"crouching" poems
Naked eye,
silent sorrounded heart.
what's that sound?
elderly and ancient crown
from a spirit beyond recognition.
a vast dark room
comfortable crouching,
no hope,
no light,
yet he takes a glance into my soul.
Naked eye,
he sees through me
directly to my soul
his silence seems to claim;
"poor pretentious soldier",
"come home",
"come home"...
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 1:03 AM UTC
death wants more death, and its webs are full:
I remember my father's garage, how child-like
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were escape-
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies
shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass
only to spin and flit
in that second larger than hell or heaven
onto the edge of the ledge,
and then the spider from his dank hole
nervous and exposed
the puff of body swelling
hanging there
not really quite knowing,
and then knowing-
something sending it down its string,
the wet web,
toward the weak shield of buzzing,
the pulsing;
a last desperate moving hair-leg
there against the glass
there alive in the sun,
spun in white;
and almost like love:
the closing over,
the first hushed spider-sucking:
filling its sack
upon this thing that lived;
crouching there upon its back
drawing its certain blood
as the world goes by outside
and my temples scream
and I hurl the broom against them:
the spider dull with spider-anger
still thinking of its prey
and waving an amazed broken leg;
the fly very still,
a ***** speck stranded to straw;
I shake the killer loose
and he walks lame and peeved
towards some dark corner
but I intercept his dawdling
his crawling like some broken hero,
and the straws smash his legs
now waving
above his head
and looking
looking for the enemy
and somewhat valiant,
dying without apparent pain
simply crawling backward
piece by piece
leaving nothing there
until at last the red gut sack
splashes
its secrets,
and I run child-like
with God's anger a step behind,
back to simple sunlight,
wondering
as the world goes by
with curled smile
if anyone else
saw or sensed my crime
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Fur is white
Like the snow
In which it hides
By crouching low.
Fur is dark
Like summer’s ground.
It stalks its prey
Without a sound.
As the rabbit
Eats green grass,
Up it sneaks
As smooth as glass.
A silent pounce,
Barely a fight.
Now it has
A meal tonight.
Such vicious beauty
Has a price.
A hunter takes aim
As it eats mice.
Unaware
Of another being,
It doesn’t hear
The birds stop singing.
The hunter steps
But breaks a stick.
It looks around;
The tension’s thick.
The hunter smiles.
He’s about to shoot.
Now it sees
The hunter’s boot.
It turns to run
Away from danger,
Away from death
Brought by this stranger.
A shot rings out,
An undecided fate.
Did he hit his target?
Or did he shoot too late?
Sep 13, 2011
Sep 13, 2011 at 10:06 PM UTC
The thing, he said, would come in the night at three
From the old churchyard on the hill below;
But crouching by an oak fire's wholesome glow,
I tried to tell myself it could not be.
Surely, I mused, it was pleasantry
Devised by one who did not truly know
The Elder Sign, bequeathed from long ago,
That sets the fumbling forms of darkness free.
He had not meant it - no - but still I lit
Another lamp as starry Leo climbed
Out of the Seekonk, and a steeple chimed
Three - and the firelight faded, bit by bit.
Then at the door that cautious rattling came -
And the mad truth devoured me like a flame!
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Inside, my jealousy rages
I do well to keep it in
You whisper Don't hold back from me
But if I didn't, what then?
It'd only cause more arguments,
You'll tire from my useless imagines.
Trust me when I tell you love,
That if you knew every single time
Another woman walked past
I saw myself crouching to attack,
Rip hair from root and gouge pretty blue eyes.
I want- no, need -to end their lie
That I know her beauty is,
In hopes you'll see it too.
I'm just afraid you'll fall prey
To the illusions the pretty woman portrays.
You're ever so smart,
But trust me, they're smart as well
They all went to school on how to walk,
How to smile with their pretty blue eyes,
How to make your heart, beat
And downunder rise
It's a lie though love,
I'm what's really real
So don't look at them, look at me.
I don't like the way jealousy makes me feel..
