"alligator" poems
I planted a mango seed,
Hoping?
Not sure what...
But the mango grew
Out of its context,
Poked shiny green leaves
Looking for sun and surf,
But found itself awakened
In a land of snow and cold.
Seven leaves into its
Exponential Mango growth,
The newest leaf
Yellowed...
Shriveled...
Died.
The Minnesota Mango
Meditates now...
Watered, but waiting....
Slumbering?
Planning a spring break?
Meditating?
Waiting for summer sun?
Perhaps....
Today
I heard about
A neighbor boy
Who smuggled in
A baby alligator
From the Bayou,
South and warm.
At least my Mango
Stays inside its
Crockery planter,
And an alligator jail break
Will leave him
Freezing in his tracks...
We'll see what happens
In the summer.
Dec 21, 2011
Dec 21, 2011 at 5:21 PM UTC
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.
Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In the graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams to not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulers.
On day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.
Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possess now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.
Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theatres.
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Accountants hover over the earth like helicopters,
Dropping bits of paper engraved with Hegel's name.
Badgers carry the papers on their fur
To their den, where the entire family dies in the night.
A chorus girl stands for hours behind her curtains
Looking out at the street.
In a window of a trucking service
There is a branch painted white.
A stuffed baby alligator grips that branch tightly
To keep away from the dry leaves on the floor.
The honeycomb at night has strange dreams:
Small black trains going round and round--
Old warships drowning in the raindrop.
8.9k
When his eyes first fell upon her
She was choosing avocados
In the fruit and vegetable aisle.
And he watched how her thumbs lingered
On the base of the alligator pear
And pressed, maternally.
He feigned interest in the cabbages
Whilst sensing her delicate architecture
Through his peripheral gaze.
He thought that somewhere,
In real or imaginary life,
They would soon bathe together.
And when they did,
They soaked for years in secrets,
Details suffusing through their lips and arms,
Water-hole satisfaction and moonlit deserts
To make them feel they might have transcended cabbages
And be pervading a rhapsodic realm
They forgot their friends watching in greenery,
Subsumed by each-other,
They felt no need
To live in a world of relativity and apples.
Their love-traced sphere tightened around them,
Until it ****** at the edges of their skin
And wailed when they parted.
Tighter it grew, elastic dug into their humid thighs
Contorting their once harmonic bodies
That used to fit like crosswords.
And they each became ugly to the other
As the seconds ingested their perfection
And they bickered like flailing urchins
In a deep sea soiled darkness.
Decisions were made and paroxysms detonated
And they were taken back by their
Fungal friends with tissue offerings
And ethanol.
Time passed, and memories were binned
Periodically on tuesdays
Until neither knew the other
And they would pass in the supermarket
With no more than a quickened gait
And a silent thud in each ribcage.
But neither could buy avocados.
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 12:18 PM UTC
Is there room for context at this table?
We can move some dishes and shuffle chairs.
I’ve checked all four legs and they seem stable,
but choosing a placemat is like splitting hairs.
I notice the candle’s flame is getting dim,
and my fingers pirouette in the puddles of wax,
my hair needs a cut but I settled for a trim,
and I’m donating my salary and spending my tax.
I’ve told you every thought in my head,
except the ones that matter the most,
the facts that scald my cheeks to red,
now they’re burning up like charred toast.
I’d promise you whatever you ask for,
and I’d drag myself to deliver each time,
but I’m ignoring the truth at my core,
and I’m confessing to you in mime.
Sit across from me with crossed legs,
see magnets becomes our eyes,
“come closer together” both begs,
but we’re determined and polarized.
There’s no world existing around us,
and there certainly is no group,
you listen while I ramble and make a fuss,
over the death of Lipton’s Alligator Soup.
We turned Heaven into a Hell,
we took a skeleton and made a shell,
We dragged our nails down the walls
scribbled ephiphanies on bathroom stalls,
and silenced a story we could never tell.
