"aphids" poems
Springs ladybug lands
upon the yellow flower
aphids scurrying
mkt
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 9:29 AM UTC
I saw the best behinds of my generation destroyed by muffins,
strudel hydrolyzed aphids dragging themselves through Chicano streets at dawn for tickets to fix,
bagel headed tipsters yearning for flagrant connection to the sorry dim sum macarena nights ...
*apologies to Allen Ginsberg
Dec 24, 2010
Dec 24, 2010 at 8:58 PM UTC
on beds of fragrant sights
through charms of sourest deeds
it rains away all spring
all when my heart bleeds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i know not who i'll be
or what i really am
an immemorial soul
in nimbler storms which swam
among the crowd of flowers
so sickeningly sweet
would lie the boldest aphids
upon the roses feed
my feathers trod on winds
challenge His modest grace
through marching fleet of life
in ****** shadows laid
with semblance of a calm
in grooves of wilderness
in arms of ecstasy
which life stands to confess
but how shall these two feet
embark a lonely trip
perhaps find love so still
as dew on roses' lip
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in faintest of moonlights
on dewy grasses seen
inscribed upon my palm
is meaning of my being.
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 8:20 AM UTC
one halcyon summer, when
we strung ourselves out on fat couches, wilting
like thirsty, overheated forsythia, one
hundred or more crimson carcases found themselves
turned upside down on my floor. ladybugs discarded
from the designs of nature. i swept them under the bed.
i promise, when you die, i will not flick you out of sight
with a careless index finger (there will be sorrow, outrage, and flowers
picked clean of aphids).
Jun 16, 2011
Jun 16, 2011 at 7:35 PM UTC
I know what it’s like to be heartbroken too
it feels like a bomb
like the flowers that have been eaten alive by aphids
always sitting with you, uncomfortable,
a notch tighter on your belt loop after a heavy meal
or someone taking an unflattering picture of you and posting it all over the internet
you are ugly to yourself now,
and quiet because of it
I lost my clarity after I ran up the hill and rolled down it, clumsily with joy
it must have fallen out of my pocket or dripped out of my eye sockets
as they teared up from the pollen
I ask myself
what is true?
but it’s harder here, when I can’t be certain if there’s a ghost hanging around in my frontal lobe or if it’s just the pulsating fear of being kicked to the curb
that’s what being heartbroken is like -
always feeling like you’re being kicked to the curb for no good reason
it’s like,
what’s the point of getting up in the morning? I’ll make breakfast and then somebody will hurt me again
the point is
learning how to decipher the difference between apathy and acceptance
you’ll get there
redemption doesn’t count or feel at all rewarding if everything is easy
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:27 AM UTC
i.
last week you were sitting by your window watching the sun melt into a thousand shades of darkness and you thought of her. you still remember how she always smelled like lavender and roses and peonies and freshly mowed grass and rain - a living breathing walking talking singing dancing growing but ever so slowly dying garden. you suppose she must've smelled like cigarettes as well, since she went through a pack a week, and the whiskey she laced her coffee with and the teabags she used as toothbrushes, but all you can remember is the garden of her mind and the green of her thumbs that planted flowers in-between your ribs and turned your blood to a breeding ground for aphids. a single lotus flower can live for a thousand years. a single memory can live even longer.
ii.
on the train ride to paris she didn't think of you, instead she counted all the prime numbers from one to one thousand and kissed a boy with oceans for eyes. you came home to an empty house in february, a receipt for valentine's day roses still fresh in your wallet. all of your belongings were still there, tainted with the memory of her - the set of calligraphy pens she got you for hanukkah, the sweater of yours she would always wear in the mornings after *** while drinking coffee and filling out the crossword. the endless number of bobby pins she'd left in your bedroom were still there, littering your floor like land mines. you found the flowers she planted in your veins tossed in the trash, and you spent hours pulling each petal from its receptacle and deciding that if she'd ever loved you she would have chosen something gentler than forget-me-nots to sew into your veins. the seeds of a lotus flower must be cracked before they can be planted, must be broken to allow the water to seep into them and breathe possibility into their veins. your heart is cracked, have you blossomed yet?
