"crayfish" poems
Lovely dainty Spanish needle
With your yellow flower and white,
Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,
Do you think of me to-night?
Shadowed by the spreading mango,
Nodding o'er the rippling stream,
Tell me, dear plant of my childhood,
Do you of the exile dream?
Do you see me by the brook's side
Catching crayfish 'neath the stone,
As you did the day you whispered:
Leave the harmless dears alone?
Do you see me in the meadow
Coming from the woodland spring
With a bamboo on my shoulder
And a pail slung from a string?
Do you see me all expectant
Lying in an orange grove,
While the swee-swees sing above me,
Waiting for my elf-eyed love?
Lovely dainty Spanish needle,
Source to me of sweet delight,
In your far-off sunny southland
Do you dream of me to-night?
18.7k
The human mind is an interesting thing
Mine is very
As it tends to wander
I mean
Explore
I have been told by an authority
My wife
That she's never seen one like it
Although how she can see a mind
I don't know
She has seen a lot in her life
Both with and before me
She was a Travel Agent
She's been to Turkey
I like turkey
I made an interesting stuffing for turkey once
It was during my time in the seafood retail business
In a fish market
It, the stuffing I mean, had shrimp, scallops and crayfish in it
My wife didn't like it much, she's of Irish heritage
She's been to Ireland too
Twice
Once in college and once with her family
Ireland is where Delorian made his cars in the 1980s
Before he was arrested for trafficking in *******
I have not been to Ireland
I have been to France, Belgium and England
I stayed in Waterloo Belgium for two weeks
In the 80's
When I was 25
Waterloo is where Napoleon was finally vanquished
Beaten by an Englishman
They have a monument, the lion, on top of a big hill there
I had to climb it twice
The first time I forgot my camera
I got a new camera recently
A Pentax
I have had several since Waterloo
The camera hasn't been anywhere interesting
Just my back yard
I use it to take pictures of birds
At our feeder
In the big maple tree
On the ground
There is even a turkey that comes in our yard
My wife's been to Turkey
She was a Travel Agent
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 11:11 AM UTC
I put on my aqua-lung and dive,
Exploring there I see a giant tortoise plunge to the coral reef,
Just missing a lonely lobster gliding across the sand.
I hide from a fearsome shark, sniffing the water for blood.
A crawling crayfish scuttles away.
I come to an angry octopus squirting its enemy with ink.
Swaying seaweed hide sleeping starfish.
A fluttering flounder quickly swims by in pursuit of a sliding seal.
But too soon the bitter cold wraps around me like a blanket and pulls me to the surface.
Back to the ordinary world.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
A few things for themselves,
Convolvulus and coral,
Buzzards and live-moss,
Tiestas from the keys,
A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.
The dreadful sundry of this world,
The Cuban, Polodowsky,
The Mexican women,
The ***** undertaker
Killing the time between corpses
Fishing for crayfish...
****** of boorish births,
Swiftly in the nights,
In the porches of Key West,
Behind the bougainvilleas,
After the guitar is asleep,
Lasciviously as the wind,
You come tormenting,
Insatiable,
When you might sit,
A scholar of darkness,
Sequestered over the sea,
Wearing a clear tiara
Of red and blue and red,
Sparkling, solitary, still,
In the high sea-shadow.
Donna, donna, dark,
Stooping in indigo gown
And cloudy constellations,
Conceal yourself or disclose
Fewest things to the lover--
A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit,
A pungent bloom against your shade.
4.5k
Oh Sally Lightfoot
With your limpet-crusted shell -
What a well dressed crab.
Crayfish, how is it
That your skeleton is on
The outside of you?
The female lobster
Lays a hundred thousand eggs:
Thermidor for all.
Furry crustaceans
Found in the South Pacific -
Can ***** be cuddly?
Can you fall in love
When your heart is in your head?
Wish mine was too, shrimp.
