"bobble" poems
I don’t get feminism.
The term, that is.
When they ask, "Are you a feminist?"
I reply, “Sure.”
They nod in bobble-head approval.
“I’m also a childist and animalist”
A confounded grimace glazes over
“Huh?”
“Of course. Aren’t YOU a childist?
Aren’t YOU an animalist?”
“Uh. What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you believe that children
and animals should be treated with love?”
“Well, naturally.”
“Well. There you go. You’re a childist
And animalist.”
"Besides, you would extend this love
To all sentient beings, I’m assuming?”
“Ummm. Yes...”
“Well, then, you’re a masculinist too,
Just like me!”
This is about the time their cell buzzes
Or their double soy frap is ready
They whisk away
“Oh, I’m also a worldist!” I belt out
Before they exit
As I resume reading
Remaining clever, and
Alone.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 1:31 AM UTC
Retail-hunter gatherers pick
clean processed bones, digging graves
with their shiny teeth, studious in
their reveries as they drone
past worlds dumped in the thresher;
the trucked-in fields of film-wrapped
gore splayed lustily before the managers
wound tight in Machiavellian design.
A shepherd herds his flock of
wreathed iron back to its pen, its
skeletal tangle lit in riotous gold by
swords flung from lambent eyes of
pre-dawn’s shunting chariots
Cages shunt and bobble like tugboats
chugging stoic up swimming pool lanes
of nondescript tile, cheered on by shouting
colours to float through archipelagos of
paper towel and chocolate blocks past
the vegemite diaspora, and the arctic
wastelands cased in sliding glass fields of
perfect steady storms as wraiths baked in halogen
ask silent questions of the silverbeet, while
Lana Del Ray’s voice falls like
nightshade—slutty and serene—coating
shelf stackers in a Piaf sadness as the
shelves reach their arms out for more.
The check out chick hatches
a sense of déjà vu as carrots
and biscuits drone towards her
mind berEFT of any twitching
sense of POSsibility that wised
up and flew this leering coop and
deep in her catalogue of grey folds
something stillborn and waxen is
perched on gleaming steel, reeling
out her guts like cassette tape with jerky
nightmare arms and laughing like a
banker watching ***** films, mornings
dull cerise an invocation through
auto-jaws as she bursts out to warble
with magpies in car park’s climbing fire.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 9:23 PM UTC
It is nothing,
a mordant of the soul,
an elixir, a panacea, a placebo
for my lesions, there in the thistle, grows
our drastic garden of red posies and hyacinths,
such little things, on the verge,
lilting as the decorum begins to bobble
and slump sideways, and murmur,
on Mondays I can swallow the octave
of your absence, tendrils and all,
red quince limbs parting from the deluge
and in its wake, the wreckage
of black pumpkins and purple corn, hanging
pendulum at our door,
the Autumn lights summon a lavish song to harvest,
thirty seven colours in the brocade you gift me,
tangled and heavy the years upon my bones
begin to spur and flower
into cunning disruptions,
and stratify upon my body like rinds of ricepaper,
vellum for another wish
in the complacent burial of mango flesh,
listen,
as my song liquefies,
drowns you, inundates
each alveoli, and our love
in the swallowing gush, perched,
begins to shudder,
devoured by its symmetry,
stem cells all akimbo
in the shallow pitch of days
bound in a nostrum of wine and liquorice
it is nothing, really,
a mordant for the soul, a tulle filament
twitching in a raincoat of lightning....
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 4:35 PM UTC
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
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off
still slay the summers with smiles
like punches
Still walking wounded through the bad joke lanes,
questions clamped under your tongue,
with an aching brain
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
roadways.
Carrying cards after we fold the game
Poured pretty comforts down our throats--
so many candied gas tanks.
And I agree: these couches
are feeling more like graves
Will our crutches craft our coffins
'til we bobble routine plays?
Nothing changed before we knew it.
6-year blink, it's all the same.
It's just that
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still blur the border between wants and needs.
Still **** our thumbs when all the
lights turn off.
Still check our pulses,
then start laughing loud as
knocking knees
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place.
We're still too comfortable with our own kind.
Still fall in love with the same friends
for just a few days at a time
And I concur: these routines
are looking more like chains
Will these crutches seal our caskets?
Would we notice anyway?
Nothing changed before we knew it
6-year blink, it's still the same.
Mid-20 doldrums never really wore off.
Still chasing sunsets and a 10-cent dream.
Still rattling 'round inside these tin can
roadways
Still placing patches over fraying seams
Still checking pulses, still on quaking knees.
