"crouches" poems
Stretching and shouldering night away a sun crouches
to birth black's ousting
by one more empty circle of dark's hollowed pouches
then outs in sparkling showers.
Spangled with myriad star-labour unfolding membranes,
like numberless leaves
dreamers listen to soft serenades as the universe favours
lullaby-songs to deep breathing.
Silvered surface shivers with night-eyes as glittery dust
follows with dart-swift
flight each soul's winged journey while murmuring such
mysteries to those sleeping still.
Glimmers on sightless horizon reveal light's celebration
while untrodden dew
newly writhing in close-capped life waits inertia's frame
stirring to shake before rising.
Piercing the brain time's needle regathers worn threads
and remembers that more
sown seed means now-grown grain needs re-collection
in daylight's mind-aware storage.
Open-eyed, naught is over as hinging on less or more,
sun, with slumber done,
now hurries to open the thin partition between yawns
of torpidity to more hours won.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 5:12 PM UTC
All hail the Lizard King,
whose esoteric words crawl like sirens
over hungry rocks
baring teeth to the hypnotized sailor
steering his ship into the jagged maw.
All hail the Lizard King,
perched upon his Dionysian throne,
ambrosial ecstasies fill his cup
while jongleurs dance to psychedelic chansons.
At his feet
prey the nubile maidens of yore
flower-eyed and pearly-teethed.
His eyes, mighty azure pools of madness
within which Byzantine kings were murdered--
blood darts through the mysterious waters
into the hysterical white void.
Alexander the Great
sits poised like a statue
where his libido crouches like a panther
'til the aural adonis
leaps from his confines
an amorous figure of tantalizing flesh and blood
with supple lips pouting, naked muscles taut,
mad eyes gleaming.
All hail the Lizard King,
from lush lips poetic decrees
sing forth into the endless night
penetrating taverns and bedrooms and radios
and stadiums.
The electric shaman leaps from his throne
to cast his wicked incantation,
a spark from his eyes shoots to the pyre
where a lustful blue flame erupts from
the bones of the prophets.
HIs voice soothing, haunting,
the sonic alchemist
sings his siren song into the cataclysm
where we are cast in abeyance--
We follow him,
but is he only leading us deeper
into the darkness,
or does he truly see the light?
The endless night.
All hail the Lizard King.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 10:06 PM UTC
Introduction:
What is Preludium but a time to reflect on what it is we know;
What has gone before, and how it might shape those things to come?
Preludium, or, what has gone before:
An entire world,
A great big steaming musty living breathing screaming world and-
For all we know-
There’s but two souls that care to fill it:
Sly Squint, our latest hero,
Swinging through his city like t’were a steaming jungle
And him the proverbial Ape,
He crouches in shadows on rooftops,
Directing his lust, forceful! At all
That kneels before him.
Then there’s our mysterious wanderer-
One hell of a sorry, stinking, sulky sort is he.
No Name to claim yet garbed in rags aplenty
Travelling on an endless quest
Towards a dying dusk.
Yet we need to draw a Third.
See, in this strange place we find ourselves, riddled with danger and loss,
We need one who knows some things;
One who is up there;
Better yet, one who helped to shape this world.
Because for now we are clueless, vulnerable, shambling in darkness.
And that will simply not do.
So, with haste, dear reader, with haste,
Let us ride for the one with the answers;
The one with more Names than you can count, even if you had a lifetime in which to do so;
The one who holds all the strings.
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 7:00 PM UTC
The snow leopard mother runs straight
down the mountain.
Elk cliff. Blizzard.
Hammers keening
into the night.
Her silence and wild
falling is a compass
of hunger and memory. Breath
prints on the carried-away body.
This is how it goes so far away
from our ripening grapes and lime,
coyote eyes ******* the canyon.
Yet
we paddle out in our ice boat
headed toward no future at last.
O tired song of what we thought,
stillness crouches like a prow.
We break the ice gently forward.
If I want to cling to anything
then this quiet of being the last
to know about our lives.