Apr 1, 2014
Apr 1, 2014 at 8:25 AM UTC
I laid an anemone
on the mask of a crying girl
the young mother
the crouching woman
I am beautiful
says the sirens
says the ever-youthful vegetation
of God
I mixed my blood and nectar
on the mask of a dying man
the decay of kiss
the resurrection
I am beautiful
says the anemone
says Adonis in his grave
I burned their leaf-stems
on the mask of an artist
the eternal springtime
the life-death-rebirth deity
I am beautiful
says the martyr
says girl as she wakes
to the sirens
I am beautiful
says the head on the platter
I am beautiful
and the woman descends
the bronze invading
the bronze high-handed
the bronze opening
to the gates of hell
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:21 AM UTC
slave is someone who does not have authority over their own lives slave is someone subservient controlled dominated by somebody something slave works very hard for little or no pay slave is property of somebody something slave is someone forced to obey
sycophant is someone servile who overly flatters more powerful individual for personal gain sycophant is bootlicker brown-noser fawner flunkey doormat lackey lap-dog yes-men parasite toad-eater (pause reposition) somebody possessed of excessive vanity may cultivate sycophant swarms
side by side they stand clothed in black not quite similar the one slightly taller possibly because the other suffers poor posture perhaps they are related because in odd way they appear alike or of same ilk yet upon closer scrutiny it becomes apparent they have very little or nothing in common the taller one with troubled sad eyes the other smiling obsequiously the taller one more muscular ***** from working menial labor the other with curved spine slumped shoulders because of undue bowing and crouching while blowing smoke up other people’s *****
sadist is someone who attains ****** gratification by inflicting physical pain shame to other people sadist is someone who delights in excessive cruelty degradation to others
********* is someone who achieves ****** pleasure from being hurt humiliated abused dominated punished often self-inflicted ********* is someone who enjoys being harmed misused mistreated ignored by others
sadomasochist is someone who gets ****** gratification by alternately or simultaneously enduring hurt causing pain to somebody else sadomasochist is combination of sadistic masochistic tendencies in someone who obtains ****** pleasure from inflicting submitting to pain cruelty
sycophant slave snakes up leg of movie actress dictator who gains pain through pleasure 2000 miles from equator IED cell phone detonator sycophant dilettante ***** up to sadistic art critic or publishing editor on escalator while below on main floor of shopping mall ice rink figure skater pirouettes bows to nominator surreptitiously bribed by infiltrator mutilator
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011 at 4:38 AM UTC
It's been nearly a year,
and it still hurts.
It still hurts so much!
It hurts to say your name,
you still haunt me as persistently as last year.
My ghost, my lovely ghost.
I cried so hard last night
I couldn't breathe.
Doubled over and crouching down
gasping for air.
Why does it hurt me so much?
When it's obvious you're fine.
You're so much better off now,
but I'm not bitter.
I want you to be happy,
but I want you to miss me.
I want to know that I haven't been forgotten,
that our friendship meant something to you.
But I know how hard you're
trying to erase me from your past.
And I can't help but miss you.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 10:22 PM UTC
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Giraffe,
Hippo,
Wildebeest,
Gazelle
Sip muddy water hole
Crouching low.
Unforgiving heat
Cool drink
Texans
Sip fridge-cooled Camelbacks
Crouching low.
Light breeze
Eggplant skies
Tall savannah grass
Sways
Masking movement.
Predators travel
Unseen.
Guns ready
trophies sighted
Giraffe
Hippo
Wildebeest
Gazelle
Bullet chambered
Trigger finger
trophies....
Running?
Cheetahs pouncing
Texans screaming
Law of Nature
End of Story.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
I’m left with no one to talk to,
with none to ever share
Only my blackened heart to feel,
the crouching, gray despair
I want to shout, to scream for help,
but I don’t have a voice
My soul is left in darkest void
without a single choice
The shadows whisper at my name,
they want to get along
They sing for me, and cry for me
a very woeful song
But I don’t care, I never heed
I know it’s now too late
To fix my very crippled life
And untwine my twined fate
It’s gone now, I failed all of it
I left it, I did shun
Leaving it to rot and to die
And wither cold and wan…
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride
On that darkest day. Oh, forever may
He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed
Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow
Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost
Or still all the numberless days of his death, though
Above all he longed for his mother's breast
Which was rest and dust, and in the kind ground
The darkest justice of death, blind and unblessed.
Let him find no rest but be fathered and found,
I prayed in the crouching room, by his blind bed,
In the muted house, one minute before
Noon, and night, and light. The rivers of the dead
Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw
Through his unseeing eyes to the roots of the sea.
