"bellied" poems
To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.
15.2k
running
deliquescing into nature
i am engulfed in stillness
i encounter a deer as i round a corner
its chestnut eyes intensely sense
something wild within me
transfixed
we meld palpably
whispering our essence
myopic views warp into acute focus
golden flowers stretch and arch
and yawning into the sun
swell with bursts of luster
whilst violets polka dot the path
with lilac luminescence
dead tree trunks
mutating into masterpieces
yearn for new life
drawing in the squirrels
yellow-bellied birds
hover
sensing my motions
whilst woodland winds undulate
pine scented waves of sea salt oceans
my ears enchantingly enhanced
by bristling leaves caressing trees
as scintillating amber butterflies
dance in synch
with the clock tower’s
ancient chiming
a gust of wind
catches a patch of sand
and sends it quivering
fusing high in summer air
then falling soft as feathers
hidden fairies prance about
answering unheard questions
problems dissolve in emerald meadows
without a hint of striving
essays write themselves
upon my mind
poetry flows through me
wings of meadowlarks
trace my face with nuances
interlaced with connotations
rushing home
i write it down
then bowing i take credit
for what was etched upon my soul
by a sunbeam in the forest
©2016janetaylor
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 10:09 PM UTC
Injustice!
Posted by Olivia Kent on June 4, 2013 at 3:11pm
View Blog
Suffer not thy children,
In a waiter service world of injustice,
Nothingness in a world of tragic poverty,
In a drizzle of tears,
The children drown
Emaciated children,
Not smiling as they die,
In world of war-craft,
Dying,
A little more each day,
Not smiling as they should,
Punished,
Living in a punitive world of cruelty,
Where craft of war is rife,
Screams,
Imagined in heads of strangers,
Insanity,
Piercing with horror,
Ears sickened,
By violent imagery envisaged,
Emaciated child,
*** bellied,
Gaunt,
Virtually lifeless,
Dead before death,
Snatches,
Life blood vanished,
Without request!
There is no youthful exuberance on this face,
Overjoyed,
Delighted,
I don't live in this place!
Copywrite Livvi Kent 04/06/2013
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 3:21 PM UTC
All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
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Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn.
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying,
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear,
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal
Huge Principles appear.
The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;
But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin,
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us
-An angel has no skin.
They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it
Drink the whole summer down into the breast.
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest.
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory
That from each smell in widening circles goes,
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it?
An angel has no nose.
The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries.
The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves,
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.
Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see;
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be.
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior,
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares
With living men some secrets in a privacy
Forever ours, not theirs.
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they danced in a dream
of bending shadows
face down
begging ***
all hungry back door paradise
ankles strapped on a foot worn floor
paint faced in whorey nights
with pin needle eyes
beded
blood crimson neon's
cut curtains
like kissing claws
so their bodies wouldn't forget
dark pleasures lightening
and biting tantra tantrums
they swallowed mad ***** blossoms of hell candy
breathing the others inhalations
foot sniffing ballet arch
in fastened Japanese melting red slippers
gazing upwards rectums prayer
solar eyed insurrection
finger by finger
clutching wrists like the grave
for bloods salty cove
an injured landscape
a dire pink desert
like bogs hold bones
a rave for a slave
covered in yellow ocher rubber sheets
soft on the feet
x rated amputee costume
made of blood and spit
look mommy no arms
a bellied tattoo
of hennaed homunculi
burning Candomblé Jejé, skull
black eyed beauty hissing
while accordion throated
rip tie tighten
another notch please
a dizzy *******
down silver fluted gullet
in a steamed up bath house
party of blotted sockets
*** kitten
kissed dead girls thighs
tremulous and stretched
a shimmering serum
like wide tubular channels
as pontoon edges slit
through midnight howls for velvet skinned girl
who thrills
her head a veiled Jehovah
saliva wagging tongue ****
a stuttering ****** dance
a hula hot momma in rubble
slapping hot lipped kisses
over starved darkness
along telegraphs avenue
melting eyes like butter
a globed pudding spill
******* drool drops of gold
and black river gladiators
slaughter lies
with every long stroke
between cascading squeals
paraphilias mausoleum
like tumbling eels
a scapegoat pulp fiction
chiseled in cement
******* rips
drip drip drip
babbling **** bubbles
**** spasms ooze like a hot glue gun
fire spats soil cherry clover
Jan 12, 2019
Jan 12, 2019 at 3:39 PM UTC
This is our blitz, puppydog, I said,
dragging him away from the whizzbangs
echoing green and purple off shopfronts.
