"bristle" poems
The artichoke
of delicate heart
*****
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.
And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a ***
So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.
16.7k
Who are these farmers,
And who, these fertile fields,
Verdant under native grass,
That stand un-plowed,
That shake beneath the plow,
That lie now fallow,
That bear the planted seed,
That wear the heavy grain,
That await the Harvest pain?
And who, these Harvesters,
And who, these close-shorn fields,
Desolate in short-cut stubble,
That stand, stiff in silence,
That wear the heavy tracks,
That have endured the harvest,
That yielded up their dead,
That bristle through the falling snow,
That whistle wind-song low?
And who, these merry Farmers,
And who these stubbled fields,
Glistening beneath the melting snow,
That warm beneath the glowing sun,
That host the migrants of the sky,
That tremble the biting plow,
That accept the falling seed,
That wait beneath the welcome rains,
That cycle through the seasons once again?
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 9:29 AM UTC
A bird rests its wings
On the thin disfigured fingers of
The trees branches
Reaching ever so helplessly
To pull the clouds from the sky
And the breeze beats them to the stroke –
The wrinkled eyes of the painter grin in an open field
With a canvas the bristle has yet to caress
Before rolling it up
Like a chess mat
Or a map
He taps it shut like a telescope
Departing for home where there is a woman waiting for him
To inhale her sweet aroma
To swallow the food she’s prepared
To delicately draw the hair
Falling over her face
And tuck it behind her ear
And whisper the words
And brush her skin with quiet hand-language
And he will not be beaten
To the stroke
(c) 2015
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC
“We love what we don’t know, what it’s lost already…”
Jorge Luis Borges
I hang on to your portrait, in front of me;
among candles, copal, and all those things you worship in a mexican altar to the death.
You are my invisible jaguar,
you appear before me, between dreams, and I fell alive.
Full of wounds,
lacerated by my absence,
I put your portrait in front of the altar that my mind has conceived,
and you seem to hold the paradise's secret in your hands,which are made of ashes.
Then, according to the mexican & catholic tradition,
like a rural priest,
you start to draw a cross, made of the ashes of your magic, sacred hands.
The smell of the whole,
sacred being that exists in this spiritual plane,
lays on your profile, so beautiful embodied in your portrait,
which I prefer above any other reflex.
Finally, when I think on your lips,
is when I stop believing in anything else,
and just keep on holding the devotion that I worship to your portrait...
Then I chase each single one of the naked,
flaccid,
vulnerable memories of you,
trying to protect me.
I think of you,
so profoundly and vividly right now,
that my skin transpires,
bleeds,
my muscles are tense,
and my mouth recites your name with all and its last name.
I wish that, under a supernatural power,
you're also thinking of me, at this precise moment,
and that some thought can touch me below my skirt,
and make the skin of my white buttocks to bristle.
White –Blanca in Spanish-; the name of one of my childhood’s friend.
And the same color of your so polish, european skin.
The rainforest of your sacred Chiapas.
I need you excruciatingly.
Like a dagger into my body.
I will like to see your portrait being devoured by the flames,
but I do not have the courage to throw it to the fire,
for its image will become strongly painted in my mind,
and the effect that you exerts towards me it will be more powerful.
Dangerous.
I had a dream a couple of hours ago,
it was me,
so earthly,
being blessed by your voice,
and the tattoo you have on your left arm, being kissed by my simple mouth.
Our skin,
together,
united,
white,
is the wall where the moon lays on,
Lays in our bodies making love,
in a black hammock,
conjuring with our pneuma to the whispering of the rainforest...
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
I wasn't always so easily discouraged.
I used to bristle with enthusiasm.
I glowed with it.
It didn't matter if the task was simple, or tedious, or daunting, or boring.
As though on rails, I slammed into each and every task with terrific force.
But I got older.
Things that used to come easily grew slippery.
What I used to do without thinking twice, I found myself over-thinking.
I threw the brake. I ground to a halt.
Finally, I became idle. A left-over husk of a kernel that's already been popped.
I drowned myself with doubts. Hypothetical situations that might never happen.
I lived in fear of what might go wrong.
So I began to watch everything go wrong, as though I was helpless.
I was no less able. I was no less compassionate.
But I had grown wary. Of what?