(An old tormented man three-quarters blind,
I am not too proud to cry that He and he
Will never never go out of my mind.
All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain,
Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
Hating his God, but what he was was plain:
An old kind man brave in his burning pride.
The sticks of the house were his; his books he owned.
Even as a baby he had never cried;
Nor did he now, save to his secret wound.
Out of his eyes I saw the last light glide.
Here among the light of the lording sky
An old blind man is with me where I go
Walking in the meadows of his son's eye
On whom a world of ills came down like snow.
He cried as he died, fearing at last the spheres'
Last sound, the world going out without a breath:
Too proud to cry, too frail to check the tears,
And caught between two nights, blindness and death.
O deepest wound of all that he should die
On that darkest day. Oh, he could hide
The tears out of his eyes, too proud to cry.
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Look at the failure, stood over there,
The world his oyster, yet his hands are bare.
Indecisive till the end but confident on the out,
Should've dropped the pride, ended the doubt.
Look at the waster, dwinding away,
Long grown hair, ***** face on display.
Could've been somebody important,
Helped the world out, what a shame he decided to fall stout.
Look at the, deadbeat, crouching, still,
Isn't he brill,
Lifewaster.
Hello, Mirror.
Feb 21, 2010
Feb 21, 2010 at 1:35 PM UTC
**the banner photograph that the poem references is off now, but...
The poem is about a photo I took, outside looking in, where the window and an interior mirror, both reflected me, outside, outwards, but caught the interior of the house within, and the interior of our lives, which was my intent, but the poem came later....
a self portrait,
a reflection
in a window, in a mirror.
a man stick figure
within and without.
me hidden, armed,
iPad spyglass
one upon the other,
unaware of observation,
introspection / extrospection.
man, external,
grilling striped bass,
woman, internal,
kitchen caught slicing heirlooms,
a dressing awaits,
peach salsa,
the seagulls inform me.
Outdoors, indoors.
bay,
in the background.
living room, kitchen,
in the foreground
couching, crouching, cooking,
a closeup and landscape,
of two lives.
so the photo treatment,
introspection / extrospection,
upon reflection,
a poem ouside-insight.
a moment to reflect upon a reflection of a moment.
this how I see things,
and why not you too?
Double vision.
outside, looking in, inside, looking outward.
then,
at the point of intersection,
a memory recorded,
always recording,
paths, moments,
worthy of note.
such a note, here,
record of a photograph.
preserving my preservation.
tho photo blurry,
what you see,
is what I see.
lives of symmetry
summer symmetry is my life.
life is my summer symmetry.
exactly.
August 2012
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 2:14 PM UTC
The sky has turned a bluish grey.
I hear the voices of the city -
Words, music, traffic, train,
And shrill laughter floating in the lane.
The bells have begun to ring;
An old woman
Crouching in a corner of her terrace
Blows the conch thrice.
A white cat ambling by the road
***** its head to listen,
But deeming the prayers and noise the same
Continues in its search for game.
On a fifth floor balcony, a girl watches
The silhouettes of birds flying back home.
She has her own music,
The kind that shuts you out and sets you free.
Temporarily.
A train whistles in the distance
Carrying lives afar and beyond.
The evening grows dark, the moon rises,
The wind lulls and blows;
And life goes on…
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 5:19 AM UTC
my love has 1000x
the energy of a
dead corpse
viscosity
singing telephone
wire
aeolion
harp
my heart beats
like a rabbit’s
me
the prey
crouching in
tall grass
ears flat
legs ready
to spring
with dusk’s
breath
I will continue
to shake
with this
expression
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 12:27 PM UTC
Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride
On that darkest day. Oh, forever may
He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed
Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow
Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost
Or still all the numberless days of his death, though
Above all he longed for his mother's breast
Which was rest and dust, and in the kind ground
The darkest justice of death, blind and unblessed.
Let him find no rest but be fathered and found,
I prayed in the crouching room, by his blind bed,
In the muted house, one minute before
Noon, and night, and light. The rivers of the dead
Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw
Through his unseeing eyes to the roots of the sea.
(An old tormented man three-quarters blind,
I am not too proud to cry that He and he
Will never never go out of my mind.
All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain,
Being innocent, he dreaded that he died
Hating his God, but what he was was plain:
An old kind man brave in his burning pride.
The sticks of the house were his; his books he owned.