My Chuchundra scuttled ground-bellied
from fallen ******* bags spilling guts
like casualties of war
and hoodlums tremendous in commando gear
who set off peonies and chrysanthemums
before charging triumphant down alleyways.
We go home. I’m happy to leave these heroes
the soda from the Catherine wheels,
and the drizzle, for which London has yet to apologise.
Oct 22, 2011
Oct 22, 2011 at 6:51 AM UTC
Angie works the alleys that reek of greasy sausages and ****
where beer-bellied men appear
and vanish into doorway varnish of invisible rooms,
spitting on their own doorsteps, stubby fingers
running over stained vests and wire wool guts.
Harry lives out yonder where plastic bags’ ballet shoes are made of glue;
he is sharing a hit
with a dreadlocked kid, just another invisible face,
a phantom-surfer nurse, to assist him in
chasing the ultimate high on highway number twenty-two.
Invisible, hairy hands hold her down; Angie has to swallow,
she can feel the pulsating vein
of a softening **** over her tongue and swollen lips –
she gives it a good old slap against her cheek,
grabs the package, and makes sure no one follows.
Harry’s clawing at a face in that place where reality floats
between the tip of the needle
and the desperate edge of chemical dependency -
his little angel taps him on the shoulder;
he turns around, and stabs her in the throat.
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 11:32 PM UTC
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.
In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!'
But those ladies broke the panes.
When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.
Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
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On the west side of Starlite Dr.,
just inside of Kingfisher -- before the welcome sign,
stood a Wal-Mart.
Underneath dim lot lamps,
dry oil caked the cracked pavement.
Crickets hopped over cricket corpses.
Two employees took turns lighting new cigarettes
with the still-hot embers of old cigarettes.
There were six sedans, two pickups, and three semi-trucks
outside the store.
2 a.m.
Parked car.
I noticed an effulgent memorial on the fringe.
Subject unclear from a distance,
but statue certain;
gleam of bronze certain.
Followed the black chain-framed path
to a lemon brick-backed display:
Sam Walton
Hometown Kingfisher
And there you stood, Sam.
With a bobble of a bronze head,
gorilla arms, and some charcoal
canine frozen mid-pant to your side--
Beams of light shining into your carved eyes,
yellowed grass at your feet.
And I wonder,
Did you feel cruel?
Beginning as a Five and Dime,
then turning into the great killer of Five and Dimes.
Sitting at a table telling all your friends, they could watch you eat.
Too forward, too soon.
You being dead and all.
To be fair, I've got that ambition too, Sam.
The kind that leaves you lonely.
The kind that leaves you in the back booth of a diner.
The kind that makes the dunces conspire.
Yeah, there are very few differences between you and me.
Those being
I'm not a cartoon statue,
crickets aren't crawling on my face,
big-bellied tourists don't pose and snap photos at my place,
I'm mortal, and you're the other one.
Looked around.
Stood in front of you.
Stared in the direction your obsidian eyes stared.
You overlooked the traffic.
And though Target gets all the hot, middle-aged women
and fiery college kids,
you get the pleasure of watching real folks leave.
The tobacco chewers,
the moms of six,
the grease monkeys,
the third grade teachers;
the grandparents
all simmer and meld by traffic stop.
It seems fitting for you, Sam.
Watching over us,
your consumers.
