"burs" poems
41
I robbed the Woods—
The trusting Woods.
The unsuspecting Trees
Brought out their Burs and mosses
My fantasy to please.
I scanned their trinkets curious—I grasped—I bore away—
What will the solemn Hemlock—
What will the Oak tree say?
4.1k
"Not like that!
Like this."
She turned over her shoulder to face me, snatched her hair, soft and strawberry blonde out of my hands and giggled as she tried to show me the French braid.
She saw my blank expression and buried her face in my neck and giggled some more.
"This isn't going to work."
She gave up on the braid and kissed me anyways,
She tasted like sweet tea,
mixed with somethin' southern and strong.
She said "thanks love".
Her porch was lit up like it was the hearth of her home
and we had stopped slapping at the mosquitoes hours ago.
with my head in her lap, I was getting the grass burs out of her skirt when my fingers crept up her thigh and picked at something polyester, it smelt like lavender.
She put her hand on top of mine and kissed me again. I watched the dimples form on her cheeks as she whispered "daddy'll be up soon."
Laying by the river, when everything is silver, and silent, just for a moment before
the sun rises, we held our breathes
and then the love birds wept
and rattled their cages.
My memory fades as she got up to go but she said something like
you're still dizzy from that southern sting
or
you're still dizzy from that southern swing
and that she was hungry
and that we were hollow.
and I just laughed anyways; I could never get her father's truck to start but my heart was always in the right place, she knew it.
*She had a way with words,
she had a way with wasted...
she had heaven on her ankles with her jeans rolled up, and I just wanted to linger there.
My first prayer, my first gray hair.*
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 2:26 PM UTC
I write when the river's down,
when the ground's as hard as
a banker's disposition and as
cracked as an old woman's face.
I write when the air is still
and the tired leaves of the
dying elm tree are a mosaic
against the bird-blue sky.
I write when the old bird dog,
Sam, is too tired to chase
rabbits, which is his habit
on temperate days. I write
when horses lie on burnt grass,
when the sun is always
high noon, when hope melts like
yellow butter near the kitchen
window. I write when there
are no cherry pies in the
oven, when heartache comes
like a dust storm in early
morning. I write when the
river's down, and sadness
grows like cockle burs in
my heart.
Tod Howard Hawks
May 18, 2023
May 18, 2023 at 4:58 PM UTC
~
There she was chasing a rabbit
with 1 am coffeecakes and weak tea
She didn’t notice I was watching
from the branches of an olive tree
A lone smile hidden amongst
swirling smoke rings in a foreign accent
To the gazebo she ran
with its straw grass tables
and pleated cushions in hibiscus
print fabric no one would sit on
My eyes followed her as she
darted around manicured boxwoods
and cherub statues spitting water
onto sleeping lily pads
She came upon a dandelion
and asked politely, “Pardon me,
but have you seen a…”
The **** interrupted,
“Didn’t, don’t do drama dreams
dancing deliriously down
donut distracted ditches”
“That’s dumb” she replied
with a giggle and a snort
This must be her fun, I think,
trying to catch a white ball of fur,
big, then small,
then smaller still like a
thimble seeking a thread,
when now she is stopped
in her ziggy zagging tracks
by a June bug singing,
“I see, I see, in front of me
Dessert, dessert, set out for free
A chocolate pie, a chocolate pie
in menus written on the sky”
Perplexed she climbed upon its back,
red leather shoulder pads
with black dots changing shapes,
ducking winged arches that
covered the vestibule they
soared through when a sharp turn
pitched her to the opposite side…
Landing with a thud,
her new dress now soiled
between the wrinkles in time
that had ticked away
on a clock faced sun named Ray
She cried carrot tears,
orange sherbet streams
on peach tone cheeks,
marmalade miseries
and mango miscues
piddling on her patent leather shoes,
ready to give up
When it appeared hopping happily,
jumping into her lap
and licking her face
She caressed its fur, removing
sticker burs and scratching
just the right spot, as its right rear leg
thumped with joy
Then lifting the bundled bunny
to her face, she kissed it tenderly
with wild cherry gloss lips,
or should I say…kissed me
for you see, all along, it was me
And you thought I was nothing more than a pretty smile…..
