"beetle" poems
The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.
The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.
And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.
The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle's palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.
And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.
And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox's sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox's prayer.
And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.
20.6k
Loves shadows and hates fire
Whisper softly my hearts desire
To a cold dead moon
As the old demons howl
The ground in terror will tremble and shake
A bloodless murderers hand
Into my steaming cauldron is thrown
Long toothed Blue bats wing from northern caves
Mixed with enchanted grave dust stolen from the fairy land
Out of my blue colored feather covered bag
A tiny sticky yellow red eyed frog
One shiny two horned pinching beetle
That will bite no more
Into the ***
Three long gray hairs from a rabid dog
I sing the song humans fear
The notes fall upon frightened ears
My words travel deadly and silently
A venomous arrow into the night
Laying upon my victim
A fine coverlet of blindness
By spell removing their sight
Loves shadows and hates fire
Whisper softly my hearts desire
To a cold black dead moon
As the old demons howl
The ground in terror will tremble and shake
Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby September 9, 2015.
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 1:25 AM UTC
The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
And through the bone.
Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.
Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands.
Five, and five again, and five again,
And round the edges twenty-five little ones,
The sections of the baby tortoise shell.
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Four, and a keystone;
Then twenty-four, and a tiny little keystone.
It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back
Of the baby tortoise;
Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet,
Not in stone, like the Judean Lord, or bronze, but in life-clouded, life-rosy tortoise shell.
The first little mathematical gentleman
Stepping, wee mite, in his loose trousers
Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law.
Fives, and tens,
Threes and fours and twelves,
All the volte face of decimals,
The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven.
Turn him on his back,
The kicking little beetle,
And there again, on his shell-tender, earth-touching belly,
The long cleavage of division, upright of the eternal cross
And on either side count five,
On each side, two above, on each side, two below
The dark bar horizontal.
The Cross!
It goes right through him, the sprottling insect,
Through his cross-wise cloven psyche,
Through his five-fold complex-nature.
So turn him over on his toes again;
Four pin-point toes, and a problematical thumb-piece,
Four rowing limbs, and one wedge-balancing head,
Four and one makes five, which is the clue to all mathematics.
The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate
Of the baby tortoise.
Outward and visible indication of the plan within,
The complex, manifold involvedness of an individual creature
Plotted out
On this small bird, this rudiment,
This little dome, this pediment
Of all creation,
This slow one.
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we leave the crumbs of our breakfast
on the windowsill, where we can watch
the ants arrive, and carry them away,
to their hills at the base of the maple trees.
they can't talk to us, but we can sense
their tiny gratitudes.
skin against skin, and tongues against
tongues, the glow from our faces is just
enough for the moths to recognize, for
them to want to dance around our heads.
they bask in the light of our love, and we
know they feel it too.
i live to see you smile, the kind of smile
that shines so brightly, like the way a leaf
beetle's shell does, when the sun decides
to hit it in a way that's exactly right.
they don't notice their iridescence, or how
perfect they are.
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 3:17 AM UTC
For half a revolution she spends her days
in caliginous caverns
where worms like silver thread
weave through moistened walls.
Water, endless dripping,
howling, whining, stalagmite fangs.
It began with a stranger,
shrouded with shadows.
Petrichor breath,
and beetle black eyes,
twisted root fingers,
and scattered seeds.
It was lonely at first,
death and loss and
weary wayfarers with tired souls.
An estranged husband,
a trio of rumbling growls,
and the lonesome echo of her own footsteps.
Waiting for a someday,
that will never come,
her titles, a mantra,
repeat in her head;
daughter, lover, mother and wife,
stealer of souls and giver of life.
So when the daffodils bud,
and the world awakens,
when she blinks through sunshine
and steps into the light,
she holds her head high.
She is Queen of the Underworld,
bolder than before,
she will evade their pity,
and transcend them all.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 5:54 AM UTC
On days, when time is going too fast,
I can't catch up, and there're things i can't get past,
I'd pull a chair at the verandah....just sit there
To witness, the gentler goings on in life...