Even as a baby he had never cried;
Nor did he now, save to his secret wound.
Out of his eyes I saw the last light glide.
Here among the light of the lording sky
An old blind man is with me where I go
Walking in the meadows of his son's eye
On whom a world of ills came down like snow.
He cried as he died, fearing at last the spheres'
Last sound, the world going out without a breath:
Too proud to cry, too frail to check the tears,
And caught between two nights, blindness and death.
O deepest wound of all that he should die
On that darkest day. Oh, he could hide
The tears out of his eyes, too proud to cry.
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Sat on the sidewalk.
A sandwich board conveyed a message,
it was penned in his blood.
The darkest dog's sat between his legs.
Crouching reluctantly at his sad master's side.
So many people passed him by.
Not one single soul ever met his eye.
And so she came,
parked herself on the pavement,
his pavement.
She smiled at him,
stroked his dog,
whose hue instantly became amended.
His darkest dog wore a coat of gold,
donated by affection.
She wanted not a lover,
and he was grateful for a friend.
Nobody ever gave him the time of day.
She made him sparkle,
by sharing hers.
Fresh hot coffee flowed from his mug.
Well a heat protected paper cup.
She gave him chocolate and a hot sausage roll.
The woman with the caring streak and that Godforsaken ***
Her actions made him whole.
(c) Livvi
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 7:30 PM UTC
Sing me a lullaby
Put these thoughts to rest
With the best high
The warmth in your chest
I knew you before
But not like this
Did I open a new door?
What did I miss?
I've seen another galaxy
It's just for you and me
It could not have happened
If this were another day
Wouldn't, couldn't, but did
Work out this strange way
It was perfect, you see
Led down the same path
We stumbled blindly into each other
Our galaxy was born, alas
Calm, crazy, hot and happy
How could just one night
Make me feel so right?
Ah, tread swiftly, softly
For our galaxy is just that:
Ours.
And they will not understand
They will pull back their hands
And curl them into fists
Or damage their wrists
We are their light
They are our shadows
Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
We lie awake til’ our sun shines on
The curtain will draw once more
Never to be closed again
And sun will pour over our bodies
Like an orange being squeezed
Fresh from the trees
It will weaken our knees
It will engulf us instantaneously
And we will be swallowed
By the humbled body of serenity
Left lounging on cloud mounds
Left with each others'
Complementary company
Jan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 at 2:00 AM UTC
Black dog Jan 2018
I spend all my hours crying and crouching in dark despair, consumed by self-pity; neither living nor dead, my mind poisoned by grief, ruined, undone, bitter and broken; my love wrenched from me.
My dream smashed into a billion pieces.
I'm finally ready to embrace the black dog with all its teeth and fury, fearless, numb, exhausted, done.
I'll gladly drink down the bitter pills to end this state of loss; to spread my flesh, to let the cold waters draw me down; with pockets full of stones, anything to stop this intolerable feeling!
I am nothing but empty!,
I’m sick and tired and at the end!
And for those that may remember just how retched a soul I had become; I pray and pray; that I am soon completely forgotten.
Jan 28, 2018
Jan 28, 2018 at 9:23 AM UTC
crouching tiger
and hidden dragon;
just like the demons inside my mind,
don't underestimate it
even I, myself
can't defeat
it.
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 11:36 PM UTC
My shattered soul is
Scattered throughout space and time
Infinite fractals -
Holographic pieces
Containing the Whole
I am stardust in a faraway galaxy
And the warming rays of the sun
The blade of grass on a meadow
Gently undulating in the breeze
The refreshing rain on an arid plane
And the tree that has seen it all
I am the mountain standing firm
In neutral observation
I am the waves on the water and
The teeming life within
I am the Sirian in human disguise
And the quantum of light -
A traveling photon shooting through
An ocean of emptiness
Heralding change
I see myself reflected
A thousand times
I read my words
In other poets’ poems and
Hear my song sung
By venerated voices
My hopes and dreams are
Imagined into reality
By actors calling themselves human
Unaware of their role on
The stage of life
I am the little girl
Scared to face the world
And the Amazon with eagle eyes
And heightened senses
Confident about my next move
The grandmother burdened
By a life of suffering
And the one crouching behind
The eyes of the beggar
Beholding the careless passerby
Who is
Oblivious of my existence
I am the ****** on the roof
The killer and the killed
The mother tenderly nursing my child
And the little boy lost in ecstasy
When I see the ocean
For the first time
I am the light
I am the dark
The poet and the poem
The muse of the painter
And the color on her brush
The blank canvas and
The piece of art
Everything and nothing
A paradox of the universe
So I am sending out
A magnetic pulse
Spreading love through all of existence
Thus calling my shattered pieces
Back to the
HEART
© Jasmine, Amsterdam, October 2013
Oct 2, 2013
Oct 2, 2013 at 12:11 PM UTC
i.