Still too scared to make up our minds
Still turning parties into 3-day headaches
while we pretend like we can take our time
Can't believe we thought we'd left a place
Still slay the summers with smiles
like punches.
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 12:13 AM UTC
How horrible the plot
the hem, the haw
of the incessantly violent
torture ****
How sad the politic
the row, the scorn
the media howl, the noise
the storm
We are drifting in a sea
of bobble head puppets
backstabbing, mass murdering
mask-faced tyrants
and we are loosing the battle
before it's even begun
So go ahead now
and trade in your votes
sell off your rights
buy a backfiring gun
Because nothing is worse
than trying to reverse evolution
and you can't crawl back
into the womb of your Mother
once you've destroyed
the primordial ooze
of creation's lubrication
for a dollar and a cheapened dream's
inflation
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 5:08 PM UTC
im skipping through the day,
flying away like fairy dust and dripping gold like a caramel bar
grinning ear to ear like a Cheshire cat
because most everyone is mad here
and im not altogether here myself
3 parts infected 2 parts sane and 7 parts mad
my heads on a spring like a bobble necked pin
not here !they scream not here!
so my mind leaves,
truances my classes skipping through feilds of poppies and clovers
where all the rainbows end
my Conscience can hide from the lies my eyes tell
so ive lost it 12 pence at a time,
rounded down to dimes,
raving lunitics prance here, in the halls of my brain
10:16 like its 420 again
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 6:24 PM UTC
Fowl floating and flapping across an ocean canopy.
Lightly squawking and ascending in a calm summer sky.
Waves shine and melt into the beachfront in a dull roar slowly thundering in diagonal collapsing sectors.
The top of the ocean. The point of a sphere. Its water that falls slowly to the bottom of..... Here!
Ripples and puddles and drinks full of life, the clearest the murky and bluest in light.
Mountains and palisades can be rocks that reach skyward. God on a gravel road walking through.
The golden purple cattails glow in the sunlight like strawberry fields that fizzle on my hands in the wind that can dance. The vinyl green stem leafs sit stagnantly silently awaiting the moon.
Hoppers crescendo in a frozen moment singing in stillness that refuses to relent.
The trees around them bask in the energetic massage from the moving sections of recently called air vapors.
The Hi- C haircuts that nature reminds me it inspired bobble from the vectors.
This climate ecology scenery breeds the moments religions were made for me.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
‘Why ask’,said the field mouse to Hedgehog
Who scuttled along softly on four short legs
Wearing a bobble hat made of apache wool
‘I don’t know but truths must be brought on.’
‘Yes’, said Mousey as it perched with fairy
In the brown bed filled with green cuttings
For only here with my friend is the world’s
Beauty allowed a sharing heart and voice.
So take me into the garden with pink roses
Growing one with up turned bright bud
Shoes holding tightly your peering down
Fills out the future with seeded windmills.
Love Mary x
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 2:49 PM UTC
Conor's got P.E. , so his kit is washed,
I've wrapped his butties in foil, so they don't get squashed,
Pork Luncheon meat, in a crispy roll,
And a carton of Ribena, to fill that hole.
Jess starts College at One, so she'll wake at Five - to ,
Cheese and Pickle, will have to do,
I've had my pint of milk, with three Weetabix,
Got a Flagon of Cider, all the boxes are ticked.
A days grafting ahead, out near Billingshurst,
Laying bricks and blocks, building up a thirst,
And home to the hungry, back to the shops,
It's either Chicken Kievs, or half-price lamb chops.
Custard and Pie, hot milky drinks,
Then everyones asleep, except for me, who thinks,
About tomorrows butties, fruit and snacks,
Calories, nutrition, vitamins and facts.
Up at dawn, in an old bobble-hat,
Making food for them all, even the cat,
A tin of Tuna, he's well impressed,
Another flagon of Cider, another sweat-stained vest.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 11:17 AM UTC
knitted on a dodgy bobble hat
or a favourite chunky jumper
from scandanavia, or yorkshire
untasteful but definitely practical..
smelly and friendly like a wet dog
pliable like warm playdoh...
patulioi oil
will always remind me of you...
'a hippy place in my heart...'
like a beachnut,
no, a beach hut
shelves littered with the flotsam of our throwaway society,
flip flop corner...
19:10
some random hermit crab making his escape from
the dripping bundle of just found fishing net
down through the crack in the floor...
into the sand
and back to the sea.
the moths and midges gravitate towards the fossils and rock shelf
because that's where the gaslamp gently hisses.
suncracked and faded
pieces of
70's buckets and spades flicker in the corner
between the scraps of rope
and the deflated inflatables
and the bottlecap damian hurst
next to sea purse corner,
biological tendrils contrasting the ever stoic rubber ducks
who escaped from the pacific gyre...
panning around, the smartphone registers,
the garish tatty windbreak
and the 90's ghettoblaster
which still has some juice left from those batteries
we bought at the gift shop...
last year...
for our imaginary beach hut....
in the outer hebrides...?
you take the camping gaz from the cupboard
and put the kettle on...
the beach is desert island white
the sea azure like a gaudy 70's postcard
the wind tugging relentless through our hair.
but the pub is warm and friendly
where grizzled fishermen philosophise
hardily. by the fire.
between warming shots of smokey single malt.
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 6:47 PM UTC
Grey nameless faceless suits
A decaying ladder without roots
Monochrome and corporate candy loot
Your elitest point is mute.
Your point is mute!
Fine dining line driving
A self-sabotaging visionary
Glass half empty
Down your throat white wine is sliding
D-U-why is my life such a mess?
I dream of big success
In nightmares you wear office dress
This is a test
Of your *******
Freeload patience!
Just a purple plastic bobble head
Nodding yes with self-deprecating complacency
Lowely little Attempts of autonomy
Grin wider with each shit-induced palpitation
Foaming at the mouth
media-induced inebriation--
Cheap industrial imitation
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 10:24 AM UTC
He sings with me as if in a dream
on the rolling hills of green
In a voice so clear every man can hear
Every word we mean -
Backed-by-a-choir, he beats on his tamborine
He's soft; and slightly off-key -
We are the ones that we want to love, and fortunate are we -
His lips, they purse around each syllable. His hair is moved in the breeze -
He is the spirit I've been channeling; Forever He and Me -
Two-by-two the dyads move,
Swaying in the dance -
The sun, a bobble, shines in our eyes-
By the Universe entranced -
Two are joined by the choir, the sun
And the face of the dancing crowds -
The cone-of-power confirms the manifest,
Then we ascend to the clouds -
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 1:19 PM UTC
I took to the shore my final day
my final few hours
the Sun was low and the breeze had a coolness
though it was blistering hot earlier
I was watching an osprey returning from the ocean
a sizeable fish in it's claws
the beach was sparse this late
I relaxed and enjoyed the sounds and sheer beauty
of the Outer Banks
from my left I heard a light gasp that startled me
as I hadn't noticed her approaching
she spotted a lettered olive
as the sea gently lapped the shore
it was rolling back towards the next wave
but she managed to grab it just in time
a look of delight crossed her face
glowing like the Sun itself
'Nice find
those are tough to come by in that condition' I said
'they are my favorite' she responded with a smile
her eyes sparkled blue and her auburn air
tied in a bobble hung far down her back
'nice to meet someone who still appreciates
the beauty of a sea shell'
I was hoping for a name but one didn't come
instead,
she sent a gaze that ignited not shivers
but an energy down my spine
'If only everyone knew the beauty that lives here
It's nice to meet another who sees as well'
I started to respond, but she turned and continued down the beach
her white kimono gently flowing with the ocean breeze
appeared to be from a time past
I turned my attention briefly to a group of pelicans
playing 'follow the leader' just above the waves
I could not let her go
I gathered enough courage to continue this chance meeting
but when I turned, she had disappeared
impossible
we are no less than 50 yards from the path off the beach
I just saw her less than 30 seconds...
I called out...but felt foolish
I tried to gather my thoughts
a light voice...or thought came as the breeze quieted
my name is Eve...
I walked the shoreline until it became too dark to stay
bewildered...I bid goodbye to the ocean and turned to leave
something caught my eye in the sand
amongst the thousands of shells on display
there lay a beautiful, perfect lettered olive
I will hold onto this one
Jun 7, 2022
Jun 7, 2022 at 7:32 PM UTC
On ever-changing tides
they floated for nigh a lifetime
growing worn
tattered
and frayed around the edges
They were tangible once
and precious
even solemn
But
somewhere along the way
they were neglected
discarded
and abandoned
On the darkest of stormy seas they bobble now –
weather-beaten
unrecognizable
decayed and fetid
The things of a lifetime
rotting -
in their cold
watery grave
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 8:14 AM UTC
Some very good friends sat around in their basement
I think we've all been here before
The room of course was smokey and wasted
The four buddies were bored right out of their gourds
They all thought they should do something special
So they decided to build a rocket ship
Throwing a bunch of old plywood together
They then sat around, smoked some more, and planed their spacey trip
Jody spoke up first and said let's go to the moon
But they'd heard that had already been done
That's when he came up with the brightest idea
I know what! We'll go to the sun!
