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John Prophet Aug 2023
Terrarium
life.
Small,
compact.
Full
of life.
Scurrying.
Place to
place.
Terrarium
drama.
Self
contained.
Big fish
little
pond.
Self
Importance.
Perspective
lacking.
Battles
f­ought.
King
of the
hill.
Button
pushing.
Power
brokers.
Pulling
levers.
Three
pi­ece
suits.
Mayhem
reigns.
High
and
mighty.
Little
beasts.
Perspec­tive
nonexistent.
Terrarium
enclosed.
Connor  Apr 2018
Bhakti/Descent
Connor Apr 2018
-I-

Adoration-
Somnambulists cast
paradise magic, allowing a thimble to fall
upon the floor of our private heaven
(a perfect disquiet to our loving)

We daily reveal our reclusive
sensitivities, a flash (a lowered head, laughing distinctly)
Trailing close behind German poets/path of devotion, a second summit of their passionate influence, rippling generations ago now:

(vineyards caught by grasping suddenness/placating daytime/fig & flame/false tower of Babel, ornamental ruin/he feels owed the sensations of an active spirit, to repent the contrary forces within him/myself)

-II-
                      & upon my reflection in the Cabaret of Hell,
I see a gate perched at the base of my wondrous
Sehnsucht-apparition

                    BLUE MOON                 WALLFLOWER

(or perhaps the other way around?)

Overtaken by oscillating darkness/hall of mirrors (memories)
distorted flashbulb *** and anger

until the acts become indistinguishable from themselves/doubly
******* tigers brushstroked in animal blood... essence of devour/temper/
captivation, incredible lips, pulp teeth, pure excitement all disfigured
& joyous

-III-

My azzurine goddess, faced away in
shame, no wonder why!

(hair let down in a drowsy spill of
uncertain hours, wavering in a sullen high, thickly feeling,
the immensity/pleasure renounced for a cabbalist subliminity)

Mockery of the dead dead dog/blind in boyhood/while
curious ghosts skate across the ice-peripheral of our dreaming

I feel love, and horror/a frigid hand who's body I have dissolved-
-caressing my back tenderly
bordering terrific malevolence

...Later, in another try at my own eternal return, I find my comfort brother, accompanied by an overhead
divination lantern..

pounding! At the sun skull, for you (my cherished)
are of high order
I tempt soaking the cloth,
to steer the intention

..missing black mass, indulging instead
on feverish Damascus perfume

Splash ramp
down. Flesh, wailing
vampire/poet
hidden by darkly earth to inevitably
decay by their self-solitude

(descent writhes in the milk of heartache
and cusps the night firmly in his *****
withering palms)

I refuse this fate, and
in Western-fashion
fire down the city worshipper which was once
I, too        (unmercifully so)

..burying his bones in the Scottish dirt

Terrarium hydrangeas, pale (yourIrises) lipstick daggers
slashing in the white sleeve-
red with epicurean
baptism

-IV-

Big bad wolf
banished to his hole,
I kiss the winter fruit clean from your mouth (succumbing to pinnacles of fire/your lost domain) ******* on pebbles, trying to crack through the surface
like a dragon's egg for pride
(big bad wolf is hungry)
We wear away the season, memorizing the newspapers
which are tossed carelessly to our door. Ah, the kitchen ballet dancers are finally tired..endowed to the triplicate beauty
that we individually define (takes a bit to get there)

You/I privileged to ******* Venice with our mutual
imagination,                              owing to Calvino

