"blackberries" poems
Bike basket full of blackberries
As I ride back
Bleeding fingers
Scraped wrists
Dark juice in the corners of my lips
It was beautiful how they clung to one another
How the protected each other
How they shared.their.thorns.
Was it wicked of me to have picked them?
Or should I have picked more?
Dark tears in the corners of my eyes
Torn thighs
Broken nails
As I ride back
Bike basket full of blackberries
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 6:25 PM UTC
I burnt down the metal cage
that confined me
I have broken up with God
and I am blossoming
without his hand pushing
my head down
I eat blackberries straight from
the bush
tasting the dirt where they grew
the tightest bud bursting
into fruit that nurtures me
that sustains me
I am Godless and cageless
I am a woman of
flames, starting fires
wherever I go
burning, burning, turning
into ash
into the very dirt I courted
with my purple stained
lips
Jan 21, 2017
Jan 21, 2017 at 9:56 AM UTC
got to eat them as they darken
reddened ruby to black constant opal
berries will rot quickly if you don’t
or they’ll taste real gooey and wierdy
if you let the drupelets’ colors get
unsynchronized like summer and fall
...why am i telling you this?
because i learned that the hard way
and the days go away in the gleam
heavy showers and peak-a-boo sun
the east barely bracing for the storm
and the sweetness decaying like the leaves
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 8:55 AM UTC
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn ****** our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
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My lips are fresh berries
And my heart, a creamy peach.
When I speak,
My mouth drips mango juice,
Delectable and raw.
My mind is plentiful dragon fruit.
My eyes are green melon,
Bright and dewy.
My fingertips, fragile blackberries,
Tender and rich.
My lungs are tangy lemon slices.
To match my lemon soul-
Consuming crisp air.
My tongue, pleasant as pomegranate
**** and joyful.
I am alive.
Jun 8, 2018
Jun 8, 2018 at 7:00 PM UTC
I remember the days when we were two stupid kids,
we were eating blackberries grown on tombs
and the moon was just a big stone
the sun was leaving its last breath on.
Now I am looking for you on the Wood street
where you last time smiled at me,
on the Wood street where people eat with their hands
the remains of those burned by unhappiness,
while fools sing about love and dreams and the holes in their hearts.
I am looking for you
and I don't know whether you are a human or a dream
or the ash
that slips through my frozen fingers.
Maybe you are just the hole in my soul,
maybe the moon is more than a big stone,
maybe I loved you
maybe
you are still there somewhere
in the Sun's last breath.
Maybe it's just your smile
that has burned
covering my soul
my hands.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC
Turquoise blues guitars
Laughing baby elephants (that paint)
Melodies singing lullabies to sleepy baby elephants
(tired from painting all day)
Blank canvases full of blackberries on the inside
The antidote to love
All the dotes that didn't get doted
And all the ones that did
Playing badminton in the backyard of Cupid's summer home in Manarola
The ruby that died to make Dorothy's slippers
And the shortest hair from the Lion's tail
Wine filled grapes
Water balloons filled from hot springs and melted mountain snow
Two spokes from Steve McQueen's "Great Escape" motorcycle
Three kisses from Ilsa Lund
And a smile from Sabrina Fairchild
Tom Robbins' typewriter (it's magic)
A flying dragon
A dragonfly (grounded for not doing her homework)
Jenny's phone number
The pillow that hit the floor at Cecilia's that afternoon
The third stair from the top of the Stairway to Heaven (best view)
One of the lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
And a grain of salt from the sea the other is swimming in
An olympic size pool full of melted crayons
A vile of sweat from the ever fleeing muse
A refrigerator the size of Rhode Island
Full of magnificent lines of magnetic poetry
Poetry (all of it)
The monster under the monster's bed
Every foul ball ever caught by any kid
Hammocks (any and every)
The cardboard boat that never stopped sailing down the gutter of the world
The secret to everything
(kept securely under the bed of the monster, under the monster's bed)
Santa's real address (you won't believe this)
The blue ink from the blueprints of Atlantis
Golf carts with no maximum speed
The energy dust left from dancing, hugging and smiling
Freshly climbed trees
A warehouse the size of Antarctica completely filled
Wall to wall with raw, unfiltered laughter
Beer
Everything that was left on the field
Passionate embraces and embracing a passion
Apology free, but full of forgiveness
The wild of the wilderness
The tame of the un-tame
Language
Intuition
Conception
First kisses, waves and winks
Goodbye hugs and thrown in kitchen sinks
Art
Music
Pain
Puddles that have been danced in under pouring rain
Empty film cans
Films on screens
All of these ingredients
Are what makes up
Dreams
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 2:20 PM UTC
my boy with fig leaves and lightning bugs
tied up in his hair, he kneels with
crimson palms pressed to the unquiet dirt
and hums an abandoned melody.
