to remember…don’t use force
Or, you’ll wind up in the pokey like any dark horse
Lachesis the much important second sister…
Her job was vast and excitingly dire
The name was a tongue twister
Yet, imagine the names of all the men
Placed in a big jug…she’s been hired
To draw a name---uh oh…what did you win?
A one way trip up to angels or down to be fired
No matter ready or not, you’re officially a “has been.”
Well, are you ready for the third little lady?
Just so you know Atropos means death
Now let’s review…here’s a dry run.
Sewer, drawer…so what’s left?
Someone has to use the cutters
This third gal chops it off---life’s cloth
Word is she does not even sputter
One whack and a snip—it’s like flame to the moth.
Best advice…be careful when you refer to fate
These little old ladies take offense…uh, oh too late!
How to
Capture
Between pages
Or pixels
Or caught between
Stitches
Do memories catch
Between the threads?
Does love
Linger in the ink?
One can pray
In the silence
Where laughter once rang
Find the steady beat
Of a sewing machine
Where your heart used to beat
Trying to sew
Myself back together
If I just keep
Sewing
From the heart
I can bind
My heart up
Fit pieces together
Here is where it tore
When Elisif’s laugh was lost
Here when Phil’s light went out
And here, this big one
When my grandfather died
These old stitches are fraying
Starting to come undone
Here the slapdash job
From when Jackie put a gun to her head
Here from Steve being ripped away
So suddenly
This bit holds up well
For an eight year old’s
Handiwork
And here a spot needs darning
My heart is worn
It needs
Many a repair
But I have little time
For the careful stitching
Of so many holes
Yet they wont
Close
On their own
So I keep busy
With fabric patches
Sewing machine, long idle, gathered dust
in Grandma's loft I found, the week after we
laid her to rest next to her slain husband.
He was only twenty four yet a squadron leader
when his spitfire was shot down over France.
Mother was only three at the time and my uncle
a babe in Grandma's arms. How awful yet how
familiar those sad stories were then.
The war years seemed like only yesterday
when Grandma would tell us of Grandfather's
gallantry in the face of an evil oncoming foe.
Those stories now came flooding back as I
rummaged in the attic of her cottage with
a candle to guide my way, tears smarting as I
imagined myself as Mother then, missing a father.
The candle sputtered, spent, and all was dark.
Toothpaste
soap
candles
Matches
three dimes
small yellow rubber ducky
Dog treats
diet pills
red, white and blue buttons,
assortment of threads
rickrack
scotch tape
needles
missing bracelet
pincushion
measuring tape
Nails
stickers
temporary tattoos
Sewing box gone wild
The old sewing machine
Stiches noisily
The separated will be joined
The torn will be patched
But
Not the hearts that are apart
But
Not the luck and glory that are lapsed