"acorn" poems
the Silence became
like an old lesson learned
a broken heart intones
a voiceless song
resonating a refrain of Silent echoes
in a voice that never heard a word
yet spoke so clearly ... lingering
in realms of subtle ambiance
soundless remnants
stacked neatly as
building blocks;
another brick in a wall,
already too tall to see beyond—
growing like a bunker
without a sense of safe harbor
as the Silence became
time and space,
a stillness beset the melancholy air
as if a world without song
foreboding an unpredictable storm
beget vestiges of broken windfall,
reticent leftovers hushed after a gale
s i l e n t l y
an acorn fallen — became a mighty Oak
a wind-broke twig — became a weeping willow
a neglected child — became mother nature's son
the Silence became
a blind prophet —
in its voice held forth
smatterings of truth
and undertones of an unrequited
fool’s hope
the Silence became
a strong, abrupt rush of wind
uttering voiceless exhalations of breath;
a hovering dawn mist
befallen after a summer storm—
surrounding all in all
bedewed in a feigned peace
... the unabated sounds of silence
become
Jesse Stillwater ... July 20th, 2018
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 11:44 AM UTC
Oh, Acorn Park
Do you miss us there by your heart?
Where are your old trees and bench
That beckoned us way back then?
Now you've a stone surround.
No matter ~ new lovers will come
Your spring shines with silver spangled light
That is best when week's end is nigh.
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 1:53 PM UTC
I apologize to the girl I pushed down accidentally when we were playing tag.
It wasn't my intention to make you fall.
I apologize to the girl who asked me out in high school who I left without saying a word.
It wasn't my intention to lead you on.
I apologize to the guy who always hated me in middle school.
I must have done something wrong for which I cannot remember.
I apologize to my mother for being born.
It's obvious after your first you never wanted a second.
And if you did, you never acted that way.
I apologize to my friend's parents for everytime I walked downstairs and caused the dog to bark.
In the middle of the night when I had stomach pain and needed a warm rag or some pills from the bathroom.
Whenever I went to get something out of the fridge to heat up or go outside to get to work.
Whatever the reason I felt like a burden to the point where I would often go without food and just keep the silence.
Sometimes I would leave the house and get back hours later so the tension wouldn't be there.
I apologize to the kid in middle school who always had other kids saying nasty things about you behind your back.
I never tried to help in anyway possible.
I didn't know how or what to say.
I apologize to all my relatives who have passed away who I couldn't even shed a tear for.
I apologize to many of my friends who I haven't spoken to in years.
I have a hard time speaking my mind.
Thinking that everything I could say would just be a waste of time.
I apologize to all the plants I forgot to water.
I shouldn't have tried to take care of anything when I have a hard time taking care of myself.
I apologize to the pine tree.
That grew from an acorn I planted in a planter box that grew to be three times taller than me.
And you inevitable had to be cut down because your roots broke the planter and made a crack in the garage door.
That was my fault not yours.
Apr 26, 2021
Apr 26, 2021 at 4:27 AM UTC
rich soil
fleck with a bit of black
dark chocolate
parched summer soil
glossy chestnut brown
unvarnished oak
mahogany flecks
apple pips
varnished cork
dessert palm tree
flecks of acorn shell
his eyes
the most beautiful pair
of eyes
she has seen
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 3:55 PM UTC
this is a letter to all of those
who stumbled upon my dull eyes
and poetic words
i apologize to those who participated in
whispered i love you's and dreams shared
for watching from afar as your cared for me
a half of a whole
you held my body, empty
my soul scooped out of myself
like an acorn squash during winter months
nothing left but the skin
and my soul out among the wildflowers
searching for the missing parts of me
searching for my home
i placed my body in your hands
letting you sip the wine that made up me
drizzling you in honey, in sweetness, and in light
for i knew you would protect me
scrawling poetry into the broken bits
the unfiltered bits
you would cause me to feel something on cold winter nights
i am sorry that when my soul stumbled home
bringing home the bits that were missing
that you were left alone
standing in the dark under streetlights
unsure of where you went wrong
broken promises and dreams in your hands
drowning in your own love
suffocating on your sunshine
cursing yourself for loving too hard
i am sorry for hurting you
but thank you for loving me
even when i left you lonely
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 3:38 PM UTC
Amongst the raging tempest storms,
Dark clouds covered the world
When acorns fell;
Blown hither and thither,
Dented, battered, and broken,
Fields of acorns;
If just one could take root,
Nurtured by hopes and dreams of the many,
To grow from seed, to sapling, to mighty oak;
One acorn could shape the landscape forever,
Changing the views of many,
A memorial to fallen acorns.
