#caterpillars
going outside nowadays is just a game of
who can hold their breath the longest and of
looking for reasons to pass the time in your
own backyard but the gardens i see are only for
the literary muses haunting writers into submission
and for digging up holes with plastic shovels and
for wishing that i could pick up the daisies
and place them in your hair
i was in the middle of drawing a circle when
my arm quivered and now the line shoots
way past the paper and it's currently
undulating over my desk and zooming past
a caterpillar that's contemplating whether the
process of becoming beautiful would actually
make him beautiful when he already knows
that he is beautiful
i hope the god i pray to forgives me for
making all the lines i write be about you
May 3, 2021
May 3, 2021 at 1:20 PM UTC
At the valley
Of butterflies
In Rhodes, Greece
I encountered
Nature's love affair
Feisty flowers
Rainbow colors
Flying gorgeously everywhere
Beyond anybody's reach
Fluttering here and there
Once the caterpillars
Magically turned into animated fairies
Gently hugging the trees
With their soft and fragile wings
Their inexplicable performance
Has fully mesmerized
Thousands of travelers
Enjoying the splendors
Of this world
And to be one of them
I am so gratified
Jun 2, 2020
Jun 2, 2020 at 12:46 AM UTC
She walks a path with one eye open
She follows a path with one eye closed
Connecting the strings that float around
Like caterpillars
Dangling
From trees
Squirming on their silk
She crawls underneath them
Un-wanting to not disturb the dance
Until she smells the wildflowers.
The other eye closes
Still crawling the path
Luckily,
The bugs have warn it down enough
To follow with her hands and nose.
When she felt the wildflowers on her face
She opened that eye
Excitedly she pealed open the other.
When she heard nothing
She was amazed
In the distance she could see waves crashing through the wildflowers
Once again her world was absent of light.
This time she held her breath.
She laid in those wildflowers
For a long time.
So long her fingers and toes sprouted roots pulling her deep inside the soil,
Grounding her.
May 20, 2020
May 20, 2020 at 5:54 PM UTC
Crouching in tendrils of bright green grass
Two caterpillars set out on a daunting task
Hearts filled with hope to taste the fruit
Which had rendered so many full and moot
They slugged their way out beneath the sun
And laughed and talked of all they'd done
Distracted they never saw the bird coming
It swooped down much too close and sent them running
Once they were sure the bird was lost
They argued their plan and what it could cost
They were both still afraid the bird would come back
And this time that bird would precisely attack
But they knew in their hearts that they came so far
They couldn't turn back on their wishing star
So they hauled for the tree which was just in sight
When the bird swooped in and with all it's might
Bit a chunk from both caterpillars **** end
And with a mighty resurrection of power would send
Both caterpillars catapulting to the tree
Where both could feast and drink fruit mead
In a drunken stupor honey glazed thoughts soar
The caterpillars lost in slumber would snore
And in their sleep their body's tore
To be rebuilt with fine allure
They stretched out their legs, wings unfolded as well
Both stared in awe at the beauty, love spell
They leapt in the air and tested their wings
And rose to the sky to cheerfully sing
Two soaring butterflies dancing with the wind
They looked at each other and victoriously grinned
They had beat the bird and ate all their fruit
And may never had if they left that route
Mar 5, 2020
Mar 5, 2020 at 10:48 PM UTC
you will thrive in your own cocoon—
legless arthropod wriggling out
of its leaved shell, crunching
on the stem of a marigold’s shrivel.
you crawl up the leaves like they’re
the steps of a winding staircase,
circling and circling to one day
step out of your cocoon.
you are your own skin—
a wing ripped in figure
eights of formative tearing.
at the bottom of a
wind-leaned green tower,
you are torn down as if starting all
over again, away from the pace of
a hundred other caterpillar’d creatures.
you are not quite a monarch butterfly,
not yet the zebra-patterned black and white,
but you bloom in the form of a familiar marigold, a daisy’d curve—
thriving as a flower, swaying and alive.
you must visit the filial leaves and trace
their veins gently.
soon you will thrive in your own cocoon;
as those plant’d seeds will
soon leave legless arthropods wriggling—
for how would a caterpillar’s cocoon wither
without your leaves crinkling beneath it?
Dec 3, 2019
Dec 3, 2019 at 8:59 PM UTC
Two monarchs cross paths
dancing around eachother.
With words so airy,
one should know to be wary
of what will be said next.
"How does your son fair?"
"Fairs as well as yours I presume."
"Yours always had a knack for flair."
"Yours always could wow a room."
Disguised insults spoken.
Each compliment flapped away with wings
that carry the monarch to their next test.
Where they'll see which flowers they like best.
To gather in support of their queens.
"You know what would be tragic?"
"Why do you continue to speak?"
"If a son were to fall to magic,
before his heart could take a beat."
The two monarchs parted ways.
Promises rolling off their tongues
as sweet as the nectar they drank.
But were designed to attack the other's rank.
Their success depends on the other's defeat.
Conversation stalls as the monarchs fly home.
On wings decorated so finely.
Each of their thoughts seem to turn towards their sons
Just caterpillars before their transformations.
Weaving their chrysalis with determination.
Though they're far apart
the monarchs speak the same words
"I fear for you, my son, in this great world,
Our reign can never last for long.
But I wish for you to have your chance
To encapture the world in a trance
With a grace bestowed upon your wings
I wish for you to make others sing.
For I've seen the tragedy of the other king
Just before transformation
I saw a caterpillar die in its chrysalis."