And all the things that have driven us apart,
in truth have only made us stronger.
and my love you are actually my heart,
I won’t question it’s beating any longer.
If you’re stuck with a choice
you should flip a coin in the air,
then listen to your mind’s voice,
‘cause your answer will be there.
When it comes to heads or tails,
you already know your favourite side,
you’ll pray for it as the coin sails,
ignore the outcome but absorb the ride.
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 12:10 PM UTC
Ye evar 'eard oda' masta' inna swamps?
E'a man hund wid 'is hands. . .take down a gator inna fide?
Yeah ah-boy, he a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
Issue you'a hundin' widout a ricel? You's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
Ain't nah trapping, nor'a line, no kedjewel, or time,
-jussa' body inna swamp you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
Swimmin' inna wad-eh got skin made-o' armah,
-inna mud, inna grasses, eh-no teachin' it in classes,
strike wid juss a knife inna hand he's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
Issue you'a hundin' widout a ricel? You's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
No ricel, no Glock, no light out innna night,
-jussa' body inna swamp you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
If you's can **** widout a ricel you's a Bone Alligator,
Bone Alligator
Bone Alligator.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 11:07 PM UTC
She loved the catnip
Straight for the hip
She was like an alley cat
With a worn out welcome mat
Her tail rang a chime
And every tom stopped on her dime
Petting was blunt
For all the toms went for the hunt
Affront of the beat
Two cats in heat
Nights played out in false hearts
Howls were off the charts
Brief was the moment
Lost was the fulfillment
Days sagged later
A same old story, bye alligator
Much to the chagrin
Of the alley's spin
When her baby was born
She was forlorn
Like a woman out of wedlock
Dealing with tom's, full of croc
My sister, I watched you fall
My words to you hit a blank wall
You played the game
Without a flame
Sadness as your son bleed
Now years later he followed your lead
Logan Robertson
8/09/2018
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
When the streets are made for nothing but thinking
It's the weight of the water that's caused our sinking
It's a loss of feeling that's made me lighter
It's everything around
That makes me neutrally bound
The only writers block is the writer
It's the kind of thing that makes a man with a pencil and paper a fighter
Like the paper's jumping up at you like a, like a alligator
But it's hard to chalk down all the mistakes, cause when you're trying so hard you're just being fake
You just gotta learn to let it, let it all flow
Show your all and let em all know
Just how you're feeling that blow, even if it means one or two bad lines, that's how you feel though
Cause life ain't a poetry book
It's all the points in between the pages that we missed
It's all the things that make us factories of emotions,
A crook with feelings creeping through the motions
Turning pages, trying to **** it all up like the books eroding
Don't you talk to me about feeling
Naw you ain't know what you be dealing, everyone's got there own **** you can't tell me mines to be concealing
See, I'm a material void of expressionism
Cause I told everyone what I feel, not for the sake of impressionism
They chose to see inside and learn a lesson without all the criticism
Everything I've learned is turning me into a crustaceans fossil
Hard to the shell but brittle to the touch, and I preach my **** like a god **** apostle
You make me feel from the inside and I'll be your crutch, but you're gonna need more than a god **** rock hammer to open me up
My words I mend to make up for what I conceal
But as I sit here thinking about how I feel
It's gonna take more than this to make me heal
Now let me dilute as I talk to the god inside my head and make a deal, something to end the pain and suffering I have concealed at the expense of everything real
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
if my lips are red.
I had avocado (it does not agree with my body).
Stroke me-
but proceed with caution.
if my lips are read.
Dickens was ******
through my nail-beds.
and is sprouting around my veins.
“Honey” me-
with the dew from his tongue and his alone:
i will open myself up freely to you,
like petals spreading from a bud-
only less graceful.
and not as Chaste.
quite ****** actually;
when my cells are fighting against a forbidden fruit.
- the alligator pear of mexico and birch pollen -
and my tongue is soaked in English verse.
