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describe what the bed is like in this room...

why so hard to think

of them arms,legs, hearts

coiled tighter than these

look at that picture

centime plus 2/18/2002

THE BED

It is squat with its duty. Back unbent. Legs rigid with purpose.
It contained the enterprise that conceived a young name. A child.
It's wood is stained dark, dark; it is ancient.
The window which the sun and moon pass by on silver and gold carriages
is the eye through which this bed contemplates morning.
I see the headboard gleam. Blue chequered counterpane tucked neat as ducks' plumage.
The hump of pillows could be a Saxon funerary mound. Or a pregnant woman, sleeping.
The bed supports a column of dusty air. Above that a column of sky-blue
beyond the slates and the town's smoky enterprise.
This bed is the idea of sleep. It is a deck for dreaming the impossible.
Where the hand is held that could not be held. When the bed is entered
it is as if going into a kingdom where new laws apply. There is no passport control.
You are only asked to be contained. The bed contains you. Your dreams
trust its four legs; its snow blanket of goose-down is a fall of snow
that warms you.
This bed has heard ring doves cooing and thought of its soft white cotton sheets
wrapping children. It has felt such a weight of backs and heads.
Brown slippers wait beneath it like obedient puppies. Dust lifts.

The morning sun. A rug and floorboards. The bed could be a boat. A barge.
Maybe it will sail the pitch waters of night. Its harbourage could be the moon.

FEB.02.Connor Jordan

Thanks for this Susan;~)

You found a bed and breakfast shoreline, Cape Cod -

one of those charming, friendly, antique-filled inns,

with the requisite elegant dining room,

cozy tavern, and blazing fireplaces

on the premises. And then, there is that porch -

a view of the ocean, time to walk the beach.

In our room, our bed constructed from earthy

woods, salvaged from the old barns and warehouses

of Vermont; with milk-based paint on its headboard

creating creamy colors. Andean dyes

from walnut leaves drip over cotton muslin

coverings that slip then fall into shadow

and sun, brushing the room with linseed oil.

Wow........I am probably not supposed to comment here.......but what a thread!

I have read it three times.

Thanks all, and Susan, for the springboard.

from our Dehaven House

after almost three centuries

built of field stone

from Pennsylvania fields

posits present pictures

where an upstairs bedroom

as the rum steeped drink

the long line of men

following steadfastly

as his own tired mount

[The Blue Bell Inn, built in 1766, is West of Philadelphia on Skippack Pike which runs out from Germantown to Skippack and then on to Pa Dutch Country. I 'lived in' (one can never lay claim, even with deeds, to such a place) Dehaven House, a field stone house, 14 rooms, 7 fireplaces, started in 1706 and added to over generations. It was a money pit ;-) but it was an experience of a lifetime to live in the middle of the history.]

thin as old woman's bones

much like the crosses seen

dismissed cautionary signs

waited like delivery from pain

in a potion of softnesses we bathed

each covered in the other's insecurity

i drank all that you gave

and never fully came back

it was a dangerous bed

hang in there for a couple of days. if no one else posts something, i'll post your second entry as well - i only did that once for Lee, because i wasn't getting any response.

but other than that one time, i post one piece per poet each page of Intuitions.

I'm sorry. I forgot that you compile these. I did the second one because the first was not really descriptive of the bed. Felt as if the words copped out. Tried again.

The never happy syndrome.

This is the nightstand
next to my bed.

My bed is simple,
empty
and
sumptuous.

My bed craves
the warmth
of
another.

I keep a loaded
gun
under
my
bed.

Should the need ever arise.

your poem just might make a good sequel to SPK's.

'ceptin' what might be under that bed. ackk!

omygod!hahahahahahahaha

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