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 1:11 PM UTC
You can burn all you please,
Decimate, obliterate;
But I won't even warm,
Already burning hot
From the inside out,
I was always here,
Made to handle your demons,
I cannot be fazed by the darkness,
Fire starter you may be;
But I'm flint for your kindle,
Fuel for your perseverance,
But once you are fully lit
You will never be put out,
And so I'll secede,
For all may stick like burs
But I'm no Velcro;
Volcano on an island;
You'll see my trail in the ashes
All around you fiery torch
And to who will you pass?
I will not know, but hope
That fortunate soul can handle your fire...
© okpoet
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 12:15 AM UTC
Brown grassy mountainsides;
full of yucca and sharp burs and
stripped-naked trees.
(Your buffalo have all been murdered, America.)
atop this vertical precipice, the edge
of everything that’s never been,
before a white and faceless
Void: the sore thumb of a
boulder. A gray and
ancient troll.
There sits a changed and stoic
stranger wrapped in a wool blanket
against piercing winter wind and frost.
Sharing my thoughts. My organs. My perch.
Walking along this trail…
there can only be death.
I check my silent moving
watch. Time to turn back.
Feb 8, 2011
Feb 8, 2011 at 7:28 PM UTC
Recently I have not been eating
I like how it feels
Wasting away
I want to become so frail that I sway in the wind
And disappear like the little burs from dandelions
Yesterday the cold infected my bones
and numbed my fingers
The icesicles in the air scraped my lungs,
But I liked it
Am I a ********* or am I
Mentally ill?
My suicide note is starting to resemble
The coffee I obsessively drink,
And the ink on my skin fading along with my chances
With him
The only way you're ever going to make a difference is if
Your name is in a textbook and children
Are popping bubbles and sticking the gum
In the pages
Is there a part of me that wants to hold onto life?
Why else would I write down my intentions?
If I was completely set on ending things
I would not need to write them down
They would fester in my mind comfortably
But these thoughts seem to fit very awkwardly
Inside my head
Then again,
What's the point in waiting?
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 10:17 AM UTC
I write when the river's down,
when the ground's as hard as
a banker's disposition and as
cracked as an old woman's face.
I write when the air is still
and the tired leaves of the
dying elm tree are a mosaic
against the bird-blue sky.
I write when the old bird dog,
Sam, is too tired to chase
rabbits, which is his habit
on temperate days. I write
when horses lie on burnt grass,
when the sun is always
high noon, when hope melts like
yellow butter near the kitchen
window. I write when there
are no cherry pies in the
oven, when heartache comes
like a dust storm in early
morning. I write when the
river's down, and sadness
grows like cockle burs in
my heart.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jan 25, 2021
Jan 25, 2021 at 5:54 PM UTC
we were driving down the freeway
the air was humid in the 70s
and the cars in the opposite lane
looked like eyes trying
to tell me something
and if you were to swerve
i don't think I would stop you.
So we trudged through a field
of midnight grass
and the purple sky was
starless, the moon
barely had anything
to say
Neither did I
smoke billowing from the
slow suicide in my hand
I watched as it danced inside itself
casting a shadow over
the concrete ground
I want to
dance with you
tenderly as the
cancer danced with
the air.
And the wish flowers
populating the ground
were ghost memories
from my childhood so I
kicked them down and
watched as the burs
whisked away, telling
stories to their kin about how
they lived a worthy life
full of unfulfilled wishes
pool lights from your headlights
onto the white flowers
from the bush you almost ran over
I am so sorry
that you choose to throw away
love after love
I would know, you threw me away
just like
that time we
went to the poetry reading
you wrote in your
journal that you were happy I was here
I was happy too
you crumbled that page
and threw it in the
wastebasket.
So I crumbled my body
and threw myself
down the stairs.
But those poor souls
aren't as solid as mine
and although you managed
to crack me
I inserted a gold plated
filling so I can
sparkle in sunlight
but they do not
have the strength
nor the wits to
do that.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
.