my boy with sunbeams shining through his skin on the riverbank,
neatly coating the grass in thin white trails, woven into footprints like cotton twine, snaking their way across brown earth,
ankles slick with mud and the dead things that lay just underneath.
my boy with rosewater and stained glass ashes
feels me bless him with blackberries and the softest crush of words,
ice cubed, beneath my lips,
as he wipes the ichor from my chest with callouses
worn down gentle.
the light echoes from his skin
there are no symphonies nor sacraments,
only cicadas singing warmth to shivering willows.
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
Roly poly helicopter
Spinning and toppling on a splatter of pink liquid paint
The sharp sound of blackberries and the taste of an oboe
Under the neon night sky glinting with frozen lollipops
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 10:28 AM UTC
There once was a time
Gone by, gone by,
Picking blackberries till the vine was plucked dry.
Pricked finger and the blood of kings
washed the riverbed clean again
paving path for new bled love.
Story of my life: Hot Hand-Grenade.
Tripwire tickled by trespassing travelers
Red wire arteries
clipped and clipped and clipped
and simple minded times when birds sang songs to other birds
and chirped lyrical lines in the dusk.
More wonder. More trust. Less wanderlust.
Dust in the air. Still in the sunlight.
Through glass.
Broke. Fall. Cut. All roads lead to home.
Wood, River, Stone. A guide, a path, alone.
We all walk on our own
Striving for independence
Together.
Now is a time of faded glory, daffodils in freshly-mowed fields.
I still catch myself wishing I had the words to share
The bigness of what's out there.
I still hear myself singing your song of longing.
Still find myself longing for days of childish peace and ignorance
when we could pick blackberries from the bush without bombs falling in our basket.
Still a long way to go to hear the sound of surrender and the silent unfurling of egos into how alone we feel.
Still my heart, that lost love long ago, and surrendered a savior forever.
Hart, of dreams, slip into the stream.
Interstitch the seams.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 3:55 AM UTC
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
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Hot chestnuts warming in their skin
Wild cherries for the brandy and sloes for the gin
Bramley apples and blackberries stewing together
Halls decked with bouquets of dried heather.
Deep dark red petals from the English rose
Pineapple mint food where the rosemary grows.
Oranges and lemons added for extra taste
Walnuts for the cake and almonds for the paste.
October’s pumpkins glowing bright
Apples dripping with toffee for bonfire night.
But waiting for the polished conkers to fall
Makes autumn the best season of them all.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 5:09 AM UTC
So much have I forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice,
And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
I have forgot the special, startling season
Of the pimento's flowering and fruiting;
What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
I have forgotten much, but still remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
I still recall the honey-fever grass,
But cannot recollect the high days when
We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
I often try to think in what sweet month
The languid painted ladies used to dapple
The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
I have forgotten--strange--but quite remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year
We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,
Even the sacred moments when we played,
All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.
We were so happy, happy, I remember,
Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.
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My mobile screams
Its Taylor Swift " I wished it was me"
Wake up folks its 6 am
Let's face another hectic day
Another day of terror and challenge
Unlike the good old days
when life was even simpler
when mobiles were not a necessity
but communication still exists
in close knit families
Life was even greater
When smartphones and computers
were gadgets of the future
Still relationships went on smooth and happier
Life was even lovelier
when Apples and Blackberries
were merely fruits
for juices and desserts.
but still we need to strive
to face another day
in this concrete jungle
and adapt our life....
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 8:21 PM UTC
Why did she leave at a time like this?
Why does her house feel so empty?
Because it is.
How will I ever heal from this pain?
When will I -- what is that?
Is that a leaf? It's probably a leaf.
That green thing. Is that -- ?
A woman
Promenading through the trees,
With a scarf hanging down to her knees,
A handiworker's pleasant surprise,
It's one shade deeper than her eyes.