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 10:03 AM UTC
Acorns lying by a tree,
plenty there for you and me.
but please be careful what you do,
for acorn legends all are true.
Pick up only one or two,
take them gently home with you.
Put them in a secret spot,
not too cold, not too hot.
Watch them shake, and hatch, then giggle!
Acorns are the eggs of squirrels!
Jan 9, 2011
Jan 9, 2011 at 11:38 AM UTC
EVERY LITTLE FISH CAN SWIM
1893
saw the beginning of me.
I was born
in a railway carriage
between somewhere
and somewhere else
in an Europe that
would change with the map
the lines redrawn
by War
some unpronouncable
European nowhere.
A barrel *****
was playing a tune that
would soon be forgotten
on the station platform
when Mamma and I
arrived
at our final destination
the train breathing like a dragon.
Its whistle
cutting through time.
Later I would remember
a little wooden acorn
at the end of a string on the blind
tapping against the window
as if it were admonishing
the dawn demanding
entrance to
the room when I was three and
pulling the blind up and then
pulling the blind down.
"Shadow people"
thrown against the wall
would not survive
a morning.
All night they chattered
amongst themselves
prowling the room
that was holding me.
Debating whether to
eat me now or later.
"Beings" merely made from
the edge of a wardrobe or
a chest of drawers
the brass **** at the end of
my bed where clothes
thrown over a chair
made them come alive
I believe
in them until
I was nearly seven.
Too scared to ***
in the porcelain ***
wetting the bed
to the anger of Mama.
And now 1963
will more than likely see
the end of me
as I am
and the mind
that created who I was
offers me these
fragments of insignificance
that amount
to being a life.
I laugh as Noël
Coward warbles
in his shellac'd world
forever singing
"But I can't do anything at all
but just love you!"
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 5:57 AM UTC
It was as it had been, but the
Ring of oak
Shattered,
What was locked behind
Ventured Forward caressing
Bark,
Leaf,
Wood
Was tainted upon its departure.
Hollow structure, a leaf now skeletal
In a moment decayed from life,
Did touch upon depressed oak.
And like ash it was pollen of death, in
What once stood tall, faded into oblivions halls.
All but one did fade to the winds,
As freed upon the world old evil,
Not one noticed, never seen,
This oak of strength from which acorns
Did fall,
Sunken beneath the ground,
Nurtured by the nature, now scarred
Upon black seeds
Corrupting,
Tormenting,
Stained
Is the ground, but these majestic little
Things grow, sprout from the ill ground.
Where tainted now roots invigorate
New growth, the evil is herded upon
This ancient ground, where many had fell,
Now new ones take the places of old,
They are a beacon of strength as that which
Was loose now in this ring of oak.
Buried for time once more for each one
That falls, another acorn will fall to take its
Majestic place,
The old ring of oak, canopy of secrets hoping never to be told.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 7:15 PM UTC
I'll paint my ceiling lilac
Make it twinkle with flashlight stars
I'll build a cardboard spaceship
We can fly to our orange peel mars
You'll call me your astronaut
As I pull you up to the swirling sky
Explore every marshmallow whirl
As I fall for your acorn eyes
Our bodies will be constellations
Limbs and breaths intertwined
Our souls are dot-to-dots connected
Heartbeats rhymth aligned
I painted this dream for us
Used a palette made for you and I
Every brushstroke will be worth it
You're my favourite lullaby
Apr 13, 2018
Apr 13, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
And then I too
am part of the silence
that casts its post-sunset stillness
throughout this swamp white oak's great spread.