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 12:49 AM UTC
Alligator! Alligator! Alligator! Alligator!
Bite me whole and take me to space.
Staple my **** and spaz my face,
Plaice defrosting in the refrigerator.
These things all seem to come together,
Throw them far apart will be for the better.
I hate this ******* verse,
‘cos it all rhymed from Alligator!
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 3:57 PM UTC
with bark like alligator skin
the pines reach up up to the sky
eighty one hundred feet they fly their needles
as if to say
here we are O Wondrous One
take us
do with us as You will
little shake-tail squirrels chitter above me
as if to say go away! this is our pine
you don't belong here!
I reply
I do belong here the pines have told me so
I do belong here
the wildflowers have said so
and the creek has burbled its assent as well
I belong here I repeat
I will stay here among the pines with alligatorskin bark
and the winds singing through the wood
and the creek seeking the sea
yes I will stay
and I will roll in the feeling of belonging like a dog rolls in herbage
and savor that I belong I belong here/now
at last
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater
2009/2014
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 10:52 AM UTC
WE MAY NOT BE THE PERFECT PEOPLE
NO
****
WE'RE ALL ****** UP
BE WE WILL STAND UP FOR EACH OTHER
CAUSE WHO THE **** ELSE WILL?
WHOSE GONNA TAKE YOUR HAND, WHILE YOU SOB ON THE GROUND, AND PULL YOU UP?
FRIENDS, THATS WHO WILL
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 11:00 PM UTC
Giant blue alligator
in the night sky,
white teeth gleaming
like
sharp moons.
Chomp, chomp, chomping
everything in its path.
Big teeth grab onto the things
we hold close:
Love, laughter, life.
All gone.
Oh, alligator,
haven't you eaten
Enough?
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
you have a hundred secret names & I am the world’s worst shoplifter. you know what I mean? it’s like it’s 1992 & we’re so happy for cigarettes & de la soul & lightning bugs & **** like that. sometimes I wish you knew someone exactly like me who wasn’t so obsessed with your freckles. they make me hurt like alligator teeth. I want you to be all fists & bruises like tiny sparrows on my face. I want you to be a handgun muzzled into my gut.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 12:40 PM UTC
while you were singing in the churchyard
i was sleeping in the ***** barn
beside a withered picture of an astronaut
and a long beard filled with street secrets
while you were burning up in sainthood
i was screaming into a melancholy leaf
wearing sweat on my miserable *****
and a liar's grin on my face
while you were murdering your wife
i was milking this dream for all the light
and i thanked god on bended knee
saying you're a turtle dove in an icebox
while you martyred yourself into the ocean
i carried you with me on my road to freedom
like an aligator stomped hard by a mockingbird
or a mermaid shot full of antibirth tablets
Feb 19, 2012
Feb 19, 2012 at 10:51 PM UTC
On this tan cutting board
You earn your corrupted name:
“Alligator pear.”
The serrated blade
Punctures your hide—a balloon
Under a pin’s pressure,
Shades of green furling out.
I’m sure you’d prefer
Vegetable status if you developed
Self-awareness; or maybe
You’d withdraw from knowledge
Of the human type.
I trust my cooking songs—
Slowdive and Chaka Khan—
Can’t hurt you anymore
Than your predestined obliteration;
Mastication via your domesticators:
It all ends in fertilizer.
(Where you began!)
O, avocado, phantom “fruit”
Born of the self-same Life Source,
Schopenhauer’s Will,
My transient enjoyment of you
Within this vegetable salad—
An Achaean enclosed by Trojan blades—
Suffices for a life of sanctity.
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 1:48 PM UTC
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,
And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the young alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, comes flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.
3k
The writer is
bound by the Oedipus
cauldron stewing can't relax
--all women are mine--
but this doesn't stop the bloating bubbles.
But the writer did not invent Wonderlandia
--no double-sided tape or wrong number or sloppy poetics.