To crave eachother
as an Acrobat craves the

trapeze
John Prophet  Nov 2019
Reflect
John Prophet Nov 2019
Reflection.
Look around.
What
do you
see?
Are you
sure?
A terrarium,
living in a
terrarium.
Rules
laid out.
Materials
in place.
All that’s
needed.
Needed by
terrarium dwellers.
Accept
what is seen.
Function
accordingly.
Big time,
self impressed.
Power,
dominate,
fight to
survive.
Born,
live,
die.
Question not.
Do your part,
move on.
Terrarium
dwellers need
not reflect.
Need not
contemplate.
Do your
job then
depart.
The lot of
a terrarium
dweller
Amy Perry  Apr 2018
Terrarium
Amy Perry Apr 2018
Caress
The butterflies
In the
Terrarium
Of my heart.
Come see
How they
Dance for you.
How they
Flap a whisper
Of nimble limbs
And draw thoughts
Of you
For my soul to sing.
How I
Want to touch you
With my
Grazing fingers
And wings.
Ironatmosphere May 2017
I am banging on the walls
Loud, angry thuds echo around me
I am screaming for you to see me
But you tell me you can’t
You can’t see through the walls,
The walls you claim that I have built
My legs tremble as I fall
The skin on my knees curl around the gravel
And I wonder
As you walk away
Why can’t you see me through these glass walls?
Beckawecka Sep 2016
For Christmas
I would like a terrarium
So that in a small space where there is little to breathe and most die slowly and in pain
I shall make something beautiful contained within itself
And it shall never need to meet the outside world.
John Prophet  Dec 2016
Terrarium
John Prophet Dec 2016
We Live in a terrarium..
With our lives we scurry around like little ants.
We run to the store.
We run to the Dentist.
We run to pick up the children.
We run to our jobs.
Every day pretty much like the rest.
Some hold out their chest as if they’re
important.
Others think they rule the world, but it’s just a tiny terrarium.
John Prophet Nov 2023
Terrarium
world.
Where all
arose.
A tiny
place.
All
that’s
known.
Derived.
Limited.
Bog
understanding­.
Stories
told.
Narratives
spun.
Terrarium
originals.
Bubbled
up.­
Self
contained,
realized.
Finite.
Little eyes
peering
up, out.
Wondering.
Self
impressed.
Center
of the
universe.
In the
image of
God.
Infinite
creation,
merely a
mote.
Perspective.
Gnarly
little
beasts.
At each
others
throats.
Alone
in the
void.
Homunculus Mar 2015
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,

Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,

That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying  birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,

Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,

Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,  
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,

While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
na bart  Aug 2010
Terrarium
na bart Aug 2010
I used to write like I was smarter than people.
This was the ego of the sample of knowledge.

Now I write easy, because before, writing smart was the challenge, but now...




communicating  like a human seems to be the challenge.

What am I?
N Bartling
Terror-rium


We had an aquarium

A river, a lake, a sea.

On our desk—the ocean.

Our exotic fish, fished

from the very river, lake, or

sea which we have now.

On our desk—we provide forage,

food, plants, water, and fish.

The aquarium had us.



We had an insectarium

An arachnid, an insect, a butter

-fly. On our counter—the air.

Our countertop full of flourishing

flowers, fluttering wings of broken



butterflies, falling from feed, because

they drink—and we pluck their

wings, tape them to tapestries to

stare. Say, how pretty they are.

The insectarium had us



We had a terrarium.

A desert, a savannah, a floor of sand.

Our room is lit by a woodland, a

jungle, a place we’ve never been.

African violets decorate our reptiles,

all scales and shells and condensation.

It rains today—the lid which collected

our precipitation. Our pebbled floor,

formed over our marbled kitchen.

The terrarium had us



We had an arium,

and we destroyed it

to keep them on our desks,

nuzzled between family portraits and pens,

to remind ourselves of what

We used to have and

what we’ll never have

again, but at least they are

pretty, and no one needs

National Geographic to stare

anymore. We have our countertops.
...

This was read at the University of Kansas on May 10, 2013:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/
This was read at the University of Kansas on May 10, 2013:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/
Onoma  Oct 2018
Terrarium
Onoma Oct 2018
torrid mouth...

serpent-tongue

terrarium.

sleeping in a ball.

inertial bliss.

glass face.

smudgy fingerprints

of veritable touch.

leaving

spotty spider-cracks

catching artificial

light.

as uncoiling dreams

warm their blood.

it's snowing pinky mice.
armon  Mar 2014
rats
armon Mar 2014
eat terrarium dirt
**** seeds on polished wood
churn the german blood funnel
clock in; rise on the **** morning
licks her bruising shins
sleep on the creaky railing
under the vents the roaring subway

— The End —