Copyright @ 2014 by Jennifer K. Sweeney. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on June 27, 2014.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:25 AM UTC
(Song title from Lightnin’ Hopkins’ catalogue, by Whittaker)
He stalks the parks; staring; leering,
Smiling contented,
Hiding behind his façade of walking his dog,
He reveals his true darkness,
As around the roundabout he ambles and strolls,
Looking at the children in their innocent poses,
We crouches by a boy alone in the shadows,
A boy who is happy to sit down and doodle,
He tells this stalker “let me play with your poodle”,
The menace moves in.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 11:37 AM UTC
Piled in corners
are things I've tried to be.
Study books build staircases,
art materials stack up in paint splashed bonfires,
a yoga mat lolls like a disembodied tongue
and the sewing machine crouches beetle like,
chews on thread
weaves a cocoon over itself.
Pictures line the walls.
I smile behind glass,
children tuck in, arms tight.
Dec 15, 2010
Dec 15, 2010 at 11:47 AM UTC
arise vehement sea
and hammer
with your suffering fists
all the crags
and lonely stones
upon the shores of
the naked coast
where crouches
at edge of bluff
the foundations raw
cantilevered walls
and the arcing buttresses
that shelter dreams
held secret
hurl your agonized and
eager waters
at stone and mortar
shake the bedrock
on which rest
the touchstones
in the deepest cellars
let your echoing tremors
buffet and rebound
within the resonant chambers
hidden below
your ululating winds
calling to memories
in their veiled towers
peering from windows
narrow and high
their fluttering lamps
clinging to the light
they search the tumult
with eyes fearful and uncertain
cloaking forsaken desires
that thirst without end
May 10, 2022
May 10, 2022 at 5:14 PM UTC
“Well if the shoe fits.”
And it never does,
either too tight or too loose,
with my paint-thinner feet,
narrow, knifing through the canvas
heels flopping out at the back
toes mashing together at the front,
pacing between shelves at the store,
growing anxious mom impatient
in the waiting chair,
shifting between sizes,
walking prison-style with shoes zip-tied,
a second, third opinion,
salesclerk gets out the foot measure,
I take my socks off,
put them back on (are they too thick/too thin?)
feet either mashed or cavernous
if the salesclerk crouches down and presses a thumb at the end
and gives me an okay sign
I’ll walk around with ****** toes and bruised heels the rest of my life
because only others can convince me what my body truly feels
because mental illness is impalpable and therefore
unbelievable
and broken bones and black eyes
will perpetually surpass what lingers in my troubled mind
for I know not what the body wants (it’s *** I think)
no,
I don’t know how it’s supposed to act,
or feel,
so I can let someone else decide for me,
as I let mom order my Happy Meals,
and buy my clothes she picked out,
and tell me what kind of girls I like,
and make my doctors’ appointments,
and file my taxes,
and pay my bills
(I just give her the money),
and I am convinced my body and mind
do not exist on the same plane,
and whatever signals they send each other
I render skewed
and the messenger disabled
and tonight I told mom
the shoes I’ve worn for five days straight
don’t fit
and my feet hurt
and she sighs and laughs simultaneously alongside the family
as she hands me the number to the store
and I halfheartedly wish
she’d make the call
or lean down and press a thumb
to the end of my shoe
and convince me it fits.
--Home, August 19, 1:41 AM
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 2:21 AM UTC
Bastet
crouches in
dimly lit corridors
of the Egyptian temple
Her marble black skin
shimmering pools
incandescent green orbs
lit with altar fire
Feline Goddess
of the Nile
carries a kitten
by the scruff
gently she lowers
the newborn bundle
of fluffy joy
on our doorstep
Baby Rama
He who brings
enduring bliss
Galaxies
and all the Cosmos
reflected in his
sweet eyes
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:24 PM UTC
The cold crouches.
Perched, ankles numb,
I quake with joy—
thorny with cold, slow
but hopeful.
On white horizon,
fire licks sky.
It comes
like comets, like horsemen.
I knew it would.
Dec 24, 2010
Dec 24, 2010 at 7:00 AM UTC
When silence and darkness fall,
night.
The Unknown under the bed does crawl.
The lights snuffed and switched,
off.
The Entity's forms twitch.
Under fatal delusion,
waiting.
A black mass of sheer illusion.
Whirling in self maintained,
confinement.
Matter scrambled, yet contained.