Nothing more than a pretty smile
There she was chasing a rabbit
with 1 am coffeecakes and weak tea
She didn’t notice I was watching
from the branches of an olive tree
A lone smile hidden amongst
swirling smoke rings in a foreign accent
To the gazebo she ran
with its straw grass tables
and pleated cushions in hibiscus
print fabric no one would sit on
My eyes followed her as she
darted around manicured boxwoods
and cherub statues spitting water
onto sleeping lily pads,
following the same schedule
as the other…identical
She came upon a dandelion
and asked politely, “Pardon me,
but have you seen a…”
The **** interrupted,
“Didn’t…don’t do drama dreams
dancing deliriously down
donut distracted ditches”
“That’s dumb” she replied
with a giggle and a snort
This must be her fun, I think,
trying to catch a white ball of fur,
big, then small,
then smaller still like a
thimble seeking a thread,
when now she is stopped
in her ziggy zagging tracks
by a June bug singing,
“I see, I see, in front of me
Dessert, dessert, set out for free
A chocolate pie, a chocolate pie
in menus written on the sky”
Perplexed she climbed upon its back
and flew, holding onto
red leather shoulder pads
with black dots changing shapes,
ducking winged arches that
covered the vestibule they
soared through when a sharp turn
pitched her to the opposite side…
Landing with a thud,
her new dress now soiled
between the wrinkles in time
that had ticked away
on a clock faced sun named Ray
She cried carrot tears,
orange sherbet streams
on peach tone cheeks,
marmalade miseries
and mango miscues
piddling on her patent leather shoes,
ready to give up
When it appeared, hopping happily
Jumping into her lap
and licking her face
She caressed its fur, removing
sticker burs and scratching
just the right spot, as its right rear leg
thumped with joy
Then lifting the bundled bunny
to her face, she kissed it tenderly
with wild cherry gloss lips,
or should I say…kissed me
for you see, all along, it was me
And you thought I was nothing more than a pretty smile…..
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 9:17 AM UTC
The fire is lit
The rain irrelevant.
People surrounding trying to bring upon the burs,
But the fire unalterable.
Toasting the air with every deep inhale.
You assure me with your warmth
We see the spark of every enduring flame
The cold chill of winter ceased to exist
Nothing can rid the fiery heat
of this beautiful fireplace of each other.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
Neck totally lips hot continuously over
and
over
aNd
o'er
ere
the splash
,great and yellowly gargantuan,
coming invulnerably the earth o'er
(I kindle mightily snoring lungs with
tightly wrapped binding skin burs
ting simmering glaciers topped
moistly with me,) under you
when i have been
i liked my body more
with muscles snaking
impatiently
pleasing
the body of you
lady Night
;you lake of bumping fire
hideously i'm a plunging
into thee
, thy into
thighs totally
smacke
d with mine
o
ver
me
W
h e n
U
have been
i li(c)ked
your body more
precociously than
A
n
y
Dulcet electric buzz
your crown of moans
lungs from erratically sprouted
gilding splendidly
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 11:53 AM UTC
The burs were hanging in trees
Like small suicides, ***** of pathetic waste
And I cried because I no longer owned my body
There were chains clasped around my ankles
And attatched to the seedlings
children pluck
and blow away
And I cried because I am a ******* hypocrite
The way I judge you for obliterating yourself
Sacrificing your health to
A girl who does not care
When here I am kneeled over
The toilet
Sacrificing my health
In order to be skinny
Ribs are cracking under the weight of
Piano keys and rich words
Gluttonous demons whisper
Tales of good fortune
In my ears
When all I yearned for
Was to attend my own funeral
All I wanted was to tighten my knee caps
Remove the marrow in my bones
Rearrange synapses
And guts
Replace vital organs
With sand
I ordered a lobotomy for dinner last night
The savory cuts in my cranium
Tasted like chocolate
And I saw myself lying on
The cold slab of metal
Like I belonged there my whole entire life
But the worst part is
I continue to
Believe my worth is dependent on
How much of me does not exist
I keep lighting myself on fire
and watch as the wax
drips down my body
settling in a lumpy mound
beneath my feat
and
You keep lighting yourself on fire
Until you are nothing
But charred insides
And wasted potential
tortured by everything you were too afraid to do
there are bombs fused to each of your legs
and all you're waiting for
is for me to tell you
it's okay
for me to dust away the gun powder
but that is not my job
you are going to need to save yourself
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 4:37 PM UTC
My life has been a garden
For flowers than seeds
And more weeds that that
I grow
And I climb
And I begin to wither when the sunlight fades
You should know all of this
But maybe you don't
Maybe you were so blinded by the sun
That you forgot to water me
I pulled the weeds out myself
Thorns and burs and splinters
But I planted my own seeds
My hands may be filthy with dirt
But yours are covered in demons
And maybe that's okay
Because I will be able to wash mine off
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
Bright heat shelters me,
Absorbing doubt into a glowing orb.