Wonderlandia was born from the ***** of the stars
--our fathers,
and the void of space,
--our mother's womb.
the writer
was busy staring at the girls that walked by
ditch diggers for renovations on Euphoria.
The hippies are disappointed in this current Wonderlandia,
or they would be.
Their dreams had dirt in the mud,
they walked upon. Our Woodstock
is celebrity interviews,
reservations failing,
political satires--the last ring of change
sold at five cents a word. Period.
the writer
says it understands and writes:
"Sticks shaped from elitism
rare.
Usually a vibe too brittle,
breaking in battle.
The bass thundered robins.
The snare's firearm stabled the swift,
electrifying beat.
The brass was addiction
to the crowd's ears.
All before the elitism was born,
a symphony was constructed in the drug's head."
the writer
knows about D. A. Levy and his revolution,
we all felt that voice, so the writer replies:
"Did you hear about the John Lennon poser
waving his gun on TV?
While listening to the Beatles, you
sit and watch the vagabond cry.
He says, "Counter-culture is dead, entombed
in a metal casket.
We need a new flame. Those watching TV
get your hands out of the basket."
the writer
walks with grandma Alice
by lakes,
thrilling dementia
"Don't tell me what taurine
and caffeine can do to my heart.
I can have alligators in my rib meat
eating away at bone marrow.
High? That's your question?
Hi...I am a float
in a useless pond
bordered by malnourished trees.
By the love of hell you better not
fertilize those ****** trees
because if I die
the alligator of my ribs
will dine and take your ****
girlfriend straight to the vet.
I thank you for asking though."
the writer misses
the syrup in the tree completely
I am not your beatnik
or future idol--burn your 1970's classrooms away.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 6:49 PM UTC
pap
pap
pap
I can't breath
my stomach is bubbling
like hot cheese
on an fresh oven pizza
my legs feel skinny
I want to lean into a wall
the floor looks spinny
the wainscoting is squint
my vision is blurry
because...tears?
Why is there worry
in my middle?
I feel fine,
my mind is sound
this fear isn't mine
what’s it doing here?
What is this panic?
Fight or flight I understand,
but this is plain manic.
I need to go
at top speed
or maybe hide?
Either way, be freed
from this distress.
pap
pap
pap
Push someone over,
human shield that ****
reduce my exposure
to hyperventilation.
Shallow in,
shallow out,
I feel akin
to sprinting Mufasa
Pure distress
acute discomfort,
a proper mental problem. Nonetheless,
it’s strange to foresee the diagnosis.
It’s as if I’m watching
from someone else’s skin
as alligator clamps are botching
holding my physiology in.
A sunburn on my innards,
a paperweight within
you’d think I’d feel pride
for finally having something wrong.
Hypochondria being accurate
the years of inventing doom,
suddenly isn't aberrant
those fabrications had substance.
Or maybe all these thinks
are symptoms in themselves
after sifting through piles of shrinks,
maybe I can finally get some help.
pap
pap
pap
Look at my pretty framed prescription,
doctor certified, messy handwriting,
this will take some decryption...
don’t worry, take your time,
this pathoreaction won't go away.
I’m told desolation
is a temperament set to stay
until after eighteen simple payments.
I’m inclined to reject treatment
of drugs that fiddle with the mind
I’d rather stay present,
continue inconsistency.
I would like to try narration,
see how many kilometers I can recall.
I can deal with frustration,
so let’s talk about my childhood.
Public transit without destination
sends me on a revere,
an absence of crippling desperation.
I've found peace before
it was between yellow poles,
in the outside pocket
of a backpack on parole.
It smiled at me quietly.
pap
pap
pap
Apparently, it’s the small things
that help you deal with anxiety.