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 11:07 PM UTC
The concrete depresses with each small step I take in the Arco parking lot
I fold this song up into my pocket and my schoolwork starts to rot.
Your hair hangs loosely by your eyes as you ration out my shots.
I wanted to remind you that your nails give me goosebumps, but I forgot.
Your legs laced up and shining in oil are sculpted out of bronze
Lying naked in aphids as we strive to be shameless among your father's front lawn
You are sunlight disguised by a sheet on a clothesline
In the middle of meadows made of wheatgrass and starshine
How can something so beautiful share a species with me?
A shopping cart overflowing with grace given away on the streets for free
My jeans are turning into strings of flayed fabric under your yellow moon
I'll shower you in music, if you promise to abuse it, within my crimson room
Lock me in my comfort stall with dividers emitting petroleum fumes
Break down all the walls with your desperate call as your temple, I consume
From within towers where light is devoured, against all odds, I bloom,
For a skeletal mastery with ultraviolet eyes crawls into my tomb.
You are a symphony of epiphanies for a boy made of concrete
In the midst of a city of asphalt and batteries.
You splat on my canvas and blast from my headphones
And if you opened me your name would probably be on my bones.
Keep the covers at bay
So I can admire your frame.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:55 PM UTC
This is my oasis in the fog.
I was baptized in these waters
and I don't even believe in God.
But now;
my sanctuary is tainted barely
as you throw your rocks in my pond.
After three or four the ripples still,
can't even touch the shore
like an infant child reaching for their feet for the first time.
Clutching ... Grasping ... ******* ... Gasping ...
Searching for the lady bugs to fight against these aphids.
How could say this isn't where the rain hits
when I've never heard a single one of my songs on your playlist?
...Memories fade like a fragrance...
Or so dreamt the cool cat that slept
on the warm hood of a suburban in his suburban hood.
Born in a summer haze and died just the same.
**Will you come sit by my side at the piano
and criticize the way I turn the pages?**
Because kings are rulers but can't measure a thing,
all you can do is sit and count your treasure in vain.
Heavy lies the crown but don't let it weigh you down.
I feel oddly godly in this mortal skin of mine.
Sure I bleed like a human but my colors are true.
Not crimson red or royal blue.
Hell I mean, they aren't even cowardly yellow or envious green,
rather transparent; unseen.
Now I know how it feels
to splatter and shatter
like raindrops on the windshield.
Too intense and immense I can barely take it,
I quickly recoil like the foot that breaks forth
from the warmth of your blanket.
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 3:58 PM UTC
i threw the stone and it went however far
and my arm grew tired; puckered at the rotary cuff
like a cannon ball in a poached egg of oak sap...
i threw the stone and saw my breath thread
through the placid brilliance of immovable calm.
i watched how the aphids were gone
and kept a journal in braille and short-hand
in Kubla Khan's Garden.
i longed for the valleys i had never swept away
by descending from such heights
as i pondered the yonder god
of a misplaced
dream. so exhausted,
i stood in the damp muck
legs apart, straddling -
odd rocks and thin grass.
i wavered in the stillness
of ceased motion
and tarried in the Calliope
of throbbing in the Sun.
a fawn in the furnace
of a loving
lost.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 6:50 AM UTC
I need you to roll me a cigarette,
little girl. Give a twirl.
Flick the Bic and spindle your hair.
Will-O-Wisp in every curl.
Princely visions laced within your
every exhale - sparkle fog. Alive,
thoughts so eager to dive and weave something vivacious
Memory’s mantra, colony hive.
-
We were born in a bog, favors never come easy.
Just stepping stones and play things
for the spoiled, the renegades, and identity seekers.
