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Andrew M Bell Feb 2015
I see you at my door,
huddled against the night
in your Kermit-green jacket
and purple pants
like a refugee from a rainbow.
Patiently waiting
for my enfolding arms,
to spirit you upstairs
for flannelette passion
which makes us feel safer
than the safest ***.
Copyright, Andrew M. Bell. Thanks to the Valley Micropress, an Upper Hutt-based international publication in whose pages this poem first appeared.
Jill Nov 2024
Those days when you just can’t wait to go to bed.
Not to slump down onto it in yielding surrender
or fall into it in tears, face first and meat red,
but to gently pull back the pillowy quilt
and the sheets, with tiny blue flowers,
flannelette, like a fresh work shirt,
so that when you slide in carefully
and make your cave in the sheets
the hug is work-arm strong
and reminds you of soil
and wheelbarrows
and gardening
and building
in the sun
as it sets…
and rises…
open eyes
still hugged,
you stand lightly
then soft pad to warm,
dark, sweet, pitch-bitter
coffee, and lifting the mug,
you pause before the first sip
of bliss, flooding deep in waking
flavours from magic beans grown
in ancient Ethiopian forests, noticed
by folk when curious goats turned zestful,
becoming a helper for evening prayer, to allow
hard work and intentional presence to earn well
your tiredness, so that you just can’t wait to go to bed…
©2024
Jenny JF Apr 2016
NaPoWriMo 2016 - Day 21 - Poem from a minor character in a fairy tale.

Oh Grandma

Well m'dears,
I never fancied a care home, or
meals on wheels.
With a shrivelled up lump
Of God's knows what.
Delivered twice a day.

But I'm blessed.
With family who
look after me,
in their own way.
My daughter sends her girl
every couple of day with a basket full of "goodies".

I don't know who is more feckless mind.
Her mother who dresses her up
in a stupid red cape.
Or the child who can't follow
simple instructions.
Go straight to grandma's cottage.
Do not talk to strangers.

Anyhoo, I lay there,
my stomach thinking
my throats been cut.
When I here a knock at the door.
I remind the idiot child
the door is on the latch.
My hips too dodgy to be getting up and down.
This suspect looking character
saunters in.
All big eyes, big ears, big teeth
Now I'm old, but no fool
I says "you're a..."

Before I've got a word out.
That great slathering beast
Gobbles me up.
Not so much a by your leave
No one respects their elders these days.

To add insult to injury.
He starts cavorting about
In MY nightie.
Now, I'm not one to judge
What a slathering beast does
Behind closed doors is his own affair.
But it was my best flannelette
He ripped the buttons right off, the brute.

Half an hour later my granddaughter,
Little miss take your own sweet time comes along.
Now I've mentioned she's not
the sharpest ax in the woodshed.

Well she gives Mr Wolf, my cake, my wine.
Then, after his washed that down, THEN, she gets an inkling something MIGHT be amiss.
I can hear all this from the cavernous belly of the wolf.

Oh grandma what BIG eyes, ears, teeth, you know the story.
Is she blind?
His a 6ft humanoid wolf.
In drag.
I'm 4ft nothing.
I've bounced that girl since she was a babe in arms.
Ok, perhaps once or twice I MAY have dropped her on her head.
But to not recognise her own grandmother.

Well long story short
There is a scuffle
A local arborist is passing.
Sweeps in saves the day.
Gives old wolfy a taste of cold steel.
Felling him from crown to toe.
I flop out like a wriggling infant.

I've come to see it,
as a rebirth.
A second chance of life if you will.
I'm carpe dieming and seizing what fishes I can catch.
I've sold the cottage, me and Sven the wandering arborist are shacking up together.
People say it's shocking
That he's only after me for my money.
But it beats feckless family or sheltered accommodation
Plus I've got a nice fur stole
Much more fetching than a Red Riding Hood.
Julie Grenness Oct 2019
I was asked to create a holiday,
What about a pyjama day?
We would not get dressed at all,
Stay in bed, hide and stall,
Sit around in flannelette,
Stay in PJ's, don't get dressed,
In fact, don't wash or cook,
Do mental slumming with ****** books!
Feedback welcome.
MRQUIPTY Oct 2016
deposited as a pose
she wrapped to
he

discarded in rags
flannelette under
polyester

fallen like leaves
from one
tree

— The End —