Long Sideboard Poems

Make Do and Mend,

Years ago we had jobs
We had fun and money in our pocket
Things were much better then
Once you could go out the door
And never ever lock it

But still so many struggled
To buy food...

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The Evening Soup, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s La soupe du soir

						To J.-K. Huysmans

(Verlaine here paints a stark tableau of working-class or peasant life shorn of any symbolic or imaginary references. Even if I see no...

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For my wife and I, coming home from an extended trip to our house filled with fine Victorian furniture, that we restored ourselves, is a wonderfully warm experience. They become like family after a while!...

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Vae victis! Her quick eyes spy out the field.
Reconnoitred, the foe's dispositions have been noted, 
quantified, assessed. The forces of order
and tidiness, in neat array, 
perfect their alignment, await onslaught.
The sentinels stand guard:
A pot of...

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A Ship In A Bottle
My great Grand Father sailed to New Zealand on a ship called the Wild Deer in 1872. I have always loved ships in bottles, and one day decided I would drain...

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the universe inside each person, the thousands of facets that are hidden in each gesture, thought, second... so many lives existing concomitantly in one, our theater of joy and horrors could only happen in this...

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37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love...

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Although I hardly gave it a thought
I didn't really doubt
our miniature juniper, a bonsai,
would survive our desert vacation.
                 ...

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A curled-up bundle of skin and hair
Adorns the window-seat
The sorry remains of Kitty
The old lady down the street

To those who saw her struggle daily
With her heavy shopping trolley
All of her ignorant neighbours
And her estranged sister...

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Household Auction
Saturday and Sunday
Refreshments 

I must sell some family heirlooms from grandmothers attic,
there are many items, jewelry, glass, lamps, and some furniture;
but the most treasured item is a mahogany sideboard quite exquisite,
beautifully carved, and ornate...

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I am wanting to look good.
It is high time that I should
The mirror in the wardrobe told me so
I am now no longer fit
Just an old decrepit git
Who lost his youthful figure long ago

My hair...

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in the corridors of this endless labyrinth every corner hides the abominable, like your last sad diagnosis, crumpled up and thrown on the old sideboard, or my pale face in the embarrassing portrait, still scared...

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The carpet was worn -  
The pattern thin in some places,
But it was a “good” rug,
A real original Oriental.
We had others, too, and a
Silver tea service, slightly tarnished, 
(Sterling, of course)
On the mahogany sideboard.
The...

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Whatever happened
To afternoon tea
Served around four o-clock
It used to be a daily ceremony

Out came a pretty cloth
From an old sideboard drawer
To put on a small table
Used many times before

On to this table
Doylies and napkins placed
Precisely...

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The air, warm, unmoved, clings to our bodies
Like an old, familiar blanket.
From the west, the light,
A warm amber brew, pours down
And is strained through the leaves of the nearby gums
It fills the veranda and spills...

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From across the park I see the house,
Open windows spilling pools of light
Onto the wide wraparound porch.
As I walk nearer, I take a look inside.

On the walls, framed paintings
And a cluster of family photographs,
Over-stuffed furniture,...

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We built ourselves a dream and sent it high into a blue sky,
Watched as the gods crushed it between their thighs-
cried as they threw it back down to earth- tiny pieces like rain,
our dream fell...

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all device features are described in the manual,
but we are still unruly in the streets,
I needed to know a lot more about fractions
that hide between the numbers one and two,
measure the exact extent of each...

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A bee sting caused her world to crash. 

It made her leap about in pain into the 

sideboard, tipping hot dogs, mustard, 

ketchup, smearing stains on mom's new 

carpet as dad slipped and fell down,...

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The Art Show 

At the art exhibition, it was about metal
craftily shaped to resemble tulips and roses
polished to mirror sharpness, and there were
trees made of barbered wire and a painting
made out of coat hangers, the...

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My stare, 
?       like a statue's -?     
                     not a blink, 
        ?                           wink?
...

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A bee sting caused her world to crash. 
It made her leap about in pain into the 
sideboard, tipping hot dogs, mustard, 
ketchup, smearing stains on mom's new 
carpet as dad slipped and fell down,...

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A bee sting caused her world to crash. 
It made her leap about in pain into the 
sideboard, tipping hot dogs, mustard, 
ketchup, smearing stains on mom's new 
carpet as dad slipped and fell down,...

Read More

Oh, faithful four-legg’d friend, mahogany brown,
That stand beside my armchair day and night,
And never let my doilies be cast down,
Supporting my ashtray and reading-light.
Thy beauty this day is not as before,
When once you were presented...

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We can mortify our flesh,
wear our sign of confession,
perform our penance,
bear portions of scratchy sackcloth
so rough, so abrasive, against our bare backs.

Our sideboard now bears such a treasure,
three posies, nosegays, tussie-mussies,
bound in such pieces that...

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