What was it that, out of nowhere, caused me to slow down?
I guess I looked down and realized that if I fell, I would not be getting back up.
When you're young, you have no worries, because nothing is relying on your success.
So you mess up a math problem. You'll get it eventually.
So you botch things with that cute girl who sits across from you. You're young, you'll get it.
Re-assurance, faithfully, unwaveringly. A safety line should I fall.
But I never really fell, did I? So why am I laying down like I have?
Get up.
Get up.
I worry about everything. I worry that I will fail.
I dread what comes, what I can't avoid. But time, and time, again, it comes, and I miraculously don't die when it hits, because I've been bracing for a train-wreck impact, a force that will really, truly, finally, definitely lay me flat for good.
I close my eyes, and brace. But the crash never comes. The silence that was continued to be.
I turn behind me, but there's no train there.
I'm starting to realize, with relief, (with horror), that maybe all I needed to do was step off the track.
I look down, and realize, with a first-creeping then-howling laughter that I was never on the track to begin with.
I look off where the track is. There's no train there, either. Maybe there never was.
Maybe there never will be.
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
I am not your **** toy
Not a plastic doll
Your fantasies
Don't get to come
True on my account
These aren't your fun bags
My *** is not to smack
My skin longs
For the touch of fingertips
But crawls at the thought
Bristle before, relax
Never knowing
What unwanted touch
Is coming next
Never knew to say no
Never knew wrong was wrong
Until it was all too late
Doctor in the barn
Damaged on the trail
Grabbed my wrist -- was I wrong?
Drank it all away
Faded into blackness
Forcing through the door
Older now
Learning once again
They only want one thing from you;
You're just a last resort
So feign for their attention
Gave as good as got
Dove right down that rabbit hole
Trying to drown it out
And still -- trapped, touched
Touche
But then again, and "No"
That famous word
So infamously hard to hear
Too ashamed to fight back
Give in
Then
Live in
FEAR
Let me say again
Because it bears repeating:
Give in, then
Live in fear
Bare --
Repeating
****
Say it with me now
Such an ugly word
How does it make you feel
Do you feel ashamed
Are you feeling scarred
Do you feel her fear
Or is it not so clear?
Do you feel
Powerful now
Or is it
All her fault
Such an ugly word
So, say it with me now
****
Found out what it means to me.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 1:22 PM UTC
Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear
The warning whirr and burring of the bird
Who wakes with darkness and till dawn works hard
Vampiring dry of milk each great goat udder.
Moon full, moon dark, the chary dairy farmer
Dreams that his fattest cattle dwindle, fevered
By claw-cuts of the Goatsucker, alias Devil-bird,
Its eye, flashlit, a chip of ruby fire.
So fables say the Goatsucker moves, masked from men's sight
In an ebony air, on wings of witch cloth,
Well-named, ill-famed a knavish fly-by-night,
Yet it never milked any goat, nor dealt cow death
And shadows only--cave-mouth bristle beset--
Cockchafers and the wan, green luna moth.
2.8k
My mom offers me a bowl of oatmeal she cooked at seven.
It is eight.
Sitting on the stove, it looks clumpy and cold —
a mash drowning raisins.
I pretend like I don’t see it.
But it calls my name as I start my day,
even though it looks repulsive
and I have avoided oatmeal since college.
I toast some bread.
She glances over the counter to see if I am paying attention —
a reflex from my childhood.
Because as a child,
my parents said I had selective attention. —
sometimes I listened and other times I didn’t.
When they got divorced, it got worse.
I was distracted by the bristle of my dad's 5 o’clock shadow
and the sigh in my mom's voice when they asked me
separately,
What time I needed to leave?
and
If all my stuff was packed?
But all I kept thinking was:
Is that all there is?
You get married, get divorced, and cart around your kids.
The thought of swallowing this is repulsive.
like leftover oatmeal, it stares me in the face.
I don't want it.
Most girls I know are raisins —
They already have their whole
wedding planned on Pinterest,
and their kids names picked out.
Everytime, I see engagements on FB,
I can't help but forsee divorce
and I wonder why people run for a
partner, kids, and a mortgage,
when in college their
ambitions were more.