Go to the sun?! We may be high but we're not crazy!!
They replied, this ships made out of wood
That's when Jody explained his brilliant idea
Nodding like Bobble Head dolls they all understood
As Jody dug deeper into his intricate plan
All the guys seemed to like it a lot
They would go when it's dark in the middle of night
When the suns put out and it isn't so hot
Since Jody's the genius, they put him in charge
He seems to have a grasp on what's left of his brain
There were four of them but only room for two
They drew straws 'cause they were having difficulty remembering their names
The straws turned out to be the same length
Cutting them, somebody forgot
So they picked Jody as their Captain Kirk
And Jason as his sidekick Spock
Out in left field, the excitement was contagious
Jody yelled, 'To infinity and Beyond'
They knew that quote came from some famous movie
But had a memory lapse so they gave him more Bobble Head nods
At that point they realized they had no engine
Being impaired, not a one of them cared
They all went back down into the basement
And took another kind of trip without going anywhere
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 4:16 PM UTC
If all of this looks normal
And never once makes you blink
If you ride the tide to whatever side
Flows into group think
If you do all they tell you to
And then ask them for more
If you play their game and all receive the same
Trophy at the door
If you nod in Bobble Head fashion
With their version of the truth
Never stepping off to question
Then maybe you've been brainwashed too
If you scream out heebie-jeebies
When opposite shows it's hand
And instead of calmly asking
It's more of a demand
If you turn blue when you talk green
And all you see is red
If in your realm of tolerance
You wish the other side was dead
If your blindfold covers both heart and head
On what is the gospel truth
The only conclusion there is left
Is maybe you've been brainwashed too
Mar 28, 2023
Mar 28, 2023 at 11:31 AM UTC
winch sinched grimmace
hung at half mast
in an attempt to hold rebelious bicusbids in their place
but they still wiggle like a bobble-head jesus glued to the dash
every time that you laugh
so i guess that's why you're giving it up
your arms look like a road map
riddled with pin-prick pot-holes
and with routes to hell and back marked
by distressed vasculatory flares
so you ask to borrow my sweater
and another fourty bucks
with no explanation why
for once
you didn't lie to me
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 1:37 AM UTC
Poor little Donny.
Long ago all he had
Was his overlarge, pumpkin-shaped head,
His tiny baby hands,
And a small loan of a million dollars.
He struck out for himself,
With only that million dollars to his name.
And he became a success...
And then went bankrupt,
And then found success again,
And then bankruptcy,
And finally more success.
He bought himself a wife,
Made himself a daughter he wants to date,
And put in a run for president.
Now he stands atop a pedestal,
Spewing forth hate-filled words,
Xenophobic and mono-syllabic.
His white washed fans, bowing before their Fuhrer.
Our best and brightest spend their days decrying his actions,
Our true leaders point out his massive ineptitudes,
Our comedians creating thoroughly researched,
20 minute rants about this tiny-handed, pumpkin man.
The other leaders of the world stand baffled by Donny's popularity.
But still his stands behind his podium,
With his red hat,
Waving his baby hands and blubbering about his
"Great brain. The best brain."
And the
"Fantastic wall. The great wall. A Trump wall."
And so the question becomes,
What will this tyrannical child do
When his presidential aspirations are destroyed?
For he lacks the support of any minority group,
Any women's group,
And any level-headed person.
The answer is simple:
He will sue, or at least threaten to do so.
He will rant and rave like the lunatic that he is.
His racist followers will do the same.
But their blabbering will be lost in the words of the intelligent.
Or at least we hope that will be the outcome.
Why, oh why, little handed Donny,
Must you spew such hatred and xenophobia?
Why can you not return to your tower of gold,
With your expensed wife, and bobble sized pumpkin head?
Please leave us be.
Mar 24, 2016
Mar 24, 2016 at 11:41 AM UTC
I spent my fifth grade year in school in my fourth new district
writing timed multiplication tests while blood fell from my nose
in hot fat drops splattering my papers,
a rusty brown organic counterpoint
to the red ink of my teacher’s note
“Emily- see me after class”
and my stomach dropped faster than the blood
or the bobble-headed Care Bear that my Social Studies teacher
threw out the window during class
because she once mentioned that she hated Care Bears
and so we covered her room with them.