See, how...why all plants face towards the sun,
On a dimly lit corner, watch a spider patiently spin its web,
Underneath the gravel and green grass, somehow,
The earthworm, painstakingly, bravely emerges,
Finds its way out of the soil...to remind us,
"...soil is healthy....it's time to plant!"
:::::
I feel, the beetle knows me, as it inches on,
Carrying its own body, crawling down the pine tree,
I won't ever grasp it, nor tie a string on its body
To control its range of movement,
As we do to tethered beasts of burden...
:::::
While sitting there, i decide: by all means,
Towards the flower *** i lean
Take time to smell a rose, feel its rough leaf
Not just a quick touch and sniff
But hold its thorny body, without daring to blink
While deep within, i'd let its fragrance sink
:::::
Some early evenings
When the cicadas' music are echoing
And the moths have started flying
Circling round the light at the ceiling,
I am warned...soon, it will be raining
And.....when it starts to rain, i keep listening
Til i'm soothed by the sound of rain...falling,
From sky to treetops.....flowing...landing
Next to the leaves......cascading down
To the concrete ground
Spreading quickly, far and deep...and as fate,
As nature would have it....the soil, without fail, waits...
:::::
Long time ago, we were small,
Curious and brave, we tasted glory, and all,
Armed with a child's innocence
And an insatiable hunger for learning...
Our eyes, our minds dilated,
Our brains were like sponge...
Like the soil.....we absorbed
All, that we discovered...
:::::
Sally
Copyright December 1, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 3:28 PM UTC
I
Calico Pie,
The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
Their wings were blue,
And they sang 'Tilly-loo!'
Till away they flew,--
And they never came back to me!
They never came back!
They never came back!
They never came back to me!
II
Calico Jam,
The little Fish swam,
Over the syllabub sea,
He took off his hat,
To the Sole and the Sprat,
And the Willeby-Wat,--
But he never came back to me!
He never came back!
He never came back!
He never came back to me!
III
Calico Ban,
The little Mice ran,
To be ready in time for tea,
Flippity flup,
They drank it all up,
And danced in the cup,--
But they never came back to me!
They never came back!
They never came back!
They never came back to me!
IV
Calico Drum,
The Grasshoppers come,
The Butterfly, Beetle, and Bee,
Over the ground,
Around and around,
With a hop and a bound,--
But they never came back to me!
They never came back!
They never came back!
They never came back to me!
6.6k
Speak,
as if you know what you are saying.
Let it roll off the tongue,
*********** like a Dung-beetle's ****
and let me drink it up like a lapdog.
It tastes like heaven from where I sit,
not by comparison,
but lack of.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 8:00 PM UTC
To me the whole world
Opened with no
Resistance
Turning my mind
Outside
In
Sensational
Exploration
Between
Each and
Every
Tortoise beetle
Love
Evolved!
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 11:42 AM UTC
blood red diamond
tops tender green emeralds,
rose quartz and morganite
in a feast of polished deposit.
teardrop laden,
glistening against the stirring sun,
the world waits in dew.
crystal drops wink,
the blood diamond contemplates emerald tightrope,
slick escape.
with a bubble here,
a drop there,
Little Lady Beetle
attempts to dry its wings.
the flower that rests beneath
bends low,
and too shimmers
like a July sparkler.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 4:01 PM UTC
Dusk!
With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!
Bats!
Glowing red eyes and glistening fangs,
These unspeakable giant bugs drop into view.*
Fibrous wings furred like a moth,
Big ears are just a membranous extension of antennae.
Flying in search of a flower’s pollen laden froth,
Silent except for the hum and squeak of echolocation.
Trap bats in attics, butterflies in nets.
No rabies feared, no bedbug bites to itch.
Clawed feet ****** and grab like praying mantis pincers;
Bloated stomach slopes like a pudgy beetle.
Jaws manipulate like an ant, excise like scissors;
Soft hair rustles like a wooly caterpillar.
They live in darkness, centipedes do too,
Come out at night like cockroaches tend to.