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 8:30 AM UTC
Green chain fence on either side
Concrete path for bikes to glide
Rapids churning far below
****** Bridge is were we'd go
Spray can pictures on its span
'Ozzy' spelt in mangled plaid
'Iron Maiden' painted red
To ****** Bridge and then to bed
Tired laughing, crying fits
Flashing censored body bits
Gladiator crayfish fights
****** Bridge on summer nights
On this bridge all kids would go
To feel the sun and swim below
Now it stands all alone
To ****** Bridge I'll always know
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC
It smells like summer on the island
Like laundry and leaves
Like late-afternoon lakewater
And pollen-filled breeze
I remember my summers on the island
The bunkbeds and bonfires
Beaches, bikinis
And dirt roads under dark tires
Birch trees and blackberries
Blue birds and sour cherries
Two hours on the ferry
Summer on the island
Lawn chairs and lemonade
Hammock-hanging, holidaying
Laying in the lazy shade
Hiking high into the bright blue sky
Deep inhale and satisfied sigh
We had been waiting for this
Our summer on the island
Cold tides and closed eyes
Penny candy and pecan pie
Crop-tops, flip-flops, tree-forts and drop-offs
Crayfish, crayons
And breakfast on the dock at dawn
This was summer on our island
Millions of mosquitoes, minnows and movies till midnight
Eating smores in the smoky firelight
Running through the trailer park in the rain after dark
Our summer on this island
Everything was my favourite part
I loved it all
The grass
The trees
The foamy waterfall
Sun, seagulls and sand dunes
Either services or sleeping in till noon
Sweet island summer, over too soon
Summer on the island
Was a lifetime ago
The island was my summer
But I’m letting go.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 3:38 PM UTC
Mading relieves Manute from guard duty.
They share a meagre meal of millet porridge before
Manute returns to the refugee nation of southern Sudan.
The noon sun is a harsh sentence for a parched tongue but
they talk not of coffee or juice-laden fruit and
rice and lentils are mountain memories their stomachs can ill afford.
Instead they curse the clear skies that rain only strafing jets and
pray for their dry-breasted wives on pilgrimage to the aid station
carrying children swollen with the promise of death.
They snarl rumours about al-Bashir’s lapdogs
in Khartoum growing fat on food intended for them.
Jason waits, informed by cell phone of Laurie's imminent arrival.
He orders a wheat beer, its earth tone inviting on a silver tray and
its musky sweetness washing away a morning of phone business.
The noon sun is a warm blessing through the picture window but
they talk not of haloed hills or the light-laden river and
recession and retrenchment are market memories their ulcers can ill afford.
Instead they debate '63 cabernet versus '74 chablis and
moan about their reconstructed wives driving halfway across town
carrying children swollen with the promise of private schooling.
They snarl rumours about Key's cabinet
in Wellington while wolfing crayfish and Steak Diane.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:54 PM UTC
italic
the old grist mill leans
nestled in the rocky bank
red fall leaves surreal
The swift red-stained creek that energized the mill's wheel still runs over ancient rock
on its course to the mighty sea.
Its course unchanged for eons and the use of its steady resources remain.
The red leaves upon the trees surrounding the creek will soon be spent
their usefulness for their lifetime gone.
the red sweet gum leaves
fall twirling land 'pon hard rocks...
crayfish hide 'neath red
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 3:01 PM UTC
Funny, how sometimes butterflies
skip over your skin without ever landing,
how basketballs spin
around the rim without swishing,
or how things never seem to work out.
I’ve been wishing
for moments of high tide, gravitational
moons that would draw me to you,
in the middle of May on Coney Island.
I want you to pull my pigtails like it’s preschool.
I want to bleed neon, shout pop tunes
to accompany my words that sound like
a poem we all had to learn
to recite from memory.
Funny, how we store meat behind our popsicles
in the freezer, how we tear up things
before we throw them away,
or how defeated we feel when we wake up
to zero new messages.
I’ve been reaching
for the plug in the drain,
sipping champagne,
hearing your name,
when all I really want is lunchboxes,
the kind your mom leaves notes in.
I want to beat you in four square,
color on my Converse, catch crayfish
in the creek behind your house.
Funny, how we tone down our souls
to fit the mold, or interview each other
based on pieces of paper when we are
alive, and breathing, and it’s funny
how we save money for next time,
plan for tomorrow before we’re done with today,
count our accomplishments before our scars.
Funny, how all we ever wanted
was to finally be exactly where we are.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 3:32 PM UTC
I sit on top of a moss covered rock watching as a you look for crayfish in the water and Alex ponders on drawing material in the roots of a fallen and rotting tree.
I'm trying to write without rhyme these days.
But tonight, there's a bee, and I am discouraged.
