"bleated" poems
**Mastering the whole range of bleats with meanings-
made him think his command of 'goat lingo' was perfect,
But a cheeky Anglo-Nubian goat wasn't impressed by his fluency so remarkable,
"Vocabulary is not all, my dear Sir" she bleated back " your accent is singularly atrocious"**
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 12:35 PM UTC
An occasional gust of wind will lift the translucent white voile curtains and then drop them like a child losing interest. The effect is like flash photography, a burst of sudden sunlight that paints our irises, then quickly fades.
It’s a cool Paris morning. In the low 50s. The windows are open and we forgot to turn on the heat. It’s perfect ‘under the covers’ weather. We’ve succumbed to laziness, refusing to get out of bed. Lazing-in is new enough to us that we’re defining it with a gamut of synonyms.
“Listlessness, torpor,” Peter says, his index finger tracking the slow twirl of the ceiling fan.
“Stupor, slumberous, supineness, ” I updog.
“Ooh! total submissiveness,” Peter said, drawing the last word out like it’s *****
“Every man’s dream,” I confirm.
“Inertia,” he says, triumphant in finding an engineering word.
“Good one,” I compliment. “Lifeless, loafing laggard,” I add.
There’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught.
“We ordered breakfast last night,” Peter remembers.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you get it,” I suggested.
“Why me?” he whined.
“Because you can wear less and because what if it’s an ax murderer?”
“These people work for your grandmother, she employs ax murderers?”
“It could be a revolution - this is France - it happens.”
There’s another knock.
“Get it!,” I bleated, like a helpless goat.
“Am I expendable?” he asked, as a man might plead to a lynch mob.
“Women and children first,” I remind him.
There’s a third knock.
“Ok,” he says resignedly, as he rises, draws on shorts and heads for the door.
“You’re my hero,” I assure him, before I pull the sheet up over my head in case it IS an ax murderer.
Jun 3, 2023
Jun 3, 2023 at 9:06 AM UTC
the others didn’t like him
his markings were different
his stripes were too bright
he’d been places
seen things
and he understood them better than they understood themselves
he had the scars of life experience
and he wore them with pride
having travelled to the darkest corners of the jungle
living wonders and horrors
they could only imagine
from the confines of their pen
so shallow and so rigid
he was a dangerous reminder of all they were not
maybe they were just sheep after all
he came with a sense of danger
and they came with the scent of fear
he could smell it on them
he was a tiger
and they were all lambs
and the lambs had nothing for him
but they bleated as if they knew better
and they hid within their herds
the way cowards always do
because that was all they knew
safety in numbers
the company of the crowd
they would never know what it took to be a tiger
to walk alone in the wilderness
to swim up river with his big padded paws
there was a great strength in his solitude
but they knew very little
of either
strength or solitude
plus the sheep had no style
so they hated him for his
in fact the tiger had more style in one paw
than all of them put together
he peered into the pen
briefly licking his teeth
but it looked so empty in there
that’s when he realised
that the crowd was a just another prison
and so was the herd
just an empty pen
full of empty people
living and dying their empty little lives
he would lose his freedom by joining them
he would sacrifice his stripes
no longer king of the jungle
they would sedate him and put him on display
in a petting zoo
until he was no more a tiger than they were
just a trophy on a shelf
for the dumb public to come and take pictures with
and he would sit there
wishing he could disappear
his eyes blinded by flash photography
his wild spirit destroyed
the very essence of him gone
and they would keep him
until he lost all his colour
and then they would lose interest
in the tiger they had tamed
in the trophy they had spoiled
no
this was no life for a tiger
no place for him to live
no company to keep
the sheep had nothing for him
except for the prison sentence
of their acceptance
he was better off alone
back in the wilderness
where he belonged
out in the jungle
where he could prowl freely
without judgement of his stripes
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 10:43 AM UTC
My goat has a speech impediment
when the doctor checked her throat
she could only say "AAAAAAAAAAAhhh"
not "ahhhhhhhhh"
The doctor broke the news to me one day
'your goat....has an impediment' he bleated quietly
I dashed out of his AAhffice
AAhway from his AAhccusatory statements
AAhnd rushed into the legs of my goat
'Goat...what are your legs doing there?'
i asked
and I looked up
and saw the goat dAAhngling above my head
'what in the world?!' I AAhxclaimed
'dearest Goat-etha, I had no AAhdea you could fly'
"every since AAh shAAhared mAAh secret, AAh felt so free, AAh could fly"
(she didn't sound like she had an impediment to me)
'but Goat-etha, you know you can't fly'
and she crashed to the ground
crushed by the knowledge
that not everything is possible
'dear Goath-etha, I still love you, you know'
and she stood back up
and ironed her previously-crushed legs
and walked to the doctor's office
and gave that man a kick in the bAAhlls
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 10:13 PM UTC
Your contours that mark the sand
Depresses the earth into an outline
You are traces of a man
Hollowed out by the horror of your pain
Oh! Son of man, where is ye shame?