Skittering through the night like daddy long-legs,
Noses snubbed like bumble bee faces.
Wind turbines endanger bats,
Like fans endanger lightning bugs.
Only one percent of bats are vampiric,
Like only a small percentage of spiders are poisonous.
Dawn!
With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!
Bats!
Bats are bugs, aren’t they?
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 5:04 PM UTC
Once a dream did weave a shade,
O’er my Angel-guarded bed.
That an Emmet lost it’s way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled wildered and forlorn
Dark benighted travel-worn,
Over many a tangled spray,
All heart-broke I heard her say.
O my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh.
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.
Pitying I dropp’d a tear;
But I saw a glow-worm near:
Who replied. What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night.
I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetles hum,
Little wanderer hie thee home.
4.7k
What's your take on walking?
My body serves my soul
and tells me how to go.
My heart, affixed -- aims to show.
These ways I’ve walked in my shoes and stockings.
I've looked to heaven’s stars, to daylit clouds,
when I've stepped out, or dropped my gaze
to track the ground.
Yes, it is true—whoever passed me by
could have taken offense and supposed
I lacked my confidence.
And ofttimes, I strode out straight and true
as if toward a far mist horizon.
Un-manifest future,
even peek-a-boo,
could be comprehended?
I should doubt it.
And if I wished to address an occasional
in-the-dumps, lost-at-sea feeling,
I'd shut my eyes, and walk backwards --
owl-like, swivel 360 my head.
Backwards blind circumspection seemed worthy my try;
Ask--Who am I?
I would story where I’d been.
In my most spontaneous of nature foot-trafficking,
in roulette walk; my spin of gun chamber click--
ant, spider, beetle, and the occasional sighing snail
had fled my shadow shoe?
As slow drift clouds in a sky game would play
with the sun to hide—creatures had sought me out,
sung their farewells? (it was an excellent day to die)
Let me tell it, as it had happened today,
and truth says how.
My feet, they had gotten to waltz-walking.
O how my body and soul
danced a-fancy free.
Love was brimming out of me; happiness
whispered her wordless name; and
my tongue tripped nonsensical.
So if, at last, you've kept a-pace with me
in sympathetic striding, then perhaps
you would surmise:
there never could be a flat-footed me,
when I spout off with poem-talking.
Now, what’s your take on walking?
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
I remember a dog with matted fur lounging in the shade
of a collapsed arch, staring in a way that animals sometime
stare that makes me wonder if the beliefs of Kantianism are
nothing more than old wives’ tales spun from smoke and cinder.
I remember the faint smell of sulfur mixed with seawater
in the shadow of the volcano that poured out its wrath
by the bowlful, the golden urns of the gods spilling
fire and magma from the very cradle of hell.
I remember the empty bathhouses, the villas with
half-painted frescoes, the expensive red paints made from
crushed beetle shells, the overturned tables and chairs,
the uneven stone streets carved by horse-drawn cart wheels.
I remember the skeletons huddled in boathouses,
unearthed from their ash-spun graves for prying eyes,
for the rapid shutter of camera lenses, for the proof
of their existence, as if to leer at the living and say,
“We are all nothing but carbon and bone.”
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 10:30 PM UTC
When I think of happiness
I think of a vintage VW beetle.
Yellow.
Not to drive
but put somewhere I can see
and feel good about at times.
Yet, I was happy once
And I thought it was heaven
I was on the side where the grass was greener.
It was greener indeed.
@mosquitoism
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 12:36 PM UTC
There was an Old Man of Quebec,
A beetle ran over his neck;
But he cried, 'With a needle,
I'll slay you, O beadle!'
That angry Old Man of Quebec.
3.9k
I am named wrong,
They don’t care,
Those humans who decide everything,
Do I look like a Stag with Antlers?
NO…my mandibles are strong and proud,
I’m a grand beetle,
Royal and fearsome (in appearance),
But don’t worry I won’t hurt you.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 5:58 AM UTC
There is a dead beetle on the floor in the bathroom.