Sep 22, 2012
Sep 22, 2012 at 10:18 PM UTC
With the box lid closed
It's dark inside,
There are no colours
We can't abide.
But a golden sliver of light seeps in,
To expose the colours there within.
We see red when enraged,
And scarlet dancers crowd our stage;
A red-blooded male brags virility
Through rose-coloured glasses of masculinity.
Some grow green with envy,
Reveal they're yellow in enmity,
Are blue when feeling empathy,
Turn blue holding out for sympathy,
Are tickled pink with comedy,
And white as a sheet with tragedy,
Or brown-nosed with syncophany.
If your yellow-bellied you may run,
And green-gilled after Jamaican ***
Write purple prose when versifying,
Ashen coloured when you're dying.
True colours show outside the box,
Use grey cells to colour unorthodox.
Our true colours are harlequin,
That fade to black at our end.
Jul 5, 2015
Jul 5, 2015 at 3:51 PM UTC
The air is charged with eminence.
Red-bellied birds lose their song in the wind.
Just when will the sky crack open?
When will the screaming turn to tears?
Send the drummers running
and, before their sticks hit the ground,
give face to wide-eyed fears.
I can smell you from my window:
Amalgamation of mushrooms and clover.
Just when will you crack me open?
When will my primal state lie bare?
Strip me of city sophistication
and, before the drummers come running,
wash me well beyond my years.
Apr 9, 2013
Apr 9, 2013 at 10:22 PM UTC
Vietnam, you uncovered my soul
Gave me a song, a direction smog
Looked at the pandora box I held
Unstripped my flames up temples
A hologram of the graded existence
Seasoned in explosions of burnt haste
Decked on buses,ducked in valleys
Chilled bays, overly paddled kayaks
Such sweet taste of the Halong bay
Undreamt mist of the skies stared
Fishing squids and bellied jellyfish
The soil, the sound,an orotund playlist
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 2:53 PM UTC
The cockroaches surrounded but one
Fair
Maiden;
Seeking Singapore and suns absent the, “other.”
I kicked one, her infernal and insect aside, oh
Fair
Maiden;
Fleeing his promise and same mistake I’d made prior.
So to, the unspoken alliance ensues, both sought and awry, our –
Recounted
Freedoms
Born the dogs that are kicked and the dogs bite back.
Veil and anew, below and bellied-up bugs;
Fair
Maiden
Conquered, “yes,” but, agreed, our ulterior master born body.
We no longer fear and be gone the spiny legs,
Fair
Maiden;
For carrion’s a distance and the fruit’s now atop nose;
We’ve learned to love again.
Note - Smog-soaked sunsets at, "Rebel Rebel," in Guangzhou used to make for the greatest shards of diary I've ever encountered. In this case, she was running away from him and I was running away from her - we'd the same story, the same drink, and soon the same table. I should visit again, someday.
Jul 5, 2015
Jul 5, 2015 at 10:37 AM UTC
The pot-bellied Mercedes squealed
As Meursault withdrew and
Marvelled at the flames
Licking
The air
Like marigolds on Ritilin.
'Raymond would have no reason not to admire this act.'
He stopped by a shimmering sea of Ubers.
The scrape and drawl of siren made no impression on him.
Leaking smoke reminded him of
Snow White’s Cottage
Where he had taken Marie when Lucie was born:
The place where he would go out at dawn to chop wood.
He liked the way her roses played
With the restlessness of children.
Then he thought: 'if only mother could see me now.'
Mar 22, 2021
Mar 22, 2021 at 6:57 AM UTC
Vitriolic hydraulic push
Pull of sorghum
Sticking sweetly in my veins
Molar studded oatmeal cookies
Crunching like a bad dream
Dull rhinestone eyes
Losing more and more shine every day
Sluggish swole-bellied synapses
Firing in my brain
And I'm crying oversized tears
Drowning like Alice in Wonderland
I know you couldn't bear to breathe my air
Or share our bed
Or eat my cooking
But
"Did you know the capital of Uzbekistan is Tashkent?"