Impressed not by treks of rat kings.
Perhaps a crag will open up with a yawn
and swallow down towers of sheep-men.
Digesting their white picket vaults in the core.
Maybe I’ll get some sleep then.
-
Void Water throne room;
on golden stools they sit.
Not shiny chairs to squat on,
but the stool they crave to ****
We lay in watch - cackling, amused -
As the chamber corrupts its own brood.
Together, we cast jubilant tones.
Beggar’s sphere language renewed.
-
Beneath the crooked branches of the walnut tree -
all bards fell silent. She riddles: “In which key?”.
The answer was the sound of ten-thousand vibrating wings.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 2:45 PM UTC
i'm still building myself up on top of breaking skin. oh how easy it is to slip on this shapeless, humming loneliness until it takes the form of my skin. i'm a forsaken deity, learning to come to terms with what's left of her ruins. crumbling, i tie them together — they buckle in place like my knees: a sight too fragile to be a worldly wonder. i'm still learning to be gentle. i'm still learning to forget all the ways i have ever hurt myself. and beyond this corpse-cold bed, these corpse-cold hands — the world goes on spinning. restless as my thoughts, yet immobile as my feet. it goes on spinning — leaving, never slowing itself down for anyone.
these words come out of my tongue, in fragments. i pick them like aphids on a rose — maybe it's the closest thing i'll get to healing.
Apr 2, 2021
Apr 2, 2021 at 10:22 PM UTC
The new growth on my apple trees is covered in aphids;
the leaves curl and darken under the crawling green foam of their bodies.
My roses broke out in black, dropping yellow leaves,
bearing thick sickly flowers of hope on bare spindly stems.
Now even old hollyhocks have scales, those innocent seeming bumps
multiplying and spreading. And the aphids will go everywhere when they
**** the apple trees dry, they are already migrating
to poppy buds and young tomatoes.
I go to the nursery, resisting the urge to wring and brush off my hands.
She uncovers the facts--my garden got no fertilizer, and water may be insufficient.
So I will try to give my garden what it needs--the nutritious powder, the thorough watering,
the ladybugs in cheesecloth cages, the beneficial microbes, and where I must I will hack the plants away.
My self, meanwhile,
crawls too.
I slather vice on the wound, but the sting always returns.
The world expects me to be stronger than I am. The world is set up
for strong people, and it provides for them.
Once again I am like the short, shy child standing by the counter, overlooked.
But I cannot expect to grow into strength. And the world will only protect me
once I no longer need protection.
At times I sit in a stream of presence. I slather virtue on the wound,
but the sting always returns.
I straddle need and lack,
a gaping wound between my feet. I could sink down that hole,
but it too hurts, it hurts.
I am in the wild--no gardener comes to tend to my hunger or thirst,
or my illness after harsh conditions. Well, one comes--
a harsh gardener comes.
I wring and brush off my hands. I brush off each little invasion,
but there are always more.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 4:39 AM UTC
Mayflies
by Michael R. Burch
These standing stones have stood the test of time
but who are you
and what are you
and why?
As brief as mist, as transient, as pale ...
Inconsequential mayfly!
Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glowworm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world go on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re everything to me.
Originally published by Clementine Unbound. Keywords/Tags: mayfly, mayflies, time, mist, transient, transience, pale, inconsequential, stars, sea, everything, A. E. Housman quote
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 2:06 AM UTC
A sweep of a paintbrush
Is the only thing that could capture this angelic devil of a place
All that could create the crumble of this sidewalk,
Or the tickle of this wind and these stabs of sleet.
Or the dashing of the shadows by this Spring's happy rays.
All of this wonder and this common rarity
In this baby of a town
That cries to be heard and loved
For the mind that sits inside it
Wanting to be known for more than the just it's beauty of a school.
It sits as a daisy in a field of sunflowers,
Unnoticed until the ladybugs that fly from it are seen
Fluttering to great heights
Showering wonder on all the witnesses.