I spent my fifth grade year at home in my parent’s bed
with blankets tacked over the windows and towels stuffed
into the cracks under the doors
while my parents tiptoed through the kitchen
and I dug my chewed off nails into my scalp trying
to claw the rot and smoldering ash out of my head
and flinched at every creaking floor board.
It was an old house.
The mourning doves called sycophantic dirges every dawn
(and noon, and dusk),
and I grinned when the dog chased them off to hide
with the one-eyed tom in the barn.
I tell you these things not to make you feel sorry for me,
but because I am confused how I can feel sorry for me
and yet miss that time so much.
In the end, I am left only with the firm conviction
that timed tests are every child’s bane,
and mourning doves are just country pigeons.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 4:20 PM UTC
what,s beauty?shorn and tousled follicles.a b
-owlfilled with hushed buzzing electric teeth
masticating her hair fleetly. a soft waste deposited
in porcelain silent whiteness; a crevice kindly hard
to pertain the sheering
and rough gently her bobble i clutch and rub
its skein
the jostle gritty stubble rumbles contended
under my hands
but remains an onyx shock twaining sweetly
you
i love you
my little valkyrie; scream
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 11:37 AM UTC
Precipice mountain fondled the fond of fondling fountain spouting love-crusssst.
I bob this bobble-headed dead-set-on-deafening those who will or would but cannot and could not stop my pupil-dark-mind-lark sent out and over that previously spoken-of precipice of a mountain so that, and, hereby, I fly continuously into space-spacey places of radiating-planetary-beauty yet you try with futility to reach me so you never will, I am above you.
I win.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 10:51 AM UTC
being up or being down
should I swim or should I drown
demons a tailor and I have lost ties
demons a sailor and I have crossed lies
starry eyed wide a tumble
but isn't it to be true that's so humble
think it over pour my courage
I sink not sober is my porridge
flashes of lights like dreams less trying
clashed in the night dreamless I'm dying
take a step maybe a hobble
I wonder what if I was a bobble
a toss up for chance but dropped
a floss up a glace but flopped
conflicting actions with no remorse
just sifting fractions with in this course
no stop signs no lights left to flicker
no white lines no fights left to bicker
still so numb
and yet so undone
curled up alone in a ball of loss
all thoughts hurled up hear a call gosh
no writing or sense to be maid
I'm just subsiding not getting paid
pass out the nights been over
wake up do it again sober
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 10:23 PM UTC
That distant memory - a used balloon that has already served it's purpose
Unable to soar pronounced as it once were
Only to bobble from my path deflated and regrettably forgotten
Nov 23, 2021
Nov 23, 2021 at 2:08 AM UTC
You have a Wednesday stuck to your oversized, hand-me-down, turtle-neck sweater.
The one with a hole in the elbow of your right sleeve.
It was hand stitched by a real machine, but not in Ireland.
You have a Wednesday snagged. Perhaps a loose thread became entangled, midweek ?
And now you have Wednesday, everywhere you go....
I only mention, because I noticed...
And it totally goes with that Monday
In your eyes.
Is that your Existential Crisis; parked right outside ?
I hope you fed the meter.
I can see where you spent your spiritual currency.
From every angle, simplicity of design !
Just a chasm and no plot. Elegant lines -
That wind up vanishing from the ' Unspeakable Frame '
Beyond the Border of What You Dare Think...
I have one just like that !
But mine has a concrete hunch about the whole thing.
A suspicion engine
So nothingness can't seem to live without me. But -
I see you have that thing you just hope isn't the truth
And I used to have that -
But now I just have a Headache.
I'm crushing on your Ayn Rand funeral parties
And that outrageous, bobble-head Doubting Thomas on your dashed hope.
Let's sit at that table by the window
And stare at each other as long as the window has nothing in it.
That should give us aeons to get to know each other.
There's no Law that says " I'm sorry for being such a stupid Law "
So without pause, we should defy our Separateness.
I'll ask for a clean fork in the road
And we'll see what that get's me....
Ah-ha !
I finally got a laugh
That didn't come from inside my skull.
A laugh that had good taste in men, and no idea where it came from -
But remembers how the couch made the carpet work.
The Abyss goes with everything, but you left it in the closet...
You know -Why unpack ?
That laugh was naked.
It gave me those Goosebumps
That can beat up Other Goosebumps.
Would you like to have some chai ?
Sep 20, 2011
Sep 20, 2011 at 5:26 PM UTC