It has been there for weeks.
Someone must have noticed it but paid it no mind.
More than someone.
Someones.
No one has bothered its carcass.
Its legs are curled in at odd angles, not unlike an infant sleeping.
Someone would notice an infant sleeping.
An infant sleeping on the floor of a bathroom.
Or an infant dead in a bathroom on the cold, grey tiles.
The color of its dark body is in stark contrast to the light floor, but still it is ignored.
Have I been bright enough in this life to stand out?
Am I light against the dark?
Or dark against the light?
Will I be remembered?
As I slide through the experience of living, I don't know what impression I've made.
Am I the dead beetle?
Will I be the dead beetle?
My life has not been bold.
One may only presume the same of the beetle.
There are too many people in this world for me to be a true stand-out.
I merely exist.
No matter my color against the background of life, I am simply waiting to be swept away.
As inconsequential as a dead beetle in the bathroom with little attention paid.
There is a saying that everyone dies twice.
First when you leave the mortal realm.
The second time when your name is last spoken and your memory ceases to exist amongst the living.
What if you never live and are paid no mind.
Can you really die then?
What if I am not even the beetle?
What if I'm less than a drop in the bucket in the universe and I slip through the cracks of society?
At least the beetle gets a poem.
May 29, 2023
May 29, 2023 at 4:46 PM UTC
328
A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroa—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
3.7k
A battered VW Beetle named Dusty
Whose bodywork was decidedly rusty
Still was able to travel
On tarmac and gravel
In a manner observably trusty.
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 10:01 AM UTC
When I say hero you
look for Superman
Flying through Metropolis or
Batman slinking through Gotham’s shadows.
And when I say heroine
You can think only of needles
Poking through skin like the shell of a beetle.
When I say hero
Everyone looks skyward for capes and spandex
Or a symbol lighting up the clouds.
But Clark Bruce and Peter
can’t save you from yourself.
These suit-clad saviors are fantasies.
Fairytales put before us so we can have something
to believe in when the ordinary people fail us.
I have seen people around me, people I love,
crumble like weakened plaster.
And I have met people who were already lying
in a pile of dust and debris at my feet.
I’ve seen them **** asbestos into their lungs
and draw tic tac toe on their arms in crimson
I have seen someone become their own villain!
But I have seen these people get up again,
Pick up the pieces of their glass hearts,
And glue them back together for the sake of their sanity.
I have seen villains become heroes.
These heroes, MY heroes are the ones with the scars on their wrists
but no tags on their toes, the ones that heave into the porcelain bowl
but still try to eat each day.
These are my heroes.
My heroes are the parents raising kids and battling demons old and new,
the abuse victims who got out, or are stuck but still fighting.
These…these are my heroes.
Broken survivors, living despite everything that keeps them from wanting to,
Despite all their scars and battle wounds they are alive and they are trying.
The ones who are not saving others but saving themselves.
These are heroes.
Some people look down on the wounded, the broken, and the insecure
like they were the cause of their own problems and refused the simple solutions of **** it up”
and “get over it” because they were too lazy to get better.
Don’t you dare tell me that they don’t want to fix this,
That they don’t wake up each morning and wish
With every fiber of their being that they could look into a mirror
And finally, finally, love what they see.
Don’t tell me that these people aren’t strong
Because they go to bed each night with eyes red and raw from crying
And they wake up with bags under their eyes but they.
Keep.
Going.
**** your superheroes.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 8:32 AM UTC
I'm paying
for the careless laughs
I cast
at my poor mother in the past
when she would cringe
and turn away
as we sought edges
to enhance our play.
High trees and rooftops
cliffside walks -
whatever would extend the view
beyond the grim grey
granite grip we knew.
The humour lay
in knowing we were safe,
that these short frissons
were a break
between long stretches
of mundane and easy comfort,
free from pain.
Perhaps, we thought,
it does her good to gasp and shudder,
shout and blame -
she knows
that nothing's gained by shouting "Not too close!"
That just extends the game.
And then we're home
and she, once more, is sane.