But what of the aphids,
The townies,
Those that call this home?
Do they get no credit
For building a life,
A family,
A dream,
Within this cozy corner of the country?
They see this place as home,
Looking at it with comfort and nostalgia.
It is their point B.
Their finishing line.
Or maybe even their starting point,
But still a place of birth.
Through their eyes,
These cracked roads and looming trees
Are glazed in memories
Of hopscotch and snowmen.
But no matter to whom, there is love and there is hate.
There are those who wish to flee this beautifully forsaken prison.
There are those who wish they had never been elsewhere.
To everyone though, there is beauty in it some place.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 7:13 PM UTC
O. Pool raw island or line vineyards
action stripping the shifts in throat lobes
co operative fraction guillotine manual or
glandular matchstick subtracting certain
matching breeds already beneath accidental
mathematics in estrus clothed by fractions
II
Aural syringe laughing lineage captured
glass cultures Where I feel revered by newborn
lands of guilded dementia children from vapor
quartering off portions of soft cornered rockets
off soft dabs of round cornered minaret orders
I fire the buoyant mind with fractioned black butter
III
The hum of fans
the gunboats dealing broadsides
raw meat and bound feet
moon is withered grape
flys gnaw thru our cellophane
intent to devour our brain
The mythical hiss of salted throats
dissolving like fermented aphids
milk amidst the purr of confused
****** onlookers
The Princess of our burlesque
appears with her sun red triplets
Three clairvoyants asleep in their
eggshell bed each with three eyes
one just within the foreheads
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
*
Silence,
gifted in a synthetic quiver,
placed at the marble steps,
dead of dawn delivery,
horse drawn and cloaked,
shaded in black ash
and mortuary mosaics
A hazy mist clings
to porch lights and railings
as thunder roars in the distance
while street cars find *** holes
to be louder than the
steam engines out of sync
with creaking metal tracks
Air raid sirens tested,
weekly since the last great war
forty years ago, just in case
causing hairline fractures in
alabaster pillars standing tall,
hand carved and stamped,
fingerprint adorned
by a cranky neighbor’s kid
singing sesame street
at the top of his lungs
Wiping his nose on his sleeve,
his hands on his pants (and pillars)
peanut butter and maple syrup,
tossing rocks at the goldfish,
making the dog bark,
pestering the gardener
trimming topiaries,
chasing gophers and
killing aphids
with soapy water
left over from last Thursday’s mess
***** dishes,
banging pots and pans,
slamming cabinet doors,
dropping silverware and the like,
shear madness for a flower man
with two shadows
and many unruly hedges
demanding his attention
as the owner sleeps just above
enjoying his gift of
silence*
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 12:22 PM UTC
The American people are lotuses
Grown out of the murk
We’re periwinkle pretty, but we have residue on some of our petals
And one could drain the swamp, but we’d still be in it, withering in the harsh sunlight
They could select only the fairest lotuses to be preserved, but nature would be disturbed, mutated
The indigo birds that drink our nectar would be betrayed
Then they too would leave us
And leave the aphids without prey
In the absence of deep pink flowers nature would start to cave in on itself and white-hot turmoil would fester and procreate
So invaluable to us is our gradient of flowers
They were meant to be part of our roots, their magentas and mauves keep us balanced
Keep us from turning over into the muddy water where sunlight cannot grace our petals.