You are bound like an ox to a chain
Your body sways like a pendulum
As you lower and harvest their grain
Chains bind you to your fellow men
So that feet that once ran move now in defeat
They motion as a reminder of your labours
And the bond you have with your captors
Liberty, justice and all that was good
You were made to abandon for a morsel of food
"Yes Master, no Master, three bags full Master"
Baa the woolly sheep bleated in surrender.
Why let the dust of your labours
That fill the air with its derision
Settle willingly on your once dark skin
Mixing your blackness into a confusion
Black is the colour of your conscience
Black was the colour of your rituals
Black feet ran and black hands played
Black babies were the dawn of a new age
You let that slip through your fears
Your memory blurred by ashes
Your brain that incinerated your courage
Condemned you to the life of a savage
Rise up, son of man who fears freedom
Your traces will have no roots
An outline of your existence
Is a hollow grave without its occupant
Don't preach the Bible as your saviour
Unless you have more to offer
Don't mark your history by enslavement
And the heritage you were made to abandon
That chain that links your past
To a future that is bleak
Is a God of eternal bonds
Secured by your hidden Masters
Your children dance in the shadows of your enslavement
Morphing your chains into a cross
A freedom founded on great men and courage
Is short-lived by bitter recriminations
The ghettos, the drugs, the guns and deaths
The rap that is the anthem of your anger
Makes a chain between right hand and left
As your youth disappears forever
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM UTC
i watch you inside my head
with eyes like binocular surveillance
spinning bulls
dancing widdershins
in mind erasing rituals,
from witchy book
voodoo tropical itch
that spits a mudslide
and who are you in this poem
maybe a hungry ghost or
just a girl who has a kink
for shadows burn
from midnight suns
algorithms of bleated conundrums
and luminous smiling star eyed teeth
your undulant music
melodically bleeds desire
swelling
aching worm tongued clitori
in teary shredded *******
that bows her head like sinking stones
to touch blood silent puddles
of Pomegranate Martinis encircled by
drunken Pentecostal Lucifer's
better than a kiss could ever be
you would **** to die goat horned
pink as dingo ****
and held down by storming arms
that stop you dead past memories blur
a martyred fruit darker than night
in a leg show
scumbag halo resurrection
under threat
ankles bound
fledged
split wide and trussed
she panted
"I hate pain
but love being forced to take it".
Nov 8, 2020
Nov 8, 2020 at 1:25 PM UTC
Deep inside the mountain's woods,
Where human eye will never see...
My heart was caught by the Gularbeast,
But his was not by me
I first saw him there, down by the stream,
Looking fierce, and proud, and free
And I made a vow that some way, somehow,
I'd make him fall for me.
A month and a year, I followed him here
Where the mountain meets the sea.
And despite my constant shower of praise;
The beast cares not for me.
In desperation I seized him fast,
And bound him 'round the knees
So I could force him to look my way,
And beg him to acknowledge me.
When my loving entreaties were depleted,
Gularbeast shook his mane and bleated
And I was dismayed, my love defeated.
To know he felt naught for me.
So with breaking heart, and trembling hands
I did my love set free.
Not a backward glance, but a kick to the pants
Was his departing gift to me...
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 12:56 AM UTC
The Fire-Horse snorted Fire and was gone
The Wood Dragon was left
In a forest of lost dreams
A reason in mind she could not see
And the Sheep she bleated
And the Monkey she chatted
'Is this what I want?'
Said the thousand little voices in her head
The busy bee flew in her ear
And down the long and twisty hall
Alive with thoughts unwanted
The Dragon sat with a knotted tail
Mummy we need you
Mummy we need you
Mummy we need you
Woke the Dragon from her reverie
She flew off and flew with a flurry
For to save her children dear
Found in the wicked paw
In the midst of a were-wolfs lair
Now his ears' being in tune with the ether
The Fire-Horse flew across the sky
In a blaze he was beside her
Saving their children dear
And the Sheep she bleated
And the Monkey she chattered
'What took you so long?'
Said the thousand little voices in her head.
Well in anger they breathed their worst
And together their fire raged
This time not at each other
But at the wolf in his cave
Out he came very coward
With his tail between his legs
Oh he pleaded a greasy mercy
But they sent him packing in a burning blaze!