She's clutching her tote
As I try to stay afloat;
I'm drowning in this beauty.
She's gathering blackberries
And singing our tune,
The one with no words that oft' ends too soon.
I'm lying in the weeds,
Her green scarf clutched in my palms,
And it's getting easier to breathe.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 11:29 PM UTC
I have loved you for so long,
October.
I have have heard your
Love song days
And I have seen
Your colours march through
The bright green of summer days,
Unnoticed.
I have learnt to love your authority,
Your soft spoken command,
And I follow because
I love you
Despite the melancholy
You bring with you.
Because I love you,
I love you,
October.
I love you with your tangled branches and barn owls,
With your cold trunks and fallen leaves,
With your empty nests and snow hares,
With your blackberries and marigolds,
I love you.
October
October
October
Sep 11, 2022
Sep 11, 2022 at 8:24 AM UTC
The blackberry bush had one new bloom
Its light fragrance was so delicate and sweet
I closed my eyes to breathe in deep its beauty
And felt as if I were floating on a leaf
Traveling down a quiet meandering mountain stream
Touching down on a sandy beach
The soft sand of the creek beach
Was outlined by brambles in full bloom
I thought of the blackberries to come, how sweet!
And gave a moment to consider the beauty
Of one thorny leaf
Plucked it and tossed it into the stream
I considering taking a dip in the stream
And I took my shoes off on the beach
I could see on the shore an algae bloom
And wondered if that would taste sweet
Before the plunge I looked at the crystal clear beauty
And cast myself in the water as I had the leaf
When I broke the surface on my face was a leaf
Floating unaware down the little stream
Seeking only a place to land, like a nice beach
To be amongst the other blooms
And create a berry so sweet
That, would be the truest beauty….
I was caught up by the beauty
Of a twisting maple leaf
Falling down, down to the babbling stream
Bypassing the sandy beach
And casting no glances to the opening bloom
Giving no thought to their future sweet
I swam to the shore thinking about berries so sweet
Sunlight dancing on the water created such beauty
That I stepped on a sticker leaf
And fell backwards into the stream
Filling my shorts with sand from the beach
And giving my *** cheek a nice rosy bloom
I sat on the beach right next to a mountain stream
Watched a leaf float by in all its beauty
From a sweet blackberry bush in full bloom
May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 at 6:05 PM UTC
And I have nothing else to do again
But walk these halls and wish I wasn't here,
But picking berries in a country lane.
A shadow is my face, the dust my brain,
My voice is but an echo in your ear.
And I have nothing else to do again
But counting every pace to keep me sane.
Dead as I am, I've nothing else to fear.
But, picking berries in a country lane;
Within me lives the spectre of a pain,
The ache of endless summer, yesteryear,
And I have nothing else to do again
But live in memory without my chain
And walk an aimless autumn Cambridgeshire...
But picking berries in a country lane.
Each universe must reach its long refrain.
A moment all my chains must disappear
And I'll have nothing else to do again
But picking berries in a country lane.
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 8:21 PM UTC
It's the taste of blackberries
on your lips
The bittersweetness of
not-quite-ripe fruit.
I cannot forget the
sentiment
from the brush
of your fingertips
against my chin
After picking berries
from
these bushes.
I can almost say:
that a memory as gentle
as your kiss
ignites a tenderness
inside me
and the thought that
love isn't so forceful
when subtle.
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
The sound of thick bubbling,
with the smell of fresh blackberries.
The stains upon our fingers and clothes,
all part of my homemade jam memories.
Growing wild along the roads,
the brambles tall and thick.
Pails and buckets overflowing,
eating our fill as we would pick.
The kitchen, busy as a beehive,
those tasty berries getting mashed.
The "Women" all worked together,
young or old, we each had our tasks.
Four generations, making jam.
"Puttin' back" as it was called.
I still remember the stories told
and the laughter from us all.
Not just a smile does it bring,
a calmness pours soft over me.
A giggle will well up time to time,
at my homemade jam memories.
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 9:12 PM UTC
He smelt like smoke
as he leaned away from me,
texting himself with my phone.
We left the campfire outside,
in our shoes by the door
our socks overlapped in a tangle of limbs.
In that leftover guest room,
on the bottom bunk of the microwaved bed,
I remembered why I thought I knew what love was.
He was tired and needed a nap,
I was restless and cold.
Trapped inside because of violent temperate rainstorms.