morning sand chills my feet
damp grains cling between my toes
a predawn morning cold
mid-August summer day
ii.
down the beach
i watch hawks circling
hunting the tree line, they
work the shore grasses
a narrow strip of tall plants
between beach and wood
circling closer and closer
coming to me
iii.
they soar a steady breeze off the lake
hunting prey which i hear
scurrying frantically among the tall grasses
the hawks circle now directly above
white bodies with dark wing feathers
iv.
in the beach house
hang two paintings by a local artist
children playing on this very beach
chasing one another and crouching in the tide-pool
shown in fine detail
especially for water color
yet, i notice, the children
have no faces, merely brown smudges
featureless
v.
that night, sitting
around a beach bonfire
sparks jump from burning logs
about me forms glow red
i see these faces too appear as
smudges,
featureless
like an infant
at it's birth
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 8:07 AM UTC
Black widow, waiting for a strike,
Crouching small, behind your mike.
You love to see contestants cringing,
This is a quiz; it’s not a lynching.
Face ******* up behind her glasses.
I’ve seen better bums on lasses.
Centre spot on stage she poses,
A jagged thorn on jet-black roses.
She’d like us to believe, I think.
She’d never be the weakest link.
Superior look upon her face,
Shame about the old boat race.
What’s this I see? You have a degree?
Still, you’ll never be as good as me.
Who chose that dress? Don’t like the shirt!
She loves to dig and throw the dirt.
Oh! And you belong to Mensa.
I’ve never met anyone who’s denser.
This is a quiz, I hope you know?
You’re the weakest link; you’ll have to go.
She earns more money than the Queen.
She’ll never be an old has been.
Was she born or just invented?
Let’s hope the moulds been lost or dented.
Where do you come from? No don’t know it.
Still you’re common and you show it.
I’m from Liverpool; I’m a Scouse,
You ought to see my big fine house.
It’s easy when you have the answers; see!
Too believe you are much cleverer than we.
But you’re not that clever, Ann we think.
Oh and one more thing, I Hate That Wink!
Dec 29, 2009
Dec 29, 2009 at 11:52 PM UTC
It’s the dark creature crouching in the corner.
You know it’s there, but you ignore it.
When it first came, it screeched into the room,
Clawing at your face, your chest, your arms—
Anything and everything it could reach.
But you fought it off, somehow,
After a long, sweaty, arduous journey.
Now it just sits there, brooding in the blackness.
You don’t look at it.
You don’t acknowledge it.
But it’s there—you know it’s there.
You can feel its presence like a vortex.
And it knows you know it’s there.
And sometimes it reaches out a gnarled, clawed hand
And grips your clothes or cups your cheek,
And ice inches down your spine
And crystals cascade down your cheeks.
Soon the creature will fade from its corner,
But replacing it will be a hole—
A hole in the very fabric of the room.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 3:01 PM UTC
Through the pregnant universe rumbles life's terrific thunder,
And Earth's bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms break,
Lightning-torches flame the heavens, kindling souls of men, thereunder:
Africa! long ages sleeping, O my motherland, awake!
In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
And its golden glory fills the western skies.
O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise!
For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking,
Ghosts are turned flesh, throwing off the grave's disguise,
And the foolish, even children, are made wise;
For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making--
O my brothers, dreaming for dim centuries,
Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!
Oh the night is sweet for sleeping, but the shining day's for working;
Sons of the seductive night, for your children's children's sake,
From the deep primeval forests where the crouching leopard's lurking,
Lift your heavy-lidded eyes, Ethiopia! awake!
In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
And its golden glory fills the western skies.
O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise!
For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking,
Ghosts have turned flesh, throwing off the grave's disguise,
And the foolish, even children, are made wise;
For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making--
O my brothers, dreaming for long centuries,
Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!
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