Feb 16, 2019
Feb 16, 2019 at 2:37 PM UTC
the best vanishing techniques
done w/ mirrors
or so I have been told
set to spare the glance
of any foe so bold
to rescue all the monkeys
in the vast mountains of China
there are few wild
undercover panda bears
we are headed for a strange future
where all events are known
whose contours undiscovered
reckon towards the fact
every so often the world pauses
& rare blossom is shown/sewn
then quickly extinguished
this age is at an end
& yet
maybe it's just me
my day in sunlight
burning in the grass
eating little purple flowers of springtime
my cat searching for aphids & robins
squirrel assaulted by sparrows in humidity
I am annoyed w/ everything
manic w/ guilt
last night I drank 4 beers and masturbated
not in that order
smoked 3 cigarettes--not much there
days but still--I feel so guilty
I am so lazy I can hardly make myself
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
i save bugs, when i see them in danger.
i return spiders to their webs,
i scoop up drowning pillbugs
i take ladybugs to flowers that look
particularly infested with aphids.
it gives you a good a feeling to
act as a benevolent god
on those who have no choice
but to succumb to your immense power.
unlike the real god,
which may or may not exist
(i bank on no)
who,
no matter how you slice it,
is pretty much just an *******
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:17 PM UTC
Spiders creep along
Dew drop laden webbing
Dark and brooding
Quiet observers
Eight gangly arms of death
Aphids gather
On a rosebud
Sprite green and coral pink
Like freckles
On a fresh and vivid bloom
Lady bugs flutter
Abiding in tall grasses
Proclaiming hope
Promising growth
Like a
WildFlower
growing from a
tomb...
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 3:23 AM UTC
You know the cool advancements over the moon, you are self aware, you have locked the castle and you have the key
You are alive, but are you living?
New definitions of omnipotence
Add-ons to mythology and legends
Commemorate the mirages from our travels in the blazing desert
The rage is shaking Torrent Mountains
Our love is somewhere lost at sea
We’re being relocated to skid row by jubilant cherubs
Seminal Neanderthals are steadily cupping their hands to somehow try and avert their chances of getting short changed
We are living in the faded age
The sun is a soggy cancerous being
Nihilistic brigades pour out on to the bleak playing field and its side lines
Preserving the first shots on the non-guilty
Spiddles of blood on the adrenaline fuels catalyst of violence
The crickets and aphids are gassed
Birth, life, death, after life or after death
Forgo this bluff of nothingness, of course there's more
You go first into this quest; for the clarity that shatters the idea of our precipitous finales
-Tommy Johnson
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
back home there is a garden ,
it is small & unimpressive & sits in front of my house.
i grow simple things
and send all the tenderness i can to their roots
(with a thumb that is steadily turning green)
sometimes insects come & gather round me
like a strange ritual, worship circles of ants & beetles
--antennae waving.
chanting in silent language.
there are some roses growing on the verge,
which lend rich reds & whites
to the arrangement of my plantings.
each morning as the dew rises fresh & hot
i pick the aphids from each flower
and they bloom in peace.
May 31, 2011
May 31, 2011 at 5:04 PM UTC
We are heading for a strange future
Whose contours will remain unknown
But every so often the world pauses
And a rare blossom is shown
Then minds quickly explode
And yet
Maybe It's Just Me
A beautiful image: my dog in the sunlit yard, laying in the grass, eating little purple springtime flowers. My cat searches for aphids and desires to hunt the robins taunting him from telephone wires.
A squirrel is assaulted by sparrows in the humidity
I am annoyed with everything
Manic with caffeine and guilt
Last night I drank four beers and masturbated
Not in that particular order
Smoked three cigarettes
Not much there
Still feel guilty
And so lazy
I can't handle myself
My eyes can't focus
On anything in particular
My mind is a vague enemy
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
With aphids and cherubs barking up the wrong tree
A November with rain on its mind
clicks a heel in the underbrush, where all things creep
in the ether floss of our lost tendrils of Time
emergent in luminous twine
every stitch, a rivet in a concrete swamp.
tethering a plight.
II
Christmas lights lockjaw hamlets with crepe frost
glistening earthbound color wheels in the jagged blanket
of a crisp 3 AM. a covert Decembering as such a night
is want to do.
then the gray weeps
as window panes
tell you
Why?
Sep 2, 2022
Sep 2, 2022 at 11:30 PM UTC