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 7:30 PM UTC
There is something about it
The inexplicable curve in the diet
Swimming in pink grapefruit,
Sharing the stunted manifestation
Of a slice of clementine Gouda cheese
The way, the solace in a lone glass of wine
Chilled iced, purged crayfish
Flushed from the brittle salt basked seas
From the callused knuckle of stony fisherman
Casting out at the crackling array of dawn
With the waters brimming at the hulk
And the mast scraping it's white and red tusks
The fisherman who left at dawn
Leaving his beloved steeped in slumber...
Allowing her eyes flutter to the beam of pink salmon
And there is just something about it,
Pulsing from the faint flicker of overhanging bulbs
A writer stoops over a sliver of miracle
Purged from the raw etched in his vast chest
The very act of describing compassion & sin
With the ink soaked mechanism of his typewriter
The legacy of a young girl
Who wasn't meant to save the world
But to find it, the humanity whisked away,
Drowned perhaps by whiskey and alcohol
Eyesights deterred from the long lone walk
Pocketed with threats and head shakes
The writer's fingers fly,
And funny how there is something about it
How it doesn't end in full circle
That we lack the great capacity
To seize the flesh of truce
So distilled we sail,
So perturbed we write,
So empty we feast
Never quite knowing
That elemental presumption
Of something more
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
*Draw hither golden blade , brother to sassafras and veronica
Purveyor of delicate , sanguine architects in pastoral visage
Of ebony cloth cooling evergreen shadows within -
Rosin incense , spearmint infused morning dew seasoning
o'er felled timber escarpments , Summer rain infusions of
petit , lavender violet corsage and August whimsy
Petrichor , Persimmon Clover bouquets , juvenile , song filled
brook-sides , poetic diamond studded sandbars , Chattahoochee
Crayfish , Shellcracker , Blue Heron land of Creek and Cherokee
fathers
Of Towaliga , Bear , Moccasin , Indian streams
Emerald swept low country isles , songbird arbors , peridot waterways
beside whitewashed shoreline* ...
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 3:29 PM UTC
I'm not one to hold on,
when I know that I am being let go.
Don't cry and act like I've wronged you,
because you know that's not right.
When I reached out for you countless times
you burrowed deeper into the mud,
and I do not chase crayfish,
because we are not crayfish.
Pretend that I am evil and malicious,
but you know that you can only act that way.
I have a heart and it doesn't lie,
even when it finds a mattress of magpies.
I never had intentions to get you in bed,
I just wanted you to come inside
for some coffee and some sober.
I cannot speed up like a high contrast mix,
I cannot slow down chopped and *******
I can only operate on what my heart feels
and what your heart tells it to feel.
And your heart is telling me to move on,
to churn on the exit ramps.
I have not wronged you in the right way,
or righted you in the wrong way.
Is caring about you the next left?
Is that where the houses knock their feet
on the concrete and the guardrail
at the dead end?
If so, hate me for good,
**** the engine
and idle with your lips on the guardrail.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 6:00 PM UTC
The night washing over our heaving, fleshy carcasses. Like two crayfish in a current.
So you are telling me.
We ****** in a whirlpool of sound. In a dilapidated guest room.
There. Moaning into you with my eyes, I ravenously endowed our fevers.
And you make it into pretty words.
Prettier than I could ever polish my sprawling lobster legs into sounding.
Who talks like that.
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021 at 6:51 AM UTC
mixed stirrings
hard to place this constant ire rising from ashes of a fire not quite, yet felt
stir into that melting *** the sum of miscellany unknowns
all wrought from the unsweet gifts of quotidian sighs
no need to wrap the present, baby, for it's already here
twinkling in the birth of every moment
we hardly know it nor acknowledge
so busy wrenching pain from secret places the darkness loves to keep
yesterday brought unsought smiles of outer space dust
then space in pushed into the blue spit bubble of crayfish folly
and fear frozen into place on cauldroned cheeks
as tendons pulled fury tight on a cocky bounty's cry
I want to carry that sweet loading joy
which scorches my receptiveness in astringent non reciprocation
I die to please that spangled energy so much
which holds back its cagey kernel, far from my prying hands
I kneel to take in out of the blue blessings
which fall slapdash on this preoccupied trajectory, forever waiting in sozzled hope
I take the package you flash and cast heavy
which leave sweltering whiplines across my insides
all fine, all just a fine melange
beneath your magic fontanelle lies a sunken cache
there are painfully few privy to that miracle
I live in hope of neither looping nor taking
but just to be happy to bear witness to the shiny array of your gem stock
you are like none other, inimitable and hard gemstone (inside)
a mix of purity stirred in crazy, along with star shine and fire sparks
my angel with honey eyes
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 2:34 PM UTC
Light; form shadow; cast shadow
and it drags on, and on.
