"crocodiles" poems
Little Birds are dining
Warily and well,
Hid in mossy cell:
Hid, I say, by waiters
Gorgeous in their gaiters -
I've a Tale to tell.
Little Birds are feeding
Justices with jam,
Rich in frizzled ham:
Rich, I say, in oysters
Haunting shady cloisters -
That is what I am.
Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!
Little Birds are sleeping
All among the pins,
Where the loser wins:
Where, I say, he sneezes
When and how he pleases -
So the Tale begins.
Little Birds are writing
Interesting books,
To be read by cooks:
Read, I say, not roasted -
Letterpress, when toasted,
Loses its good looks.
Little Birds are playing
Bagpipes on the shore,
Where the tourists snore:
"Thanks!" they cry. "'Tis thrilling!
Take, oh take this shilling!
Let us have no more!"
Little Birds are bathing
Crocodiles in cream,
Like a happy dream:
Like, but not so lasting -
Crocodiles, when fasting,
Are not all they seem!
Little Birds are choking
Baronets with bun,
Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I say, to splinter
Salmon in the winter -
Merely for the fun.
Little Birds are hiding
Crimes in carpet-bags,
Blessed by happy stags:
Blessed, I say, though beaten -
Since our friends are eaten
When the memory flags.
Little Birds are tasting
Gratitude and gold,
Pale with sudden cold:
Pale, I say, and wrinkled -
When the bells have tinkled,
And the Tale is told.
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Thick skin, big body and sharp teeth, they slay
These greedy animals hunt for their prey
Their goal is to get all what they want
In the darkness of the night they usually hunt
Crocodiles and snakes, they attack like storms
How big are those reptiles as compared to the worms?
Now modern predators are in tuxedo’s and suits
With shiny eyeglasses or well-polished boots
These greedy creatures scattered in this world
They always make the biggest stories ever told…
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
12 in the dark, I sit awake by the window,
Across from Hyde Park, and the feel of the wind oh,
Sparking a bark, Nana's remarking from below,
Canine matriarch against the boy with no shadow,
Time's flickering by and I begin to rust,
Consumed, I'm high with lust just for pixie dust,
But to fly you must be robust and adjust,
And I can't, though I try, I just look with disgust,
Sitting on the sill, I think of him mournfully,
Hard as I try, I can't think of him scornfully,
Despite the fact that he talks so informally,
He says my name and I know I was born to be,
Part of the family, I think of them nightly,
Tootles, the twins, Curly, Nibs and Slightly,
Second star to the right, it shines so brightly,
Hope he might come back if I ask politely,
He doesn't apologize, he's immature and he's cold,
Lives in a land without rules so he can't be controlled,
But as soon as I saw him I knew I'd struck green-gold,
Peter Pan is a joke that just never gets old,
Don't smile at crocodiles down in Neverland,
And if you hear a ticking clock, hope the ships are manned,
Because there's a high demand for the taste of pirate band,
And if you're not hooked by now then Hook'll tell you first hand,
I flew here like a bird in a night-dress, frilly,
Scared, trying to fight stress, skin like Chantilly,
Found Peter and I confess that the boy's my Achilles,
Now I'm a lost girl treading on Tiger Lillies,
Acorns and thimbles are my idea of 'bases',
And sword fights with pirates are my ***** chasers,
Watching the boys as they fly and admiring Peter Pan,
But he's the boy who can't love here in Neverland,
I wanted devotion, to marry men who were charming,
So I repressed, left my emotion, I left Peter Pan snarling,
My own species no longer, just a common starling,
Caged by age at my window, I'm Wendy Darling.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:36 PM UTC
Love, camaraderie and poetry
You always did love it here.
HOW DO YOU save a poem as a DRAFT on here anymore? Help! I've been gone for a year and the save as draft button is gone?
Acacia tree sunsets over Lake Turkana
Yes, you always did love it here
Drawing Crocodiles on my wheel
The mouse in your hoodie
The hurt
the homeless
and all those people
you always did love it here.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 1:26 PM UTC
Black soot
Shrivelled up Cadbury
wrapper eyes
You were not my antidote
You turned a balanced
happy
friendly
spice 'n' all things nice girl
into a hermit with
bloodied fingers, a
self-destructive narcissist
(or did you just
coax her out of her shell)
well
I quit on you
the ****** is the **** spoon
your prose the lighter
your hips the dealer
my heart the coffin.
I cried
I cry
I will cry
Over your constellation swamps
Housing crocodiles
Water-borne diseases
and piranhas
I am naive;
I think my youth protects me.
My youth enslaves me.
Binds me in paper chains.
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC
Tropical blue
Cool night breeze
Ocean tides and Red Lobster life
Tropical blood
Swimming with crocodiles
Chomping on left over Cubans
Tropical view
Wind chime serenade
Second hand smoke grenade
Tropical blue blood
Ocean wave recedes
Water and volcanic sludge
Tropical blue blood view
Nightlife in all its brilliance
Late night moonlit romance
Jun 11, 2011
Jun 11, 2011 at 8:46 PM UTC
You're busier than the crocodiles,
Swatting at the bees,
avoiding mumps and measles
that carry with the fleas.
In the time I could sit,
and bade my day awhile,
but now I've stuck to moving now,
now my soul is defilled!
You were busier than a ***** cat
swatting at the mouse,
and kicked closed, of that door,
that once was our own house.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 7:25 PM UTC
Crocodiles catnapping cuddling in cordial cliques,
Loafing, lollygagging, lurking low like lounging leeches,
Protective postures pouncing prey with piercing pinned precision,
Brilliant belligerent beasts basking boldly by swamp beaches,
Agressively angry attitudes among alluring adverse animals,
Deep daunting jaws of death damage drastically when dropping down,
Scales shaped like stabbing shards scrape while swimming strongly,
Opposing opposition order obedience of outrageous odious opponents,
Raged ravenous rapacious reptiles rank repulsive ratings and resourses...
©Michael P. Smith
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 4:26 AM UTC
FROM MOZAMBIQUE TO SOUTH AFRICA AND THE STRUGGLE IN BETWEEN
from Mozambique to the belly of the queen mother Afrika,
we were born soldiers, strangled from the arms of our mothers,
strangers to our engraved fathers in their early graves,
starve and strive in the command of our commanders,climb
and fall hills of many mountains, with countless bodies i carried
in my arms, moved from one camp to another, with blood of my
comrades fled in the river, as crocodiles tumble and roles with
them, they scream and cried while we crossed the Crocodile River.
a refuge toe to giant Afrika our queen mother, this has become
our home too, regardless of the chaos we've rendered. i know no
memories but nightmare in the surface of Mozambique, they see the beauty of its minerals and crops, the tremendous sea and scattered
informal settlement for farming left by my people to south
Africa, but in true essence i see graves, grenades, and guns
buried in the bodies of my comrades from Mozambique to
south Africa and the struggle in between
Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 6:09 PM UTC
A River
In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women’s hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.
He was there for a day
when they had the floods.
People everywhere talked
of the inches rising,
of the precise number of cobbled steps
run over by the water, rising
on the bathing places,
and the way it carried off three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
of the pregnant woman
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at blank walls
even before birth.
He said:
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
and then
it carries away
in the first half-hour
three village houses,
a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda
and one pregnant woman
expecting identical twins
with no moles on their bodies,
with different coloured diapers
to tell them apart.
~A.K.Ramanujan
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 12:57 PM UTC
My eyes, python-like, swallow the sky,
greedy for the wrongs in me to go right
at the sight of your gleeful greenery
spilling over creek beds and hills.
The wind, combing out my worries,
blowing away the blockage built
by the fumes and filth collected in city gutters.
I want to be
let wild, made free.
But one wrong turn in your winding maze and I am gone,
a place like this will chew you up and spit you out.
You should leave, something tells me.
No one ever leaves fully intact,
the longer you stay, the more you will fall apart.
“On the contrary” I scoff.
“I am becoming more myself, not less.”
But this is what everyone says
just before they leap in joyful pursuit
to tumble headlong down hidden gullies.
But I am more careful, I assure myself.
I hunt the way crocodiles do,
watching patterns with keen intention,
offering my hands and eyes.
But what should I do if, when the time comes,
You resist?
Disregard me, like an unworthy suitor?
And what if that is what I am?
I see, I take note of
the way the wind blows and the shadows fall,
the way the trees twist clockwise
or counter-clockwise.
The way animals flee when I approach and
the way they keep perfectly still
hoping they are invisible.
And there are times when I see all this, and more.
Like heat distortions above a fire,
something peripheral or liminal,
almost outside the spectrum of what can be perceived
or communicated or defined.
All these trails, the ones seen and unseen
and the ones somewhat seen
lead me to a terrible suspicion:
that the likes of me lacks to tools
to understand the likes of you.
that in harmony with one another
we would both cease to be what we are.
that you will never regard me with love and worse—
you will never regard me at all.
Then I, in frustration, stop going with you.
Start to go against you.
And keep going, finally on my own.
Still myself, but less.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 7:23 PM UTC
Snowflakes scraped underneath fingernail tips
When the charcoal was pressed harder.
As often as the cheetah runs with the crocodiles by the nile
They do not look for each other.
As often as the bees sing
Only once could they muster poison and sting
With a clockwork, shelter and carpentry of honey.
The fruitness of a living body.
The sound that gets lost in the woods
Gets lost and carried
Flying through the whispers between the branches and twigs.
All the creatures are all but lost
Yet the striking fur
Shocks
Hunters into firing hot shells across
and the falcon fell.
A shouting cull
The silence that meant that wildly blooms have been collected.
A bouquet was calling the passing hours
Wrapped in the scraped white spirit of the wooden towers.
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 4:23 AM UTC
"We´re all a little mad here" he says,
wide eyed, letting the words lip slither off his snippity snake tongue.
We smile and we laugh in unison.
In unison our heaves,
ins outs
match one another,
as belly moves,
up and down we synchronize,
ha-h-ha,
What does he mean?
how silly!
Then deep thought unlit
hide behind our bodies rocking chair movement
snip snapping hip
We´re all a little mad, are we not?
as ego wears a crimson feathered mask
and covers in gold to hide
the deep dark coal
secrets that slith and creep
like crocodiles,
sewer nights in paris,
smelly grotesque,
we hide.
"We´re all a little mad here" he says
as our bodies move in unison.
Our bodies move in unison.
In unison,
while echoes
tap my animal soul.
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 6:35 PM UTC
I hate ******
I hate racist,
I hate narcissistic people,
I hate criminals,
I hate subliminal messages,
I hate werid fetishes,
I hate killers,
I hate murderers,
I hate child molesters,
I hate sodomizer,
I hate spiders,
I hate fear,
I hate my mirror,
I hate low battery,
I hate battery (crime)
I hate pedophiles
I hate crocodiles
I hate the sun,
I hate to run,
I hate sin,
I hate my sinister grin,
I hate villains,
I hate millions,
I hate billions,
I hate trillions,
I hate people who dont hate what I hate,
I hate everything,
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
Poetry is the air poets are the breath
poets sparkle like jewels of paradise
flourishes in garden of great poetry
poets matured like pearls in oysters
of vast ocean of their sub conscious
no need to ****** it from jaws of
crocodiles or to combat dragons
don't have to climb Everest
cross the burning Sahara
crawl in the dark belly
of the Pyramids
all they've to do is let the ink flow
let inspired words pass through prism
minds let contrive and conceive aglow.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 9:07 PM UTC
Overborne barrels
Rolled out in weights
That God knows how much.
Down the bottomless pit
Of unredeemable darkness
Where desire laid unrest.
The hounds of greed
Stripped off the barks
But hid the naked truth.
Where pigs are kept
For the coming slaughter
By the hungry crocodiles.
Only brittle bones
Shall be thrown and fed
To the ignorant river.
But the water saw blood
And soon the tide will rage
To drown the narcissists.
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 8:10 AM UTC
I'm paying tribute to one of the finest Poets I know, Tony Hoagland. He recently passed away from Pancreatic Cancer at 64 years young. This is one my absolute favorites and I believe you'll love it also.
Romantic Moment
After the nature documentary we walk down,
into the plaza of art galleries and high end clothing stores
where the mock orange is fragrant in the summer night
and the smooth adobe walls glow fleshlike in the dark.
It is just our second date, and we sit down on a rock,
holding hands, not looking at each other,
and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and ***** softly into the mouth of my beloved
and if I were a peacock I’d flex my gluteal muscles to
***** and spread the quills of my cinemax tail.
If she were a female walkingstick bug she might
insert her hypodermic proboscis delicately into my neck
and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative
before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage,
and if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby treelimb
and smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores.
And if she was a Brazilian leopardfrog she would wrap her impressive
tongue three times around my right thigh and
pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond
and I would know her feelings were sincere.
Instead we sit awhile in silence, until
she remarks that in the relative context of tortoises and iguanas,
human males seem to be actually rather expressive.
And I say that female crocodiles really don’t receive
enough credit for their gentleness.
Then she suggests that it is time for us to go
to get some ice cream cones and eat them.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
MY
gender has a big *** problem
we think with our *****
because our brains are in our *******
a nicely curved rear
a subtly protruding chest
imagination always adheres
and the hands do the rest
in our teens we’re rabbits
in our 20’s we’re wolves
by 30 we’re lions
and 40, owls
psychologically volatile
emotionally detached
physically competent
spiritually mismatched
understand, we’re arrogant ********
when we’re trying to save face
we are also capable of shame and regret
not every jack holds an ace
the exterior is tough
showing only what ruses the eyes
true that a man can bluff
but even crocodiles cry
the next time a **** tries to be one
fret not, you can still have fun
start by questioning his masculinity
and move on to “you have a tiny….”
yes that’s right,
go ahead spite ME.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 5:49 PM UTC
He sails a sauce pan in the sink
a mast made from a spoon,
and maps his ocean black as ink
beneath a light bulb moon.
He is searching for the islands
that they call the ***** Plates,
with golden beach of breadcrumb sands
beyond the Gravy Straits.
Where macaroni dolphins leap
beyond French Fries Lagoon,
and sing their songs as sailors sleep
beneath a light bulb moon.
Beware the corn cob crocodiles
that lurk beneath the foam,
betraying folks with welcome smiles
within their bone strewn home.
He navigates the boiling oil
and safely through the ice,
to find a place to hide his spoil
away from other mice.
So island claimed x marks the spot
his sailing days at end,
and I at last wash up my pots
that so amused our friend.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 5:52 PM UTC
The milk in your breast has
soured
and silence of desert tombs
echoes through your heart
Those eyes,
once whirling gypsy skirts
mouth red cartwheels, tambourines,
night fires, dark and moist
invite — wilderness
Birds caught on thorns
flail
like arms that reach out to
nowhere
slowly delivering HIM, piece by
piece
to lurking crocodiles
Your children, tiny white candles
gather flowers to fill the chasm
form a human bridge, a link
an aisle for you to walk down
only this time
Alone
Marble eyes weep real tears
Trumpets greet
ISIS resurrected
takes her place, whole, strong
Transcendental
inside the chamber of
Kings
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 6:09 PM UTC
i want you to know
that every time i see you
i see more of god's work in your life
his love in your eyes
baby we've been crying
these crocodile tears
and everyone said oh
those are just crocodile tears
but i know where i've been
and what you've seen
we were sitting cross legged
quiet and together
in the jungle
when the jungle started praying
started saying
oh crocodile tears
man of sorrows
walk this path with you
i don't know much of anything
i'm just a crocodile
crying prison chains
crying freedom songs
in a world
full of crocodiles
lean on my shoulder crocodile
crocodile let's go home
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
Here's to all my Aussie friends.
You fought with bravery and honor
at Kimberley, Passchendaele,
Gallipoli, Romani, Crete,
Tobruck, Milne Bay, Yongju
and even in Vietnam.
And I know why you did it.
Abounding in your back yards
were stalking cassowaries, spiders
that rot your flesh, invisible
but lethal jelly fish,
Coastal Taipan and Brown snakes,
not to mention saltwater crocodiles
Great White sharks, Stone Fish,
blue ringed octopi and
the odd Marble Cone Snail.
War must have seemed safe
compared to he horrors of home.
Here's to you mates. Fair Dinkum.
I would have been on the first
transport out, too.
~mce
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 9:33 AM UTC
The curious activity of men/women
makes me wonder precisely when
both will learn how to conjoin
with rabbits, geese, bull and lion.
Talking incessantly like birds,
roaring like lions. However absurd!
snapping like crocodiles
or habitually waiting in human files,
torturing like cats
water-boarding rats,
rolling like logs
snarling like dogs.
snorting like pigs
gobbling up figs
In everyone an animal lurks
whether saints or jerks!
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 5:31 AM UTC
My brain is a factory,
producing every toxic part of me.
************ until my hand gets lazy,
fantasizing about Lexi Belle
and being Martin Scorsese.
My blood is a vacuum,
alone in a crowded room;
my white blood cells like to
travel to my *****
so I can someday infect
designer uterine walls.
Locked and loaded,
my heart exploded.
The tissue and issues
attracted crocodiles
that swam from the mall,
for miles and miles.
Store-bought baby, my body isn't ready,
to be stripped down to the bone,
and sold to teenage radios,
that'll broadcast my American moans.
Caucasian nightmare:
my skin is not fair.
Peel enough off with chemicals,
until I decide there's no more,
and hide the layers in bathroom stalls,
located in the bleach of Baltimore.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 7:30 PM UTC
You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers;
Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns;
And Youth against the sun-rise ... ‘Not profound;
‘But such a haunting music in the sound:
‘Do it once more; it helps us to forget’.
Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene—
Some complex out of childhood; *** of course!)
I can’t remember how the trouble starts;
And then I’m running blindly in the sun
Down the old orchard, and there’s something cruel
Chasing me; someone roused to a grim pursuit
Of clumsy anger ... Crash! I’m through the fence
And thrusting wildly down the wood that’s dense
With woven green of safety; paths that wind
Moss-grown from glade to glade; and far behind,
One thwarted yell; then silence. I’ve escaped.
That’s where it used to stop. Last night I went
Onward until the trees were dark and huge,
And I was lost, cut off from all return
By swamps and birdless jungles. I’d no chance
Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers,
And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers.
Some day I’ll build (more ruggedly than Doughty)
A dark tremendous song you’ll never hear.
My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter
On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year.
And some will say, ‘His work has grown so dreary.’
Others, ‘He used to be a charming writer’.
And you, my friend, will query—
‘Why can’t you cut it short, you pompous blighter?’
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