I wonder when their
mid-life crisis will be,
or when they'll wake up
and want more than
9 to 5 to fulfill a lie
patriarchy put forth.
So I spread peanut butter on toast and
murmur, “I put the oatmeal in the fridge — someone will eat it.”
My mom puts her head down and finishes her coffee.
I eat my peanut butter sandwich.
I am stuck trying to answer an impossible question,
as she begins sentences like
"Once you get settled,
you'll want to look for someone..."
I tune out.
I don't have selective attention,
just the perception that
everyone is ignoring
this important question:
Is that all there is?
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC
This one time, my mom
and I said goodbye
to Juan's mom and we
walked from her apartment
to wait for the elevator.
Mom didn't like it
when I wouldn't stand still-
sometimes she'd smack me
upside my head just to
make sure I was there
(accompanied by her
motherly calls of malcriado)-
so I'd look in any direction
for a distraction or two.
Through the window a few feet
from my left, I could see two
older ladies in curler hairdresses
bochinchando like caffeinated hens
about the awfully friendly suelta
living next door to gallina #1
(they hung their hand-me-down
nightgowns and their husband's
boxers with such professional care;
if any article escaped the grasp
of family clotheslines, it was
roadkill forever).
I turned to the right
of the elevator doors,
counted the tar-black patches
of decade-old gum on the floor,
finished the half-written
sentences sprayed in *****
rainbows on the sweaty walls
by the zig-zag flight of stairs.
A boom and a click,
and the door creaked open
with the sideways grace
of a crab.
My toddler's impatience
boiled past the brim, I
exclaimed "FINALLY"
and began to walk forward.
Not a second later, I heard a
"NO" behind me, my mother
grabbing the back of my
cartoon mouse t-shirt,
letting out an ay cono, pendejo
that echoed eight stories down,
past the empty space substituting
for an absent elevator shaft,
soaring down that rusty freefall
at ten thousand times the
speed of a human boy's body.
Letting out a long exhale,
my mother did not allow
her emotions to brim over
the barrier-she recomposed
herself, all the while silently
chanting hymns of gratitude
in dedication to fate
and her reflexes.
We decided to take the stairs.
In my youthful oblivion,
I noticed a toy store
right outside the building
from the corner of my eye-
I plan to start begging when
we're at the bottom,
if we ever get there.
My mother took her sweet time
walking down those many steps,
reveled in the scratchy bristle
of the concrete against her sandals,
cultivated a newfound admiration
for my atonal imitation of a
Washington Heights car alarm-
it was a sign I was still there.
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
Gwuts on gwanilliagax
Ready hot gwip
Trill on the vibrant note gabeeboh
What a thril it is to be in nice gazeebo
What a punk that doused on the free zobe
What punctillious panagax that frigged all the wets out
And when the trip to the sausage make didnt pull down alaz
Alaz, I am the wet tug.
Alaz, the sprig of wheat ***** taint.
Didn't you say you loved me?
Well, the bruts on the wagon sauce now
Didn't me have a big one, tug one, sauce one?
Well elemayo gwit gwits gwit gwits gwit gwit.....gwit
Embryo collecting on the branch of a saggy
My baggy be ripped, dripped all the can out
Me step on a puddle, the wet one, the biggy
My pets on the leg, rub, all on it sticky, how ******
He chugs out a wet belch and creams on the gricky
How quaint is his fat bristle comb, of his **** I am assured
This great honkulous tank sub that brits on my dimbo,in limbo my ship
It greats on the grates treat me to a sub snack ship ***** ***** factory get e
Tag me on your webpage, then **** me silly
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 11:01 PM UTC
There's a form of rodent
In Latin form "quill pig".
He isn't very fast.
He isn't very big.
But be very cautious
If you encounter one of these.
They are very nasty,
Mean, to say the least.
They bristle up and like cacti,
They have a vicious will...
You don't need to touch one to be
Nailed with a quill.
They will flick their tail at you
To let their venom fly,
So give this beast.a lot of room
When you see him going by.
People who are insecure
Will be like them so watch out!
You don't want to be around
When they start to pout...
Their quill will rend and skewer.
The quill/ pen has its art.
It will send a poison pen
Straight into the heart.
SoulSurvivor aka
Write of Passage aka
Invisible inc
Catherine Jarvis
(C) 2/12/2015
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
I won't tell you he was just a little odd,
he was very odd, for obvious reasons.
The troll boy he was called, was very tall.
"How tall "? you ask, the tallest of them all,
and above his waist none would ever rise.
His long hair upwards would grow, like
gravity with him was playing a cruel joke,
adding many more inches to his height
and like a bristle brush painting the sky,
His hair with every dawn like the sun would
glow, warm orange, and bright red but every
night the glow subside to the moon's bright white.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 4:19 AM UTC
You, my old companion,
I’ve junked three trucks and still I keep you.
Buried five dogs. Raised three children
who are now raising children.
And still I wear you.
You jingle when I walk.
Nails clink in pouches.
The drill in its holster slaps my leg.
The hammer in its clip spanks my ****
You bristle with screwdrivers, chisel,
big fat pencil, needlenose plier.
You call attention. Random kids
who have never seen a tool belt before
follow me around asking
“What are you doing?”
Then: “Can I help?”
You smell like me (and I, like you).
Leather, fourth decade.
I’ve washed your pouches with saddle soap,
sewn your seams with dental floss.
Now the web of your belt is fraying,
wrapped (silly, I know) with duct tape.
Your pockets fill over time.
Once in a while I remove every tool,
every last ***** and nail.
I hold you upside down and shake.
Sawdust, a dead spider, little strippings
of insulated wire will fall out.
And once, my missing wedding ring.
It had broken. I had taken it to a jeweler
for repair, but when I got there
I couldn’t find it. A year later,
you coughed it up.
When your webbing finally snaps,
when you drop from my waist,
maybe it’s you, old tool belt, I’ll take
to the jeweler for remounting,
for buff and polish. He’ll understand.
Mar 30, 2017
Mar 30, 2017 at 8:23 PM UTC
Little kitten
i would have your
purr
and bristle fur
inside of you
i'd be lion
strong
And you could scratch
and cut
and use me as your
post.
And i would drink you
up
up up
my tongue my throat
a
vestibule in time
catching and licking and suckin
and taking you in
sublime.
All fluid and raw flesh and blood
My hunger for you is feline *** canine
Bloodthirst, this urge
this roar
inside of me
for you.
Animal intent
I am your awakening,
the ache to your throb
you pulse through my veins
and i want to be taken
in your claws.
You are not submissive
and i am not Domme
but you'd melt in my paws.
Up high
Against a wall
i would carry you on my shoulders
your back against the wall
and drink and breathe and become your flesh
from within you i'd break and re-mould
and detail the design of your love
for me.
I would be your strength
embodied
a boy of flesh
of depth
of passion
of friendship
fashioned intrinsically
with love and
Oneness.
I can only be the only one.
Feb 9, 2010
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:24 AM UTC
It starts with a pinch and an itch,
Between your shoulder blades,
Trickling down your spine like a bead of sweat.
You groan hot and heavy,
Doubling over in pain clutching at your stomach,
And you have this urge....
Your canines enlarge,
Further sharpening.
The hairs on your arms bristle.
Standing on end when you hear the first tear of skin,
At the base of your spine.
And it splinters your mind.
A wine high pitched and wanting,
A gasp as your hair thickens.
A pelt of fur to keep you warm,
There is pain between your eyes,
Your jaw stretches inhuman and ugly.
Legs snap and your squatting on the floor,
Arms pulled close at the elbow,
Back hunched over.
Dirt digs under your fingernails turned claws,
As you grip the steady earth for purchase.
You feel your heart beating against your shifting ribs.
Strong,
Fast,
And aching.
Lungs constrict and your eyes fly open.
Blinded by the ethereal light of the full moon.
You cry out,
Human voice bellows loud, loud, loud!
The beast sings in your ear.
A roar,
A howl.
The transformation done.
We are free.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
I didn't love him because of his looks.
I know this because the whole time I knew him his face was covered
By a blanket of red bristle he took great pride in.
I fell in love with his soul
The window to which I could see through smiling hazel pools.
And when I think about it,
I mean really think about it,
It all happened in an instant.
Not the instant him and I met for the first time,
But the instant I realized he wouldn't let me run away from us.
I should have known though.
I should have kept running.
Because the instant I stopped?