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 6:53 AM UTC
Fields turned yellow like the sun
from the old rain
That felled like paint on a canvas
Red Kites hovered a dinner
In their grasp
Amongst the golden wash of life
Trails of steel from above left
lines of snow
Into the clear bluest sky
As the silence of nature bleated volumes
The earth felt a good day from a
mad mad world
The cool wind blew gently over to
a wave without a sea
As my eyes shone to the wonders
of earths senses before me and it felt good
Hills from a distance showed
a landscape
Built on years of time from a land
riddled in blood
In a yesteryear that we chose
to forget
Yet in the center of the field stood a lonely
old tree
Its life still strong from Gnarls of time etched in
pain for all to see and feel
New buds bore a life to prove a life to live
And this was a time to live
A time to grow
A time to give
To give love to this Earth
Our Earth
Our Mother Earth
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 5:27 PM UTC
Fields turned yellow like the sun from the old rain
that felled like paint on a canvas
Red Kytes hovered a dinner in their grasp
amongst the golden wash of life
Trails of steel from above left lines of snow
into the clear bluest sky
as the silence of nature bleated volumes
The earth on a good day from a mad mad world
The cool wind blew gently over to a wave without a sea
as my eyes shone to the wonders of earths senses before me
and it felt good
Hills from a distance showed a landscape
built on years of time from a land riddled in blood
in a yesteryear that we chose to forget
Yet in the centre of the field stood a lonely old tree
Its life still strong after Gnarls of time etched in
pain for all to see and feel
New buds bore a life to prove a life to live
And this was a time to live
a time to grow...a time to give
To give love to this earth
Our earth ....Our mothers earth
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 5:04 PM UTC
the sheep cleared his throat, a ballad he bleated
but pulling wool over eyes, he really had cheated
as he simply had boldly repeated
what had been writ with the pen
haphazardly by chicken-scratch hen
pig used a sty -lus for wife, piglets three
wrote stories and poems, wrote them with glee
he wrote them
to bring home the bacon, you see
until he found out the bacon was he!
duck had no luck whatever the weather
for her writing she used a quill feather
when it poured down with rain
the duck near went insane
instead of paper she should have used leather
rooster read his work right out loud
he crowed and was so very proud
but on 5 a.m. he insisted
the rest were asleep and persisted
they didn't get up so they missed it
the dog had no papers nor did the cat
so no point in having a pen, given that
but (poetic) license(s) they had
they weren't really too bad
so with their claws they scratched on a mat
oh yes, on that farm were smart creatures
they could write great poems and features
the farmer called in a fit
look, the cow she has writ
but, the *** brayed out, it's udder ********
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
The farm girl sat on the window sill,
Overlooking the hill,
Looked at the sunset, a tangerine glow,
Beautiful,she wanted to draw,
But, mummy said,"Time to sleep."
"Bleat,bleat, bleated the sheep,
In the stable the horses neighed
Grandpa sighed,
The cows in the barn mooed,
The oxen lowed,
Little one,time to go to bed,
Sweet dreams for you lie ahead,
Goodbye most beloved, good night,
Sleep tight,
And on the farm all was quiet.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
Cool morning finally
Autumn wind in brisking
When I close my eyes
I hear waves breaking
My imagination overtaking
Walking the coast along the sea
The squawking of the city birds
In my mind turn into the sea gulls
They whistled, they squealed, they barked, they bleated, they gargled
Opening my eyes all I see is fallen leaves
Here I am back in Texas
My back yard, my reality
Autumn morning
Brisking leaves°🍂
🍁₩€ND¥°🍁
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:06 AM UTC
When words carelessly spoken
Cause about them a terrible roar
When hearts they are broken
Selling feelings like a *****
Scorned, throttled and beaten
Torn as if limbs in their minds
Thrown down, burned into ash and eaten
Careless to hurt, living so blind
When the ones you have treated
Have died, cursed, or bleated
Bedeviling thoughts of him who is seated
Shall return to you with fire in time
With fire of their ire
Will you they seek
To tear at your bones and your heart to *****
And then you will learn that they were priceless
To a tone deaf ******* whose heart was of stone
Seek revenge upon your eternal and dying soul
Only then will you understand you were rich
Only then will you know that karma’s a b!tch
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 10:55 PM UTC
Upon a will not of my own
My eyes lured westward
To the settling rustic clouds
Spread wide-winged across the sky
And from an open vortex came
The leader's shrill reply.
The ducks of Sabie braced the winds up high
Their wishbone flight kept in harmony
Ignited a compelling thrill
Deep within my half conscious eye
For yet again I listen into memory.
The days spent at Sabie might have gone by
But these alluring creatures pass here now
Stirring a hidden intimate thought
Which grew from Sabie's twilight river banks.
Where unattended grass abounds in profusion
The blades tall from country breath and
Wide pastures naked to the windy storms.
Against a reddening sun and a blackening bridge
Which overhung the ice-cold waters,
Those ducks bleated their melancholic cry
Like a marker for a question why.
Their passage seemed a continuous dream
Their throats resounding the restless stream
Sabie, a shelter to beautiful liberty
That reverberates against green clad mountains
Where heaven unites with a shy still spiritual grandeur
I watched the haunting waifs wander through the sky
Like a ghost refection against my sub-conscious mind.
A holier feeling, as a church spire lost in mists.
Of a rainy day, yearned within me.
Their swaying wings cast shadows in my heart
Their beauty and their vagabond souls
Provoke a thought of sublime content.
That evasive mood on which poets' conjure
A strength of divine sorrow and subdued delight.
While the river's rhythmic pulse beat over the rocks
And in the darkness seemed a sight of slithering glass
With the tall trees mirrored in its sun-stained depth
A subtle yearning reached within my soul.
An urge evolved to save this temporary while
And rest within this insulated haven
Where to hear the ducks invokes an embracing joy
To be a limb, a fringe, a relative of this deity-like company.
Present falls too soon on shallow ears
And the ducks of Sabie, might they be
Lose their reminiscent shadows to the dark horizon
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 6:28 PM UTC