Jun 23, 2013
Jun 23, 2013 at 6:10 AM UTC
In the South of Florida
In the middle of the swamp
There's a little dance we all do
Called the Alligator Chomp
It gets your arms a flapping
And a tapping of the toes
Right along side the cedar stump
In the middle of the boat
Form your fingers into gator teeth
Then slap your hands out front
That's there's what we call in these parts
The Alligator Chomp
The swamp gets rather lively
It's a scene like nothing else
As the gators keep in beat
With the slapping of the tails
Never stop the arms from flapping though
That'd be your last mistake
Instead of the Alligator Chomp
You'd become Alligator Bait
It happens all to often
When someone falls off of the boat
They sink straight to the bottom
Into some alligators throat
We surely do miss our friends
As do their wives and kids
We ain't seen hide nor hair of them
Since their last gator dance
So if you find yourself in Florida
In the middle of the swamp
We'd love to have you join us
In some good old fashion Alligator Chomp
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 7:51 PM UTC
Past altered states tests postive and subtle
******* So and so's teeter Paleolithic après time puddles
And submit terrible philosphies
Ashy stubble ticks politics
and sacrafice to peer approval sacralige
Test probably appears stable
Top patriarch's able suddenly to
Pop above submerged tables possibly
After, something tests patience awkwardly
Stumps tarot practioners and *** testers poor application sterily
Topology plain, astrology scorpio
Torpedo power aptly strikes to pedal antlers sour
Take particular appointments
Stop testing please apply sorted
Terror power and sexless torn pigs
afterhours pen and store tips, plow.
Alter simians testosterone, pow!
As scientists type papers about sexing tasteless past alligator snouts
testing partly after science takes party alliance south to pawn army
subtle tipped passion. artsy.
Start these.
pick atoms smarmy
Tally past all sentences take pride
As stencils test pestilence. And sigh.
The previous alterations simply tried.
And didn't work, hence the present
Path lit incandescent.
I'm looking towards the east waiting for positivity to peak
You're turned backwards nostalgic for something that'll never come repeat.
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 5:02 PM UTC
Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
2.5k
pieces of flotsam
soak and float on the paper,
jetsam thrown to lighten
the load,
or goad,
the alligator, away
the guttural noises, sound like harsh
commentary the closer the
gator
is allowed to get,
not wanting to look over the shoulder,
but stop in for biting remarks,
the gator's teeth are so large and famous
they have names and voices;
"punctuation or punctures, I can help"
"point of view tch, tch, tch"
"your grammar needs work"
"doubt you will finish"
"no one will read IT"
"you will never find the right word"
"is your audience a six year old"
"borrrrring"
"what a croc"
"are you enjoying what you are doing?"
"successful writers are all published"
"you call that a sentence, keep it up and it will be a death sentence "
"how many tenses can you misuse in a paragraph"
and these are the names of some of the smaller teeth,
the molars, are more than a mouthful,
have polar names, that would leave anyone cold,
even the bold,
and shall not be put in print,
they bring out the PTSD,
imprinted for eternity, by
the gator which
comes at the sounds
of splashing, flailing, and failing,
as the pounding of the heart,
the deepened breathing,
as the ink from
the pen, unfiltered,
leaves nerves and veins exposed,
while leaving to find home, a safe haven, a storybook ending,
away from the gator's keen sense of
overt criticism, intended to gut,
and eviscerate, cutting remarks,
putdowns to hold down and under,
the piece that IT is trying to tear off
while spinning or shaking the head
side to side, which is both NO!
and to bash the will, the self-esteem, into little pieces
of me...
and my worst enemy,
my internal, infernal editor,
with the voracious appetite for self-defeating
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 12:08 AM UTC
In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp'
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the ****** British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a coming
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to running
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We looked down the river and we seen the British come
And there must have been a hundred of them beating on the drums
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing
Old Hickory said we could take 'em by suprise
If we didn't fire a musket 'til we looked 'em in the eyes
We held our fire 'til we seen their faces well
We opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em
Well they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down
Then we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC