Long Housecoat Poems

(A call for the lights to dim as a single spotlight illuminates the legend Judy Garland, who is center stage. She wears a faded housecoat as her beautiful, brandy brown eyes hold a lifetime of...

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'Twas our Christmas Eve dinner; we all had sat down
at the table to eat. Grandma couldn’t be found!
We children were fussing; Dad rose to his feet.
shouting, “Where are you, Ma? We’re ready to eat!”

When from...

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JESUS by Joan May Donnelly Ellis 

 Jesus, You are the Brightest Light of Love
 A hearth fire ablaze on Christmas Eve
 A child's uncommanded hug
 The flicker from a candle's flame
 A Hand whose...

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~Harridan in a Housecoat~
Four small children sent for care as their mother was taken so ill
No father could they reach for them so they were sent off at someone’s will
In the night taken from their...

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              The Red Velvet Christmas Robe
 
Oh, that special Christmas, unlike the ones today.
When little girls wore such beautiful clothes.
Decades before jeans...

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A cacophony of cats in my life.
Not one or two, but fifteen!
Each,who along with joy,
brought sadness and strife!
All shapes and sizes with grand
and most loving personalities.

The Maine Koone was the smallest
of all.
Maxine was pedigreed and...

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~ NEGATIVE MINDSETTED  NIGEL~




Alas~he only can envision the hopeless!
With nary an answer ahead.
His land is for him,only of the  following feckless,
With no soulful breath, as if he wishes indeed, he were already dead!


For breakfast he...

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           Poet Visitors in the Night



Asleep, I was, under my new forest green 
velvet and Sherpa throw.
With loving stockings to...

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Ordinarily I lie in my bed
mentally grasping for any slender thread of slumber
which I can possibly find to cling to!
But there was one time -
a morning of early April -
when rising from bed, I felt...

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I looked around the crowded lobby in the Ritz Hotel in Washington, DC.  I was a little late in getting there as the plane was late in arriving.  Not a problem.  I...

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Allow my words to be like magic,/ my hands and fingers like inspecter gadget!/ 
Caressing every inch of your smooth brown skin./  Your mind locked-in./  Each syllable is 
like the sweetest taste of...

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Sometime before I was old enough
to be this vessel of seawater reflections
          she began to dissolve.
Husband dead, son revolving
around one woman after another.

I did not notice
the...

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She has a tumbledown deck, a creaky rocker.
Dandelion seeds carry memories
from one neglected garden patch to another.
She’s not old, but her wine has mulled,
the sun has scoured her face into a tracery
of twilit paths.

There were...

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EASTER MORN – from the chap book,
From Childhood, by Dave Austin

Wake up! -
    overnight – soft bunnies
    yellow chicks
    crawling the bed covers -
Brain  ...

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Pictures sent to us on our PC.
Sometimes are wild as they can be.

As seen in pictures that we just received.
We could see them, as we retrived.

A mystery woman, I have to admit,
Was in all the...

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Sometime
before I was not mature enough to notice,
she began to dissolve.
Husband dead, son revolving
around one woman after another,
moving away from her fading presence.

Aware only of the ebb, and flow of her care
or interest, Distance surfacing...

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Oh, that tender excitement of being a
very young girl!

Wrapped in a red velvet housecoat with white, soft, fur.

Vermillion slip-on slippers with fur that matched.

The gigantic flocked white Christmas...

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...He gave a curt nod, then with his partner,
got in his car and drove out of there,
Owen sighed, then nearly leapt from his skin,
seeing Laura standing on her front stairs.

She wore just a housecoat and...

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Colorless Confessional


It was as if time had resisted capture
hid its most precious commodities
averted its eyes lest you see into its soul
withheld all but the extremes of color

Everything became a negative reflection
black on white, white on...

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Today when passing my mirror on by
I saw an image that filled me with fright
'Twas mother looking me straight in the eye —
Wrinkles, grey hair (on my face in this light!)

Seeing I'd aged to such...

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Up with the sun, put coffee to brew
Inside my mouth, some sticky night goo
Standing in housecoat with fuzzy house shoes
Starting my day, as always I do

Down with a cup, feeling like new
Stepped onto my porch,...

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After the street cars left, but before
the mill closed down, this was
home.  A mix of dirt roads and
brick buildings, so close together
in town, like children under a
blanket, huddled for warmth.
The farms so spread out,...

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Waking up this morning,
Gazing out the window,
into a pink and orange abyss.
A brand new day.

I wrap myself in the warmth
Of my housecoat,
Coat my throat with a tepid, fluid
Sip of freshly made coffee.

I reflect.

I feel so...

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I don’t think she ever drank
gin in the morning.
Perhaps she should have.
Her oatmeal stuck
to your ribs
and anything else it touched.
Her apron,
the ultimate multitasking tool,
wiped up after….
well….
everything.
God, she looked beautiful.
Housecoat,
inverted socks for slippers,
a cigarette smoldering
on the...

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Today I tasted joy.
If fact I tasted my way through the whole day.
Not full course offerings or overindulgent dessert platters, 
Just a quiet time, my housecoat, china mug and me.
My husband was here somewhere.
Occasionally he...

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