That un-won wisdom
taunts me now.
The thought that fear was rare, somehow
that each new feat
of daring was a treat
the spice and colour
in a mother's life
which otherwise was dull.
Then, suddenly, my children,
you appear
and now I fear
that everything's
a crumbling clifftop
a wind-bent,
beetle-brittle branch
that you are twisted
in the fickle hands of chance
Your precious whims
your pale, glass-fragile skins
are buffeted by everything.
All ice is thin -
the wolves are real
it was not just the wind.
And even here
upon the edge of morning
misfired wires
inside your precious head
could make a storm-tossed life-raft
of your cozy bed
I stand beside you, out of reach
though long prepared
to meet the reason I am scared.
You curl and shrink
turn glassy eyes towards the wall
while I await the blow
that, thank God, doesn't fall,
this time
my youthful self
has found a cliff to climb
above a rocky beach
and cackles
at his mother's panicked call.
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 4:05 PM UTC
Tell me, my dear, why you keep
that golden sun beetle tied so tightly around your neck?
You say that you feel naked without it, as
it hangs gently
over your *******
But let me tell you something.
I feel naked without you wrapped around my neck.
I am totally and completely exposed without your love
to shield me from the night.
But your arms are not a ribbon.
I cannot keep you on
a leash.
Nor do I want to.
Darling, you are the most valuable thing in the universe to me.
And because you mean so much, I must let you fly free.
I cannot keep you tied around my neck like the scarab on yours.
I can only hope that you'd willingly hang around.
Feb 24, 2021
Feb 24, 2021 at 1:08 AM UTC
you're drinking, and then you can't control
the reaction upon entering the tetragrammaton...
one h is for hushed up laughter, for sighs (ah),
and then the alter deja vu
is a cocktail of:
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,
yeah, so many, so you can look at it rather than
say it... it's a sunny day, go out and play
or something... leave me with the anchor of ****
humanity dragging us down, or simply basing us
in the underwater fudge of mud to a standstill...
it's sunny, go out and play, ride a bicycle or something...
you know, living 20 odd years in an english society
i never had an english girlfriend, i'm told she's a real
firecracker fortune-cookie... my hands are cold,
i swear by the oath of the old Bailey i never touched
her thighs... scouts' honour, cross my fingers
and wear woman's underwear with a bowler hat
to match my serious demeanour...
yep, an Abbey Road's standstill... a fifth beetle
chatting cheeky chat chat of a chirp...
gurgles of fizz in carbonated wine known as champagne,
well that's me... or as the roadrunner said to
speedy Gonzales... hark a sayonara when changing
the gears to a 100m sprint world record.
the Mayan disease? ah right... excess spontaneous
laughter, unstoppable like a tide;
got chatting to a ms. khan... Genghis' great great...
great great great great great... great great granddaughter...
a doctor from pakistan... nice english accent
gets you all the pleasantries so everything can
go to hell... the sleeping pills prescription is waiting...
now the sick-note... so i don't crash a plane
into the Swiss elevations by "accident"
while sitting on an arm-chair of nails while everyone
else is farting into cushions.
honest to god, the tetragrammaton is like a brick
wall for vowels, you hit the ball against the four
walls, and the vowels are either ****** up
or they extract the consonant stability of the four letters,
and your safest bet to express them is
to laugh;
well, i do call it a Mayan disease... because
my stomach is aching from building a six-pack with
the giggles.
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 7:40 AM UTC
Stark in freezing winter air
Deeply orange, clustered there,
Rich shades in a cameo
Of black and white in frozen snow.
ROSE HIPS IN THE MORNING LIGHT
Shining warmly, softly bright.
Wicked thorns, the stems, adorn
***** frost, on the buds, is borne
Atop the ancient root in soil
Where beetle gnaw and earthworm roil.
Marshalg
Exhaling in the frozen air
24 June 2011
Inspired by Patrick Wakefeild's delightful "When I have been a Rose"
Jun 23, 2011
Jun 23, 2011 at 1:03 PM UTC