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Best Poems Written by Mage Bailey

Below are the all-time best Mage Bailey poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Lexicon

I asked
what do you do for a living
and there was silence
I asked again 
socially
just to fill the empty spaces
this time to find a silence
before he said 
pornography with a pause
child pornography
do you mind.

Once painting a house
in trade for a much appreciated car
I pulled a bed out 
to discover 
soft 
padded 
metal rings 
chained on every corner
what are these I asked
not socially for I was really curious
I didn’t need to know he told me
hiding his padded handcuffs
deep under the covers.

Walking home one night
I found myself yelling foul mouthed 
fear filled obscenities
at two laughing boys
as they ran their car straight at me
no deviation, no variation in line
just the screech of the oil pan
the spray of hot oil
hissing onto the street
as it hit the tall curb.

not thinking
they meant to kill me
not thinking of pain
not thinking of deviations
or small deaths 
some days my naiveté’s frighten me
if I have the words.



* the vocabulary of a particular social class, language, social class….

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Everything Is Better With Butter

Everything my mother or grandmother cooked
was good for your soul
from the rich beef ribs 
braised in a new red wine
to the lamb or pork
nurtured tenderly with fresh herbs
or even the high fat meat loaf
never served often enough.

Then, there were the pie crusts
tender and flaky only because of lard
never would soy margarine
lead us to that stage of nirvana
of melt in the mouth satisfaction and love.

The fruits canned in that new pressure cooker
were thickened with pectin and sugared with happiness 
the way to a man’s heart, 
said mother’s favorite cookbook,
was through sugar, until she got diabetes.

Ice creams with real cream
Steaks and chops
roast beef with a crust of crackling fat
roast pork liberally salted
the half cracked crab mayonnaise dripping fat
as does the Lobster Thermador
noodles Romanoff, 

and those baked potatoes, fried potatoes, duchesse potatoes
all swimming in melted butter
green beans with butter and bacon
actually
bacon with anything 
especially fried eggs gently basted with bacon grease.

Any accompaniment was better with butter,
did I say that, 
from the hardening of arteries
then gangrene and loss of toes 
of legs
from the madness of high blood pressure
and blindness of diabetes
the mindlessness of strokes 
all aided by the wonderful salt that made every meal

taste…more.

My mother always said she was a better 
architectural engineer than cook.
Post pulmonary artery graft,
I believe her.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Queen of Trifles

One pint of sherry wine
says the recipe
which finds me asking
can I substitute a gallon of Chablis
or even quarts of Scotch or Bourbon 
pretend I am wallowing in my past
quelling my misery
while waving my alcoholism in Death’s face

One pound of macaroons
It says
They’ll place their calories under my nose
add pounds
more than the mere seventeen
I gained when the doctor told me not to walk
creating this newest morbidly overweight me

not trifling with death here either

One quart of cream whipped
will leave me more than sedentary
stiff
actually

and one whole egg flaunts current conventions
thumbs its nose against my clogged arteries
and helps me laugh at the second
or third
helping of those air saturated 
cream calories 
            standing tall over that
custard basted, wine soaked,
pound of Lady Fingers.

Reality is never what it seems
when trifles say they serve 12.







Queen of Trifles, The Settlement House Cookbook, page 372

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Trumpets

There you are
lying flat in that expensive box
with bronze handles
and white padding,
while just across the hill
lie your mother and father
sinking into sod
forgotten under their flat piece of bronze
with it’s hide-away flower pot.

You 
who hated being in the Army
that year of 1944,
have flags
and fuss and marching bands 
over your head
as irritants to your long wait.

Mother won’t be coming.

She faded into a box 
that sat forever in her favorite chair
				ashes in plastic in cardboard
one day gone
perhaps thrown overboard,
by her third husband,
at sea 
or in the bay
perhaps thrown into the trash
in a moment of drunken 
Anger
or flat out meanness
toward those who live.

Soon
I’ll have a little box in death
just as my step-father did.
He too has trumpets
and a rifle or two
booming out 
over the greensward above
Nearby 
his mother lies 
calling him eternally to task
for his undone and cruel life.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Forgetting

Once long ago I drove off and forgot 
my children.  They were home, tucked safe in bed.
I was far across town when I noticed
then rushed home at light-speed to retrieve them.

Now I am older, my kids have kids of
their own, and all I forget is myself
or parts of myself in that rhythm of 
things that give me dignity, like teeth, 

or shoes to protect my feet, or gas to 
get me to the DMV to pick up 
my handicapped placard, or even the
directions so I don’t get lost on the

freeway, in the canyons, or even in 
the damaged depths of my own mind.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Veracities

No one ever said anything of any 
importance during those long, lonely years at the 
dinner table.  Awkward ugly silences filled
with talk of pars of roughs of lies

as metaphor for truth
while discussing this club used in that sand trap 
or that swing always creating this slice or that bogie
as if each item offered legitimacy for life itself

instead of thinking or taking part
reality sparked their unique shorthand and
drowned out veracity as strongly as scotch 
or gin or failure or even

the loss of dreams.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Cold Excuses

The common cold gives me excuses
to doze away my days
wrapped in quilts
out of focus
book in hand
oblivious to all around me.

Even when I wake
or perform some mundane task
like writing
or taking all those pills
Sometimes things go wrong and
I feel guilty.

I take a bath
getting in is easy and I fall
with a generous splash
getting out is frightening
as I have to go to the bathroom
and go now

barely on the edge of horror
do I think of turning over
rotating
raising myself up and over the iron edge
out to the toilet
with only a little clean up
pleased because last time
I couldn’t get out at all.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Thinking

Winter snowfall offers whiteouts against 
thinking, against the multiplicities 
that grow in our brains to take over life 
in a mean way.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Growing Old

Yes, I remembered my glasses
I even remembered to dust them
before I put them on
so my eyes don’t tear all over my face
from my allergies.

I remembered my pads
so I don’t leak in public
so I don’t poo in public when I cough.

Into my mouth went my new teeth
which I hate as they don’t fit right.
My ears were carefully placed so 
I wouldn’t forget them.
I like them a lot
As I can hear what you say now.
I laid everything out on the bed
before I took my shower…
underwear pants, shirt, jeans jacket
black denim pants, and black and white
stripy shirt.

When I finished scrubbing, rinsing,
towel drying my hair until it curled,
I thought…
How do I turn off the shower.

Details | Mage Bailey Poem

Encountering a Famous Friend On the Web

How surprised I am to see you
on my monitor
grey haired and laughing
not a frown on any corner

Were you laughing that night
when I first met you 
when you locked yourself out 
and I climbed up a ladder into your
Painted Lady
with its art everywhere
or were we all just drunk

my daughter says,
Oh, look at him
how much he has changed since he fell
down the cliffs at Blacks Beach
and lost his whole face

but kept his life I say.