It seems as though even the hive of honeybees
and the nearby nest of baby birds
have stopped to admire
the feeling of the world
tilting on its axis; sinking through space.
We all gaze further upwards,
those bees and birds and I.
And nestled in the remaining twigs above,
is the shockingly finite dance
of the leaves... of the stars.
The shadows that hang from the top-most branches
cast their way down around me
and coat their way all over the ground, making it
easy to forget the height—
the ultimate suspension. Because
born within my skin
is a swamp white oak,
stretching its branches through the
grey matter in my mind,
over-taking and over-whelming.
At the end of it all is me:
a tiny little acorn laid
by an impossible evolution
of people into trees.
Every cell becomes leaf and
the heart a listening ear. Amongst
the chorus of the frogs,
the owls, the coyotes—
the chorus of the woods around—
is that shift
so revered.
The shift of the Earth.
The Earth tilting
on its axis.
It’s time to admit that the maps and
man’s little green boxes there,
are nothing but products
of a continually
diminishing temper... showing
that when this swamp white falls,
it won’t just be a wood
that’s finally left barren.
It won't just be a body
left emptied and charred.
Please, I think, as the bark gets flimsier
and flimsier
beneath my feet. As the wind gets fiercer
and fiercer
howling in my ears. *Please. Let this lone acorn
standing here
sprout into something.
Let a swamp white oak
be seen.*
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 6:27 PM UTC
In my graduation t-shirt,
and it fits right,
she finger-and-thumbs
the switch on my desk lamp.
Lights on.
And I'm getting too thin.
It shouldn't fit right.
"No, no. I want it dark," I say.
"Tell me what's off limits."
Her eyes, big and wet with bongwater,
wash over me. I'm pebble. I'm allowed.
"Why?"
"I want to know what's off limits
so I know where to set my goals."
I believe in love, even at first sight.
Just not the eternal kind. And I love
her when she says things like that
because I created her. And when
you create, and the creation reaches
perfection, all you want to do--
destroy. Hammer to head. Crowbar
to Parkinson thighs. *What's off limits?
What's off limits? What's off limits?*
I can't stop.
Before I respond,
with adolescent delight
she tears me open by the pearl snap.
She lifts her arms up.
Surrender? No. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.
Body bare and body scattered,
congregate at the inosculation
of her trunks. She's a sycamore.
I'm the wind.
Wavering.
Leafless.
Pot-addled.
And the breeze doesn't do it.
And the seasons don't affect it.
Gale force insanity.
I climb her branches.
Beard wet with her.
She wipes her off.
I climb her branches.
I can't stop.
Grows into me.
Trunks entrap.
Elevated, she.
And I, well, I
stumble.
Hit the wall.
Concrete, everything.
I press her against it
so hard, she turns to waste
and passes through.
I press her against it
so hard, I can't stop.
Autumn acorn fingertips,
a river emptying to ocean,
and she asks,"Is this off limits?"
as she turns me sharply
and my back collides with the wall.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
pounds her head into mine.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
claws my face.
"Is this off limits?" she asks as she
licks to heal.
My will says yes.
My flesh says no.
I can't stop.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
Ticking the days off was exciting
Yet became a living nightmare
She’d had an invitation to the ball
She now worried how to get there.
It was the End of Year Fairies Ball
Where the best of the fairies went.
She’d got her gown, her fairy shoes
And had made her rose petal scent.
She had chosen pale green for her dress
And had sewn buttercups to the hem.
Little golden flowers cascaded down her
With tiny leaves still attached to the stem.
She had a buttercup upside down on her head
With golden thread under her chin
Daisies draped from her arms held tight
By a tiny golden wrist pin.
