Shore Leave
A day bright as silver,
the women in black like boats
swimming in the sea.
On shore, I walk like a captain:
I roll, not able to stand.
Poems on the topic: woman
Poems on the topic “woman” on Poets.by.
Gain and Ache
Gain and ache are the greatest guides.
We lay with women, being pretty handsome.
We went to bed, being somewhat ill,
afterwards disputing for and against
extemporary prayer.
The river, again
I live by the river without a word
but my poor worn gun
time is a woman I burn to serve
Handheld
In bed I talk
to my hand
in rising hopes of going out
with the fleet hand of a woman
a hand ready to run
home to the chest.
Walking Blues
woke up this morning with my shoes
gaping at me like open graves
the tapping of rain on the roof
made a rhythm I could almost feel
this isn’t walking weather
and my feet need to move
restless for no good reason
that bivalve in my chest keeps opening
a mussel gluing down its good foot
so it can rock in the current
I want to go where the river goes
to the sky or its best mirrors
which have the blues too in at least
three different ways
all of which call to me
in the melisma of a mirage
Floating World (Ukiyo)
In the demimonde they say rules
don’t apply; even the law of gravity
has been suspended. You can laugh
from the bottom bounce of a check.
You can float. Women are more
than ornamental: their arts are art.
A sailor spots his ship’s figurehead
on her way to a meeting of the board.
The glass ceiling hasn’t been shattered
but turned into a floor: like sea ice,
blue, translucent, prone to cracks
and groans. It will hold your weight
until spring, when the old order returns
with its dark fins and foreclosures,
its strip poker, its house that always wins.
Nature conspires with nurture again
Bibliophile
All morning in a book—
and then heat,
a woman,
my yard.
I found the earth
as it is now: enlarged.
My Jewel
Life Can be a Bitch
A sick deprived Bitch
It gives me this rare jewel of a woman
One of the rarest of her kind
Makes me fondle her
Makes me love her
Makes me see her priceless worth
And then it grabs her from me
With ruthlessly cold fingers
Whispering,
''she is not yours to keep
she belongs to another''
For I am not hers to own
I am not hers to keep....
* * *
Three thin monks, southbound
pass a street hawker sporting
that same shade of orange.
Old man shakes his head
but does not move over,
his thumbnails, talons.
On her knees, she sings
at the church door, 10 pm;
is He still at home?
Heat on my left foot
toes crimped against the dresser,
enough for tonight.
“Live in the moment!”
…well, except for that clogged drain
back in my shower.
The madwoman!
Echo
Lying on my left side, body bared
Waiting for the cold creamed sensor
Feeling my heart beneath the hair and flesh
I smelt the perfume of the girl,
The warmth, the softness of her arm across my chest
And like an excited adolescent thought
She had her breast pressed against my back.
I giggled inside, fantasizing
The girl taking a fancy
To my broad, hairy, muscled chest.
I smiled at myself, my silliness, my innocence
Happy that even the imagination
Of the touch of a young body could rouse me.
In her soft voice she asked me after my health
About my BP, cholesterol, and the pains
All the while I was thinking how nice it would be
* * *
Some woman
Somewhere
Who almost
Nobody knows
Knows more than
Almost anyone is aware
She must exist
In small towns
On unlikely streets
Or next door
to your memory
Which childhood friend's mother
Was she
Wiser than your own
Some lady that you would recall
In unfamiliar kitchens making jello
Loretta's Monday
She glides
In grey and worn red
Alone in her height and
With her silence
Untouched
Touching me.
So old in her smile,
Defined for years by
A confectionary fall
By the open wound now
Of a sister
Her world
Where I have separated bangs
And my name is Judy.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: