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neth jones Aug 2022
humidity broke
a cooling pavement littered
with Cicada chaff
Haiku version of old Tanka
neth jones Aug 2021
overnight
the humidity broke
release
underfoot discarded Cicada sheathes
litter a cooling pavement
VERSIONS

overnight
the humidity broke
underfoot
the chaff of many Cicadas

*

when will the humidity break ?
cicada jackets litter the pavements
into the night
tough breathing aggravates
thought retreats to past struggles
and envisions tough changes to come
Chris Chaffin Jan 2021
Cicadas gather on the grapevine,
a mass of wings and vibrating abdomens.
Males call out to females
but it is the grey squirrels who answer,
chattering loudly as they feast on insect flesh.

I sip cold wine and tap my fingers
on thin glass, watching and waiting.
My phone buzzes next to me;
you, calling, again.
I ignore it and turn my gaze back to the feast.
Lane O Aug 2020
Cicadas singing
Crescendo in the dark wood
Summer's droning chorus
Eloisa Aug 2020
And the cicadas’ noise became music to her ears
Throbbing, slowly vibrating
to her feeble pulse
Like some musical nymphs
invading her quietude
A sudden foray into her tangled thoughts
A hearty diversion to her stubborn gloom
MisfitOfSociety Mar 2020
I’ve been,
Crawling,
Under the dirt,
Upon my abdomen.
Searching,
For the tree,
That I will hang from
And be set free.

This skin I wear
Encases me.
When I’ve moulted.
I will be free.
I will wiggle off the confounds
Of bone and flesh
Of space and time
And of birth and death.

I was once
A nymph.
Living on the roots,
Of the tree above me.
I was so small and hungry then,
But I have eaten enough now.
It is time to harden,
This old soft skin.

I’m passing through,
This knot,
In the infinite,
Line of life.
Aligning myself with the inner body.
Squirming out of this old biology.
Going beyond our senses,
And beyond our imaginations.

Cicada.
That inner beauty is shining through,
Becoming the apparatus that moves you.
Cicada.
Listen to the rhythm of your beating wings,
In tune to when the mother sings.
Cicada.
Break this skin,
Seventeen,
In the making.

Am I,
An island encased in a bag of skin?
Or am I,
The entirety of the ocean?
Am I,
An isolated ray of sunshine?
Or am I,
The source of the sun?
Am I,
An insignificant speck on a spinning ball?
Or am I,
Something a whole lot more?

I am, I am.
I am all that I am.

Tricked yourself long ago,
The joke of the speck
Stuck to a sphere,
Spinning out to nowhere.
This body is an egg,
That encapsulates me,
Soon it will hatch,
And set me free.

We are all nymphs,
Seventeen in the making.
Come and crawl with me,
Get down on your abdomen.
We are all going to climb the tree,
And disappear into seventeen again.
Remaking an old poem of mine.
Chris Saitta Jun 2019
The cicada husk of the crescent moon sheds in cyclides light,
Molted whispers of life, spread like perfume behind the ear,
Or like silver earrings unadorned and scattered around the night-lit table.
Here too, the garden gown of Babylon lies heaped in soiled ruin,
Beaten down to sand at the foot of the bed of the Tigris and Euphrates.
  
Though the dunes are its aerial, root-bound springs,
Though the underground nymphs tend with cicala wings,
And underspurt of incessant summer song to lure
The resurrection rose of Jericho to bud once more,
In desert-faith for the hanging garden of a full moon.
“Cyclides” are more formally known as Dupin cyclides, which are geometric forms that can be ring-shaped, parabolic ring-shaped, or take other similar shapes.

Almost all cicadas (also called cicalas), including periodical cicadas, live primarily as underground nymphs until they emerge above ground in the adult form for several weeks to months.

The resurrection rose or rose of Jericho is the name for two varieties of resurrection plants, one of which grows in Iraq (modern-day Babylon).  The hardy plants can survive extended droughts and like the Biblical city of Jericho, from which they take their name, are thought to be reborn from ash.
Phi Kenzie Aug 2018
They start as a single
before moving to unity
a chorus of chortles
to those who listen for that

It’s hard not to
when they rehearse in your right ear
and perform in the left

You said that they could
lent them the key
thought about drowning out
with a little symphony

What a ******* mistake that was
August
and all the bugs are looking for love
Danielle Jun 2018
The cicada revealed itself to me.
Gray to the touch,
Streamlining itself into oval curves,
To cooperate with the summer storms.
I listened to the tangy air.
Watched as they organized their flight
And as they disappeared
With their flowery baggage
All while lightning struck the air.
I think I was reading a book that talked about cicadas and I had an urge to look them up. Somehow that lead to this poem on a topic that I would never have chosen to do myself.
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