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"I'VE GOT CHILBLAINS ON MY FINGERS!

the snow climbs the stairs
pushes open  the bedroom door
lies upon the bed falls..falls...asleep

this the house I first saw snow fall
as a little boy face pressed to pane
marvelling that a sky could fall at all

and be so white and quiet and still
my fingers numb with my first snowman
running back in crying

"I've got chilblains on my fingers!"
nose and toes not doing too good either

now it is I left outside
watching snow falling inside
the house of  my childhood.

the snow and I have switched places
it climbs the stairs step by step
I fall and fall backwards in time

the snow calling after me
with my childish voice
"I've got chilblains on my fingers!"

*

We used to pronounce it "chimblanes" so I always thought it was spelt like that.
It was so very strange for myself and the snow to change places after our first encounter way back in 1963...time's little joke.
Donall Dempsey Feb 2020
"I'VE GOT CHILBLAINS ON MY FINGERS!

The snow climbs the stairs

pushes open  the bedroom door

lies upon the bed falls..falls...asleep.

This the house I first saw snow fall

as a little boy face pressed to pane

marvelling that a sky could fall at all

and be so white and quiet and still.

My fingers numb with my first snowman

running back in crying "I've got chilblains on my fingers!"

Nose and toes not doing too good either.

Now it is I left outside

watching snow falling inside

the house of  my childhood.

The snow and I have switched places.

It climbs the stairs step by step.

I fall and fall backwards in time.

The snow calling after me with my childish voice

"I've got chilblains on my fingers!"
I

Said the Table to the Chair,
'You can hardly be aware,
'How I suffer from the heat,
'And from chilblains on my feet!
'If we took a little walk,
'We might have a little talk!
'Pray let us take the air!'
Said the Table to the Chair.

II

Said the Chair to the table,
'Now you know we are not able!
'How foolishly you talk,
'When you know we cannot walk!'
Said the Table with a sigh,
'It can do no harm to try,
'I've as many legs as you,
'Why can't we walk on two?'

III

So they both went slowly down,
And walked about the town
With a cheerful bumpy sound,
As they toddled round and round.
And everybody cried,
As they hastened to the side,
'See! the Table and the Chair
'Have come out to take the air!'
JP Goss Jan 2014
To exhale
Compresses the chest
And in its place
Some chilblains,
Disgust for its being,
An annihilation
A ferocious hunger for itself,
Like the ouroboros
In every breath
Tempted by a life
For the moment gone.
To inhale
Invites it back,
A dispassionate process, no less.
The life thus stolen away
Impotent to the next breath
That I must exhale.
On this breath there comes a fear
A longing or
The urge
To lift my hands to my throat
And keep the life in my lungs
To quit exhaling
And never feel that way again.
Francie Lynch Feb 2016
Boots were all we had in winter,
Wellingtons made of a slice of rubber;
Turned down to show initials,
That bled upon the snow.
Between skin and cold,
Coarse wollen socks,
Sometimes they matched,
They'd criss and cross.

In from the boys' yard,
The slide and frost,
The boots were heaped
In backroom closets.
The sting of chilblains
On sock-soaked feet,
The line of footprints
Led to our seats.
We had one pair at school,
No other cover
Sliding across the oaken floors.
Drying on the radiators,
Our pungent odor,
A synaptic recall,
The unschooled smell
Of winter schoolyards.
Three units
Three places
Three empty spaces.
Me,myself and the other one who likes to carry on
But he's getting old and will have to be told
To cease these shenanigans.

So I speak to the other one when the other two
have got up and gone
And he agrees
Seemed quite pleased
Said,'the cold made his bones ache and the old
shouldn't really take
Such liberties
Make people feel ill at ease
and that his knees were going
So it was time to be slowing
down'

I told the other two,
his brothers in arms who'd decided to
leave me to explain.
Sometimes it's a pain having a brain like mine
Sorting out problems and sometimes three at a time
but it's cool.

They too were pleased
and peace came to reign.
It's not the same though
Not sure if I know
just how things became different but now
we watch daffodils grow
watch the river and its flow
count raindrops.

when life stops this is what remains.
Chilblains and gout,medicines and milk stout
And it's all inside out.

There is no Peter Pan
To transform this elderly man and turn him into a boy
That is the realism
That is the joy
Of getting old.
Francie Lynch Mar 2017
Winds these days
Cut both ways,
As spring is fast arriving.
These gasping blasts
Can't repel what's thriving,
The give and take of time.

This snowy, sleety, wet, cold season
Brought flues, agues, chilblains and sneezing,
And holidays with families,
Births, deaths,
And another year,
The passing of those times,
Pics, grams and friends with wine,
The games, tricks, sighs and smiles
Of another season of our lives,
And the memories
We didn't pose for.
Obadiah Grey Sep 2021
******. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson!!!

Yer've spilt yer seed
yer've spent it
as did Onan
on a barren land
and no flower grew
where you shot through
off a ninety nine change hand!!

obi.
(There ought be a winky emoji thingy following
but alas,,,,, I'm lacking the wherewithal whatnot.)
-------------------------------------------
Elon's musk...

I'm a conceptual millionaire,
my unpaid gas bill means **** all to me,
tomorrow, I'm a gonna buy me
a mind coat lined with thick meta fur
ignoring them chilblains that
just -- isn't there!


Obi
They must be 'growing pains''
said the Doctor to me
I limped out of the surgery
unhappily.

What does he know
about what I can grow
and how
tall I'll be?

he treats pimples
and sprains
colds and chilblains
what does he know
about
growing up pains?
Annie Feb 2017
Sunday was
My favorite time.
First - Mass
The dog outside
Waiting
And then the pub -
Uncle with his pint
And I with my bitter lemon
The dog now under the bar stool
Too old to beg for much.

After
Sunday dinner
At Nana's.
Socks on my hands
If the day was cold
No chilblains for me.

Chicken and mash
Pie and custard
In the parlor
Then my brothers came
With my mother and sister
Sour sometimes

         - Why’s SHE special
- Want some?
         - COW!!
- You can have it
         - You’re adopted
- If… you eat my snot
          - ******
- I’m telling
A wail – someone was boxed
Maybe me
          - Stop teasing
And then
Our Sunday drive
Seven of us squeezed
Into the Fiat
Secret pinches
In the back seat
Couldn't cry
The Fiat chugging along
In jumps and starts
Until she settled down
On her chassis.
Then Mam and Uncle
Sat and talked
In the lounge
While we fished for minnows
Which we kept in old jam jars.

How I longed to get away
From the slowness of it all
And now
I'd give anything
To go back.
Rhiannon Feb 2018
It's been snowing where I live,
Which is absolutely fine,
Weather is a woman you do not mess with,
She does things in her own time.

But Weather, My boots aren't very warm,
And I'm getting chilblains on my toes,
So it would be nice if you could send a tropical storm,
Cause I'm tired of skiing down the road.

And I can't get to half of my friends,
As the bus I catch goes to turn right and slides left,
I try to walk but the ice leaves me stumbling,
Plus being clumsy, with my feet I am not deft.

Now Weather, Your moods always seem erratic,
One minute it's raining then the next it's dry,
And half the time when we ask for a bit of sun,
Your face turns to an expression quite wry.

I enjoy the snow, I do!
Your Daughter Winter is a lovely girl to meet,
But I think I'd enjoy her company an awful lot more,
If she didn't give me cold feet.
I'm wearing eight pairs of socks.
Ryan O'Leary Jul 2022
turn off the gas Vlad

                       freeze nato ****’s ***** ˚ff

soft toast and chilblains
I was sat on the fence or
was I sat on the fence?
doubting my senses
dropping all pretence now
feet on the ground now
and
people mill around me,
harks back here to
the cotton reels inside me

and all that industry
still moves beside me,
trudging feet and the smell
of stale tobacco
women with headscarves
going to the thrift stores
sores and chilblains
who are we to blame now?

not the fukin overseers
because we all know that they're saints,

back at home and a bath by the hearthside
cotton reels still spinning deep down inside me
what would I be now if not for all the industry?

I'd be free.
Maxim Holt Jun 2018
We were huddled round the fire.
That’s how it was back then.
Propped against spit stains.
“Disgusting.” Mother said.
Chilblains seemed small price to pay
as we stamped our feet.
Embers glowed, soon to be sheet of ash.
The coalman comes tomorrow,
no promises, he’ll want cash.
made fibrous threads...constituting heavy blanket
(crocheted by the missus)
on a cool Autumn like morning...

to stave off experiencing getting
chilblains, goosebumps,
or subjected to the blast of cold air
wafting thru the opened bedroom window
on a frosty early August morning
about a month before official start of Autumn.

Quite refreshing the brisk temperatures
courtesy a cold front
that allows, enables, and provides
a harbinger and foretaste
when those hazy, hot, and humid, languid
and torpid days of summer quickly forgotten
as the lazy fox jumped over the brown dog
the latter slumbering
after weathering triple digit temperatures
record breaking heat waves
for the history books.

Though generally prone to being tired
subsequently driven to be a caffeine ******
unable to swing from trees like me monkey
forebears, I get energized
after an early afternoon siesta
in tandem with the missus
unwittingly actualizing, employing,
implementing, and underwriting
Sir Isaac Newton's first law of motion
also known as the law of inertia, states
that an object at rest will remain at rest,
or if in motion, will remain in motion
at a constant velocity
unless acted upon by an external force.

The above immovable status of one body,
albeit human an ideal synopsis of yours truly
all throughout his doggone life, especially
when a student (at the School of Hard Knocks)
remaining deaf, dumb
and mute to the webbed wide world:
if asked a question responding with
my quintessential shoulder shrug,
which characteristic inherited
courtesy our youngest
and second born daughter.

Cold winter days
seem closer on the horizon,
when yours truly sequesters,
and cloisters himself with bad company -
not by personal choice -
i.e. those pesky fruit flies riddling man cave
within four walls of apartment unit b44
for seven long years of penal solitude
(denuded of cell bate)
unlike conventional Norwegian bachelor farmers
living social during their Neptune salad days
and a side apertif of powder milk biscuits.

Ungroomed hair on head and face
found my mother back in the day
when I unfortunately lived under the same roof
as an emerging adult
with mother and father;
she resorted to hashtagging me
(her one and only prodigal son)
as a member of the Ubangi tribe,
the name of peoples
who live in the Congo River basin
to the west of Mossaka,
while the Binga Pygmies and the Sanga
scattered through the northern basin.

Being demonized, humiliated,
lambasted, psychologically
like totally vilified et cetera
(courtesy mommy dearest,
who referred to me
when a little boy as her monkey)
kickstarted inferiority complex
and a love of bananas.

I ofttimes consider myself the missing link,
a hypothetical extinct creature  
thought to be an intermediate form
in the evolutionary line between
modern humans and their ape-like ancestors
scraping his knuckles along the ground
as he ambles along
the boulevard of broken dreams
******* primal grunts and groans
essentially the mating call
inevitably invoking ribald hyena like guffaws
from uber hominids within the human jungle,
who managed to lyft themselves
by their bootstraps.

— The End —