No.
Did you know I keep Austin up every night
Begging for your scraps?
Hedoesn'tlovemehedoesn'tlovemehedoesn'tlovemeandIdon'tunderstandwhatIdidwronghedoesn'tlovemeAustinmyheartisgone
I can still smell you
On my sunday dresses
And I'm afraid of the washing machine
And dryer sheets
Afraid of what they'll take from me
I had religion
I had faith in you
And I can still taste the body
Of Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ!
All night
Not like I lost anything important right?
Well
I'll probably never see you again
But my daddy's got a shotgun
Just in case
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 10:20 AM UTC
i want to live in a world with truffula trees,
and caroling who's,
cats that balance objects on their head,
and raining green goo.
i want star-bellied sneetches,
dancing on beaches,
and colors,
on everything.
i want green eggs and ham,
offered by sam-i-am,
and a lorax to use sarcasm on me.
i want to escape reality,
and where better than childhood memories.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 3:50 PM UTC
Outside, but not so far away,
Missiles are falling;
Early snow has settled
Beneath gray overcast....
Sirens in the distance
Send their low moan
Across the miles...
Echo faintly in our canyon.
Too cold for lightning,
We turn away from light
Flickering or flashing
Upon the bellied skies...
Don't want to think
About the thundering
The light implies.
Muffled sound and muted light
Confirm our living
Away from town.
Perhaps we are
Far enough....
These days, though,
Places to run are few,
And war is moving out.
At least the news has stopped....
Was sporadic
Then...
Stopped altogether
Now.
Almost a relief....
The coal oil lamp -
Her mother's mother's -
Burns a reddish glow...
Diesel's charring smudge...
Comforts us
In a growing dark.
Roast potatoes,
Rabbit stew,
Pickled beets...
No bread this time
As I uncork chokecherry wine...
And it is summer 1999....
We are standing in tall grass
Somewhere between Red Lodge
And Laurel along the road,
Ice cream pails echoing
With plopping chokecherries
Near black and hanging thick
Like miniature clusters of grapes.
We are there to beat the birds and bears,
Knowing choke-cherrying
Is the hurried work of many races,
Some wearing claws upon their heavy hands,
Others flitting in with beaks upon their faces.
And then the kitchen smells of cherries boiling down
For syrups and for jam,
The old ten gallon glass fermenting juice and sugar,
Stands waiting in the corner,
Later to be filtered off and corked away
In twice-used bottles....
Other years and other picking times
Lie bottled in wooden racks below,
But we have chokecherry wine tonight,
While storms we never thought we'd know
Blow hard against the world.
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
At the edge of morning--broad sky fine
And soft as peach skin--
The sun, a round, sweet skinless half--
Rilling water washes through gullied gorge,
Cresting fig root and tongue of cobbled stone,
Lazing into lacquered lake or placid pond;
Squat and pooch-bellied on flatly floating leaf,
The idle toad croaks his great guttural,
Glutted belch.
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 8:35 PM UTC
Here is a tale of a dog and a cat
And a *** bellied pig, so pink and so fat
Of days in the garden alongside a farm
A whimsical story of magic and charm
The dog as he was of bushy descent
Yellow in color where ever he went
Digging a hole was his prime source of fun
As a matter of fact he had just finished one
The collar he wore was a leathery find
With studs made of silver so brightly it shined
His tail ever wagging, a happy old guy
He hung with is friends as the hours passed by
The cat on the other hand, sleek and so fine
A coat made of orange with stripes it combined
Cleaning a habit I see in all cats
But this one was special for it wore a hat
A tiny straw chapeau with fine feathered brim
A ribbon of pink that was wrapped round her chin
Though not really sure if a cat finds the style
But more as I looked I would bet that she smiled
And there to her left with a snort and a grunt
Was a portly built fellow the legs of a runt
Fine wispy hair that did cover the skin
With a gather of long ones that hung from his chin
Puffing along an attempt to keep pace
The dog and the cat and the pig they would race
Faster and faster they’d run through the fields
Though what was the secret of friendship revealed
None were the same as they differed and so
Still bound together a’ running they’d go
Never before as I think about that
Has a dog or a pig ever friended a cat
For ever so prissy, no memories jog
A cat who was friends with a pig and a dog
Though still I could see right abreast of my eyes
These three companions did bring the surprise
What is the moral of all that I see?