"I saw a caterpillar die in its chrysalis,"
"I saw a caterpillar die..."
"My son, that has made all the difference."
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 9:43 AM UTC
Like caterpillars that rise
to the bliss of the blue skies
from the chrysalis of mortality
on the wings of the fairy butterflies,
we leave the shackles of your body
to embrace its kindred souls of dust, and
migrate to eternity’s solemn splendour.
Are we afraid?
are we afraid to explore the skies of eternity ?
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 12:15 PM UTC
Don’t preen my wings -
I told you, even though
In the beginning I was just
a caterpillar crawling through
a sweeping field of chrysanthemums
Soft, fragile
were my dreams and hopes of
admiring the robins, as they
thrash by their nearby nest
nursing their young
as the babes chirp, beaks wide open
as their mum feeds them hope
that someday they’ll fly like robins do
I hope I can fly, someday
I told you that
the night we feast on the leaves
of Milkweeds
in hopes of growing wings
like those robins
that we admire the most
Little did I know that
You started chewing on what
was mine, my wings-
are imaginary, you said
that my hopes and dreams
to be one with the robins
are farfetched
And you chewed, and chewed, and chewed
till we grew hard and tough on self-loathing
upon the realization that your
words are always the truth that
we avoid since the beginning
when we got drunk on that
Milkweed
I admit, that you chewed
and it forced me to follow
Don’t preen my wings, I told you
that time when we hang up by the
branch of the fully grown Hawthorn
along the red, plump berries
We ghosted each other
on the shell we were forced to take
Like those hermit ***** that we used to watch
by the thorns of roses, seeing them take
the burden of one another makes us
laugh
But as we sit in silence as the
darkness of our own making envelops us,
but I was, contented
knowing that darkness
is an old friend
and you by my side
is a way - a company
to spend the time
blinded
What happened?
What happened that night when
a gust of wind flew
through us, I felt the
chill of the upcoming gale
I shouted
but you are too busy
dealing with the darkness
you’re in
Don’t preen my wings, I told you
as I detached from the branch
that we used to hangout
as caterpillars
But we don’t crawl anymore
Now I am nothing
but a fallen chrysalis
waiting for those mighty
wings of those robins
I admired so much.
I got the beak.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC
I watched as your webbed nest grew
In the branch of the front yard tree
A plague of squirming brood
Not that a web of a spidering
Yours was much too thick
As I braved a finger, fear quelled
Skipped on using a stick
Strong and sturdy she held
“Are these caterpillars?”
You asked, I replied
“I think they are.”
You asked for the destruction of civilization
“You need to cut these down.”
“I can’t, I been watching them grow,
Watching this web slowly take over.
Now I see on every tree
When I’m out driving
Their villages
Where they live
Feeding off the leaves
If these are so common
Why are butterflies so rare?”
You responded with no care
“They are ugly, I don’t like them.”
I watched the rest of that tree
Be consumed
I hope that plague
Becomes beautiful soon
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 4:57 PM UTC
When I see you
I get caterpillars in my stomach
Not grown enough to be butterflies
But alive enough
To make me feel sick
The constant crawling
A thousand tiny legs
Scurrying up my esophagus
Ready to throw up
A feeling too real to ignore
And too nauseating to admit
So when I see you again
I’ll just keep my mouth shut
Live with the taste of dirt on my tongue
And swallow the caterpillars
That live in my stomach.
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 9:42 PM UTC
We plucked eyebrows
from the clover.
Caterpillars
contracting as
we pinched each one
between our plump
baby fingers,
expanding as
we lined them on
each other’s arms—
wooly train cars.
They would ripple
blindly, segment
by segment, scoot
across the floor
of the rusty
coffee can we’d
prepared for them
so carefully—
braided hairs of
grasses, flowers,
twigs, stones and all—
a crude and cruel
imitation
of their clover,
but certainly
better, somehow.
We were sure.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 4:04 PM UTC
The beginning of a story
Read with me, if you desire
At dawn a huge explosion
Filled the void with fire,
Cooled and hardened into rock,
Orbits now another star,
A life sustaining prison
Caterpillars in a jar.
A thousand, thousand, thousand years,
Then a thousand, thousand more
Passed as though an eye blink
Before a creature crawled to shore.
What miracle was engineered?
Creating ocean from a fire,
Creating algae in the ocean,
And life from muck and mire?
Was the engineer benevolent?
With a careful laid out plan?
Or is the earth a failed experiment
Where the byproduct is Man?
And if Man was unintended
What results were meant to be?
Would earth have been a better place
With just oceans, land and trees?
Maybe chemical reactions,
On this random, rolling stone
Were responsible for all its life
Chemicals alone.
Astronomic odds against it,
But the odds of Heaven are high as well.
I cannot comprehend it.
That story someone else must tell.
Phil Lindsey June, 2015
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC
I tried to talk to caterpillars once
and when they didn’t talk back I thought
there was something wrong with me
but when they finally replied I
knew
there was something wrong with me
and maybe I tried to fix it
or maybe I didn’t
either way,
the fuzzy caterpillar voices
never stopped
and I tried my hardest
to avoid the tomato plants
skirting around them
in the garden of my thoughts
but there’s poison ivy around the edges
and I’m sick of the rashes
of losing it all to a half-bloomed rose
to the promise of growth
and the reality of a frozen season
of leaves being eaten
by the caterpillars
when I could’ve told them to stop.
Jun 29, 2015
Jun 29, 2015 at 9:48 PM UTC