Across the ridges in the marbled concrete,
like the dark hiding behind, until the light ends.
What is it like, to have your head
separated from the rest of you,
and cast to the side? Like the head
of the Afghani citizen, skewered
on a rock by the barbarians who trudged
through, and ended the light of the unarmed.
Casts for crayfish, to sew their claws
back on so they may hold their heads
up high into the dimming light,
as Canada steals the sun away.
Bridges for peace and walls
that break between river and canal
where teenagers row, stroke after stroke,
down past dead deer and graffiti.
Where the two Puerto Rican brothers
hid the pieces of their mother in garbage bags,
after they chopped her up,
like minced vegetables. He said
the helicopter hovered
feet before their boat, while black
plastic bags rose from the depths
filled with carbon dioxide made
from decomposing flesh.
As my hands danced across his back
I told him I walked along that wall
to watch fireworks, or catch glimpses
of a weasel that lived within the rocks.
The wall was not built for the disposal
of mothers,
but for the seagulls. So that they can drop
their prey against it, until the shells crack
and their warm innards
are spilled out upon it
like the hot Afghanistan sand.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:21 PM UTC
There is a story of the beach that's been told
Of shipwrecks and pirates and their ***** of gold
Of devils and angels and souls that were sold
For the location that's hiding the treasure so old
During the day, the beach is quite full
Of tourists and locals and such
But, when the sun's going down
The locals don't go there so much
Most nights in movies there's groups at the beach
Singing songs round a large burning fire
But, this beach is different, no one goes there
Cross my heart, you can call me a liar
Out at the end of the breakers and rocks
Is a graveyard of old pirate ship hulls
Divers have checked them and nothing was found
Now they're home to just crayfish and gulls
The story is told of the pirate....Muldoon
And the treasure buried round in these parts
It's protected by witchcraft and devilish lore
And is covered by ten pirates hearts
They say that Muldoon took down ships by the score
From Jamaica on up to Gaspe
But whatever he took, no one knows where he left
his treasure from then to this day
His ghost it is said, roams the dunes in the night
His wailing is heard near the sea
Folks don't stick around when the day is done
There's nary a soul there to see
Muldoon was a man with a penchant for gold
He made deals with the devil as well
Witches have said that the last deal he made
Let him take all his ***** to hell
Pirates and Ghosts and Witches and ships
These are tales that will play on your mind
But for all that he took, and through all the years past
Not one single dubloon will ye find
From cradle to grave the folks in these parts
Know the story of the Pirate Muldoon
The tree where he died still stands by the shore
Glowing bright when there is a blood moon
The word is that he, was hung from the tree
And Muldoon cursed the beach as he dropped
He said that his gold would never be found
Though the searching never has stopped
Fires go out, and the wind whips his cry
Is it Muldoon or just tricks of the air
It doesn't much matter, for no one will know
Because at night, there is nobody there
Muldoon walks the beach with his leg made of wood
Guarding treasure, of jewellery and gold
He will stay there forever, for it will not be found
This I say, being ever so bold
If you should find yourself down at the beach
And the sun starts to set in the west
You'd best make a move and get home where it's safe
Or meet Muldoon who is guarding his chest.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
who has waited for thirty years
i counted him dead, but never could stop
loving the dead man
doing that dead man waltz
so now, my dead man
come find me some way
it's no longer the Seventies
you may find me by a half
broken/half-built wall
if this kind of thing even matters to you
come find me by a broken civilization
I will be the only puppet left in town
When I try to write to you I hear broken Em# ninths
Chords & Wings and all the smashed things
You have haunted me to the end
End? Nothing is stronger than my need for you
Crawling as I might do in search of the one, the You
I become a lobster, or worse,
I am a Crayfish
For Your Love
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 4:04 AM UTC
You caress my palms, kissing the ridges of my knuckles
With the sweet tenderness of peaches hanging under the sun.
Your tongue is a river rock smoothed over
By torrents of stream-water, turned pink by the subtle heartbeat
Of escalating pulsations from thumb-tip to chest.
Your lips are the gentle puckering catfish upon my neck,
Tickling veins like spindle-legged crayfish.
Your eyes bore softly into mine like melting rivulets,
Blue-rushing, meeting a freckle of green and flecks of hazel,
Laid upon me like the blanket I had when I was three,
Teasing me like a feather flirting with grasses on the bank.
Your fingers embrace the small dip of my ankle, motionless against skin.
Your body is a poem, speaking louder than your tongue,
Forming sonnets with your spine and simple words, saying “I adore you.”
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 10:51 PM UTC
I drew pants out of my backpack
like a well bucket brimming pennies.
Legs upon legs tied together
in a campfire circle and sitting
on moss'd rocks, listening to rock
music, drinking Rolling Rock,
and nothing else. I pulled up
on inseams to a single black
pocket liner sixteen cents richer,
but the fire. Oh, that fire, flames whipping
weaker than slave drivers weaker
than the wind bailing low-lying
lake water to the faux Dover beach
mound of sand by the mud shore
like the crayfish were drowning.
The sand was like trampled
"welcome" mats worn-in by sidestepping
horseshoe players setting down
their tin cans by the mound.
A pitching machine on the pitcher's mound.
Machines have made the big leagues.
I quit baseball when Coach Seth castrated
my half-friends with a robot.
Some took red stitches to the face,
the lucky ones. But the fire—if you could consider
a Bunsen burner-esque flame a fire—turned
our burnt sienna bottles into burning-out beacons,
tiki torches between pine trees, street lamps
kicking off in four hours, a box of matches,
and a lightning bug's ***
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 12:32 PM UTC
Unceremoniously,
birds and frogs and men
begin their songs
and I decide it better not to join them.
For all the wealth and health
and warmth and rigor
as the restless tide --
waiting for silence --
breathes and descends
timid,
restless,
afraid and alone
rusted metal of apathy
and the forlorn sound of laughter very,
very far away
across the hall
wheat grows;
up the stairs
is moonlight,
and in one room,
birds and frogs and men
sing their songs
when the ground calms
and ground returns underfoot
and the fires are out
the wheat and the moonlight
and the birds and frogs and men
will be farther away yet
but in the throes of desperation
for far-flung mountains and sleep
and crayfish in the river
and hands in someone else's hair
no songs will be sung.
in my heart's aching survival lurch --
mad, hysterical stampede as it is--
the wind will blow again
toward fantasies and imaginations,
sunlight and clouds
waves' cold whispers and the wisdom of stars
but descend,
descend,
descend
what's done is not gone,
and those echoes from away in time
stampede themselves
surviving themselves
on tantrums
stubborn drama
impatience's reward
because above the wheat and moonlight
is a burden of love and company unwanted
and my heart breaks
for the birds and frogs and men
who have since stopped singing
and that I decided it better not to join them.
Apr 22, 2024
Apr 22, 2024 at 1:23 PM UTC
When I see you.
When I'm within three feet of you.
I clam up.
I shut down.
All I want to do is cry and apologize.
All I want is to tell you I'm sorry
Followed by many "I love you"'s
When I'm within two feet of you
I'm overcome by the strong desire
To reach out
To crayfish
To beg for your embrace
To plead
When I'm within a foot of you
My flight or fight response activates.
I'm not sure whether to try and touch you
Or to flee
My body locks up and I stammer.
When I touch you.
I crumble into dust.
The floor opens up
And I fall into dismay.
When I touch you
I crumble into dust
The floor opens up
And I fall into dismay.
When I touch you.
I crumble into dust
My mouth opens up.
And I whisper to myself.
It's all my fault that things are this way.
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 2:08 AM UTC
because the stream cuts me into paths every morning:
makes me shallow and deep, soft, jagged and drifting
and we all greet the crayfish in miller’s creek eventually:
become ships in the komorebi
become chips off of secret rock below the rusty pylon
on a hilltop, invisible, quietly
pinging signals to the strangers nextdoor from a raspberry bush
because we all become scarecrows, lost
in tomato vine towns
and red maple roots and branches
scared to disturb the dirt or the clouds
because sometimes the bats come out at dusk
to enrapture small ghosts that hang on wilted branches in the woods
climbing toward where the sun used to be
and i join them when that little river runs deep enough
Sep 23, 2024
Sep 23, 2024 at 10:53 AM UTC