It sure does not matter of your company
Whether a dog or a pig or a cat
You can make friends with whomever you chat
People are different in color and race
But everyone seems to be wearing a face
A face that can smile, a face that can cry
A face that can hello or even good bye
If only we look at each other the same
Will we find fortune in learning their name
No matter the differences that we might see
It pays for each of us to every time be
Nice to each other and all things like that
Just like the dog and the pig and the cat
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 4:33 PM UTC
With a firm footed march, under sun and moonlight
We slowly advance towards December,
She was, like butter, so tender, I understood
We would sit near the camp and compare notes,
A walk in the woods, we'd do, smell wild flowers,
Gather ideas, without rhyme or reason, laugh together,
Life had an irregular graph, like always
And an internal logic, one needs to soon grasp,
There is nothing fool proof, here remember,
*Sudden cloud bursts, land slide, thunder and flood,
Are no wonders, be ready to face wonders too as facts of life.*
Every smart plan go burst, then what about windfalls, did you forget?
*How can you loose heart, cry unconsoled,
We grasped every unwritten rule, so why cry?*
Didn't we stand still and sense which way the wind blows?
Ever did we forget, to partake in simple pleasures?
*On every lake, with clear water ,we found time
To swim **** competing with silver bellied fish, till we were tired,*
On the shade of a tall mango tree you sat on my lap playfully,
We closed our eyes, snoozed a while, till the breeze woke us up again
**At December, in the journey's end, we'd part ways, as it is said
Though alone, one always is, this togetherness was really the meaning.**
Aug 31, 2012
Aug 31, 2012 at 3:03 PM UTC
I dreamt of a field of flowers
Where white crosses are planted
Families still together
Content with life
Genuine grins covering faces
I dreamt of full bellies
On the dark continent
Soccer ***** rolling between feet
Of children who also dream
Of lives as happy as theirs
I dreamt of fresh air
And clean water and growing forests
The cleanliness of nature unrivaled
As animals mingled around the watering hole
Roaming freely with homes
But I awoke and saw war
Fires melting the lives of millions
Dropping bombshells of grief
Destroying homes from within
And children dead or weeping
I awoke and saw despair
Fat bellied greed hogs
Rollin in muddy money pits
While babies died without food
And an entire land stripped and sold
I awoke amd saw nothing
But smoke stacks emitting poison
And the homes of the forest creatures
Being carried into lumber mills
And brown water filling drinking glasses
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 1:44 AM UTC
Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
For that old Madge comes down the lane,
A stone upon her breast,
And a cloak wrapped about the stone,
And she can get no rest
With singing hush and hush-a-bye;
She that has been wild
And barren as a breaking wave
Thinks that the stone's a child.
And Peter that had great affairs
And was a pushing man
Shrieks, 'I am King of the Peacocks,'
And perches on a stone;
And then I laugh till tears run down
And the heart thumps at my side,
Remembering that her shriek was love
And that he shrieks from pride.
1.8k
Wake up, my dear friend.
"It's a new day today,
and I have a new song for you,"
said the yellow-bellied sunbird.
Sep 23, 2022
Sep 23, 2022 at 12:30 AM UTC
As I sit on the porch,
Droplets hit my toes,
Like sprinkles of renewal from above,
The sound of rain frowned ever stronger,
The smell of beginnings pursuing my nose.
The sun sets behind the full-bellied clouds,
Stepping off stage for the star of the show,
The black opal sky takes its place overhead,
Embracing the stars,
ensuring their glow.
Jan 29, 2021
Jan 29, 2021 at 6:57 PM UTC