Our roles were reversed.
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 10:40 PM UTC
Two sapling oaks, grow side by side, in the soft silt savanna swamp
The sun awoke, and shadows hide, their roots begin to stomp
The oaks move the earth, and stretch the sky, as they yearn towards each other’s touch
With their growing girth, and branches high,
Purposefully extend, to feel each other’s clutch
They grow, slow, and methodically
Taking their time, placing each leaf in the sun.
They reach, each other hydrologically
Sharing the wealth beneath the ground as one.
As decades turn into centuries, an exhaustive passing of time
The mighty oaks are living free, in the middle of their prime
Yet, still they yearn, for one another touch
To have their bristle branches brush in the warm wind as such
Though… a century more may need to pass.
For the old oak trees to touch
Patiently waiting in the soft silt savanna grass
The long time doesn’t seem so much
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023 at 10:47 AM UTC
He knew that he was an Alien, He knew that he was peculiar, He knew that he was different, He knew the Air-Prince would continue to encourage others to Strike-Out at Him~ whether they knew the meaning of that which he spoke ! They even made fun of his name~ they would blurt out~ There goes "AWKARD AL" ~ Words bellowed out~as if to a 100psi ! ! They tried to throw enough "HOT" words to Blister~His Back. Then one day, while at a concert, a few moments before it was to begin,~ a LOUD Murmuring ~ hovered over the audience. and in Unison they proclaimed ~"There sits ALDIN AWK, the man whose words Bristle with Brackishness .! and they~.....Chanted in unison " His words Bristle with Brackishness" , they repeated the chant over and over. Aldin stood up, the crowd thinking ~that He was about to leave the concert. To their surprise~ he walked to the stage~ was handed the microphone~ bowed his head for a Moment...... and as He began to speak~ "EVEN GREATER WERE THE BRISTLED WORDS OF BRACKISHNESS" that came from him thru the tears "Pouring forth" ....
Sep 29, 2011
Sep 29, 2011 at 7:52 AM UTC
Hold hands and dance together.
Open your mouths and sing in unison.
Blink and allow your tears to hit the soil.
Watch the sunset resemble a softer shade of crimson.
Shape shift and make funny faces.
Wide spread and cover any spaces between.
Draw streaks and form inedible cotton candy.
Make the ever changing weather patterns your creed.
Partner with the drum player.
Hire the trumpets as well as the whistles.
Throw in a bit of lights, some lasers too.
Gather a silent choir of particles, should I call it bristle.
Welcome the darkening sky.
Make way for the approaching moon.
Take long naps or read each other books.
All the while waiting again for the return of noon.
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019 at 1:41 PM UTC
bristle cone pine, a wine-stained, burgundy -
conniption of green fires, yellow tinged. sunset.
a fresh net of spun gold, roasting fecundity -
a bristling of midnight at day's end, thundering.
a harangue of unyielding pattern
her hair down; now as always... conquering -
all of me.
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM UTC
She prepares her kit
To turn into someone else
She's done this for years
Not knowing how to be herself
She smears her lips
With a bright bold Mac
Drawing an artificial smile
Hoping she wont crack
She grabs her eyeliner
And traces her eyes
As strokes of mascara
Send lashes toward the sky
She dips herself in powder
And draws two circles for blush
She irons her natural hair
With every bristle and brush
With this new mask on
She could now face the world
Yet I still wonder
Will I ever meet the real side of this girl?
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 11:52 AM UTC
Your lovely eyes,
two dark bamboo beetles
bristle with fervor
ready to battle
with mine, seeking truce;
your belligerence,
has a stirring effect.
I am aroused
beyond limits.
Now is the time to act,
make wild love,
ending the lovers' tiff.
I sign the treaty of withdrawal
with a passion filled kiss,
summoning all the force
in your command, you seal it,
with an incomparable another.
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
Touch
A heightening of senses
Touch
Bristling beneath it
Horripilation
Sweeping up bodies -
From the Latin, horrere pilus,
"to bristle" + "hair" -
The most delicious
Can be the most poisonous
Exploding with each
Touch
Anticipation erupts
Touch
At the very thought
Of such delicious fruit
Touch
May 16, 2023
May 16, 2023 at 11:21 AM UTC