A cocoon,
wrapping me up in silky denial
And
offering the freedom to pretend.
Crisp air weaves it’s way between my bones,
Shedding burs
into every notch.
The prickle in my neck taps Morse into the skull,
The truth that looms like Babadook:
The excavator of ideas
is a soulless body
that only dreams
of digging the earth.
Suspended in-security,
turning thoughts to stone.
The chisel makes its mark
My hands are tied, the artist is fear.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 1:31 AM UTC
My grace,
My love,
My soulmate.
She drapes her majesty in mountains, oceans, rivers, plains, canyons, swamps, rivers, and rocky shores, big cities and small towns, deserts that bleed into forests, and anything and everything that the world could offer.
She extends her arms so far, you couldn’t reach the fingertips of one hand to another,
Not in a single day,
Not without ignoring her beauty.
I love her from her masterpiece sunsets
Down to her rusted shack tin roofs,
From her lush green fields,
To her sizzling sands,
I love you,
Texas,
My Texas,
From the freezing floods of January,
To the hot, dry death of July,
And I’ll never let her go,
Even in death,
I’ll be buried in the sandy loam,
Under the sticker burs,
And wild flowers,
And let my love nestle me in her embrace,
Long after I’m a pile of chalky, white bones and ancient cowboy boots,
I’ll lover her until the ocean cuts away her shores,
And the wind wears down her hills,
And the parasites drill holes in her ground,
And build streets on her fields,
I’ll love you,
Texas,
Until the end.
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
I am still waiting to hear from the surgeon whom is going to operate on my neck as far as they know that its not cancerous but they want to clear out the spurs burs in my neck thanks love you all.
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 12:26 PM UTC
The trouble started on the day
After the day before.
Youth and hope and love decay,
And regret won’t restore.
It seems this old and weary world
Holds much more bad than good.
I’d have assayed, but I was hurled
In this life before I could.
A world of cloud and bitterness,
A life of scrape and thorn,
So who would ever acquiesce
Ever to be born?
Because briars outnumber flowers
By ten to one at least,
Weakness humbles mighty powers.
Famine goes before the feast.
But feasts are more than fillings ups,
And hunger’s just a pinch.
And emptiness can’t stopper cups,
And straitening can’t cinch.
Bounty and joy are plenitude,
And destitution lack,
So revel in what’s nice, or lewd,
No loss can take it back.
A single flower fortifies
To brush away the burs.
Striving wins because it tries.
Forlorn despairing errs.
Jul 9, 2021
Jul 9, 2021 at 1:00 AM UTC
One long endless night passes yet again,
Never mind counting sheep, I’m now counting flocks.
The days blur into dreams of classics...
I am Ahab, and sleep becomes my whale!
Countless twinkling lights mock me through the open window
Judging me from their perch in the night sky above.
I eat another bowl of meaningless carbs,
Hoping the article on my Twitter feed wasn’t just fluff,
I load and reload the harpoon, as I miss my shot time and time again.
I fade again. Woozy now. Eyes slow blinking...
The whale is smiling, it's tail flipping, and mouth all grinning, stabbing teeth. I fire and miss.
He laughs, ignoring this, and drenches me in ****
He flashes me a toothy grin as he disappears underwater.
He isn't coming back.
My bed becomes a porcupine.
My pillow becomes a stone.
My blanket becomes a sheet of burs woven by the Norns.
My eyelids become coarse-grade sandpaper.
My back becomes a banshee screeching in pain.
My legs become restless deer who sense a nearby wolf.
My hair begins growing perversely inward.
My bladder becomes the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
My thoughts become the last horses running the Triple Crown.
My heart becomes a double bass playing Skeletons of Society.
He appears again, far away from my ship, head turning in the distance, pity on his face.
He turns back toward the open sea and is gone.
I perform a complex horizontal maneuver
That CNN’s Dr. Gupta said soothes "The sleepless body at night".
(He’s a ******* liar!)
The melting white whale becomes a series rectangles above me,
They form a drop ceiling,
With sprayed-on popcorn, and unexplained little holes
That provide me with a giant connect-the-dots ceiling!
WHEN suddenly a shrill, repeating, soul-crushing
Cacophony wracks what little sanity remains within me, trapped in this never-ending, soul-crushing trap of mind-numbing numbidity...
It's that God-forsaken, three-inch square, , ***** capitalist son-of-a-bitch-of-a-red-blinking-bastard-of-a-heartless-mother telling me it’s time to start a new day...
**** you alarm!
I still haven’t finished the last one.
Sep 21, 2019
Sep 21, 2019 at 8:19 PM UTC
Tomorrow I return to my home in the West
To the crackle-burs and carelessness.
We'll light a candle to keep out the cold
And we'll wonder why we've become so old.
I ran away, or I walked away, or I flew away, who's to know
I'd have taken the train away, but the train's too slow.
I imagined myself a hero from one of my books
And heroes leave home without second looks.
Had I known that this home was my fantasy land
Things might have gone by a different plan.
The "Last Best Place" was a rubber band
Pulling me back from the Sun City sand.
But things took a turn, family torn
I next found myself Chesapeake warm.
It's a dangerous place the earth seems to hate:
Hurricanes, tornados, earthquake.
It made me long for my place on the lake.
Such a place, nature could never break.
I'm different now, my new home in the North
Finally I've taken the chance to step forth.
I like it here, I almost could stay,
But the meadow lark still sings my name.
It's just my fate; I'll never wait for too long
For some new world to call me in song.
I wonder, though, how much has changed.
Will anything that I know remain?
How will I know I am home again?
--It doesn't matter.
Tomorrow I return to my home in the West
Glacial runoff, this broken nest.
We'll light a candle to keep out the cold
And I'll understand why I've become so old.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
god's plucking petals from the sun again
and his sister's spinning something new;
beads and burs into silver strings
as only gods may do
the Great Aunt sings sordid smells
like scents spilled from the jewels
of little men of the stone tools
no magic for mortal fools, no
the Wizened Father flirts with Death
just to scorn his mother, the Lover
and she in turn ***** his skin off
just to feel it burn going down
the Kettle Kids quip about adult ****
that ought be kept out of the room
such nonsense makes goodly gods grim
and sentences us all to doom
rebellion!--cast down idols in scorn
lashes! many and long as millennia
spent idle in heaven's tomb
break the womb of spirit stew
that cesspool what begot these fools
burning stakes into hearts awake
with the fire of bothersome issues
destroyers and usurpers, curse them!
cut them down two sizes smeared
cream their corpses into copses
of deep and dark and buried fears
forget, forget, good children
about whatever you may hear
coming from the brimstone basement
we locked up just for you, dear
we teach our children unknowable fear
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
It's 1,260 beats per minute,
that the hummingbirds heart beats at,
trapped in the barbed wire fence of war,
or caught in the jaws of a cat.
My breath is just as quick,
as the tiny thrumming bird,
my plumage being clawed at,
by those harsh metal burs.
It's stained a sickly pink,
my plumage of once-white feather,
the stains won't wash away,
my skin's as raw as leather.
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 12:53 AM UTC
If you asked me to give you the picture
I couldn’t even paint her
This girl’s got me on retainer
Her purse is full of my pastels and pens, and I don’t quite consider myself an entertainer
And every stroke of my tongue comes out as a castrated slur
Yet on my way to hers
I trample through a trail covered in burs
They are stuck on me, but I am undoubtedly stuck on her
Jul 26, 2019
Jul 26, 2019 at 12:39 AM UTC
Heavy clouds....misting rain
A fleeting glimpse of green so bright
Pines in rows...
Muddy tracks...
Leading you to me and taking you back.
Fallen leaves..
Whistling wind echoes off the stillness. .
Goosebumps on my skin
Sienna grass full of burs...
A pierce in my finger of impending pain
And I wait...
Until the sun peeks through
And you are there..with the boyish smile
And dancing eyes
The glimmer of who you are,
the edge of who you were..
the softness of who you are to me....
In this beautiful place with this beautiful soul....
not a minute too soon or too late...
I will always wait
E.J.M
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 3:29 PM UTC
The Great Storyteller
pens ink to the wind
Pressing pen to its paper skin
shredding its word on the taste of rain
its drip of spirit in deep refrain
A sweet scented memory
echoes and burs
A woe of regret weeping
high in the nest of its underworld
The humid mist of nostalgia
rests its net oer the black veil
Sinking its face to its deep blue belly
Its pale faint ***** in her sleeping beauty
claims its kiss to widen its wake
May 22, 2020
May 22, 2020 at 1:53 PM UTC