She looked adorable but so did the others
They all looked like a story from a fairytale
Nerves sometimes got the better of her
So the breathing slowed down, a slow exhale.
The buttercup fairy looked divine as she did
Always and mingled, taking her time
She ate raspberry pips and drank blossom juice
And had her first sample of apple wine.
She sat under an acorn and arranged her wings
A robin provided a pillow for her which was nice
Before he knew it she had fallen to sleep
But was she about to pay the upmost price.
She had missed the best dressed fairy time
When all fairies were judged by the chief elf
Instead this tipsy little fairy fast asleep
And was sitting on a very expensive shelf.
She awoke with the sound of little bells
Announcing the winner of the best dress
She tutted at the robin for not waking her
She as angry because now she was in a mess.
She now wore a face as long as a fiddle
And did not care about anyone or thing
She had prepared for this day since the
Beginning of this year’s spring.
The moral of her story don’t nestle
Next to a naughty little robin with fluffed chest
Otherwise you fall to sleep all afternoon
And then end up seriously depressed.
The buttercup fairy found some comfort
In a super little bar under a mushroom
And smashed her way through too much wine
Which for now ended her doom and gloom.
Staggering her way home in the early hours
Singing over the blackbird’s morning tune
She perched herself under an oak leaf
And slept until the new light of the moon
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 3:34 AM UTC
I wish I was an acorn, To be protected with tough exoshell.
To not care how high the world is, To not matter what heights I fell.
I wished I was an acorn, to be secluded in the ground,
Bathe in darkness, I’d be lost. Persistent sunlight; me she found.
I wished I was an acorn, young potential packed in a nut,
Consumed by mother Earth, I’d sprout life within her gut.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 11:40 PM UTC
Using my fairest hand
I wrote your name on a scrap of paper,
And slipped it into my wallet
So it would be next to my heart
All day.
So that I could carry you with me
To venerate
Like the bones of a blessed saint
In a casket.
I opened up my box of relics
A testament to loves
Unloved
To hearts broken
To lives unravelled.
An acorn that did not grow into an oak.
A fossil from some petrified forest.
Mocking my broken heart
With it's unthinkable age.
The note, scribbled,
The perfumed scarf.
The poem.
The coaster.
Things.
To remind me
As if I could ever
Forget.
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 5:26 PM UTC
296
One Year ago—jots what?
God—spell the word! I—can’t—
Was’t Grace? Not that—
Was’t Glory? That—will do—
Spell slower—Glory—
Such Anniversary shall be—
Sometimes—not often—in Eternity—
When farther Parted, than the Common Woe—
Look—feed upon each other’s faces—so—
In doubtful meal, if it be possible
Their Banquet’s true—
I tasted—careless—then—
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World—Did you?
Oh, had you told me so—
This Thirst would blister—easier—now—
You said it hurt you—most—
Mine—was an Acorn’s Breast—
And could not know how fondness grew
In Shaggier Vest—
Perhaps—I couldn’t—
But, had you looked in—
A Giant—eye to eye with you, had been—
No Acorn—then—
So—Twelve months ago—
We breathed—
Then dropped the Air—
Which bore it best?
Was this—the patientest—
Because it was a Child, you know—
And could not value—Air?
If to be “Elder”—mean most pain—
I’m old enough, today, I’m certain—then—
As old as thee—how soon?
One—Birthday more—or Ten?
Let me—choose!
Ah, Sir, None!
3.2k
*An Acorn holds the life of an Oak tree
Eggs cradle the life within it
Mother nurtures progeny in her womb
Hearts are the abode of Love
Dreams are the seeds of future Realities*
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 9, 2014
May 9, 2014 at 3:20 AM UTC
Compressed into this
Tiny space are the future
Boughs, leaves and flowers,
Random determinism,
Forrests from a single seed
Apr 30, 2010
Apr 30, 2010 at 10:37 AM UTC
The pen, they say, is mightier,
but is it keener than a knife?
This brittle blade of insolence,
unleashed to lash at life.