This boy owed me stubbed toes,
thorn ****** through my jeans,
nicknames and rubber soles.
This was the boy who had always smelt of smoke,
who knocked over dead trees for me,
who lied about being able to rock climb.
This was the boy who went swimming in the ocean
before summer had properly began
when it was still much too chilly.
I taught him a new card game,
he beat me at badminton.
We played capture the flag and threw pinecones.
We sold cookies on the side of the road,
ate dusty blackberries,
traded innuendos and bad jokes.
This was sea-urchin boy,
slug boy,
the boy with the bird's nest hair.
This boy grew taller,
dropped his voice like a used bus pass,
looked past the top of my head.
He laughed when i stepped in a mud puddle,
dared me to walk in bare feet.
This boy suddenly went mountain biking.
I talked extra loud, in hopes that he would overhear me,
offered him rootbeer straight from the can.
Ate pretzels and learned to read his mind.
We shared our childhoods like penny candies,
switching all the peach ones for strawberry.
we agreed these are the best years of our lives.
He layed beside me, underneath as many covers as we could find,
taking up too much space and he knew it.
my cartoon boy.
My hand-drawn boy,
With smoke coming out of his ears
moved away.
We didn't talk again
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
Blackberries, fat with summer rays,
Burst sure and true, like ocean waves
Against my tongue they carry too
The scent, the touch, the taste of you.
Each bramble stripped with greedy hands
Felt no qualm from scarlet brands
Those such marks would wash away but
Stains of you will still remain.
The scratches heal, I’ll brush away
Those nettle prongs that stick and stay
I’ll brush the bracken, soothe the sting
But thoughts of you will always cling.
Those onyx beads, their shiny spheres
Imbued with Sunshine, wet with tears;
The taste is fading from my mouth
Their waves of sweetness drawing out.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 12:44 PM UTC
My Grandma had a purse shaped like a cobbler.
It was Blackberry and soap with a good dose of thyme.
She kept it close to her side, but behind her
so as not to impede her graceful march.
At some point the original strap had been lost
and replaced with a cherry red confection
that swirled around her arm and latched
onto the top crust that is always the most crunchy.
A few buttons were picked up along the way
and dotted the top layer like ladybugs dancing.
The zipper was never fully shut and there was often
a receipt sticking out, or perhaps her pink comb
that waggled in the air like a tongue in delight.
It wasn’t a big purse; just enough to satisfy
a healthy craving but big enough to care
were you not to see it present at dinner.
I have almost forgotten the healthy craving,
the smell of Blackberries, and why the ladybugs
should ever want to dance.
Apr 11, 2012
Apr 11, 2012 at 10:28 PM UTC
Rock n’ roll music, Folger’s, and paint-smeared hands.
Dresser drawers filled to the brim with undeveloped camera film.
Blue bonnets and overgrown grass, pecans and crunching fall leaves.
Dirt roads and river-rocks, typewriters, polaroid cameras, and feather-quill pens.
Those hand-me-down blue eyes and brown ones that are “sometimes hazel.”
Crystal clusters and Lord of the Rings.
Countless mosquito bites and play-pretend games in the clubhouse.
Early-birds and night-owls.
Trudy; and Randy Hayes.
“Don’t touch everything you see,” and “If you say you’re bored, I’ll find work for you to do.”
Sweet tea and okra and southern dishes blackened and drenched in cheese or gravy.
Grandma always burned everything to make sure it was fully cooked, and to her, it was never burned, just “well-done.”
Cigarettes and carpentry and cookbooks. Wild blackberries and birthday parties at the lake.
Sleeping in all day and staying up all night and procrastination.
Shepherd's Pie, potatoes, and four-leaf clovers.
“Nil Desperandum. Never Despairing.”
I’m from a whole house that eats eggs for breakfast, and I’m allergic to eggs.
And trees as tall as buildings and buildings as tall as trees.
“You should never take the lord’s name in vain,” and “Jesus loves you, so you should love others.”
Day-dreams and stargazing and thunderstorms.
“All or nothing,” and “There is no try, only do.”
Old family pictures in dust-glittered frames.
We are crystals. We have facets, each one makes us who we are.
With only one window of our lives to express, we’d merely be glass.
I am a part of each of these things just as much as they are each a part of me.
Feb 25, 2021
Feb 25, 2021 at 12:36 AM UTC