An Entity of some proportion,
considerable.
Unknown, it stalks with devotion.
Listen not, too carefully, at moments,
dark.
lest you wish to hear it's laments.
Oh how it cries, the weep,
haunting.
Ice in the veins to keep.
Beyond doubt, of any sort,
believe.
The Entity, it's patience, not short.
It dwells, it dwells,
resolute.
On fear it thrives and swells.
A call! Christ,Allah, God!
futile.
It savors in pleas distraught.
It crouches with deadly grace behind,
you.
Waiting for a scream amplified.
A belief now formed,
steadfast.
Shadows during the day are deformed.
Night only brings us,
closer.
Entity, pleasured while I, anxious
A shadow, a wraith, the identity,
Unknown.
All consuming darkness, the Entity.
Reader, reader, never look,
behind.
Your sanity, is at risk, mine it has took.
Ignore not, this sincere a plea,
warning.
For I, like you this moment, chose, to not believe.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, and sometimes it's wrong.
I live in a box, a box made of pain.
It sits in a field at the end of a lane.
A house without windows, a house without heart.
It's hardly a castle, but I call it a start.
It sits in its loneliness, no cars pass it by,
it crouches in loneliness beneath a gray sky.
The world stops outside. I stay within,
with my words, my memories, my pride and my sin.
I remember you baby when you came to this place
with your cheap lingerie and your lust on your face.
I remember you baby how you gave me that look
that no lonely alchemist could find in a book.
That look that told me that you wanted it all,
that led us to gasp and to writhe and to fall.
Your fingers were fever, your tongue was a snake,
you drew me inside you, your fire made me shake.
But love burns out as it flares in the night.
We got most of it wrong, but some of it right.
And then you were gone and I was alone
with a heart that was broken into pebbles of stone.
Left in that box, that box made of pain,
that sits in the field at the end of the lane.
See I'm only a poet with only a song,
and sometimes I get it, but for you I was wrong.
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 27, 2016 at 3:31 AM UTC
Feelings are a fantasy,
Star studded,
Very stupid game,
Emotions are just power blessed,
Laced with blood and brain.
A rare exotic tiger,
Love,
She hides in long grass ,
As he dances,
On graves of darkness,
Crouches,
Ready to destroy.
She,
That's me,
A beautiful trinket,
Locked in encrusted jewel box,
Not playing for peals of wedding bells weals,
Wedding bells just give me hell,
In a hotchpotch mess of fools desires,
I am your weeping cross,
Laid by the wayside,
Please repent,
Hell,
I'm not begging you.
Weltschmerz,(world weary)
In this whisky bottle world,
Heart pain,
The fantasy in which you hang,
Not a real man,
Just mixed in with life's emotions,
Spilled over,
Stuck in spiders web,
A dream of online lies.
While indecision cries!
A fool I am,
A fool you are!
Adorned with mania's crown,
Wrapped up in satin dress!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 4:18 AM UTC
#
She stands at the Well.
But she is not alone.
A voice speaks—
***"You have no husband, do you?
Not just one—not two—but many.
And still, you are thirsty."***
She freezes.
Because the voice is true.
Because she is seen.
But she resists.
"It’s not just the men…"
Her hands tighten.
*"There is another ‘her’ inside me.
She fights. She *****
She wants destruction and hunger and chaos.
She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t stop.
She is the one who makes me want to throw myself from a cliff
just so I don’t have to deal with her anymore."
"She’s gonna do something crazy,"* she whispers.
"And I’ll be gone. Like I was never even here."
The voice does not flinch.
"Then let Me meet her."
Silence.
A storm brews behind her ribs.
The "her" within her stirs—
The dark one. The wounded one.
She crouches behind the rocks, clutching her shame.
The other "her"—the one who still believes—
She wades into the water, hands lifted, reaching for salvation.
One moves toward the Light.
One remains in the shadows.
*"You see, Lord? She does not belong to me.
She belongs to the dark."*
A pause.
"No," The Spirit says.
"She belongs to Me."
The rocks begin to shake.
The water ripples.
Behind the trees, the dark "her" presses her back against the bark,
watching the water, watching the other "her" wade in.
She wants to believe.
She wants to step forward.
But she remembers.
The love of man is dishonest.
The world swallows and devours.
Every time she has trusted, she has been burned.
"The water will steal me," she whispers.
"The light will dissolve me. I will disappear."
But the Spirit does not demand.
It does not chase.
It does not force.
It only knows.
"You are afraid that surrender will erase you," the Spirit says.
"But you have already been erased."
The words cut deep.
Because they are true.
***"You live divided.
One ‘her’ in the shadows.
One ‘her’ in the light.
Neither whole.
Neither free."***
The dark "her" clenches her fists.
"You don’t understand her," she spits.
"She needs me."
"No," the Spirit says.
"She needs Me."
The trees begin to shake.
The wind rises.
***"Come, little one.
I have been waiting for you."***
She takes a step forward.
The trees do not stop her.
The rocks do not hold her.
The dark "her" and the one who waits—the one who believes—
They are not enemies.
They are not strangers.
They are two halves of the same soul.
**And Love—
Love has come to bring them both home.**
#
Mar 16, 2025
Mar 16, 2025 at 11:12 PM UTC
My cat crouches on the windowsill,
chattering at the mourning doves
who cannot hear him.
The sun is coming up
and melts the crust of dew on the grass.
I don’t care about that.
I’m sitting on the floor, sipping tea
in a teal sweatshirt. It has pink and white
splotches, painted by my aunt in 1985.
How is this real?
The vase of lilies, the browning banana,
the silence of the doves outside.
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 1:04 AM UTC
she has six hands and they are all holding me,
i am being strangled.
my lungs are bent, gasping,
she whispers in my ear:
“the crash is coming. no air can save you.”
she has eight eyes and they are never blinking,
tarantula hairs.
my blood is running a marathon, running,
i beg her to run away
but she lives where i live. i am not willing to die just to silence her.
she leads me to the rooftop,
tells me to put the dirt on.
my lungs’ scream is an axe, hacking,
all the walls are closing
she holds a vacuum to my lips.
she crouches beside me,
i hear her hissing mutters.
she is like a tsunami, everything,
she wears a crumbling rooftop like it is a crown
she sits on my head and holds my throat.
she tempts me to the edge of the highway,
everyone blurs together.
my head is like a broken hourglass, spilling everywhere,
brains look the same until they hit the windshield
my splatter, but she is not silenced.
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 9:39 PM UTC
i can feel it, in the pit of my stomach
the memories, they’re back
the thoughts come rushing in
and i can’t stop
The sickness crouches up my throat,
his hands on me, his breath on me
it wont stop. He wont stop
Smile, it’s okay. you’re safe here, you’re at home
he only lives 3 bedrooms away, it’s fine
it’s not like his touch is everywhere.
it’s not like he consumes my every thought
You’re safe now, he reaches out his hand
i stare at his hand, i know what it’s touched,
i stand there waiting for his gaze to trail
it never does, he moves closer; i step back
My skin, is no longer skin
it’s glass and who knew
all it took was one touch
to break me
i’m gone.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 8:00 PM UTC
The moon casts an ominous shadow overhead,
as if the sun's lightbulb had gone dead.
The hairs on my neck stand on end,
something dreadful is around the bend.
I don't know what i'll find there,
there isn't any thime to prepare.
All that lie here lie dead,
some stabbed, some shot in the head.
The engraved marble shines with threatening air,
something tells me i'm in for a scare.
A flash of steel announces the precense of his quarry,
this is where I begin to worry.
He starts to circle me menacingly,
that solomn steel blade is all I see.
The corners of his mouth turn up to see
the prominate fear inside me.
He crouches and bows his head,
it's all to clear he wants me dead.
The bite of his blade is all too real,
the wound he just made will not heal.
My heartbeat significantly slows down,
as I bleed I fall to the cold hard ground.
As my vison goes I begin to see,
this thespian was always after me.
Oct 13, 2012
Oct 13, 2012 at 4:23 AM UTC
He crouches in the drench
Waiting for his enemy to walk by
He stays still despite the stench
He sees his enemy out of the corner of his eye
He stays still
As the enemy gets near
It's unfortunate that he must ****
But he does it so his countrymen can live with no fear
This time he managed to escape with his life
So that he may make it back home to his wife
Next time he might not make it
But his name we will never forget
After months away
He manages to rest for a day
He's the unknown soldier
He gives it all for the flag
When he can no longer make it to be any older
We bury him a soldier, a hero fighting for the flag
That now rests on his casket
I'll send a dozen roses in a basket
I can never forget the soldier who laid his life on the line
So that I could live mine.
Dec 14, 2010
Dec 14, 2010 at 5:45 PM UTC
Mysteriously, like a seed
growing underground, consciousness
spreads into the world
seeking a presence to devour.
Like a lion lurking in the Kalahari bush,
consciousness crouches, hidden
within the body, not merely the brain,
waiting for its prey to emerge
from a field of nothingness,
to reveal its essence.
An act, a desire, a pure intentionality,
consciousness pounces on its prey,
embracing its whole presence,
filling in the many sides unseen,
teasing out its eidos.
In itself, consciousness is nothing,
a darkened grain of wheat
buried in the ground. It awakens
only at the stirrings of
the next manifestation.
Always, eternally
a consciousness-of,
it roams my room,
zooming past the myriad
items cluttering my gestalt,
fixing on the single form
it has come to inform.
Consciousness waits
for no one.
Uneasy until it grasps
the one thing necessary,
consciousness expands
and expands, actively roaming
among the wonders of my world.
It acts, but I cannot take hold of it.
It has me in its reflexive spell:
All consciousness is self-consciousness.
And I, in myself, am nothing.
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 3:43 PM UTC
I’m that guyWho’s a sour noteThat sinks deep belowSuch ascending cadences. I’m that guyWho is a shitload of fuckThat shares a planet withFuckloads of shitI’m that guyWhose blindness cannot be curedWith mud slinged in eyesAlready tinted with brownI’m that guyWho facepalms wheneverGod’s precious little angelShares herself with thatintention.I’m that guyWhose insomnia is legendaryFor believing that the moonWill swallow us allI’m that guyWho crouches down betweenDissident friends partingEvery which wayI’m that guy Who plucks petals off flowersFor incense, ‘cause they smellbetterEngulfed in fiery passionI’m that guyWho strides in the snowUnscathed because no frostIs colder than regretI’m that guyWho hates the newsBecause killing, destroying,raping and stealingIsn’t exactly new.And when time itselfTransfixes its body Away from our existence;That’s when I’ll slump overAnd shut my eyes, just becauseI’m that guy. -Juan Carlos Gomez
Feb 28, 2010
Feb 28, 2010 at 7:58 PM UTC
Feelings are a fantasy,
Star studded,
Very stupid game,
Emotions are just power blessed,
Laced with blood and brain.
A rare exotic tiger,
Love,
She hides in long grass ,
As he dances,
On graves of darkness,
Crouches,
Ready to destroy.
She,
That's me,
A beautiful trinket,
Locked in encrusted jewel box,
Not playing for peals of wedding bells weals,
Wedding bells just give me hell,
In a hotchpotch mess of fools desires,
I am your weeping cross,
Laid by the wayside,
Please repent,
Hell,
I'm not begging you.
Weltschmerz,(world weary)
In this whisky bottle world,
Heart pain,
The fantasy in which you hang,
Not a real man,
Just mixed in with life's emotions,
Spilled over,
Stuck in spiders web,
A dream of online lies.
While indecision cries!
A fool I am,
A fool you are!
Adorned with mania's crown,
Wrapped up in satin dress!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Jun 1, 2013
Jun 1, 2013 at 4:18 AM UTC
In the instant of creation
I am a channel of pure light,
translating truth from some wordless space,
forming the formless
and joyful at the privilege.
But then,
the thing clutches me
and demands attention
like an ill-bred child.
"Look, just go!" I beg it,
and off it scampers
but keeps returning
with news
of its own imperfection
and my poor craftsmanship.
Then it crouches on my shoulder
as I inspect the work of others
and whispers triumph at their failures
and hatred at success.
Until I start to fear beauty,
***** my eyes shut
and cover my ears, ashamed
of what it breeds in me.
Dec 8, 2010
Dec 8, 2010 at 12:47 AM UTC