'Yeah, innit, Bruv, he got right up in my face,
cos my phone was out in lesson time
and he called me a disgrace.
Like, so, whatever, mate,
I told him where to go,
trying to tell me English,
while I'm textin' my new hoe.'
The pen is not mightier,
it is tarnished and obtuse,
a vision of a different age,
wrought blind from its misuse.
Its sapling song of innocence,
split south across the grain
and cast across the classroom,
yanked up and lobbed again.
'Do you get me, Blood?
He was pointing at a seat,
expectin' ME to sit there,
as if it were a treat.
I told him where to stick it
and called him out a clown,
I **** this one-way death pit
as I'm walkin' round and round.'
The pen should still be mighty
and not a strangled stream,
that's crawling up an incline,
like an M. C. Escher dream.
Its muddy banks lie dormant,
both acorn and an oak.
'Cut that **** you KEENO,
let's **** off for a smoke.'
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 4:47 PM UTC
Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,-
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,-
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,-on a hawthorn leaf,-
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.
3k
The boy poet
blushed
and asked the pretty girl out
she smiled and said
maybe
the boy poet grabbed a pen
and scribbled this
before tock could follow tick
it was real quick
Maybe
is a giant oak tree
filled with many acorns
and each single acorn
drops and exclaims
yes,
yes,
yes
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC
--With antlers
Breaking; broken
We're all-
Wonder; wandering
Through the glass
Forest where trunks
Reflect regret--
And leaves cut mistakes
Into scars.
We are deer,
Eating barb-tailing
Grass.
But I'm sorry
Antibiotic acorns
Aren't working anymore.
My pupil's seep,
Mercury in return.
When that feeling--
Attaches bed-linen
To stapling sharks,
They begin birthing
'Acknowledgement'
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
High up above the open, welcoming door
It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,
The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
Summer had run like fire through its veins,
While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,
And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among
Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;
But every now and then broad sunlit days
Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.
Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us
It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;
But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!
An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back
By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue
And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
Among the flashing waves are two white birds
Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy
At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,
Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up,
Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,
While the wet drops like little glints of light,
Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,
Or skimming some white crest about to break,
The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop
And play with ocean in a summer mood.
Hanging above the high, wide open door,
It brings to us in quiet, firelit room,
The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,
Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,
And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.
2.8k
Sagaciously gloaming melanite eyes
Resonating euphoniously ululated memories;
The shadow land of illusion
Rising out of the ash of an acorn
Wallowing in the blood of wars strident refuge,
Gnomic relics errant of an
Enigmatic almondine heart
Offering an olive branch upon an
Altar made of oak.
A ruminantly nostalgic requiem
Sedititiously traversing the firmament;
Ineluctable reprobation
Ineffably manifested,
The doves of meta-morphosis
Embracing the silk garments of love;
Sound minds cacophany
Devouring the delusional devout
Veridically inspiring ascendancy
Decieving serenities whisper throughout
The dominions audaciously
Rousing ambivalent fears.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 10:27 AM UTC
Little acorns, fallen by the tree
anchored into soil.
You had just begun to grow,
when mother wilted.
The comforting shade of her branches, gone.
The support of her vital roots, gone.
Yet you remained.
Little sapling, snatched at by a predator, tooth and claw. You held tight to the soil, setting shallow roots,
clinging to the earth,
rich with remnant memories,
ghosts.
You set your branches up, grew quickly, reached out with earnest energy,
to shade the acorn below you.
Gnashing teeth, fangs of a predator. Violence, a flash of red lust into your branches, pulling, ripping.
Yet, for your acorn, adopted, your remained.
Through the jealous filter of grief, you remained.
Through the threat to your own body, you remained.
And even though Mother is gone,
you have taken her place.
Your roots winding deep into fertile soil, finding your way through paths
she first dug,
you find your strength
as protector,
anchor,
life-giver,
to the little acorn beneath you.
The comforting shade of your branches, remain for her.
The support of your vital roots, remain for her.
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC